“It reiterates the stereotype [trans] is a costume” - Mrs Doubtfire and Seattle Times

So, a male presenting as a mockery of a woman in 'woman face' is not the problem for some people. What seems to upset those people is if someone imitates the male who is imitating a woman. You can dis women all you like, apparently. Misogyny fine.

So, if we continue that line of thinking, the corresponding problem for Justin Trudeau in his 'black face' would be having been offensive to the minstrels.

The contributor who was labelled (for want of a better word) “intersex” is a trans woman. Who has blogged extensively about transitioning & who’s written about trans issues for/on Medium.

I can’t see the VA having forked out for a chromosome analysis in the last year so am left with the hugely uncomfortable conclusion they’re unlikely to be being honest about this. That said, there is a possibility they’ve genuinely been confused/misled by the “1.7% of people are intersex” lie & are making the statement in good faith, fully believing that if they could access testing it would confirm they have a DSD.

None of the contributors were going to be able to say the show’s fine so I’m impressed they got as much positive feedback as they did. Person who wrote the article clearly wasn’t so impressed - how annoying for them that there was some nuance instead of a universal call to rally the pitchforks + flaming torches mob.

Yes, drag is transphobic. It's not misogynistic at all though.

It's funny you bring this up. My friend is a drag queen and he's actually been accused of transphobia a lot because of this so yes. Many of them consider drag to be transphobic.

Love Mrs Doubtfire, deffo one for the kids!
we have drag but Mrs D isn’t okay? Please.

Male characters dress as women for deceitful reasons/ personal gain- that must feel uncomfortable

But also very real? Men who 'dress as women' are always doing it for personal gain though the specific gain varies. Pretending to be a woman, and entering female spaces as a result, is never OK and is always an act of aggression IMHO. Men putting on a dress and saying 'I'm a man in a dress' is fine and quite different.

Anyone who thinks Mrs Doubtfire is trans is just showing themselves up to be very, very, very, very stupid.

Mrs Doubtfire certainly isn’t trans- but I can understand it being a sore point (and throwing up insecurities) for trans people because it plays for laughs the idea of a man dressed as a woman. Which deep down may be an anxiety for some transwomen.

which (as has been noted pt a previous poster) makes drag very questionable- every Lily Savage, Danny La Rue (remember him?) every stag do where blokes dress up as women- it’s probably as much a sore point to transwomen (there is much less comparable for transmen) as it is for feminists.

i dont really know how- if you’re trans- you can separate out drag queens (men dressed as women for entertainment purposes) from films like Mrs Doubtfire and Tootsie.

When you look at trans representation in mainstream movies over the years there’s a lot of problematic ideas (trans characters often portrayed as dangerous, deceitful, murderous, deep mental health issues etc) I can understand and sympathise up to a point. Male characters dress as women for deceitful reasons/ personal gain- that must feel uncomfortable. But characters portraying themselves as something they are not is a standard dramatic device.

digging into all this would probably make an interesting article in the right hands, but I don’t think this is the right criticism of Doubtfire (of which I’m not a fan)

It reiterates the stereotype that this is a costume that you get to just put on and take off, instead of bringing to light that this is our lives.

Neither is womanhood.

The author has the same comprehension difficulties that most TRAs have.

I agree that the author has comprehension issues and just didn’t understand the plot of mrs doubtfire.

It’s about a man who dresses up as a woman to manipulate it a situation to get what she wants.

So unless the author thinks that’s what being a trans woman is, they’ve managed to miss the point. Spectacularly.

Why would anyone in the trans community even want to associate that with being trans? It makes no sense beyond wanting to be outraged online.

What about drag Queens? Surely that is the same but worse if this is the argument? The tra movement is so incoherent. What about Eddie izzard?

*This is a movie about trust, how we lose it, how hard it is to rebuild and about a selfish man learning to put someone else's needs first.

How they can turn that on its head to make it all about the trans is beyond me.*

Men demanding access and dominion over everything that women have? Trust and selfishness? Nobody likes having the flaws in their ideology pointed out to them.

I guess the important thing to remember is that this is all constructed from someone’s imagination of what someone like me must be — and they’re doing it without any direct experience.”

The person who said this is listed as being intersex (though mentions having estranged children, which I suspect throws doubt on that claim anyway: there are rare DSD conditions where people can be fertile, but there are also men who readily lie, which is probably more frequent). If genuinely intersex, there is literally no comparison with Mrs Doubtfire as the situations are entirely dissimilar.

a film that shows someone pretending to be a woman for their own gains, it reinforces beliefs in some that it's a pretence

It might also be a stark reminder that, even with professional make-up, very few men actually pass, even those more accurately dressed as older women tend to dress, which a few men who claim they are women actually do.

I didn’t know that. It does seem to have done a 180 then with story hour in libraries etc.

My first thought was also why is this not ok and drag is.

Drag wasn't, a few years back. There were quite a few stories about student unions and the like banning or decrying drag acts for being transphobic.

I wonder if "Drag Queen Story Hour" was maybe what rehabilitated it - drag's good now because it gives access to children to spread the Gender Gospel.

I've seen the opposite response to this (on FB).

Basically along the lines of "all these transphobic people who actually grew up loving a trans character: see, we've been around for eternity biatches!"

Or written from an "ally" position.
And shared by "feminist" allies.

My first thought was also why is this not ok and drag is. There’s even a drag king interviewed on that linked ‘article’. The cognitive dissonance to me is astounding. And who doesn’t like Mrs Doubtfire?! It’s supposed to be an ultimate love letter to his kids. I get the creepy element but I cannot imagine anyone could seriously pull this off irl with the other parent, so it’s harmless.

I used to think drag was 'womanface', but increasingly I do think it's actually more transphobic than anything else.

The fact that Drag Race welcomes the occasional trans competitor reinforces the equivalence between men in frocks and transwomen.

Not sure why more people don't see this and kick off about it.

Have you seen the "Mrs Doubtfire recut as a horror film trailer"? It plays up the stalkery vibe quite well

All I can wonder is what they're smoking to misunderstand Mrs Doubtfire so badly.

The whole point is that a desperate father denied the access rights he believes he needs to survive the separation from his wife is finding only one way to do so - to lie to his wife and kids by dressing up as a woman so he'll be employed as a nanny by his long-suffering wife.

He wasn't a terribly bad father, but he definitely was a bad husband, so his wife wouldn't trust him to look after the kids full-time.

This isn't a movie about pretending to be a woman, even though that's where Robin William's comedic genius is rather lazily employed. This is a movie about trust, how we lose it, how hard it is to rebuild and about a selfish man learning to put someone else's needs first.

How they can turn that on its head to make it all about the trans is beyond me.

I mean, they want it all ways, don't they?

Transwomen are women, unless transwomen disagree and then it's, "...this is all constructed from someone’s imagination of what someone like me must be...."

Have these men ever listened to what they themselves are saying?

My point is, how can any man, regardless of "gender", know what it is like to be a woman, when those men have never ever experienced, never ever will experience, actually being a woman?

Have the cancel everything mob connected Anne Fine and Cordelia Fine yet?

Oh! I hadn't realised that. I see in AFs wiki page she supports Let Books be Books too.

Let’s hope they never watch Tootsie…

Genderist extremists fail to see the humour in drag?! Ha ha ha! Well, call me surprised!