What a delightfully well-crafted morsel of Pit Snark.
Only one problem…
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I’m quite appreciative of his efforts. Striving to be understood is a first cousin of fighting ignorance.
Opposed to, say, spewing anti-white anti-male rage. Which is never useful.
Or respected.
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But transgender people have specific, concrete asks. They want to be referred to by a certain pronoun and be able to dress in the manner consistent with their self-identified gender in the workplace. And be able to work in whatever field they want (military, education, etc.) They collectively ask to be treated like everyone else, but “understanding” isn’t something they ask for. Which is nothing but practical, since most of us don’t understand ourselves, let alone other people.
I think you underestimate how much people understand about gender nonconformity. I think many people not only get the broad strokes, but they also get the nuances because of first-hand and second-hand experience. But when you add a lot of complicating and extraneous layers to the discussion, of course people aren’t going to “get it”. “I’m a guy who has many feminine traits and I’m sexually attracted to women” is simple. Everyone with a half-way open mind can understand this. “I’m a male girl who is sexually attracted to women, but not in the way that male men are since I am the girl in the relationship” is so unnecessarily TMI that of course you’re going to get glazed looks.
I think you’re interpreting the glazed look as an expression of not understanding, when really it’s a feeling of exasperation.
I don’t know how else to respond when someone says “Interesting you get bothered by this thing, but I don’t get bothered by this totally unrelated thing.”
I don’t find that interesting at all. I find it quite dismissive.
Can you elaborate on why you don’t wish to be addressed as “she”, if in fact you consider your gender to be a “girl”? Is it because youve gone all of your life being called “he” and would find the change jarring? Or is it because you don’t really see your as a “she”?
Stepping outside yourself a bit, what pronoun would you expect a person to use if they identified as a woman? If they asked that you call them “he”, would you not be scratching your head a bit?
“Transgender” is a very broad umbrella, especially as defined by WPATH, which is something troubling to a large number of us, and one reason why some of us are trying to reclaim the word “transsexual.” Maybe it’s fallen into disfavor among young activists for the genderqueer and non-binary, but for others it’s very highly appropriate.
Another reason is objection to the word itself. I didn’t “transition” my gender, my gender has always been female. I changed my sex. But that semantic battle has already been lost.
Transgender is a very broad umbrella term. Call yourself transgender if you wish. It’s backed by WPATH and others. You don’t need any “activists” to give you permission.
You’re not the same as me - from what I can tell, not really even close. But that doesn’t mean you’re not transgender.
To that end, it’s debatable how appropriate any term is for me. I described in my coming out thread 4 or 5 years ago on here how I had a mild intersex condition. It turns out further medical research on me revealed it wasn’t so mild. So I went through a legal, social, and medical transition, but discovering at the same time I’m more of a chimera (not literally) than I thought. This has led me to some deep thinking about my place in the world, although not to your depth. Sparing you a 5-paragraph essay, I feel like a woman, a very feminine person - and also at the same time, like I’m of a different species, some genetic cul-de-sac or backwater that, because I was born sterile, will thankfully not be inflicted on anyone else in the future. This sense of difference has led to an inability to create really deep friendships with people - I have tons of “good friends”, but no friends who I’m like a “sister” to. Ironically, there is another intersex woman locally who also transitioned socially, legally, and medically, who is a friend even though she’s kind of a bitch and we fight from time to time, who I feel closest to sometimes - because she too has messed-up DNA.
Thank you, Guin.
Una - of course I consider transwomen to be part of “us.” Sheesh. Have you ever heard me say anything to suggest I’d feel otherwise?
There is no single “fundamental experience” that make a woman a woman. That is why I referred to them in the plural. Your fundamental experiences are largely different than mine, but they both add up to the same thing.
In contrast, I can’t see that AHunter3 has had anything of the sort. Ironically, I used to be willing to accept him as a “male girl,” but all these explanatory posts have managed to convince me otherwise.
P.s. I really should have specified in my original post that transwomen were included in “us.” To me, it’s a no-brainer, but given the context of the thread, it would have been helpful.
I suppose asking “cut to the chase” implies that there will be some kind of response when it happens. So FWIW -
Your self-description did include several things that I experience as well. And that is somewhat the problem.
It struck me sort of like a horoscope. Apart from wearing women’s clothes I don’t see a lot of difference between saying “this describes a male girl” vs. “this describes a Libra”. It’s too general to be distinctive. So you value process over results and want sex as part of a relationship. That’s great - but people who feel the same way don’t think of themselves as male girls.
I won’t say I am like you, but I don’t see very much by way of new ideas in your self-description. You value relationships, you have a very specific favorite color, and you have a beard and wear skirts. And that makes you a male girl vs. something else.
You are still parsing differences that I can’t see, or can’t see the relevance of.
Dress however you like, post whatever you want. Call yourself, I guess, whatever you want. I don’t see how it informs or challenges my notions of masculinity because you have a skirt and a beard and I have a moustache and dress pants.
Regards,
Shodan
When a major character, in THE most popular show on tv, running into its tenth season, has the very characteristics you’re describing then I’m thinking it’s not quite as ‘snowflake’ unique as you believe. The millions of viewers of that show enjoy it because they relate to the characters. Why? Because they recognize parts of themselves and their friends in the characters. It’s funny because we all know people who are as nerdy and awkward as these guys seem. Likewise we also all know, a Penny, pretty, cheerleader type, seeking fame.
That includes Raj. We all know someone like him. Not gay, def straight, dates women but displays distinct female characteristics in interactions, moods, hobbies etc. I see no controversy raised surrounding this character. He gets some good natured teasing from his friends, but accepts himself as he is, as do they. A perfect reflection of how it is for most of us, with a friend such as this.
Ask any grade school teacher or go out on Halloween, you’ll see young boys in tutus, wearing pink shoes to school, going dressed as Wonder Woman and so on endlessly. And all of it being 100% supported by their parents, teachers, mates, and neighbours. It’s all over Facebook, twitter, Imgur, etc. So forgive me for thinking you’re going on and on about defining yourself by some entirely unique new category is an unnecessary splitting of hairs of no interest to anyone but self obsessed you. I’m sorry, but the world seems to have already moved on from the base position you’re assuming. Times have already changed, look around.
You claim what you feel is different from what other boys or girls feel, it’s much more intense, etc. How could you possibly know that with the certainty you assert it? Clearly you can only know what you feel, not what others feel. But that’s the whole basis of your self absorption it seems. That everything is so much more intense for you, ergo you’re so different from everyone else.
Sorry, I’m just not seeing it. Partly because you’re always being really, really wordy but not very clear about what you’re actually trying to communicate. And having used innumerable words, without making yourself clear to any of us, bespeaks more an infatuation with your own voice than a desire to actually communicate with others, clearly and concisely.
That said, I wish you Good Luck with your struggle, nonetheless.
I would be OK with being called “she”, but I don’t have an active wish to get everyone to do so. I’m also OK with being called “he”. They’re both misleading and wrong (because they are artifacts of a binary world consisting of male men and female women, they designate sex and gender). And I personally never got into the whole “call me ‘xe’, everyone please learn my pronouns and don’t call me ‘he’ or ‘she’, it’s ‘xe’” thing. No offense to those who do. I really just don’t care.
No, I think I used your post to sort of soapbox a bit, even though the soapbox speech was not directed towards you. Please accept my apologies for not being clearer in my reply.
“They” is steadily gaining traction - if it becomes more mainstreamed and popularly used, would you consider that one?
Ok, here’s my question.
Do you think that most people conflate what you’ve divided up into sexual identity and gender expression: ie, when most people say “Hey, I was talking to “that guy” over there…” do you think they specifically mean “Hey I was talking to “that masculine man” over there” vs “Hey I was talking to “that masculine man AND/OR that feminine man” over there” ?
In other words, do you feel like all male-identified words in general use are specifically exclusive of you; excluding what you feel are your specific combination of gender identity and physical sex?
Because I really don’t think they are. I think that if I’m just talking about people in general, and I say “woman” or “that girl over there” that it doesn’t matter if that girl is in combat boots and GI Jane buzzcut, or in a frilly pink dress, or is cross-dressing, or is trans or is agender. She’s still presenting as a girl (as far as I can tell at the moment) and so that’s what pronoun or descriptor I’m going to use. There’s no presupposition or speculation going on as to what’s inside their heads or what their bodies physically are.
Likewise there’s an adorable commercial for honey that features 3 bears (gay guys) and I don’t feel like I need to specify (or inquire) as to whether they’re genderly or sexually “ACTUALLY MALE” (in quotes because I’m still not sure what you are thinking of has to exist in order to be “actually male” in the ways you don’t think you are) in order to think of them and call them “guys.” If I found out one of them was trans, I’d be thrilled for them to be getting that sort of advertising job, but it wouldn’t change anything. If one of them was you, and they wear skirts and negotiate friendships when they’re not on set, they’re still a guy.
I feel like you are excluding yourself from a category because you feel like you have to match the category 100% in order for it to be a “fit” for you. I don’t think ANYONE matches 100% with the ur-stereotype of ANY of their “categories” (ethnicity, gender, sexuality) in part because sections of those ur-stereptypes are often directly contradictory if you pay them too much attention.
If you say you’re a male girl, then for me, that’s all that’s necessary for YOU to be a male girl. But if you’re trying to create “male girlness” as a wholesale category for other people to use also, you’ve got to have something more specific to offer as far as the criteria for people fitting in THAT box as opposed to the boxes they already have available to choose from.
[quote=“Lasciel, post:213, topic:799626”]
“They” is steadily gaining traction - if it becomes more mainstreamed and popularly used, would you consider that one?
[/quote
I’m OK with “they”, also. I really don’t care about pronouns, personally.
No. (Good question, though). I feel that some of the time people use the same term to mean “male bodied person” and their use of it would include me, and at other times use the very same term to mean “masculine male-bodied person” and their use of it erases the possibility of people like me.
I read some of the feminine traits to my husband. He laughed and said wow sounds a little like me. But he doesn’t identify as a woman even if he likes shopping, had long hair, prefers to be in a relationship, has mostly female friends… A lot of the traits don’t match him at all. A lot don’t match me. Very few match me, in fact.
You say you want to be experienced as the listener, but when you got irritated complaints about using female as a noun, you stopped… but your comment here was hell if i know why that would irritate. Maybe something about deep space nine? Maybe all of the complaints you heard specifically referenced the tv show. Which would be weird, but possible. Did you seek to understand the issue?
In the list you’re referring to, I began with:
I began with that because it looked a lot like a “gotcha” question. Whatever I put, someone (or several someones) were going to say “Ha, that doesn’t ‘make you a girl’, lots of male people have that characteristic / I’m a women and your list doesn’t fit me so it doesn’t ‘make you a girl’”.
The self-descrip is not a list of “reasons why you folks should think of me as a woman or girl”. The self-descrip is an attempt to shed light on why it was likely that I came to think of myself that way, and why other people often tended to see me that way.
There’s only one thing on the list of “reasons why you folks should think of me as a woman or girl”: it’s how I identify.
I don’t have to justify it. No trans woman has to justify it. I don’t need to be a trans woman in order to justify it.
I understood it to be contextual, that it had something to do with “the kind of people who use female as a noun”. It wasn’t explained very well. It was recent.
I’m still learning about it. Yes, my aside about not understanding why the hell it’s insulting was a bit pissy. The complaining person conveyed an annoyed frustration with me for not already knowing how insulting that was, to be called a “female”. I suppose I’m still partly hmmphing about that and partly annoyed because it’s a perfect term for me to use (if it weren’t thought to be insulting) because I’m constantly wanting to refer to people to refer specifically to their physical sex without invoking notions of their femininity or masculinity or how they identify. Oh well, “female person” it is.
I don’t consider myself cisgender. I consider myself cis-SEX. I am the sex that people perceive me to be.
But there’s an ocean’s worth of stuff that they attach to that (everything other than the raw fact of the biological plumbing) and in my case most of that is very wrong and how I am – the person I am – conforms much more closely to the stuff they’d attach to folks with female biological parts.
If your experience differs —if you find that no, almost no one attaches a damn thing or makes any assumptions about who and how you are, or how your behavior should best be interpreted, based on your sex, that’s nice but it has no bearing on the fact that that is not my experience. (Although it was definitely a lot thicker and intense when I was a junior high kid, adults get less of it, but it’s still there).
You are reading my blog about my attempts to make a social issue of that. (As a phenomenon, as something that plural numbers of people experience, and that we experience it as alienating). I use myself as an example — which is typical and good, people are best off speaking from their own experience and making it personal.
If you consider yourself a woman, that’s fine. But you specifically said that you would be interested in hearing about men who share some of those feminine interests. My husband doesn’t post here, so i shared on his behalf.
It wasn’t intended as a gotcha but rather another set of data points to consider.
I’m sorry your preferred usage is upsetting to some women. Feel free to be pissy about it if you like. But of you are trying to be the empathetic understanding listener, maybe a dash less dismissive would serve you well.
Yeah, and sorry for snapping at you… at this point I’m all oh so ready to think someone is contradicting me and telling me there’s nothing feminine about me etc, even when they’re not doing that. Thanks!
For what it’s worth, his use of “female” doesn’t bug me at all.
It’s the whole “girl” thing that I find off-putting and I’m kind of surprised no one has brought this up. What does it mean for anyone over the age of 21 to consider themselves a “male girl” rather than “male woman”? What distinction is being made here that we’re supposed to not only accept, but also understand? This is just one more layer that the OP adamantly foists on his audience, and as monstro points out, it appears to needlessly complicate things.
Put aside the fact that in the year 2017, women still have to deal with infantilizing social conventions that can make it hard to be taken seriously. Like being casually referred to as a “girl” when you are a grown ass person. The other thing is that, in our sexist society, stereotypically feminine traits are also viewed as immature, silly, fluffy, and whimsical. In other words, traits that might better be ascribed to a juvenile–a girl–not a true adult. Unintentionally or not, AHunter3 encourages this infantilized view towards femininity by promoting “male girl” as a category for feminine men like himself.
I do have to wonder if AHunter3’s gender takes a juvenile form because his concept of femininity hasn’t matured past the point at which he started associating himself with girls. Which may explain why women do not see him as “one of them”. I wouldn’t closely identify with a “female girl” either, especially if that female girl was in their 40’s.