[RD] HuffPost: "I Coined The Term 'Cisgender' 29 Years Ago. Here's What This Controversial Word Really Means."

[Senethro]

Undetectable is probably the wrong word. Certainly there are people who will produce false positives and false negatives on different possible tests, but not in a way that supports TFs point.

 

[Traitorfish]

You sure about that? Seems like quite a sweeping statement to make without sweeping evidence

I'm struggling to understand this question. Do you think that there are trans people who are physically indistinguishable from cis people?

edit: Anyway, that isn't really the point, it should be clear enough that the great trans people are not physically indistinguishable from cis people, so my broader point stands: unless we're relegating trans-ness to the world of abstract identity, if we accept that trans-ness is in practice tied up with the reality of a trans body, then we must surely allow room for people who are not romantically or sexually attracted to trans people without inferring animus towards trans people.

edit2: see below

 

[Senethro]

I'm struggling to understand this question. Do you think that there are trans people who are physically indistinguishable from cis people?

Given that people go about for most their lives undiagnosed with intersex or unusual developmental conditions, there sort of must be?

 

[Traitorfish]

Given that people go about for most their lives undiagnosed with intersex or unusual developmental conditions, there sort of must be?

Why, what do intersex or other conditions have to do with trans people?

edit: see below

 

[schlaufuchs]

uhh…yes? Especially if you have grs and start on hormones young, absolutely you’d never know unless you cut us open.

But even without those criteria, trans people go stealth all the time. It’s one of the funnier things trans people expose. Because of sexism, a lot of people get it in their heads that there are certain unchangeable, mutually exclusive features that immediately stake out if someone is male or female. But that is mostly down to a combination of sexism, confirmation bias, and really not spending much time looking at people.

For all physical characteristics, male and female are two distribution curves with significant overlap. This isn’t on the margin stuff. A great many trans women have with glee experienced the moment when a boss or coworker or doctor(!) asks them a question related to pregnancy or the possibility of them becoming pregnant, and then watched their brain melt in real time when they realize they are talking to a trans woman.

 

[tjs282]

A transgender woman who's gone though GAS will potentially only be physically distinguishable from an intact cisgender woman by using an MRI scanner -- a device which takes up an entire room, so something no-one interested in policing anyone's gender identity will have with them out and about in the real world.

And even under MRI, the post-op transgender woman would still likely be (to a layman at least) indistinguishable from a cisgender woman who's had a full hysterectomy.

(Apologies to schlaufuchs et al. if I have any of the terminology wrong)

(Edits made 22.3.23 to correct some of those mistakes -- I hope)

 

[Arwon]

Don't we all withhold our attraction to people until we've both gotten naked and had a chance to inspect each others bodies for signs of sex non-conformity

 

[Traitorfish]

uhh…yes? Especially if you have grs and start on hormones young, absolutely you’d never know unless you cut us open.

I think you are pretty radically overstating what present-day medical technology is able to achieve.

edit: I don't think this line of discussion is productive, if Lexicus wishes to answer my second question I would appreciate it, otherwise I am happy to leave it there.

 

[schlaufuchs]

I think you pretty radically don’t know horsehocky about trans people or transition care.

 

[Lexicus]

I'm struggling to understand this question. Do you think that there are trans people who are physically indistinguishable from cis people?

I believe there are, yes.

 

[Traitorfish]

I believe there are, yes.

Please see my previous post.

 

[IglooDame]

I think you are pretty radically overstating what present-day medical technology is able to achieve.

edit: I don't think this line of discussion is productive, if Lexicus wishes to answer my second question I would appreciate it, otherwise I am happy to leave it there.

It's not productive because YOU ARE INCORRECT.
Edit:
Do you really think you know better than a bunch of people who have either experienced that medical science or have studied it anticipating experiencing it or have at least socialized with a lot of trans folk across the entire "spectrum of passing"? Seriously?

 

[Lexicus]

Please see my previous post.

I'm sorry, where can I find the second question you refer to?

 

[Traitorfish]

I'm sorry, where can I find the second question you refer to?

edit: Anyway, that isn't really the point, it should be clear enough that the great trans people are not physically indistinguishable from cis people, so my broader point stands: unless we're relegating trans-ness to the world of abstract identity, if we accept that trans-ness is in practice tied up with the reality of a trans body, then we must surely allow room for people who are not romantically or sexually attracted to trans people without inferring animus towards trans people.

Essentially, what I'm trying to get at is that trans-ness isn't simply an abstract identity, it's an embodied physical reality, if that makes sense, that the trans-ness of any individual trans person isn't a question of their relationship to an abstract identification as trans but to the body they inhabit and to what makes that body trans, which in practice, for the vast majority of trans people, is a body which is going to be distinguishable from a cis body in the context of a romantic and sexual relationship. Rejecting a trans person romantically or sexually because they are not attracted to that sort of body is therefore rejecting them because they are trans, but it does not seem to follow from that that we can infer an animus towards trans people. Do you disagree?

 

[schlaufuchs]

It's not productive because YOU ARE INCORRECT.
Edit:
Do you really think you know better than a bunch of people who have either experienced that medical science or have studied it anticipating experiencing it or have at least socialized with a lot of trans folk across the entire "spectrum of passing"? Seriously?

I think the thing that is especially hilarious about this is that it isn’t even really a matter of medical technology or transition procedures. I was reliably passing in most places within six months of starting low dose hrt. Even without the effects of hormones (which again, are far more considerable than I think tf realizes), I was shorter, had more slender shoulders, wider hips, smaller feet, and less body and facial hair than cis women I personally know.

The distinctions are significantly less severe than you might assume, and a big part of being around trans people (as my partner has often admitted), is confronting your own oppositional sexism, and realizing that humans are much more diverse and varied in presentation and features than the picture you hold in your head says they are.

Gendering and sexing is far far more about posture, gait, dress (and grooming choices like eyebrow shape) than it is about physical characteristics. HRT, ffs, and other procedures can nudge you further down along the distribution curve, but large chunks of the human population could pass for the other gender reliably just with some makeup, some eyebrow shaping, a wardrobe change, a bit of practice with walking and posture, and maybe lessons with a voice coach depending on their baseline resonance.

 

[RobAnybody]

I think that there are a *lot* of people who are drawn to this site, & particularly the Off-Topic portion of this site, who are rather... atypical. The reason I point this out is that I've seen the "why do you even engage in these topics?" question posed a lot (& not just with this particular topic). And I think the answer is that it's just an academic exploration of knowledge given the demographics this site 1) mostly attracts & 2) more importantly, sticks around & so keeps engaging with various topics.

I understand that can be very off-putting, even insulting, to people who are personally affected by a topic. Just an observation as to why people explore topics like these like they/we do. We can often hold completely dumb ideas or opinions, but I'd stress that there is very little malice meant when we put our collective feet in our mouths, at least that I've observed (not always, but mostly). It's just a fairly clinical approach (is "neuro-atypical" the appropriate word?) to what can often be very personal topics.

I guess, as an illustration: I have no idea if what I just said was a helpful explanation or a tone-deaf insult.

 

[schlaufuchs]

I don’t say “why do you engage in this topic” to people who engage in the topic. Fire away.

I say “why do you engage in this topic,” to people who repeatedly come into these topics to tell me that they don’t care about these topics. If you don’t care then that’s fine, but why do you keep coming in here??

 

[Lexicus]

I don’t say “why do you engage in this topic” to people who engage in the topic. Fire away.

I say “why do you engage in this topic,” to people who repeatedly come into these topics to tell me that they don’t care about these topics. If you don’t care then that’s fine, but why do you keep coming in here??

You can't win, Darth. If you own me with my own logic i will care about this issue less than you can possibly imagine

 

[aelf]

I don’t say “why do you engage in this topic” to people who engage in the topic. Fire away.

I say “why do you engage in this topic,” to people who repeatedly come into these topics to tell me that they don’t care about these topics. If you don’t care then that’s fine, but why do you keep coming in here??

Probably a nerd thing. Some kind of irresistible tendency to excrete their opinion, especially an ideologically conservative one.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

So basically transphobia lmao