posted on March 03, 2019 09:42 AM by
u/FederalInvite
12
u/freerange_hamster29 pointsat 1551650587.000000
So here’s the thing missing from the OP: there’s pressure on
every LGBT+ person to identify as something else. It’s weird
but totally predictable! Some examples:
If you’re exclusively gay or lesbian, you get creepy comments
like, “How do you know you don’t like men/women until you’ve tried
fucking me it?” Identifying as bi/pan seems tempting because
hey, maybe you won’t hear that crap anymore.
Bi/pan people get “pick a side” rhetoric, until they’re tempted
to identify in a way that aligns with their current
relationship.
Trans people obviously get tremendous pressure not to transition
because “what if you regret it?/ think of the children!/ surgical risk”.
Throwing up your arms in the air and saying, “Fine, I’m a non-conforming
[birth sex]” starts feeling like the best option.
NB/gender non-conforming people get channelled to transition
resources because frankly, a lot of people aren’t knowledgeable about
this identity. “Sounds like you want to transition!” is a common reading
of NB and gender-nonconforming issues, particularly by straight
counsellors/social workers/doctors/etc.
But, unlike Ozy’s central claim, these aren’t exclusively
intra-LGBT+ problems. They’re the natural result of living in a
homophobic, cis-centric culture. Putting the onus on the LGBT+ community
to stop recommending transition/presenting it as a choice ignores a
bunch of extrinsic cultural factors that we simply don’t have the
numbers to change.
I never get the passion that reactionaries have for this line of reasoning. Religion is a choice, and we still protect it. Being a bigot is a choice, and they protect it. How would (falsely) claiming transness is a choice affect the way we think about it, or change the necessity of respecting it?
coming from the same person who [push pseudoscientific claims about trans children](https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2016/07/27/on-transgender-children/) (citing Jesse fucking Singal as a source), [support the idea that there are "alternatives to transition for relief of dysphoria"](https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2017/02/11/seven-troubling-questions-about-transgender-theories-answered/) (Ctrl+F "That said"), and [used an "Intellectual Turing Test" as an excuse to host Blanchardian propaganda on their blog](https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2017/04/04/intellectual-turing-test-results/)
Combine this with 'you only need 10% true believers to reach a tipping point where a community changes' and this is all pretty meh. Esp as I think rationalists are easy to convert to 'true believer' status, just show some scientific papers.
There is an idea (dunno where it comes from, perhaps social science, perhaps the rationalists made it up) where they say that you need 10% of a population to believe in something truly, and the rest not really to care, for that new idea to become a shared value. A sort of tipping point is reached at 10%.
A similar effect has been described by [Taleb](https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dictatorship-of-the-small-minority-3f1f83ce4e15). And I also saw this idea referenced on lesswrong.
Edit: and the reference to rationalist true belief is about the idea that rationalists think they are truthseekers, and overvalue their own knowledge (A common fault obv, mea culpa).
Well, if most ssc'ers come there without knowledge or care about trans issues. It is easy for the 10% to convert them. Esp if it is done slowly, by convincing people more and more of various statements: 'trans is a choice', 'trans is a fetish', 'trans is caused by anime', 'all anime is for perverts', 'Blanchard was an scientist previous to his career as a prophet'
This brings up my objection to how Ozy talks about this, namely, *know your audience*.
It's perfectly reasonable to discuss whether (and to what degree) we queers recreate toxic structures within our own communities. However, you aren't going to debate that with a bevy of MRA dipshits, who comprise a fair number of Ozy's readers. Of course, you *can*, but the results are seldom good.
I actually agree with this post. There is in fact a lot of
pressure on gender nonconforming people to “just admit you’re trans” and
it’s not actually the right choice for everyone and the way
it’s pushed like a drug in certain queer spaces is really freaking
unhealthy and gender essentialist.
But like, does anyone have actual examples of that "pressure"? 'cause like, I hear a lot of people (mostly TERFs) mention it in a fearmongering way, but I've rarely (never?) heard trans or gender non-conforming people talk about it.
Edit: thanks Sagebrysh, palind_romor_dnilap, bobbiewickham and completely-ineffable for your answers.
I think it's kind of like the "pressure" feminists are sometimes accused of putting on women to be unfeminine and not to love men or whatever. Like...it's there, in some subcultures. I can see it being a real problem for some people who get into the wrong circles. But also, the mainstream culture overwhelmingly exerts pressure *in the other direction* and uses violence and financial leverage to back it up.
I don't think you need anyone explicitly telling you to just admit you're trans to feel that pressure. Fact is, trans people people are more visible than non-trans nb people, especially outside of queer spaces. If you, someone questioning your gender identity, search around for info, you'll find news stories about trans people (both positive and negative). You'll find—or in this case, used to find (RIP tumblr)—tumblr posts where the author talks about how much happier they are after HRT. You'll find stories of people who identified as genderqueer before coming out as trans. Of course, none of those things are bad (except the negative news stories). People have a right to share their own stories, and for many hearing those stories is an important step on their journey to coming out as trans. But in the face of this environment, many enbies will ask ourselves the question "am I trans?" and feel pressure to answer yes, thereby slotting in to an established identity.
Let me analogize to sexuality. There's nothing wrong with being gay, of course. But there are people who experience sexual/romantic attraction to their own gender who aren't gay. Things have gotten much better, but go back a couple decades or so and there was a lot of pressure for bi people to 'pick a side'. Some of this was explicit on the part of gay people, but some of the pressure was a wider environmental thing—which stories get heard, what possibilities are accepted as legit, and so on. I think the pressure on non-trans nb people can be let up similar to how the pressure on bi people was let up: a wider variety of experiences and stories being visible, less pressure to boundary police for political expediency, the non-queer world, especially gatekeepers, getting a better clue as to the diversity of possibilities, and so on.
(One more parallel in the analogy: just as TERFs weaponize this in bad faith, so too are there bad faith arguments about attempts to pressure kids into being gay. But of course some rando homophobe ranting about the gay agenda in our schools is not saying the same thing as a bi person talking about the pressure to identify as gay.)
Some non-binary people do go through HRT, and some binary trans people don't go through HRT, for various reasons. I don't see any reason to think OP meant to say that in queer/trans communities there was a pressure for trans people (binary or not) to go through HRT, considering OP's claim is explicitly about queer/trans communities pressuring gender-non-conforming (cis) women to transition.
> Speak for yourself. Not all enbies are trans.
To clarify, are you using trans here to denote medically transitioning, or do you mean trans as in the larger trans community?
>I don't think you need anyone explicitly telling you to just admit you're trans to feel that pressure. Fact is, trans people people are more visible than non-trans nb people, especially outside of queer spaces.
I've been thinking about this for a couple days. My basic response is, *so what?* Yeah, I have no doubt that some not-quite-trans "gendery" folks will feel some "pressure" to take the leap and identify as trans. However, is that "pressure," or is it simply "attraction to..."?
For an analogy: I've talked to str8 nerdy dudes who are envious of me, a trans woman, because (in their words) I'm "colorful" and they are not. In fact, I've literally had such a conversation on Ozy's blog. My response: "Yeah, I can't help if I seem 'colorful' to you, nor will I apologize for having a cool subculture that doesn't include str8s."
It's an analogy.
Don't pressure people to transition?
Sure, okay. However, I've met a lot of people who came to thank me because I asked them difficult questions about their gender, and because I told them point blank how their feelings mirrored my feelings at a similar stage in my life. I've even told people outright that they seemed like a woman to me, because they did, and I was correct.
These things happen. They are important. Coming to terms with one's transness is really hard.
"This subculture has a lot of trans folks and they really stand out as the *cool kids*."
Okay, good. I'm glad.
"But what about non-trans gendery folks?"
What about them? They're cool. I have no problem with them at all.
"But I need to be trans to be cool!"
That's silly. Don't do that.
"But you've replicated problematic hierarchies."
Probably. We're human. Did you expect queer utopia?
I was explicit that it's not bad for trans people to do the sort of things you mention in your post. But I can reiterate so it's clear: Trans people sharing their experiences, asking hard questions, and so forth are good, positive things.
>"But I need to be trans to be cool!"
I don't appreciate this misreading of my point. It's not about seeking after what's cool, and it's not analogous to some cishet dude thinking you're 'colorful'. Rather, my point was that the impression can be given that the only real options are identifying with your assigned gender or being trans. So those for whom the former is not an option will be pressured into thinking they must fall into the latter category. Many do, of course, but not all.
(Let me re-reiterate that I don't think trans people did anything bad here. Maybe individuals did, but not trans people as a whole. Rather, my point was that a bunch of people making good decisions can still lead to environments that don't work for everyone, especially when those people are making decisions in the shadow of larger societal oppressions.)
>Did you expect queer utopia?
No, of course not. Don't be flippant.
I have seen some people take the "egg" (see /r/egg_irl ) meme too far, but practically everyone else I've seen talk about that agrees that it's just really dickish.
Yes, I personally experienced that pressure and talking to my Amab enby roommate, they also experienced similar pressure, and from talking to people in detransitioner chatrooms and femmeboy chatrooms, it's a very common sentiment. If you talk to no one but happily transitioned trans people than of course they won't say they felt pressure.
Over the last couple of years, I've seen a growing number of pro-trans people on Reddit whose statements seemed to imply that they thought "gender" was identical to "preferred set of gender roles".
I always thought that I was misunderstanding them, or that they were communicating their beliefs poorly, because it looked like they were saying a femme cis male couldn't possible exist since any person who preferred feminity was, by their definition of gender, a woman. That would be a terrible view to hold, and they seemed to be people who held good views on gender generally, so I figured I was missing something.
Have I been giving them too much credit? Or am I misunderstanding yet something else completely? (And please feel free to ignore this and move on! I don't want you to feel like I expect you to do emotional labor for me.)
Yeah I’m ready to take some downvotes too. While I don’t think it’s “gender essentialist” and I think it’s a TERFy thing to specifically say that butch women are pressured to transition, there IS a culture I’ve seen of “if you’re even questioning, you’re trans and that means you need to transition or you’ll eventually kill yourself” on some trans subs. There are certainly other people who give what I think is more sensible advice of, look, just try making some changes you’re comfortable with and don’t worry about whether you’re “really trans” or not and whether it means you need to fully transition. IMO that’s basically what he’s saying here too. Sure, there are some semantic disagreements around saying that “gender identity” is a choice, when I think he’s actually trying to say that your expression and exploration of it is a choice - but, you know, fine.
e:I don’t know shit about this author or their pronouns, please excuse assumptions/mistakes
For me this is one of those issues that honestly look like a bit of a hot mess.
I've met someone who identified as MtoF transgender, but they couldn't deal with the politics, so stuck to non-binary. From what I've been able to infer, I don't blame them.
I've met someone who claimed to be non-binary but once I got to know them for a while it was clear that they really identified as FtoM transgender, but for social reasons couldn't deal with that. As a result they could be quite toxic, like trying to convince other people to change their gender just because they couldn't deal with their own gender and sexuality.
I've also met someone who later came out as MtoF transgender, but didn't seem to see themselves as female and really enjoyed sissification.
Not sure that there is a single stance that would have been helpful in all these cases, whilst simultaneously dealing with people who are looking for any excuse to invalidate transgender people.
As a cis het person, whenever I've interacted with anyone queer I've had to learn to avoid anything that could potentially infer that I could be indicating that I'm questioning my gender or sexuality, even if it's just due to my own absurdist humour and tendency to not state things in absolute terms. It's lead to some really awkward situations.
So here’s the thing missing from the OP: there’s pressure on every LGBT+ person to identify as something else. It’s weird but totally predictable! Some examples:
If you’re exclusively gay or lesbian, you get creepy comments like, “How do you know you don’t like men/women until you’ve tried
fucking meit?” Identifying as bi/pan seems tempting because hey, maybe you won’t hear that crap anymore.Bi/pan people get “pick a side” rhetoric, until they’re tempted to identify in a way that aligns with their current relationship.
Trans people obviously get tremendous pressure not to transition because “what if you regret it?/ think of the children!/ surgical risk”. Throwing up your arms in the air and saying, “Fine, I’m a non-conforming [birth sex]” starts feeling like the best option.
NB/gender non-conforming people get channelled to transition resources because frankly, a lot of people aren’t knowledgeable about this identity. “Sounds like you want to transition!” is a common reading of NB and gender-nonconforming issues, particularly by straight counsellors/social workers/doctors/etc.
But, unlike Ozy’s central claim, these aren’t exclusively intra-LGBT+ problems. They’re the natural result of living in a homophobic, cis-centric culture. Putting the onus on the LGBT+ community to stop recommending transition/presenting it as a choice ignores a bunch of extrinsic cultural factors that we simply don’t have the numbers to change.
Now where have we heard this revolutionary idea before.
literally a TERF talking point
Oh hey it’s standard TERF bullshit
I actually agree with this post. There is in fact a lot of pressure on gender nonconforming people to “just admit you’re trans” and it’s not actually the right choice for everyone and the way it’s pushed like a drug in certain queer spaces is really freaking unhealthy and gender essentialist.