"men dressing in women's clothes is offensive...

[newrubylane]

... to the LGBT community."

www.worcesternews.co.uk/news/19657416.st-richards-warn-men-dressing-womens-clothes-fundraiser-offensive/

I don't even know where to start.

@KimikosNightmare

*Nicky Wire, Kurt Cobain, David Bowie and Lou Reed all look fucking hot in dresses. They all knew they were men though*

Yes certainly no doubt that the perennial hero on here that is Bowie knew he was a man. It's insulting to the other 3 to lump him in with him. I've not heard anything about the other 3 behaving in such a manly way as Bowie.

I think you're alluding to allegations that Bowie had sex with underage girls? (Sorry, I'm not familiar with the details.)

I've seen on a couple of threads posters give Bowie as an example of a man who dressed in an androgynous way, but still knew he was a man. That isn't to say that posters endorse him as an example of a good human being in general. He might be an unfortunate example on a feminist board - he might have been terrible to women, I don't know- but that doesn't undercut the example of a gender-non-conforming man who knew he was a man.

I've never heard of that accusation against Bowie. Was just going to Google it, but you know what? It meant the world to me all my life that there he was, unapologetically being himself. And he's dead, so I'll just keep the memory of the good that he did just by existing. And I'll save my anger for the living breathing misogynists that are a real and present danger to women right now.

There was a similar story last year about a students union banning "drag socials" because trans people might be offended.
www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/drag-socials-lgbt-aberystwyth-university-a4540951.html

He might be an unfortunate example on a feminist board

But never mind- he looked good in a dress.

There's so much hypocrisy on this thread- not just about Bowie.

Kimiko, I agree with you about Bowie, for what it's worth. Used to love his music, have since been sad and disappointed to find out what he did (along with John Peel, another hero who crashed to earth).

But - do you ever think we could just have a conversation about these things, everything doesn't have to be a fight, surely?!

With my serious head on, actually what is offensive is the whole idea of men's clothes and women's clothes. Other than the different cuts needed for different body shapes, there's no reason at all for it other than to enforce social differences that do not in reality exist.

So cross-dressing-up may be relatively harmless/well-meaning, may be gloriously subversive or may be deeply derogatory, but it will never be completely unproblematic because underlying it all is the fucked up idea that the sexes should have different types of clothes in the first place.

But imagine if that went away!

Drag could still exist, but no-one would be "dressing up" as a woman. Instead, male and female performers could be competing to be the most fabulous or the most cheeky or the most dirty with no gender element at all.

You'd go to a black tie ball and be surrounded by glittery glamazons and dapper dans of both sexes.

Imagine how a business-casual open plan office would look if the "women's" and "men's" outfits were just distributed evenly over the sexes without comment. Maybe the intern trotting past in heels swishing his pony-tail. And imagine that was just everyday normality.

THAT is the sort of future we should be trying to get to. THAT was the real potential of the trans movement that has been squandered by the likes of Stonewall pushing everyone into their repressive ideas about gender identity. We should have been working together to challenge that your body needs to say anything at all about who you are inside. Instead we have medicalised children. It is heartbreaking.

Brilliant post Blibbyblobby.

@KimikosNightmare

He might be an unfortunate example on a feminist board

But never mind- he looked good in a dress.

There's so much hypocrisy on this thread- not just about Bowie.

There is no "nevermind" when it comes to sexual assault, and I don't think you will see much of that on this board. As I said, I don't know the details of the allegations against Bowie so I don't feel comfortable discussing them. If you want to discuss the problem of male celebrities who have sexual assaulted women and girls, go right ahead - it will be an interesting thread.

But the argument about gender-non-conforming dressing often goes-
"Men can wear dresses and be comfortable still being men e.g. Bowie"
"Ah, but Bowie isn't a good example, because he had sex with underage girls"
...and that just doesn't make sense as an argument. I think sometimes it is used as a derail.

Anyway, back to the point at hand - Blibby makes an excellent point.

The hypocrisy I was referring to was in the past when this has been discussed the assumption that there is something inherently funny in a man dressing up as a woman used to be challenged as being offensive to women. The supposedly hilarious aspect only arising because at best it is ridiculous to see a man dressed in that way or at worst it is demeaning.

Yet here , because the suggestion was that it was offensive to the LGBT community, posters are falling over themselves to say, no it's all fine, just a laugh, women's clothes are hilarious.

As for Blibbyblobby's ideal world, well that falls at the first hurdle given the suspicion many posters exhibit towards men who do wear feminine clothing, outwith the , frankly random approved group.

Men can wear what they want.

Womanface 'for larffs' is offensive

What are the women to wear for those laughs that we can't wear now? Bowler hats have long gone.

Well, you know, not everyone on this board agrees with everyone else, Kimiko. There is a range of opinion available. Even on this thread!

@BigFatLiar

I don't see the problem. They're not mocking women or trying to be women they're making themselves look silly to raise a smile.

That was my thought.

@KimikosNightmare

As for Blibbyblobby's ideal world, well that falls at the first hurdle given the suspicion many posters exhibit towards men who do wear feminine clothing, outwith the , frankly random approved group.

Yes. It requires a real cultural change and genuine desire to smash gender/sex constructions, as opposed to this faux genderist version of "challenging the gender binary" which actually translates as "everyone else has to adhere to sex stereotypes so that a handful of trans identifying people have a framework they can define themselves within".

As you can probably tell, I think while the currently dominant ideology around trans identities has a superficial veneer of progressiveness, in reality it is just a dead end for everyone, trans and so-called-"cis" alike.

And I think as we deal with the day to day impact and frustrations of fighting an ideology that wants to bring back the long discredited and highly damaging idea that women's minds are somehow just different to men's, it's important to lift our heads out of that from time to time and think about what a genuinely better and inclusive world might be like so we can make sure we work towards something rather than get sucked into pushing backwards and forwards across the same patch of no-mans-land at the entrance to that dead end.

But I do think you do the posters in this group a disservice. I am dreaming of a better future. They are speaking within the current situation, where like it or not, historic constructions around gender and sex mean there are material differences between "womanface" depending on whether it's being worn by a rugby team as a joke, a drag artist as a performance, a rock star as a statement or a transgender male as an expression of identity.

As I said in my post, the very existence of men's and women's clothing in the first place is problematic - as the old joke goes, I wouldn't start from here - but given that is the context from which we must start, from a feminist perspective some types of cross-dressing are more offensive than others because of additional assumptions about womanhood that go alongside them.

It's (yet another) failing of the rigid genderist movement that we, the group being honoured/pilloried/appropriated, are not supposed to talk about those differences.

And to be clear, none of the above, which speaks about different classes of dress-up, precludes the condemnation of any individual man for his other actions.

I think this is a bit of an own goal for the charity or whoever suggested to them that this is offensive to trans people.

Setting aside the misogyny issue for a moment, people know that these are men dressing up as women for a laugh.

Surely its only offensive to transwomen if you believe that there is a striking similarity between a man in a dress and a transwoman?

The fact that the comparison has been made and publicised seems to be the offensive part for trans people - the suggestion that men wearing dresses might offend transwomen (who frequently assert that they are not merely men in dresses) shows that someone at the charity has made an association between transwomen and men wearing dresses that would probably be quite offensive in itself to many transwomen.

@ArabellaScott

Well, you know, not everyone on this board agrees with everyone else, Kimiko. There is a range of opinion available. Even on this thread!

There are a few posters who have commented on the misogynistic aspect that a man merely putting on a dress is somehow hilarious. The majority seem to have no issue. I'm not sure what point you are trying to make about a range of opinions? Have I said that isn't allowed?

My opinion is there is a great deal of hypocrisy being shown here as the objection was raised on behalf of LGBT grounds.

It hardly helps Blibbyblobbys ideal world that so many posters agree with these men that their wearing a dress is indeed a comedy charity challenge.

Setting aside the misogyny issue for a moment, people know that these are men dressing up as women for a laugh

What's funny about it? Seriously I don't get it. They aren't dressed up as panto dames (which might be funny- although when panto dames are discussed on here many posters have an issue with the misogyny there)

They are wearing normal dresses which wouldn't merit a second glance if worn by a woman but it's "a laugh"?

*YetAnotherSpartacus

Took me a while but I think the point was that Bowie did the very manly thing of sleeping with at least one under age girl, whereas we have no evidence that Wire, Cobain or Reed engaged in such abusive behaviour*

It wasn't me who asked anything about this. I think you are confusing me with another poster.

This (sort of) reminds me of the outcry on SM about the John Lewis advert (the one where a boy wears a dress) if it was a girl wearing ‘boys’ clothes no one would bat an eyelid.

Now why is that? Why is it acceptable for girls to wear ‘boy’ clothes but not boys to wear ‘girl’ clothes?

Is it because females dressing as males is the ideal and girls are seen as inferior? Maybe this is why people have an issue with dressing up as a woman as a joke.

Absolutely no issue with men who wear a dress. A PP mentioned Kurt Cobain and Nicky Wire but when it’s a joke or mocking, it doesn’t sit right with me.

Do women ever out in over the top men outfits, tuxedos and bowler hats with comedy moustaches for charity/on a hen do? No, why is that?

@YetAnotherSpartacus

*YetAnotherSpartacus

Took me a while but I think the point was that Bowie did the very manly thing of sleeping with at least one under age girl, whereas we have no evidence that Wire, Cobain or Reed engaged in such abusive behaviour*

It wasn't me who asked anything about this. I think you are confusing me with another poster.

That's the first time I've seen paedophilia described as a "very manly thing".

That's the first time I've seen paedophilia described as a "very manly thing"

I dunno - I'm just trying to figure out how my name got into the conversation

That's the first time I've seen paedophilia described as a "very manly thing"

It was intended as sarcasm- " male entitlement" is often cited on here. Assuming underage teenage girls will have sex with you because you're a rock star seems very male entitled.

We're on to you Spartacus, dont deny your guilt!

Kimiko a lot of humour is derived from two incongruous things being put together - e.g. loads of Monty Python sketches are based on that. In this case, there are people who will find it funny to see stereotypically manly men dressed in stereotypically womanly women's clothes. Not everyone finds it funny, and some find it misogynistic in different ways (e.g. reinforcement of stereotypes, the element of degradation it might suggest) but if they do, that's mostly why. As others have said, people also enjoy transgression of norms. Both these things only work if there are gendered norms of dress in the first place. (Blibby's point.)

So there are a range of views on this thread as to whether a man dressed as a woman is ever funny, and whether it's misogynistic. If someone finds this particular instance of men in dresses funny (and remember it is intended to be funny) that is of course not to say that any instance of a man in a dress is funny. One can find Terry Jones in drag funny, but also be sensitive the feelings of a gender-non-conforming man or a trans woman wishing to "pass". Context is important, and that goes for a lot of humour. (You might laugh at a cartoon character falling over, but you don't when it's someone in real life.) I'm stressing this point because there are some who would read this thread and make a bad faith argument about the views of MNers "laughing at men in dresses" as if that's a general position.

So what I am interested to know is whether the charity's concern that this was offensive to the LGBTQ community was well-founded, and what that offense would tell us about playing around with gender norms. Any thoughts?

"Setting aside the misogyny issue for a moment, people know that these are men dressing up as women for a laugh"

What's funny about it? Seriously I don't get it.

I meant that they seem to find it funny - they perceive it as amusing, don't they? I understood they thought it was funny and a lark - I can't imagine they've been doing it for the past 18 years to make a serious point about women's oppression and gender stereotypes, but perhaps I'm wrong!

They aren't dressed up as panto dames (which might be funny- although when panto dames are discussed on here many posters have an issue with the misogyny there)

See I don't get how panto dames are remotely funny either and I don't see a particular distinction between these men and pants dames in terms of the underlying sentiment. (I think both acts are misguided as the people involved don't notice the misogyny and are accustomed to ignoring nagging feminists because of the patriarchy - I don't think they consciously acknowledge their own misogyny as it's so ingrained, and they can't hear women objecting because of the same phenomenon).

I understood that it was the juxtaposition of a man doing something decidedly 'unmanly' (which only works because of gender stereotypes and is only funny to people because of the patriarchy, but they don't see that) which was the part the target audience find funny. Since I'm clearly not the target audience for the humour, I might have got that wrong.

This (sort of) reminds me of the outcry on SM about the John Lewis advert (the one where a boy wears a dress) if it was a girl wearing ‘boys’ clothes no one would bat an eyelid.

Now why is that? Why is it acceptable for girls to wear ‘boy’ clothes but not boys to wear ‘girl’ clothes?

Well, if you take away the dress from the John Lewis advert, it's still incredibly sexist and old-fashioned in terms of gender roles and expectations.

The fact that the boy was wearing a dress was the only part of it that wasn't sexist, IMO.