Poll: Gender recognition offence

[Politrukk]

I don't honestly believe anyone truly transgender could possibly be offended, the glory of being offended by anything and everything is a privilege of those who declare themselves transwhatever because it makes them a special little snowflake. Trans is the new emo which was the new goth ad nauseum.

Yeah, because people like to choose to be in a class that puts them at a far higher risk of being assaulted, raped, and murdered. You know because people like having that dark gremlin in their head, called gender dysphoria, which constantly assaults ones psyche, until transition. Then gender dysphoria will still pop up and ruin your day. Sure people like to go through that so they can then get verbally assaulted by people actively refuse to understand. This exact same thing was said about people choosing to be gay, it was just as much bullshit there as it is here.

Did you just state trans people get raped more often than others(and murdered).

Do you have statistics to back up that claim?

I'm sorry, I can imagine the abuse, but outright stating they get killed more often?

 

[9tailedflame]

For fuck sake. The whole concept of gender is inane anyway, and this is coming from a cis guy.
All it really is, is a few stereotypes people decided are important for some reason. It's like identifying as black if you eat fried chicken, or identifying as white if you drive a hybrid. it's really just offensive and absurd when you actually start to think about it.

Just be who you are. Let he and she just refer to your sex, not your gender, or do away with them entirely and replace it with a single new referential, i don't give a crap. It's frustrating watching these ridiculous discussions when it basically boils down to people arguing over how we should stereotype people.

 

[JimB]

It's frustrating watching these ridiculous discussions when it basically boils down to people arguing over how we should stereotype people.

I disagree in the strongest possible terms that respecting someone's self-chosen identity (or perhaps it would be more accurate to say the identity they self-advocate for) is stereotyping them. It's respecting their wishes. Humans are social animals and we require the context of our environment to establish ourselves against through millions of subtle comparisons and contrasts, and I don't think it's at all reasonable to ask us to abandon our mammalian social programming in order to keep you personally from getting irritated by a conversation that you are the one who made the active choice to participate in.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

Except it wont be an innocent mistake. I will refer to people as male or female, dress how you want to be referred to ... dress as a guy and you're getting him and he, dress as a lady and you're getting she and her, nothing else to it. If you want one of these made up words to be applied to you then you're not going to like me 'cos I'm not going to utter them.

"Them", "they", "they're", and "their" are all perfectly workable singular gender neutral pronouns too, despite common belief otherwise. So if you're staunchly against the more exotic pronouns, you can still meet a person who wants gender neutral pronouns halfway that way. If they won't meet you halfway back, then they're not worth dealing with, unless your job depends on it.

I get that some people do genuinely have these feelings, they have to ... I believe every possible permutation of the human psyche exists BUT I know 1 person who has a very desperate need to be accepted by everybody and is VERY easily influenced (I believe it's 'cos he was adopted) ... he has gone from imitating a hetero player who didn't smoke, to a gay introvert who smokes, to wanting to be a woman in the space of a year! So, I think a percentage of people are the special snowflakes, are the vocal ones, who are also the ones to fly off the handle easily 'cos they are the impersonators.

First thing first. Many trans folk will put on a mask of being cisgender and heterosexual just to fit in, many come to assume they're gay, because they haven't yet identified what they're feeling. Then later they come out as trans, many don't even realize trans folk even exist, so they don't understand their own feelings, why everything feels so wrong. A lot of trans folk see being gay as making a half measure at addressing the issue, many may feel wrong for being trans, as it's still even less accepted than being gay. So your armchair psychological evaluation, on an isolated anecdote, doesn't make for good evidence that tons of people are being imitators, or fake trans.

Also what does picking up a smoking addiction have to do with anything? A lot of people make the mistake of having a cigarette, or a pack, for numerous reasons, then end up stuck still smoking because they're now addicted to nicotine. Tobacco addictions are really difficult to get rid of, they never truly go away either, leaving people with the urge to light up. Especially if one develops an physical fixation in smoking, like not knowing what to do with one's hands, or getting an oral fixation, which can make quitting almost impossible.

 

[9tailedflame]

It's frustrating watching these ridiculous discussions when it basically boils down to people arguing over how we should stereotype people.

I disagree in the strongest possible terms that respecting someone's self-chosen identity (or perhaps it would be more accurate to say the identity they self-advocate for) is stereotyping them. It's respecting their wishes. Humans are social animals and we require the context of our environment to establish ourselves against through millions of subtle comparisons and contrasts, and I don't think it's at all reasonable to ask us to abandon our mammalian social programming in order to keep you personally from getting irritated by a conversation that you are the one who made the active choice to participate in.

You misunderstand me. I'm not saying people shouldn't refer to other people the way they want to be referred. I'm saying everyone is stereotyping themselves anytime they identify as a gender, regardless of whether they're cis or trans. The entire existence of gender is nothing more than sexual stereotyping (in the male/female sense, not the sexuality sense). People don't belong in little boxes, people are individuals, and in the end, without these absurd stereotypes, that assume you can't be woman without being skinny and wearing makeup, or you can't be man if you're not gigantic and play football, we'd be better off. We can still identify as things, but we should do so in a manner that isn't just stereotypes or profiling. For example, i love philly cheese steak. I am a philly cheese steak eater way before i'm a "man", and who even defines what a man or woman is? In the end, the terms man and woman, or any gender identity, is just adhering to some arbitrary set of social expectations and finding what box you fit in. We don't need gender or race to categorize ourselves. There's way more important qualities to people than that we can use to contextualize ourselves, like what we like or don't like, our dreams and desires, and stressing some false importance on stereotypes just feels like creating a problem.

 

[omega 616]

Except it wont be an innocent mistake. I will refer to people as male or female, dress how you want to be referred to ... dress as a guy and you're getting him and he, dress as a lady and you're getting she and her, nothing else to it. If you want one of these made up words to be applied to you then you're not going to like me 'cos I'm not going to utter them.

"Them", "they", "they're", and "their" are all perfectly workable singular gender neutral pronouns too, despite common belief otherwise. So if you're staunchly against the more exotic pronouns, you can still meet a person who wants gender neutral pronouns halfway that way. If they won't meet you halfway back, then they're not worth dealing with, unless your job depends on it.

I get that some people do genuinely have these feelings, they have to ... I believe every possible permutation of the human psyche exists BUT I know 1 person who has a very desperate need to be accepted by everybody and is VERY easily influenced (I believe it's 'cos he was adopted) ... he has gone from imitating a hetero player who didn't smoke, to a gay introvert who smokes, to wanting to be a woman in the space of a year! So, I think a percentage of people are the special snowflakes, are the vocal ones, who are also the ones to fly off the handle easily 'cos they are the impersonators.

First thing first. Many trans folk will put on a mask of being cisgender and heterosexual just to fit in, many come to assume they're gay, because they haven't yet identified what they're feeling. Then later they come out as trans, many don't even realize trans folk even exist, so they don't understand their own feelings, why everything feels so wrong. A lot of trans folk see being gay as making a half measure at addressing the issue, many may feel wrong for being trans, as it's still even less accepted than being gay. So your armchair psychological evaluation, on an isolated anecdote, doesn't make for good evidence that tons of people are being imitators, or fake trans.

Also what does picking up a smoking addiction have to do with anything? A lot of people make the mistake of having a cigarette, or a pack, for numerous reasons, then end up stuck still smoking because they're now addicted to nicotine. Tobacco addictions are really difficult to get rid of, they never truly go away either, leaving people with the urge to light up. Especially if one develops an physical fixation in smoking, like not knowing what to do with one's hands, or getting an oral fixation, which can make quitting almost impossible.

And yet calling a baby "it" is out of the question.

I would explain further but there isn't any point in doing so 'cos as you said it's anecdotal and kind of irrelevant to the OP.

However, where did I say "doesn't make for good evidence that tons of people are being imitators"? In fact I went very out of my way to say that it was a small percentage (I forgot to write "small" but still said percentage) that are the "fakers". Where did "tons" come from?

The smoking thing relates to my second line in the post.

This may be a huge issue for some people but quite frankly I am so "privileged" my blood is a white, hetro male (not to brag or anything like that, I just mean it's not my fight) and what strangers think or feel isn't my problem. I do want to be inclusive 'cos being excluded by anybody for/from anything for being you should have more serious consequences but I am not going to get up in arms to defend/fight for them. It's sucks they get treated badly but that's where my caring stops.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

Did you just state trans people get raped more often than others(and murdered).

Do you have statistics to back up that claim?

I'm sorry, I can imagine the abuse, but outright stating they get killed more often?

The best mathematical numbers I've seen is that white trans men are at 10 times higher risk of being murdered, black trans women are at 40 times higher risk than the general population. This really shouldn't be surprising considering that over 45% of murder perpetrated against the LGBTQ community, according to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP).(via: GLAAD) [http://www.glaad.org/blog/violence-against-transgender-people-and-people-color-disproportionately-high-lgbtqh-murder-rate] Considering that homosexuals still face higher murder rates on average than heterosexuals, that there are fewer trans folk around by most estimates, and that we make up such a huge portion of murders, just in the LGBTQ community. It's not any stretch to say we're disproportionately just victims of murder.

The stats seem to have a tendency to vanish, which made any statistic search ridiculously difficult.

Also any stats on trans murders are going to be skewed due to misreporting of a victim's gender because they are trans. Rape is even harder to pin down, because while reports are increasing, it's still more likely that a trans person will be arrested on site for prostitution when attempting to report a rape. It's even more likely that the police will just laugh and do nothing. This leads to a systemic issue where such crimes are misreported and underreported because the victim is trans.

Here are a couple more sources that have some better math and some further sources each: Linky One [http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wwjtd/2012/05/murder-statistics-of-transgender-people/] and Linky Two. [http://www.feministcritics.org/blog/2008/08/24/are-transgender-people-over-a-thousand-times-more-likely-to-be-murdered-than-cisgender/]

 

[happyninja42]

The best mathematical numbers I've seen is that white trans men are at 10 times higher risk of being murdered, black trans women are at 40 times higher risk than the general population. This really shouldn't be surprising considering that over 45% of murder perpetrated against the LGBTQ community, according to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP).(via: GLAAD) [http://www.glaad.org/blog/violence-against-transgender-people-and-people-color-disproportionately-high-lgbtqh-murder-rate] Considering that homosexuals still face higher murder rates on average than heterosexuals, that there are fewer trans folk around by most estimates, and that we make up such a huge portion of murders, just in the LGBTQ community. It's not any stretch to say we're disproportionately just victims of murder.

Point of note. Having a higher percent chance of murder based on a demographic, doesn't necessarily mean that it is hate crime based. I'm not saying that's not the case, as I honestly don't know (personally I feel it likely is), but one statistic doesn't translate to the other statistic being the reason for it. I can't read your links based on the statistics as I'm at work, but do they actually state that these murders are hate crime based? Or just that "this group is the highest % murder group we see statistically"? Because again, there is a difference in "being murdered a lot" and "being murdered because of hate crimes."

Perhaps the increase murders are because, as some other studies suggest, the LGBTQ community gets pushed out by other people, and are thus in more dangerous environments, where murder in general is a more likely scenario. For example, someone being homeless because they were kicked out of their home for being gay. Now they are living in a dangerous situation, and get killed. Possibly not because they are gay, but simply because someone else was inclined to kill them for some form of personal gain. (their shoes, food, money, etc). While in that very specific example (and that's all it is, I'm not stating any accuracy on what the stats say), the reason they are on the street is due to bigotry, the murder itself might not necessarily be for the same reason.

Do your studies actually specify the number of confirmed hate crimes in those figures?

 

[Amir Kondori]

I'll call people whatever pronoun they want to be called, at least to their face. I don't want to offend people or invalidate their identity. It costs me so little to use one pronoun or another. I've never encountered anyone requesting this though.

 

[ThatOtherGirl]

The best mathematical numbers I've seen is that white trans men are at 10 times higher risk of being murdered, black trans women are at 40 times higher risk than the general population. This really shouldn't be surprising considering that over 45% of murder perpetrated against the LGBTQ community, according to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP).(via: GLAAD) [http://www.glaad.org/blog/violence-against-transgender-people-and-people-color-disproportionately-high-lgbtqh-murder-rate] Considering that homosexuals still face higher murder rates on average than heterosexuals, that there are fewer trans folk around by most estimates, and that we make up such a huge portion of murders, just in the LGBTQ community. It's not any stretch to say we're disproportionately just victims of murder.

Point of note. Having a higher percent chance of murder based on a demographic, doesn't necessarily mean that it is hate crime based. I'm not saying that's not the case, as I honestly don't know (personally I feel it likely is), but one statistic doesn't translate to the other statistic being the reason for it. I can't read your links based on the statistics as I'm at work, but do they actually state that these murders are hate crime based? Or just that "this group is the highest % murder group we see statistically"? Because again, there is a difference in "being murdered a lot" and "being murdered because of hate crimes."

Perhaps the increase murders are because, as some other studies suggest, the LGBTQ community gets pushed out by other people, and are thus in more dangerous environments, where murder in general is a more likely scenario. For example, someone being homeless because they were kicked out of their home for being gay. Now they are living in a dangerous situation, and get killed. Possibly not because they are gay, but simply because someone else was inclined to kill them for some form of personal gain. (their shoes, food, money, etc). While in that very specific example (and that's all it is, I'm not stating any accuracy on what the stats say), the reason they are on the street is due to bigotry, the murder itself might not necessarily be for the same reason.

Do your studies actually specify the number of confirmed hate crimes in those figures?

I don't know where the x10 and x40 KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime used come from, but all the rest were from the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, they deal specifically with hate crimes and only hate crimes. And actually the 45% is specifically against trans women, the number is higher (somewhere in the 70% range if I remember correctly) if you include all transgender people. The 2013 report said about 72% of specifically homocides are against trans women, and yet only 13% of survivors are trans, suggesting people try harder to kill trans people.

So there are a few basic forces working here that contribute in a compounding way to the overall numbers. First, as you have noted, trans people are more likely to be discriminated against, leading to them being forced into situations that are more likely to end in violence. Second, Trans people are disproportionately targeted for hate crimes. Third, those hate crimes are disproportionately brutal. Fourth, trans people have lower access to help after a violent incident (and are more likely to be further victimized if they choose to pursue help.)

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

I don't know where the x10 and x40 KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime used come from, but all the rest were from the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, they deal specifically with hate crimes and only hate crimes.

Second and third hand statistics partially, but also based on math from a more realistic analysis of the common "1 in 12 chance" incidents in murder over the course of our lives, made by the HRC. I scoured for the original source, but alas came up empty. I may have misquoted too.

Do your studies actually specify the number of confirmed hate crimes in those figures?

As stated these stats come from the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, which deals exclusively with hate crime. As @ThatOtherGirl said, it's more than likely than the statistics are actually are even worse than reported than the reported statistics say, especially when you're dealing with a group that might avoid help due to further victimization.

Edit: I know it's hard to swallow, especially in light of how awful the statistics look, how hard it is to fathom that people can be so hateful. But if you look at the vitriol spewed directly at the trans community, people calling us things like; "rapists", "dangerously mentally ill", "pedophiles", "liars", "perverts", even things like "hellspawn", and even worse. That there are enough people making horrible unfounded accusations to put us in serious danger just for existing. People say bad words don't hurt, but really the big lies can be easy to believe and people aren't hard to incite to violent action, especially when they see a group as a direct threat.

This is especially considering that over a quarter of people believe homosexuality should be illegal, period: http://www.gallup.com/poll/1651/gay-lesbian-rights.aspx It's been getting better, but consider the fact that trans folk are even less accepted than lesbian, gay, and bisexual folk.

 

[Politrukk]

Did you just state trans people get raped more often than others(and murdered).

Do you have statistics to back up that claim?

I'm sorry, I can imagine the abuse, but outright stating they get killed more often?

The best mathematical numbers I've seen is that white trans men are at 10 times higher risk of being murdered, black trans women are at 40 times higher risk than the general population. This really shouldn't be surprising considering that over 45% of murder perpetrated against the LGBTQ community, according to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP).(via: GLAAD) [http://www.glaad.org/blog/violence-against-transgender-people-and-people-color-disproportionately-high-lgbtqh-murder-rate] Considering that homosexuals still face higher murder rates on average than heterosexuals, that there are fewer trans folk around by most estimates, and that we make up such a huge portion of murders, just in the LGBTQ community. It's not any stretch to say we're disproportionately just victims of murder.

The stats seem to have a tendency to vanish, which made any statistic search ridiculously difficult.

Also any stats on trans murders are going to be skewed due to misreporting of a victim's gender because they are trans. Rape is even harder to pin down, because while reports are increasing, it's still more likely that a trans person will be arrested on site for prostitution when attempting to report a rape. It's even more likely that the police will just laugh and do nothing. This leads to a systemic issue where such crimes are misreported and underreported because the victim is trans.

Here are a couple more sources that have some better math and some further sources each: Linky One [http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wwjtd/2012/05/murder-statistics-of-transgender-people/] and Linky Two. [http://www.feministcritics.org/blog/2008/08/24/are-transgender-people-over-a-thousand-times-more-likely-to-be-murdered-than-cisgender/]

Increased risk is a bit of a non-quotum for me, increased risk can only be quantified if there have been more reported cases(although I note you feel that there is misidentification in reporting crime for this particular group.)

I'll take a look at your links regardless though!

 

[Something Amyss]

All it really is, is a few stereotypes people decided are important for some reason. It's like identifying as black if you eat fried chicken, or identifying as white if you drive a hybrid. it's really just offensive and absurd when you actually start to think about it.

Okay, I know you're not talking about me specifically, but I'm curious, so humour me. What stereotypes do you think I'm looking for when I say I'm trans and wish to be called a woman?

This is especially of interest to me because I finally came out to a friend I've known for ages and ages today, and he was surprised because I seem like "a typical guy." I'm not sure that's entirely accurate, but I certainly seem to swing a lot more towards interests, hobbies, and behaviours that are coded masculine in society than the feminine ones. I could probably run off a pretty long list of "guy" things I do, while feminine interests probably take me less than the number of fingers I have to count. Gender stereotypes actually seem to work against me, and against a lot of the trans people I've known in my life. We run the spectrum, kinda like everyone else.

It seems what I get in terms of stereotypes is rather 100% external. People's expectations of me seem to colour their interpetation of the things I do. The difference in how I'm treated can be as small as say, using a masclunine-sounding username as opposed to an ambiguous or feminine sounding one. With that little information, I find that people read a lot into my identity and actions. And I bet this is true for a lot of people. Thanks to the nature of internet identity, not even necessarily trans people.

But if you could elaborate further on what stereotypes I am stereotyping myself with, I'd be interested. But it seems to me that if I wanted to stereotype myself based on gender/social expectations, I'd call myself a guy.

It's respecting their wishes.

This. And considering how ultimately little effort it requires, it seems an odd sticking point for there to be such an issue.

Do your studies actually specify the number of confirmed hate crimes in those figures?

Hate crimes are hard to nail down in part because trans panic is still a legal defense in 49 of 50 states. While it's not a frequently tried defense in court, there's a sort of well poisoning like "stand your ground" in that once the issue is brought up, it seems authorities are less likely out outright unlikely to look further. There have been a few instances to come across my desk where it took a concerted effort (essentially a PR campaign) to get police to even look into the death of a trans person or people. This is why I compare to to Stand Your Ground, because we get cases like the Trayvon Martin one where the cops simply don't collect evidence. And I don't want to veer too far off the current topic, so I'll leave it at that. The point is, it's hard to collect evidence if you're not looking for it.

This also used to be the standard for gays, and it's slowly changing.

"hellspawn"

Hey, for some of us, that's accurate!

Granted, it's an offensive stereotype that all trans people are children of one of the 13 rulers of Hell. Only the best are.

<.<

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

Increased risk is a bit of a non-quotum for me, increased risk can only be quantified if there have been more reported cases(although I note you feel that there is misidentification in reporting crime for this particular group.)

I'll take a look at your links regardless though!

It's not just that it's increased risks, the statistics do quantify the numbers of murders reported. The problem is going to be how many are misreported because of both police and families insistently misgendering the victims. A lot of trans folk who get murdered don't get their deaths investigated often, "trans panic" is still a legal defense everywhere in the US except California. I kid you not that getting a statistic that's correct in regards to trans murder and rape rates, if not heavily understated, is essentially impossible. Too many crimes are just outright ignored in these instances, I means it even goes to harmless statistics, like just getting a good statistical grasp on the actual numbers of trans folk in the US. It's a bloody mess because so many won't even stand up to be counted, out of fear of mistreatment, let alone report being the victim of a crime.

 

[JimB]

It's respecting their wishes.

This. And considering how ultimately little effort it requires, it seems an odd sticking point for there to be such an issue.

I tend to blame this on total, absolute, toxic self-absorption. I think some people are so obsessed with themselves and with being indulged in as many ways as possible that they develop a weird, warping filter in their brains (kind of like Cartman's filter in the episode about fish dicks) so that when a trans person says, "This is who I am," what that kind of person actually hears is, "I demand the right to usurp your very brain and command it to say and think whatever I say!"

I'm not sure there's any useful application for that knowledge even if my suspicion is right, but I definitely believe there's a warped perspective going on.

 

[Something Amyss]

I tend to blame this on total, absolute, toxic self-absorption. I think some people are so obsessed with themselves and with being indulged in as many ways as possible that they develop a weird, warping filter in their brains (kind of like Cartman's filter in the episode about fish dicks) so that when a trans person says, "This is who I am," what that kind of person actually hears is, "I demand the right to usurp your very brain and command it to say and think whatever I say!"

I'm not sure there's any useful application for that knowledge even if my suspicion is right, but I definitely believe there's a warped perspective going on.

In my experience, a lot of it comes down to groups of people for which the world largely revolves around. Or, at least, the only parts that are said to matter. I imagine when one is made to be the center of everything and then someone else starts getting consideration, it's a pretty big deal to them. I imagine this falls into the description of "toxic self absorption" quite well, so I thjink we're on roughly the same page, albeit possible from different angles.

Generally, we just want the same treatment other people get. Well, not me. I want to be treated with equal parts awe and terror as I grind the world under my boot, laughing like a cartoon villain all the way.

<.<

But I'm a little weird, so.

 

[9tailedflame]

All it really is, is a few stereotypes people decided are important for some reason. It's like identifying as black if you eat fried chicken, or identifying as white if you drive a hybrid. it's really just offensive and absurd when you actually start to think about it.

Okay, I know you're not talking about me specifically, but I'm curious, so humour me. What stereotypes do you think I'm looking for when I say I'm trans and wish to be called a woman?

This is especially of interest to me because I finally came out to a friend I've known for ages and ages today, and he was surprised because I seem like "a typical guy." I'm not sure that's entirely accurate, but I certainly seem to swing a lot more towards interests, hobbies, and behaviours that are coded masculine in society than the feminine ones. I could probably run off a pretty long list of "guy" things I do, while feminine interests probably take me less than the number of fingers I have to count. Gender stereotypes actually seem to work against me, and against a lot of the trans people I've known in my life. We run the spectrum, kinda like everyone else.

It seems what I get in terms of stereotypes is rather 100% external. People's expectations of me seem to colour their interpetation of the things I do. The difference in how I'm treated can be as small as say, using a masclunine-sounding username as opposed to an ambiguous or feminine sounding one. With that little information, I find that people read a lot into my identity and actions. And I bet this is true for a lot of people. Thanks to the nature of internet identity, not even necessarily trans people.

But if you could elaborate further on what stereotypes I am stereotyping myself with, I'd be interested. But it seems to me that if I wanted to stereotype myself based on gender/social expectations, I'd call myself a guy.

It's respecting their wishes.

This. And considering how ultimately little effort it requires, it seems an odd sticking point for there to be such an issue.

Do your studies actually specify the number of confirmed hate crimes in those figures?

Hate crimes are hard to nail down in part because trans panic is still a legal defense in 49 of 50 states. While it's not a frequently tried defense in court, there's a sort of well poisoning like "stand your ground" in that once the issue is brought up, it seems authorities are less likely out outright unlikely to look further. There have been a few instances to come across my desk where it took a concerted effort (essentially a PR campaign) to get police to even look into the death of a trans person or people. This is why I compare to to Stand Your Ground, because we get cases like the Trayvon Martin one where the cops simply don't collect evidence. And I don't want to veer too far off the current topic, so I'll leave it at that. The point is, it's hard to collect evidence if you're not looking for it.

This also used to be the standard for gays, and it's slowly changing.

"hellspawn"

Hey, for some of us, that's accurate!

Granted, it's an offensive stereotype that all trans people are children of one of the 13 rulers of Hell. Only the best are.

<.<

First, i just want to be clear that it's not only trans people who are following steryotypes, but cis people as well. I 100% support anyone's decision to identify as they want, i just think that the notion of gender as a whole is a flawed one. Anyway, my point i guess is that there has to be some reasoning in why you identify the way you do, right? If there wasn't some reasoning behind why you identify as trans, you'd largely default to cis, since cis is regarded socially as the default, right? If you have reasoning for identifying as a woman, wouldn't that be influenced by what you perceive womanhood to be? After all, it's hard to identify as something if you have no perception of it, right? And wouldn't that perception of womanhood largely be based on stereotypes? What else could a perception of something so broad be based on?

I don't know you well enough to make any assumptions, but i would be interested as to why you identify as a woman. I hope you don't think i'm trying to be mean or aggressive about this, i'm really not, i'm just not sure how someone forms a concept of a gender without stereotypes, and i would actually legitimately appreciate some reasoning if there is any, you don't have to have any reason for identifying the way you do of course, but if there is any, it might help me get a better grasp on the subject in general.

 

[ThatOtherGirl]

I don't know where the x10 and x40 KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime used come from, but all the rest were from the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, they deal specifically with hate crimes and only hate crimes.

Second and third hand statistics partially, but also based on math from a more realistic analysis of the common "1 in 12 chance" incidents in murder over the course of our lives, made by the HRC. I scoured for the original source, but alas came up empty. I may have misquoted too.

1 in 12 is nonsense, that would put the murder rate for transgender people around x1600 of the national average. I do not believe that for one second.

The problem is that data is just not collected. It's a chicken and egg problem. People often wont take the problem seriously until they can be given statistics that show it is serious, and because people don't take it seriously no data is collected so not statistics can be given.

In fact, hate crimes are generally thought to be massively under reported as a rule. The FBI logged just under 6000 hate crimes in 2012, but experts in the field generally agree that closer to 200,000-300,000 occurred that year in the US. That is at least a factor of 30. And it is also known that hate crimes against trans people are even less likely to be reported.

There are all sorts of reasons for this. Many law enforcement organizations refuse to participate in reporting hate crimes. Hawaii, for example, just doesn't report them at all. Same with Miami. Most states in the deep south officially have massively lower hate crime rates than the national average, some of them reporting a number of incidents in the single digits.

Another reason is that people who are victims of hate crimes often do not report the crime at all because they run the risk of further victimization if they do. We have better data on this. For people who chose to report the crime, a staggering 27.36% of them will experience open hostility and misconduct from the police, and it isn't just relatively "light" stuff like verbal abuse. Physical violence is common (~14% of misconduct), so is being unjustly arrested (~16% of misconduct), and sexual violence also occurs in notable numbers (~4% of misconduct).

These numbers are all significantly higher for transgender people. For example, trans people in particular are 4.6 times more likely to experience police violence when reporting a crime than cis survivors of hate crimes. So reporting a crime is a serious gamble. Overall the rate is about 5% of lgbtq people who report a hate crime will be the victim of another violent crime at the hands of the police, and that number is several times higher for trans people (the exact number is not given) and the narratives of such crimes suggest the crimes against trans people tend to be particularly brutal.

The take away message most trans people get is that you don't risk interaction with the police if you can possibly help it.

So under reporting is a massive problem.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

I don't know where the x10 and x40 KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime used come from, but all the rest were from the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, they deal specifically with hate crimes and only hate crimes.

Second and third hand statistics partially, but also based on math from a more realistic analysis of the common "1 in 12 chance" incidents in murder over the course of our lives, made by the HRC. I scoured for the original source, but alas came up empty. I may have misquoted too.

1 in 12 is nonsense, that would put the murder rate for transgender people around x1600 of the national average. I do not believe that for one second.

Spoiler

The problem is that data is just not collected. It's a chicken and egg problem. People often wont take the problem seriously until they can be given statistics that show it is serious, and because people don't take it seriously no data is collected so not statistics can be given.

In fact, hate crimes are generally thought to be massively under reported as a rule. The FBI logged just under 6000 hate crimes in 2012, but experts in the field generally agree that closer to 200,000-300,000 occurred that year in the US. That is at least a factor of 30. And it is also known that hate crimes against trans people are even less likely to be reported.

There are all sorts of reasons for this. Many law enforcement organizations refuse to participate in reporting hate crimes. Hawaii, for example, just doesn't report them at all. Same with Miami. Most states in the deep south officially have massively lower hate crime rates than the national average, some of them reporting a number of incidents in the single digits.

Another reason is that people who are victims of hate crimes often do not report the crime at all because they run the risk of further victimization if they do. We have better data on this. For people who chose to report the crime, a staggering 27.36% of them will experience open hostility and misconduct from the police, and it isn't just relatively "light" stuff like verbal abuse. Physical violence is common (~14% of misconduct), so is being unjustly arrested (~16% of misconduct), and sexual violence also occurs in notable numbers (~4% of misconduct).

These numbers are all significantly higher for transgender people. For example, trans people in particular are 4.6 times more likely to experience police violence when reporting a crime than cis survivors of hate crimes. So reporting a crime is a serious gamble. Overall the rate is about 5% of lgbtq people who report a hate crime will be the victim of another violent crime at the hands of the police, and that number is several times higher for trans people (the exact number is not given) and the narratives of such crimes suggest the crimes against trans people tend to be particularly brutal.

The take away message most trans people get is that you don't risk interaction with the police if you can possibly help it.

So under reporting is a massive problem.

Well the math I was talking about was designed to debunk the 1 in 12 chance over a life time HRC statistic.

Anyways you're preaching to the choir on the under reporting problem, especially when it comes to trans folk.