I’m not sure he would need to (or be able to), considering that he will be a biological parent.
Yeah buddy, I’m shinning up my badge and boots as we talk, unreasonable of me to define male that way.
SO let’s see here, testes, penis, y chromosome, and sperm cells…no.
Hairy face check.
Vagina, uterus, ovaries, producing ova, and bearing young. Check.
Breasts, and beardless face, no.
So, aside from the elected altered characteristics this person is physically female. Deal with it.
Miller thinks is is proper courtesy to address this person as Him because that is his correct gender as he sees it. I would normally agree, even with him retaining all his female organs and declining to undergo re-assignment surgery. :rolleyes:
That said, this person who is a female has elected to become pregnant. That is a physical act of biology limited to females. He is not living as a man. He is not a pregnant man. He is a pre-op trannsexual. It is a pretty big act of courtesy to address someone as something they obviously are not, no matter how much they believe they are. If anything is okay at any time, then why don’t we all just call ourselves emperors, amass harems and wage little block wars against each other? He has just about as much claim to the moniker at the moment as I do to Emperor of Kissimmee.
Hostile, I do not believe that it is possible for you to be more of an asshole than you customarily are on the SDMB. But, considering that I have absolutely no desire to be proved wrong on this point, might I respectfully suggest that if reading this thread is such a terrible ordeal for you, you find some other thread to read? There is, after all, a third option between “be totally polite” and “be a raging dickwad,” and that option is “be quiet.” Please take your vacation as an opportunity to explore it.
I’m guilty of many things, but I am not responsible for your being an asshole.
Well, if he were physically male, he wouldn’t be a transsexual, now would he?
That’s big of you, to go through such a strain as to make you roll your eyes and all.
As previously established, we know this already.
What he is doing is something that is restricted to people with uteruses, and that has usually been associated with such people who have a feminine gender identity. He doesn’t have such a gender identity. That fact doesn’t stop him from using his perfectly functional uterus.
If you accept that he is a transsexual, it would seem to follow that he is a man. After all, he is female-bodied; if he weren’t a man, he wouldn’t be transsexual.
What he obviously is is a person who identifies as a man. Unlike being emperor, that is a decision we make for ourselves. And no, it is not a huge act of courtesy to address someone in the way they identify. Actually, chances are, you won’t have any occasion to address this gentleman at all, mercifully.
Why don’t you give it up? Obviously your concern is not for poor put-upon Messrs. Merriam and Webster. You’ve already shown your hand and told us that this is all based on your personal revulsion and bafflement. That sort of undercuts your attempt to cloak this in some sort of appeal to your standard of common sense.
Sure he is.
He’s a man. He knows who he is better than you ever can so I’ll take what he says over you every day of the week.
Actually, I’d say it’s about the smallest act of courtesy imaginable. All you’re doing is substituting on single-syllable word for another. It doesn’t cost you anything at all in terms of time, money, or additional effort. Holding a door open for someone is a bigger act of courtesy.
Because this board is supposed to be for fighting ignorance. Apparently, I’m rather ignorant of how one can expect to simply assume a gender role and all that goes with it, expect to receive all the cultural norms and responsibilities that come along with that role; then do the exact opposite, while remaining physically opposed to the gender and still be assumed to be the other?
I was big enough to admit that I’m probably wrong about my stance, but so far only a few posts in the thread have even attempted to try and explore the answers. That vast majority has been me trying to defend myself for simply admitting that something that everyone agrees is really really strange, is strange.
So far, it seems that for asking, for justification, all I get is some feel-good pile-on from those who apparently blindly accept any concept that comes their way without employing critical thought.
I never called this person immoral, insane, sick, or wrong. I suggested that they might be unstable due to the waffling, and selfish for neglecting more prosaic options available to them. I didn’t suggest that they were derserving of hostility or ridicule either.
Yes, it is. I’m sure you can find a dictionary that would support you calling mentally handicapped people “feeble-minded”, too, but that doesn’t make it right.
What? I have to “deal with” your bigoted reassessment of somebody else’s gender reassignment? Go fuck yourself sideways. He’s a man, and you are the one who has to “deal with it”–which you apparently have no capacity to do, despite being a seemingly sane and mentally healthy individual otherwise. I really don’t understand what the big deal is about this. Why can’t you deal with it? What is it about the existence of a pregnant man that throws your world into such turmoil? Does it really make your life harder? Does it really throw a wrench into your life plan? Is all this emo my-life-is-ruined-because-somebody-made-a-choice-I-disagree-with crap just because a tranny pissed in your Corn Flakes this morning?
Normally I would tell all the Hatorade drinkers in this thread to go fuck themselves sideways, but I respect your opinion, and after some reflection, I’ve realized that the facts in this thread seem to back it up. After all, Vinyl Turnip has already equated defense of transsexual rights with shrill, shrieking assholery, and it appears to be my fault. I’m going to take some time contemplating what I can do to avoid that in the future, for the sake of the LGBT rights movement, and I’m going to do my best to avoid weighing in on debates about gender expression and sexuality in the meantime. Which means I’m unsubscribing from this thread and a couple of others. Good luck in here.
That’s the problem: do you hold the door open for them, or not?
Unchecked, this gender ambiguity thing has the potential to immobilize people in doorways around the world, and to bring commerce to a grinding halt.
One last thing.
If you don’t see the problem in this phrase, I suggest you reread this thread. I’ve even bolded it as an extra-special hint, because I like you so much and want you to succeed.
You know, changing your mind after I insulted you really undercuts my attempt to demonstrate that insulting people isn’t a good way to change their mind.
Jerk.
To be fair, I did not mean to equate them, but to note a coincidence, at least on this board. And yes, probably overstated the case. The few bad apples are very, very rotten.
But you already understand how people can do that! For most people, part of the gender role of “male” is “being attracted to females.” But you already have no problem accepting people who have the gender role of “male” but are attracted to other males, right? This is exactly the same situation, it’s just that the guy in question has found an almost entirely unique way to defy gender expectations. But aside from being rarer, is it really materially different? Is there any more reason to get upset over this guy being pregnant than there is to get upset over two guys kissing?
Not to blame you for being piled on, but you might have had an easier time of it if you’d started this in GD, instead of the Pit. Starting a thread in the Pit sort of implies alot of that stuff your specifically disclaiming, and I think a lot of people read that tone into your posts here, even though you didn’t intend it.
Pfft, a cliff? You’re a fuckin’ wuss. If I was in that position, I’d slowly feed myself feet-first into an industrial furnace, then run on the blackened stumps of my legs into into a glass factory and pull six display shelves down on myself, rolling around in the shards until I could surf on the floor in my own blood right into the shipping department where I’d use a tape dispenser to hack at my dangling limbs, severing the remaining tendons and having my body parts shipped to nonexistent addresses in Maine, Brazil, Australia and Northern Sweden.
Geez, kids today…
Cute little zinger sweetie, but you are entirely responsible for the way that you present yourself and if the way you present yourself consistently causes people of a certain type to have strongly negative reactions to you, you can do one of two things. You can either assume that everyone else is an asshole, or you an examine your own actions to see if maybe, just maybe, there’s something in the way you conduct yourself that leads people to believe that you’re a total douchebag.
I’ll say what I said in Kythereia’s thread.
I think it’s sweet.
If Thomas and Nancy love each other and their little girl and raise her to be a decent human being, I don’t really see why it is anyone’s business which parent gave birth to her. She’ll grow up with two loving parents, who definitely wanted her, and that is a hell of a lot more than some people get.
IMO this is less complicated than a child who is the product of donor ovum and sperm, carried by a surrogate and raised by an infertile straight couple.
Acid Lamp- you have already been told that FtM transexuals often don’t elect to have any kind of “downstairs” surgery. They have very good reasons for those choices- cost, aesthetics, preferring to wait until medicine can create a lifelike penis that doesn’t involve a massive graft of tissue from your arm…a bunch of good reasons. Thomas is not the only person who has decided that he is quite happy living as a man without a penis. Get over it.
Unless you plan to strip search everyone you meet and examine their genitals before deciding on which pronoun you want to use, you’ll do the courteous thing and address them in the way in which they prefer to be addressed. It’s not like it costs you anything to be polite.
You know, I was struggling to follow this “discussion”, trying very hard to ignore and forebear the vitriol coming from the so-called tolerance people aka LGBT crowd towards some of us just plain vanilla folk and all, but this is just too much.
Matt, darling–I am not just a person with a uterus. No woman here (or elsewhere in the world is). If you cannot see the arrogance, sheer effrontery and insult in such a phrase, you have serious issues. To be characterized is such way is to be boxed up, dismissed and stereotyped as badly as any badly treated LGBT person. Who the fuck do you think you are? You are NOT a tolerant, I’m all for educating the ignorant and spreading tolerance advocate, are you? You’re coming across here as a much more of a Fuck the Conventionally sexed, gendered and mainstream crowd Hater.
Waste your specious logic elsewhere–the guy reminds me of Julie Andrews in Victor/Victoria more than anyone else. I have no idea if this is right or just or good–I know I am concerned about the health of the fetus and the acceptance of this child into a very cruel world. Cruelty is not limited to straight, conventionally gendered people–maybe it’s about time you admitted that? Afterall, you’re just like everyone else, right?
Go look in the mirror, after you’ve consulted a dictionary. All of what you say here can (and should) be applied to your posts here. I have lost respect and patience with you. I sincerely hope that you do NOT speak for LGBT as a whole with your posts in this thread. I do not understand how you can possibly think you have the moral high ground here. I’ve heard for years here about how all the LGBT want is acceptance. I believe that. I support that. I do not accept or support this bigotry coming from anyone, including a supposedly oppressed minority. Get the fuck over yourself and think about reality. What this couple already faces. What this child will face. That doesn’t mean this shouldn’t happen, but to think that it is non-controversial or that people should only support it is naive at best and seriously out of touch with reality at worst.
Thoughts from a Person who has a uterus. Fuck you sideways,** matt.** I see now how you feel about women.
Surely there have to be SOME things that are defined by biology and not culture. My emperor analogy was hyperbolic, it’s more like that I as a white guy, decided that I’m black. Or that I’m a chinese acrobat, or a sumo wrestler. I have a fundamental disconnect that shuts off at “pregnant man”. I don’t grok that. It is different from homosexuality, and normal transgenderism. I guess it’s closer to some sort of self fertile hermaphrodism. Even that isn’t accurate though, I’m being asked to accept that a heterosexual male in a female’s body, is assuming a heterosexual female role and bearing children against their own gender identity. It’s like an episode of quantum leap or something.
You are probably right, but it’s taken me this long to get even this far. I doubt I could have composed a proper GD about this and it would inevitably trainwreck anyway, hence the pit.