Quote from: Katia on October 09, 2007, 03:06:15 AM
i'd question why they insist on calling themselves "gender variant". if they transition, have grs and live as their target gender, they are ts not gender variant. people can believe themselves to be cleopatra queen of the nile but believing it doesn't make it a reality. let's call people and things by what they are supposed to be called.
if they reject the binary, what is it they are transitioning to? why transition at all? why grs? to me, that implies they don't "reject" the binary at all but embrace it. thus they are ts not gender variant.
People can identify outside of the standard gender binary (and gender identity, by definition, is what someone believes themself to be) while still feeling completely wrong in the body they're born with. Kate Bornstein is one famous example.
Oh, what's that you say? You were born with a penis? Then you're a man and always will be. Oh, you can believe you're a woman, or a unicorn, or Cleopatra, Queen of the Nile, but believing doesn't make it a reality. You can pump yourself full of artificial hormones and mutilate yourself all you want, but you'll just be more of a freak.
See a problem here?
Analogies are not arguments, mockery is not proof.
Quote from: cindybc on October 09, 2007, 05:00:19 AM
My Soul Mate has on many occasions told me that Transgenders just muddy up the waters for those who are true transsexuals. Those that want to eventually be recognised at real women, that we're not just playing games,
If I was just playing games, I may as well get a Colt Forty Five and play a game of Russian roulette.
I'll add that to my list of things some people think. That we're playing games.
Some people also think it about you.
Quote from: cindybc on October 09, 2007, 05:00:19 AMBe careful whom you judge so harshly... I've found in my life that those who despise being judged are often the loudest about THEIR judgements
I love that statment, there is much wisdom in it.
Cindy
There is, as long as you correctly identify who the people you're referring to are.
Now on to something slightly different, but related. Some of you say that transsexuals and the other GLBTs have nothing in common and should go their separate ways. An interesting, and often forgotten, part of American history is that for a large part of it, blacks and Jews worked together to gain recognition of each others' rights. This despite the fact that they didn't appear to have anything in common, other than that their rights were being denied by the same people for much the same reasons. This despite the fact that a lot of Jews, as well as some blacks, could blend into the general white society and not be noticed, passing as "normal." (This is where the word "passing" comes from, by the way.) But Jewish boys were blasted with hoses and even killed for being in civil rights marches, and Martin Luther King strongly supported the state of Israel. They accomplished more together than either group could ever have accomplished alone, and they stood together because their cause was the same cause, their enemies the same enemies.
Their cause was the great cause of human history: to be recognized as human, with all that implies -- including, of course, to be recognized as the kind of human you are. If asked, Kate would say she is of one kind, Chris would say he is of another, Rebis would name another, and I another still. But ask people who make a living warning the world about the homosexual agenda or whatever the devil has cooked up this year, and they'll say something very different -- that none of us are human -- perhaps that Chris is just a butch lesbian with penis envy gone mad, or that I'm an antisocial destroyer of the family, or that Kate is a sex-crazed ->-bleeped-<-got out to seduce good God-fearing straight men, or that people like Rebis don't exist. Can you honestly say that my goal -- ensuring that the government will never put force behind the opinions of such people, and convincing people that such ideas are wrong and evil -- is not Rebis's goal, or Chris's, or Kate's?
Is what we want the same? On the surface, no, but in the principles involved, yes -- to win a piece of that great cause, to gain recognition of humanity for more people, and to live our lives as is appropriate to who we are, whoever that may be. That is why I support people who, perhaps, don't want my alliance. I am their ally, because I am human, and because I am an American, by birth and by choice, in the only sense that has any meaning: I hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men -- be they male, female, or anything else -- are created equal, and are endowed by their creator -- be it God or the laws of nature -- with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness...
