to be shocked that TERFs should be raging against kids clothing?

[Preggopreggo]

You cannot be anti-trans whilst also perpetuating a binary with your own children? AIBU?

Surely if the craziness around ‘boy clothes/toys’ and ‘girl clothes/toys’ ended and gender differences became less distinct, then far fewer children would grow up with gender dysphoria and want to transition?

I know very little about all this, so I may be wrong and just can’t find the threads. Please point me in the right direction if this has been discussed already 🙏

This is a very strange thread, @Preggopreggo . I can only imagine that you are attempting to discredit women who don't believe in this stuff by making nonsense up.

Thanks for pointing out that particular connection - wish I'd known back when I got into a Twitter spat with Tarek Aboud-Chadi about their ridiculous survey research into "gc" attitudes which their entire team at Oxford seemed to associate firmly with the European right wing (tbf understandable in people who cut their teeth working on Orban et al back when "anti-gender" was still anti-"feminazis" and trans didn't really figure on anyone's radar screen.)

I'm wondering though - how about later campaigns following in their footsteps? I know for a fact that at least the German offshoot of the Pinkstinks campaign, for all the valuable work they do against gendered clothing, is rabidly TWAW and full of inane references to "people with uteruses", "read as female" etc etc. (Can't access the main UK site right now to verify due to some technical snafu blocking my IP address.)

🙌

I'm so confused.

"Ever noticed just what clothes many of these male people choose as their 'woman' clothes? They are not dressing in a comfy t-shirt and jean and just getting on with life. It is all too often highly sexualised clothes. What they perceive is the epitome of womanhood. Because to 'some' of them the value of a woman is the fuckability and then secondly as a resource to be exploited in different ways."

Exactly. I was born female and remain female. But I can't remember the last time I wore a skirt and the only dress I've worn in the past 5 years has been to a wedding. I feel comfortable in trousers or jeans, prefer flats to heels (had enough of those when I was in my 20s and 30s). But I like wearing make up (sometimes), enjoy painting my nails (sometimes). When I was a little girl I enjoyed playing with my dolls and my pram. But I also had a toy garage as a male cousin had one which I loved so my parents bought one for Christmas (I'm now 60 years old so this is 50 years plus ago - hardly 'modern thinking').

I'm not a stereo typical 'woman' because there are no stereo typical women (or men). So putting on a dress doesn't make you a woman just like putting on a suit and tie doesn't make you a man.

But that is exactly what trans exclusionary feminists are opposed to OP. We believe gender is a social construct. That the huge push to gender politics has taken us so far backwards in terms of fighting against gender stereotypes that it is no longer the thing the feminists board is flooded with. But is absolutely what we believe.

I used to hate TERF almost as much as I hate CIS but these days it's so ludicrous that it seems to me that "TERFS" have just gone "You want to call us that? Have at it!" and run with it. The insult it offers has been diluted by the refusal of women for women's rights, same sex spaces, refusal to accept the pseudo-science that you can somehow actually change sex, to take it as anything but the ridiculous attempt to create a gaggle of wicked witches that it is. We're not wicked witches, just the sort who'll not be dealing with your bullshit.

What do you mean by 'anti trans'?

I agree that this seems like a goady thread, built on a false assumption, but there might be a more interesting discussion in there somewhere.

Would focusing efforts on dismantling how gender dominates society be more effective than trying to get people to understand the difference between sex and gender?

What more could be done in the former area? How do we get more boys and men to wear typically 'female' clothes, and not as a sexualised gimmick? So that it becomes just another option and not a signifier of anything?

Or get rid of 'female' clothes altogether. Let's face it, dresses and skirts are impractical. I wouldn't put my baby son in a dress and tights because they would make crawling difficult and the headbands look stupid and are unsafe. So why are we putting baby girls in this stuff?

Clothes are just one example. Are there other campaigns that we could work on?

The poster who reminded us that it's half term had it right. I'm out.

Anti-trans = Anti-woman

Because the reality is, those who refer to feminists as 'anti-trans' when feminists are campaigning to protect female people seek to remove those protections for female people. Hence if they want to use the hyperbolic and overly emotional and false term 'anti-trans' then they must except the logical opposite label.

Because every time someone posts using that ludicrous term for women who believe in the prioritisation of sex over gender when sex matters, they simply show they have no argument and all they have is emotional manipulation.

I agree with comments re half term. The only possible excuse for the OP is that they are under-educated - but I've known more intelligent comments from 14 year olds. So a bit of history mifght perhaps help them:

This history of clothing and societial expectations of gender identity - NOT SEX - that has nothing to do with clothing - is vast and complicated. Jut a few instances:

The OP might like to reflect on the fact that until really quite recently, pink was the preferred colour for boys. There's lots on this, if they care to look, for example: https://www.thevintagenews.com/2019/05/01/pink-blue/ or https://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/12/health/colorscope-pink-boy-girl-gender/index.html

And that a 'kilt' or wrap or sarong plus blanket (if it got cold) was the original clothing for a vast number of men in Asia - and also for the Neanderthals in Europe: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2100322-ice-age-fashion-showdown-neanderthal-capes-versus-human-hoodies/

And that tunic-plus-trousers (totally unisex) was probably the original clothing for many ancient peoples (m/f) who rode horses, and also in many parts of China and East Asia: https://www.grunge.com/141691/why-we-wear-pants/

There is VASTLY more on all this easily available online.

Etc etc etc. Just read and try to learn, OP

I am not a TERF. I am a MEW

Male Exclusionary Woman.

I don't care what anyone wears or if they wear makeup or not (80's girl and proud of it - been there done that). I don't think girls need to wear pink or glitter to be female and I don't think boys need to wear blue or camoflage to be male. My son wore cinderella dressing up wigs and had a pink pram. Still a man now.

When I was a girl society was much more sexist - no mortgages for women without being guaranteed by a man but childhood was much less gendered, tomboys and unisex lego and hardly any glitter.

We are now so "gendered" that if you don't buy into the pink/blue crap that you are miraculously the opposite sex.

I really don't care how you identify and will even use pronouns you choose (if I feel like it) but single sex spaces are the law for a reason and as a victim of sexual abuse I will uphold the law vocally in this regard.

I'm guessing you're quite young if you don't remember the Mumsnet let toys be toys campaign.

👏 👏 👏

Can I just add that the pink/blue thing isn't just a historical thing. I have many photos of DS in a pink velour babygrow when we were in Kazakhstan - they were slightly bemused by the idea that women or men had some kind of monopoly on certain colours. Countries where people have less disposable imcome tend to be somewhat less hung up on such things when perfectly good hand-me-downs exist

The answer to your question is: we’re not.

TERF=Tired of Explaining Reality to Fuckwits

I agree the charitable interpretation of the OP is someone young who is new to all this, so hopefully it's been an education for them

having said that, I know that TRAs do accuse us of being 'biological determinists', and misappropriate Simone de Beauvoir to that end, but lets not muddy the waters

to paraphrase my above post in the words of a good friend of mine.

"the joy of being a post-menopausal woman is that you've stopped giving a fuck what anyone thinks"

Pretend you're a woman/man if you want to but stay out of single sex spaces of the sex you "identify" as.

I enforce it so much I designed a flag for my movement entirely around it!

Oh no, wait, I didn't. That would be the trans activists. But they're not regressively sexist, honest!

Because I'm afraid girls are still valued for being pretty.

I think it will take decades possibly longer to change this but we can only keep trying.

AS a grammar school girl in the 1970's I participated in a debate entitled "A woman's place is in the home", I kid you not - in a girls grammar school which ought to have been a bastion of equality for women.

My working class mother was right on the cutting edge (though not knowing it) as she said in reposnse to my question whether she agreed with that was...

A woman's place is where she wants it to be.

Not really relevant but any excuse to quote my wise old mother sadly not with us any more.

I honestly have never met a feminist who reinforced stereotypes on their kids. My children have clothes that are neutral or conforming to their sex because given the existing binary, dressing my sons deliberately as girls would be confusing and reinforce the idea that they are girls, as they'd be frequently mistaken for girls. But I also avoid very boy coded clothes: no scary animals, diggers, army theme or camouflage. The exception to both of these rules is any clothes they particularly want, they can have. So my sons have Elsa / frozen clothes, some sparkly jumpers they wanted from girls section, and so on. In our house we don't believe in gendered toys, activities or books. All the children get to try any activity and we buy the toys that interest them.

If ever a son of mine says he wants to be a girl I'll be ready to tell him it's not possible, but of course he can do / wear / play with whatever girls do.

What are you going to start a thread on next OP - why vegans aren't raging against the consumption of animal products?

😴, why can people not just let kids be kids instead of having to define or label them.
FFS!!! Bore off

Oh ignore me, I see that you got the q the wrong way round. In which case, we are! Maya Forstater led a campaign about this back in the day.

The campaigning group "let toys be toys" was started by a mums netter and supported by many other Mnetters.

we've been campaigning against stereotyping in clothes and toys for fucking decades. just because you've not been aware of it doesn't mean it's not been happening.

most of us have, admittedly, been rather more engaged in fighting to stop kids being sterilised / having their healthy body parts removed etc over the past few years but we absolutely still point out the sexist shit in the children's clothing world when we see it.