Serious LGBTQ

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Soul Fly

IMMA TEACH YOU WHAT SPLASHIN' MEANS
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Man I don't think most people are primarily complaining about some bigot disagreeing with them. Sure that is a huge issue directly to do with dignity; but the problem is when that translates in (c)overt discrimination and differential treatment. For illustration: I'm not just disagreeing with your gayness but I'm also probably supporting the "preservation of sanctity of marriage between man and wife". I'm not just being a misogynist but also actively working towards defunding planned parenthood and closing down as many abortion clinics I can. I not only think transgenders are fantasy fiction for deranged minds but I label them as dangerous predators and try to control what bathrooms they can or cannot enter.

Perception and discrimination is more symbiotic than you are making it out to be. Mere "acceptance" of such status quo is a tad bit patronizing as much as it is a good rule of thumb to deal with life.
 

OLD GREGG (im back baby)

old gregg for life
I'm not saying it's okay to discriminate or that bigots exhibit justifiable ignorance. I'm not making excuses. I'm just talking to you all from a place of experience. I've spent time among all walks of life. The point was to better handle discrimination via self restraint and through the acceptance that the fault lies with the bigot and not the individuals lifestyle choice. I wasn't speaking directly to bigotry, either. I was speaking to the ignorance of the masses. Critical thinking has become a lost art and intelligent discourse reduced to mud-slinging. Basically we need a more civil population before a real change is possible.
 

EV

Banned deucer.
Yo Old_Gregg I appreciate the sentiments but get out with that BS. Your "guys I know what it's like, take my advice" is wholly out of place when you come packaging it with "preference" and "lifestyle choice" as a way to describe us.

Trying to force bad people to conform to social constructs that they disagree with kind of puts you in the same boat as the other bad people.
lmao right right right


Thanks but no thanks.

PS
I was always taught that you had to give respect to get it
Whatever happened to just good ol' fashioned decency and respect without strings attached? Why is there an expectation that you have to give something in order to get anything in return? It's not something to be bartered with or a gift that implies reciprocation. Love, respect, etc should be unconditional.

/end rant


edited for tone~
 
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OLD GREGG (im back baby)

old gregg for life
Yo Old_Gregg I appreciate the sentiments but get the fuck out with that plastic heartfelt kumbaya BS. Your "guys I know what it's like, take my advice" is wholly out of place when you come packaging it with "preference" and "lifestyle choice" as a way to describe us.


lmao right right right


Thanks but no thanks.

PS

Whatever happened to just good ol' fashioned decency and respect without strings attached? Why is there an expectation that you have to give something in order to get anything in return? It's not something to be bartered with or a gift that implies reciprocation. Love, respect, etc should be unconditional.

/end rant
Didn't intend to offend anyone, and i will get out. Idk what straightsplaining is but I'm sorry to have offended you. I'm not encouraging you to do anything I'm just telling you how I'd handle the situation. Your blind rage is misguided and there is no need to attack me. If I'm ignorant to something how will I learn? Your lashing out has taught me valuable lesson. I see error of my ways.

Respect is a two way street but kindness is easily afforded. I think implying that respect is an unconditional courtesy is naive. Again I'm sorry to have offended you and I will keep my opinions to myself
 
The message is simple. Dumb people will be dumb, bad people will be bad, greedy people will be greedy. Unfortunately, this idealistic notion that everyone should support or agree with your decisions is just unrealistic. That's the bottom line. Learn to live with these people who get under your skin and kill them with kindness is my best advice.

Fear originates in ignorance. We fear what we don't understand. And for some of us, what we fear, we want to destroy. This type of person needs to reasoned with and shown that the fear they have is irrational.

There are lots of mean people in the world, this is not going to change. I can say this from a position of extreme confidence as there are no delusions of grandeur to fog my vision. The world will never be a utopia to all mankind, there exists not enough compassion in the selfish hearts of humanity. This is not to say that progress is futile, just a bit misguided.

Acceptance is a big part of life and not everyone is going to accept you. Just the way it is. This has nothing to do with gender or sexuality, it is a broad and honest statement. Accepting that there will be bad people who just want to ruin your day is part of life.
Discrimination isn't just words. It's not just a matter of people getting under others skin. It's institutionalized and it materially affects lives of people. If people just shrugged off inequalities of life and lived with it, we'd still have slavery, no voting rights for women (or poor people), no 8 hour workday/weekends/pensions, et cetera.
 
I was always taught that you had to give respect to get it
Although I disagree with most that was said, I have to agree with this part. While it's nice to think that respect can be unconditional, it's more realistically viewed as something that can be earned or lost in this world. I mean look at good 'ol Mr. President; He has practically no one's respect. Since he wasn't so great at giving out respect, he easily lost ours.

I think love and respect should be unconditional for the people you love, but there is no such obligation for the people you don't.

^sadly though, this means that bigots don't really have to respect us, but then again, we don't really have to respect them either. It's kind of an 'eye for an eye' situation, but I'd rather let the whole world be blind than let anyone disrespect me and not say or do anything about it.
 
a facebook post worth sharing in light of recent events wrt prominent feminist ideologues promoting transphobia. solidarity with all of those affected xo

https://www.facebook.com/JayMarieJ/posts/10102945916915683

excerpt:

"There is no one way to be a woman and congratulations, to those who are seeing this weekend that more than ever before, the gender binary is and has always been a lie to keep our imaginations constrained & physical bodies in capitalist production check. How does it hurt you to consider womanhood as a more vast possibility than you ever imagined or personally experience? If you feel that something has been taken away from you, you were/are more interested in a world that values exclusion than inclusion, in supremacy than community, and in ordering/othering rather than welcoming."
 

Soul Fly

IMMA TEACH YOU WHAT SPLASHIN' MEANS
is a Contributor Alumnus
a facebook post worth sharing in light of recent events wrt prominent feminist ideologues promoting transphobia. solidarity with all of those affected xo

https://www.facebook.com/JayMarieJ/posts/10102945916915683

excerpt:

"There is no one way to be a woman and congratulations, to those who are seeing this weekend that more than ever before, the gender binary is and has always been a lie to keep our imaginations constrained & physical bodies in capitalist production check. How does it hurt you to consider womanhood as a more vast possibility than you ever imagined or personally experience? If you feel that something has been taken away from you, you were/are more interested in a world that values exclusion than inclusion, in supremacy than community, and in ordering/othering rather than welcoming."
I'm assuming this is in response to Adichie's comments on womanhood/transwomanhood?
 

dwarfstar

mindless philosopher
is "half-hearted shrug" a gender identity

serious question
Serious answer: yes. There's plenty of people outside the binary who don't necessarily have a name for their gender identity, and there's plenty of people who don't identify with ANY gender. So regardless of what you meant by that, I guarantee you're in good company
 

Myzozoa

to find better ways to say what nobody says
is a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Past WCoP Champion
Could you qualify how her comments were transphobic?

in the words of one reply to ben demon's thread about 'gay' as an insult: 'youre on the internet right now" why dont you read what any number of people have said about transphobia in her comments, which are just a classic repetition of northwestern American Trans-exclusionary radical feminist dogmas? Trans exclusion is transphobia. And it harms ciswomen too.

Unless of course, you feel this thread is about allowing you to demand access to lgbtq ppl to educate you, or in the case where you are trolling/a shitty poster who is str8 posting one liners in an lgbtq thread, like any of us think actually believe you care to understand these things.

EDIT: i hope other str8 ppl who post in this thread in similar manners can get a clue

edit2, examples:

I said, in an interview, that trans women are trans women, that they are people who, having been born male, benefited from the privileges that the world affords men, and that we should not say that the experience of women born female is the same as the experience of trans women.
Because the truth about societal privilege is that it isn't about how you feel. (Anti-racist white people still benefit from race privilege in the United States). It is about how the world treats you, about the subtle and not so subtle things that you internalize and absorb.

This is not to say that trans women did not undergo difficulties as boys. But they did not undergo those particular difficulties specific to being born female, and this matters because those experiences shape how adult women born female interact with the world.
 
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Bughouse

Like ships in the night, you're passing me by
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I don't think there's anything so wrong about recognizing that the experience of trans women and cis women is different. Or that grouping all of their concerns together as "women's issues" doesn't work all the time.

In some respects, a trans woman could have had an easier childhood, being raised as a boy. The trans woman would not for example have been raised being told that "boys are just better at math and science so don't even try" or that they should defer to whatever the boys in the group want to do, etc. I have a very good friend who majored in math and computer science in college and now is pursuing a PhD in math. She came out as trans a few years into undergrad. If she'd been born a girl, would she have been encouraged in math classes in elementary, middle, and high school? I'm not sure.

Of course, this then butts up against the massive obstacles any trans person has to overcome compared to a cis person. I certainly don't think any "advantage" coming from being gendered as a boy at birth stands up to the disadvantages trans women face. But it's fair to say there are at least a few pluses, against the many, many minuses.

So I'm personally ok with anyone who wants to draw distinctions between trans women and cis women, so long as they do so with the intent to highlight differences in experiences for the two groups (like any intersectional issue) and not to wholesale say one has it better than the other or that trans women aren't "real" women.

I think Adichie was trying to be more in the first group, but in a few places her argument definitely veered off into the second group. That's why some people are mad.
 

Soul Fly

IMMA TEACH YOU WHAT SPLASHIN' MEANS
is a Contributor Alumnus
Myzozoa

I have read the other articles and i reserve some disagreements upon them. I posted the way i did because it would be presumptuous to assume dice's specific disagreements (inasmuch they are nuanced and multiple) before making a response that would sound righteous otherwise. If anything I'm trying to ensure i have a well grounded conversation, with him.

It has nothing to do with any of the pointifica ting bullshit you peddle in your post. I get that straight-patronising is a thing but fuck, don't whip it out without a second thought like a discount white knight.

I'm on mobile so I'll probably negotiate with your "example" post and other responses when I can, but i really felt like i needed to get this out because your response doesn't help anything whatsoever.


e: double post, next page. srry phone.
 
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Soul Fly

IMMA TEACH YOU WHAT SPLASHIN' MEANS
is a Contributor Alumnus
On second thought Bughouse more or less sums up my primary beef with many of the criticisms I've read so far. Which is why the question would be, for me, is why insisting on a differentiation on the basis of lived experiences is automatically tantamount to being TERFy?

(if that is indeed also the sentiment dice also shares)....

Because afaik differentiation =\= hierarchization. Never does she imply or impute that. Without any justification to the contrary i think it is unfair to throw shade in her entire life by branding her as an "idealoue promoting transphobia''. It discredits a life that has been spent surmounting and negotiating with most of the challenges firsthand that the posters in this thread are today articulating.
 
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KM

slayification
is a Community Contributoris a Tiering Contributor
one of the main flaws with her argument is that it presupposes some clear binary between cis and trans women and a similarity of experiences within those categories. some trans women don't actualize their transition until they're in their late 50s, while others transition in their early childhood in a sense and never really "live life as a _" (scare quotes highly necessary). similarly, she's fairly obscure about what she considers "real" womanhood, as most TERFy-aligned people tend to be, because every definition fails to encompass people it's supposed to (e.g. intersex people, people with different chromosomes, people born barren, etc).

also, it rests on the idea that trans women can have male privilege before they transition. this is obviously a tricky subject, but in general it's kind of bullshit. laverne cox responded to this, for instance, by saying that her life as a "very feminine boy" didn't really allow for her to be advantaged by male privilege, especially when combined with the crippling dysphoria she was experiencing, which leads to a whole slew of other problems. it's possible that in some instances a trans women's previous visual appearance as a traditionally male person may grant them opportunities they would not have had, but characterizing women as having male privilege is hella sketchy and doesn't really reflect the realities of being a pre-transitioning trans women.

the lived experience of all women is very different. there is no discernable reason why being trans is the category that requires differentiation, and no real advantage gained by discerning it. There exist absolutely 0 issues that all cis women face that no trans women face, or vice versa. The distinction is based purely in TERFy rhetoric, even if it's been somewhat distilled.
 

Bughouse

Like ships in the night, you're passing me by
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Not sure if there are any Survivor fans itt, but I was watching tonight and some shocking stuff went down... very interesting and well-written article in response from the contestant who was outed as trans on national television. Worth noting that the man who outed his fellow player, while admittedly desperate to save himself (no excuse for this...), is himself a gay man.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/li...mith-outed-as-transgender-guest-column-991514

Some context... Zeke played his first season as an out gay male. Zeke was eminently comfortable being out as gay and presumably NOT comfortable being out as trans, given that he didn't discuss it ever. Still, internet sleuths had already figured out that Zeke was also trans during Zeke's first time playing based on now-deleted articles online from Harvard's paper that existed in internet archives. But there's a big difference between followers-of-a-few-survivor-specific-blogs knowing and millions of live viewers knowing + the news media coverage after.

I'm also quite disappointed in CBS/Survivor producers' decision to air this at all. Spend 10 minutes of the show moralizing and making it clear how wrong it was for Varner to out Zeke, but by airing it, effectively being the ones who outed him. Varner outed him to like 6 people. The show/network allowed the outing to extend to millions.
 

Soul Fly

IMMA TEACH YOU WHAT SPLASHIN' MEANS
is a Contributor Alumnus
one of the main flaws with her argument is that it presupposes some clear binary between cis and trans women and a similarity of experiences within those categories. some trans women don't actualize their transition until they're in their late 50s, while others transition in their early childhood in a sense and never really "live life as a _" (scare quotes highly necessary). similarly, she's fairly obscure about what she considers "real" womanhood, as most TERFy-aligned people tend to be, because every definition fails to encompass people it's supposed to (e.g. intersex people, people with different chromosomes, people born barren, etc).

also, it rests on the idea that trans women can have male privilege before they transition. this is obviously a tricky subject, but in general it's kind of bullshit. laverne cox responded to this, for instance, by saying that her life as a "very feminine boy" didn't really allow for her to be advantaged by male privilege, especially when combined with the crippling dysphoria she was experiencing, which leads to a whole slew of other problems. it's possible that in some instances a trans women's previous visual appearance as a traditionally male person may grant them opportunities they would not have had, but characterizing women as having male privilege is hella sketchy and doesn't really reflect the realities of being a pre-transitioning trans women.

the lived experience of all women is very different. there is no discernable reason why being trans is the category that requires differentiation, and no real advantage gained by discerning it. There exist absolutely 0 issues that all cis women face that no trans women face, or vice versa. The distinction is based purely in TERFy rhetoric, even if it's been somewhat distilled.
I understand that Adichie doesn't really give an affirmative modality of what womanhood is, but as far as I am aware never has she distilled any form of "real" womanhood as some divine ideal. She doesn't seem to place any providence in these divisions other than signifiers of differential natures of the issues faced, even if under a common umbrella. All criticism against her seems to assume a normative value on cis-womanhood on her part, which I simply don't see.

“transwomen are transwomen and cis women are cis women and all are women. Except that ‘cis’ is not an organic part of my vocabulary.”

I have been going through her remarks and quite literally all she insists on, with those 2-3 lines is the fact that conflating womanhoods is problematic as far as she is concerned. I am not on completely firm ground here, but even the privilege of transitioning and maintaining a gender is differential across cultures and social classes. While Cox's argument is legitimate that being a "very effeminate boy" led to a slew of abuse in childhood (something I deeply relate to), male privilege isn't some unidimensional zero sum that's completely cancelled out in the process; which ISN'T to minimize or push aside the stigma and concerns around transitioning which can be just as challenging. We can go into more depth here if needed, please do provide analysis as to why, if you think otherwise. Point is, there is a danger in losing perspective the moment I take a statement asserting differential experiences to mean "trans-women aren't really women, and should be excluded from women's events"

there is no discernable reason why being trans is the category that requires differentiation, and no real advantage gained by discerning it. There exist absolutely 0 issues that all cis women face that no trans women face, or vice versa.
As far as I understand Adichie's concern she contests that person prescribed as female from birth is already inducted into a process of socialization that rests exclusively on the negation of her self, rummaged out for the performance in accordance to male ego. Her existence is as an extension of her reproductive capabilities, with a social structure designed to protect it's sanctity and ensure the propagation of the male line. A wound quite unique (note: NOT overarching, or above all other concerns) wrt birth-assigned femininity. She wants to preserve that hurt, which while probably underanalyzed, doesn't seem as moot as it is being made out to be. I realize that leads to a tangle of questions she ought to be answering, related to living with dysphoria, age of transitioning etc etc, which admittedly deserve an extensive conversation. As far as issues are concerned, off the top of my head: bathrooms, official identification, surrogacy and parenthood, access to hormonal medication and transition care etc as issues which are endemic to transwomen while cis-women especially outside Europe and NA, still face retrograde issues surrounding their sex organs: reproductive rights, female foeticide, organ mutiliation, marriage laws. For instance there are certain religious laws in India that disallow persons on their menstrual cycle from entering Temples. I don't see what's so harmful about admitting to a difference of problems stemming from differential lived experiences, which by the way still doesn't preclude collective support and action in finding a solution for all of the issues I have listed. I think your assertion is a little myopic outside a certain first-world social configuration. The feminist fight isn't equivalent and similar across the world. I'm assuming Adichie as a Nigerian is also coming from a similar place.

Taking the converse of your statement, without any affirmative evidence of exclusion, which doesn't rely on a logical leap, or an assumption of Adichie's value system, seems like a systemic negation of her entire career as a feminist. I think a few of responses here are on that tone. That runs the risk of leapfrogging from an intersectional critique to a callout-culture vitriol. Which I have a problem with. That's all.
 
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Josh

=P
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so... I guess this thread is the best place?
for any lgbtq smogonites who are Survivor fans, I'm sure you saw the situation. I'll clarify just in case: Jeff Varner called Zeke out as transgender as an attempt to show Zeke is capable of deception. Obviously, that's considered inappropriate and Varner completely misjudged as his tribe let him know. I'm wondering how y'all, as lgbtq people, reacted to that. Varner clearly was in the wrong, and the tribal not even going to votes said as much. However, I personally feel bad for the guy. I interpreted his comment to be intended along the lines of "he said he's a janitor but he's a cop", and while he went over the line, he's a gay guy himself who was active in his local lgbtq community. Now, he is criticized by said community, lost many friends, and /got fired from his job/ over this. When you type "Jeff" into google Varner is the first result. His life is basically falling apart, is it really that severe of a comment?
 

dwarfstar

mindless philosopher
I'm too tired and too stoned to get into the Adichie thing tonight, but with regard to what Josh is asking, yes, it really is that big a deal and I think Varner deserved what he got. Being outed as trans (whether they're living as their own gender or still presenting as the one they were assigned at birth) is liable to fuck up someone's life in a whole bunch of massive ways, including but not limited to social ostracization, loss of a job, and physical violence even going as far as murder, depending on the situation that specific person is in. If we're not out prior to transition, or in many cases even post-transition, there's very real and very serious risks involved in being outed before we've taken whatever steps we can to prepare for that materially and psychologically, particularly for trans women (I know Zeke isn't one but that's info people need to know). What Varner did to Zeke could have been dangerous even just around the people on the show, let alone with his secret being revealed to half the country. And hey, adding insult to injury, it's also just really disrespectful to disregard someone's autonomy like that. As a gay man who also had to come out once, Varner should have known better on both counts, so if anything it's WORSE than it would be coming from a cishet person (which would already have been terrible). Maybe my status as a trans woman who isn't out to the whole world yet makes me ~biased~ or some shit but I feel like the fallout for Varner is no worse than he deserves
 

Oglemi

Borf
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No one deserves to have their life destroyed over what they say, especially if it wasn't particularly heinous. Sure, being outed isn't ever cool and people who do it deserve flak, but no one should have their life/job crumple from something like that; it's not like he made death threats or ruined Zeke's life, and do you know how I know that? Because it isn't Zeke that's getting chastised or shunned for being outed, it's Varner that had done the outing. So no, he did not deserve what he got.
 

dwarfstar

mindless philosopher
The point isn't "did it turn out all right for Zeke", the point is that Varner acted with a reckless disregard for the potential ramifications of his actions at BEST, and outright malice at worst. I can't claim to know which of the two it was — I ain't in this dude's head — but it damn well COULD have ruined Zeke's life, and it's down to good fortune that it didn't go down that way. Varner did something shitty and potentially dangerous to another person, and it backfired on him hard. I consider that a good thing.

EDIT: And yeah, elcheeso's right, a big share of the responsibility should rest on the shoulders of the producers who decided to air it
 
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