Transgenders, Transsexuals, and the Whole Gamut

[ramboondiea]

you want to do something like that to your self, then fair enough. however i dont care what anybody says, as far as im concerned you are still your starting gender to me, and im likely to address you as such.

also got a question for you op. you want a civil conversation about this, yet you dedicate a paragraph to ridiculing and marginalising a group of people, not very civil

 

[Kingsman]

My cousin, who shall remain nameless, is going in for a gender-swap.

There isn't a single one of us in the family who thinks she actually IS a boy in a girl's body, because we know she has serious issues with her mother and is doing this as a method to ruin her mom's reputation.

Maybe there ARE some people who are processing the wrong hormone naturally and as a result, more or less truly ARE xy's stuck in xx's. Myself, I say that I'd need some sort of proof of that- because otherwise you're allowing the psychologically impaired masses to destroy themselves in yet one more way, a way which is permanent, binding, degrading, and disgusting.

 

[FolkLikePanda]

They can do whatever they feel as long as it doesn't affect me. And to be honest I still see transgender people as the gender they were born as.

 

[Shadie777]

I don't really care to be honest. There isn't a reason to care, as a human being I have no right to judge people based on their way of thinking, how they look and how they want to live their life.

 

[amucha98]

.

 

[nekoali]

Obviously I am in the 'for it' group when it comes to transgender, genderqueer or non-binary gendered people. I think it's fairly well known on the forums that I am transgender (male to female) myself by now.

The hatred against transgender people is very similar to racism, sexism or any other pointless hatred. People who don't understand, don't want to understand and have fear, distrust or hatred in their hearts trot out the same tired reasons that were used why black or Mexican people are a threat. That women were just naturally inferior to men. Or how gays were trying to corrupt the youth with their evil, immoral ways. It is all just garbage. If people want to believe that garbage.. more power to them. They can believe the world is flat too if they like. The trouble is so many of these people go out of their way to abuse, discriminate, harass even rape and kill people just because they are different. People have the right to believe what they want. When they harm other people with their actions based on those beliefs though, that's a problem.

The fact is, people may very well know more transgender people than they think. Whether it's the transvestite who likes to wear women's clothing in private, the very passable transsexual person who just doesn't go around telling people about it, or those quietly repressing their true selves out of fear. You can't usually tell what people are all about with just a glance.

And honestly, unless you are dating a trans person, or otherwise very closely involved with them... How they live their life doesn't affect you. But so many people think they have the right to pry into other's lives, over so many issues.

Transgender people are just ordinary people. Trying to live their lives as best we can. We are not evil, immoral, plotting the downfall of traditional values, out to steal your women/children/men and we are not trying to force 'our way' on you. We just want to live our lives in peace and equality.

 

[Brutalis317]

Personally, I don't give a damn who you are, what you were, or who you fuck. It's not my damn buiseness. I recognize that I am no one to tell others what to do with their lives in any aspect. With that in mind I hope everyone realizes the same fact about themselves. All of that being said, I am a straight man and I only want to sleep with either straight or bi-sexual women. I'd rather remain unavailable to the transgendered population as a means of sexual gratification. It is a choice nothing more and nothing less.

To be mean to anyone for making any choice about their lives is insane. Comparable to beating someone up for prefering waffles over panckes or slinging verbal hate at someone who is a vegetarian. Huh... damn I gotta go I got a hankerin' for some waffles!

 

[Leon Last Lord Shyle]

First of all I do admire their conviction, someone who can know themselves so well most of whom I have met are around my age, that they will decide to undergo mass therapy and surgery to get there. I've spent 20 years trying to discover myself and so far have found I'm a bastard and I am not happy unless lying about my identity, seriously mass props on knowing all that about yourself.

However I stand in the area which thinks is the current idea of gender not dead? personally I believe that the whole idea of gender identification is completely pointless and gender only really stands to offer reproduction, if they wish to undergo it to me it is nothing more than a normal person getting a nose job or a breast enlargement they are still the same person they just look a little different.

So can I just ask if anyone has read this.

Why do people actually allow whether they where born one way or the other to choose how they act and who they are? the age of classical masculinity and femininity are at an end in my mind why do we allow society predefined areas of being to choose our lives?

Vive le resistance

 

[Harlemura]

I've never actually met one. At least, I'm not aware I have.
I'll admit, if I found out someone I knew was a transgender person, or someone I know went for the operation, I won't deny I'd probably be a little weirded out. But I'm guessing once I get used to them and the whole idea doesn't seem new and strange, I'd be alright with it.
Or maybe I would. I am kinda close minded... Guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

But yeah, at the end of the day, it ain't my life. You do what you want and don't worry yourselves about dumbies like me that are weirded out by anything new.

I think I've learnt something about myself with this post.
[sub]Mostly that I'm a jerk...[/sub]

 

[oppp7]

Don't have a problem with them. I don't get why people are so antagonistic towards them. I guess people are disgusted and scared that they could be tricked?

On a side note, this thread won't last long. Transgenders will soon enter the unofficial banned topics, with furries, pedophiles, and 4Chan.

 

[ultimateownage]

Why should it matter?
Also, from personal experience here I can tell you the escapist community has a pretty bad relationship with transsexual and transgendered people.
That one thread... *shudders*

 

[Grimbold]

I respect homosexuals, transsexuals, hermaphrodites, people with Klinefelter-syndrome et cetera as much as everybody else. I find these abnormalities also highly interesting.
What I hate is the hocuspocus that so called scientists operate about those people. Gender-studies, queer-theory, gender-aware language. All of this bullshit.

P.S.: I just remembered that I asked a gay guy once what he thinks of transsexuals of any kind. He hates them. Always those narrow-minded gaylords.

 

[Trolldor]

I remember a month or so ago, I was involved in a controversial argument about whether or not transsexualism, or indeed, any non-normal gender identification, was "wrong, selfish and immoral." I argued against that assertion. I have many friends who are genderqueer, transgendered and pre-op. One of my closest friends, a "girl" I consider family, is undergoing the procedure. Naturally, I felt a sense of duty in defending the underdog. I found I was outnumbered. Most were staunch in their convictions, and I saw the whole gamut of insults directed towards the alt-gender community.

"They're pretenders," "They're fakes," "They're self-deluding morons who pay for permanent cosmetic boob-jobs they'll regret for the rest of their lives," "It's economically impractical and contributes nothing to society," etc. Yeah, this coming from the straight heterosexual crowd who waste God knows how much money on pointless junk they don't need.

Hopefully, under more civil terms, I can ask the question... what do you, you wonderful Escapist lot, think about transgenders, transsexuals, genderqueers or other? Do you harbour any sort of prejudice? Do you feel appalled? Do you support their individual decisions to find their own way? What are your thoughts?

Biologically they will always be whatever their sex was at birth.

Their gender, however, is up to them.

Being male doesn't mean you can't be a 'woman', while being female doesn't mean you can't be a 'man'.

 

[cobra_ky]

Nothing against it, but after the last thread like that popped up on escapist I tried to do some reading in order to understand it more...

And I was left only more confused, is it considered to be a psychological disorder, mental illness, biological mistake? I'm so terribly confused and the internets seem to present many conflicting answers.

based on what i've read about the subject, i'd say it's a neuro/physiological disorder. men and women have different genitalia. they also have different brains. as far as i can tell, (and i'm not a doctor so don't quote me on this) transsexuality is the result of one's physical sex not matching up with the sex their brain is designed for.

_I believe that every pre/post-op transsexual needs psychiatric care. They are men and women trapped in the "wrong" body? You tell me that's not something that deserves serious care and I can tell you that, well, I disagree. I don't mean this in an ignorant "they're crazy fuckin' tards, MAN" way. I'm very serious about this. This type of surgery is just like the kind of surgery done on patients who have a severe psychiatric disorder where they hate their limb so much they demand to have it lopped off!
I don't have it out for transsexuals. I have it out for the doctors that don't give a shit to help those people find another way before they go changing themselves.

Doctors have been trying to "cure" transexuality through psychiatry for years. The results are typically disastrous. without an effective psychological treatment, sexual reassignment surgery is the only recourse for transgendered individuals who can no longer live with their inner conflict.

_And I thought transgender was the term used for people who are born with both sets of genitalia. I have nothing against them either and I'm sure the porn is gross to me too. See the pattern here?

you're thinking of the intersexed, more commonly known as "hermaphrodites".

transpeople freak the ever loving shit out of me- Ive yet to meet one that doesnt look off or have some obvious hint that tells what they are, and it just comes off creepy.

if you met one that didn't look "off"...how would you know?

There are exceptions to every rule.

Someone else quoted me who I'm yet to get back to, but they are transgender, your dad is a transgender, so yeah, its very fair to say you guys are accustomed to it. But surely you understand that puts you in very small minorities and while that obviously doesn't effect you as a person, most people aren't in your shoes.

Most people have extremely little to no contact with those communities, and people get confused and perhaps unnerved by the idea of a man who changes his body to look like a woman or vice versa. Just because you call a man who looks like a woman 'she', you went out with what amounts to a very pretty man. I couldn't give a shit and I'd pity anyone who did, just saying.

i had never met a transgendered person, until an online friend revealed to me that she was a MtF transgender. I was surprised, sure, but i asked a few questions, and had a few misconceptions corrected. I wouldn't say i was 'creeped out' by the experience.