Here’s one thing I’m not understanding. According to @dykedaisy, bolded pretty much never happens because “basically 100%” of the time the individual will choose coming out of the closet and getting fired.
I did mention one person I know who violated that rule, but my sense was that there really were a fair number of trans people who stayed in the closet for long periods of time for fear of losing their jobs or other adverse career repercussions. Is it really that rare in your experience too?
Are you kidding me right now? Nvm, I’ll take the L, making that post right after posting the drone strike cartoon was probably confusing.
I was almost banned on 22 for going HAM when Leelah Alcorn committed suicide, I was getting biblical on fools,
that was a mere half a decade ago and it was just me and Rugby fighting the good fight.
That drone cartoon is a masterwork of straight white dudes telling on themselves.
Indeed. Also, try being the “A” in the LGBTQIA acronym. At least folks believe that trans people and bisexuality actually exist.
My views make more sense if you factor in that I’m a somewhat extreme pessimistic misanthrope. Not the teen angst variety, but as an actual political outlook.
It’s like this: You know how they say one can’t be racist to white people? This is obviously true, but as phrased it’s needlessly confusing, especially considering that it refers to institutional racism, and the guy who made that term popular, Stokely Carmichael of the Black Panthers, used it to differentiate between it and individual racism, of which him and Eldridge Cleaver referred to themselves as reformed racists. Yeah, semantics are a mf. So, the point that people don’t realize or don’t want to admit is that “one can’t be racist to white people” is the endgame, in that we will never, ever get to the point that people will stop being stupid and cruel towards those they find strange and abnormal, stop trying to otherize somebody, anybody. We just make it so it doesn’t matter. Forgive me for quoting the still cancelled Louis CK but he had some good bits about white privilege: “I’m a straight, white man, you can’t even hurt my feelings” That’s the endgame and yes it’s depressing as shit, and says a lot about the human condition, but it’s where I’m at.
Telling on themselves about what Trolly?
Please don’t pull a Trolly on me tia.
But if you have allies at work you might not get fired like if you work for a cool place And you have allies at work there’s a good chance you might be able to keep your job and transition at work like it’s a super long process to transition it doesn’t really happen an overnight. you think about it for a long long time basically your entire life you try to hide it and survive like but at some point you need to transition. Like it’s just torture how you question yourself and the worries about how people will react etc. like there’s just 1 million things to worry about . But if you have supportive people at work you might not get fired and you’ll be able to transition peacefully at work and keep your job. Like that’s what I hoped would happen at my last job but it did not. Like it takes a couple years to get hormones once you start the process you first have to go to a therapist and then a doctor and your gate kept every step of the way so like it’s super Duper hard and it takes forever. It’s like one step at a time per day. Like the whole process is just absolutely terrifying every single step
This is heartbreaking to read; thank you for posting this.
Your welcome
I just want to try to spread awareness thank you for reading and understanding :)
I must have misunderstood your posts. My bad.
I agree that sounds terrible and I get it. Or at least I get it to the extent it is possible for someone that isn’t in your position to get it, which admittedly is something less than fully getting it. The point I was trying to make doesn’t really dispute any of this. Sorry if that was not clear.
Maybe my problem is I’m just naive… I don’t know. Like I can’t imagine wanting to fire or not hire someone because of what gender they identify as, like what the fuck do I care? So maybe I project this onto the rest of the world and so some of this ally-signaling stuff seems dumb to me at first because I think the default assumption should be that I’m not going to discriminate against a trans person just because they are trans.
@dykedaisy ‘s post has definitely opened my eyes to the fact that this is perhaps not the default at all… that in many situations trans people are being overtly discriminated against in a way that I have not witnessed personally.
Anyway this post is a complete ramble because I’m trying to describe a feeling that her posts brought on and it’s difficult to articulate. But thank you again for providing your viewpoint, this kind of post really hits home.
Clovis, an apt accusation, instead of lumping me in with whomever else, would be to accuse me of being an accelerationist, in that I thought we should abandon pronoun issues and the like and just have a civil and continental war with the deplorable bigots. I’m not saying that, not even in theory, but it would be an understandable interpretation. The pronoun thing is the easiest, most trivial thing one can do, of course you just do it (unless you have a practical nuanced objection like @cassette, though ‘objection’ probably isn’t the correct descriptor there).
Melkerson, obv I agree with all that but it’s not really what I was hitting on. I mean that one’s identity, not the scientific analysis of gender identity but the more abstract and nebulous concept of plain identity, is formed as a reaction to an oppressor. My thinking on this is heavily influenced by African scholars theoretically opposed to pan-Africanism, who deeply resented that they were forced to be pan-Africanist. The thinking is that a Somalian and a Nigerian (or a Botswanan and Algerian, etc, etc) have nothing really in common (besides their obvious shared human identity of being humans that are alive) that wasn’t thrust upon them by white supremacy. Europeans otherized The Dark Continent and the reaction of pan-Africanism was a struggle against that, but a ridiculous and less than ideal state of affairs otherwise. Similarly, the main reason somebody’s gender identity becomes their core identity is because they’re oppressed and denied based on that identity; it’s the armor they’re forced to wear in a battle, not a condition of winning the battle.
This might just be a tangent, I have a habit of going on those when somebody posts something that jogs my brain.
No, it’s fine, it’s my fault lol. I made the common mistake of thinking that other people are as attuned to my core beliefs as I am, which is literally impossible. Like, I was again filled with a deep, simmering rage when I posted than link to Alcorn’s wikipedia, but it’s ridiculous of me to think, “everybody knows that so if it sounds like I’m saying ‘lol pronouns are dumb’ I’m probably not.” That’s an irresponsible way to have a conversation.
So friends of mine adopted a kid from China. So they got their acceptance a lot sooner than they expected largely because they said they didn’t care if kid had gender issues. So yeah the kid they were chosen to is a hermaphrodite and they have chosen to raise the kid as a female. All that being said kid is awesome and fun to to be around. But this post from this past week…(names edited out)
Ok, I don’t often talk about kid’s private info openly for her privacy, but we are also not hiding anything.
We had a zoom meeting with people from the headstart program because they work with kid’s preschool. The entire meeting was questioning kid’s gender, asking incredibly intrusive and inappropriate questions and making absolutely unwarranted, unsolicited comments about gender that had no basis in fact. There was no clear purpose for this meeting or line of questioning, nor could anyone satisfactorily answer why they needed this information in the first place.
I am absolutely LIVID.
Husband had to literally ask “Are you asking me to describe my child’s gentialia??” and they continued asking if she was “anatomically male or female”. HOW IS THIS APPROPRIATE??? She’s a 4 year old child just trying to go to school. What her reproductive organs are or how they function has no bearing on anything.
I legitimately have never been angrier.
At least she posted this later
So the director of Head Start called and apologized to us and said she didn’t even know why that meeting happened in the first place and let us know that won’t happen to any other kids or families again.
It’s all so weird and upsetting and husband and I have been on edge all day.
But like WTF. Yeah we still have a ways to go on this shit.
This is a really tough spot for them to be in and I don’t envy their position. The problem is that regardless of what the kids genitals look like, their brain is probably wired that they either see themselves as male or female. I assume the parents came to this decision after lots of thought and interaction, but I’d be spending at least a decade wondering if I picked wrong and did some sort of irreparable psychological damage as a result.
I remember reading once (maybe I’m not remembering correctly) that in these cases, there is a slight bias toward picking female, since if the kid wants/needs surgery in the future, it normally easier to make female genitalia. So that’s yet another consideration that they need to think about.
It’s plenty stressful without having the school heap this additional bullshit on them.
Holy moly that’s horrible :(
I respect you a lot for admitting to your blind spot. Honestly the best thing for you would be to have an open discussion with someone who is trans if the opportunity ever arises. Hearing their lived experiences directly from them will forever change your understanding of trans issues.
Yeah. Fair play.
Now i feel (a little) bad. Good to see people changing perspective.
Parents did not make any decision about her lightly. Kid has some trouble days ahead of her, because I mean she just has to. But I do think she is lucky to have them as parents.