Barleymower wrote: ↑Thu Jun 29, 2023 2:42 pmI also don't underestimate the value of just going out there. Done in the right way it gains the confidence of the crowd. They need to know that nothing awful is going to happen.
The key is to act perfectly normal even if your clothing may look a bit "odd" to casual onlookers. The important thing to know is that you are
doing nothing wrong, but merely exercising a style choice. Heck, I was out yesterday afternoon for dinner in my fuschia mini, a purple dress shirt, a black waistcoat (pdp11 colours!), black just-below-the-knee socks, and flats -- and received no guff whatsoever.
The reason I think we should do more is because advancing MIS is painfully slow. LGBT+ is going through a tough time with fundamentalists. We are the sanity between worlds with no axe to grind.
Well, one of the problems here is that "Men In Skirts" are so vanishingly thin on the ground that it's likely few folks have ever even seen -- much less interacted with -- one. This means there's still a substantial hill to climb.
To the second point, we're now beginning to see the start of the backlash against the trans-* types because most people have tired of the antics, the shrillness, and the constant "in your face" attitude. Now, more than ever, we need to distance style choices from even a whiff of anything sexual. This is a big hill to take, as well because lots of the trans-* types use clothes as a signifier that they're not like "normal folks", and that notion has stuck in the craw of the general public. The backlash is not going to go away any time soon, and is likely to get worse not better, potentially endangering the entirely innocent bloke in a skirt.
I'm willing to play that notion of sanity, but think that distance is wise lest people get the wrong idea.