I really like your blog software, what is it?

cheerfully BB

I think the flavors (both internally experienced and emotionally desired) are larger and poorly understood. As a bit of a science buff, I’d love to see an elegant explanation that underlie many scientific principles. I personally feel that evolution is and always has experimented with sex, gender and sexuality. Evolution has always thrown a bunch of ideas against the wall to see which ones stick. This random variability then looks for an advantage in the current population. Our ability to examine ourselves, and others in a way that other species haven’t, points to what I think is genentic experimentation. Again I think these variations are huge and have led to our difficulty with taxonomy. Anyone who reports that “they were born this way” is, I think, correct. I think environment only allows us to more or less follow our deep seated feelings. How many more TG people, would have more acceptance, and surgical procedures if they came into a lot of money early in their life? Money is a crass but huge environmental factor in our society. I actually have in mind a ‘fictional’ novel that has TG people suddenly in a world that massivly favors their genetic variation and of course they are now on top of the food chain and some of them (being human as they are) discriminate against the former ‘normal’ people.

OMG I don’t know if anyone will read this somewhat older thread but before I get too serious, I’d like to encourage everyone to approach this subject with open minds and humor, which is the ultimate salve for itchy subjects. Something like (and this is intended as humor and not criticism of a recent well thought out and brilliant post). What do you mean all Chevys are cars, clearly at least one Chevy is a Chase

On a related note about trying to understnd difficult subjects, I’m fond of saying (quoting actually) that “…A thing is mysterious if you don’t know what or how to feel about it, and wish you did. Mystery is a lack not of information but of meaning. Indeed, greater knowledge of certain subjects can intensify rather than soothe emotional itchiness about them…”

cheerfully:

One of these days I need to sit down again, after all the conversation about these posts, and write an update on my thoughts. Haven’t had the time yet, though, which is sad.

I was struck by how much of a luxury it was for me to be able to gradually negotiate my gender identity and presentation over a number of years in my teens and young adulthood rather than the highly visible and rather sudden transition that’s more common for those who transition from one binary position to the other.

Haha, yes. It does suck (quite a lot) to be a teenager in your mid-twenties. I can only imagine it sucks more for people transitioning older than I am…

I think this also reflects the problematic nature of our cultural insistence that people fit neatly into binary categories. I think the evolution of cis/trans terminology over the past few years has been very helpful in a number of ways, since it’s really hard to talk about stuff that you don’t have words for. But the evolution of any vocabulary is going to involve/produce/entail some problems and misunderstandings, and that definitely seems to be the case here. And the tendency we have in our culture to conceptualize everything within a binary framework is definitely hindering progress in this area.

That being said, I’m one of those genderqueer folks that anarchafemme refers to who feel that including genderqueer in the transgender category is problematic. For several reasons. As a cissexual person with a very feminine body, I do function with cis privilege, no matter how gender-transgressively I behave. I often simply just get a pass on all that because my body conforms to societal expectations. Beyond that, I think that most genderqueer individuals I know did not have the kind of transition experience that most trans people do. For instance, as my cousin transitioned a few years ago (and I was a key part of her support network in the “venting” department) I was struck by how much of a luxury it was for me to be able to gradually negotiate my gender identity and presentation over a number of years in my teens and young adulthood rather than the highly visible and rather sudden transition that’s more common for those who transition from one binary position to the other. And so I never experienced the vulnerability and scrutiny and having to make explanations and all that fun stuff which generally seems to accompany transitioning. So it seems to me like our terminology does need to migrate away from only capturing how your current sex/gender/identity/presentation relates to your assignment at birth and somehow capture also how this positions you in society and impacts your development and sense of self. Meh – I don’t think I’m being very clear about this…

transsexual => transgender
(which means…)
!transgender => !transsexual
(which means…)
cisgender => cissexual

Or, in English…

All transsexual people are also transgender
(which means…)
All people who aren’t transgender are also not transsexual
(which means…)
All people who are cisgender (or, not transgender) are cissexual (or, not transsexual)
(which means…)
Cisgender people can’t be transsexual, which makes my original point…

On the other hand, cisgender and transgender aren’t so beautifully mirrored. Their structure and etymology implies they should be, but they’re not. Specifically, transgender is an umbrella term which contains transsexual – a transsexual individual is inherently a transgender individual – but cissexual person is not inherently a cisgender person.

…vanish in a puff of logic.

Well, sort of.

You’ve totally proven that the logical breakdown of cissexual and cisgender – as antonyms of transsexual and transgender – mean that “cisgender and transexual” is a null pairing. However, I don’t think the words aren’t understood well enough for that to be immediately apparent.

That is, “there’s a Chevy that’s not an automobile” doesn’t make sense, because we understand “Chevy” and “automobile” well enough to know what they mean. I’m realizing many – myself obviously included – hadn’t thought through these terms to really understand how they interact. Thus it feels like “transsexual and cisgender” should make sense, and like cissexual should be a subset of cisgender, even though neither of those is (logically) true.

(To be clear, I’m not disagreeing with anything you said, or claiming that your logic was wrong. I’m just expressing my emotional reaction to it. I realize it ultimately boils down to, “But it doesn’t feel right!”)

I need to think more on that, but I appreciate your clarification.

Likewise, what you’re saying about #5 makes sense. I still need to write a followup post to this, about Spectrum 1, so I’ll try and mull things over until then. It’s also becoming apparent I need to write a followup post to this post, about definitions of cis/transgender, because you’ve given me lots to think about.

And it’s entirely possible that you’re right, and the answer is, “Well, actually, we shouldn’t.”

But I do think having the discussion is worthwhile, even if nothing ultimately comes of it. Words are powerful, particularly those related to identity. So when words like transgender and transsexual describe a pretty fundamental part of myself, I think it’s valuable to take the time and make sure they’re describing me in a way that makes sense to me. And when big arguments come up over the use and definition of cisgender and transgender, as they have in the past, it makes me feel like this discussion is doubly valuable. (Even if, again, no changes or new words ultimately come out of it.)