Girl Got A New Haircut. Father Shocked By The Things Strangers Now Say To Her.

[Onnabugeisha]

From US HuffPost

My Daughter Got A New Haircut. I'm Shocked By The Things Strangers Now Say To Her.

"Our 12-year-old daughter would like to pee without being harassed. Lately, she can’t seem to escape it."

Article: www.huffpost.com/entry/daughter-short-haircut-harassment_n_6384dd5ae4b06ef4a546c8a5?utm_campaign=share_email&ncid=other_email_o63gt2jcad4

Isn’t that what I said?
GC people are very unlikely to expect children to adhere to gender stereotypes, which leaves TRAs or misguided fools (I’m happy to place religious nuts in this category).

I know a young woman with very short hair; looks stunning but clearly female. She says she was unprepared for the comments she gets:

-assumptions she's a lesbian
-told by her (female) boss that she'd be assumed to be a prostitute in her home country
-asked by someone she hadn't seen for ages if she'd had chemotherapy (becuase obviously no woman would choose to have short hair?)

I was genuinely shocked.

Yes, I was agreeing with what you said. Trying to explain a bit more for the benefit of the op.

Ok, sorry, I was confused!

I’m not sure that I would take this article at face value.

One of the (many, many) weird things about this movement is that suddenly some people seem confused enough to think that feminists want everyone to live as a gender stereotype.

It is quite a handy way of determinining who doesn't have a clue what they're talking about though.

Imagine actually thinking "wow, these women who are critical of gender want people to be totally gender conforming".

No.

The world is full of people who are neither extreme trans activists or people who are feminists.

You are also sadly mistaken if you ever thought that the majority of the world would be accepting of males over 8 using female single sex toilets.

Adults should be sensitive about dealing with children. But just to point out that a male on puberty blockers could be looking like a young teen girl. and a 12 year old girl can be tall already.

You are attempting to blame feminists for this issue. Feminists who encourage gender non-conformity.

Lay the blame on those who have actively advocated for males to have access to female single sex spaces. It is those people who have encouraged the breach to the boundaries of others.

I imagine that if that hadn’t have happened, the reaction would have been like when my 12 year old self with the horrid bowl cut that my father insisted I have used the female toilets. A look and a quick ‘the boys is over there’ followed by me going red and staring embarrassedly ‘I am a girl’. And nothing more was done.

But you are indulging in your own deep prejudices here. And I am still unconvinced that you understand the term ‘gender critical’ that you are flinging around.

People are weird about short hair on women. I shaved mine for a charity thing and the comments around 'you're so brave' - I'm like, no, I'm not brave at all, I clipped a thing that will grow again. And so many people thought I had cancer, if I met people I hadn't seen in ages I took to prefacing the conversation with 'I don't have cancer, it was a charity thing.'

So very odd.

No-one thought I was a man though...

This article was also written by a person who is using all the words that trans allies use. Should we take it that they are an extreme trans rights activist?? Should we the discount it?

Because that is what you are doing, as I believe is your usual tactic.

Is it overly emotive? Yes. Should this child be constantly questioned about their sex category? No.

But this is not a new phenomenon. And many of us have dealt with exactly this issue. It didn’t harm most of us by the sounds of it. I was called a boy as long as I could remember until I developed breasts.

So, again. I would also be laying the blame for a child being distraught about being mis-sexed on those extreme activists who have also promoted ‘mis-sexing’ as being hateful and significant mental health issues such as causing suicide ideation.

Well done OP. I see there are plenty of issues with this article being raised. And the issue is that only one group is pushing for ‘gender conformity’ to prop up their demands, and only one group has promoted the very conditions for a phenomenon that has been happening for decades as being significant issue that causes very serious mental health issues.

Not sure you meant it that way, but not one of your posts on this thread is convincing that this is an issue caused by feminists seeking to prioritise sex over gender when it matters.

Such as toilets, over night school stays and sports.

(how amazing that this dad also knew to mention just those issues in his article - such a surprise!)

When I was at school in the 1960s, the class pin up, over whom all the boys drooled, had a very short pixie style haircut. Nobody ever mistook her for a boy!
Nowadays one of my DDs has a v short buzzcut, but again is very obviously female, and has never been queried in women’s loos.
I find it ridiculous that anyone would have such difficulty in distinguishing male from female that they had to rely on haircut to judge. It is obvious from gait, stance, shoulder to hip ratio, larynx, hand size, foot size, pelvis, voice depth, etc. No male “passes” as female unless in heavily photoshopped pictures.

Ah! Another version of "Be nice and budge over"

Accosting a child as described is, obviously, poorly done and the man needed to be spoken to. A man, you notice, not a GC woman, a feminist, yet here you are, admonishing a forum of women for that man's actions. How many other forums, ones filled with men, have you chosen to similarly admonish?

The issue here is that TRAs have worked so very effectively to make gender stereotypes the norm again. Reversing decades of work on removing such shit from our lives. This is the backlash, women being shoved back in their Pretty Little Boxes. Only this time we have to take some men back in with us!

Women and girls have always been challenged for having short hair, not conforming to that gendered set of stereotypes. "Trans" is just another sick with which to beat us.

Take that up with the men wielding the stick - and those behind him busy handing him a new one as and when needed!

Don't believe a word of it. Would an adult challenge a child in the toilets, just because they have short hair? Unlikely. And why is a girl being referred to as a boy whilst playing football, when presumably it's a girls' team?

This sort of shite is made up to stir people up unnecessarily.

There is a world of difference between ‘challenge’ and raising eyebrows and asking if a child is lost.

And I have met 12 year old girls who are tall enough to mistake for a later teen boy and so may be questioned about being in the wrong toilets. I was tall too at that age and if I had baggy clothes on, I was questioned.

There are many issues that OP is twisting here and that the author of that argument is emphasising that fit an extremist view point.

Anybody who thinks* that gender atheists are the ones insisting that girls have long hair and boys have short hair is (a) completely lacking in understanding of the position (b) a pious fraud.

*And they probably don't really think that, they're just saying shite that they fondly imagine is some kind of "gotcha" that plays well amongst their fellow gender religionists.

If HuffPost posted an article every time a female person gets "shocked by what strangers say to them" they'd have no time to do anything else....

@SamphiretheTervosaurReturneth
Accosting a child as described is, obviously, poorly done and the man needed to be spoken to. A man, you notice, not a GC woman, a feminist, yet here you are, admonishing a forum of women for that man's actions. How many other forums, ones filled with men, have you chosen to similarly admonish?

I welcome all comments from those who have actually read the article, which you quite clearly have not bothered to do. The very first paragraph in the article states:

“Our 12-year-old daughter would like to pee without being harassed. Lately, she can’t seem to escape it. Recently, after a long, fun-packed day at a local amusement park, Jenny used the bathroom on the way to the exit. (Jenny is a lovely name, but it’s not our daughter’s real one.) Jenny was met with an adult’s gasp on her way out of the stall and asked why she was in the women’s bathroom. Jenny responded that she is a girl.”

This was a woman, because it’s a fact that it is certain transphobic women (some of whom are within the GC movement) who are policing Women’s toilets. So yes I am alerting the men and women on Mumsnet, as this is a mixed sex parenting site, not a single sex womens forum. This is an issue that should concern all parents as it effects the safety of their children using public toilets.

I am quite happy to see most posters stating that only “idiots” and “religious nutters” would confront a child in the womens toilets. I think I can therefore depend on everyone here, to challenge any adult woman confronting a masculine appearing child using the womens toilets to defend that child from such harassment.

The issue here is that TRAs have worked so very effectively to make gender stereotypes the norm again. Not the case per academic research on the subject:

“Gender-critical’ feminists (e.g. Jeffreys, 2014b) often argue that ‘trans activists’ reinforce stereotypical gender roles – for example, promoting that a woman must look and act in a particularly feminine way. In our data, however, hetero- and cisnormative systems and structures (protected by ‘gender-critical’ feminists and others), pressured trans people to act and present according to specific, normative gender expectations in order to keep themselves safe (see also Bender-Baird, 2016). Of course, cisgender women, too, have to meet these standards; gender non-conforming and butch cisgender women are also subject to misgendering and violence in women’s toilets (Cavanagh, 2010; Munt, 1998). Surveillance in women-only toilets therefore reinforces the rules that gender-critical feminists claim they want to abolish. Making trans lives impossible is prioritised over and above creating spaces inclusive of all women.”

Jones, Charlotte and Jen Slater. The toilet debate: Stalling trans possibilities and defending ‘women’s protected spaces’ The Sociological Review, Vol 68 Issue 4.

doi.org/10.1177/0038026120934697

I'm well into my 50s, shave my head down to a number zero and, believe me, I get told that I need to use the Gents' now and again. It's just folk making a genuine mistake: no drama. Once they get that I'm female, all's good.

I haven't ever been assumed to be transgender (as far as I know) but it's widely assumed that I'm either a lesbian or bisexual, neither of which are the case.

None of these issues bother me. If anyone actually believes me to be a male in a female space, I'm glad they're asking 😚

I’m not convinced that the article is even real. 🤷‍♀️
What else has the Guest writer written? I’d like to see other articles to gauge his opinions on other topics.

I will say that I also think children should be unequivocally off limits…. especially to people that try to influence and mould children they have absolutely no love, care or relationship with.

And last night I was watching Star Trek and a transitioned male was cast as a ‘pirate’. But that male was absolutely channeling stereotypical female behaviour.

So much so, with the voice that seemed strangled, that I picked up immediately that this was not a female. The fact that they showed female stereotypes on this way makes me wonder if the writers really actually do understand and did this deliberately.

This was a woman, because it’s a fact that it is certain transphobic women (some of whom are within the GC movement) who are policing Women’s toilets. So yes I am alerting the men and women on Mumsnet, as this is a mixed sex parenting site, not a single sex womens forum. This is an issue that should concern all parents as it effects the safety of their children using public toilets.

What do you mean by 'policing women's toilets'? Do you think that women who are not 'transphobic' are happy with men using women's toilets?

But I agree, this does affect the safety of girls using public toilets if women's toilets are actually mixed sex.

Nope. The entire premise of transgenderism reinforces gender stereotypes. How else would a man ever think, 'know', express, or fondly imagine that he could be a woman?

There isn't a single, solitary thing other than superficial stereotypes.

That's what gender means.

In our data, however, hetero- and cisnormative systems and structures (protected by ‘gender-critical’ feminists and others), pressured trans people to act and present according to specific, normative gender expectations in order to keep themselves safe

So according to this article, trans people behave according to the way 'gender-critical' feminists want them to behave (if only...). But I can't see any data in the article you quoted from. The 'data' seems to consist of this:

Around 30 people in the north of England participated in data collection including one-to-one interviews, group storytelling, sculpture and performance workshops.

So 30 anecdotes, which may or may not have any truth in them. Great data.

This article is a Trojan Horse. It is just telling women to keep their mouths shut if they see someone who looks like a man in a woman’s space.

If it had claimed that their boy Josh had been challenged in the Gents because he had long hair, well, maybe.

anyway, what’s the big deal? Just teach her to respond politely that she is a girl, if she is ‘challenged’. It will be over soon, anyway, as soon as puberty starts which must be on the cards. Unless the guest writer is planning to encourage her to cut her breast off and pretend to be a man for real.

Let me see. I MUST have read the article because I was referring to this part

During a soccer game, the father of a rival player kept referring loudly to Jenny as “he” and “him.” It was outside the earshot of our sideline, and we didn’t find out until after the game. Our daughter’s teammates would have none of it. They checked the dad in real time, admonishing him that “you need to check your pronouns, buddy.”

Academic research has done what? You offer up an opinion piece, an article, is not research!? One that is littered with the words cis and transwomen offered up without question but places 'gender critical' in those single quotes. Full of framing safeguarding as transphobia. Have you not noticed the debate has moved on since 2020, or the 2018 piece that article was based on.

But thanks. I knew I had read, and lost, an article that contained the gem of a reverse - "We have shown how, in their insistence for a woman-only space, ‘gender-critical’ feminists impose a narrow definition of womanhood and ‘female “oneness”’ (Serano, 2007, p. 350), reinforcing normatively gendered ways of being."

This utter codswallop require vertical filing! And you need to learn the difference between research and opinions.

This happened to me sometimes as a child. Way before the current wave of trans and non-binary identities. People (usually older women or other kids) just weren't used to seeing a girl with short hair in unisex clothes. It did annoy me but all I had to say was "I'm a girl" and that was the end of it. I doubt any of the people who questioned me identified as feminists, by the way, let alone as radical feminists.

I find it weird that the author of the article is fine with his pre-teen daughter dyeing her hair green and blue. That wouldn't be considered okay in my community or in my local schools which have a policy against extreme hairstyles. Maybe it's a cultural difference though.