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The LGBT+ issue that interests me the most is the medical/biological technology of gender confirmation. This is because I'd probably be trans if the technology was better, and also because it's unusual for our social technology to overtake the rest of our technology. In most cases it's the other way around. For example, our social technology hasn't kept pace with our industrial technology, which is causing climate change. Or how we invented atomic bombs before we were responsible enough to have them, which led to two being used in warfare as well as close-calls during the Cold War. There's also an example that hasn't happened yet in whether we consider a hypothetical strong AI to be a person like a human (most people don't). Though as I was writing that I realized that it's not just whether the memes exist, it's whether enough people hold them for them to do their job. So the fact that there's still controversy over whether trans people are the gender they identify as is similar to there being controversy over whether climate change is real/a problem. And that's not even going into what happens when powerful people's interests get in the way, which I'm not sure is as much of an issue for trans rights. Other than political pundits, when it comes to transphobia, cui bono? Not to get all Nick Land, but what I'm looking forward to seeing is how gender essentialism breaks down as relevant technology progresses. The Ben Shapiros of the world say there is a quality that cis people have that trans people lack, and he points to sex chromosomes and the ability to produce children in the way typical of a gender. But is he saying those things are the quality, or merely that they're evidence of the quality? When his hair is gray and there's a trans woman fully CRISPed to have XX in every cell, who gives birth to a beautiful baby after gestation and impregnation indistinguishable from a cis woman, maybe then we'll find out.
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Apr 29, 2022 19:52
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it's pretty abundantly clear that the only people a lot of our culture will ever truly consider women is people who were assigned female at birth, with XX genes being important but not sufficient. this is hopefully changing with younger people, but most of the hardliners on mumsnet or whatever are clearly not willing to entertain the idea of anyone but "natural-born women" being truly female. Edit: for example, uterus transplants are hitting the edge of possibility now. the main reaction I've seen from anti-trans people has been the idea that poor Black women will have their wombs stolen to put into wealthy, white trans women. Lyesh fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Apr 29, 2022 |
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Apr 29, 2022 19:59
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Lyesh posted:it's pretty abundantly clear that the only people a lot of our culture will ever truly consider women is people who were assigned female at birth, with XX genes being important but not sufficient. I agree. I mostly meant that part about whether the the omni-Shapiro would change its mind rhetorically. I would bet money that they won't in most cases, because chromosomes and gametes aren't reasons for their beliefs, they're excuses.
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Apr 29, 2022 20:06
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I have an extremely strong suspicion that the "concerns" are actually just post hoc justifications for people finding trans people icky. Which is also why so many of them are just recycled gay panic crap. A significant portion of society is very invested in enforcing their idea of normal on the rest of society, either because they are very invested in the norms themselves or they are very invested in the act of enforcement, lots of people, myself included honestly, really do enjoy just having a socially acceptable punching bag, and others find that they enjoy a position of authority out of the confluence of those two tendencies. So concerns can and will be invented and performatively espoused as long as the act of doing so can serve those purposes. So I think the most likely solution is not technological (though that might help render the idea of "being able to tell" even more farcical than it already is) but rather that I think a big part of the profusion of queerness among younger people since the real blows were dealt to its repression in the past couple of decades, is rooted in the fact that it is simply better to not bother with enforcing norms. You get the odd queer person who goes in on the gatekeeping and wanting to be accepted by the normative society so they spend their time making GBS threads on nonconforming people, but I think for the most part the foot in the door for queer acceptance has only made the more weird and wonderful side of the community flourish, and I think that is an inherently appealing message, you can and should just be yourself, and gently caress anyone who tells you you can't be. I am hopeful that idea will spread further, because it also has great applications, IMO, for wider politics. And I think the more people who embrace it the less power and appeal the enforcement obsessed section of society will have.
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Apr 29, 2022 20:09
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Dog King posted:I agree. I mostly meant that part about whether the the omni-Shapiro would change its mind rhetorically. I would bet money that they won't in most cases, because chromosomes and gametes aren't reasons for their beliefs, they're excuses. Yeah. As far as I can tell, it's coming from homophobia on the Shapiro side, and it's more of a gender essentialism kinda thing with terfs. It's been distressingly difficult to get terfs to change their minds by pointing out that Shapiro and co want to ban abortion and generally subjugate women as well.
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Apr 29, 2022 20:14
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There is no gender essence in the body. They define these specific things to be that essence to exclude trans people, and then also carve out exceptions for cis people who don't have those things. If we get reproductive organ transplants, then that will get dropped from their definition. This becomes very obvious when you get confronted by misinformed transphobes. They might say something like "a woman has real breasts that can make milk." And when confronted with the fact that trans women have breasts just as real as theirs that developed in the same way, it does not make them think trans women are really women. It makes them change their definition of what a "real" woman is. Whether you have XX or XY chromosomes doesn't make difference after birth. They define whether the body develops testes or ovaries, and all of the other code for sex differentiation is activated by estrogen and androgen exposure and exists in other parts of the genome. Hormone therapy is a very simple thing. It just unlocks natural processes that already exists in your body. Almost every external indicator of gender is controlled by post natal hormone exposure. The issues come with dealing with the lingering aftereffects of going through the wrong puberty. If trans people could get hormone therapy at the onset of puberty, they would develop identically to their cis peers. Though, even for adults, a lot more of the shape of your face and body comes from soft tissue than you would think. And that does slowly change on hormone therapy. e: quote:I'd probably be trans if the technology was better I don't mean to push anything on you, but I have thought the exact same thing years ago when I knew less about how it worked. Dr. Stab fucked around with this message at 20:19 on Apr 29, 2022 |
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Apr 29, 2022 20:14
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Lyesh posted:It's been distressingly difficult to get terfs to change their minds by pointing out that Shapiro and co want to ban abortion and generally subjugate women as well. I think a lot of them are fine with that as long as they're the arbiters of it, is the thing.
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Apr 29, 2022 20:15
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OwlFancier posted:So concerns can and will be invented and performatively espoused as long as the act of doing so can serve those purposes. So I think the most likely solution is not technological (though that might help render the idea of "being able to tell" even more farcical than it already is) but rather that I think a big part of the profusion of queerness among younger people since the real blows were dealt to its repression in the past couple of decades, is rooted in the fact that it is simply better to not bother with enforcing norms. I think this is what Zizek means when he talks about how the "plus" is the most important part of LGBTQIA+, and I agree with that. Adding more letters to the acronym doesn't make it more inclusive, because it's still reinforcing the idea that each one needs to be sanctioned for it to count. I think the point of maximum inclusiveness would be when it's just a plus and nothing else. Dr. Stab posted:There is no gender essence in the body. They define these specific things to be that essence to exclude trans people, and then also carve out exceptions for cis people who don't have those things. If we get reproductive organ transplants, then that will get dropped from their definition. This becomes very obvious when you get confronted by misinformed transphobes. They might say something like "a woman has real breasts that can make milk." And when confronted with the fact that trans women have breasts just as real as theirs that developed in the same way, it does not make them think trans women are really women. It makes them change their definition of what a "real" woman is. Yeah. I don't think technological progress is going to eradicate transphobia (which was hopefully obvious from my first post). It might reduce it by making it harder to justify, but the essentialism that underlies it isn't a contingent belief that's sensitive to evidence or changes in the world. Dr. Stab posted:Whether you have XX or XY chromosomes doesn't make difference after birth. They define whether the body develops testes or ovaries, and all of the other code for sex differentiation is activated by estrogen and androgen exposure and exists in other parts of the genome. This isn't technically true. Sex chromosomes continue to influence endocrine production after birth, even independent of what gonads a person has. One way you can tell this is with De La Chapelle syndrome, where XX people have the SRY gene which causes them to have external and internal genitalia indistinguishable from XY males during childhood, but they sometimes require testosterone supplementation to develop fully male secondary sex characteristics during puberty. This is also an example of another thing the Y chromosome does after birth, which is enable spermatogenesis, because most people with de la Chapelle syndrome are infertile. Dr. Stab posted:I don't mean to push anything on you, but I have thought the exact same thing years ago when I knew less about how it worked. I appreciate you caring enough about another human being to want to help, and also being open enough to talk about your own experience, but there's a lot of personal stuff at play and I don't think anything I learned about the current tech would be enough.
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Apr 29, 2022 21:02
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Dr. Stab posted:Whether you have XX or XY chromosomes doesn't make difference after birth. They define whether the body develops testes or ovaries, and all of the other code for sex differentiation is activated by estrogen and androgen exposure and exists in other parts of the genome. It should be pointed out that sex is very much not a binary and it's entirely possible for you to be XX and present as a male with a fully functioning male biology. Sex is a spectrum just as gender is. Dog King posted:The LGBT+ issue that interests me the most is the medical/biological technology of gender confirmation. This is because I'd probably be trans if the technology was better, This struck me as odd. I'm not going to tell you whether you are transgender or not, but it's worth mentioning that there are many people who are transgender but who do not undergo any affirming medical treatments, for a variety of reasons. Affirmation tech shouldn't necessarily affect whether or not you a transgender. If you are you are.
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Apr 29, 2022 21:05
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Jaxyon posted:This struck me as odd. I'm not going to tell you whether you are transgender or not, but it's worth mentioning that there are many people who are transgender but who do not undergo any affirming medical treatments, for a variety of reasons. Affirmation tech shouldn't necessarily affect whether or not you a transgender. If you are you are. So as far as I know, whether you're trans is defined by whether you identify as a different gender than the one you were assigned at birth. I don't now, and would under different circumstances. Therefore I'm not trans, but would be.
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Apr 29, 2022 21:13
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Dog King posted:So as far as I know, whether you're trans is defined by whether you identify as a different gender than the one you were assigned at birth. I don't now, and would under different circumstances. Therefore I'm not trans, but would be. Cool, like I said I'm not here to tell you what you are or aren't, just wanted to add that info.
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Apr 29, 2022 21:19
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I feel like that a lot too. Mostly in that I don't know if I have a gender identity, it took a long time for me to understand the concept because the only experience of it I've had is that gendering is something other people do to you, not something you do to yourself. But apparently a lot of people don't feel that way. So if you offered me the ability to just snap my fingers and switch? Yes I probably would, it would be interesting to see if I would feel different about myself, and presumably I could also just switch back if I didn't like it. But the prospect of going through all the grief people go through now for it? I know myself well enough to know the effort would outweigh any possible benefit.
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Apr 29, 2022 21:22
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I went for a period where I was in the mindset that if I could magically look like Kristen Stewart I would, but because I could never look like Kristen Stewart or deal with the maintenance of bottom surgery, I might as well just quietly live as a man. And my big regret with that is that while I've been proud of coming out and living as my true self, I did so after already being married, in the middle of a pandemic, and on the verge of having a child. I had so many amazing friends, and I just wish I could travel back in time and be my true self with them. I do think the main thing I realized after transitioning is how exhausting it is trying to pass. You have no idea until you stop, how much effort you're putting into not being your true self. I just remember breaking into tears because I realized how much mental effort I was putting into pretending.
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Apr 29, 2022 21:40
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In terms of myself, I would say that I was always trans, rather than at some point I became trans. Like, if I was only trans at the point where I could say "I am a woman" and believe it, I wasn't trans until like 4 months after I started hormone therapy. Until then, the way I understood myself was always "I am a man who wants to be a woman." And, that was a gradual shift in my own self understanding that is still ongoing (I still think sometimes that I could just be a man who really really likes the effects of estrogen on my body and being regarded as female). For me, the thing that makes me trans and a woman is that desire/need to be a woman. In that sense I was always a trans woman even when I didn't think of myself as one. And, this is kind of an abstract intellectual thing. It just makes it easier to understand myself under that framework. After I started hormones, it felt so right and natural and familiar and relaxing. It didn't really make sense why I would feel this way as a man who wants to be a woman. It makes more sense that it feels correct because it is, and since I wanted to get here for most of my life, that desire must have also come from the same sort of deep down "woman-being" that was always there but only recently recognized.
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Apr 29, 2022 21:53
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Dog King posted:I'm not sure is as much of an issue for trans rights. Other than political pundits, when it comes to transphobia, cui bono? powerful people will absolutely do anything they can to ensure that the costs of reproduction of labor are paid for by the working class itself.
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Apr 29, 2022 22:03
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That's what makes me think I'm not, there is no better self I wish I could be, I am always myself, there is nothing else for me to be, it's just that I've also never felt like that included a gender. I have one because everyone else assigns me one but I put no effort into it and I don't feel like I want or need to be identified as it. One of the nice things is the older I've gotten the less people have been weird about it. Growing up I got told I needed to be more masculine a lot, but it's gotten so rare as an adult that it's startling and laughable on the odd occasion it does happen. I dunno, I don't think this is enby either because enbies usually seem to enjoy expressing a gender that isn't binary, rather than just being kinda nonplussed by the whole thing.
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Apr 29, 2022 22:05
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That reminds me a bit of Vi Hart's On Gender, which is bit like an affirmative trans positive version of the 'Gender Critical' badness but from before mainstream GC kicked off again, like it's easy to see how that attitude could turn into GC if they were surrounded by people echoing that and lacked the intellectual curiosity that they have, but goes in a different and better direction just by listening. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmKix-75dsg That view seems to be part of or linked to 'gender agnostic' now.
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Apr 29, 2022 22:10
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OwlFancier posted:I dunno, I don't think this is enby either because enbies usually seem to enjoy expressing a gender that isn't binary, rather than just being kinda nonplussed by the whole thing. This is absolutely a call for you to make yourself for what you think of yourself as, but there are a lot of different relationships to gender that get commonly included in the umbrella of "non-binary". For example there's agender and similar terms/concepts that have some things in common with how you describe your experience and is I think generally accepted as a way of being non-binary. To stress, I don't mean to force or pressure any label onto you, but there are definitely a lot of different ways of being non-binary or trans or queer or whathaveyou.
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Apr 29, 2022 22:15
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Well also I feel slightly odd when I look like a large burly man and I am definitely not going to put any effort in to stop doing that because I am very lazy and I have no idea what I would replace it with, so it seems presumptuous of me to sort of glom on to the same group as people who have a much harder time of things than me. And yes obviously I know that if I said that about someone else I would think I was being an oik but I'm allowed to have double standards about myself. Guavanaut posted:That reminds me a bit of Vi Hart's On Gender, which is bit like an affirmative trans positive version of the 'Gender Critical' badness but from before mainstream GC kicked off again, like it's easy to see how that attitude could turn into GC if they were surrounded by people echoing that and lacked the intellectual curiosity that they have, but goes in a different and better direction just by listening. Thank you for this also, first time I've heard someone else describe it and thought "yes this is correct" OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 22:25 on Apr 29, 2022 |
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Apr 29, 2022 22:19
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OwlFancier posted:Well also I feel slightly odd when I look like a large burly man and I am definitely not going to put any effort in to stop doing that because I am very lazy and I have no idea what I would replace it with, so it seems presumptuous of me to sort of glom on to the same group as people who have a much harder time of things than me. That said, "Gender is something that I'm not really doing or have any interest in doing, and its just something that people have been applying to me" is like, the agender vibe. Like, if someone described themselves that way and then said they were agender, I'd be like "yup textbook". I don't think you'd be presumptuous at all to self ID that way. But like, to stress through reiteration, you can and should self ID the way that feels the most comfortable and right.
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Apr 29, 2022 22:41
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From what mainstream coverage I've seen of non-binary people, I'd also say that a lot of the mainstream perception, for lack of a better word, is driven by some pretty over-the-top people who say things like "I am too big and all-encompassing to be constrained by notions of gender, I am all things at once!" and it's like, well, cool, no self-esteem problems there, for sure! But I doubt that's how the average non-binary person understands their own identity and life, and mostly I'm guessing they aren't super vocal about it because it's still not hugely accepted in general. Depending on how they choose to present, and what pronouns they prefer to use, you might not even know a non-binary person is non-binary unless they choose to bring it up,
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Apr 29, 2022 23:47
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Rob Filter posted:That said, "Gender is something that I'm not really doing or have any interest in doing, and its just something that people have been applying to me" is like, the agender vibe. How would you differentiate between being agender and someone who feels apathy due to the privilege that comes with being cis gender? If you put a gun to my head I would identify as a cis gender male, but to be honest I haven't given it a great deal of thought. Mostly because I have very masculine features and I've never had my gender questioned by anyone else. Nor have I ever really thought about being a man in the sense of "I'm a man, and therefore I need to do X because I'm a man" - I've always just done my own thing without thinking about how my gender plays a role in it. I recognize that there is an immense amount of privilege in being able to live my life that way, so I'm sure I'm missing something here. Is being agender an active rejection of any gender in the sense that "I don't feel that any gender applies to me"? Is it something that someone has to actively define themselves as - apathy isn't sufficient? Or would someone like me also fall under your definition - ostensibly cis gender, but hasn't really given it much thought at all?
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Apr 30, 2022 00:26
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PT6A posted:From what mainstream coverage I've seen of non-binary people, I'd also say that a lot of the mainstream perception, for lack of a better word, is driven by some pretty over-the-top people who say things like "I am too big and all-encompassing to be constrained by notions of gender, I am all things at once!" and it's like, well, cool, no self-esteem problems there, for sure! But I doubt that's how the average non-binary person understands their own identity and life, and mostly I'm guessing they aren't super vocal about it because it's still not hugely accepted in general. Depending on how they choose to present, and what pronouns they prefer to use, you might not even know a non-binary person is non-binary unless they choose to bring it up, Being in trans spaces where people talk about identity, a lot of people just tell people they are a boy or a girl because that's easiest, and it's close enough for them most of the time. Especially if you're afab and you tell people you're nb, they're just going to classify you as a girl unless you're super far into testosterone. Some people project an identifiable "enby" aesthetic, but they are in the minority. There's a joke about saving the good genders for when you have trans company. You don't waste that stuff on any old guest. And, also, yeah, there's just people who don't see themselves as any gender, but also don't mind being assumed to be any particular gender. They don't get anything by coming out as nb, but it is useful for them to understand that other people might have a different relationship to gender. Also, from the outside, it's hard to distinguish that from, like, normal cis ignorance of "I don't have a gender identity (because it fits so well I don't even notice it)." Because they both have the same "I don't get trans people, why do you care about gender so much?" questions.
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Apr 30, 2022 00:29
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Seph posted:How would you differentiate between being agender and someone who feels apathy due to the privilege that comes with being cis gender? If you put a gun to my head I would identify as a cis gender male, but to be honest I haven't given it a great deal of thought. Mostly because I have very masculine features and I've never had my gender questioned by anyone else. Nor have I ever really thought about being a man in the sense of "I'm a man, and therefore I need to do X because I'm a man" - I've always just done my own thing without thinking about how my gender plays a role in it. Not to turn the LGBTQIA+ thread into cis man therapy space, but I, a cis man, feel similar. I suspect that much of the difficulty male transphobes have with the idea of gender identity comes from the fact that many, like me, don't actively think about their gender much, because maleness is default. When I've thought about this, I've asked myself these kinds of questions: "Do I have any interest in dressing in a gender-non-conforming way?" "Do I wish that people would perceive me in a different way than they currently do, in a gender-y way?" "How does imagining my body being more feminine make me feel?" Because my answers to those questions are all negative, I'm pretty much positive I'm cis, even though I don't actively think about my gender very much.
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Apr 30, 2022 00:48
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Timeless Appeal posted:I think Jaxyon definitely did a good job of demonstrating that there is empirically a disproportionate amount of people who are queer who kill themselves. Even a lot of Conservatives and bigots concede this point even if they obviously disagree with how to interpret these facts. OwlFancier posted:Also didn't you say you got poo poo as a teenager specifically for that? I suffered harassment yes, but I had the privilege of mostly supportive parents (maybe not by today's standards, they took the Don't Say Gay approach until I was 12) and was also a huge coward so no matter how down I felt I kept trudging along. I know LGBT kids are more at risk, remember the It Gets Better stuff from 15 years ago, but as an older millennial myself thought that millennials were being better parents about this poo poo than Xers and Boomers were, especially since someone had just suggest that as many as 1/5th of the kids of today identify with some sort of queer label. Given the security of the closet back then, I didn't know if the numbers I heard a decade ago were still accurate. Lyesh posted:it's pretty abundantly clear that the only people a lot of our culture will ever truly consider women is people who were assigned female at birth, with XX genes being important but not sufficient. Is there any terminology like "assigned ________ at birth" in the event we progress that people are not being assigned a gender at birth? It always felt to me that "assigned _____ at birth" is a positive replacement for "biologically ______". But it also makes the assumption that a system that presumes mature people being oppressed by the circumstances of their birth continuing in perpetuity. Not to say it's defeatist, but I think part of making progress is figuring out what your brighter days look like so you can press forward to it. Craptacular! fucked around with this message at 00:55 on Apr 30, 2022 |
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Apr 30, 2022 00:48
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smug n stuff posted:Not to turn the LGBTQIA+ thread into cis man therapy space, but I, a cis man, feel similar. I suspect that much of the difficulty male transphobes have with the idea of gender identity comes from the fact that many, like me, don't actively think about their gender much, because maleness is default. One question that I've heard is "If I offered you a million dollars to take cross sex hormone therapy for the rest of your life, would you?" Also, not directed at you, but I think a lot of cis men try to understand the trans experience via looking at trans women, but they would probably have a much easier time looking at trans men.
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Apr 30, 2022 01:06
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Craptacular! posted:I suffered harassment yes, but I had the privilege of mostly supportive parents (maybe not by today's standards, they took the Don't Say Gay approach until I was 12) and was also a huge coward so no matter how down I felt I kept trudging along. I know LGBT kids are more at risk, remember the It Gets Better stuff from 15 years ago, but as an older millennial myself thought that millennials were being better parents about this poo poo than Xers and Boomers were, especially since someone had just suggest that as many as 1/5th of the kids of today identify with some sort of queer label. Given the security of the closet back then, I didn't know if the numbers I heard a decade ago were still accurate. But you also gotta remember there are tons of fifty year olds out there raising teenagers. I think you're overestimating how progressive a lot of the population is (Only 54% of Democrats actively support trans rights), but we also have older generations doing child rearing. EDIT: It's also worth remembering that with the 1 in 5 statistic that 1) Just because they identify a certain way doesn't mean they are out. 10% of the entire students of my school have attended our GSA events, but very few are out to their families. 2) The vast majority of people who identify as LGTBIA+ are cis and bisexual, so they might be taking part in heteronormative relationships and not acting on their broader attractions. Timeless Appeal fucked around with this message at 01:31 on Apr 30, 2022 |
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Apr 30, 2022 01:23
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Craptacular! posted:Is there any terminology like "assigned ________ at birth" in the event we progress that people are not being assigned a gender at birth? not really. making it explicit what you're talking about is probably the closest we have right now: "person who can become pregnant," "person who can make others pregnant," "person who menstruates," etc. it's a bit wordy, but i think otherwise you're even more likely to fall into a common type of trap. where terms like afab/amab turn into a woke way of saying woman/man.
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Apr 30, 2022 01:54
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TBH even if transphobia ended tomorrow, a world where assigned at birth gender no longer exists is probably so far in the future, if it ever happens, that trying to come up with hypothetical terminology for it is a fool's errand. Language just evolves too fast; anything we came up with now would be next to meaningless by the time it actually matters. E: Like, just as an example of the massive linguistic shifts we're talking about here, to get to this world we need to decouple names from gender entirely. Either that or kids just don't have names until they come up with one themselves, which sounds like a horrible idea. Cattail Prophet fucked around with this message at 02:59 on Apr 30, 2022 |
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Apr 30, 2022 02:47
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AGAB makes sense just as a provisional thing, in terms of statistics. Most people born with penises will identify as men, and most people born with vaginas will identify as women. It seems like the healthier attitude to aim for would be "this can change and it's no big deal when it does and also you don't need to enforce any gender roles on your kid and just let them do what they want." And that second part's true even irrespective of trans people.
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Apr 30, 2022 02:52
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Cattail Prophet posted:a world where assigned at birth gender no longer exists is probably so far in the future It might be a little closer than you think? The American Medical Association is not a leftist organization historically (see also: Reagan UHC scaremongering 60 years ago), but last year reccomended removing sex from birth certificates. And that angered the usual suspects.
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Apr 30, 2022 03:39
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Craptacular! posted:It might be a little closer than you think? The American Medical Association is not a leftist organization historically (see also: Reagan UHC scaremongering 60 years ago), but last year reccomended removing sex from birth certificates. And that angered the usual suspects.
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Apr 30, 2022 03:46
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Timeless Appeal posted:I went for a period where I was in the mindset that if I could magically look like Kristen Stewart I would, but because I could never look like Kristen Stewart or deal with the maintenance of bottom surgery, I might as well just quietly live as a man. And my big regret with that is that while I've been proud of coming out and living as my true self, I did so after already being married, in the middle of a pandemic, and on the verge of having a child. I had so many amazing friends, and I just wish I could travel back in time and be my true self with them. Plus, you, know, estrogen and progesterone gave me the ability to feel joy again. I had practically forgotten what that felt like during my 20+ years in my testosterone-soaked prison. Sure, bottom surgery and facial feminization surgery will be great if/when I can afford to get them, but they could never do as much for me as plain old HRT. PT6A posted:From what mainstream coverage I've seen of non-binary people, I'd also say that a lot of the mainstream perception, for lack of a better word, is driven by some pretty over-the-top people who say things like "I am too big and all-encompassing to be constrained by notions of gender, I am all things at once!" and it's like, well, cool, no self-esteem problems there, for sure! But I doubt that's how the average non-binary person understands their own identity and life, and mostly I'm guessing they aren't super vocal about it because it's still not hugely accepted in general. Depending on how they choose to present, and what pronouns they prefer to use, you might not even know a non-binary person is non-binary unless they choose to bring it up, -My best friend (AMAB she/they) was trans before me, though they now identify as a demi-girl, I believe because they experience several different gender states discreetly but most of them are feminine. -We have a mutual friend (AFAB they/them) who says the only problem they have with their body is that they don't have a penis. They collect knicknacks and clothing obsessively, and describe themselves as a "dapper dandy". They primarily wear loud men's dress clothes, though they also like to wear loud women's clothing and costume jewelry. Sometimes I think they're actually a trans man. -I came out to a coworker (AFAB she/they/he) because he turned to me one day and bitched about his new (male) coworkers treating them like a woman, adding, "Which I'm not!" while flexing their actually quite impressive bicep. I told them I understood, so I came out to them so they would know I actually did understand and wasn't just bullshitting. They're squirrel-like and considers theirself a warrior(which she defines as her "divine masculine energy"). And also a proud guinea pig mom(their exact description). -I recently transferred to a new department and have come into contact with yet another enby (AFAB she/they). They want to change their name, as they consider it too feminine, and have considered Spencer (but they feel it's too generically enby). Also once said, "I hate when people ask me what I want for dinner. I can't even figure out my own gender or sexuality(they're bi. All of these people ID as bi or pan), what makes them think I can figure out dinner?" Yes, the AMAB one is the femmest enby, but not as femme as my trans fem rear end. Kurgarra Queen fucked around with this message at 03:48 on Apr 30, 2022 |
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Apr 30, 2022 03:46
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Jaxyon posted:It should be pointed out that sex is very much not a binary and it's entirely possible for you to be XX and present as a male with a fully functioning male biology. Sex is a spectrum just as gender is. Yeah, it's important to remember that the 'assigned sex at birth' transphobes harp on is quite literally a best guess by doctors based on external anatomy, not some pronouncement from on high.
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Apr 30, 2022 07:20
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Seph posted:How would you differentiate between being agender and someone who feels apathy due to the privilege that comes with being cis gender? If you put a gun to my head I would identify as a cis gender male, but to be honest I haven't given it a great deal of thought. Mostly because I have very masculine features and I've never had my gender questioned by anyone else. Nor have I ever really thought about being a man in the sense of "I'm a man, and therefore I need to do X because I'm a man" - I've always just done my own thing without thinking about how my gender plays a role in it. Like a better question is like: which way of interacting with gender do I like? Does your gender spark joy? If you decide to fully digress from the lense of gender in your self understanding, does that make you feel happier? Sadder? Is gender opening up new avenues for self understanding, closing them off, is it truly irrelevant? If you took a step back from gender for a week and saw how it fits, would it be a fun digression from gender for a week that helped you be happier and better understand how you fit inside that gender, or would it be a fun digression from gender. Before taking this step, can you already guess what your answer will be? If that makes sense. quote:Or would someone like me also fall under your definition
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Apr 30, 2022 07:43
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Dog King posted:This is because I'd probably be trans if the technology was better, You're already trans, you just don't think current technology would satisfy you. Cis people don't say this.
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Apr 30, 2022 08:20
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Miss Broccoli posted:You're already trans, you just don't think current technology would satisfy you. Cis people don't say this. EDIT: To clarify, I think the broader discussion of if one can be cis and still desire to be another gender can probably be discussed, but it shouldn't be personal and we shouldn't be prescribing. Timeless Appeal fucked around with this message at 16:23 on Apr 30, 2022 |
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Apr 30, 2022 12:39
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So this is a bit of a digression from the current topic, but something I've been thinking about on and off for years but never really engaged with due to just not having a space where the conversation makes sense. I generally consider myself a cis gay man, but there is some wiggle room in that and it is sort of inverse to the general vibe of the thread in terms of what parts are emphasized. I came out in high school and had a supportive family, but I grew up in Indiana where being truly "out" to the world meant accepting discrimination in employment and such, so I moved out East to get more exposure to the world and escape the constant sense of vague unease that comes from being in a red state. So far so typical. I was very sexually active in my early 20s as I was grappling with what it meant to be gay and what sort of things felt authentic to me and while I've mostly settled down I'm in an open marriage and tend to have a very casual attitude about sex. That said, I've got a twinkish build that lends itself to androgyny, and I would say I could take or leave personal masculinity EXCEPT for the external genitalia, which are Very Important for me and a handful of people but not really relevant to the world at large. In terms of my personal fashion/external presentation, I tend to go with loose layered tops and skinny jeans. Basically, I sort of feel like I would maybe be just as happy or happier going by they/them, but because gender and sex still aren't really decoupled on a broader societal level I don't really know what to do with that thought, and being a "gay sex liker" I don't really know how to engage with that, as it seems agender often comes with the unstated assumptions of asexual or at least LESS sexual. Maybe some of that is because the only part of the movement that is hyper-sexualized is the gay part, which is toxic to many but suitable for me. I guess the long and short of it is that there is a difference between the presentation I would choose in a vacuum and the presentation that sorts me into people that behave similarly, and it isn't anything that SHOULD be gendered per se but often is in practice. I sort of feel like maybe I'm part of the problem if I don't choose to rep the agender gay just because I actually like/fit in with the existing masculine gay scene, as I'm sure there are other people who are in the same "maybe I am, maybe I'm not" boat, but it doesn't really feel like the sort of thing that would make any broad societal impact like the visibility of people "coming out" did in the last few decades, so I've just picked the path of least resistance.
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Apr 30, 2022 16:37
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I think that except for the part where we are living through a moral panic, so nothing about identity can be neutral, there’s really nothing about identity that demands you do anything other than the path of least resistance. I mean, another name for that would be “the path of comfortably being.” Which, to me, is the goal. Going through a period of angst or suffering to get there doesn’t make it any more authentic, you know? I don’t want to spend the rest of my life urgently considering the shape and parameters of my identity and I resent that the politics of the moment has made the work I need to do now much more fraught than it needs to be. I would not, however, say that you comfortably existing makes you part of the problem. The paths should be easier for everyone.
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Apr 30, 2022 16:52
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Miss Broccoli posted:You're already trans, you just don't think current technology would satisfy you. Cis people don't say this. Timeless Appeal posted:Per the OP, can we please refrain from prescribing or assuming someone’s gender identity. I think it’s fine to talk from experience or ask questions, but being prescriptive is a really slippery slope. What I'm interested to go over is the exact definition of trans where it makes sense to say one can be trans and not know it. Or where being trans can't be conditional on externalities, like Jaxyon implied. Like I said, the definition I'm operating under is "identify as a gender other than what they were assigned at birth," but I'm not really an expert in this.
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Apr 30, 2022 17:00
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