liminal_luke

What could your parents or other loved ones have done in your childhood to have made things easier gender-wise? Do you appreciate it when cis-gender people put pronouns in their email signatures? Do you think we should all be asking each other for our preferred pronouns upon meeting, or is it OK to assume that someone who looks male/female goes by he or she unless informed otherwise?

I just want to say -- and this might sound really stupid -- that it´s really hard for me to forego posting my opinions. Part of me says: OK Luke, Maddie says she wants questions so if you don´t have a question, don´t post. Obviously, given this post that doesn´t have a question, I´m not great at that kind of self-restraint. I think a lot of people are like me; we love to opine. In my defense, I will say that I´ve learned some things from the thread. To me, these big social issues are like coffee: a single cup is pleasantly stimulating but drink a whole pot and my nerves will be shot. So this is me switching to decaf. Thank you Maddie, Bes, and Surrogate Corpse for sharing a little of your world with me. Thank you for being patient with me when I´ve said silly, uninformed shit. Take care of yourselves. The controversy around this topic isn´t going away anytime soon, but with every selfie things get a tiny bit better. This I believe.

I dunno. It took a long time but I´m finally out of opinions.

Oh, if only that could be true, Salvijus. You´re a bit difficult to connect with but I haven´t entirely given up. We may get there yet. Not best buddies forever, perhaps, but companionable forum friends.

We can try to get to the "truth," whatever that is, but to me that´s only half of the journey, and not really the most important half. What strikes me as more important is the other people I meet along the way. I was struck by the before and after pictures Maddie posted, and, as a result, have a new appreciation for the emotional power of transitioning. From surrogate corpse, I learned that body parts need not to rigidly defined as male or female, even genitals. I´m still mulling that over but it´s certainly an eyeopening concept. Aside from what I may have learned about transgenderism, I value getting to know people better. In the end, it´s not just our book knowledge that counts, it´s the relationships we´ve built along the way.

@Salvijus The one who is more open to learning from others wins. Just sayin´.

Seems to me, @Salvijus, that you are under the impression that language -- and life -- should make sense. I foresee many online arguments in your future.

I, of all people, should probably not speak for the transgender community, so I won´t. Except to say that I believe the change in one´s relationship to identity is the main thing. After transition, a person outwardly embraces what they know on the inside to be true. This change in relationship to self is often, but not always, accompanied by changes in appearance. That is my understanding.

@Salvijus I´ll try one more time. This is why it´s not "transappearance" when a transgender person transitions.... First off, you do have a point about identity staying the same -- it´s possible to look at it that way. Although Maddie refers to the time before she transitions as "when I was a boy", some transwomen would posit that they´d always been women, before and after transition. So, in this sense, identity per se doesn´t always change. But what does change at the transition point is one´s relationship to identity. This is all important. Before transition one may be unaware of one´s true identity, in denial of one´s identity, or unwilling to face the social consequences of embodying one´s identity, among other possibilities. At the point of transition, the transgender person is in effect saying "I´m going to embrace what I know to be true about myself even if that truth is not embraced by the world. I´m going to put my own understanding first." This is a huge step. Before a transwoman first puts on lipstick or a ribbon in her hair, before any changes are made to appearance whatsoever, a change occurs in her relationship to her own identity. It´s this inner shift that marks a person as transgender, more than any outward changes in appearance that may come later.

That´s brilliant. You should definitely do it!

What do you call it when a transwoman buys a dress? Answer: a financial transaction ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, What do you call a transgender blogger? Answer: a transcribe .............................................................................................. Why is it always such a mystical experience when a transgender person goes to the post office? Answer: it´s an act of trans - SEND - ance. OK...I better stop....

What is a transappearance? Answer: Maddie sharing a selfie.

When I was in college, a fellow student gave me a revealing psychological test. He asked me to imagine a waterfall and then tell him what it looked like. I imagined a dry bed of stone where a waterfall used to be. Turns out the "waterfall" was a stand-in image for our sex life. Oops!

This discussion is like a math problem that doesn´t have an answer. Genius-level folks instantly see it´s a trap and put down their pencil. Unfortunately, I´m no genius.

When I dressed up as a woman for Halloween, I was putting on a costume. It was fun but not soul-shaking. I could just as easily have decided to dress up as a chocolate sundae or Bill Gates. My understanding (and people can correct me if I´m wrong) is that when a transgender person transitions their entire being comes into alignment. It´s a phase shift. Imagine you are trying to complete a puzzle and you keep trying to force a piece to fit where it doesn´t fit -- and then finally you get it and the piece slides easily into the slot it was always meant to go.

Male to female transappearance is when a person whose deep down sense of themselves is male appears as a woman. Male to female transgenderism is when a person whose deep down sense of themselves is female -- despite being born with male anatomy -- appears as a woman.

I´ll take a stab. I´m remembering the time I dressed up as a woman for Halloween. This, to my mind, would be transappearance. I appeared as a woman -- well, not really -- but the change was not a deep change of identity but only wig-deep. To change one´s gender is much more profound. Sure, the appearance changes but the change that matters is the one that happens on the inside.

Just thinkin´. This thought might help transgendered people have more empathy for the transphobic. The fear that transgendered people must face in order to transition -- so brilliantly articulated by @surrogate corpse -- is the same fear that transphobic feel when they confront this topic. If it was hard for you, of course it´s hard for others.

If an enlightened person is unattached to their own male or female appearance in the world, surely they´re also unattached to the male or female appearance of others.

I looked Jana Drakka up and found this video especially inspiring...

I´d be concerned for their souls. Different strokes, I guess.

Nick Hornby writing notes from students to teachers about why they didn´t do their homework, in the style of agents and publishers -- hilarious! Agents (and publishers) speak... (substack.com)

It´s all very well to have spiritual discussions but I think we need to be aware of the context. Here, in Maddie´s case, the context is someone whose very personal and deeply considered decisions about her body resulted in her losing regular contact with much of her family. Or so I gather from earlier in this discussion. If this was my context, I´d be a smidge sensitive. I´d feel a bit put upon by a world that seemed to understand me so little. I might even be a tad angry. Which is not to say that Maddie is any of these things -- who knows? But this is the interpersonal context of the thread as I see it. None of this means we can´t have spiritual conversations about identity. We can. But we should do so with sensitivity and awareness. We owe the people personally connected to this issue that much.

Ain´t that the truth.

I wonder what consequences you´re thinking of. The most obvious consequence is mod action, though that seems unlikely as long as civility is maintained. Personally, I´m more worried about more mundane social consequences. Like most of us, I like to be liked. I want to belong. So far I feel that the trans people active in this thread have been remarkably tolerant of my not-always-PC opinions and for that I´m very grateful.