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 Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2015 7:01 pm
When we're born, people often associate on what we're meant to be. Boys are meant to be rough and tumble while girls are supposed to be full of rubies and tiaras.
However, when we realize that we wish to transition, people expect us to follow another stereotype that they want. Trans men are supposed to be macho, masculine and full of machismo. Trans women are to be dainty damsels.
That can't be further from the truth. So as we dive into this discussion, let us talk of how society and stereotypes has either helped or hinder our own selves as well as the trans community.
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Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 8:38 am
This is a really good topic!
I very much hate that, while most cisgender men and woman can be whoever they want to be and act however they want to act, trans* people like myself and everyone else in the guild, especially those that are transgender, are held to such an unfair double standard. Even complete strangers may feel the need to question your motives after they find out who you are, especially if they were born with the gender you're transitioning to. It's like getting interviewed before being allowed into the all-boys club or all-girls club.
The logic behind this is, of course, on the same level as that of medieval witch trials. We were raised by our parents on the assumption that we were a certain gender before we allowed to explore any other. Pink toys, Barbies and lace for the girls; Tonka trucks, GI Joes and toy guns for the boys. Baby girls are supposed to wear lace, dress in bright colors, and play with their hair, while baby boys are supposed to wear denim, dig tunnels and play in the mud. Even worse, society is well aware of these stereotypes and uses them to confuse us and themselves even more. "You only think you're a boy because you don't like the color pink." "You're not a girl, you're just really fashion-oriented."
Add this onto the common assumption that gay men go out of their way to be feminine and that all lesbians want to be butch and you've got a right bloody mess.
Has anyone come across a person who... Well, it's hard to describe, so I'll just cite a line of their dialogue. "I won't call that transgender person a 'she' until he has monthly periods, bears children and goes through menopause. To call him a female would be to belittle what the rest of us females have to go through and are capable of." It's a sort of weird badge-of-honor type thing in which transgender people are basically the infiltrator of some sacred, special clubhouse, and the act of letting a transgender person into said clubhouse would be to belittle everything that supposedly makes a woman a woman and a man a man.
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TheCreatureOfHabit Vice Captain
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Posted: Sat Apr 11, 2015 12:30 am
Usually this comes up with the way I'm build; I'm not tall and muscular.
And yeah, I'm having hard time accepting that since I would like to be taller, but the truth is men (since I'm specifically FtM) come in all shape and size, so I shouldn't really let that get under my skin.
I think it is unfair to kind of expect another person (say, a transperson) to match someone else's idea of masculinity or femininity, specially since there's the double standard that they kind of don't expect the same from a cisgender person. Only trans folk. Or maybe these are the kind of people that are so self centered that they demand everything to go the way they view it. *shrug*
I'm glad that for one thing my parents never talked about girls' / boys' toys, colours and such, even tho I remember my mother correcting my behaviour as a kid with arguments such as "girls don't do that".
One of the annoying comments someone (FtM too) shared they have gotten is "so if you like men, why would you transition?" because they hold on to this stereotypical view that if you identify as male, you have to like girls, be good with cars, love sports blah blah blah...
In Finland there's pretty much a "gatekeeper" system with the trans clinics and some people face these stereotypes from people who are interviewing them. I was kind of scared they would bring up me trying to grow my hair long again, or that I like anime and manga (stereotypically some think it's a girl thing), hobbies like drawing and cosplay...
Lucky me again, they didn't question it at all and that's good, since all those things are a big part of who I am.
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