No need. He’s got Trannydar™.
But what about the other Ilkers? What if they’ve sucked on a few too many buds and it’s on the fritz? Will nobody think of the bigots?
Nope - badges. Simple solution.
Heh. I don’t think anything would satisfy them short of having all trans-women (or at least all the young and hot-looking ones whom they might be tempted to date) essentially displaying a permanent badge that says “CAUTION: I WAS BORN WITH A PENIS”.
Their attitude seems to be that since transgender women aren’t “really” women, they have some kind of obligation to publicly and obviously differentiate themselves from “real” women. As a birthright “real” woman myself, I think this argument is a load of hogwash. As far as I’m concerned, my transgendered sisters are just as entitled as any other women to use my restrooms, share my “Women Only Spaces”, borrow my nail file, whatever. Everybody just needs to get used to the fact that a very small but non-zero percentage of the women in the world may have or may once have had a penis, and that they are not obligated to immediately reveal that information to everybody they meet.
Interesting coincidence: this week’s Newsweek cover story is “The Mystery of Gender”, dealing with many of these very issues.
How do the Kegels work?
Being born without a uterus is a similar abnormal physionomic issue.
The word woman has a stable definition, that they do not fit.
My wife gave me a daughter, can a transgendered MtF do that?
Now you are just being silly. A simple Mswas Law, (Was a Ms? Is there something we are not being told?) allowing us real men and women to know when there are fakes living in our neighbourhood should suffice.
Can an infertile bio-woman? Can my uterus-mislaid gf?
Not a great fan of thinking things through before posting are you?
What!? How do you justify that? If you are well aware that you are somehow beyond the commonly held expectations of a potential partner and fail to inform them, then you are absolved of any responsibility? It’s wholly the other person’s fault?
How do both sides not share some degree of responsibility?
If I have a seven year old kid, but never mention it, never give any signs that I have children, knowing full well that for some otherwise perfect matches that will be a problem (no matter how selfish a problem it might be), it’s my date’s fault for not asking? If I behave like I have no children, refer to myself in words that would suggest to most people that I have no children, have friends who talk about me as if I have no children, it’s my potential mate’s fault for not assuming otherwise? Yes, they could have asked, so the blame goes partly to them, but I knew the cultural framework, knew what the commonly held assumptions were, knew the potential problems I could face and still bear zero…zero percent of the responsibility?
I find that incredibly hard to buy.
This is getting ridiculous. I know the appeals to emotion get people all hot and bothered and make them feel better about themselves, but lets put things into perspective here.
I AT NO TIME stated that I have trouble accepting transgendered individuals. In fact I stated the opposite. It’s sort of an oddity, but that’s just a function of being outside of the norm. I won’t consider them women because they are not women. Transgendered woman, sure, woman, no. Some people are born with all sorts of forms that are outside of the norm, it happens. That does not mean that we should do semantic contortions that corrode the stable meaning of words in order to justify their ‘feelings’. People adapt or die, that’s the way it is.
Stanton is a courageous person who has embarked upon a journey of self-discovery. I applaud all journeys of self-discovery. What I do not applaud, and this applies more to most of you than it does to her, is the notion that a journey of self-discovery should be socially costless. If you are changing the paradigm, expect to face the consequences. It is not as socially acceptable as this liberal dominated message board might like it to be, and to talk about it as though the vast majority of people are not getting with the program is naive at best and pernicious at worst.
If I were the worst kind of bigot that a transgendered had to face, then there would be no transgendered bigotry. I am exploring an idea, and arguing a perspective that enables me to explore that idea from a perspective. I am sorry that this is a difficult notion to comprehend, but I’ve been pretty up front about it.
If I met a woman and dated her, and somehow did not realize she was transgendered, and got into a deep relationship and was told after, the breach of trust would be irreparable, as would the breach of trust if a woman who was infertile and knew it kept it from me. I have explored variant sexuality in my lifetime, I’ve had sex with a transvestite, but no transexuals. Ultimately, I have settled with a wife who can provide me a child.
As I have stated repeatedly, I would be just fine working with a transgendered individual. I just don’t think that this acceptance is something that we should blindly follow. I am interested in its effects on society. Unfettered progress is not always to the social good, and those sorts of sociological issues interest me. I am interested in what generates and maintains social cohesion.
The fact that most of the side defending ‘compassion’ felt the need to villify me in the process is a testament to how open-minded the participants actually are.
:rolleyes: If a woman knows she is infertile, I would like that information before I get into a serious relationship with them. If she doesn’t and I roll the dice with her, that’s another matter. There are very few cases where transgendered individuals do not know that they are transgendered.
Where do you keep your hypothalamus? 
My aunt just had a hysterectomy, is she now my uncle? What if it was discovered that you had a female endocrine system? How many organs consititute a majority? Are some organs worth more than others? Why do you get to make the call?
Absolutely. A definition of genetic male v. genetic female, as reflected in the legal system and in common usage is a perfectly useful categorization which defines the majority of all possible cases. Exceptions to that definition should either be represented by new or appended labels. Male-identifying-as-female would be fine with me. Male-with-the-possibility-of-structural-hypothalmic-difference-to-be-determined-post-mortem would also be fine (albeit horrifyingly impractical and dehumanizing). But, to redefine the genetically defined categories in order to accommodate non-genetically-defined variations seems wholly confusing and counterproductive.
Okay, so I’m having trouble figuring out what your thesis is.
Is it:
Transgendered people will face social repercussions by coming out in public, that’s just how it is,
or
Transgendered people should have to face social repercussions by coming out in public
?
If the former, then I agree. There’s not widespread acceptance yet. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t work to change that.
If it’s the latter, then I think I’m done here.
How do you define existing genetic males who are physiologically female (and vice versa)? What do you do about the X, XXYs and the like? Hermaphrodites? I’d like to start seeing some charts.
As an observer I am allowed to define the reality I live in for myself. It’s one of the perks of being a self-actualized person. Most people agree with me on this one btw. Definitions of words are decided by a sort of consensus. It is not me who is re-engineering the word here.
Your aunt is now a woman without a uterus. It no more makes her a man than a sex change makes a man a woman.
None of the above. I am asking a question regarding social conformity and how much we should accomodate the needs of the few vs the needs of the many.
Not hardly. You have a distinct opinion on this subject as demonstrated in the piece I quoted. I’m attempting to nail down that opinion to something a little less vague than “I sympathize, but damn right she should lose her job”.
Cite, please.
No, it’s society. Language changes all the time, adapting to fit the times. The folks in Largo seem to be just fine with Stanton being a woman.
But are you maintaining that a bio-female woman who was born without a uterus is obligated to volunteer this information whenever she goes on a first date??!
Because that’s what you seem to be demanding from trans-women.
I think it makes a lot more sense just to accept that a small minority of the people we encounter in the world, for one reason or another, have genital plumbing that is different in some way from what we would initially expect them to have. And we should recognize that other people’s genital plumbing is none of our damn business unless we are planning to be personally involved with it.
The point is that it’s not up to you to decide that. The social paradigm that we’re now moving into still classifies gender as consisting of the two categories “men” and “women”, but assigns individuals to those categories depending on how they self-identify. If a transgendered woman says she’s a woman, and you say she’s not a woman, then she gets to make the call, not you.
Are you allowed to arbitrarily decide that women born without a uterus are “not women” too? Or that infertile women are “not women”? Why should it be up to you to decree that transgendered women are “not women”?
When people have reached the point of a deep relationship, then they have a right to expect that all their important intimate issues will be honestly discussed. So in that circumstance, you’d be entitled to feel that a woman should tell you about her transgender status or her infertility or whatever, and if she concealed it then I can see why you would consider it an irreparable breach of trust.
However, that’s very different from expecting a transgender woman (or an infertile woman) to reveal this intimate personal information on a first date, which is what you seem to be requiring.
Why? I would think that as an observer, you have a duty to recognize and accept reality as it exists, even if it isn’t always the way you would prefer to define it.
This assumes that the refusal to accept another person’s gender self-identification, because it doesn’t fit the gender classification scheme that you have “defined for yourself” in your own personal “reality”, counts as a “need”. I would disagree with you on that one.
When I say “he” or “she” or describe someone as “male” or “female” I am using shorthand for “to the best of my knowledge, the person to which I am referring has XX or XY chromosomes, and exhibits outward characteristics of such.” In response to which the person to whom I am writing or speaking, will refer to a series of cultural, physical and connotative, mental landmarks. The sex or gender-specific words represent bundles of information which support and enhance communication between us.
If I need to refer to a hermaphrodite and that person’s medical condition is A) unknown to my listener and B) relevant to what I’m saying, I will add the necessary information.
Of course, if I had a friend who was transgendered (and either XX or XY), who was upset at being called the scientifically appropriate term, I would do my best not to use the pronouns that didn’t upset them. But social decorum is a wholly different beast than scientific categorization and if I were talking to an uninvolved listener, I might use the genetically-defined pronoun.