LGBTAI+ 55: AKA The Page We'll Get to if I Don't Make a New One

[Grytorm]

Hmmm. I am now going to start avoiding the argument. So SIuIS? I think you mentioned something recently about a Changeling the Lost game? If it is PbP I am a little interested. If not it sounds really interesting. Do tell. Please?

[JusticeZero]

If your discussion is less about a thing and more about the surface patterns described about a thing, you're arguing a heuristic.

that... actually sounds somewhat accurate. I've been having trouble with how all inclusive the language is in trying to find concrete information.
That and I don't feel so much that i'm trying to convince people really so much as express an idea. I'm mostly responding when I see things echoed back and say "That isn't what I was trying to say at all!" I mean, it's a thought. I'm not going to declare that it's the ultimate awesome idea to defeat all, really. just.. expressing frustration because I need to understand how things work so I can figure out how to react to them when they are in my life.

[golentan]

that... actually sounds somewhat accurate. I've been having trouble with how all inclusive the language is in trying to find concrete information.
That and I don't feel so much that i'm trying to convince people really so much as express an idea. I'm mostly responding when I see things echoed back and say "That isn't what I was trying to say at all!" I mean, it's a thought. I'm not going to declare that it's the ultimate awesome idea to defeat all, really. just.. expressing frustration because I need to understand how things work so I can figure out how to react to them when they are in my life.

I'll say, the turning point in my life was the moment I realized I don't have to understand people to enjoy their company.

I mean, I hate not understanding things. I always want to have a math model for any phenomenon, or formal logic, or... Etc. Etc.

Humans are unpredictable to me. Just don't understand, well, anyone. So... I just stopped trying to predict, and started trying to think about how I felt about other's actions without worrying about their causes.

[SiuiS]

Hmmm. I am now going to start avoiding the argument. So SIuIS? I think you mentioned something recently about a Changeling the Lost game? If it is PbP I am a little interested. If not it sounds really interesting. Do tell. Please?

Under construction at the moment. I've been thinking about it off and on but I keep getting into situations where I feel my player base wouldn't be interested and I should just shut up and stop bothering. I know that's bull, but it's still there, sometimes.

It's a dream freehold based in a college town where the courts masquerade as fraternities and don't follow standard structure. Calamity ensues.

Calamity always ensues.

that... actually sounds somewhat accurate. I've been having trouble with how all inclusive the language is in trying to find concrete information.
That and I don't feel so much that i'm trying to convince people really so much as express an idea.

Aye. At this point there's a big, swirling thing in the room and the best we can do is describe patterns and expressions until something clicks and is good enough that others get it.

When we devolve into fighting over whose expressions are good, or bad, or what, we miss that they're all incorrect and innacurate – we have no idea of what we're really nailing down. It's never experienced objectively, only subjectively.


From experience, when you're stuck with a stance you no longer or never really did hold, technical pushback doesn't work. You need to try and connect on a different level and get folks to agree hat you all want to work together on a concept. Remember, this all started not because you made a declaration, but because I said the language of your declaration could cause hurt feelings.

A better response to that is "oh, sorry. Do you get my point, and if so how would you put it?". Not that I'm any good at recognizing these better responses myself. Not until far too late.

I'll say, the turning point in my life was the moment I realized I don't have to understand people to enjoy their company.

I mean, I hate not understanding things. I always want to have a math model for any phenomenon, or formal logic, or... Etc. Etc.

Humans are unpredictable to me. Just don't understand, well, anyone. So... I just stopped trying to predict, and started trying to think about how I felt about other's actions without worrying about their causes.

Yup! Because how you feel is important and legitimate.

[Icewraith]

Note:
I will refrain from commenting on this thread since the worlds I use are highly flammable and a treat to this environment.

I will only post here seeking advice for my Trans friend Issues since she refuses to seek help.

Today problem is: She is learning genetics at school and now her classmates(The same jerks who did all that cyber bullying) are making fun of her saying she will never be a woman in a genetic level.

I'm starting to think she is taking hormones in secret since she is a lot more emotional... Or maybe it is just all the stress she have being passing.

So now she all depressed because she will never have two X chromosomes. I find that so foolish that I may have just got angry with her. I know that was bad but it was such a silly thing to worry about in my opinion.

So any idea of what to do?

If chromosomes were all that determined gender, HRT wouldn't work. May be time to return to the "what is possible with makeup, hrt, and surgery" photo cache. If you want more ammo to argue against these people, look up the aforementioned androgen insensitivity, etc. However, you're simply patching holes that people are boring into the boat.

On a strategic level, when/where is all this bullying happening? Is there a way to avoid the presence of these people?

[Anarion]

I'll say, the turning point in my life was the moment I realized I don't have to understand people to enjoy their company.

I mean, I hate not understanding things. I always want to have a math model for any phenomenon, or formal logic, or... Etc. Etc.

Humans are unpredictable to me. Just don't understand, well, anyone. So... I just stopped trying to predict, and started trying to think about how I felt about other's actions without worrying about their causes.

*Clears throat* preach it brotha!

But seriously, I think there's value in the effort. Both in examining yourself and why you react to things the way you do and in trying to understand others. It's a tough challenge, we sometimes run into things that really bother us, we make mistakes, and we never reach perfection. But it's still worth trying.

Under construction at the moment. I've been thinking about it off and on but I keep getting into situations where I feel my player base wouldn't be interested and I should just shut up and stop bothering. I know that's bull, but it's still there, sometimes.

It's a dream freehold based in a college town where the courts masquerade as fraternities and don't follow standard structure. Calamity ensues.

Calamity always ensues.

Interested.

From experience, when you're stuck with a stance you no longer or never really did hold, technical pushback doesn't work. You need to try and connect on a different level and get folks to agree hat you all want to work together on a concept. Remember, this all started not because you made a declaration, but because I said the language of your declaration could cause hurt feelings.

A better response to that is "oh, sorry. Do you get my point, and if so how would you put it?". Not that I'm any good at recognizing these better responses myself. Not until far too late.

I take it in stages. If I say something and somebody else misunderstands, I'll start with "that's not what I meant at all." If they still misunderstand after that, I usually switch to "I've used the wrong words, help me figure out the right ones." And if we're still not getting on the same page, then it's time to see if what I think is different than what I think I think (that sentence is a mouthful).

It's definitely important to remember that words create impressions on other people and even a person who is completely right and justified can still make other people upset if their message delivery is not artful. Especially on sensitive subjects.

[Mono Vertigo]

Hmmm. I am now going to start avoiding the argument. So SIuIS? I think you mentioned something recently about a Changeling the Lost game? If it is PbP I am a little interested. If not it sounds really interesting. Do tell. Please?

Me too, actually.

On a strategic level, when/where is all this bullying happening? Is there a way to avoid the presence of these people?

This, mostly. Avoidance, if possible, is the best strategy, because I have a feeling there's no reasoning these people.
(Also because the best advice I can come up with to deal directly with the bullying itself is to reply something along the lines of "well on a genetic level level you're mostly a pig/chimpanzee/dolphin/[other animal we're pretty close genetically to]" but that'd not be helping at all, despite being technically true.
Now, sharing that fact with your friend might help convey the message that genetics is not a matter you should focus too much on. However, telling her directly about Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome would surely do a better job at it: these people were assigned female at birth, identify as female, and might learn that they don't have XX chromosomes in the first place. That' the best argument she can be - is - a woman no matter what her Y chromosome might claim.)

[alaalba_123]

I'll say, the turning point in my life was the moment I realized I don't have to understand people to enjoy their company.

I mean, I hate not understanding things. I always want to have a math model for any phenomenon, or formal logic, or... Etc. Etc.

Humans are unpredictable to me. Just don't understand, well, anyone. So... I just stopped trying to predict, and started trying to think about how I felt about other's actions without worrying about their causes.

Everyone is different, I only understand people whose thinking patterns are similar enough to my own that I can predict their behavior. This is a very small group of people. I've met three in my entire life, and one of them is biologically related to me and the person I've spent more time with than anyone else in my entire life.

I have a friend who understands people of all types very, very well. He is the one I go to when trying to predict another individual's behavior is necessary to plan an appropriate course of action. He hasn't been wrong yet, but I simply can't fathom how he has this insight.

[Anarion]

Everyone is different, I only understand people whose thinking patterns are similar enough to my own that I can predict their behavior. This is a very small group of people. I've met three in my entire life, and one of them is biologically related to me and the person I've spent more time with than anyone else in my entire life.

I have a friend who understands people of all types very, very well. He is the one I go to when trying to predict another individual's behavior is necessary to plan an appropriate course of action. He hasn't been wrong yet, but I simply can't fathom how he has this insight.

Some people are naturals at picking up social cues and tendencies. I want to say it can be learned, although doing it consciously is a lot harder than being naturally good at it.

[alaalba_123]

Some people are naturals at picking up social cues and tendencies. I want to say it can be learned, although doing it consciously is a lot harder than being naturally good at it.

I know it can be learned. I met this guy 7-8 years ago, and it's only in the past 3 or so that he's developed this talent. I just don't know how he learned it, or what I should do to get on that level.

[Anarion]

I know it can be learned. I met this guy 7-8 years ago, and it's only in the past 3 or so that he's developed this talent. I just don't know how he learned it, or what I should do to get on that level.

Watch people? My social sense comes from a bunch of places: going to parties with friends, workplace events, watching a lot of politics and legal argument, doing some investigative work in a job I had (like, legit interviewing people at tables kind of stuff), and a bunch of mediation work I did in law school. Among others.

[SiuiS]

I'm about to engage in a very minor case of the Quote Posts, a thing for which I am somewhat famous in some parts of the Internet.

For those who don't want to deal with all that, ignore the spoiler. Meanwhile, hey, who here has any, like, skill at personal color coordination? Like, are you a summer or a winter, what colors go best as focus or as accent with your hair skin and eyes, that sort of thing? I need to start making strides. Small. Efficient strokes are most effective with my pocket book being what it is.

Spoiler

Show

Oh, no you don't want to go to the Internet. Everyone's crazy there. Crazy I says!

True dat.

*Ahem* Anyway, I think baby steps is the right way to go. You look great in your picture and you can simply start by wearing some clothes that you like when you have the chance. Since you said your girlfriend is completely awesome, maybe you could start by simply bringing up that you want to sometimes wear her clothes, or clothes like her clothes. You could wear them when it's just the two of you in private. You might find it pretty fun and she'll suddenly have a lot of potential gift ideas for you. You don't need to figure out the rest right now, just explore the things you know you'll enjoy and question the things that make you unhappy to see if you can come up with a way to fix them.

This is good stuff, especially the baby steps part. One of my favorite sayings which I mangle by combining it with another favorite saying is run if you have to, crawl if you must, but always advance.

Baby steps take the difficulty out of that.

Hmm, I think there's two sort of separate threads going on this. One is the "what exists now" discussion and the other is "the way things ought to be" discussion. I agree with you that the way it ought to work is that people can take any "role" in society that suits them, including constructing their body to suit them if nature missed the mark on that one.

In reality, however, there are societal expectations thrown on people all the time and I don't think you can just reject them all as wrong out of hand. You have to sort through them, pick a few that work for you, reject the others, and be willing sometimes to wear a persona to protect yourself. We all do it to some extent. And I don't just mean LGBTAI+. I mean literally everyone puts on different personas for different audiences. Parents pretend things for their children and children for their parents. Families try to avoid fights. Business people promote themselves and their work.

Taking on roles in society in just part of living. What we can do, though, is realize that we're playing a role. And by realizing that, also realize that there are times we can step out of the role and assume something different. That's an opportunity that not everyone has.

Hmm. I want to object or correct on what are essentially language quibbles, but I broadly agree.

Your first paragraph though, I want to bring up the idea that sometimes people want to take up a role, society wants them to take up a role, and there is enough fidelity there that these two roles match. I want to bring up that this doesn't discredit either set up. I want to bring up that the existence of masculine coding, say, does not make a manly man less of a person for being a walking stereotype, if they are to their own self true.

*bashes head against the wall repeatedly*

Gods dammit. Just gods ****ing dammit. I really should never be allowed anywhere near alcohol. I really shouldn't. And then tonight happened and makeouts happened with people I barely even know and even if I sobered up and double-confirmed that consent was involved in all situations... blah. Just blah. I feel crummy, I do I do.

Blah, and now my head's spinning to the point where I can't sleep easily. Sorry, just had to vent a bit, see if I can get things to calm down a little.

*bonk bonk bash*

Ach, sorry to hear that, mate. I wish I could console you a bit.
:(

*Clears throat*

Ok, So...

Hi, everyone I'm Shamash(yes I know you can see it it is in my username but it felt nice to say) and I'm here to finally say Hi to everyone and stop lurking like a creep.

Hi again! I wanted to quote this so you didn't think I ignore yor first post and only responded to the second.

I hope you feel welcome in these parts!

Gender is a hell of a thing to define when you leave out roles or the gendering of certain characteristics (and I do believe leaving out both is a desirable goal).

Aye. It would require a hell of a lot of processing power to fix – mostly because there is no fix, you need to build a better mousetrap wholecloth and then forcibly substitute it for the existing system. There would be a good golly gosh last he amount if backlash against that...

Oh, by the way, happy international women's day to all the lovely ladies in this thread!

Why, thank you~!

Well, the thing is that it isn't either/or. It's inherently both at the same time.
If we accept that there is this inherent gender identity that exists in a vacuum, we instantly undo the majority of the achievements of feminism. It's seriously problematic to try to simultaneously argue that women can do anything that a man can because they're all just people, then turn around and say "But Jane, who was born James, cannot do manly things because she is inherently a woman".

So, this right here, you start out strong but it turns out to be a set of fallacious assumptions.

If we accept that gender identity exists as an inherent thing in vacuum, we forsake feminism? How so? The answer is in your follow up; absolutely nothing, whatsoever, about an inherent gender, says anything about what you can or can't do.

What you said was that if gender exists, that must validate all possible gender stereotypes, and that undoes feminism as we know it (which is true). Where you made a mistake is by assuming that gender and all the things humans have done in the name of gender, are the same thing.

I've always felt wrong. Exploration of that thought in astral space led me to believe being Other would fix that; essentially all I knew was that I was not correct as I was. That's the schism of my gender identity. Projecting into different models, the idea of an internal formation consistent with human female anatomy satisfies that internal schism.

That's it. Done. Gender inherent? Close enough. Gender doesn't match sex? Close enough. Matching gender and sex works? Close enough. Why? Reconciliation of internal and external; self perception and self projection. Ergo, I have an inherent sense of my gender, and it's a core part of me.

Everything else – liking skirts and hosiery, wanting to be pretty by societal standards, enjoying being allowed to relax into feminine standards rather than masculine standards, that's all an expression of the internal principle and a conscious decision or at least noted mindfully. But the principle which generates the impulse – the actor – is truly inherent.

Because the next step is to say "Lisa, who was FAAB and cis, therefore also cannot cannot do the things that Jane can't do", and that's just not a place we want to go. So it ends up having to dig back into the question of what gender even is.

I note this seeming issue is solved simply by recognizing that it stems from a flawed premise.

Also, it is my understanding that when a logical progression yields untenable and irrational results, the proper form is to check the progression for the obvious if inconspicuous flaws, not to assume that human progress must be in error?

You're right though; that force exists. It is called doxa, the background noise we pick up all our lives which informs our culture and understanding. And it works in negative. When a little girl is told not to do something because she's a girl (or little, or it's dangerous, but let's focus the example), she learns "Girls don't do that". But anyone else nearby also learns that. Including boys, who pick up the implicit "boys do that". The girls also pick up that boys do that.

It's very dangerous, raising tiny humans. Your every choice makes hundreds of fractalated decisions that the child picks up on and agrees with implicitly. If they ne'er later question that, it sinks in.

We have been saying "Zander was really a girl all along", but that has very unfortunate implications.

I agree, but the problem is not that Zander has been a girl all along. It's that we need to condense everything into a single overarching negative without allowing for nuance or multiple potentialities. We over simplify and get testy when something is not sufficiently simplified, lashing out and punishing those who want to examine a non-simple version.

Zander has been a girl the whole time. Zander was also a boy for a while. These do not contradict. They are not mutually exclusive. The desire to force it into a mutual exclusion state is the problem.

Plus, it doesn't lead us to a better understanding of dysphoria that we can use to help people who might be experiencing it.

Sure it does!

Zander I a boy. Zander is also a girl. This cognitive or spiritual dissonance is felt keenly by Zander. If allowed to persist it will cause confusion, depression, lowered sense of self worth, and eventual destruction. Much like two frequencies being picked up at once which interfere with each other. The system that is Zander desires to properly tune into the correct frequency. Zander knows which is the correct frequency. It is our job to mitigate this dissonance by allowing Zander the tools to harmonize and to prevent others from trying to mess with the dial.


Also, personally, I feel your theory is too complex. Like, complex for the sake of complexity. The extra complexity does not add to the value of the theory, which is why I am saying it's technically correct but doesn't feel right. It's too crystaline; there's a rigid intersecting system of matrices which are all understandable but which are too complex. You don't need a matrix for this. That's my personal take anyway, and it's filtered through my synesthetic sense, so take it with salt. Probably crystalline salt. You know, for symmetry.

It's that you have one group trying hard to tear down gender restrictions and roles because they are restrictive and wrong and problematic at the same time another group is trying to occupy the space that the restrictions apply to. Some of the language in the trans narratives are uncomfortably essentialist. There are reasons behind that that need unpacking, instead of just accepting it at face value.

This is true. I've had this conversation with Tamsin before actually; it's unfortunate that we both recognize that skirts and girliness can be generally harmful, but also that we must buy into and thus passively reinforce those generally harmful stereotypes as true in order to be happy.

Her response was very civil considering that I think I insulted or hurt her at the time.

KenderWizard came up with the key. It's about micro versus macro. Something that's bad at the macro scale ("in order to be seen as women, all trans women must act stereotypically girly" or something) is not bad at the micro level ("I am going to act girly because I am a woman and it pleases me to do so").

We are dealing with a very, very wise array of interconnected systems. The answer to your dilemma is called 'counter insurgency'. It's used by police forces. It's used in massage therapy (which is how I know it). And it applies here.

If there is a problem between the needs of the transsexuality community and the needs of the feminism community, instead of looking only to those two and forcing some sort of conflict, we should move out exactly one degree. Which other, interrelated systems feed into these two which cause this conflict to arise? Can we work on changing those systems so the effect "down stream" is not conflict? Can we feed back into those systems from our own (feminism, trans rights) or should we try to affect those systems directly? It's a big issue with complexity and scale that's beyond any one person, though. So we work together in groups; we form systems to handle system scale issues.

At the individual level we need to acknowledge that while these conflicts may be perceived to exist, they can be solved for any individual by working with their specific circumstances and by recognizing that problems above you in scale exist and affect you but do not need to be a burden to you. I personally solve this by enjoying the things I buy into – shaved legs, a certain passivity at times, skirts and lace, soft skin, make up (in theory, no practice yet D= ) – because I enjoy them, and I enjoy that they allow others the comfort of removing their dissonance as to my gender, but I so not buy into them because they allow me to 'pass' (again, in theory). The is convergence and correlation, but not causation, and searching for causation by moving out several degrees to see if I like them because they are feminine because of coding because of society and upbringing is not directly fruitful, and is directly harmful.

We need to change these connections for future generations but punishing existing generations for them is tactless.

Because even though it's stupid and ridiculous and runs counter to the basic principles of feminism, IT WORKS for what I use it for.

Exactly! Although I don't agree it's against feminism, I do agree with the principle that in the micro-scale, personal choice based on needs is the way to go.

He found out, argued that nobody in the house knew that a + was a minus sign, tried to destroy the evidence that he was getting with some other girl on the side, then stormed out upon having the attempt instead reveal it. Very high drama.

Wow. What a tool. >_>

May I request that you put line breaks between your responses and the quotes you're responding to? Otherwise I have to search out sentence by sentence where to put the break. It's difficult on my phone.

As an aside, does anyone have a suggestion how a guy can get a guys haircut if they have huge tracts of land that completely fail their presentation, and thus are apparently only able to get girly pixie cuts no matter what they say to the stylist? (which then themselves muck up the presentation...)

Nope! I have the exact opposite problem. Conversations with stylists drift into "when men were men, and women were women, and everyone knew their place" which is THE ABSOLUTE LAST place I want giving my hair the treatment it needs...

Try "do it like this, or I will not pay you. I will not pay for damaged goods."

Well, I don't think feminism is at odds with trans women at all; the two are allies. I just think that the language of having a "sense of gender identity" by itself as a distinct object is contradictory to some core axioms of feminism, as well as being oversimplified.

It is a simplification, but I would not say it is an over simplified. It implies that a certain amount of discussion has already taken place and this is the result of that discussion. It's open to being re-examined rather than just dismissed as too far down the wrong direction.

Which core axioms of feminism does this language convention defy? Feminism has at least five branches, with their own internal contradictions and differences, I cannot see without concrete examples how something less different than two extreme branches of feminism is somehow more at odds with feminism.

If we accept it as a stopping point for how to describe things, it leaves us in a theoretically precarious position, as well as failing to advance our understanding of how TG works and thus, our ability to, say, make it easier for people to discover and manage dysphoria early, possibly even early enough to be able to avoid the stress of major body changes that are difficult if not impossible to reverse before it is noticed.

It is a stopping point specifically because it hits the point of "deep enough to have meaning" but not "so deep it's divorced from everything or begins to fray under scrutiny". It is a point where we can use it effectively without having to understand it 100%, and that's perfect. It's a stop gap, but a sufficient one.

And also, ah, ****. Irreversible testosterone poisoning is not something I want to think about right now. Ahhhhhh. ._.

Nor do I think gender is a "cultural delusion" exactly; rather, what gender MEANS varies from place to place, as does what it entails. It is somewhat worrying and odd that we simply accept as given that cultural behaviors are related to a biological cause in some of these narratives, specifically.

There's the core if your issue. We do NOT take as given that cultural behaviors are in any way related to biological cause. You're inferring that what we mean by gender is what other people we have actively corrected mean by gender. We have made changes to the way the word is used and you are denying is the validity of those changes. You are taking back out taking back.

What gender MEANS does not vary. Gender means 'of a type'. That is all. 100%. That's it. Fin. We use 'male' and 'female' and the occasional smattering of other terms as names for each gender; but the name given does not change the gender. The name is a tag system for ease of reference for any person's internal filing structures.

What gender ENTAILS is, however, cultural. This is the internal filing structure. This is the part where someone takes in that a person has a specific gender and then cross references their memory for what that means if anything. This is what we need to change.

But if we look at gender as a variable in any person's OS, which exists only for the purpose of "which variable do you have in this variable toggle", and what gender entails as "what files will I reference after checking the gender toggle on another system so as to interact with it in the proper fashion", then gender identity – ie what is my variable - and gender expression – ie how do I convey this variable – are indeed two different, separate, but related things.

I could potentially change ho I express that my gender is female, but that would not change that the gender is female. Nor would changing the label from 'female' to anything else. The feeling would be the same despite the appellation.

I think that's what causes confusion. A gender by any other name would smell just as sweet, y'know?

I do so even knowing that I myself am reproducing a similar pattern; i'm not sure that what I label 'dysphoria' is the same thing anyone else does, for instance. It's very possible that we are failing to distinguish an entire set of radically different phenomenon, each one distinct and meaning something very different.

You're being too prescriptive. A cold is not based on virus, but on symptoms. Dysphoria is based not on cause, but on manifestation of symptom. It's an umbrella term, though an unusually precise one.

You can unpack it if you like, but it would be academic. It is sufficient for our needs, I believe.

Thanks. Yeah I'm a CIS gay male. As generic as I can get(At least in this not so generic circumstances).

Please, feel free to flood the thread with your stuff! We aren't a TG thread only, or a dysphoria thread, although it seems we are the vocal component nowadays. Give us balance! Spill your heart!

On the topic, I really hate the arguments of why women can't fight in the army.

Most of the time they say that is gender restricted because of physical strength.

But that is insane! We use machines and guns now! Physical strength doesn't matter in wars anymore.

I agree. Some people just aren't fit for service, though, and based on the regs most of those are women. We should look at why the regs preclude women, and why women tend to fail the regs, though.

Thanks, not for now thanks again. Just trying to be a part of the group before dumping all the questions, topics, sad and yay stories.

Part of the crew, part of the thread~
Part of the crew, part of the thread~
Part of the crew, part of the thread~

Damn, I think I forgot to comment on your surgery even though I read it at the time. Congratulations again! Hope sleep and serenity come back very soon.

Yuss! Much love and hope for your healing, hon.

*raises hand*
Wookie-legged women, unite.
I've got better things to do with my time, like smugly counting up all the time I'm saving by not shaving meticulously. Saved, like, entire minutes of my life.

I can guarantee you that the tally exceeds minutes by at least one scale of magnitude.

The problem with all of this, in discussion, is that it bumps up against the function of words. A word, by its nature, sets limits. It tries to package up a discrete thought, then tries to move it from one head to another. For a whole bunch of things that people deal with - like a table - that's totally fine. This thing is a table, that thing is a tree, that other thing over there is a saber-toothed tiger that's about to eat me. You have a pretty clear idea of what each thing is, and can convey that information to other people. But as soon as you start talking about something that's fluid and changing, you run into problems. (I don't think it's a coincidence that some of the very first recorded philosophy was concerned with rivers, and whether you could step into the same one twice). Talking about gender, you've got a whole bunch of different things that are, by their very nature, fluid; interacting with cultural expectations that (by their nature) change. This puts a pretty severe stress on words. It's objectively not the case that either something is male, female, or neuter, full stop. But words (up to very recently) haven't really been able to express something different. Even when they tried to come up with one (the old-timey "hermaphrodite" comes to mind) it obscured more than it revealed, lumping everything that isn't one, the other, or not applicable, into an undifferentiated middle.

So what we have now is (at least in part) a struggle to figure out a way to describe things, when we're stuck with words that don't do it too well. What's exciting to me is that this sort of realization - that big swathes of the human experience occur on a spectrum, not just in binary format - is happening in a few different areas at the same time. Medicine, psychology, gender relations, probably a bunch of others I'm not aware of. So far, in each of those, the initial impulse was to sharpen definitions, to divide ideas up smaller so they could be more easily packaged, and come up with a load of new labels. That's about the only thing that words can do, but it can get unwieldy. I think that at some point, it just won't make sense to have yet another sub-group and label, when we know that we can keep defining it down forever until we reach the individual. I hope that when we get to that point, we can take a step back and start dealing with people on a much more helpful (and humble) view.

Good stuff.

We can deal with individuals respectfully already, but it takes effort because it requires going above and beyond what is required of us or taught to us.

I have not been reading to closely. So please don't chew me out. Just in general it seems like with things like leg shaving and other appearance related things in women it is hard to discern whether it is positive thing or a negative thing. Because I see the argument for heavily sexualised women being sexist but also women feeling empowered in their own life and sexuality is important positive feminist thing. So the line can be hard to discern.

Indeed! We have tools to help, but then, that's the problem. People don't want to be told "learn this philosophy and then apply it" when they ask us, where is the line? They want us to point to a line and say 'don't cross that' and we can't. Because that's simply not how it works. That level of simplicity is what caused these problems in the first place!

My personal view is that a woman can do over-sexed stuff if it pleases them, but they should be aware that they are feeding into larger misapprehensions and can just by knowing this and acting accordingly when it comes up to correct and point out that while I personally may do a thing, it is for my own reasons and not because of the larger, damaging societal expectations. :)

This is really cool. I love seeing people go out and make themselves heard. The fact that you're doing it at a time when you're not even 100% healthy is just awesome. Thank you being dedicated.

Yuss. Your expression really sells it, too. XD

While I do think an adequately motivated woman should be allowed to serve (and they are serving now), your statement isn't correct. We have machine guns != strength no longer matters. Only a very tiny percentage of fighting involves take a gun, aiming it at someone or something and pulling the trigger. The vast majority of it is carrying really heavy equipment through extreme environmental conditions to get where you're going. The average soldier's backpack weighs 50 lbs. I, personally, could lift and carry a 50 lbs. bag, but I couldn't do it for more than a short time. Probably less than an hour before I'd be totally exhausted because I'm not in great shape in terms of endurance, plus I'm a lightweight. If I went to serve, I'd have to go through basic training, which is a pretty intense physical workout.

The biggest issue with a female army component is sexism. That sounds tautological but think about it; it only takes a small portion of very effective soldiers who have inhuman beliefs to ruin everything for everyone. Rape is the #1 issue for female service at the moment, up to and including women being caught between court martial for shooting a fellow soldier, court martial for not carrying their side arm, or reprimand for wasting the service's time because if they didn't want to shoot then obviously it's not that big a deal.

You only need like, 20 guys willing to rape, maim and mock women soldiers in the entire establishment to ruin it. Because it's impossible to tell which are those twenty and which are just ambivalent, lax, unthinking, or pretending to be okay with it so as not to rock the boat. Because #1 rule of military training is do not rock the boat. Never stand out, never volunteer, etc.

Now, I'm sure all of that is not a problem for lots of women. But if we're talking about population demographics across all regions, I'm pretty sure the percentage of women that would have trouble meeting the physical requirements is actually higher than the percentage of men.

Anyway, just wanted to clarify that. I don't actually disagree with your basic idea.

Aye. The problem is not that women are physically incapable; the problem is a series of interconnected systems which condition women to be small and physically incapable, and then hold that against them to reinforce they should go back to places where that's prized instead of a detriment.

We should stop making women avoid physical stuff when they're young so they can actually develop bone structures which support strength. Let them choose instead of be stuck into a category. And size isn't an issue so much as proportion, so a woman with a frame which can handle military service is not going to be out of sorts in any but the most extreme 'you must be dainty' environments.

I'd say the problem is that the positive/negative aspects aren't related to the activity at all. Instead, the motivation behind the activity is what causes us to read it as good or bad.

If someone is shaving her legs because she feels compelled to do so by outside forces imposing a standard of beauty on her, it's a bad thing. If someone feels the desire to shave because she likes the way it feels and looks, both to herself and as her presentation to the world, then it's a good, empowering thing to do.

Of course, this is never a problem because all of us completely understand our own motivations 100% of the time.

Yup, yup and yup!

Oy vey, SiuiS, that question is a hell of a minefield. You've got an obvious case for a kidnapped loner, especially if you want to be sadistically ironic (which is, like, all the True Fae ever do) and actually call said loner a fairy as part of a way to separate that person from everyone else for easy kidnapping. On the other hand, maybe you can do something more positive. What if the Lost attend the LGBT meetings in high numbers, provide support for the regular students and also receive support in turn? Perhaps they even make pacts with some of the students, revealing to them the nature of the Fae and giving them blessings in exchange for support (easy studies and great grades if you're friends with Jane and show up to keep her company on weekends? Hell yes!)

Oh man, would you believe that never occurred to me? Huh.

(1): If the ritual is something women feel they have to do ONLY to please men/partners/society or be considered feminine, or is used as a pretext for abuse or brainwashing, it (the ritual) is probably negative.

(2): If the ritual is something women want to do because it improves their self-esteem/image/makes them feel sexy AND it also happens to please men/partners/society, and individuals are not forced or coerced into performing the ritual, it's probably neutral or positive.

(3): If not following the ritual diminishes a woman's apparent femininity/value in society, it (the ritual) is negative, as long as the ritual is purely cosmetic and not related to a health concern. (Removing body hair as cosmetic vs removing body hair because LICE. Also, losing weight to conform to a particular idea of beauty vs losing weight to avoid becoming diabetic.)

(4): If not following the ritual diminishes a woman's apparent femininity/value in the eyes of another individual even if the individual is also a woman, and statement 3 applies, that individual is negative.

(5): If not following the ritual has a negative impact on a woman's attractiveness to her partner, the partner (and ONLY the partner) is free to request she follow the ritual under the guidelines of statement 2, but the woman is free to refuse because it's her body and statement 1. See statement 4.

(6): If a supporter of statement 1 claims a supporter of statement 2 is harmful to other women, or vice versa, see statement 4.

I think I covered the majority of the debate with that.

I think you are either making a mistake or mislabeling your specificity.

Specifically, if you replace women with another group, replace men/spouse/society with a different group, and replace "to feel feminine" with "to feel like [a part of their group]" then this behavior is both rational and encouraged.

We all join groups and adhere to their rituals to establish a sense of self and place. That the issues seem to have become so very toxic that women are basically ****ed coming and going – for conforming and for nonconforming – singles them out. Suddenly, being a woman is the only group tag with this penalty. Being a man, being an iron worker, being a soldier, being a good neighbor, being a white collar worker, being a punk, being a gamer, being a geek, being an activist, being a feminist, these are all allowed to so the things that, by this post, women alone cannot do.

Edit: As a side note, physical strength does matter in wars.

Leverage and force matter in wars. Physical strength is only one tool in that toolbox. I make this quibble because otherwise, we default to 'women should just not bother' instead of 'women should learn white crane qinna and develop their tendons for high torque motions in jiujitsu'.

You're right though, everything matters in wars. Even strength. We just need to prioritize our language forms I convey the proper concept rather than fall back on speaking facts and this being free of responsibility for how we array those facts.

As an aside, people are generally disqualified by size not because they can't do the work, But because they won't fit the uniform. The cost of uniforms and training for otherwise capable people exceeds the value they would add to the army. In America at least.

I guess we can define that a man is man by the virtue of being a man while a woman is a woman by the virtue of fighting the apparent disadvantages of the female body and overcoming the contrast of female ambiguity.

I was with you on the allowing tautological justification, but that last part just confused me.

The notion of woman as being "the other" is something she can either internalize or deny it. The result of this will show her position in society and how it will perceive her.

*Nodding along* okay, I see where you're going with that.

Oh.. Ok!I had no idea there was different kinds of body hair since I never saw a girl with hairy legs.

Yup! It's why we don't do hair removal until hormone treatment is in sight – androgens caused new hair to spontaneously appear do removal cannot be truly permanent until then.

Which was muddled by the fact that JusticeZero was also advocating exploiting a gender essentialist narrative to manipulate others into being their therapy at the beginning of the conversation about gender.



Well, unless I've been reading a different thread from everyone else, the issue is more whether trans people buying into gender essentialism or using tropes of gender essentialism to more easily pass invalidates the concept of having a personal gender identity.

JusticeZero seemed to have taken a position saying "Yes, of course, there's no such thing as having a concept of a personal gender identity and dysphoria confuses me despite experiencing something much like it, but I'm not biased or liable to have difficulty with the concept due to my status as an agender individual who decidedly lacks any self-concept of gender," or something very much along those lines.

I disagree and believe that JusticeZero is not as unbiased as they think and that they naturally are going to have a handicap when it comes to understanding gender due to being agender the same way that I have to go outside of my realm of experiences and personal understanding as a cisgender man when trying to understand trans* experiences and what women have to deal with in western civilization, especially the society of the U.S. and Canada which I am a part of.



Quite possibly.



2 is not gender essentialism by any definition I have run into. 2 is more along the lines of the gender binary and people trying to enforce it by denying people the ability to be trans* but not transgender or agender or bigender or somewhere on the gender spectrum that isn't completely male or completely female.

1 & 3 seem to generally be found together or tie into one another or at least be espoused by the same people in my experience and understanding.

Frankly, personal sense of gender is something that we don't understand well enough to say what, exactly, causes it to arise or not arise within a person. We certainly don't know enough to pronounce with ironclad certitude that it's entirely the result of culture.



Ok. Hold up. Stop right the **** there. I never denied the existence of agender people.



Quite. A woman is a woman whether she likes splitting orcs' skulls open with a battleaxe or wearing a nice frilly apron while keeping house. Or, y'know, if she wants to wear a nice frilly apron while keeping house and it just happens to involve splitting orcs' skulls open with battleaxes.



Well, gender roles haven't exactly been eliminated yet. Acknowledging that doesn't make one suddenly into a supporter of the patriarchy or anything.

And, generally speaking, the majority of men are going to be cisgender individuals who were born with testicles and a penis, so there's no real need to pretend that the situation is otherwise or to go out of our way to deny this statistic. It's still pretty easy to also acknowledge that, hey, this person who was born without testicles and a penis is also a man. To have difficulty with this concept without either being mired in the depths of transphobic ignorance is utterly alien to me.



Because glerp isn't the word we use, while man is. Obviously.



And I reject your implied assertion that your hypothetical society is going to come soon enough to be useful to any conversation that the current generation or even those who come in the next generation of humans will have.



I'd say right now there's so many variables and so much resistance to properly looking into things that we're not going to know for a while.

I expect I'll be dead well before we've fully gotten to the bottom of it. C'est la mort.



I just don't really care about going through and constructing an exhaustive expository and persuasive piece to show you the light right now, sorry.

Partially I'm a bit fatigued by this discussion and partially, well, an agender person's opinion on gender is like a cisgender person's opinion on what transitioning should be like. It may be spot on, it may be off-base, but ultimately it doesn't matter what they think so long as they treat others with respect. I care much less about you believing correctly than I do about you behaving correctly.

And saying to someone who experiences gender dysphoria that their self-concept of gender doesn't exist? That's not behaving correctly. Which, unless I'm very much confused, is the sort of statement that brought us to where we are.

I agree with everything you said, but worry about the clipped, antagonistic presentation. But aye.

Yeah. That is a pretty reasonable explanation. Rituals exist and often it is not the nature of the ritual itself that is the problem. It is the cultural pressures and prejudice that make it a problem. And then some people are happy following the rituals and would be happy anyway so it is always a problem but not always a manifested problem.

Indeed!

Also sorry for kind of reposting what you are talking about in a way. I haven't been following things closely and just wanted to say what I thought when I was looking at just a few comments. I am not an expert.

Your opinion matters, too, friend. And please, feel free to outright say "okay guys, please stop or take it to spoilers" when conversation causes you problems. We are a support thread. If talking about how to be supportive gets in the way of making you feel supported, then we should stop.

Also, JusticeZero, preemptive apologies. On reread, this really looks like I'm picking on you. That's unintentional.

[Miriel]

Damn, I think I forgot to comment on your surgery even though I read it at the time. Congratulations again! Hope sleep and serenity come back very soon.

I haven't been monitoring these threads that closely, so let me give you a belated congratulatory hug on your finally getting SRS.

Thank you!

This is really cool. I love seeing people go out and make themselves heard. The fact that you're doing it at a time when you're not even 100% healthy is just awesome. Thank you being dedicated.

Well, I don't like doing nothing, haha. Thanks

No different yet, really. I've been on oestrogen since last Friday and anti-androgens since the Friday before. Not noticed any difference yet - how long does it take before you start noticing stuff?

Me, I started feeling my breast were sensible about 2-3 in. But most of the visible changes started after the first month.

[JusticeZero]

I know it can be learned. I met this guy 7-8 years ago, and it's only in the past 3 or so that he's developed this talent. I just don't know how he learned it, or what I should do to get on that level.

...Ask him? that seems like the first thing to do. They might not know very accurately but there should be some insight there.

[Shamash]

Note:
I will refrain from commenting on this thread since the worlds I use are highly flammable and a treat to this environment.

I will only post here seeking advice for my Trans friend Issues since she refuses to seek help.

Today problem is: She is learning genetics at school and now her classmates(The same jerks who did all that cyber bullying) are making fun of her saying she will never be a woman in a genetic level.

I'm starting to think she is taking hormones in secret since she is a lot more emotional... Or maybe it is just all the stress she have being passing.

So now she all depressed because she will never have two X chromosomes. I find that so foolish that I may have just got angry with her. I know that was bad but it was such a silly thing to worry about in my opinion.

So any idea of what to do?

Besides what everyone told you I guess you could try to take her thoughts away from that kind of stuff.

She already have to deal with all this pressure and bullying so why don't you use the time you two have together to think of other stuff. Things she like, thinngs that will make her feel happy.

Spend a good amount of quality time with her and maybe she will feel better. Her troubles won't go away but she will remember that there are better things in this world and maybe she won't care so much about it.

Generally, female have thinner, lighter hair, but it depends a LOT on hair colour, and on ethnicity for that matter. I have male friends whose hairs are much thinner than mine because they're blond, I know other people who barely grow hairs to begin with. Hairs will be most obvious and most coarse on someone with light skin and dark hairs - which is Tasmin's case. Caucasians also grow the most body hairs of any race if I'm not mistaken.

As for never having seen a girl with hairy legs... you don't know that :P I don't shave my legs and pretty much nobody notices unless they're actively looking. Yet I have pale skin and dark hairs so my hairs are on the "most obvious" side of the spectrum. It's just the kind of thing you notice more on yourself than on other people.

For instance when I was a teenager my brother teased me constantly about having a moustache. One day I got tired of it and so went to a salon and had it epilated. Lo and behold, he teased me all the same. He didn't actually notice the dark hairs on my upper lip were gone. They weren't as obvious as I thought. He was just teasing me about them because of my reaction to his teasing.

Either way, I think even if Tasmin's hairs looked the same as a cis woman's and nobody noticed them, just because some women prefer keeping their hairs (or even feel dysphoric if they shave/epilate them in some cases) doesn't mean that Tasmin can't strongly prefer shaving them. She doesn't get to decide what she feels dysphoric about after all. She doesn't have to, sure, but she's the one who knows if she wants to.

I do sometimes wonder, if our society didn't raise use to think that women are supposed to shave body hairs, how many women would do it. I'm sure some would: we're told we're supposed to, yet some women don't, and while it can be out of laziness for some of for environmental concerns, for others it's because they just can't feel good about themselves if they do. So society doesn't mean everything. But there will always be a strong portion of the population that could go either well and will be conditioned one way or the other. I'm really curious how big that portion is.

Yeah a lot of guys in my school are starting to epilate everywhere, I really don't know how I feel about this new craze, I mean I don't really care much about legs, but chest hair looks really hot in my opinion and at the same time some guys look really good without. I really don't know how I feel about male body hair.

I'll say, the turning point in my life was the moment I realized I don't have to understand people to enjoy their company.

I mean, I hate not understanding things. I always want to have a math model for any phenomenon, or formal logic, or... Etc. Etc.

Humans are unpredictable to me. Just don't understand, well, anyone. So... I just stopped trying to predict, and started trying to think about how I felt about other's actions without worrying about their causes.

EDIT:

I was with you on the allowing tautological justification, but that last part just confused me.

"The contrast of female ambiguity" I may have translated it wrong, it is a term used by Simone De Beauvoir to address the many hardships imposed to women that are created socially but are treated as apart of nature. She says something like, one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.

I really recommend everyone in this thread to read her book "The second sex" it is really good.

[Anarion]

For interest and variety, outside of shaving facial hair, I find the whole idea of body hair removal slightly creepy. I'm quite hairy myself and the thought of shaving my arms or legs (or anywhere else) is just *shudder* no thank you.

[golentan]

For interest and variety, outside of shaving facial hair, I find the whole idea of body hair removal slightly creepy. I'm quite hairy myself and the thought of shaving my arms or legs (or anywhere else) is just *shudder* no thank you.

Huh, I like body hair as an accent in certain places, but if I could make my arms and legs hairless I probably would...

[Jeff the Green]

For interest and variety, outside of shaving facial hair, I find the whole idea of body hair removal slightly creepy. I'm quite hairy myself and the thought of shaving my arms or legs (or anywhere else) is just *shudder* no thank you.

See, I'm the complete opposite; my body hair bugs me to no end, and I'd remove everything below my cheek bones if I didn't have the choice between expensive or utterly incompatible with my skin and its flora. Damn Scandinavian genes.

[Anarion]

Huh, I like body hair as an accent in certain places, but if I could make my arms and legs hairless I probably would...

See, I'm the complete opposite; my body hair bugs me to no end, and I'd remove everything below my cheek bones if I didn't have the choice between expensive or utterly incompatible with my skin and its flora. Damn Scandinavian genes.

Maybe I'm part werewolf?

[Lissou]

I have, in the past, shaved various body parts, but I always end up feeling kinda like a plucked chicken, or a doll (as in, plastic instead of a mammal). It's really not for me. If humans naturally didn't grow hairs I would probably be fine with it but the idea of actively removing it, making effort for something that, in my opinion, doesn't look as good? No thanks. It's too uncanny valley for me.

I prefer guys who don't shave their body hairs. Bears are a bit different because they're more like the hair on your head in that they don't stop growing and can get quite long and bothersome, while the hairs on the rest of your body stay much shorter even when untouched. I'd say after a month or so, they've reached their maximum length. Definitely not so with hair or beards.
In the end obviously it's the guy's call but I'm glad there isn't (yet) as much pressure on them to remove all their hairs as there is on women.

[golentan]

*shrug*

Hey, I'm also always kind of expecting a slick unyielding shell when I touch my own skin.

Edit: Also, I'm cool with hair on other people...

[Serpentine]

Found out today that a new friend of mine is trans. She asked me about any tips I might have, and seems particularly worried about her voice. Is there anything like a Being Trans 101 resource around? Or alternatively, what would you all here have wanted to know when you were just starting out?

[Heliomance]

So I got a letter today from CHaring Cross saying I didn't attend an appointment on the 5th of March. I knew nothing about any appointment on the 5th of March. As far as I'm aware, my next appointment is on the 15th of April. Now apparently I have 4 weeks to tell them in writing why I didn't attend or they'll discharge me back to the GP. And if I do tell them, they'll book me for another appointment in 7 months. I have no idea what's going on, but I don't like it.

Oh, and they turn their sodding answerphones off at 5pm, so I couldn't even leave a message asking what the hell is going on.

[Anarion]

So I got a letter today from CHaring Cross saying I didn't attend an appointment on the 5th of March. I knew nothing about any appointment on the 5th of March. As far as I'm aware, my next appointment is on the 15th of April. Now apparently I have 4 weeks to tell them in writing why I didn't attend or they'll discharge me back to the GP. And if I do tell them, they'll book me for another appointment in 7 months. I have no idea what's going on, but I don't like it.

Oh, and they turn their sodding answerphones off at 5pm, so I couldn't even leave a message asking what the hell is going on.

Don't assume bad intentions. Just tell them you weren't aware of it and see if you can figure out why you didn't know. Maybe they made a mistake or forgot something. Ask someone if the appointment can be move up sooner if that's what you want or just let them rebook. You have a very reasonable answer in that information wasn't given to you, and a little investigating as to where the miss happened will probably be enlightening.

[Coidzor]

So I got a letter today from CHaring Cross saying I didn't attend an appointment on the 5th of March. I knew nothing about any appointment on the 5th of March. As far as I'm aware, my next appointment is on the 15th of April. Now apparently I have 4 weeks to tell them in writing why I didn't attend or they'll discharge me back to the GP. And if I do tell them, they'll book me for another appointment in 7 months. I have no idea what's going on, but I don't like it.

Not being informed that an appointment had been made on your behalf for the 5th of March when you made an appointment for the 15th of April is a pretty good reason not to make it to an appointment.

4 weeks is a pretty long stretch of time to get this confusion cleared up, as weird as it is.

Oh, and they turn their sodding answerphones off at 5pm, so I couldn't even leave a message asking what the hell is going on.

That's pretty weird, yeah. You wouldn't be able to find out before first thing in the morning anyway, though, so this way you remember to call first thing in the morning. :/

[SiuiS]

Found out today that a new friend of mine is trans. She asked me about any tips I might have, and seems particularly worried about her voice. Is there anything like a Being Trans 101 resource around? Or alternatively, what would you all here have wanted to know when you were just starting out?

No, sorry. It's all word of mouth, and there's nothing really solid. Because it's so subjective and there's no possible oversight, you'll find advice that contradicts other advice, that contradicts itself, that doesn't specify what it's really for or where it really goes...

We should probably make one, but then we run into issues of objectivity. :-/

So I got a letter today from CHaring Cross saying I didn't attend an appointment on the 5th of March. I knew nothing about any appointment on the 5th of March. As far as I'm aware, my next appointment is on the 15th of April. Now apparently I have 4 weeks to tell them in writing why I didn't attend or they'll discharge me back to the GP. And if I do tell them, they'll book me for another appointment in 7 months. I have no idea what's going on, but I don't like it.

Oh, and they turn their sodding answerphones off at 5pm, so I couldn't even leave a message asking what the hell is going on.

Anarion and Coid have good responses. My own would be panic and rage.

[Jeff the Green]

So I got a letter today from CHaring Cross saying I didn't attend an appointment on the 5th of March. I knew nothing about any appointment on the 5th of March. As far as I'm aware, my next appointment is on the 15th of April. Now apparently I have 4 weeks to tell them in writing why I didn't attend or they'll discharge me back to the GP. And if I do tell them, they'll book me for another appointment in 7 months. I have no idea what's going on, but I don't like it.

Blegh. Sorry. As others have said, this is probably just bureaucracy being bureaucracy. Talk to someone; they're usually more flexible than their reputation would lead one to believe, and there's often internal workarounds for policies like the writing and waiting for another seven months. This is especially true if you can manage to get a hold of an actual health care worker, though that may take some doing.

Oh, and they turn their sodding answerphones off at 5pm, so I couldn't even leave a message asking what the hell is going on.

This I just don't get. They had to deliberately choose to set it up that way, and they had to know it would inconvenience their patients, and the ones who would be most inconvenienced would be those with the lowest SES.



On a coincidental-but-not-unrelated note, I don't think there is a surer way to be smacked upside the head with your privilege—in this case, cis, gender, age, (relatively) able-bodied, geographic, and temporal—than boning up on recent medical history.


Edit:

We should probably make one, but then we run into issues of objectivity. :-/

Also the fact that trans* is BIG. It encompasses a far larger range of experiences than cis (which is why some people put the * after it), and I'm pretty sure I will never comprehend all the axes on which it can vary. (Admittedly, I'm cis, but I'm not entirely certain that's why I'm limited here.)

Serpentine, I heard a story on the radio recently about a voice coach who specifically worked with transwomen. I remembered it more for how enlightening it was for me (also how obvious the enlightenment should have been) and how it might help dispel some myths about "passing" that a lot of cis people have, but I suspect one could work backwards from it to find some resources. Give me a bit and I'll see if I can find it.

[JusticeZero]

The main thing I know on voice is that unless you have a very squeaky or deep voice, the thing that gets read on it most easily is the presence or absence of a resonant quality. People think it's pitch and try falsettos and other such things, but start listening to voices and you'll notice that there's a large overlap of pitch. I know it's possible to cut back on resonance with voice training, but I know not how. Though expensive, a professional voice coach could probably give more info in one session than you could find in a month of looking on YouTube. Also, try using longer and flowing sentences to work on varying pitch in, instead of the caveman monosyllables that some guys use a lot of.

[Jeff the Green]

The main thing I know on voice is that unless you have a very squeaky or deep voice, the thing that gets read on it most easily is the presence or absence of a resonant quality. People think it's pitch and try falsettos and other such things, but start listening to voices and you'll notice that there's a large overlap of pitch.

Heh, I can testify to that. My speaking voice is pretty dense in the high-frequency overtones, making it seem higher pitched than it is. When I sing those go away and I sound like the baritone II I am. I've had more than a few women be shocked when I sang for them the first time, and probably a bit annoyed when I reverted.

And then there's my brother, who can sing bass through alto but always sounds very masculine. I kind of hate him.

Also, try using longer and flowing sentences to work on varying pitch in, instead of the caveman monosyllables that some guys use a lot of.

I heard this days ago while I was driving and preoccupied, but I believe this was part of it, along with particular variations in timbre, pitch, and volume that are coded as "feminine".


Ah hah! I found it. I could have sworn it was an NPR thing, but looks like it was in The Atlantic. My casual googling hasn't revealed much in the way of actual usable information, but I'm rummy so that doesn't mean it's not there.

[Serpentine]

No, sorry. It's all word of mouth, and there's nothing really solid. Because it's so subjective and there's no possible oversight, you'll find advice that contradicts other advice, that contradicts itself, that doesn't specify what it's really for or where it really goes...

We should probably make one, but then we run into issues of objectivity. :

I don't really think so, at least not for the sort of thing I'm thinking of. I'm thinking more "how to fake/hide boobs", "how to create/hide curves", voice training exercises, the hiding stubble with make up stuff we just had a page ago even, things like that. "How to respond to mistakes, how to respond to bigotry, and how to tell the difference" could be good too. I feel like "I think I'm trans, now what?" might be handy, but also might vary from place to place. In any case, that's the sort of thing I'm thinking of, and there's room in that for different perspectives.
But in any case, I am interested in the more personal side anyway: if you could go back to when you first even found out that transsexuality was a thing, what would you tell yourself - practical or otherwise?

I'll check the links that were offered later, thanks.