Could someone genuinely please explain this to me...

Drag doesn't bother me. I have known loads of drag artists over the years and spent lots of time in gay pubs that have drag. But... none of the drag artists demanded access to the ladies loo, or demanded access to women's sport or demanded that we change our language to exclude ourselves. And that is the difference between drag artists and TRAs.

Should be that he argued that NOT all examples were the same. Geez.

Just to be clear, although I think this and other elements of id politics are damaging and incoherent, not a lot of people will stick their neck out over this issue, it's become so fraught and emotionally charged. A prof at my local university last year wrote a book where he argued that all examples of people impersonating a member of another race were the same and context makes a difference, and he was denounced widely and in the end IIRC by the university itself.

As far as drag mocking women, a lot does. But I've generally felt that really, it's a comedy or art form that is really very much directed to gay men, and needs to be understood as playing with or even subverting gender norms and changing their meaning, more than it's really talking about women as women. It's always seemed weird to me that it's become something directed to a wider audience. And a lot of it is just bad, like bad comedy.

I had been thinking about the dressing up as a woman thing recently because I hate drag, and have always been uncomfortable with it and could never put my finger on why. Reading posts here from other people helped me put it straight in my head as to why I don't like it. It the sneering attitude and the exaggerated bitchiness and the innuendo.

Yet I don't always find it offensive when men dress as women for comedy purposes, like eg in The Life of Brian. Then that made me wonder if I'm just basing my dislike on personal taste, and am I being a hypocrite? But I'm not sure. I don't even find Mrs Brown's Boys offensive, even though it's just about the least funny thing I've ever laid eyes on. For me it's really just drag that I hate as it's entire reason for existence seems to be to mock women.

@Goosefoot - thanks for your very considered response. I was slightly apprehensive about confessing not to understand the point that's being made - I feel a bit better now I've not immediately been lambasted 😅 I've seen loads of celebrities recently apologising for blacking up many, many years ago and quite often it seems like an unproblematic performance. The apology feels trite and I doubt many can explain why it's actually wrong. I don't want to be uninformed or ignorant, but I can't see the issue.

And absolutely, your last point is critical - it's the content of the performance which determines whether it's OK.

I question my own judgement because I don't take offence at a lot. I often describe myself as a bad feminist for that reason 😳😅 It's only fairly recently I've started to find my feet in this arena and discovered that actually I do have quite the passion for certain issues! But given my natural inclination, I was just wondering really if it was just me being short-sighted and missing a clear issue.

It's a function of identity politics, it doesn't make a lot of sense outside of that perspective. Otherwise an actor changing their appearance would be like any other instance where they do that, or play someone of a different nationality, or sexuality, or ethnicity, etc. All of which are increasingly debated by id politics adherents. Even Samuel Jackson saying that black British actors shouldn't play black American roles as their historical background is different.

I see people dressing up as the other sex in a performance context as non-problematic. It's content of the performance that can be questionable.

I know this misses your point, but the whole "blacking up" thing non-plusses me a bit.

Obviously the history of blackface is awful, and there's no condoning that.

But say, just as an example, there's a comedian and they want to do an impression of a famous black person. Let's use Rory Bremner as an example, incredible impressionist that does the voices of loads of people. If it were Boris Johnson, he's put on a floppy blonde wig. But say he wanted to do an impression of David Lammy, a prominent black MP, why would it be wrong to darken his skin?

From what I understand, the issue with blackface was that white folk "blacked up" to mock and poke fun at black people, purely due to their skin colour. It was a vile practice, unquestionably. But that isn't what's happening now - in the example above, it's just a person who's attempting to more closely resemble someone else in order to do the impression. If the impression is OK (which it is as impressionists lampoon everyone), why can't you alter your appearance to look more like the person you're impersonating?

Genuinely not trying to be an arsehole. And I"m not a racist shithead either - hence asking the question. I want to understand why it's racist because I can't figure it out. If a comedian blacked up to mock black people in general, I'd get it. But when you're just altering your appearance to look like a specific person, I don't understand the issue. I'm obviously just really thick. I promise I'm not a Farage/UKIP/Tommy Robinson moron 😅

And yes, I'm with you on the rest re gender. I support trans folk and 100% believe they should have the right to express their gender how they want, and agree they absolutely need protection - but I don't agree they share my identity as a woman, nor should they have the right to access single-sex spaces.

Biological sex is down to whether you have XX or XY chromosomes at conception and thereafter. Gender is only a social idea, based on how many stereotypes people happen to conform to. It isn't scientific or biological.

If blackface and cultural appropriation are wrong and offensive, then so are womanface and the appropriation of womanhood.

people of one gender choosing to wear the clothes, behave, and live their lives as another gender is ok?

It's because of the (deliberate) confusion between sex and gender. There's nothing inherently wrong with wearing whatever clothes you want -fashions are cultural, a style which a western man would find 'feminine' might be normal Male attire elsewhere. And what does it mean to 'behave as another gender'? Women don't, and shouldn't, all behave in some particular way and men in another.

But 'live their lives"... as a different sex - there's the thing. Humans are dimorphic. Men are generally bigger, stronger but completely crap at having babies. This has resulted in women being treated as the 'second sex' - disadvantaged because of sex - with imposed gender norms often being part of the oppression.

By all means males can be as 'feminine' as they wish - but that does not make them women. Woman is not a costume.

Preaching to the choir here!

As long as genitals are covered, I dont give a monkeys what people wear. But putting on a dress and claiming that makes you a woman is just offensive.

Hi welcome, and you won't get much disagreement on this board.