Page 1 of 2

MIS are the outcast.

Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2018 11:06 pm
by mishawakaskirt
Like some said before about the TG movement. and debate that goes on you cant be a man or boy and wear a skirt. if you do, you must want to be TG.
I'm not a fan of drag queens, but the following story just goes to show that that Men In Skirts are still considered beneath the whole straight/gay/GLBTQ.
MIS/BIS again at the bottom of every ones dog pile.

Pride Parade Bans Drag Queens Over Fears They'll Offend Trans People
https://www.dailywire.com/news/29300/pr ... =mattwalsh

Re: MIS are the outcast.

Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2018 12:04 am
by crfriend
mishawakaskirt wrote:Pride Parade Bans Drag Queens Over Fears They'll Offend Trans People
https://www.dailywire.com/news/29300/pr ... =mattwalsh
I find stuff like this hilarious because it's what happens when people knee-jerk a reaction and don't bother to think about their reaction or how it might affect the world around them.

Let's dissect this a little bit. As I see it, we have four constituencies here:
  • Outright homosexuals
  • Drag queens
  • The trans-* crowd
  • Men in skirts
The first of those is the raison d'etre of the various "Pride" events, and what those events were founded upon. The second is fundamentally theatre. The third are doing their best to adapt to a world they find hostile. Finally, the last consists largely of guys who are fed up with what's been shoved at them all their lives in the way of clothing.

Where's the overlap? I suspect the critical mind will find little to none.

Are "Men in skirts" the oddballs in the mix? Absolutely. We're welcomed by nobody -- which is OK. I certainly don't have an issue with being unwelcome above as I don't fit into any of the above buckets save that I'm a man and I wear skirts. I'm sensitive to the issues at hand with all of the above -- especially given history -- but am very aware that the man who puts on a skirt in preference to trousers is going to face the same uphill battle as an atheist trying to lead an uncompromisingly ethical life: he's at a competitive disadvantage in every way because the world around him doesn't behave that way. So, yes, we're the "odd man out". Is that necessarily a bad thing?

On the topic of "offending", it's worth making an endeavour in life to not needlessly offend someone else. However, sometimes they have it coming. Let's not allow PC (Political Correctness) to conflate the two positions; if we do, then we lose a very important tool in the "where they have it coming" category.

Re: MIS are the outcast.

Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2018 12:00 pm
by SkirtsDad
mishawakaskirt wrote:Like some said before about the TG movement. and debate that goes on you cant be a man or boy and wear a skirt. if you do, you must want to be TG.
I'm not a fan of drag queens, but the following story just goes to show that that Men In Skirts are still considered beneath the whole straight/gay/GLBTQ.
MIS/BIS again at the bottom of every ones dog pile.
Maybe I'm being a bit thick, but could you explain how the article puts M.I.S anywhere at all?
crfriend wrote:Let's dissect this a little bit. As I see it, we have four constituencies here:
  • Outright homosexuals
  • Drag queens
  • The trans-* crowd
  • Men in skirts
The first of those is the raison d'etre of the various "Pride" events, and what those events were founded upon. The second is fundamentally theatre. The third are doing their best to adapt to a world they find hostile. Finally, the last consists largely of guys who are fed up with what's been shoved at them all their lives in the way of clothing.
I'm not sure what drag acts you've see but I've seen about half a dozen live. I can't say that I'm a fan, mostly I've been at an event where there happens to be a drag act on, but I've seen some 'good' ones and some that are outright offensive. It may be theatre, but some are not far off what would be the gender equivalent of a white person blacking their face up and telling racist jokes. It wouldn't be accepted today.
crfriend wrote:On the topic of "offending", it's worth making an endeavour in life to not needlessly offend someone else.
I definitely agree. Perhaps it is a bit extreme of the organisers to ban all drag performances, but given that some artists build their careers on demeaning and offending some to get a laugh off others then I'm not sure it's completely a bad thing.

Re: MIS are the outcast.

Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2018 12:25 pm
by Stu
For me, the movement represented on this discusion board is quite simply about fashion, i.e. extending fashion choices for men and boys. The TG movement may be a worthy cause, but I don't see it as at the core of what we are about.

Re: MIS are the outcast.

Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2018 3:29 pm
by denimini
Stu wrote:For me, the movement represented on this discusion board is quite simply about fashion, i.e. extending fashion choices for men and boys. The TG movement may be a worthy cause, but I don't see it as at the core of what we are about.
Certainly the forum is about clothing choice and rejecting current fashion, relating particularly to wearing skirts. Our similarity with the transgender movement is being in a minority, although many TG would not be visually obvious like a man in a skirt.
The more I wear a skirt the less I feel like an outcast, here in Australia. Some people might have a second glance but I certainly get treated with the same respect as if I was bepanted ...... and occasionally with more respect.

Re: MIS are the outcast.

Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2018 5:18 pm
by Fred in Skirts
denimini wrote:The more I wear a skirt the less I feel like an outcast, here in Australia. Some people might have a second glance but I certainly get treated with the same respect as if I was bepanted ...... and occasionally with more respect.
I find that to be true around my neck of the woods as well. Since I live in the middle of the "Bible Belt" you might think it would be the other way around. When Moonshadow visited me he also found it to be a nice place for skirted men. We were treated with respect, sure there were a few double takes but we were not subjected to open ridicule or violence. :D

Re: MIS are the outcast.

Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2018 2:06 am
by john62
Here in Melbourne Australia I have been skirting about 10 years, only one negative comment that I have heard. When shopping no problems, this weekend shopped at a market, bookshop and a coffee shop and took the dog a couple of walks, no reactions visible from anyone. Whether this no reaction would happen in other parts of the city or in the CBD late at night who knows. I live in the East, mainly Anglo-Europoean and Asian and middle to upper class, where the West is more Middle Eastern/African and lower to middle class.

John

Re: MIS are the outcast.

Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2018 4:44 am
by Kirbstone
John,
Melbourne is high on my bucket list. I have a close (old rowing) friend who visited us here in Ireland in 2015. He lives in that sprawling squalid favella South of the city center called Brighton. His little bijou shack cost him a cool 2mill. a couple of years ago. His family had fed, so they were downsizing....nice!

Tom

Re: MIS are the outcast.

Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2018 9:11 am
by TheRod
Never had a bad comment in Perth or WA either. Lots of curious glances and smiles, and quite a few words of approval, mostly from women. A few days ago I got a high five from a teenage boy while I was riding my bike in a kilt. Of course there are always the questions from small children, asking their mother why is that man wearing a skirt. Such questions would be a great time to explain to the child an irrational social more.

Re: MIS are the outcast.

Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2018 9:28 am
by skirtyscot
Going back to the original topic, it's the drag queens who are the outcasts. The organisers were afraid that the transgender lot would be offended by them. They do seem to take offence very easily, and their right not to be offended trumps everybody else's rights to anything at all.

But doesn't that leave the poor old drag queens as the most marginalised and oppressed group? So now their right to appear at the parade must be more important? I can't keep up with the Oppression Olympics.

Meanwhile there appears to be no rule against a man turning up in a skirt. Have we succeeded in becoming unremarkable?

Re: MIS are the outcast.

Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2018 12:31 pm
by pelmut
skirtyscot wrote:Going back to the original topic, it's the drag queens who are the outcasts. The organisers were afraid that the transgender lot would be offended by them. They do seem to take offence very easily, and their right not to be offended trumps everybody else's rights to anything at all.
The most likely reason for offence is when transwomen are lumped together with drag queens (or homosexuals or child molestors or anything else that they aren't). I have friends who are otherwise quite sensible and well-informed who used to frequently mention stories about homosexuals in the news - I kept pointing out that this is irrelevant to me because I am transgender and not homosexual, but it has taken them a very long time to realise that they are not the same thing and that confusing one for the other is offensive to both.

This is where a lot of the opposition to skirt-wearing comes from; people are making the usually-incorrect assumption that a man in a skirt must be either homosexual, transgender, insane, a child molestor, a drag queen or some combination of these. It may be due to ignorance but a proportion of it can be attributed to malevolence - and men in skirts would be just as offended by that as transgender people are.

Re: MIS are the outcast.

Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2018 1:25 pm
by crfriend
This:
pelmut wrote:This is where a lot of the opposition to skirt-wearing comes from; people are making the usually-incorrect assumption that a man in a skirt must be either homosexual, transgender, insane, a child molestor, a drag queen or some combination of these. It may be due to ignorance but a proportion of it can be attributed to malevolence - and men in skirts would be just as offended by that as transgender people are.
I think, hits the nail squarely on the head.

I cannot imagine anybody NOT being offended at being compared to paedophiles and the like, and I can understand the displeasure of any other of the groups being directly compared to any of the remaining. The point here is that we, as humans, should be tolerant and respectful of activities so long as those activities do not directly or indirectly injure us. Wearing a skirt injures precisely no-one. It may ruffle feathers or wound the "tender sensibilities" of the naive, but in the grand scheme of things is entirely harmless.

Live. And. Let. Live.

Re: MIS are the outcast.

Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2018 5:16 pm
by skirtyscot
Indeed.

I can't help wondering if anyone had actually complained about the drag queens or if the organisers were merely afraid of a complaint. Assuming the parade was not a new event, all groups must have participated before, without problems, so why the difficulty now? Or maybe transgender people had not taken part before, in which case shouldn't they have organised their own instead of muscling out some of the regulars?

Whatever, it doesn't affect me. But it just got me thinking.

Re: MIS are the outcast.

Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2018 4:27 pm
by moonshadow
Well, I imagine some people look at me and assume all types of conclusions. I'm sure some think I'm transgender, others might figure I'm homosexual, others might think I'm insane... That's possible. I've been called "brave" more than a few times. Generally wearing what I want always makes me gay (why would I do it if it made me miserable after all? :wink: )

Regardless I'm generally not offended. Though I'm not trans the thought of someone assuming I was on a whim doesn't bother me. Maybe some trans people are offended by me?

Well sucks for those in question then... get in line with the religious zealots (which should be interesting to watch!)

It's too bad that people's nature to become easily offended has silenced so many people, and likewise pushed them into oppression. It happens on so many subjects, not just LBGT issues. Anymore you can't really talk about anything. Even talking about the weather has been politicised. If you remark on a warm day in the winter you offend the fossil fuel people if you remark on a cool day in summer you offend the climate change people.

I heard it best the other day, someone told me.... "just do what you want.... somebody somewhere will get pissed off no matter what you do"

As for men in skirts being outcast..
Yeah so what? Have you seen how insane humanity is? I'd just assume not count myself among that lot....

Re: MIS are the outcast.

Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2018 11:47 pm
by crfriend
moonshadow wrote:I heard it best the other day, someone told me.... "just do what you want.... somebody somewhere will get pissed off no matter what you do"
That's a paraphrase of the adage, "So you have enemies? Good! That means that you've stood up for something in your life." It's usually attributed to Winston Churchill, but I'm not convinced of the veracity of that.
As for men in skirts being outcast..
Yeah so what? Have you seen how insane humanity is? I'd just assume not count myself among that lot....
Indeed. What's the value in being "normal" when precisely nothing has ever come from "normal" people. The real visionaries that actually provoke a change in things are almost always "abnormal", usually possessing substantially higher-than-"normal" intelligence.