Is it Trans phobic to say only women get abortions?

[Antimony]

But this isn't an equivilant conversation. At all.

There is no one on this thread, so far, who is saying that trans people shouldn't be identified however they prefer. Frankly, I think adding the " trans" or " cis" in front of everything- unless the conversation specifically relates to the trans aspect" defetes the entire point - but that's just my perception. If you're a trans man in everyday social situations - wouldn't you just identify as a man? Wouldn't adding trans negate that? Wouldn't your friends adding " cis" as descriptir highlight the differences? I don't get that part. But no one is saying that trans people shouldn't be called whatever they prefer. Obviously very few people are going to choose to be called a slur. No one here is advocating using slurs.

What people are objecting to is changing the entire language not to describe the handful of trans men who become pregnant -- but to describe the vast, vast majority of pregnant people - women who identify as women. It's saying that because this handful of people don't prefer this term - even though it is absolutely medically accurate - the entire rest of the world who share this medical / biological status - need to change their definitions of themselves.

I will say that prefixes are largely used, yes, when it relates to the situation at hand. Academically and social discussions like this and usually in training seminars so we have clear terminology but almost never will somebody introduce themselves with a prefix or something, unless it's formal activism.

[OkToBeTakei]

Maybe. But I think it is a useful word to have and is really skyrocketing as far as common usage. Then again, my education is chemical so I heard it and was like,"oh, so not transgender. Makes sense" and found it super accessible.

Not knowing the term certainly doesn't prevent support but it does fill in the otherwuse wordy lexical gap and sort of prevent people from defaulting to something like 'normal'.

Yes normal is a dreadful default. Woman man trans woman trans man. Intersex. Too simple I suppose and undoubtedly will offend somebody.

Oh I tried. But I'm not reading a 'blog' post which has about twenty uses of the word supposed in the first two paragraphs and wishes to link the way we view gender as a Marxist concept. I miss JFC :)

From the comments

Astonishing work. If the majority of humanity does not fit neatly into these bourgeois socially constructed so-called “biological sexual categoriesâ€, then what are we to make of cis privilege? How can be transform this deconstruction of so-called biology into a revolution praxis? Are non-dualistic sexual/gender identities like transexualism a necessary prerequisite for revolutionary subjectivity in the fullest sense?

Wow!!!

[Ofglen]

Yes normal is a dreadful default. Woman man trans woman trans man. Intersex. Too simple I suppose and undoubtedly will offend somebody.

Oh I tried. But I'm not reading a 'blog' post which has about twenty uses of the word supposed in the first two paragraphs and wishes to link the way we view gender as a Marxist concept. I miss JFC :)

From the comments

Astonishing work. If the majority of humanity does not fit neatly into these bourgeois socially constructed so-called “biological sexual categoriesâ€, then what are we to make of cis privilege? How can be transform this deconstruction of so-called biology into a revolution praxis? Are non-dualistic sexual/gender identities like transexualism a necessary prerequisite for revolutionary subjectivity in the fullest sense?

Wow!!!

Basing your view of a post off of it's comments? :angry-banghead:

As a response to that bullshit, pretentious comment- sexual categories are socially constructed. Cis privilege is a result of that.

[OkToBeTakei]

No I read the first four paragraphs. Then the comments. I'm generally just always a bit lairy of blog posts and opinions based as fact or education.

[Ofglen]

Imo, it's useful to have labels like transgender and cisgender. Not to have them forced on people, but for people to describe their own experiences with. The experience of a trans person is no doubt going to be very different than that of a cis person and the labels help us identify those differences. Getting rid of the labels won't get rid of the discrimination of trans people, it would just mean that trans people would struggle to explain their experiences.

[Ofglen]

No I read the first four paragraphs. Then the comments. I'm generally just always a bit lairy of blog posts and opinions based as fact or education.

It sounds like you're just not open to having your opinions questioned.

[Firiel]

I remember once my boyfriend mentioned feeling guilty or remorse for being a white male. I told him that he shouldn't feel bad just because he was born with privilege (i.e. being a white male). He should only feel bad for the times in his life where he has used that privilege to reinforce harmful power structures.

Now, I still intellectually believe I was right when I said that-- I don't think it helps anything to feel guilty for being born with privilege.

But I'll be damned-- I know how he feels now!

[Firiel]

BTW, Ofglen, I enjoyed the article you posted. I had never considered the idea that sex is socially constructed in the way that gender is. It's given me a lot to think about. I found the mention of secondary sexual traits really interesting. I was kind of stuck in thinking of breasts and beards as secondary sexual traits. Mentioning the low voice really stuck out to me, being a female tenor. I've always felt self-conscious about my low voice because it's not "feminine" but I hadn't considered it in the terms that post laid out.

Question: Are there any academics that you know of that are writing interesting stuff on gender and sexual identity?

[Mama Mia]

I'm saying that sex is a social construct. Read this. It's kind of wordy but if you can get through it I think it will be very helpful for understanding what I am talking about.

http://anti-imperialism.com/2014/02/24/ ... ex-part-1/

.

I am wading through this. I have to say that this is one of the most blatant misrepresentations of statistics to prove a point I've EVER seen. And I used to write and review social services grants as part of my job, so that's really saying something.

To start with -- to come up with intersex conditions effecting 2% of the population they include a wide variety of conditions , most of which are extremely rare - and add in some much more common conditions - that don't even neccessarily impact biological " sex" AT ALL. AND their chart of conditions that they got these numbers from includes BOTH the specific conditions, the more general grouping AND the possible cause and adds them ALL together. Seriously WTF. FYI, I'm using the " research" tables from the primary quoted " researcher" and hell yes those are scare quotes around researcher in this case.

And then, to top it off, the article says that if you add in ALL the possible ways that someone doesnt exactly fit the male or female physical mode -- the majority - that's right majority- of people don't fit into male or female ! Some of these characteristics include women who have broader shoulders than some men , men who have less body hair than some women and so on. That's right if you are a Northern European woman swimmer you are likely on the continuum of intersex, and so is the Asian male they compared you to.

Head bangingly BAD statistics.

[OkToBeTakei]

Imo, it's useful to have labels like transgender and cisgender. Not to have them forced on people, but for people to describe their own experiences with. The experience of a trans person is no doubt going to be very different than that of a cis person and the labels help us identify those differences. Getting rid of the labels won't get rid of the discrimination of trans people, it would just mean that trans people would struggle to explain their experiences.

I can see that and I see how the term cisgender can be used explain the experience of a trans person, almost as a starting block. So that others can start from the same base per se. I'm not sure all the other cis prefixes help to dispel confusion.

I've had many bad experiences with blog posts presented as fact but if it's an opinion piece my apologies, I will certainly give it a bash in that light.

God forbid the thinly veiled and immature digs of my privilege should stand in the way of learning :lol: pathetic way to debate.

I'm sure you would prefer honesty rather than I blow air up your arse.

JFC is a poster here ...absent for a while who would have loved to see Marxism referenced no matter the context. Just an fyi if you did not know her.

[nelliebelle1197]

I want Jesus Fight Club back! Good old soul was she.

[OkToBeTakei]

I am wading through this. I have to say that this is one of the most blatant misrepresentations of statistics to prove a point I've EVER seen. And I used to write and review social services grants as part of my job, so that's really saying something.

To start with -- to come up with intersex conditions effecting 2% of the population they include a wide variety of conditions , most of which are extremely rare - and add in some much more common conditions - that don't even neccessarily impact biological " sex" AT ALL. AND their chart of conditions that they got these numbers from includes BOTH the specific conditions, the more general grouping AND the possible cause and adds them ALL together. Seriously WTF. FYI, I'm using the " research" tables from the primary quoted " researcher" and hell yes those are scare quotes around researcher in this case.

And then, to top it off, the article says that if you add in ALL the possible ways that someone doesnt exactly fit the male or female physical mode -- the majority - that's right majority- of people don't fit into male or female ! Some of these characteristics include women who have broader shoulders than some men , men who have less body hair than some women and so on. That's right if you are a Northern European woman swimmer you are likely on the continuum of intersex, and so is the Asian male they compared you to.

Head bangingly BAD statistics.

I'm still getting over all the newborn babies who are 'immediately' operated on. Tens to hundred millions of them :(

Ah well, I tried. I'm trying to find something positive to say........the writer said part two is slow going. That's a relief.

[eri]

Sex != gender. If your sex is male but you identify as a woman, you are a woman. But no one of the male sex can get pregnant. Not all women can get pregnant; not all women can get abortions.

[2xx1xy1JD]

When you go to the doctor, your body type is ALL that is relevant. If identifying as a neutral woman-man makes you a neutral in EVERY sense of the word, do you shun medical care for your female-sexed body parts because, dammit, you're not a woman-woman, and therefore your body is sexless? Your medical needs DO NOT CHANGE just because you gender-identify as something other than a woman-woman.

My god, I have friends who identify as boy man and woman, and friends who identify as no sex, and all they've ever asked is for discretion in a doctor's office, and for their preferred pronouns to be used. You are the FIRST trans or non-binary person I've EVER encountered who expects medicine to stop using biological sex and to start pretending that gender identity changes the physical body. I just send screen-caps of all of what you've said here to a trans-activitst friend of mine (this friend has been invited to meet the president because of the level of zir's activism), and ze said that you sound like a "sick, satirical parody" because you really expect medical science to ignore biology in favor of gender identity.

I don't know why you can't understand that biology and gender are separate things, and that in a medical setting, gender is entirely irrelevant when a doctor's purpose is to keep your body alive and healthy. A doctor can't do that is they're supposed to treat a biological-woman as if that person has a male body because of gender identity. That's literally asking for a doctor to commit malpractice.

FTR my husband has a trans man patient and uses the male pronouns exclusively. His history is relevant because medicine is about more than just the physical. Psychosocial factors matter too. His trans history is recorded in the chart because his life story is not the same as someone who was always identified as male.

As for the original question, abortion is not simply a medical procedure like any other. It's treatment by law and society is deeply gendered. Any trans man who faces barriers to abortion faces misogyny, regardless of whether he identified as a man or woman. There are many times that someone's experience of discrimination does not match up with their stated identity. You see this In racial and ethnic contexts all the time.

[nelliebelle1197]

It sounds like you're just not open to having your opinions questioned.

Are you open to having your opinions questioned or see another side to the particular issue of why it is deeply offensive and dangerous to countless women to have what 2xx1xyjd rightly termed a highly gendered legal and political issue that is crucial to women no longer be a women's issue? If you are not, and the feelings of a few transmen who happen to get pregnant outweigh the absolute need to keep this issue squarely in the context of patriarchy and the need for men to control women's reproduction for the protection of millions of women and girls, then I am not sure I can sympathize with YOUR particular point of view. Unlike gay rights or civil rights, which enjoy the support of the majority of the affected communities, this does not even seem to be an issue the majority of the trans community is behind based on what I have been reading.

Not all people who get pregnant are women; not all DV victims, rape victims and breast cancer patients are women. Yet because of the lopsided social, political and economic impact these issues have on women, they are framed as primarily women's issues. The number of transmen seeking abortions compared to women is miniscule, certainly smaller than the 1% per cent of breast cancer patients who are men the 10% of men across the population who get raped and the 30-40% of DV victims who are men. Why is this issue, which is vitally important to women and girls' health, agency, and self-determination, not to mention the political, social and legal issues attached, more important than changing the paradigm on those?

Society should not have a problem if a man wants to get pregnant and have a baby- he may be with a male partner who wants to have a baby, or with a female who does not want to carry. Heck, he may just want the experience of carrying his own biological child since he cannot produce sperm. Their choice and they should be respected and treated with dignity. Same if a man chooses to have an abortion. The issue lies, as I have said a million times, with a tiny minority trying to change a paradigm that is important/vital for women - control over their reproductive health. If reproductive rights were not at stake in many countries and it wasn't such a giant issue for women, then this would not even be conversation worth having, because of COURSE language should become inclusive.

[eri]

You are legally allowed to believe and say whatever you want, not that you need my permission.

But honestly? It sounds to me like you are more interested in your right to be an asshole than you are in other people's rights to self-define. And I don't get it.

You're arguing against a straw man. Mama Mia is saying that the catch-all "Women have pregnancy and pregnancy issues are for women" shouldn't be considered triggering. She said nothing about personally misusing someone's pronouns in a personal setting. Absolutely nothing.

[RachelB]

You're arguing against a straw man. Mama Mia is saying that the catch-all "Women have pregnancy and pregnancy issues are for women" shouldn't be considered triggering. She said nothing about personally misusing someone's pronouns in a personal setting. Absolutely nothing.

Eri, there is no straw man. You missed a few things here. The reason that I started engaging with Mama Mia is that she dismissed the idea, which I expressed, that it was reasonable to say "people with ovaries" instead of "women" when talking about people who need abortions. I believe her words were something like, "This is the logical conclusion to political correctness."

1) When someone dismisses an attempt to accommodate people as "political correctness," that means that they are valuing their own convenience over someone else's strong preferences or safety. There is a social cost to asking for an accommodation. A person who is asking for an accommodation is sticking their neck out. To respond to someone saying "Hey, could you please not use that language? It is really alienating to me" by saying, "That's ridiculous" instead of, say, asking for clarification, is a jerk move, because you don't know what underpins that request, but you can damn well be sure that someone wouldn't ask if it weren't important.

2) You know who has dismissed my own requests for language that acknowledges my experience? People who believe that [category I fit in] doesn't exist. The person who abused me for 18 years. Not people I trust or want to be around. Not people who have the well-being of others in mind, except maybe in a condescending "I know what's right for you better than you do" way. I find invalidation triggering, as well as maddening, because it is part of that abuse history. I know I'm not alone in finding it thus.

3) I did make a mistake here, and that was attempting to engage with Mama Mia. She has proven herself in past conversations to have clear animus toward trans people, to believe that kids who don't feel they fit in the gender they were assigned at birth have been put up to it by their parents. As the aunt of a kid who may be nonbinary, who is taking cues from Kid on what pronouns to use, I have nothing pleasant to say in response to that. For me, a clear marker of decency is whether you respect and believe something that someone is telling you about their experience. Absent that, a lot of bad shit happens: Telling people they weren't *really* raped or abused. Telling people they aren't really lesbian, they just need someone to fuck them straight. Misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and all the other axes of social injustice have at root a deep disinterest in what disadvantaged people have to say about their own lives, and the arrogant belief that an outsider is better equipped to be objective about those lives.

This is personal, this is political, and this is fundamental. I will not engage with people who have a supply wadded up paper towels where their empathy should be.

I am disappointed in Katha Pollitt; I expected better from her.

[OkToBeTakei]

I had a wee bit more time to look into the wordy blog post. The writer references Anne Fausto-Sterling as his primary source, although it appears to suit the writers aims to mislead and misquote to suit the writers own argument.

It is worth noting that Anne Fausto-Sterling herself when discussing her first study said

"I had intended to be provocative, but I had also written with tongue firmly in cheek," Fausto-Sterling laid out a thought experiment considering an alternative model of gender containing five sexes: male, female, merm, ferm, and herm. This thought experiment was interpreted by some as a serious proposal or even a theory; advocates for intersex people stated that this theory was wrong, confusing and unhelpful to the interests of intersex people

I actually found her writing pretty thought provoking and interesting. Unlike the blog poster she is not presenting it as fact. As Mama Mia pointed out the statistics are flawed and she admits this.

Anyway it was interesting, I believe though the original discussion here was about transgender not intersex. The blog poster seems to just run with the parts of the study which suit his purpose or beliefs which is fine. The scare language not so much.

Another thought I had was referencing my own demographic which might inform my opinions and acceptance/tolerance or perception thereof. In my country every woman is entitled to an abortion should she wish and this is free and confidential. This has been written into law since 1967.

Primary care, counselling, support and gender reassignment surgery are also free on the NHS.

With that framework I just find it pointless to argue 'word' changes. Could all these services be better? Undoubtedly. I'm not sure changing a few words will help.

[OkToBeTakei]

Eri, there is no straw man. You missed a few things here. The reason that I started engaging with Mama Mia is that she dismissed the idea, which I expressed, that it was reasonable to say "people with ovaries" instead of "women" when talking about people who need abortions. I believe her words were something like, "This is the logical conclusion to political correctness."

1) When someone dismisses an attempt to accommodate people as "political correctness," that means that they are valuing their own convenience over someone else's strong preferences or safety. There is a social cost to asking for an accommodation. A person who is asking for an accommodation is sticking their neck out. To respond to someone saying "Hey, could you please not use that language? It is really alienating to me" by saying, "That's ridiculous" instead of, say, asking for clarification, is a jerk move, because you don't know what underpins that request, but you can damn well be sure that someone wouldn't ask if it weren't important.

2) You know who has dismissed my own requests for language that acknowledges my experience? People who believe that [category I fit in] doesn't exist. The person who abused me for 18 years. Not people I trust or want to be around. Not people who have the well-being of others in mind, except maybe in a condescending "I know what's right for you better than you do" way. I find invalidation triggering, as well as maddening, because it is part of that abuse history. I know I'm not alone in finding it thus.

3) I did make a mistake here, and that was attempting to engage with Mama Mia. She has proven herself in past conversations to have clear animus toward trans people, to believe that kids who don't feel they fit in the gender they were assigned at birth have been put up to it by their parents. As the aunt of a kid who may be nonbinary, who is taking cues from Kid on what pronouns to use, I have nothing pleasant to say in response to that. For me, a clear marker of decency is whether you respect and believe something that someone is telling you about their experience. Absent that, a lot of bad shit happens: Telling people they weren't *really* raped or abused. Telling people they aren't really lesbian, they just need someone to fuck them straight. Misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and all the other axes of social injustice have at root a deep disinterest in what disadvantaged people have to say about their own lives, and the arrogant belief that an outsider is better equipped to be objective about those lives.

This is personal, this is political, and this is fundamental. I will not engage with people who have a supply wadded up paper towels where their empathy should be.

I am disappointed in Katha Pollitt; I expected better from her.

You might want to reference exactly where Mama Mia showed clear animus to trans people. Because dropping that kind of accusation into a thread WITHOUT REFERENCE just because your opinions differ is lower than low. Really low.

[RachelB]

Here is one: viewtopic.php?f=81&t=20446&start=60&hilit=nibling&p=671238&view=show#p671238

"My goodness you certainly get excited if someone dares to express concerns about this topic ! I am comparing this topic to the Satanic Panic purely to demonstrate that young children are extremely malleable and generally don't have a firm grasp on fantasy vs reality.

I did look over your links, I am having trouble finding any studies on a decent sized group of young children who have socially transitioned and what the outcomes are. This is understandable as children being allowed to socially transition is very recent. The blogs that I'm reading are actually making me more uncomfortable with the parents, because like Coy's mother, they seem to be very eager to say that their 2 or 3 year old child might be transgender based on things like toy and hairstyle and activity preferences.

I understand the puberty blocking hormones make sense, but I think that is something else people are being extremely casual about...hey, we'll load them up with hormones, no big deal! Umm...okay. Or hey, it's no big deal if the kid changes their mind later....no big deal to who? The parents who aren't actually attending school?

Since I don't have any personal or professional experience with this group of children ( although I do have a degree in child development, and it is the basic child development issues that concern me ) what do you say to JFC who is relating her childhood experiences?

I certainly don't think that there is no such thing as transgendered / transsexual / gender variant children, or that socially transitioning early is always necessarily a bad idea. I am merely expressing concern that typical childhood development isn't being taken into account to the extent it should. And that some of these parents seem to be a little too invested in the attention it brings them ( and their blogs ) . 50 years ago the experts all thought that Autism was caused by cold mothers. 30 years ago the experts all knew that children would only talk about sexual things if they had been molested. The experts, particularly when it comes to young children, change their opinions constantly.

By the way I am going to have limited Internet access for awhile, so I am not flouncing from this thread if I don't come back to it."

And another: viewtopic.php?f=81&t=20446&start=80&hilit=nibling&p=675896&view=show#p675896

"This is exactly the sort of thinking that concerns me. If your six year old niece only chose male avatars and wanted to be Batman for dress up and favorite color was blue and preferred jeans to dresses would it even cross your mind that she was in any way gender variant, gender fluid, transexual or any other term to describe her? I would wager that it is likely that it wouldn't even cross your mind or be noticeable to anyone. It certainly wouldn't have crossed most people's minds that it was something noteworthy 10 or 20 years ago.

But because it's a boy child who is preferring female characters and "colors" , it might somehow mean something other than this particular boy likes these particular things. Because no matter how subconscious it is, the assumption is that female and feminine are different and less than, and male is the default. And I think that this rush to put small children into these supposedly enlightened boxes is only promoting further gender stereotyping. This entire discussion has only strengthened my reservations on this topic.

I don't doubt that you're a wonderful Auntie who will be supportive of your nephew no matter what, I just think that in the quest to be enlightened and up to date people seem to be missing that little kids may like or dislike a variety of objects, activities, colors and clothing that are ascribed to one gender or the other and it doesn't usually "mean" anything ......whether their preferences are entirely in line with or opposite their biological sex. Or even appropriately " balanced" whatever the hell that is."

(Notably, this was in response to me saying I was going to take pronoun cues from Kiddo.)

And also viewtopic.php?f=81&t=20446&start=100&hilit=nibling&p=676212&view=show#p676212

Really? Of 2 year olds? Can you name one

I interpret invalidation, which I think the quotes evidence, as clear animus. That may be in part my own brain weasels' doing. But in my experience, people who have invalidated my experience have not been people who were okay for me to be around.

I have to back out of this thread now, for my own good, because as I said, this is personal to me. I just didn't want Ofglen to be all alone without backup in a thread that might have seemed personally hostile, because I have been there, and there is a very lonely place to be.

[eri]

Eri, there is no straw man. You missed a few things here. The reason that I started engaging with Mama Mia is that she dismissed the idea, which I expressed, that it was reasonable to say "people with ovaries" instead of "women" when talking about people who need abortions. I believe her words were something like, "This is the logical conclusion to political correctness."

1) When someone dismisses an attempt to accommodate people as "political correctness," that means that they are valuing their own convenience over someone else's strong preferences or safety. There is a social cost to asking for an accommodation. A person who is asking for an accommodation is sticking their neck out. To respond to someone saying "Hey, could you please not use that language? It is really alienating to me" by saying, "That's ridiculous" instead of, say, asking for clarification, is a jerk move, because you don't know what underpins that request, but you can damn well be sure that someone wouldn't ask if it weren't important.

2) You know who has dismissed my own requests for language that acknowledges my experience? People who believe that [category I fit in] doesn't exist. The person who abused me for 18 years. Not people I trust or want to be around. Not people who have the well-being of others in mind, except maybe in a condescending "I know what's right for you better than you do" way. I find invalidation triggering, as well as maddening, because it is part of that abuse history. I know I'm not alone in finding it thus.

3) I did make a mistake here, and that was attempting to engage with Mama Mia. She has proven herself in past conversations to have clear animus toward trans people, to believe that kids who don't feel they fit in the gender they were assigned at birth have been put up to it by their parents. As the aunt of a kid who may be nonbinary, who is taking cues from Kid on what pronouns to use, I have nothing pleasant to say in response to that. For me, a clear marker of decency is whether you respect and believe something that someone is telling you about their experience. Absent that, a lot of bad shit happens: Telling people they weren't *really* raped or abused. Telling people they aren't really lesbian, they just need someone to fuck them straight. Misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and all the other axes of social injustice have at root a deep disinterest in what disadvantaged people have to say about their own lives, and the arrogant belief that an outsider is better equipped to be objective about those lives.

This is personal, this is political, and this is fundamental. I will not engage with people who have a supply wadded up paper towels where their empathy should be.

I am disappointed in Katha Pollitt; I expected better from her.

Have fun deciding everyone is an uncaring villain and biology doesn't real because feels.

[RachelB]

Thank you for clarifying that engaging with you would also be fruitless, Eri. That saves me some time.

[Firiel]

Primary care, counselling, support and gender reassignment surgery are also free on the NHS.

With that framework I just find it pointless to argue 'word' changes. Could all these services be better? Undoubtedly. I'm not sure changing a few words will help.

IMO, word changes are hugely important. Language is a reflection of culture. Pointing out where language reinforces power structures is an important way to recognize (and then hopefully change) those power structures. Why do you think conservative folks refer to gays and lesbians as "homosexuals"? It's to emphasize that THEY see being gay as very different than the greater population and to try to keep gays and lesbians from identifying on their own terms. Why do you think "dick" is an insult for someone being aggressive in a petty way but "pussy" is an insult for someone who is being weak and overly delicate? These words reflect our gendered, patriarchal society. Many others do, too. Terminology reflects power structures and then in turn reinforces them.

More on topic, while I don't think that trans and cis need to be or should be used in every day conversation, I think cis (or a word that means the same thing) is a very important word to use while having discussions on the topic. When you are talking about trans* issues, if there is no opposing word, there's not a good way to identify as not being trans* without saying you are "just a normal man/woman" or some such variation of the phrase. That's problematic because it places trans* people on the margins and identifies them by what they are not.

And, of course, slurs should be off the table.

[OkToBeTakei]

IMO, word changes are hugely important. Language is a reflection of culture. Pointing out where language reinforces power structures is an important way to recognize (and then hopefully change) those power structures. Why do you think conservative folks refer to gays and lesbians as "homosexuals"? It's to emphasize that THEY see being gay as very different than the greater population and to try to keep gays and lesbians from identifying on their own terms. Why do you think "dick" is an insult for someone being aggressive in a petty way but "pussy" is an insult for someone who is being weak and overly delicate? These words reflect our gendered, patriarchal society. Many others do, too. Terminology reflects power structures and then in turn reinforces them.

More on topic, while I don't think that trans and cis need to be or should be used in every day conversation, I think cis (or a word that means the same thing) is a very important word to use while having discussions on the topic. When you are talking about trans* issues, if there is no opposing word, there's not a good way to identify as not being trans* without saying you are "just a normal man/woman" or some such variation of the phrase. That's problematic because it places trans* people on the margins and identifies them by what they are not.

And, of course, slurs should be off the table.

I am NOT being snarky but you have missed my point or I did not make it plain.

Pussy and dick are not terms I hear. I have never heard recently any politician use anything except gay when talking. Political suicide otherwise.

It's not utopia by far...far . FAR FAR!! We have similar issues but not the same. Patriarchy is alive and well but may not look like yours nor does racism look the same. It's just a different experience to yours. We are an equal op offender...everybody is a cunt :lol:

[Mama Mia]

Rachel B, you are certainly free to engage only in conversations with people who completely agree with your every thought. But to say I have a clear animus towards trans people is frankly ridiculous.

I disagree with changing universal language in order to not trigger a small handful of people when we are talking about the general term used for the group. And I can't imagine why you can't see the irony in this entire conversation -- that this handful of people ( or those arguing on their behalf - I dont know what the opinions are of the actual trans- men in this situation) - gets to decide for the 99.9% of the population who is pregnant that being called " women" is now somehow an offensive term.

That is not remotely the same thing as refusing to use whatever pronouns an individual person wants when interacting with that person - either virtually, in social situations or professionally.

And that is quite the misrepresentation of anything I have said regarding children who identify as trans. If I recall in one thread I absolutely thought THAT particular child's mother was using her child to get into the public eye, based on statements like " looking back, at six months old Johnny chose the pink blanket " as part of her reason for knowing her child was actually a girl. Obviously there was a lot more, but there was, to me and many others, a clear element of the mother wanting attention. Including taking the little girl on a round of television shows where she looked absolutely miserable.

And yes, I do question why, IN SOME CASES, parents seem more eager to say " I think my child is trans or gender non- conforming or non - binary " than to just say that it's perfectly fine for some little boys to prefer sparkly things and dolls and some little girls to prefer dump trucks and football. It's the beyond Fundie level rigidness that they gender type childrens preferences and activities that I object to. The Duggar's allow their small children more freedom to play and explore without attaching a "boy" or "girl" label more than many of these parents seem to.

Clearly that doesn't apply to ALL families. Some children do have gender dysphoria that causes them real anguish. That's not the same thing as what shows up in SOME of the situations we discuss.

And I just saw your above thread quotes. If you think that is somehow animus against trans people, well good luck in the world. All I am hearing you say is " someone disagrees with my world view, it upsets me, I can't talk about it"

I completely stand by the idea that child development most certainly does need to be taken into account in these discussions, that SOME parents who promote their kids in the media are doing it more for themselves than the kid and that it is ridiculous to base a child's gender identity on what clothes/toys/colors they like.