A lot of American didn’t understand why people (from the UK mainly) where offended by the term “Paki” when Dubya used it. It’s not an offensive term in the States was the agruement used. The thread about it was probably eaten by the recent unpleasentness
Just because you find something offensive does not make it so. I’ve been to Thailand twice and the term is universal and not offensive in the slightest.
The difference between Mary and a man is…? Tits, make-up, and shoes. That’s exactly why I resent the claim that she actually is a woman. Oh, and he also has some wish to have been born a woman? It’s impossible to fulfill that wish. People are born male, female, or something in between, and no amount of surgery, drugs, and make-up changes that. Can you change your race too? Can you decide not to be gay?
jayjay: Fake hormones make fake tits. Drag is done playfully - I’m not expected to take it seriously. If a man wants to dress that way, fine. But if he’s telling me those clothes make him a woman, then I’m going to get pissed off.
Gender (as opposed to sex) has nothing to do with your chromosomes. It’s not the clothes that make a transsexual a woman (or man, depending). It’s the brain. It’s the mind. Gender is a mental trait.
For instance, there are several transsexuals who go to the bar I frequent. For some reason, I’ve been hit on by a majority of them. And I decline every time, because by their own beliefs and feelings, they are women and I’m not attracted to women. As far as I’m concerned, whether they’ve been snipped and molded or not, they are the gender they believe they are.
And if they haven’t been implanted or sewn into a bra, they’re not fake.
You sound very hostile to the whole phenomenon of transsexuality. Is this coming from a feminist “How dare they intrude on us?” POV or is it just bigoted ignorance?
jayjay
The breasts do not naturally occur - they are, by definition, artificial.
I do not really wish to be having a Pit discussion on this issue, but since we’re here, I suppose I can’t avoid you accusing me of being an ignorant bigot. I knew about the gender/sex distinction by the age of 12 (hence my reference to my “indoctrination”). I think the problem here is that our culture has only two categories for both sex and gender, which, as you may know, is not universal. I’m willing to accept that Mary is not fully a man, but saying she is a woman offends me (as a “feminist”). The majority of people are attracted to those whose gender and sex correspond. Heterosexual men (such as Bob) are attracted to women, not those who fall somewhere in between. Just as gay men are attracted to men, not females wearing pants.
No. First of all, from Hemlock’s story it sounded more like Mary was the target of Bob’s flirtation than the other way around. Secondly, if Mary has no interest in sleeping with Bob (and as she has refused him thus far, we have no reason to believe otherwise), why should the state or condition of her genitals be any of his concern? If she were planning to have sex with him the decent thing for her to do would be to warn him of anything unusual beforehand, but otherwise her body is her business, not his.
A dear friend of mine has learned the hard way that some men don’t want to kiss and cuddle someone who’s black. She’s a light-skinned, straight-haired woman who is usually mistaken for a Latina or Filipina, and has sometimes been treated very badly by men once they realize their mistake. She had at least one boyfriend break up with her as soon as he saw a photo of her parents. She’s had others who were perfectly happy to get physical with her, but then refused to be seen in public with her or even invite her into their homes.
If you happened to see my friend at a bar flirting with a friend of yours who you knew to be racist, would you feel the need to send him an anonymous e-mail saying “Hey, that chick’s black”? Do you think such an act would be morally defensible? Would it serve any purpose other than potentially humiliating my friend?
Of course, one difference between my friend and Mary is that my friend self-identifies as black and speaks about the subject openly. It seems unlikely that Mary self-identifies as a male. However, if Hemlock is right in that all Mary’s friends and everyone who frequents the bar know that Mary has a penis, perhaps Mary has (not unreasonably) assumed that Bob knows too. As open as my friend is, she doesn’t greet people with “Hi, I’m black!” – not because she’s trying to be deceptive but because she thinks that the person she’s talking to either knows already or has no reason to care. Perhaps Mary’s failure to spell things out for Bob (if she has in fact failed to do so) has a similar cause.
Is my friend an adult and sober? If so, then I would let him live his own life. That’s part of me being an adult: letting other adults be adults. Since very few of my friends drink (and none to to point of intoxication), I can’t see as this rule of thumb being a bad one.
Well, since you didn’t see it–you heard about it (see below for Rules Regarding Rumours)–you don’t know if it’s even true. You do know, or should, that it actually isn’t any of your business since you weren’t part of the relationship. I’m assuming here that you and your friend and your friend’s significant other aren’t in some kinky trio.
I’m damn glad I don’t have friends like you. Fucking around on assumptions and rumours CAUSES trouble–it doesn’t cure trouble.
Nowhere did I say that.
AFAIK, neither Exprix nor I am a hypocrite. You, on the other hand, certainly are acting like a jerk regarding this. Do yourself a favour and follow Ann Landers/Dear Abby’s advice: butt out!
The fact that you made the cavalier use of the word race to describe someone with the words “tall for her race.” It has no bearing. Either you’re prejudiced against whatever the person’s race is or against people of that person’s particular stature, or maybe against both. That you don’t see it as irrelevant reinforces the fact that you base some of your actions on prejudice.
Well, thanks for the compliment. This might surprise you but sometimes the simple solutions are the best.
Let me relate a true story to you. This happened when I was in the 9th grade back in Arlington County, Virginia.
I heard a rumour about a friend. Like a fool/jerk/jackass/moron/asshole/busybody, I confronted my friend about said rumour.
He took me to the side and said
[quote]
Evidently nobody’s taught you how to deal with gossip so here are my Rules Regarding Rumours. If you follow them, you will never have problems with gossip:
[ul][li]Do not start rumour.[]Do not listen to rumour.[]Do not repeat rumour.[]Do not verify rumour.[]DO NOT DO RUMOUR.[/ul][/li][/quote]
We were fast friends for years after that. FTR, this happened almost 30 years ago and from that day on, I have always remembered his advice.
And of course Mary has done nothiing to encourage him.
If she is making it clear to HIM that in no way, no how will she ever have sex with him, I doubt he’d be sticking around. (I assume this from Hemlock’s description of Bob.) So, if this is the case, it sort of sounds like Mary is “leading Bob on”, and permitting him to assume that a sexual relationship is in the future, when in fact there is no hope of that. In other words, she is misleading him. Whether she is misleading him about sex, or her penis, it’s still misleading.
I don’t think it’s fair to lead a guy (or woman) on by flirting and snuggling and kissing with someone, allowing them to believe that there is a sexual “future” in the relationship, when in fact there is zero chance of that.
In such a case, I’d take your friend aside, and tell her “Hey, that guy has been racist in the past. I don’t know about him.”
Your friend is exactly as “advertised”. A lovely young woman. She can’t predict or know what will turn some guys off. It could be her racial heritage with this guy, it could be her religion with another guy, it could be her shoe size with yet another guy. She’s not trying to HIDE anything, unlike Mary.
And you can’t tell me that Mary isn’t trying to hide something significant from Bob. You can’t convince me that Mary is completely oblivious that many straight men have specific and stong feelings about “kissing and cuddling” women with penises. Unlike your friend, who has no reason to anticipate that many guys will have a problem with her racial heritage, her shoe size, or her religion, Mary MUST know how many men will feel about her penis.
With the case of Mary and Bob, Mary seems to be behaving in a deceitful manner. I would agree that it would be better for Mary to tell Bob, or, it would be better for Hemlock to talk to Mary about his concerns about Bob’s ignorance. However, since Mary has already proven herself to be deceitful, who says that she won’t lie to Hemlock, and say that “Oh yeah, Bob knows” when in fact he doesn’t?
I suppose that’s possible. But even so, BOB SHOULD BE TOLD BY SOMEONE. And, if Mary is assuming he already knows, why is it that the rest of the bar assumes he doesn’t know? I don’t know about this theory…hmmm…
Not to question the motives of anyone involved, and with full recognition that “things” are always complicated…
Several key questions:
IMO there’s an enormous difference between “onlookers wisdom” and responsiblity. Everything looks so damned obvious when it’s someone else’s life. Trouble is, there are infinitely subtle shadings of hope, experience, purely individual responses NOBODY outside can possibly calculate. Given those infinite chasms of self, no onlooker can accurately gauge outcomes for others.
This is a squishy response, because it’s a hard issue: direct involvement or not? But seems to me there’s a line somewhere–and it involves responsiblity. Who owns human secrets, and who’s willing to take on the real, human impact for disclosing them? Sometimes secrets are gifts, to be shared sparingly, as a trust.
Veb
Yes I understood. Unless I have specific reasons not to, I normally grant the SO of a friend the same respect I have for the friend. So whether the friend tells me something, the SO tells me something, or the friend tells me what the SO told him or her, I think this is a far cry from picking up a rumor in a bar as has been suggested. Obviously others may feel differently; this just so happens to be the way I treat my friends.
No, it doesn’t mean that at all, or at least, it doesn’t have to mean that.
If I notice that someone has “unusually large hands for their gender and frame”, am I being sexist?
If I notice that someone has “wide nostrils for their race”, am I a bigot? Because, you know, certain races DO tend to have certain characteristics, and my art teacher wrote about it in his book. Is it bigotry or racism to notice this?
When you are notice that someone is “tall” for a female (of “their race”), you might combine that information with other “visual cues” you get from observing a person, and come to the conclusion that they may have been born a male. Is this racism, or just observation? How is this any different than noticing that someone has “large hands for their gender”? Or, they have a “less of a facial slope for their race”.
Sure, these are all generalizations, but the appearance of human beings are BASED on generalizations. That’s why they write anatomy books and figure drawing books, describing how many “heads tall” an average person is, or how many “eyes across” their face is. What is so terrible about this? Art tutorials will give “generalizations” on the placement of features on a person. Are such sites “racist” for making these generalizations?
We all notice this stuff. Artists study this kind of thing, and write books about it.
Unless you think all artists are bigoted racists for noticing…
So because they use the term, its OK for you to do the same? This is just like saying I can call African-Americans “niggers” because they call themselves that.
Can I, Biggirl?
I think the idea of talking to MARY is good, depending on how you go about it. But only if you are 100% certain that she is transexual. And AFAIC, you only have that knowledge third-hand, which I don’t think is reliable enough, no matter where you heard it from.
Hmmmm.
Just focusing on the tell/not tell…let’s start with three principals:
I believe in loyalty to friends.
I believe that loyalty requires one, as far as is humanly possibly, to stay the hell out of one’s friends’ other relationships.
I believe that we should not violate the privacy of others without damn good reason.
Applying these three: embarrassment isn’t good enough a reason to violate principals 2 and 3.
Even if my friend will be really, really embarrassed.
Part of being a grown-up is learning to live with embarrassment. If your friend hasn’t managed to do so, well, that’s his problem. He doesn’t deserve any sympathy.
And yes, it is a violation of her privacy. She hasn’t told you - that means as far as the rest of the world is concerned, you don’t know.
Even if everyone “knows,” you don’t know.
Even if your friend is making a false assumptions, you don’t know.
Even if the she may be leading your friend on, you don’t know.
You have no right to tell someone that which you do not know, unless doing so will preventing a reasonably serious physical or financial injury. Psychic injury? Tough. We all have psychic injuries.
Right, because being a racist that doesn’t want to make out with a black person is the same as not wanting to make out with a GUY right? Get a freaking clue will you.
I have to wonder why Hemlock’s assuming Bob’s the only one in the bar that doesn’t know this ‘extremely open’ Transsexual is, in fact, an ‘extremely open’ Transsexual…
If they are cuddling and/or kissing, then I think it is clear that whatever issues her body might have become his business, or rather, it becomes in his best interest to know. It doesn’t matter “But mom, he started it!” Who cares? If he had known the state of her genitalia, he wouldn’t have acted. So in this way, Bob has a right to know. But…
…But I don’t think Mary is wrong for not telling. I understand her motivation and sympathize entirely. And the fact that Bob did, in fact, move in on Mary (“but mom, he did it first!”) makes me retract my comment that she should have told by now. But I also understand why Hemlock felt compelled to tell. I don’t think I’ll budge on that one. :shrug: He was acting in his friend’s interests. I’d never shit on a guy for that.
For fuck’s sake.:rolleyes:
OxyMoron, that was extremely well put.
Esprix
chula
That Mary is a woman.
“Resent” it? Why would you waste your time resenting it? What harm has Mary’s or any transgendered person’s self-identification ever done you, as a so-called “feminist,” as a woman-born-woman or as a human being?
Parts of our culture have more than two categories, including male, female, pre-op MTF, pre-op FTM, post-op MTF, post-op FTM, non-op MTF and FTM, intersexed and I’m sure there are others which I’m leaving out. It’s exactly the attitude of people like you, who demand that it be impossible to move from one category to another, that impedes wider acceptance of these categories and the people who fall into them.
Since race is a social construct, yes actually you can.
You can certainly choose to define yourself as something other than gay. Most heterosexuals do.
A woman who slags other women because they call themselves women…very interesting definition of feminism you have there.
Still wondering whether I as a man have the right to decide whether someone’s a man or not. I notice you neglected to answer that question, possibly because in retrospect you recognize the absurdity of saying that members of one sex are qualified to determine who is a member of their own sex but not who is a member of the other.
Also still wondering if you’ve passed your chromosomal purity test…
Not that I really want to get into this nice little exchange that you have going with chula. But from what Hemlock has told us, I sincerely doubt that Bob would agree, if he were told the truth.
Maybe you (and many others) think someone who has a penis is a woman. Alas, many other people would not agree with you. Them’s the facts. Repeating over and over that “Mary is a woman” won’t make everyone agree with you, (especially since Mary has a penis).
Uh, could you clarify this a little more? I have been led to believe that certain races are more vulnerable to certain illnesses. (One of my friends, a white male, caught an illness that he was told was most common among black females, and then there’s the “fair, fat and 40” line that applies to gallstones and fat, white 40 year olds.) Apparently not all these diseases appear to be exclusive to race, but they decidedly are more common.
So, if race is a just a “social construct”, shouldn’t someone be able to LESSEN their chances to get these diseases if they “change” their race? (i.e.: “I’ve changed my race! Therefore, I’ll have less of a chance of getting that disease now!”) I mean, that makes no sense.
I am not sure I’m following you. What point are you trying to make, exactly?