Comments (15)

By Rebecca, July 31, 2009 4:36 pm

A recent comment from (amusingly enough) “Your Personal Troll” to On the Edge of Trolling, Pt 5 was written in such a way to make me want to respond, if only to get my own thoughts in order.

For the sake of disclaimers: I’m going to assume the commenter has the best of intentions. However, I have no obligation to respond to (let alone allow in the first place) any comments on this blog, particularly ones who say I my resources “could be spent better” on something other than “the wild goose chase” of transitioning. Likewise, it is not my obligation to educate you. Google, Wikipedia, your local library – all places that can and do provide informative resources for your further education. Lastly, unless otherwise noted, I speak for no one but myself. I make no claim for my experience to be representative of anyone’s but my own.

All that said, lets get to the comment. I’ll selectively quoting here, so check out the original if you want the full text.

Continue reading 'An ‘Edge of Trolling’ Detour'»

Comments (17)

By Rebecca, July 27, 2009 12:46 am

(A note: These have sort of moved from “this might be trolling” to “this is obviously trolling,” but I like the title too much to change it. So “On the Edge of Trolling” it remains.)

Yet another comment to Misogyny and the Male Gaze, which is apparently where baby trolls go to learn how to fly:

No amount of blogging, self denial, surgery, or hormone pills is ever gong to change this fact:

Born a man, always a man. Born a woman, always a woman.

This is straight, clear cut science. It cannot be argued against. It’s as solid as 1+1=2.

Mmm. Smell that? Some lovely proof by assertion, with a hint of You’re arguing with opinions not fact, vintage 2009.

I think the only appropriate course of action is to respond in kind:

No amount of trolling, assertion, rejection, or dismissal is ever going to change this fact:

Gender is more complicated than what’s between your legs, or what you were assigned at birth.

This is straight, clear cut science. It cannot be argued against. It’s as solid as 1+1=2.

See? I can make assertions without backing them up, too! I could back them up, referencing some of the various different ways that gender is more complicated than “Born a man, always a man. Born a woman, always a woman.” (And that’s without even getting into trans issues!) But that would be silly.

Likewise, I could respond by stating that my own lived experience gives the lie to your assertions. That your argument boils down to how no true Scotsman would ever transition in the first place, and therefor I must not “really” be a woman. That stating “It’s as solid as 1+1=2″ does not magically make it so.

But since all of those arguments are hypothetical, and nothing I’d ever actually put forth as a response, I guess you win: My transition has been for naught, and I shall now attempt to rebuild the shambles of my gender-confused life.

Comments (4)

By Rebecca, July 21, 2009 10:23 am

Name change went well, and I’ll post a much expanded retelling later.

For now, I wanted to turn once again to comments that are barely questionable as trolling.  That is, comments that are almost certainly posted just to be obnoxious, but there’s the slimmest sliver of a chance the person honestly thinks that way and isn’t intending to be inflammatory. This latest comment was posted to in reference to Misogyny and the Male Gaze:

What I love about trans is this:  They were sensitive and easily hurt to begin with, but now they feel they have a reason.  The dude’s always bothered you because he doesn’t think like you, but now the way he thinks *directly* deals with you, or so you think.

Get over it.  Yes, you are “a pair of tits with a dick”, and lots of people are going to see it that way.  Is that cool and fair and right? No.  But how many minds are you changing by whining about it?  Whining implies that you have no balls.

I mean, cry all you want, but you had your chance, still have your chance to be the man you were born as, so I think the crying is a little weird, forced and irrelevant at this point.

How delightful!

Continue reading 'On the Edge of Trolling, pt 4'»

Comments (5)

By Rebecca, June 13, 2009 12:19 am

A brief comment was posted for the final installment of On the Edge of Trolling. (At least until I get some more ‘lovely’ comments like these have been!). This one was from to The Great Trans Feminist Blogging Shakeup of 2009 and, of the series, comes the closet to simply being an outright troll:

sorry, but cis trumps. Born this way. You chose the new territory, so perhaps you’ll be able to be a feminist in time, but right away? No way

Once again, I think I’m just going to quote myself:

Neither Dictionary.com, nor Wikipedia, nor Stanford, nor any other resource I could find indicates feminism is a philosophy exclusive to women, or people raised as women. Feminism, at least the feminism I identify with, isn’t a womyn-born-womyn space, and doesn’t benefit only women. CrimethInc says it better than I could but, in short, for every girl who was told she couldn’t be a firefighter there is a boy who was told he couldn’t be a ballerina. Yes, women are ultimately the victims of sexism and the benefactors of feminism more often than men, but it’s naive to think sexism doesn’t cut both ways and its elimination wouldn’t benefit people other than those who have “been oppressed because of their genitalia or reproductive organs.” (Which, by the way, trans women have too.)

And that’s that.

Comments (2)

By Rebecca, June 11, 2009 12:39 am

The definition of Troll from Urban Dictionary:

One who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument.

Someone decided to grace a few of my posts with some comments that I would consider on the edge of trolling. That is, I think she believes what she’s saying and I’m not convinced she’s trying to cause “maximum disruption and argument,” but she’s definitely being rude and disruptive. Rather than approve her comments, or even just simply ignore them, I’m going to focus some posts on them and try to respond to what they’re saying as best I can. The goal of this is more to get my thoughts in order – and to hear from the peanut gallery – than to engage her in a discussion which her tone has indicate she isn’t willing to have.

First up, Anonymous posted a comment to Are You Undergoing a Transgender Experience:

I’m sorry, but it’s not rude to ask those kinds of questions– grow some thicker skin.  You decided to do this, become a woman, and so– figure it the fuck out and stop crying about it.

And if you don’t pass, then figure that out too.  You’re the one who wants this .

Continue reading 'On the Edge of Trolling, Pt 1'»