I will clarify:
This thread is not about this website -no one should be asked to leave or is being.
It is about our community in general.
Please be respectful of others.
The Topic is the quote "I'm not trans. anymore, I'm a woman".
My response to this quote is to feel anger arising.
It seems others feel the same way.
The point of this topic is to discuss why we feel this way when this is said.
And why people say it in the first place.
If I had to guess my personal reasons for feeling anger:
IT would be :
Probably due to the nature of the statement. It comes accross to me as flipant, egotistical, and non-empathetic of the feelings of others. As I have already stated it isn't what the person identifies as that I personally have a problem with, It's how they go about expressing it.
Labels are important. and so are the definitions of them. Without labels, we couldn't go shopping for pizza, we couldn't buy groceries.
Our community is so diverse that labels by and large simply don't work, and yet we need them anyway.
The problem comes across when people take for granted that everyone elses definition of a given label is the same as their own.
This usually isn't the case, and can create assumptions and raise tempers.
Even dictionary's do not help as they do not change ones own experience with a word.
Words like "woman" and "trans." mean different things to different people.
Some people feel very passionately about them.
Personally that would be a good renamer for this topic: "Please be careful with using fact statements and assertations when and with words known to have problems"
Sounds kinda longwinded, but that is indeed the problem.
Someone might say "I'm not trans, anymore, I'm a woman" and feel perfectly normal about it, not intending any harm by it or confusion.
To another that might be a powerful statement that says much about what the person means of themselves and others, -especially others.
As Tink has poined out, we need to be careful with speach.
ALL of us.
This has consequences for not taking words seriously.
They do have an effect on other people and we should not take them lightly or dismess them easily as non-important.
Anyone who disagrees with this, I would remind you of the use of pronouns, and how powerful an effect they have on you.
If I had to sum this up, I would say that I am sorry for coming across as angry, as it obviously brought up defensiveness in at least one person; However I do not wish to sugar coat this topic. this is a big deal, and makes many people angry(!): What we say has an effect on people. If you are going to use the statement as quoted for this topic, You ought to be aware that you are likely going to make many more than just slightly angry.
If you are willing to accept this, then that's your choice. However I would personally suggest finding a better way to express that, if your intention isn't to piss people off.
This statement make's people realy, realy angry. And an "I feel" statement about how you don't realy feel like a "such and such" anymore, might be a little cleaner and create less hostility.
That's the real reason for this post. We need to be able to get things done, as a community. and we need to be able to talk about things that some of us do that make others angry. otherwise, we will never be able to adress those feelings.
And the situation will keep occuring.
I don't know if this makes any sense to anyone, but feel free to PM me if you want to talk.
