Famous Gender Non-conforming People

[Wishingstarr]

After reading another thread I really feel we need a list of successful happy well-known people who are very obviously gender-non-conforming (yes I know none of us are!) But we need role models for our kids who are not seeing them unless trans.

It would be great if someone could produce fun short videos suitable for social media and posters etc so that kids understand they don't have to fit stereotypes.

I am a bit out of touch with popular culture but people who come to mind are:

Storme DeLarvarie
Boy George
Rupert Everett (said he wanted to be a girl until his 20s)
Beth Ditto
Ellen DeGeneres
Charlie Covell
Lily Tomlin
Wanda Sykes
Carmelita Tropicana (Alina Troyano)
Radhika Vaz

It's important to have people with a range of sexualities though and not all very flamboyant or extrovert so that kids can see themselves as not just entertainment for others but regular citizens.

Marc Bolan. Wore women’s shoes and make up - still a bloke.

Sylvester - You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)
Imagination - Body Talk
Divine - You Think You're a Man

I mean who is "gender nonconforming" ? Me permanently in 40s and 50s dresses who has never ironed her husband's shirts or organised birthday presents for her mother in law? Or the many FWR posters who hate dresses and "sparkly pink shit" yet are drained by "wife work"?

I think that's kind of the point really. That gender is itself a fluid and fairly silly idea, so the fact that someone doesn't look or behave like the prevalent gender stereotype of their time is interesting enough in its way, as personal preference, a less usual or original dress sense but that is all. It doesn't indicate that they are suffering some fundamental mistmatch between feelings and sex.

• I find this idea of "gender nonconforming" a bit silly.

It strikes me that it's actually a point of agreement between radical feminists and trans activists- both need to identify a list of characteristics which are feminine or masculine.

Trans activists use it as evidence that someone is trans; radical feminists use it for absurd lists like this.*

Yes, of course it's silly - or rather, as the OP implied, no one really is 'gender conforming'. 'Radical feminists' don't have any need for a list of characteristics (other than to tear it up), the OP merely thought some examples showing the idiocy of being defined by gender stereotypes might be useful to youngsters.

Yes, of course it's silly - or rather, as the OP implied, no one really is 'gender conforming'. 'Radical feminists' don't have any need for a list of characteristics (other than to tear it up)

Hmm, not 100% convinced by that. I think it's often used as "look at me , I'm so not like other girls"

the OP merely thought some examples showing the idiocy of being defined by gender stereotypes might be useful to youngsters

The vast majority of the examples are nothing more than ordinary people- very few of whom look or adopt a style in any way out of ordinary. Pink for example? Because she has short hair?

"Those who missed puberty in their own sex will probably be sterile—indeed, sexually functionless. Jazz Jennings went on puberty blockers at age 11, and started cross-sex hormones at age 12. A particularly upsetting recent episode of the TV showI am Jazz shows a consultation with a surgeon who specializes in gender reassignment. “I haven’t experienced any sexual sensation,” says Jazz. “The doctor is saying an orgasm is like a sneeze. I don’t even know what she’s talking about.” (She has since had the operation.)"

From The New Patriarchy article by Helen Joyce

Yes, the detransitioners have spoken in depth about the affect that social media platforms had on their idea about sex and gender: Tumblr, Instagram etc. With the increase of accessible porn and a pornified culture there seems to have been an increase rather than a decrease in a very male-gaze orientated stereotyping of gender. Particularly of young women (the bodies most exploited by porn).

When girls try to escape the oppression of sexualized gender roles, they are NOT being offered a lot of alternative ways of being female that aren't centered around a male-gaze. Then if anything more neutral of masculine or androgynous appeals to them social media (and now schools) offer trans as an option.

Detransitioners also describe being rejected by their peers for being GNC and "weird". While as a trans-boy they were cool and accepted. Or at least a huge online community offered them support and friendship.

We are not offering gender critiques in school. Of course many girls are finding a path to womanhood they can embrace, but others need us to show them what seems so obvious: there is no "correct" way of being female and there is no such thing as a pink brain or a blue brain. It's this repressive crap that is being fed to many kids, or that's what they understand, especially at very young impressionable ages: 11-14 or younger.

@wishingstar A powerful read, thanks for linking

This is at least a year old and social media is always changing, but this gives you some idea of the affects of social media on 4 detransitioned women in their early to mid 20s.

@DidoLamenting

Yes, of course it's silly - or rather, as the OP implied, no one really is 'gender conforming'. 'Radical feminists' don't have any need for a list of characteristics (other than to tear it up)

Hmm, not 100% convinced by that. I think it's often used as "look at me , I'm so not like other girls"

the OP merely thought some examples showing the idiocy of being defined by gender stereotypes might be useful to youngsters

The vast majority of the examples are nothing more than ordinary people- very few of whom look or adopt a style in any way out of ordinary. Pink for example? Because she has short hair?

I don't really use GNC as a descriptor because I think it's a bit like "non binary". Everyone is to some extent, and it's usually based on how you look. But I know it's kind of a short hand and helpful to some people.

And didn't actually mean to quote Dido there. Sorry!

Thank you pps for info and links about puberty blockers. I'm going to look into this further - it seems to be an even worse situation than I'd thought.

Dido you may be shocked at how ridiculously narrow many gender stereotypes still are from the same article linked above here is how Mermaids is describing gender to children

"By the standards of the genre, this is sophisticated. A “gender spectrum” produced by Mermaids, a British lobby group, consists of pictures of Barbie and GI Joe, with a series of figurines in between them, morphing from curvy and pig-tailed to broad-shouldered and stocky.Bish, a British website aimed at teenagers, encourages them to work out their “gender identities” by placing themselves on several “gender spectrums” with words like rational, tough, active and independent under “looks masculine,” and emotional, soft, passive and sharer under “looks feminine"

I have noticed that kids at schools are less diverse and creative in what they wear and present. For example the white girls at my dds high schools have been wearing their hair the same way for 6 years now. They all wear their hair long NOONE has short hair. Their black friends are more creative but maybe that's also because they are looking at different images of beauty and are not conforming to a white dominated ideal. The asian and latinas all wear their hair long too. It sounds like a ridiculous example, but to me it speaks to the conformity so much of this social media produces. These are smart kids in a so-called progressive city. I am not so surprised that trans is an easy sell to girls feeling like they don't fit in, are rejected by peers and get no joy from "doing girl" it doesn't take that much to be "different" these days. Popular culture seems to have become more monolithic.

I like Pink's speech because she talks about being criticized all through her life to the present day for being "too masculine" and "looking like a boy" and how by age 6 her dd felt ugly because she "looked like a boy".

Wishingstarr

Didoyou may be shocked at how ridiculously narrow many gender stereotypes still are from the same article linked above here is how Mermaids is describing gender to children

I'm often shocked by the things which posters list here as things they do /don't to show how "gender nonconforming" they are.

Most of the examples given here are not "gender nonconforming " they are people wearing clothes and doing things.

I don't really use GNC as a descriptor because I think it's a bit like "non binary".

It is. Exactly. With the exception of Marilyn, John McLean and Boy George none of these people are "gnc"

And can we please drop Bowie being held up as an example?

Someone else mentioned Marc Bolan. I hated T-Rex. The music was awful. Bolan also had a very obvious sexual attitude and pose in his performance. He might have worn make-up but he was every bit a part of cock-rock as say Robert Plant.