Ask the Transperson

[it]

One of the most interesting discussions I've ever seen were about gender essentialism between a group of hard core "gender doesn't matter" feminists and a group of trans people at various stages (Between extreme gender dysphoria to fully transitioned).

In a way it felt like a conflict between 2nd wave to 3rd wave feminism.

One group dismissing gender as irrelevant and finding gender roles and expectations to be painful and limiting to themselves, and one group finding gender as essential to who they are, so much that it's lack of expression in their sex is emotionally painful to them.

For me it was one of those grand oppertunities where I got to see people argue over the answer for a question where I don't have my own preconceived answer I think is correct, and I'll be honest, it was a close call for me. I would say that trans have marginally won by presenting supporting evidence in neural scans that demonstrate gender symptoms in the brain.

So I ask you, trans... FtM? MtF? Should I read the OP before entering these discussions? Anyway - I ask you...

How do you view this, and in particular, how do you view the gender of cispeople who don't view their gender as part of their identity? Are they - from your perspective - in denial?

[Pamela]

Originally Posted by traceur

So I ask you, trans... FtM? MtF? Should I read the OP before entering these discussions? Anyway - I ask you...

How do you view this, and in particular, how do you view the gender of cispeople who don't view their gender as part of their identity? Are they - from your perspective - in denial?

I am MtF trans.

Your question is both simple and complex.
I have no idea what the fuss is about. Gender is a fundamental concept to everyone's identity and humanity. Personally, I go for the traditional gender binary, that is, male and female. I do not go for any of the "in-betweens", which upsets a lot of LGBTs I cannot honestly say that I have met anyone who holds that their gender is not part of their identity. Other than the aforementioned "tweens".

I suspect that some people just want to play "me too". There is more to the discussion in question than simply rights or identity. These views of mine have made me something of a pariah in our social circles but I believe that we are being used by some to advance a radical social agenda which seeks to deconstruct every tradition and foundation upon which the US was built.

I have not read much about this argument because I tend to avoid feminists' circles, where I and my sisters have been made to feel unwelcome, mainly by TERFs, an ultra-radical subset of feminist.

I hope I answered your question.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Should I read the OP before entering these discussions?

In the OP Pam offered to answer questions. If you haven't yet discovered, Cellar threads drift, like paper boats, when you launch a thread, you relinquish control. But tangents can be enlightening too, and Pam is tolerant.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Real Talk With Trans People.

How to be an ally.

Non-Binary or Genderqueer

NB and GQ folks, including celebs Miley Cyrus and Ruby Rose, locate their genders outside the categories of male and female. They often use either first-person plural pronouns (they, them) or less common ones (ze/zir, ne/nem). These identities are already big in adolescent and college queer scenes.

In a Sentence:
I want to attend college at a place like the University of Vermont, which lets me be genderqueer in its records and recognizes my pronouns

[it]

Originally Posted by Pamela

I am MtF trans.

Your question is both simple and complex.
I have no idea what the fuss is about. Gender is a fundamental concept to everyone's identity and humanity. Personally, I go for the traditional gender binary, that is, male and female. I do not go for any of the "in-betweens", which upsets a lot of LGBTs I cannot honestly say that I have met anyone who holds that their gender is not part of their identity. Other than the aforementioned "tweens".

I suspect that some people just want to play "me too". There is more to the discussion in question than simply rights or identity. These views of mine have made me something of a pariah in our social circles but I believe that we are being used by some to advance a radical social agenda which seeks to deconstruct every tradition and foundation upon which the US was built.

I have not read much about this argument because I tend to avoid feminists' circles, where I and my sisters have been made to feel unwelcome, mainly by TERFs, an ultra-radical subset of feminist.

I hope I answered your question.

No but it's ok, you've also given good reasons why you can't (in bold). I am essentially asking you for your opinion of a type of person you probably haven't gotten the chance to get to know yet, so there's not much you can do about that.

Or you can answer with "Did you see that game?" and "Oh man" and "close call" <- almost always works for me when people ask me for my opinions about groups of people I don't know.

Originally Posted by DanaC

The gender is purely 100% conditioning argument just doesn't hold up at all. The idea that how we express, understand and respond to gender may be very much learned and conditioned is more compelling to me.

I do not believe that girls are biologically driven to like pink dresses and wear high heeled shoes. But I do think little girls are biologically driven to want to know how to be a girl and if the answer they see around them is that girls like pink dresses and high heeled shoes then they are very likely to start wanting those things. Similarly the drive to attract a mate requires knowing what the other person might find attractive - and if everything tells you that what makes a woman attractive is that she be this or that, then that becomes the thing we aim for.

The same is true I think of many of the features of femininity and masculinity that we culturally deem natural and unassailable.

In other words, what it is to be a woman, think like a woman and express a female gender is heavily shaped by the cultural context. The same cultural context surrounds people who have a conflict between the gender they feel they are and the gender they are told they are. They were seeking out the same answers to the question of what is male and what is female - just with a less conventional focus. You can't look for messages about one gender and not see messages about the other, they are defined in opposition to each other.


I don't think gender defines, at a biological level, whether we will want to play nurse or fix a computer. Nor do I think it defines whether we are home bodies or adventurers, able to be funny, or capable of mathematical genius. But the biological drive to be our gender may be important in defining those things, along the lines of the lessons we learn about femaleness and maleness. It also, in many ways, defines who we are in relation to others and ourselves - and that is profoundly important. And, however culturally conditioned our understanding of what it means, fundamentally.. to be male or female, that context isn't easily dismissed. Aspects of it may even be desirable - socially useful.

That is an interesting view - and I think it's true - but missing something.

What you are describing is a tendency to identify more with members of your own gender, resulting in more openness to the viral memes that inflict them and towards observing them as role models. That in itself I think is true. Considering almost all of the examples you gave have been gender reversed in past times, it's hard to argue otherwise.

But in almost every other area of life, the conditions to identifying more with one person then another are exposure and similarity, some sense of shared experience. In order for a boy to identify more with men, he is going to need a sense that he shares with them something in common.

...And although it might seem like their is an obvious answer to what is it that they'd find in common, children do this sometimes long before they ever know the opposite sex has a different peepee, not to mention the obvious counter example of the thread we are in - trans people identifying with a specific gender regardless of their external physical attributes, regardless of what gender they are initially called.

So what underlines the preference in who we identify with? What is it then that makes children feel they have more in common internally with members of their own gender?

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

In the OP Pam offered to answer questions. If you haven't yet discovered, Cellar threads drift, like paper boats, when you launch a thread, you relinquish control. But tangents can be enlightening too, and Pam is tolerant.

On it



(Just to be clear: I am the long haired one)