The taboo against calling someone they/them is pretty much exclusively for calling a binary trans person that on purpose when they have made clear that they i.e. identify as a woman, full stop. Often in the form "I support their lifestyle choices but they will never be a woman." Signaling an openness to nonbinary people is more easily done by, when you would say "he or she," say "he, she, or they" (as in "guys, gals, and nonbinary pals"), because a lot of people use singular they really casually and not as a social signal (to be clear, this is a GOOD thing). You don't need to say it all the time. Just say it once in your conversation and the intent will be extremely clear.
As a note, universally using singular they can be especially common for people with Chinese as a first language, for example, because Chinese does not have gendered pronouns.
I remember back when textbooks and novels always referred to any unknown person as he, and saying he or she was considered radical and clumsy Q_Q How times change!
We've basically destroyed that use for pronouns now - they are almost as arbitrary as names. More often than not now I just tend to refer to people by their name, instead of a pronoun, because it's just too problematic otherwise. I mean seriously, you now are expected to know name + pronoun combos, not just names. And I had enough trouble just remembering people's names in the first place...
I think most trans people would be more or less good with 1. Their family, doctor, teachers, boss (people with power over them) and close friends respecting their pronouns and 2. Random strangers asking if they're not sure. In fact many trans people have an "X pronoun for cis people, cool getting anything from trans people" rule.
Yeah, it is socially complicated! I think most social change that breaks up established hierarchies and norms causes annoyance and disruption. The main thing for us is that we don't want to be dead, actually
There are 'cultures' built around physical sexual attributes, but they're hardly set in stone. A man adopting female culture is building a... stereotype, I suppose? ... of femininity and then performing it.
The end goal is to be treated the same by society as a female, or so I gather.
I feel that this only reinforces gender stereotypes. The adoption of any culture is fraught with such problems. An American who adopts French culture may have good reasons for so doing - they like wearing berets, and 'monsieur' feels like a cool mode of address to them. But by becoming 'French' instead of an American who likes these things, a latticework of stereotype is drawn upon. Suddenly the American is adopting a French accent, wearing striped clothing, and carrying a baguette.
An extreme example, I know, but you get the point. I tend to feel this creates a new culture, one which builds its own conceptual baggage - 'Americans who act French.'
I suppose I don't understand why one can't be an American who holds traits in common with some (not all by any means) Frenchmen. In defining oneself as French, a new category of Born-American-but-seeming-French is developed, which I don't think was the intention, but was always going to be the natural conclusion.
A sensitive subject for many on these forums, I know. But I feel it can be important to be honest about issues.
Quoted in its entirety because it is important to get all of this when I am responding to it.
Why would someone change citizenship?
What I think most cisgender people don't get is that trans people usually start with deviance and end with transition of some kind. For example:
I feel like garbage and I hate myself -> I start estrogen -> It functions like an antidepressant and I stop crying all the fucking time and am pretty happy, actually (IRL friend)
I have polycystic ovary syndrome and a ton of other health problems -> I start T -> the more I transition, the less stressed I feel. My medical complications go away. I am happy now. (Jesse Nowack / Nowacking on Twitter, who played Seras Victoria in Hellsing Abridged)
People have expectations of me while dating that I cannot and will not live up to -> I notice that these are considered normal expectations of women and even the bisexual women, when they are dating men, don't prefer to act like me -> maybe it would be easier if I were approaching this from the male side -> holy shit this is a lot better (childhood friend)
Around puberty (yes, really): "When am I going to grow my penis?" -> "girls don't do that" -> binding chest unsafely with rope because that is all that's available -> gender transition (same childhood friend actually, different side of things)
I wish I could give birth and breastfeed -> If I take progesterone, I can breastfeed, even if right now I can't give birth. -> I like this, let's do more (slightly changed story of IRL friend)
Starts occasionally crossdressing around age five -> Switches regularly between the "girls" and "boys" tables at school despite other students' attempted deterrence -> I am constantly being beaten up for my behavior as relates to gender -> people say I don't count as my at-birth assigned gender and repeatedly treat me violently in order to extract femininity -> I absorb a concept of myself as a second-rate existence, a second-tier woman, who anyone can do anything they want to because I am not protected by womanhood -> go to therapy and decide to name my existence as something other than a black hole of hated badness -> I am nonbinary, fuck you guys, you are not helping. I am staking a claim. (me, actually!)
Raspy-voiced high schooler with a fucked-up knee: I am a man. That's it. You keep saying I am a woman and you are wrong. Here, let me prove it to you [punches hole through wall] -> Starts cosplaying as famous male silent protagonist video game character, enjoys being consistently seen as male in cosplay spaces -> Maybe if I started T it would be easier to do this all the time -> *saves up money for top surgery by age 18* (other childhood friend)
Elementary schooler: I hate my name. Don't you dare call me J**** (standard girl's name). Call me my last name. -> Extremely depressed middle schooler with partially shaved head and slumped shoulders to make breasts disappear. "Don't call me J****." -> Transitions by high school and pretends to have never been known as J**** and that he is literally a different person. Where did J**** go? No idea. Never met her. (yet another childhood friend)
"I used to have long hair and everyone thought I was a girl. I absolutely loved it." -> puberty happens -> miserable -> as an adult, "sometimes they call me ma'am and I love it." -> "Let's try E for a month." -> . . . -> "OK, I like E better than what I had before. Let's keep taking E." (an ex)
"Sometimes I call myself 'he' in my head." -> "I feel like I am too clumsy for the social role I have been given. I stumble around and break things, figuratively speaking." -> "I wish no one had a gender. We could just be like abstract, beautiful shapes." -> "I'm fine with you calling me whatever but I don't like being called Mr. if you act like it's an upgrade." (high school ex)
I have piles of other examples like these. I think the most important thing is to recognize that there are piles of trans people that you could be friends with and invite over to brunch or for parties, and most of us are pretty interesting
Anyone who has a different experience to you has something to teach.
Your question also assumes that the person in question doesn't pass, that they perform a femininity that appears stereotyped rather than natural. I can guarantee you that you have met trans people who you did not know to be trans.
A female adopting female culture is building a stereotype of femininity and then performing it, the one she learns from imitating other female models.
Here's another question for you: What does it feel like to the guys, exactly, when a girl starts hanging out with groups of guys as her main social group, takes on their behaviors, and is in general "one of the guys?" If she does it in elementary school? If she does it as an adult? Is she equal to them? When? How?
What does it feel like when a boy hangs out with only girls? Is he equal to them? Is he allowed to do the things that they like to do together? Is he considered safe? Is he thought to be raiding the hen house? What about when he hangs out with them and puts on a dress? What about when he hangs out with them, puts on a dress, giggles about boys, and says "I never liked the name Peter, please call me Diane?" What about when he does this at work, in the street, at home, shaves all his body hair, takes feminizing hormones, wears a bra and panties, gets surgical intervention to build a vagina, marries a man and stays at home cooking and caring for the children, continues to hang out with the girls, continues to hang out with the girls, continues to hang out with the girls?
Part of recognizing trans women as women is in order to say: No, this person does not have a "male" relationship with women. This person has a "female" relationship with women. This person may, in fact, want to be desired by men as men desire women, not as men desire men. Those things are different.
If you feel any anxiety about a burly man only using women's restrooms, then you understand that gender has a societal function purely beyond stereotypes of masculinity and femininity. The same if you feel any anxiety about your child saying over and over: "I am a boy, I am a boy, I am a boy." You understand that this is a rupture in expectations.
Saying "no, you're not a boy, you're my beautiful daughter," in and of itself shows that there is something real that you believe to exist in boyness, something different and separate from girlness. If they were the same then anyone who wanted to could simply be a boy. By declaring it. But that isn't the world we live in.
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Topic: The small random questions thread [WAAAAAAAAAAluigi] (Read 676538 times)