I shall keep an eye out for more news.Vortrog wrote:QUOTE (Vortrog @ Feb 3 2012, 08:16 PM) I would very much like to see a follow up to this please girlyboy as it progresses through the courts.
Horrible story about the NYPD
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/02/13..._n_1272726.html
I thought of this discussion after reading this article. In this case woman wants to be man. In topics case, man want to be woman.
However wanting to be a man, yet reverting to the functions of a woman sends a mixed message about how you want to be treated which is a shame for those who generally are committed.
I thought of this discussion after reading this article. In this case woman wants to be man. In topics case, man want to be woman.
However wanting to be a man, yet reverting to the functions of a woman sends a mixed message about how you want to be treated which is a shame for those who generally are committed.
^ I have heard of this story before, I believe, and again, sorry, but you are wrong.
What if you're transgender, but want to have a kid? Many people want to have biological children. It's not an urge I feel myself (yet), but it's understandable enough. Today's gender reassignment surgery is purely cosmetic (in terms of functionality). Maybe someday in the future we'll live in a Banksian utopia where technology lets us fully adopt a physical body fitting the sex we feel we belong to, including a fully functional set of reproductive bits. Today, that's still purely science fiction. So if you are a man, but have the physical body of a woman, and want to have a kid... You don't really have many options.
I think it's pretty insulting to say this man is not "committed" to his transition. Nor is it fair to say this is a mixed message on how he wants to be treated. If you want to know how a person wants to be treated, perhaps just ask them? It seems pretty clear this person wants to be treated as a man. And it seems obvious that he's put a lot of effort into this transition, so saying he's not "committed" is just silly, and very negative.
It really depresses me that this is such a big deal. I understand why it is, but... it's not right. If someone says "I am a man, that is how I want to be treated," why isn't that enough? Why must we police people's behaviour and constantly judge them on how "committed" they are to the gender they say they belong to?
You don't know how difficult it is to transition -- and neither do I, from a first-hand perspective (I was acquainted with a person transitioning FtM in university, but not well enough to know the details of what he was going through -- though I know that even though he was from a fairly liberal family, there was still a lot of conflict about the change), but from everything I've read on the topic, it can be a nightmare. I don't know, perhaps it is better in England? Here in NA, however, it's extremely difficult to get people to accept the transition, and it's very difficult to get proper medical support for it. I think just "coming out of the closet" as transsexual already requires a lot of commitment, because it can make your life very, very difficult.
And I think this person knew how difficult it would be, especially when he chose to have a kid, and I think the very fact that he's willing to go through it shows how committed he must be.
As to the original discussion, I'm still keeping an eye out for more news on this case, but so far I've only seen re-hashes of the original story with no further updates, it seems. This article does also cite an Amnesty International report from 2005 that I've not seen before, which seems to confirm that mistreatment of LGBT people by American police departments may be a widespread problem.
What if you're transgender, but want to have a kid? Many people want to have biological children. It's not an urge I feel myself (yet), but it's understandable enough. Today's gender reassignment surgery is purely cosmetic (in terms of functionality). Maybe someday in the future we'll live in a Banksian utopia where technology lets us fully adopt a physical body fitting the sex we feel we belong to, including a fully functional set of reproductive bits. Today, that's still purely science fiction. So if you are a man, but have the physical body of a woman, and want to have a kid... You don't really have many options.
I think it's pretty insulting to say this man is not "committed" to his transition. Nor is it fair to say this is a mixed message on how he wants to be treated. If you want to know how a person wants to be treated, perhaps just ask them? It seems pretty clear this person wants to be treated as a man. And it seems obvious that he's put a lot of effort into this transition, so saying he's not "committed" is just silly, and very negative.
It really depresses me that this is such a big deal. I understand why it is, but... it's not right. If someone says "I am a man, that is how I want to be treated," why isn't that enough? Why must we police people's behaviour and constantly judge them on how "committed" they are to the gender they say they belong to?
You don't know how difficult it is to transition -- and neither do I, from a first-hand perspective (I was acquainted with a person transitioning FtM in university, but not well enough to know the details of what he was going through -- though I know that even though he was from a fairly liberal family, there was still a lot of conflict about the change), but from everything I've read on the topic, it can be a nightmare. I don't know, perhaps it is better in England? Here in NA, however, it's extremely difficult to get people to accept the transition, and it's very difficult to get proper medical support for it. I think just "coming out of the closet" as transsexual already requires a lot of commitment, because it can make your life very, very difficult.
And I think this person knew how difficult it would be, especially when he chose to have a kid, and I think the very fact that he's willing to go through it shows how committed he must be.
As to the original discussion, I'm still keeping an eye out for more news on this case, but so far I've only seen re-hashes of the original story with no further updates, it seems. This article does also cite an Amnesty International report from 2005 that I've not seen before, which seems to confirm that mistreatment of LGBT people by American police departments may be a widespread problem.
Last edited by Makida on Mon Feb 13, 2012 8:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Why isn't it enough? You make a claim, but you don't offer any support or logic behind it.Vortrog wrote:QUOTE (Vortrog @ Feb 13 2012, 03:16 PM) Tl;dr version
I am a man and that how I want to be treated isn't enough if you then do something impossible for a man to do.
It's not possible for this man to biologically father a child. Perhaps he would want to if he could (not that that's anyone's business, really), but it is not possible. So if he wants to have a kid that's biologically his, you're saying he has no options? Either he can't have a kid, or he doesn't deserve to be treated as a man, no matter how much trouble and effort he's gone through to transition?
How is that fair?
In what way does it hurt anyone to accept this person as a man even if he does something cisgendered men can't biologically do?
Why do you give biology so much power when it comes to purely cultural and social things? Are you saying a man is only really a man if he can play the male role in reproduction? If so, does that mean infertile men are not really men? Or are you saying it's okay to be a man who's unable to father a child, as long as you don't do something biologically impossible for cisgendered males, i.e. becoming pregnant? If so, why, what special significance does it have, and what distinction is there between this deviation from what's biologically "standard" for a male, and the one that is posed by simple infertility?
What if someday in the future medical technology makes it possible for men to become pregnant? It's not as far-fetched as it may sound -- certainly impossible with what we know today, but hypothetically in the future it may be possible to support and nurture a foetus within a male body... But for the sake of argument, if such a medical technology were developed, would every man making use of it cease to be male?
Anyway, whatever your intentions may be, your comment comes across as a knee-jerk reaction: You KNOW what a "real" man is, and you see someone falling outside of that norm, ergo, he's not "really" a man, and you don't really think there's anything else to be said about it. I don't think that's a productive attitude, and I think this sort of thinking leads to a lot of injustice in the world.
Last edited by Makida on Mon Feb 13, 2012 8:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I don't actually understand this at all.
Firstly, what questions? My questions were mostly rhetorical. When I said "how is this fair?" in my previous comment, I actually meant, "it's not effing fair, and the above is why it's not fair, and that's why you're wrong." And when I said "who is it hurting?" I actually meant "it obviously isn't hurting anybody, it's no-one else's business, call him a man and that's all there is to it, why the heck wouldn't you?" I thought this was pretty clear. Perhaps I write too many rhetorical questions in my posts?
This isn't a matter of "conviction." It's a medical condition when your physical sex does not match the way you see yourself. Trans people don't go through surgery and ostracism and interpersonal conflict for fun, but because they need to.
The "falling off the wagon" bit at the end is also confusing. O_o For trans people, being true to themselves isn't some sort of habit or behaviour or something where they can "stick to it" or "fall off the wagon." It's just that -- being who they are, and asking other people to address them with the proper pronoun. It doesn't seem a complex concept to me, actually. I'd imagine for a FtM transsexual it's no easier to "fall off the wagon" of being male than it is for you to "fall off the wagon" of being whatever your birth sex and gender are.
And even if you want to frame it as "convictions," it is arbitrary to say a person isn't true to their "convictions" because they want to have a kid. That's stupid. Lots of people want to have kids. Some people don't; some people adopt instead, but there are lots of people who want biological children. This is a person who is lucky enough to be fertile and biologically able to have a kid. What justification is there for taking this away from him as an arbitrary "price" for being accepted as a "real man?" And in what way does it show this person to have "weak convictions" or whatever if he, you know, both wants to be a man, because that's who he is inside, and have a kid, because, well, whatever reason it is that most people want to have kids? Again, this seems cruel and arbitrary, not some brave defence of "convictions" or "fairness for those around them."
Again, what business is it to those around him? So they have to call this person "he." Ooh, how difficult! Oh my goodness, they have to stretch open their minds and accept a change in a person that seems unusual! What a heavy burden, goodness. What a great evil this man is doing to everyone in his life by asking them to accept him for who he is. How unjust and unfair of him.
Firstly, what questions? My questions were mostly rhetorical. When I said "how is this fair?" in my previous comment, I actually meant, "it's not effing fair, and the above is why it's not fair, and that's why you're wrong." And when I said "who is it hurting?" I actually meant "it obviously isn't hurting anybody, it's no-one else's business, call him a man and that's all there is to it, why the heck wouldn't you?" I thought this was pretty clear. Perhaps I write too many rhetorical questions in my posts?
This isn't a matter of "conviction." It's a medical condition when your physical sex does not match the way you see yourself. Trans people don't go through surgery and ostracism and interpersonal conflict for fun, but because they need to.
The "falling off the wagon" bit at the end is also confusing. O_o For trans people, being true to themselves isn't some sort of habit or behaviour or something where they can "stick to it" or "fall off the wagon." It's just that -- being who they are, and asking other people to address them with the proper pronoun. It doesn't seem a complex concept to me, actually. I'd imagine for a FtM transsexual it's no easier to "fall off the wagon" of being male than it is for you to "fall off the wagon" of being whatever your birth sex and gender are.
And even if you want to frame it as "convictions," it is arbitrary to say a person isn't true to their "convictions" because they want to have a kid. That's stupid. Lots of people want to have kids. Some people don't; some people adopt instead, but there are lots of people who want biological children. This is a person who is lucky enough to be fertile and biologically able to have a kid. What justification is there for taking this away from him as an arbitrary "price" for being accepted as a "real man?" And in what way does it show this person to have "weak convictions" or whatever if he, you know, both wants to be a man, because that's who he is inside, and have a kid, because, well, whatever reason it is that most people want to have kids? Again, this seems cruel and arbitrary, not some brave defence of "convictions" or "fairness for those around them."
Again, what business is it to those around him? So they have to call this person "he." Ooh, how difficult! Oh my goodness, they have to stretch open their minds and accept a change in a person that seems unusual! What a heavy burden, goodness. What a great evil this man is doing to everyone in his life by asking them to accept him for who he is. How unjust and unfair of him.
Last edited by Makida on Mon Feb 13, 2012 9:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
girlyboy wrote:QUOTE (girlyboy @ Feb 14 2012, 07:24 AM) Perhaps I write too many rhetorical questions in my posts?
Chin up, have a good day. Im off to something a little more important than changing the world....like making a living!
Last edited by Vortrog on Mon Feb 13, 2012 9:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"."
P. S.: Actually, the fella on the right in the picture is pretty close to how I imagine Vortrog, though it may just be because of his sig...
P. P. S.: Malicious Wraith, of course, must be the one on the left.
P. S.: Actually, the fella on the right in the picture is pretty close to how I imagine Vortrog, though it may just be because of his sig...
P. P. S.: Malicious Wraith, of course, must be the one on the left.
Last edited by Makida on Mon Feb 13, 2012 10:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Malicious Wraith
- Posts: 3170
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Metz just happens to be one of the white people that isn't going anywhere on his own merit.Sheriff Metz wrote:QUOTE (Sheriff Metz @ Feb 3 2012, 01:33 AM) Treating any group of people differently (even with the best intentions) only breeds more discrimination and hate.
Which is why Affirmative Action and such @#(! is dumb as $#@!.
We pretend to be a non-racist society by treating some people as lesser people by holding them to a lower standard.
Brilliant.
IG: Liquid_Mamba / FedmanUnknown wrote:[Just want] to play some games before Alleg dies for good.
I don't want that time to be a @#(!-storm of hate and schadenfreude.