Do you have a right to feel offended?

Well, I'll start by saying that when you have an androgynous looking thing that is dressed in commonly female-gendered clothing, people are probably going to assume HEY IT HAS A DRESS, IT'S A GIRL. While I myself do not assign to this mindset, it is common, and you should not be offended if someone does make that assumption. You have all the right to, but you should understand that it can be hard to tell.

But if you are offended, you really should not make a big deal out of it, because it isn't. Correct them, sure, but don't worry too much about it. People call my dog a boy ALL THE TIME, and she's a short hair... you can TELL she ain't a boy!! But people make the assumption and we just correct them and go on with our business haha

 

That's a HUGE subject to be debating! About gender and gender identity. And gender roles and what not.

But personally... and I'm only saying this because it gets on my nerves too; people shouldn't too upset about a misconception that others have simply because it LOOKS like a girl. If it's in a dress, you just got to admit that about 90% of the world is going to assume it's a female. So if someone makes a mistake and calls it a girl, sure it may be annoying, but patiently correcting them is usually the best way to go about it.

Getting all defensive like that is just asking to create a problem when the other person is merely complimenting the doll. It's just innocent conversation, they don't MEAN to insult you, but you may feel insulted anyway. It's like how men always say "I can't read your mind!" when their girlfriend expects them to do something without her saying it.

 

i'm much in the same thought as Jescissa on this one.
Alot of the male dolls, with makeup, overly feminine clothing/wigs/accessories and such DO look like female dolls. And seeing as how there are more than a few flat chested girl bodies i think it's perfectly justified if some people mistake them for girls.

If you intentionally put your boys in drag and they happen to pass off as girls. I'd take it as a compliment, goal achieved :P
The only way i'd be offended by it is if i had already told someone THIS doll is actually a boy, i know he looks girly but he IS a boy. and they continued to call it a girl. That is very obnoxious behavior, and then you have the right to be offended.
And if i were in such a case, i think i'd pull up my boys skirt/dress and show them it is in fact, A BOY!

just my thoughts :P

 

The thing w/ boy dolls getting mistaken for girls seems to come up all too often. Here's my take:

the vast majority of boy dolls in this hobby are androgynous & can reasonably be mistaken for a girl doll--even when dressed in "boy" clothes--by hoi polloi, who aren't used to seeing 1) BJD's 2) male dolls in a hobby where androgyny & even femininity in males is frequently valued & even sought after.

What is reasonable? Gently let the person know that the doll is actually male. Remember, they're commenting on what they see based on their experience w/creatures who look & dress the way your doll does. From there, it may or may not be appropriate do talk about why your boy is dressed the way he is, or why he looks so 'feminine', depending on how involved you want to get.

 

I think the owners of boy dolls who dress them as female are fine, BUT, when people seeing the piece of plastic assigned a male gender then reassigned by it's owner once they dressed it as a girl get a bit confused, well, sorry but I'm with the viewer. I grew up with a good friend who cross-dressed and even considered gender re-allignment for a while, he decided to stay male in the end but he still occasionally dresses in "female" clothing. I remember the huge amount of courage it took for him to do that back in the early 80's, when it wasn't so commonplace, and all the abuse he had to endure.

He felt he had little choice, but then he is a real live complex human being and the abuse he faced was very real and often quite violent. I feel someone getting themselves all bent about a DOLL they chose to foist this on is trivialising a very real and sometimes very traumatic issue. Do as you wish with your doll, I like boys in dresses, but do NOT make a big fuss when people assume they are girls!

No apology for my opinions on this one.

 

I think the owner has a right to feel offended; no one can or should dictate how you feel. However, I do agree with the OP's sister and others that say it doesn't make much sense to act on that feeling by being rude/overly defensive if a person guesses wrong. Not everyone is familiar with your source material so they have no way of knowing the lovely in feminine clothing is a boy. I think the owner should be patient and prepared for the inevitible barage of "why?" as the person tries to understand.

 

Agreed,
It seems that across dolls in general there is far more female dolls, and the male dolls around look very 'masculine', like the barbie/ken comparison.
The androgenous look alot of male BJDs have just isn't seen often outside the hobby; Long hair confuses the issue even more.

The best example I can think of was at a doll fair recently. I was carrying Alexander in my arms throughout the day, he has a very girly face and long hair but is dressed in a not remotly girly way; Throughout the day he was repeatedly called a girl by non-BJD people due to his face and hair till they got a proper look at him and then it turned into "oh, they are actualy a he, with the long hair I thought he was a girl".

Unless some is rudely and constantly insisting a doll is/isn't whatever gender due to outfit/face/whatever, Its not something worth getting worked up over.

I do wonder if there is anything regarding female dolls, given the androgeny thats very common, how often do girls in 'less girly' outfits get mistaken for effeminate boys?
Just looking at my Dollzone girl who has short (ish) hair and is wearing what was originaly a boys Dollheart set that hides her curves; She could probably pass for a girly boy.

 

Infinitydragon, you bring up an interesting point and I notice this as well. Where in real life people are going to think feminine looking dolls (which is almost all of them ^_^') are girls, within the doll hobby it swings sharply the other way. Boys cross dressing as girls is so common, and tomboy girls are so uncommon that often girl dolls that aren't dressed up in an extremely over-the-top lolita cupcake dress are mistaken for boys. I talked to a girl once who's female doll (not flat chested)with long hair, and clothes you would see a teenage girl wear at the mall was frequently called "he." I wonder if it's because so many male dolls cross-dress or dress in very feminine clothing, etc...that people just go "well it's safer to assume it's a boy."

*edit*
Another thing I noticed is that my dolls are pretty much always mistaken for girls by non-doll people even though they wear like jeans and dress shirts and other manish clothes, but when I did Vance's facial scars people suddenly switched to calling him "he." If I have people over or if I'm at an anime convention carrying a doll around, the others still get mistaken for girls, but Vance hasn't even once since I did the scars. Can girls not have scars? lol

 

I think getting offended on behalf of your dolls is a bit over the top, but I do think it's silly for people to assume every doll is female by default. It seems to sort of be part of a complacent worldview where everyone is het and cis, and nobody ever has to think about any of this stuff.

I relish saying "he is a he" when people call my doll a girl (while dressed in perfectly boyish clothes though his hair is shoulder length), just so they get shaken out of their everyday expectations a little.

 

I guess I'm with your sister @[email protected] for me ,almost half of the time I couldn't identify the doll's gender just by the looks...
I guess it's the body build which makes the difference-_-.Pardon me.
Sometimes I dressed my boy into a girl as well and I'm all ready to deal with the coming question of he's a beautiful girl.
It pisses me off when I dressed him in some suit but people are just blind to acknowledge the fact that a girl wears dresses and a boy wears suit and they came telling me is a SHE.

 

I think you should feel complimented if people think your girly boy is actually a girl. If you think about it, in real life, cross-dressing guys do their absolute darnedest to be as feminine as possible and most would probably feel flattered if they were mistaken for a woman. So your doll should feel flattered too - shouldn't he?

 

I agree with your sister. Although i can understand your standpoint... I kind of feel bad for the doll that's dressed as a girl though (i mean unless they LIKE crossdressing then i guess its okay? o.0)

but

 

Well I don't dress my boys in girl clothing, but a few of them have long hair. My father is always referringto the and "she", no matter how many times I correct him. I don't get annoyed though, because deep down I know he doesn't really know which one is which anyway.

 

I don't think so. "Rights" to me, are the same thing as "deserving". F your rights, and who are you to think you 'deserve' something? What did you do to think you're so high and mighty? Well, obviously its not ALL like those circumstances, but no. I don't think we have rights for anything. We just do it because we can. If you get offended, deal with it. Tell your side of the story with facts, precise and get to the point. If things get heated, just chill out.

As for the super girly male boys? They're NOT my cup of tea. Never really have been. I don't go out of my way to look at something I don't want to, and if your boy happens to be in drag, cool. G'head. I'm not gonna stop you. But don't try and make my boys all femme just because yours don't have a manly bone in their body. After all, these are just opinions. If you get mad, chill out

 

If somebody were to call my boy agirl(which they do frequently), I wouldn't be upset. Like your sis said, comes with the territory. If they continued to insist that he was a girl despite the fact that I have dressed him several times and PAID for a BOY doll, I would be a bit irritated.
I find associating certain things with certain genders(i.e. girls wear dresses, boys wear pants) to be extremely stupid. Just about everything(with the exception of girl bits) that is normally associated with girls was created/popularized by men. Take a look at fashion history, it'll explain a lot. :/

 

I agree with your sister. If your boy looks like a girl you shouldn’t get mad when people call him a girl. I personally have never had my boy called a girl, but he has short hair and wears masculine clothes. But I do have a male head on a female body as a girl that my mom is always calling a guy. It doesn’t bother me in the least though. I slip up and call her a him some times. This morning I had one of my girl dolls in a guys outfit, and a short wig and my brother thought she was a guy, also didn’t bother me.

 

If you're gonna put a boy in a dress, or something even remotely girly, they have every right to mistake them for a girl in my opinion xD

Dolls are naturally girly, I've come to terms with that and I'm totally fine with it. I had my old boy shirtless and my mom thought he had boobs, that was a bit sad to me... But you put your boy in girly cloths, and you're just asking for it.

So I think it's pretty stupid to get annoyed over it. Like the sister said in the original post, we were raised (at least us americans) that girls wear dresses and boys don't, so add that to the naturally feminine doll's and really you should just politely explain it's a boy and move-on with your life! Laugh at the misunderstanding! xD

 

I think that with how beautiful the male dolls aoften are it is fair for peple to be confused and presume they are a girl. Even if they are in a gender neautral outfit but are pretty with long hair. Considering it is a mistake I have found with peple watching Anime for the first time, I think over here it is pretty common.

I would only get annoyed if I had told someone my doll was male and they insisted on still calling it female. Though to be honest I would more freaked out by them not accepting the whole cross-gender thing. Most of the people I know are very accepting of homosexual or transexual or cross dressing people but I guess thats what you get for being in a university town.

 

I feel like this is one of those things that just comes with the territory. I mean yes it can be frustrating and such but you can't go getting angry when people make assumptions. I mean we are still in an era where for a boy it tends to be degrading to dress up like a girl so most people wouldn't think "oh what a cute boy" when they see a doll in a dress. Unfortunatly yes, it does get frustrating but there really isn't anything to be done about it. Just one of things >_<