Welcome!

[auntysarah]

Hi everyone, and welcome to trans!

This is more-or-less like transgender, but I've taken the opportunity to do a bit of a spring clean and rationalise the community info page a bit. I've hopefully made the interests list a bit better with some additions and some deletions, but if anyone has any suggestions for that they would be greatly received. The "community rules" section has also changed a bit - the two biggest changes are probably the "don't delete stuff" rule, and the "Please be patient with newbies" rule. The latter, I think, is particularly important, so I'll quote it here and then talk a bit about the reason I put it in:

Please try to cut newbies some slack. Terminology is often a contentious issue amongst the transgender community, and those initially seeking help with their gender issues are unlikely to be well versed in trans politics. Members should not feel they have to bite their tongue in the face of offensive statements, but please remember that we all have to start somewhere and it is important not to frighten off those seeking help when they are coming to terms with a trans identity. On the other hand, those seeking to hide behind this rule when making a tone argument will not be treated sympathetically.

This is my attempt at balance. In transgender, there were often complaints on one hand from those who felt that restrictions on expressing their anger at offensive posts and comments in the community were unreasonable, and on the other hand from those who felt that those seeking help for the first time with gender issues might be put off by what they saw as an "aggressive" environment. This is an attempt at balance - it's understandable that those who have not had much of an immersion in the trans community may be unaware of some nuances that some of us perhaps take for granted, and I would ask people to please be patient.

At the same time, this space should concentrate on the needs of trans people, and I think it's important that people who should know better, and those who possess cissexual/cisgender privilege don't have a "you must always be respectful" rule they can invoke as a tool to silence people objecting to transhphobic or other problematic remarks.

How well this works in practice remains to be seen, but I pray your indulgence while we find our feet here, and hopefully the community can evolve and build on what we have, and become a really nice resource.

Anyway, a community is nothing without content, so have at it!

Comments

[snugglebitch]

Yay! Dreamwidth Trans is alive! :D

[auntysarah]

It lives, Igor! It lives! My god, what have we done? :-D

[snugglebitch]

What's this we crap? No one calls it "Frankenstein and Igor's Monster."

[auntysarah]

Such archaic management/employee relations have no place in the shiny new world that is Dreamwidth ;-)

[drakyn]

In the interest list is it possible to have "trans men" instead of "transmen" (ditto for transwomen etc)? (or have both...)

[auntysarah]

It already does (have both).

[drakyn]

...Wow did I fail...

[auntysarah]

I think it's been a long day for lots of us :-)

Can I pinch that awesome icon?

[drakyn]

Sure! And there are a number of other browsers here.

[snugglebitch]

Not that they'd use it, but awwww, they didn't have my browser there!

[transprose.livejournal.com]

mine neither.

[and]

Hooray!

That is all. :)

[amokk]

Cool; I think balancing the rage with the necessary newbie friendliness is really important. If something's really bad, that's what the rage comms are for.

[auntysarah]

It's been a persistent problem in transgender (that is so cool - I wish they backported it to LJ) for ages, and I'd really like to avoid it here.

[maudlinstreet]

yea, i like all of this. i mean i'm a total stickler for language but i don't think everyone needs to have read Whipping Girl before asking for advice here and shit.

[auntysarah]

i don't think everyone needs to have read Whipping Girl before asking for advice here and shit.

Nicely put!

[ceri]

Yes! They can be like me, and have read Whipping Girl, and still make the occasional awful lapse. :)

Seriously, I own my words and I take the rap for offense given and harm done. But I like it when I get a chance to show that I was ignorant and am learning before getting the repeat-offender treatment.

[maudlinstreet]

i lose sympathy when it comes to the point of like,

Hey, could you not use the term 'biowoman?'

YOUR BEEING MEEEEAN ASSHOLE SCREW U ELITESTS!!!

[ceri]

"I didn't mean 'freaks' in a silencing kind of way."

Actually, I was thinking of the exchange the other day about the appropriateness or lack thereof in "queer" in a debunkingcis post. That's the sort of thing where it looks easy make some honest mistakes while learning, particularly when the mistake includes a dollop of "well, no, the people who explained this to me and the places I looked online did not in fact ever mention this other usage."

I'm not running around in a panic about it or anything, I just like it when I get a chance to be a noob, learn, and fix. Certainly I don't expect endless toleration for some screwups, and I agree (oh how I agree) that there's such a thing as...actually, I always liked the way Mary Baker Eddy put it in some Christian Science book: "active ongoing ignorance as a way of life". Hoping not to be that.

[gender_euphoric]

can you link to trans_advice on the profile page?

[auntysarah]

Sure. How would you like me to describe it?

[gender_euphoric]

shit, i can't think of anything snappy.

[auntysarah]

How about, "Advice for trans and questioning people, by trans people"?

[gender_euphoric]

that's perfect. :D

[auntysarah]

Done!