Do you have a right to feel offended?

I've had my manly dressed boys mistaken all the time by non bjd people. We bjders have to realize that yes our boys (and sometimes girls) come off looking like the opposite gender than they are. Even baring his muscled chest, my boy gets called a her. I simply correct the label and be off with it. I'm just thankful they are interested enough to inquire about boys.

 

My fiancee's doll gets mistaken for a girl pretty often, even though (to us) he's really obviously male--he just has longish hair. But he's a pretty doll, and even if he's wearing a leather jacket and pants, and looks like a rock star, people out of the know are going to think he's a girl. ...Which is better than the girl and her mother who started comparing him to Edward Cullen over his yellow eye. But that's another matter.

I don't think it's worth getting too upset over if it's people outside the hobby, or if it's an off-handed remark. Yeah, they're our babies, but to the casual observer, they're pretty toys.

 

I had a kid with female head on a male body but with a female name... for me, i really dont know if i should call my kid a him or a her, but i am generally okie with the glender, cox i loved to cross dress my kids and love to confused thoes people too. But then again... i have this "I am pissed off look" on my face, so mostly, people wont come up to talk to me... so i am safe

 

I would tend to blow comments off rather than get offended. Sometimes it is very difficult to tell. And I'm sure that for the most part there is no offence intended. If someone does have a problem with cross dressing and are being mean about that, then it just to come down to whether or not their opinion really matters

 

I'll have to ride with your sister on this one. If it's not blatantly obvious that the doll looks like a boy, it's natural for people to mistake it for a girl. It's a bit naive to not expect it, or to complain about it. If you want your boy to wear a dress, or have long hair, or wear something that's really feminine while at the same time make it obvious that your doll is indeed a boy, make it obvious. Give him a beard, a 5:00 shadow, really thick bushy eyebrows, a bare chest! Or something.

 

Sorry to say this but I completely agree with your sister on this and she pretty much lays it out as it is. If you want your doll to look like a girl, then expect people to think it's a girl.The other thing you have to realize is, the more you look at these dolls, the more you get used to their strange look. They DON'T look normal to other people, though they can be mistaken in pictures for a couple of seconds. MOST of them, even the guys, look like girls. It's all in the face and the clothes (and sometimes not even like when a guy wears normal guy clothes). I've only ever had Deidara (who has long hair) get mistaken for a girl *once* and their young son corrected her almost immediately saying, "Actually it looks like a guy" and he was wearing jeans and a wife beater top at the time.

 

I think it's okay for the individual to make a gender mistake once but if you tell them your dolls a girl and just likes to dress tom boyish or a boy and dresses girly they should respect your feelings and call the doll what the owner wants the doll to be called. If the individual chooses to continue to make the same mistake then they're being disrespectful and sadly not worth the time of day. At least that's my feelings on the matter.

As I keep seeing people side with your sister I still say okay. She has a vital, most prominent point. But as I said earlier, simple mistake. Yeah expect a gender mistake but if the person respects you then they will not continue to make the same mistake. Also It's my personal belief that everyone deserves respect from the start. Their actions is what decides if they're still deserving of your respect or not in the end.

 

well sometimes i get annoyed when people repeatedly call my boy dariel a girl even after i tell them hes a guy but the reason i get annoyed is because he ISNT wearing girly clothes and he has short hair and his faceup isnt that girly either (he does have longer eyelashes but thats just the style of the lashes that the faceup artist used) so i dont understand where people are seeing his girliness at???

 

I think my main problem with this was the fact she assumed that girls wear dresses, and that guys don't. A really good guy friend of mine, I met at a party, and he was wearing a skirt. Its the same skirt he wears to a lot of parties. As in, wears seriously (not like my partner puts on dresses for dress up parties and wanders around as a female version of himself, Jamesette), he owns and wears the skirt pretty frequently. I don't have a boy doll atm (and the one character I have planned isn't very girly), but I think if I did, I'd be pretty frustrated if people were constantly calling him a girl. But that is likely to stem from my belief in fluid sexuality, instead of simply male or female dolls. But, I would probably have a disclaimer on my galleries or in my sig on DoA, just to make sure - or, make the doll a name badge that says "Hi, my name is ____, and I am a boy!" XD

 

Since this is the debate forum and we don't have to be quite as gentle, I'd say--

Sure, you can feel offended, but get over it. There are worse things in the world than someone mistaking the sex of your doll! Particularly if they are x-dressing. If you want people to stop jumping to conclusions about sex and dressing styles, then just saying: "HA! It's a boy! You are wrong! Not everything in a skirt that looks feminine is a girl!" and laughing, would be enough. No need to be offended at someone guessing wrong or assuming. Just correct them and move on. They don't know your doll, after all, and you do! Give them a break.

 

I have one male doll that is very girly. He was intended that way. I also have long haired male dolls that get mistaken for girls all the time. Let's face it, when someone hears 'Doll' they immediately think 'female', because that's what most dolls are, in the eyes of people who have not encountered BJD's. I don't get offended. I get a lot of 'You called her a 'he'.' Yep, he's male. 'But he has long hair...' Yes. Still male. 'Oh.' The only time I get offended is if it's the same person repeatedly doing it, when they know the doll is male. At that point, I think they're just getting a rise out of me. lol

 

It's not really that big of a deal.

I just let people interpret it how they want to. (Like a painting)

 

I have to say that I agree with you both it is annoying but then again I understand where she is coming from. I myself actually turned a female Iplehouse Kassia into a adorable boy even tho he wears boys clothes he is still often mistook for a girl. I correct the people who will actually care like other people from the BJD community, and to those who won't care like my family XD I just nod and say sure its a girl. To me its not worth making a scene over. Plus lets be honest a LOT of the male BJD's look like girls, that's what makes them soooo super cute!

 

In this hobby people use girl dolls as guys and guy dolls as girls sometimes and the only difference is they sand off the girls breasts.

To be honest I say if you put your boy doll into a dress, put girly makeup on it, long wing, flowing lashes and someone says "what a lovely girl" --Expect it. Especially with the more anime-ish looking sculpts.

They are doing everything they possibly can to make them girly, then they will be girly. If the opinion of others bothers them so much then they should consider that before posting up pictures on a forum where people are intended to comment back. Or post that the doll is a boy in the thread. I sometimes post a little summery, or a description of my dolls and their character when posting pictures. This little step can make being on a forum a lot funner!

 

If I dressed my boy in girly clothes and made him girlier, then I can't see why I'd get offended if someone called him girly, haha.

I know a friend who is looking to get into BJDs and is looking at a boy who is absolutely very uke and she is keen to dress in female clothing because she feels it makes him very uke which is admittedly what she's after. I can't imagine her being offended if someone calls him a girl. She'd probably laugh about it and then make a joke about his sexuality before explaining that it was a boy XD

 

It's natural to get upset, but instead of snapping, the owners of our more feminine male dollies should just take a few deep breaths, have a glass of water, and just repeat that it's a guy. Tags and titles help too, but it really is just a side effect of a doll in a dress. In most cultures dolls are nearly always portrayed as female and for females, so it's perfectly natural for someone to jump to conclusions about the doll's gender. On the same token, people shouldn't get upset if they get snapped at for assuming, but this is a situation where everyone needs to move away from the computer for a minute and remember that another human being, who makes human errors, is the one asking.

 

I don't have any dolls that cross-dress, but I wouldn't be offended if I did and one was mistaken for the wrong gender. Like many have said, western society teaches us that if it's in a dress (especially if it's pink, has ruffles or flowers, or something of the like), it's a female. Now I do have a doll with an immature chest that sometimes gets mistaken for a boy in my photo-stories, so I would think it funny if someone did the same thing in real life. But of course, I would understand if you had told the same person the gender of your doll time and time again and they kept making the mistake- past that point it becomes less of a mistake and more that they don't care enough to remember IMO.

 

I can understand people getting offended, but I don't believe they have the right to. None of us do, about most anything really. It is no one's place to judge anyone or anything. All we can do is strive not to, and serve as examples to those who are judgmental (as we may be). I say this with no religious implications, but as something that we as people should morally work towards.

 

Everybody has the right to feel as offended as they want. However, there's a big difference between feeling offended and acting on that feeling.

If I ever were to see a doll owner go into a huff and have a bad attitude over the initial misuse of gender pronoun, I would think the doll owner was pretty childish. Thankfully, I have yet to see that sort of behavior from anyone that I've met in the hobby. If you have a doll that has numerous visual ques that suggest the doll is female, you have to expect that some people are going to assume it's female.

And I honestly think it's a waste of breath and energy to get upset over someone misidentifying the gender of an inanimate object.

In the (IMO) weird and rare case of someone continuing to insist that the doll is the opposite gender - if they're not just doing it to yank your chain, it's perfectly OK to tell them to shuffle off, because it's your doll and you know what's under the skirt.

 

I found it very confusing in the beginning when I would see a doll that had very feminine features, dressed in girly clothes and have people say, it's a boy. I love that they have finally made male dolls that actually look male. But for those pretty faces out there, and I have one myself, I think it's unreasonable to be offended if someone mistakes the gender, especially if it is dressed in something that is feminine looking. I want my girly boy to be a boy. The sculpt was prettier that I expected it to be and I struggle to make his gender apparent. Usually it's a big fail though, because he still looks girly. If I put him in a dress though, I myself, would have a hard time calling him a boy, so I certainly wouldn't get upset if someone else made the same mistake.