Girls with short hair being labelled as trans

I have had short hair since young childhood, a 1970s Bob type..in the late 70s I desperately wanted a 'Servalan' from Blakes 7 cut but no chance of it.. it wouldn't have suited me anyway I had it cut as short as DM would allow me as an early teenager. I am mid 50s still with short hair..
I look around and see identikit teens..

I think there is also a subdivision, typified by the Becky vs Stacy incel trope ( www.vox.com/2018/4/28/17290256/incel-chad-stacy-becky ) that actually maps pretty well to class privilege and educational attainment

My mum has a few ild family photos from early 1900s. Baby & toddler boys all in dresses!

Interesting how things change - my own grandmother reportedly cried when my dad's lovely curls were cut when he was 5 - in 1910

Actually, as the queen learned her way around a truck during the war and once drove a member of the Saudi royal family around Balmoral, she probably is a bloke.

Ain’t stereotypes great

This thread made me think about the huge bows & flowers people literally glue to their infant daughters’ heads to ensure nobody thinks their child with “insufficient” hair is a boy. It seems to be waning as a trend now, but it’s pretty awful that people feel so obliged to label their children up.

That brought me to thinking of the long tradition of quasi gender-neutral (albeit for utterly unfeminist reasons) babyhood in the UK that only ended relatively (in the scheme of things) recently (gendering of childhood experiences as opposed to babyhood being separate, to be clear).

Thus I am now wondering how Winston Churchill’s wearing dresses until he was a toddler (the attached portrait is dated c1878 & he was born on 30/11/1874) - & having darling ringlets ditto - would be understood by TRAs. And indeed how they’d explain the lack of a large population of [would-be] trans girls throughout the period “breeching” was a thing. Because they’d be visible in the historical record: women’s diaries; some of the clergy diaries (if you think God kills your son because you play too much chess, you’d mention a son wanting to cross-dress); & crucially, all the many & varied archival holdings relating to former asylums - because that’s where a boy who didn’t desist sharpish would have ended up. Yet there they are not, as it were.

Currently gender stereotyping is getting more and more extreme, depressingly so! Seems to start in pregnacy now that knowing the sex long before birth is the nom( though how that fits in with gender ideology is a whole other thread 🙄).

Newborns now come into the world to a full wardrobe of gendered clothing and suitably decorated nursery, pram and toys etc. 30yrs ago babies were much more gender neutral. Pink or blue prams were just becoming available when mine were babies, they're late teens now. A lot of that hs driven by capitalism. If you have all blue for baby boy number 1 and number 2 is a girl then a lot of new stuff will be bought! This gendered world is making fortunes for big business!

This is a really depressing thread.

When I was at secondary in the 70s my boyfriend's hair was probably longer than mine. I had (what I thought was) an incredibly cool Purdy cut.

Also women of my mum and granny's generation mainly had short hair. I remember them going to the hairdresser for a shampoo and set. They even had blue and pink rinses!

Gender stereotypes are definitely becoming more and more restrictive and I keep wondering when the younger generation are going to realise this.

Obviously, it's not a good thing in either case that girls need to have to think about their hair length so much, but the problem isn't trans kids, it's misogyny and a sense of ownership over women's bodies that ties their worth to their femininity which is tied to the length of their hair.

I think we should assume nothing. My dc uses a male name with her friends but interestingly not when she introduces herself to strangers. She is 18 so she can call herself what she likes but doesn't. Ditto a legal change of name. There is absolutely no way she would enter a male toilet, she would be scared of an attack. It would be hard to see her as a man, she is too feminine. Small hands & features. I actually think she was groomed over the Internet. Her obsession with 'Miles' ruled her life. She no longer spends hours on the Internet and her hair still changes like the weather. She is a lovely kind person but she put up with so much shite from her own peers.

Short hair (as in cropped) was always a big statement though, at least since the mid 80s when I had it. I would get quite a lot of comments and, you were either prepared to live with that or not. In my case I quite liked being different and standing out, but I get it's not for everyone.

@Sittinginthesand, I understand where you're coming from but I doubt, unless you know of any, that there are really more girls avoiding short hair in case they're thought of as trans than there were girls in my day who quite fancied short hair, but avoided it because they didn't want comments about 'Are you a boy? Are you lesbian'?

Is this happening? That’s so bad

It seems like there is a lot of pressure not to conform to gender stereotypes (like the let toys be toys campaign), and yet as soon as someone does deviate from a gender stereotype, off to the gender identity clinic they must go.

Let children be children.

@MargaritaPie

The giant pink elephant in that article is that TRAs are the ones who have created the situation that Ms Stonborough is complaining of.

The argument that transwomen have been using women's toilets unchallenged for decades is probably true. Not because they "passed" or that women didn't notice but because, for a variety of reasons (not least a fear of confrontation), women chose to turn a blind eye. Underpinning that was the assumption of good faith, that the TW really did "just want to pee" so were tolerated, possibly with a degree of pity for the poor, confused man.

So what changed?

Quite simply, good faith can no longer be assumed. The aggressiveness of TRAs and the growing number of violent and sexual offenders identifying as trans has seen to that. Women can't afford NOT to challenge someone who may be entering their space in BAD faith. That is unfortunate for women like Ms Stonborough but such vigilance protects not just her but her female friends and loved ones too.

You sound like the sort of person who used to sneer at me in the late 70s and early 80s.

You're right and it's so sad. I've never known sexist stereotypes to be pushed so hard.

The OP originally asked why do girls with short hair get labelled as trans? I think there is little individuality. And too many people who have opinion on how others present themselves. There is another thread today were a lady was denied a job for having a ponytail, a man accused of looking like a BNP supporter for having a shaved head (really? Perhaps he lost his hair through illnessor didn't fancy a Rab C Nesbit!)
A young girl fancies a short cut and the next thing you know they are supposed to be singing 'I am what I am'. I know when I complained about the bullying my daughter suffered the depty head winked at me and and said if these bigots think a girls school is a hotbed of heterosexuals they are barking up the wrong tree! A lovely person with a lady wife!

Is it just the style of the time more than fear of being labelled trans the reason that women /girls have long hair? Yes, majority of girls have long straightened hair nowadays wheras in the 80s we all mostly had short hair. Fashions change. I loved my short hair. I last had short hair in about 1995 and when I had short hair people used to make lovely comments like I looked like a model. Far from being seen as boyish. Didn't get that with longer hair. I also had no hair followed by extremely short hair in 2011 when I lost it due to chemo. That was too short and not a choice so I've kept it long ever since. I would however one day like it in a short style again. I actually think short hair is very feminine and I would only think trans etc if a woman had hair cut in a traditionally male style.

I’m surprised by these comments. I thought all young people these days liked to think of themselves as inclusive and tolerant, so why are people being asked if they are trans and given a hard time if they don’t fit the stereotypes? Seems they are not as tolerant as they like to portray.

I wish we could just do away with gender altogether. While I believe your sex is mostly fixed, you should be able to express yourself however you want.

Tangentially related, but I was wondering what proportion of nb girls still shave their legs and armpits? I can imagine that even some nbs probably still feel social disapproval if they don't conform to certain beauty standards.

[quote Goatsaregreat]This Eloise Stonborough who works for Stonewall (no agenda there) Pie?

www.seh.ox.ac.uk/people/eloise-stonborough[/quote]
Ah, good work. That clarifies it a bit.