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> They also don't self-identify as trans. A lot of them do. > They take everything so personal even if its not about them. Is this an actual experience? I've

> They also don't self-identify as trans. A lot of them do. > They take everything so personal even if its not about them. Is this an actual experience? I've worked with/interacted with quite a few queer people. And I've misgendered people on more than one occasion. Nothing a "shit sorry" hasn't been able to fix. This forces me to wonder why our experiences are so different. Do the queer people I work with have different norms than yours? Do I have some level of legitimacy among them that you don't? Or is there something else at play?

deleted 6y ago
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blueflow 6y ago
Assuming you are from the US (im not) and work at Google, i guess its that your ideas about the LGBT community might come from people who actively participate in identity politics. If they do, they have interest in not passing and constantly outing themselves to demonstrate their minority status, because this is what they think makes their voice 'valid'. If you go trans because you suffer from gender dysphoria, your 'fix' is to become accepted as the gender you identify as. To achieve it, you do HRT and a surgery (if you suffer from bottom dysphoria), and you present yourself as the gender you identify as, NOT as trans. This goes so far that these people correct you if you call them trans - they are a "Man" or a "Woman" now. If these people pass, they also pass as cis and are thus not easily recognizable as having undergone transition. I'm active in a fan community of an Anime that features dissociation, so it accidentally attracts people with gender dysphoria. I had affairs with some people from this community and, this way, also got into the gay/trans community, which has an significant overlap. This is how i learned that identity politics is not representative of queer people. Heck, even the CSD/gay pride with the rainbow flags isn't representative of the gay community - many sexually deviant people just want to live a normal life and not be associated with pants where your butt cheeks peek out. I'm one of them.
- joshuamorton 6y ago
  > If they do, they have interest in not passing and constantly outing themselves to demonstrate their minority status, because this is what they think makes their voice 'valid'. This is a bit of an outdated view on being "trans". I'll elaborate a bit because this old view on transness I think is the main difference in our views. As background, I assume we'll both agree that gender is (in western society anyway) stereotypically expressed as a binary: masculine and feminine. The extent and degree of this binary has shifted over time. At one point women wearing pants was unacceptable. The historical view of transness was that people who are trans wanted to present as the other part of the binary. "I want to be seen as a man instead of a woman". This raises a question: why? The answer follows: "Because I feel like I should be a woman." If you stop at the first question, your view of trans identities make sense: a trans identity is only valid if it fits snuggly into the existing gender binary. You are a biological male who identifies as a women, or a biological female who identifies as a man. And while both of those work under the second framing, gender nonconforming identities, which don't feel like they should be a woman, but instead feel like they shouldn't be a man (or a woman). I'll note that I'm intentionally simplifying here which has the consequence of erasing some identities like gender-fluidity. The framing still works for those, but the answers are different. So "old" trans was about perception, "new" trans is about identity. Passing (or not) doesn't make someone's voice valid. Identity does. If you identify as trans, you are and that identity is valid is really how I'd summarize things. There's the potential for abuse of this, but in practice it doesn't happen. So I reject the notion that one need to be visibly non-passing to be valid in any circle. This I think also addresses much of your second paragraph: there are many people who choose to identify as trans even though they are passing or mostly passing, if only because the shared experience is useful to identify. And they may do so only in certain circles (e.g. Be "out" only in queer circles where they feel more free to discuss their trans experiences). > many sexually deviant I'd be careful conflating sexual deviancy with LGBT identities for two reasons. First, "sexual deviancy" has historically been used as a pejorative for LGBT people in the US, and I assume elsewhere. And second, it's not particularly relevant. In psychology, "sexual deviancy" refers to paraphilias or kinks, which are explicitly sexual in nature. But a trans or gay person could be totally asexual. Even still, they could be romantically attracted to same sex people or have some gender dysphoria. Neither implies anything about the act of sex itself.

deleted 6y ago

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blueflow 6y ago

Assuming you are from the US (im not) and work at Google, i guess its that your ideas about the LGBT community might come from people who actively participate in identity politics. If they do, they have interest in not passing and constantly outing themselves to demonstrate their minority status, because this is what they think makes their voice 'valid'. If you go trans because you suffer from gender dysphoria, your 'fix' is to become accepted as the gender you identify as. To achieve it, you do HRT and a surgery (if you suffer from bottom dysphoria), and you present yourself as the gender you identify as, NOT as trans. This goes so far that these people correct you if you call them trans - they are a "Man" or a "Woman" now. If these people pass, they also pass as cis and are thus not easily recognizable as having undergone transition. I'm active in a fan community of an Anime that features dissociation, so it accidentally attracts people with gender dysphoria. I had affairs with some people from this community and, this way, also got into the gay/trans community, which has an significant overlap. This is how i learned that identity politics is not representative of queer people. Heck, even the CSD/gay pride with the rainbow flags isn't representative of the gay community - many sexually deviant people just want to live a normal life and not be associated with pants where your butt cheeks peek out. I'm one of them.

joshuamorton 6y ago
> If they do, they have interest in not passing and constantly outing themselves to demonstrate their minority status, because this is what they think makes their voice 'valid'. This is a bit of an outdated view on being "trans". I'll elaborate a bit because this old view on transness I think is the main difference in our views. As background, I assume we'll both agree that gender is (in western society anyway) stereotypically expressed as a binary: masculine and feminine. The extent and degree of this binary has shifted over time. At one point women wearing pants was unacceptable. The historical view of transness was that people who are trans wanted to present as the other part of the binary. "I want to be seen as a man instead of a woman". This raises a question: why? The answer follows: "Because I feel like I should be a woman." If you stop at the first question, your view of trans identities make sense: a trans identity is only valid if it fits snuggly into the existing gender binary. You are a biological male who identifies as a women, or a biological female who identifies as a man. And while both of those work under the second framing, gender nonconforming identities, which don't feel like they should be a woman, but instead feel like they shouldn't be a man (or a woman). I'll note that I'm intentionally simplifying here which has the consequence of erasing some identities like gender-fluidity. The framing still works for those, but the answers are different. So "old" trans was about perception, "new" trans is about identity. Passing (or not) doesn't make someone's voice valid. Identity does. If you identify as trans, you are and that identity is valid is really how I'd summarize things. There's the potential for abuse of this, but in practice it doesn't happen. So I reject the notion that one need to be visibly non-passing to be valid in any circle. This I think also addresses much of your second paragraph: there are many people who choose to identify as trans even though they are passing or mostly passing, if only because the shared experience is useful to identify. And they may do so only in certain circles (e.g. Be "out" only in queer circles where they feel more free to discuss their trans experiences). > many sexually deviant I'd be careful conflating sexual deviancy with LGBT identities for two reasons. First, "sexual deviancy" has historically been used as a pejorative for LGBT people in the US, and I assume elsewhere. And second, it's not particularly relevant. In psychology, "sexual deviancy" refers to paraphilias or kinks, which are explicitly sexual in nature. But a trans or gay person could be totally asexual. Even still, they could be romantically attracted to same sex people or have some gender dysphoria. Neither implies anything about the act of sex itself.