“I never joke about my work 007.”

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

Post by moonshadow »

Dust wrote: Tue Jul 28, 2020 11:23 am Have you thought that maybe some think you are trying to pass as a woman, and they are actually trying to NOT play along? Just a thought...
I suspect that often.

I still don't care.
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

Post by Bikerkilt »

Thank you Dust, I'm just a man that likes to wear skirts.
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

Post by Happy-N-Skirts »

Skirts are more comfortable and practical than pants. Does anyone know about microfiber shorts? Not underwear. In case someone has any modesty fears.
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

Post by John S »

Happy-N-Skirts wrote:
> Skirts are more comfortable and practical than pants. Does anyone know
> about microfiber shorts? Not underwear. In case someone has any modesty
> fears.
I have several pairs of microfiber gym shorts if that's what you are asking about. They are very comfortable for casual wear. One thing about them is because they are thin sometimes static cling is an issue so I prefer to buy them in darker colors.
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

Post by Pdxfashionpioneer »

Dust wrote:
While I agree that the confines of the standard male wardrobe feel like a straight jacket sometimes, I don't agree that makes any step outside of those confines necessarily makes us "non-binary" by any definition.


Sorry, but it does. All it means is that we do do something, present ourselves in a way that doesn't match the standard societal for a Man. It implies nothing about about your Sexual Identity, clearly you identify as a Male, nor about your Sexual Orientation, clearly you consider yourself to be Heterosexual. Not that it matters but I do as well on both counts.

The difference between us seems to be that I accept that how one dresses is a big piece of their Gender Expression and therefore Gender Identity is how they dress. Secondly, it is crystal clear that how I dress is different from the societal norm for a cis-gender male so in that sense, I am Nonbinary. Why does that term bother you?
Just look at the number of people here using looking "normal" and "natural" as the highest complement that can be given to a man's skirted outfit.


As a matter of fact, it was pointed out to me by a 20-something lady that the reason that people take the way I present myself so much in stride is that it is so natural and normal for me!
But some of us don't want to send a message at all. We don't want to be seen as gay or trans. We can be our "genuine selves" no matter what we are wearing. We just want a few more options of what to wear as men.


Did you read the portion of my post that you pulled? I didn't say I was delivering a message; someone else said I might delivering the wrong message and I was asking that person to tell us just what message that might be.

And what makes you think that I want anyone to think I am Gay, Trans-, Bi- or Lesbian for that matter. June was their month. Nonbinary Freedom Day is in July.

By the way, Nonbinary is why the young people stood the term "Queer" on its head and has rebranded it as the miscellaneous category in the diversity rainbow. That's why it's now LGBTQ+.
Misinterpreting is not hate.


You're right, poor choice of cliche on my part.

If you read the thread I started on "Miss-identification" you'll see that I suggested that we ALL take those situations in stride because unless someone's being hostile in the way they misidentify us, they probably just made an honest mistake.
But once men in skirts are "normalized," doesn't that mean that (by definition) skirts would be part of "normal" menswear, and therefore part of the (now larger) box of what is acceptable male behavior? Wouldn't that mean that men in skirts would then be firmly in the "binary" category, as opposed to your "non-binary" category that you are insisting we are all a part of? That's what I am working towards.


Not exactly. Normalized just means something that people aren't surprised to see anymore because they've seen it before.

Ultimately, what the Pride Movement would like to see is everyone's mind get so overloaded with all of the categories of diversity they say, "Enough already! We get it. Everyone's different and should be accepted and respected as they are and treated equally." Shortly afterwards all of the little dividers and labels for Sexual Identity, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity will get yanked out of the box and the only label we'll be left with is the one outside of the big box that says, "Human Beings."

In the meantime, we're stuck with this alphabet soup and a certain percentage of the population that stigmatizes and marginalizes people who are different. If we're going to put that BS to rest we have to make common cause with the people we can lumped with and stand up together.
There are very big differences between drag, transgenderism, crossdressing, and (I would argue) men in skirts.


I don't know about very big differences, but differences for sure. Where did I say otherwise.
I may be mad about it, but I'm not for rioting, and don't want to be seen as associated with people engaging in wanton destruction for any reason.


Nor do I. Where did I say otherwise?

I was just trying to get across that gays and lesbians have had trouble accepting bisexuals and trans-folks as members as their community. Now that they have they are standing tall with them because they know that a segment of society tars all of them with the same brush. So they can either say, "You don't get it! I'm not one of them!" And get picked off group by group.

Or they can stand up together, as they have, and say, "You're right! We're all different from you! What of it? And make no mistake, we're all in this together so an attack on one of us is an attack on ALL of us!"

By the way, it's the Human Rights Campaign (the largest LGBTQ+ political advocacy group in the US) that has gotten into law our right to wear skirts and dresses to work where women are allowed to wear them. Given that they have stood up for us, doesn't it make sense that we stand up with them to finish the short strokes?
lawsuits ... resentment


I have never filed a lawsuit about wearing skirts to work nor have anyone show any resentment for my doing so. In fact, the only one of my employers (I work as a temp so I kind of get around) where it came up was Intel. There I offered to go back to slacks if I got anyone's nose out of joint. My 2nd level immediately and emphatically said I had it backwards. If I had the first hint of disapproval from anyone, they wanted to know about it. Immediately. So they could nip it in the bud.

And not because they're worried about lawsuits. What they want is a work environment where no one feels out of place because of who they are. They want everyone to bring their genuine selves to work so they can comfortably and without any energy wasted on fear of disapproval do their work and give the company the benefit of their full individuality. And that's the way 21st century companies look at the whole issue of diversity.

Bear with me here, I'm trying to work around the constraints of our system and I kinda blew it so I can't do the quotes thing.

You made a reference to 'some of the other elements of their agenda.' What agenda? All the Human Rights Campaign wants is that everyone gets treated equally and with dignity and respect. What have you got against that?

Like I said, I was trying to present an opportunity for some of our members who haven't yet to step outside in their skirt. I also wanted to make the point that we have people who are willing to ally themselves with us in getting the acceptance we want. Their banner is the Rainbow flag and their called the Pride/ Diversity Movement.
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

Post by Pdxfashionpioneer »

Have you thought that maybe some think you are trying to pass as a woman, and they are actually trying to NOT play along? Just a thought...


That didn't even occur to me because even I would be able to pick up the sarcastic or hostile undertone that would come along with someone saying such a thing.

I'm sorry, but I have to ask, are you always that paranoid?

Seriously, I'm quite sure you'll enjoy your skirt wearing 100% more if you stop looking for such far-fetched cases of hostility.
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

Post by Pdxfashionpioneer »

Dust said: some of us have principles


Finally, I don't appreciate ONE. LITTLE. BIT your implication that I don't have principles.

Because you clearly don't know me, I'll tell you I'm considered a very principled person. One of my principles is that you stand up for the people who stood up for you.

So, enlighten us, what are these "principles" that you hold so dear that makes you feel they supersede what should be the blindly obvious one that I just articulated?

Just so there's no mistake about it, I'm not angry while I am typing this I'm furious! Who do you think you are to accuse ANYONE you've never even seen or met of lacking principles?
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

Post by rode_kater »

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.
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

Post by moonshadow »

When we ponder what effects the modern LGBTQ movement has had with regards to men who simply wear skirts, I feel it comes down to three simple questions:

Could men freely wear skirts in western culture, largely unharassed prior to 2010?

Why not?

What changed?

Answer key:

No

Because western culture was against it.

LGBTQ awareness spread like a wildfire and made it acceptable.
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

Post by crfriend »

The answer to "unharassed" prior to 2010 is, "Yes". BTDT. Been at it since about 2002 with only a couple of random incidents which were attributable to other things.

The LGBTQWTF movement may have seemed to ease matters, but that's more down to legalism and legislation rather than outright acceptance by the general public. You can legislate behaviour by way of making certain behaviours illegal, but one cannot legislate nor mandate acceptance. That comes at a vastly slower pace, and entirely likely one-to-one interactions between individuals.

Thus, it falls to each and every one of us to carry ourselves with heads held high to assert the plain and obvious fact that we are committing no wrong by way of our style choices, but rather are expressing our innate right -- some would say "divinely granted right" -- to free will. In this way we enter any sort of conversation with an element of power that we would not have if hiding under some random umbrella.

Do I get poked at in fun ever so often? Heck, yes! I enjoy it because it means I can playfully poke back -- and then really warp minds. E.g. "Don't give Pete grief about his Nantucket Red (pink) shorts. I darned near wore a fuschia miniskirt here this evening." -- as they were giving him grief about pink shorts. Hint on this type of banter: those with thin skins need not apply.

"Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." So it is with style choices.
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

Post by Dust »

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.
rode_kater wrote: Wed Aug 05, 2020 10:27 pm 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.
I doubt he knew we exist, and if he did, he probably wouldn't say that we "count" as under the umbrella of LGBT.
rode_kater wrote: Wed Aug 05, 2020 10:27 pm 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.
The "T" part for sure, since many of them use heavy handed opposite sex stereotypes to make the point of how they wish to be treated/addressed.

Others under that absurd umbrella would like to see the binary destroyed entirely. There are a lot of internal divisions, some to the point of wanting to split and separate out the groups. Nasty name calling, etc.

Are people more accepting of us due to a general greater acceptance of weirdness? Maybe. But I don't see hanging our hopes on being counted as part of the broader LGBT thing as a long term help in any way.
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

Post by Dust »

Bikerkilt wrote: Tue Jul 28, 2020 7:45 pm Thank you Dust, I'm just a man that likes to wear skirts.
You're welcome. Join the (incredibly tiny) club!
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

Post by Dust »

Pdxfashionpioneer wrote: Fri Jul 31, 2020 11:12 am Dust wrote:
While I agree that the confines of the standard male wardrobe feel like a straight jacket sometimes, I don't agree that makes any step outside of those confines necessarily makes us "non-binary" by any definition.

Sorry, but it does. All it means is that we do do something, present ourselves in a way that doesn't match the standard societal for a Man. It implies nothing about about your Sexual Identity, clearly you identify as a Male, nor about your Sexual Orientation, clearly you consider yourself to be Heterosexual. Not that it matters but I do as well on both counts.

So what does it take, in your mind, for someone to be "non-binary"? Skinny jeans? Ears pierced? Enjoying a sappy romance? Taking care of yourself and your appearance? None of these things were considered masculine at one time. Now many guys can check one or more of these boxes without being questioned much. It would seem that by your definition, anyone but the perfect stereotypes with no deviation is "queer". And we should all realize that such people don't really exist. They are flat characters in crappy stories and nothing more.
Pdxfashionpioneer wrote: Fri Jul 31, 2020 11:12 am The difference between us seems to be that I accept that how one dresses is a big piece of their Gender Expression and therefore Gender Identity is how they dress.

How one dresses is only a peice of expression, but their identity is how they dress? That to me is absurd on its face. Do we need to discuss the meaning of the word "is"?
Pdxfashionpioneer wrote: Fri Jul 31, 2020 11:12 am Secondly, it is crystal clear that how I dress is different from the societal norm for a cis-gender male so in that sense, I am Nonbinary. Why does that term bother you?

Because I am a person with varied interests and a full personality, more than just a label.
Pdxfashionpioneer wrote: Fri Jul 31, 2020 11:12 am
But some of us don't want to send a message at all. We don't want to be seen as gay or trans. We can be our "genuine selves" no matter what we are wearing. We just want a few more options of what to wear as men.


Did you read the portion of my post that you pulled? I didn't say I was delivering a message; someone else said I might delivering the wrong message and I was asking that person to tell us just what message that might be.

And what makes you think that I want anyone to think I am Gay, Trans-, Bi- or Lesbian for that matter. June was their month. Nonbinary Freedom Day is in July.

That may not be your intention, but it is likely how some people will read your clothing and behavior.

No one but the most aggressive advocates for this stuff know what month has been assigned to what group, or when "non-binary freedom day" is. The guy on one radio station reads off the list of what all things every single day has been assigned as. There is a list every day, for just that one day. Even here where it might be mildly applicable, few had heard of the day you were discussing.
Pdxfashionpioneer wrote: Fri Jul 31, 2020 11:12 am By the way, Nonbinary is why the young people stood the term "Queer" on its head and has rebranded it as the miscellaneous category in the diversity rainbow. That's why it's now LGBTQ+.
Misinterpreting is not hate.


You're right, poor choice of cliche on my part.

If you read the thread I started on "Miss-identification" you'll see that I suggested that we ALL take those situations in stride because unless someone's being hostile in the way they misidentify us, they probably just made an honest mistake.
But once men in skirts are "normalized," doesn't that mean that (by definition) skirts would be part of "normal" menswear, and therefore part of the (now larger) box of what is acceptable male behavior? Wouldn't that mean that men in skirts would then be firmly in the "binary" category, as opposed to your "non-binary" category that you are insisting we are all a part of? That's what I am working towards.


Not exactly. Normalized just means something that people aren't surprised to see anymore because they've seen it before.

Ultimately, what the Pride Movement would like to see is everyone's mind get so overloaded with all of the categories of diversity they say, "Enough already! We get it. Everyone's different and should be accepted and respected as they are and treated equally." Shortly afterwards all of the little dividers and labels for Sexual Identity, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity will get yanked out of the box and the only label we'll be left with is the one outside of the big box that says, "Human Beings."

Is that really the end game? Confuse everyone into submission, then throw it all out?

It seems most of the time that the plan is to push for more and more new groups and further divide everyone up. That is the opposite of getting everyone to just see one another as simply human. In fact, it makes it easier to dehumanize others, the more little groups you balkanize society into.
Pdxfashionpioneer wrote: Fri Jul 31, 2020 11:12 am In the meantime, we're stuck with this alphabet soup and a certain percentage of the population that stigmatizes and marginalizes people who are different. If we're going to put that BS to rest we have to make common cause with the people we can lumped with and stand up together.

Yes we're stuck with alphabet soup. To most, that's all it is. I've read up way too much on it, and I still have trouble communicating with those who ascribe to it. If you claim a part of it, some part of the population will simply write you off as different, with no real interest in trying to follow all the definitions. With so many new terms who can blame them? To most, it's the multitude of new words and definitions that are "BS".
Pdxfashionpioneer wrote: Fri Jul 31, 2020 11:12 am
There are very big differences between drag, transgenderism, crossdressing, and (I would argue) men in skirts.


I don't know about very big differences, but differences for sure. Where did I say otherwise.

You were saying it didn't matter whether the folks who started the LGBT thing were crossdressers, transgender, or drag queens, just that they were male and wearing skirts. Downplaying differences, implys those differences are small.
Pdxfashionpioneer wrote: Fri Jul 31, 2020 11:12 am
I may be mad about it, but I'm not for rioting, and don't want to be seen as associated with people engaging in wanton destruction for any reason.


Nor do I. Where did I say otherwise?

You pointed to the Stonewall Riots. What do you think they were, if they weren't "riots." What do you think a riot is?
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

Post by Pdxfashionpioneer »

Moonshadow, well done! Thank you! You got it!

Carl, I doubt there's a truly diplomatic way to say this so please don't be offended; but, you computer people live in a bubble that's far removed from the existence of the rest of us, except of course the members of the 1%. I don't mean that in any way, shape or form as being critical, but your skills were so rare and so impactful that you were more or less allowed to write your own rules of behavior. The rest of us poor schnooks had to toe the line because our skills were in sufficient supply that if we wouldn't conform, there seemed to be plenty of other people who could replace us.

Thanks to all of the discussion about diversity, in all of the senses of the term, more and businesses are operating according to the slogan that one of the major corporations used as a tagline in all of their ads, "People are our most valuable assets." Indeed they are, always have been and always will be. Unfortunately, the titans of business have a bad habit of forgetting that from time to time and therefore don't appropriately respect and value individuality. What I'm saying is that Moonshadow is right; it wasn't until some time around 2010 that Business/Corporate America started to regain that appreciation and in the meantime almost universally expected their employees to look and act identical and therefore easily replaceable cogs in their money-making machines.

I know this to be true because, as I think I've said before, from 1986 until about 2006, I was an active, out in the public crossdresser. By out in the public, I mean I even took a popular columnist for Portland's daily newspaper -- this was back when most people actually read those tree-killers -- under my nomme de femme to task for holding up crossdressers as objects of derision. Apparently, word of my doing that spread throughout the West Coast crossdressing community. Why not? I figured that as good as my presentation was and even with my size advantage (I'm a slender 5' 5"), given enough time around me I'd get read by all but the most oblivious. However, I wouldn't be recognized.

For all that acceptance, the one time I showed up at a meeting of my crossdressers group as a male in a white shirt, tie and skirted suit, I was openly made fun of. Not just kidded, made fun of. Mind you, I had belonged to that group from the very beginning of that period in my life and this was near the end of my crossdressing days. These were crossdressers, some of whom had known me for 20 years, looked up to me as one of the leaders of the group and as one of the more passable members, and they had no tolerance for my presenting myself as a man in a skirt! The one or two times I went out in public in a full-length skirt that was styled after a pair of khakis, complete with a full complement of pockets, things didn't go any better. No one said anything to me, but behind my back I was told that I was darn lucky that looks don't kill.

So Carl, my personal experience refutes your assertion that not much has changed since 2006; it's a whole new world! A change in the law, all by itself, won't change many hearts, but it does make easier for people who only have the average amount of juice to come out of the shadows and to create those person-to-person connections you mentioned in your post.

I feel I need to wrap this up before I get timed-out but not before I make one last point.

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.
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

Post by rode_kater »

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.
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.

Also, thank you all for a phrase I'd not heard before I came to this forum: fashion freedom. That's what I want!

PS. it was a trans-woman, but they promised not to get angry if they were misgenderd.
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