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[BlackHeartKabal]

In all honesty as long as people are civil and not yelling at or insulting each other over it I don't necessarily mind what people want to be beyond a show of basic respect and courtesy + natural concern and interaction if the person is close to me. Considering that's never happened before, I dodge the everloving hell out of the subject when it comes up. I'm male, I'm quirky as hell about how I act at times apparently, and other than the possibility of coming off as rude or disruptive somehow I really don't care. I'm just here to comment as a PTW before the thread collapses somehow and maybe be interacted with, iunno.

"BlackHeartKabal Just Wants A Quiet Life". If it makes you happy and you aren't hurting yourself or anyone else? Splendid, want a cup of coffee?

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

Breaking news: being asexual is the "dumbest thing ever." More at ten.

So some testosterone-poisoned idiotic youth by me were talking loudly about "fucking." This goes on and on. So I ask them to stop. This is at camp, and the topic isn't really appropriate. "Don't you like to fuck?" they asked. I shouldn't have responded. But I thought that asexuality was a mostly accepted thing.

They couldn't even wrap their minds around somebody who didn't want to shove a part of themselves into other people's holes. And so they ridicule me. Didn't think people like that were prevalent anymore. I mean, come on. Even after I tell them that I'm agender (best explanation I've got for a brief summary of me), they keep insulting my masculinity. Yeah, that's about as effective as trying it on the girls.

[TheBiggerFish]

>person says they are agender/asexual
>masculinity insults
They're stupid and they should probably feel stupid.

Note to the future:Posted at 1:30 in the morning, higher brain processes are about conked out.  All I have left is dumb jokes.

[Jimmy]

As someone who spent a fair amount of their late teens and early twenties putting parts of himself in other peoples holes as often as possible, I gotta say I can understand where they're coming from. The biological urge to reproduce can be pretty strong for some people. Like, urge to eat or breathe strong.

[BillyTheKid]

Hey, loudly talking about fucking next to uninvolved bystanders is always a provocation. That's what a bunch of teens that discovered logtube for the first time do, usually to bully and disrespect someone. That's not masculinity, that's not manly at all. I consider these people cowards, unworthy of being called a man, or masculine.


Caroline, I'll talk to you later, I hate writing on mobile, but I want to say gender roles MUST exist, to make familys and relationships work properly.

[Neonivek]

I dunno... Girls tend to REALLY not like having their masculinity insulted.

[hops]

Hey, loudly talking about fucking next to uninvolved bystanders is always a provocation. That's what a bunch of teens that discovered logtube for the first time do, usually to bully and disrespect someone. That's not masculinity, that's not manly at all. I consider these people cowards, unworthy of being called a man, or masculine.


Caroline, I'll talk to you later, I hate writing on mobile, but I want to say gender roles MUST exist, to make familys and relationships work properly.

What? There's no reason for family roles to be gendered. Having two dads can work, having two moms can work, so long as they take the appropriate roles required to raise a child.

[alexandertnt]

Not only that, but which gender roles? Stereotypical male and female roles?

I would be interested in seeing any evidence that families and relationships don't work with other gender roles. I think plenty of less-typically-gendered people can attest to the fact they can still form and maintain relationships.

I doubt that "male" and "female" gender roles even mean the same thing to different people...

[TheBiggerFish]

Yeah, gender roles aren't necessary.  Some concept of how the work is shared, yes, but not by gender.

[Mel_Vixen]

Now, I can't talk from the P.O.V. of someone who's transitioned, as I haven't yet, but as far as I've been learning about the process (starting hormone blockers soon ((only $5 every 10-12 months. Cheap af))), it seems to me like it'd work to counter act the great big problem that is my gender dysphoria. I think that statistic that people pull our when they say "transgender people have the same rate of suicide post-op", is because when a lot of people transition, they're going throu gh other things. Gender dysphoria has been linked to depression, anxiety, etc. And, I think what the transgender community needs to know, is that no, it won't magically make all your problems go away, getting hormone therapy or a sex change. But it can help, with that big problem, so you can work on the other things more often.

I am a bit further into the transition (Male to Female), genderdysphoria is one of the causes for depressions and yes it gets better with hormones. Transdermal patches (similiar to Nicotine-patches) work better then gels and creams in my experience.
 
The other side is society where you have a few distinct problems. The active bullying - say the BS about toilet usage - sure is one but there are some sometimes very subtle things.
For example "expected behaviour", even if its subconciously expected, can be very big stressor - atleast for me. Having to behave in a certain "manly" or "womanly" way so you get taken seriously is always a fight. Discussing with someone nets different responses whatever i am seen as man or woman. My behaviour, say in dealing with Agencies and Departments, gets interpreted as bitchy and hysteric when i a appear as woman but the very same behavior was fine when i was there as male a few months prior.
Looking at womans clothing at first was very problematic since there is always the chance to be called out on it by someone less supportive ("That perv is looking at panties yuk!") and this can become a fear that persist to later states.

Luckely i didnt had to experience this at all but the the reaction to the coming out can be very harmfull. My family and friends accepted me as i am but i also know cases where families disowned their children up to death-threat and orphanage.
On the other hand you sometimes have far to eager Family/friends that just relabel you, telling you what a "proper" Man/Woman does, intruding your personal space with say making BS name-suggestions (no i dont want the Female version of my firstname because i hate that firstname!) or generally assuming that you dont know the first thing about being your gender (like knowing your sizes for clothing)!.
 
Similarly the work environment could be very toxic. Starting with school it can be very hard, by outing yourself you offer another oppining for bullies to strike. The outing also squarely places you between the genders (since you are transitioning) so finding friends on either side can become quiet a task.
Later being in a job dominated by one gender or another can lead to problems. You are sometimes seen as intruding into the domain of a gender. Conversely sometimes you are seen as questioning the sexuality of your coworkers by your mere existence as if transsexuality would be contagious.

Phonecalls get annoying for MTF since we cant change our voices that easily leading to being permanently labelled "Sir" or "Mister". Speaking to someone in person will often out you if you couldnt train/operativly change your voice yet. For FTM its a little less of a problem since the testosterone helps with the voice a great deal.

And the most annoying thing for me was the legal aspects of being transgender. Here in Germany i had to PROOF that i feel wrong in my birth-gender for atleast 3 years. Then i had to do atleast 6 moths of Therapist assisted life in my Gender.
Only after that i could apply for a legal change of sex which further requires two reports by 2 separate but specialized Psychiatrists and then a f*ing court-hearing which also can cost up to 5000 Euro.
All in all it can take 6 months to a year and tons of money to get your legal gender and name changed.
Even after that my Health-insurance expected me to jump further hoops to grant me the right to get Hormone-therapy and subsequently a Genderreasignment Operation. The first badge of Meds i had to pay by myself which was around 160 bucks.

Genderdysphoria, depression and anxieties related to it could be easily reduced or treated if society and the Legal apparatus would pull the sticks out of their arses.

[hops]

Wait, what? From my experience here, German is very open-minded. I could understand transphobia in shitty countries like the States.

[TheBiggerFish]

Hey, only some bits of the States are transphobic :x

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

Thank you, everybody, for recovering from the flames licking at the thread. You guys handled that well.

=======

I didn't explicitly say that I was asexual.

Code: (conversation) [Select]

Boys: blahblahblah fuck blah
Me: Stop that. It's not camp appropriate.
Boys: blah blah fuck blah
Me: Seriously, don't talk about that here.
Boys: We're just talking about fucking. Don't you like fucking?
Me: No, I don't. Now stop or I'll report you to the counselor.
Boys: What do you mean you don't want to fuck? That's the dumbest thing ever!
...and more of that

I joked to myself that it might be hard to distinguish between "asexual" and "not an awful person" at my age. I mean, you might not be talking about fucking because that's not what you like to do, or you just might be a good person who doesn't discuss things like that in front of small children.

=========

Also, more pondering and reflection has led me to come up with this:

Whatever gender I may be, I don't really care. My gender is not important to me. When I do things, I neither try to do "masculine" nor "feminine" things. I don't divide the world into gender. I'm me, and if some of myself falls into a particular gender, I really don't care. This way of thinking is not a gender per se, but my brain doesn't divide itself to correspond with people's models. It's related to gender, which is what was confusing me, because I thought that "gender" would include all gender-related things.

Because of this, I wouldn't mind being female, but I wouldn't particularly want it either. That's why I was thinking I was agender - without previous knowledge, the word appears to mean "without gender," which would be an approximation of my way of thinking. But the word has a subtler meaning than that, and so does not apply to me.


I don't know if there's a word for my way of thinking, but I don't really care. If someone wants to know, I can explain. If not - well, I appear cis, and that's what I probably technically am.

I think that I have finally figured out my gender and gender-related things. That feels good. (No, I did not create this thread for the purpose of having a place to write this. Nor did I do it because I wanted to see a traincrash. Because of my explorations in gender, I'm interested in gender. That's why I made this thread. (I titled it "let's get this traincrash started" as a wry response to everyone who said this would crash and burn. "Well, then, I'll get the train going then," was what I was thinking.))

=======

If you are a baby and got big wood, you are a boy. If you are a baby and you don't, you're not. And until science finally transcends the pesky ethical boundaries of human lands, and allows people that are switching branches with their sexuality, to give birth or make babies in their modified body, they are still the sex they were born as. Those changes are just aesthetics, and to me you are just a man without wood, or a woman carrying a conspicuous log. Yall agree?

You are a man to me, doesn't matter if you wear a pretty dress or your hair looks really lofty. I don't know why you would attribute that to be a negative thing. It's what your body has been shaped like since you were born, but I get the feeling you interpretate that as being called ugly, violent and above all stupid, am I correct? In advance, I want to clarify, a man to me is far from these, quite often spread by feminists, negative stereotypes. To me, it is someone that carries passion with him, and hardship. It is someone that treads a path of learning and growth in character. Someone that learns sacrifice, comradeship, to stand up for others, and ultimately, stand up for himself. Someone that knows the weight of tears and smiles.

I refuse to think you are destined for anything less. These things cannot be meaningless to you, so why not pursue them?

Hey, loudly talking about fucking next to uninvolved bystanders is always a provocation. That's what a bunch of teens that discovered logtube for the first time do, usually to bully and disrespect someone. That's not masculinity, that's not manly at all. I consider these people cowards, unworthy of being called a man, or masculine.


Caroline, I'll talk to you later, I hate writing on mobile, but I want to say gender roles MUST exist, to make familys and relationships work properly.

BillyTheKid, I'm not entirely sure, but I think that you're saying that transgender people aren't actually transgender. There is actual scientific evidence that transgender people have brains more like the gender they say they are (as opposed to the assigned gender).

In addition, you're being inconsistent. First, you're saying that gender is whether or not you have a penis. (That's sex.) Then you're saying that it's "someone that carries passion with him, and hardship. It is someone that treads a path of learning and growth in character. Someone that learns sacrifice, comradeship, to stand up for others, and ultimately, stand up for himself. Someone that knows the weight of tears and smiles." That's gender roles. In addition, you say that in the case of genetic eunuchs, whichever gender they more closely resemble would be their gender.

Now you surely will admit that women eventually lose the ability to have babies. Does this make them any less of a woman? No. If I was injured and could no longer produce sperm, that would not mean that I was any less of a man. Combined with the knowledge that transgender brains are qualitatively different from cisgender brains, I can confidently state that "sperm or uterus" will not cut it for gender. (Also, that's sex. Gender is identity.)

But then you state that masculinity is [a bunch of traits commonly associated with men, quoted above twice]. But surely women can do those too, right? Women can be passionate. Women can withstand hardship. Women can learn, and grow in character. Women can sacrifice. Women can be comrades, and stand up for others and theirselves. Women have known both tears and smiles. Anything a man can do, a woman can also do. Except make sperm.

So if someone resembles a woman's gender role in every way, except the ability to carry a fetus in their belly, according to your "eunuch rule", they should be assigned to the gender that they most closely resemble. And you yourself stated that masculine traits matter quite a bit. So either you're saying that penises are more important than everything you said up there about men, or your own argument, when taken to its logical extent, supports transgender people.

And besides, what does it matter? No matter what you think, you should respect other people's identities. It's not affecting anybody else but themselves.

=======

Just found this post:

The lot that try to justify sexism with biological differences between the sexes are full of shit, frankly.

I've used this example before, because it's a good one: A group of people are trying to become firefighters. On average, a lower percentage of the women will be able to meet the physical requirements. Does that mean that women shouldn't be allowed to become firefighters? Fuck, no; it means that hiring should be based solely on the competence of candidates and their ability to perform the labor required by the job.

You'll find that the "biological-dimorphism therefore sexism = okay" types very quickly retreat into discussing gender while claiming to be talking about sex, mostly because the actual differences between the sexes are relatively minor, not entirely understood (because a lot of them are more neurochemistry and less physical composition), and subject to a fairly wide degree of individual variation. In other words, it's difficult to make meaningful generalizations based on them, so they're largely worthless. Ultimately it's circular reasoning, "Gender roles exist because of significant differences in the sexes, which we know exist because of gender roles."

Are you me? Because that's seriously the same argument I use against sexists who say "women are weaker than men, ergo they shouldn't be allowed to do X." Like in sports - just put the strong women and the strong men on one highschool team, and the weak men and the weak women on the other. The upper team will have more men. That's fine. But don't keep the strong women out of the higher team.

=====

Hey, only some bits of the States are transphobic :x

Depends. The general aura of disapproval? Varies from region to region. But I'm fairly sure it's present almost everywhere. Maybe deep blue states escape the brunt of it.

[TheBiggerFish]

@Dozebôm Lolumzalis: Ah.

Maybe genderless, instead of agender?

And yeah, Flying Dice is right.

I'm pretty sure that at least some places aren't transphobic.

[Mel_Vixen]

Wait, what? From my experience here, German is very open-minded. I could understand transphobia in shitty countries like the States.

Like the states we have some very shitty states and places. Anywhere where the new Rightwing parties have people for example. In Stuttgart there are regular ANTI-LGBTQI demos, Christian pastors and Bishops preaching the hate and such.

90% percent of the people i meet are nice and supportive or atleast indifferent. Its those 10% of idiots that make life hard. That and laws made 30 years ago by our two "Christian" parties that though "teh Gays" might use the "Transsexuellengesetz"/Transgender law to marry each other.
Using that argument they put so many unnecessary stops into the law that your head starts spinning. Not a decade back you needed to be sterilised and divorced before even applying for a legal sex/name change. Thankfully our constituional court cut down the BS time and time again.