Transgenderism.

Be honest, do you "get" transgenderism?

This should be one of my strong topics.

I've known both friends and lovers who were transgender, and can say its a rather delicate thing. But if they know you care, prodding for boundaries shouldn't be difficult at all. I think talking to them and sharing things with them - especially things that are gender-related - with them as if they were just their desired gender (within logic, of course) is a really good course of action. It's just another attribute of theirs, it's not something extraordinary - and if you love them take care to show what you can do to help change it.

I do not think it is a particularly difficult concept to grasp.

I do and I don't see where the difficulty is?? Like, someone who isn't comfortable with their physical gender and would rather be the opposite. Ask them, find out how they'd like to be treated, remember it and you are golden.

If by "get" you mean "can you believe some people feel like that like really omg", then I'm afraid there isn't much to "get" there- it's the same thing as when some boys are sexually attracted to other boys. You don't "get" it, you accept it's something that happens and they have all the right in the world to feel that way.

It's not hard to understand. I mean it's just someone who thinks that they are of the opposite sex. I personally don't have any friends that are transgender, but I do support people that do and I don't think there's anything wrong with them per se. They were born that way and didn't have a choice on the matter so who am I to be like "Oh there's something wrong with you!"

From my own perspective, no I don't get it, am happy being a guy and don't want to be a woman.

But from other peoples perspective I guess I can understand how people may feel they are the wrong gender, especially in our society which has such deeply enshrined and polarised ideas about how guys and girls should behave and what their interests should be.

What I don't get is (admittedly this will sound a bit cruel) trans people who seem far to much like their original gender, like when someone becomes a woman yet still has a really manly voice and manly mannerisms rather than acting really feminine (but dress as a woman) and I am thinking am more feminine than you and am a guy.

yeah

I don't see what's the big deal.

Gardevoir the Dragon Slayer said:

What I don't get is (admittedly this will sound a bit cruel) trans people who seem far to much like their original gender, like when someone becomes a woman yet still has a really manly voice and manly mannerisms rather than acting really feminine (but dress as a woman) and I am thinking am more feminine than you and am a guy.

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Don't deprecate yourself. One can only know by learning, we were all ignorant of this and then some at some point lol

Often times those who are transgender don't have the parental and/or financial support to obtain the medical care they need to transition before puberty sets in. It's a travesty that there are countries both with socialized medicine and with private enterprise that don't finance any treatment whatsoever for this disorder. I have the best medical insurance available (BlueCross BlueShield PPO, Federal) and am about to jump ship to Medicaid to pay for a hospitalization, and after poking around a bit some months ago with their call numbers I learned that neither of them have any coverage for gender reassignment surgery. However, Medicare apparently funds it but it was my understanding Medicare is for the elderly (don't they have a hard time with surgery anyway?) while Medicaid is for those who are particularly disabled. While I have read news that Obamacare is now able to support it, I can't find anything on Medicaid coverage and BlueCross BlueShield bluntly denies it.

As you can see here the only viable solution is for someone to amass the money to pay for it themselves. Few people can do that on their own. Imagine how much stress and pain that adds, eh? They're lucky if they can get together to get reassigned.

It just reminds me of how I was supposed to fix all of that, and make money to fix it.....

I find a lot of nonbinary concepts and politics go over my head but I like to think I understand the basics.

what's there to "get".

I try to. I like to think of myself as open-minded, and I do my best to be supportive if I find out a friend is transgender, but I have to admit a lot of the time I realize I really don't understand it. I have to look up the definition of transgender, transexual, intersex, and so on all the time because I'm constantly mixing up my terminology and that in itself is a pretty clear indicator to me that it never actually sinks in.

I think I understand everything when it comes to the binary genders, but I have to admit I don't really understand agender/genderfluid and especially like... tumblr-style gender, I want to say? (Because Tumblr is the only place I see it. :s) Like people who make up their own pronouns because they don't want to use "her" or "him". And I don't mean people who want a singular "they" or a gender-neutral pronoun like "xe/xer/xis"... like I have a friend whose preferred pronoun is "fey/feys/feyself" (I think?) and that I really don't get. I had no problem making fun of that kind of thing until I found out I was actually friends with someone who prefers it. Now I really don't know what to think about it because I respect them... but like that is so, so far from a personal experience that I can wrap my head around that I just don't see myself ever going further than adopting a gender-neutral pronoun. It sounds so ridiculous to me and personally I feel going that far probably sets the whole movement back since most of society still doesn't even understand the basics, but at the same time, I fret about whether I'm just not going far enough to understand... ._.

It's just a complicated topic all-around and as a result I just sort of try to avoid it tbh. As a cissexual, my opinion's pretty invalid in all of this anyway, I guess.

living in a country where transgenders are widely known and accepted, yeah

I...guess? Even if I can't really understand, empathise or sympathise with transgendered people, having never felt that way myself - I see gender as more or less irrelevant - I can respect their feelings. It's fine, there isn't anything wrong with it, etc. I've never really thought much of it; it's just something to accept that others might have issues with and leave it at that. It isn't really for me to question how others perceive themselves, so I don't. I dunno. Weird question.

Yes. It's essentially a mental disorder whereby one has the 'brain chemistry' of the opposite sex, or which doesn't correlate to either sex. To appreciate that, one may need to first understand that normal men and women are genetically predisposed to prefer things beffiting their sexes, even in the absence of any cultural reinforcement (ie. culture is the result of how we are, not vice versa). If the physical sex and imprinted gender don't match up, then there you go, that's a transgender person.

I'm fairly sure this is an adequate summary but I'd welcome any corrections.

Cassino said:

Yes. It's essentially a mental disorder whereby one has the 'brain chemistry' of the opposite sex, or which doesn't correlate to either sex. To appreciate that, one may need to first understand that normal men and women are genetically predisposed to prefer things beffiting their sexes, even in the absence of any cultural reinforcement (ie. culture is the result of how we are, not vice versa). If the physical sex and imprinted gender don't match up, then there you go, that's a transgender person.

I'm fairly sure this is an adequate summary but I'd welcome any corrections.

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The DSM lists it as a condition, so inherently, it's classified as a mental disorder, but people are starting to move away from the whole "disorder" thing, as evidenced by them changing the formal diagnosis from gender identity disorder to gender dysphoria.

Also, I mean it doesn't bother me much, but I know referring to cissexual people as "normal" is a little bit ehh. I can understand giving labels to everyone isn't entirely necessary, but from the whole "disorder" thing to being "different", some people take that to heart (due purely to the stigmas, not that these are inherently bad things).

Being a gay person, you sort of get the "cry-wolf" stigma. Thus, the common narrative that being gay is made-up, a fable, and used as some way of getting leverage or attention to break down the infrastructure of traditional values. (The stupid part is that by rejecting gays, it cause gays and straight allies to reject traditions)

With trans people, I assume that no one would go through the harassment and judgement of being transgender without there being a legitimate reason (gender dysmorphia).

The Dark Avenger said:

Being a gay person, you sort of get the "cry-wolf" stigma. Thus, the common narrative that being gay is made-up, a fable, and used as some way of getting leverage or attention to break down the infrastructure of traditional values. (The stupid part is that by rejecting gays, it cause gays and straight allies to reject traditions)

With trans people, I assume that no one would go through the harassment and judgement of being transgender without there being a legitimate reason (gender dysmorphia).

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The oppression towards these people is really limited to cunts and assholes nowadays, at least in the US. Only people who are either especially stupid or enjoy hurting others exhibit any of these talks in my opinion. And that's a minority of people.

I think it is a mental disorder, and one that can be remedied. No one said disorders are incurable. There's a mix of the right things you can do socially, emotionally, and in your actions to give them hope and reason to continue on. What I did was lay down my life and career in pursuit of fixing their problems, but it doesn't have to be so extreme (I am). Being empathetic is helpful.

Flushed said:

The DSM lists it as a condition, so inherently, it's classified as a mental disorder, but people are starting to move away from the whole "disorder" thing, as evidenced by them changing the formal diagnosis from gender identity disorder to gender dysphoria.

Also, I mean it doesn't bother me much, but I know referring to cissexual people as "normal" is a little bit ehh. I can understand giving labels to everyone isn't entirely necessary, but from the whole "disorder" thing to being "different", some people take that to heart (due purely to the stigmas, not that these are inherently bad things).

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I understand. Medical terminology is constantly going through a euphemism treadmill; I can't very well remember what's current, so thanks for saying.

I tend to use 'normal' to refer simply to what is statistically most common. I consider any further connotations unfortunate and wish any reader of my post the discretion to look past them.

Yeah, I didn't really used to get it, like, at all. Like, to the point of dismissing it as a thing that existed, kind of didn't get it. It just really did not make sense to me. Yeah, I used to be kinda intolerant and ignorant. I'm sorry ;-;

But then last year, it kinda...clicked (? What's the right phrase here?) that I myself was transgender, and things kinda suddenly made a lot more sense. So being transgender myself, I damn well hope I get it. I blame growing up around literally nothing but women. That was a joke.

There's a bit more I want to say about it kinda, but I'm not sure this thread is the place for it so yeah that's my side here peace out