Language and transgender people

well i personally would ask what they would prefer to be called.
is that bad? i mean, i might say something like FTM but i would ask if they would like to be called something else.

 

I agree so much with all of this. Particularly about my gender being female, not MtF. Which is why I filled in my own gender instead of saying MtF Transgender on this board. I am a woman who also happens to be trans.

 

I'm human. A human who is female in gender and happens to be attracted to other females sexually. A human that was born with a few things not quite right, most of which has been fixed by modern medicine. A human who wishes fixing her other medical issues were as easy as fixing the gender-related ones.

Really, I don't like labels. People use labels as crutches. How many times have I heard "Well, I'm _______ so I just can't _______." If I had a dollar....

I don't wear the trans label for many reasons. Partially because there are very few trans people I actually get along with, because in all honesty most trans people annoy me with all their drama. I also really am not trans anymore, as you mentioned trans is a state of change, not an absolute. I also am a chimera, which is likely the root cause of some of my other medical issues. I don't wear that label either, but it describes a chromosomal medical condition.

I only wear the lesbian label because it accurately describes my sexual preference. I could just as easily say "I like girls".

 

At this point, I'm too confused about things to really put anything down for sure. So, I guess what I have works for the time being.

 

Maybe this is not constructive, if so, report it to an admin for deletion. But the way I see it, ftm is valuable information. Being born as female and then transitioning to a male is different from being a cisgender male your whole life. Male is your gender, but female is your original sex.
Let's think of it this way: there are people on EC who list themselves as straight women. While this is accurate, it doesn't give the reason for being on EC--that they were born as gay men and transitioned to straight women. The f part of ftm is valuable information and conveys a unique experience that you've had.

 

Interesting persective. But personally, the way I see it, it may be a unique experience but that doesn't mean I want to or have to share the fact that I experienced it with everyone. To me it's not really any different than if one were to wear some label on their sleeve that indicated they were a rape victim. To me, being born with a effed up body was an inconvenient PITA, nothing more. I don't celebrate it.

 

I was NEVER a gay man, ever. The fact I like guys (which, btw, not all transgirls do) just means I'm a hetero girl. And I was a girl looong before I began transition. That comment is a bit offensive, sorry.

 

This.

I didn't really notice the potentially offensive part though. I don't think it was meant to be offensive. And as you move along you will be less and less offended by stuff like that I just don't really even notice anymore unless someone is really going out of their way to be a douche.

 

Hexagon, why do you dislike "male bodied" and "female bodied"? I don't know of any alternative to them, and they seem both neutral and accurate to me. They also don't imply that someone with a female body is a woman and with a male body is a man the way that "man's body" and "woman's body" can.

 

First of all, I'm sorry to hear of your experience with that school. I don't even know why a person would call another person "it". That just seems so wrong to me.

I'm not cis-gendered, but I'm not really trans* either. I do have a female body, so I call myself, however mournfully, biologically female instead of a girl or a woman. I sometimes call myself a guy or a man when the mood strikes me. But I'm not really sure what to call myself either. I prefer masculine pronouns....

I dunno. I'd say, yes, you're a man. The fact that you were at any point a girl is irrelevant to me. You are who you are now. I don't like being referred to as something I used to be. I was a Christian once. I'm not now. I don't pretend to be. I hate it when people say I need to go back to being a Christian. I think you should be extended the same courtesy. You don't want to be referred to as a girl. That's not what you are now. You are a man. If someone is something, that's what I think they should be called.

 

I don´t get it. If you oppose to MtF or FtM why don´t you just call yourself the gender you identify with? Cause you are that, basicly, just getting your body in check with it, right?
If you find it important that people know that you are in transition, just say THAT: "I´m in transition".
People might think you look a bit odd, but believe me, there are plenty of people born that way (I mean androgenous looking, or looking more like the opposite sex).
I would never think or ask if they are trans. I don´t care. You don´t choose what you look like.
People are divers. It´s silly to think women have to look one way and men another.


What´s harder is people that want to be neither when it comes to gender or are of both by birth. What do we call them: "ze"?

 

Hexagon, I'm with you on the way you describe your gender in the absence of a sex option, it seems the most efficient way. Personally (simplified) I prefer man and woman as a description of sex and male or female as a self description of gender so basically an easy separation between biology and self-identification: you are born as a man or woman, you identify as a male or female, one doesn't beget the other and both can be changed/change to certain extents.
I don't much care for the use of genders or sex outside of what it means scientifically/biological though so I may be a bit out of touch. Most people probably also see me as cis even though I just don't identify with gender so I'm unaware of what power the words and uses can have on people as well.

 

Fair enough. Can't say I agree fully, but I'm cisgender so I don't have the same perspective.

 

Heck, I never heard of these terms. Shows you how out of touch with the trans world I am. What do those stand for? I can't keep up with this stuff.

 

Ah, OK. Makes sense. I kinda like the second ones :icon_bigg

 

I can barely keep up with what few acronyms I know.