What if I don't agree with your definition of the term "Human Being"? :tongueout
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What if I don't agree with your definition of the term "Human Being"? :tongueout
Oh no!!!!
Can't we agree about anything????
All is lost.
:eek:
Ok, some people here dont understand why had such an issue with the list posted by the original poster
so I will play this game I just wonder if they will play as well instead of continuing to derail this thread? :daydreaming:
Intersexed (Pseudo-hermaphroditism) - Incorrect Infantile Gender Assignment (Male) - Now Transitioning (transsexual) Female.
So who else here is fits into the exact same category as me? :heehee:
The photo of me below was taken 2 weeks BEFORE I started HRT.
Hi.
Intersexed wired both male & female.. Androgynous yet still human.
& every one is different in thier own way.
...noeleena...
I'll add to the list as well:
Androgynous: Expressing and/or presenting merged culturally/socially defined feminine and masculine characteristics, or mainly neutral characteristics. May or may not express dual gender identity.
Bigender / Dualgender: A person who possesses and expresses a distinctly masculine persona and a distinctly feminine persona. Is comfortable in and enjoys presenting in both gender roles.
Gender-Bender: A person who merges characteristics of any gender in subtle ways or intentionally flaunts blurred stereotypical gender norms for the purpose of shocking others, without concern for passing.
I also think this comment is worth noting, except its author did not offer a name for it. Maybe there are such persons along the entire gender continuum:
If someone lined up all the chips that are falling from all the transgendered shoulders here, one could probably walk to Mars and back. Linda, keep working on it. Language is what seperates the human animal from the other animals and it is right to try and use that tool to describe your place in the world you inhabit. If others refuse to use that tool to describe themselves, they are the worse for it and they are always in the darkness.
Just glad to be a CDer . Don't be put off by the "anti-label gang" It is simply an excuse not to think about what or who they are and where they fit in--as we all do in this, or any other universe.
I disagree with that statement, and even my psychologist told me yesterday that she hate labels and I totally understand her reasoning - its because far too many people psycho-analysis themselves & more often to blame for mis-labelling themselves - when they find out they are not really this or that, then that leads to far greater confusion and more psychological problems such as depression & even suicide. I said it before & I will say it again - Im not one who can be labelled & pigeon-holed & Im sure that there many others like me - we are all different - no two people are ever the same - the only thing we share in common & where we fit in is that we are all transgendered human beings on Earth! Now beam me up please Scotty!
In no way am I ever a member of a gang ... more of a rugged invidualist!
Busker, I have spent a lot of time thinking about where I fit in, both in terms of my gender and in this wonderful world we live in.
I have come to the conclusion that what matters way more than the things that divide us, are the things we share in common.
I have also come to realise that labels ARE a form of control, which is why I argue that true freedom can only be attained by refusing to be pigeon-holed by them.
Could you please give these comments a thought?
Which is fine, if the patient is not seeking to figure him or herself out. But if he or she were, there's no doubt your therapist would be helping him or her to do so.
Self-definition at any one point in time does not box anyone in. It can, instead, provide a clear understanding and a foundation for future change or growth, even if a part of the self-label is "I don't know yet".
I dunno ... there are just so many people here who seem reluctant to be clear about who they are and what they want. From my viewpoint, it looks like fear. But, fear of what?
Here is another definition for everyone:
pomosexual (from Wikipedia): a person who avoids sexual orientation labels such as heterosexual or homosexual.
pomogender (extrapolated from the above): a person who avoids gender labels such as male, female, or anything else in between. :)
Lol. Then the accumulation of scientific knowledge, which is communicated by providing definitions and explanations, is an attempt to control what? The advancement of human knowledge?
Reine, you really should provide a complete definition of such abbreviated words .... none of these words are
recognised by any standard dictionary other than Urban Dictionary so they really amount to nothing but slang.
Pomo is an abbreviated adjective for post-modern
I'm just so glad not to be living back in the dark ages when scientist still had the need to put labels on specimen jars - and how often did they make mistakes when they thought they had discovered something new & fantastic and had to tear the sticky labels off when they later found out they discovered something else?
The full definition, including the portmanteau (as they call it) of pomo is on the site. I figured anyone who was interested could look it up. I provided the source for this reason. :)
Many words find their way into dictionaries after they've been in popular usage. I think this site is one of the forerunners for common usage of trans terms, don't you? :)
What is truth? The thinkers of this world have been trying to fathom this out since time immemorial. And we are no nearer the answer to the question than mankind was when it was first asked.
I have had a modest career as an academic. My publications list is relatively small. One day, at a conference, I had an AHA! moment. I realised that the new terminology which was being bandied about, supposedly in an attempt to gain more insight into that (but more generally, any) particular phenomenon under scrutiny, was actually jargon! Nothing more than words created by the authors of papers, to create their own niches within that academic community! Their motives were selfish, rather than selfless. They were simply trying to impress their peers.
To return to this transgendered community ... if it were so that each new term created to help our community better understand itself, actually fulfilled that role, could we not expect greater harmony to emerge within our community, as we better came to understand one another?
In reality, the opposite effect happens. The terms become items to argue about, not to agree upon. This is precisely what tends to happen at any academic conference.
When I joined this forum, I eagerly sought a term which described me. I found none. What I did find, were behaviour patterns which were similar to mine and others which simply made no sense to me at all. After quite a bit of reading, I realised that what I do and how I think is completely unique to me. There is no label to describe me, no term to pigeonhole me.
Let's be absurd, for a moment ... let me conjure up a new word CLAYFISH which I claim descibes my kind of transgendered nature to a C. Suppose I were to then write not just a paper, but a whole learned book describing CLAYFISH. Suppose every member of this forum were to read the book. Some would see quite a lot of themselves in what they read; others would see less; yet others would see nothing at all which is in tune with their particular kind of transgenderism. Some would give the book rave reviews; others would slam it.
Every time I see a thread appear on the forum, focussing on transgender labels, I know we are in for, at best, a lively debate and at worst, a great big fight. It happens over and over again. We seem to be enslaved by the jargon.
Tell that to the biologists, chemists, physicists, and mathematicians who made it possible to advance our knowledge since the middle ages.
That's because people like you persist in either slamming, or making fun of people who are trying to figure things out for themselves. None of your posts in this thread (and there are many) contributed to the expansion of the first post. I'd say that you were one of the greater proponents to the derailment of the thread, and your behavior here was none better than a troll. If you don't like to define things, they why don't you quit posting in threads that look for definitions? I'm sure the OPs would appreciate it!
As a member, I find this really tiresome.
I'd close this thread, but I think it would give you and others too much satisfaction. Instead I'll simply delete any more comments that don't contribute to the OP's initial point.
I'm trying to figure out why some people seem to be getting so heated over this issue. The OPs statement to me just seemed like a celebration of the whole gender spectrum. I would much prefer that we label our selves rather than allow others who have no idea what they are talking about do the labeling. Of course we are all human and it is intrinsicly human to name stuff. I remember in the 80s and 90s the word faggot was the preferred word amongst young people who werert gay but I rarely hear this now not because "straight" people changed their minds but because gays got vocal. Anyway I like transgenderd I feel that it could include all of us if we let it. If on a personal level every individual needs to more narrowly define themselves let them. I am thankful that all of these different descriptors are out there because it has given me permission to think beyond transexual and crossdreser to find what fits me.
With my love of labels? Youve seriously gotta be kidding me if you think I would ever agree? This is the
problem clearly highlighted in this thread.... there are far too many labels already in the trans community.
And that is exactly why I have always believed April that you also need to be working through issues with doctors & therapist if you start to seriously contemplate taking hormones and transitioning because quite often we have no idea ourselves where we actually do fit in the gender spectrum or if there are underlyng issues which can endanger our own lives - once our condition is diagnosed & understood then the proper treatments can begin and the correct labels applied.
Well, Linda, you now have a large variety of different perspectives on this, your original post. It would be good, if you could let us know which posts have been helpful to you, and which not.
As a teacher, I have tried to set up "conceptual conflict" (sorry about the jargon) on this thread, in order to get us to think about the issue you have raised from a different point of view.
As a biologist, I would point out that you are a human being, probably of the sub-class transgendered. For me, that is enough, but perhaps you are keen to classify yourself in greater detail. That is your choice.
As a scientist, I would point out to you that many of the most important scientific discoveries have been made by those who dared to think thoughts which were diametrically opposed to the "mainstream". Think of scientists like Copernicus (the world actually rotates around the sun, as opposed to everyone else, who believed, wrongly, that the sun rotates around the earth) and Galileo, who was persecuted and excommunicated for his beliefs, which turned out in the end to be true.
As a mathematician, I remind you that we are trained to look for patterns and to seek generalisations, instead of being bogged down by particular cases.
Linda, I hope that my contributions to this thread have stimulated some thought and occasionally brought a bit of light-hearted laughter to an otherwise extremely serious subject.
I wish you all the best in your quest for understanding and self-actualisation. My job on this thread is done, and I will not post on it again.
Dictionaries are always a lag indicator of language. New words are being coined all the time, but their adoption by a dictionary is constrained by a number of factors including:
1 Whether any of that dictionary's lexicographers has come across the word and found it interesting
2 The perceived prevalence of the word by that lexicographer
3 The frequency of publication of the dictionary
This does not make the new word "slang" before the publication of a dictionary that includes it, it makes the word a neologism.
Definitions are exercises in relativity. By using a structured format like a list or category or definition we can see where we fit and where we do not fit. This thread is a positive exercise in thinking, and a further step in verbalizing the many feelings that we all encounter. Otherwise there are too many fast free forming ideas that are difficult to attach to a structure The list or category helps to define them and helps us to communicate with each other. Our nature or identity is really contingent on how we all feel at the end of the day....and furthermore pantyhose Rock!!!
Clayfish, as a scientist--nay, a biologist, a mathematician,a scientist, and a published one at that-- and whatever--gee, aren't those labels?????????? For someone who doesn't want to be boxed in by labels, you certainly had no problem trying to impress us--guess what??? with LABELS. In the teaching profession, it certainly would be hard NOT to use labels or your students must be having a real time of it.
At a restaurant you would really want someone to know that when you said the chicken label, you didn't mean rat or dog.
The denial of labels is more likely the denial of reality. You don't mind reading the TRANSGENDERED forum--another label--and you certainly know what it means.
Me thinks there is a lot of hogwash afoot today.
I know it's complex. No one said it should be easy to identify it all.
But, the video you posted earlier does an excellent job (thanks for posting it :) ), and for those of you who did not have the time to watch it, I've taken the liberty to extract their main definitions. Every single situation that people have mentioned in this thread falls along one or more of the four listed spectrums - except whether a transsexual is non, pre, or post op, since the decision either has to do with economics, or an individual's personal comfort levels. I think most will agree that SRS is not a qualifier for being TS.
Also, here are the various self-identity short-cut terms. I may have missed some and there are variations. Also their meanings may vary based on culture, race, or class:Quote:
Originally Posted by Transgender Basics - Gender Identity Project (GIP)
Androgynous
Drag king
Drag queen
Bi-gender
Dual-gender
Tri-gender
Omni-gender
Female-to-male
Male-to-female
Crossdresser
Transvestite
Transwoman
Transman
Transgender woman
Transgender man
Transsexual
Transsexual woman
Transsexual man
Femme queen
Trannie
Transgenderist
Genderqueer or Gender non-conforming: A person who does not identify as a man or a woman, or who might feel in between, or both.
The problem with definitions is that the moment they are spoken out loud in application to a human being they are untrue and describe nothing. They are purely conceptual. To correctly describe me, the amount of qualifiers and commentary necessary would become so unwieldy, that my name would be as a long as Treebeards from Lord of the Ring. So just call me Kathryn and then think of your encounters you have had with me here and you have the best approximation of who I am to you.:D
Conceptualizations and concepts, even definitions can be helpful in discourse. But only if we agree on the scope and specifics of what the definition defines. Once we have done so we can use the definition in a discourse in which it stands for as a reduction of a complexity for the purpose of communication.
So maybe we can stop sideswiping our respective carts and start treating this subject like the proverbial ants by collecting all the food for thought we can find and make up our own minds.
What about a dual-hetro-mono-optional-noconformist-pre-post-undecided-tri-unilateral-tetrahexagonlsexual ? Can we we be included ?