"She", not "he", guys

[DanaC]

Slight side step, because my head's in the eighteenth-century today :P


I've taken this from wikipedia, because I havent the heart to go searching through texts:

In 18th century England, a "molly" referred to an effeminate usually homosexual male.[1][2] Mollies, and other third sex identities, were one precursor to the broader 'homosexual' identity of the 20th and 21st centuries.[3]

The most famous molly house was Mother Clap's open for two years from 1724-1726 in the Holborn area of London.

Patrons of Molly houses who dressed in women's clothing were called "Mollies", they would take on a female persona, have a female name, and affect feminine mannerisms and speech. Marriage ceremonies between a Mollie and his male lover were enacted to symbolise their partnership and commitment, and the role-play at times incorporated a ritualised giving birth.[4]

At the time, under the Buggery Act 1533, buggery was a capital offence in England, and court records of buggery trials of the period provide much of the evidence about molly houses.[5]

On 9 May 1726, three men (Gabriel Lawrence, William Griffin, and Thomas Wright) were hanged at Tyburn for buggery following a raid of Margaret Clap's molly house. Charles Hitchen, the Under City Marshal (and crime lord), was also convicted (in 1727) of attempted buggery at a Molly house

Two things strike me about this. One, is that gender performance has always been problematic for those whose sense of self did not conform strictly to the culturally constructed norms of the day. And second is that, whilst right now what is at stake is at worst violent assault and at best the experience (hopefully temporary) of shame described by Pam, the stakes have been much higher at other times and yet...those people still engaged in gender performance which put them at risk of utter ruination or capital sentence.

It has taken a very, very long time, for our culture(s) to accept something which it has always had within it. I hope, one day, discussions like this one will seem as odd to contemporaries as discussions on women's wandering wombs, and the genetic inferiority of the black man do to us now. Both of which, incidentally, had scientific 'facts' to give them weight.

[henry quirk]

"fuck you, I don't care about you, I'll do whatever I want".

Certainly, that's one possible interpretation.

Just not the only one.

I'm sure when Norton demanded to be called 'emperor', some refused for the reason you cite above. Others, I'm sure, refused to call Norton 'emperor' because, in fact, he was not an emperor.

#

"I really, really don't see gender in the same way you do, henry."

And we don't have to.

Since this is the closest I'm gonna get to a 'let's agree to disagree', I'll just say: thanks, Dana.

#

"He made this thread to make sure everyone knew that he did it just to be an enormous jerk."

That's one interpretation. Another is, it irks me when folks demand I toss away what's real in favor of not-real.

#

"I hope that answered your question."

You did. Thank you for the civility. Your post raises other questions for me, but I'll save those for a later time.

[BrianR]

Originally Posted by DanaC

And second is that, whilst right now what is at stake is at worst violent assault and at best the experience (hopefully temporary) of shame described by Pam, the stakes have been much higher at other times and yet...those people still engaged in gender performance which put them at risk of utter ruination or capital sentence.

Dana, I hate to correct again, but violent assault is NOT the worst.

Being dead is worse than being beaten.

Hundreds of us are murdered every year. Less than half are prosecuted. In the US, the most popular defense is the trans panic defense. Despite it's weak legal standing, it has been advanced in many of the cases involving murder of a trans person.

There have been several high profile cases in the last ten years, most notably the Gwen Araujo murder trial.

Most of the murders are never reported in the news and if they are, they get scant mention of any facts other than the trans-identity of the victim. Salacious information sells more advertising and garners more views than plain old information I guess. But then the news media almost inevitably get the gender wrong and refer to us as our birth gender and, if known, birth name. Even if the person's name had been legally changed. We just don't get no respect in major media outlets.

Even in the best of the options, shame is also a negative event. No one should be ashamed of who they are. You certainly are not. No one really is. Except us. And we are only ashamed until we learn to NOT be ashamed. And that process would be much faster and less traumatic if everyone else would just get over themselves and accept us for who we are and not what they think we are.

{off soapbox for now}

Pam

[Undertoad]

a rejection of broadly accepted conventions of cellar etiquette

this should be permitted at all times imo

[BigV]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

this should be permitted at all times imo

Are you suggesting anarchy? Chaos?

"I demand you delete that post, as I find it intolerably irritating."

***

Now, I wonder what will happen with this paradox I've set. A broadly accepted convention of cellar etiquette is that posts are not deleted. It is not universally so, many posts are deleted but they are almost always related to spam. Yet, if you "permit" my demand, the post will go away, my rejection of the convention will have triumphed. Your desire will also be granted.

We shall see.

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by BigV

Are you suggesting anarchy? Chaos?

For fux sake. No, I'm saying that you don't get to claim that your idea of what "conventions of cellar etiquette" are, means anything at all.

Always THINK

Never GROUP-THINK

[BigV]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

For fux sake. No, I'm saying that you don't get to claim that your idea of what "conventions of cellar etiquette" are, means anything at all.

Always THINK

Never GROUP-THINK

ffs indeed.

conventions of cellar etiquette exist. I defy you to deny this.

I "THINK" that one of those conventions is that we refer to each other by the way each of us introduces ourselves. This self-naming, this self-definition happens all over the board, and all over the board those definitions are used, almost universally, as the person who has stated the definition has stated the definition.

As an example, we used to have a well established user name "Br****a". The person behind that user name (asked and had some administrator-level person) changed the user name to something completely different, Trilby. There is a convention, a widely accepted belief and/or action, to adopt this new name. This is considered good etiquette. It is not my idea. I am not making it up. I am not "defining" it, I am pointing it out. Its meaning is that it exists.

Many times there are multiple names, nicknames if you will, that are also used. There are conventions around these names too. For example, you are sometimes referred to as UT; I am sometimes referred to as V. This convention is not a breach of cellar etiquette, but calling Lola Bunny or sexobon by their previous handle would be in bad etiquette since they've specifically asked to be disassociated with those descriptions. It's not me making it up, it's just me observing it. Specifically, deliberately, repeatedly disregarding a dwellar's reasonable request to be referred to in a particular way is a breach of etiquette. That IS my THINKING, irrespective of the group I'm in or not in.

[DanaC]

Permitted yes. Unchallenged? *shrugs*

[footfootfoot]

Did we already talk about how many legs a sheep would have if you call its tail a leg?

Here's what the folks over at snopes have to say

Originally Posted by http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=32;t=000450;p=0

I think, though, that the larger quote from Stearns's work helps reinforce the use of the anecdote with respect to the issue of slavery, which is how Lincoln is said to have used it a decade later,

quote:
The law treats [man, or a slave] as a person and as a thing, classing him under both categories; but were he not a thing, were there no exchangeable value in him, the law might call him one day, all day, it would not make him one. "Father," said one of the rising generation to his paternal progenitor, "if I should call this cow's leg a tail, how many legs would she have?" "Why five, to be sure." "Why, no, father; would calling it a leg make it one?"
In fact, the anecdote had been in use in the abolitionist movement itself at least as early as 1840,

quote:
(From "Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. Sketches of Debates at the Annual Meeting," The Liberator, 28 February 1840.)

[On 'The Church and the Ministry,' Thursday evening, Jan. 23.]

[Mr. Bradburn] This discussion reminds me of the boy who said to his father, "Father, how many legs would this calf have, calling the tail a leg? 'Why five, my son.' 'No, father, he can not. He would have only four.' 'Why, calling the tail a leg, you said, my boy.' 'Ah father! but calling the tail a leg, does not make it so, you know.' So also I would say to that gentlemen. You may call him an abolitionist any length of time you choose. It will not make him one.
It's hard to know, I think, whether Lincoln himself ever actually made use of the anecdote, but he certainly gets linked to it by sometime in October, 1862, after issuance of the first part of the Emancipation Proclamation,

quote:
(Appearing in Dawsons Daily Times and Union [Fort Wayne, Indiana], 21 October 1862. Reprinted from the Albany [New York] Argus and Atlas.]

WHERE ARE THE ARMED ME? -- Greeley, Andrew, Blair of Michigan, and other Abolitionists, promised the President a million men, if he would issue his Emancipation Proclamation. In vain did Lincoln protest; in vain did he cite the stories of the Pope, who issued a bull against the comet, and the slave who told his mater that his calling a pig's tail a leg, would not make it so. He was assured that if he would but spread his edict before the people, armed men would spring out the earth at the stamp of his foot.


(From The Weekly Standard [Raleigh, North Carolina], 29 October 1862.)

OLD ABE GETS OFF ANOTHER JOKE. -- A couple of Abolitionists having called upon Old Abe to persuade him to issue his Emancipation Proclamation -- that is, before he issued it -- he got off the following good thing and knock down argument against his own act:

"You remember the slave who asked his master -- if I should call a sheep's tail a leg, how many legs would it have? 'Five.' 'No, only four, for my calling the tail a leg would not make it so.' Now, gentlemen, if I say to the slaves, 'you are free,' they will be no more free than at present."


(From "Irenaeus," "Letters from the City," The New York Observer and Chronicle, 22 January 1863.)

THE PRESIDENT AND DR. CHEEVER.

Just before the first of January, Dr. Cheever was appointed by a ministers' meeting, at which a lawyer presided and a newspaper reporter was secretary, to go to Washington and help stiffen the backbone of the President in the matter of the Proclamation. At the interview, as it is described by Dr. Cheever to his friends, the President was as usual in excellent humor . . . As the conference [with the President] continued, the President expressed his fear that the Proclamation would not amount to much of anything, and the doctor predicted great things from it. Mr. Lincoln said it reminded him of a farmer out in Illinois who asked his little boy a question in figures. "If you call a sheep's tail a leg, how many legs will you have?" "Five," said the boy. "No, it won't, you fool," said the farmer, "calling a thing so, don't make it so!"

The President seemed to feel that calling a man free and making him so were not exactly the same thing.

[...]
In any event, other early appearances of this anecdote (at least in the American press) go something like this,

quote:
(From the New-Hampshire Gazette [Portsmouth], 1 July 1834.)

'If you call a sheep's tail a leg, how many legs will a sheep have?' -- 'Five.'

'Will calling a sheep's tail a leg make it a leg?' 'No.'

If then calling a sheep's tail a leg don't make it a leg, will calling a Tory a Whig make him a Whig. -- Cayuga [Patriot].


(From The Cincinnati Weekly Herald and Philanthropist, 27 December 1843.)

Says Bill to Jack, how many legs would a calf have by calling a tail one? 'Five,' answered Jack. 'No, 'twouldn't,' says Bill, 'because calling the tail one leg wouldn’t make it so, would it?'


(From The Watertown [Wisconsin] Chronicle, 30 October 1850.]

A little boy, some four or five years of age, once asked his father how many legs a calf would have, provided they called the tail one. The father, reasoning upon principles usually considered sound in those days, very naturally replied, "why, five, my son." "No," said the boy; "calling the tail a leg does not make it one."

[BigV]

Originally Posted by footfootfoot

Did we already talk about how many legs a sheep would have if you call its tail a leg?

Here's what the folks over at snopes have to say

this is easy footfootfoot. There's a pretty well defined difference between a tail and a leg. Calling a tail a leg does not make it one. I agree completely with this.

Men, property, slaves, freedom, these terms are not as simple as a lamb's tail. What a man is depends more on context, as does slavery and freedom. Gender is much closer to these than it is to a lamb's tail when it comes to absolute definition.

[Sundae]

No necessarily germane to this discussion, but prompted by CW's excellent post above.

We had a child at my school with Klinefelter syndrome (XXY syndrome). This was apparent in some of the classic symptoms of learning difficulties, poor speech and motor control and coordination. But it also meant that when he reached puberty he might develop female sexual characteristics, for example growing breasts.

All we could offer him at our school was meeting his Special Educational Needs. He's going to need more specific help in the future.
"Treatment may include hormone therapy, cosmetic surgery, speech therapy and counselling."

[henry quirk]

Take a look at the words under Ibby's name in any post: "She", not "he", guys.

You may take this as 'request'...I don't.

#

Indeed: I introduced 'cock', but it has not been my focus.

My focus is on the reality of a chromosome and what follows or extends from that chromosome.

What follows or extends from the source are characteristics...remove the characteristics (by surgery, for example) and the source remains (you can stick a rod into a tail -- to make it useful as a leg -- and it's still a tail; you can remove the tail and the fact that the animal is genetically meant to have one remains).

This is my point, my focus.

#

No doubt 'he' is used in many ways, but, what is the primary definition and reason for 'he'? To signify 'male' (a state dictated by a chromosome).

#

When a person says, 'I am *transgendered', why should I 'not' accept that self-assessment? And, no, taking his word for it -- "I am a transgendered woman" -- is not the equivalent of agreeing to call 'he' 'she'. Therefore I rely on the testimony of the person in question, not shifty cultural tripe.

If he lies then, shame on him.

##

Please, Cyber, I'm not talking about 'manhood' as cultural artifact...I'm talking about maleness a physical reality sourced in the physical.

I know I can shorthand myself from time to time, but my words have been clear throughout, so -- even with shorthanding -- my meanings and intent are clear.

None of you is stupid, so I assume (especially in the case of V) that time worn strategy of 'what's that you say?' (pretended misunderstanding so as to distract and wear down the offender) is being deployed (and has been for much of this thread). Pick at nits and -- it is hoped -- the offender will just 'accept' and move on.

Good luck with that.

Lots of, as I say, shifty definitions are thrown about as though -- again -- believing something or saying it enough times negates what's real.

It doesn't.






*meaning 'I feel like the other sex' (and, perhaps, have altered myself to make flesh agree with sentiment)...a statement of self-assessment that any one is welcome to make...however, I'm not obligated to observe that assessment by accepting a redefining of 'she' to include XY.


'nuff said till tomorrow.

[DanaC]

Sorry Pam I wasn't clear enough. Violent assault may well result in murder, but I was setting that against the state sanctioned execution of the past. Also I absolutely see shame as a negative. Nobody should feel shame over something as basic and fundamental as gender identity.

Basically my point was that we have come so far but have a way yet to go.

[DanaC]

Just heard on the radio a trail for Saturday Live. Apparently one of the pieces today is looking at what happens to couples when a man and woman become two women after the husband has gender reassignment.

[BigV]

I heard that story, or a story just like it. It has a happy ending.