How to look weaker
The NHS instructs trans women on how to do a “bum swish”:
In case the image isn’t legible – the underlined bit says: “As a trans woman with a more masculine appearance, you may need to compensate with other “elements” that convey that you are female.”
Trans women are women, but they have to jink around with their appearance so as to “compensate.” Compensate for what? They just are women, so why is there any need to compensate?
Sorry to interrupt; the rest of it is: “The “feminine walk” may help. If you place each foot across yourself each time you take a step this creates the “bum swish.””
And what else does it do? It slows down your walk, it throws you off balance, it makes you look affected and self-conscious and idiotic…all of which I guess is “feminine” and expected of women. Thanks, NHS. Much medical, very science.
Affected walks are ridiculous and a little revolting anyway in my opinion, no matter who.
So the advice is; if you’re not real enough, double down on the phoniness? Too stupid for words.
Cargo-Cult Womanhood
I remember back in my 20s having to explain to other men that cologne is not a substitute for a shower. It just makes you a guy who smells of body odor AND cologne. The latter does not cover up the former.
A “trans woman with a masculine appearance” cannot cover that up by doing a “bum swish.”
Here and I thought a “bum swish” involved a bidet.
Ba-dum tish?
They’re not even correct about how to walk in order to achieve the bum-swish. If one were to literally place the foot across the body on the first step then the second step would necessitate swinging the leg outwards and around the leading leg, and as the legs would now be effectively crossed then the third step would require an even more exaggerated outward swing. That is not a bum-swish, it’s a drunken stagger.
All that’s required for the swish is to place each foot in line with the centre of the body as though ‘walking the line’, and even then the hip-sway that produces the swish has to be a conscious effort if the swish is to be noticeable.
What that NHS piece is effectively saying is that to achieve a convincingly ‘feminine’ gait one should walk like a catwalk model, a ridiculously exaggerated, hyper-feminized style that in reality parodies rather than accurately represents women.
Acolyte of Sagan,
I don’t know. It always fooled Elmer Fudd when Bugs Bunny put on a wig and a dress and walked like that.
Such bad advice even if the NHS was trying to give men “passing” tips — the male hips and male torso don’t allow for the “sexay laday swishay sashay” even if the men get the foot placement correct — it just tosses the man doing it further into Uncanny Valley territory.
Hey NHS, unless you’ve consulted John Cleese, stay out of the silly-walk stuff.
I learned how to do that swish. It was part of my mother’s desperate attempt to turn me into a womanly woman, instead of a brainy woman. (You can be both, but she never got that.) My only thought is why? It does nothing to move my science forward, it doesn’t help one bit with editing novels, and it doesn’t write plays. In addition, it’s damned inconvenient when you are hiking.