Transgender Philosophy (Questions, Ideology)

[Tarage]

The whole "treating someone like how they want to be identified thing" is a whole nother tangent, and I've already said my piece about it, but here it is again. If you are a decent human being, then fine, you are whatever you say you are, I'm not gonna question it. If you are an asshat, then frankly I don't care what you identify as because I don't consider you worthy of behavioral adjustment, so I'm going to go with the default answer because you aren't worth my time. Got a problem with that? Stop being an asshat.

But I also don't feel I should be questioned about what turns me on or not. Let's use this example Hey. Let's say you are dating someone who is absolutely amazing. They are nice, kind, considerate, they turn you on in every which way, and they are totally fine with every orientation under the sun. Only later on you find out that they believe that orientation is a choice, and that while they are totally okay with it, they don't believe you can say, for example, be born a man in a woman's body.

If you decided that, due to this one caviot, you didn't want to date this person anymore, you are a hypocrite due to what you have said above.

[thetruepandagod]

Do you, in your mind, identify a post-op, MtF transgender woman who is completely and convincingly feminine with no masculine traits as a man or as a woman? Let's assume (because I do not know enough about gender reassignment surgery) that because she is post-op, you are otherwise completely unable to distinguish her from a natural female-at-birth woman, even if nude and you thoroughly inspected her body. You could not tell she was male-at-birth unless she told you.

Is she a man in your mind? I'm not asking if you would feel weird, or if it would give you hesitation. The only issue is if the knowledge that she was at some point biologically male, regardless of the fact there is absolutely zero evidence of that remaining, compels you to regard her as a man. Not how you address her, not in how you relate to her, just what you think. If one of your friends were sleeping with her, would you think in your own head that he was sleeping with a man or would you think he was sleeping with a woman -- a post-op MtF transsexual woman, but a woman nonetheless.

Well i like ya so ima try to reply to this.

Do you, in your mind, identify a post-op, MtF transgender woman who is completely and convincingly feminine with no masculine traits as a man or as a woman?

If I am not able to immediately discern anything otherwise and without knowing their past given my limited knowledge then yes I would identify them as a woman. However if they were open to me about it I would consider them someone who is trans, any identification past that point merely be to attempt to either defend my beliefs or attempt to not offend.

Let's assume (because I do not know enough about gender reassignment surgery) that because she is post-op, you are otherwise completely unable to distinguish her from a natural female-at-birth woman, even if nude and you thoroughly inspected her body. You could not tell she was male-at-birth unless she told you.

There are differences, heaven forbid you are an FtM. But it's purely hypothetical so that's fine.

Is she a man in your mind?

No, but if i am being completely honest with no fear of offense I would not be considering her a woman either outside of empathy and respect. I would consider them as trans. For in my mind they are no longer a male and could never be a female.

If one of your friends were sleeping with her, would you think in your own head that he was sleeping with a man or would you think he was sleeping with a woman -- a post-op MtF transsexual woman, but a woman nonetheless.

I would consider my friend as sleeping with a transperson.

The only time i would ever genuinely consider a trans mtf a male is if they are so impossibly bad at passing in any regard that I may just be confusing them for a crossdresser. However this is only in passing glances where i know nothing of the person, if they talked to me and made me aware I would consider them as trans. Albeit not a very lucky trans.

For example someone to me that passes completey,(at least outwardly) would be Andrej Pejic who was doing fashion walks as both a male and female model, and was an extremely popular androgynous male model until he recently decided to become a she.(still popular) I would have considered him a man, and now I consider her a trans.

Spoiler: show

edit: i personally feel like a lot of the non trans people in this thread feel more defensive than they otherwise would is because for the most part anyone even partaking in trans discussions is something that is just not even on most peoples radars because they are busy with their own lives and whos closest interaction to anything trans would be buffalo bills crossdressing scene, and yet they are under fire for constant bigotry here. It just comes off as slamming down anyone attempting to reach out to learn about an extremely small portion of the population.

edit:

I believe personally that if you internalized something like hatred for a certain race, sexuality, gender, etc., that you are internally bigoted, yes. Even if you don't intentionally act toward someone, we all have subtle actions we make that we don't always recognize. It's hard for me to really explain the concept of internalized bigotry, and I've been sitting here trying to for a few minutes. Other people have explained it so much better than I have and while I understand it, I don't know how to explain it so that you guys will understand it.

The thing is, sometimes, outwardly being inclusive and/or non-bigoted doesn't always mean that you're entirely 100% inclusive/non-bigoted, even with subtle actions or words.

I would like to know why you keep using the word hatred, would i have internalized hatred if I considered an overweight person to be unhealthy even though they considered themselves healthy? Is me censoring my speech around them to not mention calories or how much icecream i eat bigoted behavior?

[Enkidu]

I don't think anyone is arguing that not being physically attracted to a trans woman is transphobic inherently, as long as you still identify her and recognize her as a woman.

I was responding to a quote that literally said if you can't be attracted to an idealized post-op transgender person you're transphobic.

The lack of attraction must arise due to the fact that they were not born female in this situation (again, idealized), yet it does not necessitate that I identify them as male. Basically I differentiate between female and trans female. I see no inherent problem with this. The most rational reason being you cannot share biological children with them, though there are certainly more reasons. Attraction doesn't even need to be rational, that I'm sure we all can agree on.

[Tyrath]

lol

I fail to see anything funny here. If you make posts simply calling people names rather than providing any arguments, I will call you out on that.

lol

Really? Just a minute ago you said a post-op trans woman is biologically a woman. Even though she does not have a uterus, or various other female specific organs. So... which is it? Also, how about cis women who have their uterous/other organs removed for medical reasons? It is not nearly as simple as you are suggesting. Also: intersex people.

I am not talking about gender.

I will grant you that it's not that simple. Especially when you start to deviate from the binary that evolution has come up with. You can be a certain sex and still be missing part of the equipment, as in the example of the guy who lost his penis in an accident. Likewise a post op person who has surgery to become a woman can do so without having a uterus. And yes, intersex people exist because you sometimes people are born with reproductive anatomies that don't fit either male or female.

The fact of the matter remains that biological sex is still just a scientific label and nothing more. Your feelings of how you identify has nothing to do with it.

I am not talking about gender.

I know you're not. That's why we're disagreeing.

[Aksannyi]

Um...no it isn't. Having an opposing viewpoint is NOT hateful. Respect isn't agreeing with someone without question. Respect comes from how you treat them DESPITE what you might think.



Terrible analogy. Just because you might not agree with someone's viewpoint of identity doesn't mean you think they are eternally damned or deserve any sort of torture. You literally just don't agree. Everything else is fine.



It's not a transphobic thought if you already accept them for who they are and treat them with every dignity as you would anyone else.

A phobia is a range of antagonistic feelings towards whatever the subject might be. Simply not agreeing about the terminology does not mean that you are in any way antagonistic or hateful towards the subject matter at hand, in this case trans people.

But if you internally refuse to acknowledge that a person is who they are - in this case, a trans woman - then don't you think that internally there's something wrong with that line of thinking?

Let me give another analogy then. You work and interact with a lot of black people every day. You don't treat them poorly, and you would certainly never use any sort of racial slur, but when you see them, you automatically view them negatively, wondering why they don't pull their pants up or why they have to wear those baggy clothes, or why they walk in a certain way, or why they speak in Ebonics. And when you see one who doesn't fit that stereotype, you kind of wonder about him, too. You marvel about how well-dressed or well-spoken he is. Those are harmful ways of thinking, and they are signs of internalized racism.

You keep saying "people just don't agree." Okay, let's talk about evolution then. That's a thing upon which there is much disagreement, even though it is a widely accepted scientific theory that explains the origin of species, yes? Just because some Christian groups refuse to acknowledge or agree with it, doesn't mean that there's no such thing as evolution just because they disagree. Evolution absolutely is a thing, just like being trans absolutely is a thing. You can't really disagree with it. It's there. It's a real thing. You can't just not agree with its existence.

I can concede that respect is treating someone well despite our internalized perceptions of something. But I will absolutely disagree that if you don't accept trans people, you're not transphobic. That's pretty much the definition of it, actually. You might never act on it or carry out hate crimes, but if you don't accept them internally, then you do harbor internalized transphobia.

You can also substitute any phobia or ism to that as well - homosexuality, race, misogyny, etc. They all work the same way.

[hey]

Hi, please ban me, not interested in being part of such a transphobic community anymore, sono was right, i was so so wrong.

[Cream Soda]

Is it though? If you disagree with how they identify - say trans woman and you view her as a man because she has a penis - then isn't that pretty hateful? You can't really respect them to their face but disrespect them behind their back. Just because militant Christians claim to tolerate homosexuals and are polite when interacting with them but secretly think "well you're going to hell," that's still homophobic and bigoted.

You can't control how you feel about something. You can only control your own actions. If you feel something, but choose not to act on it, then that's the about the most respectful thing you can do, really. If someone hates blacks, but chooses to treat me like anyone else, even if he's thinking "he's a nigger". As long as it's in his head and he isn't acting out on it, then I can't fault him for thinking it.

[hey]

You can't control how you feel about something.

Yes you can.

[Gredival]

The post-op thing doesn't apply there because the person in question hasn't actually changed their biological sex. Biologically they are still male. I'm not understanding how you are making the leap from considering someone who is post-op as a woman to considering someone who still has a penis a woman. Genderwise sure, they identify as a woman and I will accept them as such. But biologically they are still male and I don't understand how you can fault someone for identifying someone with a penis as male.

Biological sex is in fact determined by your reproductive organs, both external and internal. If a man loses his penis in an accident, he doesn't magically grow a vagina. He will still have anatomical differences on the inside compared to that of a woman. As I've said a million times, this doesn't have a bearing on your gender at all. Your gender can be whatever you identify as and that's perfectly okay. If someone gets sex reassignment surgery then I have no problems acknowledging their change of sex as well. But it doesn't happen by losing your penis in an accident.

I'm juggling different examples to isolate for different people to help clarify for them where their final decision-making on whether they regard someone as a man or a woman comes from. The post-op and the girl with a penis are different situations, but the point of the examples is to identify the WHY the male identification happens.

If I understand correctly, for you gender is self-determined at all points. Sex, however, is determined at birth until changed. To those that hold this view, it may seem to be a scientifically grounded stance to make - rights are self-determined but sex-classification is based on physiology.

Now it is unquestionably correct to say that, regardless of whatever else, their "assigned-sex-at-birth" was male. But this is different from asserting that their "sex" (no qualifier) is still male, irrespective of gender. The argument is that a penis is not the end all be all determination of either gender OR sex.

The issue with saying that a transgender woman is female gender but male sex is that you are saying "I recognize you as a woman and your right to identify as a woman, and you are entitled to all the rights and privileges of a woman. But you are, biologically speaking, still a male." The implication there is that they are different from other women, that there's a degree of legitimacy that can only be obtained via operation - something out of the question for many people. You're placing an impetus on them to "fix" something in order to obtain the equal status they seek.

And to my understanding, it is by definition transphobic to say that someone is something other than what they self-identify as. Regardless of whether you qualify that as "biologically" and regardless of whether or not they are pre-op or post-op. Transphobia is about "identity denial." Again the one exception is specifying their sex-at-birth which is incredibly specifically limiting.

This is the point where my limited expertise in the subject ends. I don't argue for or against this interpretation out of any sincere belief in it, I have adopted it upon the advice it is the least offensive and the way most advocates in this area present the issue.

[thetruepandagod]

Hi, please ban me, not interested in being part of such a transphobic community anymore, sono was right, i was so so wrong.

I may be a bigot but you def 100% bitch.

Spoiler: show

Prolly get my ban before you.

[Tarage]

Hi, please ban me, not interested in being part of such a transphobic community anymore, sono was right, i was so so wrong.

See you keep saying that, and then you keep coming back...

[Cream Soda]

Yes you can.

If you know the secret to having control over your feelings, please let me know. I'd prefer to care about nobody or anything other than myself; and life would be much simpler

[Tarage]

Yes you can.

So feeling is a choice now?

Funny how things you want to be a choice are, and things you don't want to be aren't.

[hey]

So feeling is a choice now?

Funny how things you want to be a choice are, and things you don't want to be aren't.

No it is not a choice, but you can control it.

[BerenTebogo]

Hi, please ban me, not interested in being part of such a transphobic community anymore, sono was right, i was so so wrong.

Taking my ball and going home 3: This time, it's for realsies.

[Tarage]

No it is not a choice, but you can control it.

The ironing is thick.

[Aksannyi]

You can't control how you feel about something. You can only control your own actions. If you feel something, but choose not to act on it, then that's the about the most respectful thing you can do, really. If someone hates blacks, but chooses to treat me like anyone else, even if he's thinking "he's a nigger". As long as it's in his head and he isn't acting out on it, then I can't fault him for thinking it.

At first, maybe you can't. But you can learn to change that. I grew up in a racist small town in northwestern PA where there were literally no black people, and a shit ton of racist white people. I grew up hearing n-bombs every day, and whenever we went to the city, it was always "watch out for them damn n--." For a long time, you could identify me as a racist. I actively avoided being around black people, I tensed up whenever I was near someone who was black, and I even started to use hate speech myself.

It took me quite a few years of re-training my mind to not be that way. Actually a very long time. Every time I started to have a negative thought about someone who is black, I had to stop and ask myself what made me think that way. Almost always, it was something completely irrational. It isn't easy, and most people aren't willing to try. But yes, you can control how you feel about something - you just have to work at it.

And yes, I am very ashamed to admit that I came from a racist background, but I feel like I needed to use that to illustrate this point.

[Tyrath]

But if you internally refuse to acknowledge that a person is who they are - in this case, a trans woman - then don't you think that internally there's something wrong with that line of thinking?

Sure, but I don't think it makes you transphobic because you're not doing anything negative or harmful just by disagreeing with their stance.

Let me give another analogy then. You work and interact with a lot of black people every day. You don't treat them poorly, and you would certainly never use any sort of racial slur, but when you see them, you automatically view them negatively, wondering why they don't pull their pants up or why they have to wear those baggy clothes, or why they walk in a certain way, or why they speak in Ebonics. And when you see one who doesn't fit that stereotype, you kind of wonder about him, too. You marvel about how well-dressed or well-spoken he is. Those are harmful ways of speaking, and they are signs of internalized racism.

Once again you're jumping to harboring negative thoughts, I'm not going to repeat the difference between not agreeing with a terminology versus harboring negative thoughts based on stereotypes.

You keep saying "people just don't agree." Okay, let's talk about evolution then. That's a thing upon which there is much disagreement, even though it is a widely accepted scientific theory that explains the origin of species, yes? Just because some Christian groups refuse to acknowledge or agree with it, doesn't mean that there's no such thing as evolution just because they disagree. Evolution absolutely is a thing, just like being trans absolutely is a thing. You can't really disagree with it. It's there. It's a real thing. You can't just not agree with its existence.

Sure you can, these people already do. I'm not calling them any sort of phobics though. I am not arguing that trans people don't exist. Simply that not agreeing with that doesn't make you transphobic. You have to harbor negative feelings and/or act on them to be transphobic. Having a different idea DOES NOT make you a hateful person. Sometimes it just means you're wrong.

I can concede that respect is treating someone well despite our internalized perceptions of something. But I will absolutely disagree that if you don't accept trans people, you're not transphobic. That's pretty much the definition of it, actually. You might never act on it or carry out hate crimes, but if you don't accept them internally, then you do harbor internalized transphobia.

You can also substitute any phobia or ism to that as well - homosexuality, race, misogyny, etc. They all work the same way.

No, it isn't.

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us...sh/transphobia

[Gredival]

No, but if i am being completely honest with no fear of offense I would not be considering her a woman either outside of empathy and respect. I would consider them as trans. For in my mind they are no longer a male and could never be a female.


I would consider my friend as sleeping with a transperson.

The only time i would ever genuinely consider a trans mtf a male is if they are so impossibly bad at passing in any regard that I may just be confusing them for a crossdresser. However this is only in passing glances where i know nothing of the person, if they talked to me and made me aware I would consider them as trans. Albeit not a very lucky trans.

For example someone to me that passes completey,(at least outwardly) would be Andrej Pejic who was doing fashion walks as both a male and female model, and was an extremely popular androgynous male model until he recently decided to become a she.(still popular) I would have considered him a man, and now I consider her a trans.

Not transphobic, at least not in my opinion. Someone else might disagree with me, but my interpretation of what you are saying is that sex isn't binary, it's a scale. On one side there are "pure" females (female-at-birth who identify as female) and on the other side there are "pure" males (males-at-birth who identify as male) and there is a fluid "trans" category in between that includes transsexuals of all types - post-op, pre-op, etc. - and even those who fluidly and actively switch between the sexes.

[Cream Soda]

At first, maybe you can't. But you can learn to change that. I grew up in a racist small town in northwestern PA where there were literally no black people, and a shit ton of racist white people. I grew up hearing n-bombs every day, and whenever we went to the city, it was always "watch out for them damn n--." For a long time, you could identify me as a racist. I actively avoided being around black people, I tensed up whenever I was near someone who was black, and I even started to use hate speech myself.

It took me quite a few years of re-training my mind to not be that way. Actually a very long time. Every time I started to have a negative thought about someone who is black, I had to stop and ask myself what made me think that way. Almost always, it was something completely irrational. It isn't easy, and most people aren't willing to try. But yes, you can control how you feel about something - you just have to work at it.

And yes, I am very ashamed to admit that I came from a racist background, but I feel like I needed to use that to illustrate this point.

So if this is something that takes time, and the scenario you mentioned is your first interaction with a transgendered person, then my point still stands. If it takes a long time period to retrain your thought process, it isn't going to happen within your first interaction, your second, etc. It's going to take a long time.