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So, so sick of this

Started by Padma, August 30, 2012, 02:57:56 AM

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Padma

I am really, really fed up with feminine trans women telling me that I'll be like them once I "grow up".

Seriously, it makes me want to break furniture.

I understand that everyone's got an investment in being the way they are (including me, obviously) - but I don't go around telling anyone else they ought to be like me. It feels like a conspiracy, like they're all reading from the same script. It's uncanny. And every time I get over the last one, another comes along like clockwork.

Why is it so hard to accept that there are so many different kinds of women out there, and some are not "feminine", not "womanly"?

I know, you've heard all this before from me. But seriously, it just keeps happening. AAArrrgghghgh!!!!! Saperlipopette !!!!
Womandrogyne™
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Beth Andrea

QuoteSaperlipopette !!!!

Umm...wut?

QuoteI am really, really fed up with feminine trans women telling me that I'll be like them once I "grow up".

Seriously, it makes me want to break furniture.

I understand that everyone's got an investment in being the way they are (including me, obviously)

Why is it so hard to accept that there are so many different kinds of women out there, and some are not "feminine", not "womanly"?


Because they see the "ideal" situation as one where one is uber-fem, shapely, no beard shadow, etc.  They spent a lot of time and money (or...maybe not? Maybe they're naturally that way...) getting to where they are, and they A$$_U_ME that everyone would "of course" want to be like they are.

Kinda like the Peace Corps..."Of course" the whole world wants to be like the US...hey, let's go over there and help them! (We won't ask if they do, in fact, want the help...why would they say no? Everyone, I mean everyone, wants to be like us Americans!)

I think the word "arrogance" may apply.

I don't know though. I'm rambling, it's late, I'm tired.
...I think for most of us it is a futile effort to try and put this genie back in the bottle once she has tasted freedom...

--read in a Tessa James post 1/16/2017
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Padma

It's early here, and I'm tired (been up sneezing half the night...) hence the ire.

It's the feeling I'm being treated like a child that gets to me. I have a straight woman friend the same age as me who's always been a tomboy, and she says she constantly gets people telling her she hasn't "grown up", by which they mean "take on standard gender role now please".

It's so... I don't know whether there's a word for this - normist?

(Saperlipopette is a fantastic old French expletive which I only use on special occasions - I learned it from a Tintin book.)
Womandrogyne™
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suzifrommd

Quote from: Padma on August 30, 2012, 03:25:22 AM
It's early here, and I'm tired (been up sneezing half the night...) hence the ire.

It's the feeling I'm being treated like a child that gets to me. I have a straight woman friend the same age as me who's always been a tomboy, and she says she constantly gets people telling her she hasn't "grown up", by which they mean "take on standard gender role now please".

It's so... I don't know whether there's a word for this - normist?

(Saperlipopette is a fantastic old French expletive which I only use on special occasions - I learned it from a Tintin book.)

Padma can you at least take comfort that you are seeing things clearly and they are not?

People who can appreciate diversity (in this case the many, many, many ways there are to be a trans woman) get a lot more out of life than people who have a rigid view of how things ought to be.

Can you take pity on these poor myopic souls? After all, they're stuck going through life like that.
Have you read my short story The Eve of Triumph?
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Padma

Each time it happens, I slowly regain my equilibrium afterwards - until the next time.

It reminds me of smug christians assuming their belief is Reality, and constantly imposing it on me (I grew up Jewish, bisexual, and genderqueer in the UK, and put up with a lot of this) - it's got exactly that patronising "we are the default setting here" tone to it, and it pushes a load of buttons for me.

And each time it happens, I slowly regain my equilibrium afterwards.

But sometimes, I just need to bitch about it, okay? :)
Womandrogyne™
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AbraCadabra

Hum... firstly, HOW do you actually determine THOSE -feminine- women ARE what you think THEY are?
By their typing? By what they have to say?
Or truly by their presentation in real life and in your very presence? Sneeze!

Next, you do sound like some adolescents that like to believe they will NEVER grow up, never want to grow up!
Because all these grown-up folks are just not like they are themselves, adolescent - at that time in the life. Females growing up become women... butch, girly, womanly or otherwise – but women never the less.

Just be who you are at a time, and don't take things that are said too seriously.

Just saying...

Axx
Some say: "Free sex ruins everything..."
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justmeinoz

Rant on sis.  :-* If you grow up any more you won't fit in my screen.  :laugh:

Thanks to my maternal granny  apparently I am Jewish, so you aren't alone there. Aussies have a similar sense of humour too.  Every silver lining has a cloud, type attitude.

I have finally sorted a lot of issues from my past and have ceased to identify men with the parts of my past I no longer identify  with.  I am now able to admit to finding men attractive, and frankly think I probably always have. Nobody ever mentioned Bisexuality or Transsexualism  when I was young so it's no wonder I was doubly confused.   I have a couple of close Bi friends so I have always been anti-Biphobe,  bring it on I say!

As for being Genderqueer in the UK, I am tempted to ask isn't everyone over there?  It certainly seemed that way last time I was in London. :o ::) ???
Cindy escaped before it became compulsory. >:-)

Karen.


"Don't ask me, it was on fire when I lay down on it"
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~RoadToTrista~

But.... but Padma, I'm so fabulous! :-*
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Padma

Anyone can be anything they like (including fabulous) so long as they're not telling me to be them.

It just seems to me that these women are saying "you'll only be a proper woman if..." - and that's so small-minded, and undermining, and unobservant of the reality of women's diversity.

Being told "it's just a phase you're going through" is insulting. I get over it each time, but then get told *exactly* the same thing over an over again, and it's wearisome.
Womandrogyne™
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justmeinoz

Sounds like they are very insecure in their "femininity", so want to put you down to make themselves feel superior.  If you are a real woman you don't have to keep proving it.
Maybe ask when they are going to have a BA?
Bitchy is as bitchy does.  ;)

Or the direct approach, "Mind your own business!"
"Don't ask me, it was on fire when I lay down on it"
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Padma

Quote from: Abracadabra on August 30, 2012, 05:23:26 AM
Hum... firstly, HOW do you actually determine THOSE -feminine- women ARE what you think THEY are?
By their typing? By what they have to say?
Or truly by their presentation in real life and in your very presence? Sneeze!

Apart from this last one (who was online), they've all been actual people actually sitting in front of me, tilting their heads condescendingly, telling me don't worry, I'll feel more like them once I've feminised more...

I'm open to the possibility of me changing as I transition - but they're only open to that possibility if I'm changing into them, and there's a vast field of possibility out there that's not that, and which is way more appealing to me. I know I'm gradually growing up, but I'm gradually growing up into me, and me is a big hippy dyke.
Womandrogyne™
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justmeinoz

Obvious answer to their condescending statement, "Why would I want to do a stupid thing like that dear?"
"Don't ask me, it was on fire when I lay down on it"
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Padma

I've only got such a cob on about it this time because it's a bit relentless and repetitive - and because my sinuses feel like they have salt & vinegar crisps stuffed up them. I'm off to get some painkillers and tissues (and chocolate). That'll sort me out :).
Womandrogyne™
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grrl1nside

I vote for chocolate. Salt and Vinagre chips up my nose??? I vote nay. Femininty, well.... Anyone want to define that. Grrrr.... I don't mind a bit of femininity as long as there is a good deal of nerve and steel to go with it. As for hippy dykes, well that would be a perfect description for my partner and, yes, she is a big time tomboy. All I know is I vote for more hippy dykes, they are great. Especially, if they share their chocolate.  ;D
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eli77

You know I think the part of that I hated most was that I ended up feeling like I actually couldn't choose to be more feminine. That they'd see any slight movement in that direction as acceding to their perception of me. It made finding my own equilibrium even harder than it needed to be. I think the only thing that really fixes it is time. After a year, nobody hassles me much about my presentation anymore. And those that do, I've got enough balance now to ignore them.

Quote from: Beth Andrea on August 30, 2012, 03:12:15 AMBecause they see the "ideal" situation as one where one is uber-fem, shapely, no beard shadow, etc.  They spent a lot of time and money (or...maybe not? Maybe they're naturally that way...) getting to where they are, and they A$$_U_ME that everyone would "of course" want to be like they are.

I just wanted to say that I have no beard shadow, I'm shapely, and I'm actually quite an attractive female. My masculine-of-center presentation doesn't make me ugly or something. I find that's kind of a... bad stereotype. That somehow the choice to not be feminine is related to conventional attractiveness. There are plenty of butch women who could rock an evening dress... they just don't want to.

And honestly, Padma, you look adorbs. And you look more adorable with each passing month. Maybe they're just thinking like... "I wish I had that to work with, why is she wasting herself like that, blah, blah." Envy can do weird things to peoples' brains.
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Padma

Very sweet of you, Sarah :). Though I'm careful only to post headshots, that don't show my gawkish height... 

Yes, the last face-to-face I had of this kind, the woman assumed I'd only just begun transitioning, because of my clothes ::). Like she was waiting for me to graduate into femininity.

I don't wear skirts, dresses, make-up because I don't like how I look in them, and because - mostly - I don't like how other women look in them. I probably wouldn't rock wearing them, because I'd look too uncomfortable, like Shane in that communion dress in The L Word (gods, I wish I looked like her!)

So I am myself quite judgmental about others' looks and outfits (who isn't!), but I don't do it out loud.
Womandrogyne™
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ativan

I had to leave a Tran* group elsewhere, I couldn't put up with the transsexual put downs and missrepresentation of an androgynous car ad from Japan.
I tried to explain that it wasn't, as one person put it, another use of a 'man in a dress', and his parts WE all despise are showing, and that HE doesn't even attempt to have boobs.
I tied to explain that the person doesn't, as written in the article, consider himself to be anything other than male, and does the makeup and look because he can do it. It's a job and he gets paid, ya know?
But the put downs and questioning of Androgyn's and other non-binaries continued. For quite a few posts.
So, I had enough of reading the line after line of ->-bleeped-<- from supposed supportive Trans*people, who as it turns out are just a bunch of transexuals claiming to support, yet also expressing a 'better than you' and we are the tru Trans* people attitude.
It is and will continue to be that way. Somebody needs to be thrown under the bus it seems.
And there will always be bigots no matter what group of people you look at.
Their ->-bleeped-<- doesn't stink, but then, neither does mine.
The amount of conflict in the Trans* world is appalling, and I am just as guilty...you could say.
But the fact of the matter is that we are not as outspoken about ourselves and at the time seem to be outnumbered.
I maintain that there are more of us, but who cares?
As long as we can be made to be the scapegoats of the 'man in a dress' problem that some have to endure, we will always be treated as nothing more than a way station on the way to eternal binary gender bliss.

Truth is,... the more that androgynous, androgyny, is accepted and portrayed in a positve light in the fashion world, the better off we will all be. It does help to get rid of the stereotype image of a 'man in a dress'.
But bigots will be bigots. They accept no other opinion but their own.

I'm just happy that the people I am friends with and would like to be friends with that are transsexuals were not among that bunch of people putting down another non-binary presentation, to justify their existence.

I've said as much before, in no uncertain terms here and it has had negative results.
I hope this, as a response to a distressed posting and topic, that it will not be so, again.
I have no ill will towards any Trans* person, just some of the ill informed viewpoints of some.
(no finger pointing here, it isn't needed.)

Ativan
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lilacwoman

#17
far from being insecure in their feminity - actually femaleness - the people who annoy you are actually very secure and don't understand why someone would transition partly when its much nicer to transition fully.
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suzifrommd

Quote from: Padma on August 30, 2012, 10:31:26 AM
I don't wear skirts, dresses, make-up because I don't like how I look in them, and because - mostly - I don't like how other women look in them.

Actually, I think keeping your own counsel about what looks good on you and what doesn't, is VERY feminine.

I'm only just starting my exploration, but that is the type of woman I hope to be also.

Hugs to you and your independent thinking.
Have you read my short story The Eve of Triumph?
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eli77

Quote from: Padma on August 30, 2012, 10:31:26 AM
Very sweet of you, Sarah :). Though I'm careful only to post headshots, that don't show my gawkish height... 

Pfft, I'm 6' tall. Tall girls are hawt. No slouching! ;D
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