The struggles of getting a haircut as a non-binary person

[Awning10]

twitter.com/i/status/1224664146257620994

Titania McGrath has rted her with withering satire. It does feel a bit like bullying.

Tits identifies as black and non-binary. How dare you suggest they should just meekly accept having they's own experience whitesplained to them. There are literally no people of colour in that video.

(More seriously: The target of satire is often not it's subject. This video is promoted uncritically by the state broadcaster, it's exactly who satire should target. If it feels mean, that's because the BBC should not use this lass to preach.)

wellbehavedwoman

Right

Im off to bed before i hug anyone else

Night all

the gender binary does dominate everyday life

The gender ideologues are certainly trying to make it so with their reinforcing sex stereotypes and relying on these to define women in order that men can ‘become’ women. No feminist on this board would say that was a good thing. If you think they do you need to read a bit more carefully.

I regularly had a short back and sides cut done by a barber back in the (very) early eighties.
He was great.

Like, people are having a go at A POET for being overly sensitive.

I don't want to sound like I'm "piling on" this individual, but I think it's fair to criticise their poem that's being promoted by the BBC. I think it's a harmful message. It's saying that aside from a special few, most of us are fine and dandy with gender stereotypes. The whole poem is enforcing the exact thing that it claims to be against.

I think the woman in that video has the potential to be a bright, insightful and sensitive individual. It's just sad any vulnerabilities she's carrying have taken her in this self-indulgent and misguided direction. There are so many other things she could put her mind to beyond all this rubbish. I think getting a very public roasting must be hard even if the criticisms are relevent. I hope she's ok.

I quite agree.
I have no problem with her as an individual. It’s just that she is bitching and moaning about a problem that simply doesn’t exist.

This has to be the biggest bait and switch ever. Distract everyone from politics and climate change by getting them to worry about non existent problems.

Hmmm.... I agree that a world divided into pink and blue is a bad thing — so why in hell is a flag divided into just those colours now something we all must genuflect to — or if we’re newly elected MPs the flag we must wriggle around with?

The term at work here is: internal contradiction.

Indeed, Bicker. As a visual message the trans flag reads as a celebration of both regressive gender stereotypes and keeping adults in a permanent state of immaturity. It's a twee children's products catalogue that even a few years ago would have been protested on "let toys be toys" grounds sold as progress and liberation.

They're not harming anyone at all.

Except they are, wellbehavedwoman. They are spending their time and talent and their platform promoting and reinforcing the idea that gender is what matters, not biological sex, in how people are treated. They are throwing other women under the bus. They are promoting the "trans and NB people are oppressed in ways you mere cis types can't even imagine" nonsense. And sure, they seem quite sweet, and aren't (unlike other gender extremists) holding a bloody knife and telling us to die in a fire, but they are still harming us.

I didn’t watch much of the video but I did read all the comments.

We are going to have such a good time in the gulags!

Gender-dissenters are much funnier than woke people.

Woke parties must be a great place to take a nap.

Agree, Dulang!

I'm not happy about the idea that this bilge can't be ridiculed or satirised because it's mean. The BBC should have been more responsible. Of course people were going to react like this. They threw her to the lions.

As a bloke, I've tried those unisex salon places and regardless of the gender of the person cutting my hair, it's been all fancy shampoo and a shit cut.

Barbers are better. Though not much cheaper these days. My barber does cut women's hair and there is no price difference. What will cost a fair whack is if you have long hair and you're going short. But my barbers now is a sort of hipster place where they are either vegans or part time farmers. Other barbers I've been to like the one near my first flat would not cut the hair of many women. Most women wouldn't even go in there as it was literally a cesspit of misogyny.

Yes I did watch this video and it was cringeworthy. I’ve no issue about what haircut you choose or toilet you want to use. But don’t sell yourself out for a cheap interview which makes you look like a fool

Some excellent comments here.

Wellbehavedwomen: creating drama over having to ask for a cut that you feel is gender neutral ... falls squarely under the heading of buying problems, when life will hand you a plethora of 'em.
I hope you’re fully recovered from the cancer and I’m glad your hair has grown back.

Prodigalkitten: There seems to have been a cultural decision to actively cultivate and valorize mental and emotional fragility in young people and I don't think it's good for them at all.

But my barbers now is a sort of hipster place where they are either vegans

Oh no, not vegans. Everyone knows that you need to consume animal based food to be able to cut hair.

Maybe you need to be to cut hair without charging women more than men. Even though they are likely to have smaller heads. That was my actual point although you chose to take one part of my post and twist it to your weird agenda.

Of course people were going to react like this. They threw her to the lions

Totally agree. I bet the young woman in the video thinks the BBC is on her side but in fact they have failed her. Part of the problem here is the way the BBC has presented this - using the word "struggle" in the headline for a start has opened the poet up to ridicule because it's inappropriate for such a trivial issue.

But also, the poet does have a point about things like hairdressers charging more for the same haircut if you're a woman and about societal expectations about femininity. The problem is, she may not realise this isn't a new problem, and one that affects a huge number of women, not only the special ones who call themselves NB, but the BBC does. Journos at the BBC know all about gender noncomformity over the years, and that it hasn't just been invented by this lot and they could have given this its historical context.

If they'd published this alongside comment about this having been an issue for GNC women since forever and recognising that not only the special people have GNC haircuts, then I bet it would have been much better received. They massively let her down and I bet she thinks they're on her side. And that sums up this movement I think. Adults who should know better involving themselves in a youth movement and encouraging and amplifying this bullshit. Totally agree with this:

There seems to have been a cultural decision to actively cultivate and valorize mental and emotional fragility in young people and I don't think it's good for them at all

the poet does have a point about things like hairdressers charging more for the same haircut if you're a woman and about societal expectations about femininity

Completely. I remember clearly the utter outrage when Sinead O’Conner was on Top of the Pops.
Nothing is new.

This person promotes an ideology high harms us all, particularly women and girls. The idea that everyone else s happy with gender stereotypes but zee is much more special than us, the idea that liking pink or blue is what makes you a girl or boy, the idea that biological sex doesn’t exist or is a distant second to your feelings and identity.

They look early 20s - at that age I had a job and a mortgage. They are not a child, they are old enough to take responsibility for the harm their ideology creates.

In my day, we all cut/dyed/shaved each others' hair, mostly being too broke for trips to t'hairdressers. As goths and glammies there was a fair bit of gender non-conforming.

I see this more as a "too much money not enough sense" issue.