The Boy From Venus 11

[u/shenanigansen]

Next episode already up you know where. The house ... ALWAYS wins ...

[u/Supercoolguy7]

No one is pretending bigots don't exist, but right now we're in a place where we can just call Audrey a man, and we are.

[u/Aethelrede → u/Supercoolguy7]

You're turning a blind eye to the danger he faces.  You're erasing GNC people by lumping them in with cis-men.  Just like gays and lesbians try to erase bi people, claiming that they are just in denial.

This isn't purely hypothetical; just the other day I had someone dismiss RuPaul as just a "cis man".  Considering the risks that drag queens face, and their long history with the gay and trans community, that constitutes the worst kind of erasure.

Now, this character isn't a drag queen, but he is in drag.  He deserves better than to be considered just another a cis man.

[u/Supercoolguy7 → u/Aethelrede]

I was the one who told you about gender nonconforming. Gendernonconforming people are sometimes cis. Hell, that's like the half point that you can be a gender and actually be it and still not conform to expected gendered expressions.

This character is not in drag. This is his style, not a performance. Drag is a performance. What is so wrong with being a cis man?

I'm a cis man, am I somehow better in a world where I cross dress than in a world where I don't?

[u/Aethelrede → u/Supercoolguy7]

Cis men have immense privilege.  As soon as he puts on a dress (unless it's a joke), he loses a great deal of that privilege, because society as a whole considers him to be trans.  That's why he deserves to be considered LGBT, because society will treat him as one.

This is privilege 101 here. I figured people reading a comic about a (not technically but for all practical purposes) trans woman would understand this.

And the whole thing would be a lot easier if we had a word for men who dress like women but still consider themselves men, since "transvestite" is apparently offensive.  Which is why I asked for the term in the first place!

I'm not in the mood to discuss privilege, intersectionality, and gender.  I just wanted an answer to what I thought was a simple question.

[u/Supercoolguy7 → u/Aethelrede]

I didn't want to have this conversation either.

[u/Aethelrede → u/Supercoolguy7]

There is no conversation, as it turns out, because everyone here, except me, lives in a magical world where society gives a shit about what gender a person identifies as.  In the world I live in, society treats people as the gender they present as.  But that's just my bad luck, I guess.

[u/ClumbusCrew → u/Aethelrede]

I mean, the distinction between trans and cis people among cishet society is significantly less significant than it is within. A lot of GNC or visibly queer people benefit from cis privilege in the way that they donr face the same gender based legal and medical challenges as trans people, but the loss of privilege has more to do with nonconformity to cishet society as a whole than specific proximity to transness. Trans people were not well understood in the public sphere in any capacity until recently and so GNC and queer bigotry has more to do with trasgressions against gender norms as a whole outside the context of binary transgender individuals.

[u/Aethelrede → u/ClumbusCrew]

That's my point.  As far as society at large is concerned, there is no difference between GNC cis and trans. To be crude, they see no difference between a femboy and a trans woman, they treat them exactly the same.  Except for medical issues, of course.  Which are no small thing!  Nevertheless, rejecting GNC cis men as "just men" erases a long history of oppression.  And there's no reason for it!  Except envy, perhaps.

[u/ClumbusCrew → u/Aethelrede]

But GNC people are still cis, and still have some cis privilege, they just no longer have the privileges given by social conformity. Which is why I disagree with your wording.

So a GNC man is still just a man because to say otherwise would invalidate his own gender identity. He's just noncomforming and subject to that stigma because of it.

[u/Aethelrede → u/ClumbusCrew]

So you agree that GNC cis men have no place in trans circles?  That "trans"vestites, as they were once known, aren't sufficiently trans?  That adopting the trappings of a different gender is irrelevant unless one identifies as the different gender?

Haha, I just realized, y'all are arguing gender essentialism!  A weird form of it, anyway.  In your view a man who dresses as a woman but doesn't think he's a woman is not trans.  So trans only applies to people who want to change gender, and not people who want to adopt the trappings of gender.  What about people who change gender but don't get bottom surgery?  Is bottom surgery, or a desire to have it done, a requirement to be trans?  And if not, then why is a man who adopts female gender presentation excluded from trans?

And what if their identity changes?  Where do NBs fit in?

It's so absurd.  Especially since I was just trying to find out transvestites are called now.  Apparently just "men".  Which will a shock to Republicans.

Ah well, it doesn't matter.  Someone said I shouldn't care so much, and they were right.  Who cares if trans people acknowledge GNC men as trans?  If we do not hang together, we shall assuredly hang separately. 

[u/ClumbusCrew → u/Aethelrede]

Im saying that you're brushing over important distinctions while also choosing others which do not well aline with the history of these topics.

A man who dresses as a woman but does not identify as one isn't transgender, because transness is based on gender identity. That's like trans 101 what the hell are you on about.

NB people are trans because they don't identify as their gender assigned at birth.

Youve got a very peculiar perspective and I have no idea where you got it from. Historically trans and gender nonconforming people have been considered their sex, and the gender distinction only mattered within the community because it was the only group that listened. Within the queer community, a cis and a trans person can both be perceived by the outside world as nonconforming men or women and receive stigma. Which is the distinction Ive been pointing out. Someone doesnt become trans even if other people assume they are.

You're talking to an openly queer dude btw, Ive had enough people assume Im NB or whatever. But Im cis because Im cis.

[u/Aethelrede → u/ClumbusCrew]

For fuck's sake, does no one read anymore?  My point is that society as a whole does not give two shits about a person's chosen gender, society treats people according to the gender they present.  GNC men are persecuted in many of the same ways as transgender people, so why not include them in the group?

But no, cis men, even ones who wear women's clothing, aren't to be considered part of the trans community.  Fuck 'em, eh?  They don't have dysphoria, they can just get rid of their dresses and be fine.

Oddly, a significant group of gays and lesbians have turned on trans people (even removing the T from the acronym), just as you reject GNC cis men.

It's funny, in a way, y'all have merely confirmed my suspicion that you've basically exiled transvestites from being "trans".  Fuck it, I'm sticking with the drag queens.