Quote from: StellaB on April 16, 2013, 09:29:14 AM
So this means you're okay with stuff like slander, libel and defamation of character? Words and words right? And we have the freedom right?

I'm not exactly PC as I much rather favour the more traditional values of personal responsibility and consideration for other people's feelings.

But freedom carries responsibility. Words are as real as the people saying them are, and I'm all for holding people as responsible for their words as they are for their thoughts and actions.

No. I'm not OK with slander and defamation of character or out and out lies but on the other hand if the slander or the so-called defamation is true then that is a different story. If someone told you that your doctor didn't graduate med school and you are about to have a bypass done by him/her, wouldn't you want to know? What if it turned out to be true. In  society that is afraid of being sued  for slander or defamation of character, if it ever came to that, you would probably never hear of it.

In my life I have been defamed, slandered against, called all kinds of names and so on, just as everyone else at one time or another. You know the old saying about sticks and stones and truly the words never hurt me, I never even bled once from them. I could really care less about what anyone thinks of me, says about me and so on. What bothers me is that as a society, if we start banning words, what else will be next?

Personal responsiblity and taking people's feelings into consideration I agree with you. It's all in the context as to how a word can be offensive or not. I just don't find too much that offends me other than body odor and nasty farts. So maybe I am different.

Apologies if it came off as bashing anyone, that certainly isn't my intent. I just stated my opinion. I don't feel/believe that CD's are any less of a person than someone with a trans* experience, because to me, drag is a completely different thing, and is more gay male than CD, trans*, etc. Sorry :/

Quote from: Devlyn Marie on April 16, 2013, 11:06:23 AM
From the site TOS:

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.  This includes but is not limited to:Advocating the separation or exclusion of one or more group from under the Transgender umbrella termSuggesting or claiming that one segment or sub-segment of our community is more legitimate, deserving, or more real than any others

Drag Kings and Queens are as welcome to use this site for support as any other person, please make sure to be welcoming and supportive. Hugs, Devlyn

Quote from: lissabuchannon on April 16, 2013, 04:12:09 PM
Apologies if it came off as bashing anyone, that certainly isn't my intent. I just stated my opinion. I don't feel/believe that CD's are any less of a person than someone with a trans* experience, because to me, drag is a completely different thing, and is more gay male than CD, trans*, etc. Sorry :/

I'm just making sure you're aware of the nature of this support community, and the varied backgrounds of the people who use and contribute to the site. We try not to herd our friends into groups and call them bitches here.

Quote from: lissabuchannon on April 16, 2013, 10:53:39 AM
Yeah, I noticed that the one time I saw it. The problem is this: Drag performers are all about the attention, drama, and accentuating - making fun of women really. They're largely sexist over-amplification depictions of what gay men believe women to be - "annoying". Most drag queens hate trans* identified people, because we're not "gay". I have only ever met one drag queen that wasn't a complete bitch to me. Ru Paul's whole show is kinda degrading tbh

Be polite and supportive when posting here, and remember that there are people from all walks of life using the site. Hugs, Devlyn

Quote from: Jess42 on April 16, 2013, 03:56:40 PM
What bothers me is that as a society, if we start banning words, what else will be next?

Okay. Please.. picture yourself in a pine forest, with trees either side of you. Under your feet is a path about the width of a suburban street of lush green grass. All around you birds are singing as you walk up a steadily incline to the top of a hill.

At the top of a hill there is a bank. The trees stop. You come to the edge and you find yourself on the edge of what appears to be a disused quarry which is now overgrown.

It is silent. No birds. No trees. Just silence.

You turn back and you walk back along the grassy road between the trees. You start to hear birdsong again. It all seems natural again and this continues for about a mile and a half. Then you come to a clearing.

There's another path leading into the forest. It takes you left into the forest towards another clearing. In the distance you can see a fairly distinct rectangular patch in the ground. You turn back on yourself and see another. Then another. You realize that there were once buildings here.

But what?

You continue. To your right you see a greyish-blue concrete wall. It's about fifty or sixty feet across. About eighteen feet high. Smooth grey blue concrete.

You walk past it and see the other side. On the other side it's not so smooth. There's chips and pock marks in the concrete along the lower half - up to about six or so feet (though one or two are higher). There's a concentration of these pock marks in the centre of the wall.

A little further to your left you see flagstones under clumps of grass and for a moment think it's another causeway or road.

It isn't. It's a disused railway platform.

Welcome to Treblinka. Or more specifically Treblinka II.

That railway station platform was the final destination for the Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto and others, such as Roma, Poles, Serbs, the untermenschen from Germany, and others.

Those rectangles were the barracks. That concrete wall was where prisoners were executed by firing squad every morning and every evening at roll call. Prisoners were beaten, whipped, kicked, punched. If you had a mark such as a bruise on you at roll call, you were executed.

That grassy road in the forest? That was The Tube - where men, women and children were forced to run chased by guards and dogs up to the gas chambers at the top. The screams of people being gassed literally caused people to relieve themselves, so the condemned were forced to run through a route more than ankle deep in human feces.   

The bodies from the gas chamber were cleared, placed on -pyres and set fire to. The stench of burning flesh etc could be smelled over two miles away at Malkinia where the branch to Treblinka left the main Warsaw - Bialystok railway.

In the year between 1942 and 1943 when Treblinka II was operational some 865,000 or so people were exterminated. This was the second highest of all the camps in Poland, second only to the camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

I have been there. I still remember that day vividly. I don't think I will ever forget some of those eerie silences.

One of the problems with having complete freedom is that you can end up with anarchy. Anarchy is fine if you don't mind living in a society based on the laws of the jungle where only the strong survive.

Or you could end up with something far worse. 

Let us not forget that the Holocaust started out with just words and a few ideas.

as with all words, it depends on the delivery and context. like if somebody says "you ->-bleeped-<-" in soft voice which then trials upwards in pitch and then playfully bumps my shoulder... well it's obviously more of a pet name sort of thing. kind of like loving calling my dog a dumbass.

Quote from: StellaB on April 16, 2013, 05:56:55 PM
Okay. Please.. picture yourself in a pine forest, with trees either side of you. Under your feet is a path about the width of a suburban street of lush green grass. All around you birds are singing as you walk up a steadily incline to the top of a hill.

At the top of a hill there is a bank. The trees stop. You come to the edge and you find yourself on the edge of what appears to be a disused quarry which is now overgrown.

It is silent. No birds. No trees. Just silence.

You turn back and you walk back along the grassy road between the trees. You start to hear birdsong again. It all seems natural again and this continues for about a mile and a half. Then you come to a clearing.

There's another path leading into the forest. It takes you left into the forest towards another clearing. In the distance you can see a fairly distinct rectangular patch in the ground. You turn back on yourself and see another. Then another. You realize that there were once buildings here.

But what?

You continue. To your right you see a greyish-blue concrete wall. It's about fifty or sixty feet across. About eighteen feet high. Smooth grey blue concrete.

You walk past it and see the other side. On the other side it's not so smooth. There's chips and pock marks in the concrete along the lower half - up to about six or so feet (though one or two are higher). There's a concentration of these pock marks in the centre of the wall.

A little further to your left you see flagstones under clumps of grass and for a moment think it's another causeway or road.

It isn't. It's a disused railway platform.

Welcome to Treblinka. Or more specifically Treblinka II.

That railway station platform was the final destination for the Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto and others, such as Roma, Poles, Serbs, the untermenschen from Germany, and others.

Those rectangles were the barracks. That concrete wall was where prisoners were executed by firing squad every morning and every evening at roll call. Prisoners were beaten, whipped, kicked, punched. If you had a mark such as a bruise on you at roll call, you were executed.

That grassy road in the forest? That was The Tube - where men, women and children were forced to run chased by guards and dogs up to the gas chambers at the top. The screams of people being gassed literally caused people to relieve themselves, so the condemned were forced to run through a route more than ankle deep in human feces.

The bodies from the gas chamber were cleared, placed on -pyres and set fire to. The stench of burning flesh etc could be smelled over two miles away at Malkinia where the branch to Treblinka left the main Warsaw - Bialystok railway.

In the year between 1942 and 1943 when Treblinka II was operational some 865,000 or so people were exterminated. This was the second highest of all the camps in Poland, second only to the camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

I have been there. I still remember that day vividly. I don't think I will ever forget some of those eerie silences.

One of the problems with having complete freedom is that you can end up with anarchy. Anarchy is fine if you don't mind living in a society based on the laws of the jungle where only the strong survive.

Or you could end up with something far worse. 

Let us not forget that the Holocaust started out with just words and a few ideas.

uh. yeah. words didn't cause that. unchecked political actions fueled by carefully crafted speeches caused that. TOTALLY different and a completely bunk argument.

Quote from: tomthom on April 16, 2013, 06:45:55 PM
uh. yeah. words didn't cause that. unchecked political actions fueled by carefully crafted speeches caused that. TOTALLY different and a completely bunk argument.

And 'carefully crafted speeches' are composed of what exactly?

words. yes. but so is all speech. and text.

simply because an umbrella term covers something doesn't make the umbrella relevant to the effects.

and here, just because I kow somebody is going to try and say that it's a semantics issues and speeches are in fact composed of words, most speeches actually have very little to do with the actual topic they supposedly cover. most are filled with fluff. The real meat is in the intonation and body language, and one notable master of both was Adolf Hitler.

Anyway, this is derailing the topic. there was no need for such longwinded historically charged commentary with zero relevance.

What are speeches if not words.....   words that incite a desired effect to vilify and label a group as undesireable ,not of the norm, harmful to the majority and thusly justify(sic) derision, violence and persucution in the name of right.    I can easily follow StellaB's line of thought.   

Quote from: Lorri Kat on April 16, 2013, 07:10:46 PM
words that incite a desired effect to vilify and label a group as undesireable ,not of the norm, harmful to the majority and thusly justify(sic) derision, violence and persucution in the name of right.    I can easily follow StellaB's line of thought.

I pretty much agree. I've heard the term ->-bleeped-<- tossed around alot by men and it's almost always in a bad, negative connotation. Men in fact use the word ->-bleeped-<- as a very bad thing and words do matter. I've never once heard a man call someone a ->-bleeped-<- without hearing them seethe with inner violence and spite. Look at Billy Coorgan's comments about trans women. Then look at the comments about the comments. Then tell me ->-bleeped-<- is not usually a very negative word.

This negativity is not usually demonstrated by women for whatever reason. I rarely, if ever, can remember a woman using it.

it does bother me when someone uses it. even it is used within the group. personally I have been called it only once a while back and personally it hurt.

Quote from: Joanna Dark on April 16, 2013, 07:24:36 PM
I pretty much agree. I've heard the term ->-bleeped-<- tossed around alot by men and it's almost always in a bad, negative connotation. Men in fact use the word ->-bleeped-<- as a very bad thing and words do matter. I've never once heard a man call someone a ->-bleeped-<- without hearing them seethe with inner violence and spite. Look at Billy Coorgan's comments about trans women. Then look at the comments about the comments. Then tell me ->-bleeped-<- is not usually a very negative word.

This negativity is not usually demonstrated by women for whatever reason. I rarely, if ever, can remember a woman using it.

Nods..   all you have to do is read the comments under any 'Bathroom Bill' news article to see how ->-bleeped-<-, trans , transgender is being perveyed as synonymous with child molester, perverted, deviant and mentaly ill.   

I was actually debating this very topic a few weeks ago and how to address it, especially on a large scale audience. Does the word matter between groups/communities versus national/international. The topic of ->-bleeped-<- came up as well but that closed swiftly in agreement of it being offensive. But the term ->-bleeped-<- can make some uncomfortable or upset. Others are fine with it. Some even use it included in screen names, etc. For me, I used to get upset but not really anymore (depending on the context of it being said of course). The other thing to consider is the ones who are living full-time and stealth who would rather be called their specific gender as opposed to trans in any form.

Quote from: StellaB on April 16, 2013, 05:56:55 PM
Okay. Please.. picture yourself in a pine forest, with trees either side of you. Under your feet is a path about the width of a suburban street of lush green grass. All around you birds are singing as you walk up a steadily incline to the top of a hill.

At the top of a hill there is a bank. The trees stop. You come to the edge and you find yourself on the edge of what appears to be a disused quarry which is now overgrown.

It is silent. No birds. No trees. Just silence.

You turn back and you walk back along the grassy road between the trees. You start to hear birdsong again. It all seems natural again and this continues for about a mile and a half. Then you come to a clearing.

There's another path leading into the forest. It takes you left into the forest towards another clearing. In the distance you can see a fairly distinct rectangular patch in the ground. You turn back on yourself and see another. Then another. You realize that there were once buildings here.

But what?

You continue. To your right you see a greyish-blue concrete wall. It's about fifty or sixty feet across. About eighteen feet high. Smooth grey blue concrete.

You walk past it and see the other side. On the other side it's not so smooth. There's chips and pock marks in the concrete along the lower half - up to about six or so feet (though one or two are higher). There's a concentration of these pock marks in the centre of the wall.

A little further to your left you see flagstones under clumps of grass and for a moment think it's another causeway or road.

It isn't. It's a disused railway platform.

Welcome to Treblinka. Or more specifically Treblinka II.

That railway station platform was the final destination for the Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto and others, such as Roma, Poles, Serbs, the untermenschen from Germany, and others.

Those rectangles were the barracks. That concrete wall was where prisoners were executed by firing squad every morning and every evening at roll call. Prisoners were beaten, whipped, kicked, punched. If you had a mark such as a bruise on you at roll call, you were executed.

That grassy road in the forest? That was The Tube - where men, women and children were forced to run chased by guards and dogs up to the gas chambers at the top. The screams of people being gassed literally caused people to relieve themselves, so the condemned were forced to run through a route more than ankle deep in human feces.   

The bodies from the gas chamber were cleared, placed on -pyres and set fire to. The stench of burning flesh etc could be smelled over two miles away at Malkinia where the branch to Treblinka left the main Warsaw - Bialystok railway.

In the year between 1942 and 1943 when Treblinka II was operational some 865,000 or so people were exterminated. This was the second highest of all the camps in Poland, second only to the camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

I have been there. I still remember that day vividly. I don't think I will ever forget some of those eerie silences.

One of the problems with having complete freedom is that you can end up with anarchy. Anarchy is fine if you don't mind living in a society based on the laws of the jungle where only the strong survive.

Or you could end up with something far worse. 

Let us not forget that the Holocaust started out with just words and a few ideas.

I agree with tomthom in that words didn't cause the Holocaust as much as a charismatic speechgiver and a herdlike or lemminglike mentality mixed in with bad econimics. It wasn't the words but how they were put together and delivered that got the people riled up, along with promises of this or that. I really don't care much for society as a whole because the same thing can happen again or many more times out of a desperation for a "better tomorrow". Hitler used the Jewish people as a scapegoat to gain power and to blame for the desperate times. Who will be the next scapegoat for another powerhungry, insane maniac? Could be any ethnicity or religion, could be me or you even. Really though, I can't blame Adolph Hitler as much as the German people at that time as a whole that allowed him to have the power and I respect and admire those who resisted. Without the followers, Hitler would have been just another insane maniac that would have probably been in and out of prison. But with the people backing him, we all know what happened. The scary part is that it can happen again.

Yes society needs laws but moral laws. Laws that punish criminals for wrongdoing. Laws that prevent discrimination based on gender, race, religion and so on. When I say "morals" I am not speaking of relious theories on morality but rather just common sense laws that coincide with how we are supposed to treat our fellow humans. Without any laws, you will have chaos but on the other hand, too many laws especially stupid ones just for the sake of writing laws will cause anarchy.

Pardon my language here, calling someone a ->-bleeped-<- to me is a lot like calling someone a ->-bleeped-<-got. I think it's a degrading word meant to insult us in the trans community but I think it's a word we should take back and show people that words are meaningless without context. That's just me personally.

What bothers me now is that this stupid conversation goes on for four long pages, can we move beyond this insipid stuff?

Quote from: Shantel on April 17, 2013, 01:13:28 PM
What bothers me now is that this stupid conversation goes on for four long pages, can we move beyond this insipid stuff?

You could always choose to ignore the thread.

Regarding the topic as stupid and insipid is your prerogative, but those who have voiced their opinions in this thread clearly don't feel the same way. 

I think it is important to remember that some people, especially men, lack tone when they speak. And also that it is possible to mistake the context of someone's remarks. And the problem is if you're in conversation with someone or are called a ->-bleeped-<- and you think it is playful when it is not, you could get hurt. I agree that it is all about context but as individuals you have to identify that context correctly 100 percent of the time. I can't count the number of times I have mistaken someone's remarks as something different then what they are. The problem, as I see it, is that some people really hate us.

Heck, maybe you are out and you pass 100 percent, but then you and your friends are tossing the word ->-bleeped-<- around and then someone who does not like trans women hears it and becomes enraged. If you live in a really awesome place like New Zealand or something you prob won't have this problem but if you're in the USA, I don't think this fictional anecdote is extreme. I'd just urge everyone to exercise caution.

Quote from: natastic on April 17, 2013, 01:18:05 PM
You could always choose to ignore the thread.

Regarding the topic as stupid and insipid is your prerogative, but those who have voiced their opinions in this thread clearly don't feel the same way.

I realize that, but there are thousands of members here who can all agree that the word ->-bleeped-<- is awful, surely there is something more than this?

I see this thread is going the direction it always does, downhill.

Let's leave out the personal insults.