Guardian article by a man who dresses "as a woman"

[hackmum]

Might be worth going along and commenting. A couple of people have made points about the mooted gender recognition bill. There's also a comment by a TIF saying that the bill won't have the impact feminists say it will have, e.g. it won't make a difference to sport.

By the way, since two of my (very politely worded) comments on Hadley Freeman's article were deleted, the Guardian has been premodding my comments and doesn't let me post anything on trans issues. So others might have better luck sneaking something in.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/24/moment-that-changed-me-dressing-as-a-woman-for-first-time

oh for fuck's sake, what is wrong with the Guardian. Every bloody week!

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3077504-Article-Showing-Autogynaphilia-in-Action

Another AGP article. The Guardian loves these guys, wearing a dress = a woman in every way.

Not so sure I believe the narrative that he only dressed for that party. Most of these men secretly crossdress for years/decades. They are almost obsessive in keeping that side of themselves hidden - until the thrill is to be seen by others, because the thrill of dressing alone has been used up. Quite possible this AGP is too ashamed to admit it's a lifelong fetish, much easier to say it's his feminine essence set free by a "random" party outfit.

See if you can get a comment about autogynephilia on the article. I doubt it, but worth a try.

The Guardian currently has a book review on its site of a book by Mary Beard on women and power. The review, and some of the comments below, make reference to women being silenced.

So I wrote a comment about how women like Julie Bindel and Heather Brunskell-Evans are being silenced by trans activists. I also mentioned attempts to close the Vancouver Women's Library for publishing books by Germaine Greer and others.

They haven't published my comment. Oh, the irony.

Great post by NessunoMai:

I have no objection at all to men wearing dresses and makeup (aren't we used to it in some places already, the stage, cinema, media?) But I do have qualms about treating femaleness as costume, similar to the anxieties around cultural appropriation. It's not the worry that someone is taking away something from us (men, you're welcome to ALL the tights, heels, and depilation in the world! ;-)) but that our intimate selves are seen as no more than a bunch of superficial traits others can acquire and put on and off as they please.

Maybe someday it will finally become obsolete to talk about "cross-dressing". It's only societal enforcing of rigid gender roles that decrees men (who are after all higher status and need to prove their masculinity at all times) are forbidden to dress as those lesser beings, women. But then I wonder what it is people like the author are truly attracted to--is it makeup and certain type of clothing for their own sake, or for their symbolic power? As the latter only derives from the current gender divide, to be a "cross-dresser" will depend on keeping that divide alive.

Bg fucking Whoopee- as we used to say when I was a teenager. Is there a man out there who hasn't put on a dress and found it has changed his life in every single way possible???

I don’t care that there’s some part of him that likes dresses and nail varnish and makeup, live and let live and all. But why on earth does that part need to be a “female within”? Why can’t he just be a bloke who likes dresses, if that’s all it is?

That’s the frustrating part, this idea that makeup and long nails and all of that is something we just naturally love because it’s “feminine”. Go bind your feet up like they used to do to little girls in China, or squeeze your growing ribcage into a corset until your lungs are so impaired you faint all the time, like they used to do to girls here, and then go and wear those lovely “feminine” heels again and try to sodding do anything in them, and tell me they’re just harmless expressions of our “feminine” personalities.

He feels that way because he thinks woman is just a costume you can put in and take off. And the guardian presents this as progressive.

Comments are being premoderated

Actually I think the comments are quite balanced, considering the premoderation, and quite an emphasis on gender stereotypes.
Grayson Perry I admire - he is a man. Eddie Izzard now describes himself as trans, which is a shame.

Hackmum - just wanted to say that I think I know which comments were yours on HF's article, and I agree that there was nothing wrong with them

Thanks, Beyond. It was a very reasonably-worded comment - my comments on the Guardian site always are.

The problem is that the Guardian seems to have decided to treat even the mildest criticism of transactivism as the worst kind of hate speech, equivalent to calling black people "n***s". They seem to take their cue for transactivists themselves, who kick up a huge fuss about everything, so that "deadnaming" and "misgendering" are no different from threatening to kill people. Clearly it works as a tactic.

You see, this is why I think the GUardian is sometimes WORSE than the Daily Mail! At least the DM let's all comments stand, regardless of the comment's political viewpoints.

Dear Guardian. I want to love you but you force me to hate you. It's been a life long relationship but I think we're through. What a shame you turned out to hate women.

Nessunomai also pointed out that she'd happily gone out with a male colleague who asked if he could wear women's underwear and then talk to her about it. She seemed remarkably happy about being dragged as a prop into a man's sexual fantasy.

To be fair, the comments are more balanced than we have seen previously on similar articles

I rather liked this comment below the article, in reply to another comment.

'. ...there is no one definition of what it is to be female .'

What!? Genes evidenced by genitals. Everything else is window dressing

Standing in a garage doesn't make you a car.

Also in the comments:

don't dress up any more, but I still have fond memories. I don't know why tights are uncomfortable for some, I loved them. Approving glances from ladies really made my day.

Well I tried to leave two comments, one commenting on Robin exploring the bandwith of what it meant to be a man and looking forward to reading the next Guardian article about women wearing trousers boots and braces. Then one in response to the woman stating that she wasn't defined by her biology - I may have reminded her about reproduction, pregnancy, menstruation, rape etc.
Neither were published.
I am SO glad that I cancelled my monthly subscription.

Ugh. Why do these old men refer to themselves as girls? So creepy.

"There is, after all, a limit to the size of a girl’s wardrobe. I get most pleasure out of going shopping..."

Actually, while the Guardian may be going overboard on self-identification as whatever you want, Robin himself seems pretty reasonable about it. In response to a question about whether he identifies as a woman, he replied:

No, I don't feel that I am a woman, but I do feel "feminine" - and not necessarily all the time. However, I would like to feel that it was possible just to go out dressed without having to think twice about it. I guess we're some way off that at the moment.

I'm fine with that. He's not claiming he's a woman, and I support the idea that he and other men should be able to wear whatever they want.

I posted and got moderated, i asked why they published an article about a person who got dressed.