I gotta vent a little...

[Casper]

[RANT]
From some ignorant englishman claiming that kilts are for Scottish ONLY, and only Ulster Scots at that

Hmm. Only Ulster Scots, eh? So, only mainly lowland-Scot, ex-pats are allowed to wear highland attire?

Wow. I have a helluva time trying to explain to people how I can both have Irish heritage, yet wear my Stewart tartans. Trying to explain the history of Northern Ireland and the Ulster Scots (of which i'm descended) is always a challenge!

[sharpdressedscot]

Hmm. Only Ulster Scots, eh? So, only mainly lowland-Scot, ex-pats are allowed to wear highland attire?

Wow. I have a helluva time trying to explain to people how I can both have Irish heritage, yet wear my Stewart tartans. Trying to explain the history of Northern Ireland and the Ulster Scots (of which i'm descended) is always a challenge!

Does it really matter what you're heritage is?

[Roan Carter]

These issues would be dealt with easier if more people were kilted. It's all about cultural paradigm.

And if should I die today and find myself in Christian Heaven, I'm sure there would be plenty of kilties there.

[Surly Dave]

I wore my kilt to IKEA the other night and found some guy following me around taking pictures with his cell phone camera. Then he and his girl friend went off and had a laugh. Also, I had a lady from the east coast come up to my wife and I and strike up a conversation about Scots and tartans and such. Very positive. She did ask me if I had gone to an event or something like that, but I kindly told her that I bought the kilt to wear it, and that it was clothing, not a costume.

All and all, I've had more positive encounters than negative, but there are those out there who seem to be willfully ignorant. Someone made a post a while back regarding diversity training and how he wore a kilt and talked about things like how making negative comments towards the kilted (questioning their masculinity and such) was actually implying that they had a negative view of women. I think that is either the issue with most folks, or the don't feel secure with themselves.

I will say this though, one of my wife and I's running jokes when we're out and about it that we're shocked we never see any one else wearing a kilt.