Just making fun of that traditional association. 

Ativan

Quote from: Sarah7 on August 07, 2012, 12:14:51 AM
The English language needs this so very badly. It makes me want to throw things when people argue it is grammatically incorrect. Addison, Austen, Chesterfield, Fielding, Ruskin, Scott, and the Bard himself, William Shakespeare, used it as a gender neutral singular. If that isn't good enough for anybody, they can go soak their head.

Awesome! 

Quote from: agfrommd on August 07, 2012, 01:33:49 PM
I'd say that transition (either binary or non binary) changes only the way we present. A MtF who gets SRS and begins dressing and acting female isn't changing her gender, just the way it's shown to the world (and to herself).

Likewise if I, as a non-binary, were to "transition", it would simply change the way I show myself to the world. It would have no affect on my actual gender.

My posts have been struggling with this very thing. I do want to present as binary - I think the world does not sufficiently understand non-binary gender for me to be able to manage to look like anything but a freak for presenting as non-binary. I admire people at Susan's who have sufficiently thick skin not to care about what people think of them, but that's not for me.

So for me, the decision is which of the two binary genders would I be most comfortable presenting as.

Here here! The other day at our transmasculine support group, the guy who led the group said he would always identify as a transman (not as a man). I think the way he was describing it, he does not feel that he would ever want to leave off the female side of himself. Perhaps this is more bigender. But for myself, I am dysphoric re: female anatomy and presentation. I doubt that's going to change.


--Jay Jay

I've seen a few people say that want to transition from one sex to the other but then come back to the middle and the more I think about that, the more it appeals to me for me.

Quote from: stb820 on September 13, 2012, 04:16:19 PM
I've seen a few people say that want to transition from one sex to the other but then come back to the middle and the more I think about that, the more it appeals to me for me.

Yeah for me too. I'm not so sure yet and am not in a hurry.
I feel like I want to be in a hurry but my reasoning says to take my time.

--Jay Jay

Everyone else has already made some great points here. I personally feel like it's not necessarily transition, it's just what makes you comfortable. It appears that the changes you've made so far have made you far more comfortable in your life. Maybe that's all you needed? Or perhaps, you will push more towards the feminine and find it even more comfortable and want to continue exploring that. What might also happen is that you find it doesn't make you more comfortable, so you step it back again to what you are comfortable with.

From what I can tell, everyone is on a very individualized journey. Even though it seems a lot of people do transition (and you don't hear so much about those that detransition or stop) it seems the main reason why they do is to present to the world as the gender they know they are. Just from my observations there seems to be individual "tipping points" for people where they will try something and discover that it's not enough. Like presenting androgynous. Some may find that very comfortable and it works. But if they really feel their gender is female and society keeps gendering them as male, that might start to become a problem.

While I have been doing what many would call transition over the past nine months, I rarely ever use that word when telling people about what's going on. I am not changing genders, I am simply taking off and discarding masks that others wanted me to wear during my life. I present via clothing and accessories in a way that expresses who I am inside. Often, much of my presentation is feminine leaning, but not 100%. My path might eventually include HRT, however I still feel myself to be occupying my own unique space on a decidedly non binary gender continuum.

Zythyra

Quote from: Zythyra on September 15, 2012, 05:53:26 PM
I am not changing genders, I am simply taking off and discarding masks that others wanted me to wear during my life.

This is what happens. This is how we transition.
Thanks Z!

Ativan

Quote from: Ativan Prescribed on September 15, 2012, 08:37:10 PM

Quote from: Zythyra on September 15, 2012, 05:53:26 PM
I am not changing genders, I am simply taking off and discarding masks that others wanted me to wear during my life.

This is what happens. This is how we transition.
Thanks Z!

Ativan

So true!

Hey, does anyone want to buy some slightly used masks? 

Z

Quote from: Zythyra on September 15, 2012, 10:04:39 PM
This is what happens. This is how we transition.
Thanks Z!

Ativan


So true!

Hey, does anyone want to buy some slightly used masks? 

Z

Coming from a engineers perspective, I think of them as filters. Turn the "Man,Gay, Fem, filters off and a whole new world opens.

It does seem to me that binary genders are slowly getting washed away into a more global sense of humanity as a whole. Men really are starting to take on traditional female roles and vice versa.  I have always considered myself a conglomeration of everyone else. Maybe im just malleable.  I have always fit into any group, but never belonged. I do wonder if there are kindred spirits to me. It seems that the world likes everything to be binary, not just gender. Requires less thought as it allows for mental shortcuts. it does however feel like people are starting to be more aware that things are not so simple. This is not merely some stop during a transition, this is being fully human. In my mind, anyone that thinks about these things will realize that they too fit into this enveloping canopy of humanity

To think in terms of binary seems strange to me. I find myself to be in an area that I defined as between.
It's edges are just as grey as they are becoming to binary people, a wide thick line of grey.
Whether one wants to explore this middle ground or not, it is here.
There are many of us here, some live in that grey area, as defined by them.
Binary thinking, besides genders, is to black and white, on or off.
Nothing is ever that simple.
It is an imaginary concept used to define something as one or the other.
It's kind of like that glass half full/half empty thing. It's a concept.
Reality is, is that it is a glass with water in it, no more no less. It will never be exactly half.
Neither is binary this or that. Gender is an excellent example of biodiversity.
Just like a glass with water in it. You see it as you want to see it, define it as you want to.
You decide how much water is in it.
People are becoming more aware of themselves as self defining, not as society defines them.
The truth is that perception is everything. You are no more than that.
Yet, you are, because you can self define yourself.
Gender is like that, it's truth is in perception, and you get to define that, as you are.
*there's air in the glass, also*

Ativan

As a programmer, I once tried to stuff the logic of life into the logic of math. Science as a while is full of this backward thought.  In nature we often behave in mannersunexplainable in a mathematical sense.  We dont always act logically, our even always how are genetics dictate we should. Human actions always perplex me because I really do think in terms of binaries.  However, my own emotive expressions are often completely counter to my logical mind, and I am realizing that I, and everyone else exist in a space that differs from the apparent logical space we can measure. At least as far as emotions are concerned

It strikes me that for some people, instead of androgyny being a first step towards fully transitioning, fully transitioning is the last step towards androgyny, since androgyny's where their transition is leading them .

There is a place between on and off. It is merely when both are at the same time.
Binary moves from zero to one. Therefore, there is something between them.
Emotions are like that, but more like the difference between -1 and 1.
The difference is only in what direction you are looking at it, the value is the same, yet different.
Emotions can be predicted by algorithm's, yet that is a prediction, it doesn't explain the emotion.
Emotions are the result of perceptions that we all share, but in different ways than anyone else.
Sometimes the perceptions line up and we have an agreement of reality.
But they don't always line up perfectly. I doubt they ever really do, they are just close enough.
Binary is hard to express because it has only two states.
Non-binary has any state that is in between, anywhere.
Yet our language reflects binary thinking, making an explanation of non-binary difficult.
Non-binary is in the agreement of perception, regardless if it is -1 or 1.
Or anything that could be in between. Lots of perceptions, lots of emotions.
Non-binary thinking allows for all the disagreements, acknowledges the agreements, and moves on.
To me, binary thinking only allows for an agreement or not, and moves on.
Emotion is in the disagreements of perception.
We could look at each other with the same love, yet it would not be in agreement because our perception is from different points of view.
We could be mad at each other the same way.
Description of our perceptions whether to others or to ourselves is never quantitative.
It's a round thing. It's a rock. It's a clump of minerals. Its...so many things, but it's still just a rock, a round thing.
Emotions and non-binary thinking are like that.

Ativan

Honestly, this whole between zero and one business sounds a lot like quibits in quantum field theory.  I'd rationalized them in my mind as the unmeasured state of binary reality.  the emotional state being "predictable" also sounds like a quibit. You can guess its state with a certain amount of likelihood, but sometimes something totally random seems to happen.  In quantum theory, there are really 2 realities, the quantum state in which matter behaves like waves, and the real state which can be measured and where matter behave like particles. Everything exists in this flux between the 2 states.  analogizing quantum theory with the state of androgyny is at least giving me an understandable concept to relate to.

I think the two perceived end-points, the 0 and 1 (or -1 and 1) are themselves just probability fields - there is no male or female singularity.

They are just points in a field of an unknown number of points that defines gender.
Feel free to put them together in any manner which suits you.
You can change the points, the entire structure you make in whatever time frame suits you, also.
If you feel the need to move some of them around, go ahead.
It's yours to play with, we each get our own set.
Your set is the same as everyone else's, it's up to you to find the points that fit together for you.
Your set just looks different than my set because you see it differently.

Brain-locked,
Ativan

Quote from: Padma on September 16, 2012, 06:21:24 PM
I think the two perceived end-points, the 0 and 1 (or -1 and 1) are themselves just probability fields - there is no male or female singularity.

Up next from the LHC, understanding the particle_wave duality of gender

Schrödinger's Gender.