Do you have a right to feel offended?

I'm cooling my head first when my family or normal friends said my boy like girls, although he is wearing a man's outfit. I'm just assuming they couldn't get out of that 'box' which kept their imagination that only girls had eyelashes or have a pointy nose. well most of the dolls including the boys are all pretty! And that's why I buy them -_- so at first I felt offended, but then I'm just keep Myself in neutral side, not in the position I'm right or I'm wrong, it's life. Not many people likes the same thing as us, and although we're in the same hobby it doesn't guarantee we're going to love the same things or style or sculpts or molds. We have our own taste and the freedom to love it so keep cool and love your dollies ^^

 

I think it's a bit much to get angry over misgendering a doll, yes, particularly if the character is cis which seems to be the case most of the time for some reason. However, I also think it's important to recognize that real people are also misgendered and that's an emotionally damaging thing. If they're the ones getting angry, I can see why. I think we should recognize that our system of gendering on sight is flawed. I don't think it's something that's liable to change (there are also pieces of the English language that are flawed but overhauling English is a rather impossible task and ultimately a huge waste of energy), but recognizing it is a moment of mind-opening in itself. I think those of us who are cis should be open to these ideas.

That said, I feel like a lot of the people actually complaining are cis people who don't actually understand what they're talking about, to be honest. Not that I understand fully either (I am cis), but if a person is presenting as female, it's actually pretty rude not to address them as female. It's more difficult for people who don't fit on the binary, but I feel like that's not what these bjd complainers are on about most of the time either. I dunno, man. I feel like this "phenomenon" should be taken on a case by case basis. Like, if a nonbinary person is frustrated, that holds a lot more weight to me than a cis person who's just mad that people don't know their girly boy is a girly boy.

 

I try not to make a huge deal about people calling my boys girls. I don't dress my boys up effeminately currently but lots of people still think they're girls. My friends didn't believe me when I first showed them Seth, a Soul Doll Juhl, when I told them he was a boy so I allowed them to undress him and see for themselves. I can see why they thought he was a girl because he has the long hair and dark faceup but he was dressed llike a boy. Well, they don't question me about my doll's genders anymore.
I usually don't do that with everyone but I was going to change his clothes at the time anyways. I usually just correct the person as nicely as possible. If they continue to bug me about it, I tend to walk away. In my friends case, I just thought it would be funny to see their reaction. They looked really awkward when they were holding a bald, naked doll while I was picking out an outfit.

 

I don't think its a big deal

 

I feel everyone's got the right to feel however they do, but getting offended cos someone doesn't share in your aesthetic is kinda silly to me. Everyone has different tastes and I know some people won't see what I see and vice-versa. I have no time to worry about anyone else's opinion, to be completely honest. When I do meet people that share the same aesthetic as I; I find that very fun and want to share and chat with them - seemingly endlessly.

 

Respect will go a long way when you take the time to be patient and understanding. Most people may not agree with your views even when the situation is explained calmly and rationally. Sometimes these situations feel even worse if the other person might be committing a transgression. Still, if you become too agitated and angry, you might be giving them ammunition to keep teasing you. You have all the right to feel offended based on any transgression committed, but how far can it take you if you can't forgive? Will it make matters worse?

Always be smart, mature, cool, and collected. No one can change another person's mentality by sheer force. So keep your wits about you and be firm on your stance. People will know that you mean business and they will probably watch what they say around you.

 

I see both sides of this, you both have a point. It's your doll, do what you want with it, but if your dress it as the other gender don't get really annoyed and angry when someone gets it wrong because thats what we were taught our whole lives, sure it can be annoying to keep correcting them, but that just how things are I guess

 

I think the only problems I've actually had with my dolls is online... There was only one problem, when there was some rude kids at a meet up (they didn't belong to anyone there) They kept hanging around me, almost knocking dolls over, saying loudly (I kid you not) "HEY. THAT WEIRD LADY HAS NO HAIR." While pointing and laughing at me. I just growled at them and told them to take a picture. Their dad didn't even try correcting them the coward. The only offended experiences I've had were like that in the real world.

In the virtual world... There was a lot. That doll is creepy, blah blah blah... The usual... One got really persistant when a member of a forum I run wouldn't stop insulting Avalon and Vala, even after I told him he didn't have to look at their pictures, he told me they were: "Disgusting" "Too human, their gross." And even said he wanted to break Vala.

Vala is my tiny Resinsoul Bei.

Avalon is my Resinsoul Song.

This guy took what made me happy and made me feel like I was being treated like a predator. I was a moderator BTW and he was just ONE member. No one else had an issue with me except him. And yet he also couldn't follow the rules of the forum either. That was seriously the only really offensive thing. I think when your getting insulted and being told someone would like to harm your property if they got hold of them then yeah. Right to be offended.

But over something like boy dolls being mistaken for girls when their being made to look feminine in the first place? Nope. You kind of reap what you sow there.

I've stuck my MSD boy in a dress before, because I didn't have an MSD girl to practice with. (She was on her way but until then...) He looked... Awkward in it. Then again short cocktail dresses usually don't flatter my manly man. I've also stuck him in feminine things like girly tank tops and shorts... But that's just his style. I stick him in what suits him at the time... And yeah... He can look quite feminine but that's my choice. If he gets mistaken for a girl, I get a good laugh about telling people that he has doll bits.

 

For me I think its a matter of why they are doing it. If it is simply that they looked and got confused sure. But to continually get it wrong when you have corrected them or to assume that "anything in a dress" is a girl says something about culture. It assumes that wearing a dress makes you "feminine" or a "girl" which IS offensive in my opinion. Why a girl? Why not a Woman? And so what if someone is delicate and wants to wear dresses but has all their man bits intact. That is their business.

You have the right to have your dolls represent whatever you want them too. You have every right to get offended when people are narrow minded and disrespectful of something you obviously care about enough to represent it in doll form. Honest mistakes where people just plain didn't know, not their fault.

Sorry to get all preachy.

 

I've mistaken some of my friend's dolls as female due to the face-up and dress combo, but then I looked more closely at the body and didn't see boobage. Lucky I didn't say anything at the time lol. But I wouldn't get offended since the majority of the people I know would look at my dolls and say they all look the same =3=

 

Eh...I think people have a right to be offended at whatever they want to be offended by.
Just like the people who offended them have a right to not give a hoot.

If it looks feminine wearing what is traditionally seen a feminine clothing I'm gonna assume it's a girl*.
I wouldn't do so out of any ill meaning debauchery or because I'm trying to be mean spirited, I'm just calling it like I see it.
The only time I'm actively assuming that it might be a guy is when I'm watching anime or reading manga.

Thing is, people can't read minds. I wish we could but we really can't. We don't always know what the other person is thinking and doing. We don't know how they feel about their possessions or their world views. For the most part it's just an honest mistake. If someone is doing it intentionally and stuff, yeah sure go off on them. But getting angry at people for not knowing exactly what your thinking and what you are doing without being told or given some kind of way to figure it out is kinda rude.

*Just in case, I'm gonna go ahead and say that when I speak of biological gender I say boy or girl. I don't use man or woman unless it's a person I'm referring to.

 

Of course everyone has the right to be offended. Some people get offended over to what most people would think are tiny things, but to them it's not, so I'd definitely want to respect that.

I feel like if someone doesn't respect a doll enough to just be like "oops" and not make a deal of it, then they probably wouldn't respect an actual human being enough either. And yeah, I know it's an object and not a person, but it's still not a good sign if someone doesn't have respect for it.

 

If the person continuously lists the gender of their doll with the pictures and people continue to misgender them, then yeah. The person has a right to get shitty. If the person happens to be trans and this happens, I can understand them being upset. I have had this happen to me, listing the gender of my doll alongside the image but they still refer to my doll as male. It's really annoying and can often parrot the stuff that gets said to me about my identity and such :/

 

If it looks like a girl, then I mean...I don't know
I have accidentally called someone's doll a girl when it was a boy and she nicely corrected me and told me she got it all the time.
Maybe instead of assuming the gender of a doll, we should ask first?
If it looks like a girl (long hair and feminine features) then one would think it was a girl, but with some dolls it's kinda hard to tell.
I think I would be better off asking the owner whether the doll is a girl or boy

 

I think people have the right to be annoyed and offended when it happens over and over, from the same person. The strange thing about my boys is that the one who is the most 'butch' of the group is mistaken for a girl a lot more. He has long-ish hair, but that's the only girly thing about him. His clothes are more on the masculine side. However, my least male character has only ever been mis-gendered once and he's the one with short hair. I'm starting to wonder if hair length has more to do with gendering dolls than outfits do.

I did have one instance that was incredibly annoying. The first time I took my short haired boy to a club meeting on campus, most people were just curious about him. The president of the club even turned out to be into BJDs so we got to talk for a while before the meeting began. However, one member insisted on calling my boy a girl even after being corrected multiple times then, when the meeting was over, proceeded to follow me back to my dorm and make rude comments concerning me, my doll, and trans people (because if I kept saying my doll was a boy, he was obviously trans and that was bad-his words, not mine). I have absolutely nothing against trans people. By the end of the night, I was so pissed off and angry that I didn't even show my doll to close friends for a while because I was scared of their reactions. I could deal with random club members, but if friends had said the same things or reacted the same way, it would have hit much harder. Thankfully, they were perfectly pleasant and one now has a little BJD girl of her own.

 

Now that would offend me. It's one thing to pay a compliment using the wrong gender name or forget (people do that with my dog), but to have an argument over it? That was incredibly rude and childish.

I know it can be jarring to hear the wrong gender name being applied, but over all, I wouldn't consider it offensive. People make that mistake all the time with more than just dolls and it's polite to apologize when corrected and try not to again. But if someone is just absent minded (grandma), that wouldn't bother me either.

 

I think making a mistake about the gender, or forgetting the gender, of a doll is just human (I've made mistakes, and I've been around bjds for over a decade! --But I'll quickly apologize and start referring to the right gender if I'm corrected).

But if the person starts making a big deal about it--that's definitely OFFENSIVE! They have some sort of problem. They have ignorant ideas about gender and how people look (basically, if they have such ideas about dolls, they will probably have ignorant ideas about humans as well--which is not a good thing). After trying to explain once or twice about how having long hair or whatever has nothing to do with gender, I'd just get away from that person if they insist on being offensive and ignorant--and basically not caring about others.

If they are a friend, then maybe try to make them understand over the long term, or avoid the subject with them. If they are a stranger, then get away and try not to care about it. There are lots of trolls in the world, on-line and in-person! You don't need to be around them.

 

Speaking as a trans guy, I tend towards the same rules for dolls as I do for myself. Being misgendered once is to be somewhat expected, people have their preconceived notions of what each gender looks like. If, however, after being informed they continue to use the wrong pronouns on purpose, or worse, insist that I must be wrong- that's when I get offended, because that person is frankly being a git.

On another note, the whole 'look for a chest' idea as a 'fail-safe' to gendering dolls is, while mostly sound, prone to being flawed in a few cases - and please don't apply that idea to humans either. As a guy who happens to (unfortunately) have a chest, things will not go well with that kind of logic.

 

I had to deal with it long before i knew about bjd because it's the whole thing with asian model of beauty.
I draw pretty bishounen boys for 4 years and wasn't surprised when people called them girls first 2 years, because they were actually too slender and girlie due to my low drawing skills.
But now I still hear 'nice girl' constantly. Pretty face? yep it's a girl then, who cares about broad shoulders, flat chest and even 6pack on stomach.
The thing is just that people who are not from asia got used to masculine boys, and sometimes even women in european/american country are more rough than those poor feminine boys who are often confused with girls no matter whi they are - dolls, drawings or even real people.
When i hear this 'nice girl, 'I always remember that story about Sephiroth a friend of mine used to told me

 

In general, if your doll is in a frilly dress, you need to expect most people to default to 'she' pronouns. Sure, guys can wear dresses, but 90% of the time if you see someone in a dress, they're a girl so that's what people are gonna go off of by default.

If it annoys/offends you, either suck it up or change your doll's clothes.