Transgender/transsexual testimonials

Discussion in 'Research' started by Annessa Jones, Apr 21, 2014.

  1. obsidian_cicatrix

    obsidian_cicatrix I ink, therefore I am. Contributor

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    @ChickenFreak. That's about the height of it. ;)

    I thought the analogy was grand, 'though it didn't make me titter nearly as much as @Wreybies elephant one. (That has been filed away neatly in a recess of my brain for future use.)
     
  2. 123456789

    123456789 Contributor Contributor

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    Exactly, you are a woman. And if you started practicing being a man, you'd be a woman practicing to be a man, not a man.
     
  3. EdFromNY

    EdFromNY Hope to improve with age Supporter Contributor

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    I just love it when someone thinks they can define someone else's life.
     
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  4. 123456789

    123456789 Contributor Contributor

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    I could say I'm smarter, better looking, and more likely to achieve success in my life than Ed, that doesn't mean it's true.
     
    Last edited: Apr 24, 2014
  5. EdFromNY

    EdFromNY Hope to improve with age Supporter Contributor

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    It doesn't matter how successful someone else is...it doesn't make you any better and it doesn't make you any worse.
     
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  6. chicagoliz

    chicagoliz Contributor Contributor

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    It appears that Merriam-Webster is in need of an update.
     
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  7. Lewdog

    Lewdog Come ova here and give me kisses! Supporter Contributor

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    I'm still a virgin, I've been practicing sex for about 19 years now so as to make sure I do it right when the event actually occurs.
     
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  8. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    If I wear high heels, am I a "practicing" woman? If I don't, am I no longer a woman at all?
     
  9. 123456789

    123456789 Contributor Contributor

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    You will always be a female (sorry ;D). Though not all females are ladies , just like not all males are men, but that's another story....

    If you start wearing traditionally male clothes, injecting yourself with the best hormone in the world, in addition to getting the proper surgeries, you will be a practicing male. What's so hard to get about this?
     
  10. Daba

    Daba New Member

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    Practicing something means that at some point you can simply stop practicing it. If a person goes through all that you've listed, he/she most definitely will not stop practicing it, he/she is living it. It is about time in our evolution that we should abolish the stone age belief that mankind is hetero-sexual and all other sexualities are just "something that will pass at some point". Other sexualities are equal to the mainstream "straight", they are not practices, they are not current lifestyle, they are life itself. What's so hard to get about that? :)
     
  11. 123456789

    123456789 Contributor Contributor

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    living it vs practicing it? You're going to need to come up with more stringent definitions. The point is, a real women isn't doing anything to be a woman. It's natural. A man will always be doing something to try be a" woman", if only to continue his meds.

    Also, since you mentioned "other sexualities," I really don't understand how this LGTB thing came about in the first place. Transsexualism and homosexuality are entirely different things, and I don't think one need accept one to accept the other.

    Now, I don't think this thread is the place to be arguing about this, since the OP wanted information, not arguments, so I'll stop debating if the pendulum swingers agree to stop as well.
     
  12. Daba

    Daba New Member

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    @123456789 Just be careful when typing something like "What's so hard to get about this?". It's literally calling for a suitable response :)

    You can have your opinion, it is fine and I won't debate it, just don't try to make other people look dumb because they also have their own.
     
  13. EdFromNY

    EdFromNY Hope to improve with age Supporter Contributor

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    Actually, I think you've done the OP a service. You've demonstrated the mindset with which transgendered people have to contend.
     
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  14. obsidian_cicatrix

    obsidian_cicatrix I ink, therefore I am. Contributor

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    Care to define 'real'?

    I look like a woman, therefore that is how I see myself, right? Society has seen fit to view me as a female since birth and I have played along but what if, at the essence of my being, that is not how I see myself?

    You seem to be making the assumption that all Trans need some kind of physical metamorphosis, some external show of how they feel themselves to be internally. That is not the case. Some may feel uncomfortable in their bodies but not everyone feels this way. For some it's an inconvenience that can be worked around. By negating this aspect, as @Wreybies mentions above, you are the reducing the spectrum to black or white. It doesn't work that way. If a person is, in fact, relatively happy in their skin despite the opposing forces of physicality and mindset, would you still view them as practising, or pretending? If they are happy to remain as they are, does that in itself make them any more 'real' to you? Mindset is not something that can be seen in the traditional sense. Is it really so surprising that some people feel the need to externally indicate how they wish to be perceived and treated? I might not feel that need but I certainly wouldn't expect that others should feel the same.

    Keep up the good work, 123... I'm in agreement with @EdFromNY. You are doing a great job of letting the OP know what kind of challenges people face on a daily basis. ;)

    In my opinion, they are already living it, prior to. That state of being exists long before any viewable external expression and will still exist without it. :)
     
    Last edited: Apr 25, 2014
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  15. Daba

    Daba New Member

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    Oh yes, I agree with that. :)
    I just wanted to point out that if someone was indeed just practicing it (not sure how and why would someone choose to practice transsexualism), they wouldn't go through all the painful and expensive surgeries and treatments, just for the sake of it. It is who they are, the matter of choice lies only in whether they will go through everything modern medicine can give them and become who they are physically, or will they keep it on the inside. Money and society can have a huge part in the second choice obviously.
     
  16. obsidian_cicatrix

    obsidian_cicatrix I ink, therefore I am. Contributor

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    @Daba.

    Just so... I was wasn't taking exception to your opinion, just jumping in and clarifying my own personal stance. Apologies if it seemed that way. :D
     
  17. T.Trian

    T.Trian Overly Pompous Bastard Supporter Contributor

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    If we have a tomboyish lesbian born into a man's body with no intention of having surgeries / hormonal treatments etc, i.e. someone who, for all intents and purposes, looks and behaves like a "normal" straight guy... isn't it awfully narrow-minded to insist that how she perceives herself has nothing to do with who she is? That what, in fact, defines her is how others perceive her?

    For example, I can't deny that my body is male, but I'm the only one who can define who and what I am inside that body.
    If someone somehow put my brains / mind into the body of, say, a walrus, I wouldn't see myself as 100% walrus because I don't identify as one. I'd be me, a human, stuck in the body of a walrus. Just like @minstrel is a dude stuck in the body of a stylish squirrel. It's not the majestic girth of my body, or the furry suppleness of his, that defines us as individuals.

    Disclaimer: if @minstrel disagrees and actually identifies as 100% squirrel, he can, of course, with my apologies, correct my assumption.
     
  18. obsidian_cicatrix

    obsidian_cicatrix I ink, therefore I am. Contributor

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    LOL
    And another classic analogy. :D @minstrel could be hiding elephanty-ness under all that fur and suave styling, for all we know.
     
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  19. EdFromNY

    EdFromNY Hope to improve with age Supporter Contributor

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    "The fedora makes the squirrel", my mom always said.
     
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  20. obsidian_cicatrix

    obsidian_cicatrix I ink, therefore I am. Contributor

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    Ah... but does it? Is it an outward expression of his squirrely obsession with fashion, his being an Orthodox Jew, Michael Jackson reborn, or the reincarnation of a Chicago mobster? We might take a guess but only he knows. ;)
     
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  21. Duchess-Yukine-Suoh

    Duchess-Yukine-Suoh Girl #21 Contributor

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    Even I hadn't already been following you, this alone would have earned it.
    What's 37 minus 19?

    For the OP, though, there are a number of fictional books on transgenders. Although they are fictional, I'd say you could work off of those.
     
  22. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    All of this is why I love words, and yet hold them all suspect. They are too capable of shaping thought and that thought may or may not align with the empirical data.

    Words shape thoughts and thoughts shape words.

    In English a key is a key because it dangles from a keychain and is used in the opening of doors that we want to lock to limit the subset of individuals who have access to whatever is behind that door. That is the keyness of key in English.

    In Spanish, the word is llave, but what makes a llave a llave is not the same paradigm as above. In Spanish llave means those things that are small enough to fit in the hand, almost always made of metal and work via turning them. Thus, all kinds of wrenches (spanners) and faucet (tap) handles and a million other little thingies that answer to the same idea are all llave.

    A car key in Spain may look exactly like any other car key to an American or a Brit, and its function (action, thing it does) may appear the same, but have no doubt that the paradigm of its it-ness, separate from its do-ness, in Spain is not the same, whether you see it or not.
     
  23. Lewdog

    Lewdog Come ova here and give me kisses! Supporter Contributor

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    @Wreybies I llove words. :D
     
  24. Link the Writer

    Link the Writer Flipping Out For A Good Story. Contributor

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    I'm sorry, 'pendulum swingers'? Did you just say 'pendulum swingers'?? That's a great way to earn respect, 123. I applaud you. See me applauding in my avatar? No, no I'm not applauding. I'm wondering what in the name of the gods you mean by 'pendulum swingers'. Name-calling won't win you debates, I can promise you that.

    Let me once again repeat what everyone else had been trying to get you to understand. No one practices what they're born as. I didn't ask to be born a man. A transgendered person didn't ask to be born in the wrong body. While I may accept that I am a man, a transgendered person doesn't see themselves as the sex their body indicates. Can you imagine what they have to go through? Imagine being born in the wrong body, know you're in the wrong body, but everyone else thinks it's natural, and you're completely insane to say otherwise.

    Why did this LGTB thing come about? Because, big shocker, they just want to be treated with the same respect and dignity owed to everyone else. I accept them all, why? Because they're human beings. Who they want to sleep with, and how they perceive themselves is not an issue with me. I'll view them as they wish me to view them.
     
  25. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    I do as well! But they can be duplicitous. Gods between the sheets who steal your credit cards the next morning. ;) Like that silly "definition" from Miriam Webster. I learned long ago that Dictionaries are often the worst place to learn anything about anything. Dictionaries even regularly get word classifications wrong. Word classifications! Is that not the very business about which they concern themselves?? The Oxford English Dictionary lists y'all as American slang. It's not slang. That is categorically incorrect. And while I know the difference between slang (which y'all is not) and regionalism (which y'all is) is the kind of pedantic thing that evinces eyerolls, and that's fine, but the people who write dictionaries are supposed to know and feel deeply invested in the idea of that kind of pedantry, and they're not! They can't get the classification of a word correct and I'm supposed to take their "definitions" sight unseen for the paradigm of a human's life? Methinks not.
     
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