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I can picture the writer sitting shotgun waiting for her sister to come back in from Walgreens or something and just sort of looking around and seeing it there in the footwell of a messy car. Snooping was probably not her intention, she saw something that caught her eye and couldn't resist her curiosity. Shit happens.
@113, 121, another problem has to do with how we refer to GNAY without directing our comments to "you." It is popular usage to speak of "them," especially in terms of possession: "their gender identification," for instance. But it is not always correct usage. Like "one," it works best in general and impersonal terms. In other words, the tactic can't work for the purposes of this discussion, which GNAY began by asking us to consider her as a singular case.
Given that "you" is not subject to the same grammatical constraints, I'm not surprised that so many commenters turned to "you" as a default position. But considered as a response to the limitations of our language, the practice smells of evasion. People talk, and even GNAY's closest friends can't be expected to conduct all their conversations about her in her hearing and refer to her as "you" all the time. There is only one other monosyllable in common use to refer to living beings, but "it" is positively dehumanizing. Attempts to introduce gender-unspecific pronouns such as "co" and "na" have failed, mostly because they don't correspond to the overwhelming majority of people's experiences with other people.
Circumstances like these call for the famed Serenity Prayer: that God grant the strength to accept what cannot be changed, the courage to change what can be changed, and the wisdom to know the difference. All doubts about God notwithstanding, GNAY does not have to be entirely content with the outward manifestations of her gender but she might well be happier if she accepts them, instead of trying to get us to change our habitual impressions of them.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/magazi…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_th…
And, yes, it can be used to discuss specific people when you don't know their gender or they don't have one.
For instance: GNAY should wear whatever clothes they like, and use whatever pronouns they prefer, and cope with ignorant people by hanging out as much as possible with allies instead, as 113 recommends.
The point isn't, does GNAY look like a girl? That's irrelevant except in so far as what GNAY will have to put up with from ignorant people and from default assumptions. The point is, is GNAY a girl, and the answer to that seems to be a fairly clear "no". I'm also not sure what you mean by "a more general pattern", since the only thing associated with females true of GNAY is that GNAY likes to wear skirts and dresses. The other thing GNAY mentions is preferring to bind breasts to not have them be visible, which - like what GNAY wears - does not necessarily go with any particular gender, but is more common among people who are not girls/women/ladies/etc. Not that it matters. One's gender isn't determined by what you wear or by what other people think of you. And it's important for GNAY to be supported in this, because it's hard enough being different without ignorant people trying to make it harder.
This tactic has an imposing level of support here, but it does not even try to answer my concern that GNAY wants to control the uncontrollable. And somehow, I have the feeling that coming across as an excessively controlling person will not help with making and keeping even the most like-minded of friends.
The thing is - why should someone want to interact with somebody so close-minded that they reject you without even trying to understand you? And rejecting those people is apparently something you consider to be unreasonable, which doesn't surprise me, because you keep gendering GNAY, when you know GNAY is not gendered.
(I've no objection to new words, but prefer clarity when possible. Back in the 80's, "womyn" was clearly singular and "wymyn" was clearly plural, which I quite liked, and hoped would catch on for Scrabble purposes. Although one rarely sees "womyn" now, "wymyn" has completely disappeared, "womyn" being used both as singular and plural. I've also seen quite a lot of feminists recently - though not in the last month or two - writing "a women" and can't figure out why.)
"Trying to establish"? I thought it was established. I've used "they" and "them" to refer to singular people my whole life and no one has ever been confused about my meaning or even mentioned it as being odd. I do it a lot when talking about work to keep things as private as possible.
As a youth, GNAY is probably too young to remember the series of Saturday Night Live sketches called It's Pat! The humor, or the jokes anyway, ran off of the opposite dynamic: Pat had such an ambiguous presentation that it made identification nearly impossible. In one scene, Pat enrolled at a health club and engaged the staff in a few minutes of bafflegab before they directed Pat toward the locker rooms. The sketch was then "interrupted" by a Weekend Update news flash right before Pat made the choice.
It might be said in response that Pat, unlike GNAY, never claimed to have no gender identity, and that GNAY is in a better position to exercise due diligence in the choice of health clubs. And for once, I completely agree. But the facts do not permit the conclusion that identification ought to be optional in this setting. Experienced health club managers can imagine the worst that could happen to someone with a female body changing clothes in front of dozens of men. In this situation, however distasteful the identification may be, it is only prudent for GNAY to abide by it.
“they” is a neutral singular in English. Whoever made an ass of themselves by humiliating you was just wrong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_th…
“they” is a long-standing neutral singular in English. Whoever made an ass of themselves by humiliating you four decades ago was just wrong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_th…
This week I'm back late in the game after some R & R. Griz was out beach-bumming and celebrating the birthday of a hot little 40 year old on the Washington and Oregon coast. We JUST dodged a bullet driving on the #101 through Saturday's storm!
Besides, I think "their" is a gateway. People who regularly use "their" as a singular are ten times more likely to "lay" when they ought to "lie", and then what madness would ensue? (Kudos to those present who can pull off the former while avoiding the latter.)
I just made that up. Ms Cute, does it work? I must not decide on my own performance.
Kind of a little nod to Shakespeare's sonnet 138 there:
SONNET 138
When my love swears that she is made of truth
I do believe her, though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutor'd youth,
Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false speaking tongue:
On both sides thus is simple truth suppress'd.
But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O, love's best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love loves not to have years told:
Therefore I lie with her and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flatter'd be.
Seeing through anus goggles?
Peace
The reason we use language correctly is to communicate clearly and show respect to those who do us the honor of reading what we write. It's also a sign of a disciplined mind that is accurate and careful in all things, not just language.
Anyway, my point is that the language we use to describe gender (as with language in general) is a fundamentally social construct. Its function is to communicate, and as such, language belongs to the community, not to any particular individual. Sure, you can declare your gender to be "female" or "male" without respect to how others understand and use those words, but don't be surprised at the misunderstandings that will inevitably ensue. By analogy, if I start referring to red as blue and blue as red, I have no reason to be offended when Nordstrom online ships me a cis-blue shirt when what I had in mind was trans-blue.
Of course, language changes over time, which is something the trans and trans-friendly community are actively pushing with respect to gendered language. More power to them - it will be interesting to see how it turns out. I doubt, however, that language activism could ever completely erase the distinction between, for example, a cis-gendered female and an MTF, because when it gets down to it, this is a real distinction that matters to people irrespective of prejudice.
If you met a woman who could not bear children due to some congenital issue, and you found out she had had genital surgery and breast augmentation to help her feel more normal -- would you need special language to identify her? That's what an MTF is. We're in a period of cultural adjustment, so we need language that allows us to talk about the differences between trans and cis without stigmatizing anyone. But a person who has transitioned fully is a woman (or a man if they transitioned that way), and I expect our culture to get to the point where that is recognized.
To me, it makes more sense to have one public bathroom with stalls (for people of any gender), and another with urinals, for people who like the efficiency of urinals.
Explain to me why we sex-segregate bathrooms & locker rooms, as if you were trying to explain it to your trans-child, or your gay son.
Agreed. I'd add that such language should also be honest and not simply polite and/or patronizing, but that's probably just my hangup.
But a person who has transitioned fully is a woman (or a man if they transitioned that way), and I expect our culture to get to the point where that is recognized.
It certainly raises interesting questions about what exactly it means to be a woman. Some here have suggested it's a state of mind. You seem to be suggesting that physical attributes are also relevant. I'm no longer sure what I think, which is kind of an odd state of mind given how much value I've placed on women all my life.
Even if, for some reason, she cannot get the surgeries & hormones that would make assholes view her as fully female, she is still female if she knows that she is and tells the world that she is. Once someone has done all she can (whatever that is) to present to the world as female, then she is female.
A five-year-old with uncooperative parents cannot do much to transition. Perhaps she cannot even wear dresses, or pink, because she'll be beaten. But if she says she's a girl, then polite people will use female pronouns for her unless they think that will endanger her (for instance, if her uncooperative parents are also violent).
If a man lost his dick in a horrible accident, we would still think of him as a man, yes? Physical attributes are only part of a collection of traits we use to determine gender for different purposes. A doctor may need to distinguish between an XY man with a dick and one who lost his dick; doctors may also need to distinguish between an XX woman and an XY woman who wants surgery or hormones or whatever.
But for the rest of us, who are merely interacting with someone who says she's a woman, why would we need special vocabulary to insist she's not *really* a woman? If you don't find her attractive, don't date her; it's that simple.
If a child has trouble learning to read, you have them tested for dyslexia. You don't just assume they're on the low end of the normal range of intelligence out of fear of judging them or infringing on their freedom to be themselves.
Yes. But unless you honestly believe that penises are irrelevant to manhood, then that "yes" comes with a significant caveat.
why would we need special vocabulary to insist she's not *really* a woman
In most contexts, we don't. In the broad context of sex/dating/courtship, which is arguably the only context in which gender really should matter, "she" glosses over a distinction that a lot of people care about. But who knows, maybe people will care about it less in the future.
OK.
So now that "female" is no longer defined by chromosomes or physical attributes, nor is it defined by behaviors that align with traditional gender roles (I'm assuming you agree that "wearing the pants" doesn't disqualify a person from being a woman), what do you think it means to be "female", and how would a person know that that's what they are?
But I've met many people who feel certain they're female even though society told them they're male. I have no idea what that feels like. Maybe it's a hallucination.
But they certainly believe it, and their belief does not respond to corrective treatment, and their belief does no one any harm. So to me, it makes sense to take them at their word, since that relieves some of their anguish and doesn't harm me at all.
Now, you say that dating partners will care if a prospective partner is transgender. And I agree that people generally care about the status of their partner's genitals.
But if someone has happy, functioning female genitals and a female-looking body, and puts out female pheromones, I'm not sure why partners would resist seeing them as female.
Conversely, if a prospective partner does not have standard genitals, I'm not sure why it would matter whether that's for congenital reasons or because of a horrible accident later in life. Either their dating partner loves them enough to cope with the non-standard genitals, or else they move on to someone else. Right? What does it matter whether someone is MtF or simply a born woman with weird genitals who is also infertile?
Did she have a follow-up with a doctor? I worked in the lab field for many years, the last 8 specifically in a blood donor center. Those first tests pop up with false positives regularly. Certain meds, illness, or even if it's another test can cause a false reading. There is one combo test that we would do that lumped together HIV with Hepatitis. Now if it pops up hot, they'll destroy the blood and inform you. Continue testing. Usually the follow-up testing (on the same sample, new tests) are negative. They can usually come back and try again. Same procedure. If you come up hot again then you are banned permanently.
Either way, the local authorities are informed. I can't think of who they are here off the top of my head because I was stationed overseas at the time. You know who I mean though, right? That office is the one responsible for calling the person in and explaining the results. Possibilities, continued testing, etc. And the likelihood of false positives! 98% of our stuff was false. Can you donate after confirmation that it was a false reading? No. Something in your blood is making this test pop hot and it'll just be a waste of resources to keep having to destroy your blood to make you feel good about yourself. It's an expensive process. One donation can cost $500 just for the red cells, $1500 for the fresh frozen plasma. At least that's what the Red Cross would charge us if we ever needed to top up our supply. smh
Also, can you easily see yourself living as a man? Would you be comfortable with that gender identity? How about a masculine gender presentation? If not, then I think you're fooling yourself about not having an internal female gender identity.