For my health issues, i tend to be very private with real life acquaintances. If some random person came up and inquired about my personal, private health concerns, i would be taken aback.
Your mileage obviously varies. But i notice you are talking about loved ones, whereas the original discussion was about work colleagues. Betty in accounting shouldn’t randomly ask me how my colonscopy was.
Give them extremely graphic, vivid, and irrelevant detail.
“You ever try to shove a garden hose through a fence with thorns and poison ivy growing on it, and dogs barking on the other side? Yeah, it wasn’t anything like that.”
Here’s a scenario.
Suppose two people you know were having a conversation. You aren’t present but your name comes up during the conversation.
And one of these people, out of the blue, says: “Oh, speaking of Shodan, that reminds that I wanted to tell you that Shodan’s wife had an affair five years ago. It was a big deal and they were talking about getting a divorce. But they patched things up and kept their marriage going with some counseling. Anyway, the reason I’m telling you this is because it happened five years ago and you’re only known Shodan for a couple of years. And I know he doesn’t talk about it so I’m telling you instead.”
How would you feel in such a situation? Your friend isn’t saying you did anything wrong. It wasn’t a secret because everyone who knew you five years ago was aware of the situation. But it was something in your life you wanted to leave in the past. And it’s certainly none of your friend’s business.
Also, Miss Manners:
I would like to add that there is non-zero chance that the fellow who is hearing about all this may be a radical religious type who believes that adulturers should be stoned.
It seems to me that the cost of not telling people is way less than the potential cost of telling someone who may have a strongly, possibly violently negative reaction. And it’s not always easy to tell who will let live and who will lash out.
I do have transgender friends, some of whom whom I’ve known at various stages of transition. It’s not funny, and it’s not idle gossip. Just getting basic human treatment is too much to ask in some places. One of my friends barely ever leaves her house because of the harassment she’s gotten. It’s heartbreaking, because she’s a wonderful person.
What the hell?
We’ve actually got a couple of the board’s lefties quoting those former objects of scorn Dear Abby and Miss Manners now?
Maybe there’s hope after all!
Let me state upfront that I am wholeheartedly on the side of respecting another’s privacy. I think taking it upon one’s self to “inform” others of this event is wrong. Period.
That being said, I don’t think the cancer comparison is apt at all. Having cancer is a very bad thing, a horrible fate that most wouldn’t wish on anyone. Transitioning to become the full person one has always known themselves to be is a very good thing, a joyous occurrence worthy of celebration. One is a tragedy and the other is decidedly not. I think a better comparison is one of remission vs transition. Having cancer was the bad thing that was a part of Joe’s life and news of it’s remission is the good thing. Likewise, being forced to live a lie as the wrong gender was the bad thing that was part of Joan’s life and news of her transition is the good thing.
The common factor in these two scenarios is that both are deeply personal and private. In both scenarios, the person should be allowed to share their good news in whatever way they themselves feel is best.
The funny thing is… I’m old enough to remember when cancer was mentioned in hushed whispers, if at all, and having news of the diagnosis get out could result in an entire family being shunned by society.
I hope one day someone being transgender would be seen as no more threatening/tragic/odd than, say, being born with congenital heart problems that were later corrected with surgery.
We’re not there yet.
So don’t drop the “I knew Jane back she was John” into casual conversation.
Right, that’s why I included this as the last sentence of my post.
Where did you get the idea that we “lefties” consider “Dear Abby” and “Miss Manners” to be “objects of scorn”?
I, for one, have been extolling Miss Manners’ wisdom and social-justice-championing on these boards for at least the past fifteen years.
You appear to be getting us real-life liberals mixed up with the straw liberals you keep hearing about in right-wing media, who all hate good manners and considerate behavior because they’re unwashed long-haired drug-addled hippies getting abortions on Daddy’s trust fund while majoring in Social Hollywood Gender Comparative Religion Queer Literature Studies on their iPhones and participating in latte-sipping violent protests with false rape accusations at Obergreen College.
My but you do go on. :rolleyes:
No, I don’t know how many times I have to say this but I don’t watch or listen to ‘right-wing media’. I get most of my ideas of what liberals think by what liberals say and do. On this very board I’ve been castigated numerous times for favoring mannerliness and for my disdain for today’s crass and vulgar public societal behavior. On one occasion I was told that manners are just a way for rich people to make poor people feel bad. :rolleyes:
If lefties cared about manners they wouldn’t have been spitting on soldiers returning from Vietnam in the 60s and they wouldn’t be found now having their children hold up “Fuck Donald Trump” signs at protests.
And I doubt very seriously that Miss Manners ever in her life engaged in social justice ‘championing’ the way most of us see it in practice.
It’s not that liberals don’t value politeness. It’s that nobody buys that “everyone was nicer in the 50s” line of bullshit you’re trying to peddle.
First one never happened. Second one is render pretty irrelevant in the face of Donald Trump himself.
Dear Abby: About four months ago, the house across the street was sold to a “father and son” — or so we thought. We later learned it was an older man about 50 and a young fellow about 24. This was a respectable neighborhood before this “odd couple” moved in. They have all sorts of strange-looking company. Men who look like women, women who look like men, blacks, whites, Indians. Yesterday I even saw two nuns go in there!.. Abby, these weirdos are wrecking our property values! How can we improve the quality of this once-respectable neighborhood? —Up In Arms
Dear UP: You could move.
Cite?
Or signs that say “Don’t Re-Nig in 2012”. See – I can pull up anecdotes too!
FFS, how the hell is saying, “don’t reveal details of peoples’ private lives without their permission” a “social justice championing”, or whatever? I thought that was just common sense.
That you’ll figure out that real world liberals aren’t like the lefties in your imagination?
I don’t have a lot of hope but keep working on it.
I’m not dismissing the fact that some people are bitterly prejudiced against transgendered people and violence is a real possibility. But I do feel that it’s an outlier in reactions.
I wouldn’t identify a person as transgendered primarily for the more common reason that it’s rude rather than because it’s dangerous.
Well, I can’t argue that it’s also rude, and that’s a perfectly good reason not to do it.
It’s actually interesting to search the archives to see Abby giving advice on how to become a trans ally, or Miss Manners on how to respond to being deadnamed. ( Abby recommends you educate yourself and try the pflag resources, Miss Manners suggests you decline the misgendered invite with your current name, not the deadname it was addressed to)
It most definitely is rude. It could be dangerous or have real world consequences, but hopefully that is unlikely. But it is rude, no question.