A manly confession

[Barleymower]

We are not so strange.

Screenshot_20260131_144257_Facebook~2.jpg

Life magazine, February 1916

[Mouse]

The main point is in the first sentence. It takes strength to dress as we please and make our own path with our own fashion.

The man that waits for mens fashion to encompass skirts, will never wear skirts and enjoy the freedom it brings.

[crfriend]

The motto of the National Archives in the United States is, "Past as Prelude". It's an astonishingly accurate statement -- and one that's pretty much invariant over time.

So, yes, we had brethren then, and that piece reads like some of it may have been lifted from the manifesto of the Rational Dress Movement.

My, my... The more things change the more they remain the same. Imagine that.

Unfortunately, these loops and eddies happen on generational scales and thus are invisible to the modern 15-second attention span. One must read history to pick up the signal (although in some fields, like computers, the churn is quite rapid indeed and I've seen computer architects and designers repeat themselves a few times over now, much to my amusement).

We forget (or ignore) history at our peril.

Mouse nails it well.

[JohnH]

What we have now is the Great Female Renunciation where clothing typically worn by women is now drab, which follows the Great Male Renunciation which started around 1750. It seems women have decided to wear clothing traditionally worn by men, e.g., trousers.
So I have rebelled against the whole matter by wearing dresses almost exclusively. There are PLENTY of times when I'm the only one wearing a dress, such as when I am walking in a nearby park.
Interestingly enough I am always treated with respect with my dress wearing.

John

[Barleymower]

The main point is in the first sentence. It takes strength to dress as we please and make our own path with our own fashion.

The man that waits for mens fashion to encompass skirts, will never wear skirts and enjoy the freedom it brings.

There's another important point that gives us all hope for change. That is men want this and they hate their drab wardrobe and yes it just takes courage.

[crfriend]

There's another important point that gives us all hope for change. That is men want this and they hate their drab wardrobe and yes it just takes courage.

The problem is that it's always been a tiny minority that gets ignored -- and that is NOT going to change any time soon.

It was ignored in the 19-teens and is reviled now thanks to the toxic societal climate.

I see no cause or reason for hope.

[Mouse]

I see no cause or reason for hope.

Mrs Mouse has close family living in Minneapolis, who she speaks with daily. Apart from offering room in our house for them to come and stay, there is little I can say to comfort a fearful Mrs Mouse for her family......

However in the UK we have a window of opportunity. The current social climate after the gay, trans, equality, religious freedom laws on top of the UK general acceptance for eccentric guys and normal fashion freedoms, allows a Mouse to live and work in a range of skirts without any problems from the state or general public. See viewtopic.php?p=275192#p275192 from last weekend, including a picture of Mouse outside the Houses Parliament and two MIS sitting for hours in a pub, just up the street from the Prime minister's house in Downing Street.

This may change if the more conservative views of some people coming to the UK prevail into goverment, but for now, this is a great time to go out in a skirt as long as you are confident and not creepy.

[crfriend]

Mrs Mouse has close family living in Minneapolis, who she speaks with daily. Apart from offering room in our house for them to come and stay, there is little I can say to comfort a fearful Mrs Mouse for her family......

There's nothing like having family in the thick of the matter to change one's perspective. It's one thing to be belligerent from the safety of one's arm-chair, but something else altogether to actually have flesh and blood involved in the action. This is something that the right-wing would-be-warriors do not, and cannot, understand.

However in the UK we have a window of opportunity.

This is encouraging, but it's rather cold comfort to those of trapped in backwards nations. It sounds like you're 50 to 70 years ahead of where I live. Here, it's still Joe McCarthy's 1950s.

Please wish Mrs. Mouse and her family the best from me.

[SatinDea]

I’m still amazed that Mouse and I were able to sit in the pub , as he says for a few hours, both of us wearing skirts and other non male clothing and I felt really relaxed . The same can be said for our visit to the Galleries. I sat and sketched in a my skirt. I was photographed by a Chinese girl whilst I sketched, But I’m used to that. I just had a problem with this a new experience getting the right sizes for my clothes and some needed adjusting now and then , but hopefully I will get used to wearing the clothing in public for long periods.

[crfriend]

\I just had a problem with this a new experience getting the right sizes for my clothes and some needed adjusting now and then , but hopefully I will get used to wearing the clothing in public for long periods.

That's a problem for most first-time skirt-wearers as the sensations of it are entirely alien to what we were forced to grow up with, So it all sets up a lot of cognitive dissonance as we try to process what we're feeling when we observe the world around us. Don't worry, that will pass with time.

Persist and be patient. The feelings will go.

[Mouse]

Please wish Mrs. Mouse and her family the best from me.

Mrs Mouse thanks you.

[Barleymower]

There's another important point that gives us all hope for change. That is men want this and they hate their drab wardrobe and yes it just takes courage.

The problem is that it's always been a tiny minority that gets ignored -- and that is NOT going to change any time soon.

It was ignored in the 19-teens and is reviled now thanks to the toxic societal climate.

I see no cause or reason for hope.

We are lucky here in the UK, we not experiencing the same problems as you are.
Rather than saying "no cause or reason for hope", I would say this:
Men everywhere want this, they have wanted it for 100 years. Times are changing and when the tipping point is reached there will be unstoppable change.

[crfriend]

Men everywhere want this, they have wanted it for 100 years. Times are changing and when the tipping point is reached there will be unstoppable change.

That is technically more accurate than my statement, but my statement needs to be understood that it takes into account the social climate in the location where an individual dwells. It's just possible that folks in Europe may actually see this come to pass in the current lifetime (barring anything apocalyptic).

I wish you guys luck -- I really do. It just can't happen in this bastion of incivility until conditions change dramatically. And there is one heck of a lot that can go horribly wrong at the moment -- for all of us.

[Faldaguy]

As I read through these comments it took me back and I realized I did something a bit different in my 'confession' to family. As noted on this site, I did not really "find" skirts until after I was married and had kid in tow too -- but as we were not living with immediate family my early days of being more public came without family being aware. It was not that I was hiding, but they simply were not there. I had the usual qualms about the first times I'd show up with parents or siblings -- so I wrote to them before my first skirted visit; announcing that I had taken to wearing skirts, some of the reasons, and that I did not want to startle them; hear complaints about roles as they were only garments no signifiers of anything else.

I wish I had those letters now, but they were probably a rather simple and incomplete version of what we see in comments on SC -- but, it "worked" in the sense that I never got much negative pushback. My mother, still to this day, will tell me that's "an ugly skirt" mostly in reference to my choice of style or color and I have a brother who clearly does not think it is 'cool' but knows better than to take me on such subjects: BUT, I wonder if my relatively easy acceptance into the family as a MIS was not vastly improved by my initial written announcement and explanation? Perhaps it a technique some here might give a test, to see if it would ease initial fears.

[FLbreezy]

BUT, I wonder if my relatively easy acceptance into the family as a MIS was not vastly improved by my initial written announcement and explanation? Perhaps it a technique some here might give a test, to see if it would ease initial fears.

I think that is a good observation. People do not always react as you would like when confronted with something new or surprising, and they may jump to conclusions about your motivations that are incorrect. How nice to get that out of the way in a non-confrontational manner!

I remember texting my adult daughter a photo of myself in a kilt and saying something like "Why have women been keeping this kind of thing for themselves all these years? They're so damn comfortable to wear!" and that kind of set the tone of my experience to anyone who wondered about my motivations. My family knows my life-long battle with clothing, even as a kid I hated to be confined thusly, so my joy at finding something that actually felt good to wear was very understandable to them.