Joined: 6/25/2007
Posts: 732
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
moozooh wrote:
It's simpler to an unrelated outsider, but imagine if this is something that your best friend, or a close relative, have to go through. Wouldn't it shock you even a little if your mother decided a male body would fit her better? For you, the notion of their entire person becomes challenged and you have to scrap and rework a very important piece of your personal reality. For them, there is the fear of showing the changes to you and your potential disapproval. A lot of things can go wrong here because for you the change is mostly destructive—you have to come to grips with a significant part of your worldview being instantly invalidated; for them, it is mostly constructive because it's ultimately worth the sacrifice of silent convenience of "don't ask, don't tell". It's not the sex we're celebrating; it's the courage.
No, wtf. My "worldview" about this person wouldn't have changed at all. There is no "destruction". I, personally, treat male and female gamers equally. I also treat male and female close friends equally. If my mom were to decide she was a man, so be it. I'd consider her the same person, since she would be. I have no interest in sex with my mom, so there's exactly zero difference to me. I wouldn't have to scrap and rework any important piece of my personal reality and it's ridiculous to imagine that I would.
Can't you guys see that this all affects ONLY sexuality? Someone being male or female doesn't matter except in sex unless people are fucked up and treat males and females arbitrarily differently. The whole pronoun thing is stupid and I would prefer a language that just doesn't refer to people by their sexes since it doesn't matter, but I'm stuck with English for convenience.
If every person on tasvideos was male, I would consider the site in the exact same way as if every person on tasvideos was female. There's absolutely no difference. It shouldn't require any "courage" to decide you have a different gender because nobody should care either way. People who care about it are short-sighted and sexually biased.
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2822
Location: Northern California
To repeat what I've said for a third time now, I don't believe this should be news, I agree that people should just accept it without any hesitation, but there's definitely a place to discuss transgender people and issues in hopes of promoting and furthering understanding between trans* people and non-trans* people. We've already pretty much stopped discussing Narcissa, we've all accepted her transition as if she was always who she is now, and that's great. But I feel this thread still needs to exist, maybe in a different form as a general transgender discussion thread, as long as it remains and no one comes in claiming it's unnecessary.
We're not advanced enough yet as a society to have everyone just instantly accept everyone else no matter how they feel, who they are, or who they want to be. Coming out as trans* is still really fucking difficult because of this. It's absolutely nerve-wracking to consider how differently people are going to treat you after coming out, knowing that you'll definitely lose friends who disagree with who you really are, thinking that you might be disowned by your family, and the only driving forces that will help are your own desires and a strong support net, no matter how insignificant it might be. It could be a strong group of real life friends or a thread on a forum for playing video games very fast, and it'd still make a huge difference in accepting yourself and gathering the strength and courage needed to come out.
Honestly, who the fuck cares if it's not suitable for the site? Barely anything outside of gaming is suitable for this site. You know what, though? This is suitable for the community that keeps the site running. I love the fact that this thread exists, because every post is still supportive in a way. No one has said anything negative about transgender people at all. Even the people speaking out against the thread's existence are just saying that things like this shouldn't be news as everyone will accept everyone for who they are no matter what. That's great! We need messages like that!
So this should either turn into a general discussion/support thread for trans* people, or we should start a new discussion/support thread for it. Every little thing counts, every little bit of support and every individual comment and even things no one realizes they're doing is helpful and meaningful. So let's cut the arguing and continue with the support.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 Currently unable to dedicate a lot of time to the site, taking care of family.
Now infrequently posting on BlueskywarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
To repeat what I've said for a third time now, I don't believe this should be news, I agree that people should just accept it without any hesitation, but there's definitely a place to discuss transgender people and issues in hopes of promoting and furthering understanding between trans* people and non-trans* people. We've already pretty much stopped discussing Narcissa, we've all accepted her transition as if she was always who she is now, and that's great. But I feel this thread still needs to exist, maybe in a different form as a general transgender discussion thread, as long as it remains and no one comes in claiming it's unnecessary.
We're not advanced enough yet as a society to have everyone just instantly accept everyone else no matter how they feel, who they are, or who they want to be. Coming out as trans* is still really fucking difficult because of this. It's absolutely nerve-wracking to consider how differently people are going to treat you after coming out, knowing that you'll definitely lose friends who disagree with who you really are, thinking that you might be disowned by your family, and the only driving forces that will help are your own desires and a strong support net, no matter how insignificant it might be. It could be a strong group of real life friends or a thread on a forum for playing video games very fast, and it'd still make a huge difference in accepting yourself and gathering the strength and courage needed to come out.
Honestly, who the fuck cares if it's not suitable for the site? Barely anything outside of gaming is suitable for this site. You know what, though? This is suitable for the community that keeps the site running. I love the fact that this thread exists, because every post is still supportive in a way. No one has said anything negative about transgender people at all. Even the people speaking out against the thread's existence are just saying that things like this shouldn't be news as everyone will accept everyone for who they are no matter what. That's great! We need messages like that!
So this should either turn into a general discussion/support thread for trans* people, or we should start a new discussion/support thread for it. Every little thing counts, every little bit of support and every individual comment and even things no one realizes they're doing is helpful and meaningful. So let's cut the arguing and continue with the support.
Strongly seconded. That's really all you could ask for. TASVideos has hit some real low points in the past, so it's encouraging to find a cause we can all support. And in true TASVideos fashion, we still manage to find a way to bicker about it.
It's simpler to an unrelated outsider, but imagine if this is something that your best friend, or a close relative, have to go through. Wouldn't it shock you even a little if your mother decided a male body would fit her better? For you, the notion of their entire person becomes challenged and you have to scrap and rework a very important piece of your personal reality. For them, there is the fear of showing the changes to you and your potential disapproval. A lot of things can go wrong here because for you the change is mostly destructive—you have to come to grips with a significant part of your worldview being instantly invalidated; for them, it is mostly constructive because it's ultimately worth the sacrifice of silent convenience of "don't ask, don't tell". It's not the sex we're celebrating; it's the courage.
No, wtf. My "worldview" about this person wouldn't have changed at all. There is no "destruction". I, personally, treat male and female gamers equally. I also treat male and female close friends equally. If my mom were to decide she was a man, so be it. I'd consider her the same person, since she would be. I have no interest in sex with my mom, so there's exactly zero difference to me. I wouldn't have to scrap and rework any important piece of my personal reality and it's ridiculous to imagine that I would.
Can't you guys see that this all affects ONLY sexuality? Someone being male or female doesn't matter except in sex unless people are fucked up and treat males and females arbitrarily differently. The whole pronoun thing is stupid and I would prefer a language that just doesn't refer to people by their sexes since it doesn't matter, but I'm stuck with English for convenience.
If every person on tasvideos was male, I would consider the site in the exact same way as if every person on tasvideos was female. There's absolutely no difference. It shouldn't require any "courage" to decide you have a different gender because nobody should care either way. People who care about it are short-sighted and sexually biased.
There's a difference between what the two of you are saying. Lex, you seem to be talking about an ideal world, in terms of what it should be. In that case, yes I agree that gender should make no difference. However, in practice it does. And people do change after coming out to themselves.
Take it from me, everyone treats me differently since I came out, including me. Like #alllivesmatter, the eventual aim you're talking about is admirable, but I find it problematic in context as it erases and invalidates the experiences of a marginalised group at this specific point in time.
Joined: 4/17/2010
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Lex wrote:
Can't you guys see that this all affects ONLY sexuality? Someone being male or female doesn't matter except in sex unless people are fucked up and treat males and females arbitrarily differently. The whole pronoun thing is stupid and I would prefer a language that just doesn't refer to people by their sexes since it doesn't matter, but I'm stuck with English for convenience.
If you (or whoever else in the world) don't currently see a good reason for that, it doesn't mean there's no good reason.
My personal approach is to carefully tune my gender to "sound" best coupled with my sex. It's rare to meet people who succeeded in that, rare to the point that it's considered impossible by some. And no, it's not based to sexual relations, relations ideally should come as a result.
But I'd like to say that barbaric hatred towards someone's transgenderness doesn't prove anything other than that those haters are generally stupid, their opinion is equally stupid and should not be considered. On the other hand, no negative treatment at all isn't good either, since it removes causes to evolve upon oneself (which results in the worst things ever).
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Oh boy glad the topic went off topic in the off topic forum for off topic things that are still on topic off topically.
I'm happy for Narcissa, and I'm glad that she's figured stuff out.
effort on the first draft means less effort on any draft thereafter
- some loser
I find it problematic in context as it erases and invalidates the experiences of a marginalised group at this specific point in time.
Could we please leave the feminist rhetoric out of this? It tends to turn things nasty. (I have seen what it does to other communities. Please no.)
Quite simply no. There is a time and place for "feminist rhetoric" and responding to something like that is indeed that time. And sure, I could have said it in other language at about 5-10 times longer and I just don't have the energy to translate from "feminist rhetoric" at the moment.
Actually, I take that back. I think I just won't contribute as the only reply I've got (bar one nice pm) is complaining about this "feminist rhetoric". Clearly people want to hear their own opinion expressed by other people more than to listen to a dissenting experience.
I find it problematic in context as it erases and invalidates the experiences of a marginalised group at this specific point in time.
Could we please leave the feminist rhetoric out of this? It tends to turn things nasty. (I have seen what it does to other communities. Please no.)
No, Warp. You don't get to define this conversation.
I am still the wizard that did it.
"On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." -- Satoru Iwata
<scrimpy> at least I now know where every map, energy and save room in this game is
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At the risk of further taking an off-topic post off-topic:
Warp wrote:
In fact, I find it even more bothering when it's "did you know person X is Y", rather than "I am Y". It's a bit like gossiping.
I'm actually going to quasi stand up for you here Warp, at least on two of the specific points you were trying to make. Had this conversation headed in the direction I initially feared it would and had this been actual gossip I would not have been surprised. It turns out that even a few people with a little less, shall we say, sensitivity have either not posted at all or have posted largely productive posts. I'd also have to agree with you that conversations rife with what you describe as "feminist rhetoric" can indeed get nasty (usually equally so on both sides of the debate in my experience), but I'd again point out that this thread hasn't gone there either.
Having said both those things, you did came off as aggressive in your first post and you do tend to be one of the more vocal people here so I can understand why people replied the way they did to you. While I'm all on board with avoiding gossip I have to agree with others that as far as off-topic threads go this one has been reasonably well-behaved, and I see no reason to try to censor the opinions of others here.
No, Warp. You don't get to define this conversation.
I'm just saying, I have seen first-hand what it has done to other communities. It has teared them apart, resulting in really, really ugly in-fighting (all the way up to real-life doxing and harassment, from both sides of the argument.) It has happened both to online and real-life communities.
Please don't let it happen to this community. I am trying to stop it when I see the warning signs. And it's because I care about this community and I don't want to see it ripped apart by ideologues.
Let's just discuss this subject in a normal reasonable way, shall we? Please.
No, Warp. You don't get to define this conversation.
I'm just saying, I have seen first-hand what it has done to other communities. It has teared them apart, resulting in really, really ugly in-fighting (all the way up to real-life doxing and harassment, from both sides of the argument.) It has happened both to online and real-life communities.
Please don't let it happen to this community. I am trying to stop it when I see the warning signs. And it's because I care about this community and I don't want to see it ripped apart by ideologues.
Let's just discuss this subject in a normal reasonable way, shall we? Please.
While I appreciate your intentions, you probably should have realized, "Don't use feminist rhetoric because it causes the topic to be derailed and things to get uncivil," would cause the topic to be derailed and things to get uncivil. (By the way, is there any word or phrase for this concept, a statement that is virtually guaranteed to have the opposite of its intended effect? The best I can come up with is just "ironic", but I have a feeling Douglas Hofstadter has written about something like it in Godel, Escher, Bach or elsewhere. I think it's also kind of tied to the idea of a maximally unstable system. It reminds me of the old blue eyes puzzle in which an innocent statement about the presence of blue-eyed people causes much of the population to commit suicide. Another similar situation is the state of conversation after Godwin's law has been satisfied.)
Aaaaaaanyway, the only "feminist rhetoric" in this thread is "marginalised group", which seems like a pretty tepid phrase. We've been talking civilly about the idea of changing one's gender expression-- using different pronouns, wearing different clothes, talking differently, maybe even having surgery-- and the idea that "marginalised goup" would blow up this whole conversation seems pretty ridiculous to me.
Yet here we are. Shall we put things back on topic?
Can't you guys see that this all affects ONLY sexuality? Someone being male or female doesn't matter except in sex unless people are fucked up and treat males and females arbitrarily differently.
Maybe you don't care about people's gender, but it doesn't mean that it's the case for everyone. If someone tells you that he/she care that you consider him/her as a man/women/anything else, that it is very important to him/her, you should treat him/her as so, by respect. Sex has nothing to do with this.
