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Here you can read posts our members want to share about their own gender
experiences.
Greetings and Musings on Gender Labels |
"When you meet a human being, the first distinction you make is "male
or female?" and you are accustomed to make the distinction with
unhesitating certainty."
Sigmund Freud, "Femininity"
"That's not an 'or' question."
as compiled by B.C. Holmes |
B.C. Holmes also has a brilliant analysis, at http://www.interlog.com/~bcholmes/tglabels.html, of the way others try to convince us that we're just confused - the "why can't you just LIVE as a [whatever] and THINK of yourself as [whatever you really are] and save the rest of us all this pain?!" syndrome. I'll excerpt it here, but you should go read it! Holmes writes,
"Let me try to use an analogy: suppose a particular menu specifies that a hamburger comes with a choice of french fries or salad. Now imagine a conversation something like this: PATRON: I'll have the hamburger with french fries, please. SERVER: I'll bring you salad, instead. It costs the same. PATRON: I'd rather have the fries. SERVER: The salad costs the same. It's not going to change your bill. PATRON: I don't want the salad. Bring me the fries. SERVER: The salad is healthier for you. To me, this conversation is silly. And yet, I think a big part of the inability to communicate a transgender perspective involves the inability to say, "we prefer french fries; they make us happy." The problem with abstract concepts like happiness is that people don't think in the abstract very well."This exactly describes our situation; even some transsexuals have difficulty understanding what it means to be bigendered or ungendered or otherwise transgendered-but-not-transsexual. Some of my close friends and family still insist that I should pretend that it's french fries because it's healthier for me, even though the salad offered is covered in pesticides and I'm allergic to the dressing they use. In fact, I'd rather not have the hamburger at all, if it's going to do this much harm to my body. (Over-extended metaphors are fun!)
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