Nothing added to nothing is nothing
Hilarious. (Sorry, just another rando on Twitter, but the thinking is so absurd I can’t resist.)
How do you see a [man] with a headband, a short “pixie” haircut, makeup, lipstick, purse, skirt, and feminine voice, and think this is a man with a headband, a short “pixie” haircut, makeup, lipstick, purse, skirt, and feminine voice? The usual way, bro.
It’s so funny that he thinks adding up all the silly markers will somehow clinch the deal. It’s hilarious that he thinks quantity makes a difference when the quality is not so very convincing. No, dude; zero plus zero is zero. A man in lipstick and a “pixie” haircut (didn’t people stop talking about “pixie” haircuts around half a century ago?) and a headband and makeup and skirt with a purse and feminine voice is still a man. [Also the “feminine voice” probably isn’t.] Adding them up doesn’t change anything. I can put on cat ears and draw whiskers on my face and carry a can of cat food and I still won’t convince anyone I’m a cat.
But if you do all of that while sitting in a box…https://i0.wp.com/thisbugslife.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/traps-cat.jpg?ssl=1
To the extent this is just a complaint that “I thought I was passing, and it turns out I wasn’t, and that made me sad,” ok, I get it.
But the incredulous “how? Freaking how?” baffles me. As if Food Court Guy is to blame for not having a correct Gender Soul Detector. Obviously, the redditor didn’t pass as well as she thought she did. (The full screenshot notes that FCG apologized when told “actually, it’s ma’am,” so I don’t think FCG was deliberately “misgendering” the redditor.)
Shockingly, it turns out that compliments from one’s stylist and makeup artist may not accurately reflect how the rest of the world sees you.
It’s uncanny how automatically actual sex registers: I had a student with a female name, and dressed in some femme garb, come up to me after class last week to ask about an accommodation, and I immediately saw the dude therein.
A therapist I interviewed told me this is sometimes a result of autism. When these young men dress up the way they do and others call them “ma’am” and such, they take it that others literally see them as women, because they can’t conceptualize the social dynamics. They can’t process that in fact others can still see that they’re men, but others can also see that they want to be called “ma’am,” and others are just being polite or trying to avoid conflict.
Also, if a man makes an appointment at a women’s salon under a woman’s name, he’s going to be treated much differently than if he approaches an employee in a mall food court dressed like he describes. The hair salon employee will readily pick up the cues that this is a trans-identifying male; the food court worker is more likely to assume “typical mall food court eccentric” because mall food courts are magnets for all kinds of kooks who dress all kinds of crazy.
I’ve got a food court downstairs (all the buildings around here are attached via a subterranean mall) and trust me, I see it every day. I could stroll up the McDonald’s wearing Bjork’s infamous Swan Dress and it wouldn’t faze anyone, nor would anyone assume I want to be called “ma’am.”
He’s fooled himself into thinking a few superficial trappings can fool a survival mechanism (telling a conspecific’s sex) that’s hundreds of millions of years old. We are wired to clock someone’s sex from scores and scores of yards away, even in dim light where all we can make out is a sillhouette and a gait. No doubt many of the other people he thinks he’s fooling are just being nice and humouring him, or hoping to avoid an angry, aggressive “IT’S MA’AM!” response. Even if his makeup was, according to his hair stylist, “on point and flawless,” it might only mean he’d applied it comparatively well, not that it was succeeding in erasing his maleness. Is the stylist going to risk pissing off the guy sitting right there in the chair? Easier and safer to flatter and lie. Stephonknee Wolscht didn’t fool anyone into believing he was a five year old girl; anyone who “accepted” him as such was just playing along, but doing him no favours.
I wonder if this guy’s failure to pass will spur him on to more radical, surgical interventions to “feminize” his facial bone structure and his body shape? For most men, it would take this kind of cheating to “pass,” and even then, the surgical interventions, like the superficial wardrobe, make-up, and comportment gambits, tend to exaggerated and stereotypical.
Hmm, people he’s paying money to call him “ma’am?”
It’s almost as if they like to get tips.
There’s a class element to this, too:
A food court job is a low-paid, overworked frontline service job. It’s not their job to cater to your feelings; it’s their job to take your order and hand you some cheap food in return.
A beauty salon is a business whose purpose is to cater to people’s vanity and offer them a product that is not a necessity but a luxury. What else is a beauty salon worker gonna do but humour you? That’s the business she’s in.
Screechy Monkey #2: “Shockingly, it turns out that compliments from one’s stylist and makeup artist may not accurately reflect how the rest of the world sees you.”
I saw the word “yasslighting” in one of the replies. Very apt.
If this person with a headband and makeup were to be asked “Is it okay for a man to wear headbands and makeup?” he would doubtless say “Yes.” The common consensus is that everyone should dress however they want and refuse to follow the sort of gender rules religious conservatives mandate. This is well and good — but it obviously clashes with the idea that we’re supposed to guess someone is transgender because they’re wearing clothes that are “wrong” for one sex but “right” for another. One of the many contradictions of trans ideology.
Faced with a man in a dress, I always hope it’s a brave and stunning denial of gender norms. “You look great, dude.” How embarrassing if instead I imply I think he’s less of a man because of it, like someone sneering at Boy George.
I am probably the only commenter who has actually taught a trans-gender individual, at a university here in Japan. some years ago. Before the term started, a professor approached me and told me that this person was entering the college and was a talented musician, and that she hoped I wouldn’t mind. She said the student was from Okinawa, where they were more ‘nonbiri’ (relaxed) about such things than on mainland Japan. I said it didn’t worry me at all. On the first day, I read the roll, calling the males’ names with the suffix ‘-kun’ & the female names with the suffix ‘-san’, as is customary. I had forgotten the person’s name, and came to a male name and used the suffix ‘-kun’, whereupon an individual with a slight five- o’clock shadow, dressed in women’s clothes, and sitting in the front row with the women, with some of whom s(he) had clearly already made friends, responded without rancour or complaint. I noted this and subsequently as a matter of courtesy and kindness used the suffix ‘-san’ when calling this person’s name. Regarding ‘pronouns’, one doesn’t have to use them in Japanese – the context makes it clear who you are talking about, and if one needs to make it clear who one is talking about, one simply uses their name.
The person was delightful, and got on well with the other students, and so far as I know had a happy time at the university. I hope s(he) is continuing to lead a happy life.
That said, I wholly agree with the criticisms of the behaviour of the individual mentioned above.
“The stylist said my makeup was on point and flawless.”
How often is such a comment made apropos of nothing? I’m guessing close to zero, and I’m betting it only came up because a) the stylist volunteered it after noting the customer was male but clearly making efforts to appear female, or more likely b) the man brought it up himself, seeking support. Not something that happens much to real women.
“I’ve been passing all week…”
How does he know that he was fooling anyone? Most people won’t walk up to a trans person and tell them they aren’t a real man/woman; most just note that the person is a transvestite and leave them to their business. Trans people take the lack of comment as evidence of genuinely fooling everyone, when really it is just basic politeness or confrontation avoidance.
You are probably the only one who has taught one in Japan, but i have taught several trans-gender individuals…and one non-binary.
One of my best students ever was trans. So the brain power of this individual gets credited to being a smart male instead of what (s)he really was – a smart female. One more data point to give men superior feelz.
I stand corrected, iknklast! I shouldn’t have assumed so much.
I’ve got to be honest, if my job put me within arm’s length of this kind of guy in a smallish enclosed space, I’d damn well humour him too. If I was working on the other side of a counter, in a busy, relatively open space, I’d feel much less obliged to. That’s to say nothing about how safe I might feel if I were a man.
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