Lament 3: Cry Hard With A Vengeance

[RyanThunder]

Terminology like "assigned (or designated) ___ at birth" is good in general because it's a lot more accurate: it just means that's what the doctors/your parents declared you were when you were born, it's not what you "really are/were" or anything like that.

It's an interesting distraction from the fact that the doctor didn't choose what parts you have, yeah.

Never could understand why that's a problem, though. I mean its not like you must line up with the parts you were born with somehow.

As far as I'm concerned, I'm a man. Not a cisman. A man. No need to reinvent the wheel here and start tacking prefixes on everything. Transpeople are different in significant ways so they get a prefix, but its still the least you can do to refer to them as men and women out of common decency and respect.

[evilsoup]

ciswoman/cisman is only ever when people are talking about transpeople though, AFAICT
and in that context, it's a useful distinction

[RyanThunder]

Well that's okay, I guess.

I guess I just take issue with "Assigned/designated ___ at birth" because it seems to blame the doctor.

I may be reading too far into it.

[Losonti Tokash]

It's more an implication of society and gender norms than any specific people and helps avoid the stigmatization of not being "normal." Besides, it's a clever use of a term from chemistry.

[RyanThunder]

Whatever helps, I guess.

... the women or his eyes?

Both, and literally.

[magic princess]

A few comments:

1. I thought Nietzslime was not male identified. I am wrong?

2. I already started the local chapter of SCUM years ago.

3. Actually research indicates that 15% of men commit basically all violence against women, so we only need to embark on a male cleansing campaign of the extermination of 525 million men worldwide.

[Ralin]

3. Actually research indicates that 15% of men commit basically all violence against women, so we only need to embark on a male cleansing campaign of the extermination of 525 million men worldwide.

I've always kind of admired how you manage to come up with solutions that sound crazy extreme, but always manage to be able to honestly say that there are way more extreme positions you could have taken.

[Aaron]

Is there a handy rapist gene or something?

[Flagg]

Hey rapists have rights, too. I mean where would we be without people like TimothyC?

[Infinity Biscuit]

It's an interesting distraction from the fact that the doctor didn't choose what parts you have, yeah.

Never could understand why that's a problem, though. I mean its not like you must line up with the parts you were born with somehow.

If the body parts aren't what matters and languages built around the body parts clouds the issue and brings pain to people then the language used shouldn't be built around the body parts, duh.

It also works well for intersex people in multiple ways, first because it makes it more clear that they don't have to be tied down into their assigned gender and secondly because if culture shifts enough maybe we won't have doctors regularly surgerizing babies' genitals to better fit the platonic ideals of the penis or vagina.

As far as I'm concerned, I'm a man. Not a cisman. A man. No need to reinvent the wheel here and start tacking prefixes on everything. Transpeople are different in significant ways so they get a prefix, but its still the least you can do to refer to them as men and women out of common decency and respect.

That's like saying "I'm not a straight person, I'm a person. Gay people are different enough that we get to put labels on them but not us REGULAR people."

[RyanThunder]

So I have a high-handed outlook on a subject. Are you at all surprised?

[magic princess]

Is there a handy rapist gene or something?

I don't know if society could deal with that actually being the case.

I've always kind of admired how you manage to come up with solutions that sound crazy extreme, but always manage to be able to honestly say that there are way more extreme positions you could have taken.

Thank you, I try really hard to please, mein fuhrer.

[magic princess]

I actually hate the use of "cis" too, so it isn't just straight male Ryan. I think it intentionally creates divisions between women (and men, for transmen) to continue justifying the Oppression Olympics victim culture a lot of transpeople are addicted to like cocaine.

[Oxymoron]

I know I'm going to sound incredibly wide-eyed, but maybe the solution would be to stop Dividing, and start Uniting instead ?

I mean, we're all Humans after all, right ?

[evilsoup]

you're right
you do sound incredibly wide-eyed

[Zablorg]

golly yes why i'm pretty sure if we just stopped squibbling and squabbling and held hands and started singing everything would turn out just great in the end

[Infinity Biscuit]

Re: Duchess: You also like terms a lot of transwomen see as pretty terrible slurs so you're not representative of the larger population when it comes to language

I honestly see cis as lessening the division, myself. If you have a counterpart to trans, then it's more two varieties of women (no different than tall vs short or dark-skinned vs light-skinned or anything like that) rather than one group of normal and one abberation. I don't think anyone's trying to say we should use cis/trans terms all the time; only when they're necessary for clarification. Thus if trans is one of two equal but roughly opposite descriptors it seems less of a big deal and thus less of an important division than if trans is compared to "normal".

[Bakustra]

I know I'm going to sound incredibly wide-eyed, but maybe the solution would be to stop Dividing, and start Uniting instead ?

I mean, we're all Humans after all, right ?

You know who else talked about uniting people together...

[evilsoup]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=P7txCdLCP9U

[Oxymoron]

To elaborate, I know it's very tempting to start categorizing everything, putting all that you can see in its "just" place, neatly placed in orderly boxes... a bit like Entomology.

Problem being that, like entomology, this can only happen with dead and fundamentally static things... which real life isn't, fundamentally.


The point I'm making is, maybe the mindset that push people to categorize things, may push people to start treating things that are not on the same categories as those they place themselves in as "strangers", and potentially as "danger".

You may now start calling me Captain Obvious.


Also, unrelated, but I just got rid of a Cold.

[Oxymoron]

You know who else talked about uniting people together...

Dammit, uncovered again !

[Bakustra]

Something similar has been argued by a variety of civil-rights thinkers- what's needed are broad senses of equality, dignity, and freedom (or liberte, egalite, fraternite if you like), because beyond a certain point it's impossible to articulate, say, hairstyles as a meaningful civil rights issue, but at the same time they're often banned as part of efforts to get people to cover up differences (this also happens with gender and sexuality). In addition, more strategically, most members of the majority don't get many benefits from discriminatory power structures and this method may get them to support justice more readily because it's no longer viewable as a potential threat.

[Infinity Biscuit]

Does use of a counterpart term for an already-prevalent minority descriptor actually increase division, though? From the way I see it, any division was already there, and the new term just makes it so that it's not opposed with, and thus set apart from, normality. Does the use of "straight" divide people along sexual orientation more than if it weren't used but "gay" still was?

[magic princess]

Re: Duchess: You also like terms a lot of transwomen see as pretty terrible slurs so you're not representative of the larger population when it comes to language

No, I tolerate them as being better than the alternatives. I was going to get insulted here, so I wanted to set terms for how to insult me without offending me at a viscerally wrong and inappropriate level.

I honestly see cis as lessening the division, myself. If you have a counterpart to trans, then it's more two varieties of women (no different than tall vs short or dark-skinned vs light-skinned or anything like that) rather than one group of normal and one abberation. I don't think anyone's trying to say we should use cis/trans terms all the time; only when they're necessary for clarification. Thus if trans is one of two equal but roughly opposite descriptors it seems less of a big deal and thus less of an important division than if trans is compared to "normal".

Well, I massively disagree with that perspective, but I dislike the use of the term transwoman also, which probably has something to do with it. (Yes, even though I often use it myself because it's a lot less clunky than any alternative, I am not comfortable with the word, I just sort of tolerate it).

[magic princess]

Something similar has been argued by a variety of civil-rights thinkers- what's needed are broad senses of equality, dignity, and freedom (or liberte, egalite, fraternite if you like), because beyond a certain point it's impossible to articulate, say, hairstyles as a meaningful civil rights issue, but at the same time they're often banned as part of efforts to get people to cover up differences (this also happens with gender and sexuality). In addition, more strategically, most members of the majority don't get many benefits from discriminatory power structures and this method may get them to support justice more readily because it's no longer viewable as a potential threat.

I put it this way: I have not in any objective sense suffered more or even equally than a victim of vaginal fistulae in Africa. Transwomen and said individuals are roughly probably about the same proportion of the worldwide female population. I don't want to be seen as more worthy, or more deserving of concern than she is--or less worthy or less deserving of concern. I want my concerns to be addressed by a broad-based feminist movement that regards them as equally valid, if less time critical in my case, and is generally and genuinely focused on correcting all of these issues through a broad push forward that doesn't make distinctions.