[Nat]

Originally Posted by aishah

try this:

Is it offensive for a non-femme person to challenge a femme person's experience of how they experience being femme or how it started?

Sometimes I find it offensive, sometimes annoying and sometimes neither. If I were claiming a drug made me into a femme - a drug not known for doing such a thing - and I were interested in giving an interview about it because I felt a drug changed my entire life experience, I don't *think* I would find it offensive.

Originally Posted by aishah

Is it offensive that Anderson Cooper said he has friends who are femme as part of his challenge to this person's experience?

I definitely recognize this as something offensive white people do regarding race, and do find it annoying when people try to tell me things about my gender experience based on what they know of other people's gender experience. This was actually one of the things I could see as actually possibly offensive here.

However, one difference I do think I see here is that this person's experience appears to differ entirely from the entire known (to me) arch of trans experience, whereas when white people talk about having a friend or friends of a specific race as a way to challenge what a person of the same race claims, it does seem to be more often a tool used to justify some racist view rather than to explore a very specific and unusual experience of one person.

God knows I am probably talking out of my ass on that one - it's probably never right or inoffensive to cite having friends of a specific group in order to challenge a person's experience.

Originally Posted by aishah

Is interviewing a person with an extremely unique story about how she thinks she became femme in itself offensive?

I'd love to see/listen to/participate in those types of interviews, but maybe femme invisibility is so frustrating to me that it keeps me from seeing this clearly. To me, hearing a variety of experiences of how people came to their femmeness brings me joy.

Originally Posted by aishah

Is this offensive because the femme being interviewed is felt not to represent femmes well? Is she expected to represent a more common experience?

If every femme interviewed on mainstream television (has this happened?) about their femmeness were entirely atypical or entirely stereotypical in their experience of femme, I guess I would be happy to see more femmes represented but disappointed to see so few representations of the variations within the femme identity

Originally Posted by aishah

Is it really "misinforming the public about the causality of femme identity" to interview this one person with this one unique story?

Not in my opinion would any one interview with any one individual be misrepresentative of an entire gender experience or offensive.

Originally Posted by aishah

those questions don't make you feel anything, as a femme? because they make me feel some kinda way.

I'm not sure I'd feel like condemning Anderson Cooper, but I'd probably have some kind of feelings. Most likely mixed feelings.

Originally Posted by aishah

i'm not trans but i think it's offensive to question or imply people's experiences and identities aren't real. someone doesn't "think they're trans," imho...they are or they aren't. if someone says they are trans (or femme or butch) i take them at their word. there is more than one way to come to identify as trans (or femme or butch). and yes, it's invalidating and offensive to me that he apparently pulled the "i have trans friends and they don't see it this way" card.

I think questioning whether a person's gender experience is real - which I've been through pretty hard for sharing openly that I consider myself bigender - is really tough to take. Do you feel that this is what Anderson Cooper was doing by asking all these questions? Because - and I'm well-aware that I must be missing something here - it seemed to me like he was questioning whether the drug did it because the drug is not known for changing people's gender identities. And if there were a pill out there that would change my gender identity - or shit - the size of my pinky toe - I would want to know what that medication was. When one person on the whole planet claims a pill changed her gender identity from man to woman and she's willing to be interviewed about it on national television, should relevant questions regarding the person's gender experience prior to taking the medication be avoided entirely?

I think the things I can see - from your and Corkey's responses as well as other experiences and stuff I've (slowly) come to understand about the way white people act toward people of color - is that it's offensive that he brought up his transgender friends' experiences in order to challenge her report of her own experience. And also, the interview with the doctor - who as far as i know is not transgender - who pretty much stated there's a single experience of being transgender - those two things I can see as offensive.

What I don't understand is the statement by Ms. Kiesling of the National Center for Transgender Equality that, "All of us here at the National Center for Transgender Equality are surprised, saddened and disappointed tghat a respected show like "Anderson Live" would give credence to this type of sensationalism and misinformation. this segment is just another case of sensationalizing an already marginalized population plain and simple."

And the reason I don't understand this statement is because it was an interview with a real actual individual who states she has experienced this - and I'm not sure if they are attacking her statements as misinformation or what Anderson Cooper or the doctor stated. To me it sounds almost as though they are attacking Anderson Cooper for what this woman said. It didn't seem that sensational to me either. Maybe I'm missing my sensational-radar?