Do you have a right to feel offended?

I can understand if people get offended, but I agree with your sister when it comes down to it. The general norm of people is to assume that a doll in a dress is preferably a female.
I can understand being offended if it's clearly male clothing and just because the doll has long eyelashes and hair makes it a girl. That is what I count as allowing for annoyance.
But when a doll owner puts their doll in a dress they should expect some normalcy in the assumption of gender.

 

Yeah, but you shouldn't make a huge deal about it. I mean, yeah, some people will honestly make mistakes calling the gender of your doll.
Like having someone accidentally mistake your actual infant boy for being a girl.
Honest mistakes.
But they shouldn't make fun of it.
But it really does come with the territory if you think about it.

 

I think your sister has the right of it. I agree with her %100.

It's really not such a big deal, especially to people who own these "girly" boys. Most of them expect it by now and laugh it off.

 

I think it asking for too much if someone has a crossdressing boy and expects people to know he is a boy even though the dolly boy is wearing a frilly pink lolita dress or whatever. I hardly think the average person goes "Hmm... maybe that's a crossdresser!" every time they see someone in a dress. Though, my lesbian friend said that the polite thing to do when referring to crossdressers is to call them they gender they are dressing as... though that seems to completely not apply in dolly-dom.

If the same person insists the dolly boy is a girl even after being corrected, then you can be annoyed. Because people not listening to what you say is bloody annoying!

 

You have the right to feel offended, upset, or annoyed but you still have to expect to deal with it.

 

Honestly, if a boy doll was in a dress and looked extremely feminine, I'd think it was a girl doll.
Sure, you can get offended but it's intentional. Dressing a boy doll in girl's clothing will make the buyer think it's more feminine than masculine.

 

i can see why that would be annoying and a little upsetting to have to repeat "actually its a boy" over and over again but if you dress your doll in a dress most people are going to automatically assume its a girl. cross dressing dolls are not popular outside of bjds (atleast as far as i know) and alot BJD boys that are dressed as boys are mistaken for girls already so the dress just adds to it. owners who cross dress their dolls are not the only ones that have to say "he is actually a she"

i think its just another one of those parts of the hobby we dont like but deal with anyways. just like the "you paid that much on a doll??" everyone gets tired of it but there is only so much you can do or say, eventually you are going to have to learn to put it behind you

 

I have a boy doll that everybody thinks is a girl. Except he is very obviously dressed like a boy. It actually doesn't bother me much because he's a doll, and basically a lot of people don't expect male dolls of any kind (well, at least the ones I know). Probably the only male dolls they've ever heard of are Ken and his little brother Tommy. So, yeah, I'd say to pretty much expect that kind of mistake, particularly when the dolls are not dressed in clothes men typically wear.

 

A boy doll dressed in girl clothes will be called a girl and no offense should be taken.

However, my Soo Ri (a masculine sculpt) gets called a girl and he wears jeans, tee shirts tennis shoes and a short fur wig and I do get a little annoyed about it.

 

Yeah, I'm with your sister. Dolls are really hard to tell. I mean unless it's obvious male face, for the most part there isn't always that huge amount of difference in body looks to tell what gender the doll is, not to mention some dolls have same head mold or people put male heads on female bodies vice verse. Most male doll bodies don't have enough umm junk in that region anyway And if it's a small bust girl, well you get the idea. If you're going to dress a doll up that way, expect that.

But I do agree after they've been corrected, the mistaken person needs to just drop it.

 

I'm in complete agreement here.

Stylized features can be very androgynous, and BJDs tend to have very stylized features (other than portrait minimees). How many times have gender-switches of a doll been posted where it's just swapping a body and faceup and the effect is completely convincing? That sorta leaves us with clothes as a determinant if we don't know one way or the other, so I can't really fault someone for being confused -- and confused about why someone was angry at their confusion.

I'd go on a tangent about various cultures and eras and the appropriateness of certain garments for either gender at varying ages, but it really isn't terribly relevant -- the culture someone comes from is going to have an influence on whether they see a boy in a skirt and think "boy in a skirt" or "must be a girl". Mainstream western culture still involves very few men in skirts or dresses aside from kilts or religious garb, so I'd expect the assumption to take place more often than it doesn't if any of my boys are skirted.

 

If I had a "girly" boy, I wouldn't be offended. I mean, if I wanted him to be all macho and stuff, I'd get him short wigs, the most muscular body possible, etc.. You can't expect people to instantly know your long-haired baby is a boy. Hell, that even happens with small human children sometimes if you don't style their hair and dress them accordingly, doesn't it?

Then again, I have a weeeeird sense of humor. If anything, I'd make it a running gag if a boy doll of mine were consistently mistaken for a girl doll. Specially if I had a more masculine-looking one to balance him off.

 

Absolutely agreeing with this and everyone else who's said your sister has the right idea. Personally, my girly-boys are very girly and it's to be expected that people get their genders mixed up when they're long-haired, pretty and decked out in jewellery and a hundred different shades of pink. And at the same time, it's funny when someone insists one of my boyish boys (as far as these dolls go, anyway: short hair and a vicious expression might not be the biggest clues to most non-BJD people) is anything less than the manly man his character thinks he is.

Bottom line: I love my boys, but I don't take them too seriously.

 

It seems to be a sister's job in life to annoy the heck out of her sister :P My little sister loves to pick arguements over anything I really get in to so I got picky on what I tell her. Then again we have 6 1/2 years between us and have never been uber close. She doesn't rag on my dolls I don't rag on the music scene she hangs with. We did come together with the dolls when I got her to photograph my mini and we won prize heads but I watch over her doll.

My mini guys go out in short wigs and suits but some people will still think all dolls are girls. Oddly enough the only one who hasn't been called "she" is 70cm Jareth and he has the longest wig, and it can't just be people who know Labyrinth or his skin tight pants because they ask if his short wigged twin Taffy is his girlfriend. One of my guys is named Shi Shi so at least people get his name half right.

 

I think it's perfectly ok feeling frustrated when it's no longer about pople misunderstanding the gender of the doll but when they/he/she starts mocking you.

 

i think you are setting yourself up for major disappointment if you dress your boys in a feminine style and expect people to assume that they are male. i see dolls all the time posted that i seriously can't tell what gender they are male or female.
sometimes i see male dolls posted that i assume are female and the person posting says, " isn't my boy pretty"? and i wonder if they have made a mistake due to a different language. in that case i usually respond, "yes he/she is lovely". that way, i feel that i have shown support for their post, and at the same time have made it known that i am unsure of the doll's gender.
you should have confidence in your choices as to your doll's style, and accept that others may see him differently.

 

I completely agree with your sister and I had the same thoughts yesterday while browsing the forum.

 

My opinion might be a bit controversial and sound a bit harsh, but I don't think girly male owners have a right to complain (or butchy girl owners, for that matter) if someone (particularly someone not in this hobby) consistently thinks their doll is the 'wrong' gender. The fault doesn't lie with the person who got the gender wrong!

Unless you live under a stone you will know that in wider Western culture, at the very least, it is considered un-masculine to wear pink, to have long hair, to wear make-up, to wear women's clothes. Therefore, as a doll owner (presumably within this cultural sphere), you should know that when you dress your male doll in clothing that is not considered masculine, you are bucking the majority trend, you are operating outside most people's perception of what is normal dress for a male. It might get irritating and repetitive to have to explain that the doll with the flowing locks, cherry lips, long-eyelashes and pink DollHeart Fer is a boy...but that's what you sign up for when you dress your doll like that and you cannot expect everyone outside of this hobby to understand that your doll is supposed to be male when he is ostensibly dressed in a feminine style.

The only people who have a right to complain about people misgendering dolls are the owners whose boys in short wigs and jeans get called girls, and the owners whose girls in spangly tutus and bouffant wigs get called boys.

Someone on another thread suggested that perhaps all dolls in dresses should be referred to as 'he', which actually annoyed me because I don't want to have to correct people when my female dolls wear feminine clothes!

 

It has been said, but the bottom line is these are dolls. If you are actually getting offended you are taking things far too seriously. I assure you the dolls don't care, nor do they have gender issues.

People always mistake my girlfriend for a guy and even she doesn't get offended.

 

I mostly agree with the OP's sister. For one, I have a boy who has the girliest hair. He is only in dresses for LOLZ or some random occasion, but his wig makes people think he's a girl. Usually I'll just nod and smile and say thanks. If the conversation continues, I'll correct them that it's a boy, but unless I see a need to, I don't really say anything. Because after all, it's not an insult. They say it's a pretty girl, but it's not like they mean "OMFGHAHAHAHAHTRANSEXUALDOLLOMGLOOKSLIEKAGIRL". They think he's real pretty and sweet, and that's what I think too

When I introduce him to people, I always apologise (with a smile) that my doll is a boy, despite looking like a sweet little girl. Some people get a little befuzzled and ask why isn't he a girl, and to them I'll continue to chat and explain. Some people tho, would push on you that he needs to be a girl because the opposite is sinful/wrong. Or would start to use the term "girly" on my doll as an insult. Now those people would be deserving of a wrath from my side. Usually I just dish them out equally snide remarks behind a smile if I feel like I've heard enough.

TL;DR, doing what you do, gender bending, you NEED to understand that people will think as a norm. If you take your freedom and throw a fit when people constantly mistake your objective, then maybe you don't deserve that freedom yet, because you don't know how to handle the freedom of assumptions.

 

If a character *is* a crossdresser or transgendered, and attempting to look female, isn't it a compliment that they've achieved that goal? Otherwise, it's a doll. People have this set idea of dolls in their mind as a female-gendered object, and unless they mean it in a derogatory way to begin with ('EWW, that doll looks like she's a drag queen!') it's no insult to be mistaken for the opposite gender. It's all right to gently correct if it goes on too long, but unless it's an issue of gender politics just humour them.

Though that is precisely why Victor goes around topless all the time :3 Nobody can force you to not be offended by something, or tell you it shouldn't bother you, but it's hardly worth actually confronting people over.

 

Well, you have a right to feel however you like, but I don't see this as a cause for offense. I don't particularly mind when people mistake my (pretty girly- looking) boy for a girl. Unless we end up having a conversation about him, I usually don't even correct people. Where it gets offensive is after I've stated that he is, in fact, male, and someone wants to argue that he isn't, since he doesn't look traditionally male. That will end the conversation right there, because then it's not my doll that's being discussed, but my views that are being insulted.

 

PROTIP: If it would bother you to have your male doll mistaken for a female, then don't dress him like one.

At the end of the day, people have the "right" to feel however they like. But I have the "right" to think their feelings are unreasonable.

IMHO, people who make choices they know will cause confusion or controversy and then get upset over the fact that those choices have caused confusion and controversy seem, to me, to be actively looking for a reason to feel offended and persecuted.

 

Agree 100%

 

I wouldn't be offended that someone made an honest mistake about gender. I have a very girly boy, and it does confuse people sometimes, but I see no reason to get upset about it. I'll just correct them, smile and say "that's alright, he does look very feminine" because, after all, he does.

If someone was being nasty over my choice to put Hikaru in a skirt, that would be a different situation, and it would irritate me. But, just being a little confused is no big thing. A lot of bjd heads actually make good girls or boys depending on how they're done up, and some people see dolls and just automatically think "girl" unless it is otherwise very obvious.

If you feel offended, then that's how you feel, but I think it helps to realize that people aren't being intentionally insulting or difficult and that in the grand scheme of things this is a very very minor issue.

 

IMO you have the right to be offended about whatever you want, but being offended about people mistaking your doll's gender is foolish and pointless. I've found that basically all BJDs look female to people who aren't familiar with them (my boyfriend thinks even the dolls I find very masculine, like Dollshe guys, look like girls) no matter how you dress them. I can't blame them -- I still can't always tell what's a girl and what's not!

I had a girl Camine for a while, and people on DOA routinely mistook her for a boy despite me noting in thread titles that she was a girl, having her on a girl body with boobs and hips, and dressing her like a girl. I just sort of rolled my eyes at the failure to read the thread title and moved along.

 

i pretty much agree with everyone else's comments. and just to restate what someone mentioned earlier, in real life, when addressing or referring to someone who is crossdressing, it's rude to not address them by the gender they are dressed as. so if your boy doll were real and had a dress on and i referred to him as a "he" or "sir" i would be rude.

 

I agree with you for taking the cultural values into consideration.
It's interesting to see how the gender assignment in this society impacts on our doll playing. Why must we assign a gender to our doll? According to the body and the sexual organs? According to the faceup and dressing?
Should anything that looks like human be categorized into the opposite sexes?
I often think BJD is a realization of ideal femininity, ideal masculinity and especially ideal androgyny. I don't know if anyone have the same sort of feelings as me.

To answer diamondust ,

I think people still have the RIGHT to feel offended.
One may think if some people cross dress their dolls, they should expect the reactions. However, expecting doesn't equal accepting.
I think it'll be easier if we think of an analogy.
If person A is American, but A has been brought up in England. A has a British accent, yet A still identify himself as American. When other people constantly think A is British by judging from his accent, do you think A has the right to feel offended?
I think the complication here is, the gender role identity for a doll is intensely linked with the owner's beliefs/views on gender. Therefore, people may feel the social expectation for male and female violated by cross-dressing dolls, and the owners may feel their cross-dressing dolls not accepted as who the doll is by others.

 

To go with your analogy, we have the real life John Barrowman. Born in Scotland, brought up in the States, he speaks with a Scottish accent with his family and an American one in public...but he doesn't flip out at people when they assume he's American.

Like it or not, we human beings have to take things at face-value when we first encounter them, we categorise and attempt to understand things by what we already know. If we know from experience that American people have American accents, English people have English accents and Scottish people have Scottish accents...and then later we meet a guy who speaks with an American accent but was born Scottish, we're going to assume he's American at first. It's a natural reaction because we don't know the whole story. Once we do know the whole story we can learn from it and add it to our store of knowledge for next time...but until that first encounter we just don't know and can't be expected to know that the American-accented guy is really Scottish underneath. And so it is with dolls in a dress.

 

Sure, I understand your point. I'm not blaming people who judge the others based on what they know. It's the mental schema everybody relies on.
My point is, people still can feel offended even if they knew what reactions they would encounter. In that case, they can either correct the others, or complain
It's more a issue for these owners, who cross-dress their dolls, to cope with. It's almost impossible for us to take the misunderstanding for granted.

 

At the end of the day in Western culture we are conditioned as children to follow the norms and values dictated to us by wider society. Girls wear pink, boys wear blue. Girls play with dolls, boys play with toy cars, etc. To deviate from these norms leaves you open to ridiclue as a cultural deviant, so if you want to dress your boy up as a girl then you have to accept it. These dolls are very androgenous (even the more 'masculine' ones), so it is very easy for somebody who doesn't understand Asian doll esthetics to get confused. You just have to either ignore it because if you allow yourself to get offended, then it will end up driving you mad. I do agree however it is very annoying when people are like "no, its a girl" over and over again after you tell them its a boy. For most people its an honest mistake. Its just how these dolls are. I have one boy with longer hair, but I dress him in boy's clothes and people still get confused over his gender. I just roll my eyes and ignore it! ^_^

 

Agreed. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, talks like a duck...it's probably a duck.

I don't have a problem if your doll is a crossdresser/girly or whatever. I don't care if you turned a common female sculpt into a male. If you tell me it's a boy, I'm down with that, but if you expected me to know that at first glance, well, I'd have to say you're a bit off your rocker.

 

I think if a person purposefully dressed their doll in a way that is gender-confusing, then they do not have the right to be offended when non-dolly people get confused. I mean, how many boys do you see walking down the street in pink getup with lace and ribbons all over the place? The fact that the BJD faceup esthetic tends to be on the more metro-sexual side (no beards, eyemakeup, long eyelashes, fine eyebrows) and most male bjds do not have an especially square jaw or manly physique... well, what's a person who isn't in the hobby to think, when faced with a very femininely dressed doll?

That said, I do think that "making fun" of a person's doll (once you are told its real gender) for what it's wearing is right.

 

Naturally, a person has the right to feel offended if they really want to, but if someone isn't trying to be rude by calling a male doll a female one, there's not a whole lot of point to it. If it happens consistently, yeah, I can see how that's going to be really annoying, but you have to realize that it's most likely the person who made the mistake's first time even encountering something like a BJD, and/or the J-rock/Anime/Bishounen culture that comes with it. They don't know they're making a common misconception, and they're not trying to be rude, especially if they're complimenting the doll in the first place. (As with the infamous, "That's a pretty girl!" remark.)

Of course, if someone's making fun of the fact your doll looks girly or insisting you're wrong for saying it's a boy, then you have every reason to be offended, as that behavior is pretty obviously intended to be insulting.

Wow, I so did not contribute anything original to this thread. XD

 

In the general agreeance that people can feel how they want to, I just don't think many people actually do get offended when the gender of their doll is mistaken if the doll is wearing unisex clothes or clothes that are typically seen on the opposite gender.

Personally, only one of my dolls has been constantly mistaken for a girl, my WS Angell-Studio Gus, despite his having a short wig and wearing pants. However for me, since his character is supposed to be extremely feminine, not to mention I've seen more female Gus's on this board rather than male ones ( despite the mold being originally created as a boy ), it doesn't really bother me and I see it as an understandable mistake.

But, I do agree on the fact that if someone mistakes one of my boys for a girl and then even after I tell them he is a boy they continue to insist that he is a she ( I know some people get a kick out of it, but I personally do not like stripping my dolls in public to show off their goods -_- ), then yes, that can be very frustrating. Okay, maybe he has a girly sculpt and eyelashes but you know what, I'm telling you ( general 'you') he is a boy, I'm the one who paid hundreds of dollars for him, I'm pretty sure you can just let it go that he is what I say he is. And I'm talking about one person constantly making the mistake that is somewhat offending, not just lots of random people who don't know. It's only after I explain the dolls gender and they continue to fight with me do I get annoyed. But thankfully that doesn't happen with me very often as I'll usually just nod and say, "Thank you for complimenting her." x3

 

Well on the practical side, short of pantsing him, how is a viewer supposed to know it's a boy? And if it is not the viewer's doll, or a doll the viewer cares about, why should the viewer be expected to remember? So on that score I side with your sister.

On the Real World side, every single one of my tranny friends gets offended if she is referred to as masculine when she is all decked out in her finery. So if the dolls were real and had "feelings" one would expect THEM to be similarly offended and PREFER to be called a girl.

 

I would say...you'd get the right to feel annoyed/offended if a person is asking if your boy is a girl all the time. But not the first time; most people would think that pretty boys (in OMG, dresses, no less!) are girls. I enjoy their faces, actually, when I tell them that this "girl" is really a boy. xD It's always like,"o[]o!!".

 

I think perhaps it's more like they have a right to feel offended (simply because we're human and we get feel whatever we want to feel) but I don't think they have a right to complain to the offending person about it either. It's ultimately their own fault dressing the doll that way in the first place.

 

I'm going to have to agree with your sister.

If I take my androgynous-faced doll in a long wig and put him in a frilly pink dress, I really can't expect you to identify him as anything but a girl. (Especially considering that one of my two boys is sold as a girl.) If I correct you and you keep calling him a girl, it might annoy me, but I'd probably explain it or deal with it.

If I take my androgynous-faced doll in a long wig and put him in jeans and a tshirt, however, while I can understand if you call him a girl at first, I do hope after being corrected you'll switch to the correct gender. And I've found that, of the people in F2BM (where I most often encounter non-doll people) who talk to me about my dolls, they always take the correction on the boys.

Usually, though, they either just comment on how "pretty" my dolls are, or in the case of a few of the kids (because kids lack the adult censor), how "freaky" they are.

 

I guess you have the right to feel offended but not to necessarily have a tantrum over it. Seriously, if you dress something in a dress or skirt and it has a pretty faceup that's androgynous or even feminine, people who aren't involved in the hobby are going to quite understandably assume that it is a female. And so you should expect people who aren't in the hobby to have the immediate impression that it's female. Hell, even people in the hobby should be forgiven for thinking that it's a female doll - heaps of people interchange sex with head sculpts (male Soom Dia, female MD Ryu, etc) and so if it is dressed as a female and they have enough forsight to ask the gender first if it's not easily defined, you can't get pissed off with them for asking.
It's like a mother dressing a male toddler in a pink ballet tutu, getting pissed off at people telling her she has a lovely daughter. She brought it on herself, and I believe that if you crossdress your doll, you bring the same onto yourself and while you might feel annoyed, you really don't have grounds to have a tantrum over it.

 

I agree that it's not very reasonable if they complain, especially complaining person who mistakens the doll for the first time.
But I don't agree its their "fault" to cross-dress the doll.
I think you might mean they should take full responsibility of how they have customized the dolls,which I do agree.

 

Personally, I'd say she's half right. When you dress a doll in female clothing, people will assume it's a girl, and you should expect that. However, if you have corrected them, possibly even SHOWN them that the doll is, indeed, a boy, and made it clear you want him referred to as a boy, and they INSIST that it's a girl, you DO have the right to be offended by their behavior. To continue when it's been made clear that the doll is male, and should be referred to as male is rude.

 

Yeah, that's what I meant. Even if it wasn't worded properly that's what I meant. *shrugs* I guess I see it as more of a cause/effect situation.

 

Well, it could be due to the fact that there are so few boys in our doll world in general. There is Ken, Tommy, Bratz boys, and on the higher end, Matt O'Niel by Tonner. Everything else is pretty much girl based. Barbies, Bratz, Ginny doll, Madame Alexander, Effanbee dolls, Betsy McCall, Ann Estelle, Strawberry Shortcake, the list goes on. So maybe people just assume dolls=girls, despite how they are dressed.

Disclaimer: I am talking from what I've noticed, and only in the US. I don't know about the rest of the world.

 

Everyone's entitled to feel, it's what they say or act upon their emotions that doesn't seem quite right sometimes.

Personally, I would have to agree with the sister on this one.

What I found offensive was my co-worker telling me ALL dollfies looked like girls -and this is from looking at pics on the manufacturer's website and me having told her first that they were boys.

But I digress.

If someone's dressing their boys up in skirts, I think it's perfectly natural that someone's going to assume they're female.

I had a character who was a cross dresser and the whole point he did cross dress is because he wanted to be viewed as a female. If someone said "she" was hot, I'd roll around laughing and say, "Yeah, isn't HE?" Then they'd look at me and I'd be like, "lift his skirt -you'll see (XP)," but I'm never offended that someone thought he was a girl.

 

Oh wow I never knew this xD
I guess this would kind of show the difference between the mind set of real crossdresser and ones who does it for the scene?

 

There's a difference between feeling offended and whether offense was meant. You have a right to feel how you feel... that doesn't necessarily mean the other person is trying to be offensive. I always feel you should cut other people some slack.

 

Just basically kicking around what everyone else has said, I don't think you have the right to be offended, unless someone just keeps on pressing the issue. You put your boy in a dress, you should EXPECT for it to be called a girl. But if you tell them "Oh, he's a boy, he's just a crossdresser" and they keep pressing the issue? Then just lift his skirt XD

I have a friend who has a boy that she crossdresses, and everytime he gets called a she, my friend acts OFFENDED "He's a BOY" which I think is downright silly. I, on the other hand, have a doll who is a hermaphrodite. Character-wise, he refers to himself as male, has a male body, but has extra girl parts down there, and wears makeup. He always dresses masculine, but if I take him out and people call him a girl, I shrug it off, considering they're half-right anyway. he can be wearing pants and be bare-chested, but just because he's wearing lipstick, "Oh, she's so pretty!" You just have to expect it, if you crossdress your guy you KNOW what you're getting into, there is absolutely no reason to get offended.

 

I tend to hide Uriel from some family members for this very reason.
My boyfriend's dad got all in my Hid's face and kept calling him names.
It made me upset because I didn't want him getting his spit on his faceup or even knocking him over.
His mother however I am pretty open with, and I even showed her my Shiwoo's new pink stockings and went on about how cute they look on his thighs! XD

If I was out somewhere and someone comment on "What a beautiful girl I have" I would simply say thankyou and be glad that someone thought so highly of him.

I just don't like poeple getting in my doll's face or grabbing him.
He's too preciouse and expensive to be around that!

I do however find it strange when people comment on his glossed lips.
They just don't understand why he's wearing 'Makeup'.
But it isn't reeeally makeup,right?

 

Why should anyone feel offended when you dress up your boy as a girl and someone calls him a pretty or beautiful girl? When you make such a choice, it is obvious that that will happen. Moreover, it seems to me that when you deliberately put your boy in girl's clothes you must have the intention to give him a feminine look or appearance or style. So, when someone calls him a girl, you could also see it as a kind of compliment because you succeeded in your aim to give the boy that quality. So why feel offended and get angry at it?

But when you explain to the person that it is boy dressed as a girl and they still insist that your doll is a girl and refuse to call him a he, I can understand that you feel offended because the other person doesn’t respect your choices with regard to your doll. Especially when they start making fun of him (or you). In that case I think you have every right to feel offended.

 

That would certainly not offend me. Coming from the genderqueer perspective, you develop a certain sense of humour about the whole issue, when it comes to humans. That cant help but rub off on my doll hobby. Now, said sense of humour wouldn't stop me from politely insinuating otherwise, but I usually preface that with "Yeah, I keep telling him he'd make a hot girl if he'd just grow some boobs..." or somesuch.

Now, when my hermaphroditic, everything-dressing Mana-sama Minimee is all done, THEN I'll really be exercising this girl/guy confusion thing. *L*

 

This might sound a bit harsh, but what do you want from people? They can only assume that the doll in the pink frilly dress and long curly wig is a girl. Dolly people understand better, non-doll people will get mistaken. You can get mad if you want, but expecting them to read your mind and know the gender of your doll is a bit too much... if they're doing it to tick you off it's a different matter ~

 

I am constantly amused by the fact that just about everyone (including other doll owners) thinks Wren is male when they see her for the first time. I think this is actually largely due to how many feminine male dolls there are. Next to them, Wren looks rather butch! I always gently correct them (just as I do when someone - rarely - thinks one of my male dolls is in fact female). I don't find it offensive. After all, the dolls don't actually have any gender or sex. They have a sculpt that resembles a human form, and their sex is implied with that, but the actual concept of sex is something that we impose on them.

I also call all children under the age of five or so "it," unless I'm explicitly told otherwise, so perhaps my views differ from the norm.

 

that's why i think cross dressing dolls and girly dolls in general are disgusting. I still have to find a male doll who's not gay, attracted by men in any way, hates to dress like a girl, does not wear girly panties and is not owned by a sick rabid yaoi fangirl.

 

Huh??? It's disgusting because people get confused...? I don't think I'm following whatever point you're trying to make.

I hope you aren't suggesting that all people who own cross dressing dolls are all obnoxious 'sick' (!?) fangirls, because that would be offensive.

 

That's a funny subject to me actually, because I have a theory on that. I think the longer your into BJD the easier it is to tell boy from girl, even when the dolls look like girls.

For example, I had been fantasizing about these dolls a long while before I got Daniel, and one day I was looking at some pictures of hiritai's Hayden and my older (25 year old) sister came over and commented that 'she' was pretty. I laughed and told her it was a he, but really, looking at Hayden. I had no clue anyone could think he was a girl... xD

And now, I've got Daniel and the first thing people say when they see him is either that he looks like a girl or imply that he actually is a girl. My sister seeing him for the first few times thought he was a girl and almost everyone else did too. But from the minute I opened the box and began snapping photos of him, there were no thoughts of him looking like a girl. He was a sweet innocent 10 year old boy and I thought he looked it. Maybe it was because I knew that he was a boy and had his character planned or something, but even today I don't think he looks like a girl one little bit. My friends that have been around and have played with him (He's very spoiled in my group of friends xP) for awhile now, don't think he looks like a girl either, and have even looked into getting there own dolls because of him.

Maybe it's just the fact that I've surrounded myself by these dolls so much that I can tell easily or maybe its some weird voodoo thing that us awesome doll people have, but people who are on the outside of this hobby don't have quite the same instincts as us. XD

Although, In your case, with the feminine clothes. I'd say that's a common thing that you shouldn't be mad about. Like it's been said above, It's common human sense that girls wear dresses and guys dont. But I dont think it's right to continually comment that the doll looks like girl when you've been told that it's a boy. I've seriously had conversations with my class mates that go like this: (X is my classmate)

Me: See this is my BJD. Daniel.
X: She's creepy.
Me: It's a boy.
X: Ew. It looks like a girl.
Me: Yeah, Sure. But It's a boy.
X: But it looks like a girl.
Me: >.<

 

This comment sounds entirely disgusting, and I don't even own a crossdressing doll.

If you haven't seen before a male doll that dresses like a guy or isn't gay on this entire forum, then I think it's safe to say that you don't really know your way around the forum or you assume every single male doll you come upon is gay.