elvor0 said:
KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime said:
I didn't call him bigoted, I tried to make that clear, not that he is a bigot.
You said "the linguistic argument is used to back up personal bigotries". That doesn't sound like you're separating the statement from the person to me, BUT if that's what you meant to do, that's cool.
Well my intention was to attack the argument, not the person making it.
elvor0 said:
I...did not. But from what I could gleam from google, XY Female Syndrome prevents you from experiencing puberty. Could you link a source for those that go undiagnosed due to no conditions? Because I assume you'd notice. I couldn't find anything myself. XX Male syndrome could certainly go unnoticed given the only symptoms are stated to be a small penis and infertility and "varying degrees of breast growth" going by wikipedia.
The thing is with XY females, we only generally find out a female who has the condition when something goes wrong, same thing with XX male syndrome. There are varying severities from what I understand an we only really learn about the more extreme case. There was a study I was shown a while back that had some large number of XY females in it, they concluded XY females actually make up a statistically significant portion of the general population. Wikipedia and a lot of other sources only have the academically relevant stats, where the genetic condition was found as a result of targeting people with the symptoms associated with the condition. They found evidence to the contrary recently, that XX males and XY females more likely than not don't show classic symptoms of lack of puberty, late puberty, infertility, deformed genitals, and so on.
elvor0 said:
The closest I've been to this issue is "Complete androgen insensitivity syndrome" from an episode of House, and I'm not entirely sure how accurate that was. The hard thing is though....that's not normal in the slightest. They're mutations, anomalies. Most people are only aware of Male is XY, Female is XX. Crazy combinations screw with peoples heads because its not even something they can vaguely relate to or comprehend. Genetically XXMales and XYFemale people are actually the opposite sex, they just appear male or female. Which of course screws with peoples heads, 50 years of subconscious pattern recognition are very difficult to break. People talk in very general terms of what is normal and familiar, matey with XXXY genes doesn't come into their heads when discussing the matter, because they likely don't even know he exists, nor is he really part of the discussion because he's so anomalous it shouldn't effect the discussion.
Well most people don't even think genetics when they think of someone as a man, woman, girl, or boy. They take only what they can visually observe of the person to determine that person's gender. That's why androgynous guys with long hair, or masculine women with short hair, might get mistaken for the wrong gender. It's the same thing with genitals in this case, in much of the world you don't get to see someone's genitals, so they don't come into the equation for determining gender for the most part either. Basically both are generally empty arguments used exclusively to invalidate trans folk, because genetics and genitals are information people generally don't have in these situations.
elvor0 said:
Obviously there are people that use it to cut down trans people, many many people. But some don't do it out of spite, they do it because it fucks with their headspace. To those people, its like trying to explain colour to a blind person. John is now Jane makes no sense to them, because from their POV, John is still visually John, only John now has a dress on. It's part of the reason the changing room debate has been going on for so long. /Especially/ when you have people who haven't physically transitioned. Jane being in the changing room with her visually male body swinging his dick about is obviously very difficult to swallow for a lot of people. And of course it is, again 50 years of subconscious pattern recognition is difficult to break.
Well the debate over facilities like restrooms, locker rooms, and etc is actually because we're clinging to Victorian ideas about gender. Specifically with women and LGBTQ+ folk fighting for general equality, straight cisgender men see that as a threat, because their traditional advantage is being eroded. It's not just men, straight, or cisgender for that matter, who cling to the old ideas, as people are always uncomfortable with change. It's also not 50 years of biasing in this manner, more like two and a half centuries, probably more. For the changing room debate in particular, we're running headlong into the wall of why gender segregated facilities are kind of an unworkable idea. It's actually more efficient to have non-gendered facilities with individual private changing, bathroom, and shower stalls.
As for your "John is now Jane" analogy... That kind of doesn't fly, when someone whose starts taking hormone replacement therapy it does change how they look. That's leaving aside surgeries the person might have to change how masculine/feminine they look, in the mean time. Still the rejection of identity is more about rejecting a person on a fundamental level for selfish reasons.
elvor0 said:
Yeah you're right, 95% of the time, it isn't going to work. But engaging in debate, no matter how frustrating when the other person stonewalls you (truth be told I am on the opposite side of the fence to you), you will get through to one person, one day and it will be marvelous. Always stick to your guns.
The major issues is that as a trans person these stances are used to personally hurt me and many other people in my circle of friends. So it should be easy to understand why I just won't have much patience with the argument at all, especially because I encounter it constantly, on a literally daily basis. A lot of people don't realize that trans folk get really fed up with people constantly questioning, then invalidating, our identities. We tend to have short fuses in this regard, because it is a constant external assault on us on a personal level.
elvor0 said:
People do use those tactics for sure, but I like to be optimistic that most people are just ignorant. Not that I'm saying you feel this way or that I'm getting those vibes from you(in fact, I may have bitten off more than I can chew here for discussion, hoo boy), but assuming everyone actively hates you just breeds paranoia and hostility. Obviously the below doesn't apply to genes specifically so much as the issue in general.
As I said above, it's a constant barrage of this kind of thing, it gets real tiring really fast. That means trans folk tend not to have a lot of patience with people once they start saying these sorts of things. It's double so when Emanuele said that you can't change your gender, which isn't something trans people do mind you, we actually transition to live as the gender we are. As gender and sex aren't the same thing and gender lives in the mind, not the junk. It's not an assumption that everyone hates us, virtually all trans folk are aware that most people couldn't give a flying fuck. It's the people who spread harmful misinformation that gets us agitated. Speaking of which groups like the FRC is using statements like Emanuele used as a method to push legislation to actively outlaw all legal rights for trans people. They're literally trying to prevent us from getting help to transition, prevent us from being legally able to change our names and gender makers, working to deny us protections in housing and employment... It's really ugly and "reasonable" sounding language like Emanuele used that's the back bone of this hate and discrimination campaign.
elvor0 said:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/meredithtalusan/cissexist-bullshit-translator#.ldbDWNEj2
Now, this link is....quite hyperbolic but it is genuine. It's basically the extremist version of what we're discussing but that is what I fear happens quite a bit. I have been attacked quite a bit in the past for trying to educate myself or for saying things I didnt even know were offensive. Now, it doesn't happen that much but I believe shit like this actually harms the trans cause. I mean those comics fuck me off. They genuinely make me angry at the toss pot who wrote them. Now it's possible that the author could just have been worn down by the world, but I think not, barring some areas, the western world isn't actually that hostile to transpeople. The last two especially do not help. Clearly neither of the people in those 2 strips are bigots or even vaguely offensive, but the author just decides the best way to respond to any interaction to do with trans...ism(?, word?) is to be a passive aggressive twat and assume everyone hates him. Of course if that is how he actually behaves, of course everyone hates him...because he's a passive aggressive twat, and some use that as ammunition to demonstrate that people are bigots.
Well I've seen the "cissexist bullshit translator" page before, and it gave me a good laugh, because it's true and that makes it funny. Mind you the whole thrust of that series of comics though is about unsolicited opinions thrown at us, along with backhanded compliments people tend to pay people they know are trans. That's what cissexism is though, it's an unintentional thing people do, because they're used to the negative tropes that surround trans people. Specifically the trope that says all trans people are; "ugly burly men who dress like women and have deep voices."
Now, believe it, or not, the developed western world likes to think of it self as progressive, accepting, and friendly towards LGBTQ+ folk; however, this isn't exactly the truth. Gay and lesbian people are far more likely to be assaulted than the general public, just because they're not straight, trans people are far more likely to victims of crimes because of anti-trans rhetoric. Considering that in most of the developed world a trans person has to have a risky and expensive surgery to just get the correct gender listed on a passport, that's not exactly friendly. Especially considering a lot of trans people are so called "non-op", opting not to get the bottom surgery for several reasons. LGBTQ+ folk don't have legal protections in most of the western world to protect us from discrimination in employment, housing, and access to services. Even when we do have those legal protections, we still get discriminated against anyways, and it's big news when someone wins a case in these scenarios, because winning a legal case against LGBTQ+ discrimination is rare as hell.
The comics you shared here aren't really intended for the vast majority of cisgender heterosexual folk, they're more of an in-joke, and source of frustration for trans people. Actual cisgender trans allies who actually listen to their trans friends would probably understand why the comics are funny. That's the thing, it's more or less poking fun at the way cisgender people tend to treat us, which is to say in an unintentionally bad way. People always say stupid things to groups they're not intimately familiar with. Like when a white person says "you're really well spoken" to a black person, or when a straight person says "I would have never thought you're gay" to a gay person. Things like that happen
a lot, people generally don't mean any harm, but just voicing somethings they're actually meaning the opposite of what they say. Again all those comics were basically snark for the way cis folk tend to treat trans folk.
Finally saying things like that harm the trans community, that's not constructive, it's called tone policing, and it's a way of shutting down dissent. No movement whose objective is equality ever won ground by being excessively nice and "reasonable", all such movements have to be aggressive and in your face, they have to make people uncomfortable. If we're not making people uncomfortable with the awful ways they tend to treat us, with the ways they tend to dehumanize us as a group, then those people never, ever change.
Now... Read this comic on tone policing from Robot Hugs! It'll show you better what I'm talking about. [http://www.robot-hugs.com/tone-policing/]
A side note, the word you're looking for when referring to trans-ness as a general state is "transgenderism". Hope that clears things up for you.
elvor0 said:
Essentially this is the extreme demonstration of why I originally said your attitude was unhealthy to begin with. Obviously your post makes it abundantly clear I was in the wrong with that description but there you go.
It wouldn't seem so extreme if you were exposed to these kinds of attitudes on a daily basis, I am and I see a lot of familiar situations in those comics. Again calling our anger and frustration with constant poor treatment and dismissive attitudes "unhealthy" is classic tone policing. We're gonna come off as angry because we're being treated poorly, it's something we deal with constantly too, telling us basically to shut up, or to "calm down" doesn't help, it just comes off as dismissive.
elvor0 said:
Oh definitely, her outing her self was probablly the best reaction to the scenario, I'm just saying I think it would be better to headline the stuff around the outing rather than the actual outing, if you catch my drift. That way you bang on the daily mail for being dickbags as the main talking point rather than adding to the sensation-ism
Well one thing is, Lilly coming out as trans was big news to the trans community, because we don't have all that many famous and successful role models to look up to. I mean it's sad that a trans person's coming out, especially when the one who's a celebrity, is still sensational news, but that's partially because of our typical experience of exclusion. Still slapping down the Daily Fail as a shit-rag tabloid run by giant douches was a main thrust of my whole point, but that doesn't detract from the importance of Lilly coming out either.
elvor0 said:
Blimy, we're going to have fun formatting this from here on out aren't we?
Hah! Says you, I am the the forum quote code sorceress! ... Not really, but it's pretty easy to figure out, I can even quote people I have on my ignore list because I learned how the system works. I still bugger it up on a regular basis though.
