Well, call me a bigot I guess, but I think that post-op transgendered people, particularly male-to-female, as a whole, tend to look pretty odd.
Okay! Congratulations! You're a bigot. Yes, a lot of trans people look different from their identifying gender, but there are also quite a few who don't. But more to the point: they probably know that already. They don't need you going "oh, trans people look weird" to make them feel even more alienated. I'm not saying you should be having sex with people you don't find attractive, but seriously, treat them like the rest of us human beings, y'know, with feelings and the like?
You made the implicit claim that I'm "living in a reality bubble" (whatever the fuck that means), so I figured I'd strawman you right back. But also, you just dedicated a post to talking about how trans people are ugly. Seriously, kind of a dickish post.
I said that as a rule a lot of trans people can be aesthetically striking in a negative way. So sure ugly if you want to hyper-simplify it. I'm not exactly Brad Pitt myself. But if you think that aesthetics aren't a hurdle for acceptance of transgendered individuals, then yeah I think you're in a bubble. Nobody said it was fair.
I said that as a rule a lot of trans people can be aesthetically striking in a negative way. So sure ugly if you want to hyper-simplify it. I'm not exactly Brad Pitt myself. But if you think that aesthetics aren't a hurdle for acceptance of transgendered individuals, then yeah I think you're in a bubble. Nobody said it was fair.
More to the point though, we weren't talking about the troubles of post-op transsexual people being accepted into society. You just kind of started talking about how you think those people are sexually unattractive, completely ignoring the previous debate over the term cis. That was a bit jarring, and makes me wonder why you'd go out of your way to say something like that.
Not at all. First of all, I wasn't talking about sexual attraction I was talking about something very overt: their overall look day to day. It can be jarring. In the cases when it is jarring, it's certainly a hurdle.
This came up because medical technology came up, which I think came up because someone made the well-trodden comment that "you can be whatever you want to be" which is philosophically very valid but physically a little complicated.
So no, I don't agree that I crowbarred it into the conversation. I think that there are an awful lot of facets to acceptance of and agreement on gender and sexual issues (which includes agreement on common terminology), and the ability of technology to allow you to be externally who you are internally is a major one.
But we could just beat the cis- question to death I guess. I think that issue was given a pretty thorough treatment already, which is why the thread started to range, as discussions tend to do.
But if you think that aesthetics aren't a hurdle for acceptance of transgendered individuals, then yeah I think you're in a bubble. Nobody said it was fair.
I'm not sure you read my post. Or, if you did, you didn't understand it.
I'm not sure you understood any of mine in this thread. If you think I'm confused by your last few posts, you're absolutely right.
I didn't call trans people ugly. I said post-op trans-gendered people often look odd. If you want to be really pedantic, then sure, they're probably near synonyms, but language has nuance for a reason. You started tossing out stuff about how insensitive I'm being and how trans people don't need to hear that, and I definitely agree that they are dealing with a shit sandwich dealt to them by life and society.
Still, the fact that it's impolitic doesn't mean that it's not a real issue with real ramifications in the real world, and I brought it up in the context of a discussion about surgical technology as I think it's a hurdle that will one day not exist because of that technology.
If you want to twist that into some sort of hateful thing, then that's your prerogative. More conversions with swords.
I think that post-op transgendered people, particularly male-to-female, as a whole, tend to look pretty odd. The blending of masculine and feminine characteristics is not flattering.
ugly (comparative uglier, superlative ugliest) 1. Displeasing to the eye; not aesthetically pleasing.
Yeah, no idea at all how I could have come to that conclusion.
Anyway, here's where I disagree with you: the "hurdle" created by the appearance of trans people isn't an issue where we should wait around and say "technology will solve it, and then things will be okay." The solution should be to make that appearance acceptable. That "jarring" you get when seeing a trans person? Don't treat that as a problem with them, treat is as a problem with you, and get over it.
Why? Because there are a lot of trans people out there right now, who don't have your magic sex change technology, and we shouldn't treat them differently from anybody else because of that. Also, it's the right thing to do.
So you chose to ignore the two posts where I admitted that if you want to discard all nuance, you could call them synonyms, in order to get this self-gratifying gotcha moment of yours? You're intellectually dishonest and angry, Linkigee, which is why you're about the least persuasive person on this forum when it comes to these issues, which is too bad because you're obviously passionate and right-hearted about them.
Do you think most trans people are happy with their post-op state? I'd like to direct you to support groups full of depressed, often suicidal people who don't agree with you. If you want to get involved in a chicken-egg discussion about standards of beauty, we could spend all week on that. Another issue is simple anatomical function, which WhaleShark touched upon in one of his posts. The fact is that our technology has not caught up to our social awareness, and the unfortunate thing is that it will probably be a while yet.
And for the last time, who's advocating that we treat them any differently? This was a discussion about acceptance of gender/sexual issues and the need for common terminology and the hurdles to accomplishing that common ground, which was a fairly open, honest, and productive conversation until you came in and shit all over it with your long and aggressive tantrum about how reality isn't fair and therefore shouldn't be discussed.
So you chose to ignore the two posts where I admitted that if you want to discard all nuance, you could call them synonyms, in order to get this self-gratifying gotcha moment of yours?
I don't think there was all that much nuance to discard; it's not particularly hard to read that implication from your posts.
And for the last time, who's advocating that we treat them any differently?
Nobody. To sum up my perspective, I read your discussion on technology as advocating that we should be waiting for improvements in medical technology so that society can get better at accepting trans people, or perhaps that the only way for them to be accepted is for technology to overcome those differences. The thing is, there are trans people trying to live in society right now, and I believe that we have an obligation to get as much of society to accept them as possible without needing to wait for technology. And that's something we do by changing society's standards. I read your posts as advocating basically just waiting around for things to change.
I agree that nobody should be discriminating against anybody for superficial stupid reasons, ever. I was participating in a discussion about acceptance by average people of these issues and why that's difficult.
I just think things will get better as it gets easier for people to externalize their internal selves. That's not to say that nobody should work toward improving the situation while waiting for manna to fall from heaven.
I've got to agree with muppet here, in that if it's not okay to discuss a subject without having a chance not to be called bigoted, despite trying as hard as possible not to sound insulting or demeaning, it helps nothing.
The fact is I have a friend who used to be called Daniel and is now Sarah. And Sarah looks odd for a woman. There's just no getting around it, despite nobody ever saying anything about it nor anybody being insensitive in any way. Sarah owns and runs a bookshop, and there are dinners there every Friday, and dozens of people come in and interact with her. I've never seen anyone be unkind or anything else, but 90% of people do a double take.
I also live next door to a gay bar, and there are al kinds of people dressed up as all kind of things, and the huge tall ladies with big jaws look odd, for women. They look fantastic for men in drag, but as women? Odd.
Pile on if you think this makes me a bigot, but the truth is it's just a fact of life for many trans people. And it will always be so, just as a very tall or very short person is noticeably odd, but civilized people don't immediately bring it up insultingly.
Well, call me a bigot I guess, but I think that post-op transgendered people, particularly male-to-female, as a whole, tend to look pretty odd. The blending of masculine and feminine characteristics is not flattering. And sure, there's a subset of the population that finds a huge burly trans-female really alluring, but I'm pretty confident it's a small minority. Aesthetics are a factor whether we like it or not.
Muppet said it kind of poorly, but yeah, it's not bigoted to say that medical tech makes transgendereds look distinct. It can be in the proper context, but here and now it isn't.
if being honest is saying things poorly, then guilty. They look odd, not "distinct". Euphemism just makes discussion more difficult. Tip toeing around delicate subjects is a large part of the reason such slow progress is made on them. Fuck that.
And of course context is important. I don't think anybody in this thread would use any of these posts as ice breakers.
There's honesty, and then there's brutal honesty. You could've been a little bit gentler. I wasn't being euphamistic when I said "distinct". It's synonymous with "odd" and doesn't carry the negative connotation. I know individuals who find trans* more attractive because of that very fusion of masc and femme features that you find "odd", so I'm not going to judge it.
If you want some really euphamistic language, I could say "exceptional" instead. That goes so far as to carry a positive connotation, but is still synonymous with what you said.
I think diplomacy is all well and good until it's an impediment to productive conversation. You get people's attention by being honest. It seems to me like an awful lot of people (mostly younger people) want to pad and round everything so that no one's feelings are ever hurt. That's not how life goes.
If I wanted to be a loudmouthed dick about it, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I might go on a long rant about people who were raised on a steady diet of participation medals and daily praise. :-P
In the spirit of Thanksgiving, you could learn all about how to control your hormones and thusly certain aspects of your psyche from a trans group and then give them small pox blankets :-P
I don't understand the moderate change in language impedes the conversation. Could you explain?
If it's moderate, no problem. Sadly, the most visible "representatives" of people concerned about and interested in these issues are places like SRS and subsidiaries, and they tend to leak into other communities. When nobody can utter a frank sentence without being branded a bigot and a homophobe or any of a number of other newly blessed expletives, conversation is impossible. People who just want their echo chambers do a ton of harm to issues like these.
Like (sorry), Linkigi. Dude has a hair trigger. That doesn't get anybody anywhere. Sketchbook to a lesser extent. It's hard not to see the influence of places like SRS on their mode of discussion, however many degrees apart they may be.
There is no better or clearer way to describe the fact that people find trans people odd looking than saying they are odd looking.
If I'm trying to say that other people think trans people look odd or ugly, due to them telling me they look odd or ugly, then I have to use those words. I might not think someone looks odd or ugly, but if I "diplomacify" the words I use I'll not be talking about what I actually want to talk about, and that's what other people feel about the looks of trans people.
Muppet says "They look odd."
Linkigi says "You mean they look ugly!"
Muppet says "No, they look odd."
Greg says "You mean they look distinctive."
Muppet says "No, they look odd."
Both Linkigi and Greg are coming up with different messages from Muppet due to them changing his words away from what he actually means.
No matter what struggles trans people have to go through on a day to day basis, changing the words of other people will only misrepresent what they actually feel or say about the issue. Muppet is at "Odd", not "distinctive" and not "ugly". If you want to have a conversation with him about anything, you have to accept that that is where he's at right now. If you try to change his opinion based on your own wording of his opinion, you're only going to fail.
You said yourself, Luke, your trans friend looks odd for a woman. It's something people double-take over.
The thing is: so what? They look a little odd. People who understand and are sensitive to what's going on will get over it pretty quick. People who aren't sensitive or informed: won't. As you said, filtering everybody's language makes it pretty hard to reach those people.
This is just one tiny example of a whole host of similar issues that are created almost out of thin air when people would rather bicker over the boundary lines than just deal with the contention. Even that would be all right, probably, if it ever ended, but it doesn't. New people join the discussion and use the "wrong" word or a "trigger" word, and everybody's back at step 1 again screaming about how offended they are. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
The only way to avoid that cycle that I see is to accept common language descriptions of the issues as the currency of understanding and conversation, because anything else is counterproductive.
And I totally understand why that irks, but frankly, the fact that it irks you (using a generalized "you" here) is insignificant compared to the actual problems that need to be addressed.
"Weird" is exactly the correct term. It's like the uncanny valley - many trans people look almost like the sex to which they've transitioned, but not quite completely. It makes it exceptionally more noticeable. This tends to a be a much bigger phenomenon earlier in the process.
"Weird" doesn't mean "bad" or "we need to marginalize you" or any of the other things that are being indicated here. It means "weird." It's a completely accurate assessment.
When medical technology improves to the point that it is undetectable to the naked eye, nobody will know the difference, and we'll stop having that reaction.
Humans have to notice marked differences in others. If you see a person with a giant fucking goiter on their neck, you notice. It looks odd. It's "weird." It's not what you expected to see. There's literally nothing wrong with that.
I could go a step further and use the term "abnormal," and it'd still be completely accurate. The only issue is that we attach additional baggage to these words and assume that every use of that word has that baggage.
If someone says "trans people are weird, and because of that I fear them, and because of that I marginalize them," that's a different thing. But attacking the "weird" part isn't going to get you anywhere.
My internship coordinator just submitted today that you cannot earn any hours for travel. No driving to work, interviews, or places to get stories does not count towards my internship. And she tells me this basically with only one week left to do any work. And being a reporter/writer for a newspaper is not a job where you spend days inside the office. (Unless you are an editor, but even then they have to travel around)
I'm fucked...I can't do anything. My memos I've sent every two weeks explain that I do drive to work and various places throughout my internship. Without that driving, I lose about 40 hours total, leaving me at 108. How the fuck did she not tell anyone about this earlier?
I'm so sad and pissed off. I'm wondering if I can fight about this.
You can fight anything. If you're doing a journalism internship, I think that's pretty strong justification for including travel to the site of the story for research and so on. It's a very large part of the job and of the profession. No doubt you worked on each of those sites and probably en-route, too.
I'd be totally up their asses about this if I were you.
Okay, I did fight the issue....and the coordinator did buckle saying "I don't agree with this, but I'll let you keep those hours because you aren't the only person concerned about this."
Yeah, this is a journalism internship. To not include what every other job considers to be an expense and integral to getting stuff done? That's just flat out nonsense. And not mentioning it before hand is even worse when all students only have ONE WEEK to get that done.
Comments
Yes, a lot of trans people look different from their identifying gender, but there are also quite a few who don't. But more to the point: they probably know that already. They don't need you going "oh, trans people look weird" to make them feel even more alienated. I'm not saying you should be having sex with people you don't find attractive, but seriously, treat them like the rest of us human beings, y'know, with feelings and the like?
But also, you just dedicated a post to talking about how trans people are ugly. Seriously, kind of a dickish post.
This came up because medical technology came up, which I think came up because someone made the well-trodden comment that "you can be whatever you want to be" which is philosophically very valid but physically a little complicated.
So no, I don't agree that I crowbarred it into the conversation. I think that there are an awful lot of facets to acceptance of and agreement on gender and sexual issues (which includes agreement on common terminology), and the ability of technology to allow you to be externally who you are internally is a major one.
But we could just beat the cis- question to death I guess. I think that issue was given a pretty thorough treatment already, which is why the thread started to range, as discussions tend to do.
I didn't call trans people ugly. I said post-op trans-gendered people often look odd. If you want to be really pedantic, then sure, they're probably near synonyms, but language has nuance for a reason. You started tossing out stuff about how insensitive I'm being and how trans people don't need to hear that, and I definitely agree that they are dealing with a shit sandwich dealt to them by life and society.
Still, the fact that it's impolitic doesn't mean that it's not a real issue with real ramifications in the real world, and I brought it up in the context of a discussion about surgical technology as I think it's a hurdle that will one day not exist because of that technology.
If you want to twist that into some sort of hateful thing, then that's your prerogative. More conversions with swords.
Anyway, here's where I disagree with you: the "hurdle" created by the appearance of trans people isn't an issue where we should wait around and say "technology will solve it, and then things will be okay." The solution should be to make that appearance acceptable. That "jarring" you get when seeing a trans person? Don't treat that as a problem with them, treat is as a problem with you, and get over it.
Why? Because there are a lot of trans people out there right now, who don't have your magic sex change technology, and we shouldn't treat them differently from anybody else because of that. Also, it's the right thing to do.
Do you think most trans people are happy with their post-op state? I'd like to direct you to support groups full of depressed, often suicidal people who don't agree with you. If you want to get involved in a chicken-egg discussion about standards of beauty, we could spend all week on that. Another issue is simple anatomical function, which WhaleShark touched upon in one of his posts. The fact is that our technology has not caught up to our social awareness, and the unfortunate thing is that it will probably be a while yet.
And for the last time, who's advocating that we treat them any differently? This was a discussion about acceptance of gender/sexual issues and the need for common terminology and the hurdles to accomplishing that common ground, which was a fairly open, honest, and productive conversation until you came in and shit all over it with your long and aggressive tantrum about how reality isn't fair and therefore shouldn't be discussed.
To sum up my perspective, I read your discussion on technology as advocating that we should be waiting for improvements in medical technology so that society can get better at accepting trans people, or perhaps that the only way for them to be accepted is for technology to overcome those differences.
The thing is, there are trans people trying to live in society right now, and I believe that we have an obligation to get as much of society to accept them as possible without needing to wait for technology. And that's something we do by changing society's standards. I read your posts as advocating basically just waiting around for things to change.
I just think things will get better as it gets easier for people to externalize their internal selves. That's not to say that nobody should work toward improving the situation while waiting for manna to fall from heaven.
The fact is I have a friend who used to be called Daniel and is now Sarah. And Sarah looks odd for a woman. There's just no getting around it, despite nobody ever saying anything about it nor anybody being insensitive in any way. Sarah owns and runs a bookshop, and there are dinners there every Friday, and dozens of people come in and interact with her. I've never seen anyone be unkind or anything else, but 90% of people do a double take.
I also live next door to a gay bar, and there are al kinds of people dressed up as all kind of things, and the huge tall ladies with big jaws look odd, for women. They look fantastic for men in drag, but as women? Odd.
Pile on if you think this makes me a bigot, but the truth is it's just a fact of life for many trans people. And it will always be so, just as a very tall or very short person is noticeably odd, but civilized people don't immediately bring it up insultingly.
And of course context is important. I don't think anybody in this thread would use any of these posts as ice breakers.
If you want some really euphamistic language, I could say "exceptional" instead. That goes so far as to carry a positive connotation, but is still synonymous with what you said.
If I wanted to be a loudmouthed dick about it, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I might go on a long rant about people who were raised on a steady diet of participation medals and daily praise. :-P
I don't understand the moderate change in language impedes the conversation. Could you explain?
Like (sorry), Linkigi. Dude has a hair trigger. That doesn't get anybody anywhere. Sketchbook to a lesser extent. It's hard not to see the influence of places like SRS on their mode of discussion, however many degrees apart they may be.
If I'm trying to say that other people think trans people look odd or ugly, due to them telling me they look odd or ugly, then I have to use those words. I might not think someone looks odd or ugly, but if I "diplomacify" the words I use I'll not be talking about what I actually want to talk about, and that's what other people feel about the looks of trans people.
Muppet says "They look odd."
Linkigi says "You mean they look ugly!"
Muppet says "No, they look odd."
Greg says "You mean they look distinctive."
Muppet says "No, they look odd."
Both Linkigi and Greg are coming up with different messages from Muppet due to them changing his words away from what he actually means.
No matter what struggles trans people have to go through on a day to day basis, changing the words of other people will only misrepresent what they actually feel or say about the issue. Muppet is at "Odd", not "distinctive" and not "ugly". If you want to have a conversation with him about anything, you have to accept that that is where he's at right now. If you try to change his opinion based on your own wording of his opinion, you're only going to fail.
The thing is: so what? They look a little odd. People who understand and are sensitive to what's going on will get over it pretty quick. People who aren't sensitive or informed: won't. As you said, filtering everybody's language makes it pretty hard to reach those people.
This is just one tiny example of a whole host of similar issues that are created almost out of thin air when people would rather bicker over the boundary lines than just deal with the contention. Even that would be all right, probably, if it ever ended, but it doesn't. New people join the discussion and use the "wrong" word or a "trigger" word, and everybody's back at step 1 again screaming about how offended they are. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
The only way to avoid that cycle that I see is to accept common language descriptions of the issues as the currency of understanding and conversation, because anything else is counterproductive.
And I totally understand why that irks, but frankly, the fact that it irks you (using a generalized "you" here) is insignificant compared to the actual problems that need to be addressed.
"Weird" doesn't mean "bad" or "we need to marginalize you" or any of the other things that are being indicated here. It means "weird." It's a completely accurate assessment.
When medical technology improves to the point that it is undetectable to the naked eye, nobody will know the difference, and we'll stop having that reaction.
Humans have to notice marked differences in others. If you see a person with a giant fucking goiter on their neck, you notice. It looks odd. It's "weird." It's not what you expected to see. There's literally nothing wrong with that.
I could go a step further and use the term "abnormal," and it'd still be completely accurate. The only issue is that we attach additional baggage to these words and assume that every use of that word has that baggage.
If someone says "trans people are weird, and because of that I fear them, and because of that I marginalize them," that's a different thing. But attacking the "weird" part isn't going to get you anywhere.
My internship coordinator just submitted today that you cannot earn any hours for travel. No driving to work, interviews, or places to get stories does not count towards my internship. And she tells me this basically with only one week left to do any work. And being a reporter/writer for a newspaper is not a job where you spend days inside the office. (Unless you are an editor, but even then they have to travel around)
I'm fucked...I can't do anything. My memos I've sent every two weeks explain that I do drive to work and various places throughout my internship. Without that driving, I lose about 40 hours total, leaving me at 108. How the fuck did she not tell anyone about this earlier?
I'm so sad and pissed off. I'm wondering if I can fight about this.
I'd be totally up their asses about this if I were you.
Yeah, this is a journalism internship. To not include what every other job considers to be an expense and integral to getting stuff done? That's just flat out nonsense. And not mentioning it before hand is even worse when all students only have ONE WEEK to get that done.