Totally Random
Feb. 24th, 2014 02:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lanalucyI followed a link on a comm today to try to learn something more about using appropriate language with people who are not me. I finished the article, read the comments, and ended up more confused than ever. I still don't know what to call people who aren't me. Over the last year, I've learned that the label I put on myself isn't appropriate - it has to be prefaced. So if I don't know what to call myself, how am I supposed to know what to call everyone else?
This link was specifically about gender-identity and sexuality (I think - I honestly don't even know what to call it anymore), and how using a word - the example was "tranny" - can be damaging to a person, reinforcing years of verbal or other abuse.
I don't intentionally use labels to denigrate other people. I do have labels in my head that until they are pointed out to me, I don't read them as insulting. To me, who grew up in a family full of mechanics, a tranny is a piece of a car - a damn expensive piece of a car. I've never used the word to describe a person, but I have been told to stop using it, because it offends people. How? I'm not using it to describe people.
Specifically, I'm learning this because I'm personally affected by it - someone I know is dealing with this issue on a daily basis, and yet, I still don't understand it. Really, I am not afraid to say that I don't get it. I can't understand it, can't even empathize. I've never been uncomfortable in my own body - the kind of uncomfortable that makes surgery or a lifetime of drug-therapy a viable option. At most, I've wondered how much easier camping or road trips would be if I could whip out my penis and pee in a bush or off the side of the road. Still, I've never wanted to be a man.
What I can do is ACCEPT that you are presenting yourself to me as what you wish to be. You present to me as female, and unless you tell me otherwise, that's what you are. Same goes if you present as male. I don't go looking for subtle signs that you are just pretending. If you want to share that part of your journey with me, I will be as welcoming as I know how to be, up to my limits. I'm not afraid to say, "Okay, I've reached the point where I need to go away and process before I can take more input." That's not about you, about me thinking there's something wrong with you, it's about how my mind works.
According to the new labels, being born in a female body and feeling female makes me cis-female. I looked it up, because I needed to understand where the prefix came from in order to use it. Yes, I'm weird. The cis prefix is 'near' or 'in the vicinity of' making me near-female or in-the-vicinity-of-female? Except I'm not. I'm a girl. A woman. A female. A bitch, even. A cranky, curmudgeonly, twisted and deviant woman on the verge of fifty. I don't know how to respond when someone says, "Oh, you're cis-female." Except to say, "No. I'm a female. There's no cis about it." Why is that wrong?
Does anyone else understand this enough to talk me through this? I'm willing to learn new things. I just need more than "Oh, this is the new way to say it, but I can't explain it, it just is," to internalize it, to make it stick.
My apologies if I failed to express myself adequately or if I did it in a way that offends you. It is definitely not intentional.
This link was specifically about gender-identity and sexuality (I think - I honestly don't even know what to call it anymore), and how using a word - the example was "tranny" - can be damaging to a person, reinforcing years of verbal or other abuse.
I don't intentionally use labels to denigrate other people. I do have labels in my head that until they are pointed out to me, I don't read them as insulting. To me, who grew up in a family full of mechanics, a tranny is a piece of a car - a damn expensive piece of a car. I've never used the word to describe a person, but I have been told to stop using it, because it offends people. How? I'm not using it to describe people.
Specifically, I'm learning this because I'm personally affected by it - someone I know is dealing with this issue on a daily basis, and yet, I still don't understand it. Really, I am not afraid to say that I don't get it. I can't understand it, can't even empathize. I've never been uncomfortable in my own body - the kind of uncomfortable that makes surgery or a lifetime of drug-therapy a viable option. At most, I've wondered how much easier camping or road trips would be if I could whip out my penis and pee in a bush or off the side of the road. Still, I've never wanted to be a man.
What I can do is ACCEPT that you are presenting yourself to me as what you wish to be. You present to me as female, and unless you tell me otherwise, that's what you are. Same goes if you present as male. I don't go looking for subtle signs that you are just pretending. If you want to share that part of your journey with me, I will be as welcoming as I know how to be, up to my limits. I'm not afraid to say, "Okay, I've reached the point where I need to go away and process before I can take more input." That's not about you, about me thinking there's something wrong with you, it's about how my mind works.
According to the new labels, being born in a female body and feeling female makes me cis-female. I looked it up, because I needed to understand where the prefix came from in order to use it. Yes, I'm weird. The cis prefix is 'near' or 'in the vicinity of' making me near-female or in-the-vicinity-of-female? Except I'm not. I'm a girl. A woman. A female. A bitch, even. A cranky, curmudgeonly, twisted and deviant woman on the verge of fifty. I don't know how to respond when someone says, "Oh, you're cis-female." Except to say, "No. I'm a female. There's no cis about it." Why is that wrong?
Does anyone else understand this enough to talk me through this? I'm willing to learn new things. I just need more than "Oh, this is the new way to say it, but I can't explain it, it just is," to internalize it, to make it stick.
My apologies if I failed to express myself adequately or if I did it in a way that offends you. It is definitely not intentional.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-25 01:37 am (UTC)Being around during the transition is new to me. I am learning as much about that, I think, as I am about being blind, as much as I can learn without going through either experience myself.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-25 02:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-25 02:12 am (UTC)I expect to be poked when I do something wrong, so that I can course-correct.
And I'm trying to learn, thus the questions - I'm aware that my knowledge of the subject and its impact are lacking.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-25 02:48 am (UTC)But am I thinking now about what I would do if someone asked me to. To use cis-female as regular conversation. I don't know how often it would come up. I mean how often does anyone really introduce their gender that there isn't some kind of other motive. Because I'm not entirely sure I'd be comfortable with that. Nor am I sure about using 'they' instead of he or she on the off chance someone uses the other pronoun. Although I do use they/them in cases where I don't know who specifically I'm talking to.
The use of pronouns is how I've ended up knowing so much about my friend C's transition. C transitioned through 'they' on the way to 'he' from 'she', which has always touched me as one of the bravest things I've even know someone to do. It seems so simple and yet he had to go to HR and request a pronoun be added for forms. I can't imagine doing that. We were talking about it because of writing though. I have a weird thing for pronouns when I write and I was curious how C approaches pronouns in his writing.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-25 03:39 am (UTC)This has been informative, for sure.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-25 03:59 am (UTC)