Thoughts on heteronormativity and doll 'cross-dressing' / the gender spectrum

If they are pretty, you can dress them in a dress. It is a doll. Sorry I do not have complicated views on this.

 

I'm going to dress my Ming boy up as a girl when I get him because he has a feminine face and I don't like boy dolls

 

One thing that absolutely drives me crazy is when you have a guy doll, with female clothes, hairstyle, female everything, but its all on a male body/sculpt and is gay. WHY NOT JUST GET A FEMALE XD I mean..I can kinda see how it could be realistic in a sense of identity confusion, or males wanting to be females but take out the story and I just don't get it!

 

I see a lot of transgender and BL stereotypes on here that would usually make me cringe, but how I see it, the acceptance those people usually have for gay/transgendered people makes up for it. I know a lot of BL fangirls, and I'm a bit of one myself, but while some of the stories we may enjoy has some really negative elements and stereotypes, I know not a single person who thinks the reality is anything like those stories. And what is more, all the BL fans I really know, are accepting of anyone. What I find much, much more disturbing are the select few I've seen who finds BL hot, but hates GL. I honestly don't see the logic in that. Luckily, I don't know any of them (I have ONE acquaintance, but I don't know her well, as we really wouldn't get along), and I don't see too many of them around either.

I enjoy any story as long as I find it well-executed; whether it is full of rape, paedophilia, cannibalism, drugs, murder, you name it, or not, is not an issue to me. I don't find it hot. I most certainly don't like those elements when they appear in the real world. But as a good story and well-executed fantasy, I most surely don't mind it. I find this also goes for many of my other friends.
The only thing I really have an issue with is concealed/glorified rape. I don't really think highly of authors who put rape into their stories and advertise it as a sweet, fluffy love story, but I digress.

A couple of my dolls cross-dress, and most of my dolls are bi/gay/asexual. However, the cross-dressers do cross-dress for a reason, and the gay characters are normal people, just gay. I'm gay, so I can sympathize more with gay characters, and as all my dolls are based off characters of mine, they are very rarely straight. I don't go for the "gay guy = feminine"-stereotype, which is common in the BL genre, for my gay guy dolls, nor do I go for the "lesbians = masculine"-stereotype for my lesbian dolls.

As for my dolls:

Lawr cross-dresses, but he has no gender identity. He only identifies himself as a "human", and wears whatever the heck he wants. His parents made sure to bring their children up neutrally, with no gender-roles, no straight propaganda, and he always got his older sister's dresses, which she'd grown out of. Her trousers and suits too.

Cael cross-dresses occasionally, but he did more frequently before he got his very sweet, but slightly misogynistic current boyfriend. He is gay, his mother is pretty homophobic, so he at times felt like he should have been born a girl, so he could be with guys, and made a habit of trying to make himself look like a girl, when he was alone.

Bellossa finds long, heavy dresses to be uncomfortable, so she always wears male formal clothing to parties.

 

While interesting, I think any thoughts on dolls, doll-owners, fantasy-play, fiction, and all that and trying to correlate this to actual human sexuality and views about it need to be approached with consideration.

The owners opinions about their dolls and characters sexuality can probably correlate to thoughts about humans, but not necessarily. And the reverse should be given some leeway... that when talking about their dolls, who may be hot anime yaoi boy-toys or tranny-somethings, this doesn't always mean the owners would apply this to humans and you shouldn't automatically assume this applies to actual humans.

The dolls are not humans, after all. They represent characters that are in the fantasy and fictions of the owners. Their relationship with their dolls/characters is essentially a personal one that happens to be shared because of the whole social network thing we have going in society today. But basically, it's still a very private thing between themselves and their dolls where they are free to play about in ways that MAY be unacceptable in regards to human-to-human behavior.

So, there could very well be a lot of very un-pc stuff happening. It doesn't mean the persons would behave this way towards humans at all.

On the other hand, there will also be issues that the persons are ignorant of (the pc-stuff), but you have to realize that they are playing about in their imaginations, in a fairly safe way, with dolls. This could be bad if it does leech over into the human world, but in most cases it isn't the end of the world if some cringe-worthy things are done and said. That's just how people are. You may wish to educate them a bit, but realize that if they are just playing around with their dolls, they are free to do a lot of cringe-worthy things in that personal arena, since it really is aimed at their dolls and not meant to apply to actual humans--and with most people, they understand this difference.

Yes and no, given the above understanding that a person's relationship with the dolls is different than how they may or may not view/treat other people.

It's a bit of a touchy subject, since with humans, objectifying is not good, but playing about in your imagination is all sorts of un-pc ways is very human and probably should have a safe outlet.

It's not just the gender issues. There are dolls who are scarred and maimed. There are conjoined twins. There are all sorts of afflictions, physical, mental, whatever. There are races and cultures. And usually people here are free to go about and do what they wish with their dolls, without worrying about how certain groups may look askance. Because, basically, it is between an owner and their dolls or creations, and not something between humans--but this line is a very, very thin one and people may still be offended, or just grimace...

It is safer to just leave the real world out and let people play with dolls in a sort of unrelated fantasy world, usually, rather than try to work too much of real life issue into it all. That way lies a lot of issues that are best not dealt with on a doll forum.

On the other hand... as I said, if handled carefully, I'd certainly find discussion and study of such things very interesting!

gah. I think most people here are a bit more sensitive and broad-minded than that. But you never know!

 

Oh buddha, not this again. Because it wouldn't be the same. A female doll is not the same as a male doll in a dress.

[see above] ... Welcome to heteronormativityville.

 

Hmm, when it comes to the gender spectrumthis hobby does tend to annoy me. I can forgive the rather unrealistic 'yaoi' tendencies as 'each to their own' and, to a lesser degree: 'the follies of youth' and i've seen some beautifully depicted gay characters as dolls whose sexuality is not the be all and end all of their sexuality. However, I have been upset on numerous occassions by people's reactions to my doll Salem a DOI Luke who has caused some rather nasty PMs to come my way. Salem is genderaueer, I wouldnt feel comfortable saying he is outright FTM as his sutuation is a little different, but, as he is a biological women who acts, dresses, etc, in a typically masculine fashion, i'll use the FTM label for ease in this conversation.

Salem's sexuality is not a major factor in his character, but, when thinking to shell hm it is somethng that I had to bare in mind, I ultimately settled on a masculine sculpt, as it had the flat chest and muscles that I desired and figured that I'd mod some details (take in his waist and take off his penis for example) to make him more as he should be. i hope that he is a respectful and accurate representation of an FTM and that he is also a good character in his own right. Furthermore, he is very close to me heart as a character, he was an outlet for some of my feelings about my own sexuality as well as being the protagonist of two of my novels and I hold him very, very close to my heart. I've been so, so hurt but the nasty, slanderous, narrowminded PMs i've recieved since joining this hobby due to having Sam.

 

I personally love pretty boy dolls. its not so much for a yaoi fantasy, its that for me ive always liked pretty boys. ive always known i was bysexual, and a pretty boy to me was like a boy and a girl all in one, seemed like a good scenario to me. i guess its just leaked into my dolls....

 

Dress 'em how you want. Make them how you want. It's sad that anyone even cares when some cultures go generations without even thinking about gender/sexuality/"normative" labels. Just do what you want.

 

I am not bothered in the least by genderqueer or otherwise crossdressing dolls for any and all reasons.

I have plans for two such dolls myself, one of the two was 'accidental', he is part of our story and as a child he was forced to crossdress to suppress his inner demon. I already own the 'older' version of this character in doll form and while he doesn't have a need to crossdress anymore story-wise I wouldn't mind putting him in the occasional long skirt from time to time.
My other character that technically crossdresses wears both more masculine and more feminine clothing. He's not uncertain about his gender or confused with his sexual identity. As a mater of fact he's not even homosexual (more like pansexual) just completely indifferent when it comes to his own gender and that of others.

To me all dolls (of mine) represent characters from a certain story so they can be whatever their character is 'safely' if you will. In the same manner I like to respect other owners' choices about their dolls as I would expect them to do to mine.

 

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and their artistic vision. I personally think that trans gender can be very hit and miss. Not so much the dolls themselves, but the way certain owners speak of these (their own) dolls. I won't post examples, I just think some people who don't know much about the LGBT community should check their facts first instead of playing into stereotypes when speaking about their dolls. I'm not saying we should all be 100% politically correct all the time about everything, but just try to be respectful of other people's feelings.

 

To be honest, I haven't seen many boy dolls that aren't feminine. I suppose that is because the majority of BJD Hobbyists are females??

 

As I recall, I didn't see a lot of people pointing at bjd girl dressed as/acting as boys, or "female to male" transgendered character.
One of the main issues seems (to me) more to involve male characters being dressed/acting like a female. Is it a kind of sexism prejudice inside the heteronormativity prejudice ?
On the other hand, on the point of mold modification : it is more common to see female to male bjds mods because it seems easier : substractive reduction (sanding boobs) instead of additive (creating boobs) modification. Another thing I think quite simplistic is that it seems enough to a lot of people to take apart boobs and voila, you have a male... No offense but I found it a little bit disturbing. For me it requires a lot more modifications on a doll to make it "look" male or female than just sanding a flat chest...

 

I have 2 issues with people dressing boys as girls:

1: It's so common that I'm kind of tired of seeing it. I get this way about anything that I see a lot of. I grew up with a mother who LOVES the color blue and now I kinda hate it lol.

2: A lot of the boys dressed as girls thing seems to be done as a way to "shame" them for fun and there should be no shame in it. Yes, they're just dolls, but it puts out a horrible image. If it's one doll doing it to another doll as an RP thing that's ok-ish... it's just RP. But an owner doing it to their boy to shame/make fun of them... not cool. Not cool at all.

As for sexuality and stuff... there seems to be a lot of gay dolls and yaoi. This is is all fine and dandy BUT WHERE'S THE LESBIANS AND YURI? heh... I'm not a perv, I swear If there's some sort of secret yuri doll club, let me know...

And I'm thinking of making my minifee asexual. I know a lot of people don't think asexuality fits into these sorts of talks, but I think it does and I'd love to "meet" some more asexual dolls.

And... I love androgyny... in boys or girl, especially in girls. I'd love to see some androgynous girl dolls! I've actually been kinda trying to find a nice suit for my big girl....

So the long of the short of it is: Whatevs. It's your doll, do what you want and works for you and it's character/personality, but I crave me some variety in some areas

 

I think it's amazing, and just adds to how realistic the dolls are (: They look like us, dress like us, shouldn't they be able to fall somewhere on the gender spectrum other than their 'intended' gender?

i just hate that a lot of people will see a male doll cross-dressing and say, " why buy a male if you're going to make it dress like a girl? Just buy a girl doll ".
It saddens me really.

 

ok im back to post again, (I had posted in here quite a while ago) because since my last post I have acquired a doll with a "cross-dressing" character and what amazes me is so far NO ONE has had anything bad to say about this character... he is my littlefee sleeping chiwoo and his character is a blind five year old. what amazes me is his "mommy" is one of my gay characters who adopted him and is actually a single "mother" now he doesn't identify himself as a female but rather my blind child character identifies him as a "mommy" because Akira (the gay single mother) does all of the things mommies in stories do for their kids like make dinner and tuck him into bed and tell him stories and kiss his boo-boos etc. so not only do I have a bit of gender-indentity mishap right there but the child himself wears dresses and bows because his "mommy" has never told him that dresses are supposed to be "girls clothes" and being blind he has no way to "see" this in the world around him, he just knows that he likes having his legs free and he likes the "swishy" way they feel. he also likes interesting feeling fabrics since being blind touch is what he uses when choosing clothes since he cant see what they actually look like and girls clothes with their laces and satins and glitter and tulle and beads ETC. tend to be way more interesting to feel so he naturally gravitates twords the clothes that stimulate his sense of touch more. (one thing I do smile about though is even though he cross-dresses he still has a very short boyish hairstyle unlike most of the "cross-dressing" dollies ive seen) being only five this hasn't caused him any problems yet but one can only imagine it will cause him problems and tears later in life especially when he starts school but his "mommy" having grown up gay and dealing with the trials involved therein wants his child to grow up happy in spite of his blindness and as far as hes concerned if dresses make his son happy hes all for them. what im wondering is why I have never received any flak for this from anyone in the hobby but there are people out there who have problems with the mass of "gay" and "cross-dressing" dolls out there, my curiosity is what makes my doll with his story "ok" but not the other dolls? why do I get harassed about my Persian "harem" character whos story involves being trapped in the harem against his will to protect his child because people tell me my story has a "rape" theme when if you read the whole story its actually more about a loss of freedom and being separated from his little girl unable to watch her grow up than being made to be a lover against his will... and in fact at the end of the story he winds up the happy and all-too-willing lover of the sultan's second-born son... what makes this story not ok but makes my five year old blind cross-dresser with a gay single father that the child identifies as his mother is ok and no one has anything negative to say about him?

 

I would love to have a transgender bjd. Ever since I saw a gender change scar mod, I loved the idea.

 

As a trans* man, and pansexual, myself, I like to put little pieces of my life into my dolls. Most of my planned dolls are queer. Leah, Siri, Asce, Airi, and Fallon all identify as lesbian. Mads, Cord, Emi, and Sam are bi or pan. Michael is gay. Jacqui, Reizo, and Damien are straight. Hikaru is asexual but homoromantic. Cord, Hikaru, and Sam are all a bit genderqueer, but masculine. Fallon and Jacqui are both trans* women, too, and I'm going to attempt to shell them to show their respective gender expressions without sacrificing who they are. My dolls are going to be diverse in gender and sexuality as well as race and ethnicity. Though I don't think it's a bad thing if people don't go with that--your dolls are your dolls.

A couple of my boy dolls (Cord and Sam, mostly) are going to crossdress, more because they like feeling pretty than because they're drag queens. Well, Cord is a bit of a drag queen. But it's not all that different from Leah wearing mostly "men's" clothing, or Michael wearing "men's" clothing, or Mads wearing "women's" clothing. It's just how they dress. I don't get the cultural reinforcement of binary gender labels on everything--toys, activities, clothing, etc.

 

As 'the straight one' of all my friend groups, I don't have any problems with people who aren't just male or female. I don't know if it really has any influence on my dolls... Most of my dolls are just straight, I never had to think about it, their characters just.... are straight. But one of my sexier female characters is gay, and she has a girlfriend, and neither of them are what I'd consider to be an example of a cliche' stereotypical lesbian. Johanna wears a lot of skirts and has long wavy hair and loves being beautiful and totally feminine. Her girlfriend, Olivia, has short hair, but also enjoys being very feminine most of the time, though she also likes wearing kinda boyish things sometimes, usually when she's wearing something kinda punk-influenced. And I mean, of course they're not some cliche' lesbian couple because there are so many different relationship dynamics between women, and their personal lifestyles! I didn't think them up and think 'oh, and they will be gay', I just kinda realized it at one point that they were. I hadn't done it on purpose, but I didn't really care, either. At one point, after my favorite, admittedly kinda *pretty*~ boy doll seemed like he just couldn't stay in a relationship with any of the girls I had in mind for him, I wondered if he might be gay or bi or something else, but after I tried to imagine him with a guy, I knew he was straight and just hadn't met the right girl yet.

I also once had a doll named April, who was a boy. He was NOT a girly boy, but before his character had really come together, I would often pose his body is silly, usually effeminate ways. His name was April because he shipped in April, original, I know. But he was totally a boy. My boyfriend would constantly tease April about being gay, not that he meant it in a bad way (my boyfriend is one of the most queer guys I know), no matter how many times I insisted that April was a straight boy, because that's what I knew he was. Then he wasn't. Now April is a girl. Now, it's a little complicated... April's character is not trans, even though her physical doll form received a subtractive sex change modification... April's character used to be a boy, but since I have changed her to be a girl, she has ALWAYS been a girl. It's like a parallel universe in which she was always a girl suddenly merged with the one where he was always a boy? April had a girlfriend as a boy, but it didn't work out. April still likes girls as a girl, and she also dated the same girl her male universe counterpart did, because the universes are otherwise the same, right? But now she might have a crush on a boy, who is pretty much omnisexual. So... I had a straight male character, and now I have a most likely pan female character, but it's the same character, but she's always been female. Her personality is the same, it just means that she's a tomboy instead of a plain old BOY. As a boy, he liked girls. As a girl, she still likes girls, and probably boys and who knows what else. I will always refer to the male version of April as 'he' because he was always a boy and never became a girl. Likewise, the female version will always be referred to as 'she' because she was always a girl and didn't use to be a boy. This isn't because I don't want April's character to be trans. This is because she just... isn't. In my brain, she has now always been a girl. That's all there is to it.

TLDR; I have a lesbian couple and a boy character who is now a girl character but who isn't trans, and I think that any and all gender and sexual identities should be represented by dolls if their owners feel the need, or want, to do so.

 

Personally, where other people have a heteronormative view, I tend to have a 'binormative' view of the world, so to speak. I am attracted to people of both sexes/genders and I tend to assume everyone is unless they're proven not to be. Which isn't a conscious thing, just, I don't know, my sexuality influencing my subconscious perception of the world, I guess.
Most of my doll characters, at least the ones who are old enough to think about such things, are bi. The exceptions are Gabe, who is an immortal raised by 19th century nuns -- he's very Catholic and doesn't even want to accept anything but heterosexuality as true love -- and Eisheth, my demon teen who just happens to be straight. I don't have a gay doll yet, but that will probably happen one day if it fits their story.

As far as crossdressing and trans* goes, I have not had a doll who has that as part of their identity yet, but I like it in other people's dolls as long as it fits their story. Random characterless boys in loli dresses 'just because' are kind of strange to me, because it seems to be related to a stereotype that I'm not very fond of.