“I never joke about my work 007.”

Clippings from news sources involving fashion freedom and other gender equality issues.
Dust
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

Post by Dust »

rode_kater wrote: Thu Aug 06, 2020 12:48 pm
Dust wrote: Thu Aug 06, 2020 2:27 am
rode_kater wrote: Wed Aug 05, 2020 10:27 pm I realised I don't think they know where to place us either. There was a presentation at work for pride week to explain the whole trans thing and they had four categories you could be non-binary in:

* sex (which bits)
* gender identity (man/woman)
* homosexual/heterosexual/asexual
* gender expression (masculine/feminine)

If you're a masculine heterosexual man wearing a skirt, by this definition you're not non-binary.
And thus outside the umbrella. They (LGBT community) don't see us as one of them, unless we go into the "femme" type stuff, or are homosexual, or want a female name/non-male pronouns.
I occurs to me that the real issue is that while the first three are purely objective/subjective, gender expression is intersubjective, that is, it exists only in the sense of a group of people "agreeing" on a truth. It's about how you relate to the people around you. So if you want to aim for a particular gender expression you almost by definition have to go for the extreme forms, and you require there to be a binary for it to work.
Well, I learned a new word today: "intersubjective." Thank you.

I think you get it, and why transgender folks are actually reinforcing the binary, and all the stereotypes that go with it.

I would not call it "a truth" however, but maybe a common system or understanding. Truth exists and is unchanged regardless of what people perceive or understand about it.
rode_kater wrote: Thu Aug 06, 2020 12:48 pm
Dust wrote: Thu Aug 06, 2020 2:27 am I doubt he knew we exist, and if he did, he probably wouldn't say that we "count" as under the umbrella of LGBT.
I think I agree. However, I think there is an possibility that they could be educated so they do know we exist and to not say such silly things. If they can learn to include us, or at least recognise us, that would be a win.
Sure, some are willing to be educated, and we should try to gently help them. But some seem to have an emotional reaction that prevents logic and learning. Some because they cannot get their head around a guy in a skirt, others because they can only see steps outside the norm as part of a trans or queer thing. Both the traditionalists and the LGBT crowd can fall into both of these traps. It's the folks who have mostly ignored all this stuff that are plenty willing to go along with the idea that sometimes a skirt really is just a skirt.
rode_kater wrote: Thu Aug 06, 2020 12:48 pm Also, thank you all for a phrase I'd not heard before I came to this forum: fashion freedom. That's what I want!
Same thing I want. Welcome!
Dust
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

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pelmut wrote: Thu Aug 06, 2020 9:31 pm
mishawakaskirt wrote: Thu Aug 06, 2020 6:50 pm My big question in all this when did sex and gender get separated???
The real question is "When did they get conflated?"  The answer is that they never were the same thing but "gender" has incorrectly been used as a polite word for sex and this has caused the confusion.  Sex is biological, gender is social (and grammatical) and, although they often align in a particular way, they are actually independent of each other and neither is something the individual can choose.
Yes, at some point grammar and biology got conflated. But with English only really having genders for people, it should be easy to see why. Plus, people are lazy and imprecise with their speech, and they are taught to avoid talking about sex in our society.

The idea that "gender" is social, and not just grammatical, however, I believe to be something new. Likewise, the idea that a person's gender and sex might not match seems to be a new idea as well. As far as I can tell, the two ideas came about more or less together, with one providing the terminology for the other.

While people have always existed who didn't fit the stereotypes of the day, or felt uncomfortable with the role expected of them due to their biological sex, the currently proposed solution of transition to the opposite role seems to me to be something new, at least in how it is carried out and understood today.

Yes, other cultures have had places outside the two primary roles, places for eunuchs, and occasions for transvestism; but what we see today appears to be both subtly and fundamentally different.
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

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Pdxfashionpioneer wrote: Thu Aug 06, 2020 7:56 am Dust, in my book so far you're looking like you're little more than a weasel. You have yet to address that personal jab you took at me. As I see it you only have a few choices:
  • 1) Apologize and retract your crack about my not having principles.
    2) Clarify your statement such that it's clear your intended meaning was benign.
    3) Find yourself dead center in the middle of my wrath. If you sent Carl a PM, I'm sure he'll explain how unpleasant Ground Zero can be.
I genuinely missed this somehow. The earlier post about taking offense to what I wrote, however, I definitely did see.

I wrote a long post in response, then decided it would only make things worse, and did not submit it. I did not PM anyone.

I figured walking away and letting both my head and yours cool off was appropriate. Also, realize that I write a lot more than I post, so putting something I wrote on hold was normal for me. I have a collection going of my un-posted posts...

If holding my tongue in order to not derail the discussion, get banned, or get the thread locked, makes me a weasel, so be it.

I did not intend to start a fight. My point was simply about my principles (and those of others) not aligning with the LGBT movement, and therefore not wanting to "fly their colors" so to speak. I should have worded it differently.
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

Post by pelmut »

Dust wrote: Sat Aug 08, 2020 2:26 am [...]
I think you get it, and why transgender folks are actually reinforcing the binary, and all the stereotypes that go with it.
That is unfortunately very close to the truth, at least at the beginning of transition and particularly for MtF.  Rather than intentionally 'reinforcing the binary', I would describe it as 'going along with the binary' in order to be seen by others as what they know they are.  Sometimes this is over-done, with unfortunate comedic effect in some cases, but the intention is to give a strong message using the stereotypical features that most people cannot fail to recognise.

One way of looking at this is to say that society has made an arbitrary binary division and transpeople feel they have finished up on the wrong side of it.  They didn't ask for it to be made, but as it is already there they don't want to be mis-categorised by it.
...cannot get their head around a guy in a skirt, others because they can only see steps outside the norm as part of a trans or queer thing. Both the traditionalists and the LGBT crowd can fall into both of these traps.
There are many subtle aspects to femininity which transwomen discover during their first few years after transition. When they have developed those, the more obvious visual signals can be dispensed with and they become accepted as women, no matter what they are wearing.  Most of the long-transitioned transwomen I know seem to spend most of their lives wearing jeans; it is only during the early phases of transition, when other aspects of their presentation are still masculine, that they dress in an overtly stereotypically feminine way in order to reinforce the message that they want to be seen as feminine.  This unfortunately reinforces the "man in a dress" image that causes the confusion with men in skirts.
There is no such thing as a normal person, only someone you don't know very well yet.
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Pdxfashionpioneer
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

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Dust said: My point was simply about my principles (and those of others) not aligning with the LGBT movement, and therefore not wanting to "fly their colors" so to speak. I should have worded it differently.


Maybe it's just my (almost) 70 year-old eyes, but I don't see the word "sorry" anywhere in there. Or are you one of those special people who are exempt from having to apologize for dissing people?
Dust said: other cultures have had places outside the two primary roles,


Get up to speed, they still do have and have had all along. And it's not just a few; it's MANY.

Spirou, your company should ask for their money back from whoever they paid to write that "training." There are so many errors in what you say was presented to you, I hardly know where to begin.

Perhaps here, it's not just "LGBT" for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered anymore. It's at least "LGBTQ," for Lesbian ... Transgendered and Queer. Often you will see "LGBTQ+" to include folks who know they're different, but don't feel comfortable with the other labels. Finally, sometimes you'll see "LGBTQ2S+." What's "2S," you ask? Two-spirited, the Native American recognition that some people have souls that combine what they considered masculine and feminine characteristics. Such people are nearly revered for their wisdom.

Which brings us back to Dust's contention that transwomen exhibit and promote the worst of the stereotypes. Really? Who? Have you ever met a transwoman that you're aware of?

Let me recommend the movie Disclosure. It's available for free on Netflix. In it, a number of intelligent, articulate and in many cases breathtakingly beautiful women talk about the challenges they faced down and still face in their chosen professions simply because, generally on the basis of their genitalia, they were called "boys" at birth. By the age of 3 or 4 most of them knew better and had to struggle for years to get the people around them to catch up to that fact.

Dust also said he couldn't get on board with celebrating the Stonewall Riots because rioting is categorically wrong. Let me ask you, was the Boston Tea Party wrong? If that wasn't a riot, what was it? Certainly a well-organized riot, but a riot nonetheless. And, from a legal point of view more reprehensible because it was done with forethought and malice.

Even the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who dedicated his life to non-violence stated that riots are the voice of the voiceless.

But the annual Pride Parades don't celebrate rioting; they celebrate what those riots lead to. As Moonshadow said, what those riots lead to is greater recognition that each and every one of us is entitled to be who we genuinely are. That each and every person should be allowed to openly and honestly be able to express who they are and be respected, if not celebrated for it!

I facetiously said that the whole point of all of these categories is to get everyone so flummoxed with them they would shove all of the labels over the rail and, as Carl and a number of say you yearn for, get to the point where we stop judging people by their label and in fact give little thought to how we might categorize them, and not judge them, but accept them as PEOPLE. Period.

But we all know we're not only not there yet, we're not even close. There are too many yahoos, like my own brother, who talk about other men giving up their "Man Cards." Or start sentences with, "Real men don't ..." Everyone of us knows that "wear skirts and dresses" tops that list.

Dust, you asked me if exhibiting any one of a list of behaviors would qualify a guy as "non-binary." I first gave a facetious answer to that one too, but the system ate my homework. Good thing, humor and irony seem to be lost on you. I now have a better answer for you. Don't ask me, ask your closest "Real Men don't ... " Neanderthals what they think of any of those behaviors. If what you get back is that real men don't do that, then yeah, guys who do any of those things are non-binary. Because masculine and feminine, the two poles of Gender Identity are social constructs, anything in between, say a man augmenting his masculinity with something feminine in his character or behavior, is non-binary.

Dust also said he didn't want to broadcast a message, he just wants to be able to wear his skirts in public. Newsflash everyone! that IS a message. And the message is that contrary to social norms, it's perfectly okay for a man to wear a skirt in public. A subtext is, "We really DO live in free countries where we're allowed to be ourselves. So now that you've seen I can be me and have people accept me; YOU can be you!"

It didn't take long after I started wearing dresses to church for people to come up to me to tell me how brave I was. At first that embarrassed me. Brave? "Running into a burning building to save lives is brave. Wearing a dress? You've got to be kidding, half the world's population wears them and thinks nothing of it." But if so many intelligent people whom I respected said it was brave, I had to own it. For a little while, I felt I was almost obliged to put on my skirts and dresses so that other people could see they didn't have to hide their individuality anymore.

So, I agree wholeheartedly with Moonshadow, Pelmut and Faldaguy; we're given more license to wear our skirts than we were even 10 years ago because of the Pride Movement. And now, here in the US, they have recently obtained for us the legal right to wear our skirts to work.

They've stood up for us so it's long overdue that we stand up for them.
David, the PDX Fashion Pioneer

Social norms aren't changed by Congress or Parliament; they're changed by a sufficient number of people ignoring the existing ones and publicly practicing new ones.
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

Post by pelmut »

Pdxfashionpioneer wrote: Sat Aug 08, 2020 7:53 am Which brings us back to Dust's contention that transwomen exhibit and promote the worst of the stereotypes. Really? Who? Have you ever met a transwoman that you're aware of?
To re-phrase Pdxfashionpioneer's question: "Have you ever met a transwoman that you were not aware of?"  The answer is almost certainly "Yes", most of us have, many times  ...but of course we weren't aware of it.  It is the transwomen who exhibit and promote the worst of the stereotypes that most people are aware of; the vast majority are just ordinary women getting on with ordinary lives and they are not noticed.

Most of what has been said about transwomen on this forum and in the media has been based on the visible ones, but they are not representative of transwomen in general.
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

Post by Pdxfashionpioneer »

the vast majority are just ordinary women getting on with ordinary lives and they are not noticed.
Exactly!
David, the PDX Fashion Pioneer

Social norms aren't changed by Congress or Parliament; they're changed by a sufficient number of people ignoring the existing ones and publicly practicing new ones.
Spirou003
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

Post by Spirou003 »

Pdxfashionpioneer wrote: Sat Aug 08, 2020 7:53 am (...)
Spirou, your company should ask for their money back from whoever they paid to write that "training." There are so many errors in what you say was presented to you, I hardly know where to begin.
(...)
Eeeeh... what? I think you typed the wrong name and wanted to refer to this post:
rode_kater wrote: Wed Aug 05, 2020 10:27 pm I realised I don't think they know where to place us either. There was a presentation at work for pride week to explain the whole trans thing and they had four categories you could be non-binary in:

* sex (which bits)
* gender identity (man/woman)
* homosexual/heterosexual/asexual
* gender expression (masculine/feminine)

If you're a masculine heterosexual man wearing a skirt, by this definition you're not non-binary. The presenter briefly mentioned "transvestism" (hate the word) and suggested it was mostly a fetish thing. I'm kinda annoyed I didn't see it live because I wanted to ask a question about that. This person clearly did not consider us an interesting group. What we're trying to do is redefine gender expression, but that breaks the model.

On the whole LGBTQ have made huge strides, but in a sense I feel they are strengthening the gender expression binary, which is kind of the opposite goal of fashion freedom.
If not, I'm just lost and don't know to what you are answering.
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

Post by pelmut »

rode_kater wrote: Wed Aug 05, 2020 10:27 pm I realised I don't think they know where to place us either. There was a presentation at work for pride week to explain the whole trans thing and they had four categories you could be non-binary in:

* sex (which bits)
* gender identity (man/woman)
* homosexual/heterosexual/asexual
* gender expression (masculine/feminine)
Let's look at that list in another way:  None of those categories are binary but for generations they have been artificially divided into two sub-categories which is patently incorrect and then those sub-categories have been artificially linked in ways which are demonstrably false.  No wonder they don't know where to place men in skirts, they are using a broken system to generate meaningless results -- and then they compound the error by saying that we are the ones at fault for not conforming to their muddled ideas.
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

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pelmut wrote: Sat Aug 08, 2020 8:36 pmNo wonder they don't know where to place men in skirts, they are using a broken system to generate meaningless results [...]
Personally, I would rephrase that gently into "... they are using a broken system which produces meaningless results [...]". I am quite sure that the average individual on the street has no clue that the model they're using produces incorrect results for the simple reason that it has seemingly produced accurate results in the past. This, for the most part, is not the fault of the individual applying a particular model if that's all they know.

The ground has moved somewhat, and the very high-profile trans-* movements have made that apparent, but that still does not solve the problem for the dog-boring straight male opting for a skirt. There remain no guidelines for that, and no real "movement". Thus, it's down to each and every one of us who identifies so to state his own reasoning for his choices, and down to the interaction between he and the interlocutor to hammer out an agreement. (Usually agreements in this regard are entirely trivial matters, from personal experience.) It's the second assertion there that's the crux of my argument -- that's there seems to be no way to remove the skirt as a signifier that there are other factors in play other than free will and free though.

Sometimes it just plain doesn't matter. We had a new guy on board today for sailing whom I'd never met, but who the Skipper spoke well of. I wore a skirt, the way I usually do, and there was nary even a question on the matter. This is the way it should be. (This guy just made the jump from sailing what amounts to skiffs on the Charles River Basin into the Blue-Water world of salt-water sailors, and got an eye- and brain- ful of new information to assimilate. I guess on placid spots in rivers the ability to read a nautical chart isn't required. Or, where the bottom is mud so deep that SONARs cannot find the end of it and running "aground" isn't a potentially capital offence.)
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

Post by pelmut »

crfriend wrote: Sun Aug 09, 2020 2:13 am
pelmut wrote: Sat Aug 08, 2020 8:36 pmNo wonder they don't know where to place men in skirts, they are using a broken system to generate meaningless results [...]
Personally, I would rephrase that gently into "... they are using a broken system which produces meaningless results [...]". I am quite sure that the average individual on the street has no clue that the model they're using produces incorrect results for the simple reason that it has seemingly produced accurate results in the past. This, for the most part, is not the fault of the individual applying a particular model if that's all they know.
That is a much better way of looking at it.  The danger is that the system is self-reinforcing because pressure to conform has ensured that - at least until recently - any evidence which contradicted the system was ruthlessly suppressed, even to the extent of killing non-conforming individuals.
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

Post by rode_kater »

crfriend wrote: Sun Aug 09, 2020 2:13 am Personally, I would rephrase that gently into "... they are using a broken system which produces meaningless results [...]". I am quite sure that the average individual on the street has no clue that the model they're using produces incorrect results for the simple reason that it has seemingly produced accurate results in the past. This, for the most part, is not the fault of the individual applying a particular model if that's all they know.
That is kinda the point I was trying to make, thank you for putting it much better than I did.
crfriend wrote: Sun Aug 09, 2020 2:13 am Sometimes it just plain doesn't matter.
TBH I think this is due to the fact that most people don't care about models and are more interested in whether you are a nice person or not. As is usual, its much harder to get agitated at someone standing in front of you who is not actually hurting anyone.
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

Post by moonshadow »

Picked up this tee yesterday... wore it to Walmart and also while mowing grass today...

"True Unity"

Nobody seemed to notice or mind...

"No freedom until we're equal, damned right I support it".
-Macklemore
(Lyric in the song "Same Love")
20200809_173627_resize_16_compress0.jpg
Ps I don't know why it's sideways... click the imagine and it straightens out.
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Dust
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

Post by Dust »

Pdxfashionpioneer wrote: Sat Aug 08, 2020 7:53 am
Dust said: My point was simply about my principles (and those of others) not aligning with the LGBT movement, and therefore not wanting to "fly their colors" so to speak. I should have worded it differently.

Maybe it's just my (almost) 70 year-old eyes, but I don't see the word "sorry" anywhere in there. Or are you one of those special people who are exempt from having to apologize for dissing people?

No, the word "sorry" wasn't there. I'm not apologizing just because you threw a tantrum like a small child. You came out swinging with threats and personal attacks. I don't cower to bullies.

I was taking your option number 2 (clarifying the original intent), but apparently I should have said that explicitly.

Further, you accusing me of thinking I'm "special" is rich, considering what you went on to argue below.
Pdxfashionpioneer wrote: Sat Aug 08, 2020 7:53 am Dust, you asked me if exhibiting any one of a list of behaviors would qualify a guy as "non-binary." I first gave a facetious answer to that one too, but the system ate my homework. Good thing, humor and irony seem to be lost on you. I now have a better answer for you. Don't ask me, ask your closest "Real Men don't ... " Neanderthals what they think of any of those behaviors. If what you get back is that real men don't do that, then yeah, guys who do any of those things are non-binary. Because masculine and feminine, the two poles of Gender Identity are social constructs, anything in between, say a man augmenting his masculinity with something feminine in his character or behavior, is non-binary.

If masculine and feminine are social constructs, two poles on the ends of a continuum, no one meets these definitions of "normal." Everyone is thus non-binary. Everyone is special. Life participation trophies all around! Just remember, when everyone is special, no one is...

And this was my point when I gave the list and asked for clarification. By your definitions, literally every single human being alive today (and who ever lived) is now LGBTQ, or at least could be by simply saying so. (You seem to be ready to slap the labels on people without them saying so, or even in spite of them asking you not to.) This renders the whole thing to be a meaningless farce. And yet laws are being passed to "protect" them. Really it's giving extra privileges to those who declare themselves "woke." I, on the other hand, believe in that quaint notion of equal protection under the law.
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

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Pdxfashionpioneer wrote: Sat Aug 08, 2020 7:53 am Dust also said he couldn't get on board with celebrating the Stonewall Riots because rioting is categorically wrong. Let me ask you, was the Boston Tea Party wrong? If that wasn't a riot, what was it? Certainly a well-organized riot, but a riot nonetheless. And, from a legal point of view more reprehensible because it was done with forethought and malice.

Even the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who dedicated his life to non-violence stated that riots are the voice of the voiceless.

The founders of this nation were traitors to the British crown, who would have been hanged if the revolution had failed. They accepted that very real possibility.

The Boston Tea Party was illegal, but it was a targeted attack on the shipment of what was being, in their minds at least, excessively and unlawfully taxed. It was not the smashing and burning of everything in sight. Today we see riots burning churches and businesses in response to a man dieing in police custody. Makes no sense.

What the American founders were able to create was something generally positive and truly unique, but I have no illusions as to how it came about.
Pdxfashionpioneer wrote: Sat Aug 08, 2020 7:53 am But the annual Pride Parades don't celebrate rioting; they celebrate what those riots lead to. As Moonshadow said, what those riots lead to is greater recognition that each and every one of us is entitled to be who we genuinely are. That each and every person should be allowed to openly and honestly be able to express who they are and be respected, if not celebrated for it!

You are the one who brought up the riots. They have gone from riots, to very respectable well dressed folks walking hand-in-hand, to simulated sex acts in the street by half-naked people. I'm not sure when the pendulum will swinging back, maybe it has started already, I don't know. But I'm still not approving of their methods.

They are now demanding that everyone celebrate them. Those who refused are attacked. People have been doxed and run out of their jobs for their quiet opposition. I saw protesters the other day (BLM, but considering they have been hosting "black trans lives matter" events, too, and we're talking about riots, I figure this is relevant) with signs that read "silence is violence". No it's not, it's just silence, and opposition seeking a rational debate and open discussion isn't violence either, but it's being shut down.
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