Made it easier?

[Mark as in Mark]

Hey everyone. It's been a while since I posted something. But I like some other opinions on this subject.

I was doing an interview for a local TV station. The interviewer was a trans female and hosts the Queer Eye Germany for Netflix.

He(she) asked me why i don't support the LGBT+ community more. My reply was that I don't think I fit into that community because what I wear has nothing to do with sexuality. He(she) then said that since the LGBT+ community, trans in particular, have suffered threats, abuse, and even death, so that I can wear skirts more freely I should be up on my soapbox screaming my support!

Questions?

Do you think the LGBT+ community has made it easier for us to wear skirts?

or....Do you think the LGBT+ community has made it harder because of the fear of being seen as gay when out wearing a skirt?

[crfriend]

Do you think the LGBT+ community has made it easier for us to wear skirts?

It has likely done little in the positive direction because the LBGTQ+ crowd wear skirts as a signifier that they are not men whereas we want to wear skirts for purely aesthetic reasons as men -- and it signifies precisely nothing about our sexuality.

However, given the average person's view of sexuality, it's likely possible that the contamination of that with skirt-wearing has made it more difficult for straight guys. Too, since I suspect a lot of folks have largely had it up to their nostrils with the constant onslaught of LGBTQETC stuff they're not going to bother to understand that the drivers for the wearing of skirts are entirely and completely different, and lump us into the trans-* bucket.

On top of all that (and if it wasn't enough), I'm starting to worry about a second round of "hardening of attitudes" that will take us even farther to the "right" than we wound up in during the reactionary era of the 1980s/90s, and there will be domestic-level physical violence involved this time instead of international hostility and economic/class warfare domestically. We're already starting to see some ominous rumblings.

[Jim]

Do you think the LGBT+ community has made it easier for us to wear skirts?

or....Do you think the LGBT+ community has made it harder because of the fear of being seen as gay when out wearing a skirt?

A bit of both. We get more acceptance, but also many of us don't want to be seen as part of the LGBT movement.

[mishawakaskirt]

I don't think the trans movement has made it easier.

Like you, I don't feel like I fit into that community.
And what I wear doesn't affect my sexuality or my gender.

I think that is part of the reason alot of us have trouble with family friends, and spouses especially.
The trans publicly is so loud we get drowned out for just liking skirts. And assumed as beginner trans.
And one day we will come out as such.

My wife has expressed that sentiment.

Right now you say you just like wearing skirts
But then someday will you be wearing panties, and wigs, then after that breast forms? Then time after that you'll announce to me that you no longer are a man, or that you want to be a woman?

Despite multiple discussions on skirts and trans issues.
My wife still doubts my intentions. And that over time I will advance deeper into gay/trans/etc Life style.

Waiting for the other shoe to drop.

While we don't have any trans people in our circle of contacts.
My wife and I know from her college days or from work at least 3 men and one woman that got married in hetero fashion,
Had children. And some 12 to 20 years later.
Leave that marriage in ruin and announce that they are gay.

Leaving straight spouses and children blindsided and hurting.

So I totally get why my wife is so alarmed by a skirt.
She is looking at others history and had applied it to me.

So the LGBTQXYZ has not made it easier for MIS

[Coder]

Agree with the previous posters. Only thing I'd like to add - that the transgender movement has unfortunately reinforced the gender binary - stepping out of your lane (man wearing a skirt, woman playing with LEGO*) - immediately makes you question your nature, and that's a shame.


*Yes - someone on reddit wondered if she might be a he because she liked LEGO

[crfriend]

Yes - someone on reddit wondered if she might be a he because she liked LEGO

Given the women have essentially unlimited range in the "New World of Gender" how is that notion even possible?

[Ozdelights]

I agree with the previous responses. I feel a trans person uses a skirt to signify THEIR change - transition, while we want to change SKIRTS from female only.

[Grok]

Yes, Ozdelights, the intentions are directly opposite of each other. No, it definitely has not made it easier.

[Grok]

Something I'm wondering about....have some gay people used marriage as camoflage? To appear seemingly straight?

[Midas]

Something I'm wondering about....have some gay people used marriage as camoflage? To appear seemingly straight?

That has been done for a long time. The most prominent example was Jeremy Thorpe, 1970s Liberal leader. In these circumstances one might refer to the wife as a beard.

[Myopic Bookworm]

I'm going to be slightly positive and suggest that the prominence of trans rights and gender identity issues have made it slightly easier to be accepted as nonconformist in one's style choices. However, I agree that it has made it easier for people - especially older men - adopting "cross-gender" clothing to be mischaracterized as transitioning.

Paradoxically, the trans movement is to some extent reinforcing a traditional binary view of gender, whereas the Men in Skirts movement tends rather to undermine it by disassociating clothing and gender. On the other hand, a recent acquaintance here was perhaps queering the issue by presenting as a trans-woman in trousers of a rather masculine cut, which made the company wary of simply judging gender by clothing. If I meet her again in the same context, I shall hope to be presenting as a cis-man in a kilt, at least!

[geron]

Something I'm wondering about....have some gay people used marriage as camoflage? To appear seemingly straight?

That has been done for a long time. The most prominent example was Jeremy Thorpe, 1970s Liberal leader. In these circumstances one might refer to the wife as a beard.

I don't know whether this amplifies your point, Midas, but Jeremy Thorpe had two wives -- not at the same time, of course. The first died in a car crash after a couple of years. The second was a distinguished concert pianist. He outlived her by less than a year.

[KenCT]

Coder wrote:
...the transgender movement has unfortunately reinforced the gender binary - stepping out of your lane (man wearing a skirt, woman playing with LEGO*) - immediately makes you question your nature, and that's a shame.

I remain a man; it's my skirts that are nonbinary.

[Faldaguy]

First question; why the use of he/she for a pronoun if the person identifies as female now -- was that a request?

Two: I suspect the growth of the LGBTQ community has made it easier in the sense that a whole lot more folk are now aware of gender issues and tolerance has been growing -- 3 decades ago very very few people were "coming out"; now even politicians and public figures are being open. TV shows like Jeopardy have had numerous contestants openly GLBT who have won a lot of vocal supporters.

Three: Does it make more folks think we MIS are gay or trans -- maybe, but the fret about such things is once again in our own minds. I doubt any more people suspect we are gay or trans now than did before the LGBTQ acronym became more widely known-- perhaps fewer. The real problem is our own fear of some label we do not identify with, and that is no different now than 20 years ago.

I posit that we are all humans, with many different views and places on the spectrum of gender and sexual identification -- for MIS to 'blame' others for our reticence to become our own person is at best displacement from owning our own feelings. Blaming other minorities as a scapegoat for our own cowardice seems hypocritical and absurdly judgmental.

[Fred in Skirts]

My answer is an absolute NO! All they have done is take away the reason "WE" wear skirts.
I wear skirts because I want to and because they are so much more comfortable to wear. NOT because I am trying to be a woman, I am not a woman I am a man!