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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think everyone should be encouraged to accept and present themselves and others

38 replies

Headisinsand · 16/03/2019 21:40

...as they are naturally with no permanent changes unless necessary for health and function in regard to what they look like and how they are in regard to personality?
It is scary how false people are. Plastic surgery, sculpting with make up. Putting on a face and act in social media. No wonder the stress levels are so high. It is horrifying to me how different people are in real life without props.
When is the right time to reveal yourself in relationships?
How do you know the person you are choosing to commit to in a relationship is who they say they are?
I live in a country where advertising is more real and the difference is noticeable.
Scars and bodily imperfections rarely airbrushed out. A mix of body shapes, skin colour and styles.
This post has been triggered by articles about children being taken into care due to gender choices. It is scary to me that permanent changes are being made physically and psychologically. I have also worked with people who have had gender reassignment and it didn’t ”fix” things for them. The problem seemed to be accepting themselves and being accepted not changing physically to do so.
I think you are born with your gender, female, male and in a few cases hermaphrodite or undetermined this shouldn’t affect your preferences or choices in life or how you are treated and I think shouldn’t be changed any more than nose shape unless affecting health and function.
Temporary changes are just a bit of fun expressing personality. They aren’t misrepresenting who you are or misleading others.
How awful to find out the person you developed a relationship with isn’t who they portrayed themself to be. We are entitled to our preferences and while we shouldn’t judge others on theirs should not be tricked into marrying someone who’s natural features might not be attractive to us.
The more we change our body shape for aesthetic reasons the more we support judgement on what others think we should look like. Who has a nose job purely for themselves? That is rare usually it is so they look “acceptable” in photographs.
My daughter dresses in stereotypical male clothing, says it is more comfortable, she has been encouraged to do as she wishes but I discourage negative statements about the body she was born with.
My other daughter has a large mole but tells me it is part of her, she is a quirky child but her confidence and non reaction to others opinion means she is rarely teased and not affected or changed when she is.
My son wears dresses on occasion, likes make up and nail polish. I had to speak to his teacher as he was encouraging teasing when he grew his hair and wore hair clips (in school colours as the girls do). He cut it when it was too hot. The children now accept him as he is mostly.
Many cultures accept the adoption of the opposite sex practices and lifestyle and people who choose that live happy lives without the need for surgery or concealment.
I encourage my children to be respectful of others rights and true to themselves. How they are does not need changing as long as not infringing on others. I have asked my son not to wear a dress to a wedding as the wedding is not about him and not ok to draw attention away from the bride and groom (he is a close relative) but if he wishes to go shopping in one fine. I know that sounds contradictory but we wouldn’t turn up in a track suit to a formal event and he can choose a floral shirt etc to express his preferences and personality.

OP posts:
Myfoolishboatisleaning · 17/03/2019 06:40

Yes. People are born with a sex.

ShastaBeast · 17/03/2019 06:43

You have a point in there, but it’s hard to know where the line is. A woman gets a boob job to feel better about herself, although her boobs are fine to begin with - her choice on an individual basis. Lots of women within a group get boob jobs to the extent it’s strange when one opts not too (see any reality tv show watched by impressionable young people) - now a societal issue and it’s altering the acceptable appearance of women more broadly. The expectation is that women are extremely feminine, trans women often take a more extreme version of feminity too, young women who don’t identify with this ideal feel they mustn’t be women as they don’t like makeup and their bodies aren’t like on TV, they may wonder if they are trans male. Or they just hate their body and feel abnormal so consider surgery and perpetuate the cycle.

I resisted a boob job as a young adult but suspect the exposure and availability of this surgery now would’ve made it harder to make that choice. I’m still tempted and feel the pressure. But it’s not a great app example to set my own kids, I’d really hope they don’t go down that path.

Shinyletsbebadguys · 17/03/2019 06:49

Put simply you don't get to tell anyone what to do with their own body

Please don't dress it up as some form of libertarian encouragement of personal freedom when you are advocating specifically curtailing that

I'm female and frankly I've had enough of men telling what is should look like you most definately do not have the right either

Worry about yourself and question why you believe you are so superior you get to make judgements on how others present themselves

Do not kid yourself it's for the right reason you are simply finding a way to judge and segregate others for their choices and make them less than "woke" as yourself

Children is a different issue purely as their understanding of consent is not there and permanent changed need consent in my view...a child cannot

WhiteDust · 17/03/2019 07:05

What you find acceptable and not acceptable seems to be based on what you believe is an appropriate way to look.

Boy in dress tick
Girl in men's clothes tick
Plastic surgery, sculpting with make up. No

Do you not understand that everyone makes their own choice based on their own preferences?

Just because you don't like it doesn't make it wrong for others.

Headisinsand · 17/03/2019 07:27

Makeup is no big deal, it is reversible. It is not the act but the drive behind it, the unhappiness in their own skin that worries me. I don’t want that forthoseI care about.
Child at school over last three years has changed gender four times. So what. But had her parents started hormones when she was in the stage of identifying as male what then?
I’m asking what is society doing to make people feel the need to physically change themselves. To risk their health and cause themselves pain to look a certain way. What is wrong with how they are. Why are they so unhappy with themselves?
I guess the right to choose is more important than self acceptance.

OP posts:
WhiteDust · 17/03/2019 08:40

Ok, so it's the permanent change that concerns you.

Some extreme and some are not: A tattoo, breast implants, fillers, dyed hair, piercings, nose job, teeth whitening, gender reassignment...

What you don't seem to understand is that these are all ways other people choose to express themselves or their identity.

They do these things for the exact same reason as your DD, DS and you.
Your DS wears dresses. Does he dress this way because he wants to or to make some sort of statement? People get piercings all over their face because they want to or are they making some sort of statement too?

Who cares? Personal choice. Only the person themselves know what drives them.

Happyspud · 17/03/2019 08:46

I think people should be and look how they wish to. But I also think it’s sad how women have been conditioned to completely remake their body and face to the extreme. It’s just part of life for many women now and they don’t realise what it actually means for them.

Alicatz66 · 17/03/2019 14:22

You must be having a slow day OP .. this thread seems pretty pointless

yanboo · 17/03/2019 14:51

Dramatical yes. This is all a bit “look at me”. Oddly Confused

talktoo · 17/03/2019 17:02

Completely weird and pointless thread. OP thinks ds wearing a dress is ok, that ds wearing make up is ok. That some people wearing some styles of makeup is ok. People wearing contour makeup is not ok. Orthodontics are ok as they correct 'deformities' but people should be ok to be weird looking as they shouldn't be made to feel that their individual differences are a negative. The Op is off in random disconnected thoughts that contradict each other.

theresafoxunderthedecking · 17/03/2019 17:15

people will wear what they want, act as they want and live how they want. if they are influenced by 'celebrities' and how others look that's their choice. i dress for me and i'm not bothered what others think of me in any respect. i am a woman who is happy in her skin, and make my own choices, answerable to no one.
i don't care if your ds wears a frilly tutu at school or your dd clumps around in wellie boots that's their choice. but i do dislike people shouting 'look at me i'm such a rebel,i'm so edgy i don't conform' my thoughts are just fuck off nobody cares anyway.

Sparklesocks · 17/03/2019 17:51

Where do you draw the line on what acceptable surgery is then? What about someone with terrible burns on their face, is it ‘fake’ for them to get skin grafts to help them feel better and improve their scars? Should they just accept themselves?
I know someone who got a breast augmentation on the NHS because she had leukaemia as a child and the surgeries/IV tubes gave her scar tissue on her breasts, which impeded how they grew and meant women’s tops didn’t fit her body and she had terrible confidence issues about them. Is she fake to do that? Who gets to decide who is worthy of surgery and who isn’t?

It’s all very well to say you should love yourself from within and that’s absolutely vital of course. But the fact is if you have a part of your body that brings you deep misery and affects your confidence in an extreme way, and there’s something you can do to help that - i believe that you should be able to.

There’s definitely a wider conversation about body dysphoria and people suffering with it using surgery to find perfection they’ll never meet, but that isn’t the case for everyone who opts for cosmetic surgery.

itsbritneybiatches · 17/03/2019 19:08

I wanted boobs since I began puberty.

So from about 11.

I thought long and hard. I got them at 38.

I don't care if anyone notices - they won't as I always wore padded bras before but I got them because I wanted them. I don't care if anyone else has them
It doesn't have them.

I currently have braces. To fix slightly wonky front teeth. Because I kept running my
Tongue over them and it was getting annoying.

I couldn't care less if people wear
Make up or get cosmetic surgery or don't for that matter.
It's nothing to do with me.

If my daughter decides in the future she will then that's her choice. I don't think she will ever need it but my mum didn't think I did and I still sent ahead.
If I can't discourage her I will have to support her, same as my mum did.

Different generations isn't it.

Times change. Not always for the better
But they do.

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