• 2 Posts
  • 102 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 22nd, 2023

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  • I think that, if this question is in good faith, this might be the right time for you to tell us what you think the process is for transitioning. What the steps are, how long you’re legally required to wait between steps, what paperwork and doctor’s visits are required for which step, which step is a “point of no return”, that kind of thing.

    We don’t know what level your knowledge is at and it’s hard to educate someone who is not brave enough to put themselves out there to be corrected.

    On the other hand if you don’t want to learn today and you just want to feel empowered in your hate, I think Twitter is great for that kind of thing




  • Tbh there’s lots of stuff in the Barbie movie that I would consider timeless, especially the feminist aspects of it. What parts of the movie do you think applies to the 2020s but doesn’t apply to, say, 1990 or 1960?

    EDIT: I may have interpreted this comment too pessimisticly-- this question is about the future, not the past. Maybe, hopefully, societal views on gender will change in the future enough that the Barbie movie will become outdated












  • It seems like in this situation, it’s reasonable to just use the word “trans”. I really appreciate how much thought you’re putting in to inclusiveness, but it seems like it isn’t the queer community at large who your older coworkers are struggling to accept, but specifically trans people.

    I don’t know all the details, but I would recommend two things:

    First, you need to help trans people feel safe while they’re in your place of work. They are the people who are at the center of this conversation, not you and not your older coworkers. Get a small Progress Flag and put it somewhere in your workspace where it is visible to the public and also clearly associated with you. Your goal here is to put up a little flag that says “if you’re in the queer community, come to me and I will make you comfortable”. These statements of inclusiveness are aimed to the public, not your coworkers–your coworkers already know that you’re an ally because they know who you are and what kind of actions you do, but the general public doesn’t have that luxury so this is where your efforts for inclusiveness should be focused.

    Second, if you do want to buy clothes or accessories to show your older coworkers that you support trans identities and try to change their minds about doing the same, make sure you support trans artists when you do so :) don’t “get them made”, buy them from a trans artist who has already made them. Not only will you be financially supporting the people you want to support, but you’ll also be elevating the voice of an actual trans person–which I think is what you wanted to do when you made this post.

    That being said, hostile phrasing like “I’ll identify as a problem” may not be the best way to change someone’s mind. I don’t know a lot about your coworkers, but you might be the only person to ever speak to them with empathy about empathy for trans people. You’ve got an opportunity here to prove wrong the stereotypes about “screaming SJWs”, stereotypes that are so baked in to our society that they have even managed to enter the discussion we’re having here. In a world like the one that we live in, kindness and patience are radical and powerful tools, if we choose to use them.


  • Exposing my own ignorance here, but is “gay” necessarily gendered?

    The difficulty of answering that question, and the fact that both “yes” and “no” are both valid answers that individual people of every gender could sincerely give, are two of the reasons why “queer” has become more popular than “gay” as an umbrella term. The people who do think “gay” as an umbrella term is gendered prefer the word “queer”, while the people who don’t think “gay” as an umbrella term is gendered are not upset by the word “queer”.

    Another reason that “gay” isn’t used as an umbrella term is because it’s also a specific term. Imagine being a man and saying “I’m gay” and having someone ask you, “ok but are you gay or are you gay gay?”. Sexuality and gender are already sensitive and difficult things to explore, so removing ambiguity from the language surrounding those topics will make things clearer and easier for everyone involved.

    That being said, you should always respect the way that people want to be identified. If you know a lesbian woman that identifies as “gay”, then just accept it and use it while understanding that not every lesbian woman will feel the same way.


  • The best term you can use is just “the queer community”. It’s a broad and vague word that asks no questions and offers no answers beyond “these people have sexual orientations and/or gender identities that are not exclusively heterosexual and/or cisgender”. It’s gender-neutral unlike the previous catch-all term “gay”. It includes people who were originally excluded and unrepresented by the original LGBT acronym, such as intersex and third-gendered people. It also includes people who find it culturally difficult to put a label on what they do, such as same-gender-loving Black people who don’t call themselves “gay”.

    That being said, it is not always the perfect, use-it-all-the-time panacea that you’re looking for. “Queer” was originally a pejorative term, and although it has been reclaimed as positive terminology since the Stonewall Riot days (think of the chant, “We’re here! We’re queer! Get used to it!”), some older members of the queer community remember it as hurtful.

    In addition, sometimes it’s important to be specific. Exclusively using the word “queer” to refer to the queer community flattens the queer experience to one single uniform word, when reality is anything but uniform. For example, when trans people are targeted by executive orders and bathroom bills, it’s important to be specific about who those actions harm: trans people, intersex people, and so on.

    For these reasons, while it is safe to use “queer” as a blanket term, some individual people don’t like the term and some individual circumstances call for a more specific word.

    As far as your flag question goes, if you’re looking for a visible signal to signpost that you’re a queer ally, you’re probably looking for the Progress Flag. It’s the original rainbow pride flag, but with added representation for trans people, intersex people, people of color, and those who died during the AIDS crisis.