Quote Originally Posted by flatlander_48 View Post
The point is that NONE of this has anything to do with discussions HERE. What you're talking about is between a person and the medical professionals they are dealing with or between a person and their family. But, those discussions are not taking place HERE and they don't take place in public.
Well, it's between community members and the medical profession AND the people that members are married to and the others they have come out to, AND their friends in this forum. A wide variety of people simply cannot all use the same word to identify themselves, when each person attaches a different meaning to it. It's just all too confusing for the masses who hear the term. Granted, to the public everyone who crosses culturally defined categories of gender is "transgender", no matter how they identify and I don't think this is about to change. Most people do not intimately know others who cross gender norms and I honestly think the only way that non-community members will gain an appreciation of all the nuances in this community is to actually have personal experiences with the people who are in it. Unfortunately, the percentage of people who cross gender norms is small ... maybe that's why they make such a splash in the news.

But in here, I think it best for people to be a bit more precise than "transgender" if they want others to know who they are and what they want, and instead of everyone saying that the same term defines their own particular brand of gender expression, they should give that up and say what they do, how they feel, how they present and how often. And if they are out to family and friends, they can explain what they do and how they wish to live to them as well.


Quote Originally Posted by flatlander_48 View Post
Yes, and my point it this largely exists because we lost the high ground. Instead of a straightforward and clear message, we have fractious and overly complicated B/S. We keep making this hard for ourselves for no good reason. And the problem is that once it is in the public domain, it is very hard to contradict.
What does this mean, and what is your solution. The conversation in here is going all over the place with pedophiles, criminals and what not.