Thanks! There’s a lady I pass on the street once or twice a week who always has the most gorgeous sweaters, and now I know she’s not going to beat me with her purse if I ask her where she got them (and her lipstick–that stuff is amazing, too). All gussied up, she’s a foot and a half taller than me, so I feel a little intimidated. 
Don’t say “I hope you are a transvestite, because if not then you are one hell of an ugly woman”
This has to deal with a transsexual rather than a transvestite, but I am not annoyed enough to make another thread. I do support work for various trans organizations. Basically, we try to help people with their transition and give them advice on dealing with various situations. I recently met a 14 year old girl who lives in Texas. She has the full support of her parents and her classmates have been very accepting of her. She came into the channel quite agitated the other day and said that there was a woman from child services who had become involved in her case. This woman from child services believes that this girl is not trans and that her parents are crazy and feeding their child’s delusions. Since she believes that the girl is a he, she also thinks that her “homosexual” behavior should be stopped since the girl is interested in boys and boys are interested in her. The woman is trying to get the girl removed from her parents and placed in a home. She heard about the girl’s upcoming surgery and is filing everything she can to get it stopped.
Now I am sure some of you are thinking that 14 is too young to get any kind of surgery, but this poor girl is intersexed. She has ovaries and a uterus but due to a surge of male hormones after the female gonads had already been formed, her vagina did not develop and her clit grew into a penis. She hasn’t gone through puberty yet, but her doctors are worried that she is fertile and when her uteral lining sheds, the tissue will have no place to go. She is under the care of a therapist and a doctor who specializes in these kinds of conditions, both of whom have approved her for this surgery. It pisses me off that this woman dislikes transpeople so much that she is willing to endanger the health of this girl because she views her as a gay boy who is very confused rather than accepting her genuine medical condition.
Back to your thread.
I’ll take “things I did not expect to read today” for $200, Alex.
YAAAH!! That enrages me, particularly when there’s such an obvious medical cause for her condition. Especially considering that transitioning is simply more effective when starting earlier, in terms of the impacts of hormone therapy on people’s appearance.
I feel sorry for decent, normal people living in a place like Texas, where, whatever they do within they’re own community, they’re at the mercy of the crazy state government. It will be a tragedy for that girl if that dumb, worthless cunt from Child Services gets her way.
I’m no better at this than anyone else, except to the extent that I understand it can be an issue so I’m fairly alert for clues. Basically, if the person is presenting as a certain gender (the best clue is the name - admittedly this doesn’t help with Morgan - followed by clothes and other accoutrements) that’s a good clue they’d prefer to be addressed as that gender, regardless of what you may be reading them as. Also, I listen for how their close friends identify them. I’d say it’s best to ask when and if you become aware that you’re getting mixed signals - if you’re thinking “he” but their friends are saying “she,” it’s a pretty good indicator that, one way or another, there’s a gender situation involved and the person will probably be approachable. Most gender non-conforming people are pretty friendly with being asked about pronouns, assuming of course that this is done respectfully.
As an example, I met a person on the defence committee for a refugee who’s trying to stay in Canada. I initially didn’t clue in - I read the person as male and the clothes were relatively androgynous - but evidence came to suggest that there was something up. Eventually, someone used a female pronoun, so I decided to discreetly ask something to the effect of, “I heard people using different pronouns to refer to you; can I ask how you prefer to be referred to?” She told me she is genderqueer and prefers “she” or “they” as pronouns, and that she appreciated me checking in; I apologized in case I had incorrectly referred to her at some point previously. And all was well.
I got your absurd reactions to transvestites right here…
Way back when, when I was very, very young and a freshman in college, my buddy Charlie & myself went for a walk around our dorm which was in downtown Savannah, Georgia. On the way back, the skies opened up, so we ducked into the shelter of a doorway to avoid getting wet. We weren’t alone; a tall, black, *built * prostitute we had seen around had also ducked into the alcove. “Hello,” we said, shyly.
“Hey, y’all,” she said in the deepest, bass-est, most masculine voice imaginable. And then we noticed the adam’s apple …
We stopped running a couple of blocks away, and stopped and looked at each other. What were we running for? What had he done to us, besides offer us a greeting and shared his shelter? We were ashamed and embarrased, and considered going back to apologize, but then realized we’d probably make a balls out of that, too, and so let it go.
Sometimes, I still wish we had gone back …
kimera, that’s horrible, and especially that someone would be such an awful little busybody about something she obviously knows nothing about. Anyway, bless you for the work you’re doing.
I really can’t express how angry this makes me-- especially because this seems like such a no-brainer. I thought it was accepted that the assigning of genders for intersexed infants was basically a crapshoot, and that as they get older it may turn out to be wrong. I thought that was why they no longer perform surgeries on these kids when they are very small, instead waiting until they are old enough to know which part of their organs is correct. How can this woman not acknowledge the possibility that someone who in fact has a uterus and ovaries might in fact actually be a woman?
Draelin, I find trans women to be some of the best sources of beauty tips you can find. I was discussing that with a (trans) friend once many years ago, and she said that it was because while I looked like a woman even in sweatpants, she had to put effort in to making sure she looked like a woman and not just “a dude in a dress”. And that she loved being asked for tips, because it indicated that, in the eyes of other women, she’d succeeded.
Unfortunately, they still do, at last report. It’s the intersex movement’s main cheval de bataille.
Why is the only choice for her is to use the men’s room? That choice was likely to get her assaulted. While it is clear that the women in the ladies washroom were uncomfortable with her in there with them, it is the guy who is the meathead for objecting to essentially the same thing. What gives? Why didn’t you tell the women in the ladies room to let her in with them because that is where she felt like she should be in the first place?
I guess I’m just baffled. Do transsexuals and transvestites deal with this shit whenever they go out of the house? And yet I rarely hear about them going on killing sprees.
They must be Zen Masters or something.
I suspect this is one reason why so many of them move to big towns or cities - once you’ve seen your seventeenth transperson this morning, the novelty wears off and you stop acting like an idiot.
I’ll admit, when I moved into the City from a little white bread suburb, I was internally shocked the first time I saw a noticable transvestite (as opposed to not registering a transvestite who looked like a woman). Of course, my mama raised me better than to make a fuss, but I won’t try to claim I wasn’t shocked, or that I might not have stared a beat too long. But repetition breeds familiarity, and these days I’m not flustered, though I still notice. But being polite isn’t about what you feel, it’s about how you act.
And, of course, remember that you only notice the ones who are kinda bad* at it. I’m sure you interact with someone who’s transsomething, but you don’t know it. That’s not to say you should be rude to someone because she hasn’t figured out how to apply foundation over stubble yet, but your reaction does tell her she ain’t got it yet.
*if we’re determining success as “passing as an average woman,” of course. I don’t think drag queens are trying to fool anyone, but I think they’re a different kettle of cod. And Honey, I’ve known women-born-women who are still drag queens. It’s a style, not a gender.
There’s a man who’s a rather well-known DJ at the gay & lesbian nightclub in my city. He looks COMPLETELY convincing as a woman… until he speaks. Really puts people out of sorts. I feel a bit sorry for him, though, because he’s completely straight except for the fact that he likes to look completely like a woman. From what I’ve heard from a mutual friend he has quite a hard time finding a girlfriend.
From the way the word “transvestite” has been used in this thread, I wonder if everyone is clear on the concept, the difference between MTF transsexuals and transvestites. Even if they look similar (which is not always the case), the difference between them is felt by the individuals involved to be much more substantial than surface appearance. It’s a difference of gender identity. Many individuals say they have no gender identity, or it’s mixed or ambiguous. But in general, XY-chromosomed people in dresses are transvestites if they identify as male, and transsexual if they identify as female. (And the umbrella term “transgender” usually covers both, but not necessarily; depends on the person using it. It’s a term added to the language only a few years ago, too soon for popular usage to settle into a general semantic consensus.)
To put it simply: A transvestite puts on a bra after getting off of work. A transsexual takes off her bra after getting home from work.
Right on!
If we kill anyone, we kill ourselves.
I’m a Witch. It has helped me a lot to deal with the difficulty of being trans. Gaining mastery over one’s own consciousness. Now, my yoga teacher literally is a Zen master. She got her certificate at a California Zen monastery in a ceremony last year. Yoga is a practice with widespread appeal, where both Witches and Zen roshis can feel at home.
WhyNot, it’s sweet of you to care about getting the pronouns right, and you should definitely ask. Like this: “Which pronoun do you prefer?” I feel deeply grateful to anyone who cares enough to inquire, and my impression is that most people in my tribe feel this way. How to ask this of people who present androgynously, halfway in between, is trickier. I’d like to hear from androgynes how they feel about it.
I used to hang with a man who fancies himself a female at times and we went out walking (not in heavy people areas) sometimes. Only heard one comment once, from 2 tene boys, one who whispered “that was a guy!” obviously they were just getting comfortable with their being males growing up, etc. not too socially ept.
The problme was he was plugugly and big and husky and didn’t shave often.
But once you see a few, the newness wears off. So get out there and strut your stuff Miss Thing!
High rates of alcoholism, drug abuse, suicide, and other self-destructive behaviors. Trans people are given a tough row to hoe to begin with and it doesn’t help that they are often rejected by family and loved ones.
Marc
For transfolk, it’s basically all about self-image. Most especially for the transsexuals. For those folk, how they look on the outside is greatly at odds with how they percieve their own identity. And naturally, there is a great desire to make these two disparate pieces of their identity fit together and make whole. And when they do this, as MGibson pointed out, most often their friends and family reject this new image. And a rejection of the image is a rejection of the indentity as a whole.
I suppose anyone who’s been dumped can relate to some degree or another. As you might imagine, feelings of self-esteem and self-worth can really suffer. A transperson is more apt to kill themself then kill everybody else. And I don’t suppose there’s such a thing as a suicide spree, is there?
Although it’s an oversimplification, basically we gotta get tough or die.
I’ve been drinking homebrew and totally lost track of this after about the 20 post. But why do transvestites always dress so tacky? Its not the whole “dude dressed as a lady” thing, its the “dude dressed as a 1970’s Las Vegas Strip Hooker” thing that makes people titter.
At least to my pre-spective.