Well, your question makes is seem like there is something wrong with “a desire to be tolerant and inclusive.” I think those are fine things to be. .
I guess I am making an assumption though. A person like Caitlyn knows a hell of a lot more about who she is then the rest of us can ever know. I am comfortable respecting her wishes on a subject that is so intensely personal. Especially when it has zero effect on my life and a great effect on her life. It is certainly not within my power to judge whether she is doing the right thing, the wrong thing, or something in between. Her life, her decisions.
Dave cannot go to work one day and announce to his coworkers that henceforth he should be referred to as Jim, or Hephaestus, or Metta World Peace. His coworkers would justifiably have reason to believe that Dave had lost his goddamned mind.
]That doesn’t make any sense at all. Of course you can just announce it. You only need to get the government involved if you want to make sure the government uses the name you want. Socially, you can call yourself whatever you want, and basic manners is to go along with it. I can’t see any way that could possibly make you an asshole.
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Indeed. And legally, in the US, your name is the name that you use, as long as you have not adopted a name for purposes of deception. Thus, the law itself says that you don’t need to “get your name legally changed”, you just start using the name you wish to be known by. (In practice, it may be easier and faster to do the legal name-change, but you can still do it “common law” style, gradually getting more & more documents, bills, etc in your new name, saving driver’s license and passport and social security card for last for presumably obvious reasons)
Sure he can. Why couldn’t he? Why should his co-workers care? How does that make him crazy? How does it make him less crazy if he’s got a piece of paper from the government that says its okay?
Only above being presumptuous enough to judge another person’s intensely personal decisions that don’t effect me. What would you propose we ask Caitlyn Jenner to satisfy ourselves that she’s doing the right thing?
I sure can’t imagine that ever happening (lying about it). But, for the sake of argument, let’s say it happens some small percent of the time. What would you suggest we do about? It doesn’t effect us, not even a little bit.
What do you suggest we do to find out who is lying about their gender identity and who is not? Or do you just wish no one would make us think about it?
MOIDALIZE - Do you believe that some people intentionally lie about being transgender when they are not? For what possible reason? Let’s put aside the whole famewhore/reality show argument and assume this is an average person who isn’t going to get massive publicity.
Or is it possible that you believe that someone who was assigned a gender at birth and then comes out as transgender and wants to be identified as the opposite gender is by definition lying?
I guess I have a problem with a standard of immediate acceptance, and that transgender advocates have been pushing this standard while not admitting that it’s a political tactic. They want unquestioned acceptance of something that my eyes and common sense is telling me isn’t true.
So everyone who refused to recognize Prince’s name change to a symbol was a massive asshole?
That’s not even touching on the Drake Bell theorem of how if you only knew someone as Bruce Jenner 70s Olympic Star, there shouldn’t be anything wrong with saying you’ll always be Bruce to me
How do you feel about people who come out as gay or lesbian? Do you accept their opinion unquestioningly, or do you assume that they actually are attracted to the opposite gender, but are just crazy or trying to con you?
It sounds to me like you just can’t wrap your head around the idea that someone can have the physical appearance of one gender, but be an entirely different gender internally, and that you therefore feel that anyone who comes out as transgender is lying about it.
People who use nicknames are assholes? I did not know that. Ignorance fought!
Oh, and, bold words for somebody using a pseudonym on a message board. Just sayin’.
Also bear in mind that in the case of Caitlyn Jenner, it’s not just a name change & some pronouns. There has been surgery, and there is more scheduled. I’m comfortable with the idea that this isn’t just grandstanding for the cameras.
Does this happen often? Have you come across it much at all? Are we in danger of some sort of Trans Epidemic sweeping the country, fooling hapless individuals into buying more of the plummeting Kardashian Kollection??
Why would such an enormous personal decision *for someone else[//i] cause you so much distress if it didn’t affect you? Caitlyn is undergoing huge amounts of change, many, no doubt, that are legal (like her new name) and it evokes in you an assumption of lying? That it’s a political tactic? Why would anyone suffer from something like not being their preferred gender for decades upon decades, join one of the most reviled, ridiculed and still persecuted minorities and possibly face more derision and an increased chance of suicidalness just for shits and giggles? This has been in the works apparently, off and on, forever. The important thing is to support people who already have it more difficult than most. I certainly wouldn’t trade Caitlyn’s money or fame to have not been able to be my real self for over 60 some odd years. And yet she’s being castigated no matter what she does.
Oh man, I’m going to have to let my so-called friend “Jason L.” know that he’s been an asshole this entire time, since first grade when he told everyone his name was “Jason L.” but really it is “Patrick Jason L”.