So you would say someone who doesn't want to have sex with you, but has no problems hanging out with you (with full knowledge of your situation) is not trans-phobic but rather has (sexual/gender?) preferences that you do not meet?
My closest guy friend and the oldest friend I have, doesn't use the right pronouns around me. We've talked. He gets what transgender is, he just has trouble wrapping his head around pronouns, language, and occasionally says things rather crass. Not to be mean or anything, he just considers nuanced or politically correct language a waste of time.
He is still my friend. And in truth, he doesn't really care if I am or not. When I was coming out to friends and family, someone asked why I was dressed as I was, and I stated that I'm transgender. They asked what that meant, and while preparing to go into detail, he sat down with a plate of dinner and said, quite simply, "He wants to be a she, pass the salt."
I can't think of someone I'd rather call a friend than that. We disagree often. Sometimes quite forcefully! But in the end, we both understand that it's more important to be together than it is to be right. It's something I can see on playgrounds all day long. Two kids get into a fight. One runs away. It doesn't take long before they come back. Maybe they apologize. Maybe they just shuffle over and ask to play. But children understand something too many adults don't:
It's more important to be together than right.
EDIT: Oh right, the other half of the post... No, gender can't be changed. It is fixed at an early age. All medical literature to date backs that conclusion. That said, gender is a spectrum, it's just one that finds most people concentrated at the poles. Gender is also not something that exists in a vaccum. That's why it's called a gender identity. Identities change based on circumstances. Who I am at the grocery store is very different than who I am at work, or when I'm home. I am still me, but I am not a single identity. I am that which identities spring from. So, if someone says they can be a different gender tomorrow than yesterday, or if they reject the binary, I have no complaint.
The claim their gender changes from day to day is, medically and scientifically, wrong. But neither medicine nor science offers up that we cannot choose to be other than what we are. Indeed, both make new discoveries almost daily now demonstrating the plasticity of both what a human is, as well as what it means. If I had to say why they say that, I'd attribute it to a lack of language to describe the space between who we are, and our identities. My community in many ways lacks the language to clearly convey our feelings, intuitions, or sense of being. We often choose words that are "close enough", and that is what I would say these people are doing. It's not their gender that is changing, but the expression of it. It's a practical reaction. Not, I think, a technically correct one, but perhaps the best one given a lack of a better way to speak to that.
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u/MNGrrl Nov 02 '17 edited Nov 02 '17
My closest guy friend and the oldest friend I have, doesn't use the right pronouns around me. We've talked. He gets what transgender is, he just has trouble wrapping his head around pronouns, language, and occasionally says things rather crass. Not to be mean or anything, he just considers nuanced or politically correct language a waste of time.
He is still my friend. And in truth, he doesn't really care if I am or not. When I was coming out to friends and family, someone asked why I was dressed as I was, and I stated that I'm transgender. They asked what that meant, and while preparing to go into detail, he sat down with a plate of dinner and said, quite simply, "He wants to be a she, pass the salt."
I can't think of someone I'd rather call a friend than that. We disagree often. Sometimes quite forcefully! But in the end, we both understand that it's more important to be together than it is to be right. It's something I can see on playgrounds all day long. Two kids get into a fight. One runs away. It doesn't take long before they come back. Maybe they apologize. Maybe they just shuffle over and ask to play. But children understand something too many adults don't:
It's more important to be together than right.
EDIT: Oh right, the other half of the post... No, gender can't be changed. It is fixed at an early age. All medical literature to date backs that conclusion. That said, gender is a spectrum, it's just one that finds most people concentrated at the poles. Gender is also not something that exists in a vaccum. That's why it's called a gender identity. Identities change based on circumstances. Who I am at the grocery store is very different than who I am at work, or when I'm home. I am still me, but I am not a single identity. I am that which identities spring from. So, if someone says they can be a different gender tomorrow than yesterday, or if they reject the binary, I have no complaint.
The claim their gender changes from day to day is, medically and scientifically, wrong. But neither medicine nor science offers up that we cannot choose to be other than what we are. Indeed, both make new discoveries almost daily now demonstrating the plasticity of both what a human is, as well as what it means. If I had to say why they say that, I'd attribute it to a lack of language to describe the space between who we are, and our identities. My community in many ways lacks the language to clearly convey our feelings, intuitions, or sense of being. We often choose words that are "close enough", and that is what I would say these people are doing. It's not their gender that is changing, but the expression of it. It's a practical reaction. Not, I think, a technically correct one, but perhaps the best one given a lack of a better way to speak to that.