Transgender Rights

[B]

Is this the next "Gay Rights" battle? Good video.

[Simple Torture]

This will be tougher. I don't think it's very hard for people to understand that two dudes or two chicks want to bone each other. Trans-rights are going to be harder to fathom; I imagine 90% of the US population doesn't know the difference between a transgendered person, a transexual person, and a transvestite (honestly? I feel like I'm pretty well-versed in this stuff, but I conflate the first two at times). When there isn't even a vocabulary, change is going to come slowly. Was talking to my students about this, and we realized that it wasn't until 3-4 weeks ago that everyone in the United States knew the name of at least one transgendered person (Caitlyn Jenner). That's pretty wild to think about.

[Redemption]

Tom Gabel


Laura Jane Grace



Lead singer of Rise Against....songs he..er she played for the revival tour were pretty badass.

[verb_to_trust]

I think it comes from laziness mostly. Regulating this stuff is complicated and takes effort and bureaucracy is lazy and inefficient.

[Rangi Guy]

Why does no-one give any real exposure to the Trans-species?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/life/76386053/meet-nano-the-woman-who-thinks-she-is-a-cat-really

A Norwegian woman has shed light on life as a cat trapped in a human body, saying her trans-species state made her hiss at dogs and gave her excellent night vision and hearing.

Nano, a 20-year-old woman living in Oslo, claimed she has been a cat all her life but said doctors and psychologists confirmed it when she was 16, making reference to a genetic defect she was born with.

[Simple Torture]

Are there lots of trans-Kiwis down there, Rangi?

[Rangi Guy]

Are there lots of trans-Kiwis down there, Rangi?

The answer may surprise you

[Simple Torture]

Where do I click to find out?

[BurtReynolds]

i think i'm trans-pig.

[Norris]

Where do I click to find out?

You Won't Believe What We Found In This Kiwi's Skirt

[Simple Torture]

i think i'm trans-pig.

[tragabigzanda]

I'll bite...

I've come into support of transgender rights only relatively recently. At first I had a major problem with it -- I conflated transgender with transexual; I felt that a female-born person identifying as a male was merely succumbing to society's definitions of gender; and if I'm totally honest, I felt that for someone to have a penis yet identify as a woman was just bullshit boundary pushing.

I struggled with this a lot, because I fancied myself a progressively-minded person.

I began a series of conversations around this. I actively tried to educate myself, because it bothered me that I was, for the first time, prejudiced towards an already marginalized group of people. I knew something was off, because at a basic level I believed in equal rights for all people.

Going back to an exceptionally progressive college (Hampshire) at the age of 32 was a big help. The bathrooms there were marked "male/female identified restroom," and there were a number of transgender students on campus. I talked with a lot of younger students at my college, and slowly accepted that even though gender and sexuality were always clearly defined within myself, it is not always so for other people; sometimes they have one set of genitalia but feel like they are the opposite.

Marc Maron's interview with Rupaul was also a big help, because he spelled out the difference between transexual (or "genderfuck") with transgender. I needed this clarification to move forward.

The watershed moment was when I read about gender dimorphism in fish in my ichthyology class. In a nutshell, some fish have biological functions that are able to modulate between male and female characteristics of their species. Clown fish can change from female to male, for example. It became clear to me that I am not an expert biologist; that I know very little about how genes work; and that there are likely parallels in the human species.

By the time Transparent started airing, I had already come around. But Jeffrey Tambor's portrayal of Maura -- a deeply kind, empathetic character surrounded by her selfish, obnoxious children -- illustrated perfectly that transgender people are not out to push boundaries, or redefine the world in their image. They are simply trying to feel loved, and comfortable, and welcome in this world.

Just my personal journey, and I'm not tooting my horn about how great and open-minded I am...But I recognize that it took a conscious effort to understand this group of people, that I was influenced by new ideas propagated in a variety of media platforms, and I suspect it will be a long time before the majority of people will have a similar outlook.

[Simple Torture]

I began a series of conversations around this. I actively tried to educate myself

Woah, woah, woah, slow down, pinko.

[Birds in Hell]

I agree that I'm no biologist but, and I realise this is a faintly heretical opinion that I wouldn't offer in many other circumstances, I'm very skeptical of the idea that a person can legitimately be born the 'wrong' gender. At least in the sense that a transgender person's brain contains something inherent that places them at odds with their biological gender.

Now, that said:

transgender people are not out to push boundaries, or redefine the world in their image. They are simply trying to feel loved, and comfortable, and welcome in this world.

You would have to be a pretty dreadful person to find any disagreement with this, I would imagine.

While I think it's a kind of wilful lunacy to concede that a man presenting himself to the world as a woman is, or is equivalent to, an actual woman, I don't think it's smart or clever to maliciously ignore the way a person wishes to be addressed or spoken of. It's impolite, to say the least.

I hold grave reservations about extending that kind of "knock yourself out, whatever makes you happy" attitude towards imposing transgender identities upon children, however. Show me a child who identifies as transgender and I am almost certain that you will find something terribly strange about their parents, their home life, etc.

[Brett]

The latest research would disagree with you Spenno: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28582-scans-prove-theres-no-such-thing-as-a-male-or-female-brain/. On a physical level, at least, there is no male or female brain. From my layman's perspective (though I do have several friends who identify as "gender-queer"), I think gender identity is a confluence of hormone levels and environmental factors, and therefore is a malleable spectrum. I don't fully understand the mechanics of it, but I know enough for it to make sense to me.

[McParadigm]

The latest research would disagree with you Spenno: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28582-scans-prove-theres-no-such-thing-as-a-male-or-female-brain/. On a physical level, at least, there is no male or female brain. From my layman's perspective (though I do have several friends who identify as "gender-queer"), I think gender identity is a confluence of hormone levels and environmental factors, and therefore is a malleable spectrum. I don't fully understand the mechanics of it, but I know enough for it to make sense to me.

I agree with all of this.

I hold grave reservations about extending that kind of "knock yourself out, whatever makes you happy" attitude towards imposing transgender identities upon children, however. Show me a child who identifies as transgender and I am almost certain that you will find something terribly strange about their parents, their home life, etc.

I hold no such reservations. I had a transgender student, whose family was kind, intelligent, and supportive. I saw more normalcy in that family than my own ever offered.

My feelings are a little less certain when it is a child making that decision, and their parents follow through in any substantive way during childhood, though. Life impacting decisions are just too big for childhood. Shit, the logic and reasoning centers of the brain aren't finished developing until the mid 20's. I still have a problem with alcohol, cigarette, driver's license, and army cutoff ages being below that.

[Mine]

My feelings are a little less certain when it is a child making that decision, and their parents follow through in any substantive way during childhood, though. Life impacting decisions are just too big for childhood. Shit, the logic and reasoning centers of the brain aren't finished developing until the mid 20's. I still have a problem with alcohol, cigarette, driver's license, and army cutoff ages being below that.

I don't agree with any drastic procedures during childhood, but i can see how the parents would be in a very difficult situation when their child's gender dysphoria is severe enough to be obvious even at a very young age.

I've never for a second had any issue with transgender people since i've heard there was such a thing as sex reassignment surgery back when i was a teen.
The discomfort they must feel to make them peruse such an extreme procedure is something i can't imagine. So i'd feel like a horrible human being if i was judging them for it.

[Green Habit]

Sometimes I feel there's a lot of overthought on this issue. If a person is born of one biological sex but culturally identifies more with the other, then that's their decision to make, and they shouldn't be shamed or discriminated against because of it. Fairly simple, though I know how sad it is that it's not always the case when it comes to discrimination. I also wish we could work against the whole concept of gender as a social construct. Almost all behavior shouldn't be considered masculine or feminine, just behavior that people do.

[McParadigm]

Sometimes I feel there's a lot of overthought on this issue. If a person is born of one biological sex but culturally identifies more with the other, then that's their decision to make, and they should be shamed or discriminated against because of it. Fairly simple, though I know how sad it is that it's not always the case when it comes to discrimination. I also wish we could work against the whole concept of gender as a social construct. Almost all behavior shouldn't be considered masculine or feminine, just behavior that people do.

I laughed.

[Green Habit]

Oh, what missing two letters and an apostrophe early in the morning can do. Nice that phpBB isn't noting that I made an edit on my post!