The breast grab was during her performance. A couple of the other performers did that to other women too. It’s so strange.
Just a follow up note, this thread has been helpful to me today in my real life. I had to interact with someone today who’s a transman. The information and paperwork had a very female name, like (but not actually like) “Tiffany Charlotte”. I had the sense to ask something like 'how do you prefer to be addressed?", and he looked at me for a long moment and said “TC”.
So. I don’t know if that made a difference to this guy, but it made me feel like at least I was trying.
So, thanks for helping me not look like an idiot as much as I could have.
Thank you for trying to help out one of my brothers. I imagine it probably made a very significant difference to him. 
That’s a perfectly OK name to call someone.
Providing it’s with dignity.
Here is a top-10 roundup from my local Transland, going through my last week of chat and message logs:
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Somewhat new transwoman M. is watching her marriage of 20 years disintegrate due to her spouse’s complete unwillingness to accept any part of her “husband” being transgender. She phoned the “spouses/significant others” help line and was verbally abusive and threatening to the counselors. Spouse claims that the primary reason for her terror is that “the kids will not be able to cope with it. They could have complete breakdowns or even hurt themselves!” Mind you, these “kids” are in their late 30’s/early 40’s…
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Fully-transitioned transwoman R just broke up with a rather nice man with a good career who had given her an engagement ring and pledged his life to her. She broke up with him because she is so terrified that he will have “doubts” and “leave her at the altar” that she destroyed her engagement fearing something which AFAIK there was no evidence of. Example message: “Una cis people just don’t do this! It can’t last and I’m being a stupid bitch thinking this could work. It’s too good to be true so it can’t be.”
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New transwoman S threatened imminent suicide over her wife’s ultimatum that there will be a divorce and she will take the kids if S transitions. It’s at least her 12th threat. People are so tired of it they don’t even post sympathy to her on Facebook any more (and when you can’t get a reaction on Facebook…).
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My best friend, a fully transitioned transwoman like myself, was just asked out on her first date ever by a handsome lawyer who knows her history, and says “meh, you’ve always been a lady to me.” She’s 46 and giggly and bubbly like a 14 year-old, and it’s sweet to see.
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A good friend B, transwoman, is still in her emotionally abusive relationship with another transwoman. She stays in it because she thinks “this is the best I can get.” I went to her apartment this week for our semi-regular old film night. She cried and I held her.
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A close friend R who is also a professor at my university (there are 4 transsexual women professors at one university) celebrated paying off her second-to-last loan she had to take out from when she was unemployed for 3 years after being fired for transitioning on the job.
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Good friend T., who paid $50,000 for FFS 15 months ago which NO ONE AT ALL thought she needed, except her, finally has stopped looking like Odo from Deep Space 9. She emerged earlier today for the first time in 9 months, and looks…stunning. Absolutely stunning. Everyone agrees it wasn’t worth $50,000, but she does look pretty damn good. She’s 52 years old and will easily pass for a cisgender 30 year-old from the collarbone-up. Meanwhile, her career is soaring and everything is cool - except her wife. Her wife didn’t mind T getting SRS - she can deal with a vagina just fine - but the FFS changed T’s appearance so much, that it shakes her. More than a year after surgery, she still feels like she doesn’t know the person who shares her bed. She wants to stay with T as they love each other very much, but she finds herself drifting away.
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I learned that former friend T, who sorta dropped out of the community after returning from her SRS overseas, has within the 6 months since her return a) lost her job, b) broke up with her partner, c) has started drinking and doing drugs again, and d) is now hooking. Her partner, who had her SRS at the same time, had a terrible surgical result. She had complications of internal bleeding which almost killed her over in Thailand, she had a post-op infection which kept her bedridden an extra 2 weeks, and she has had to have 2 corrective surgeries to make her vagina functional. T, who shared her hotel room, had a stunning result and was up and doing cartwheels within 2 weeks from surgery. Since her partner paid all the bills, there was serious resentment - “how come I paid the bills and I had a terrible result, but that bitch got everything she wanted, then dumped me?” I can’t give her any answer.
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J, who is 99% out, chose to leave her church, where she has been a highly active member for 20+ years, playing music every weekend and volunteering out with numerous activities and events. Her minister said she is welcome to stay and he supports her, but her fellow churchgoers have created a hostile worshiping environment. It’s so bad that friends she’s had for 20 years refuse to sit by her, so she sat in a little “island” by herself in the pews. So she finally, in tears, decided to leave.
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K is 2 months into her new job in Texas. She is fully transitioned and her company supported her 110%, even giving her a large promotion afterwards and an opportunity to move to a bigger market and take on bigger projects. Although her company knows about her she’s deep stealth in Texas, has already met tons of new girlfriends, started dating, and she says her life is so awesome she sings every day.
It’s a mixed bag, to say the least.
I had to look up “FFS” in this context. I assume you meant “Facial Feminization Surgery”, which I learned of via Wikipedia. IME when you’re in a community it’s hard to stop yourself from using all of its buzzwords. I work in government computer security, and the acronyms run as thick as flies. IME = In My Experience.
I am glad for you and yours who have good news, and I am sad for you and yours who don’t. I hope your various sibs will all have good news and good outcomes soon and always. Please keep fighting the good fight!
It’s like life of the cis-gendered, but magnified.
I think I saw my first transgendered person today! Well, first one that I recognized as possibly being such, I’m sure plenty have passed by unnoticed before
It was at Target and I first noticed her from behind coming out of the woman’s makeup aisle. I only saw her from behind, so I thought she had a good body. Nice legs in short shorts, with long brown hair. There was nothing to suggest it was anything other than a woman.
However, later in the checkout line, I got a closer look at her face. It was totally a guy’s face, I mean there wasn’t anything feminine about it to be honest. And she had a mustache. Not like Stalin, but much more than a simple 5 o’ clock shadow, like she missed a few days of shaving. And from close up, I could see she didn’t shave her legs either.
Assuming it wasn’t just some guy who lost a bet or something, why wouldn’t someone who seems to be a transwoman do the simple thing and just shave? Its not like it would take much effort. She still may not pass as her face was very masculine, but at least there wouldn’t be the mustache getting between every conversation
Can you think of a reason why a cis guy could have stubble? (no time, just a simple shop run, forgot) Many of those reasons may still apply.
Here’s an off-the-wall question for you: have you read Neil Gaiman’s short story “Changes” and what did you think? There’s a review here that I think misses the deeper point of what Gaiman was going for precisely because it was so close to home for the review’s author, but I’d be interested to know what you think.
ETA for the purpose for those who haven’t read it: a scientist invents a pill that cures cancer by “rebooting” one’s DNA, but with the side effect of changing the user to the opposite gender (biologically), a process that can be done repeatedly. The pill becomes available for recreational use and society fundamentally changes. The story is told in small vignettes, which touch on big and little changes to the world, including even language.
Yog, some women have some hair on their face too you know (and many aren’t happy about it). It could have been a ciswoman with a hormonal problem.
They do shave, and some of them have to use so much pancake/makeup that they look like Kabuki performers. Some have hair which grows very, very quickly. Some of them have to shave twice a day, and even if they do you can still see that shadow.
If they were a transwoman, I would bet dollars to pennies that they were already doing everything they can to not have that beard show. We do NOT want to stand out like that.
It could be a cross dresser who likes the five o clock shadow in his male persona. There are cross dressers who keep their facial hair, drag performers who do as well. It could be an attempt at ambiguous androgyny.
I’m sorry, I’m afraid I haven’t read it, although I have book back home.
Saw thison Facebook today and thought it might be relevant here.
I’ve actually heard quotes from or experienced 16 out of 25 of those squares.
Una, I have another pronoun question. What do you think is the most polite way for me to ask a person what pronoun they prefer, when they are not out to me as trans? I ask because of a particular person I work with and barely know. I can’t read their gender expression as masculine or feminine, for me it’s right in the middle, and their name is gender ambiguous too. The context of our work suggests they are LGBT but nothing more specific.
In other cases I’ve asked people who have told me they are trans what their preference is, and it’s more of a courtesy thing to use the words they prefer. But in this case asking the question seems also to announce that I can’t read this colleague’s gender, which is itself an impolite announcement to many. I’m also not trying to find out their gender, just trying to figure out how to speak around them.
The work context seems to keep requiring pronouns and I find myself rewriting emails and awkwardly overusing singular “they” as a workaround. This is a great example of why it’s irritating that pronouns have gender in the first place, because it creates a sort of a need to know what another person’s gender is, for no good reason. Anyway, do you have any guidance? Thanks!
Huh? According to that Bingo card, it is offensive for any non-trans person to have any opinion ever on trans issues, positive or negative or practical or whatever. Is that really how trans people feel?
That is difficult, and it may be a situation where no matter how well you try, there’s no perfect solution.
One way I fudged it with a guy who was named “Sam” but looked so uber-female I was certain they were trans.
Me: “So I have to fill out this form, and I was wondering what pronoun you like best?”
Them: “Pronoun? What do you mean?”
Me: “You know, like I’m ‘Ms. Persson’.” It’s just asking here.
Them: “Um, I’m a guy.”
(here’s the save)
Me: “Oh, yeah, but I thought you went by ‘Dr.’ Don’t you have a PhD? You don’t? I thought you said you did. Well shoot, where is my brain today, I must have been thinking of someone else…never mind…”
Yes, a Facebook-linked graphic represents all of us transpeople, everywhere. I have a small tattoo of it on my left breast.
Wait, no.
What it’s supposed to represent are common “code words” and actions which are typically (but NOT ALWAYS) used when debating people about our existence. Many of the word boxes can be completely harmless and innocent, it’s just that often they seem to lead into something like “Yeah, I’m not trans, but I think most of them feel like (something incorrect, overgeneralized, irrelevant, or slightly insulting).” Of course cisgender people have very valid opinions and can learn enough to speak for community generalities etc. Some very bright and wonderful allies know as much or more about the issues as most transpeople do. It’s just that in general, there is a lot of pontificating out of ignorance by cisgender people.