like im trying to think who would NOT benefit if dresses and skirts were universally accepted as gender-neutral clothing? and i think the answer is: it would be good for all of us
This might make it harder for trans girls to pass as girls. They might get more “cool dress man” type statements.
Yes. This. This is a thing. This is a very important thing. Gender-coding is very important to people with strong genders.
what if systems of meaning are actually good
what if everyone had a gender symbol tattooed on their foreheads that took priority over whatever clothes they were wearing huh what then punk
assign a color to each gender and have its members use / wear that color preferentially
or we could have a complex system that combines color options with different clothing fashions and even hairstyles and accessory choices to indicate gender!
wait-
Or we could stop gender-coding to give the trans girls plausible deniability to experiment with, switch to universal pronouns and aim to diminish the importance of gendering, while letting people be what they say they are. Cherry-picking a single example of gender systems that benefits trans people is kind of like saying that drone bombings aren’t that bad because one target was actually planning to hurt people. The benefits of gender-coding to some people with strong genders don’t necessarily come anywhere near to outweighing the harms of gender-coding to other people with strong genders, and all people without strong genders. For example, I know quite a many trans guys who still want to wear dresses but are having a lot of trouble with it because it leads to misgendering.
3 months ago · tagged #skirts and dresses: the superior option to all genders · 75 notes · source: aprilwitching · .permalink