The term "men in dresses"

If the vicar had claimed to be a bishop in bishops robes, the response "you are a vicar in a skirt" would be a factual correction.
A false claim made would need to be refuted.

If no false claim is made, no such refutation is required.

A vicar is a vicar
A skirt is a skirt
A man is a man
A dress is a dress

None require much comment unless there is some sort of false claim being made?

And Bernice.

Being female doesn’t make a vicar any less able to be a vicar, so ‘vicars in skirts’ is purely undermining and sexist.

Male privilege and socialisation means that biological males will never actually understand what it means to be a woman. The idea that a biological male can claim to be a woman and tall over natal woman on that basis is offensive in the extreme, particularly when ‘speaking for women’ basically means telling women to STFU.

I think the OP's was entirely civil and non-provocative.

Do you speak for all the feminist-excluders, nonplussed? Or just yourself and the OP?

(That's an accurate, civil and non-provocative term to use about you, right?)

Just don't ask her what she had for breakfast.

Yes I realise that. But leaving out the word would have been rather confusing, don't you think? Well done for missing the point though. I would never have guessed what you were up to.

Just ask Geraldine!

Female vicars are actually vicars.

I think the OP's was entirely civil and non-provocative.

A well-known (now disgraced) pastor with strong views on women in leadership used to refer to female vicars as 'vicars in skirts'. It was obvious what he was doing but he got away with it because strictly speaking he was being factual.

Disingenuous bullshit.

in cultures where men wear garments that are what we would call skirts or dresses or other non-trouser type garments, what do they wear when they identify as trans?

The obvious answer is 'whatever the women wear' but the probably more truthful answer is that very few of them do identify as trans

I can see the way things are going, we are going to have to say non-trousers.

Does this mean that we non-men will (sometimes) be wearing non-non-trousers?

Genuine question: in cultures where men wear garments that are what we would call skirts or dresses or other non-trouser type garments, what do they wear when they identify as trans?

I agree.

Plus, it would have been helpful to have a warning on the breakfast posts rather than to delete them.

Poor show, @MNHQ.

The OP may well have a long posting history, @HopeMumsnet, but this is the second goady thread I've seen from them in as many days and they certainly aren't interested in debate as evidenced by their attempt to silence me in another thread, and the fact that they haven't returned.

Yes I agree. They may post on other issues in good faith but I disagree that they do on this one.

A site-specific Google search

I didn't think of that. I tried the MN search options (which were horrible).

Reminder of Lang's very informative post from upthread:

A site-specific Google search for the term "men in dresses" on Mumsnet returns 47 results. 2 of those are for this thread. 1 is an image panel of screenshots. 10 are not from the feminist board.

So for all the many months and years of postings, the hundreds upon hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of posts, women on FWR have discussed "men in dresses" 34 times.

34 times.

^https//www.google.co.uk/search?q=site%3Awww.mumsnet.com+"men+in+dresses^

Men may wear dresses for all sorts of reasons - someone's posted a picture of Kurt Cobain looking very dashing in one, there were also the brickies this summer who wore them to make a political point when shorts were banned on their building site in the middle of a heatwave, maybe they like the swishy feeling, maybe they like the feeling of "transgressing" boundaries. Who cares? It's a free country. Crack on and do it if you want to. I'm a woman and I wear trousers most of the time.

Thing is, whereas the phrase has been used on Mumsnet, it rarely has been used in the derogatory way that the OP suggests. That's what I find goady about the OP - it's one of those (I realise this is a shocking example) 'How often do you beat your wife' questions.

'Men in dresses' is no more derogatory than 'women in trousers'.

If it is more derogatory, it is worth contemplating why. answer misogyny

“Henceforth all clothing should be referred to as fabric.

Leg fabric or arm fabric to distinguish.”

Bottom fabric or top fabric?

I personally quite enjoy these threads due to the randomness of the replies.

I know. I always imagine posters to be like cats with 'the red dot' - cannot ignore, no matter how futile.

I would dearly love a thread like this to have no takers whatsoever. None.

But it's impossible to impose.

Good girl ignoring: not engaging or posting, hence being nice, being quiet, ceding the space

Nope - sending the thread into oblivion and not giving the OP the pleasure of having riled us and sapped our energy.

Bad girl ignoring: refusing to engage and chatting about something harmless and irrelevant like breakfast.

Good girl ignoring: not engaging or posting, hence being nice, being quiet, ceding the space.

Ooh what's the word for that again....? Tip of my tongue. Something around women's rights.

The OP may well have a long posting history, @HopeMumsnet, but this is the second goady thread I've seen from them in as many days and they certainly aren't interested in debate as evidenced by their attempt to silence me in another thread, and the fact that they haven't returned.

So I think you've called this one wrong.

Take Eddie Izzard and Grayson Perry. They are men who wear dresses sometimes. Because they like them. Because dresses are great. But they are not women and they don't claim to be women. They are men in dresses

Eddie Izzard decided to jump on the bandwagon and claimed he's always been trans and is now a trans woman. Wonder if it had anything to do with him wanting a piece of political pie?