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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think Sam Smith is being ridiculous?

778 replies

gc400 · 15/09/2019 22:31

For asking to be called they/them?

OP posts:
JemSynergy · 17/09/2019 10:26

His attention seeking can do one.

PookieDo · 17/09/2019 10:37

my dad was a teenager in the 1970’s, not a small child. I also did not say he was homophobic, it made him uncomfortable because it doesn’t fit with traditional masculinity. He is one of the many many many men who, like some of women on this thread, don’t see where it fits within their own gender.

On this thread people do not even seem to understand that they are contradicting themselves into the exact reasons people ended up labelling themselves! Because you can’t explain it either. It doesn’t seem to fit with men and it doesn’t seem to fit with women. Ego, gender confusion or wanting to be non binary.

No one wants this within their gender. No one wants to accept it. Making a new category has been the easiest option

So does everyone equates men dressing femininely or flamboyantly with being gay? Some do. Some don’t

People were confused by men back in 70’s who seemed straight dressing in female clothes or using make up. They questioned their sexuality and whether it was acceptable for men to do that, but some people accepted it as a fashion, a statement, and expression, an art.

You cannot be a wild fan of Bowie and hate Sam Smith without recognising that Bowie was a pioneer of this exact expression.

Quote from DB himself
For Bowie, however, this rejection of conventional masculinity was not just about gender — it was about shirking what it meant to be human. "I always had a repulsive need to be something more than human,"* Bowie once said in an interview."I felt very puny as a human. I thought, 'Fck that. I want to be a superhuman.'"

DB didn’t want to conform to traditional masculinity either.

JollyRocker · 17/09/2019 10:39

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

madameweasel · 17/09/2019 10:51

Why is it they always seem to have a vivacious woman inside them?

It's never a dowdy perimenopausal forty-something, is it?

Supergrassyknoll · 17/09/2019 10:52

LOL @AutumnCrow I think he's a knob tbh, he just doesn't know who he is, a lot of people don't...there's confusion with who they are, not sure why it's all gender obsessed. He's a man, a he. End of

DontFeedTheCatCake · 17/09/2019 11:00

You cannot be a wild fan of Bowie and hate Sam Smith without recognising that Bowie was a pioneer of this exact expression

Disagree with this. The difference is that Sam Smith says he feels as much woman as man. Being a woman isn't a feeling, it's a sex (not a gender). It is nonsense to claim to be able to know what women feel, there is no such thing, all people feel different. David Bowie didn't hang his feelings on sex, that's the difference, he was just him, and that's fine. It's the appropriation of our sex by men that I object so strongly to.

from123toabc · 17/09/2019 11:01

I can't get worked up about something that makes someone I don't know happy. It has no effect on my life- I have no right to an opinion.

If this concerns you enough to be the most pressing thing on your mind right now you must live a very privileged life- congratulations

CorBlimeyGovenor · 17/09/2019 11:03

@madameweasel

That made me laugh! But yes, you are so right! They never have this burning itch to be a haggard mother ferrying their kids to and from after-school clubs with sick down their fronts. This 'woman' inside is usually as excuse to dress up and role play a little. I see nothing wrong with dressing up. Men used to dress more extravagantly than women. Men's clothes are horribly dull and don't allow for the freedom of reinvention that women get. But ultimately it is a fantasy role play. They're choosing the best traits of what they perceive to be female.

Datun · 17/09/2019 11:08

Freedom of expression is presumably what many NBs want. They should absolutely be asked why they think they have to claim to be neither male nor female in order to do it.

Many are accidentally and unwittingly being sexist. They should absolutely be challenged.

DontFeedTheCatCake · 17/09/2019 11:12

This stuff does have an effect on people's lives though, and it's increasing. We're getting men who identify as women being allowed into women's safe spaces: going to women's prisons, being allowed to work in refuges, using women's changing rooms, becoming women's officers in organisations, being allowed to sleep in female dormitories at the YHA (unless you as a women ring up in advance and disclose previous sexual abuse to some random YHA worker, in which case they will try to accommodate you). Do you not think these things are having an effect on women's lives?

DeniseRoyal · 17/09/2019 11:13

YANBU, the whole non-binary bollocks is a nonsense. I honestly don't understand it.

SmellbowSpaceBowl · 17/09/2019 11:31

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD · 17/09/2019 11:51

I am seeing small children nowadays with tshirts with rainbows/unicorns and messages such as 'love all' 'love overcomes' 'love is love' 'accept love' 'love who you love' etc slogans ... hmmm.

Weren't seeing many of these 5 years ago were we? Accept all love? Love all. Now, who else says that?

jellyfrizz · 17/09/2019 12:59

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.

^^ This.

PhilSwagielka · 17/09/2019 13:17

YABU, but this is Mumsnet so I get I'm in a minority here.

Zoidbergonthehalfshell · 17/09/2019 13:23

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.

Amen to that.

80daysaroundtheworld · 17/09/2019 14:04

I don't understand why anyone would have a negative opinion on it to be honest, do you feel it affects your life in some way, OP?

DtPeabodysLoosePants · 17/09/2019 14:16

They is an attention seeking twit.

PrimalLass · 17/09/2019 14:49

I don't understand why anyone would have a negative opinion on it to be honest, do you feel it affects your life in some way, OP?

Maybe read some of the 300 previous posts to get an idea.

Greenmarmalade · 17/09/2019 15:00

It has no effect on my life- I have no right to an opinion. @from123toabc

It DOES and it will affect you, especially if you’re a woman.

We shouldn’t be labeling anyone as non-binary as doing so validates gender stereotypes and presents them as a rock solid reality. This is damaging to girls and women, and society in general.

Chocolate50 · 17/09/2019 18:43

I think actually none of us are purely male or female pure - except if you're talking about just physically where the vast majority of people are clearly male or female. But this does not reflect male & female characteristics or whether you feel that you are either gender.
Its not ok to tell someone what they are or demand that from anyone - it is no one else's business whether they prescribe to either, both or neither female or male characteristics.
I think SS is brave to make this statement & personally the comments about 'women & girls space' etc are just weird. What spaces are these? Public toilets?? What the actual fuck! Enlighten me!

VladmirsPoutine · 17/09/2019 19:08

@Chocolate50... none of us subscribe purely to the stereotypes that our genders would have us adhere to.

Its not ok to tell someone what they are or demand that from anyone.

Agreed. As much as it's my right to not allow someone to compel my language. Why should I have to bend grammar rules, or forgo the clear presence of a man to make him feel better.

I don't think women should spend their days baking cakes in pink dresses, unless of course they want to but surely you can see this is regressive non-sense? What does 'feeling' like a woman consist of? Do tell me, I just happen to be one, so I'd really like to know what the 'feeling' is and why Sam Smith apparently has that feeling and I do not.

The issue is that his fan base of young people will start to buy into this non-sense. I've never met a child that didn't have one or two crises about their identity. My toddler niece went through a huge stage of wanting to be a dinosaur. So if we start having kids all over the place saying they were born in the wrong body, especially pre-pubescent children and having certain organisations advocating for puberty blockers then in 10 years time we're going to have a major crisis of mentally disturbed and physically undeveloped early adults who will ask us wtf we were doing.

Why is it not enough to just tell our sons that they can play with dolls and tell our daughters that they can play football without having to give them a 'gender' crisis with made-up terminology.

Once you allow the distortion of science and development then you invite all manner of nefarious things. Not one child should be thinking they are part male/part female or whatever. They just are.

And co-opting homosexuality in this is homophobic. This is the insidious way this is going. So I for one won't budge an inch if John from accounts wants me to call him Jane, I will. But be under no illusion he is still a man/male.

TheAlternativeTentacle · 17/09/2019 19:32

I think actually none of us are purely male or female pure - except if you're talking about just physically where the vast majority of people are clearly male or female.

Yes, we are talking about just physically where everyone on the fucking planet is female or male.

Hope that helps.

LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD · 17/09/2019 19:38

I’m a woman. Gender doesn’t come into it.

NoSquirrels · 17/09/2019 19:38

I think actually none of us are purely male or female pure - except if you're talking about just physically where the vast majority of people are clearly male or female.

But that’s all there is - physical, biological sex. You are male or female depending on your biological sex.

All the rest - ALL of it - is societal constructs of gender aka bullshit.