Poll: Gender recognition offence

[Secondhand Revenant]

Trans-related stuff has always been a difficult topic for me.

Honestly, I do feel the pronoun thing can get out of hand. Sure, you want to be called this and refered to in a certain way, but sometimes people demand too much. I could want to be called the sexiest man alive, but if I asked people to refer to me that way, they likely wouldn't. Maybe that's a bad analogy, but whatever.

Also, I find sometimes transfolk are a bit too stingy about this. I hear stories that make it hard for me to get on board with this pronoun thing, like when someone says 'I'm a woman, but I identify as a man, yet I still dress like a woman and you have to use male pronouns' and it's like come on, you're not making this easy for us!

Like I said, it's a difficult topic.

What exactly makes it so difficult? Sure maybe stumble some but I'm not seeing the real difficulty in there

 

[Mister K]

Unless it's a dumb fucking teen. Then discourage any form of physical transformation, because kids are dumb and don't know better. I used to be a kid, thought that I am the smartest guy in the world and know all the answers. Phew, good thing I grew out of this sad asshole.

I really hate this line of thought, because it's abjectly wrong. If you can identify gender dysphoria in a child, or a teenager and it's something they chronically express, then it's not a phase, or something they're going to grow out of. I started transition as a teen and it made at least being my self a lot easier. Trans youth have a much smaller likelihood of attempting suicide if they're allowed to transition. Where as your stance leads to situations like what what happened with Leelah Alcorn.

OK, you hate it, I get it and accept it. However for every Leelah Alcorn (whoever he or she is) there is at least (in my experience) 2 or 3 people that just want to feel special. Some do it knowingly, some don't. That is why, in my opinion, telling a teen that their feelings are wrong is, well, wrong, but, for example, a parent should persuade his or her child to wait untill they've got some more life experience. Don't say no, just ask them to wait a bit. Untill they are legal, for example (what is such age in the coutry with the majority of self-identity problems, 21?).

Sometimes we do things that we regret later and in case of (forgot the proper name) sex-changing plastic surgery you may not be able to reverse the consequences of your decisions so easily as, say, Justin Bieber tatoo. Also, it cots more.

 

[Mister K]

If they're being a dick about it, fuck with them. Someone demands their own special pronoun, just say you self-identify as someone who doesn't say that pronoun. That way when they demand you use their pronoun, you can call them disrespectful and bigoted towards your life choices.

Cool idea. It should truly be applied only to assholes though.

 

[Pseudonym]

That being said, if a person you are in contact with, be it a friend, a colleague or a relative tells you that they are thinking of changing gender, or something like that, I think one should be understanding and accepting of it. You are not obliged to agree with it, but accept it. Unless it's a dumb fucking teen. Then discourage any form of physical transformation, because kids are dumb and don't know better. I used to be a kid, thought that I am the smartest guy in the world and know all the answers. Phew, good thing I grew out of this sad asshole.

Your bad behaviour and poor estimation of your own capabilities is your own fault and does not justify bigotry against an entire age group.

on topic: the poll question is very confusing. It has an unneccesary negative in it and I don't know what external care means in this context. Besides that, I tend to agree with Secondhand Revenant:

That is a terrible excuse. I'm sorry but "Well this cognitive bias is affecting me if you're not nice enough to me!" is just not genuine. If you can recognize it then get over it. It just screams "Poor me" when people do that.

It's a ridiculous excuse. Use logic to determine its worth. If you refuse then don't expect people to pander to your feelings to get you to accept something. You're not so important people should tolerate that attitude.

Mistakes can happen, and sometimes people overreact to them. If a transgender person overreacts to a mistake it shouldn't be taken as an argument against the desires of transgender people to be identified with this or that pronoun though. If you are unwilling to think clearly about these issues because a transgender person overreacted about it this one time, that is on you for being knowingly unreasonable.

To be honest I'd like it if somebodies gender identity mattered less altogether to us, but since that isn't going to happen anytime soon we might as well be polite about dealing with our weird attitudes about the matter. There is a part in Hobbes leviathan where he says that things would be altogether better if people weren't so easily upset about their pride and such but since they are, it is also better to be careful not to hurt other peoples feelings, regardless. I think that is a sensible approach to the matter.

 

[Politrukk]

You don't think there's anything wrong with being trans, you just won't give them the basic respect of using the correct pronoun?

Yikes.

I got snapped at today because we didn't have any coffee lids in stock. Now, I find nothing wrong with middle aged white guys, but from now on I'm going to call them all "Wankers". I'm done respecting... sorry, I can't go on. Laughing too hard.

Didn't know trans people had a new pronoun, thought normal trans people would prefer to be called the gender they chose.

Man wants to be a woman, fine , he's a she now.
Woman wants to be a man, fine , she's a he now.

with these people you can also see it from first glance what they wish to be/be called.

If you look like a woman and you snap at the sound of someone even considering that you are indeed a woman? and then demanding respect afterwards? I don't get it.

 

[9tailedflame]

I really don't see a problem with assuming that someone's gender "matches up" to their sex. They don't have a right to get mad at you for that. If they correct you and then you're a dick about it, then you're being a dick. If they get mad at you just for referring to them that way without knowledge, they're being a dick. I use they a lot for people, and it's a pretty convenient catch-all.

 

[Politrukk]

I am going to be making a bunch of broad statements here about trans people according to my general experience interacting with and being one. I am putting this up here so I don't have to begin every statement with "In my experience."

Alright people,

We've had the entire tumblr/facebook/reddit/internet gender thing going for a while and people feel they should be accepted or have become more open about their newfangled gender roles.

Even if I were to accept a thing such as genderfluid-non binary-preffered pronouns they/them.
(something I recently encountered in a person)

I find it difficult to understand how I should find out that someone who has the physical aspects and aesthetic of a female (Breasts,bodily shape,wears makeup,dresses feminine)
Is gender fluid/non-binary.

Let alone accept that I should be shamed and hated for reffering to them as a "she".

I have never seen a trans person fly off the handle for a misgendering unless it is obvious, context gives a strong clue that you should be very careful about that sort of thing, or someone insists on continuing to misgender them despite repeated requests. I am sure it happens, but it is extremely rare. The reason why is because if we got mad every time we were misgendered we would have time for nothing else.

Most trans gender people I know see a misgendering by a stranger as a guiltless mistake. It is understandable that it would happen, but it does need to be corrected.

What I have seen is a person misgendering someone, they are corrected, but they wont let it go. All they have to do is say "Ok, got it." and everything is fine. But they don't do that, and instead say things like "How was I supposed to know?" and "But you look exactly like a woman, why shouldn't I call you she?" or similar.

Trans people have very little tolerance for that kind of stuff from random people. If people can't just be accepting right off the cuff they are generally not worth interacting with. Not necessarily because they are bad people, but because it just isn't worth the time and energy to teach them. Trans people generally don't go out in the world saying "Gee, I really hope I get to spend my entire day explaining the most simple concepts of gender acceptance over and over to people who repeatedly insist I am being oversensitive and unreasonable!"

Aside from that I would like to ask what you guys think of this so called they/them pronoun, to me that feels like a ridiculous way to refer to a singular person, could they not have chosen a better form for it?

Many attempts have been made to create alternate gender pronouns. Ze and hir are among the most popular of such alternate pronouns. All such attempts have been viciously mocked and attacked. They/them has proven to be the most easily accepted. It is a hell of a lot easier to get someone to call you "them" and you are far less likely to be publicly shamed for attempting to do so.

I can tell you this: Anything you ever bring up about pronouns trans people have considered in far, far greater detail.

Stuff like this absolutely drives me away from accepting these kind of people as normal.

See, this right here is a major problem. If a minor matter of language is going to drive you away from accepting trans people as normal people then you almost certainly have deeper problems, which is strongly supported by your initial statements of "the entire tumblr/facebook/reddit/internet gender thing" and "newfangled gender roles". That right there is, frankly, quite insulting and betrays ignorance on your part. That ignorance is probably bleeding through to your behavior in ways you don't understand and therefore don't prevent. It is really, really easy to detect ignorance.

When did this "torrent of slurs and shaming" come? Did you say "she" one time and immediately the person was throwing hateful slurs at you? Or was it when you kept on trying to talk to them despite them clearly not wanting to interact with you?

Honestly in this incident the person just threw off every intent of conversation because I had said "she", they did not look anything else then a she.

No person has any obligation to talk to you. Did you try to continue the interaction after they had made it clear they did not want to interact with you? If so, why?

"They" made it clear "they" wished to further the interaction, would not leave me alone afterwards, would not stand for it untill the entire world knew I misgendered "them" going as far as to carry the conversation to and stalk my twitter for it whilst citing every tweet in the thereafter twitter part of the conversation with a cry for help or outrage and referring to me in manners of disrespect themselves.

(The only thing that bothers me about they/them is that it also implies plural Xhe/hir was it? those may look a bit strange but I can totally get behind, but that wasn't what put me off it was this persons reaction.)


So yeah it started from a normal conversation with a person I barely knew and turned into a barrage of online hate.

 

[Mister K]

Its a good thing that the established medical procedures for transgender minors encapsulate no permanent procedures or changes.

Enlighten me then, in which way exactly are trassexual operations done so that there is no permanent change? I am genuinely curious, because I lack the knowledge about modern surgery and surgery overall.

Your bad behaviour and poor estimation of your own capabilities is your own fault and does not justify bigotry against an entire age group.

I did not mean it like that. I was just making a joke about myself. However, I've witnesed many people of such age (teenagers) acting as if they actually know every answer to every question. I can see the same today in the same age group. Same applies to some young adults. Juvenile maximalism is just a normal part of teenage psychology, no need to get triggered.

 

[Nailzzz]

I don't care if people assume I'm male or female, as long as they refer to me with the pronoun "Master". Anything else is disrespectful.

 

[MrFalconfly]

So do you wait until you see somebody's genitals before you refer to them with any particular sort of pronouns?

You've got it wrong. It's DNA. They wait for the lab results to come back first. Genitals can be deceiving.

Oh and here I thought Homo Sapiens Sapiens was a sexually dimorphic species, with clear physical identifiers for sex.

Being serious though, I guess most people's issue with Tumblr genders, is that it clashes with the "looks like a duck, smells like a duck, tastes like a duck, is a duck" logic of identification based on sex.

Gender might've had a chance of being a useful tool for identification if it was fixed to something clinical (like for example "sex", which is binary, in that it's either XX or XY, and if it's neither then we have a genetic recombination error which could cause problems), but it isn't.

 

[Mister K]

Double post, somehow.

 

[Skatologist]

Its a good thing that the established medical procedures for transgender minors encapsulate no permanent procedures or changes.

Enlighten me then, in which way exactly are trassexual operations done so that there is no permanent change?

Not all transitioning needs sex reassignment surgery. Trans kids and teens are often put on these things called "puberty blockers".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puberty_blocker

 

[happyninja42]

Trans-related stuff has always been a difficult topic for me.

Honestly, I do feel the pronoun thing can get out of hand. Sure, you want to be called this and refered to in a certain way, but sometimes people demand too much. I could want to be called the sexiest man alive, but if I asked people to refer to me that way, they likely wouldn't. Maybe that's a bad analogy, but whatever.

Also, I find sometimes transfolk are a bit too stingy about this. I hear stories that make it hard for me to get on board with this pronoun thing, like when someone says 'I'm a woman, but I identify as a man, yet I still dress like a woman and you have to use male pronouns' and it's like come on, you're not making this easy for us!

Like I said, it's a difficult topic.

What exactly makes it so difficult? Sure maybe stumble some but I'm not seeing the real difficulty in there

I think the person is referring to instances where the person who's gender is uncertain gets offended at you for using the wrong pronoun? That's the only scenario to me that makes the statement make sense. If you are exhibiting traits of both genders, either anatomically or by dress, it's not unreasonable to assume people might make the wrong guess on how you (a person they've only just met) want to be addressed. If you get angry/offended at them for what is likely an honest mistake, then the outcry I think is fairly unwarranted.

But I'd like to think that people who would fall into this category (displaying common traits of both genders, either in dress or body or both), would be reasonable enough to understand that we're not psychic, and can only guess with 50% accuracy what you might want to be recognized as.

But we're discussing scenarios where either side of this hypothetical situation react in what might be considered an irrational way. Either by demanding to call the person the gender they think should apply to the person "You're a guy, I don't care if you think you're a woman, I'm calling you sir." or the other party reacting "How dare you call me sir?! I'm a woman!! I'm offended at your insensitivity!" type scenarios. And really, in either of those scenarios, trying to come up with a rational conclusion seems fruitless to me. As irrationality is already in play. All these examples seem to imply (to me anyway), a first contact situation. It's not like this is referring to cases where the two people have known each other for years or anything (though it could happen I guess). So yeah, to me it's just like any other social slipup humans make when making quick assessments of people they just made, and inserting those assessments into their conversation without confirming them. Other examples would be like "Oh my gosh! When is your baby due?!" "...I'm not pregnant"

"Hey! How's your girlfriend doing?" "...she cheated on me with my best friend and they left with my dog" or any number of similar social goofs we do. To me, this is no different from those. The only thing in question is how we react to it. If both parties can act civilly and just move on "Actually I would prefer if you call me miss, or maam, not sir." "Oh, ok then, sorry about that. How can I help you maam?" Then is there really an issue to discuss in that situation?

 

[Mister K]

Its a good thing that the established medical procedures for transgender minors encapsulate no permanent procedures or changes.

Enlighten me then, in which way exactly are trassexual operations done so that there is no permanent change?

Not all transitioning needs sex reassignment surgery. Trans kids and teens are often put on these things called "puberty blockers".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puberty_blocker

Ooooh, hormone suppression. I didn't even think about that. Thanks.

 

[F-I-D-O]

My only issue with the They/They're "pronouns" is plurals.
I don't like saying "They are doing xyz" if it's one person.
And "They is doing xyz" just feels dirty in a purely grammatical manner. At least the various Xim/Xir type wording works with normal sentence structure. If someone wants the They pronoun family, I'll just try extra hard to remember their name to make everyone happier.

Most sensible people don't get annoyed if you use the wrong pronouns when first meeting/hanging out with them. It's unreasonable to assume everyone in the world knows how everyone else identifies internally. If you continue to do so after a few meetings or do it out of spite because "well, you look like a s/he" that's different. Personally, I don't spend much more time with people if I get chewed out for a basic wording misunderstanding. I treat it similarly as nicknames and pronunciation. If I mispronounce a name or someone wants to be called something else, I'd much rather be told.

Whenever I'm speaking in pronouns, I'm concerned about the sex, not your arbitrarily redefined gender.

So do you wait until you see somebody's genitals before you refer to them with any particular sort of pronouns?

Well, those must be some interesting workplace/school orientation events.

 

[Secondhand Revenant]

Trans-related stuff has always been a difficult topic for me.

Honestly, I do feel the pronoun thing can get out of hand. Sure, you want to be called this and refered to in a certain way, but sometimes people demand too much. I could want to be called the sexiest man alive, but if I asked people to refer to me that way, they likely wouldn't. Maybe that's a bad analogy, but whatever.

Also, I find sometimes transfolk are a bit too stingy about this. I hear stories that make it hard for me to get on board with this pronoun thing, like when someone says 'I'm a woman, but I identify as a man, yet I still dress like a woman and you have to use male pronouns' and it's like come on, you're not making this easy for us!

Like I said, it's a difficult topic.

What exactly makes it so difficult? Sure maybe stumble some but I'm not seeing the real difficulty in there

I think the person is referring to instances where the person who's gender is uncertain gets offended at you for using the wrong pronoun? That's the only scenario to me that makes the statement make sense. If you are exhibiting traits of both genders, either anatomically or by dress, it's not unreasonable to assume people might make the wrong guess on how you (a person they've only just met) want to be addressed. If you get angry/offended at them for what is likely an honest mistake, then the outcry I think is fairly unwarranted.

But I'd like to think that people who would fall into this category (displaying common traits of both genders, either in dress or body or both), would be reasonable enough to understand that we're not psychic, and can only guess with 50% accuracy what you might want to be recognized as.

But we're discussing scenarios where either side of this hypothetical situation react in what might be considered an irrational way. Either by demanding to call the person the gender they think should apply to the person "You're a guy, I don't care if you think you're a woman, I'm calling you sir." or the other party reacting "How dare you call me sir?! I'm a woman!! I'm offended at your insensitivity!" type scenarios. And really, in either of those scenarios, trying to come up with a rational conclusion seems fruitless to me. As irrationality is already in play. All these examples seem to imply (to me anyway), a first contact situation. It's not like this is referring to cases where the two people have known each other for years or anything (though it could happen I guess). So yeah, to me it's just like any other social slipup humans make when making quick assessments of people they just made, and inserting those assessments into their conversation without confirming them. Other examples would be like "Oh my gosh! When is your baby due?!" "...I'm not pregnant"

"Hey! How's your girlfriend doing?" "...she cheated on me with my best friend and they left with my dog" or any number of similar social goofs we do. To me, this is no different from those. The only thing in question is how we react to it. If both parties can act civilly and just move on "Actually I would prefer if you call me miss, or maam, not sir." "Oh, ok then, sorry about that. How can I help you maam?" Then is there really an issue to discuss in that situation?

I was reading spire's post as being about someone asking to be addressed a certain way when they don't give the typical appearance we expect of that gender. With emphasis on appearance not matching it, not on mistaken first impressions

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

OK, you hate it, I get it and accept it. However for every Leelah Alcorn (whoever he or she is) there is at least (in my experience) 2 or 3 people that just want to feel special.

Considering that's what people were indeed saying the same thing about homosexuals, even on these forums, even as recently as 5 years ago, as @MarsAtlas pointed out, that sounds pretty flimsey. Besides that it requires a therapist's referral to get any treatments related to transition. Most therapists can easily weed out the "just want to feel special" types. Heck just an explanation of treatment is enough to put most off.

Some do it knowingly, some don't. That is why, in my opinion, telling a teen that their feelings are wrong is, well, wrong, but, for example, a parent should persuade his or her child to wait untill they've got some more life experience. Don't say no, just ask them to wait a bit. Untill they are legal, for example (what is such age in the coutry with the majority of self-identity problems, 21?).

Sometimes we do things that we regret later and in case of (forgot the proper name) sex-changing plastic surgery you may not be able to reverse the consequences of your decisions so easily as, say, Justin Bieber tatoo. Also, it cots more.

I'm not sure with most places, but in the US one would have to be at least 18 for sexual reassignment surgery. Still that's a treatment that comes way down the line, most professionals only will give a referral for it after a year living totally as the target gender. That and it's a treatment that comes after hormone replacement therapy starts, not before. But I'll clarify below

Its a good thing that the established medical procedures for transgender minors encapsulate no permanent procedures or changes.

Enlighten me then, in which way exactly are trassexual operations done so that there is no permanent change? I am sincerely curious, because I lack the knowledge about modern surgery and surgery overall.

Most of transition doesn't require surgery at all. For younger transgender youth the best option is usually hormone blockers to delay puberty. A trans teen might get hormone replacement therapy(HRT). Neither of those things are permanent physical changes. Generally speaking a therapist isn't going to give a referral to a teen for surgical procedures unless it's abundantly obvious their gender dysphoria is severe enough to warrant such things. Also transition includes things like "going full time" as it's known in trans terms, meaning presenting as the gender one identifies as at all times. Transition is not just a bottom surgery and a boob job then calling it done.

 

[Proto Taco]

As a trans person myself, I also find the whole 'they them' thing a bit hard to swallow. For one because it completely messes up your attempts to communicate things relating-to or about them in a coherent manner that makes sense in english. If gender-fluidity/non-binary/etc is a genuine thing, they, as a group, need to sit down and agree on a pronoun that doesn't make forming sentences about them nearly impossible. 'They' and 'them' as a reference to a singular person is highly contextual and you really can't just suddenly start using those words as pronouns without completely shifting your communication style to accommodate it. With other trans people it's easy; he or she, and the only real hard part is remembering to match the pronouns up if they're still in transition or just aren't fortunate enough to blend in after they transition.

So I completely understand why so many people find this frustrating.

For two, trans people just need to be more understanding of where other people are coming from. It's considered incredibly insulting in western culture to refer to someone by the wrong gender. I can only imagine it's not so different in many other cultures. So people refer to you by whatever gender seems most obvious not because they're oppressing anyone, but because they're trying their hardest, if subconsciously, to be respectful. Trans people need to understand that when they correct someone's use of their pronouns it's a social stab, the person they're calling on the pronouns feels defensive about it on a very visceral level because it makes them feel bad on a very visceral level.

So trans people need to extend the same understanding they expect and keep dialogue open with the people around them instead of shutting them down with snitty corrections every few seconds. They need to let people know that they understand why the person used the wrong pronouns but that they would prefer the person use a different one.

Being trans isn't something you're entitled to, it's something you deal with and the people around you have to deal with it too.

 

[Qizx]

If someone looks, dresses, and acts like a male I will call them a he.
If someone looks, dresses, and acts like a female I will call them a she.

If that person gets pissed off at me and says "Excuse my I'm a tri-gendered pyrofox," I will laugh and walk away and never speak to them again.

I am quite an open minded person but if someone wants to call themselves a gender fluid asexual pansexual otherkin I will laugh so hard and never look back.