Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
WCDT: 2500-2504 (29 July- August 2, 2013) Weekly Comic Discussion Thread
Valdís:
--- Quote from: wiserd on 06 Aug 2013, 21:34 ---Every publicly recognizable choice has social significance.
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I didn't "choose" my gender. I am my gender.
What other people thought I was at the time means nothing. Telling them they were wrong in their presumption isn't me choosing another gender. Not any more than someone "chooses to become homosexual" when they come out of the closet. No, you just know something new about them that was already the case before they told you.
--- Quote from: wiserd on 06 Aug 2013, 21:34 ---Gender identity ( or lack thereof ) involves intrapersonal and interpersonal interactions. (i.e. internal thoughts + doing stuff with other people.) I could have found a better term, but I've really spent far too much time on forums today, and haven't been proofreading what I write. (Obviously?) I can polish writing till it shines, but not on the fly.
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Gender expression is not the same thing as the gender itself, nor are we at all "asserting that the sex of a person is important" (the exact opposite in most circumstances other than the brain-mapping). Being recognized as who you are is what's important. Categorizing people based on guesses about what stereotypes one perceives to apply to their gender is not. The latter is in conflict with the former.
--- Quote from: wiserd on 06 Aug 2013, 21:34 ---I'm going to assume that a lot of what you've written isn't a response to me, because it doesn't seem related to what I've written. If it's just explaining your situation or venting, that's cool. But I want to correct any misunderstandings.
/.../
I did not suggest trans-sexuality was something to be ashamed of. Can I assume you agree?
/.../
Can we at least agree that this isn't a response to anything I've written? I'm not sure if you're venting a feeling on something unrelated to my post (all good if so) or if you've completely misunderstood what I've said and I need to correct the misinterpretation.
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It wasn't all intended to be, no, even if a lot of it was meant to address specific things in your post. In some sections I was speaking in general regarding those systemic and often unknowingly internalized attitudes.
Hopefully it helps to clear some things about transgender folk up, though, prior to digging through the like 40 pages of our two Discuss threads.
--- Quote from: wiserd on 06 Aug 2013, 21:34 ---I simply noted that people payed a high price in one way or another for expressing trans-identities. That's an expensive signal indicating that something is very important to them. You seem to agree... I think...
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Yes, being who you are is important, especially when forced into being something you are not, and being who you are should not ever make people feel entitled to doubt that aspect of yourself in lieu of actual information from the person. I see no difference in what you're doing with May's personality traits to sniggering behind my back about whether I "really seem like a girl" or not. It isn't a game.
Masterpiece:
--- Quote from: Valdís on 06 Aug 2013, 15:22 ---Since when do you have an urgent need for a predictive model on whether some woman is "really a guy", then?
You are clearly just making excuses for cisnormative sexism. Statistical differences between particular genders are utterly irrelevant as to whether or not you're justified in that kind of shitty gender-policing behaviour. Having your preexisting biases "informed" by people's gender and that "because people in your group tend towards X, it is correct to assume you are also X". It is more or less identical to saying that because in the U.S. black people are disproportionately put in prison that you're therefore justified in treating all people of that group as criminals. That clearly isn't true.
Even if you believe that it's inevitable that women will statistically end up different in such ways, then that still doesn't at all account for the fact that 100% of female characters wouldn't be like May as things stand. This betrays that fundamental misunderstanding of statistics. If you really understood that then there's no reason for her to be out of place at all, even when thinking of women in such a way. But no, even when talking about "statistics" you none-the-less revert back to "None of the women I know".
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I've had a similar argument with two friends lately. They were very quick to categorize people, kinda like "they're German" or "they're gay" and attributing behaviors and mannerisms to such groups. It's easier to think that way, sure, but if you only see people as the category they fulfill, you'll never give them a chance of showing who they really are.
Is it cold in here?:
--- Quote from: Valdís on 06 Aug 2013, 23:46 ---I see no difference in what you're doing with May's personality traits to sniggering behind my back about whether I "really seem like a girl" or not. It isn't a game.
--- End quote ---
A key difference is that we actually know you're a woman because we've had an honest self-report from you. We haven't had a self-report from Dickmouth Stinkface. So we can only guess from the elements of DS's presentation that DS actually controls. That doesn't include the avatar.
Oh, wait, it's all hanging together now. They've finally figured out how to upload humans and Harriet was the first test subject. FSM help us when they vasten Yelling Bird.
Valdís:
It isn't an okay thing for strangers to do either, Cold.
wiserd:
--- Quote from: Valdís on 06 Aug 2013, 23:46 --- I see no difference in what you're doing with May's personality traits to sniggering behind my back about whether I "really seem like a girl" or not. It isn't a game.
--- End quote ---
The difference, first and foremost, is in the utter lack of sniggering. I am not pushing anyone down to push myself up. I am not affirming my identity by deriding an outgroup. I am not promoting normative values. I AM saying if someone (a fictional character in this case) violates social norms it's worthwhile to ask what those violations signify about them. Because that tends to be relevant information.
This still seems entirely functional to me.
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