all 31 comments

[–][deleted] 67 insightful - 7 fun67 insightful - 6 fun68 insightful - 7 fun -  (4 children)

. . . as fully evidenced by the pink and blue color scheme of the trans flag.

[–]Comatoast 44 insightful - 5 fun44 insightful - 4 fun45 insightful - 5 fun -  (2 children)

It's gross because it looks like a color scheme in an infant's clothing, not a flag to represent anyone. Telling.

[–][deleted] 21 insightful - 6 fun21 insightful - 5 fun22 insightful - 6 fun -  (1 child)

It’s only one or two shades off from the “pedophilia acceptance” flag.

[–]LoganBlade 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

to be fair that flag was modelled off it by 4chan

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/maps-pride-flag/

[–]Lyssa 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yep. Why would one choose this ridiculous, infantilizing and stereotypical colour scheme?

[–]fuckingsealions 48 insightful - 4 fun48 insightful - 3 fun49 insightful - 4 fun -  (4 children)

I know I'm one of the "old woman yells at cloud" types here, but I remember in the 90s how it was suddenly cool for men to wear nail polish and eye makeup. I loved it! I know it goes back to punk/Bowie and there's been historical periods where men are the fancy dandies. It's such a bummer that boys and men can't just do this now without making some kind of identity politics declaration.

I was just thinking about how when my daughters were little in the aughts kid clothes started getting crazy gendered. There's a ton of pictures of me in the 1970s and 80s wearing red, plaid, plain t-shirts. I tried to give my girls that option but once they got to be school aged my older daughter got extremely pink and princessy, I think in part from peer comments and conformity. My youngest stayed in funkier stuff from the thrift store (I remember she had this badass camo T with a scorpion on it. Aaaaand she's a lesbian now, lol.

Point being I wonder if these super hard splits in culture are affecting young trans/NB people now.

I like these catalog snaps: http://15minutelunch.blogspot.com/2007/10/strap-in-shut-up-and-hold-on-were-going.html

[–]our_team_is_winning 38 insightful - 1 fun38 insightful - 0 fun39 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I know it goes back to punk/Bowie

From 70s glam to late 70s punk, early 80s New Romantic -- loads of "genderbending" as they'd call it, androgyny, men in makeup and sometimes skirts -- and some were gay and some weren't. Pretty young crowd here I think but look at early Duran Duran, or even the Los Angeles hair band scene of the early 80s -- those guys wore so much makeup, unlike teenage female me who didn't wear any. Guys who weren't into that music scene would call them insults for gay, but in reality most of those pop stars in heavy makeup were getting a lot of women. And NOBODY, I mean NOBODY ever suggested they were really women trapped in men's bodies! Everyone was just playing dress-up and having fun. I almost feel bad for this Tumblr generation because early 80s young people liked all sorts of crazy fashion and makeup on a lot of teen boys and girls as well as the 20-something popstars, it didn't matter, and you could be straight, gay, or bi, it wasn't tied to your fashion, and nobody made up these silly "I'm pansexual genderfluid nonbinary transqueer" or whatever "genderspecial" names they've got, and NOBODY talked about switching sexes. Because it is not scientifically possible to do that. Ever.

[–]MarkTwainiac 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I agree with your overall points, but just wanna point out that "gender bending" goes back even before 70s glam, punk, and 80s era Duran Duran and hairbands. Before those acts a number of performing artists such as the worldwide supper club sensation The Incomparable Hildegarde (Loretta Sell), Liberace, Little Richard and Tiny Tim did their best to send up rigid sex stereotypes and expectations.

Here's macho Mick Jagger sporting long hair, red lipstick, eye makeup, velvet trousers and pink top in the 1960s: https://youtu.be/Ef9QnZVpVd8

What's more, during the 1970s gender bending went well beyond Bowie. Check out the early 70s incarnations of groups and performers such as Roxy Music, Marc Bolan/T Rex, Sparks, NY Dolls, Suzi Quatro, Sweet and Jobriath as can be seen on YouTube.

https://youtu.be/306ZNNuW4Kg

[–]Oof_Too_Humid 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yeah, I grew up in the seventies. The whole environment of the time made me a little baby feminist. (Though mom wouldn't have necessarily called herself a feminist, she definitely wasn't shy about pointing out the shit women had to go through that men did not.) Anyway, I was surprised, offended & saddened by the return of the princess shit for little girls in the nineties. I think part of the reason why it was so big was that by then, so many items were being made cheaply in China. People could suddenly buy so much more crap for low, low prices at Walmart.

[–]Comatoast 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Ehh, I think they were hot because of what they stood for. The rebellious man who wouldn't live by the rules, the bad boys. Maybe I'm wrong.

[–]Stormweather 35 insightful - 2 fun35 insightful - 1 fun36 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

It's the same with conservatives. They try to co-opt gendercritical to kill two birds with one stone: 1. to beat the "left" and 2. to manipulate us into believing that they are on "our side". They are not - they are enforcing the same sexist stereotypes that wokesters and TRAs do.

[–]sisterinsomnia 19 insightful - 2 fun19 insightful - 1 fun20 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Pretty much. Conservatives argue that if you are a boy you must play football. TRAs argue that if you play football you must be a boy. They are almost equally rigid and regressive in stereotypes, though the left form of this allows people to choose one of the rigid sexist boxes or become a nonbinary which really is meaningless while the right argues that sex is what determines those rigid boxes.

I had several years recently when I was just too busy to follow these developments, and when I did pick it up I was truly shocked. The strong sexism from the far left has now joined the strong sexism from the far right. A pincer move against real feminism.

[–]Echoofmiles 34 insightful - 2 fun34 insightful - 1 fun35 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

This. I was perfectly in favour of trans rights as I had never examined the issue, never had cause to consider the implications...until we had a talk at work. From Mermaids. And got the whole 'my son likes pink so he's really a girl spiel. Then I started looking into things. Then I became worried, disturbed, angry. Desperaely tried to find others who could see how regressive this all is, but with limited success, frankly. We fought agai st stereotypes for decades and now we're fighting for them. How the hell did we get here?!

[–]Agodachi[S] 7 insightful - 3 fun7 insightful - 2 fun8 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

I was an ally as well. I even had close trans friends (we don't talk anymore because we drifted apart, not because of trans rights issues). Things started to change when I got older and I simply became more critical, especially when the whole nonbinary thing rolled around. It felt like people were conflating personally with some "gender identity" and I saw a flux of girls and my community claim to be boys or nonbinary. Things got worse in college when I would see things like "people who mensturate," "woman can have penises too," "boys can have vaginas," etc. God all that stuff made me cringe so much. I see some of my friends in college supporting every little thing that the TRAs spew it's ridiculous, they don't even go that hard for women's rights, black lives matter, APIDA issues, or Indigenous issues. Sometimes I wish I could be my old self and just support the TRAs blindly again, because it feels really lonely being GC, especially now since the GC subreddits were removed. :(

[–]DistantGlimmer 29 insightful - 1 fun29 insightful - 0 fun30 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yes. When you consider he will now likely be encouraged to potentially ruin his health and get sterilized just because he likes a certain color and his parents can't accept that in a boy you really realize how horrible gender ideology is. It's even worse than the parents that just wouldn't allow a boy to do that.

and to speak out against this crazy regressive shit is considered horrible hateful bigotry. It's just so backwards.

[–][deleted] 26 insightful - 3 fun26 insightful - 2 fun27 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

Tik Tok is cancer. Avoid.

[–]Shirobeans 17 insightful - 1 fun17 insightful - 0 fun18 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Maybe I’m wrong since I’m not a parent, but isn’t that just a kid being a kid?

When my youngest brother was really wee, he asked me to paint his nails and put cute bows in his hair, dress him like a princess and then he’d go and play with trains, he was just a kid being a kid. His favourite colour was pink for years. Now he’s just a typical young lad. Kids liking things isn’t an indication of anything.

[–]YoutiaoLover 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yes, it's just kid being a kid. This kid is just unlucky being born to regressive parents...

[–]Agodachi[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Of course. Kids will be anything, one day they're dinosaurs, the next they're apple trees. And kids are super impressionable, so they'll just repeat whatever their parents and society tells them because they want acceptance and affirmation.

I wonder how this will continue to play out, because the TRAs really took gender roles and really reinforced them.

[–]trannychaser 16 insightful - 2 fun16 insightful - 1 fun17 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

These people are often wholly ignorant that blue was a girl's color in Victorian times, and pink was for boys.

But yes, liking a color defines your gender.

Retards.

[–]sisterinsomnia 11 insightful - 2 fun11 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

I know. There is nothing innate about color preferences, but little children are gender detectives and when they learn the concept of gender they try to make sense of it. This leads to avoiding the colors that they think mean the other sex. But their ideas about sex (I don't think they even understand what 'gender' is and sometimes I think nobody does today) are extremely superficial. In one study a little boy put a barrette in his hair and declared that he was now a girl. The adults thought it was funny, but he meant it literally. For him 'girl' and 'boy' were all about superficial stuff.

And the TRAs argue that children of that age (three or four) already know for certain if they are trans...

[–]sisterinsomnia 11 insightful - 2 fun11 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Gender stereotypes used to be one of the things feminism fought against. Now lib fems fight for them...

[–]MarkTwainiac 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Yes, this is very regressive.

Also it's made me wonder: Are newborn babies now being wrapped in blankets that are entirely blue or pink depending on the children's sex?

In the US and many other countries, it's been the custom since the 1950s - when hospital births became commonplace - to wrap or swaddle newborns of both sexes in unisex flannel "receiving blankets" with blue and pink stripes: https://www.popsugar.com/family/Pink-Blue-Striped-Hospital-Baby-Blankets-18286453

https://doyouremember.com/89521/history-worlds-common-baby-blanket

Before that, my understanding is that receiving blankets were usually just plain white, yellow or whatever was the customary colors and patterns of soft cloth in a particular culture. Baby pics of my parents, born in the mid-1920s, show them in white baby blankets and white clothing. Both also had long hair and wore "dresses" until school age, when my dad had his hair cut to a chin length bob and "graduated" to wearing short trousers that stopped just above the knee.

[–]rad-sage-fem 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

It's hospital dependant. (Here in Canada, anyway!) Some hospitals still have the blankets from that article, and some have pink and blue ones - it's the same blanket but reversable, one side pink, one side blue. There's a plain white blanket I've seen a lot too... Almost every hospital I've been at has hats knitted in the community and people always try to make sure the baby gets the right colour, it drives me crazy!

[–]MarkTwainiac 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Wow. You have any idea when this practice started? When I had kids in the US in the early 90s, all this pink and blue sex segregation of baby and children's clothing, bedding and toys was not so pronounced. I imagine it existed to some extent, and that in some circles it was embraced and rigidly enforced - but it certainly wasn't the universal norm.

[–]rad-sage-fem 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It's a good question, I'm not sure. It's been a thing since I've been a student and then a midwife, so the last 7 years, but I don't know about before that. I remember being so annoyed (and actually quite surprised) as a student when my preceptors kept insisting on picking the pink and blue hats. Now I'm resigned and bitter hahaha

[–]onemoredaydream 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

I got shuttled into LGBTQWOKE+ Youtube recently and I watched a video some girl made about a cancelled lesbian tiktoker. She was spouting off all this stuff about how this lesbian had "toxic masculinity" because she wasn't stereotypically feminine, and how she deserved to get cancelled because she seemed too cocky and confident.

She made a 10 minute video pulling up this woman's videos and mocking her. And if that wasn't shitty enough behavior, she was literally mocking her for her lesbianism by saying she was too masculine.

Like, these people are not our friends. They're kids who grew up thinking that LGBTQ+ was nothing but a sparkle party, and now they are actually the ones leading the witch hunts against people who are gay (you know, actually gay, not the palatable kind of gay where you're completely heteronormative and constantly reassure everyone of their validity).

There are too many toxic young ppl who are straight up fascists in the community now. Fuck em.

[–]IamWomanHearMeRoar 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

There’s the stereotype of being a “top” = dominant/masculine and a “bottom” = submissive/feminine

[–]IamWomanHearMeRoar 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Whatever happened to 50-50? Where’s the equality in the relationship?

[–]emptiedriver 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Like that Netflix link that's commented on below - it's such a backwards stereotype. If you imagine it being seen in the '90s, people would be impressed by doctors for taking it in stride that the patient dressed in pink and with long hair was a boy, and bothered by the girl for getting angry at them for following what the chart said instead of making assumptions based on his presentation. (Of course if they had multiple robe options they should offer him a choice, but that doesn't mean you deny physical reality...)

I am also confused and annoyed at the reinforcement of the old fashioned categories. I guess it's an experiment and the multiple genders are the recognition that it's false, so the more they grow, the further it is failing. It is unnecessary and harmful to women while taking place, but maybe it can ultimately be the way that the larger society comes to see that gender stereotypes do not match biological sex, as people "identify" as one of 57 different semi-demi-non whatsits to a point of overflow and unenforceability.