'Don't Judge Children Wearing Pirate Costumes'

Off Topic
222

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

…Otherwise that might lead to the banning of girls wearing pants or men’s-style shoes. THAT is a legitimate slippery slope. The one you’re on is pure fantasy.

[/quote]

Plenty of schools already do this. I went to one of ‘em.[/quote]
Well, that’s alright by me. The point is that there should not a be double standard in place where it’s okay for women to dress in a pretty masculine way but it isn’t alright for a man to dress effeminately. At a school where girls can wear boys’ clothing, it should follow that a boy can then wear girls’ clothing. But if NEITHER sex is allowed to cross dress at school, I don’t have a problem with that.

But that typically isn’t how it is. I went to a private school for a long time so I was in a similar boat as you. But in the public school system things are usually much different.

But at a public school there has to be a compelling interest at stake to even begin curtailing a child’s rights to expression. I simply don’t see any compelling interest that should only apply to boys who want to wear a dress. And don’t forget that our rights are inalienable and that the court system recognizes that this applies to children as well. We are BORN with our rights simply by virtue of being a human being, hence inalienability. The right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness has been interpreted pretty liberally over the years, as you and I would both agree, but I am not aware of any court case that states that the clothing one wears, as long as it does not find itself in contradiction with a state’s compelling interest, is NOT part of liberty or the pursuit of happiness.

If what one wears is an extension of who that person is, and that clothing does not cause any harm to those around him/her, how can that not be a part of one’s right to liberty? In a world as materialistic as ours, clothing is a very integral part of someone’s identity, especially the gender role that those clothes imply. Since society does not get to choose what our gender role actually is, how can society have any right to determine which clothing someone wears? If someone was born transgendered, or even if they “chose” to be transgendered at some later point (be it at age 5 or 25) no one has the right to tell that person how to play out that gender role as long as how they play it out doesn’t violate anyone’s rights.[/quote]

Sorry, but a simple response to your posts is society via laws, regulations and mores, has always, and rightfully so, held minors to different standards. That’s just the way it is.[/quote]
But that isn’t the way it SHOULD be and I’m not arguing about the way things are now, I’m arguing about how they SHOULD be.

Besides, the treatment of minorities in this country has improved considerably, both socially and politically/constitutionally. I know progressive is a dirty word on this site, but as a society we have made progress in this respect and I don’t see any reason why we have to stop now.

Let me ask you something, Push. Do you think that people are born gay or transgendered or that they “become” this way or “choose” to become this way?

I’m kind of working on the assumption that people are born that way and that being transgendered is an innate thing that many of us don’t experience, but that some children DO experience. Obviously, this fundamentally alters the nature of my argument, because I view wearing a dress to school (assuming this is some sort of gender issue and not simply a poor attempt at attention) as being an inherent, unavoidable part of who that person is.

Name one thing that is an inherent, unchanging part of who you are that you are forced to suppress every single day of your life. I’m not talking about shit like lifting or driving at 100mph and that sort of thing. I’m talking about things about you that were present in your genetic makeup when you were born. For instance, your overt heterosexuality is part of who you are, as is mine. But in much the same way that you and I should not be barred from being masculine (again, assuming I am not directly harming anyone else by doing so or breaking any laws) this kid should bot be barred from being feminine.

When I was a kid in school I would have been in big trouble if I got caught fucking some girl in the bathroom. Obviously, that’s a part of my masculinity and all that, and I wouldn’t be hurting the girl at all (well, only a little bit). But that doesn’t subdue my masculinity, per se. What DOES subdue it is if the school tells me that I am not allowed to find the women at school attractive. I can do so on my own time as much as I want, but not at school.

Well, that’s about as ridiculous as asking a boy born into a female gender role to play the male gender role at school. That isn’t who he is and he cannot simply change that to fit into some sort of socially-constructed mold. Just like society has shifted from one in which it was largely acceptable to attack, denigrate and sometimes even physically assault or kill ethnic minorities, society needs to shift away from the thinking that ALL men are born into the male gender role and vice versa. It’s okay to be black and it’s okay to be transgendered. Just like a black kid was never expected to put white makeup on or hide his blackness, a transgendered child (or even one confused about his gender and might be a little of both) cannot be expected to hide what his true gender is.

223

[quote]csulli wrote:

[quote]DarkNinjaa wrote:
Believe it or not, this guy’s a cage fighter.

He loved to wear his mum’s make-up and sisters’ dresses when he was little, ehehehe…
[/quote]

So that guy dresses like a woman and could kick my ass… Well shit.[/quote]

Shit indeed.

In the eyes of some, this guy is a ‘‘fag’’. Yet, he competes in a testosterone filled environment and has dipped his cock in hundreds wet tight pussies.

The majority of homosexuals I know are repulsed by the sight of pussy.

So I’m asking, what makes a man wearing feminine clothing a ‘‘fag’’?

224

[quote]DarkNinjaa wrote:

So I’m asking, what makes a man wearing feminine clothing a ‘‘fag’’? [/quote]

The ability to match the accessories.

225

[quote]orion wrote:

I think what has never crossed your mind is that if nobody is ostrasized there is literally no society.

There has to be someone “out” so that others can be “in”.[/quote]

The good thing is that, archaic, skewed views like these are slowly fading in many parts of the world. Twenty years ago, if you were HIV positive, you’d lost your job, your ‘‘friends’’, everything. You were the outcast. It’s not necessarily the case nowadays.

Some people do not always need to be ostracized in order for society to strive.

226

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]DarkNinjaa wrote:

So I’m asking, what makes a man wearing feminine clothing a ‘‘fag’’? [/quote]

The ability to match the accessories.

[/quote]

Um. He did match his nails to his lipstick and the stitching on his hose.

227

[quote]DarkNinjaa wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:

I think what has never crossed your mind is that if nobody is ostrasized there is literally no society.

There has to be someone “out” so that others can be “in”.[/quote]

The good thing is that, archaic, skewed views like these are slowly fading in many parts of the world. Twenty years ago, if you were HIV positive, you’d lost your job, your ‘‘friends’’, everything. You were the outcast. It’s not necessarily the case nowadays.

Some people do not always need to be ostracized in order for society to strive.
[/quote]

It goes deeper than that.

We are herd animals.

Someone has to be out so that everyone else can be in.

That is not some archaic belief that is the self evident truth that a group that has no boundaries or defining characteristics simply is not a group.

228

[quote]LoRez wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]DarkNinjaa wrote:

So I’m asking, what makes a man wearing feminine clothing a ‘‘fag’’? [/quote]

The ability to match the accessories.

[/quote]

Um. He did match his nails to his lipstick and the stitching on his hose.[/quote]

Frankly, at least he has some taste in his lingerie and has the body to pull it off.

229

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]LoRez wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]DarkNinjaa wrote:

So I’m asking, what makes a man wearing feminine clothing a ‘‘fag’’? [/quote]

The ability to match the accessories.

[/quote]

Um. He did match his nails to his lipstick and the stitching on his hose.[/quote]

Frankly, at least he has some taste in his lingerie and has the body to pull it off.

[/quote]

Definitely better than that “baby doll” maternity clothing look.

230

[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Logorrhea
[/quote]

When you’re ready to start addressing the actual substance of the points I’ve made instead of attempting to argue against a caricature you’ve created I’ll be here.

As it is you’re flailing around like a rabid chimp, slinging shit at anything you can, and I’d prefer not to get any on me.

You have the audacity to tell me what kind of parent I am and what my motivations are when you don’t even have any children of your own. Let me give you a hint. Nothing is “obvious” to you. You know nothing, nothing about me. If you’re just here to polish your logical fallacies you can find someone else to do it on.

231

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

…Otherwise that might lead to the banning of girls wearing pants or men’s-style shoes. THAT is a legitimate slippery slope. The one you’re on is pure fantasy.

[/quote]

Plenty of schools already do this. I went to one of ‘em.[/quote]
Well, that’s alright by me. The point is that there should not a be double standard in place where it’s okay for women to dress in a pretty masculine way but it isn’t alright for a man to dress effeminately. At a school where girls can wear boys’ clothing, it should follow that a boy can then wear girls’ clothing. But if NEITHER sex is allowed to cross dress at school, I don’t have a problem with that.

But that typically isn’t how it is. I went to a private school for a long time so I was in a similar boat as you. But in the public school system things are usually much different.

But at a public school there has to be a compelling interest at stake to even begin curtailing a child’s rights to expression. I simply don’t see any compelling interest that should only apply to boys who want to wear a dress. And don’t forget that our rights are inalienable and that the court system recognizes that this applies to children as well. We are BORN with our rights simply by virtue of being a human being, hence inalienability. The right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness has been interpreted pretty liberally over the years, as you and I would both agree, but I am not aware of any court case that states that the clothing one wears, as long as it does not find itself in contradiction with a state’s compelling interest, is NOT part of liberty or the pursuit of happiness.

If what one wears is an extension of who that person is, and that clothing does not cause any harm to those around him/her, how can that not be a part of one’s right to liberty? In a world as materialistic as ours, clothing is a very integral part of someone’s identity, especially the gender role that those clothes imply. Since society does not get to choose what our gender role actually is, how can society have any right to determine which clothing someone wears? If someone was born transgendered, or even if they “chose” to be transgendered at some later point (be it at age 5 or 25) no one has the right to tell that person how to play out that gender role as long as how they play it out doesn’t violate anyone’s rights.[/quote]

Sorry, but a simple response to your posts is society via laws, regulations and mores, has always, and rightfully so, held minors to different standards. That’s just the way it is.[/quote]
But that isn’t the way it SHOULD be and I’m not arguing about the way things are now, I’m arguing about how they SHOULD be.

Besides, the treatment of minorities in this country has improved considerably, both socially and politically/constitutionally. I know progressive is a dirty word on this site, but as a society we have made progress in this respect and I don’t see any reason why we have to stop now.

Let me ask you something, Push. Do you think that people are born gay or transgendered or that they “become” this way or “choose” to become this way?

I’m kind of working on the assumption that people are born that way and that being transgendered is an innate thing that many of us don’t experience, but that some children DO experience. Obviously, this fundamentally alters the nature of my argument, because I view wearing a dress to school (assuming this is some sort of gender issue and not simply a poor attempt at attention) as being an inherent, unavoidable part of who that person is.

Name one thing that is an inherent, unchanging part of who you are that you are forced to suppress every single day of your life. I’m not talking about shit like lifting or driving at 100mph and that sort of thing. I’m talking about things about you that were present in your genetic makeup when you were born. For instance, your overt heterosexuality is part of who you are, as is mine. But in much the same way that you and I should not be barred from being masculine (again, assuming I am not directly harming anyone else by doing so or breaking any laws) this kid should bot be barred from being feminine.

When I was a kid in school I would have been in big trouble if I got caught fucking some girl in the bathroom. Obviously, that’s a part of my masculinity and all that, and I wouldn’t be hurting the girl at all (well, only a little bit). But that doesn’t subdue my masculinity, per se. What DOES subdue it is if the school tells me that I am not allowed to find the women at school attractive. I can do so on my own time as much as I want, but not at school.

Well, that’s about as ridiculous as asking a boy born into a female gender role to play the male gender role at school. That isn’t who he is and he cannot simply change that to fit into some sort of socially-constructed mold. Just like society has shifted from one in which it was largely acceptable to attack, denigrate and sometimes even physically assault or kill ethnic minorities, society needs to shift away from the thinking that ALL men are born into the male gender role and vice versa. It’s okay to be black and it’s okay to be transgendered. Just like a black kid was never expected to put white makeup on or hide his blackness, a transgendered child (or even one confused about his gender and might be a little of both) cannot be expected to hide what his true gender is.[/quote]

Whether or not a kid is transgendered has never been the point and shouldn’t matter.

CLOTHES are a cultural phenomenon. One’s gender is not determined by the clothes one wears, and it certainly would matter even less to an adolescent.

Just what is it you think gender is, exactly? I think you’re confused.

I also think you have NO proof whatsoever that forcing a transgendered boy to wear boys clothes would have any negative effect upon him, short or long term. How about some evidence of this? Because I can for sure show that getting picked on and ostracized by his peers will indeed have both long and short term effects.

But you don’t care about children, you just want to push your agenda of social experimentation, real-world consequences and real kids’ lives be damned.

^^^See, I can write a bunch of bullshit characterization of your motivations, too.

232

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Logorrhea
[/quote]

When you’re ready to start addressing the actual substance of the points I’ve made instead of attempting to argue against a caricature you’ve created I’ll be here.

As it is you’re flailing around like a rabid chimp, slinging shit at anything you can, and I’d prefer not to get any on me.

You have the audacity to tell me what kind of parent I am and what my motivations are when you don’t even have any children of your own. Let me give you a hint. Nothing is “obvious” to you. You know nothing, nothing about me. If you’re just here to polish your logical fallacies you can find someone else to do it on. [/quote]
Once you started in with the insults several pages ago I pretty much tuned you out.

233

Tbh, I don’t know what the hell I’d do.

My last name pretty much guarantees that my kid will be picked on as it is…

234

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

…Otherwise that might lead to the banning of girls wearing pants or men’s-style shoes. THAT is a legitimate slippery slope. The one you’re on is pure fantasy.

[/quote]

Plenty of schools already do this. I went to one of ‘em.[/quote]
Well, that’s alright by me. The point is that there should not a be double standard in place where it’s okay for women to dress in a pretty masculine way but it isn’t alright for a man to dress effeminately. At a school where girls can wear boys’ clothing, it should follow that a boy can then wear girls’ clothing. But if NEITHER sex is allowed to cross dress at school, I don’t have a problem with that.

But that typically isn’t how it is. I went to a private school for a long time so I was in a similar boat as you. But in the public school system things are usually much different.

But at a public school there has to be a compelling interest at stake to even begin curtailing a child’s rights to expression. I simply don’t see any compelling interest that should only apply to boys who want to wear a dress. And don’t forget that our rights are inalienable and that the court system recognizes that this applies to children as well. We are BORN with our rights simply by virtue of being a human being, hence inalienability. The right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness has been interpreted pretty liberally over the years, as you and I would both agree, but I am not aware of any court case that states that the clothing one wears, as long as it does not find itself in contradiction with a state’s compelling interest, is NOT part of liberty or the pursuit of happiness.

If what one wears is an extension of who that person is, and that clothing does not cause any harm to those around him/her, how can that not be a part of one’s right to liberty? In a world as materialistic as ours, clothing is a very integral part of someone’s identity, especially the gender role that those clothes imply. Since society does not get to choose what our gender role actually is, how can society have any right to determine which clothing someone wears? If someone was born transgendered, or even if they “chose” to be transgendered at some later point (be it at age 5 or 25) no one has the right to tell that person how to play out that gender role as long as how they play it out doesn’t violate anyone’s rights.[/quote]

Sorry, but a simple response to your posts is society via laws, regulations and mores, has always, and rightfully so, held minors to different standards. That’s just the way it is.[/quote]
But that isn’t the way it SHOULD be and I’m not arguing about the way things are now, I’m arguing about how they SHOULD be.

Besides, the treatment of minorities in this country has improved considerably, both socially and politically/constitutionally. I know progressive is a dirty word on this site, but as a society we have made progress in this respect and I don’t see any reason why we have to stop now.

Let me ask you something, Push. Do you think that people are born gay or transgendered or that they “become” this way or “choose” to become this way?

I’m kind of working on the assumption that people are born that way and that being transgendered is an innate thing that many of us don’t experience, but that some children DO experience. Obviously, this fundamentally alters the nature of my argument, because I view wearing a dress to school (assuming this is some sort of gender issue and not simply a poor attempt at attention) as being an inherent, unavoidable part of who that person is.

Name one thing that is an inherent, unchanging part of who you are that you are forced to suppress every single day of your life. I’m not talking about shit like lifting or driving at 100mph and that sort of thing. I’m talking about things about you that were present in your genetic makeup when you were born. For instance, your overt heterosexuality is part of who you are, as is mine. But in much the same way that you and I should not be barred from being masculine (again, assuming I am not directly harming anyone else by doing so or breaking any laws) this kid should bot be barred from being feminine.

When I was a kid in school I would have been in big trouble if I got caught fucking some girl in the bathroom. Obviously, that’s a part of my masculinity and all that, and I wouldn’t be hurting the girl at all (well, only a little bit). But that doesn’t subdue my masculinity, per se. What DOES subdue it is if the school tells me that I am not allowed to find the women at school attractive. I can do so on my own time as much as I want, but not at school.

Well, that’s about as ridiculous as asking a boy born into a female gender role to play the male gender role at school. That isn’t who he is and he cannot simply change that to fit into some sort of socially-constructed mold. Just like society has shifted from one in which it was largely acceptable to attack, denigrate and sometimes even physically assault or kill ethnic minorities, society needs to shift away from the thinking that ALL men are born into the male gender role and vice versa. It’s okay to be black and it’s okay to be transgendered. Just like a black kid was never expected to put white makeup on or hide his blackness, a transgendered child (or even one confused about his gender and might be a little of both) cannot be expected to hide what his true gender is.[/quote]

Whether or not a kid is transgendered has never been the point and shouldn’t matter.

CLOTHES are a cultural phenomenon. One’s gender is not determined by the clothes one wears, and it certainly would matter even less to an adolescent.

Just what is it you think gender is, exactly? I think you’re confused.

I also think you have NO proof whatsoever that forcing a transgendered boy to wear boys clothes would have any negative effect upon him, short or long term. How about some evidence of this? Because I can for sure show that getting picked on and ostracized by his peers will indeed have both long and short term effects.

But you don’t care about children, you just want to push your agenda of social experimentation, real-world consequences and real kids’ lives be damned.

^^^See, I can write a bunch of bullshit characterization of your motivations, too.[/quote]
Look, let’s just move on from the whole vitriol between us from earlier and try to restart this on constructive grounds. We’re both adults here and can move past any prior transgressions. It seems that part of our differences stem from a misunderstanding of where I’m coming from, so perhaps if I clear a couple things up it’ll be easier to have a discussion of lasting merit.

First of all, gender is different than sex. Sex is a physical characteristic. I have a cock; I’m of the male sex.

Gender is a role that people play, basically. Gender is measured in terms of appearance, behavior, clothing and that sort of thing. It’s kind of like saying it’s the sex we are inside our brain. My point is that we are born this way. You and I were born with male sex characteristics and into a male gender role. Most people are born into the gender role that corresponds with their sex, even homosexuals for the most part (aside from their sexual preference, of course). We always feel comfortable being masculine.

Of course we learn from the examples our father set, but we all kind of come to our own determination about HOW masculine we behave, because we don’t all mirror our fathers’ masculinity, and that is an integral part of who we are. People can’t really demand a different level of masculinity from us one way or the other because that’s an inherent part of what makes us US.

I think that since you and I were born this way and given the fact that there are indeed children who are aware of something being different from everyone else of their age or in their class, even before they have any concept at all of gender roles or sexuality, it is entirely reasonable to assume that the few transgendered people out there are also born into this role.

So what you said earlier is actually correct. Men’s and women’s clothing is a social construct, but it is a construct that identifies our gender, not our sex. It just so happens that almost everyone has the same sex and gender.

And I certainly know that significant harm lies in store for suppressed transgendered children and adolescents. As I mentioned in my first post, I have a friend who used to be a she and he went through a pretty horrific experience as a child who had no clue about transgenderism (is that a word?). It’s anecdotal evidence, of course, but I think if you were to search around on the Internet for a little while you could find a lot of stories about transgendered people who had very traumatic childhoods due to their actual gender being suppressed somehow.

I’m sure it’s not hard to envision what it could be like for kids in this sort of situation. They probably are the type that don’t fit in well socially as a result, even if they acted out a traditional gender role. So I’m not sure whether it would be worse to have to act out a role other than the one you were born into while at school or to wear the dress and just deal with it.

I think for some kids who might be confused, wearing the dress could actually be the best way to determine what the hell is going on with him in the first place. If he IS transgendered, he might be hurt by the ridicule, but he would probably be very comfortable in the role anywhere else. If he is NOT transgendered, I think it won’t take very much derision from his classmates before he realizes that the whole dress thing was a stupid fucking idea, because it would have been. Hopefully he recovers, but I think that the possibilities for some much more serious problems if his gender is suppressed outweigh the possible scorn he will receive if he is allowed to wear the dress but isn’t transgendered after all.

235

[quote]imhungry wrote:
Tbh, I don’t know what the hell I’d do.

My last name pretty much guarantees that my kid will be picked on as it is…[/quote]

Do you have male or female genitalia slang in your last name?

236

[quote]DarkNinjaa wrote:
The majority of homosexuals I know are repulsed by the sight of pussy.
[/quote]

LOL. That is almost exactly what one of my gay friends said. My college roommate and I asked him how people know if they’re gay. I expected him to say something like he was attracted to cocks or whatever but he just said “If you look at a vagina and all you want to do is vomit, then you’re gay.”

237

[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Gender is a role that people play, basically. Gender is measured in terms of appearance, behavior, clothing and that sort of thing. It’s kind of like saying it’s the sex we are inside our brain. My point is that we are born this way. You and I were born with male sex characteristics and into a male gender role. Most people are born into the gender role that corresponds with their sex, even homosexuals for the most part (aside from their sexual preference, of course). We always feel comfortable being masculine.

Of course we learn from the examples our father set, but we all kind of come to our own determination about HOW masculine we behave, because we don’t all mirror our fathers’ masculinity, and that is an integral part of who we are. People can’t really demand a different level of masculinity from us one way or the other because that’s an inherent part of what makes us US.[/quote]

Something of a related note, but I don’t really have the ability to eloquently explain it.

I’ve had some of my own internal conflicts trying to make sense of some of my own skills/interests within the context of traditional gender roles. I’ve always had more of an artistic bent, so interior design, gardening, landscape design are things I’ve been interested in and enjoyed. (Along with many many other things.) I also spent some time this past year to teach myself how to sew, and I bought myself a good sewing machine. For that matter, if my girlfriend needs her pants hemmed, or something tailored, she comes to me.

I don’t really have a problem with these – I mean, they are interests and skills, and a part of who I am – but because of how they’re perceived by society I had to basically persuade myself that it’s “ok” for me to be like that. They’re definitely things that are perceived as being feminine. For the most part, I’ve rationalized it as “the best in those particular fields happen to have traditionally been men, and it’s only this modern outlook that makes it seem feminine”. That, and “as an adult, it’s ok to acquire skills, no matter what they are”. But even so, it still makes me feel a tad awkward.

There’s a traditional gender role that I perceive that basically says “men don’t sew”, “gardening is for women”, “interior design is for women and gay men”.

Granted, it doesn’t change the fact that I also fit many parts of the masculine gender role.

(As an aside, even the fact that I noticed that the guy’s nails, lipstick and stitching were coordinated is not very… masculine)

238

[quote]LoRez wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Gender is a role that people play, basically. Gender is measured in terms of appearance, behavior, clothing and that sort of thing. It’s kind of like saying it’s the sex we are inside our brain. My point is that we are born this way. You and I were born with male sex characteristics and into a male gender role. Most people are born into the gender role that corresponds with their sex, even homosexuals for the most part (aside from their sexual preference, of course). We always feel comfortable being masculine.

Of course we learn from the examples our father set, but we all kind of come to our own determination about HOW masculine we behave, because we don’t all mirror our fathers’ masculinity, and that is an integral part of who we are. People can’t really demand a different level of masculinity from us one way or the other because that’s an inherent part of what makes us US.[/quote]

Something of a related note, but I don’t really have the ability to eloquently explain it.

I’ve had some of my own internal conflicts trying to make sense of some of my own skills/interests within the context of traditional gender roles. I’ve always had more of an artistic bent, so interior design, gardening, landscape design are things I’ve been interested in and enjoyed. (Along with many many other things.) I also spent some time this past year to teach myself how to sew, and I bought myself a good sewing machine. For that matter, if my girlfriend needs her pants hemmed, or something tailored, she comes to me.

I don’t really have a problem with these – I mean, they are interests and skills, and a part of who I am – but because of how they’re perceived by society I had to basically persuade myself that it’s “ok” for me to be like that. They’re definitely things that are perceived as being feminine. For the most part, I’ve rationalized it as “the best in those particular fields happen to have traditionally been men, and it’s only this modern outlook that makes it seem feminine”. That, and “as an adult, it’s ok to acquire skills, no matter what they are”. But even so, it still makes me feel a tad awkward.

There’s a traditional gender role that I perceive that basically says “men don’t sew”, “gardening is for women”, “interior design is for women and gay men”.

While it doesn’t change the fact that I also fit many parts of the masculine gender role, these aspects still make me feel somewhat awkward.

(As an aside, even the fact that I noticed that the guy’s nails, lipstick and stitching were coordinated is not very… masculine)[/quote]
Of course.

I should have also mentioned that there are all sorts of varying levels of transgenderism. And a lot of that variation can come from shifting ideas within a society about what is masculine and what is feminine. A lot of the behavior that men engage in now has previously been considered feminine (constantly checking your phone; running for exercise).

How many of us men who consider ourselves to be masculine have spent an inordinate amount of time on our hair or our clothing or obsess over shoes or wear cologne (actually, I’m not sure if cologne or perfume is the first gendered scent) and so on? Shit, a lot of colonial-era American men’s clothing would now be considered gay as hell.

Gender roles don’t even have to imply any sort of sexuality one way or the other at all. Obviously, wearing a dress is an extreme example.

In fact, the friend I keep mentioning was born a female and was actually attracted to females for a long time. But strangely enough, after her testosterone injections and all that shit (which was quite a few years after she was forthrightly transgendered) HE became more attracted to men than women for a little while. Now he’s with a woman.

And a lot of the more extreme examples are pretty weird shit, really. It IS, what can I say? I don’t necessarily find a lot of this all that normal either when taken at face value. But I think a lot of that is because of the fact that there have been transgendered people all throughout history that have been stifled much more than they are now. So society’s morals and virtues and all that don’t really reflect a world with any significant amount of transgenders or gays to speak of. But now that society has rapidly become more accepting of these communities in the last, I don’t know, 30 years or so, we are seeing more people like this because they are more free to actually express it.

It isn’t like there never were transgenders or that they were a complete statistical outlier of the most extraordinary kind. Society’s idea of masculinity was actually WAY more “masculine” than what our idea of it is today, so there was much more motivation for transgenders and gays to hide this in most societies. We better learn to deal with it and educate ourselves about it to understand that these sorts of people aren’t any different than us in the sense that whatever made us, made us ALL the way we are, even gender-wise.

239

[quote]LoRez wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Gender is a role that people play, basically. Gender is measured in terms of appearance, behavior, clothing and that sort of thing. It’s kind of like saying it’s the sex we are inside our brain. My point is that we are born this way. You and I were born with male sex characteristics and into a male gender role. Most people are born into the gender role that corresponds with their sex, even homosexuals for the most part (aside from their sexual preference, of course). We always feel comfortable being masculine.

Of course we learn from the examples our father set, but we all kind of come to our own determination about HOW masculine we behave, because we don’t all mirror our fathers’ masculinity, and that is an integral part of who we are. People can’t really demand a different level of masculinity from us one way or the other because that’s an inherent part of what makes us US.[/quote]

Something of a related note, but I don’t really have the ability to eloquently explain it.

I’ve had some of my own internal conflicts trying to make sense of some of my own skills/interests within the context of traditional gender roles. I’ve always had more of an artistic bent, so interior design, gardening, landscape design are things I’ve been interested in and enjoyed. (Along with many many other things.) I also spent some time this past year to teach myself how to sew, and I bought myself a good sewing machine. For that matter, if my girlfriend needs her pants hemmed, or something tailored, she comes to me.

I don’t really have a problem with these – I mean, they are interests and skills, and a part of who I am – but because of how they’re perceived by society I had to basically persuade myself that it’s “ok” for me to be like that. They’re definitely things that are perceived as being feminine. For the most part, I’ve rationalized it as “the best in those particular fields happen to have traditionally been men, and it’s only this modern outlook that makes it seem feminine”. That, and “as an adult, it’s ok to acquire skills, no matter what they are”. But even so, it still makes me feel a tad awkward.

There’s a traditional gender role that I perceive that basically says “men don’t sew”, “gardening is for women”, “interior design is for women and gay men”.

Granted, it doesn’t change the fact that I also fit many parts of the masculine gender role.

(As an aside, even the fact that I noticed that the guy’s nails, lipstick and stitching were coordinated is not very… masculine)[/quote]
Furthermore, there’s nothing wrong with quilting or sewing or whatever.

You know who I think was a pretty masculine guy in a classic sense of the word? James jesus Angleton, father of counter-intelligence in the CIA. Now, the guy was most likely clinically paranoid, but he was also a man’s man. He was an avid fly-fisher, he also tied all his own flies, his capacity for alcohol and food was literally on par with Hunter S. Thompson, he was a ladies man in his youth, he was an intellectual and he fucking hunted spies in the middle of the Cold War for several decades.

But you know what his other hobbies were? Poetry and cultivating orchids. This guy was such a patient, devoted person who could extrapolate the wildest theories about the KGB from literally thousands of seemingly innocuous pieces of information (all of which he kept in head), that he spent more than a decade raising his own, unique variety of orchid that would have been registered in some international orchid registry except that he refused because he didn’t want his name published ANYwhere due to the secretive nature of his work. This guy was the most secretive, reclusive, mysterious person in a world of people whose lives depend on being just that.

240

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]LoRez wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Gender is a role that people play, basically. Gender is measured in terms of appearance, behavior, clothing and that sort of thing. It’s kind of like saying it’s the sex we are inside our brain. My point is that we are born this way. You and I were born with male sex characteristics and into a male gender role. Most people are born into the gender role that corresponds with their sex, even homosexuals for the most part (aside from their sexual preference, of course). We always feel comfortable being masculine.

Of course we learn from the examples our father set, but we all kind of come to our own determination about HOW masculine we behave, because we don’t all mirror our fathers’ masculinity, and that is an integral part of who we are. People can’t really demand a different level of masculinity from us one way or the other because that’s an inherent part of what makes us US.[/quote]

Something of a related note, but I don’t really have the ability to eloquently explain it.

I’ve had some of my own internal conflicts trying to make sense of some of my own skills/interests within the context of traditional gender roles. I’ve always had more of an artistic bent, so interior design, gardening, landscape design are things I’ve been interested in and enjoyed. (Along with many many other things.) I also spent some time this past year to teach myself how to sew, and I bought myself a good sewing machine. For that matter, if my girlfriend needs her pants hemmed, or something tailored, she comes to me.

I don’t really have a problem with these – I mean, they are interests and skills, and a part of who I am – but because of how they’re perceived by society I had to basically persuade myself that it’s “ok” for me to be like that. They’re definitely things that are perceived as being feminine. For the most part, I’ve rationalized it as “the best in those particular fields happen to have traditionally been men, and it’s only this modern outlook that makes it seem feminine”. That, and “as an adult, it’s ok to acquire skills, no matter what they are”. But even so, it still makes me feel a tad awkward.

There’s a traditional gender role that I perceive that basically says “men don’t sew”, “gardening is for women”, “interior design is for women and gay men”.

Granted, it doesn’t change the fact that I also fit many parts of the masculine gender role.

(As an aside, even the fact that I noticed that the guy’s nails, lipstick and stitching were coordinated is not very… masculine)[/quote]
Furthermore, there’s nothing wrong with quilting or sewing or whatever.

You know who I think was a pretty masculine guy in a classic sense of the word? James jesus Angleton, father of counter-intelligence in the CIA. Now, the guy was most likely clinically paranoid, but he was also a man’s man. He was an avid fly-fisher, he also tied all his own flies, his capacity for alcohol and food was literally on par with Hunter S. Thompson, he was a ladies man in his youth, he was an intellectual and he fucking hunted spies in the middle of the Cold War for several decades.

But you know what his other hobbies were? Poetry and cultivating orchids. This guy was such a patient, devoted person who could extrapolate the wildest theories about the KGB from literally thousands of seemingly innocuous pieces of information (all of which he kept in head), that he spent more than a decade raising his own, unique variety of orchid that would have been registered in some international orchid registry except that he refused because he didn’t want his name published ANYwhere due to the secretive nature of his work. This guy was the most secretive, reclusive, mysterious person in a world of people whose lives depend on being just that.[/quote]

So, as long as there’s a mental disorder involved, crossing gender barriers is ok? Lol.

That was pretty interesting, I’d actually never heard of him. I know Churchill had his fondness for gardening too.

Sometimes I wonder where we ended up with this masculine/feminine dichotomy of skills, since a study of history shows that most of the things currently considered feminine – at some time or another – were also considered masculine. Or even just among different cultures in modern time. Indian men and their taste in jewelry. Russian men and their taste in classical music and dance. The Scots and their kilts :wink:

Of course, FWIW, I bought the sewing machine to make a canvas tent, since I got tired of sewing the thing by hand. It wasn’t until later that I decided I might as well learn how to use it for other things.