Friday 10 June 2011

Why I Blog

A snippet from Reddit
Willblaze wrote:
So Im suppose to be some mystical mind reader? I dont know shit about any of this stuff, Im just an average hetero guy that has no run-ins with any trannsexuals. I never said it was anyones responsibility to teach me anything, I stated I didnt fucking know, and Im a human and make mistakes just like anyone else. Reread my comment and stop being such a fucking child. It has nothing to do with being sheltered, how the fuck do you know what type of surroundings I've grown up in. I live in the south of USA, so I NEVER see people like this.
ZoeBrain wrote:
Um.. I think you probably do - you just don't realise it.



BTW Congrats on admitting you don't know. That shows intelligence and intellectual honesty, and mere lack of knowledge is easily fixed.

OK, I better back up my statement of "you probably do" with some evidence. I know plenty of trans women in the South. Texas, Alabama, Georgia, North and South Carolina... but that doesn't help much.

To see what Trans women actually look like, some pretty, some pretty dreadful, have a look at these URLs.

http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TSsuccesses/TSgallery1.html
http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TSsuccesses/TSgallery2.html
http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TSsuccesses/TSgallery3.html
http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TSsuccesses/TSgallery4.html

There are Trans men too. Quite a few.

http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TSsuccesses/TransMen.html

OK, now just to expand your horizons a bit... in addition to Trans people, there are some who change sex naturally. In some parts of the world, the mutations that cause that are more common than the CCR1 mutation that causes red hair.

See http://www.usrf.org/news/010308-guevedoces.html

Most such changes are FtoM. Some (not due to 5ARD or 17BHDD but 3BHDD or rarer conditions) are MtoF.

Here's one such woman. No cosmetic surgery. She used to look male.

Now she's not the prettiest - she was 52 when that shot was taken. But I don't think it would have occurred to you that her change from looking male was just 5 years earlier, would it?
WillBlaze wrote:
bannana should take tips from people like you. Thank you for being a mature adult about the situation and also going out of your way to educate me. Im not proud of how I looked and I felt like an asshole about the things I said after they were pointed out to me how it was offensive. I wish I could give you many upvotes. The links really show me how I could see someone and have no idea at all. And the trans-men part? Wow, just wow. If I was talking to one of them at a bar I would have no idea at all, unless maybe the voice gives them away? Another subject I dont know very well... but if I just saw them at a bar I would think "thats a man" without a second thought on the matter.

Again, thank you for helping me understand this whole thing. Its a world I never have had any experience in. So instead of hurling childish insults at me and have the problem unresolved if not worsened, you resolve the problem and educate.
Music to my ears.

5 comments:

Eric TF Bat said...

That reminded me of the best line from Warren Ellis's Planetary: "It's a strange world." "Let's keep it that way." There, as here, you have people whose life goal is to save the world - not through fighting, although they can do that when they have to, but by finding and cherishing the strangeness of life and reality, and protecting it both from exploitation and homogenisation.

It is a strange world, in a good way. And you're working to keep it so, for which you're one of my heroes.

Unknown said...

Bravo!
You deserve a victory every once and awhile.

))hugz((

Glenn Ingersoll said...

Good work.

Anonymous said...

Hi Zoe,

Well done for educating him. My only comment is the usage of the term "trans".

As defined by Professor "Transman" Whittle it means "transvestite, transsexual, transgender" which conflates very different situations with each other.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nR-FR_sD_mo

We do not belong in a community with people like Michael Haslam, gender psychiatrist, tranvestite and rapist.

http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/1254845.disgraced_consultant_haslam_admits_he_used_to_enjoy_dressing_as_a_woman/

I am a woman not a transperson!

Kate Middleton

Anonymous said...

That link again:

http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/1254845.disgraced_consultant_haslam_admits_he_used_to_enjoy_dressing_as_a_woman/