"Your (male) dolls look like girls" - androgyny of dolls

I’ve always said that “by telling the stories of my dolls, I tell the story of myself”, and it’s absolutely true. I created a Tim Burton-esque fantasy world, populated with diverse characters that vaguely represent unique moments in my long life...think of it as a visual artistic diary within a storybook setting. For this reason it’s not surprising that most of my dolls are female like me, and the handful of boys I do have tend towards androgynous by design (with the exception of my Luts Elf Storm who is based more on my husband. He’s a hubba-hubba hunk who no one mistakes as a girl!) When I received him, however, Luts sent two blank male event heads who I promptly turned into females, so there you go!

 

@clefairy @Anneko I strongly relate to the experiences of being misgendered myself as someone GNC. I have one doll specifically for embodying androgyny and girlishness together and it's very liberating to have my resin shadow self look the way I hope to look one day.

@Rakonto I'm going to call this Cow/Horse Theory of Art now, because it's a bugbear of mine in lots of creative media.

OTOH I had one doll who is a male character, on a male body, repeatedly get misgendered as a woman because he is wearing heavy eye makeup (and I suppose is androgynous/enough) even though he is dressed and accessorized as masculine. Him getting misgendered does bug me a bit and I can't really place the why. It's not like he has feelings to hurt. But there is an integrity to the character/design that I want to be there and if he's not recognized it's a failure in the execution of his concept. It's the specific pronouns too ("SHE is such a pretty doll" irks me, but "HE is PRETTY" does not)

 

I personally don't mind when someone gets what gender my doll is incorrect - it's usually an interesting conversation starter and with my fantasy dolls, yeah they're a little more difficult to guess. However I have had one of my very androgynous guys get correctly ID-ed as a guy by a total stranger, and I've had one of my biggest, buffest, manliest men referred to as a "pretty girl" by yet another passer by. So uh...who even knows anymore?

 

I only have one male doll (well, really nonbinary, he/they lol but he is a Delf Chiwoo on the "male" Delf body), but I get this a lot! It's frustrating, but I understand in a way since dolls in general are feminine-coded in (US/western) society. Not that that's right at all, because it isn't, but that's partly why I think it happens often with people who don't collect BJDs. Those of us in the hobby are used to seeing male dolls, often with long hair and androgynous clothing, but an outsider to the hobby probably associates "doll" with "girl," and even moreso, long hair, delicate features, and cute clothes (which many male BJDs have) with "girl."

It does bother me a little when people think my Chiwoo is a girl, because to me, even though he's pretty androgynous, there's a super obvious contrast between them and my female dolls! But I don't think most people mean anything bad by it, they just genuinely can't tell. I had one bad experience with a family member though. I was showing my mom and another family member my Chiwoo after I gave them new eyes or something like that and the other person (not my mom) said he looked "a bit gay" which like.... problematic on so many levels? (His character is actually gay lol but the implication was definitely that feminine/androgynous non-female person automatically = gay which like, REEEEE no!!!!!).

Soooo that was pretty upsetting. But most of the time people don't make implications like that, they just think doll = girl/cute = girl, I think.

 

The issue I’ve run into is other doll people not picking up on pronouns you’re using for dolls. Like, mistakes happen, and I’m not mad at anyone, but it’s a bit irksome when you pointedly caption pics with “they are wearing their sister’s watch, and they love it” and someone immediately comments “she looks so good!”

Didn’t happen here, and again, I get that mistakes happen, but this character has a lime green flocked head, and a flat chest and was in a button down. They weren’t at all in femme attire, or with the long hair, so it was a little confusing, and rubbed me the wrong way a bit? All I do is respond with “thanks, I’m glad you like them.” And hope they catch the they, rather than call people on it.

 

I was a bit dismayed to have my first male doll mistaken for a girl in a gender neutral fur wig and the least feminine clothes I had. Admittedly he has the sort of androgynes beauty a lot of Asian BJDs have. I try to dress him as manly as I can, given he's a mature tiny and his clothes hide his body shape. If Ethan gets mistaken for a girl I wouldn't really mind since he's often dress sort of feminine with long hair.

 

'Putting on my editor's hat for a minute here, that may just be an artifact of the language rather than anything personal or intentionally problematic...

They/them still tends to be used as an informal, generic pronoun often enough that someone who hasn't been involved in discussions about gender identity really might not pick up on the specific connotations. They/them in terms of gender identity is one of those usage cases where the language is still in the process of evolution. Not everyone has caught up yet, so some folks are more likely to "get it" than others.

Eventually everyone will catch on, but it takes time.

 

Typically, I'm not offended by anyone who is not in the hobby calling my doll by the wrong gender. To me, it's the same as meeting someone's pet for the first time. You're not going to hike that animal's leg up to check what gender it is, I don't expect them to yank my doll's pants down to check either. If you're not accustomed to the feminine looking male dolls, and you're not perceptive enough to catch me saying "HE" then I'm likely going to smile and just change the subject.

I personally might giggle about it later as I brush my boy's beautiful long hair and tell him how pretty he is. But hey, it's all part of the charm of the hobby.

 

Something like this happened to me last year. Both my mom and my friend have mentioned that my boy Damen kind of looks like a girl. I can understand why. He wears masculine clothes and is a masculine character, but his face-up is what makes him look a little girly. It's his eyelashes and his pink lips. Also, maybe his wig and his blush and freckles.

He's just a doll so I'm not bothered when people say he looks girly. To me, he doesn't look that girly, just a tiny bit. I noticed that a lot of male BJD's look a little feminine in some way. It's usually the face-up.

 

As someone who owns a good number of old fairyland/Cerebrus Project MNFs yeah i get it a lot lol. It certianly doesn't help that I dress them slightly feminine and play with gender but I'm NB myself and so thats just what feel right to me. I even have at least one doll I dress in mostly feminine styles as I think he looks cute like that, I mean he'd prolly look cute in more masc stuff too but I can't help loving frills and lace for my dolls lol. I can't wear feminine stuff without getting misgendered either so in a way I'm used to it.

 

To be perfectly honest, I don't care and don't bother correcting people. Saying "oh he's actually a boy" usually just leads to awkward conversations and it really doesn't matter.

Honestly, when I look at a lot of my male dolls they genuinely don't look like any men I've ever seen anyways. A lot of them end up looking more like butch lesbians.

 

Honestly this happens in real life too. My youngest son has long hair, is consistantly misgendered as a girl.
CONSISTANTLY.

My middle son was a very "pretty" baby, so much so he was, again, consistantly assumed to be a girl and when I corrected people they'd argue with me that he was "too pretty" to be a boy. What the hell does that even mean?

I can attest, they are both male and identify as male.

And it's wierd because short hair doesn't have quite the same connetations. Long hair and curls are automatically assumed to be feminine, but short hair isn't automatically "Male", just "butch"
which is really wierd.

So you add in people's tendency to assume all dolls are girls due to expectation and their own narrow exposure to dolls and bam, you get any doll that doesn't have a full dang beard, carrying a gun with his manhood hanging out assumed to be "female".

I mean I say this, but i've had dolls with beards be called "girls" so... yeah...

The only solution clearly is to have them all peens out, at all times. <_< hahahaha. I jest.

 

I’m never offended by anyone wrongly assuming the gender of my dolls or even people hating them. It takes hard work to offend me at all and I take that same attitude with my dolls.

My dolls are a source of joy. And because of that, my feelings and thoughts are never on guard when I’m discussing them with somebody. I wouldn’t ever chastise someone or even be annoyed over something so innocent and harmless. I always think people mostly are coming from a good place. Even if they’re completely backwards about my dolls and what I picture them to be, the fact that they’re making the effort to be engaging and curious about my hobby makes me happy.

 

I don’t watch a lot of anime and at first a lot of bjd guys looked like girls to me until I got used to it. So no, I can’t get offended when others make that mistake with my boy dolls. For me, it’s mostly about how amazing they look and less about all the other details.

And with art, I do think it’s acceptable for people to see something other than what I see. Sometimes people can offer the most interesting insight about my dolls.

 

I loveee dressing up my boys androgynously. I only ever told my mom that they're girls to get away from lectures

Here's my Roderich looking all fab o/

 

Most of my male dolls have long hair because I love the aesthetic. However, they tend to wear more traditionally masculine clothing so the confusion doesn't happen very much. My Doll Family H Su Sha, Taras, gets mistaken for a girl a lot because of his long hair, soft features, thinner body, and flowy robes that hide his body shape. When it's other collectors, as simple correction is all it takes and things are fine. With how androgynous some dolls look, confusion is bound to happen. On the other end, Erasure, my DFH Scylla, has a very square jaw and large muscles and thus looks the most masculine according to western standards so he has never been mistaken for female.

My worst story regarding this was back after I got my first doll, a Dollzone Mo. He had short hair and dressed in a way that most would (probably) associate with masculine (pants, button up shirt, tie, vest). I'm not saying girls can't or don't wear those things, just that they tend to read more masculine.

I took him to a sci fi club meeting because I wanted to have him with me and had a lovely talk with another member who I learned that night also collected dolls. However, one guy decided that my doll was female and no amount of correction would get him to gender him correctly. He then decided that my doll was trans. From there, he launched into a very offensive rant about the trans community. He even decided to follow me halfway back to my dorm to continue his tirade. I was still very new to the hobby and to college life in general so didn't know what to do and ended up just not bringing my doll out again around people who weren't my good friend or speaking to that person.

 

Meh, that's the usual reaction from normies but they're used to hyper masculine male characters in mainstream Western media and so on so it's not usually from a place of malice. It usually goes like "she's so pretty!" when talking about my male doll and if it's just a passing comment and not someone I'll be talking to for a long time I just go "thank you " lol

 

Not too many of my friends see my dolls, since I keep them in my bedroom. One friend who did come into my room and saw my dolls, thought that my 5 Star Doll Tumnus was a girl, I just chuckled a little and politely corrected them. He has long hair, and I said maybe that made them think he was a she. It didn't bother me at all. I saw the humor in it.

As for how I feel about my androgynous looking male dolls, I actually prefer them, rather than more "manly" looking male dolls. I think my preference is because I am a fan of the beautiful men from the Final Fantasy games. I'm so used to that look, that it seems natural to me. In fact, I got interested in owning a BJD because I wanted to have a doll who would look like one of my Final Fantasy VII characters, Genesis Rhapsodos. I got sidetracked by all the gorgeous male dolls, and ended uip with Tumnus, who looks nothing like that character. But I named him Genesis anyway.

Oh, and another reason for my fondness for feminine looking male dolls, is influenced by the line of work I was in. I worked in the theatrical world, and so was very used to people of all persuasions and orientations.

 

I loved your reply. The idea of a Tim Burton-esque world sounds wonderful.
Even though my male dolls are somewhat feminine looking, the real human male in my life, my late husband, was a very macho looking hunk. LOL

 

I only have one doll, and he's very androgynous as well so I expected the "that looks like a girl" comments from my family, however what bothers me is that my dad keeps calling him a girl in a negative connotation despite being corrected.

If a stranger were to call him a girl, I don't think I would be too bothered? But I haven't taken him out of the house save for one occasion and no one actually saw him in the craft store, so who knows?

In the end, I like expressing myself through my art, dolls included. And as a NB person myself I appreciate having a character who cares less about how masculine or feminine he looks than I do. It's freeing in a way.