"A Queer History of the United States for Young People" by Michael Bronski: people who don't fit into the molds society forces on them are queer

To be fair, perhaps people who don't leave their house much just don't know what ordinary women look like?

Listen, if you want to kid yourself that females like Stock are the norm & have no social associations with male coded presentation,

So there we have it. Women really want to be men so they adopt a male look. So bloody tedious. And as another poster says, short hair and no makeup on women is hardly unusual, for whatever reason the women choose, but it's vanishingly unlikely it's because they think they're 'male-coded,' whatever the bloody hell that is.

Although none of this explains why people who aren't feminists insist on barging into a feminist forum.

They have been doing this ever since MN had a feminist forum, so probably for a couple of decades? It's striking how little the rhetoric has changed.

Are you not in the UK?

She looks like most of the women I see walking down the street in my small town.

I've looked her up as I didn't know her. They may not be the majority but they are perfectly normal and can be seen everywhere. Short hair, little or no make up and androgenous clothing is pretty mainstream these days, you know?

I think you'll also find that most women who adopt that presentation, like me, do it because it's convenient and easy, not because it's male.

The stereotype for "female" stopped being rigid a long time ago. Which is why it's so infuriating that a bunch of men are trying to drag us back to it because they are unable to define their "feeling female" any other way.

What a strange response.

Nobody has ever disagreed with you that gender stereotypes exist. If they did not exist then neither could trans people.

To summarise.

Queer is a cry for attention by anyone who thinks they don't fit in a gender stereotype and want attention for it, instead of just not confirming with a gender stereotype and getting on with their lives the way a large proportion of women and some men already do and have done for a long, long time.

If queer and trans are a self identification then they can't be retrospectively applied to historical figures, the subject of the thread. I'm glad we agree on that.

Are you basing your norms on Hollywood and fashion magazines, because look around mate. Women present in all kinds of ways in real life. You do know that movies and magazines are not real, do you?

It's the coded thing again, it must be the new buzzword to hide stereotypical sexism behind, long hair is female coded, so therefore any man who calls himself a woman just has to have long hair to make it true.
The thing with Gender Idiots is it always comes back to the same two, and those two are always set in stone, if you deviate from the pattern of your gender for your sex, you must be the other sex, you just don't know it.
We're here to tell you what you are, just like every totalitarian thought control process.

That is so sexist! So if a woman has short hair and does not conform to the outdated sexist stereotypes of “gender”,she’s “butch”? So what proportion of these stereotypes foes a woman have to conform to to not be seen as butch?

you seem to be the expert on these standards so do tell. What if a woman dresses like a woman, has long hair but plays rugby? Is she butch?

You are totally confused. 'Queer' like 'trans' is a self identification term in modern day that's rarely used by children. But if you think they don't intuitively recognise or other children don't inform them that they 'different' from the norm I have news.

And in case you also hadn't noticed about the ongoing discussion ON YOUR THREAD because you clearly haven't read it, distinct social categorisations of gender non conforming people (as a slur) existed long before queer people reclaimed the term.

How come that every thread on FWR ends up being captured by right wing reactionaries who clearly have no idea or interest in feminism.

What a load rigid gender role nonsense.

Unless of course this is just one of MNHQ's rumoured AI bots desperately trying to make FWR "controversial" to try and boost MN's falling numbers.

Although if this is the result you would think it would be clear why so many are giving up.

They must think FWR has just become part of Reddit dominated by immature US males.

Although none of this explains why people who aren't feminists insist on barging into a feminist forum.

No doubt to tell all us silly women we dont and cant think clearly.

If only MNHQ would give them their own thread where they can then lecture each other.

It could be called Bring Back the Patriarchy!

Listen, if you want to kid yourself that females like Stock are the norm & have no social associations with male coded presentation, knock yourself out but that has very little to do with reality.

You seem confused. Individuals are free to identify with whatever they wish so there's no imposition upon them to categorise themselves in that way. The context is social categorisations that exist & their implications on self identification. There are many reasons why this has been adopted that are unrelated to the historical slur & in fact function to challenge it.

Key Reasons People Use "Queer"

All-Encompassing Umbrella Term: It serves as a broad label for anyone who is not heterosexual or not cisgender. This is helpful for people whose specific identity doesn’t fit neatly into traditional acronyms like LGBT.

Challenging Binaries: Using the term is often a deliberate choice to resist rigid, heteronormative categories like "straight versus not-straight" or strict male/female gender roles.

Political and Activist Identity: Originating heavily through late-20th-century groups like Queer nation the word carries an active, critical stance that views non-conformity as a form of social resistance rather than just a personal trait.

Reclaiming Language: The word historically functioned as a hostile slur or insult. Reclaiming it strips power away from oppressors and turns a tool of shame into a badge of pride.

Flexibility and Simplicity: It avoids the need for a hyper-specific label, allowing a person's identity or attraction to evolve dynamically over time without feeling boxed in. It is also quick and easy to say compared to longer acronyms.

By 'morphology' do you mean the outward appearance of the body?

Yes but hormones also effect a person's psychological traits
as well.

Of course, they would also retain some of their original sex traits, resulting in the mixture of male and female secondary sex traits which makes convincing 'passing' such a challenge.

Not if they haven't been through their own birth sex puberty.

So as far as I can see, changes in 'sex traits as in hormones & morphology' are just superficial changes to male and female bodies, which retain so much of their actual biological sex that there's no reason to say they are anything other than biological men and biological women, with some adjustments to their external morphology.

Technically speaking trans people are still able to change some sex traits which is the point hence 'biological sex' being a vague term unless the biological framework is specified.

Newton's laws of motion do not literally apply as physical laws in sociology, though social scientists use them as metaphors or analogies to model social systems.

Newton's laws of motion don't apply to sociology. And if they did, why not quantum mechanics and relativity as well?

Kathleen Stock is "butch"? Blimey, I've misunderstood butch for about 40 years!

Because some people think that some women are queer doesn't mean that all people categorise them in that way. There are many social categories, and they change over time and place. Perhaps Deborah Sampson wasn't "queer", just eccentric, or completely within societal norms of that time and place apart from her time fighting. "Queer" remains for many of us a particularly nasty slur from a time when gay people were not generally respected. It's interesting that it has been "reclaimed" by people who appear to see themselves as victims. Do queer theorists see Deborah as some kind of victim too?

Oh look! Chopper has found a new toy. All the other ones that he has played with though various identities have broken on the rock of reality. But now we have (ta-da) patterns.

I don't understand what you mean by changing 'sex traits as in hormones & morphology.'

By 'morphology' do you mean the outward appearance of the body?
Do you mean that by taking hormones, a person can somewhat change their outward appearance? So a transman could develop some features which are secondary male sex traits, and a transwoman some secondary female sex traits?
Of course, they would also retain some of their original sex traits, resulting in the mixture of male and female secondary sex traits which makes convincing 'passing' such a challenge.

So as far as I can see, changes in 'sex traits as in hormones & morphology' are just superficial changes to male and female bodies, which retain so much of their actual biological sex that there's no reason to say they are anything other than biological men and biological women, with some adjustments to their external morphology.

Am I failing to understand something in your post?

Let's not confuse two different biological sex frameworks. Its impossible to change gametes as in reproductive sex but its possible to change sex traits as in hormones & morphology.

The answer in my view is you can't. But that's not to say its trans people who are at fault for perpetuating gender stereotypes but simply a consequence of human biology. Trans people like queer people are simply identifying in the social category that already exists…with or without them.

I apologise, I thought you agreed with the men who believe they can change sex.