Girls with short hair being labelled as trans

[Sittinginthesand]

Even though they just wanted short hair.

So now they’ve nearly all got long hair. And if they want a shorter style they have to decide if they mind being questioned about whether they are trans or people assuming they are. Going for a short hair cut is almost like a ‘coming out’. So we’ve ended up with less diversity, less freedom, and more pressure to conform to stereotypes.

Short hair (as in cropped) was always a big statement though, at least since the mid 80s when I had it. I would get quite a lot of comments and, you were either prepared to live with that or not. In my case I quite liked being different and standing out, but I get it's not for everyone.

@Sittinginthesand, I understand where you're coming from but I doubt, unless you know of any, that there are really more girls avoiding short hair in case they're thought of as trans than there were girls in my day who quite fancied short hair, but avoided it because they didn't want comments about 'Are you a boy? Are you lesbian'?

I think we should assume nothing. My dc uses a male name with her friends but interestingly not when she introduces herself to strangers. She is 18 so she can call herself what she likes but doesn't. Ditto a legal change of name. There is absolutely no way she would enter a male toilet, she would be scared of an attack. It would be hard to see her as a man, she is too feminine. Small hands & features. I actually think she was groomed over the Internet. Her obsession with 'Miles' ruled her life. She no longer spends hours on the Internet and her hair still changes like the weather. She is a lovely kind person but she put up with so much shite from her own peers.

Obviously, it's not a good thing in either case that girls need to have to think about their hair length so much, but the problem isn't trans kids, it's misogyny and a sense of ownership over women's bodies that ties their worth to their femininity which is tied to the length of their hair.

This is a really depressing thread.

When I was at secondary in the 70s my boyfriend's hair was probably longer than mine. I had (what I thought was) an incredibly cool Purdy cut.

Also women of my mum and granny's generation mainly had short hair. I remember them going to the hairdresser for a shampoo and set. They even had blue and pink rinses!

Gender stereotypes are definitely becoming more and more restrictive and I keep wondering when the younger generation are going to realise this.

Currently gender stereotyping is getting more and more extreme, depressingly so! Seems to start in pregnacy now that knowing the sex long before birth is the nom( though how that fits in with gender ideology is a whole other thread 🙄).

Newborns now come into the world to a full wardrobe of gendered clothing and suitably decorated nursery, pram and toys etc. 30yrs ago babies were much more gender neutral. Pink or blue prams were just becoming available when mine were babies, they're late teens now. A lot of that hs driven by capitalism. If you have all blue for baby boy number 1 and number 2 is a girl then a lot of new stuff will be bought! This gendered world is making fortunes for big business!

This thread made me think about the huge bows & flowers people literally glue to their infant daughters’ heads to ensure nobody thinks their child with “insufficient” hair is a boy. It seems to be waning as a trend now, but it’s pretty awful that people feel so obliged to label their children up.

That brought me to thinking of the long tradition of quasi gender-neutral (albeit for utterly unfeminist reasons) babyhood in the UK that only ended relatively (in the scheme of things) recently (gendering of childhood experiences as opposed to babyhood being separate, to be clear).

Thus I am now wondering how Winston Churchill’s wearing dresses until he was a toddler (the attached portrait is dated c1878 & he was born on 30/11/1874) - & having darling ringlets ditto - would be understood by TRAs. And indeed how they’d explain the lack of a large population of [would-be] trans girls throughout the period “breeching” was a thing. Because they’d be visible in the historical record: women’s diaries; some of the clergy diaries (if you think God kills your son because you play too much chess, you’d mention a son wanting to cross-dress); & crucially, all the many & varied archival holdings relating to former asylums - because that’s where a boy who didn’t desist sharpish would have ended up. Yet there they are not, as it were.

Actually, as the queen learned her way around a truck during the war and once drove a member of the Saudi royal family around Balmoral, she probably is a bloke.

Ain’t stereotypes great

Interesting how things change - my own grandmother reportedly cried when my dad's lovely curls were cut when he was 5 - in 1910

My mum has a few ild family photos from early 1900s. Baby & toddler boys all in dresses!

I think there is also a subdivision, typified by the Becky vs Stacy incel trope ( www.vox.com/2018/4/28/17290256/incel-chad-stacy-becky ) that actually maps pretty well to class privilege and educational attainment

I have had short hair since young childhood, a 1970s Bob type..in the late 70s I desperately wanted a 'Servalan' from Blakes 7 cut but no chance of it.. it wouldn't have suited me anyway I had it cut as short as DM would allow me as an early teenager. I am mid 50s still with short hair..
I look around and see identikit teens..