“Trans” encompasses transsexuals (the aforementioned people with genuine gender dysphoria), but also transvestites, autogynephiles, transgender people, non-binary people, and all the would-be victims who mistake subverting gender norms for a personality.
“Trans” encompasses transsexuals (the aforementioned people with genuine gender dysphoria), but also transvestites, autogynephiles, transgender people, non-binary people, and all the would-be victims who mistake subverting gender norms for a personality.
These people are not all the same."
This hits home. And you have outlined why I can't write "trans" without the sneer-quotes. The removal of -sexual, -gender, and -vestite from trans- seems to be a deliberate attempt to enlarge the ranks that would otherwise be only a few thousand people, those who meet the medical criteria for gender dysphoria.
Urging adolescents who wonder if their misery is explained by having the wrong gender identity, or who are gay and not ready to admit it, to hurry up and get hormones and surgery and cement themselves into those ranks for life ... before they have time to change their minds. I'm sure you're aware of the suicide rate among those who do change their minds.
I came out in Norfolk, VA in 1974 where the entire gay scene was centered on transvestites (a word we are not supposed to use anymore, claim the activists), and I have known a number of authentic transgendered people, the two have nothing to do with each other. Most transvestites in my acquaintance had some sort of character disorder. They stole from friends, almost none of them had jobs, and they only ever had one topic.
"all the would-be victims who mistake subverting gender norms for a personality."
"This hits home. And you have outlined why I can't write "trans" without the sneer-quotes."
Actually it was a conversation with you that got me thinking a bit more deeply about this. "Trans" had always been the term I used, just because it was a commonly understood term, but a while back, you said something along the lines of "trans-what?" when I wrote "trans" and I thought, "hmm, that's a fair point."
I'm trying to figure out a way to talk about trans people which makes this nuance more explicit. I'd like to use the term "transsexual" for people who actually have gender dysphoria, but that's been deemed a slur by the "nouveau-trans" and their allies, so I don't want to get into a bunch of needless bickering about it.
It was not that many years ago when the three terms I mentioned were what they called themselves; I've been told, frostily, that "transvestite" is now regarded as a slur. Well, all three words are still in the medical lexicon and that means more to me than do pronouncements by people who won't honor my request to not be called "queer," so they can f the f off.
Even dysphoria is a replacement for GID, as if the condition is not a disorder. It would seem to me that people who urgently desire what amounts to surgical mutilation have a disorder. OK, not a big deal, the same DSM took homosexuality out of the disorder category in 1974; win some, lose some.
I do hope the backlash you wrote about in Medium (without getting banned, astonishingly) comes to pass real soon now.
Trans-what? has always been there for me. Years ago, before "trans" was a part of my lexicon I knew a Thai Khatoy. He was the hairdresser on our expat compound in Saudi Arabia. I saw him as flaming gay, but he wished to be treated like one of the girls. He enjoyed their company and liked to play Mah Jong with them. I was perfectly fine with socially treating him as he wished, but no doubt you've already noticed that I use the pronoun "him" with respect to him.
In private conversation he told me that he really felt like a woman in a man's body and that he was trying to save money for reassignment surgery. On vacation in Thailand, we bumped into him by chance while he was also on vacation. He was in the company of a man who made no effort to present as a woman, flamed with supernova brightness and tried to hit on me in the presence of my wife. Was he really gender dysphoric or a homosexual transvestite trying to find a comfortable place in a world hostile to homosexuality? I'll never know but in retrospect, he may deserve a she from me.
I wish that people could go thru a discovery process about their own sexuality painlessly. Especially when escape from that pain leads to a medical intervention that was not really right for them or other tragedies.
There are more homosexuals among transvestites than in the general population but I have always read that the majority of them are heterosexual.
Every transvestite I ever trusted stole from me and in the year or I spent in the Norfolk gay scene I heard the word many times; if you let a drag into your house, count the silverware.
But "trans" seems even more decoupled from GID than homosexuality from transvestitism.
Another case of opinions based on a small view of a subset that gets people's attention. The only "trans"-somethings I have known were in a different environment from yours. Different vantage points.
The dishonesty of people impersonating women that you encountered may be a part of your view of "trans" in general although I have no doubt that you, like me, understand the influence of loud subsets beyond their true representation of the mean of a group.
And the transgendered whom I knew were all before the fad. Both the two I dated were going through the rigmarole of qualifying for surgery. The whole "trans"/"non-binary" thing wasn't even a gleam in anyone's eye yet.
“Trans” encompasses transsexuals (the aforementioned people with genuine gender dysphoria), but also transvestites, autogynephiles, transgender people, non-binary people, and all the would-be victims who mistake subverting gender norms for a personality.
These people are not all the same."
This hits home. And you have outlined why I can't write "trans" without the sneer-quotes. The removal of -sexual, -gender, and -vestite from trans- seems to be a deliberate attempt to enlarge the ranks that would otherwise be only a few thousand people, those who meet the medical criteria for gender dysphoria.
Urging adolescents who wonder if their misery is explained by having the wrong gender identity, or who are gay and not ready to admit it, to hurry up and get hormones and surgery and cement themselves into those ranks for life ... before they have time to change their minds. I'm sure you're aware of the suicide rate among those who do change their minds.
I came out in Norfolk, VA in 1974 where the entire gay scene was centered on transvestites (a word we are not supposed to use anymore, claim the activists), and I have known a number of authentic transgendered people, the two have nothing to do with each other. Most transvestites in my acquaintance had some sort of character disorder. They stole from friends, almost none of them had jobs, and they only ever had one topic.
"all the would-be victims who mistake subverting gender norms for a personality."
He rings the bell.
"This hits home. And you have outlined why I can't write "trans" without the sneer-quotes."
Actually it was a conversation with you that got me thinking a bit more deeply about this. "Trans" had always been the term I used, just because it was a commonly understood term, but a while back, you said something along the lines of "trans-what?" when I wrote "trans" and I thought, "hmm, that's a fair point."
I'm trying to figure out a way to talk about trans people which makes this nuance more explicit. I'd like to use the term "transsexual" for people who actually have gender dysphoria, but that's been deemed a slur by the "nouveau-trans" and their allies, so I don't want to get into a bunch of needless bickering about it.
We definitely need better terminology though.
It was not that many years ago when the three terms I mentioned were what they called themselves; I've been told, frostily, that "transvestite" is now regarded as a slur. Well, all three words are still in the medical lexicon and that means more to me than do pronouncements by people who won't honor my request to not be called "queer," so they can f the f off.
Even dysphoria is a replacement for GID, as if the condition is not a disorder. It would seem to me that people who urgently desire what amounts to surgical mutilation have a disorder. OK, not a big deal, the same DSM took homosexuality out of the disorder category in 1974; win some, lose some.
I do hope the backlash you wrote about in Medium (without getting banned, astonishingly) comes to pass real soon now.
Trans-what? has always been there for me. Years ago, before "trans" was a part of my lexicon I knew a Thai Khatoy. He was the hairdresser on our expat compound in Saudi Arabia. I saw him as flaming gay, but he wished to be treated like one of the girls. He enjoyed their company and liked to play Mah Jong with them. I was perfectly fine with socially treating him as he wished, but no doubt you've already noticed that I use the pronoun "him" with respect to him.
In private conversation he told me that he really felt like a woman in a man's body and that he was trying to save money for reassignment surgery. On vacation in Thailand, we bumped into him by chance while he was also on vacation. He was in the company of a man who made no effort to present as a woman, flamed with supernova brightness and tried to hit on me in the presence of my wife. Was he really gender dysphoric or a homosexual transvestite trying to find a comfortable place in a world hostile to homosexuality? I'll never know but in retrospect, he may deserve a she from me.
I wish that people could go thru a discovery process about their own sexuality painlessly. Especially when escape from that pain leads to a medical intervention that was not really right for them or other tragedies.
There are more homosexuals among transvestites than in the general population but I have always read that the majority of them are heterosexual.
Every transvestite I ever trusted stole from me and in the year or I spent in the Norfolk gay scene I heard the word many times; if you let a drag into your house, count the silverware.
But "trans" seems even more decoupled from GID than homosexuality from transvestitism.
Another case of opinions based on a small view of a subset that gets people's attention. The only "trans"-somethings I have known were in a different environment from yours. Different vantage points.
The dishonesty of people impersonating women that you encountered may be a part of your view of "trans" in general although I have no doubt that you, like me, understand the influence of loud subsets beyond their true representation of the mean of a group.
And the transgendered whom I knew were all before the fad. Both the two I dated were going through the rigmarole of qualifying for surgery. The whole "trans"/"non-binary" thing wasn't even a gleam in anyone's eye yet.