[RD] Ask a trans person II: 2 trans 2 sexual

[Gorbles]

Not to get nitpicky or anything. Last I checked “They’ll” is a contraction of “they shall, they will”, so what makes the use of “they’ll” to be considered wrong pronoun use? Since when I read the words, I read it as "oh you can go ahead and leave that on your cart, once you pull forward they shall be able to scan that for you" (I’m using they shall in this context since it’s more polite than the commanding “they will”).

Yes, this is exactly why fy00sh immediately then said "except they usually don't say "they" even though i wear a large colorful pin next to my name tag".

 

[GenMarshall]

Yes, this is exactly why fy00sh immediately then said "except they usually don't say "they" even though i wear a large colorful pin next to my name tag".

I see, thanks for the further clarification since I thought the impression was that the word “they’ll” is a problem.

 

[schlaufuchs]

Can you talk a little more about this? Are you speaking about a cis man specifically when you say this? If so, why is it particularly significant to you to have a cis man genuinely view a trans woman as beautiful? I have so many thoughts, but this seems like a perfect time to listen rather than speculate.

Because trans women are not portrayed as authentically beautiful without qualification in the media, generally. We are either 1) sexually alluring (not beautiful) predators whose aim is to entrap men in an act of debasement, in which case the revelation of our "maleness" is an act of horror or shock (think Brian vomiting in Family Guy when he finds out the woman he has the hots for is trans), 2) buffoons to be mocked, i.e. the femininity is shown to be artificial, with inescapable trappings of maleness poking out the sides, she is portrayed as delusional- attractive or desirable only to herself. A prototypical example of this might be Snowflake from Ralph Bakshi's Heavy Traffic, or Mrs. Garrison or the Undercover Cop from South Park. 3) the "tragic" trans woman who, regardless of physical appearance, is fundamentally desexualized. They do not exist to love, to be aesthetically appealing, to have a fulfilling internal life. Their only purpose is to talk about their transness and suffer for their transness so cis audiences can pat themselves on the back for not being revolted by the sight of a tranny.

The totality of trans portrayal in the media is "beautiful but". You're beautiful, but you have a penis. You're beautiful for a dude. You're beautiful (sniggering in the background). You're beautiful [but then a friend walks by and says "bro why are you flirting with a dude?"]. Again, for mainstream media to have a cis man to say a trans woman is beautiful, and then have that character not shown to be delusional, or creepy, to not have that trans woman immediately undercut that by doing something humiliating or masculine, for it not to be obvious to the audience through context that he is simply humoring her, is very rare. For that character to be played by an actual trans woman even moreso.

I found an excellent series of essays the other day that do a good job of explaining transmisogyny, where it comes from, and how it functions. You can find part 1 here. But there's a passage at the end of part 3 that I think dovetails nicely with why a cis man calling a trans woman beautiful without qualification is remarkable (bolding mine):

No regime can afford to take desertion lightly, but outright treason, actual and legitimate identification with the occupied, the exploited—that it cannot countenance under any circumstance. If one’s entire ideology is built on a myth of essentialized superiority, of a difference between the master and the slave that is innate and natural and impossible to transcend, then legitimizing any porosity between the two contradictory categories, permitting any identification of the humane Self with the dehumanized Other, has to be treated as an existential threat, a possible catastrophe in the making. Traitors to the regime need to be sought out and suppressed with all possible zeal, every last one stamped out and marginalized to the utter fringes.

Which all, ultimately, amounts to this: if society ever erroneously constructs a transsexual, she needs to be immediately, instantly destroyed.

There is a rich irony inherent to this destruction, however, which is that in attempting to destroy the transsexual, patriarchal society actually validates her. For in a society that genders everything, every mechanism, essence and feature, the act of violently negating the transsexual’s potential manhood, of casting her out from the upper echelons of the humanized down to the depths of the untouchables, is an act inseparable from the misogynistic processes by which all besides the patriarchal man are ultimately defined. Creation in destruction, construction by nullification, patriarchy births its own antithesis in hatred, by expelling its worst traitors for the unforgivable sin of seeing worth in all that it did not want them to be.

As it so happens, under patriarchal ideology, womanhood is the worst fate that a person can be consigned to.

We can now truly begin to ascertain the shape that transmisogyny materially takes, finally begin to put the pieces together after reckoning with gender as a socially-constructed regime of dehumanization predicated on specific forms of labor extraction. The failure to take up the mantle of manhood, or the temerity to wilfully reject it carries the penalty of reassignment, of revocation of any and all respectability that existence under patriarchal gender affords. The transsexual woman, having already failed at being a man, is relegated to the simultaneous state of failed women as well, given her inability to serve patriarchy’s reproductive logics, to become a somewhat valued property utilized to perpetuate patrilineality. Her exploitation takes an acutely sexual form, her purpose defined and distilled into the sole function that women are reduced to if (and when) they cannot bear a man’s children.

Despite this reduction of the transsexual’s existence to her sexual availability, she is also peculiarly denied something crucial: recognition. While it may be permissible to treat the transsexual like a woman, to degrade her and objectify her and sexualize her as one, she cannot at any point be named as one, cannot be admitted to have achieved the status that those who violate her implicitly categorize her into even as they commit the violation. No, transsexual has to be something else, has to be the boy who could never grow up, the sissy who couldn’t be manly or the homosexual whose lust for straight men drove her to self-mutilation. In order for her to be the ur-example of dehumanization, the totalized non-person that exists in the harshest contrast against the Natural Man, she must be hurled out of gendered classification so utterly that she becomes Something Else, held up as a degendered freak even as she is subjected to the full force of gendering.

In this sense the transsexual and her body become the site upon which any and every patriarchal excess can be enacted without remorse, the brutalized Other who is not simply a colonized subject of the regime, but a barbarian milling at the gates, at once wretched and pitiable while also representing the crisis that could undo the regime’s very foundations. All regimes sooner or later need an external threat to divert attention to, a foreign enemy for its people to focus on so that the extant tyranny seems preferable, even tame by comparison, and the transsexual is the Gendered Empire’s very own Vandal. She is the menace against whom any violence can be justified, both the failed man who can be beaten senseless and the failed woman who can be raped with impunity, against whom no amount of harm is unjustifiable.

Speaking in plain terms, the tranny is constructed as the union of fag and whore.

What, then, is transmisogyny? It is the process by which those conscripted into the male sex under patriarchy are denaturalized and dehumanized, being demoted from potentially liberated agent to subjugated object. It is the intensification of misogyny in a manner that does not merely enforce sexual difference, but explicitly penalizes the failure to uphold it. It is the degendering of the male subject, enacted to reconstruct her into an un-person who cannot be considered to be wronged, violated or otherwise harmed, upon whom sexual exploitation and feminized labor extraction can be enacted with impunity. More broadly, if misogyny is the force that elevates men at the expense of women, then transmisogyny is the complementary force that makes examples out of those who dare to turn their backs on the resulting gendered rewards. Transmisogyny is the reminder, the warning, the deterrent: “be the man you were meant to be, or else.”

Of course I get this. On that note, do you see any value in trans actors playing roles that essentially ignore their transness? Can they play such a role without it feeling like tokenism to you? Or do you feel that if their transness is not addressed or acknowledged somehow in the role/character, that they are then simply tokens? For example, if trans woman actor is playing a woman where the matter of whether she is cis or trans never comes up, can that serve to advance the legitimacy in popular perception of trans womens' identity?

I see value in any of my siblings getting paid. But politically, artistically, it doesn't particularly matter to me one way or the other. What I ultimately want, what I care about, is trans media. Art made by and for trans people, dealing with trans subjects through a trans lens. Art made about trans people, but by and for cis people doesn't tend to be particularly good in my experience. Because it is always mediated through transmisogyny, and always carries the transmisgynistic predilections of the cis creators. Typically it's crass, demeaning, base; insulting if not outright triggering. The bar is in hell. Like we're literally talking about "scenes where a trans person is present, is treated as a person, and nobody humiliates or insults her" as the apotheosis of good representation at this point. But if you contrast that with actual trans media: with She-Ra, or Steven Universe, or The Prince, or Stone Butch Blues, or Preacher's Daughter, like the difference is night and day. The topics, the tone, the treatment, it's categorical. What I want is more of the latter, especially media by trans women, who are all too often forgotten in drives for trans-inclusive media.

This I also get and I guess you probably know I can empathize, via analogy at least, with this sentiment. Do you see any role for the cis producers of media in the presentation of trans actors and characters? What I'm specifically thinking about, is what you've identified as the suffering-narrative/focus. Do you think that an oppressed group's entry into popular perception generally first flows through stories/characters that focus on the suffering narrative, in order to capture the popular imagination, sympathy, interest... as opposed to the indifference that oppressed people generally receive, which in turn, serves to enable their continued oppression?

I don't. We have had some 50 years of cis producers of trans characters and actors, dating all the way back to Andy Warhol, and we're just as misunderstood and misrepresented as we've ever been. When traditional media gives the reins of showrunning to trans creators they're blips, random droplets rather than a gathering stream, and what authentic queer lens exists is arrived at by metaphor, by trickery, or at times by outright rebelling against the wishes or demands of the cis producer to the ultimate destruction of the show or the trans creator's career. What has changed recently is that it has gotten cheaper and easier to get art produced and distributed, and because of that there is a slight burble from below of trans people making the art, distributing it, and viewing it themselves. But ultimately trans women are, by and large, very poor, and this affects the types of media we can work in, the volume that is created, and the reach it ultimately has.

In other words... do you see any value in leaning hard into presenting the suffering of trans women in popular media, precisely to raise the awareness that can then lead to greater sensitivity and mainstream acceptance? Or do you see some other path towards the same goal? Or something else that I am missing?

It doesn't lead to greater sensitivity though, is my point. It is to keep us as figurines that cis people can pull out of the display case to gawp at from time to time. In the same way that formalization, institutionalization, or legalization of a Thing can render it less free, safe, or easy to access because to formalize, institutionalize, or legalize something is to impose a box upon something, rendering it eternally subject to the whims of the institution. So it is the case with "trans representation" via cis media. We exist at the behest of the institution (of patriarchy). We cannot transgress. We cannot be authentic. We must only ever be portrayed in a manner amenable to a cis audience.

Going back and reading the responses on this thread, I am even more interested in hearing about the differences you seem to identify in appreciation of trans women from cis men versus trans men or trans women.

I imagine it might be something similar to dating or being married to a white person as a black person. No matter how cool a person is, no matter how much they might "get it", be empathetic and willing to listen and learn, there will always be a barrier between someone who has grown up in and experienced our white supremacist world as a black person vs as a white person. There's always going to be some gap in knowledge or experience you're going to run into that you're going to have to explain to that white person. And since the thing you're explaining necessarily entails a divergence from the reality they experience as a white person, there's always (often) the risk that you're going to bump up against a source of fragility or unreality, to which they might respond with resistance, incredulity or minimizing, which you will have to manage, both in terms of the other person's emotional state, and your own. Sometimes these gaps can be outright dangerous, such as perhaps in the way the white person is accustomed to move through space or interact with institutions. Managing these things, anticipating these things, bearing the load of having to keep these things in mind as you go about your day are a tax. Yes, they can definitely be worth the tax (I am dating a cis woman, after all), but it is still a tax. It's a tax which doesn't apply as much when you're dating a trans person as a trans woman. I don't have to explain to her how much of a mess navigating transmisogyny in institutionalized medicine is. I don't have to battle through incredulity, skepticism, or argumentative responses when I discuss transition goals or my antipathy towards medical doctors. I don't have to explain why a barista referred to me as "them" has resulted in me sobbing in an office bathroom. I don't have to ask for reassurance or explain the need for reassurance or comfort every time I have to go through TSA. I don't have to deal with a partner playing cis's advocate when I tell them a cashier is transphobic. I don't have to worry about bringing my partner into trans spaces or introducing them to trans friends. This also applies in reverse, of course: I don't have to argue with my cis partner, nor she with me, when one of us tells the other that we're being followed, or what we should do in response, when if I had a cis boyfriend, I might have to spend several minutes convincing him that, yes, I am being followed, yes this is dangerous, no can you please stay on the line so he'll think you're right around the corner?

There's a joke within trans culture that the way trans people make friends with one another is by sitting down for coffee and traumadumping on one another. I did it just last week in fact. And the thing that's nice and remarkable about it is the fact that a) so much of the trauma that we share resonates or is extremely similar, and b) that the act of sharing that trauma is humorous. We're able to laugh together about the horsehocky we went through. There's a funny tweet I saw recently which unfortunately I can't find again, but said something to the effect of "being a trans person is telling a story or anecdote from your life to a friend or coworker that you think to be normal, amusing even, and watching their expression turn to horror or pity as they listen to the most deranged, fudged up thing they've ever heard in their life." Like that's the difference. Me telling a story about getting bullied in high school because they could tell I was queer even if I couldn't yet is met with resonance, identification, a mutual laughter, rather than scrutiny, sympathy, or a misplaced anger "on my behalf." It's really refreshing to spend time with those who do the former. It's why it is not merely the case that many trans people find they prefer dating one another to cis people, but also why many trans people tend to flock together, and don't tend to have many if any cis friends or connections at all in their social circle: many are embittered by their experiences with cis people; they have the scars (some literal) to show from their experiences and see little point in creating or maintaining relationships that tax so heavily.

 

[NinjaCow64]

I did it just last week in fact

Same!

Fantastic post btw!

 

[Crezth]

Such brilliant posts wasted on such undeserving mongrels

 

[Caesar of Bread]

I’m writing a song based on experiences of gender dysphoria and euphoria - anyone have any lyrics that I could add?

 

[Cloud_Strife]

The most heartbreaking realization that I've had to endure as a trans person during my transition is that if you're visibly trans and clockable, cis people WILL NOT protect you

 

[NinjaCow64]

I’m writing a song based on experiences of gender dysphoria and euphoria - anyone have any lyrics that I could add?

Well, what do you have so far? (Totally understand if you don’t want to share it in a publicly accessible subforum though!)

In terms of music about trans people (if you want inspiration) the only one I can think of off the top of my head is Bridget’s theme in Guilty Gear Strive (The Town Inside Me)

 

[fy00sh]

In terms of music about trans people (if you want inspiration) the only one I can think of off the top of my head is Bridget’s theme in Guilty Gear Strive (The Town Inside Me)

oooh if we're listing songs that could be inspirations, here's a few i've got:

Spoiler trans songs :

underscores - girls and boys
stomach book - animals
will wood - i / me / myself (note - tho the song is sung by someone who went from identifying as a cis man to genderqueer then back to cis man, and is very much about that experience, i'd say it still has a lot of gender feels that i relate to as a trans person)
laura les - how to dress as human
black dresses - thoughts and prayers

 

[Sommerswerd]

Because trans women are not portrayed as authentically beautiful without qualification in the media, generally. We are either 1) sexually alluring (not beautiful) predators whose aim is to entrap men in an act of debasement, in which case the revelation of our "maleness" is an act of horror or shock (think Brian vomiting in Family Guy when he finds out the woman he has the hots for is trans), 2) buffoons to be mocked, i.e. the femininity is shown to be artificial, with inescapable trappings of maleness poking out the sides, she is portrayed as delusional- attractive or desirable only to herself. A prototypical example of this might be Snowflake from Ralph Bakshi's Heavy Traffic, or Mrs. Garrison or the Undercover Cop from South Park. 3) the "tragic" trans woman who, regardless of physical appearance, is fundamentally desexualized. They do not exist to love, to be aesthetically appealing, to have a fulfilling internal life. Their only purpose is to talk about their transness and suffer for their transness so cis audiences can pat themselves on the back for not being revolted by the sight of a tranny.

The totality of trans portrayal in the media is "beautiful but". You're beautiful, but you have a penis. You're beautiful for a dude. You're beautiful (sniggering in the background). You're beautiful [but then a friend walks by and says "bro why are you flirting with a dude?"]. Again, for mainstream media to have a cis man to say a trans woman is beautiful, and then have that character not shown to be delusional, or creepy, to not have that trans woman immediately undercut that by doing something humiliating or masculine, for it not to be obvious to the audience through context that he is simply humoring her, is very rare. For that character to be played by an actual trans woman even moreso.

I found an excellent series of essays the other day that do a good job of explaining transmisogyny, where it comes from, and how it functions. You can find part 1 here. But there's a passage at the end of part 3 that I think dovetails nicely with why a cis man calling a trans woman beautiful without qualification is remarkable (bolding mine):





I see value in any of my siblings getting paid. But politically, artistically, it doesn't particularly matter to me one way or the other. What I ultimately want, what I care about, is trans media. Art made by and for trans people, dealing with trans subjects through a trans lens. Art made about trans people, but by and for cis people doesn't tend to be particularly good in my experience. Because it is always mediated through transmisogyny, and always carries the transmisgynistic predilections of the cis creators. Typically it's crass, demeaning, base; insulting if not outright triggering. The bar is in hell. Like we're literally talking about "scenes where a trans person is present, is treated as a person, and nobody humiliates or insults her" as the apotheosis of good representation at this point. But if you contrast that with actual trans media: with She-Ra, or Steven Universe, or The Prince, or Stone Butch Blues, or Preacher's Daughter, like the difference is night and day. The topics, the tone, the treatment, it's categorical. What I want is more of the latter, especially media by trans women, who are all too often forgotten in drives for trans-inclusive media.



I don't. We have had some 50 years of cis producers of trans characters and actors, dating all the way back to Andy Warhol, and we're just as misunderstood and misrepresented as we've ever been. When traditional media gives the reins of showrunning to trans creators they're blips, random droplets rather than a gathering stream, and what authentic queer lens exists is arrived at by metaphor, by trickery, or at times by outright rebelling against the wishes or demands of the cis producer to the ultimate destruction of the show or the trans creator's career. What has changed recently is that it has gotten cheaper and easier to get art produced and distributed, and because of that there is a slight burble from below of trans people making the art, distributing it, and viewing it themselves. But ultimately trans women are, by and large, very poor, and this affects the types of media we can work in, the volume that is created, and the reach it ultimately has.



It doesn't lead to greater sensitivity though, is my point. It is to keep us as figurines that cis people can pull out of the display case to gawp at from time to time. In the same way that formalization, institutionalization, or legalization of a Thing can render it less free, safe, or easy to access because to formalize, institutionalize, or legalize something is to impose a box upon something, rendering it eternally subject to the whims of the institution. So it is the case with "trans representation" via cis media. We exist at the behest of the institution (of patriarchy). We cannot transgress. We cannot be authentic. We must only ever be portrayed in a manner amenable to a cis audience.



I imagine it might be something similar to dating or being married to a white person as a black person. No matter how cool a person is, no matter how much they might "get it", be empathetic and willing to listen and learn, there will always be a barrier between someone who has grown up in and experienced our white supremacist world as a black person vs as a white person. There's always going to be some gap in knowledge or experience you're going to run into that you're going to have to explain to that white person. And since the thing you're explaining necessarily entails a divergence from the reality they experience as a white person, there's always (often) the risk that you're going to bump up against a source of fragility or unreality, to which they might respond with resistance, incredulity or minimizing, which you will have to manage, both in terms of the other person's emotional state, and your own. Sometimes these gaps can be outright dangerous, such as perhaps in the way the white person is accustomed to move through space or interact with institutions. Managing these things, anticipating these things, bearing the load of having to keep these things in mind as you go about your day are a tax. Yes, they can definitely be worth the tax (I am dating a cis woman, after all), but it is still a tax. It's a tax which doesn't apply as much when you're dating a trans person as a trans woman. I don't have to explain to her how much of a mess navigating transmisogyny in institutionalized medicine is. I don't have to battle through incredulity, skepticism, or argumentative responses when I discuss transition goals or my antipathy towards medical doctors. I don't have to explain why a barista referred to me as "them" has resulted in me sobbing in an office bathroom. I don't have to ask for reassurance or explain the need for reassurance or comfort every time I have to go through TSA. I don't have to deal with a partner playing cis's advocate when I tell them a cashier is transphobic. I don't have to worry about bringing my partner into trans spaces or introducing them to trans friends. This also applies in reverse, of course: I don't have to argue with my cis partner, nor she with me, when one of us tells the other that we're being followed, or what we should do in response, when if I had a cis boyfriend, I might have to spend several minutes convincing him that, yes, I am being followed, yes this is dangerous, no can you please stay on the line so he'll think you're right around the corner?


There's a joke within trans culture that the way trans people make friends with one another is by sitting down for coffee and traumadumping on one another. I did it just last week in fact. And the thing that's nice and remarkable about it is the fact that a) so much of the trauma that we share resonates or is extremely similar, and b) that the act of sharing that trauma is humorous. We're able to laugh together about the horsehocky we went through. There's a funny tweet I saw recently which unfortunately I can't find again, but said something to the effect of "being a trans person is telling a story or anecdote from your life to a friend or coworker that you think to be normal, amusing even, and watching their expression turn to horror or pity as they listen to the most deranged, fudged up thing they've ever heard in their life." Like that's the difference. Me telling a story about getting bullied in high school because they could tell I was queer even if I couldn't yet is met with resonance, identification, a mutual laughter, rather than scrutiny, sympathy, or a misplaced anger "on my behalf." It's really refreshing to spend time with those who do the former. It's why it is not merely the case that many trans people find they prefer dating one another to cis people, but also why many trans people tend to flock together, and don't tend to have many if any cis friends or connections at all in their social circle: many are embittered by their experiences with cis people; they have the scars (some literal) to show from their experiences and see little point in creating or maintaining relationships that tax so heavily.

It occurred to me recently, within the past several years and I believe I've mentioned it before on these threads... that if there were things about trans identity that I did not get and possibly could not get, that was OK... I could still make a decision to accept trans identity without having to understand everything. Something additional that occurs to me, from reading all your thoughtful responses is that can do so without having to form/offer an opinion about everything (related to trans identity).

One thing I will note, is that your comparison to black people was resonant, not just in the way that you raised it, in terms of being inherently understood versus being taxed, but also in that it reminded me I do see some similarities/parallels in the frustrations with the portrayals of black people in media, which did provide some perspective from which to process some of the issues you raised. So again, thank you for your posts and the article, much to think about and absorb and I am appreciative.

 

[Lexicus]

Me telling a story about getting bullied in high school because they could tell I was queer even if I couldn't yet is met with resonance, identification, a mutual laughter, rather than scrutiny, sympathy, or a misplaced anger "on my behalf."

I suppose in asking I am proving your point about the "tax" to some extent, but could you explain a little more about why these bold things are bad? I often do get a bit angry/upset when I hear about horsehockey things that are happening to trans people in the world, is that (or showing it) bad? I also often need some further explanations when trans people are telling me stuff, not in a skeptical you need to prove this to me kinda way but in a way like I have no idea what you're talking about and just need you to bring me up to speed, is that sort of thing just imposing further exhaustion on people? Does the tone make a difference (like asking because I don't know vs a cross-examination)?

Again, I realize that my asking is proving your point about the tax to some extent, but I seek to minimize the tax in my own interactions to the greatest degree possible.

 

[fy00sh]

I suppose in asking I am proving your point about the "tax" to some extent, but could you explain a little more about why these bold things are bad? I often do get a bit angry/upset when I hear about horsehockey things that are happening to trans people in the world, is that (or showing it) bad? I also often need some further explanations when trans people are telling me stuff, not in a skeptical you need to prove this to me kinda way but in a way like I have no idea what you're talking about and just need you to bring me up to speed, is that sort of thing just imposing further exhaustion on people? Does the tone make a difference (like asking because I don't know vs a cross-examination)?

Again, I realize that my asking is proving your point about the tax to some extent, but I seek to minimize the tax in my own interactions to the greatest degree possible.

though I cant speak for schlaufuchs's experiences, i do know that i find it comforting to be able to discuss past trauma and discomfort thru a purely comedic lens, and there are some people in my life that i think that's simply not possible with, because if i ever bring those things up those people I'm talking to cant help but feel/focus on some form of sympathy or anger-on-my-behalf when all i wanted to do is say something like, for example, "can you believe how absolutely *wacky* it is that my biomom seriously thought i was possessed by the devil just for being trans lmao" and have the focus be how conceptually silly that thought of hers was, not necessarily how much it sucked for me to live thru the ramifications or how awful a person she is. sometimes i just wanna be able to throw out an anecdote of my suffering and have the response be "bro yeah thats crazy"

 

[schlaufuchs]

I suppose in asking I am proving your point about the "tax" to some extent, but could you explain a little more about why these bold things are bad?

I wouldn’t say they are bad, so much as they’re just different. Trans people have a different context for these things, a different relationship to our oppression, and that creates a different reaction. There’s nothing wrong with being upset or outraged when you hear something about how we are being treated, or have been treated in the past. The stuff we are subjected to is outrageous! But it’s just, as I said, refreshing as someone who lives through the outrage, experiences the outrage, and in some sense is inured to the outrage, to encounter someone with a similar relationship to that outrage, for whom the shock has worn off, and who has the context to be able to laugh, be irreverent, and make light of the banalities and absurdities of the things we’ve been subjected to. There’s a certain kinship in socializing with trans people, an electricity which crackles and emits warmth.

So much of the experience of being trans is being alone, finding community with other trans people helps you feel less alone, less grotesque or insane. Makes it feel less like it’s just you against the ocean of horsehocky that is patriarchy.

I often do get a bit angry/upset when I hear about horsehockey things that are happening to trans people in the world, is that (or showing it) bad? I also often need some further explanations when trans people are telling me stuff, not in a skeptical you need to prove this to me kinda way but in a way like I have no idea what you're talking about and just need you to bring me up to speed, is that sort of thing just imposing further exhaustion on people? Does the tone make a difference (like asking because I don't know vs a cross-examination)?

It can. Sometimes all I want is someone to laugh with me, to acknowledge the absurd turns transmisogyny can take. But as I said above, that attitude comes from proximity, from living that subjectivity rather than observing it. I wouldn’t expect you to riff on it like a trans woman might, if anything I might view such a reaction as inappropriate or overly casual when it comes from a cis person.

There’s nothing wrong necessarily with asking questions if you don’t have the knowledge or context for something. There’s nuance in the context and animus though. Like if you’re asking for that context in a time where it would be inappropriate or treating that ask with a degree of entitlement, as if you are owed our time and energy. Holding the conversation hostage until the question is not only answered, but answered sufficiently to rationalize it into the logic of your cis context. And of course asking questions not out of interest to learn, but in order to aggravate, to waste time, to embarrass, is also a no-no.

Likewise, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with being outraged, except when the outrage becomes less about us and more about yourself. When we and our experiences become vehicles to declare and demonstrate your own self-righteousness. More than anything, don’t downplay, or argue, or rationalize what we’re telling you. Don’t follow up an experience told to you with phrases like “well at least,”, “they would never,” “I don’t think,” “to be fair,” and the like. They are almost universally not welcome. Opining on something for which you have no context or experience, something which you didn’t even know existed or was happening until I told you just now is the dude-iest thing ever and it is so annoying. If you sincerely think your experience might be relevant and wanted, then ask first if it is wanted, or phrase it in the form of a question. But if every dude in here wants to be a better ally (to queer people, to trans people, etc) the best place to start is in consciously unlearning the ingrained compulsion to provide commentary on every thing told to you as if your very masculinity rests on your ability to get the last word in.

Again, I realize that my asking is proving your point about the tax to some extent, but I seek to minimize the tax in my own interactions to the greatest degree possible.

Look things up for yourself. Ask in contexts where it is appropriate to ask. Take answers seriously and move forward with what was told to you in mind. Treat knowledge as something that you are admitted into, as a subjective community of understanding, rather than an object to possess; something to be seized, hoarded and brandished. If you do something wrong or step on toes, apologize and don’t do it again, rather than minimizing, or providing your reasoning/intention, or demanding the other person justify their hurt.

Really though, the fact that you are aware of the tax and thinking through how to minimize it shows you’re already on the right path.

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

Sooo, a dating question. I understand this could be offensive, and I am sorry if any stumble in words below does this, but I believe everyone has a right to pick choose whatever they want to date.

If you on a surface level find someone attractive, find them on a dating app for example. Within their profile they state that they are trans. This is fine.

Now I am aware there are many stages/levels of transition. Is it fair, or even right, to ask someone how far they have transitioned? I am aware some people never "complete" a full transition. How problematic is "I only want to date someone who has fully transitioned".

 

[Crezth]

It is transphobic in the literal sense that it represents an aversion to dating trans people, even if it’s caveated, because it’s a criteria for exclusion that by design can only target trans people. I guess it’s like saying you only date fat people if they’re clean (to whatever arbitrary standard) or you only date gingers if they have a face that is at most 2/3 as wide as it is long. In either case you are fatphobic and gingerphobic respectively. The point is that the criteria cannot apply universally because it’s already scoped on a group of people you’re carving out an “exception” for. It can’t be fair.

That having been said you’re not required to date trans people, or fat people or gingers. Is it “fair” for you to demand a trans person be “fully transitioned” to your specifications? Maybe not, but dating isn’t about fairness at all anyway. You just have to make peace with your transphobia and not invent excuses for it.

 

[schlaufuchs]

Sooo, a dating question. I understand this could be offensive, and I am sorry if any stumble in words below does this, but I believe everyone has a right to pick choose whatever they want to date.

If you on a surface level find someone attractive, find them on a dating app for example. Within their profile they state that they are trans. This is fine.

Now I am aware there are many stages/levels of transition.

Is it fair, or even right, to ask someone how far they have transitioned? I am aware some people never "complete" a full transition.

No. do not ask this question.

How problematic is "I only want to date someone who has fully transitioned".

I think it's just kind of a weird distinction? Like if you don't like trans women, don't date them. We don't really want to date someone who is hung up on these gradations, it's an awkward attitude to manage and navigate.

Moreover, I can understand a personal preference for certain sexual acts. Sexual incompatibility is perfectly valid and common reason to break off relationships. But you're doing the thing so many cis people do when they think about dating with us, which is that their mind (I assume) jumps immediately to the question of sex and moreover (again, I assume) immediately to the idea that we might have a penis. And for me, that's more the problem. For starters, as I've said before, there is a pretty material difference between a penis on testosterone and in a masculine context and a penis on estrogen and in a feminine context. You don't know what sexual acts are on the table. You don't even know if sex is on the table. You're putting the cart before the horse

The crux of the issue I have when cis people talk about compatibility, disclosure, and having sex with us, is essentially when there exists a patent double standard in the questions or demands you feel entitled to ask of trans women which you wouldn't of cis women. Like would you ask a (presumed) cis woman if they are open to oral or anal sex as soon as you match with them? Would you tell them that you performing oral sex or clitoral stimulation or allowing the use of a vibrator on them are hard no's for you? Would you ask them if they are asexual or how high their libido is? I wouldn't think so (I certainly hope you don't). Rather, you (presumably) see a cis woman you match with first as person with whom you want to chat, to get to know, to see if you are even compatible with, and then only later do you consider the logistics or mechanics of them as a potential sexual partner or lover. Any time you enter into a relationship, the question of sexual compatibility is certainly a crucial one, one which has the potential to make or break the relationship, but in my experience generally you enter the relationship knowing that those potentially relationship-ending incompatibilities that might be present are simply risks that come with the territory of dating (in much the same way that there may be personality issues, lifestyle issues, commitment issues, scheduling issues, financial issues, or health issues which likewise might preclude the possibility of a relationship), and you trust that you will navigate and negotiate them at the point that they arise, and that it's not worthwhile worrying about or pre-empting every possible dealbreaker that may exist between the two of you.

 

[fy00sh]

Now I am aware there are many stages/levels of transition.

Ok so I might be wrong (sorry if I am) but i feel like you're maybe working from a somewhat linear view of what a "transition" is? It's way more helpful to think of a transition as a self-actualization journey than a checklist. For some people that does end up being a checklist anyways but for some people its much more vague. Some people's transition is simply living socially as a gender until the point at which they're happy, and they never really complete their transition once-and-for-all. Some people's transitions are more involved than that, some people's are less. Some people consider any potential body modifications to be a part of their transition, some people separate their social transition from their physical transition, some people don't change anything about themselves physically at all. So yeah there's theoretically infinite potential "stages" any given person's transition can have but also it's not a guarantee a given trans person's transition can really be split into "stages"

Is it fair, or even right, to ask someone how far they have transitioned?

So because of the above, asking someone this puts them immediately in the awkward situation of having to guess at what you mean by "transition" and what things are considered "further along". My intuition, if asked this, would be to say "I mean I simply am the gender I am, I completed my most recent transition the moment I decided on my current gender and maybe I'll transition again later, who knows." I understand that usually what people mean by "how far you've transitioned" is "how many procedures you've had to make your body more closely resemble the binary sex that you weren't assigned at birth" but I have the mentality that if someone really wants to know what's going on in my pants they have to be clear to me that that's what they're asking about. But I can see other trans people feeling like they'd have to assume you're asking about their genital configurations, and for their sakes it's better to just directly ask "have you had any bottom surgery and do you plan to have any (or any more) in the future" if that's what you really mean. Tho personally I'd recommend holding off on asking that until around when you'd also ask if they have any STIs you should be concerned about.

How problematic is "I only want to date someone who has fully transitioned".

This feels to me like saying you wouldn't want to date a painter who hasn't yet painted everything they're ever going to paint. And like, you should feel free to put whatever restrictions you want on who you wanna date, sure, but I wonder if what you mean is actually "I only want to date someone who has already undergone all sex-related procedures they plan to"? In which case, again, it's much more helpful, and much less awkward and potentially stressful to the person you're asking this to, for you to just directly ask if they'd be comfortable sharing what procedures they've had and if there's any they still plan to get.

 

[choxorn]

The crux of the issue I have when cis people talk about compatibility, disclosure, and having sex with us, is essentially when there exists a patent double standard in the questions or demands you feel entitled to ask of trans women which you wouldn't of cis women. Like would you ask a (presumed) cis woman if they are open to oral or anal sex as soon as you match with them? Would you tell them that you performing oral sex or clitoral stimulation or allowing the use of a vibrator on them are hard no's for you? Would you ask them if they are asexual or how high their libido is? I wouldn't think so (I certainly hope you don't).

I mean.... there definitely are cis men who would say those kinds of things to cis women within a few minutes of matching with them, or some other very explicitly sexual question, and pretty much any cis women who's ever existed in the general vicinity of cis men could probably relate a few stories of being subjected to that both in dating apps and in many other just, completely random everyday situations. Now, generally we think the men doing that are creepy sex pests, and you're right about the double standard part that we seem to generally think it's more acceptable to ask trans people about their genitals than cis people, but us generally considering those kinds of questions unacceptable in no way stops lots of dudes from feeling entitled to ask them anyway (though as you said, I certainly hope Aiken isn't one of those guys)

 

[Sommerswerd]

It is transphobic in the literal sense that it represents an aversion to dating trans people, even if it’s caveated, because it’s a criteria for exclusion that by design can only target trans people.

Thanks for that perspective. I never thought of that particular question in those terms. Please forgive me for this question, as I will acknowledge in advance that I suspect that I am already on your $#!*-list (for other reasons). I am trying to respect the tenor of this beautiful Thread...

Is it like/similar to saying "I am only willing to date former men if they have taken the steps to become proper women"? Or..."I am willing to excuse you for being trans, as long as you've taken the steps to make it so I can ignore it."?
Am I perceiving the question of "fully transitioned?" and the reason it is transphobic correctly? Your post was like a wet-fish across the face epiphany for me so I hope you are willing to consider a response...

 

[IglooDame]

Thanks for that perspective. I never thought of that particular question in those terms. Please forgive me for this question, as I will acknowledge in advance that I suspect that I am already on your $#!*-list (for other reasons). I am trying to respect the tenor of this beautiful Thread...

Is it like/similar to saying "I am only willing to date former men if they have taken the steps to become proper women"? Or..."I am willing to excuse you for being trans, as long as you've taken the steps to make it so I can ignore it."?
Am I perceiving the question of "fully transitioned?" and the reason it is transphobic correctly? Your post was like a wet-fish across the face epiphany for me so I hope you are willing to consider a response...

To me, it could come across as either question, and almost irrelevant which one because the conversation comes to a screeching halt at that point regardless.

And see the excellent post by @fy00sh a few posts above about "fully transitioned", I'd only add that if one isn't sure about where the finish line is it can be difficult to figure out whether one has crossed it or not, and it may pop up again elsewhere even if one has previously decided they have crossed it.