skirtcafe.org

I was reading a murder mystery called "Flesh Wounds" by Chris Brookmyre. On p141 there are three of sentences that appear pertinent to this discussion. The context is that it's thoughts by a University educated detective promoted through the Advanced Promotions Programme who is a little more sensitive than normal and reports to a female boss. He says, "It was intended as an insult, but if he was just one of the girls then that suited him just fine, because he was rubbish at being just one of the guys. .... He liked a lot of blokey things. He just didn't like blokeishness."

I think that this about sums up my attitude. I think that I don't do the stereotypical he-man male very well - I'm too nerdish for that. I could never associate with the beer-swilling, football-loving gruff male herd. I'm a lot of a loner and like to do my own thing. Conversely I still do like some of the male interest things, I just don't like over-accentuated mannishness. This doesn't make me a bad person - just my own person and hence, I think, more open to doing something different like wearing skirts and other traditionally female clothing. It may also explain why I don't ( yet ) wear dresses as I have not perceived the necessity for them in my own frame of reference. Yes.., I can see the appeal in dresses and have some that I could really wear but the desire isn't there. Also MOH just wouldn't see that within her frame of reference for what a man is.

pelmut wrote:

Daryl wrote:...And the issue also includes whether or not schools should pander to and therefore promote children's imaginations being declared as facts that all of society has to play along with but which will ultimately harm their ability to integrate socially (and that's a real harm).

I think if you view this, by the mother of a trans child, you will see the clear difference between a passing fantasy and the child's absolute and persistent certainty that she is feminine, despite how her body has developed. She is not "gender confused", but some of the adults around her were, initially.

Compare that with this, where the parents refused to believe their child because reality conflicted with their religious beliefs.

I am pleased to say that so-called "conversion therapy" for homosexual and transgender people is now illegal in most western countries.

I forget its name but the biggest (or one of the biggest) organisations for such "therapy" in the U.S. apologised for the harm it had done and disbanded itself a few years ago. That was a seriously positive turning point.

I'm not swayed by individual stories. I have enough personal experience to not need them to inform or awaken my empathy, and they don't tell the truth when we are talking about public policy but rather they try to appeal to our sympathies and so blind us to counter-arguments. For example, the harm done by the "war on drugs" dwarfs the harm done by drugs themselves, but an anti-drug testimony by an addict will harden reactionary attitudes every time.

Passing fancies do exist. Of course there's a difference between them and cases where a child's commitment to an idea was well-founded, but there are also a million shades of grey in-between. We can't sort that out so let's just be permissive rather than either supportive or dismissive. Just let boys wear pretty things without having to adopt an abstraction to justify it. And let's weaken or elimnate the current abstractions that are doing harm.

Sinned wrote:He liked a lot of blokey things. He just didn't like blokeishness."
I think that this about sums up my attitude. I think that I don't do the stereotypical he-man male very well

I'm starting to embrace the "gender-nonconforming" label more. Perfectly content to identify as male and present as male, but... with a lot of nonstandard personality quirks that contemporary society associates with femininity.

That's the wrong way to think about it, Ralph. The term GNC implicitly recognises the existence of the two boxes. You can only claim not to conform to the norms if you accept the idea of them. Much better to say "I am a man and I do these things. Men can do these things." Smash the boxes!

This:

skirtyscot wrote:"I am a man and I do these things. Men can do these things." Smash the boxes!

sums it up in a nutshell.

If anybody says, "No they don't." you can simply say, "Watch me!"

skirtyscot wrote:That's the wrong way to think about it, Ralph. The term GNC implicitly recognises the existence of the two boxes. You can only claim not to conform to the norms if you accept the idea of them. Much better to say "I am a man and I do these things. Men can do these things." Smash the boxes!

Darn, I agree with both of you! I oppose the validity of the two boxes as forms of coercion, but I acknowledge that they exist and even that they are not entirely arbitrary (viz. they are partly rooted in biology).

I guess I just want to have my box and eat it too.

If skirt wearing were based on biology, it would be logical for all women to wear trousers and all men to wear skirts. A man soon discovers that three into two doesn't go - or, at least, is very uncomfortable.

pelmut wrote:If skirt wearing were based on biology, it would be logical for all women to wear trousers and all men to wear skirts. A man soon discovers that three into two doesn't go - or, at least, is very uncomfortable.

Exactly. Any aliens encountering our species would be scratching their pseudopods with their tentacles wondering about this strange contradition.

The biological difference that possibly explains this well enough for intuitive grasp is ablutions. Men do not need to squat for the most frequent ablution.

Role differentiation also made pants a norm for men for military purposes, chiefly uniformity and practicality in most combat areas (from horseback riding to long winter marches). As this exerted upward pressure on fashions with men's fancy dress and officer's uniforms reflecting rank and file styles, pants became a male status symbol, and from there a symbol of maleness itself.

I have seen women in saris working on construction sites, and in olive saris as military uniforms, but when they are in roles where combat may be required and sidearms are present, they wear pants.

Daryl wrote:Men do not need to squat for the most frequent ablution.

So women squat to wash their hands! Who knew?

skirtyscot wrote:

Daryl wrote:Men do not need to squat for the most frequent ablution.

So women squat to wash their hands! Who knew?

It's a euphemism! Of course, "oblation" might be a better one...

How about the quaint King James Version phrase "him that pisseth against the wall"?

John

JohnH wrote:How about the quaint King James Version phrase "him that pisseth against the wall"?

Or the Jerry Jeff Walker Version?

Trying to figure myself over the years, I looked at a number of web sites. I scribbled down some notes.

One web site discussed The Four Components of Gender:

1. Gender Identity-how you think about yourself

2. Gender Expression has three components

a. Gender Presentation-refers to your physical appearance/how you look
b. Gender Performance-how you act
b. Gender Role-how you contribute socially


Quoting from the a e brain web site....

"...many people are essentially Bi-Gendered, and would be able to function in either a male or female role."

https://aebrain.blogspot.com/2008/06/bi ... brain.html


I think a e brain quote was referring to Gender Performance, and possibly to Gender Role to some extent. I was thinking that this would be generalist behavior, as opposed to specialist behavior in relation to the Gender Binary.

Grok wrote:"...many people are essentially Bi-Gendered, and would be able to function in either a male or female role."

https://aebrain.blogspot.com/2008/06/bi ... brain.html

I get the feeling that the author of the 'blog has an axe to grind.

Also, the phenomenon of the only male behaviour being that of machismo is relatively new and caused by the radical shoving of the male role into a proverbial corner. One cannot attribute physiological changes to societal mores on a decadal time-scale because physiology changes vastly slower than societal and cultural whimsy.

I have been having trouble linking to the Genderbread Person, which could be used as a loose description of a brain's Gender Map.

Discussion regarding fetal influences on a brain's Gender Map-scroll down to near the bottom, "Current Thinking on the Etiology of Gender Dysphoria" by Anne Vitale.

http://aebrain.blogspot.com/p/transsexu ... ntity.html