Notice

[baratron]

Following Some Events at BiCon, there are various rants taking place in various places about pronouns for transgendered people and how the hell are you supposed to know if they're transgender if they're wearing normal clothes? Here is my comment:

As a cisgendered female, I have the right to wear trousers, t-shirts, no makeup and stompy boots. Why should a transgendered female have to dress any differently?

Or in other words, "It's a girl's t-shirt".

Comments

[redbird]

I have no idea of what happened at BiCon, but the question I'd ask in return is "Why the hell are you supposed to care if they're transgender?" If someone seems to be signalling female or I think they are, I will use feminine pronouns until/unless they ask me otherwise or it becomes clear for other reasons that different pronouns are appropriate. Similarly for someone who I read as male. If I have no idea, I will probably duck the issue (it's possible to avoid pronouns if you know a person's name, and "you" isn't gendered in English).

Beyond that, if someone calls me "sir" I don't usually bother to correct them: but that's from my comfort zone as a cisgendered person, but one who cares less than average about her own gender. I have no problem with someone, cis or trans, saying "that's 'she'" or "actually, it's Mr. Doe." Regardless of what they're wearing.

[baratron.livejournal.com]

I've been trying to avoid linking to the flamefest of doom, which is unfortunate because it does, at least, provide the context. The basic idea is a person sitting on a registration desk talking to another person who happens to be wearing "ungendered" clothing - let's say, jeans and a t-shirt. The person on the desk gets the gender of the other person wrong, and the other person is upset because they are transsexual and it is hurtful to be called by the wrong pronoun.

I believe that in the incident related, if it has been related correctly, both people behaved badly. The person in gender-neutral clothing apparently ranted about her pronoun for some time in a way which made the person on the desk upset too, and in return the person on the desk then posted in their livejournal, in a friends-locked entry, something along the lines of "well how the hell was I supposed to know she was transgendered?". This then developed into a flamewar which I was fortunately not privy to, and then another rant/flamewar that is public.

I personally tend to think that someone's current gender status is far more important than any former statuses they may have had. Some trans people agree with this, others don't - and we all have the right to disagree. The question is not so much "Why should you care that they are transgender?" (because I don't care very much, except in terms of understanding the person's history) but more "How are you supposed to get the pronoun right for people of ambiguous appearance?". For me, this has a simple answer - use ungendered language such as "you" until you're told. You could also look at the name on someone's name badge, or ask one of their friends. Or... horror of horrors - ask the person! "I'm sorry to be clueless, but which pronoun do you prefer?".

See also my comment above about 1950s gender roles.

[a-musing-amazon.livejournal.com]

As I've always understood it transsexual (or post-transsexual) people are not transgendered, they have a definite gender even if its not the one on their original birth certificate.

On the other hand I was somewhat surprised at the number of bicon attendees that identified as transgender: softfruit reported in a recent comment that I can't find (and may therefore misquote) that at a previous Bicon 55% of attendees were female, 35% male and 20% transgender, which seemed to imply that not only that there were a lot of transgender people there but also that transgender did = those who were uncomfortable with either of the m or the f label. As it is there is a lot of apparent crossdressing or non-gendered dressing going on at a bicon and some people even have dual label name tags so I think we all need to be a bit tolerant of people mis-guessing our chosen pronoun.

That said I usually try and stick try and use whatever people I know want other to use, or where there is some reason to doubt like you try and stick to non-gendered pronouns. Apologies to anyone where I've got it wrong.

[x-mass.livejournal.com]

crossdressing=transgender
as does drag queens, drag kings, transvestites, androgynes, m2f and ftm transexuals, genderqueer etc etc
transgender people are people who challenge 'traditional' assumptions around gender

as for transgendered I would like to know who transgendered them? I know i live ina disabling society that why I am disabled. I am less than half hearing but I'm not half deafened.

[a-musing-amazon.livejournal.com]

Surely the only people who should label someone as 'transgender' is themselves? Certainly I don't need to know.

[x-mass.livejournal.com]

bloody lj logged me out again !!!

i was giving the definition of transgender, I wasn't labelling anyone specifically as transgender

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

As I've always understood it transsexual (or post-transsexual) people are not transgendered

Unfortunately, there's no clear consensus on this point. Some transsexuals happily identify as transgendered. Some transsexuals agree that they fit under the broad transgendered umbrella, but feel that it obfuscates some of the important issues of transsexualism. And some transsexuals disagree strongly that transgendered is a word that applies to them.

People in Failing to Reach Consensus Shocker!

[baratron.livejournal.com]

I now have a crazy mental image of something rather like a party political conference, but instead featuring trans* people. It opens with the national anthem of all member nations played backwards at the same time to subvert the dominant oppressionist patriarchy. Following that are several hours of arguments about whether the Party name should include Transsexual, Transexual, Transgender, Transgendered or just plain Trans. Chaos breaks out as a cisgendered ally stands up to speak on behalf of her shy grrlfriend, is outed as having been Born Female, and is thrown out to the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival. The Chairperson attempts to restore order by proposing to define what the party stands for. After failing to reach agreement even on the Peyple Born Peyple policy (as delegates to the conference include Non-Humyn Transpeyple), zie proposes to define what the party doesn't stand for. Pandemonium as an individual with long flowing hair, long painted fingernails, face make up, breasts, a dress, shaved legs and high heels stands up to speak, is referred to as "Madam" and spends the next 10 minutes explaining how he is perfectly happy being a bloke, thank you very much, he just dresses this way to feel more comfortable...

A person with more experience in the transsexual/transgender argument camp could possibly write an amusing script for a play along these lines. I will happily play the part of the cisgendered ally.

thrown to the michigan womyn's festival

[softfruit.livejournal.com]

*grin*

(takes out copyright on 'Dip Me In Cisgender And Throw Me To The Michigan Womyn' merchandise)

Re: People in Failing to Reach Consensus Shocker!

[a-musing-amazon.livejournal.com]

I think I'd rather go to Michigan with you.

Re: People in Failing to Reach Consensus Shocker!

[x-mass.livejournal.com]

btw this why we used transgender to avoid all these rows. Almost immediately a bunch of stealth loving transexuals started to label them selves as transgenderED and claim that transgender excluded drag, transvestites, cross-dressers in fact anyone else but them.

there not around anymore as soon as possible they dropped the identity transgendered and switch to stealth and gender privalage

Re: People in Failing to Reach Consensus Shocker!

[a-musing-amazon.livejournal.com]

I can't remember this phase/use of words personally, but maybe I just wasn't around at the time.

[barakta]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Bi-BLIO/ is the survey softfruit is referring to I think.

To what extent are m, f and transgender exclusive categories?

[a-musing-amazon.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately I'm not a member of this yahoo group so can't get check what is actually in the survey at the moment.

I thought I remembered the categories (m/f/tg) in the survey adding to 100% but would have been surprised if this was the case unless the survey only offered them as exclusive categories. In general that doesn't seem a good idea.

For that matter I don't see why transgender/transexual should be exclusive or inclusive of each other either:

Funnily enough my LGBT group at work is now calling itself the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender/sexual Group, which I also see a a bit silly (what is wrong with just using Trans?).

Re: To what extent are m, f and transgender exclusive categories?

[barakta]

I have no idea what that link was, I evidently had a cut and paste fail and wasn't paying attention this morning.

http://www.bicommunitynews.co.uk/extras/biblio_report_2004.pdf is the direct link to it.

Re: To what extent are m, f and transgender exclusive categories?

[a-musing-amazon.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this barakta.

Having checked, the actual report is indeed more complex than the summary - and still simplifies - I quote:

Identity

Because of the way the question was worded, with space for people to self describe their gender, we categorised the responses in three broad ways: people who self-described as mostly to only male; people who self-described as mostly to only female; and people who self-described as transgendered, genderqueer, or gave a strong mix of gender terms.
Because of the way that people did this (e.g. “mostly female, trans”), these categories are not mutually exclusive, and therefore should not add to 100%

Gender

Female (mostly to only): 47%
Male (mostly to only): 36%
Trans / genderqueer: 19%

Many attendees wrote extra information around this question because they were unhappy with the categories given. For example, some people wrote ‘transgender’ or some variant upon the term; a mix of gender descriptions such as ‘effeminate male’; or words to indicate they resist the use of labels in this way, such as ‘fluid’ or ‘me’.

Re: To what extent are m, f and transgender exclusive categories?

[x-mass.livejournal.com]

transexual is a subset of transgender along with drag, crossdressing, transvestites, androgynes, femme men, butch women etc etc

Re: To what extent are m, f and transgender exclusive categories?

[a-musing-amazon.livejournal.com]

Only in the same sense that gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, BDSM, etc. are subsets of Queer.

Defining your our uber-category is fine but don't expect everyone you think is included to join.

Re: To what extent are m, f and transgender exclusive categories?

[x-mass.livejournal.com]

oh i agree the point was that nobody exclude others, tge current situation is that transexual call them selves transgender and some of them think it only applies to them. And transvestites/cross-dressers think of themselves as transgender but only include transexuals as those that have "gone all the way"

[softfruit.livejournal.com]

Also on the resources page of the BCN website as a pdf document. The stats were from memory but I think showed that male+female=less than 100% and male+female+trans=more than 100%. And that of the popular gender blocs there are more women at the event than men.