Quote from: Valeriedances on May 21, 2011, 10:10:54 AM
To say it is not a binary world is silly, just step outside. That said, some of us would like to be able to have a place here since the site does include transsexual people and speak our point of view without being attacked for it.
Well I am on record as saying that since forever ago I don't really identify as trans anything. I coined the phrase post-corrected Cis, to describe the fact that I am binary, I did once require an adjustment to make everything right, but now as all the ducks are in a line, and I was lucky enough to skip most of the typical trans narrative, I consider that I am closer to cis gender than anything else.
The thing is, from my perspective one can speak one's point of view as long as it is done in a way which acknowledges the equal validity of everyone else. The only time I have seen people getting attacked is when they have phrased their views in such a way that it appears to others that they are claiming to be more valid than anyone else.
In theory the various communities on this board are supposed to cater for the various differing views. The problem is that very often people do not agree about where the boundaries lie, and indeed often they get upset if other people wrongly categorise them. For example I am not too happy when someone refers to me as currently being transgender or even transsexual. Not because there is anything inherently wrong with either of those groups, but just because in the strictest sense I do not feel that these days, I truly belong within them even if I undoubtedly once may have done so.
And there again we have a potential problem, because I believe that it is possible to be on the borderlines of several different groups - and indeed to move though them as one moves though life. So at age xx I may have been one thing... by age yy I had migrated to something else. I do not subscribe to the thinking that says, for example, "once transsexual always transsexual." I believe that it is possible to move on... and so for example my membership of the transsexual group is as a "retired past member". Some people however take a different view. They believe that once one is transsexual there is no exit. Now clearly such a person will want to refer to me by a label that I do not now accept.
The other problem is that the wide-ranging nature of discussions here means that it isn't unusual to have some topic that arises in one of the other sections into which one has interest or potentially useful insight. I think it would be a shame if I did not feel able to contribute a useful point to a discussion just because it was, say in the transgender section. After all I may not be transgender now, but some would argue that I probably was about 30 years ago. In such cases I usually try to participate but if relevant also making it clear why my perspective may be slightly different.
So from a personal POV I do not think the solution is well served by erecting rigid walls between the groups, but rather by allowing that we do have different points of view and bashing each other over the head with them is probably not what any of us should be here for.
