Yikes, I always cringe when I see words like “known statistics”. Ain’t no such animal.
Having said that, I do have deep sympathy for transsexuals. I have no doubt that they face an enormous psychological and societal burdon that most of the rest of us never have to face.
By the way most murders of either transsexual or non-transsexual folks are never covered in the media. Not sure exactly what your point is there…
What am I, the thought police? I don’t care what Jane thinks, I care about how she treats other people.
Are asking if I was serious in saying that it is best if people with genital piercings or some other unusual or unexpected genital characteristic mention this to their partners before tearing off their underwear? Yes, I do seriously think it’s a good idea. When it comes to sex it is best to avoid surprising your partners in a way they might find unpleasant. It’s just the nice thing to do. Of course, if someone forgot or didn’t think it was important I wouldn’t call them deceptive or anything. At worst they’d be inconsiderate. I’d be hesitant to judge anyone too harshly for something like this unless the characteristic they failed to mention was potentially dangerous, like an STD.
Avalongod, would you buy that they are presumably valid statistics, on the assumption that both Ava and her source are accurately reporting them and that the survey was fairly administered? And that they set a minimum on the problem facing such people?
Further, your comment above on “redefining male and female to fit a few exceptions” is one I’d take issue with. Until and unless this society decides to adopt casual public nudity as a standard practice, I will recognize men from women by hairstyles, jewelry, clothing, name, subtle and not-so-subtle distinctions of body form, and the other clues one normally uses – and refer to the person as the sex he or she “presents” as. Only if I need to have some knowledge of the person’s genital physiology or genetic makeup for some arcane reason or because I am getting signals that that person wishes me as a sex partner and I might be interested in responding, would the sort of distinction you posit as necessary be a problem.
If Tina dresses as a girl, has breasts, wears a feminine hairstyle, and generally behaves appropriately for a female sex role, in any given social situation, I would be justified and expected to treat her as a woman; the fact that she may have a penis tucked away under that clothing is something I will never have occasion to know.
And exactly where did I say that this person defined all transgendered persons?
Talk about a straw man…
What nonsense - that is exactly what this is about. Araujo wanted to define his/her gender as a woman with a penis. The person in my cite wants to define his/her gender as a hermaphrodite with un-ambiguously male genitalia and chromatic structures.
Which is a repetition of my question.
Lamia says that catsix is being disrespectful:
Why the double standard? Araujo wants to be identified as a woman, regardless of his/her penis. This person wants to be identified as a hermaphrodite, regardless of his/her penis.
Why do we regard one as s/he wishes, and not the other? Should we so regard both? Neither?
Mgtman recommends psychological counseling for people in this situation:
Is this disrespectful? Especially in light of the statistics provided on violence against the transgendered!
I am looking for a guideline. How far do we have to play along with someone else’s ideas, and at what point do we point out that they are divorced from reality? Is it when they seek a Pap smear for a non-existent cervix? Is it when they want to use the women’s rest room, when they have testicles?
Is it when they want to have sex with people who would not want to have sex with them, if all the facts were known?
Regards,
Shodan
If the individual in question wants to identify as intersexed (hermaphrodite is not the current preferred term) then he should be free to. And there’s no “regardless of his penis” about it. An intersexed person can have a penis. Indeed, the term “hermaphrodite” as used by you and the article suggests a person with a penis. That is one reason why the term is not preferred by the intersexed community; it wrongly implies that they all have penises when many of them do not.
But anyway, he can’t have a pap smear if he doesn’t have a cervix. Such a thing is physically impossible. It is unreasonable of him to insist that a doctor do something physically impossible, and it suggests some sort of problem probably best dealt with through counselling.
This isn’t complicated and I think you’re being disingenuous by pretending that it is, or that this particular case is even relevant to the discussion at hand. I had hoped that perhaps you might have something of merit left to say, but I think this last twist shows that you’re just determined to drag the thread out pointlessly until everyone else gives up in frustration. That is what I’m about to do, but it’s not because your little “News of the Weird” article proves anything other than the fact that you’ll grasp at any pathetic straw to support your case and there’s no hope of anyone (not even the ever-patient *Polycarp or real-live transsexuals) making you see reason on this issue.
According to the article, the person in question wants to be known as a hermaphrodite, not intersexed.
How disrespectful of you to override his/her personal preferences.
Regards,
Shodan
Well…that’s just it, without having some information on the methodology of the study I can’t assume that Ava or her source are accurate. Very often “special interest groups” from both sides of the aisle will twist their research methodology in order to support a preexisting hypothesis.
For instance, in what was reported I see not mention of a control group. There might very well be one, I just don’t see it mentioned. “Physical assault” sounds bad, but exactly how was that defined in the study. Did that mean beaten to the point of having visible injuries that required medical attention. Or other forms of “simple battery” to use the legal term. If the latter is the definition (assuming there even was an operational definition)…then it might very well be that 60% of everyone has experienced one of those. Does being beaten up on the playground at age 10 count as having been the victim of a “physical assault?”
I’m not saying these are definately problems with this study, but we were not given enough information to assess them. We were merely told that they are “known statistics” which raises a warning bell in my head.
Am I questioning that transgendered individuals have things tough in many ways, not at all. Am I questioning the validity of those stats…until I have more information, absolutely.
As to your other point…is it possible for people to dress in such as way as to fool the markers we look for in order to determine male or female sex. Of course. Nonetheless, I don’t think that warrants a total redefinition of the concept.
“And exactly where did I say that this person defined all transgendered persons? Talk about a straw man…”
–Alright, then, Shodan, you explain to me why you brought up one obviously confused or emotionally unbalanced transgendered person. What was your point, exactly, if not to make all of us look nuts? I could as easily bring up Ted Bundy and say, “He was straight and a guy–and he loved to kill!” So, what would that prove?
With all this talk of straw men around here, I’m looking around for the Wizard of Oz.
Yes, you’re right. It (I’m not sure whether to use he or she) was just sitting there, minding their own business, when a bunch of crazy rednecks started beating the fuck out of it due to the fear of it’s gender identity!
Just like you didn’t declare his way of looking at it invalid?
:rolleyes:
The intolerance of tolerance…
Woaaaah. Sorry. Ignore my posts. I got this confused with another thread that was only 15 or so posts long. I didn’t mean to respond to some things in a thread that happened 5 pages ago.
Sorry.
“It (I’m not sure whether to use he or she) was just sitting there, minding their own business, when a bunch of crazy rednecks started beating the fuck out of it due to the fear of it’s gender identity!”
–Sadly, that does happen. And it will continue to happen as long as people like you refer to people like me as “it.”
Well, if you could trouble yourself to read my posts, you would see things like this:
**
As far as I can tell, Araujo was just as “confused or emotionally unbalanced” as this person who claims the “hermaphrodite-but-with-unambiguously-male-genitalia” gender. Araujo apparently flunked out of high school, was enrolled in an alternative high school but “rarely attended”, and enjoyed dressing up like a woman and having sex with people who obviously would not have consented to do so if they knew s/he had a package.
Leave aside all this stuff about gender and women who have penises and Pap smears for men. Araujo was doing something breathtakingly stupid. S/he was having sex with people who s/he obviously didn’t know at all well, who obviously did not know him/her at all well, and who were violent assholes. How could this course of action possibly turn out well? Sooner or later, Araujo was going to run into someone who was not going to be too understanding about his/her gender identity issues - someone who was not going to shrug his shoulders and say, “Gee, I got blown by a boy. Guess the joke sure is on me!”
No, this did not justify his/her murder. What it would have justified is for someone with an IQ in double digits to grab Araujo by the shoulders and shake the snot out of the little half-wit and yell, “Stop acting like a moron! People don’t like when you play sick games on them!”
But just because the immature, irresponsible little twit in this case seems to have been an immature, irresponsible little twit in a dress, we are all supposed to solemnly shake our heads and pretend that all our notions of honesty should be thrown out the window because some one who was looking for trouble found it.
No, s/he didn’t deserve to die for it. People don’t deserve to die if they forget to look both ways before they cross the street. But sometimes it works out that way. That doesn’t excuse the driver who hits you, or the murderers who beat you to death with a shovel. But it also doesn’t mean you should be eulogized as if you had done something noble.
Regards,
Shodan
The only reason to believe that Araujo was doing any of that is if you believe the story the murderers put forth, Shodan.
You may not be trying to excuse the murderers, but you certainly seem to want to trust them to make Araujo look worse.
Shodan, you’ve set a new bar for selective quoting and twisting the statements of your fellow posters. Congratulations.
Steven
I don’t think anyone here is saying that Araujo was a saint, or even someone with common sense. (It seems she was flirting with danger and she had been a friend of mine, I probably would have shaken her and said, “You idiot! Going out with random idiots and having sex with them on a whim is dangerous! Especially with the situation being what it is-I’m afraid you’re going to get yourself seriously hurt or even killed!”)
But that does NOT justify the intense bigotry I’ve seen. And Senor Beef referring to a person as “it” is one of the most insulting things I’ve witnessed in this thread. Eve, ignore him. It’s THEM, not you.
Nice personal attack. Equating me with the people who’d go out and kill people for that reason. And that seems irrelevant to this, since, as I said, that wasn’t the case, but they were provoked by deceptive behavior.
I noted in my post that I was trying to side-step the whole issue by using “it”. Take offense if you want. I didn’t feel like saying “she”, and saying “he” seemed like it’d be taken with more offense. Oh well.
Oh, and on second thought, I should’ve used “them” as a generic pronoun. I didn’t mean anything deragatory by “it”, and I specifically said “I don’t know whether to use he or she” to try to be clear on that - but I forgot I was a hateful, evil person and that was expected of me.
If you want to use “it” as a statement of fact then don’t be pissy when other people state facts that you find offensive, SenorBeef. The only difference between your attitude and the rednecks is (presumably) that you wouldn’t commit any violent act against Arajuo.