I guess I still don't understand transgender definitions of gay and straight

[Anonymous]

I refuse to embrace the doublethink. Identify how you will, and I wish you every happiness, but as a woman, I'm not accepting anyone telling me their penis is a female sex organ. It's actually incredibly offensive to women, with all our history of oppression by men, to say things like that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I refuse to embrace the doublethink. Identify how you will, and I wish you every happiness, but as a woman, I'm not accepting anyone telling me their penis is a female sex organ. It's actually incredibly offensive to women, with all our history of oppression by men, to say things like that.

+1000

[Anonymous]

I suppose it is only a coincidence that in this debate, as ever, it is people with penises who are telling people with vulvas what to do and how to do it.

Great point.

"Women, regardless of your sexual orientation, you must be open to penis." How is this not a red flag?

[Anonymous]

I do not even know what "cisgender" even means.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I refuse to embrace the doublethink. Identify how you will, and I wish you every happiness, but as a woman, I'm not accepting anyone telling me their penis is a female sex organ. It's actually incredibly offensive to women, with all our history of oppression by men, to say things like that.

Seriously. If some of you actually believe this, good luck to you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I refuse to embrace the doublethink. Identify how you will, and I wish you every happiness, but as a woman, I'm not accepting anyone telling me their penis is a female sex organ. It's actually incredibly offensive to women, with all our history of oppression by men, to say things like that.

Agreed. I find that I have limits regarding a lot of this especially in terms of what I feel comfortable teaching my children. I have to draw a line, and I leave it at a respectful distance from all of this detail. I can't expect their minds to make sense of this and am guessing they will end up teaching me along the way to find a comfortable place. One of my daugthers said to me, if you are a boy and you grow and up and you don't like being a boy, you take a pill and then you can be a lady !!! - Like it was the coolest thing in the world. I have no idea where she learned this, but I literally had nothing to say. I can't say that seems like a truthful version of what trans people go through, but there it was, a 4 yr old version....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I refuse to embrace the doublethink. Identify how you will, and I wish you every happiness, but as a woman, I'm not accepting anyone telling me their penis is a female sex organ. It's actually incredibly offensive to women, with all our history of oppression by men, to say things like that.

Agreed. I find that I have limits regarding a lot of this especially in terms of what I feel comfortable teaching my children. I have to draw a line, and I leave it at a respectful distance from all of this detail. I can't expect their minds to make sense of this and am guessing they will end up teaching me along the way to find a comfortable place. One of my daugthers said to me, if you are a boy and you grow and up and you don't like being a boy, you take a pill and then you can be a lady !!! - Like it was the coolest thing in the world. I have no idea where she learned this, but I literally had nothing to say. I can't say that seems like a truthful version of what trans people go through, but there it was, a 4 yr old version....

As a parent of a transgender teen, I completely understand how bewildering all this seems to most adults.

Let me offer a true story that may help other parents understand. When our child -- whom we understood was born female and raised that way -- was about 9 or 10, a very smart young boy -- maybe about 6 at the time, often would play with our child -/ sometimes alone and sometimes with his older sister. One day the boy's mom called and said, "I know this sounds like a stupid question and please don't be offended, but you have a daughter right? Your child x (female name) is a girl, right?" We confirmed this to the Mom's relief and then she explained, "My son is insisting x is a boy. He says X acts like a boy, talks like a boy, and is way too cool to be a girl." This neighbor's young boy intuitively knew something we didn't or we didn't want to know -- that x was a (transgender) boy -- I am sure the neigjbor's boy didn't know the word transgender or what it was -- he just knew our child was a boy. That is something our D.C. didn't come out to us about until several years later.

I tell this story to illustrate a point. This neighbor's child made a judgement about another child's gender based on many social interactions. He didn't think it was necessary to see if our child had the same sex organ he had -- he was sure our child was a boy. We have been raised to define gender based on a sex organ -- and that seems to work out to be right the vast, vast majority of the time. But sometimes the biological brain -- which drives behavior and presumably the sense of identity -- just does not match the sex organ. A women does not stop being a women after a hysterectomy. A man who loses his penis to a land mine, does not stop being a man. Sex organs are related to gender identity, but they are not necessarily dispositive. I believe science will ultimately prove transgenderism is biologically based in the brain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I refuse to embrace the doublethink. Identify how you will, and I wish you every happiness, but as a woman, I'm not accepting anyone telling me their penis is a female sex organ. It's actually incredibly offensive to women, with all our history of oppression by men, to say things like that.

Agreed. I find that I have limits regarding a lot of this especially in terms of what I feel comfortable teaching my children. I have to draw a line, and I leave it at a respectful distance from all of this detail. I can't expect their minds to make sense of this and am guessing they will end up teaching me along the way to find a comfortable place. One of my daugthers said to me, if you are a boy and you grow and up and you don't like being a boy, you take a pill and then you can be a lady !!! - Like it was the coolest thing in the world. I have no idea where she learned this, but I literally had nothing to say. I can't say that seems like a truthful version of what trans people go through, but there it was, a 4 yr old version....

As a parent of a transgender teen, I completely understand how bewildering all this seems to most adults.

Let me offer a true story that may help other parents understand. When our child -- whom we understood was born female and raised that way -- was about 9 or 10, a very smart young boy -- maybe about 6 at the time, often would play with our child -/ sometimes alone and sometimes with his older sister. One day the boy's mom called and said, "I know this sounds like a stupid question and please don't be offended, but you have a daughter right? Your child x (female name) is a girl, right?" We confirmed this to the Mom's relief and then she explained, "My son is insisting x is a boy. He says X acts like a boy, talks like a boy, and is way too cool to be a girl." This neighbor's young boy intuitively knew something we didn't or we didn't want to know -- that x was a (transgender) boy -- I am sure the neigjbor's boy didn't know the word transgender or what it was -- he just knew our child was a boy. That is something our D.C. didn't come out to us about until several years later.

I tell this story to illustrate a point. This neighbor's child made a judgement about another child's gender based on many social interactions. He didn't think it was necessary to see if our child had the same sex organ he had -- he was sure our child was a boy. We have been raised to define gender based on a sex organ -- and that seems to work out to be right the vast, vast majority of the time. But sometimes the biological brain -- which drives behavior and presumably the sense of identity -- just does not match the sex organ. A women does not stop being a women after a hysterectomy. A man who loses his penis to a land mine, does not stop being a man. Sex organs are related to gender identity, but they are not necessarily dispositive. I believe science will ultimately prove transgenderism is biologically based in the brain.

So stereotypes. "Way too cool to be a girl." Wow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I refuse to embrace the doublethink. Identify how you will, and I wish you every happiness, but as a woman, I'm not accepting anyone telling me their penis is a female sex organ. It's actually incredibly offensive to women, with all our history of oppression by men, to say things like that.

Agreed. I find that I have limits regarding a lot of this especially in terms of what I feel comfortable teaching my children. I have to draw a line, and I leave it at a respectful distance from all of this detail. I can't expect their minds to make sense of this and am guessing they will end up teaching me along the way to find a comfortable place. One of my daugthers said to me, if you are a boy and you grow and up and you don't like being a boy, you take a pill and then you can be a lady !!! - Like it was the coolest thing in the world. I have no idea where she learned this, but I literally had nothing to say. I can't say that seems like a truthful version of what trans people go through, but there it was, a 4 yr old version....

As a parent of a transgender teen, I completely understand how bewildering all this seems to most adults.

Let me offer a true story that may help other parents understand. When our child -- whom we understood was born female and raised that way -- was about 9 or 10, a very smart young boy -- maybe about 6 at the time, often would play with our child -/ sometimes alone and sometimes with his older sister. One day the boy's mom called and said, "I know this sounds like a stupid question and please don't be offended, but you have a daughter right? Your child x (female name) is a girl, right?" We confirmed this to the Mom's relief and then she explained, "My son is insisting x is a boy. He says X acts like a boy, talks like a boy, and is way too cool to be a girl." This neighbor's young boy intuitively knew something we didn't or we didn't want to know -- that x was a (transgender) boy -- I am sure the neigjbor's boy didn't know the word transgender or what it was -- he just knew our child was a boy. That is something our D.C. didn't come out to us about until several years later.

I tell this story to illustrate a point. This neighbor's child made a judgement about another child's gender based on many social interactions. He didn't think it was necessary to see if our child had the same sex organ he had -- he was sure our child was a boy. We have been raised to define gender based on a sex organ -- and that seems to work out to be right the vast, vast majority of the time. But sometimes the biological brain -- which drives behavior and presumably the sense of identity -- just does not match the sex organ. A women does not stop being a women after a hysterectomy. A man who loses his penis to a land mine, does not stop being a man. Sex organs are related to gender identity, but they are not necessarily dispositive. I believe science will ultimately prove transgenderism is biologically based in the brain.

This is all well and good. But sex organs are certainly biologically based and sexual orientation likely is as well. And for the vast majority of people, gender and sex organs ARE aligned (likely biologically) and orientation is to the opposite gender & sex organs (likely biologically). Most people with vaginas who identify as female are attracted to people with penises who identify as male. It is not "homophobia" or "transphobia" for a person with a vagina who identifies as female to prefer to have sex with a person with penis. (Nor, for that matter, is it homophobia or transphobia for a person with a vagina who identifies as female to prefer to have sex with a person without a penis.) Arguing this, it seems to me, is akin to arguing that a transgender man is just suffering from misogyny. It's akin to arguing that it's all just a social construct. Which, if that were true, would mean there ISN'T any biological basis to gender. And that the only reason a transgender person feels that way is because they aren't "properly" socialized. You cannot reasonably argue that transgender is biologically based and also argue that a penis can be a female sex organ if only we viewed it as such.

A man who loses his penis to a land mine does not stop being a man. But a woman who views PIV as an important part of sexual enjoyment, and/or who is looking for a person to marry and have children with might reasonably decide he was not a good partner for her. That's not any kind of -phobia. That's a fact of life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a cisgender woman, and I have to say: Trans people (the ones I've met, the ones I actually know as people who have thoughts and feelings and hopes and doubts and think about bathrooms yes and the rate of suicide in their youth yes but also cooking dinner and doing well at whatever work project they're dealing with) have blown my mind open in realizing what I have always assumed was just, you know, true & unchanging about gender and sex. I'm really grateful to them.

[trimmed for length]

But to the people who feel really alienated by this language, I guess I just offer you the fact that listening to the experiences of other people (and the work that allies to trans people have done--like in this thread--to remind me that yeah of course a penis is a female sex organ if a transfeminine woman has one but also if I'm not having sex with a transfemine woman...then I don't need to worry about her sex organs.) has opened my eyes to the mutability of gender in really useful ways.

It's also made me a (slightly?) less self-involved asshole. And I think that's essentially the point of our time on earth.

You are a straight woman, so it's easy for you to say that it doesn't matter to you if trans politics consider a penis a female sex organ if it's on a transwoman.

It *does* matter greatly to lesbians, who have fought for decades for their rights to love who they love- other women- without persecution or hatred. It's been a long, hard-fought battle. But now trans politics say that lesbians who won't have sex with transwomen are "genital fetishists" (see the section on the "cotton ceiling" here by a lesbian feminist: https://sisteroutrider.wordpress.com/2017/02/22/lezbehonest-about-queer-politics-erasing-lesbian-women/). Or see the video by trans activist Riley J. Cooper on page 2 of this thread. It reeks of homophobia.

I am the "cisgender woman" in that first quote and wanted to clarify that I'm a lesbian, not actually a "straight woman". Which is a reasonable enough assumption; I didn't realize I didn't mention it in my post.

But I am in my 40s, married to a woman, went to a women's college that has been through a long and contentious series of conversations about women-only spaces and trans people, and am deeply sympathetic to the complexity of gender and sex and biology.

The trans people that I know (not a huge number, maybe a dozen) aren't out there living lives to oppress me or force me to use for myself the same definitions they use when it comes to intercourse. They're trying to stay alive. And also pee in public. And if they're brave enough to date outside of their community, if their desire leads them there... they face dangers that are different than the dangers I face, even as a lesbian. (Although there are certainly lesbians and other queer people whose gender presentation puts them in similar danger; I look femme enough that no one questions my gender.)

As a lesbian I think I have a particular responsibility to know the ways that an insistence on difference or stark gender divisions can breed some really dark queerbashing or conversion therapy or custody denial* or raping the gay out of someone. As a ciswoman, it truly doesn't matter to me if some trans people consider a transfeminine person's penis a female sex organ. If we've got a mutual attraction, we should have a conversation about our genitals, sure. But otherwise: Not my business. In exactly the same way that how I have sex with my wife or the genetic backstory of our kids is none of anyone else's business unless I want to tell them.

Obviously we have different opinions. I respect your anger at the sexism and homophobia you've experienced from people in the trans community. (I do.) But I think that the LGBQ sexuality side and the T gender side have a lot more to gain in sticking together and listening and figuring out how to give each other some space in legitimately touchy / high-stakes areas. Because our VP believes in conversion therapy and there are kids we've got to keep alive and families we've got to protect...

*Still an issue, yes, in a state I've lived in recently: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/01/us/kentucky-judge-refuses-same-sex-adoption-cases.html

[Anonymous]

3:43 indicates a friend said her transgender son was "way too cool to be a girl."
This is quite indicative of why I consider the whole transgender issue to be getting out of control. Lots of trans advocates seem to be gender stereotyping.
Zeke on Survivor wants to be "manly."
Caitlyn Jenner wants to have long fingernails and dress up in sexy garments.
I was a "tomboy" who might have been wrongly considered trans if I were growing up today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:3:43 indicates a friend said her transgender son was "way too cool to be a girl."
This is quite indicative of why I consider the whole transgender issue to be getting out of control. Lots of trans advocates seem to be gender stereotyping.
Zeke on Survivor wants to be "manly."
Caitlyn Jenner wants to have long fingernails and dress up in sexy garments.
I was a "tomboy" who might have been wrongly considered trans if I were growing up today.

To the bolded, interesting and very valid point. An article ran in the New York Times on this very subject a few weeks ago. "My Daughter Is Not Transgender. She's a Tomboy." It can be read here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/18/opinion/my-daughter-is-not-transgender-shes-a-tomboy.html

It is written by a mother whose tomboy daughter is often assumed to be transgender because she doesn't conform to what society expects of a girl's looks/behavior. The mother states she would be supportive if her daughter did identify as transgender, but the daughter emphatically does not. Interestingly- and importantly- other children accept the girl for who she says she is when she says that she is, in fact, a girl. It is other adults- teachers, strangers, doctors, family friends- who continue to question if she's sure she's actually a girl and not transgender, so focused are they on sex stereotypes and a misguided notion of acceptance.

The reaction to the piece by some was really indicative of the times. Many of the NYT commenters were women who grew up as tomboys who related to the piece, especially older women. But the reaction on Twitter, which came from social justice and trans activists, was at times quite harsh. The author was accused of misgendering her child- the commenters said he was her son, that she had "outed her son," that her daughter was actually trans, that she is hurting her "son" by misgendering, and so on. The article was called anti-femme (meaning, anti people whose physical appearance is feminine- for example, pink dresses and painted nails) and cissexist (meaning transphobic).

Some people said that because of attitudes like the on in the article "lots and lots of people" have died. Because the mom is a novelist, a few people even talked about showing up to one of her book readings to make a scene about her child actually being transgender. They contacted people with whom the author has had a professional relationship to tell them they had worked with a "transphobe." The author also previously wrote an article about an abortion she had- activists dug up the article and accused her of lying or embellishing details about her abortion, which they also said hurt trans people.

It wasn't just limited to trans activists on Twitter, though- Chase Strangio, an ACLU attorney who is Chelsea Manning's lawyer, wrote a highly-critical takedown piece of the article. It can be read here: https://theestablishment.co/an-open-letter-to-those-praising-the-new-york-times-tomboy-piece-755e655ce31c

Strangio calls the NYT Tomboy piece troubling, dangerous, not worthy of being published, responsible for trans erasure, and oddly, an example of white supremacy.

Please read the New York Times article and tell me you aren't troubled by the fact that when a woman who is very supportive of trans rights writes an article about her female daughter, the response is to attack her as a bigot, accuse her of lying about her abortion, to contact her colleagues, to say that women shouldn't speak about their life experiences because it harms trans people, to say that viewpoints like the ones expressed in the article are responsible for deaths, and to say she's enforcing a legacy of ableism and white supremacy for having written the article.

[Anonymous]

I know it's turning into cliche to say that "people like this are going to get Trump re-elected, but people like this are going to get Trump re-elected." It's gonna be Nixon '72 all over again, running on a "we'll protect you, the Silent Majority, from the fringe crazies" platform.

[Anonymous]

Really interesting discussion. There's a lot to work out still on all sides. I think we're in a transition period, and in 20 years, there will be much different ideas about all of this. Glad the OP started this discussion. Even people who are disagreeing make very valid points (well, most of them).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I'm assuming you're a woman who likes men. You like men, not penises. Do you want to kiss a man, or a penis? Do you want to marry a man, or a penis? Do you see a picture of a man and think he's attractive, or a picture of a penis and think it's attractive. I'll answer for you, you look at human MEN and find them attractive, not penises as a body part. Straight women are interested in being in relationships with men, not penises with legs. Look up the following transgender men, who are men born with vaginas: "Benjamin Melzer" "Aydian Dowling" "Laith Ashley De La Cruz" and "Wesley Finn Tucker". Any straight woman would die to go out with these men, and just because these men were born without penises doesn't mean they're not desireable or that they're unlovable. Lesbians are attracted to people who look like women. NO lesbian would be attracted to any of the men listed above, straight women would, and are. They all have heterosexual girlfriends.

speak for yourself. me, I like penises. I think if you look at a man, think he is sexually attractive, and not think of penises, you just really aren't very sexual.