LGBTAitP - Part 21: BLACKJACK!

[Mina Kobold]

On the topic of comparing transgenderism to dwarfism, I think there might be a useful metaphor in there. :3

Mostly, Dwarfism doesn't neccessary cause any bigger problem than living in a society geared for a different body type. Some things are easy, some are difficult. This is the same for pretty much anything not shared by the majority, from allergies to different numbers of limbs.

However, in some it causes a great discomfort due to the body using blueprints for the wrong body and thus creates conflict between the genetical and physiological sides of it. Just like transgenderism have conflict between neurological and physiological sides. This means that they have pain or other discomforts that can only be solved through medication or surgery, depending on the case.

The confusion about transgenderism could be compared to the "cis dwarves" (I apologise if that is the wrong terminology, I could see it being offensive considering the Fantasy species of the same name. My deepest apologies for my ignorance. m(_ _)m) who are fine with their bodies wondering why the "trans dwarves" want to change anything.

Does that sound like a functional metaphor? I hope I at least didn't do something offensive out of ignorance.

[noparlpf]

No. Man and Woman are cultural definitions. They are social constructs. A transwoman may still be male by some definitions of the word (genetically, for instance, isn't likely to be solved soon), but she is a woman because that is the persona she chooses. Though "chooses" is the wrong word: just as you know you are a man or woman and (for reasons that escape me, but that's another rant) would feel uncomfortable if you woke up the wrong sex, so too do transpeople know they are their gender and feel uncomfortable because their body and the way people treat them does not match that.

It's not about acting feminine or masculine, either. Because, as mentioned, you can have butch transwomen and effeminate transmen. It's not about the clothing, because we have a word for folks who are only interested in crossdressing: crossdressers. It's about changing your own body to what it should be.

I can't claim to understand why trans people feel the way they do. I'm dating a lovely transwoman, and I can mouth the words of support and genuinely want her to be happy as best I can (which means supporting her transition), but I can't even begin to understand her motivation for doing so. But I can recognize it is a real thing. She isn't a man dressing up as a woman, she is just a woman. A lovely, sweet, wonderful woman who has been betrayed by society and her body. I've seen the sort of pain that it's caused her, and the way she's turned somewhat cynical to defend herself and the way she's taken to preempting further pain. And I want to make it better. I want her to be happy, to recognize that she can reach out more than she has, and to feel comfortable in the world and her own skin. So even though I don't understand why she hurts, I'll move heaven and earth to try and make a world where she doesn't have to hurt. That's why, even though maybe I don't understand the real problem any better than you do, I do want you to understand that it is a real problem.

Did you know that you're adorable?

Yeah, but I do, and plenty of feminists do, and we try be all "Hey, you should come join us, and we can help each other in this f**ked up kyriarchy!" and then someone comes along like that and is like "I SPEAK FOR FEMINISM AND I SAY [hate speech towards trans people goes here]" and then the trans people don't want to be associated with us (which is reasonable, if that's the first thing they're confronted with) and the dreaded Kyriarch claims another victory.

Yeah, that. My first thought when I saw those memes on that page was "DENOUNCES PATRIARCHY--PERPETUATES KYRIARCHY".

Hey, maybe we should make a new "-ism" for anti-kyriarchy people. "Feminism" is just anti-patriarchy and that's only a part of the kyriarchy.

Well, except the name. Being told by random male strangers to smile for them is creepy, wrong, infuriating, and bizarrely common for women. But yeah, none of the actual posts are doing anything for gender equality.

I'll give them that. But if my parents had named me "Sexism is Bad" and I went around shouting sexist stuff, I wouldn't be a feminist. So it's upsetting that people like that call themselves feminists while not actually doing anything for gender equality.

Nope. It's a bit tricky to understand because of the culture we're surrounded by which constantly conflates gender identity, gender expression and biological sex into one immutable, unchangeable Thing.

Gender identity: that bit of our mind that tells us we are a woman, a man, or some other gender (such as genderfluid)

Gender expression: how we express ourselves which gives cues to other people about our gender - these are cultural and not hardwired

Biological sex: our genitals - not really anyone else's business

I have a gender identity, I identify as female. Because I was lucky enough to be born into a biologically female body, I have no problems here, and my gender identity is just a thing in my mind somewhere that says I'm a woman. I'm called a cis woman. I control my gender expression: I like to wear dresses sometimes, which is a feminine expression in our culture, but I don't wear make-up and I like wearing sturdy boots. My identity as a woman doesn't force me to do feminine things, nor should it preclude me from doing masculine things.

A trans woman, like Natalie Reed, was born as a woman. She has that same gender identity thing in her mind somewhere, and it tells her she's a female. But unfortunately, as sometimes happens, she was born in a male body. That means she was raised as a boy, because usually, a child born in a male body is a boy. But she knew, or realised, that she was really a girl. Her body didn't fit right, and that is very difficult to live with, and very difficult for someone who hasn't experienced it to understand. So she's called a trans woman, because she transitioned to expressing herself as female. Lots of trans people get surgery, not because they have feminine "urges" or whatever, but because their body is wrong. They don't have to, and if a trans woman doesn't get surgery to get a female body, that doesn't mean she's not a woman, because it's her gender identity that's important. Some trans women are girly and like pink and dresses and hanging out with women. Some trans women like trucks and boots and spending time with men. Just like some cis women like pink and some like trucks. Pink and trucks and sports and make-up aren't biological imperatives, they're just expressions of personality that are culturally more dominant in one gender. So, in one way, a trans woman is still "actually" biologically male and has a Y-chromosome, but that isn't important, and only she and her doctor and maybe her partner(s) need to know that stuff. Actually, a trans women was always a woman, but her body didn't reflect that and people were mistaken about her.

Yay, my more eloquent alter-ego has come to the rescue!

[Astrella]

I dunno, I guess I would rather have a woman with man parts be happy with how they were made without feeling the need to 'correct' themselves to fit into a society enforced niche.
But what you said is certainly food for thought.

It has been tried extensively. Reparative therapy and trying to get trans* people to just "accept" what they are. And it doesn't work. Transitioning is the best way of "treating" trans* people (social and medical transitioning).

[Asta Kask]

In fact I think it's the only therapy that has shown any effect whatsoever.

[Parra]

Thank you all for answering. I will have read read through those links a little later and give the other posts a little time to digest and if I have further questions I'll post back.

In the mean time I've got a hungry baby to deal with


Thanks again

[Astrella]

*snip*

You are adorbs.

I'm amused that I apparently can't express a thought in more than a sentence looking back at the last few pages.

[golentan]

I'm adorable?

[noparlpf]

I'm adorable?

Yes you are! n.n

[bluewind95]

I'm adorable?

Definitely, yes.

[Asta Kask]

I'm adorable?

Somewhat.

[Coidzor]

I dunno, I guess I would rather have a woman with man parts be happy with how they were made without feeling the need to 'correct' themselves to fit into a society enforced niche.

They tried forcing that upon trans individuals already. If I recall correctly, and I imagine I'll be corrected shortly if I've misremembered, it mostly just translated into torture, much like efforts to cure homosexuality, when it wasn't marginalization and making trans people disappear from public life, history, and/or thought.
(trigger warning: discussion of bioethics and the underlying cause of why people are trans or cis)

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Until we fully understand the underlying causes of why humans develop with the brain-mind of one sex and the body of another, there's not a whole lot of room but to behave as ethically as we can and be compassionate or to choose actively immoral responses such as prejudice, persecution, and so on. And even then, depending upon what is going on, the bioethics is likely to be a huge morass.

Should in utero fetuses that show signs of their body developing one way and their mind another be pushed towards the mind or the body or should it be on a case by case basis? If it's case by case, what rubric for deciding which way to go should be used? Whichever is cheapest? Is it too late by then and one would only be able to tell by doing a pre-implantation screening? How does one negotiate that can of worms and avoid allegations of attempting to wipe out trans people by having people cease to give birth to them?

As it stands, it seems that the best thing to do is to facilitate individuals transitioning as far and as much as they are comfortable. With science continuing to expand our understanding of psychology and neurochemistry, fetal development and stem cells, and genetics, I imagine that within the next 50 years we'll start to see some good progress on at least one of the two of transitioning later in life(my money would be on chimeraism being understood enough to start working on making actual organs that won't be rejected) or how fetal development causes individuals to become trans and others to become cis to the point where they could start looking into whether anything could be done in utero.

I wonder though about other birth 'defects', such as dwarfism (just the only one that comes to mind right now), and how they are perceived. Are we not encouraged to simply accept them as they are, that there is nothing wrong with them and that they a simply a little different.

I always thought the cultural notions went in two directions, on the one hand we view them as different and thus found amusing/acceptable targets/strange/weird/pitiable and on the other that we're supposed to overcome that and treat them decently as fellow human beings and to show compassion for those who need it.

On the third hand, I believe there's some low level of desire to do what can be done to help limit any suffering and understand conditions which could becured enough to cure hem or at least learn how to prevent them.

Why would/should/is that be different to how a transgender person should be perceived?

Well, with sexuality and gender it's much more problematic to say exactly what the problem is. Generally, pro-LGBT people say it's the body that's wrong, but it is technically possible to imagine a way in which a fetus developed so that the resulting human had altered brain chemistry which can have a lot of profound effects on a person and their body. Generally people who don't focus on the body being wrong, though, either are associated with or conjure up bad memories of the time when torture was accepted practice for dealing with LGBT individuals.

It's also viewed as being rather disrespectful and marginalizing of trans individuals, IIRC, to say that their body is fine and it is their brain/mind that is messed up, as mental illness is such an illegitimizing thing as well as damned scary(plus it ties back into the torture motif anyway)

Mostly it all boils down to treating people with dignity and respect, which, unfortunately, is not humanity's forte.

Yeah, but I do, and plenty of feminists do, and we try be all "Hey, you should come join us, and we can help each other in this f**ked up kyriarchy!" and then someone comes along like that and is like "I SPEAK FOR FEMINISM AND I SAY [hate speech towards trans people goes here]" and then the trans people don't want to be associated with us (which is reasonable, if that's the first thing they're confronted with) and the dreaded Kyriarch claims another victory.

Well, no, that's not truly reasonable, if you're actually extending an honest hand to someone and someone completely different reveals they're a bigot and they reject your hand because someone else told them that they didn't want them.

Well, except the name. Being told by random male strangers to smile for them is creepy, wrong, infuriating, and bizarrely common for women. But yeah, none of the actual posts are doing anything for gender equality.

I think it's because boys become viewed as (potentially) violent hooligans much more quickly than girls do, as I recall being told to smile all the time by adults in many contexts until I was about 9 or 10.

Gender identity: that bit of our mind that tells us we are a woman, a man, or some other gender (such as genderfluid)

Gender expression: how we express ourselves which gives cues to other people about our gender - these are cultural and not hardwired

Biological sex: our genitals - not really anyone else's business [unless there is some mutual giving of the business between parties]

Fixed that for you.

Hey, maybe we should make a new "-ism" for anti-kyriarchy people. "Feminism" is just anti-patriarchy and that's only a part of the kyriarchy.

Indeed, it's too bad that egalitarianism doesn't work. Always liked that one.

[Arachu]

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Remember that 1. "the Orient" is a very large area, both geographically and culturally, and 2. that while some Orientalist scholars have brought up much understanding of the area, and enriched "Occidental" culture by doing so, others have viewed it through exoticism and romanticism, and thus spread prejudice about it "here", both negative and positive.

I know (I had similar problems picking out which parts of European history to study before going with the World Wars for a while). The things I already know are pretty far back (the invention of Astronomy, some things about the Silk Road, the construction of the Great Wall (and its ultimate failure when the Mongols got China to hire them as mercenaries)...), but most of them are pretty narrowly restricted to China. I think I'm actually going to start with the early Indian civilization(s), both for being around so early and for how dramatically their borders changed around.

... Maybe I should start with learning about the earliest-recorded civilizations in the world, and study my way up from there... @_@

When I looked up "lamination", I could only find that stuff you have on floors. ._.

I was referring to that coating what's on magazines/comics/some book covers, though now that I think of it I'm not quite sure if that's actually called "laminate"...

It's been pretty popular since its invention (about a century ago, if I remember correctly) for making paper durable and pretty. It's also had a pretty dramatic effect on other things (for example, the magazines ended up being smooth enough that toilet paper had to be invented).

I wonder if I would confuse other posters or myself more. ._.

*Hugs* (Sorry if I actually sounded confrontational - I really can see where that'd be awkward.)

I feel bad about thinking he looks good because of his, uhm, "feminine qualities", rather than his masculine qualities. At the beginning of the video, I assumed he was actually a trans woman. ._.

But yeah, trans persons looks great , and trans persons, and people in general, should feel better about their looks in general.

I actually had trouble telling his gender, but I usually just abstain from making any assumptions when I can't tell (androgyny is so adorable! ).

It's worth noting, though, that your own assumption was better than it sounds - he looks male enough to look male-bodied, right?

So my friends church is holding a GAYla (gay gala if you cannot figure it out) Dance. on the 30th. Hoping I can go.

What's a gala?

Gender Stuff

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I think they believe trans women are spies from the patriarchy out to lay their hands on secret female plans. Possibly by spying on them in the restrooms.

*Hastily adjusts fake lack-of-a-mustache* W-whatever gave you that idea...?

I may ramble a bit here and I may inadvertently cause offence, but please understand that if I do it's through ingnorance not malice. And if I do please feel free to correct me.

Onward.
I'm trying to better understand the whole transgender thing. I have long been under the opinion that if a man undergoes a sex change that he is not a woman, but a modified & implanted man (and vice versa for gender swapping the other way), but that there is also nothing wrong with being a modified man/woman.
From a very brief reading of the last few posts/pages hereI'm not so sure that I'm correct. Can anyone help clarify this for me, or point me somewhere I can learn more about it?

If it matters or helps in understanding my viewpoint I would like to say that I consider myself to be straight (though I did experiment a bit in my teens) and have no objection in any way to gay/lesbian/other lifestyle choices.
How you choose to present yourself to the world should not be tied to your gender. I have an extreme dislike of any sexist behaviour in any form.
I believe that gender should have no impact in how people perceive you.

However I also believe that if you a born a man, no matter how you live your life, you are still a man

Long as you accept us, I won't call you out on it.

It's worth noting, though, that gender isn't the same thing as sex. Sex is the physical configuration of your body (not only your genitals, but also your secondary sexual characteristics), where gender is... Well, it's the mental equivalent. I'm pretty sure that you're born with it as well, otherwise it probably wouldn't have had much of an affect on me (and many whose stories I've read) as a toddler.

You could technically use biology as the reference point, but sometimes even that isn't accurate (for example, someone could have XY chromosomes and female biology due to androgen insensitivity).


Oh, and I believe that a good word to describe a straight individual who supports homosexuals/trans* individuals/etc. is "straight ally".

(Gah, everyone beat me to the explaining... Well, that's what I get for being distracted (I'm going to combine my sunglasses so I end up with a pair that actually helps me see things). )

-snip-

*Hugs*... just, *hugs*.

[Coidzor]

I thought a gala was a fancy party. Generally associated with the leisure classes.

Apparently it's just a word for festival though.

[noparlpf]

I thought a gala was a fancy party. Generally associated with the leisure classes.

Apparently it's just a word for festival though.

I thought it was a kind of apple.

[supernerd]

THE GRAND GALLOPING GALA!!! at the gala, at the gala... I love Rainbow Dash's part. But Twilight Sparkle will always be my favorite.

[Kindablue]

I thought a gala was a fancy party. Generally associated with the leisure classes.

Apparently it's just a word for festival though.

A fancy word for festival.

[Serpentine]

Gala:



Gala:



Galah:

[noparlpf]

This is so off-topic. XD

[Serpentine]

Not so much. Galahs are fabulous

[The Succubus]

Galah = Kneenibble in fancy dress?

[golentan]

Galah = Kneenibble in fancy dress?

I, personally, would much rather see him in fancy undress?

[The Succubus]

Pfff. That's the problem with you. No shortage of wandering hands....

[Heliomance]

So, I just played through Katawa Shoujo for the first time today. What's the equivalent of unputdownable for a computer game? It's really good.

Went down Emi's path, for those of you that are interested. I was planning on starting with Shizune, but then i decided to race Emi, and everything kinda unfolded from there

Not that I minded that much. Emi is adorable.

[noparlpf]

So, I just played through Katawa Shoujo for the first time today. What's the equivalent of unputdownable for a computer game? It's really good.

Went down Emi's path, for those of you that are interested. I was planning on starting with Shizune, but then i decided to race Emi, and everything kinda unfolded from there

Not that I minded that much. Emi is adorable.

I went down the Hanako route because I thought she looked cute.


So, guess who just got kicked out of a closed-door discussion about women's sexuality?

[Astrella]

I went down the Hanako route because I thought she looked cute.

No, poor Hanako. ;.;

So, guess who just got kicked out of a closed-door discussion about women's sexuality?

Oh oh, was it.... you?

[noparlpf]

No, poor Hanako. ;.;

Well, she turned out to be cute. So I wasn't wrong. But then I felt bad because I felt like the protagonist was taking advantage of her.

Oh oh, was it.... you?

How did you know? Haha.
The reason: I don't have a vagina. >:|

[TechnoScrabble]

I, personally, would much rather see him in fancy undress?

This is pretty much my opinion of the world.

Though I may just be biased against pants because of ALL THIS GORRAM CHAFING!!!!

EFF YOU, PANTS! EFF YOU!

Hats and ties and scarves and all that are cool, though.

Oh, and some jackets...

What I'm trying to say is, I hate pants.

[Viera Champion]

Do you guys want a... picture... of him?

[noparlpf]

I love pants! They're comfy and full of pockets. I sleep in my pants.

[TechnoScrabble]

Do you guys want a... picture... of him?

Wearing a tophat, a labcoat, and SCIENCE goggles, yes.

@^ DOUBLE HERESY! BLAM!

I love pockets, don't get me wrong.

I just don't like clothes. They itch.

But sometimes they're fun to wear.

But they itch.

I think clothes and I have a love-hate relationship.