Gender Identity

[STEVIE]

Clothes and gender identity should not be linked. How do we best discuss this. Win hearts and minds?

Be out, about, loud and proud.
Smile chat communicate be sociable.
It won't ever be the seismic shift everyone seems to expect just a gentle erosion.
Patience BM, PATIENCE!
Steve.

[crfriend]

Bringing this post back to the topic of gender identity. Clothes and gender identity should not be linked. How do we best discuss this. Win hearts and minds?

I agree completely that the two should NOT linked, and thus we can discard the notion outright.

To the last point, it'll be minds first as those are more adaptive and malleable than hearts; hearts are where faith dwells, and that is a pitfall that we all need to be aware of -- especially with our significant others. Much of the time this is not a rational (i.e. concerning the mind) conversation even if we think it is; usually it's belief and emotion that rule our SOs. (That's one of the typical dichotomies between men and women, pointing up that "gender identity" plays a major role in psychology.)

[Grok]

"...clothes and gender identity should not be linked."

Indeed, ones body (physical anatomy) and gender identity are not necessarily correlated either. The Trans thing....

Sexual orientation is another example of something that isn't necessarily correlated with one's anatomy.

According to some other attributes aren't necessarily correlated with one' anatomy. Consider the genderbread person.

[Grok]

Scroll down to the Gender Unicorn.

[Barleymower]

Clothes and gender identity should not be linked. How do we best discuss this. Win hearts and minds?

Be out, about, loud and proud.
Smile chat communicate be sociable.
It won't ever be the seismic shift everyone seems to expect just a gentle erosion.
Patience BM, PATIENCE!
Steve.

That is the way to go on a personal level but we are up against some determined opposition.

[crfriend]

That is the way to go on a personal level but we are up against some determined opposition.

Indeed, but that "determined opposition" has no credible leadership save for outmoded ideas. The trick is to impact enough people and show them that not only guys wear skirts, they can wear them as men and can be good men whilst doing so. That way, when they come up against somebody spouting off on the matter can contemplate us and question the "conventional wisdom".

If that sounds like a rear-guard action, that's because it is very much one. Face it, our societies are coming apart around us; what folks are wearing is vastly less important than the basic needs of food and financial security and domestic tranquillity -- all of which are rapidly being stolen from us.

[Barleymower]

That is the way to go on a personal level but we are up against some determined opposition.

Indeed, but that "determined opposition" has no credible leadership save for outmoded ideas. The trick is to impact enough people and show them that not only guys wear skirts, they can wear them as men and can be good men whilst doing so. That way, when they come up against somebody spouting off on the matter can contemplate us and question the "conventional wisdom".

If that sounds like a rear-guard action, that's because it is very much one. Face it, our societies are coming apart around us; what folks are wearing is vastly less important than the basic needs of food and financial security and domestic tranquillity -- all of which are rapidly being stolen from us.

It does look like our society is coming apart at the seems. It's not the first time though and society survived it eg Boar War, WW1, WW2. All the way back to the Black Death and we are still here.

Yes everything is being stolen from us but this is still important to us, important to me. In the same way as lies are now truth in the media, I think the erosion of men can continue by telling them if they don't comply it is unmanly. At least I'm free of that, I would like others to experience that freedom.

[Myopic Bookworm]

I am conscious that clothes sometimes are deeply involved with gender identity. My young non-binary friend is committed to wearing trousers (indeed, dressing altogether like a boy), but I feel that this should be seen as an issue of gender identity, in the proper sense of the word gender, and not what is misleadingly called "trans" identity (by people who say "transgender" when they mean "transsexual"). I'm not an expert, but I think that what they are feeling is not "gender dysphoria" (which is actually sex-assignment dysphoria), but alienation from gender stereotyping, which is also strongly heteronormative: if you are a girl, you are supposed to wear skirts and be attracted to boys, so a girl who likes wearing trousers and is interested in girls naturally feels a disjunction between actual life experience and social expectation. I hope that they are confident enough to plough on towards adulthood just being themself, and that they are allowed to be so.

When I wear a skirt, grow my hair, and paint my nails, I am, in terms of social expectation, being somewhat "transgender", but I am definitely not transsexual: I identify as male but nonconformist. To paraphrase our friend Jeff: I don't want to look like a woman (and unlike hardcore cross-dressers, I don't want to be mistaken for a woman), but I want the freedom to wear what I like, and be male without pressure to be "masculine".

(As an aside: our family likes to watch a popular zany comedy game show on TV, and in the series we are catching up on, one of the minor showbiz contestants is (AFAB) non-binary. It's not exactly the mainstream, but it's interesting to see how smoothly the use of singular "they" can insinuate itself into ordinary language, rather as openly gay performers have now become effectively normalized in the last couple of decades.)

[Grok]

alienation from gender stereotyping, which is also strongly heteronormative:

When I w but I want the freedom to wear what I like, and be male without pressure to be "masculine".

(As an aside: our family likes to watch a popular zany comedy game show on TV, and in the series we are catching up on, one of the minor showbiz contestants is (AFAB) non-binary. I

AFAB-Assigned Female At Birth.

Yes, because versatility/freedom of movement is coffin sized for males, there is much cause for alienation by gender stereotyping.

[Coder]

Yes, because versatility/freedom of movement is coffin sized for males, there is much cause for alienation by gender stereotyping.

Not just coffin-sized, but moving outside of our given coffin is assigned less-than ideal ulterior motives - or as my sister put it so eloquently tonight - "a kink".

[Grok]

In many regards, my personal mission really doesn't align with the core values of Skirt Cafe and I acknowledge this. I almost don't fit in, and I understand why. Much like Elvis, too much of this to be that and too much of that to be this... such is the dilemma of the enby... we don't really seem to fit in anywhere. But frankly, I just consider so many of you friends and I have so much respect for everyone here. The internet has turned into such a sewer, it's so nice to have somewhere to turn with sensible and intelligent discussions I can participate in.

The core mission could be somewhat broadened. To promote skirt wearing by male bodied individuals. That would include both Cis-gendered and Enbys.