After the Public Outcry against GLAAD Mislabeling Janet Mock’s Medical Condition

[Natasha]

After the Public Outcry against GLAAD Mislabeling Janet Mock's Medical Condition, GLAAD Edits Their Inaccurate Term "Transgender" to "Transsexual"

http://themagnetsource.blogspot.com/2011/05/after-public-outcry-against-glaad.html
5/21/11
By Ashley Love


Shortly following MAGNET's outreach to GLAAD and MAGNET organizer Ashley Love's open letter to Marie Claire magazine, GLAAD concedes and edits their inaccurate labeling of Janet Mock as "transgender" and replaces it with "transsexual".

[spacial]

However, in a blatant disregard for Janet's testimony, GLAAD mislabeled her as "transgender" in their coverage, which provoked numerous LGBT news sources to follow the inaccurate labeling as well. The appropriation of Janet's transsexual condition by gay and transgender politics sparked a public outcry by many transsexual advocates and organizations, who demanded that GLAAD cease and desist from rewriting the transsexual narrative into a gender queer and cross dresser agenda. Transsexual advocates explained that trangenderism is about deconstructing gender, activities, behaviors, lifestyles, fetishes, drag queen stage acts and or/ dismantling the gender binary. Janet is absolutly none of these identities or lifestyles. She is a heterosexual woman who was simply born with a medical condition in which she had corrected and treated ten years ago. She is not a "3rd gender" or gay male drag queen. She is a woman. Period

.

Firstly, my profound apologies to Valerie, for whom I have enormous respect and to any who agree with her position.

I have rarely read such a load of pretentious, overly-defensive, immature crap in my entire life.

The who piece reads like some badly written defense of feminist nazism, by a 16 year old recruit.

The last I heard, transgender was the word of choice. Transexual implying that it's all about sex and fettish.

Now, the use of transgender is:

Transsexual advocates explained that trangenderism is about deconstructing gender, activities, behaviors, lifestyles, fetishes, drag queen stage acts and or/ dismantling the gender binary. Janet is absolutly none of these identities or lifestyles. She is a heterosexual woman who was simply born with a medical condition in which she had corrected and treated ten years ago. She is not a "3rd gender" or gay male drag queen. She is a woman. Period. We ask GLAAD, the gay establishment, transgender ideology and the far right to respect this.

On Thursday, May 19th MAGNET reached out to GLAAD asking them to retract their inaccurate labeling of Janet because the transgender term misgenders and objectifies women born transsexual, jeopardizes their medical legitimacy, impinges on their civil rights, confuses the public, gay appropriates them and invalidates their womanhood. GLAAD continued on with their misrepresentation.

I'm sorry, have I got the date wrong and it's actually April 1st

So, Janet referred to herself as transexual, so therefore she wants to be called such and to use the term transgender is persecution?#

But she also hasn't referred to herself as a lady, therefore, we must conclude that she doesn't want that term used as well. But fortunately, she has referredm to herself as a woman.

So, if she arrives at an half decent hotel, for example, with a man, she will be referred to as the woman and gentleman? Or would it be better to refer to her as the transexual and gentleman? But wait, that feeds into the transphobic, mysoginostic narritive.

Now why don't we just refer to them as the ->-bleeped-<- and the one who hasn't had it done yet?

[spacial]

But we can disagree and be friends. Thats whats cool about us.

love always (because love just is),

Val

p.s. I have mucho respect for you too Spacial. You are smart, caring, a wonderful writer, persuasive, compassionate, sincere, on an incredible journey of self, open, courageous, a leader, kind, tender-hearted, and the list goes on... 

Absolutely. We discuss things. That means we can sometimes disagree. Only by discussing can we learn from each other and grow.

As mature, intelegent adults, I think we're all secure enough, within ourselves to walk away, even from a disagreement, and leave it at that.

[cynthialee]

Seems to me that the idea that 3rd gender is bad, is all over the place here. I can assure you that their is nothing wrong or other to our third gender peers. Insisting we are nothing like the transgender comunity is only serving to separate natural allies and othering those who are 3rd gender.
We should be defending our transgender peers. By taking a stance that we are nothing like those gender deconstructionalists we are stigmatizing and othering people who we should be working with.

[spacial]

If I may, I will add, that what really goaded me over this article was the way it sought to position transgender people as overly sensitive people, preparing themselves for a civil war over termonologies. (Which end of the egg to crack).

For communities such as the gay community, these may seem to be important. The gay activists, at least, seek to be openly identified, Out and Proud, Glad to be Gay, Out of the closet. For people who seek to spend their entire lives being noticed and identified, termonologies are probably important.

But most transgender people are  different. We seek to have a problem corrected, now that an effective remedy is available. Then, we all, (I'm sure, without exception), seek to simply integrate into society. The matter will become relevant as appropriate, medicine, possibly close friends and relatives. We see it as little more than a rather birthmark. Correction is now available. We can and hope to live a normal life.

Even before there was a surgical cure, transgeder people sought integration, not notice. I would be very sad to hear of a gay person seeking a cure.

That is why we are not similar to gay people, or even like them. We respect and support gay people in their struggle in the same way as we respect and support anyone, undualy lableled by society, women, the disabled, the mentally ill, racial minorities, those in trouble with the law. (The list is an example. Not intended as definitive or complete).

I am sorry that I was and frequently, so assertive.

But please, anyone knows that the correct end is the large end. (or is it the smallest).

[spacial]

Thank you Sarah. I am interested in this aspect though.

My understanding is that gender relates to how we identify, sexual relates to how we function.

I am not professionally invololved in language so would be most grateful for a clarifications of these terminologies.

[Vicky]

    "A rose by any other name----" (Shakespeare-- Romeo & Juliet)  -- is still going to give a heckuva a lot of people Seasonal Rhinitis (hayfever).  Wonderful explanation Sarah!! 

[spacial]

Originally the word showed up as a way to describe transsexuals who were not interested in surgery (and therefore were not transsexuals by the standards of the time). Since then it has been widely expanded to include any individual who is "gender variant." Where gender includes both gender identity and gender expression. So basically it is an umbrella term for androgyne, genderqueer, bigender, pangender, crossdresser, drag king/queen, etc. Finally, it was merged into the LGBT.

Thank you Sarah. I like your reasoning.

My own reasoning for the preference to the term transgender is that is describes the intellectual nature of the problem rather than the physical.

Transgender encompases the entire spectrum of those who identify as the opposite sex to that ascribed. From those who seek an emotional and intellectual tarnsformation, through those that seek to simply appear as and live as, the opposite sex, the traditional remedy for all of us, to those that seek a surgical solution.

The objective of the transgender is to deal with life and be treated by society as their preferred gender. Sexual function is a small part of daily life, however anyone, transgender or otherwise, seeks to express it. But society does and always will, relate to people according to percieved gender, especially when sex has no part of that interaction. The differing personalites of the two genders are innate. Those of us who are more comfortable with a personality, more typical of the gender, opposite to that ascribed, seek every aspect of our lives to be lived that way.

I understand the term transexual. I don't seek to ascribe it, rather to suggest it is redundant, simply because it's scope is too limited and possibly definitive.

[Anatta]

Kia Ora,

  On a personal level, I'm just happy blending in, and leaving the bickering and labeling to the "transgender" and "transsexual" people...It's really none of my business...If you get my drift 

Metta Zenda

[spacial]

I would sincerely hope that we can avoid bickering on this issue. It's an intellectual issue. It needs to be discussed, rationally, with thought and maturity. Bickering will solve nothing.

But I woild like to thank Zenda for highlighting how important it is for us to maintain our perspective here.

[MillieB]

The reason that I don't like being labelled as third gender is because I'm not, no more than I am male and to say that I was for the sake of political convenience would just be another closet, it is in no way othering of 3rd gender people to say so, nor does it suggest any form of superiority or desire to separate from the wider community. It just means what it is. I like the term transsexual woman because it describes me and my medical condition quite well. I think that referring to anyone as either 'a transsexual' or a transgender' is pretty offensive as it's really dehumanising and that's predominately what I am, a person.


I do think that people get too hung up on labels but I also think that is their right and people deserve to have that respected. I don't think that it's attention seeking or nazi to say that you don't belong in a catagory that is not right for you.

[Britney_413]

What some of us transsexuals are sick and tired of are people who don't have our condition trying to tell us what our condition is and furthermore how we are to identify. Transsexualism is a medical condition, not a lifestyle. If someone does not want to be called transgender, then don't call them transgender. This umbrella term does serve to erase the identity of transsexualism and it is costing us our rights. We seek SRS and permanent HRT and a legal change of the sex marker on all official documents. It is a birth defect of being born in the wrong physical sex where the brain is wired for a female body for instance but the body happens to have male genetalia and a testosterone-based hormonal system.

Yet time and time again we have people like Spacial and Cynthyia trying to tell us who we are or how we need to identify. Examples include:

Transgender encompases the entire spectrum of those who identify as the opposite sex to that ascribed. From those who seek an emotional and intellectual tarnsformation, through those that seek to simply appear as and live as, the opposite sex, the traditional remedy for all of us, to those that seek a surgical solution.

It's an intellectual issue.

My understanding is that gender relates to how we identify, sexual relates to how we function.

For someone who has "MTF wannabe" in their profile, it may well be an "intellectual issue" or "a gender identity." But people who consistently fail to understand the difference between sex identity and gender identity will never understand transsexualism which is very different from everything else under the TG umbrella. There has and always will be a gray area to gender but there has been and will always be only two sexes in humans and other life forms with the exception of an intersexed condition. It is how nature is setup. A human of the male sex has a brain wired to work with a male body, a body with a testosterone based hormonal system, a penis and testicals. A human of the female sex has a brain wired to work with a female body, a body with an estrogen based hormonal system, a vagina and ovaries. Transsexual and intersexed conditions both result in some combination of these being out of sync. With intersex it may be chromosomal and/or anatomical. With transsexualism, it is specifically the brain of one sex and the hormonal system and anatomy of the other sex. Gender has little to do with this. Transsexuals seek a congruence of physical body and mind.

That is why I and plenty of others (many who transitioned even before the word transgender was coined) do not identify as transgender. Because it wasn't just about our "gender identity" or "female appearance and expression." It is about correcting a birth defect.

Yet so many people are trying to force the word "transgender" on transsexuals against their will in an attempt to erase that identity which consequently erases the legitimacy of our medical condition. If we are also to be called "transgender" and lumped in with part-time crossdressers, drag shows, and genderqueer people, then insurance companies will not see a reason to cover the procedures because they will see it as elective. And in the context of a topic that focuses on a transsexual who identifies as transsexual and not transgender, it is extremely off topic to be bringing up "third gender" because it isn't even about "gender" in the first place but sex identity and people can call themselves "third gender" all they want but there is no such thing as a "third sex" unless that is how you are defining an intersex birth condition. This isn't about just identities, it is common sense science.

So stop co-opting our medical birth conditions into a gender variant identity that doesn't even apply.

[Anatta]

Kia Ora,

I've just read the article and all I can say is, like Janet[whom by the way I really like her hair, it's similar to mine-must be the African blood] I too had suffered from transsexualism but now I'm cured !

If cisgender people [both gay and straight] want to refer to me as being "transgender" I won't lose any sleep over it...

But I guess being called "transgender" and being associated with crossdressers and drag queens, mind you  "transsexual" can also be associated with the above [especially when it comes to the unenlightened cisgender's limited understanding] is the price one pays for coming out of the stealth "closet"...

Being called "transgender" or "transsexual" is just like water off a duck back for me-I just tell them it "was" just the medical condition I "was" born with and had suffered from but now I'm cured...

Metta Zenda   I'm off to med & bed...

[Britney_413]

And again this constant blurring of identities to mix a birth defect and medical condition with a buffet of different gender identities and expressions ends up confusing insurance companies resulting in procedures to change physical sex not being covered and to confuse courtrooms into rejecting marriages and other proceedings as a result of debating the individual's true sex, etc. The surgeons are even falling trap to this political correctness. It used to be called "sex change surgery" which was accurate because the surgery changed the physical sex genetalia into the opposite sex genetalia as closely as possible. But that wasn't politically correct enough so they changed it to "sex reassignment surgery" which is just a fancier way of saying the same thing. But now they are calling it "gender confirmation surgery" or "gender affirmation surgery" and "gender reassignment surgery" both of which sound nice and politically correct but which are medically incorrect to the point of sounding silly. Furthermore, legal documents such as driver's licenses and birth certificates refer to the individual's sex, not gender. You can't do a surgery on someone's gender. As long as science and medicine continue to get co-opted and blurred with personal identities, transsexuals and intersexed people will continue to LOSE rights. That's because in a new world where people would be literally flooded with "ze" and "hir" and an army of transgendered people who "don't need SRS" or "don't need to go full time" or "don't need HRT" then the whole transition itself would be seen as cosmetic and elective and not only would none of it be covered, it would likely be outlawed. So again, gender identity and sex identity need to stop being blended and fused together when they aren't the same thing. And furthermore, calling a transsexual a "transgender" is for instance comparing a woman who has been post-op for 10+ years as the same thing as a Friday night Tri-ess crossdressing dinner club member. It is not being elitist or separatist to retain an identity. It is no different than French people demanding to be called French and Germans to be called Germans vs. becing forced to all identify as Europeans.

[cynthialee]

I can not believe that you would call me out like that.

I have told no one how they identify. Not one time. How dare you maker such libelous acusations about me.

I only advocate that we all get along and stay banded togather.

[Shana A]

I'm locking this thread due to violations of Rule 10. No personal attacks!

10. Bashing or flaming of any individuals or groups is not acceptable behavior on this web site and will not be tolerated in the slightest for any reason.