Do you have a right to feel offended?

If the commenter is sincere about it, there's no need to be offended or even upset. You can't expect people to immediately jump into your thought process of why you dress a guy in girly clothing or give him girly hair or a girly faceup... As long as they don't get offensive about it, neither should you, I think. Besides, you chose to make him look the way he does, so it must've crossed your mind at least once that it might happen...? ^^;;

 

To be perfectly honest, I've never understood why people buy male dolls and then 'make' them female, but I can understand why people get offended when that gender mistake is made.

The best thing to do is to correct them the first time and then just accept that they are judgmental bastards if they continue to purposely refer to your dolls by the wrong gender.

 

Well, if the person has been corrected several times already and STILL insists on calling him a girl, then I would say they have every right to be irritated(As someone who has personally been called a "he" after the person has been told several times that I'm a female, I understand how annoying that is).

However, you shouldn't expect people to automatically assume that the doll in question is one gender when they're dressed and customized to look like the opposite gender. A lot of the male dolls in this hobby have fairly feminine faces to begin with, some to the point where you could put their sculpts on a female body and nobody would be the wiser. If you really don't want the dolls gender to be confused then it probably wouldn't hurt to state somewhere in your post that they're a male, or, like someone else said, just don't dress them up like the opposite sex at all. It's ridiculous to just expect people to assume that your very feminine looking/dressed boy is a BOY when you intentionally made them to look like a GIRL.
Especially if you live in a society where it's considered "abnormal" for a male to dress like a female to begin with. I mean, I can't speak for other countries, but in America most children are conditioned from an early age to believe that certain genders act/look/dress a certain way. Hasn't anyone else noticed that toys that encourage housework(Pretend kitchens, vacuums, etc.), playing with dolls(Which are usually female)/dress-up, pink clothes and frilly dresses are usually targeted at little girls, while toys that encourage going out and getting dirty, participating in more aggressive sports/activities, and wearing pants and shirts with monster trucks/super heroes/etc. are usually targeted at little boys? We're practically taught this stuff from the day we're born, so it's only natural that people are going to assume your feminine looking doll in a long, curly wig and frilly pink dress is a girl, even if they're not.

 

i think the truth is most dolls are pretty feminine anyway. I don't think it calls for getting offended unless the person is intentionally calling a male doll a girl. but for those inside the hobby, I think you see the "boy doll that looks like a girl" trope so damn often you should probably be able to recognize a doll gender with ease. (i know i can ;~; )

 

I guess my issue lies with the world of gender roles. I have a so-called "girly" male, and I am a little annoyed when he becomes a she. But I wouldn't say I'm offended. I think that the way your sister worded it is a little harsh, but I understand what she's saying. I just think that gender roles in general are stupid, but this isn't the place for that rant. I do think that it's time to be a little offended when the person or people refuses to correct pronoun usage and such.

 

If you have a boy doll presenting as female or feminine, why not take it as real life trans women do and take it as a compliment? As in, happy to know that your doll 'passes' as the gender he/she wants to present themselves? Really, it doesn't upset me at all. I correct once but I think for most people it's innocent. If it looks like a duck and dresses like a duck...well, what's wrong with being a duck anyway?!

Ultimately this sort of thing is between you and your doll, and other people's opinions don't matter so much. This I think applies to many aspects of the hobby....or at least it should.

 

For me it's like this, I believe men and women should both be allowed to dress however they like. However, these are dolls. They do not have the usually clear signs of being male or female. In my opinion if it is a male doll, and you dress it in feminine attire, it's a forget you to cultural norms. As such the confusion should be understood by the owner. So in short, if the doll doesn't have facial hair or an Adam's apple, no the owner does not have a right to get all butt hurt about it.

 

I have to admit, there was a Fairyland doll I had looked into. Mostly because the fullset came with some WONDEROUS long hair and I thought ‘Well that’d save me the trouble of going out to buy some’. But he was marked as a boy. I of course saw him and thought ‘He looks a lot like a girl’.

So I went on DA and asked a few owners what they thought and some had made him into a girl others said he really was either way. And right now I have a Dreamhigh Studio doll, Nero whom I see as a female. I posted pictures of her not to long ago and several people responded ‘SHE’s beautiful, love the pictures of HER’ (I’d said she was a girl in my post) but then someone said ‘He’s gorgeous’ and so I politely said that I’d decided to make them into a she (since I don’t know if there were specific genders besides the one with mini breast lol).
But then a moderator commented and called her a he as well, I have to admit I was nervous to correct them because i didn’t want to offend them and then of course I saw myself being banned (I know that doesn’t happen but I just panicked a little :P ).

But long story short is wasn’t really offensive to me. Maybe if it was someone I knew and I thought ‘Wow she looks so lady like and girlie’ and they came out with ‘What a nice looking dude’ I would be like ‘Aw man I thought I made her more feminin’ lol but other than that I don’t know if you have or don’t have the ‘right’ to get offended. I feel like some of these dolls come from our imagination and if you’re someone who thinks a guy looks wonderful in what we think as ‘girly’ cloths than by all means be yourself. But of course a lot of people won’t understand so maybe we shouldn’t jump on others inside or outside the hobby because we’ve got SO many opinions sometimes I feel like you can just smile, nod, and then continue on the way you like to do things

 

This ^^ My boy Tyler gets referred to as female all the time and I have no idea why. He's the most boyish of my many boys, has short hair and is always dressed in masculine clothes. I'm not exactly offended when people call him a girl, I sometimes do feel a little annoyed and wonder if these people are actually paying attention to what they're seeing.

As for the male dolls who have long hair, wear girly makeup and/or jewelry and dress in feminine clothes, I think it's perfectly reasonable for people to assume they are girls. I've seen quite a few dolls whose gender I questioned, simply because of the way they were dressed and made up. I think an owner who dressed their male doll in a way that is traditionally considered feminine shouldn't be surprised if people mistake him for a girl. As for the 'right to feel offended' no one can tell anyone else how they should feel. If a person feels offended that other people keep mistaking their boy doll for a girl, that's fine. The important thing is how a person responds to their feelings. If a person is offended and then gets all angry and huffy with the person who offended them, the situation is bound to deteriorate. Calmly explaining that 'he's a boy with an alternative style' (or whatever) might be a better solution.

 

I don't get offended if someone mistakes my boys for girls, though I do wonder why think they are girls considering I have them dressed like boys... Are their faces really that girly? LOL.

(btw, people that mistake my boys for girls are only people OUTSIDE of the BJD community.)

 

I don't really get offended when people mistake my boys for girls. It's very rare that this happens with my masculine boys but if it were to happen, let's say, on my Daydream Lance when he's wearing his skirts and perhaps a long wig and loose tops that make it impossible to tell what his body type is like? It's made so that he purposefully looks like a girl! Instead of being offended I'd call it a sweet success and go along with the person who assumes he's a girl! If they realise he's male that's just as good to me, though!

Same goes for one other of my guys who dresses in both entirely masculine wigs and clothes, in between ones and entirely feminine ones because of his job. On top of being originally a girl sculpt I wouldn't expect anyone to not misjudge his gender when he's not wearing his short boyish wig and clothes and even if they do when he's wearing them I can simply either overlook it because of the particular character and his style or simply correct them if I feel like I have to.

 

I get offended (well actually I get annoyed) when people call my Harry (IH Dexter w/his limited BEARDED faceup) feminine-looking. More like WTF??? I also get ticked when the SAME people have to CONSTANTLY be told that the SAME doll is not a girl but a boy. I don't have any of my male dolls cross-dressing at the moment.
My fav 'are you cracked' incident - I took my Charlie (Ringdoll Kirin), dressed as Katsura from Gintama (a kimono & haori) to work. The kimono wouldn't stay shut. Now since the cosplay includes long hair I could see people thinking him female, right up until said garment opened - I hadn't put pants or underwear on poor Charlie. So here he was flashing people who STILL called him a girl!?!

 

I don't own any male BJD's so I'm not sure if I would be offended but I have to admit that even I sometimes mistake boy dolls for girl dolls so I doubt I would be overly offended. However, when people refer to my dogs or my 10month old as 'he', look out.....

 

Assuming everyone in a dress in a girl is what I get all the time from people not familiar with visual kei. I mean if you are, you won't call Mana a girl right? That's the same thing.

And it isn't that hard to see that those musicians are actually all male (minus a few). It may be with dolls though since you can use a female head or an androgynous body, but it's rude to insist when they tell you it's a he.

 

I don't really care. My friends and family know that my doll is a boy, but we all agree that he looks very feminine. If someone mistook him, I would completely understand them, especially since I plan to put him in dresses. I would say that he is actually a girly boy, but I would take no offense. It's not their fault for making this mistake, especially with that adorable face of his.

 

My mum keeps calling one of my boys (the one in my signature if it helps XD) a girl, and I keep saying, you can buy him on a girls body, but this is a boy, his character is a boy... He's a boy! But mum reckons he's too cute to be one and wants him female :/ While yeh it irritates me, I think she's partly winding me up, and partly its that, unlike me, she doesnt watch anime where boys can be styalised to such feminine extremes, though both me and my mum love long haired guys... I wouldnt be offended, if they kept saying it I'd be irritated, but if you have no interest in the hobby or relating hobbies around it, then you cant expect them to change how they see our dolls. I hate R&B, so I'd call any category of it R&B with the same general brush... which to a fan would be annoying as hell. Same thing I suppose

 

I wouldn't be offended initially but as others have pointed out, it would annoy me if I corrected them and they kept doing it. I only have girls so far but I pretty much think gender roles are stupid and people (and dolls) should be able to dress how they want. A bit of confusion is understandable though, I do find lots of male dolls already look quite feminine.

 

I think that everyone has the right to be offended (and you also have to remember that no matter what you say, you are going to offend someone), but they need to handle their frustrations reasonably. Although you may have strong feelings, you have to recognize that someone else is not going to see everything the same way you do.
In this case, I agree with your sister. As much as many people would like to throw out the idea of it, clothes and colors do often represent a certain gender and are used to convey a certain message in the public eye. This is the normal assumption we make as humans. My suggestion would be that if a situation like this arises again, simply point out their mistake and don't make a big deal out of it. Be understanding of their mistake and don't take it personally! I'm sure the doll is an adorable boy, but I can still understand the mistake!
However, I have never owned a male doll, so I have not had this happen to me--but I can understand being offended by it. If the character is a boy then the doll is a boy! It seems so easy for us as creators of the character to understand that it can be very frustrating!

 

I sort of agree with your sister, because to non-dolly people, the general assumption is if it looks like a stereotypical girl, its a girl. However I do think that can be annoying if you already told the person the doll is a male, and they insist on using female pronouns. I think that doll sculpts tend to look more feminine to outsiders too. My mom is always going on about how a doll is way to pretty/ feminine to be a boy. I suppose the sculpt would make a difference, not just the clothes, because certain traits are credited to feminine hormones. In a way, I personally feel like, if you wanted that girly look for your doll, shouldn't you be happy people are acknowledging that? Not all mad because they find the doll girly, which you styled it like? Hope that makes sense!

 

The thing about it is, people will make assumptions that fit in their norm. It's automatic.
They will also assume that ALL DOLLS ARE GIRLS due to the fact that advertisements always show little girls playing with GIRL dolls. They take one look and ask me, "is that male or female?" I mean, he wasn't even a SD13, he was a SD17 and on the buff side with chest muscles. My guy was dressed like a guy, wearing pants, boots, short hair, and a shirt that was opened. I even did his faceup to look like a guy and gave him short eyelashes.
So I ask them, "Can't you tell he's male?"
And their reply? "Well, I've never seen a male doll before...so I'm not sure. Oh...and he totally looks female." (The sculpt in question was a Soom male Dia)
So if they can't tell a SD17 is a guy, I'm damn sure they won't be able to if you dress your guys like a girl and give him a girly wig and lipstick.
The only time when someone didn't mistake my doll for a girl? My Iplehouse EID male who was naked at the time. I've also since warned my family that apart from the YOSD and mini, I won't be getting any female dolls so don't ever ask about their gender.

I also observed something interesting. When my family learned that I was getting dolls, they were excited. Until I showed them my EID guy. And I watched their face fall like I had crushed their hopes or something. I asked them why they seem so disappointed and why did they lose their interest so fast.
My sister's reply? "I thought she was going to be in a pretty frilly dress! I didn't expect this! This....this is scary!! He's too big! Too manly!"
My mum was more diplomatic "You know, I thought you were going to get one of those dolls we saw at the Volks showroom. I didn't quite expect this. Anyways...why do you need to get something so big?"