# Some People See Me as THE STRAIGHT DOPE **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 23, 2017, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-see-me-as-the-straight-dope/799626 "2017-10-23T12:53:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2017, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-see-me-as-the-straight-dope/799626/261 "2017-10-31T18:28:00Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > People keep asking “why can’t you JUST say you’re a \_\_\_\_\_” and the emphasis that keeps jumping out at me is “JUST”. As if it’s no big deal. > > Several folks have said “The world already knows that there are feminine male people”. Or “The world already knows that there are feminine male heterosexual people”. > > The world actually knows damn little about us. There’s only a fuzzy ill-formed notion of our existence, very little of which concerns itself with our experience of being us, and most of which is contemptuous and derogatory. > > There’s a sense that, yes, we have some difficulty getting it on with women – usually coupled with a rolleyes-flavored sentiment that we should become more masculine in order to address that – but not much of a model or mental movie-script in people’s heads about how it does happen when it does happen. > > The world knows we get harassed and picked on especially as juveniles, but does the world have a sense of how we feel ABOUT that? We’re often portrayed as people who wish we were more like the masculine males but just can’t pull it off. (yeah right). We’re sometimes caricatured in ways that show us envying women, looking over the cultural dividers wistfully, but how often do you see us shown as confident and proud? > > We’re sort of sketched as inert specimens, weak, with no objectives and goals, as diluted wimpy creatures who just wish nothing would be asked or expected of us. You think this is the be-all and end-all of how we experience ourselves? > > I’ve chosen to talk about it. While all this is certainly true. What isn’t true is that the entire world, including everyone here, feels that way about you. So in some respects, you’ve made the same incorrect assumptions about some of us as the world often makes about you. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2017, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-see-me-as-the-straight-dope/799626/262 "2017-10-31T18:32:50Z")
> [@Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](#): > > Hell, just today people at work were ribbing me because of some fancy face moisturizer I was excited to get from Amazon. [IKR!](https://www.getjackblack.com/) ---
**Author:** ![Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Living_Well_Is_Best_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2017, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-see-me-as-the-straight-dope/799626/263 "2017-10-31T18:35:30Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > [IKR!](https://www.getjackblack.com/) Ooohhh, I don’t know that brand… ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2017, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-see-me-as-the-straight-dope/799626/264 "2017-10-31T18:38:22Z")
> [@Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](#): > > Ooohhh, I don’t know that brand… [Start with this one](https://www.getjackblack.com/Products/Double-Duty-Face-Moisturizer-SPF-20-with-Blue-Algae-Extract-and-Sea-Parsley__2003O.aspx) and see what you think. A little goes a long way. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2017, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-see-me-as-the-straight-dope/799626/265 "2017-10-31T18:38:48Z")
Let me once again circle back to the comparable situation of transgender people. I know a lot of you folks think you “get it”, what that’s about. But glance back at what **Johanna** wrote about how, up to a certain point where her experiences and mine diverged, she could relate to a lot of what I had said, that it overlapped with her experience and her journey. It is not really the fact that the remainder of her journey led her onto the transitioning path that makes her story (or, rather, the aggregate story of transgender women in general) socially relevant. The portion prior to where her storyline and mine diverge is relevant too. I do NOT think most of you are smugly glancing at your official card that lists all the relevant identities and observing that the one I claim for myself isn’t on it. I do think many of you are unconsciously glancing at it without realizing you’re even carrying around such a card in your head, though, and that most of your “WTF, I just don’t get what you’re on about, how the fuck is this ‘An Identity’” is due to that. Yes, I know I just insulted you. I’m not saying this derogatory thing about you in order to insult you, though, I’m only saying it because I think it is probably true. (And I could be wrong — I’m aware of that —but it’s what I think). If this were 1978, I honestly think that people who were a lot like you, back then, would have said to transgender people that they understand gay people and have come to support gay rights and stuff, but that insisting that one is actually a woman makes no sense. That there are effeminate gay guys and butch lesbians, everyone knows about them, why is the trans person trying to redefine it as something different? And the real reason those 1978-vintage people would be saying and thinking those things is that they _had not, as of yet, encountered a critical mass of explanations about what it means to be trans_. It was new. It was different. Many many people did not “get it” and dismissed it because it didn’t fit into the understanding they had at the time. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2017, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-see-me-as-the-straight-dope/799626/266 "2017-10-31T18:48:47Z")
This isn’t 1978, **AHunter3**. So while 2017 isn’t any more post-gender identity than it is post-racial identity, I’m realizing that maybe I’m not the target audience in your crusade. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2017, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-see-me-as-the-straight-dope/799626/267 "2017-10-31T19:40:15Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > I do NOT think most of you are smugly glancing at your official card that lists all the relevant identities and observing that the one I claim for myself isn’t on it. I do think many of you are unconsciously glancing at it without realizing you’re even carrying around such a card in your head, though, and that most of your “WTF, I just don’t get what you’re on about, how the fuck is this ‘An Identity’” is due to that. To me, it sounds like what you _really_ want is simply for feminine men not to be mocked, not to be stereotyped as gay, and not to be stigmatized as weird. Which I think everyone could support. I think your mistake is assuming the path to this goal lies in society first accepting your gender identity. I see these as being two completely things. Feminine heterosexual men can be embraced and accepted without necessarily having them be placed in their own genderqueer category. ---
**Author:** ![Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Living_Well_Is_Best_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2017, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-see-me-as-the-straight-dope/799626/268 "2017-10-31T19:44:01Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > To me, it sounds like what you _really_ want is simply for feminine men not to be mocked, not to be stereotyped as gay, and not to be stigmatized as weird. Which I think everyone could support. > > I think your mistake is assuming the path to this goal lies in society first accepting your gender identity. I see these as being two completely things. Feminine heterosexual men can be embraced and accepted without necessarily having them be placed in their own genderqueer category. This is what I meant to say earlier. But you said it better. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2017, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-see-me-as-the-straight-dope/799626/269 "2017-10-31T19:57:39Z")
> [@Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](#): > > People are getting stuck on you wanting a new classification when existing ones seem to describe you–at least from the outside looking in. I think if you focused more on the negative impact and harm that gender stereotypes can cause, you would get more understanding and sympathy. Exactly. Feminine boys get mocked NOT because “male girl” is absent from some pre-approved list of identities. They get mocked because society expects men to act a certain way, and anything that strays from that expectation marks them as weak and weird. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2017, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-see-me-as-the-straight-dope/799626/270 "2017-10-31T19:59:47Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > To me, it sounds like what you _really_ want is simply for feminine men not to be mocked, not to be stereotyped as gay, and not to be stigmatized as weird. Which I think everyone could support. > > I think your mistake is assuming the path to this goal lies in society first accepting your gender identity. I see these as being two completely things. Feminine heterosexual men can be embraced and accepted without necessarily having them be placed in their own genderqueer category. Well, you are right about my goal. Utilizing the concept of a gender identity is a tactic. I’m not convinced it isn’t the right one, but it may be ill-advised. It _functions as_ a different (hidden, unacknowleded) gender identity, though. It summarizes how many of us experience it (whether we put it into those words or not): that we are regarded as a “different thing” than (conventional, masculine) men and I think it may summarize our various solutions to dealing with it and expressing ourselves (that is, our “answers” to various things like dating strategies and whatnot, are simply fundamentally different from those of the conventional guys). Definitions of reality when the subject matter is social are different from definitions of things like mineral structures or the fission processes of stars and stuff. With social realities, the objective is to recognize an experience and express it in words that those have the experience will recognize and say “yeah that’s it”. It’s intersubjective rather than objective, and it is furthermore recursive (the experience of those who have adopted it as an explanation become inscribed into the very definition that they have embraced). Look, I’m 58. I’m not likely to live beyond the age of 110. If I spend the rest of my life touting this, and it never catches fire, chances are pretty good that it failed to explain things in such a way as to create a groundswell movement of sissy feminine guys going “yeah this is us”, and if it goes that way I will have done very little harm. So you only have to endure another 52 years of blog posts 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2017, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-see-me-as-the-straight-dope/799626/271 "2017-10-31T20:12:04Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > Fair enough. I certainly didn’t mean to use it in a derogatory sense. I understood that you didn’t mean it that way. It’s just that historically that’s how it’s been used and it needs to be retired now, because the transmisogynist attitudes behind it are obsolete, or ought to be. Why was it coined in the first place? Ever heard a butch woman called “emmasculate”? Me neither. Whazzup with that? > [@](#): > > What would be a better word? Feminine. Just feminine. ---
**Author:** ![Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Living_Well_Is_Best_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2017, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-see-me-as-the-straight-dope/799626/272 "2017-10-31T20:23:56Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > Well, you are right about my goal. > > Utilizing the concept of a gender identity is a tactic. I’m not convinced it isn’t the right one, but it may be ill-advised. It _functions as_ a different (hidden, unacknowleded) gender identity, though. It summarizes how many of us experience it (whether we put it into those words or not): that we are regarded as a “different thing” than (conventional, masculine) men and I think it may summarize our various solutions to dealing with it and expressing ourselves (that is, our “answers” to various things like dating strategies and whatnot, are simply fundamentally different from those of the conventional guys). > > Definitions of reality when the subject matter is social are different from definitions of things like mineral structures or the fission processes of stars and stuff. With social realities, the objective is to recognize an experience and express it in words that those have the experience will recognize and say “yeah that’s it”. It’s intersubjective rather than objective, and it is furthermore recursive (the experience of those who have adopted it as an explanation become inscribed into the very definition that they have embraced). > > Look, I’m 58. I’m not likely to live beyond the age of 110. If I spend the rest of my life touting this, and it never catches fire, chances are pretty good that it failed to explain things in such a way as to create a groundswell movement of sissy feminine guys going “yeah this is us”, and if it goes that way I will have done very little harm. So you only have to endure another 52 years of blog posts 😃 If we are right about the goal, why not focus your writing on the negativity of gender stereotypes? That message might have a wider audience that would be more easily accepted. Weirdly enough I turned out to be quite conventional when it comes to gender, but as a kid I was awkward, shy, not particularly masculine, and not a good athlete. If my parents had better resources to deal with a kid like me, rather than judge me against what I was “supposed” to be, perhaps I could have avoided some of the difficulties I had as a child? ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2017, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-see-me-as-the-straight-dope/799626/273 "2017-10-31T20:30:14Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > Well, you are right about my goal. I think we’re all with you on the goal here. > [@AHunter3](#): > > Utilizing the concept of a gender identity is a tactic. I’m not convinced it isn’t the right one, but it may be ill-advised. Based on what has been presented in your threads, I’m convinced it isn’t the right one. It’s unnecessarily confusing and obscures the goal. I don’t believe that expanding the gender identity framework is needed to articulate the issues and advance your cause. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2017, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-see-me-as-the-straight-dope/799626/274 "2017-10-31T20:36:11Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > Several folks have said “The world already knows that there are feminine male people”. Or “The world already knows that there are feminine male heterosexual people”. > > The world actually knows damn little about us. There’s only a fuzzy ill-formed notion of our existence, very little of which concerns itself with our experience of being us, and most of which is contemptuous and derogatory. Ahhh, this—_This_. The sky in the east is now touched by rosy-fingered dawn. Read that passage, in fact that whole post again carefully, friends, because here is the crux of the matter. Yeah, Prince, rest his soul in glory. Prince was one fuckin’ awesome musician! The guitar in his hands became a magical cauldron of musical bliss. He brought the songwriting chops, vocals, and charisma to match. He was the consummate musician that America has ever produced. IOW, Prince was one of a kind. We don’t stand a chance of seeing the like of him again in our lifetimes. He had no difficulties with his femininity because his godlike music blew away all misgivings that might have been. We ordinary schnooks, though, in our humdrum everyday reality, have no such glory to carry us through and have to find on our own whatever means we can to exist well. That’s why Allan is justified in working hard to figure himself out. Hera knows it ain’t easy. (Cue Ziggy Stardust: “IT AIN’T EASY…”) ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2017, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-see-me-as-the-straight-dope/799626/275 "2017-10-31T21:00:09Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > Feminine. Just feminine. Feminine it is. As to Prince… I’ve always been a Smiths fan, cue: [This Charming Man](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJRP3LRcUFg) ---
**Author:** ![Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Living_Well_Is_Best_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2017, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-see-me-as-the-straight-dope/799626/276 "2017-10-31T22:06:58Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > Feminine it is. > > As to Prince… I’ve always been a Smiths fan, cue: [This Charming Man](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJRP3LRcUFg) Moisturizer expert and a Smiths fan? We might be soulmates. ---
**Author:** ![raventhief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/raventhief/32/4_2.png) [@raventhief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raventhief)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-see-me-as-the-straight-dope/799626/277 "2017-11-01T00:20:24Z")
I think a lot of feminine male bodied people have been mentioned in the thread. I think with the advent of the metrosexual the world figured out that Prince and Bowie while trancendent… maybe they were forging a path And not just stunning one-offs. Eddie Izzard may be a bad example- he has considered transitioning and had said the only reason he hasn’t done it is because he thinks he would still look like a bloke. But he often presents as a woman in public - yet sometimes as a man ( that may be more related to acting roles, though). He called himself a male tomboy. Running, jumping, climbing trees, putting on makeup while he’s up there. Both my kids know genderqueer people. I know gender queer people. There is a trans kid in my nieces school. It is not 1978 anymore and i keep getting the feeling that you AHunter3, think we are perplexed because “huh? I cannot conceive of a male person who thinks of himself as a girl!” it’s nor that- not precisely, not for me. It’s that you spend thousands of words to tell us that you are rare and special - this unknown Identity that we have never seen before. No role models exist! No social awareness! It’s differentt because it is! And maybe it is. I don’t know, based on your posts here, who you think you may inspire to live a male girl openly. Eta the focus on male and female traits seems to reinforce a sharp divide- girls/women like this, so even if you are comfortable with your male body, you must be a girl! ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Bean](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_bean/32/1760_2.png) [@Green\_Bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Bean)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-see-me-as-the-straight-dope/799626/278 "2017-11-01T01:01:16Z")
> [@Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](#): > > Actually his last post probably is the most concise and well-written explanation. Only the last 11 words were necessary. If you want more social awareness of the issues surrounding feminine men, then talk about that. All this stuff about your personal gender identity just gets in the way. I don’t care one iota about your personal gender identity. I DO care about the fact that feminine men and boys may not be be being treated fairly. Would please tell us about THAT? Without tangents or analogies or any discussion of your own personal experience, please. What sorts of things happen and what can allies do to help. p.s. I hope today’s attacks did not touch you and yours. \<3 ---
**Author:** ![raventhief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/raventhief/32/4_2.png) [@raventhief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raventhief)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-see-me-as-the-straight-dope/799626/279 "2017-11-01T02:58:47Z")
I didn’t realize you are in NYC! I hope everyone is ok! ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-see-me-as-the-straight-dope/799626/280 "2017-11-01T14:44:38Z")
> [@Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](#): > > Moisturizer expert and a Smiths fan? We might be soulmates. If I had a dollar every time someone said that to me… 🆒 (I kid, I kid!) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-see-me-as-the-straight-dope/799626.md?page=13)