I want to talk about something I just saw on Reddit. It was regarding the US election, and it was a Democrat saying something to the effect of how he can agree with “the other side” on one thing.
No prizes for guessing: it’s trans women. Specifically, he regards the idea that we can participate in society in any meaningful way (you know, like being able to use toilets in restaurants and stuff) as “insane”.
And of course, he got to talking about “penises” straight away, which tells us a lot about how people like him see us, because I don’t know about you, but when I think about women, “penis”. Is not my go-to. Hell, when I think about ANYBODY, I don’t tend to think about sex organs. Only really comes up in a sexual context.
Not only do these people not see us as women. They don’t see us as PEOPLE. To a considerable number of cis people, we are “some sort of weird sex thing”. That’s it. That’s the bit of their brain we occupy.
People have hopes and dreams and lives and people they love and who love them, and need to use toilets occasionally. Weird sex things don’t do any of that.
So of course the Democrats treating us as human is “weird” to them.
And he was massively up-voted, and congratulated about “finding common ground with political opponents”, and the comments saying, “what the hell? These are humans you’re talking about!” were all a long way down, and not popular.
This is how cis people see us. Not all of them, but a lot of them. An awful lot. Of the ones who don’t, a lot of them will only support us as long as it doesn’t require any personal awkwardness.
Anyway, my point here is not to wallow, but to present the context in which we fight for equality, because I think it’s clear that these people will never grant it to us voluntarily.
Not only are there no consequences for them to treat us like shit; they are CONGRATULATED for it.
And they will only stop if they are MADE to.
That’s the context in which our struggle operates.
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Zach Nation
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Sarah Brown
in reply to Zach Nation • •tarot bird reshared this.
Susan60
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •I think it was similar with gay people a generation or so ago. Some straight people couldn’t look at a gay person without thinking about what they might get up to in the bedroom, or wherever. When I look at a person, I don’t immediately wonder what they do or don’t do in the bedroom & with whom.
I think this says a lot more about their personal insecurities about sex & gender than anything else, unless they’re just jumping on the bandwagon for political gain.
Sarah Brown
in reply to Susan60 • •Susan60
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Sarah Brown
in reply to Susan60 • •Susan60
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Yamainu 🏳️🌈
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Sarah Brown likes this.
Sarah Brown
in reply to Yamainu 🏳️🌈 • •schtschur 🍉 no estramos solas
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Transphobe and homophobe's obsession with sexual organs will probably never cease to amaze me, but then, perhaps it's telling.
What you're saying is right, however. For what it's worth, it's a great, informative post.
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mav :happy_blob:
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •I'm really not quite sure where we go from here, this kind of intentional failure of empathy - I don't know how we fix that.
Sarah Brown
in reply to mav :happy_blob: • •Medea Vanamonde🏳️⚧️ ♀
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Baroque Mongoose
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Ouch. Eloquent and on the button, as usual.
I can also relate more than I expected. I do not, to be honest, get a lot of trouble for being non-gendered; but I do remember far too vividly what it was like to be a child. And when I was growing up, unless you were especially lucky, you weren't a person when you were a child. I don't know what you were, but people got a certain basic level of respect that it was considered laughable (and probably even dangerous) to apply to children. So... yes, I've been a thing, and I feel very much for anyone else who is treated like one.
randygalbraith
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •I am not a trans women, but support and concern for their rights should be the concern of everyone. Everyone of us is in some minority. My religion (atheist UU) is a minority. Only a few of us are in an age majority. Race, sex, economic status, immigrant status, all sorts of things can put individuals into a minority.
One of the women at our church is a trans woman. I have strong feelings about gun ownership and so does she, but somewhat opposite me. We disagree but it doesn't effect our friendship. Whether or not her transition has involved her sex organs is of what concern to me? None! She may have concerns. Her intimate partner may have a space there to negotiate. Some diseases are sex related (breast vs prostate cancer). But in day to day life why in the world would I have concerns about the sex organs of another?
But since the poster brought it up -- what about our sex organs? Well biologically they are same, just that the penis is an inversion of the female sex organ all humans began life with.
When I watched the Netflix documentary Will an
... show moreI am not a trans women, but support and concern for their rights should be the concern of everyone. Everyone of us is in some minority. My religion (atheist UU) is a minority. Only a few of us are in an age majority. Race, sex, economic status, immigrant status, all sorts of things can put individuals into a minority.
One of the women at our church is a trans woman. I have strong feelings about gun ownership and so does she, but somewhat opposite me. We disagree but it doesn't effect our friendship. Whether or not her transition has involved her sex organs is of what concern to me? None! She may have concerns. Her intimate partner may have a space there to negotiate. Some diseases are sex related (breast vs prostate cancer). But in day to day life why in the world would I have concerns about the sex organs of another?
But since the poster brought it up -- what about our sex organs? Well biologically they are same, just that the penis is an inversion of the female sex organ all humans began life with.
When I watched the Netflix documentary Will and Harper I came away with a deeper appreciation we, especially us cis gender, need to learn to not only be more accepting but also more trusting. A trans gender person owes us no accommodations. A trans woman should negotiate for herself the extent she wishes to embrace traditional female attributes. This came up at one point in the documentary when a trans woman explains to Harper why she stopped trying to make her voice pass as female.
Despite years of trans gender contact via my UU faith that was a kind of a wow moment for me. Our world is made wonderfully diverse by the range of people in it. Having Harper in our world makes our world better. Having you Sarah here makes Diaspora better. I can only relate to trans gender from a distance, but, actual trans women have lived experience.
While bigotry does often seem to escape consequences not completely. Cutting oneself off from a diverse world is to embrace a more lonely, more fearful, more perpetually angry world of unhappiness.
Sarah Brown
in reply to randygalbraith • •@randygalbraith OK, so I don't want to have a go at you, but this bit...
...shows the underlying problem. We are still seen by well meaning, but largely wrong people as "male women" at best.
NO
Let's look at the two examples you mention: breast and prostate cancer. Medically transitioned trans women will have both breasts and a prostate. Both cancers tend to be strongly endocrine linked. Our endocrine systems run much, much, much closer to the "female" baseline than the "male" one.
In other words, we need breast cancer screening far more than prostate cancer screening. My chances of developing prostate cancer with zero detectable testosterone in my body are close to zero, but I have a family history of breast cancer and need mammograms regularly, just as cis women are.
A
... show more@randygalbraith OK, so I don't want to have a go at you, but this bit...
...shows the underlying problem. We are still seen by well meaning, but largely wrong people as "male women" at best.
NO
Let's look at the two examples you mention: breast and prostate cancer. Medically transitioned trans women will have both breasts and a prostate. Both cancers tend to be strongly endocrine linked. Our endocrine systems run much, much, much closer to the "female" baseline than the "male" one.
In other words, we need breast cancer screening far more than prostate cancer screening. My chances of developing prostate cancer with zero detectable testosterone in my body are close to zero, but I have a family history of breast cancer and need mammograms regularly, just as cis women are.
And this is replicated in nearly any medical situation. If you took a blood sample from me and did analysis, pretty much all of my numbers (except testosterone, which would come back zero) would fall in the female range, not the male one.
We say "trans women are women" for a reason, and this kind of "yeah but..." is not only wrong, it's dangerous.
Now there are a few cis people in my life who get this, but in my experience most do not, and still do the "will pretend you're a woman but know you have the male essence" thing, and that's why I generally don't trust cis people. The support of the majority of them is conditional, fragile, and generally misdirected (e.g. "let's get trans women screened for prostate cancer! Yay!" - if you tried to find my prostate in the traditional manner, you'd discover that my vagina is in the way).
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Alanna
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Sarah Brown
in reply to Alanna • •@Alanna yeah. There’s a bit of guesswork because our breasts tend to be younger, and lots of us don’t take progesterone. They don’t know enough.
I had my first mammogram in Portugal at 49, but I never told them I’m trans.
John_Loader
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Ailbhe
in reply to John_Loader • • •Sarah Brown
in reply to Ailbhe • •@Ailbhe @John_Loader first line treatment for prostate cancer is the drugs that the media insists on calling “puberty blockers” (yes, exact same ones).
And since we already take blockers, or are castrated … well.
Ailbhe
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •randygalbraith
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Thanks @Sarah Brown. As I wrote that bit about sex organ related disease, I was thinking about who, other than the individual, would be rightly concerned about our sex organs. So my point is, I know details about my sex organs, my wife Wendy knows and has legitimate interest and during a doctor's visit, medical professionals of my choosing may concern and interest. But a co-worker? Ah, no! A fellow congregate at church? Ah, again, no. Some random poster on Reddit? Most certainly not.
"if you tried to find my prostate in the traditional manner, you’d discover that my vagina is in the way" 😀 You are so open! Us cis gender folks can learn so much by just listening to members of the trans community.
Thanks for the trust comment. That makes sense. The relationships you have with wider cis gender world would involve levels of trust you and a cis gender friend reach. However, in the wider world, discrimination
... show moreThanks @Sarah Brown. As I wrote that bit about sex organ related disease, I was thinking about who, other than the individual, would be rightly concerned about our sex organs. So my point is, I know details about my sex organs, my wife Wendy knows and has legitimate interest and during a doctor's visit, medical professionals of my choosing may concern and interest. But a co-worker? Ah, no! A fellow congregate at church? Ah, again, no. Some random poster on Reddit? Most certainly not.
"if you tried to find my prostate in the traditional manner, you’d discover that my vagina is in the way" 😀 You are so open! Us cis gender folks can learn so much by just listening to members of the trans community.
Thanks for the trust comment. That makes sense. The relationships you have with wider cis gender world would involve levels of trust you and a cis gender friend reach. However, in the wider world, discrimination should be unlawful wherein an anti-trans individuals or groups are prevented from bringing harm. That so many Americans have recently decided to throw trans and other minority under the bus, is awful.
I'd only ask folks outside of the USA to appreciate many of us here are deeply concerned about the road ahead and are looking for ways to help shield minorities from harm.
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