Poll: Would you date a transgendered person?

[D Moness]

OK... Same question to you as everyone else.

Define what it means to male or female.

Given a pair of animals in a species that reproduces through sexual means, the female is the one that gives birth to the young (or eggs) and the male is the one that doesn't.

Tell that to the seahorse (and yeah i am being a smartass)

 

[Valdus]

For me it would depend. If they told me quickly I wouldn't actually have a problem, though if they waited I would feel like I was tricked.I don't expect them to walk around with a sign held up, but if I asked one out and it was pretty obvious it was a date I would like a heads up.

 

[Da_Vane]

But I'm not intolerant of MtF or FtM. If you had been paying attention, you'd see that actually MtF is the one I'd consider dating, although I wasn't sure I could get around the appearance of their genitals.

So, let me get this perfectly clear. You would be willing to date a Male to Female transsexual, and support them, but in your head, you would still consider them a man?!

You do realise the very contradictory nature of that statement, right?

Firstly, the relationship would never last. You would be undermining it with every single thought and action you take.

You may think you are being tolerant, but you are really not. You would actually be hurting the person.

Your failure to accept them as a woman would mean it could never work, because you would need to understand and accept that as a consequence of that, should you engage in a relationship with a Male to Female transsexual, you would be engaging in a lesbian homosexual relationship with them.

By failing to accept them as a woman, you would perceive it as a straight relationship. They would perceive it as a lesbian relationship. People outside would see what is otherwise a massive disjunct - and someone is going to have to deal with the issues that come from the fact that their definition of the relationship is wrong.

You wouldn't happen to feel that they would somehow be challenging your natural feminity, by any chance.

Some women, particularly the insecure, and/or those pre-disposed towards feminism, are often very much against MtF transsexuals and feel that they will never be REAL women, because they feel challenged and threatened by the fact that most MtF transsexuals are innately more feminine than they are.

LMAO. All you have is insults and false assumptions eh? First I was 12, now I'm insecure. I find that fact you think feminism is an insult even more telling of your lack of argument.

I didn't claim you were 12. I am wondering if you are insecure - that has been my observation based on others.

Feminism is not an insult - but feminists have attacked male to female transsexuals, considering them infiltrators from the patriarchy, and not true women. Academic papers have been written on this subject.

I have no reason to be threatened by a pretty trans woman any more than I'd be threatened by a naturally born woman. They are't however "more feminine". They do not have female reproductive organs. While some of them have some REALLY nice bodies, 99% of the ones I've seen have a seriously male face. Now that's not to say some of them don't look sexier and more fem than some natural borns, some do. Others look butchier than than butchiest of natural born dykes. There is nothing automatically more feminine about them, and as I said the faces push them towards being more masculine (although since some guys don't look at a girls face maybe that's why they don't know they are trans lol).

You are focusing just on physical looks. But, quite often, the feminity actually comes from actions and behaviours, which are a lot easier to act out and reinforce, and it is here in which quite a few transsexuals are naturally "more feminine." This can be assigned to trying harder - but then, it can also be attributed to the fact that sexual equality as meant that women don't have to act so feminine to be considered women. If you have a pair of tits, you can act as masculine as you want, but if people might mistake you for a man, then there is a greater need to act more feminine to compensate.

Then again, I also know that not all women are stunners, and I have seen women that have looked worse than even the roughest transsexuals I have seen. So, I guess it all comes down to experience. If all you have seen are ugly transsexuals and pretty women, or pretty transsexuals and ugly women, you are bound to have different experiences. I am lucky enough to have seen pretty women and pretty transsexuals, ugly women and ugly transsexuals, so I don't judge. People are people.

Lesbians are often the worst for it, especially if they are butch lesbians, because they can be downright nasty.

Ah, more random and hateful assumptions, that is your main style of argument isn't it?

No, my main style of argument is actually direct observation and logical reasoning based on them. You are the one that seems to have decided that this was a hateful assumption. What you don't know is that it's not an assumption if I can actually name the specific butch lesbians that I was thinking of when I made this comment. That would make this anecdotal evidence, with the names removed to protect the mentioned people. Nice try at attempting to undermine my credibility though - when you can't tackle the argument, tackle the person making the argument.

 

[artanis_neravar]

Snip

You can't compare genetics to the floor plan of a building. They are two completely different things, it's like trying to compare and apple to the theory of relativity. The most important aspects of all life are Genes, without genes, there are no offspring, and therefore, no life. A more proper comparison would be; I take a piece of coal and put it under extreme pressure, and suddenly it's a diamond. it looks different, it has a different worth, but guess what? It's still a lump of carbon.

Now if you actually read anything else I wrote on here, you would notice that I pointed out transgender is just a qualifier people use, it defines them for better or for worse, it is part of their history and who they are. Are they physically any less of the gender they have changed to? That is debatable, it really depends on whether you define a physical female as someone with a vagina, someone with a womb, or someone with ovaries and the ability to become pregnant? Any of these physical definitions a transgender would not be considered female, but with these definitions neither would someone who had a hysterectomy, so obviously that definition doesn't apply. Is a female anyone who fits the cultural norm, or ideas of a female? If that were true than any man who stays at home with the kids, or shows their emotional side would be female, so that definition doesn't fit. Is it someone with XX chromosomes, well that fits every female and excludes every male, so it is the only definition that works. Therefore the only definition that we can go by is genetic.

Does this make them any less of a person? no, it doesn't. It does however make the genetically male, and physically and socially transgender. Transgender people should be allowed to use the bathrooms, locker rooms, and changing rooms or what ever sex they have decided to become, and it is their choice, and they should be referred to by what ever pronoun they want to be referred by.

However, none of that changes the fact that they are still genetically the gender they were born as.

 

[twohundredpercent]

I ain't making cis a part of my vocabulary and I don't know a single person worth knowing who would. Their lingo is kinda dumb. I'm not using that shit.

 

[artanis_neravar]

But I'm not intolerant of MtF or FtM. If you had been paying attention, you'd see that actually MtF is the one I'd consider dating, although I wasn't sure I could get around the appearance of their genitals.

So, let me get this perfectly clear. You would be willing to date a Male to Female transsexual, and support them, but in your head, you would still consider them a man?!

You do realise the very contradictory nature of that statement, right?

What they are saying is that, from the post op photos they have seen, the newly reconstructed genitals, do not look natural, and that is what she might not be able to get past.

 

[kurupt87]

Assuming attraction, have sex yes. Date, no.

 

[CrystalShadow]

OK... Same question to you as everyone else.

Define what it means to male or female.

Given a pair of animals in a species that reproduces through sexual means, the female is the one that gives birth to the young (or eggs) and the male is the one that doesn't.

OK, so maybe that definition is a bit reliant on function - children are still male or female after all, even though they haven't reached the age where they can reproduce. In that case, we can look for indicators of sex in a person's physical features (such as their genitals) an also their chromosomes.

why is president Obama not considered white?

Because he lives in a white-majority country so his dark skin gives him "black" minority status. Had he been brought up in Nigeria, people would probably have referred to him as notably light-skinned.

Now, see, here is where the logic breaks down.

Your definition of male and female are more or less the most fundamental ones.

But the extension to it is indicative of all the associated problems.

Since you admit there are people classified as male or female despite not meeting the functional basis that underlies this, you run into the question of which secondary features qualify you as one sex or the other.

Children are a good example of this, because it's actually incredibly difficult to determine a child's sex without doing something generally considered invasive.

They have no secondary sexual characteristics to speak of, so unless you're seeing them naked you have very little to go on.

If your definition is based on the act of reproduction alone...

You end up with 3 groups. Reproductively male. Reproductively female, and 'other'.

If it's based on other criteria, what is the basis for making one feature more meaningful than another?

Why is an invisible feature that you cannot trivially check for such as genetics, more significant than all the secondary and tertiary sexual characteristics put together?

If a person has breasts, a feminine figure, and dresses and acts in a manner we've deemed consistent with being female, you're using rather twisted reasoning if you're going to argue they're actually male instead.

Similarly, a surgically constructed vagina is not identical to a natural one, but it is still closer to being a vagina than it is to being a penis.

Arguing it's actually a penis is another one of those weird twists of logic that depends on a definition of what a penis or vagina is that makes little sense.

That's my problem with this altogether. People either don't have an answer at all, or forward something which just has no internal consistency to it, or is based on totally arbitrary criteria.

(And if the criteria are arbitrary, I might as well say that person is actually a toaster for all the rational validity the statement has...)

Pinning the definition of someone's identity on something which is for all intents and purposes invisible, and intangible seems incredibly bizarre to me.

Making it dependent on a feature that some people lack in it's entirety is fair enough insofar as that feature is the only reason the concept has any meaning to begin with...
But if you do that you have to be willing to accept the logical consequences of such a definition. Which people really don't seem willing to do.

Instead we seem to end up with definitions that say "If you have these qualities you are X", and then someone comes along and says "I have most of those qualities", only to be told that the only qualities that actually matter are the ones they don't have.
But if that were the case, why does the definition even include these other qualities they do have to begin with?
Furthermore, how can it then be argued that they are in fact something else, when they lack most of the qualities that define a person as such?

It seems to me to be a case that nobody actually knows what the definition should be, but if you ask them to think about it, the only answer you get is "Not you."

 

[Da_Vane]

But I'm not intolerant of MtF or FtM. If you had been paying attention, you'd see that actually MtF is the one I'd consider dating, although I wasn't sure I could get around the appearance of their genitals.

So, let me get this perfectly clear. You would be willing to date a Male to Female transsexual, and support them, but in your head, you would still consider them a man?!

You do realise the very contradictory nature of that statement, right?

What they are saying is that, from the post op photos they have seen, the newly reconstructed genitals, do not look natural, and that is what she might not be able to get past.

Previously, Miss Kendarik had asserted that she would always consider transsexuals as belonging to their birth sex, and that Gender Dysphoria is just a mental illness which she would be playing along with.

In terms of vaginoplasty, there is a great deal of variance depending upon where the surgery is performed. You get what you pay for, and some of the best surgeons are actually in Thailand. However, surgery is very expensive, and with the worsening economy, most people have to suffer with what are basically hack jobs.

Then again, that's capitalism for you - if you do not have the capital, you get a hack job, whether it is a vaginoplasty or heart surgery.

 

[airrazor7]

In hindsight and at your prompting, yeah I think I was a bit assumptious of you.

I now have to ask what did you actually mean by "Pretty sad results on the poll, if not unexpected" with 50% of the poll results being "I am male and I would NOT date an MTF"?

No, you never said anything about a person's right to personal choice and I apologize if my post appeared to put words in your mouth (so to speak, or put words in your text/post?) since that was not my intention. However, the first part of your post can only lead a reader to think you a meant a few things by that, and

For all you knew at the time you wrote this, I was upset by what I viewed as limited options for answer, the gender lines upon which they were skewed or my own specific demographic being excluded.

doesn't quite fit unless you typed something along the lines of "Pretty sad options on the poll..." which you also did not type.

So, what was the actual meaning behind that first line in your post?

Also, I noticed your avatar pic is of Poison. Are you a Street Fighter fan? If so and if you have Street Fighter 4, we should play online sometime.

 

[artanis_neravar]

But I'm not intolerant of MtF or FtM. If you had been paying attention, you'd see that actually MtF is the one I'd consider dating, although I wasn't sure I could get around the appearance of their genitals.

So, let me get this perfectly clear. You would be willing to date a Male to Female transsexual, and support them, but in your head, you would still consider them a man?!

You do realise the very contradictory nature of that statement, right?

What they are saying is that, from the post op photos they have seen, the newly reconstructed genitals, do not look natural, and that is what she might not be able to get past.

Previously, Miss Kendarik had asserted that she would always consider transsexuals as belonging to their birth sex, and that Gender Dysphoria is just a mental illness which she would be playing along with.

In terms of vaginoplasty, there is a great deal of variance depending upon where the surgery is performed. You get what you pay for, and some of the best surgeons are actually in Thailand. However, surgery is very expensive, and with the worsening economy, most people have to suffer with what are basically hack jobs.

Then again, that's capitalism for you - if you do not have the capital, you get a hack job, whether it is a vaginoplasty or heart surgery.

Oh, I'm not trying to argue with you, I'm just clarifying what I saw from another post of hers (at least I think it was her)

 

[Use_Imagination_here]

I don't know. I mean mentally I'm 90% sure it wouldn't bother me, but sexually I just don't know.

This threads getting pretty emotionally charged. I for one suggest that with issues as complex as these you should argue your opinion with yourself as much as you argue with others (preferably in that order). Questions like "is a woman a man if she goes through sex change surgery" force you to ask much bigger questions that most people don't think enough about, so please do that before you start yelling at eachother.

 

[Da_Vane]

OK... Same question to you as everyone else.

Define what it means to male or female.

Given a pair of animals in a species that reproduces through sexual means, the female is the one that gives birth to the young (or eggs) and the male is the one that doesn't.

OK, so maybe that definition is a bit reliant on function - children are still male or female after all, even though they haven't reached the age where they can reproduce. In that case, we can look for indicators of sex in a person's physical features (such as their genitals) an also their chromosomes.

why is president Obama not considered white?

Because he lives in a white-majority country so his dark skin gives him "black" minority status. Had he been brought up in Nigeria, people would probably have referred to him as notably light-skinned.

Now, see, here is where the logic breaks down.

Your definition of male and female are more or less the most fundamental ones.

But the extension to it is indicative of all the associated problems.

Since you admit there are people classified as male or female despite not meeting the functional basis that underlies this, you run into the question of which secondary features qualify you as one sex or the other.

Children are a good example of this, because it's actually incredibly difficult to determine a child's sex without doing something generally considered invasive.

They have no secondary sexual characteristics to speak of, so unless you're seeing them naked you have very little to go on.

If your definition is based on the act of reproduction alone...

You end up with 3 groups. Reproductively male. Reproductively female, and 'other'.

If it's based on other criteria, what is the basis for making one feature more meaningful than another?

Why is an invisible feature that you cannot trivially check for such as genetics, more significant than all the secondary and tertiary sexual characteristics put together?

If a person has breasts, a feminine figure, and dresses and acts in a manner we've deemed consistent with being female, you're using rather twisted reasoning if you're going to argue they're actually male instead.

Similarly, a surgically constructed vagina is not identical to a natural one, but it is still closer to being a vagina than it is to being a penis.

Arguing it's actually a penis is another one of those weird twists of logic that depends on a definition of what a penis or vagina is that makes little sense.

That's my problem with this altogether. People either don't have an answer at all, or forward something which just has no internal consistency to it, or is based on totally arbitrary criteria.

(And if the criteria are arbitrary, I might as well say that person is actually a toaster for all the rational validity the statement has...)

Pinning the definition of someone's identity on something which is for all intents and purposes invisible, and intangible seems incredibly bizarre to me.

Making it dependent on a feature that some people lack in it's entirety is fair enough insofar as that feature is the only reason the concept has any meaning to begin with...
But if you do that you have to be willing to accept the logical consequences of such a definition. Which people really don't seem willing to do.

Instead we seem to end up with definitions that say "If you have these qualities you are X", and then someone comes along and says "I have most of those qualities", only to be told that the only qualities that actually matter are the ones they don't have.
But if that were the case, why does the definition even include these other qualities they do have to begin with?
Furthermore, how can it then be argued that they are in fact something else, when they lack most of the qualities that define a person as such?

It seems to me to be a case that nobody actually knows what the definition should be, but if you ask them to think about it, the only answer you get is "Not you."

I think you'll find that is because most of what people are using isn't reason - it is rationalization. They already have their answers: They are just trying to prove that their answers are correct.

Identity is based on what makes us the same and what make us different, and basically, this all comes down to gender identity being defined as what makes us different. A woman is quite literally defined as "not a man" - you can go all the way back to Fruedian theories of Penis Envy, and the counter-arguments by Feminist writers which support the principle, but put women as opposed to men as the source of envy, citing abilities such as child-birth in texts like The Feminine Mystique.

When it comes down to transgender identity, however, both male and female identities are quite firmly taking the stance that transgender identities are "not us" and barring entry, leaving an identity that is out in the cold. For those that seek to become a unique gender identity, this is perfectly fine, but this is not fine for those fighting to be accepted as one gender or another within the traditional binary gender system.

We still exist in a heteronormative society, so the idea that someone is not of the opposite gender is still pretty important to us. However, we don't actually think about what they are. This is the major disjunct here - the idea that people perceive MtF transsexuals more strongly as not women than the fact that they perceive them as women because of their own selfish concerns is a major issue.

But then, maybe it's because the people concerned with this - who are apparently mostly men who are thinking with their penises anyway, are too busy looking for something to screw, and haven't stopped to ask whether MtF transsexuals are men. Heterosexual men don't care about men, they just want to screw women.

Personally, you'd have thought the idea of having sex with someone without having to worry about getting them pregnant would have been ideal for a lot of men. In fact, I am surprised that nobody has brought up the issue of hysterectomies yet - if a woman has an hysterectomy, are they no longer a woman? Because that's essentially what a MtF transsexual is - a woman with an hysterectomy.

To put it into context for all you guys out there. It's like have a vasectomy. The FtM surgery isn't really advanced enough to compensate for a penis, because that really will need a penis transplant, but in theory, what you are getting is a guy with a vasectomy. Are you really arguing that having a vasectomy means you are no longer a guy?

The poll isn't scientific enough, because it would be curious to find out the exact age demographic of the people who are polling. Because I wouldn't be surprised if the people are mostly young people who haven't got a damn clue about the world, and their virility is very much part of their gender identity.

That is why they are putting such stock in their ability to have sex and have children. They probably aren't old enough to actually got to the point to make real decisions about these things, let alone deal with the issues should they not be able to actually have children. Remember these arguments should that happen. Ask yourself - if you are firing blanks, are you less of a man? Because that's the fear, isn't it? Not being up it - not being man enough. That's what your principles are based on.

It doesn't have to be that way - but society makes it that way. Society guides conventions and how people behave, how people think and react. Society defines how we perceive things, and thus the meanings we give to them. It's called provocation. You see people based on how society has taught you to see them - but you still have some control over that. You can choose to let society influence you, or you can actually just be open and honest.

Society seeks to divide, to constrain, and oppress. Collective ignorance to blind the masses and prevent individuality and freedom to promote compliance. It is there to undermine your intelligence, to sap your will, and to crush your spirit. To sow disrespect and mistrust, so people turn against people, and never know the truth - to know that they still have the power to change things. To change themselves, their lives, and to help change others that want it, for the better. Society wants you broken, dispirited, undermined, going from one identity crisis to another, without ever understanding why. It encourages people to break the spirits of others for their own gain, by making them believe they are doing the right thing. In the end, everyone will just end up broken.

 

[CrystalShadow]

Snip

You can't compare genetics to the floor plan of a building. They are two completely different things, it's like trying to compare and apple to the theory of relativity. The most important aspects of all life are Genes, without genes, there are no offspring, and therefore, no life.


I'm sorry, but I have to disagree. Genes are, for all intents and purposes akin to a computer program, or set of plans, or something of that nature.

Life can theoretically exist without genes as we know it, but that's not the point. Genes don't define what something is. The instructions they contain have to be expressed properly.

In fact, ignoring life as such, comparing genes to a building plan is very relevant, because functionally that's a lot closer to what they are than anything else.

Genes are instructions on how to build a living thing!

Of course you wouldn't have children without them, because you wouldn't have any instructions available for how to create a new living thing.

If you change the instructions, you change what is created. But this process is far from perfect, and arguing that the genes prove what something is, despite obvious evidence to the contrary makes little sense.

Stating that a logical inference of what genes are on a functional level is not a valid comparison is like saying you can't compare a truck to a train.
You quite obviously can, if you know what the two have in common.
Implying it's an invalid comparison merely suggests you don't know much of anything about genetics.

The relative importance or non-importance of genes to the existence of life is a red herring when the comparison is based on a functional consideration of what a gene does.


A more proper comparison would be; I take a piece of coal and put it under extreme pressure, and suddenly it's a diamond. it looks different, it has a different worth, but guess what? It's still a lump of carbon.


Sorry to be so pedantic about meaning here, but this isn't a meaningful analogy.

Is diamond still carbon? Obviously. But it's not coal. Or graphite. Or carbon Monoxide.

You've turned coal into a diamond. The argument I was refuting is someone claiming that this diamond is not actually a diamond, because it used to be a lump of coal.

Aside from anything else, you've essentially reversed the logic involved.

A diamond is a diamond, regardless of what it used to be, or whether or not it can be claimed to be anything else.

As an analogy to the situation I was trying to describe however, it is completely meaningless, and doesn't address the issue in any way.


Now if you actually read anything else I wrote on here, you would notice that I pointed out transgender is just a qualifier people use, it defines them for better or for worse, it is part of their history and who they are.


No, I have not read the entirety of this thread, nor am I sure I could really effectively separate out who said what effectively given so much information.
Whether transgender is a qualifier or not though, the nature of people's arguments mostly has very little about if someone is transgender or not, but whether this qualifies them as being a 'real' man or woman or not.



Are they physically any less of the gender they have changed to?


You can't physically be a gender. That's a meaningless statement. Now I know someone implied that in effect gender and sex are interchangable terms, but if that were truly the case, they would be entirely redundant.

Clearly you meant are they physically any less of the sex they changed to, but I'll let that pass considering the way the terms are generally used.


That is debatable, it really depends on whether you define a physical female as someone with a vagina, someone with a womb, or someone with ovaries and the ability to become pregnant?


There are other possible definitions... Choosing just one single trait seems rather problematic at best.
But... Let's go with that for now.


Any of these physical definitions a transgender would not be considered female,


Debatable, depending on what you're referring to when you talk about 'transgender'. 'transgender' is an overly broad, and thus mostly meaningless label. A crossdresser is 'transgender', but so is someone who has had surgery and taken hormones.

You listed 3 definitions though. Of these, definitions 2 and 3 are (currently) not medically possible to create. (But they are in theory, based extrapolating current research).

Definition number 1, "Someone with a vagina." is very possible. But depends on what constitutes a vagina. (or in other words, how close is 'close enough' for purposes of saying whether someone has a vagina or not.)


but with these definitions neither would someone who had a hysterectomy, so obviously that definition doesn't apply.



Is a female anyone who fits the cultural norm, or ideas of a female?


By the technical definition of gender, this statement is 100% correct. Obviously, though, it is not if you go with the more common idea of assuming sex & gender are interchangeable concepts.


If that were true than any man who stays at home with the kids, or shows their emotional side would be female, so that definition doesn't fit.


That's not an entirely valid statement though. Since a lot of gender is behavioural, then you can't simply pick any arbitrary behaviour in isolation and say it makes the person a specific gender.

Is the man who stays at home with the kids, but wears masculine clothes, loves boxing and motor sports, and messing around with the engine in his car, of the male, or female gender?
What if he likes knitting? Or flower arranging?

Clearly this person shows contradictory gender traits. How can you possibly assign them a single, distinct gender based on taking any single such trait in isolation?
Any such answer would be a logical contradiction.
At best you would have to take everything as a whole and make an informed judgement as to which category is more appropriate overall.
Anything less would create nonsensical answers.



Is it someone with XX chromosomes, well that fits every female and excludes every male


No it doesn't. Not unless you redefine our existing systems for deciding which is which after the fact.

Historically, people with Complete Androgen Insensitivity syndrome were simply considered to be women who for some reason were infertile.

With the advent of genetics, we've since learned that these people have an XY chromosome. There are similar conditions affecting people that have XX chromosomes, as well as those with XXY and various other variations generally referred to as intersex conditions, none of which can easily be classified as one or the other.

Furthermore, Genetics is a very recent discovery, and the concept of male and female cannot possibly have been defined on this basis, since genetics are an entirely 'hidden' attribute, that cannot actually be determined about another person in any practical circumstance.

It isn't even common practice to test newborns genetically before assigning them their gender, which is what most people think of as being 'the sex you were born as'...



, so it is the only definition that works. Therefore the only definition that we can go by is genetic.


But the thing is, this definition doesn't work at all. Especially because the answers it gives are for all practical intents and purposes contradictory, and hold no real relationship with anything except at the most abstract of levels.

If you want to start a family, is it relevant that your wife has XX chromosomes? Or that she has a fully functioning womb and ovaries?

If you are a woman, and want to have sexual intercourse with a man, is it of any practical difference if they have a Y chromosome or not? Or is in fact the only actual issue on any practical level whether they have a penis, and if it functions properly?

Using genetics as an argument is very abstract, and rather out of touch with just about any practical concern you might have relating to another person.

That was the whole point of my building analogy. To show the absurdity of focusing on something abstract even though the practical immediate situation and it's consequences completely contradicts what this abstract idea would imply.


Does this make them any less of a person? no, it doesn't. It does however make the genetically male, and physically and socially transgender. Transgender people should be allowed to use the bathrooms, locker rooms, and changing rooms or what ever sex they have decided to become, and it is their choice, and they should be referred to by what ever pronoun they want to be referred by.

However, none of that changes the fact that they are still genetically the gender they were born as.

OK, misuse of the word gender aside, it's technically true they are probably genetically male.
But insisting on this as the over-riding definition is missing the forest for the trees.

Genes are for all intents and purposes intangible. Their effects are invisible except insofar as the living thing that results has certain traits.
If those traits match the genes, fine. But if they do not, arguing that the correct interpretation is that which the genes define, rather than that which you are in fact, directly confronted with...

In any event, singling out a single trait as the definitive answer of what someone is, is not really reflective rational thought.

I can't say X is a car because it has wheels...
Or it has wings, so it must be an airplane. (When in actual fact it's a bird.)

No trait taken in isolation can really define anything meaningful. Especially not when the trait in question is effectively invisible and has no direct practical effects in and of itself, but only through how that trait influences the development of other traits.

Furthermore, when you've got the definitions of two different things. (in this case male & female), and then run into something which is, based on those definitions a logical contradiction, you cannot arbitrarily force such a contradiction into an existing category.

Clearly you would need to create a new set of definitions, or a new set of categories to deal with this.
Either way, those new definitions have to have some innate validity to them, otherwise it just degenerates into 'my definition is better than yours'.

The alternative of course, is to acknowledge the imprecision, and accept that not everything fits neatly into one group or another.
You would then conclude, that, while neither category is an entirely accurate definition of the situation, one is closer to being accurate than the other.

How do you do this? Not by trying to reduce the definitions down to as little information as possible and declaring everything else irrelevant. Instead, you take all the factors into consideration, and take whatever's closest.

Or, to put it in a much simpler context, taking things at face value is much, much simpler than trying to deduce someone's genetics, or second-guessing all kinds of things about everyone you meet.

Yes, a transsexual is infertile. But that could apply to just about anyone else too, for any number of reasons.

Yes, with the transgender community as a whole there's all kinds of possibilities of meeting people that would cause anyone serious confusion.

But someone who is contradictory, is contradictory. Instead of trying to work out which of two groups they fit in (when quite clearly they don't really fit into either)... Well, anyway...

Genetics is not an answer with any practical meaning in day-to-day life. Critical to the survival of the sepcies? Sure. Fundamental to how life works? Absolutely.
Meaningful as an actual thing to concern yourself with for living, breathing person? Not in the slightest.
(Unless you are a doctor treating genetic defects. If you have a genetic defect, it's not your genes that you'll care about, but the practical day-to-day consequences of that defect. A genetic defect with no visible or practical effects might as well not exist.)

 

[artanis_neravar]

Quote Fail, sorry

 

[artanis_neravar]

snip

I'm tired, so I'm going to keep this short. You can change the floorplan of a building, you can not change your genes (at least not yet) all I have said (and I am sorry if I have been contradictory or confusing on what my point is) is that if you have XY chromosomes than you are genetically male, and if you have XX chromosomes than you are genetically female.

I am curious about your opinions of this analogy;
If a woman has surgery and makes herself a male, then if I have facial reconstruction surgery to make myself resemble Harrison Ford, change my last name to Ford, and start saying I'm his son, does that make me his son?

 

[jboking]

well, one, people call me angry...vicious cycle really

The only one who can make you angry is yourself.

two, i don't care what 'medical experts' say, if you were born one gender, you are stuck as that gender no matter what you do yo your self. I can darken my skin, but that doesn't make me a black guy does it?

Ah. So instead of listening to people who would actually know something on the issue, you choose to shove your head in the sand and fill your mouth with grit while attempting to yell, "NANANANANA I can't hear you!" While simultaneously making ridiculously false analogies. cool. cool. You are free to have your opinion, it's just a shame you base it on personal bias instead of researched information. Kind of a waste really.

three, if the person has both, thats a separate gender in my opinion...a gender that comes around via mutation but hey, they cant help it. I wont date them, and would be pissed they led me other wise.....but meh, we can be friends.

"Comes around via mutation." Fun fact: Men are mutated Women.

four, the LGBT threads are so abundant, im starting to get annoyed by them. We get it, you are not straight....stop. rubbing. it. in. my. face. damn. it. I respect your life style choice, now respect my choice of not being of that life style and not being a big fan of it. You exist. GOT IT!.

Who makes you go into these threads? Who makes you read them? Who is forcing you to observe their sexuality. Honestly, it's like overhearing someone talking about their sex life and then rushing up to them and telling them to shut up. I know you don't particularly like the topic, but that doesn't mean that everyone should simply stop talking about it. Example: I didn't care for the brony threads when they were prevalent here, as I'm not a fan of MLP. I didn't run into every brony thread and ***** about the brony threads, I just found (or made) other threads. Why not do that?

Side note: I went to the off-topic forum for you. There are far more non-sexuality based threads than there are sexuality threads. Just saying, man.

welp, time to fill up the sand bags for the shit storm im sure i just caused.

Eh, it's not the worst response I've ever seen.

 

[MartianWarMachine]

I am curious about your opinions of this analogy;
If a woman has surgery and makes herself a male, then if I have facial reconstruction surgery to make myself resemble Harrison Ford, change my last name to Ford, and start saying I'm his son, does that make me his son?

I told you before, only if he adopts you! x3

 

[drisky]

I ain't making cis a part of my vocabulary and I don't know a single person worth knowing who would. Their lingo is kinda dumb. I'm not using that shit.

Cis is only ever needed to be used when comparing the opposite, it is far more sensitive than saying the opposite of "Transgender" is "Normal" or "Real". It is the same as saying heterosexual and homosexual. It is not common use because transgender people aren't as common as homosexual or bisexual. My question to you is why do you care, if people who use cis aren't "worth knowing", why is it worth your time to keep coming back here to complain?

On a related note I'm not making "ain't" a part of my vocabulary and I don't know a single person worth knowing who would.