Legitimizing a Day in a Dress for Men

Discussion of fashion elements and looks that are traditionally considered somewhat "femme" but are presented in a masculine context. This is NOT about transvestism or crossdressing.
Dust
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Re: Legitimizing a Day in a Dress for Men

Post by Dust »

lazerr wrote:Where it (LGBT Laws) could be handy for us is in harassment or bullying by police government or workplace. At least firing someone for it would take some work, and you likely won't be arrested simply for wearing a skirt.
No, to use those laws you have to claim LGBT status. A man wearing a skirt for comfort or style is none of those letters, even using some of the expanded versions of the acronym. I won't lie to get back at some bully, and the fact of posting here is probably enough to give them a legal argument against applying those laws to our cases. Then again, I'm no lawyer...

The only "benefit" I see that men-wearing-skirts-as-men would get from such laws is that if the person that wrongs them (or would have otherwise wronged them) assumes (incorrectly) that the man in question fits one of those categories. That false assumption is probably the most significant reason that more men are not wearing skirts, and is something I think we need to combat.
Fred in Skirts wrote: As a man in a skirt I do not think using the lgbt-whatever causes will help us at all. We are completely on a different course through the sea's of life. We just want to wear what we want without any problems from anyone. We are men, we wear skirts end of story.
The only way we will add members (0) is by just being ourselves and going out there and wear our skirts. We don't need to tag along on someone else's coat tails it just causes confusion.

Fred

(0) Members of not only the Cafe but of men in skirts in general.
Agreed, Fred. Completely, on all of this.

To expand on the confusion aspect; we need to tell anyone who asks that it is just for comfort, style (we like the look, etc.), or "just because". Make reference to yourself as a man ("sometimes a guy just wants to wear a skirt"). We can't go pointing to some other group like it's some get-out-of-jail-free card. It might give you cover in the short term, but it's a lie, and is (like all lies) counterproductive in the long term.
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Re: Legitimizing a Day in a Dress for Men

Post by lazerr »

To expand on the confusion aspect; we need to tell anyone who asks that it is just for comfort, style (we like the look, etc.), or "just because". Make reference to yourself as a man ("sometimes a guy just wants to wear a skirt"). We can't go pointing to some other group like it's some get-out-of-jail-free card. It might give you cover in the short term, but it's a lie, and is (like all lies) counterproductive in the long term.
I agree 100%. Leaning on some other discriminations laws doesn't do what we want, which is to be completely able to freely wear what we want, maybe even considered fashionable. I also agree with the sentiment that things aren't necessarily better for us just because a Trans, or Crossdresser has rights (in fact it might be worse for us as we might be assumed to be what we are not.)
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Re: Legitimizing a Day in a Dress for Men

Post by Dust »

Caultron wrote:
Dust wrote:I actually know a guy who wore a kilt to work because he "lost" a bet with his boss. Now he occasionally wears it just because he can.
A masterstroke, eh?
Perhaps, but I wonder about tactics like this, or the donate-to-charity-and-I'll-wear-XYZ that they may be slightly counterproductive as well, since they start with the assumption that wearing these things is not something any sane man would want to do voluntarily.
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Re: Legitimizing a Day in a Dress for Men

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Dust wrote:I wonder about tactics like this, or the donate-to-charity-and-I'll-wear-XYZ that they may be slightly counterproductive as well, since they start with the assumption that wearing these things is not something any sane man would want to do voluntarily.
That can be worked on later in the game, sometimes with a gambit as simple as, "Yeah, I did that 'cause I lost a bet, but you know something? These things are amazingly comfortable, hence me wearing one long after the original incident. One can learn something from being dealt the occasional bad hand!"

It's all in how it's played and presented.
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Re: Legitimizing a Day in a Dress for Men

Post by skirtyscot »

JohnH wrote: I have a feral male cat that my wife and I are trying to tame. If he comes to live with us we will get him neutered.

What's the name of the cat? Carlo Farinelli.


:lol:
Keep on skirting,

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Re: Legitimizing a Day in a Dress for Men

Post by Pdxfashionpioneer »

Lazerr: "Leaning on some other discriminations laws doesn't do what we want, which is to be completely able to freely wear what we want,"

Depending on how narrowly the terms are defined. Oregon's and several other states' anti-discrimination laws not only protect sexual orientation but also gender expression.

More to the point, even where only people who fit into the categories of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgendered are protected we still benefit, because LGBT people have demonstrated that people who do not fit the Gender Binary, and that includes us, are good people too. Remember, 10 years before the Supreme Court ruled that same sex marriages were legal throughout the country, only 25% of the general public supported that idea; by the time the Supreme Court made their ruling, only 25% opposed it.

Up to about 2005, I was an active crossdresser. I went out in public in dresses, full female undergarments, padding, wig and concealing makeup. I altered my voice, went by a feminine name and changed the way I walked and carried myself so that, to the best of my ability, I appeared to be a woman. It took joining a crossdressing club to give me the courage to do so. One of the last times I went to one of the meetings, about 2005, I went in a skirted suit with a double-breasted jacket that I could button on the men's side that had been altered to fit my unpadded male body. For that meeting I had dispensed with my wig, makeup and padding and wore a man's dress shirt and tie. In short, I was presenting myself as a male in a skirt in as masculine a fashion as I could think of.

And I was universally mocked by my fellow crossdressers.

Ten years later I went to church in a sweaterdress, hose and heels and was warmly embraced by the other members of my congregation, only a very few of whom were in any of the LGBTQ categories. While I was doing my damnedest to fit the standard male mold, the world had changed. It wasn't because noticeable numbers of otherwise ordinary men had started wearing skirts and dresses in public, it was because the other varieties of LGBTQ people had stood up and demanded to be treated like everyone else. When people realized they were their friends, neighbors, kids and other relatives, the world turned. In short, they fought for our freedom as well as their own.

Now their movement calls itself the Pride Movement; that is, whoever or whatever you are, you should stand tall and be proud of yourself. And people should accept you as a fellow and equal human being. Like all rights movements they also recognize that an attack on one is an attack on all. By getting legal protections for the nonconforming people in the catchall Q category, they stood up for us before the vast majority of us stood up for ourselves. Consequently, even though Q stands for Queer -- meaning different, not necessarily gay -- I feel our first step should be to embrace that label (Believe me, I know that isn't easy, I still struggle with that!) and make common cause with those who are openly and unabashedly LGBTQ.

I'm NOT saying any of us are necessarily gay -- I certainly know that I am not -- but I am saying, as I have before, that our masculinity is augmented by a healthy dose of femininity or else we wouldn't be drawn to the clothes we all love. There's nothing wrong and everything right about flipping that mental switch.

Among the things that are toxic about the common American definition of masculinity is the insistence that men are allowed only one emotion, ANGER, which by the way is always a secondary emotion, and MAYBE some love toward our family members, … but don't be mushy about it! Because just as big boys don't cry, they don't care for mush either.

So PLEASE, stop denying your genuine selves! Stop looking for the right time and place to wear your skirt in public, with the exception of work, and just do it!

Assuming you need your paycheck, don't bet it on the impulse to wear a skirt to work, go through channels and ask permission. If you're afraid that's being too much of a wimp, compare my experience on the job to Kilty's. Keep in mind that we were both temporaries, who are the very definition of expendables. By showing up to work most days in a dress I normalized the idea of men wearing dresses to work.

If I hadn't gone through channels and just shown up, there probably wouldn't have been an overt problem, but even if I made it to the end of my contract, I probably would have given a lot of people the impression that men like ourselves are self-important jerks who impose their druthers on everyone else.
Last edited by Pdxfashionpioneer on Fri Nov 09, 2018 11:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Legitimizing a Day in a Dress for Men

Post by moonshadow »

I'm not sure it really matters. Non-kilt skirts have a female and feminine stigma attached to them that many men want to avoid.

A man who is overly sensitive to the prospect of being labeled a member of the LBGT community, or particularly "trans", is probably not going to go through with it (wearing any skirt).

Just as the skirt wearing man shouldn't be bothered with what the "haters" might say about him, nor should he be bothered if someone mistakenly calls him "trans". People are going to say what they're going to say, you can't stop them. If you agree with what's being said, fine, roll with it and make a friend, if not, just let it go and move on.

If you don't want to claim to be part of the LBBTQ community, then don't. The choice is yours, but if others do decide to take such a path, that choice is theirs.

Personally, I'm not trying to proselytize male skirt wearing. I couldn't care less if I was the only man who did this.

On a side note, now that I seem to be finding some friends who aren't ashamed to be seen with me in public, I find that they are actually quite accepting of my choice of not claiming transgender status. These are people who seem to completely understand, and respect that I'm just a guy in a skirt.

I think we might be making a mountain out of a mole hill here....
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Daryl
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Re: Legitimizing a Day in a Dress for Men

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Pdxfashionpioneer wrote:Lazerr: "Leaning on some other discriminations laws doesn't do what we want, which is to be completely able to freely wear what we want,"

Depending on how narrowly the terms are defined. Oregon's and several other states' anti-discrimination laws not only protect sexual orientation but also gender expression.

More to the point, even where only people who fit into the categories of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgendered are protected we still benefit, because LGBT people have demonstrated that people who do not fit the Gender Binary, and that includes us, are good people too.
I ended the quote there because it's a good spot to begin my reply, but I recommend the whole post. Everyone should read the original IMO.

I agree with your overall assessment and think we owe a lot to the LGBTetc community for carrying the torch this far forward. I have some big problems with the now-hegemonic conversational framework created by it, however. Chief among these would be the reification of gender, a subtle misandry inadvertently (I assume) suborned by that reification, the establishment of the gay-straight and trans-cis binaries, and the adoption of victim/safety (as opposed to liberty/choice) based narratives as foundations for activism. These problems have still not amounted to enough for me to renounce solidarity with the movement, but they are making me question it, and have resulted in some withdrawal of my support for it.

Your experience with the crossdressing community is particularly revealing, I think. It's as if men have to completely renounce masculinity to even enjoy the same freedom that modern women have, and this is reflected in the larger culture too, not just within the trans/CD community. A woman wears pants and shirt, and that's just what she wears. A man does it and everyone is seeing him doing a gender thing, which for a man can only means becoming less of a man.
Daryl...
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Re: Legitimizing a Day in a Dress for Men

Post by weeladdie18 »

I certainly would not go out on the street at Brighton U.K. to join a political rally.
Brighton is a town known for its gay male population....I am sure the Press would photograph any
" Man in a Skirt " and place the subject of the photograph in the wrong box just to get money
for the reproduction rights of the copyright of a photograph taken in a public place.
Every picture tells a story.......distortion of the truth ...
The photo could end up on the front page of the National Press.
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Re: Legitimizing a Day in a Dress for Men

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weeladdie18 wrote:I certainly would not go out on the street at Brighton U.K. to join a political rally.
Brighton is a town known for its gay male population....
I can understand your sentiment here. I sort of felt the same way about being videoed at a political meeting, but if I had to do it all over again, I'd still go. As I said in the other post, I'm not ashamed to be seen with anyone who's not ashamed to be seen with me.

As for gays and Democrats, far be it for me to turn away the possibility of making a friend in this otherwise hostile region I live in as far as eccentrics go... I'll take all the support and friendship I can get.

But what you do is certainly your choice.
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Re: Legitimizing a Day in a Dress for Men

Post by weeladdie18 »

Thank you Moon ,That was a quick quote on my post.

There is a distinct difference between a man going out on the street wearing a skirt.....

and a man who is prescribed female hormone pills , takes the chop, and then goes out on the street
wearing a skirt and waving a gender flag.
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Re: Legitimizing a Day in a Dress for Men

Post by trainspotter48 »

And in WL's last post lies the raison d'etre for this site!!
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Re: Legitimizing a Day in a Dress for Men

Post by pelmut »

moonshadow wrote:A man who is overly sensitive to the prospect of being labeled a member of the LBGT community, or particularly "trans", is probably not going to go through with it (wearing any skirt).

If you don't want to claim to be part of the LBBTQ community, then don't. The choice is yours, but if others do decide to take such a path, that choice is theirs.
There are many reasons for wearing a skirt, being transgender is just one of them but being lesbian, gay or bisexual is not.  Why would a homosexual man who wants to attact another homosexual man dress as a woman, the very thing the potential partner isn't attracted to?  This is all part of the muddled thinking (or lack of it) around the subject.

If you are a heterosexual, cisgender man who wants to wear a skirt ... just go ahead and wear one.  You don't need to make up excuses, especially obviously false ones, and it won't alter what you are (or get you off a legal charge if you have behaved badly).  If you weren't attracted to men before, you won't be afterwards; if you didn't feel you were born to be a woman before, you won't afterwards.  However, if you have a transgender side which you have been subconsciously suppressing, wearing a skirt might make you feel more like the woman that you have been trying to hide - and that can have devastating consequences for a very very tiny proportion of the men who try on a skirt.

Being transgender isn't a choice or a decision.  The choice is whether or not to acknowledge you are transgender when you discover that you actually are - but claiming to be transgender when you actually aren't, is a very bad choice for all sorts of reasons.
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Re: Legitimizing a Day in a Dress for Men

Post by moonshadow »

I think you misunderstood what I was getting at. Note the added "Q" in my acronym. (Leaving out the "G" was just a typo on my part).

The few trans people I have met seemed to be willing to welcome us into their "circle" despite our not being trans. And they respect us for our choice, conviction, mindset, whatever you want to call it.

I believe they welcome us because many of us (myself included) share common ground and have experienced the same social issues. Now I'm not saying all trans people welcome us. I'm just saying I've personally never met one who shunned me.

Look, there is one big difference between women who wear pants and men who wear skirts... one is a common socially accepted occurrence, the other is not. One is taboo, the other is not. If the greater LBGT group is willing to tack on another letter so that we all can achieve more together, then why not?

But again, if some guys don't want to be associated with that group then that's their right. Just because you are welcomed doesn't mean you have to enter, but the welcome is always nice nonetheless.

Look up the definition to the word "queer"...

adj. Deviating from the expected or normal; strange: a queer situation.
adj. Odd or unconventional, as in behavior; eccentric.


Sorry guys... unless you wear straight up kilts only... that's us, like it or not.

Thus the "Q" in the acronym scoops up a wide variety of subcultures, not just men who wear skirts. Personally I cherish and appreciate the support.

Not all T people are G or L, and not all skirt wearing men are T G or L, but until our practice becomes commonplace l, we're all "Q".
pelmut wrote:Being transgender isn't a choice or a decision.  The choice is whether or not to acknowledge you are transgender when you discover that you actually are - but claiming to be transgender when you actually aren't, is a very bad choice for all sorts of reasons.
True, you are what you are, but what is transgender anyway? The definitions vary so widely across so many disciplines you can't rely fault someone for getting it wrong on occation.

I don't think I'm transgender, but some people do based on their interpretation of cultural norms with regards to gender roles. There is nothing I can do about this.
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Re: Legitimizing a Day in a Dress for Men

Post by crfriend »

moonshadow wrote:Look up the definition to the word "queer"...

adj. Deviating from the expected or normal; strange: a queer situation.
adj. Odd or unconventional, as in behavior; eccentric.
That's the classic dictionary definition, and the one you'll find in dictionaries from the 1960s and earlier. However, thanks to "language drift" it's taken on connotations that some folks don't want to be associated with for an assortment of reasons. (For similar drifted words, see "spook", "conservative", "gay", and "liberal".)

In short, your dictionary left out the modern noun form, "homosexual" (although "queer" seems to refer specifically to male homosexuals). In fact, using the term in its original form is entirely likely to raise eyebrows in some settings.
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