Quote from: Simon on December 06, 2012, 02:33:45 PM
Cis folks do not understand boring binary transmen. How do I know this? From personal experience. I once drove 31 hours in two days from Colorado back to North Carolina with nothing more than gas money in my pocket and a 30 gallon bag of clothes in the backseat. Why? Because a few cis men who had been my close friends for over a year had threatened to "take me out" once I was outed to them by my ex. Maybe that is why I am so passionate about the struggle for acceptance. I know what the consequences of hate and ignorance. I'm lucky that a third friend went behind their back and told me what was going on or I would have been a statistic.

I am sorry for your experience but this dosen't mean EVERY cis person Dont understand transgenders binary or not.
there is some cisgenders who dont get the trans thing no matter what. and then there is someone who is just fine.
While being at my last school I didnt mention I where trans in second semester, I came out to a few pretty randomly like.. "oh I still cant do this, I had the surgery, you know I where actually born a girl bla bla"
there reactiong where something like.. "aha..." and then kept everything as it where nothing, and never cared since Best reaction I have got, It dosent mean I havent experience bad reactions either, but not all of them had been bad.

Quote from: Simon on December 06, 2012, 01:13:07 PM
Yes, Thomas pushed boundaries but the question isn't if he could...the question is if he should. What purpose did him publicly showing his top surgery scars and bulbous pregnant stomach serve? Did it further our cause? Did it increase understanding? Or did he make money doing appearances as a pregnant man that society (for the most part) deemed a freak show?

Now Speaking of media, I learned alot the last couple of years.
One is how many transfolks who are in the media never get money for it but awareness, and this can be a sacrifising prosses for themself, or people they care about.
Another thing is, Even if you go to the media and think your to be "a good exemple for the trans comunety"
you never know how the media will turn out. I seen transpeople who got to the media for some caises and they have turned everything they said into having an almost opposite shocking meaning. If it wasnt because I knew them personally, and that this was not how they hoped it would come out, I might had been chocked as well.
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Quote from: Sia on December 06, 2012, 04:22:38 PM
I disagree. Thomas Beatie is showing people that biological sex and gender identity are not necessarily interlinked and not to be confused for one another, and dismantling the cissexist narrative "born in the wrong body", which in the long run is beneficial to all trans people. Because when cis people hear that old "I was born in the wrong body" trope, it doesn't make them understand and respect trans people as equal - it makes them think "there's something wrong with being trans, look they're saying it themselves", which fosters transphobia as being seen as wrong is being seen as "lesser" - lesser citizens, lesser worthy of respect and civil rights and safety, lesser human.

Well, it is all in perspective. I am not going to say your beliefs are incorrect. I don't know how you identify but if I had to put a direct label on myself (never have before) I'd be a binary identified heterosexual transman. I do feel as if I was born in the wrong body and I am taking drastic steps to change my body because of it.

I basically feel like a man who had the unfortunate experience of being born with too much fat on my chest and with no penis. I don't identify at all with women. I know little to nothing about feminism. I don't understand women...because I never was one.

I do respect women. I have never laid a hand on a woman in anger. I believe a woman can be the head of the home. My gf is the bread winner in our home. I listen to her. She has no issue with letting me know when I get "big head macho syndrome". She won't put up with it, lol.

Where would that put me then? Am I a misogynist because I can't identify with her thoughts or feelings?

Quote from: Sia on December 06, 2012, 04:22:38 PM
Chaz Bono, on the other hand, is a misogynistic jerk who basks in his newfound male privilege and a terrible spokeperson for the community. If anything he's just reinforcing the "theory" touted by some pseudo-feminists that transmen are just really self-hating lesbians full of internalized sexism.

Chaz is a man's man. I agree with a lot of what he says. There are those of us who believe we are correcting a birth defect. There are those of us who don't understand women. It's not putting women down and I think that is what you are failing to realize. He may have spent a good chunk of his adult life living as a lesbian because he had no choice. Maybe it was fear of having no choice than to be in the public eye during transition. I can't imagine how hard that has to be to have absolutely no choice because of who your parents are.

I don't think it is fair to label him as a "misogynistic jerk". Why would you say that? Because he doesn't identify as you do? You know the sad part? I sincerely doubt anyone on here would cause a stink about you saying that about him because he's a masculine man. If I was to say (this is for an example..nobody flip out) that Thomas Beatie was a confused butch lesbian baby factory...you guys would be coming at me with virtual pitchforks.

Double standard much?

Well I agree with Simon re: Chaz. I don't feel it is fair to judge someone I don't know. Also it is a bit easy to take remarks out of context. He does conferences like Gender Odyssey which is not exactly a rigidly binary conference.

OTOH, it would easier for society to deal with those who are more akin to cis people but I don't think it is fair to leave non binaries in the dust either. I am somewhat non-binary and I hope to pass and all that, but I don't mind sort of saying f-it to various stereotypes either.

--Jay

Quote from: Sia on December 06, 2012, 04:22:38 PM
Chaz Bono, on the other hand, is a misogynistic jerk who basks in his newfound male privilege and a terrible spokeperson for the community. If anything he's just reinforcing the "theory" touted by some pseudo-feminists that transmen are just really self-hating lesbians full of internalized sexism.

I think a major problem is misunderstanding that misogynist = a man who hates women. It does not = a masculine man. Two different things. Can someone be a masculine man and a misogynist? Of course. The two often go hand in hand but misogyny is not a physical characteristic. It's not a "lifestyle choice" or a hobby. It's a guy who hates all women and usually makes no secret of that. Calling a trans man a misogynist just because he's masculine is asinine.

i'm totally lost here, But its getting pretty far off topic.
Its really not about whos better or worse to the trans comunety, its irrevant for the topic and a matter of opinion.

Quote from: Natkat on December 06, 2012, 06:14:25 PM
i'm totally lost here, But its getting pretty far off topic.
Its really not about whos better or worse to the trans comunety, its irrevant for the topic and a matter of opinion.

Haha, it's been off topic more than it's been on.

There's always Buck Angel...I feel like he's a jerk (said some racist, cissexist, classist, etc things). Plus, super visible guy and a large portion of trans men I know like him.

Quote from: Nygeel on December 06, 2012, 09:37:45 PM
There's always Buck Angel...I feel like he's a jerk (said some racist, cissexist, classist, etc things). Plus, super visible guy and a large portion of trans men I know like him.

I don't think a porn star showing his kibbles n' bits all up on the interwebs is a good spokesman for the transman community, lol.

Quote from: Simon on December 06, 2012, 09:47:19 PM
I don't think a porn star showing his kibbles n' bits all up on the interwebs is a good spokesman for the transman community, lol.

I don't think a pornstar would be a good spokesperson for any community, unless it was some form of sex circle.

One thing I think we all need to think about in our struggles as trans men and women is that this struggle without gender identity is going on at all stages of human development from young children to preteens to teenagers to young adults to mature adults to seniors.  That at each stage of development our challenges are different and the degree to which our bodies will adapt and can be changed to meet our gender identity to the extend that we will blend into either the male or female population and go unnoticed.   

We all come to terms with fact that our gender identity does not match our biological body at different ages and the baggage we carry of trying to live lives that match our physical body is also different.   

I knew that I was somehow different for a long time,  that somehow I identified with being female more than male, but I was alone in my isolation and having been born in the middle 1940s it was very intimidating for anyone who had a male body to start behaving like a female in the rural Dakotas.   It was very emotionally difficult for me to even accumulate a female wardrobe even in private.   I was 53 years old and found Susan.org and living alone for the first time in nearly 30 years that I could declare to myself within the privacy of my home that I was a female and begin living as a woman at home.  Now I dress openly female in both private and public within a family and living off of Social Security,    I will never be able to totally pass as a women because of my over 50 years of living as a male and a life time of living with male hormones.

Because most of my life has been spent living under a male identity all of my job records, educational records, medical records, government records, medical records, are stamped with the male gender identification.    I happen to like the female form of my name Michael, which is Michelle, so I have become Michelle (Mike) on Facebook and can even pronounce Michael as Mishelle.   Myche, Michelle, Myshelle, Michael, can all become my alias and I can identify myself as a transgender female so as to blend my past with my present.    Most of this is because most of my past has disappeared and all people where I am at see me presenting as a female.   I may not blend, but as a senior citizen, I find that as far as the rest of the world cares I am vanishing in most but not all cases.

My testimony to transgenders younger than me is that you can live to be a senior citizen and not live in fear of your life and that the longer you wait to become who you truly are the more baggage you carry and the harder it is for you to truly blend in as either male or female.   As a senior you also realize that as you become less and less able to defend yourself physically you face the danger of being physically assaulted just because you are old so that living as a transgender hardly poses more of a threat.

Those transgenders who start their transformations younger than when I did have to worry about how they are going to survive and support themselves while living their gender identity.    They also have more struggles living with worrying about being outed and what that might mean.   Teenagers have the most opportunity to have their bodies adapt to match their gender identities but face living with having natural children of their own unless they have their sperm or eggs banked.    But with their spouses will probably have to come out as transgenders in order to have natural children using these banked sperm or eggs.

What I am basically saying is that because of the vast differences of our transgender lives we need to not be judgemental of each other and the choices we make.   We are all part of the same struggle which is even more complicated by the people we a sexually attracted to and the fact that many of us have grown children who learned later in life that we, their parents,  were transgender and this makes for us blending our lives more difficult.

Some of us have more and some of us have less lives to blend between our male and female existence.     Why should we show as much intolerance among us, as is shown towards us, by many in the straight world?   We shouldn't!!!   We have to grant others the tolerance we wish for ourselves and remember that how others live and think is not a reflection upon ourselves.

Respectability politics is awful, no good, and not helping. On the scale of how cis society sees us, because I'm white and pretty much a gender-conforming boring binary dude, I'd be at the level known as "very respectable/almost as good as a cis person". I'm not fighting for people like me, who get the LEAST grief, I'm fighting for those who aren't considered to be "good" trans* people.

So let's not be nasty about people who chose to have children whilst not pretending to be cis (to do so is eugenicist, honestly) or who aren't obsessed with assimilation and normalcy.

I don't know where some of you got the idea that I was calling Chaz Bono a misogynist because he's a masculine straight man, but it has nothing to do with it. I called him misogynist because he said misogynist things, period. I've seen cissexism and sexism (towards both genders and/or sexes) expressed by people of all combinations of birth sex, gender identity, gender presentation and sexuality, and I always call them out on it when I have the chance. I don't care who someone is or looks like, I just have a big mouth and non-existent tolerance threshold to BS -  the only category of people I don't like are bigots, and bigotry doesn't discriminate when it comes to choosing its hosts.

On that subject, since someone brought up Buck Angel, regardless of his job I agree that he's just as bad a poster child for FTMs even though his ideas on transness are radically opposed to Chaz's. Chaz Bono saying that all men who have breasts would want them off or all trans people feel like they are in the wrong body is just as bad as Buck Angel berating trans men who have bottom surgery or want to be stealth. We just don't need "role models" who go around saying their personal experience of or opinions on ->-bleeped-<- are the Only/Valid/Good ones, that's it.

Simon, I also never said that being masculine or not understanding women makes you a misogynist - hell, I'm more on the masculine side and I'm far from understanding them completely either! But there's a world of difference between saying "I'm a man so I don't understand women" and saying "I'm a man so I have trouble tolerating women and the way they gossip and banter" like Chaz did. If someone said "I'm white so I have trouble tolerating black people and the way they all ____", anyone would agree that it is racist.


I adressed the subject of public role models only because it was the current topic of discussion in this thread, that's all. I didn't and won't comment on masculinity being frowned amongst the trans men's community because I've never personally saw it (which is in no way proof that it doesn't exist) and am no expert on what the online community thinks - I avoid Youtube and Tumblr like the plague.

Chaz is a man's man // basks in his newfound male privilege

Nope.  He's fat, obese really, kinda ugly on top of it, has a very unpleasant personality, he's highly self-centered and not a team player.  You know that scene in Animal House where they keep directing Kent to the loser/dork group sitting on that couch?  Chaz would be sitting on that couch with Mohammet, Jugdish, Sidney and Clayton.  And you know ... "Grab a seat and make yourselves at home. Don't be shy about helping yourselves to punch and cookies."  And I'm sure Chaz can pound the cookies down, no doubt about that.

That's Chaz.

As a man he's pretty much the kind of guy that's not 'a man's man' but the eternal excluded one who's the butt of every joke and prank.

How can I say that?  Easy, I watched Dancing with the Stars.  And what I saw pointed to serious defects in the exactly the stuff that make 'men's men' what they are.  You know how 'when the going gets tough, the tough get going' (a man's man commandment if there ever was one), addresses one of the critical components of man's mandom, ie. how you act under pressure.  How you stand up when things get a lot harder is considered essential to masculinity by other males - a true measure of your manhood.  And when things got tough for Chaz, when it was pushing the boundaries of his physical abilities (both in terms of coordination as well as strength/stamina - and let's face it, that's not a lot to begin with) did he 'MAN UP'?  Nope, he whined.  He sniveled.  He blamed other things rather than taking the responsibility himself.

And we got to see a lot of it, because like Bristol Palin he somehow keep on getting votes long, LONG past the point where based on pure performance he should have been allowed to continue on.  And that made it even worse (as it did for Bristol too) because he was way out of his league, and in way over his head.  He did not come off looking good at all, he came off as weak.  Actually way beyond that.  If I took a bunch of the manliest guys I know (and I do know a few) and asked them, I bet to a man they'd all pick Shawn Johnson as far more of a man's man than Chaz could - or would - ever be.  EVERY SINGLE TIME.

And, in some of the ways he blamed other things for not doing well he sent up huge red flags that he would never abide by another man's man commandment.  That is, if your looking for someone who's got your back, you are not looking at him.  He's a 'cut and run' type, not a 'no one left behind' guy.  And that's a fatal error.

Wow, check out all the fat-shaming. Doesn't anybody know it's possible to call someone on their foolishness WITHOUT pig jokes?

A terrible celebrity who happens to be fat (or otherwise different) should just be called unpleasant based on their behaviour. Keep looks out of it, OK? I'm a fat person and sick of thin people bringing size into everything.

Quote from: tekla on December 07, 2012, 02:08:05 PM
Chaz is a man's man // basks in his newfound male privilege

Nope.  He's fat, obese really, kinda ugly on top of it, has a very unpleasant personality, he's highly self-centered and not a team player.  You know that scene in Animal House where they keep directing Kent to the loser/dork group sitting on that couch?  Chaz would be sitting on that couch with Mohammet, Jugdish, Sidney and Clayton.  And you know ... "Grab a seat and make yourselves at home. Don't be shy about helping yourselves to punch and cookies."  And I'm sure Chaz can pound the cookies down, no doubt about that.

Well, I didn't watch "Dancing with the Stars" to be honest with you. It's not my thing to watch has been's (or never was) pseudo celebs prance around a stage. I can't comment on his actions on the show because I never watched it. I do agree with him on a lot of interviews I have read and that is what I was basing my judgment of his character on.

He's obese and ugly? Well, he is no model...that's for sure but I don't think it is a good thing to measure a man by the size of his gut. Attacking someone's character (public or not) by their weight is immature and shows a lack of sound judgment.

Quote from: Simon on December 07, 2012, 03:02:51 PM
Well, I didn't watch "Dancing with the Stars" to be honest with you. It's not my thing to watch has been's (or never was) pseudo celebs prance around a stage. I can't comment on his actions on the show because I never watched it. I do agree with him on a lot of interviews I have read and that is what I was basing my judgment of his character on.

He's obese and ugly? Well, he is no model...that's for sure but I don't think it is a good thing to measure a man by the size of his gut. Attacking someone's character (public or not) by their weight is immature and shows a lack of sound judgment.

Yes, this. Personally, I think Chaz Bono is overrated and shouldn't be treated as a spokesperson on gender, especially since he has said some very sexist and otherwise problematic things in the past. However, sizeism/fat-hatred is bigotry pure and simple, and totally unacceptable.

If a thin celebrity guy does something screwed up, he's just an unpleasant person. If we start talking about a fat person then suddenly they're a bad FAT person, with extra super-size emphasis on the part where it's suddenly justifiable to call them a pig or whale. That's not how it's meant to work, size doesn't make someone a better or worse person.

Quote from: Green_Tony on December 07, 2012, 03:33:00 PM
Yes, this. Personally, I think Chaz Bono is overrated and shouldn't be treated as a spokesperson on gender, especially since he has said some very sexist and otherwise problematic things in the past. However, sizeism/fat-hatred is bigotry pure and simple, and totally unacceptable.

If a thin celebrity guy does something screwed up, he's just an unpleasant person. If we start talking about a fat person then suddenly they're a bad FAT person, with extra super-size emphasis on the part where it's suddenly justifiable to call them a pig or whale. That's not how it's meant to work, size doesn't make someone a better or worse person.

In general society's eyes (cause lets face it, general society is a vanity whore) Chaz is obese and "ugly". As Tekla pointed out he's the type of guy that would be the "eternal excluded one who's the butt of every joke and prank". The "fat kid" always gets picked on. If you're not at least average or good looking, that makes it even worse. Not saying it's right at all because personally I feel it's not, but a lot of people out there never left the playground and continue into adulthood putting people down for not looking up to society's vain expectations. It's just a sad reality.

Quote from: insideontheoutside on December 08, 2012, 02:29:13 PM
a lot of people out there never left the playground and continue into adulthood putting people down for not looking up to society's vain expectations. It's just a sad reality.

You're right, people tend to judge others right away by what flesh they see. As trans folks we get that ALL the time when it comes to passing. I've also noticed that trans folks can be very judgmental to each other. Not just based on beliefs but usually it is more about appearances. MTF's who pass for cis females get a lot of praise. Same goes with FTM's who are what society would deem as handsome.

As much as trans people like to claim we are open minded and see people for who they are instead of what they are, we still sometimes fall into society's traps of what is attractive or not. I think it is extremely hard as a transsexual not to judge others since we spend so much time placing judgment on our own physical selves.

Not saying it is right, but it is common place. It is something that all of us could mindfully check ourselves on. After all, we don't like being judged by others on our shortcomings so we shouldn't do it to others either.

Chaz Bono was born a public and not a private person.    Both of his parents Sonny and Cher were very public people to my generation.    When Chaz was just a child he was a very public person to my generation who listened to and sang his parents music and watched their television show every week faithfully.    Because of this Chaz was thrown into the public light.    If he tried to keep his gender changes private the gossip magazines could well have drug him out into the public just because they could make a buck on his story.    We are who we are.   Chaz is who he is.    He is having to deal with very private changes in public and he went courageously on Dancing with the Stars and made himself public warts and all.    He did not hide or create a false public image, he was himself.   He could have put on an act.    Chaz was kept on Dancing with the Stars by the public and not because of anything he did.    He was publicly transgender and he was accepted by the public and gives the rest of us hope that we as transgenders will also be accepted by the public even though we are not perfect.

This is where Chaz showed he was a real man,  and not just a fake bully like some men are.    Chaz was an imperfect man who was proud of himself and willing to face public humiliation and rejection.    He probably feared this as many of us other transgenders do.   But it didn't happen.   Yes Chaz was a lousy dancer and the public could have rejected him without a second thought and the public would not have been considered bigoted against transgenders.    But for all of the things Chaz wasn't, he was accepted as a person.   This was great news for all of us transgenders.    Chaz was not alone in being accepted by the public and stayed on the show longer than their poor dancing warranted it, there were many others.     

In our own ways each of is a spokesperson for the GLBTQ community in how we carry out our own struggles to be our true selves despite all of our many imperfections.   There are many kinds of men and there many kinds of women.    Chaz is just as much a man as any other man.     Many men display his personality traits and many men share his looks.    Just as there many kinds of women and not all of us are pretty Barbi dolls,  but we are still women despite anybody else's opinion.

My struggles in being a woman have a lot to do with making my own choices about who I am as a woman and what I really like,  and not trying to be who I should be and what others consider acceptable.    To much of my life have I lived trying to please others and be the person in many cases a male that others expected.    I gave up who I was to be who I should be only to find out I couldn't be that person and still live with myself.   Now I am trying to be who I am, and its hard because in many cases I really don't know what I do like and how I really feel.

Chaz showed me that I didn't have to be perfect to be accepted.    And while a lot of people may not like who I am and despise me for it,   their feelings belong to them and their feelings are not as life threatening as I thought them to be.   

And yes it is as hard to be a man as it is to be a woman in our society.    In my male role I was expected to fix everything, endure extreme weather, hide my fear of heights by swearing under my breath while I was high up on the scaffolding,   face off against bigger and stronger and more coordinated males with out being pummeled,  and consume large quantities of booze,  brag about things I never did including my sexual conquests which I never had,  and take pride and pleasure in being male.

Because I am really a woman,  I felt like I was a dreadful failure even in my successes and my escapes from really messing up my life.    In reality I probably broke even which I have no pride in only relief.    As a woman I can attempt most of the things I did in my male role and because I am no longer expected to succeed, I can congratulate myself on my successes and my near misses with disaster.

I am thankful that Chaz has the courage to do what he is doing to help each on of us gain acceptance in our communities.    I am thankful that he is not a perfect male,  because he reminds me that I do not have to be a perfect female.    I am sure that as Chaz lives out his days he will be all the man he needs to be.

Yeah however he acted on the show (don't know; haven't seen it), Chaz had to have some kind of balls to join a dancing competition at his size. He had to know he would be ridiculed.
And I'm sure we've all said the wrong things sometimes, even just joking around. Most of us aren't so PC 24/7. Talking about T effects and such, he may have just chosen some unfortunate wording to describe his feeling. He's not the best spokesperson in the world, but he's not that bad.