And learning is better than shutting up.

Once again, piny, you’re the shit.

I probably have nothing productive to add here, other than I think that human sexuality is incredibly complicated, and any perspective is likely to be changed or shifted many times over in one’s life, that is, if one’s brain is fully switched on. Let’s face it, in a coercively heteronormative society such as our own, sometimes just getting through the day is a small victory.

And thanks to Piny for comment #11, which I think hits the nail on the head about my own ambivalence about gay sexual popular culture (Reading Faggots and Dancer from the Dance side by side will do that to a girl), which I attempted to build into my entry on Transamerica.

Transamerica, like ALL commercial and popular media, is flawed. Then again, I gave up on the quest for the perfect representation a while ago. My discussion of the film and the handsome transman who electrified my thinking in the fall was a modest attempt to begin to think through the Trans in LGBTQAI coalition building, and the conflicts and collaborations possible within the acronym, including the slide from sexuality to gender across the acronym (L to I) and the challenges of finding commonality without hegemony, as well as the relationship of these challenges to my own sexuality.

Also, while I personally like Transamerica (in spite of its many noted flaws), no movie will ever change the material conditions of our lives in toto. We have to do that difficult, crucial work ourselves, part of which is happening in this comment thread and on Feministe in general.

I will no longer comment on transgender/transexuality in this forum for three reasons. One, I am apparently oppressing people/adding to their oppression by my comments. This is not my intent at all. I realize that (at least in other ryan’s eyes) intent and a subsequent apology dont make my transgression/oppression any less horrid. If my ignorance is offensive, Id rather be silent.

Two, my comment did NOT mean “I plan to punish you with my ignorance.” Ive never known a transperson – piny is the only transperson Ive ever *known*. Since reading his first post, I have begun to read about the subject and watch several documentaries. Point of fact, Transamerica is on my Tivo it just hasnt come on yet. Im not gonna stop learning Im just gonna stop commenting on trans posts here because it’s obvious to me that I am offending people/being obtuse. I have a similar problem with infertile women and have learned the error of my ways when commenting on an infertile blog. I just have to keep reading until it becomes clear because Id rather not engage with someone if the very way I engage them hurts them or their feelings.

Third, and most important, I have come to see that I was wrong about several things just in this post but in the meantime I feel like I have been unfairly slammed over others. It’s hard for me to admit when Im wrong especially when I feel that A) I will be ganged up on by several commenters and B) that nothing I say will “count” if Im wrong about other things. So in the comments I found myself defending stuff I dont even agree with. Totally my sin and easily solved by SingTFU.

Short version: Im sorry, sorry, sorry and I will not comment again and Im sorry for furthering your oppression and anything else I may have done to offend you, including apologize.

Piny is damned explicit and clear – it’s not like she needed any clarification.

Thanks, ryan, but I go by male pronouns.

Seriously, if by sidetracking you are somehow claiming I derailed the thread – that was not my sin in this thread. I didnt sidetrack anyone’s conversation. And sidetracking a conversation somehow becomes oppression? Because obviously, ignoring me (if i DID sidetrack) is not an option.

Not that you’re likely paying attention anymore, but there’s a time to listen to what someone is saying – Piny & Stacy have a specific wisdom to share – and a time to listen. At least discuss the topic at hand on their terms following their train of thought. Instead you tried to steer the conversation to your own irrelevant aside.

When there is a gap between the ignorant and the wise, it’s most productive for the ignorant to take a step. It’s disrespectful to force someone into your rabbit hole of metaphor – you had no right to ask anyone to talk about their issues in your terms. Piny is damned explicit and clear – it’s not like she needed any clarification.

Trust me, the very last thing I will ever do again is comment in a trans-post or ever offer my opinion about anything to do with transsexual/transgender people in this forum.

You have absolutly taught me the error of my ways. I apologize for my comments and the harm and additional oppression they have caused everyone.

Thank you for providing the best argument of all for why these calls for civility and productive conversations are just so much disingenuous bullshit.

This is the subtext that you’ve so kindly made explicit: Be nice to me, or I won’t listen to things I know are true. If you upset me, I’ll walk away from the issue entirely, as is my privilege. I will punish you with ignorance if you don’t make me comfortable. That’s speaking power to truth.

I’ll remember this the next time someone insists that I should meet people where they are. Where’s your forbearance, Sweetness-and-Light?

Good riddance. To you and your hypocrisy.

You have absolutly taught me the error of my ways. I apologize for my comments and the harm and additional oppression they have caused everyone.

The problem that I have is that you ask questions like “Have you ever felt physically threatened [for being who you are]?” And then when someone responds Yes you say “It’s different.” How is THAT not “my pain/risk is worse than yours”. If you’re arguing violence is more pervasive against the trans-world in general, then say so.

The fuck? Yes. Yes it is. Of course it is. Should I answer Chet with the understanding that he’s seriously implying that being a gamer carries the same risk of violence as being a transsexual? Or would that insult his intelligence?

I didnt say that you shouldnt demand repsect. Or recieve it. Where I guess we differ is in our attitudes. I know meeting people where they are is not hip but Ive found that it’s the only way to start a conversation that goes anywhere productive.

Let’s roll tape, shall we?

You dont think it’s a little self-pitying to compare yourself to someone with a fatal, incurable sexually-transmitted disease.

That was your opening salvo. That was how carefully you read what I was saying. Don’t talk to me about “meeting people where they are.”

I never complain about having to “teach” feminism or pro-choice or anything to anyone else because if I refuse to teach someone then I dont think I have the right to complain that everyone else is mysognistic/anti-choice etc. And before you attack me, Im not saying that this is the “right” attitude, Im saying it’s mine.

You’re also saying that it should be mine, that that’s the only way to have productive discussions. This is criticism, which is fine, but don’t pretend otherwise.

If hypo-girl tells me her story about ear-piercing then I take it to mean “I dont understand THAT pain, but here’s the pain *I* carry, we are alike.” And I wouldnt presume to judge how horrible that experience was for her. If she took the “everyone has some trauma get over youself attitude” I would assume that she wasnt interested in talking, just in shutting me up. (Unless she was sharing the trauma in which case, see the first example.

And the latter is exactly what Chet was doing. Read his first comment.

Assuming you weren’t being snide about alienating me, you didn’t alienate me. Im just sincerely trying to understand. My reading of what Chet had to say (in his original posts) was exactly that – he was saying that he had similar experiences, that (he assumes) everyone does. Then Stacy told him that because Stacey was both a geek and transsexual could tell him for sure that being a transsexual was worse.

No, he said, “That would indeed be nice. You would, of course, be the first human being for whom that had ever happened.” That wasn’t an attempt at empathy. He was being a jerk.

Chet’s comment did a couple of things. First of all, he insisted that transsexuals do not face more difficulty dating–which covers a lot of stuff related to sex, romance, interpersonal interactions, passing, safety, anatomy, gender, and identity–than everyone else. That’s not true. No discussion about being a transsexual and dating as a transsexual can continue if that assertion is not dispatched with extreme prejudice.

Second, Chet went and confused what I was saying. Taking a single sentence completely out of context will tend to cause problems. He conflated the rejection–thanks-but-no-thanks–that everyone has to deal with with what I was clearly talking about just before: “It’d be nice to not be one big gordian knot of expectation, perception, and desire. It’d be nice not to have to symbolize the bleeding edge of controversy. It’d be nice not to freak anyone out.”

How could “it’d be nice to hit on some cute guy and know–not just hope, but know–that whatever he knows, whatever he sees, whatever he assumes, it won’t matter” be read as referring to anything other than being read as a transsexual and turned into a scrim onto which to project the Gender Mess? It’d be pretty difficult to miss that context completely, unless you were so wrapped up in yourself that you couldn’t see anyone else’s circumstances where they differed from your own.

That was where Chet was.

And what is wrong with Stacy saying that? Seriously, though? Stacy does have firsthand knowledge of both states, and, unlike Chet, can actually speak to both. How do you “educate” people about choice and feminism without arguing some similar disparities? How do you talk about either subject without saying that, in some ways, it really is worse to be a woman in a sexist society than a man? Or that it really is harder to be the one who gets pregnant than the one who simply can’t?

I wasnt saying you have to be diplomatic. I guess I was saying that you can choose to respond diplomatically or not, but Ive never witnessed an instance where telling someone to F-off helped forward the conversation or brought mutual understanding. Neither of which am I suggesting is YOUR job OR that you told anyone to F-off.

Well, just speaking from my experience, I don’t tend to have useful conversations with people who need to be handled that gently.