Outed

[crfriend]

Please don't second-guess me for a decision I made years ago not to talk to my daughter. Maybe looking back it was wrong but it felt right at the time. I feel like I'm being flamed here as if my decision not to tell her perpetuates our lack of societal acceptance. I thought this was a more supportive forum and I'm sorry to say that I'm not feeling the love.

Seconding the guys above, I certainly wasn't trying to second-guess you for a decision undertaken two decades earlier, so if you took offence because of that you have my apology as none was intended. We all try to do our best given the tools we have on hand; you were no different then.

In any event, now that the cat is out of the bag, how are you feeling about it?

[Caultron]

...My last post was in response to Caultron who was critical of me for not discussing skirt wearing with my then younger daughter because I didn't feel children should be concerned by "adult matters". He thought I was somehow equating skirt wearing with something pornographic...

I don't think I said that, but perhaps you inferred it in some context.

In any event, what you choose to conceal or reveal to your own children is obviously your decision.

As a general rule and over the long stretch, however, openness generally produces better results than secrecy.

And as a shirt-wearer myself, I don't consider skier-wearing as pornography or perverted. Unusual, yes, but not those.

Of course, whether or not a given thing is perverted is a personal judgement. And cognitive dissonance can result when we classify something we enjoy (positive) as also perverted (negative). This may or may not be true in your case, but it happens.

[Brad]

There is a reality that we can't ignore. We are not in utopia yet. Most places in the US don't have anti-discrimination laws against gender expression. Men in skirts is still on the fringe. We may like to overlook that in our cozy forum here where everything is perfect. Some of us remember when men could not wear long hair or earrings, and your boss could fire you, or you could be denied service in a restaurant based on your appearance. I'm old enough to remember establishments with "NO HIPPIES" signs in the 1960s. Of course we know that hippies were gentle people who meant no harm. But if you were a hippy at the time, you were relegated to starving because restaurant owners did not understand and they didn't want to offend their patrons by letting them in. I know the people who posted on this thread did not mean any harm in their comments and I won't take it personally. But there is a reality out there and let's not forget that we haven't come that far yet. Some people view us as freaks and perverts even though we're quite the opposite.

If I had told my daughter about wearing skirts at 6 years old, it is possible my ex would deny me visitation rights, and loss of those rights may have been upheld in court. My daughter may not have understood that Daddy is not a freak and a wierdo, or that her friends may have fathers who wear skirts too but they haven't told their daughters either. It was safer just to leave it alone at the time.

It's sad to think that we are coming up on the 10th anniversary of the Million Skirted Men March in NYC on 2/7/04 and we haven't made much progress since. We all proudly and openly wore our skirts and kilts on that day. It was widely covered on international news outlets but it didn't get critical mass to become a movement.

[Grok]

We are a tiny minority, and we have a long ways to go.

[Caultron]

For sure, divorce courts, social workers, and employers can enforce "normality" far in excess of legal rights.

Fortunately, acceptance (or at least tolerance) in the general population is nearly universal.

[crfriend]

Brad -- I can see where your thrust comes from, but I'm not sure that we can accurately compare societal reactions in the "then" and in the "now".

The 1960s and '70s were very turbulent times societally with the '60s being dominated with Civil Rights and the ongoing conflict in Vietnam; the '70s had, and suffered from, echoes of the '60s. However, today we live in a vastly changed world, and I'll posit that blokes in skirts are pretty well accepted in most places so long as they stand their ground and don't wither away.

By way of example when it comes to "standing one's ground" one of the places I frequent is a pretty "down-market" bar in a rather "rough" town to my north. I have never had a lick of trouble there in spite of some pretty "down-market" characters -- in fact I've had more positive experiences there than anything else. Nowadays, folks "get it" that it's a person's character that counts not the packaging that the character arrives in.

On the whole "custody" and "visitation" debacle, I agree with you entirely. There was no percentage whatsoever in whacking that hornets' nest. I'm just glad that it worked out in the end and that you and your daughter have arrive at a more enlightened stage in your relationship.

It's sad to think that we are coming up on the 10th anniversary of the Million Skirted Men March in NYC on 2/7/04 and we haven't made much progress since.

I would not say that progress hasn't been made; I would say that the progress we have seen has largely been hidden under a bushel or has been ignored. That said, I feel perfectly free to walk the streets pretty much anywhere in one of my skirts and not feel threatened. True enough, when I was interviewing for jobs I didn't wear skirts, but that was more down to the fact that I wanted my prospective employer to focus on my skills and talents than the fact that I was wearing something out of the ordinary. That wall will take a while to come down, but come down it eventually will.

Look on the bright side!