I have a dark skinned transgendered friend who has been called both tranny and nigger. She rates them as equal. Both words are usually hate-filled and make her think violence will soon follow.
I would say that like nigger or faggot the words can be friendly when used between the right people. Unless you’re a dear dear friend, that person is not you.
My point was that the only time I’ve heard the word tranny used is in a highly sexualizing environment, an environment that welcomes all kind of shocking language. I acknowledged that otherwise it’s not an appropriate term. Putting down the so called " weekenders", drag queens, or anyone else as “not real” seems odd to me. People express themselves in myriad ways. No one person’s expression of their gender is superior over another’s.
I’ll add to this and specify that gays and lesbians have no more “right” or cred to use any offensive term toward transsexuals than anyone else. None whatsoever. I know that people outside of the community are accustomed to lumping “LGBT” together, and I do it sometimes too, in certain contexts, but there is a clear and permanent divide between the “T” as in “transsexual” and the “LGB.”
It’s worth noting that every single instance I’ve had an anti-transgender slur directed at me in real life, it’s been by a gay male or lesbian. I have never yet had a cisgender straight person do such to me. Online, it’s mostly cisgender straight people who attack me. Odd.
It’s a worthless and exploitative film IMO. He felt “Hey, I’m gay, that means I understand everything about trangender people…” which makes about as much sense as “no, I don’t know how to fly a 787, but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express…”
Bingo, my trans friends of color say the same thing. They also tell me that deliberate misgendering hurts as much as “nigger” or “dirty Mexican.”
The OP explicitly asks about the use of “tranny” to refer to transsexual people, not others who might fall under the broader term transgender.
ETA: In response to the OP, I see that Wikipedia says “Some drag performers, transvestites, and people in the gay community, have embraced the pornographically-derived term *tranny *to describe drag queens or people who engage in transvestism or cross-dressing, however this term is widely considered offensive if applied to transsexual people.” That seems consistent with what people have been saying in this thread.
You put the words “not real” in quotes when quoting me, yet I never used such, nor said such in any roundabout terms. That seems a little bit deceptive, and a little disrespectful to me.
Let’s recap what was actually posted, where the words “not real” do not appear.
[QUOTE=Una Persson]
Recall that very often people who cisgender folks think are transsexuals are really just crossdressers who call themselves “transgender” because it’s an umbrella term and they, by most definitions, fall under it. In my experience, they are the primarily the ones who use the word “tranny.” It doesn’t bother them as much, because after they’re done with hanging out at the bar and being loud and drunk while playing dress-up flirty-games, they can go home and take off all their makeup and wigs and clothes and walk away from it all.
Whereas I and most of my friends are 100% out and permanent as women. We’re not playing “dress up,” we’re living our lives in our new gender, every second of every day. I have never met a transsexual woman in person who thought the word “tranny” was funny or amusing. At best, it elicits an eye roll.
[/QUOTE]
They use the word “tranny” because they don’t consider themselves transsexuals, and most of them, IME, don’t even consider themselves transgender. They have no implicit “right” to use the word.
[QUOTE=Girlundone]
No one person’s expression of their gender is superior over another’s.
[/QUOTE]
We’re not talking about who is “superior,” we’re recognizing that gender is a continuum, and some people are further along it than others. Example: the crossdressers I know are into drag and sex games. They know they are men. They admit they are men, inside. They also tell me they don’t want to be a woman. Their “gender expression” is limited to playing dress-up.
Contrast - I’m an intersex transwoman. I not only have both female and male parts from birth, I’ve taken tremendous pains to change my body, my legal status, my social status, etc. and to be out 100% of the time in my career, with my family, and friends. I put my entire life on the line to finally be who I am.
With all due respect, my gender expression is not “superior”, and I’m not “better” than my crossdressing friends, but my gender expression is several orders of magnitude different from theirs.
Hopefully that is clearer.
Ain’t gonna happen anymore. I was trying to fix an FMX a while ago and came up with some pretty interesting sites.
I’d swap out for a C6, but my god! Have you Googled that? :eek:
ha, I’m certainly aware of the word in that context and also in the 60’s through early 80’s it was also slang or abbreviation for a Transistor Radio.
Changing the meaning of words over time is a real bugger. I mean, being told your grandfather was at the pub, most likely sitting at the bar with his tranny,a beer and the form guide would give you a whole different visual.
Now that’s a weird fetish!
I don’t think that it would be an automatic insult to use the term tranny. There’s probably a manual about it somewhere. Society’s mores are shifting on the matter at different speeds.
Since we have a forum here, and some folks that know something about these matters, I’ve got a friend situation I wouldn’t mind a little advice on.
It’s always been my experience that if someone is transitioning to the opposite sex, the best thing you can do is to refer to them by their chosen name, gender pronouns, etc. Even if they don’t “look” very transitioned. That has always been my hard-and-fast rule in the past. A friend tells me they’re a guy, from that point onwards they’re a guy to me. I might even gently correct other people on their behalf, if I think it’ll smooth their path a bit.
But what do you do, as a friend, when someone is not so easily labeled? Let’s call her Marcy. Now, I mainly know Marcy from online. She always portrays herself as female, and never discusses any LGBT issues. However, I have met Marcy in person a time or three. In person, it’s Mark, who apparently portrays as male.
Am I supposed to pretend that I don’t know Marcy and Mark are the same person?
Originally I figured she’d pick one or the other and we could all have a good laugh eventually over how confusing it must have been for her friends. But the situation has been dragging on for close to 5 years now, and I must assume at this point that it is what it is.
Is that a thing? To be “out” as one gender online, and “out” as the other in real life?
And although I would consider us pretty good friends, it feels pretty massively weird that she won’t discuss this with me. And I’m loathe to bring it up now after so much time has passed.
Any advice from the experts?
So just to clarify (because I am easily confused these days), while I get that “tranny” as short for “transgender/transexual” is offensive and used as such, is it also commonly used as shorthand for “transvestite” and does it carry the same level of opprobrium?
I mean, I’m not planning on using it in any context but it’s useful to understand how other people are using it.
Also, because I am a Very Silly Person who likes musicals my first reaction to the word “tranny” is to automatically fill in “Clang, clang, clang, went the…” in front of it.
Meet Me In St. Louis! I’ve seen it 3 times over the years at the Muny Theater in St. Louis.
A good practice.
Don’t worry, this is a common situation.
Usually there is a reason someone is one gender online and another in real life. The primary reason is that they are not ready, scared, or uncertain about taking their transition to the meatspace level. Sometimes (and note, I am NOT speaking at all about your friend in particular) they are very gender confused and just “trying out” acting female online, and really don’t feel female overall. And in some cases (again, not speaking about your friend) they’re a fraud or a loon. I’ve met scores online.
Thankfully, the best thing to do is the same for all categories: ask them. Tell them you don’t want to risk making them uncomfortable, and just want to make sure you do the right thing. That’s all. But if you still don’t know the answer, then the default is to address them as the gender/name they present as for that situation. A closeted transgender woman who appears in boy mode does so because she has legitimate reasons. Safety, embarrassment, privacy, whatever.
Sometimes if it’s a good friend of mine, and I know what they prefer, I will call them by their girl name etc. so long as there are no third parties present. Then when someone else is near, I either skip names/pronouns, or call them their boy name. Yes, it can be a little confusing if that happens.
It’s a good question. I think this is a case where there is a lot of uncertainty. However, it should be noted that the term “transvestite” is falling very rapidly out of use, and typically only used by older crossdressers and in older medical texts. There are reasons for this, mainly related to the stigma of the word “transvestite” being used to describe a crossdresser who dresses primarily out of sexual fetish. In fact, I don’t know of a single crossdresser IRL who uses the term “transvestite”, let alone “tranny,” and I really think within 5-10 years you will only find it in books.