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You don't agree with referring to people as the gender that they consider themselves? There's a lot of people out there that don't like their first names, so t

You don't agree with referring to people as the gender that they consider themselves? There's a lot of people out there that don't like their first names, so they go by their middle names. I don't see how calling a female-to-male transgendered person "she" or "he/she" is any different from calling someone that prefers their middle name by their first name. In both cases, you're shoehorning them into a way of identifying themselves that works fine for most people (Most people go by their first names; most people go by the gender they were biologically born as.) but does not work for them. In both cases you're being an asshole.

TGJ 16y ago
Thank you for calling me an asshole for not agreeing with you. Thank you for calling me an asshole for not subscribing to the same set of morals that you have. Thank you for calling me an asshole for thinking that drugs and cosmetic surgery do not make the person, the person just is. Thank you for calling me an asshole.
- joshzayin 16y ago
  > the person just is Exactly. Transsexuals were born with the incorrect genitals. The drugs and cosmetic surgery do not correct their gender--just the physical expression of it. Referring to them as the incorrect gender is no different than referring to a cisgendered person as the incorrect gender--worse, actually, because transsexuals likely struggle with identity issues and bigotry much more so than cisgendered people, and by referring to a transgendered person by the incorrect gender, you're only making that problem worse.
  - TGJ 16y ago
    So what would this person be 100 years ago? Without these options of drugs and cosmetics, that person would have to deal with they way that they were born. They would have to live life as the person that they were born. They are not fixing anything by taking drugs or cosmetics, they are hiding from the underlying problems of self-identity. You going along with the charade only complicates the problem of the person not actualizing the situation that they are in and dealing with it. I offered no bigotry, but I sure received it.
    - joshzayin 16y ago
      Bigotry? What is your definition of bigotry that you think any response you've received is bigoted? As to what they would've done 100 years ago, how is that in any way relevant? This isn't "hiding" any issues--transsexuality is a medically diagnosable condition, not just a "self-identity" problem that they are "hiding from," and to imply otherwise is a huge insult to transsexuals.
      - reneherse 16y ago
        down-voted for what exactly? this seems to be as civil a debate as any other.
    - spicyj 16y ago
      This person would have been a man just as much, regardless of whether he would have had to live his life in a woman's body. Your argument is that drugs and cosmetic surgery change nothing about a person's true identity, and that's true. The thing is, he can fix some of his self-identity problems by undergoing a sex change. Like jackowayed says, the reality is that there are transgendered people who are not happy with their sex at birth, just as there are gays who love men instead of women and bisexuals who are attracted to people of both sexes. Your perception of what's normal and acceptable doesn't change who people really are.
      - TGJ 16y ago
        If you can't be who you are now, what hope do you have to be anything else later? And once you become fine with who you are, why do you need to change?
    - natrius 16y ago
      A couple hundred years ago, you probably would've had to live with the childhood infection that would lead to your untimely demise. Why did you insist on taking drugs to avoid your destiny? You seem to think that it's in this person's best interests to refer to him using whatever gender correlates most closely with his chromosomes, but I'm not sure what makes you think you know what the best way to handle such self-identity issues is. Are you a psychologist?
  - _delirium 16y ago
    This is where I see an odd tension between my quite-left-wing views on gender (at least, fitting with a portion of the left) and the views generally promoted by this portion of the LGBT universe. Since I don't really believe in the gender binary, it's quite strange to even talk about "correct" or "incorrect" genitals, except perhaps as shorthand for "physical sex characteristics that are in greater/lesser conformance to socially constructed gender norms for that sex". I can certainly see why someone who felt they better matched the A gender role but was born with B sex characteristics would want to switch, but I see that as more of a problem with rigid gender roles than with anything else. It even a little uncomfortably feels like it perpetuates traditional gender/sex views, that there's something incorrect about someone with particular physical characteristics not fitting a particular gender role--- and that they need to correct it by changing their physical characteristics to match. That's certainly a choice people can legitimately make, but phrasing it as correct/incorrect comes uncomforatbly close to stigmatizing people who don't match traditional gender/sex conformance and yet don't feel that there's anything about that that needs "correcting". (I agree in either case on calling people by whatever gender pronoun they prefer, though.)
    - joshzayin 16y ago
      It's not so much the gender role or social norms that matter--not all effeminate men feel that they should be women, and vice versa. By saying "incorrect genitals," I was simply using a shorthand for "incorrect biological gender," or a biological gender which a person does not identify with. That sentence could be rephrased as "Transsexuals were born with the biological gender, compared to their psychological gender." (N.B. I'm not sure if "psychological gender" is the commonly used phrase, but I think it's adequate to communicate my meaning.)
      - deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
  - loewenskind 16y ago
    Conversations like this make me wonder what is the nature of mental issues. Why do we decide that if a person is born completely as one gender but somehow has this feeling that they are actually the opposite one that their body just chose the wrong genitals while if someone is born with a mind predisposed toward murder they are insane. What is the criteria that decides it? Obviously feeling like a man when born a woman doesn't hurt anyone, but does washing my hands "too much" hurt anyone? Personally I just consider you all filthy.
- jackowayed 16y ago
  First of all, there's a difference between "you're being an asshole" and "you're an asshole." "Being an asshole" is a transient state of doing something asshole-like. Even the best people do this at times. I chose the term "being an asshole" carefully. > Thank you for calling me an asshole for not agreeing with you. I don't think disagreeing with me makes someone an asshole. I think that some actions, which may or may not stem from differing beliefs, are asshole-like. If you believe that he's still a woman, fine. But if you refuse to respect him enough to call him "he" even though that's what he considers himself and wants to be called (whether or not you agree that he's male), you're being an asshole. Especially because being transgendered is extremely hard. In most parts of the US, it's now socially acceptable to be gay. Some people will still have hangups, you'll still face some hostility, etc. but it's not where near as bad as it used to be. Transgendered people are still basically where gay people were 40 years ago. Calling them by one pronoun when they prefer the other just adds to their feeling that society doesn't accept them. So you're not only disrespecting their preferences, you're disrespecting a preference that's related to an issue where they've faced a lot of strife. > Thank you for calling me an asshole for thinking that drugs and cosmetic surgery do not make the person, the person just is. Drugs and cosmetic surgery don't make the person. But neither does the body. If someone who physically is a woman in every way and hasn't even started taking testosterone yet tells you that he is transgendered and considers himself a man, use male pronouns to refer to him as well.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
PostOnce 16y ago
You can go ahead and start calling me black, then. Also, you have to accept that I identify as blind. Just because I am sighted doesn't mean I can't identify as blind. And deaf. Sign everything you say to me, because although I hear perfectly, I identify as deaf. Fuck political correctness. That's for retards. Oops, did I just say retards? That's not very politically correct of me. People can do whatever the hell they want, that's fine, but they have no right to expect me to change my behavior. They do what pleases them, I do what pleases me. Neither of us may please each other, and that should be fine. Why do you care so much?
- lwhi 16y ago
  No .. you have no right to treat people according to your own closed-minded and bigoted views. If we were all to follow your ugly example of what 'freedom' involves, racism and prejudice would be accepted blindly. It's only those who are part of the status quo, who can be as cavalier about the subject of 'political correctness' as you are. You're an ass. Why? Because all of your comparisons assume that the author's reasoning is imagined and fabricated. You are totally negating something which is obviously vitally important to the author. It's a fact that transgendered people's needs are real, and that not dealing with these needs causes a great deal of pain and disadvantage for those involved. It's not politically correct to think this - it's simply part of being a decent human being.
  - PostOnce 16y ago
    I do have a right to treat people however I please, and they have the right to choose not to interact with me. If I want to make myself a pariah, by whatever means, then I damn well have the right to do so. And if by insisting to be referred to as a man, someone else makes themselves a pariah, that was also their choice. Live and let live, I say, but that does not mean you should acquiesce just because someone feels their views are right (i.e., agree with you, heh, what makes your views any more right than mine, or the people who upvoted me?). Just because something is important to someone else doesn't mean I have to give a fuck about it. For example, I am not going to be a vegan just because other people think it's bad to eat meat. Also, calling me an ass really strengthened your argument. Kudos.
nandemo 16y ago
John Middle Doe may ask to be called John, or Middle, or Doe. Nobody can deny that these names can all refer to the same person. But if Mr. Doe asked to be addressed as the King of France surely he would be regarded as delusional. One could still say that calling him Mr. Doe "does not work for him" but I can't see how that makes it wrong. Now, some of us are skeptical that a person born as a man can literally become a woman, or that there are women out there who just happened to be born "trapped" inside a man's body (and vice-versa). Note that this doesn't imply bigotry of any sort. Personally I don't care strongly about the matter. I would address the OP as "he" if I was talking directly to him. But I wouldn't feel guilty at all of speaking of her outside that.

TGJ 16y ago

Thank you for calling me an asshole for not agreeing with you. Thank you for calling me an asshole for not subscribing to the same set of morals that you have. Thank you for calling me an asshole for thinking that drugs and cosmetic surgery do not make the person, the person just is. Thank you for calling me an asshole.

joshzayin 16y ago
> the person just is Exactly. Transsexuals were born with the incorrect genitals. The drugs and cosmetic surgery do not correct their gender--just the physical expression of it. Referring to them as the incorrect gender is no different than referring to a cisgendered person as the incorrect gender--worse, actually, because transsexuals likely struggle with identity issues and bigotry much more so than cisgendered people, and by referring to a transgendered person by the incorrect gender, you're only making that problem worse.
- TGJ 16y ago
  So what would this person be 100 years ago? Without these options of drugs and cosmetics, that person would have to deal with they way that they were born. They would have to live life as the person that they were born. They are not fixing anything by taking drugs or cosmetics, they are hiding from the underlying problems of self-identity. You going along with the charade only complicates the problem of the person not actualizing the situation that they are in and dealing with it. I offered no bigotry, but I sure received it.
  - joshzayin 16y ago
    Bigotry? What is your definition of bigotry that you think any response you've received is bigoted? As to what they would've done 100 years ago, how is that in any way relevant? This isn't "hiding" any issues--transsexuality is a medically diagnosable condition, not just a "self-identity" problem that they are "hiding from," and to imply otherwise is a huge insult to transsexuals.
    - reneherse 16y ago
      down-voted for what exactly? this seems to be as civil a debate as any other.
  - spicyj 16y ago
    This person would have been a man just as much, regardless of whether he would have had to live his life in a woman's body. Your argument is that drugs and cosmetic surgery change nothing about a person's true identity, and that's true. The thing is, he can fix some of his self-identity problems by undergoing a sex change. Like jackowayed says, the reality is that there are transgendered people who are not happy with their sex at birth, just as there are gays who love men instead of women and bisexuals who are attracted to people of both sexes. Your perception of what's normal and acceptable doesn't change who people really are.
    - TGJ 16y ago
      If you can't be who you are now, what hope do you have to be anything else later? And once you become fine with who you are, why do you need to change?
  - natrius 16y ago
    A couple hundred years ago, you probably would've had to live with the childhood infection that would lead to your untimely demise. Why did you insist on taking drugs to avoid your destiny? You seem to think that it's in this person's best interests to refer to him using whatever gender correlates most closely with his chromosomes, but I'm not sure what makes you think you know what the best way to handle such self-identity issues is. Are you a psychologist?
- _delirium 16y ago
  This is where I see an odd tension between my quite-left-wing views on gender (at least, fitting with a portion of the left) and the views generally promoted by this portion of the LGBT universe. Since I don't really believe in the gender binary, it's quite strange to even talk about "correct" or "incorrect" genitals, except perhaps as shorthand for "physical sex characteristics that are in greater/lesser conformance to socially constructed gender norms for that sex". I can certainly see why someone who felt they better matched the A gender role but was born with B sex characteristics would want to switch, but I see that as more of a problem with rigid gender roles than with anything else. It even a little uncomfortably feels like it perpetuates traditional gender/sex views, that there's something incorrect about someone with particular physical characteristics not fitting a particular gender role--- and that they need to correct it by changing their physical characteristics to match. That's certainly a choice people can legitimately make, but phrasing it as correct/incorrect comes uncomforatbly close to stigmatizing people who don't match traditional gender/sex conformance and yet don't feel that there's anything about that that needs "correcting". (I agree in either case on calling people by whatever gender pronoun they prefer, though.)
  - joshzayin 16y ago
    It's not so much the gender role or social norms that matter--not all effeminate men feel that they should be women, and vice versa. By saying "incorrect genitals," I was simply using a shorthand for "incorrect biological gender," or a biological gender which a person does not identify with. That sentence could be rephrased as "Transsexuals were born with the biological gender, compared to their psychological gender." (N.B. I'm not sure if "psychological gender" is the commonly used phrase, but I think it's adequate to communicate my meaning.)
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
- loewenskind 16y ago
  Conversations like this make me wonder what is the nature of mental issues. Why do we decide that if a person is born completely as one gender but somehow has this feeling that they are actually the opposite one that their body just chose the wrong genitals while if someone is born with a mind predisposed toward murder they are insane. What is the criteria that decides it? Obviously feeling like a man when born a woman doesn't hurt anyone, but does washing my hands "too much" hurt anyone? Personally I just consider you all filthy.
jackowayed 16y ago
First of all, there's a difference between "you're being an asshole" and "you're an asshole." "Being an asshole" is a transient state of doing something asshole-like. Even the best people do this at times. I chose the term "being an asshole" carefully. > Thank you for calling me an asshole for not agreeing with you. I don't think disagreeing with me makes someone an asshole. I think that some actions, which may or may not stem from differing beliefs, are asshole-like. If you believe that he's still a woman, fine. But if you refuse to respect him enough to call him "he" even though that's what he considers himself and wants to be called (whether or not you agree that he's male), you're being an asshole. Especially because being transgendered is extremely hard. In most parts of the US, it's now socially acceptable to be gay. Some people will still have hangups, you'll still face some hostility, etc. but it's not where near as bad as it used to be. Transgendered people are still basically where gay people were 40 years ago. Calling them by one pronoun when they prefer the other just adds to their feeling that society doesn't accept them. So you're not only disrespecting their preferences, you're disrespecting a preference that's related to an issue where they've faced a lot of strife. > Thank you for calling me an asshole for thinking that drugs and cosmetic surgery do not make the person, the person just is. Drugs and cosmetic surgery don't make the person. But neither does the body. If someone who physically is a woman in every way and hasn't even started taking testosterone yet tells you that he is transgendered and considers himself a man, use male pronouns to refer to him as well.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

PostOnce 16y ago

You can go ahead and start calling me black, then. Also, you have to accept that I identify as blind. Just because I am sighted doesn't mean I can't identify as blind. And deaf. Sign everything you say to me, because although I hear perfectly, I identify as deaf. Fuck political correctness. That's for retards. Oops, did I just say retards? That's not very politically correct of me. People can do whatever the hell they want, that's fine, but they have no right to expect me to change my behavior. They do what pleases them, I do what pleases me. Neither of us may please each other, and that should be fine. Why do you care so much?

lwhi 16y ago
No .. you have no right to treat people according to your own closed-minded and bigoted views. If we were all to follow your ugly example of what 'freedom' involves, racism and prejudice would be accepted blindly. It's only those who are part of the status quo, who can be as cavalier about the subject of 'political correctness' as you are. You're an ass. Why? Because all of your comparisons assume that the author's reasoning is imagined and fabricated. You are totally negating something which is obviously vitally important to the author. It's a fact that transgendered people's needs are real, and that not dealing with these needs causes a great deal of pain and disadvantage for those involved. It's not politically correct to think this - it's simply part of being a decent human being.
- PostOnce 16y ago
  I do have a right to treat people however I please, and they have the right to choose not to interact with me. If I want to make myself a pariah, by whatever means, then I damn well have the right to do so. And if by insisting to be referred to as a man, someone else makes themselves a pariah, that was also their choice. Live and let live, I say, but that does not mean you should acquiesce just because someone feels their views are right (i.e., agree with you, heh, what makes your views any more right than mine, or the people who upvoted me?). Just because something is important to someone else doesn't mean I have to give a fuck about it. For example, I am not going to be a vegan just because other people think it's bad to eat meat. Also, calling me an ass really strengthened your argument. Kudos.

nandemo 16y ago

John Middle Doe may ask to be called John, or Middle, or Doe. Nobody can deny that these names can all refer to the same person. But if Mr. Doe asked to be addressed as the King of France surely he would be regarded as delusional. One could still say that calling him Mr. Doe "does not work for him" but I can't see how that makes it wrong. Now, some of us are skeptical that a person born as a man can literally become a woman, or that there are women out there who just happened to be born "trapped" inside a man's body (and vice-versa). Note that this doesn't imply bigotry of any sort. Personally I don't care strongly about the matter. I would address the OP as "he" if I was talking directly to him. But I wouldn't feel guilty at all of speaking of her outside that.