Think about it–if you grew up cisgendered you had all those formative years to figure out how to dress and behave and you had cohorts to set you straight when your fashion sense veered too far out of line. If you transition into a different gender at an advanced age you don’t have all that experience of being that gender and don’t have all that accumulated knowledge of how to behave and dress and present yourself and of course you’re going to default to the most obvious examples available in media. It can be kinda awkward to an onlooker to watch the process, wondering if a kindly meant little chat on the subject would be well received and we all have to decide how we handle it on a case by case basis but in the long run it sorts itself out. I mean, I know women who’ve been women from birth who’re so annoyingly, childishly girly that it sets my teeth on edge so I can’t be TOO upset about a transwoman who’s just working out the kinks when some clueless ciswomen never really get it figured out.
Whenever I hear a transwoman say this I think "which ciswoman are they comparing with their hands?" Because I have very broad hands, as wide as most people six inches taller than me, and I am definitely a ciswoman.
I can’t help but think this is part of the whole comparing transwomen to a feminine ideal ciswoman are neither expected to meet nor can meet - no one can meet it. Much like all women are held to impossible standards in our society.
Because it’s your body you see what you consider the flaws in it. Most of the rest of us don’t notice that, not in the least because we’re preoccupied with our own perceived flaws.
I’d prefer you not use the term “cis” which unfortunately has turned into a pejorative. I was asked to stop using “tranny”- and except when referring to a cars transmission, I have done so. Reasonable request.
I dont care what bathroom you use, and in fact if bathroom facilities are limited I’d prefer them to be unisex.
Live your life, have fun, dont be scared. Be beautiful.
The notoriously bigoted homophobe Martina Navratilova used to agree with you, but she has thankfully evolved and is now sufficiently Woke.
(meaning that after she went on record with this tidbit of common sense that 20 short years ago, 99.95% of all humans on Earth would have wholeheartedly agreed with, she got a panicked call from her agent telling her that she better change her tune toot sweet, as the Transgendered now outrank lesbians in the Oppression Olympics)
You’d think so, but it isn’t. For starters, I’m bad with names; also, it feels really unnatural to use a person’s given name several times when referring to him/her/they. Sooner or later I have to use a referral word. And the referrald word “they” is really not common usage yet here in the Netherlands.
But I also find I have a distinctive mode of talking to men that differs how I (feel when I) talk to women. Clearly gay men or women, yet another mode. I also have different modes of talking to people I perceive to be of different political colors, degrees of education, social subgroup…but the underlaying distinction is always firstly male of female, and adressing someone who is not clearly either throws off my whole social compass.
I’m more then willing to create a new mode of adressing non-cisgendered people, but first I have to know that is what they self-identify with, so I don’t make the other error.
I’ve never ever seen these in the Netherlands, where I live. Such a button would certainly solve my problem.
I wouldn’t mind wearing one of those myself, since I’ve been calling people “they” since before transgender issues were even on people’s radars, since it’s easier to just call all individuals and groups “they” by default than to keep track of gender and quantity. I would gladly have people call me “they” if it meant not having to keep track of that any more (even though I guess I identify as male – as a cisgender person I never really had to think about it that much.)
I have a question for you. I can’t decide whether to characterize it as a serious question or as morbid curiosity, but I would like you to answer it.
How would you feel if you heard a child molester say those exact words?
This post’s implicit comparison of transgender people with child molesters is hateful and disgusting.
OK, but the media provides many more examples of “business casual” than the Punky Brewster aesthetic. I’m certainly not a fashion plate myself and I’ve suffered my fair share of scornful looks about my clothing choices. But I really don’t think it takes years to figure out that red sparkly Doc Marten boots don’t fit in a workplace setting, unless you’re just trying to be the office oddball.
My coworker has another affectation that bothers me. She calls everyone “hon”. I totally understand that this is a term of endearment common in the transgendered community, and I respect that. But being called “hon” is something I can only tolerate from a very small number of people–all of whom are elderly enough to have earned that privilege. A 20-something man or woman calling me “hon” will almost always elicit an eye roll from me. I’m down for extra compassion and sympathy, but that doesn’t mean stuff still doesn’t work a nerve.
I have several trans friends, and some non-binary and gender-nonconforming friends. One close friend is a guy who spent a few years exploring whether he is really a trans woman, and ultimately decided he identifies as a non-gender-conforming man. He wears women’s clothing. And when he first really came out, he wore really cute little-girl clothes. A gay friend commented “if he wants to wear women’s clothes, can’t he at least wear stylish women’s clothes?” But you know what, he wore the clothes that 3 year old girls delight in. Because he didn’t get to do that when he was three. So he’s doing it now.
That was a couple of years ago, and while he still wears some frilly little-girl things, a lot of his wardrobe is now ordinary grown-up women’s clothing. I don’t think he delights in it as much as the fluff, but it’s good enough.
Anyway, my advice is to cut her some slack. Most women got to wear that stuff as much as they wanted when they were three. Your co-worker didn’t. And wearing it in public is an import part of being able to own that stuff.
If you were a manager and you had transman employee who came to work wearing sports jerseys and basketball sneakers while everyone else dressed in typical business-casual attire per the employee handbook, would you cut him some slack? Or would you worry that by cutting him slack, you’re holding him to a different standard than you would everyone else?
I’m not talking about someone wearing crazy outfits in their leisure, because people should be free to dress however they want on their own time. I’m talking about someone not conforming to workplace dress code. I’m totally down for getting rid of workplace dress codes. But I’m not OK with giving some people a break on following the dress code based on what may or may not have happened in their childhood and holding everyone else to it based on assumptions about their childhood.
If his outfit was a violation of the written dress code, I would tell him, and ask him to comply. If it was just oddly styled, I’d ignore it, unless he had a lot of interaction with clients.
Seriously, what the hell?
That isn’t even saying “I AM sick of transgender people and this is what I want you to do.” That’s at least a question and an answer, even if the answer is mean or stupid. What he said is just pointless, mean spirited thread shitting.
Well, trans people can be just as annoying as cis people and nobody’s so amazing that everyone in the world likes them so I wouldn’t worry TOO hard about finding your trans coworker irritating. Sounds like it’s less a trans thing than just an annoying person thing and the dress issue is something their direct supervisor will need to address if necessary.
I have an acquaintance who was super fucking annoying even before she decided to transition and she’s super fucking annoying now–I mean, to the point that, in private and speaking to good friends who also know her I will, once in a while, intentionally misgender her to convey just HOW annoying I find her. It’s mean of me but once in a while my irritation with her just gets away from me. I do try to find better ways of being insulting about her incredibly annoying ways though because misgendering her is such a cheap shot it makes me feel bad to be so fucking inept.
I think that’s really taking it a little too far. As annoyed as you may be, misgendering is more than just a cheap shot, it’s overly personal and nasty. Even if it’s behind closed doors.
If I hated a black co-worker - because he was an asshole, not because he was black - I wouldn’t say “that black bastard” or whatever, not behind closed doors, not in my head, not anywhere.
Accepting for a moment—just for the sake of argument—that comparison on its own terms. We don’t insist that pedophiles stop existing; just that they stop doing things that harm others. The question now is what does a transgender person do that harms others?
Do any of these things harm others? Letting them choose their names, their pronouns, their gender identities, their manner of dress and hairstyle and makeup, the restroom they feel comfortable in? Letting them be honest and open about their identities and choices, like anyone else is allowed?
The answer we are coming to as a society is no, these things don’t harm others, and allowing them brings benefits to transgender people.
We still believe that anyone sexually assaulting minors is harmful, regardless of whether that person identifies as a pedophile.
So there’s no inherent contradiction here.
As a hopefully-sympathetic hopefully-ally, I think the OP makes a valuable argument. There are zillions of threads on reddit along the lines of “change my view - there are only two genders” or the equivalent, and the response I always want to type up – but it just seems so exhausting, and the thread usually already has hundreds of posts – is along the lines of:
Well, I disagree with you. But, even if you were right, even if you absolutely 100% convinced me that the facts are on your side, to the extent that there are facts, well, then, what next? There are still transmen and transwomen living in our world. What do you propose to do about them? Is the world a better place if either laws or societally-enforced-mores require that someone who is probably-XY-and-had-a-penis-before-surgery inform people of that at all times, and go by “him” and “he” and “man”? What precise laws or policies do you propose? Laws against wearing the “wrong” clothes? Or changing your name? What, precisely, are your proposals? And how will they make the world a better and happier and juster and fairer place?
I feel like that’s not a bad strategy, though. I feel like the bathroom issue, for example, is a big one (since you have to use the bathroom all the time) and if this at least convinced the phobes to move on that issue, hey, that’s a win. I’m not saying they would wait their turn for full rights, but it will take time and that step would be a good one.
Showing conventionally attractive passing binary transpeople works in some regards as a kind of reductio ad absurdum, but it’s such a common argument almost anybody who has ever tuned into the conversation has heard it. A lot of people have in fact, settled on the answer “only let them in if they pass”, some have even gone so far as to apply this to people like gender non-conforming cis-identifying women e.g. butch lesbians. (Note, I am in no way endorsing this, I’m just pointing out that it’s a viewpoint I’ve seen a lot of people arrive at).
It also only applies to a very narrow band of issues (restrooms, locker rooms, other areas where you don’t really interact with people). The argument remains somewhat unaddressed in arenas like rape survivor or eating disorder support groups targeted towards women. Most TERFs I’ve seen have moved the issue to these arenas because it’s much easier for them to construct a narrative about “shared experience from childhood” and somethingsomething #biotruths, and just showing someone who’s conventionally passing doesn’t act as a quick and dirty shutdown.
I gotta back up the others here, Flyer. This is hateful and you should avoid making such comparisons in the future.