Charlie wrote:What bothered me a bit was that the school said it supports LBGT; the public are now being fed the story that if a boy wants to wear a skirt, he must be wanting to become a girl, and he couldn't possibly want to wear skirts out of preference - like us guys. Nothing is ever said about girls wearing trousers because thay want to become boys
Understood, and I suppose it could be argued that such labeling may serve to confuse children as those on the far right allege.
A solution?
Don't bother with labels until the child is old enough to understand the politics[0] and meanings behind what it really means to be transgender. I can imagine it being a lot for a six year old to understand, hell I'm 30 years older than that and I still struggle to understand it all. Just let the boys who want to wear dresses and skirts wear them and leave the politics and gender policing out of it, similar to how we do girls who wear trousers, or God forbid, act as tomboys.
However in the adult world....
Grok wrote:LBGT is the fashionable cause of today; people like Skirt Cafe members aren't even on the radar.
I know the membership here has debated transgender issues time and time again, and I understand that on a personal level many of us to not consider ourselves transgender, and some do. As I have stated in previous post, that decision is personal and is not up to anyone else to decide.
All that being said, for the purposes of legality, lawyers, etc. If we (just plain old men in skirts) are faced with an injustice on account of what we wear, I'm certain that any legal remedy would be under the umbrella of transgender rights and law [2]. Do I agree with this, or think it's right? No, but it's just the way it is.
Perhaps that will change in time as more and more boys and men adopt more feminine characteristics. Perhaps this is just a hump we have to get over, to water down rigid gender roles. It will take time. Most of us (myself included) may not even live to see it. But I like to think that eventually, we will be defined as individuals, each with our own unique characteristics and contributions, and will no longer have to squeeze into little boxes for this and that.
[0] The politics of transgender issues can be quite nasty and will certainly open the child up to some pretty ugly sides of humanity. I'd hate to think I had to endure that at such a young age. Imagine being under ten years old, and virtually everyone you meet in public [1] thinks your sick, disgusting, a disgrace, etc. Might as well add chronic depression and maybe PTSD to her list of ailments growing up. Don't be surprised if she commits suicide, many of them do.
[1] As in where I live, the southern American states. Folks around here are not very accepting of transgender people (child or adult) AT ALL.
[2] If you notice, while most crossdressers do not consider themselves transgender, and transgender people alike do not generally consider crossdressers part of their "group", when it comes to legal fights, lawyers, courts, etc do consider them one and the same. Look up any case where a simple, non-trans crossdresser brought up a discrimination suit, normally as the result of wrongful termination from a job.