To think Sam Smith is being ridiculous?

[gc400]

For asking to be called they/them?

YANBU. It’s batshit.

@Chocolate50 see for some reason my mind when to 'zee' - although I suppose if you're American this might be an issue.
Zee
Zes/Zis possessive chops whichever?

*choose whichever 🙄

I think it’s ok to want to challenge this situation and push it back to men - there should be an accepted scale of masculinity that doesn’t have to encroach always on females. But I do not want to make SS the whipping boy of this situation and think it’s unfair to do so as has been done on 10 pages so far

I sort of agree, but really I think that if you want to be so immersed in gender 'stuff' that you announce yourself as a fashionable label then you really ought to have put some critical thought into it, and made sure you don't come across as an accidental misogynist (whilst also feeling like a woman).

SS is in the public eye. SS clearly struggles with a variety of issues. SS is an adult (27). SS shouldn't be surprised at comments on the comments SS made, and SS shouldn't need us to pussyfoot around talking about why it is potentially problematic.

Do you know what really really pisses me off about this kind of shit?
The unbelievable amount of privelige involved in such a statement.
What a luxury to be able to spend all this time wondering whether you feel like a woman or a man.
Do you think that the girls in Nigeria who were abducted by boko haram were taken because they identified as female or because of their biological sex?
Are women in Saudi Arabia denied human rights because they feel like women or because they are female?
It's all such attention seeking, navel gazing bullshit.

@PookieDo do you identify as someone who doesn't apologise for accusing someone of something?

Oh Pookie, I think you might be right. I'm mixing my Alok up with Travis -it's Alok who was flying non-binary in Magdalen's video, and Travis who channels a 15 year old girl on a night out. One of them mentioned channelling a 15 year old girl on a night out - looks like it might have been Travis.

My bad.

Apologies to the non-binary crowd.

None of them probs want to get into the (used-to-be-sex-specific-changing-rooms-space).

Thank fuck women's space is safe.

All Sam Smith et al want is pronoun-respect. Nothing else. Not wanting into women's space, just a 'she/her' enforcement.

(Oh, hang on - reads alok/travis stuff.)

I don't venture into AIBU very much.

But to any women reading this thread right now and going 'eh?' (as I did at this subject several years' ago) please do spend some time watching Magdalen's videos before you write us off as whatever version of 'mad women' other's would like you to do.

We're just normal women, most of us living and working next to you, looking normal, not with horns or the 'Nazi/TERF' badges others have assigned us with. just because we're concerned at what some of this ideology is doing to women and children. And, to be honest, men like Sam.

Give it a watch, see what you think.

www.youtube.com/channel/UCvTTakI97sQ4SkMnsH8r0qQ/videos

YANBU.

I don't care what Sam Smith wants to call himself. (Only barely even know who he is, to be honest.) But I think it's ridiculous and entitled and "show-offy" to demand that other people call you by special pronouns (anything other than "he" or "she", really). What a waste of time and energy!

Honestly, part of what annoys me most is just how wrong it sounds to refer to a single person as "they" or "them".

"I don’t really feel offended by appropriating this type of femininty because I didn’t like it for myself anyway. I don’t feel like anyone has taken anything from me, I am just me. If they want to wear crazy heels, this doesn’t affect me. It hasn’t changed my gender"

Unfortunately just because you don't want these things for yourself, it doesn't mean it's not harmful to women as a whole for things like heels, tight dresses and make up to be labelled as feminine. Society places a large amount of importance on the way women look and when men come along and call themselves non-binary (and trans) because they like the aforementioned things it reinforces the view that this is what women should like/wear/do. They never seem to feel like the sort of woman that wears flat shoes and trousers, never wears any makeup and enjoys doing DIY. Society's view of women is so bloody narrow already. Men like Sam Smith whose idea of non-binary is based on him liking to wear high heels and having chubby bits that he doesn't like is offensive and sexist and serves to further entrench the view that this is what women do/are. Trans ideology and non-binary is entirely based on harmful sex stereotypes and their reinforcing female stereotypes in order to escape the fact that male stereotypes also firmly entrenched. They should work to broaden what it means to be a man, not fall back on harmful female stereotypes to escape male violence. If they wore high heels and dresses and said they were a man, lots of other men would probably want to beat them up. If they call themselves non-binary then they have effectively othered themselves so these aggressive man who are threatened by people wearing what they want are more likely to leave them alone because they're "not men". Even though they obviously are.

@boddtm zee is a good word. I'm a gonna look up what other languages use. Will be back

this was a comment that I responded to - when I said one of my family is non binary someone commented saying of course they are it just means you like a lot of stuff

Sam Smith is male.

His body is male.

Anything he wears is stuff.

Ergo; being 'non-binary' is about liking a range of stuff.

We all are either male or female, and we all like stuff. Either everyone is non-binary as we like a range of stuff; or nobody is as we are all either male or female.

Liking stuff generally thought of as 'female' does not make you anything other than either a man or a woman that likes things generally/stereotypically known as stuff that females like.

If they wore high heels and dresses and said they were a man, lots of other men would probably want to beat them up

This. This is the stereotype of men that a lot of people including men really don't like. How ignorant. When David Beckham wore a skirt in the form of a wrap (yes he did)... I didn't see lots of 'men wanting to beat him up' (ok he didn't say he was a woman... but really SS isn't saying that he is a woman either).

It isn't damaging to women at all for someone to identify as being neither male or female but be biologically a man. Because the whole concept of being female or male is based on stereotypes anyway. As for the argument that it impacts on jobs/sport - well yes but surely the problem is equality of opportunity in the first place, & sport is an interesting one - but it could be reclassified.
My point is that the whole structure of society isn't going to collapse if there is a subgroup of different gender identity. In the same way as it didn't when we stopped locking up people for being gay & not 'choosing' the path of conforming to marrying the opposite sex & having children- this dynamic of people being gay was thought of as not only choice, but mental illness, degrading behaviour, sick, going against nature & religion, criminal etc etc. It was thought to threaten the very fabric of society where men & women were supposed to marry, have children & that's how it should be.... society has not collapsed due to people coming out. What has happened is - civil partnership, same sex parents etc. The boundaries of acceptability has changed - yes a painful & unfair process for some due to the nature of changing opinions & also due to the resistance of culture / popular views / legal processes to change.
But the fear that is coming through in this thread is really based on prejudice & pre determination of what will happen when there's actually no evidence that non- binary individuals will be responsible for the downfall of equality (or non equality) etc of genders as we know it.
In my opinion we should be embracing this male/female fluidity, and start seeing one another as people rather than a gender.

"In my opinion we should be embracing this male/female fluidity, and start seeing one another as people rather than a gender."

Well yes that is exactly what all of us are arguing.

But liking skirts still doesn't make you a woman.

@livinginahidingplace
SS isn't claiming to be a woman though!!!

YANBU. Pretentious nonsense. He (sorry ..... they) really need(s) to get over him(them)self(ves).

Good post Bigearring

Glad to see this thread still trending, because Sam Smith is being ridiculous. It's absolutely farcical.

My point is that the whole structure of society isn't going to collapse if there is a subgroup of different gender identity.

You would think that, wouldn’t you? But unfortunately people who are still unable to understand the difference between sex and gender are causing problems for women and girls because they say if their gender is female, that makes them a woman who can use single sex spaces intended for women and girls.

If they just did their gender thing and conceded that it doesn’t change their sex and never will, we could all go home happy.

SS isn’t claiming to be a woman. SS is claiming to be non conformative to either gender. This is the part I do not see as threatening in any way the same as transgender issues, SS is not redefining SS as a woman, SS is redefining what it means to be Sam. I do not see an issue with that in itself. The fact SS is in the public eye means that it is being talked about but lots of men and women are thinking the same way and there isn’t anything we can do to stop them, certainly not jump up and down shouting at them. We need to challenge the people who are preventing them from opening up into a space of masculinity - they do not feel safe there, which is why they refuse to do so.

Apparently Sam's had a lot of support and guidance from Alok in his non-binary journey.

Someone should tell him that Alok is on record saying little girls are kinky and deviant. His best friend identifies as a 15 year old girl on nights out and went mad on twitter at top shop to allow him to use the changing room full of teen girls. They caved.

Someone should warn him about the company he's keeping.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3475477-Alok-V-Mennon

m.facebook.com/feministmemes/posts/1868481300041574

I couldn't care less who he sleeps with, what pronouns he uses, how much his house costs or anything else but why do we have to keep hearing about it? Whatever happened to having a private life? Why do people, celebs and non celebs, feel the need to disclose everything all the time?

@Datun

Every time it comes back to this similar issue what always strikes me is that it is inevitable that people seek out support. when people like SS feel completely disconnected from other males, with no where to turn to I think they become perfect prey for people with bigger/scarier agendas. It’s unlikely any other more masculine pop stars can relate to SS or want to offer any support. So the subsection ends up connecting with the more radical transgender community

He's claiming to be a bit like a woman and a bit like a man.

Which is bullshit.