Quote:
Originally Posted by AtLastHome
Dapper & Dylan and Met:
I see where all of you are coming from. Ah, I like the shit-tons metric!
I have to say that in real time, I also run into the TG as male only phenomenon too. But, this seems to be more within the very narrow lesbian community that I think, does continue to fight inclusion (and support) of transgendered people. They tend to only see this in terms of male transition. God, I want to slap them ('cause, yanno, MtF's aren't really women like us)!
My main reason for bringing this up has more to do with a couple of MtF's (that claim femme) I know as well as an intergendered cousin that is female (what she claimed). And my feelings about female devaluation.
But, yes, I see that the thread is addressing butch phenomena.
Also, it kind of sux that many butches that view themselves as other or 3rd-gendered, feel as they are posting here in terms of the assumptions that get made right here in our own community.
I think TG as an umbrella term is what gets this all confused... as well as just a lack of knowledge about gender in general. I know, I have to continually take a look at the literature.
Yes.... we end up back in the binary and this is crazy-making!! And frustrating.
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I have a number of very close femme friends who ID as cis-female, but who consider their gender femme...they consider themselves transgender, and have a helluva time (even in and sometimes mostly in queer space) fighting for their space in the TG world.
I truly believe they have a harder time than butches explaining their gender, because it's always assumed they mean they're trans-sexed as opposed to genderly outside the binary. Most people can't fathom how femme is a gender when you ID as cis-female, and your gender presentation falls in line with stereotypical ideas of femininity (woman), etc. I think femmes are continually left out of this conversation or dismissed, because their gender doesn't necessarily fall in line with limited binary thinking...i.e. femme isn't seen as any type of 'crossing over' or any other limited definition most people use to define 'transgender'. It's commonly (and erroneously) just assumed that 'femme' falls in line with cultural norms of woman/female/femininity, so "what? What's the big deal? There's no struggle...only butches 'struggle'." Which I then think leads back to the idea that in order to 'qualify' as transgender, One has to want 'the opposite'...which then leads back to binary thinking...which then leads back to stereotypes...which then leads back to Butches Want To Be Men Syndrome and Femmes' Invisibility.
I agree it's incredibly frustrating...it's even more ridiculously frustrating when it happens in queer space among people who claim to *know better* than to fall for binary thinking
I think the term transgender was *once* used as a term primarily for trans-sexed individuals, however, I really see a pulling away from this thinking. I mean, in some conversations I see transgender and transsexed used interchangeably, but in real time conversations, I see a big pulling away from this interchangeability. I see a lot of pulling away in some online communities also. Basically, I see the most interchangeability in conversations had among completely clueless straight people or in very basic definitions.
My real time groups of transgendered friends/acquaintances include butches, femmes, folks on hormones who just want to present differently (but who have no intention of changing their sex), third genders, genderfucts, genderqueers, pangender, zies, two-sprits, and everything in between.
Avoiding Work,
Dylan