IMissedThatOne said:
Sorry I still don't know how this qouting system here works exactly but I'll try to adress everything.
I understand, I'll try to line up your response with mine. In case you're interested in learning how to quote, you just wrap the part you want to break into a block quote with these tags: [ quote ] Text here [/ quote ] (You can also use symbols instead of brackets but they all need to match)
Just don't leave any spaces within the quote tags and it will magically turn into quotations.
A few things to remember:
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4. If it's too difficult or you need more practice before employing it in a full post, just do what you did here. People who are interested in what you have to say will put the time in to parse the conversation themselves.
The first part: You and I both agreed on (hopefully) that gender dysphoria is something intrinsic to the person and causes great harm. How is then not polite and caring to refer to them in the gender they want to live as? How is it not polite to avoid using gendered pronouns instead? I'm not saying to call them "it" or something else horribly offensive, but rather to use their name instead of He or She. "He said X" can easily be replaced with "Sally said X".
If I get your point correctly it would be because doing so would go direclty against perceived reality. Which I think is unfair because it only sees phenotypical sex and not gender identity as reality. You might say gender identity is purely in their heads but as I have shown gender identity belongs in to realm of biology as well. It's just not noticable with your pure eyes but just because we can see or perceive things purley with our own senses does not make them not real. (atoms, depression, back pain, head aches) To me, a man is such because they are sexually male. Gender is fluid and demanding that gender identity be called male or female only serves to further the concept of binary genders to insist to define a person as male or female by the unseen gender within. I believe my line of thinking is more in line with the message transgendered philosophy puts forward and I am somewhat surprised that this hasn't been adopted by the community yet. I think it's most likely to be because using their preferred pronoun is what they see as a form of acceptance. I find that silly. Acceptance is so much more than just using the same term. People will call Bruce Jenner "her" to avoid backlash without necessarily accepting anything about the person and their condition.
So if, when I say he or she, I'm talking about someone that is sexually male or female, how does that tie into gender in your mind? Especially when considering the concept of gender which is fluid and not necessarily tied to sex at all.
Secondly: They can not impose language on to you. They can only ask you to refer to them in a certain way. They have no control over your mouth. If I am in a room with a black person and call them a negro they might be angry even if my intention is purely to state that their skin is off darker color and let's say I'm ignorant of the social implication. Are they impolite to ask me to refer to them with a another word if at all? If a somewhat weird person would call some guy ?hey cishet male? and the guys asks them to stop refering to him in such way either because he thinks it's stupid or just plain doesn't like it is he impolite to ask the weird guy to stop or would that be imposing his strandards for language`?
An imposition is not necessarily done by force. Think of the phrase, "Oh, I don't wish to impose" when a guest is offered an invitation to something that would require the person to go out of their way to accommodate them. Imposition is not forcing. Imposition is obligation by request. It is tedious to have to go over my words and plan them more carefully around an individual and I personally find the practice to make me less genuine around the few transgendered acquaintances (and one friend) that I have.
Which, I might add, I appreciate being able to discuss this topic with you because I could never bring myself to discuss this with them.
Now to the situation at hand. In principle we have two interests conflicting with another
-The transgender womans wish to be referd to as a woman
- Your wish to refer to people however you see them.
Not entirely, I wish not to have to refer to someone as something they are not. I don't have to label them at all or want to call them a man if they don't want to be called that. I would prefer to instead drop pronouns rather than to do something I believe is dishonest. That isn't wishing to refer to someone as I see them so much as not wishing to refer to someone as I don't see them. Sorry if that's too nuanced.
What's more is that I don't wish people who aren't the individual in question to enforce my pronoun usage when the individual isn't there. I don't know if you're transgendered or not, but do you have any idea what it's like to first learn about this whole pronoun thing? For many of us, it's a confrontation, not a simple lesson. It's us using "he" or whatever and then getting our asses handed to us in a multiple minute long rant. That's our introduction. You don't see a guy in a dress for the first time and automatically realize you're supposed to use "her" or "she". It's (the assault of getting it wrong for the first time, not a guy in a dress) just nuts and has nothing to do with whether or not you accept a transgendered individual as a person or believe that they've got a legitimate condition, both of which I do. But holy shit, who wants to walk on egg shells every time they're around anyone? I just want to be able to hang out and have a good time with them and not worry that I might inadvertently say something to trigger a rant. I want them to have a good time too so I still do my best. But heck, most of the transgendered people I know aren't the ones who would do the rant. It's usually some jerk imposing things without the other person even knowing about it because they think its' their job to swoop in and protect the transgendered individual from any possible mistake someone else can make.
At the moment your approach to solve this situation is to not refer to pronouns or any other gender expressions at all. Since this way neither her not your wish is neglected. The only problem with this is that she is the only person in the room whose pronouns are awkwardly avoided. Which if everyone would do so would put her in really weird situation. She is a more treated like a different thing than a normal human, because everyone else gets their correct pronouns without hestitation.
Not really, I don't talk about people with pronouns in general. Somewhere along the line I started considering it to be rude to talk about a person who is present with pronouns as though they're not there. Saying "Sarah" instead of "She" isn't going to be awkwardly done either. Not unless I'm flying in fast with a bunch of other pronouns and then throw "Sarah" in there instead every time I get to that person.
The conflict usually comes up with others when I'm referencing something funny "he" said or a movie "he" recommended or something like that and here come the flailing arms from a non-transgendered person about how transphobic I am for not using "she". The transperson? From their perspective they just had a fun conversation with someone that was invested in what they had to say and treated them like what they are, a person. It's not that I'm trying to disrespect them. It's just that to me they very much are a he. You know? So when I'm discussing it in an environment I don't have to be as careful in because they're not there, I don't monitor my terminology as carefully.
So lets analyse these wishes more closely:
In her case her wish stems from her the gender identity she experience and that she has to come to terms with. The best way to do so is to live fully a as woman (socially) since living as man is demonstrable mentally painful for the person in question (and would be even painful for a lot of normal person if they were somehow forced to live against their identity). To achieve this goal she has two options: Either become so feminine that nobody will suspect or figure out her different sexed body and hopefully blend in. Since this is not possible a lot of the time and especially when starting transition she has to ask people to listen to her situation and hopefully show the compassion to let her life as a woman (as close as possible)despite her physical features
Your wish stems from basically being very strict to language and maybe being uncomfartable to saying pronouns that to you feel wrong to give to a person of certain looks.
Not the way a person looks. The sex they were born as. At least one trans woman I know well absolutely does not look like a man at all. By all appearances, a quite attractive female.
Consider it like my orientation. I am oriented to be attracted to females who are sexually female and as such I have a strict distinction between males and females just like anyone who isn't bisexual does (and heck, maybe many bisexuals have a firm distinction there too). So I am hard coded to perceive the female sex as one thing and the male sex as quite another. When I say "he" or "she" I am referring to their sex, not their gender.
In my mind, I am in no way discussing their gender. It is irrelevant to the pronouns of 'he' and 'she' when used thus. This is why I have such a hard time converting it and don't feel comfortable forcing it.
And that by doing so you feel like playing into someones wrong perception of reality. Even if they can't do anything about that.
Kinda. It's moreso that they're controlling my words and demanding I abide by their own definition of it when that isn't really the common use. They're demanding that I see "he" and "she" as terms that relate to gender and not sex. I disagree. You already acknowledged that they're not demanding I call them sexually female. I think that was you anyways. But in this scenario it's like they are. What's interesting is that by "they" I'm not even necessarily talking about transgendered individuals so much as others around them. Most transgendered people I know don't want any attention directed at it and are, frankly, too nice to be that confrontational. It's one of the reasons I've never understood violence enacted against them. Just can't fathom the "why" of it when my experiences have been nothing but peaceful people and I haven't heard that many differing opinions. But I guess some people just hate things they don't understand.
I will now argue for the use of the pronouns they prefer. Not because I think your position bigoated or anything. I hopefully understood your postion and now know how to came to it and I'm a atleast very pleased to see that you were willing to adjust your language atleast somewhat in a presents of a transwoman which only goes to show that you do feel for them. I'm just in diagreement with your way and I'll hopefully show you why.
I appreciate the consideration. That goes a long way to make me feel less defensive here and to be able to listen to your position more carefully.
First to adress language:
Even if the purest definition of he and she is pronoun given to a member of biological sex. I don't see why we can widen that definition since we do it with a lot of words. Words oftem come into existence out of new discoveries or changing social attitude(marriage). I don't see why he/she can refer to someones gender identity especially since we talk to people heads and not their bodies. You might agree with that (you might not) You might argue why you should be ?forced? so choose on definition over the other.
The ability to distinguish between the sexes is somewhat important to us as a species. In changing it to refer to gender, not only does it become more ambiguous but also becomes less informative and precise. From a linguistic perspective transgenderism would have to be a lot more common before the need to adjust our use of pronouns overrides the functionality they provide.
I would be all for a distinct pronoun but I assume that would be offensive. I just think that would better convey the fluidity of gender and get away from binary thinking.
Well if you use she/her and so on for a transwoman she will be happy and you are no worse off especially when you consider the pronouns to reflect her gender identity and not her physical body, because in that case your perception of reality is not infringed upon.
If you stay with your position the transwoman will be unhappy (if she would find out you're activley avoiding her pronouns and are on the position to never gve her female pronouns in the first place.) but your not better off. Afterall giving pronouns to a person doesn't harm or benefit you in anyway.
To my knowledge, I have not been detected as doing so for years now. Either that or they value my friendship too much to bring it up. I wonder what I'd say to them if they confronted me on it? I'd probably cave and just give them what they want I suppose. But right now, this makes me feel like I'm in control of myself and my own reality. It's important to me in a way not entirely unlike how they are wanting to have control over their own reality. It's just that their desire conflicts with mine and I'm not sure why I should be the one automatically folding just because people get all hot and bothered over it.
You might say well being called he or she doesn't harm a person as well and I agree but I trying to paint a bigger picture here. If one person uses the wrong pronouns yes it hardly matters, if one person throws his trash on streets it hardly counts as pollution but if everyone does is it we have a society in which a transwoman cannot live as a normal woman because noone treats her as such.
We should usually do what is best for all as a whole and not what we can get away with.
I hardly think that using "he" or "she" is anything close to treating someone as male or female anymore than calling someone a ***** is treating them like a lady. Please don't misunderstand, my use of pronouns is pretty much my entire hold out here. In any aspects the individual is entirely treated as the sex they're presenting as. Like I said in a previous post, what do you think I'm doing? Challenging them to a "sword fight" (in which two males whip out their penis and urinate while crossing the pee streams)? If you treat everyone politely, then how would you specifically treat someone as a male or female aside from expressing romantic interest? I open the door for men and women alike, for example.
The only thing I wanted you to be aware of is that while Gender dysphoria is a medically regonised condtion with a logical biological explaination and treatment option. ?Species dysphoria? is not. They only have superfical similarities but that doesn't mean I have no compassion for you friend I just wanted to clear it up since some people go by the logic: Thinking your really an animal is silly and delusional therefore gender identity is silly.
Yes, I understand and my friend was schizophrenic so he didn't have a firm grasp on reality. He also found companionship his life was largely lacking on furry websites. He was brilliant to the point where he simply could not easily talk to people and had great trouble being with people in person. I'm not sure why he felt generally comfortable around me as I've never been part of the "furry" community and am intelligent but not trained in physics like he was so we didn't have too much in common aside from a general love of science. I did not mean to imply that gender dysphoria was imagined. Only to give a comparison where someone believed they were one thing that they clearly were not.
As for other options. The thing is that the medical history of transgender treatment was very cruel. Yes surgery was avaiable very early on but only for a few individuals and it was considered brutal mutilation or playing into someones neurosis. Only haver studies showed that the surgery benefited the patient is slowley became the best option.Putting people into asylums or treating them with hormon ?conforming? medicamens or vomiting inducing stuff to train them in leaving ther feelings behind was well accepted as well (at that time) Politics were often very biased against the surgical options you might want to read up on Janice Raymond if you don't believe me.
I certainly believe you. Why wouldn't I? It doesn't mean that there aren't potentially better methods such as the methods taken with schizophrenic patients. We simply don't know and the stigma regarding the topic has only recently lifted. It's finally time to open the flood gates in pursuit of the best possible solution now that society is catching or has caught up.
FYI, there are also studies showing that reassignment surgeries fail in a lot of ways to resolve the issue. Making things better is a far cry from a resolution. The end result may be a combination of the two things, I simply don't know and I think social ostracism of any doctors pursuing non-surgical results is a shame when we should all be in favor of pursuing the best possible results.
Here's a question, what if the gender could be changed instead of the sex? Would that be an option you think medical science should pursue?
Just to make a point. A friend of mine that I knew for a long time transitioned to female. At the beginning I was very clumsy with pronouns since I knew her so long as a ?guy? She then told me that it will just take time to get used to it but that she has the correct me otherwise I might get stuck in my old ways.Since I wanted her to be happy since I've experienced her depression so closely I did my best and after a while the pronouns came fluently. Sometimes when we went out people were asking if we're a gay couple and depending on who was asking we either explained the situation and went away. She was always very sad afterwards, because she got perceived as a man but she never considered the person misgendering her ?evil or bigoted? She just wished she were more feminine and was a bit down.
Sure, I understand.
