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WCDT: 2323-2327 (19-23 November 2012) Weekly Comic Discussion Thread

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TheCommodore:
Another new poster here. Like a lot of other people, I've been reading QC for years, I popped over to the forums to see what the reaction was - and I have to admit to being disappointed. Not surprised, but disappointed. I don't have much to add to the discussion, but it's worth the minute-long registration process, I guess.

I really wish more peoples' reaction to this was the same as Marten's - "oh, okay. cool," followed by promptly moving on to things that are relevant. I mean, obviously, Claire's history is relevant to understanding who she is, and Marten should be flattered that she trusts him enough to share that with him, but it doesn't change who she is now any more than it would, say, make her less American now if she'd been born in France. If she identifies as female, her gender is female. It's that simple, and whether it's rude or not (it is, to a lot of people), it's pointless to worry about her genitalia or her sex (as distinct from gender) or anything of the sort until and unless it becomes relevant. I was really proud of Jeph for making Marten's reaction so awesome (especially since it jives so well with everything we've seen of Marten to date), and I hoped the readership would follow suit a little better. Comments like "this is just Jeph throwing in shit to appeal to his liberal readership" are bad enough, but the stuff about whether this will mean Marten isn't interested because "[he's] not into that"? Claire's a lady. It's clearly that simple to Marten, even though he just as clearly understands that it isn't that simple for Claire and that that can suck for her. That kind of simple, you-are-what-you-are acceptance, in my experience and opinion, is the best possible way to react - or, to paraphrase someone cleverer than I, "all declarations of identity should be responded to in identical fashion - 'that's great! cake?'"

Oh, and as a poly dude, it seems inexcusable to me to equate the kind of shit you take for being polyamorous with the kind of shit you take for being trans. Yeah, society's reaction to me isn't as awesome as I'd like, but as little as some people like it that I don't fit in the monogamy box, it pales behind the reaction you can see when people have the temerity to refuse to fit in their assigned gender box. I'd do some archaeology and find whatever forum threads were around when Tai came out to Marten as poly to see if they supported my theory, but, well, I'm lazy, and besides, the internet can turn anything into a big deal.

Jesus, that was longer than I thought. tl;dr - doesn't matter, have gender.
"Warning - while you were typing 11 new replies have been posted. You may wish to review your post."

snubnose:

--- Quote from: Renewman on 19 Nov 2012, 05:00 ---Claire is transgender? Really? I thought Jeph was jumping the shark with having Dora and Tai start going out but now he is just randomly throwing things in here just for no reason. [...]

--- End quote ---
Err, what ? Why "no reason" ? Its pretty obvious now why she's so much like her brother. I thought the whole thing was arranged in a pretty nifty way.

pwhodges:

--- Quote from: TheCommodore on 19 Nov 2012, 06:17 ---I really wish more peoples' reaction to this was the same as Marten's - "oh, okay. cool,"
--- End quote ---

Overwhelmingly, it was.


--- Quote ---followed by promptly moving on to things that are relevant.
--- End quote ---

This forum exists to discuss the comic and issues that arise from it.  In this case the issue has largely been one of terminology within the discussion itself.  This may be unfortunate, but I have seen the same thing happen again and again in discussions of this subject area in this forum and in others.  Until society as a whole has fully come to terms with all the variety in gender and sexuality this seems inevitable, so we just have to try to lead the way in sympathetic understanding and clear thinking.

jwhouk:
By the way, Karilyn? Upon closer examination of Claire's profile in a few of those early strips, she does have "lips". Jeph just wasn't drawing them when we were looking at her head-on.


EDIT: Oh, and anyone who's getting all worked up over this, please refer to this comic: 2217: A Multitude of Options

marsman57:
Odd, my take away on the impact of the Claire/Clinton relationship is different than most in this topic have presented. I think that rather than showing that Clinton is not accepting of her like some have suggested, that this knowledge lets us see that he actually really does love her deeply and their bickering is just normal sibling problems.

The reason I say this is because I believe if he truly was as unaccepting or hateful toward her as some have suggested that he would have outed her long ago.

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