trans | Entries tagged with language

steepholm.livejournal.com

Yesterday I was filling in yet another HR form that asked me to identify my Gender as either Male, Female or Transgender. This always gives me pause. My gender is female, and I also happen to be transgender, so which box do they want me to tick? More seriously, being trans simply isn't experienced by me as a gender at all (though mileages may vary) - so why is it listed as a gender category? But UK law seems addicted to this formulation, referring to "men, women and transsexual people" as if they were three different kinds of being - whereas to my mind this makes no more sense than saying men, women and gay people, or men, women and disabled people. At worst, it's pretty offensive; at best, it's a category error. (Of course, it also erases non-binary, genderfluid, etc. people, which is another kettle of fish.)

Anyway, this got me to wondering what, in an ideal world, the forms ought to be asking. (Or in a semi-ideal world - in an ideal one they wouldn't need the forms at all.) Male, female, genderfluid, etc. are examples of gender. Gay, straight and bi are examples of sexual orientation. Trans and cis are examples of... what? What is the general category to which trans and cis belong, as male and female belong to gender, or straight and bi to sexual orientation? There really ought to be a word (and not just so that it can be used on forms), but then "cissexual" itself isn't that old a word, so maybe there isn't yet.

On a slightly tangential subject, a friend just recommended Susan Kuklin's Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out, but noted that none of the teens in the book used the word 'cis' at all. Is that typical, or has its use really not spread beyond activist and academic circles?

aumentou.livejournal.com

This is currently a hypothetical problem for me but I'd like some feedback (especially from non-binary people) before it becomes a real problem, since it definitely will sooner or later.

The problem in the first instance is how to start a speech. And of course there are a host of related linguistic problems, all relating to traditional binarist modes of speech that need altering.

The traditional approach in this country is "Ladies and gentlemen...". Obviously this is bad because it excludes non-binary people. I could use "Hello people..." to avoid that problem and this is now the backup but I don't like the informal feel or the meter. I thought of using "Ladies, gentlemen, and non-binary people..." because it fits the formal style and explicitly points up the problem with the usual mode of address. However, as someone on here pointed out the other month, that isn't actually parity. It's "gender, gender, category of genders". Parity would be "Binary people and non-binary people" or "Ladies, gentlemen, [list of titles for every non-binary gender]". The problem with the second is that such a list is impractical at best and more likely impossible. Nonbinary.org has a list of non-binary gender positions that take me more than fifteen seconds to list verbally, and that list isn't exhaustive. I don't think I can spend eighteen seconds (counting the binary options too) on a first sentence, and it would be quite horrible for someone if I did a list like that and missed them out. I could throw in a "and anyone I missed out" at the end but even so I'm not keen on this approach.
The downside of "Hello, binary people and non-binary people" is that I fear I'd lose my audience, at least in a predominantly cis context. Even with that, it's still looking like the best option.

Am I missing something? Is there a better option that just hasn't occurred to me? Anyone got any advice?

Thanks,
A.

steepholm.livejournal.com

Does anyone here know if there is a term in use within the intersex community (or beyond), to refer to those who are not intersex? Something that does the same job for them as cissexual for trans people, heterosexual for gay people, or neurotypical for autistic people?

sissy-bloke.livejournal.com

I would guess that lots of us would agree that someone is whatever gender they say they are, but what kinds of identities is that logic suitable for?

Someone claiming "I am a cat-lover" would probably be pretty uncontroversially accepted as a cat lover.

Whereas a lot of people would balk at agreeing that someone who says "I am a pineapple" is indeed a pineapple. (Obviously I'm using a silly example, somewhat less silly ones to follow.)

What is it that makes one identity true by virtue of claiming it and one unclaimable?

( What about the following examples? )
Edited to add "controversial" tag and to clarify that I am not trying to say that someone claiming any of the above examples cannot actually be what they claim - some of those claims may be perfectly valid and I'm trying to tease out what makes an axis of identification something that is based on what a person says and what doesn't.

Edited to change my original examples. I tried to use examples that would prompt discussion, but I realised belatedly and thanks to some commenters that they would probably prompt discussion about things that were unrelated to my original question and had the potential to cause shit-storms, for which I apologise. I hope the examples I've used now are less controversial, but please pick me up if I've mis-stepped.

sissy-bloke.livejournal.com

Some context: I'm not exactly "post" transition, as it's still a work in progress, but I get read as male close to 100% of the time. I grew up in a very feminist family, and spent many years living as a masculine woman and that history forms a big part of my identity. As someone now living as male, I'm having a little trouble with some of the intricacies.

Do I get to call myself a feminist? I hope I am, and I try to be one, but as a man, do I have the right to decide if I get to use that label?

If a woman says something is misogynistic, a man doesn't get to disagree, but what about the opposite? What if I think something is misogynistic, and my female friends disagree?

As an example, the poster for the alien movie "Paul" has him wearing a T-shirt that reads "Only girls phone home" and that bugged the crap out of me, because I felt it says girl=wimp, but my wife and female best friend said "I get what you're saying, but eh, it doesn't bug me."

mindtheft.livejournal.com

Hey ya'll,

Sorry if this was posted before (even possibly by me...ooops *blush*) but it's been coming up a lot for me recently so I thought I'd get it off my chest. It's about my frustration with labeling ALL MAAB folks transfeminine and ALL FAAB folks transmasculine.

Recently, I've been getting referred to as transfeminine a lot more by folks who are attempting to be inclusive. But, rather than feel "included" by the term, the hard butch dyke in me just ends up feeling erased. For those who don't know me IRL, I'm covered in tattoos (incl. neck & knuckles), I wear feminine attire only once or twice a year (and it's usually only for performances), I own more plaid than I know what to do with, my hair is cut in a "Go Fish" kinda way, I've lasered off most of my dark hair but often sport long blonde ones on my chin, when I out myself as trans people often assume I'm on the trans male-spectrum, and I could go on and on. And yet, people still want to label me "feminine" simply for being of the female (albeit trans) persuasion.

Most of the time I don't say anything because I just simply don't have the energy to engage in these conversations. But inside I'm usually screaming "BEING FEMALE DOES NOT EQUAL BEING FEMININE." One time, after having my thoughts on this matter dismissed, I asked that person if they would consider Sinclair Sexsmith, Ivan E. Coyote, Lyndell Montgomery, or any of the lovely female-identified folks on Butchlab to be feminine, to which they replied "NO! Of course not!" Well than why me, just because my femaleness has that trans attachment before it?

Anyway end of my ranty rant rant. I really hope this doesn't come off as me ragging on femininity, cause I simply adore all things feminine/femme....just not.on.me.

xoxo
Kay
( See a pic under the cut... )

gleek-boy.livejournal.com

We are all aware of gender neutral alternatives to the he/she pronouns, but it's recently occured to me that that's about as far as it goes in terms of referring to someone in a gender neutral form.

It occured to me when recently asked if I have a boyfriend or girlfriend by an acquaintance. I wanted to respond "oh I don't know, depends how my partner is feeling today!" but I didn't want to baffle that person. I tend to just refer to my partner as such, but I was wondering, are there any gender neutral words you like to use when referring to your partners who may not wish to be called "boyfriend" or "girlfriend"?

Similarly, as an FtM more on the GQ side I've been thinking a lot about family names recently. More specifically, words such as "brother", "sister", "mother", "father", "husband", "wife" etc etc, and what some gender neutral alternatives might be. I definitely want kids in the future, and whilst at present I wouldn't mind being called "dad", I would prefer something less gender specific.

Does anyone have any original or favourite gender neutral words that they'd like to share?

x- posted

Current Mood: cheerful

espreite.livejournal.com

Okay, sorry in advance, this is a bit of a despairy rant, but I'm just feeling really frustrated.

I just started a Spanish-language course last week, and this semester I've been using my preferred name with all my teachers. My maestra was really awesome, as I introduced myself as Kai and she figured out my legal name without mentioning it to me and kept using Kai. Until today, when she realized that I have no Spanish name. This is apparently an urgent problem, so she grabbed the list of Spanish names and immediately started reading off possibilities on the girl's list.

At one point she said, "See, you get to pick the name you've always dreamed of having!" while inside I'm kind of screaming, "But I only just got to START using the name I've always dreamed of having!" :( Then she suggested, "Well, your real name is [girlname], so how about we use [Spanish version of girlname] for now?" And then I started panicking and just shouted "No!" *facepalm*

This also comes on the heels of having to participate in an sociology class experiment where we were told to interact with people "of the opposite sex first," and upon asking what that meant, was told that meant I should go talk to boys first. Incidentally that led to me pretty much coming out to the teacher, because when the kid with a girl's legal name wearing boy's clothes and short hair says "There are people who don't identify as a man or woman..." it's pretty obvious who they're talking about. Amusingly this led to the GSA advisor from the same department AND that teacher to check in on me repeatedly for the next two days, thinking I'd been offended, but at least she was willing to listen and adjust future activities.

So I need to come up with some sort of androgynous Spanish name in the next day. At the moment she's just calling me "La Sin Nombre," which would actually be sort of okay or even cool except for the "la" at the beginning. So....yeah. Grr.

awfulduet.livejournal.com

As the topic of "trigger" words comes up repeatedly, I was wondering:

Does anyone have a list of these "trigger" words for future reference? The last thing I'd want to do is "trigger" someone and a list would help with that. Thanks!

p01s0n3d.livejournal.com

Hey, so I'm Nikk; it's short for Nikolai, but nobody ever calls me that. I'm seventeen years old, and I suppose that I roll with the FtM label. Suppose because I try not to be too sure of anything. Suppose because I'm not so sure that adopting labels is conducive to living my life. Labels make things complicated. I have a female body, but the rest of me is distinctly not-female and I want to have male anatomy (along with the little things like voice). If that makes me an FtM, so be it.

We still have these labels though, and I always want to know why. Don't bother denying that labels don't exist. If they didn't exist, why are you in a trans community? If I didn't consider myself transgender, I wouldn't be posting this, you wouldn't be reading it, and in fact, we'd probably live very "normal" lives - no fear, no transition, just lives. If that's the case, then why do we feel the need to call ourselves transgender? If we didn't call ourselves transgender, what would we be?

We call ourselves transgender, creating a dividing line between ourselves and everyone who's not transgender. We are [for the most part] proud of our identity and are determined to turn it into actuality. For all the trouble we've actually gone to make our wants surfacebound, I have to wonder if it's worth it? Is it worth segregating ourselves from the cisgendered community? What would happen if labels disappeared altogether and there was nothing left to tie the trans community together but experience: would we still face the amount of segregation from the "norm" that we do?

I'm sorry if these questions are a bit... philosophically obscure. I'm just curious. I realize that my questions might not be the clearest (since they aren't exactly the easiest to articulate), so if you have any clarifying questions, please ask.

Current Mood: Philosophical

ridermicah.livejournal.com

I thought folks might find this post interesting, as it seems to parallel some conversations that have taken place within this particular community:

http://feed.belowthebelt.org/2009/09/system-shutdown.html

aumentou.livejournal.com

I should probably introduce myself first. Hello, I'm Aumentou, and I don't want to give out my real name right now. I'm MtF, at the start of the transition, late twenties, and live geographically almost smack in the centre of the UK (or in the north, if you're English).

( anyway, Cis )

wildeabandon.livejournal.com

Hi all. I'm writing this post in response to various recent discussions about the best way to approach people using language which some find offensive, especially if they do so inadvertently. I think it would be helpful to have a "beginners guide to trans-friendly language" with a "Please Read this Before Posting" link in the community rules, in the hope that this will head off some of these inadvertent uses of such language. This is my attempt at a first draft of such a post, and critique is very welcome, as are suggestions of points that I've missed. I hope that once critique is taken into account I can turn this introductory paragraph into a footnote. I'd also like to note that none of these ideas are my original thinking, but a synthesis of things I've read, and sadly not retained enough awareness of exactly what came from where. Now, are you sitting comfortably? ( Then I'll begin )

iphisol.livejournal.com

God, I know that this is throwing a rock at a hornet's nest, but I'm feeling so exhausted by seeing it over and over in the last week or two, in places where I thought people knew better or cared more, that I want to post something.

Can we talk about FtM-spectrum¹ trans folks² appropriating the word "tranny?" ( I have a lot to say. )

sebastian-bound.livejournal.com

I really hate using the word "transition" for what I'm going through. I don't feel that it describes what is actually happening. "Transition" implies a change, whereas, I feel like I've always been this person that I am. I think "transition" describes it from a cissexual's view, not mine.

I like "gender affirmation," as in , "I'm going through gender affirmation, and would like for you to start calling me [blank]."

But when I look up "gender affirmation" in google, I see that a group of homophobic, pray-the-gay-away "therapists" use it to describe some of their therapy. (See also this video.)

Did anyone else use something else besides transition to describe their journey?

sebastian-bound.livejournal.com

I'm in my head trying to come up with a satisfactory differentiation between "different" and "unique." Some of the trans people I know talk about having a "unique" circumstance. I equate uniqueness as being one of a kind, or even, peculiar, in a way that doesn't blend in with others.

Personally, I don't really want to be unique, but I do feel different from other people, and have since puberty. I don't attribute this to gender; I think it was much more about social isolation in a white, middle class suburb.

There is also the concept of normal, which causes some amount of discord with my birlfriend. She doesn't want to think of us as being in a "straight" relationship, because she equates straight with heteronormative, boring, and owning houses in the suburbs. Whereas I'm not comfortable with being in a "queer" relationship either, because I identify as straight.

So, what is different from other people, and what makes trans people unique?

shemale.livejournal.com

Given a few posts in a few trans communities lately, it seems like these things need to be said:

Trans people are not cutting-edge theories at the frontier of feminism/gender studies/whatever.

Because people are not theories, and it is problematic for theory to be applied in such a way that it criticizes the entirety of a marginalized group or demands that members of said group behave in the way that those doing the theorizing think is appropriate or "progressive" or "radical" enough.

Trans people are not under any more of an obligation to alter their bodies, gender identifications, or gender expressions for some higher goal than cis people are.

Oh, you would never suggest that trans people are somehow more responsible than cis people to ~break down the binary~ or ~kill the patriarchy~ or whatever by following your prescribed guidelines for living!

And it's just a total coincidence that it's something that you tell trans people way, way more than you tell cis people!

Just something about them i guess...I mean it's perfectly understandable, they're already altering their/in possession of bodies and presentations and stuff that are different from most people, so if they would just do it the way you suggest, they could ~totally~ contribute to ~~making you feel more radical by associating with them~~ being soldiers in the war against the gender binary/patriarchy/etc./blah blah blah!

If a trans person does not present/experience/identify/etc. their gender the way you want them to, it is none of your fucking business, nor does it mean you can generalize about all trans people (or subgroup of trans people) from your experiences with and observations of said trans person.

Really this should be obvious. Like, if this doesn't make sense to anyone, i'd be happy to explain it, but it the fact that this kind of behavior perpetuates cissexism and transphobia seems self-evident.

Nobody gives a shit that you don't believe in gender.

You don't have to believe in something for it to exist, and perhaps the fact that you don't ever think about gender speaks more to your privilege than to the way that trans people are "perpetuating norms and stereotypes" or "supporting the gender binary" or whatever.

I understand that a lot of people feel like their lives would be much better if gender did not exist, but a) that is not the fault of trans people (or a subgroup of trans people), and b) "post-patriarchy" and "post-cissexism" (don't exist, but also) don't imply "post-gender."

Gender in-and-of itself isn't a bad thing, it is just a thing.

It is the forced assignment of gender to people against their identification and the inequality between members of different genders that is problematic.

There's probably more things i should say here but it's late and i'm tired and want to leave soon so yeah.

badoingdoing.livejournal.com

So I thought I'd bring up a set that frustrate me: Phrases like "guys and gals," or "men and women." I just can't help but think "well, what about the rest of us?"

I mean, I kinda expect it from day to day life. To be on the level, I have a bit of an ulterior motive with this post: the amount phrases like that pop up on this board can get frustrating. I don't want to harsh on anyone (I mean, they're such common phrases I doubt most people think about how they might hurt), but I realized that if I don't speak up about feeling marginalized, I can't expect people will ever think about how such phrases can be hurtful.

publictrans.livejournal.com

A language question:

"Tranny" and "tranny chaser" - Who can use these words? I was recently in a situation where another queer person was using them, and I felt that they didn't have the right to. Their casual use of the words made me uncomfortable.

So - are these words reclaimed? Who is allowed to reclaim them? Any thoughts? I'd especially love to hear about differences for MTF or FTM spectrum folks, or other gender variant people who don't necessarily identify as trans.

irish-deutsch.livejournal.com

I realise that this must have been covered here in the past....but it never fails to annoy me when I hear it...-All- variance ...in all forms..is pathogenised... This need not be the case.. I view myself as a variant....a naturaly occuring variant and not someone with -disorder- . It would be easier for some if I was diagnosed as mad..because that would render my feelings illegitmate... I feel that this term enshrines stigma....

Just watched a chat show here....where a Transsexual made frequent reference to the term Gender Identity -Disorder-... She was actualy a very good Trans representative in a lot of ways..related to her a lot.... But I hate that term...

I'm interested in hearing others views....positive, negative or indifferent...Do others feel I should accept that I have disorder ? Should I just accept the terminology....as it is basicaly the same distresss we all experience...however differently we view it....?. The crux of my feeling is that I view all human beings....and animals as varying naturaly....and just because they are not typical....does not mean that they have a disorder....To be rare is disadvantageous....and can be a source of emotional distress...it has been for me...but does it warrant the term 'disorder'?

Thanks
A

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30	31

Transgender Community

General category to which 'cis' and 'trans' belong?

non-binary terminology question

Intersex equivalent of "cissexual"

[Controversial] What identities are identifying that way "sufficient" for?

Negotiating feminism post transition

Transmasculine/Transfeminine and my hatred these terms

Gender neutral pronouns-- is that all there is?

I need to rant a little + Spanish names?

Trigger words

A Somewhat Philosophical Question [Controversial]

using the word cisgender [controversial]

The word cis [possibly controversial]

Language, a guide for newcomers [Possibly controversial]

O G TRAN E [controversial]

better word than "transition"

Difference between "different" and "unique"

Controversial. Unfortunately.

It seems to be the day for posts about words

Reclaiming words

Gender Identity -Disorder- do you agree with that term?.

Profile

March 2018

Links

Page Summary

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags