Quote from: Queen Anne's Revenge on November 28, 2011, 05:27:51 PM
Torn I don't think anyone was saying that you should not read up on or have opinions about anythiong happening outside the USA whether trans related or not. My point and I'm sure the others as well was that you must try to see it from the perspective of the nation or region where it was filmed. Your last post showed that you get it.

I for 1 know how it can be frustrating sometimes as a non-american in an American dominated forum to try and explain the more subtle differences you don't see. The things like driving on the left and spelling words like honour with a "u", which this forums spellcheck doesn't understand  are easy for everyone to spot. What can be harder is trying to understand the socio-political climate of a land so far away when everything else seems the same, if you know what I mean.

For example I only recently learned that Americans have a stereotype of "dumb" Polish people. Whereas here they are all silent weightlifting plumbers in stereotype. The real everyday differences can be the most shocking because nobody has made big jokes or T.V. sitcoms have never exploited them for laughs so when you do come across them they seem hard to understand.

Thats my take on what I have been reading here anyway.

I understand what you're saying. I stick to my issues with the show though not that any one is saying otherwise but i do think I got questioned on whether or not i experience gender dysphoria a page or two back just because i thought our focus on the appearances/voices of the the trans women was rather harsh at certain points as if the point of the show is irrelevant because according to some of us they don't pass well enough  . (And out of all those women there is only 1 that's really still beginning transition. So we're criticizing women who are meeting transition goals that are difficult and rather then being happy for them we nitpick them for their male attributes and I think that is F'D up and transphobic.) I think I was a bit to vague on what I meant though because I was infuriated, and plus maybe i am so sensitive towards that subject at the moment because my gender dysphoria is shooting through the roof as i wait to start the hormone process in about a month.   
  i've never heard that stereotype on polish people.  I think anyone in america with an accent/ has trouble with communicating in english runs the risk of being deemed stupid. It's unfortunate because they are the ones who are bilingual.

I understand what you mean about the focus on aesthetics but at the end of the day reality T.V. should never be a high water mark for total and balanced understanding. What riled me at the start of this thread was, like you said, why not be happy for people living the life they want and getting support from peers.

I chose the Polish example because it was one I only came across recently. Another one would be how it's baffling to me that politicians could go on a campaign trail saying they are in favour of getting rid of the entire department of education and be taken seriously as a candidate. If you tried that here you'd be carted away.

Quote from: Queen Anne's Revenge on November 28, 2011, 06:11:55 PM
I understand what you mean about the focus on aesthetics but at the end of the day reality T.V. should never be a high water mark for total and balanced understanding. What riled me at the start of this thread was, like you said, why not be happy for people living the life they want and getting support from peers.

I chose the Polish example because it was one I only came across recently. Another one would be how it's baffling to me that politicians could go on a campaign trail saying they are in favour of getting rid of the entire department of education and be taken seriously as a candidate. If you tried that here you'd be carted away.

Youre right about the reality tv bit, I just love to watch how cis gender folks are portraying transgender people on reality television. They're doing this so that they can make money ofcourse so what goes in the show is trying to appease to what audiences? not trans audiences, but other cis gender people. 
  okay so you're from Ireland. Can I just say.. i love the way you say mirror. 
You're making good examples. Perspective is definitely quite interesting especially when it comes to criticizing shows like these.

Mirror?? okay, random word to pick, i guess it really depends on what regional accent you're talking about I guess. I know that with the "generic" Yank accent it's pronounced "meerr", with only a vague hint of a second syllable  I find that people always want to hear words like "three" because with a Dublin accent that sounds like "tree". "turty tree and a turd" is always a good one. Someone like Colin Farrell or a comedian called Andrew Maxwell would be a good indicator of my kind of accent, or Mairéad Farrell (no relation to Colin) or Gráine Seoige for the women.
If you want to see the extreme of that listen to an interview with singer Imelda May, you may not understand a word but at least it's real unlike Richard Gere's attempt. It was a massacre of language 

A little off topic, I just found that interesting.

Quote from: Torn1990 on November 28, 2011, 05:56:32 PM
but i do think I got questioned on whether or not i experience gender dysphoria a page or two back just because i thought our focus on the appearances/voices of the the trans women was rather harsh at certain points as if the point of the show is irrelevant because according to some of us they don't pass well enough 

I was responding to this statement made by you: "what i am pissed at is how the media was hung up on looks being the most important factor when transitioning." I pointed out that for some of us looks is extremely important to us due to it being tied up in our dysphoria, and that your dysphoria MAY be different. I never suggested, nor ever would suggest, that you don't have gender dysphoria - nor did it have anything to do with criticisms levelled at the show.

As for being overly critical of their appearances? I'm not. I'm realistic. And I do find it frustrating that there is an entirely invisibly passable bloke on the show, and not a corresponding girl, because it perpetuates the stereotype that all trans women are visibly trans due to their voice, appearance, or whatever. I find that assumption really disempowering, and pre-transition that kind of misinformation was TERRIFYING (that nobody corrected the woman who said nothing can be done about adam's apples is kind of awful, frankly). So ya, it bothers me. I'm not ->-bleeped-<-ing nitpicking, and I am happy for them. My criticism is levelled at the SHOW, not at them. Regardless, I like the show, but I still have problems with it. That is one.

Quote from: Sarah7 on November 28, 2011, 10:44:40 PM
I was responding to this statement made by you: "what i am pissed at is how the media was hung up on looks being the most important factor when transitioning." I pointed out that for some of us looks is extremely important to us due to it being tied up in our dysphoria, and that your dysphoria MAY be different. I never suggested, nor ever would suggest, that you don't have gender dysphoria - nor did it have anything to do with criticisms levelled at the show.

As for being overly critical of their appearances? I'm not. I'm realistic. And I do find it frustrating that there is an entirely invisibly passable bloke on the show, and not a corresponding girl, because it perpetuates the stereotype that all trans women are visibly trans due to their voice, appearance, or whatever. I find that assumption really disempowering, and pre-transition that kind of misinformation was TERRIFYING (that nobody corrected the woman who said nothing can be done about adam's apples is kind of awful, frankly). So ya, it bothers me. I'm not ->-bleeped-<-ing nitpicking, and I am happy for them. My criticism is levelled at the SHOW, not at them. Regardless, I like the show, but I still have problems with it. That is one.

   I am personally concerned on what it means to pass on a mainstream show. Who gets to define passing? and why can't passing be self defined by the trans. person?
i see your point about the adams apple information that wasn't provided, that was a problem.
And looks are extremely important, I understand that, I just worry how cis audiences read that, and if there isn't enough information from the trans people being provided on how their transition has been fulfilling them and not just causing them social problems.
And women have adams apples as well, and some men don't. Such as my bf who was biologically assigned male.

Quote from: Torn1990 on November 28, 2011, 04:18:22 PM
skyanne: Can you elaborate on what you mean?  Are you suggesting that I shouldn't even consider talking about race and politics that are outside of the U.S because i'm american and it according to you doesn't affect me? If they started shooting trans people on the streets of Uganda, that represents me still and i'd have an opinion about it  You are right, it's different there, but the way transphobia plays out as we saw on the show in one episode, it's still very similar. I think we all still have things to talk about. Obviously the show has reached media here through youtube. We share the same media outlet. You still make a good point, but what happens anywhere in the trans community regardless of location will still effect us for x,y, and z reasons.

Please don't put words in my mouth. What I said was that you don't understand the social and cultural differences. A more appropriate example would be you watching a show about transgendered people in Uganda and complaining about the under representation of white people.

Without understanding that other cultures are not American cultures, your opinions are always going to be misrepresentative.

Ive spoken to a few cis-people who have said they feel that donna and drew from the show both pass (if they werent watching a show with transexual in the title they wouldnt know). Also ive had a load of people saying that the show has opened their eyes to the emotional side of transition difficulties and gender dysphoria. Even if the show has some failings (which it was destined to purely because of the vastly complicated subject matter and the relative lack of information many cis-people would have had before watching it) I think its come a long way from any other trans-show that has aired in the UK

One other thing, i personally think that Drew and Donna both look better than me (better as in more passable) and they definately sound better aswell. Now i KNOW I pass sometimes, not all the time, probably not most of the time, but some of the time i pass. So it sort of hurts me to hear people questioning (or outright denying) their passability.

Quote from: El on November 29, 2011, 04:50:43 AM
Ive spoken to a few cis-people who have said they feel that donna and drew from the show both pass (if they werent watching a show with transexual in the title they wouldnt know).

Exactly.
Transwomen are way too harsh on each other.
Most cispeople are oblivious to things like that.

Quote from: Queen Anne's Revenge on November 28, 2011, 06:11:55 PM
Another one would be how it's baffling to me that politicians could go on a campaign trail saying they are in favour of getting rid of the entire department of education and be taken seriously as a candidate. If you tried that here you'd be carted away.

It baffles me as well, and I live and vote in the USA. American politics, and the complacency of a large percentage of our citizens has gotten pretty scary.

Z

Quote from: Skyanne on November 29, 2011, 02:45:39 AM
Please don't put words in my mouth. What I said was that you don't understand the social and cultural differences. A more appropriate example would be you watching a show about transgendered people in Uganda and complaining about the under representation of white people.

Without understanding that other cultures are not American cultures, your opinions are always going to be misrepresentative.

Oh no I wasn't trying to put words in your mouth i just wanted to show you how i was interpreting them when I asked you to elaborate.

And absolutely, I just worry that since there are no people of color on the show the representation of trans bodies is still predominately white.
Transition for a person of color is a completely different story.
I'd be happy if Uganda could even do something like this, or even had access to the media. And yes if there was a misrepresentation of white bodies in Uganda relating to transition i'd be complaining about that to! But white people aren't marginalized in the same ways either.
Like the US, the UK has its masses of people of color as well, it's not completely different but it is as you described mostly white populated.
I'm merely discussing representation of trans bodies and how they are usually always all white people in america and in other places.

It's interesting to me that the argument becomes: It's a white population!
It's the privilege of whiteness that allows people to transition. i think they should have made sure they had ethnic diversity on the show when representing trans bodies. I definitely do alot of complaining and I realize that, but thats how things start to get fixed. Just because its a white population doesn't mean there aren't trans people of color that live in the UK and are watching this show.

And with that logic! It's a cis gender population all over, we might as well just cancel My Transsexual Summer altogether!

See, no, you're still not getting it.

There is no 'white priviledge' here. They're all transitioning on the NHS, meaning it's paid for by the state regardless of colour. Colour has absolutely no bearing on changing ones gender in the UK. You could be green and you would still go through exactly the same process.

Quote from: Skyanne on November 29, 2011, 01:34:45 PM
See, no, you're still not getting it.

There is no 'white priviledge' here. They're all transitioning on the NHS, meaning it's paid for by the state regardless of colour. Colour has absolutely no bearing on changing ones gender in the UK. You could be green and you would still go through exactly the same process.

Maybe this will help

http://nymbp.org/reference/WhitePrivilege.pdf

Quote from: Torn1990 on November 29, 2011, 01:41:25 PM
Maybe this will help

http://nymbp.org/reference/WhitePrivilege.pdf

Oh my God...the UK is not the US.

Beyond a few stubborn pockets of racism here and there, there is very little difference between being black/asian/white/whatever here. We are not culturally segregated that way.

We are a different country to you with a different culture and different attitudes.

Quote from: Skyanne on November 29, 2011, 01:44:18 PM
Oh my God...the UK is not the US.

Beyond a few stubborn pockets of racism here and there, there is very little difference between being black/asian/white/whatever here. We are not culturally segregated that way.

We are a different country to you with a different culture and different attitudes.

Are you seriously saying that there is no white privilege here in the UK?

Wow there is alot of PC in this thread.

Quote from: Torn1990 on November 29, 2011, 01:41:25 PM
Maybe this will help

http://nymbp.org/reference/WhitePrivilege.pdf

Arg... this could get ugly quick. Torn, I see where you're trying to go in terms of a general majority privilege in play; but, you don't seem to be grasping just how different the dynamics are. The privileges play out in different ways. One good example here is healthcare - there are a lot of added barriers in the US towards medical transition because you have to pay for it, and generally POC are less well off economically and less able to access credit. Not a factor in the UK due to the health system, which is mainly Skyannes point.

I could go on and on about differences in culture, history, religion, heritage, stereotypes between coloured populations in the UK and the US, but it would take forever. Your 'privilege of whiteness that allows people to transition' idea is not limited just to financial opportunity, I understand that. But the flat access welfare state model in the UK affects education and benefits access as well as healthcare.

There are trans people of colour in Britain. Some of them are almost certainly watching this show. But what you are just not getting is that while a bit of ethnic diversity would be nice, given the minority status of trans people in the general population, finding a few for the show would be way more difficult than in the States. I'd like you to think about this - racial/ethnic diversity seems to be your thing; that's fair enough, it's important and it's a big thing in the US - but, it's not as big a social issue in the UK, and if you wanted to diversify the cast of the show, there are probably more disabled trans people than poc in the UK, never mind trans poc, so why not start there? Perhaps you should think about checking the privilages you bring with you before wading in to comment further. Just a thought.

Quote from: Nathan. on November 29, 2011, 02:31:31 PM
Are you seriously saying that there is no white privilege here in the UK?

Compared to the US? Yeah.

Quote from: Skyanne on November 29, 2011, 02:54:59 PM

Compared to the US? Yeah.

but that means it still exists 

PIXIEGIRL: completely understand. I still enjoy talking about it. Good point about disabled folks. I stand my ground, this show is problematic but that doesn't mean our dialogue has to get ugly, I hope it doesn't anyway. I think these conversations are necessary.