Gendered intelligence

[Macareaux]

I'm just reading this document from Gendered Intelligence.

JFC it's a celebration of stereotypes from start to finish. Stereotypes that are causing young people to start on a life of medication, surgery and sterility.

How can this madness have got such a hold?

It includes gems like this under the heading 'Passing':

"As a trans woman with a more masculine appearance, you may need to compensate with other “elements” that convey that you are female. The “feminine walk” may help. If you place each foot across yourself each time you take a step this creates the “bum swish”." This is endorsed by the NHS!

cdn0.genderedintelligence.co.uk/2012/11/17/17-15-02-A-Guide-For-Young-People.pdf

If you place each foot across yourself each time you take a step this creates the “bum swish”

LOL at swishy bums!

It's very stereotype - I don't actually know anyone who does a 'swishy bum'

Totes gonna do some bum-swishing tomorrow (not standing up again today if I can help it).

God I wish I bum swished. I walk like a peg-legged pirate.

How males can pretend their pelvis is able to birth a human skull.

You'd just look fucking drunk if you walked like that! I've just tried it!

I'm on my phone so I can't c + p the link, but I did see something similar on Twitter yesterday suggesting that men could try playing with some of their long hair as part of the whole passing thing, among other ridiculously twee suggestions, including the bum swish.
Which was a bit of lightbulb moment to me as to why all these transwomen who embrace this coy flirty hair twiddly thing.

It's as embarrassing as those articles on flirting that suggest similar stuff. But I suppose it comes from the same vantage point - 'passing' in this context seems to be turning yourself into a superficial vision of a woman as a sexually available temptress.

Isn’t there a rather old-fashioned word for this?

I’m not going there.

Bollocks?

I had the same thought gojustgo. The only time I walk by putting my foot across myself each step is when I'm pissed.

"Trans is an umbrella term. It includes cross-dressers, transgender and transsexual people as well as anyone else who is in any way gender variant."

So literally everyone then. Except Barbie and GI Joe. We are all trans now.

"As I grew up I realized that I could be a very outgoing and even dominant person if I felt safe, but I would still be submissive when
people thought I was a girl. I felt forced to act that sweet little girl that my mother expected from me. I think it is because of society’s insistence on the duties of gender that I hadn’t realised my true potential. People say, ‘Well you don’t just wake up one day and.....’, but that’s exactly what happened to me. Everything I’d been feeling came into clear focus and in a way I was more scared than ever before but when I finally came out my confidence excelled."

This is so sad. A young woman in need of feminism, not testosterone.

"Some trans people may wish not to have any surgical intervention, and may, for example, prefer the uniqueness of having male genitalia with a female identity. This is an entirely valid option and one that you may consider for a variety of reasons."

The Twitter TRAs would call that statement horribly transphobic. What about the lady dicks?

"Technology for SRS is quite advanced and with good surgery even gynaecologists are said to find it hard to distinguish a constructed vagina from a natal one."

What? Just no.

I was at a meeting at the end of last year in a room booked by a colleague in central London.

It was a new venue to me, so I didn't know what organisations were situated in the building.

I did notice, during my time there, several people who walked past our meeting room who were outside the 'norm' of gender stereotypes.
I noticed, because I'm a 'noticer' - no judgement made. Just interested in the passers-by who passed by our meeting room.

I also noticed, when I went to the loo, that there was a 'gender neutral' option. Cool.

When I left, I went to thank the receptionist for their hosting of the meeting.

Bent over the reception desk, literally, talking to the receptionist, was someone who I can only describe was 'acting out 'uber-feminine' sexuality-trope actions' - it was so unusual, and something you'd very rarely see a female doing unless you were watching a '70s movie that it made me notice it. Heels-up, breasts forward, flipping hair. It made me notice.

As I left the reception and went into the lift hall - I noticed that the floor hosted Gendered Intelligence.

Ironically, it;s an experience that helped me find my voice here. I don't need males to help us take us back to a time where falling into gender stereotypes of what a woman is.

We fought to break those over so many years, and there are people who seem to want to force us back into those boxes that I thought had been broken for ever.

As an addendum to my last post:- I can understand why these males need us to subscribe to gender stereotypical boxes to validate and help them fit into the 'boxes' they'd like to be in. Swish, swish, bum, hair, heels.

I'm just not up for it. Having spent many years smashing those boxes.

No swish, no bum, no heels, no flick of the hair - I'm me, a female, without all that crap, and I can talk to the receptionist without cue-ing in the 'I'm a girly girl, please like me' stereotypes. Still a female, with all the stuff that goes with it.

Yes, you can be that type of swish swish boobs-out female, but a male appropriating that extreme of the stereotype, in this climate, triggers my concern that my end of the spectrum of 'female' stereotyped behaviour is something they need to eliminate to suit their needs.

I keep saying that, the way we are going, any masculine looking woman is going to start getting challenged in toilets and changing rooms. It's not surprising that passing is seen as increasingly important for anyone wanting a quiet life.

All across the world tens of thousands of women suddenly rose to their feet and walked across the room attempting to recreate a feminine bum swish. On masse they sat down again declaring it a load of utter bollocks.

None of the above people I noticed properly 'passed' Snappity. I'd describe it all as 'performance'.

As a female- bodied person wanting a 'quiet life', I feel more and more concerned how I will negotiate that without bumping into people in what should be female-only spaces who feel more and more confident in 'performing femininity' whilst retaining male biology due to the current zeitgeist.

Snappity, I think you missed the bit where we talked about these 'passing' suggestions and said how unconvincing and rather offensive they were. Because aside from an exaggerated woman from a Carry On Movie, women really don't wiggle along, and click and twiddle their hair and look up from under batting eyelashes. If your intent is to blend in, why ape the mannerisms of a male fantasy designed to turn heads? It doesn't make sense to me.

Most men and transgenders are ignorant of the fact that masculine looking women are challenged to show ID quite often by staff at bars and restaurants and simply comply, no fuss. They do not threaten to call the police the way cross dressers so often do.

Snappity.

The reason women don't perform these stereotypical feminine acts is simple. We don't want to look like twats.

Bum swishing 😂

I have a big arse. Do I qualify as feminine?
Jesus these people are full of shit

People don't pass exactly because of this. I went to a daytime activity a few weeks ago where all the women were wearing the usual, jeans and a top, tunic with leggings, with a transwoman wearing a backless cocktail dress. On the one hand people should be able to wear what the like, on the other this is a massive signifier of difference between women and transwomen.

Women, fall into line and started acting feminine the Trans Way, or face increasing challenge that you are in fact women.

The ultimate goal is that women recognize Trans as our masters in all things female. WE must become like THEM.

Judging by some of the trends in make-up, cosmetic surgery and behaviour, a significant number of women have willingly got ahead of the curve on this one

As a non-wearer of make-up with incomplete/corrupted female socialisation, I’m feeling more mannish by the day. It’s most excellent.

I think if I tried to bum swish, I would trip over my own feet (though arguably I do that a lot anyway)

The reason women don't perform these stereotypical feminine acts is simple. We don't want to look like twats.

This^

It's so true. You only ever see girls 11-14 doing this to look grown up, blokes who want to look like male fantasies, women selling sex in red light districts and the occasional woman with a personality disorder you know to give a wide berth.

It is so irritating the way men think it is their business to tell us how to woman.

I’m going to try bumswishing round the park with the dogs in a minute. I dare say the partially chewed trainers I’m wearing will ruin any Uber feminising effects.