What do you think of transgender people?

I have no opinion and it interests me not at all. I’m not qualified to judge whether or not someone is confused or anything else. I have all I can do keeping my own socks pulled up.
I certainly do’t think you can make one sweeping statement and have it apply to ANY demographic group. (Does transgender count as a demographic group?)

I am a gender non conforming person, a member of the transgender community, if you may. I believe the gender binary as is is troubling and has few positives. I have no particular opinions of trans people, other than all people should be free to express their gender identity however they want. We are NOT confused, although it is confusing for many of us to grow up in a world where the options are 2 and both are kind of ridiculous. I am also queer and am attracted to transgender people more than gendered people. So I wouldn’t mind dating anyone who’s MTF or FTM or whatever. I’d also encourage you to think critically about how gender and sexuality aren’t the same thing, though some communities do not make that distinction. So a trans person can be straight or gay or whatever sexuality they want. Their gender identity or change isn’t about who they’re attracted to, always. It’s really complex. So, in the case of your friend, he’s a man who likes other men. He’s a gay man.

I’ve been in the middle of this particular firestorm for years. I have a sister who, some years ago, announced that she was gay. Then she announced she was having a breast reduction (she actually had them removed). She then changed her name, started taking testosterone and now lives as a man, although she’s never had the surgery to change her genitalia. This has taken the process over 10 years of time.

Being in the middle of a family who either refuses to even speak to him or tries to support him, I can tell you that it’s not only confusing for the person undergoing all the changes. The changes that this can bring about in a family are tremendous. From a mother who insists she gave birth to a little girl, to a father who feels awkwardness at having a new son, and so on and so on down the line.

It’s not easy. It’s strange, it’s disconcerting and the ramifications on a family are endless.

Wow, see how easy it was for me to slip up? In my first response I referred to her as my “sister”, and as “she” when he is clearly not my sister anymore. I trip over references to him all the time, and I have trouble remembering to call him by his new name.

In line with what @laurenkem has just said, and what @Simone_De_Beauvoir says frequently, and my (admittedly brief) reading on the topic, I would try to be empathetic to the person who appears or feels not to fit in. But I’m not sure that I’ve ever met anyone like that; I don’t ask too closely of my associates, and I don’t perform physical exams of any of my friends or survey them on their gender identities / politics / relationships.

I guess if it got to be too frustrating to me personally, and I had no personal stake in the matter (as those two obviously do with their own families), then I’d probably just sidestep the issue altogether.

But it seems to me that “a young woman” who wants to be a man is still a woman, if words are to have any meaning at all. She may want to be a gay man, but she’s still a woman if she has the body of a woman, isn’t she? Should we discard the terms “man” and “woman” because some people would prefer to be other than what they are? Can I not be Caucasian and be Hawaiian, then, even though no one in my family – not one of my ancestors, as far as I know – has ever been to Hawaii?

@laurenkem While that may be true for your family and, sadly, in some other families..it is by no means something that happens in all families and is by not means something that should be a deterrent to a person being who they are.
@CWOTUS She’s a woman only if you understand gender to be a category others impose on you. Most people, ironically, think that it’s inherent and inside and a personal matter yet they are the same who’d say to me ‘well I hear what you’re saying but you’re obviously a woman so I’m just going to ignore what you say and tell you what you are.’ And to continue with your comment, is a woman then about a body of a female? There are so many examples where bodies don’t match up what we think the gender is and, you’re right, we don’t wear our genitals on our sleeve either NOR should it matter what genitals we do have, for any reason in life. I think we absolutely should discuss terms like man and woman and what they mean and how they change and why we have them, surely. As per ethnicity, another troubling concept, I would say you can identify however you feel like because it’s not up to me to pick apart your blood. See when you don’t buy into these things, it’s not at all important to prove anyone wrong and it’s easier to say ‘oh that’s how you identify, fine.’

@Simone_De_Beauvoir That post was certainly not meant to deter anyone from being what they are truly meant to be. It was, however, meant just to point out that these things truly do affect an entire family. In my brother’s case, when she was a girl, she was gay. She still wants to be with women, so I guess that makes her a straight guy?

Too much to try and figure out

@laurenkem I totally understand that and I think you are doing a good job in trying to use the correct pronouns and accept them..I just notice that sort of reaction a lot whether it comes to a child being transgender or gay, people start to talk about the family as if all of a sudden, that’s something that needs to enter a picture. When people are straight or within the gendered norm, no one talks about the family though they too have a lot going in within the family for whatever reason. It’s just something to think about. Kind of like the ‘obesity epidemic’ is made about health, rather than what it is about. As to your brother’s sexuality, you’d have to ask him.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir Point taken. There’s always a lot going on in pretty much any family and to suggest otherwise would be stupid. That wasn’t my intent, obviously. I think I was trying to say that although there are already a myriad of problems that a family must face, this one can literally tear a family apart. But so can divorce, infidelity, money problems, poor health, etc, etc….

@laurenkem I hope it will do no such thing. I think everyone can absolutely move through this experience and be happy.

BTW, I lurve my bro!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sucks that I can’t call her my “sisto” anymore, because I just thought it was cute.

That question sounds almost as silly to me as asking, “What do you think of people?”

The keyword there is “people”. Take any ignorant view of some of the people in the past and everyone will say it’s insane: Japanese internment camps, slavery and Jim crow, Jewish holocaust, Armenian genocide, etc.

Now, why the hell would anything be different? Just because they aren’t killed or oppressed on a mass scale makes it ok? Newsflash, people: hating any group is stupid and wrong, why is this even a question?

I don’t know, @Simone_De_Beauvoir. I could call myself a young, six-armed, omni-sexual Hawaiin dog – from Mars – because that’s what I would like to be, but it would take all of my waking hours to try to explain that to people who see me as a straight older middle-aged white guy from New England. And when it gets down to describing the world around us, I still prefer to describe it in terms of “what I can see and sense” as opposed to what everyone else in the world would prefer to tell me they see and sense internally. The world would not only be completely subjective in that case, but it would be everyone else’s subjective reality.

@laurenkem why not call him your “broster”? That shouldn’t upset him, should it?

@CWOTUS Yeah, I’ll try that one – meh, I’ve got another sister anyway. And now I have 2 brothers!

Oh yeah, totally confused. ~

Sometimes you ask some pointless questions… I have no opinion, they are who they are, just as you are who you are.

@janbb Exactly my thoughts too, I only was thinking of writing a long answer.
But six words are enough, you proved.

What do you think of transgender people?

They were born that way.

Just in case there’s any doubt, let me please state this about my brother:

1) He is a genius.
2) He is a brilliant writer whose talent is as of yet undiscovered.
3) He is the kindest, most gentle person I have ever known.
4) He would give you the shirt off his back.
5) He is completely non-judgemental. Not many of us can say that.

Obviously, I love him, and have never stopped. I loved him as a gay woman, and now I love him as a man and respect him in every sense of the word. Hope no one thought otherwise. ‘Nuff said from me. <bowing out>

@CWOTUS I know what you’re saying believe me. All our identities…they don’t only belong to us, they must be validated by others. It’s sad. Of course, I’m tired of explaining to people why they should take what I say as valid and sometimes I don’t deal with all that well. Still, I think there’s tremendous values in having people theorize and explain themselves and it’s not too much work for me to try to understand what you want me to understand about you.

I have no opinion I guess, they’re individuals that feel right as such than as their “natural” body which thier mind didn’t fit into. Also, there are some that I find myself attracted to and I have dated one.

About the same as I think of Belgian postmen, I don’t think anything at all of them.

@Charles My strait answer to your question is that I think that they are admirable, brave, determined and clear about what they feel, and what they want.

I also agree the question is more or less meaningless. I will confess I have a hard time understanding why people go through the trouble of transitioning. If I had been born a dude I imagine I would just milk it for all it’s worth and enjoy being a dude rather than go through the whole surgery/hormones process. Being a dude sounds great.

@nikipedia It is pretty awesome. Maybe the abrahamic god is real, because women certainly got shafted :P

I have often come across people who refuse to accept that people can be transgender. They will insist on referring to an MtF transgendered person as “he” regardless of what they prefer, they insist that these people are confused or even disgusting, etc. And although a lot of people are saying this question is unimportant, I don’t think that is so, since there are many people that have a disfavorable view of it and I think it’s interesting to understand why. To me, the opposition to it seems to be from a certain type of person: one who sees everything as binary. It’s either black or white, it’s 0 or 1, it’s right or wrong, it’s male or female. Nothing in between, no exceptions, the world is simple.

And I think these are the people that are confused, not the transgendered people. The challenge to their binary worldview scares them and confuses them because they don’t understand how there can be such a grey area and how it really isn’t always that simple.

Either way, obviously I am not of that type, and I think nothing negative about transgendered people. I’m not going to pretend I fully understand it; my physical gender matches perfectly with my mental gender, despite my sexuality. But just because I haven’t experienced it doesn’t mean that I have to be hostile toward it.

Of course I am a little curious as to how and why someone is transgendered, but it doesn’t affect my opinion of them. That’s just my scientific curiosity coming out. It doesn’t just come out of nothing; it has to have a cause, just as sexuality does (whatever that may be).

I have zero issue with how others wish to live their lives, and I am not qualified to make any statements based on my limited knowledge of the transgender community. From what I have read I think this orientation is a 50/50 split, with some preferences being biologically grounded and others psychologically founded.
But no, not interested in a sexual relationship with a transgender person.
I am 100% heterosexual female and have no interest or curiosity in swinging any which way but hetero.

Each to his own, it’s all good.

Amen, @Coloma .

@ucme I hate them Belgian postmen.

@Coloma Trans people can be hetero too.

Sometimes TG’s go a little overboard to ‘look the part’ or ‘act the part’ and I am embarrassed for them. My Brother in Law used to cross-dress (pretty unconvincingly) for a while and tells me it’s kinda embarrassing to see when guys wear way way way too much makeup and over-do it. I am straight, but am glad to have him as a brother to ask questions and stuff about his lifestyle.

@Charles

How do you feel about people who say they hate their body so much that they want the opposite gender’s body?

Could it be internal misogyny or misandry that makes the gay (formeraly straight) transgender people feel that they should be the opposite gender?

Or maybe the straight (fomeraly gay/lesbian) transgender people were ashamed of being gay or lesbian so they switched in order to be straight?

FYI, these are all leading questions.

I’m with @janbb on this one.

I met a man who is transexual in all ways but physical features. I am going with her to have the surgery later this year. No one in her family supports her, but I met her after she began to be a she. Almost ALL of her family has rejected her. She is such a giving, caring person. It breaks her heart, but she has to be who she is.

The only opinion (if you can call it that) I have of transgendered people is “each to their own”. I can’t pretend to understand what they are going through and have to deal with and so I am in no position to judge. One thing I will say, for the most part, I would rather people be true to themselves than be something they’re not in order to fit in with society.

Wow, another trans question I missed first time round. Topic-surfing is fun.

Being trans myself I naturally think trans people are awesome… j/k ;)

First of all, I’m not confused. I know I’m a man, I’ve known this since I was about six years old. I just happen to have been born with the wrong body. I don’t even hate it, not exactly. I don’t like it, but it doesn’t make me feel sick to look at myself in the mirror, as is a common experience with some trans people. It’s just wrong. The most important thing for me is that other people can recognise me as being male, and in order for me to achieve that I must transition. The worst feeling in the world for me is when someone addresses me as “ma’am” (or round here, it’s more likely to be “luv”).

Sexual orientation doesn’t come into it at all – I am bisexual now, I was bisexual before I started transitioning. In any case most trans people know as children that they are trans LONG before they are aware of their own sexual orientation. But the two things are unrelated, except for one thing – transition doesn’t usually change your preference – if you like women before transition you will very likely still like women afterwards. Therefore a majority of transsexual people will be lesbian/gay either before transition or afterwards.

Also to add – a trans man (female to male) is not “a woman who wants to be a man”. A trans man is a man who was born with female anatomy. He was never a woman.

Did I say ”..strait..”?
I menai to say straight.