Trans - what IS that, really?

Why is it that if someone says they are 'trans' and claims I should respect that, they don't tell me what they actually mean? Is a trans woman a woman 'transed' to seem like a man or is it a man who seems like a woman? Are they men/women with anomalous or surgically altered genitals; are they psychologically deranged guys/gals who simply think they aren't, or are they just people playing silly buggers? If they can't be explicit about their condition why don't they STFU about it?

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ArishMell · 70-79, M

I don't agree with the gratuitous swearing, but I share your confusion!

The phrase "trans-[fe]male" is totally ambiguous; but it applies to members physically of either sex who feel emotionally of the opposite.

The murkiness of the whole situation is summed neatly by its accompanying piece of illiteracy - using the noun "transition" as a verb. (The verb is "to transit", meaning to cross.)

I do not understand the drive because I do have it - so how can I understand it?

Instead I understand that some people have that drive, emotionally, to be as far as possible of the opposite sex.

Some people are born with "anomalous" genitals, including vague, infertile hermaphrodism; but I think most who wish to change their sex are physiologically completely of their natal sex.

Sadly, they become their "new" sex only in appearance. Surgery and hormone treatment give them the general appearance they want, but also neuters them. Though I suppose that is not a problem if they do not want children anyway.

What does annoy me, is not such crossed-sexual people wanting respect for their emotional needs. That is fine although their actions sometimes raise real problems such as using toilets and changing-rooms in work-places and sports-halls, and participating in competitive sports.

Rather, it is that some want treating as if a special case, with "needs" and "rights" above and beyond those of everyone else. No they are not "special", or above everyone else; and they need understand and respect that in some situations their demands do make others around them very uncomfortable.

Nor, and this probably applies only to a few of them, do they have any civilised "right" to launch ugly campaigns on the Internet and elsewhere - "death-threats", forbidding lectures, etc. - against anyone who even just points out the obvious, that a sex-change operation leaves you neither female nor male biologically. Such attacks are bullying, so childish and cowardly.

NerdyPotato ·

@ArishMell

with "needs" and "rights" above and beyond those of everyone else

What rights have you been hearing them ask for? 🤨

ArishMell · 70-79, M

@NerdyPotato It's not specific, more an attitude of being somehow precious.

I know of a particular individual who has already managed to upset quite a few people in different places after he started openly to change. As far as I know he is still male but started cross-dressing a while ago, then changed his name to a female one; but while his friends accept that they cannot accept his attempt to refuse unisex facilities even where available in premises offering those as well as definite male and female ones.

More generally there is the growing , 1984-esque mangling of the language to an extent that even someone already stated as a man or woman is then referred to as "they/ their" in the same text. Are going to lose any personality in favour of "it / its" - as that ridiculous business phrase "human resources" already loses?

Far more seriously though are the vicious public attacks on people who dare state publicly, perfectly logical facts and opinions that the "trans community" do not want expressed. Are they even a "community" and how many of the attacks are from external parties taking third-party offence?

Their right is that of everyone else, including you and me, to be treated with respect by everyone else, but respect is mutual and lost by treating everyone else with scant respect for the sake of "political correctitude".

NerdyPotato ·

@ArishMell so they want to use a gender specific bathroom when there's a choice between those and a unisex one? And that's special treatment because cisgender people are forced into the unisex one while one for their gender is available? 🤨

Singular they has existed for centuries. There's nothing 1984-esque about that.

And what facts and opinions do trans people not want expressed other than disproven theories to fuel hate?

ffony · M

@ArishMell

I don't agree with the gratuitous swearing, but I share your confusion!

ALL of what I post is gratuitous, (as in "Given or received without cost or obligation; free.")

As for swearing; that's not an opinion so in general you can't agree or disagree with it. In this case it was just a figure of speech, now very common, emphasizing my frustration & outrage. I assume you've read the scurrilous post aimed at me by HumanEarth, to which I was responding.

As far as respect is concerned I cannot agree that everyone deserves, or everyone's wishes & behaviors deserve it, from me.

Otherwise I agree with much of what you've posted.

ArishMell · 70-79, M

@NerdyPotato I realise the drive to be of the opposite sex is probably as old as humanity itself, but it's only very recently that such people began to be able to do anything about it. At least in societies like ours that allow people to be themselves.

NerdyPotato ·

@ArishMell exactly. Now we just need respect for people who choose to be themselves and we're all good.

ArishMell · 70-79, M

@NerdyPotato No, not "special treatment" but special pleading - it assumes some sort of superiority.

A fact is a fact. An opinion can be disputed. I had in mind people like J.K. Rowling, slammed by Goodness-Knows-Whom (possibly some were not even sex-changed people) for pointing out the blindingly-obvious fact that you cannot fully change sex - i.e. swap biology.

NerdyPotato ·

@ArishMell and that's not necessary either to respect them. That's all the "special pleading" they do: ask for respect. I wouldn't call that special though.

ArishMell · 70-79, M

@NerdyPotato I am fine with that - just simple, mutual respect. The problem comes with anything like this when people start to try to politicise the matter.

NerdyPotato ·

@ArishMell yes, sadly that's a problem with many topics. But I'm glad we agreed in the end.