Would you ok your son wearing a dress?

[KristinaJup]

Candace Owens recently tweeted (in response to Harry Styles wearing a dress on a magazine cover) "Bring Back Manly Men".. amongst other things.

Who really cares if a guy wears tutus and glittery dresses? Prince was hot af in his heels and Makeup.

Imo I would have no problem with it at all if my son wanted to put on a skirt but the tweet gained a lot of traction and I saw quite a few memes and lots of fingers pointed at feminism for "ruining men"

If we carry on this way the next thing will be....women should not be wearing trousers! What do you think?

My ds has been wearing dresses and lots more besides since he was around 4. We never encouraged or tried to stop him, it's just him and he has always been very happy, safe and supported within our family.
He is now a very confident much liked teen and still wears girls clothing around the house.
I know he would like to go out dressed as he wants but he realises the risks even though he would pass as a girl very easily.
So no absolutely no problem with him wearing a dress at all.

Apart from your mythical bullies, why is it wrong? Is it going to make his willy drop off? Is he going to freeze to death? Is everyone going to judge your parenting? Is he going to grow up to be a hooligan? I'm really rather unclear what you think is wrong with it.
To begin with, bullies are very far from 'mythical.' Read some of the bullying threads on here.
Then, is everyone going to judge your parenting?' Possibly not everyone, but a fair proportion will certainly be judging - in private, if not publicly.
Those two reasons in themselves would be enough to dissuade me from ever allowing a boy to wear a dress. As I said before, boys wearing dresses is quite simply not a social norm at present. I realise that there will be some people who would like it to be, but parents who are sending boys out in dresses (to be honest, though, I've never seen one, so I suspect that the whole question is somewhat hypothetical), are not doing their sons any favours and are merely making them look ridiculous for the sake of showing others how politically correct they can be.

@DickKerrLadies

I'd quite like people to start designing dresses for men. I bet they'd have pockets.

😂

I am not sure if it's totally clear

To me There is a difference between encouraging a boy to go out in a dress , banning him from going out in a dress , and having a little talk about possible implications and then supporting him whatever he decides

I am firmly in the third camp. That isn't encouraging and manipulating and projecting.

Exactly midge. I didn't bother telling DS about the implications when he was 4, because, you know, he was 4.

@midgebabe

I am not sure if it's totally clear

To me There is a difference between encouraging a boy to go out in a dress , banning him from going out in a dress , and having a little talk about possible implications and then supporting him whatever he decides

I am firmly in the third camp. That isn't encouraging and manipulating and projecting.

Nailed it!

@midgebabe

I am not sure if it's totally clear

To me There is a difference between encouraging a boy to go out in a dress , banning him from going out in a dress , and having a little talk about possible implications and then supporting him whatever he decides

I am firmly in the third camp. That isn't encouraging and manipulating and projecting.

Yep

I dunno, I just think it's attention seeking tbh. I certainly think that all kids should be allowed to wear skirts or trousers at school whatever gender due to trans kids but the whole argument about it's cooler in summer - wear shorts, or skirts/dresses are not to show off a woman's body (and putting up a priests cassock) or people find them more comfortable - buy looser clothing, are all just random and bizarre reasons to me. To me it's a sexual thing, a gender thing or attention seeking.

Ds school posted a short with their Christmas class song - he was an angel and I was asked to provide white clothes, I sent leggings and T-shirt from his wardrobe and when I saw the video they had popped a white tutu on him as well, whether he had asked to wear it or whether they just put it on I don't know- judging from lots of posters here they would complain (I'm fine with it as I've said upthread)

On another note I hated having to wear a skirt to school in the winter but we were not allowed trousers, I had a long walk to school and tights often bring me out in a rash, that was only 20 years ago, the irony that dd is only allowed trousers (gender neutral uniform) isn't lost on me.

I am coming in at the end of a very long thread, but I don't see this as an issue. Men already wear dresses - they just don't call them dresses. They wear kilts, or kurta, or sarongs, or tunics, or thobes, or jehllubeeya. or sherwanis - and boy, a really good anarkali sherwani both has a much bigger skirt than I've ever worn in my life, and can look stonkingly fantastic on the right man.

And men very recently did wear western-style skirts and dresses and call them skirts and dresses. I'm in my fifties, and one of my mates when I was a teenager wore skirts, quite long, dull-coloured ones. He was a straight man, just a hippie. He didn't make a fuss about it or expect attention, he just found them more comfortable, just like millions of other men around the world do.

The current problems have arisen when a small group of men put on what is currently female-coded clothes as a sexual fetish, and ruin it for everyone. Without the sexual fetish, they are just clothes. Ordinary, boring clothes that anyone might wear.

I would have no problem my ds wearing a dress/skirt etc. I would have a huge issue if my ds wanted me to pretend I believed he was a girl.