California is just Fucked-Up

[Ninurta]

I don't lay any great claim to understanding transgenderism

Let me help you with that. ...

... I feel compelled to thrown in my 2¢ with the hope I can help others be more informed and educated about this subject.

I'm always open to education. The only thing that stops learning is death, and that will come too soon for us all. Until then, I learn.

Language is a funny thing. it means something until it doesn't. I was taught many moons ago that the only purpose of language is communication, and when it no longer communicates, it no longer has a purpose. My objection is in redefinition of already existent words. Words mean something until they don't, and when they cease meaning that thing, communication no longer happens, and in that event, those words become useless, meaningless. They have left the language. If folks want to communicate a new concept, make new words - don't co-opt and redefine existing words. That just confuses folks, and I suspect that is the objective of redefinition.

I will, however, accept that "transgenderism" is no really an "ism", except to the extent that it is pushed by activists. From my perspective, you are either male or female, not "trans" anything. Trans implies a crossing of boundaries, and once you've declared a major, then there are no more boundaries. You are what you are, and that goes for all of us. Your "major" is not so much declared as it is what it is. Folks are what they are.

So, from my perspective, there is no such thing as "transgender" or "transgenderism" either one.  There are no boundaries crossed, folks just are what they are.

Any trans folks who may read this, please be gentle with my use of language. I'm an old guy, and can't keep up with Newspeak changes to the common English I learned as a kid. To me, "gender" means whether you are male or female, and "sex" means the thing you do to cause more folks to be born, regardless of gender, just as it did back when English was still English, before Newspeak.

To me, one of the true signs of being old is when one is unwilling to or simply stops learning new things or in other words, closed-mindedness. Knowledge and understanding as well as language evolves and is not static and turning off your brain because you’ve reached a certain age is just a cop out.

Guilty as charged. Words have meaning, and I'm too old to redefine them. I'll leave that for younger folks to wrassle with. It's their language now, not longer mine. To be honest, I don't care to talk with many of them anyhow, Most of them seem to be not entirely sane to me, and I don't want to catch it - catch the insanity, that is.

The distinction between sex and gender has been scientifically studied and written about for over 100 years. Sexologist John Money introduced the terminological distinction between biological sex and gender as a role in 1955, the year I was born. Try this Wiki for a more in-depth look at this or if you will, consider that sex is male or female and gender is boy/girl/man/woman.

Oh, no doubt. It's been scientifically studied near to death, and still no real consensus. That's what happens when academics get politically active and attempt to redefine words to have brand new meanings. Language naturally evolves among the people speaking it. Artificial redefinition never really works out well. That may be what Orwell was getting at, or trying to get at.

Try as I might, I cannot grasp the concept that "sex" is male or female. "Sex" is in and out, generally repeatedly if you're doing it right. Gender is male or female. Boy/girl/man/woman are all related in one way or another to male and female. "Boys/men", for example, are "male". it has nothing to do with genitalia, as I will get to shortly. It has to do with who one IS.

Do you really think that DNA/chromosomes make a single bit of difference to me? This primary school understanding of genetics is notoriously unreliable anyway. Do you also think that when they dig my bones up 100 years from now I’ll really give a damn what they may find out?

Now here is where I get into genitalia. Not literally, of course. About 150 years ago, a branch of my family produced two sisters who may have been brothers. No one can say for sure now, but they led a hell of a confusing life. They were presumably assigned "female" at birth, because they had feminine birth names. One fine day, they were plowing the fields in dresses, while sporting beards, and the sheriff was sent 'round to give them a talking to. This was 150 years ago, so of course they ran for their lives. Literally. Thereafter, they took up male names and male habits in another area where the circumstances of their births were not known, and both married women in time. One "had children", which I suspect were more along the lines of adoptees, or something similar - as "similar" as one could perhaps get 150 years ago. I have no doubt the kids' mother was biological, but I do harbor some doubt the father was really biological.

So, given the female birth names, and the male lives in later years, the general consensus is that they were what is now called "intersexed". Doesn't matter to me - they declared their major, and stuck to it. Funky genes run through that branch of the family tree, which is why I know about the genetics of the matter.

Both of them died as men. they never wavered, despite whatever plumbing they may have had, which I think may have been confusing at best, given the history.

The important thing, to me, is that they declared their major, and stuck with it. They knew who they were, and made it work for them in an era when surgical alteration was not an option. It's how they lived, it's how they died, and it is who they were. As you mentioned previously, there was no "ism" to it.

Regardless of popular opinion, folks like me are not delusional about biology, that’s what makes us trans and I am fully aware of the ways my body is different from natal females. Genetically, as far as I know at least because I’ve never been tested, I am and as you said always will be male but morphologically with the exception of having no uterus, ovaries and a vestigial  atrophied prostate gland, I am female, outwardly, hormonally and socially and what matters to me is if I’m in a traffic accident and taken to the hospital or when I crawl into bed to have sex with someone that is what I’m seen as.

How I was born is irrelevant to my everyday life. I’ve never lived as or been seen as a man and to suggest that I was one because of invisible chromosomes would be considered ludicrous if you knew me.

So, you have declared your major. I have no issues with that. You are who you are. Biology is one thing, mentality another, and the two do not always coincide. What is important is that you know who you are, and have taken steps to make your physiology agree with your mentality. What is, is, and what was is not as imperative, because it is gone. The past is past, and all we have is the present. In the present, you are who you are. I might be persuaded to be offended if you were to go all activist on us, but I suspect that is a thing that won't happen. Only insecure people are activist. You seem pretty secure to me. Insecure people offend me.

I understand your defensiveness upon occasion. That does not equate, however, to the activism borne of insecurity. I would imagine you have put up with some shit in your day. That it has not made you insecure is nothing but a credit to you. Strength of character, regardless of the gender of that character, is a thing to be admired.

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