There seemed to be some confusion about the purpose of my blog. I apologize. Shoot, even I was having trouble finding exactly how to word my intentions. Transgenderism is constantly misunderstood. My aim is to help clarify things and bring transgenders into a positive light. This is probably a huge and maybe somewhat crazy undertaking due to mixed opinions on the subject. All I ask of you is to be polite and understanding. <3
And yes, one day I would like to work with transgendered youth. I mean that as children who are elementary to middle school age.
Two words that are super important to this blog (as they will be used quite frequently) are transgender and cisgender.
Transgender (sometimes shortened to “trans”): someone who identifies with a gender different from the one assigned at birth.
Cisgender (sometimes shortened to “cis”): someone who identifies with the gender assigned at birth.
Oh, and LETTERS! There are a few of those…
LGBT means lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (sometimes more letters are added, but I’ll stick with these for simplicity’s sake).
FTM is female to male, a person transitioning from a female to a male.
MTF is male to female, a person transitioning from a male to a female.
Gender isn’t as black and white as male/female. It gets more complicated than that. To use an image familiar to the LGBT, gender is a rainbow. Though male and female are at opposite ends of the spectrum, there are those who are outside that binary or in between it.
Also, an important thing to note… gender identity and sexual preference are NOT congruent. Just because someone’s gender identity is MTF doesn’t mean she likes men exclusively… She could like women and men, just women, or anyone in between!
Which reminds me, pronouns. To cisgendered people this is a simple matter. To transgendered people? Not so much. It is very offensive to ask a trans person “Are you a man or a woman?” A better thing to do would be to ask, “What is your preferred pronoun?”
(source: t-shirt design submitted to threadless.com)
Another more popular set of pronouns I've seen is ze, hir, hirs, and hirself.
Confused? That's okay. It's much, much better to ask a transgendered person about preferred pronoun choice than to assume and accidentally offend or hurt.
Those are the absolute basics. I didn't want to overload you with too much information. As I write more entries, I'll trickle in other definitions and terms. Hopefully this hasn’t been dreadfully boring. Feel free to ask questions! In fact, I encourage it.
Wow, this looks like it will be an interesting blog!
ReplyDeleteI really like how you clarified the terms and used colors to explain them. But that pronoun thing really confused me. I've never heard of asking about preferred pronouns before. Maybe I misunderstood, but it doesn’t make any sense to me. Being transgendered means they identify with the “opposite” gender… so why don’t they just adopt the pronoun that corresponds with the gender they identify with, instead of creating new pronouns?
I like that you pointed out that gender identity and sexual preference don’t go hand in hand. But it does get complicated because it’s hard to figure out if you classify their sexual preference based on the gender they were born into or the gender they identify with. I think that’s why they are usually automatically labeled as homosexual.
I met someone last semester and I honestly couldn’t tell if it was a male or female. Instead of choosing one gender, it seemed like he/she just blended them both. Or maybe he/she was trying to be the opposite gender and just didn’t quite reach that goal. Does that classify him/her as transgendered, or do transgendered people usually look like the gender they identify with?
Hi! I think your subject is very interesting. My best friend’s cousin is actually going through the whole FTM process, and was showing me pictures of him/her on facebook. Speaking of the “him/her” pronoun issue, it’s all very confusing. Many of my friends are gay, and are mostly females, as well as identify with the other gender. I always call my lesbian friends (even if they look like men) “she” or “her” or whatever, and they prefer to be that way…or at least don’t mind. Yet I’ve never actually met anyone who is transgendered, but I’d assume we would both be intelligent enough to not offend each other. Yeah, and I remember in my language and linguistics class the issue of the non-specific “them”, or “one”, or whatever it is. Personally, I always write with the non-gender specific pronoun. Last night as I was reading some material for one of my classes, the author defaulted to the masculine “he” and it totally caught me off guard and made me uncomfortable. Yet I think if I read some crazy pronoun like hizit or hirz or whatever it is I wouldn’t find it exactly pleasant, either. At any rate, I’m looking forward to your future posts as I’m sure I have much to learn.
ReplyDeleteThis is REALLY interesting! I had no idea there was a developing pidgin, I guess, within the lgbt community. (And maybe I'm using the wrong liguistic term there, but it's the best I could come up with. Someone help if I'm wrong!)
ReplyDeleteQuestion, why is it, in the lgbt community, the b is kind of left out in all discussions? Like, everyone focuses on gay/lesbian and trans, but just skuip over bisexuality, almost treating it like it's not a real sexual orientation by its exclusion. Maybe I'm reading too much into that, but it's something I've noticed. Like, trans is so counterculture that it's accepted, if that makes any sense, but bisexuality is accepted in pop culture and gets skipped? I don't know. You seem very interested in this, so I thought maybe you'd have some idea.
But either way, still a very cool blog/idea. I've been checking up on it from time to time. Thanks for finally updating! :)
I can't imagine that I discuss about gender problem in Asian countries. It is still problematic issues to expose their identity. It is interesting definition about I don't take care due to my cultural difference.
ReplyDeleteI agree with most everything you have to say. I’m a communication major and a huge communication theory dork. My biggest gripe with some of the modern and accepted theories of male and female communications (specifically Deborah Tannen’s theory that men and women are essentially two different cultures) is the fact that all the research done has left out gay, bisexual, and transgendered communities. It’s obscene that modern scholars leave out (or blatantly disregard) a major portion of modern society. Enough about my feelings- it’s just you hit on a topic that I think is not part of my field of study that I believe needs to be there.
ReplyDeleteThis blog takes some guts, chutzpa- whatever you want to call it. I do have to say, before reading your blog; I may have made the mistake of asking someone about their sex instead of preferred pronoun. I dig it honestly, but it’s a little to mushy and I think I’m open minded enough and comfortable enough to say that from now on that is how I will approach that conversation. You have educated me, and at first I admit I disliked it because I knew I was wrong.
You have truly taught me, educated me and caused a change in action- the culmination of communication, a representation of communication at it’s best and most effective form. Something as simple as preferred pronoun is important and as I realize this and just contemplating upon the issues transgendered folks have to face in life is daunting. They have to deal with their bodies, their heads and a society that isn’t all to embracing. That’s a lot for any human to deal with. Great blog. Humbling and truly educating- I’ve never held any prejudices against anyone b/c of sexuality, gender etc, but I realize that a more sensitive approach needs to be taken when asking someone what gender they are…..but heck, is really that important? As long as I can hold a conversation with someone, I could care less if they are transgendered, a cross dressing, talking horse or whatever- it doesn’t matter with regards to how I view and approach or think of them- I just wish society wasn’t so closed minded. I think this blog will be an excellent opportunity for issues to be presented and it to be a place of open-minded people exchanging meaningful information and ideas. Thank you for this blog.
(P.S. I’d really like to show you the insanity of modern communication theories that are being taught sometime after class. Researchers have left out, whole-sale, the people you represent and I’d like to show you the data I’ve collected showing the absolute bias against any one that isn’t straight. I’m straight but I’m not stupid- we need to accept other forms of sexuality not only in the form of government approval (same sex marriages) but also in academic research, otherwise we’re just lying to ourselves and each other and no progress will be made.)