Ensign Edison! Fine, I won't use the term 'tranny.' Screw you though.

The BBQ Pit
61

No, what they said was “I have trouble as seeing her as a woman because of X,Y,Z.” All of them said “she.” If they had said “he isn’t a woman, he’s a man!” then I would have certainly had a problem with it.

I think the biggest problem with the LGBT brigade is that they can get this attitude of “You are either for or against us.” They turn the world into a black and white issue where if you don’t give full acceptance then you hate us. I think that’s a horrible stance to take because it distances possible allies, especially when it comes to trans issues. Most people just don’t get transsexuals. They think it’s strange, they think it’s creepy, they have trouble accepting it. But that doesn’t make them bigots. That doesn’t make their comments hate filled when they said that they have difficulty seeing someone as their preferred gender.

My parents are strongly Conservative Catholic. They think gays sex is a sin. I have a lot of other friends that are religious and don’t accept homosexuality. While I wish that they would vote for gay marriage so that I can marry a girl if that’s who I end up with, I respect their difference of opinion. They aren’t hate filled because they vote against gay marriage. They aren’t hate filled for having trouble with accepting gays in the first place. There is a HUGE difference between a person who says “I’m sorry, I met your ex-boyfriend as a guy and I just can’t see him as a girl right now.” and one who says “Trannies are sick, disgusting freaks!”

Trans people require scruntiny while gay people don’t because transition involves physical changes. You can’t get SRS just because you want it, and that’s the way it should be. There should be a system in place that fully weeds out the confused and deranged, but the system isn’t working correctly at this time, mostly because of the lack of information out there about transpeople. If you think you are gay and you have sex with a man, so what? If you think you are a woman and get SRS then you’re fucked.

I’m NOT saying that average people should challenge the gender identity of every trans person they meet. I’m not even saying that people should challenge the gender identity of trans.

let me turn it into examples.
Okay : “I have trouble seeing X as a woman because she acts like a drag queen while in female mode.”

Not okay: “X is not a woman because she acts like a drag queen while in female mode.”

People did the first, but not the second. I think that it allienates possible allies when we get all offended at the first question, dig in our heels and say “She’s a woman because she said so!”

I’ve found it works much better to say:
“Because of our society, a lot of trans people deny their status and try to be another things - gay men, transvestites, crossdressers, etc. Since she was a drag queen for so long, she has picked up those manurisms and is having trouble being herself. As time passes, she will get comfortable in her own skin and probably behave in a more womanly fashion.”

I just think that it harms the ts community when we accept, without question, every single person who claims to be trans. And it further harms our efforts when we demand that cisgendered people accept others as trans without question. I am reminded of a thread on this board concerning an individual from New York. This person wanted to use the women’s restroom. She said she didn’t plan on getting SRS, she wasn’t on any hormones, and she wasn’t dressing as a woman. I don’t think it was hatefilled, prejudiced, or bigoted for women to be uncomfortable with her using the restroom. Hell, I would have been uncomfortable with her using the restroom!

62

What does that have to do with “too loud, a drama queen, psychotic, etc”?

63

Manure-isms? :smiley:

64

Posted the draft by accident ><

65

Whether they have trouble seeing her as a woman may be something interesting to their friends and therapists, but the problem I had was that people here were in fact acting like their not thinking she’s a woman makes her possibly not a woman. Maybe not you and your friends, but that’s what I’ve seen here.

Of course it doesn’t. But finding trans people “creepy” doesn’t give them a “get out of hate” free card either, does it? I never said any comment was automatically hateful.

More strawmen. No one here was apologizing for not seeing her as a woman, they were defending their right to say she is not a woman or not trans.

You’re showing your ignorance again. Not all trans people get SRS. Some transition and then decide it wasn’t the right move for them, but they’re not automatically “fucked”. And I disagree – I think anyone who says they want it should be able to get SRS, or any other “cosmetic” surgery they want.

I feel you are contradicting yourself. Either we should question whether people are trans for their own good and the good of the community, as you absolutely have claimed, or not.

This is my problem with you, kimera. You claim to be educated, but you say ignorant shit like this. Please define what a “womanly fashion” to behave is. Please explain why you think some women – take J. Lo, for example - are not naturally divas. Please tell me why you think it’s okay for anyone to say what “behavior” is “acceptable” for trans people, lest they be rejected by the straights.

66

Update results of survey
1 Board - 39 votes:It’s offensive (44%), I use it (18%),I don’t like it (23%), I don’t car either way (15%).

2nd Board - 28 votes:It’s offensive (25%),I use it (21.4%),I don’t like it (21.4%), I don’t care either way (32.1%)

Please show me where that was said.

Where?

I never said that all trans people get SRS. Hell, I was just saying earlier in the thread how non-ops get into fights with people who don’t respect them. I was pointing out that now non-trans people can get SRS. I’ve seen webpages of people who had SRS and completely regretted it and wished someone had stopped them. You can’t reverse SRS. I would say that’s pretty fucked.

I was responded to two different things.

  1. If it is absolutely hateful to challenge someone’s gender identity.
  2. If those people challenged her gender identity.

I don’t define what it means to be a woman. How can I? Where did I ever say that -anyone- could say what behavior is acceptable?

67

I await your clarification.

I corrected your spelling for you only because you indicated it was a mistake, not to be snarky.

68

Thank you for the correction.

I don’t see how I am defining it there. I said that she would probably behave in a more “womanly” fashion as she grew more comfortable with herself. I made no attempt to name specifics. A lot transwomen get a bit too full force into being women when they start and as they grow more comfortable with themselves, they let their natural nature come out. Alexis is new to this and I do not doubt that she still retains a lot of characteristics which are decidedly manly.

69

Okay, we’re coming closer to communication now, I think. I hope you don’t mind that I’ve trimmed the rest, because to be honest I just don’t care enough to bother hunting down and making links, only to have to argue about all the possible interpretations of every line. I stand by the impression I have, but I don’t feel I can convince you of it just by quoting it unless somebody actually said the words “I hate trannies”.

So, okay, I agree with you partly. It’s true that trans people sometimes take time to adjust to their new openness. But see, I don’t see the transition process as being about stripping away all those traits which are not gender conformative, and I think it’s dangerous to tell non-allies ‘Don’t worry, she won’t be so confusing later on’. I don’t feel they should be mollified and coddled. You think it’s more ‘effective’, I understand that; we just have different beliefs there, I think. I don’t believe in reform, really: just revolution.

But I can accept that your position is different there, now that I think I understand it better. I’m dropping my fists and putting my earrings back on now, because I really do want to get across to you why I think it’s ultimately counterproductive to tell people that a trans person who doesn’t fit their idea of feminity or masculinity will conform given enough time. Even if that’s not the message you mean to send. Does that make sense?

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That’s hawt.

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I have trouble communicating in the written form, so I appreciate your patience, especially with this issue which is so emotional.

I guess you are a supporter of genderfucking. While there are some genderfucks within the transsexual community, most of the transsexuals I know simply want to live and pass as their identified sex. I also think there is a difference in being a tomgirl transsexual and being a drag queen transsexual. If a mtf wants to transition to become a butch lesbian, I think she should be supported. I hate the idea which seems so prevalent in some trans communities that you must be a feminine girl if you are a girl. A drag queen transsexuals might be a transsexual or she might be a drag queen. Sometimes drag queens get wrapped up in their personas and want to be full-time drag queens, rather than having a female mind in a male body. I’m not saying that this is what Alexis is, she might also have been a tomboy transsexual who went the drag queen route as a way to express her feminine side. No one knows but her.

Right now, there is a whole diverse group of people being shoved under the confusing labels of transsexual and transgendered.

Yes, I see your point now. I don’t mean to imply that she will conform and became the idea verson of a woman, just that she will probably become less "drag queen"y Who knows, maybe she will become a drag king after she transitions, she won’t be the first transsexual to do so. :slight_smile:

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Another point-she can be transgendered, but that doesn’t preclude her from being a flake, or an attention-seeking famewhore.

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Uh…you mean like I said in my OP in other thread that started all this, the same one where I was the one to use the word “tranny?” In fact I think “attention whore” were my EXACT FUCKING WORDS?

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kimera, my reply to you got eaten, but all I said, basically, was that I think the term is “genderqueer” now, and that I certainly support the rights of everyone to defy gender norms. Your butch lesbian transwoman example would be considered genderqueer by many; my only point has been that you can’t say “Oh, she’s not really trans because she doesn’t wear dresseds” or whatever.

Also that I wasn’t at all patient with you, but thank you for being kind enough to pretend I was once I calmed down. :wink:

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Ensign Edison, you show much insight into human nature and the problems of labelling and identification. What a fair-minded person you must be.

76

I don’t know how to take this at all. Is it sarcasm? If so, what does it mean? Or am I just so used to people only addressing asides to me in the Pit to tell me what an asshole I am that I can’t tell the difference anymore? :stuck_out_tongue:

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I’m shocked that somebody went to that much trouble to agree with me. Thanks, Skip. :smiley:

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I’m still waiting for Lev to cop to Pitting the wrong person. Not gonna happen, huh?

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You know, speaking of transsexuals and violence and that other thread, Alexis Arquette played the kid who shot at Sam Jackson and John Travolta in Pulp Fiction.

{wha? Lissener is the only one who can say it?}

Of course it looks as if Alexis is now trading the gun for a holster.

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It is definitely not sarcasm! One of my biggest soapboxes has been about those who are too anxious to label people without taking the time to consider individual differences. You are not like that at all and were pitted for absolutely no reason.

To the contrary, in this thread you have shown an openness to the feedback that has been given to you and you have asked questions to help clarify that information. You have also shared what you have known. That is the essence of good communication. You are savy, considerate.

(I used to teach communication and I notice these things.)

Who said you are an asshole? I’ll go mash his ears together. (I feel some of that mean high school English teacher blood returning to my veins!)