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QUILTBAG: Hi gay, I’m Dad!

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Posts

  • credeikicredeiki Registered User regular
    Fencingsax wrote: »
    Questioning should be a valid response

    That’s not my identity and if it were I wouldn’t be keen on sharing that with a corporate conference

    I’m more a ‘decline to state’ sort of person
    I just told the people I am working on the proposal with that I don’t know how to answer and it makes me uncomfortable, so I’ll leave it blank or they can just tell me what to put and I’ll put that. I do not like basically any term to describe my identity, even ones that seem like they should work.

    Steam, LoL: credeiki
  • FencingsaxFencingsax It is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understanding GNU Terry PratchettRegistered User regular
    Sorry, I didn't understand what you meant.

  • credeikicredeiki Registered User regular
    Fencingsax wrote: »
    Sorry, I didn't understand what you meant.

    No worries; I wasn’t clear.
    Technically/physically I am a trans male person. That doesn’t mean I feel comfortable identifying as...anything, really. I’d just rather not specify. It’s no one’s business yes ok I know it’s for a gay panel about trans inclusion in the workplace so it’s relevant but blehhhhhh

    Steam, LoL: credeiki
  • 21stCentury21stCentury Call me Pixel, or Pix for short! [They/Them]Registered User regular
    pimento wrote: »
    Asexual doesn't always also mean aromantic, being ace doesn't mean that you can't want someone to snuggle with sometimes, or to have a romantic connection / life partnership type situation with someone. How you might go about finding someone with whom you can have that connection with I don't know [I'm pretty much both ace and aro so.. yea] but you're not like.. doing it wrong if you seek companionship while being ace. You just need to find someone who gets and respects your boundaries and who is compatible with them.

    Main thing is to find your you first, and label second. Don't feel pressured to conform to a label, even after you've decided on it.

    My problem isn’t wearing the label. My problem is that I don’t want that label in the first place. I want to be someone else. Someone not ace.

  • H3KnucklesH3Knuckles But we decide which is right and which is an illusion.Registered User regular
    Speaking of binary bullshit, my friend had a baby yesterday so this morning I wanted to buy them a card. All the ones with cute designs were so aggressively gendered, and like one that just said "new baby". I feel like writing in it "sorry I got you a boring card but I struggled to find one that didn't reference your newborn child's genitals".

    I kind of want to awesome this for the note you considered adding to the card.

    If you're curious about my icon; it's an update of the early Lego Castle theme's "Black Falcons" faction.
    camo_sig2-400.png
  • pimentopimento she/they/pim Registered User regular
    pimento wrote: »
    Asexual doesn't always also mean aromantic, being ace doesn't mean that you can't want someone to snuggle with sometimes, or to have a romantic connection / life partnership type situation with someone. How you might go about finding someone with whom you can have that connection with I don't know [I'm pretty much both ace and aro so.. yea] but you're not like.. doing it wrong if you seek companionship while being ace. You just need to find someone who gets and respects your boundaries and who is compatible with them.

    Main thing is to find your you first, and label second. Don't feel pressured to conform to a label, even after you've decided on it.

    My problem isn’t wearing the label. My problem is that I don’t want that label in the first place. I want to be someone else. Someone not ace.

    Ahh, hmm. So it sounds like you're not ace, you just don't go for the boom times for [reasons] and you'd like to figure that out? Like, if the ace label isn't for you then you're not ace, right? Sorry if I'm being overly reductionist here but like.. holding onto the wrong labels can be harmful. Personally I feel that framing it less as 'I'm ace but I don't want to be' and more 'my sex drive isn't where I'd like it to be' might help guide the people who can help you out down the right path? But I'm no expert on the matter so.. yea. <3

  • 21stCentury21stCentury Call me Pixel, or Pix for short! [They/Them]Registered User regular
    pimento wrote: »
    pimento wrote: »
    Asexual doesn't always also mean aromantic, being ace doesn't mean that you can't want someone to snuggle with sometimes, or to have a romantic connection / life partnership type situation with someone. How you might go about finding someone with whom you can have that connection with I don't know [I'm pretty much both ace and aro so.. yea] but you're not like.. doing it wrong if you seek companionship while being ace. You just need to find someone who gets and respects your boundaries and who is compatible with them.

    Main thing is to find your you first, and label second. Don't feel pressured to conform to a label, even after you've decided on it.

    My problem isn’t wearing the label. My problem is that I don’t want that label in the first place. I want to be someone else. Someone not ace.

    Ahh, hmm. So it sounds like you're not ace, you just don't go for the boom times for [reasons] and you'd like to figure that out? Like, if the ace label isn't for you then you're not ace, right? Sorry if I'm being overly reductionist here but like.. holding onto the wrong labels can be harmful. Personally I feel that framing it less as 'I'm ace but I don't want to be' and more 'my sex drive isn't where I'd like it to be' might help guide the people who can help you out down the right path? But I'm no expert on the matter so.. yea. <3

    okay, i AM ace, thinking about having sex makes me deeply uncomfortable, bordering on the nauseous, and i wish i were not ace because that would make me more normal.

    I can't be the only queer person who wishes they weren't queer, can i?

    Like, my sex drive is too active, if anything, and that makes me feel bad about being ace.

  • pimentopimento she/they/pim Registered User regular
    pimento wrote: »
    pimento wrote: »
    Asexual doesn't always also mean aromantic, being ace doesn't mean that you can't want someone to snuggle with sometimes, or to have a romantic connection / life partnership type situation with someone. How you might go about finding someone with whom you can have that connection with I don't know [I'm pretty much both ace and aro so.. yea] but you're not like.. doing it wrong if you seek companionship while being ace. You just need to find someone who gets and respects your boundaries and who is compatible with them.

    Main thing is to find your you first, and label second. Don't feel pressured to conform to a label, even after you've decided on it.

    My problem isn’t wearing the label. My problem is that I don’t want that label in the first place. I want to be someone else. Someone not ace.

    Ahh, hmm. So it sounds like you're not ace, you just don't go for the boom times for [reasons] and you'd like to figure that out? Like, if the ace label isn't for you then you're not ace, right? Sorry if I'm being overly reductionist here but like.. holding onto the wrong labels can be harmful. Personally I feel that framing it less as 'I'm ace but I don't want to be' and more 'my sex drive isn't where I'd like it to be' might help guide the people who can help you out down the right path? But I'm no expert on the matter so.. yea. <3

    okay, i AM ace, thinking about having sex makes me deeply uncomfortable, bordering on the nauseous, and i wish i were not ace because that would make me more normal.

    I can't be the only queer person who wishes they weren't queer, can i?

    Like, my sex drive is too active, if anything, and that makes me feel bad about being ace.

    Ahh, ok, I apologise for my misunderstanding.

  • StericaSterica Yes Registered User, Moderator mod
    credeiki wrote: »
    Fencingsax wrote: »
    Sorry, I didn't understand what you meant.

    No worries; I wasn’t clear.
    Technically/physically I am a trans male person. That doesn’t mean I feel comfortable identifying as...anything, really. I’d just rather not specify. It’s no one’s business yes ok I know it’s for a gay panel about trans inclusion in the workplace so it’s relevant but blehhhhhh
    is it more in regard to “bleh gender” or “i really just want to be me and not have to prefix everything with trans” because the latter is definitely how I feel every so often.

    YL9WnCY.png
  • aStoryAboutYouaStoryAboutYou Registered User regular
    hey y'all, Waypoint has been running their Savepoint stream since Thursday midday in support of Trans Lifeline. right now, the amount raised is ~136,000 dollars just 35 hours in.

    here's a random clip of them reading mass donations given on the 33 minute mark of each hour, set to A-Ha's Take On Me: https://clips.twitch.tv/GenerousBombasticRaccoonDoggo

    the whole stream's going to run 72 hours, with the first 36 just ending now being run by the Waypoint staff & friends, and the last 36 being run by mods in the Waypoint community.

    oWv6S12.gif
  • LucedesLucedes might be real Registered User regular
    credeiki wrote: »
    I’m more a ‘decline to state’ sort of person

    :bro:

  • wanderingwandering Russia state-affiliated media Registered User regular
    Can I ask a question of this thread? Am I correct in thinking that 1. "non-binary" has become more popular than "genderqueer" and 2. that the two terms are roughly synonymous?

  • InfamyDeferredInfamyDeferred Registered User regular
    Genderqueer is a subset of non-binary, which includes other identities like genderfluid or various cultural third-genders. That makes it a good term for legal and academic use to describe the whole constellation of "not man, also not woman". And given how messy the process of coming to understand one's self can be, I can totally understand why the extra liminality it affords is attractive.

  • LucedesLucedes might be real Registered User regular
    all of the labels used to discuss gender and gender identity are loaded with an enormous political subtext which is inescapably present in the language and also part of the discussion itself, and because of this, a non-politically-charged statement of identity becomes impossible because the terms to discuss it are not available, because of the struggle over the definitions themselves.

    (i had more typed up but did not want to drop an entire book here, as i'm not sufficiently educated on every facet of current politics to comfortably do so without a ton of gross oversimplification)

    it's hard to just exist in an undefined gender space and not have it be a political action.

  • aStoryAboutYouaStoryAboutYou Registered User regular
    Lucedes wrote: »
    it's hard to just exist in an undefined gender space and not have it be a political action.

    that's sort of the nature of the beast, yeah? any demographic category used to create supremacy (in this case, the patriarchy, and the gender binary) gets a sort of invisibility by virtue of being the "default" that gets used to hide that being part of it is an equivalently political act as it would be to belong to any other demographic category.

    anyone not in that camp cannot "just be" because the "just" part of that is a request that life be simple, and life is only ever simple for the people for whom it was jury-rigged to be simple.

    so, yep, agreed. it's definitely hard, because there's a whole body of people that choose every day to perpetuate systems that make it harder, because it allows them to make their lives easier. and even once we educate them that they are making that choice, there will still be some who see our pain as a viable thing to trade for their ease and convenience.

    oWv6S12.gif
  • credeikicredeiki Registered User regular
    Sterica wrote: »
    credeiki wrote: »
    Fencingsax wrote: »
    Sorry, I didn't understand what you meant.

    No worries; I wasn’t clear.
    Technically/physically I am a trans male person. That doesn’t mean I feel comfortable identifying as...anything, really. I’d just rather not specify. It’s no one’s business yes ok I know it’s for a gay panel about trans inclusion in the workplace so it’s relevant but blehhhhhh
    is it more in regard to “bleh gender” or “i really just want to be me and not have to prefix everything with trans” because the latter is definitely how I feel every so often.

    hmmm
    I've unfortunately for the moment given up on “i really just want to be me and not have to prefix everything with trans” because I am being forced to be the trans face of a megacorporation, because if I don't do it, there aren't a lot of other people who will, so I am currently actively involved in trans representation stuff. Which, to be clear, I Do Not Like Doing. I just want to be left alone! I hate organizing. At my company you have to do 'firm initiative' bonus work shit but I wanted my 'firm initiatives' to be me once in a while giving a science talk or writing some code for someone, not organizing or speaking at diversity stuff. Plus I have to correct people on my pronouns often; any time I meet anyone.

    I do sort of feel "bleh gender", although that's not quite it. I mean I can tell you I was born female and I'm working really hard right now to become male. I can also tell you that I am definitely not female and my whole life haven't felt that way, but that I lived as female because that's how everyone else saw me. My sense of gender is very externally located; gender is a social construct; I feel that I am what people perceive me to be. So right now, when people perceive me all over the place, and sometimes read me as only male or sometimes as only female and mostly as male but then they switch to female when they see my mannerisms and intonations, it feels like a lie to say 'I'm male'. That's the goal, basically, but I'm not there yet, and to declare it on a form, knowing there's pushback from inside everyone's brains when they actually talk to me, makes me feel bad. But saying 'I'm non-binary' isn't 100% true either--or like, it is true, but I'm not aiming for androgyny, which is how a lot of people understand the term, even though that's not what it means. And I am sort of at non-binary right now, but that's not really my goal, even though maybe it should be, because they pronouns are actually more comfortable to me than male pronouns, but there's too much pushback, and I don't want to be perceived as a girl with short hair; I want to be perceived as male. But as a male person who isn't necessarily expected to have all the correct social cues and stuff because I wasn't fucking raised male, obviously; and as a person with my own voice, ideally.

    Basically, when presented with this question, what is your gender identity, I get stuck in this "how do people perceive me now", "where did I start from", "where would I go in a perfect world", "where am I actually going", and all of the answers are different and confusing and I just don't like answering.

    ...I'm not sure this answers the question at all @Sterica ; sorry. However, it's only been 6 months since I've been fully out (and 9? months on hormones, and ~15 months since top surgery) ; I think it's ok for me to have a lot of confusion and mixed feelings and to not have arrived at any answers.

    Steam, LoL: credeiki
  • Brovid HasselsmofBrovid Hasselsmof [Growling historic on the fury road] Registered User regular
    credeiki wrote: »
    I do sort of feel "bleh gender", although that's not quite it. I mean I can tell you I was born female and I'm working really hard right now to become male. I can also tell you that I am definitely not female and my whole life haven't felt that way, but that I lived as female because that's how everyone else saw me. My sense of gender is very externally located; gender is a social construct; I feel that I am what people perceive me to be. So right now, when people perceive me all over the place, and sometimes read me as only male or sometimes as only female and mostly as male but then they switch to female when they see my mannerisms and intonations, it feels like a lie to say 'I'm male'. That's the goal, basically, but I'm not there yet, and to declare it on a form, knowing there's pushback from inside everyone's brains when they actually talk to me, makes me feel bad. But saying 'I'm non-binary' isn't 100% true either--or like, it is true, but I'm not aiming for androgyny, which is how a lot of people understand the term, even though that's not what it means. And I am sort of at non-binary right now, but that's not really my goal, even though maybe it should be, because they pronouns are actually more comfortable to me than male pronouns, but there's too much pushback, and I don't want to be perceived as a girl with short hair; I want to be perceived as male. But as a male person who isn't necessarily expected to have all the correct social cues and stuff because I wasn't fucking raised male, obviously; and as a person with my own voice, ideally.

    Well I'm totally stealing this for the next time anyone asks me about gender stuff.

  • StericaSterica Yes Registered User, Moderator mod
    @credeiki I’ve been out for about five months, and feel similarly? I just hate feeling fake when I forgot about gender and just act however, as if I’m expected to act a certain way now. Like, not more “feminine” but just differently than before I came out. I dunno it’s super weird to put into words.

    YL9WnCY.png
  • Blackhawk1313Blackhawk1313 Demon Hunter for Hire Time RiftRegistered User regular
    Sterica wrote: »
    @credeiki I’ve been out for about five months, and feel similarly? I just hate feeling fake when I forgot about gender and just act however, as if I’m expected to act a certain way now. Like, not more “feminine” but just differently than before I came out. I dunno it’s super weird to put into words.

    This kind of thing right here just reinforces how bs gender coding is things is. You shouldn’t have to act differently to be the person you are. You should be allowed to be as you are and that be valid. At least, that’s how it strikes me at any rate.

  • credeikicredeiki Registered User regular
    Sterica wrote: »
    credeiki I’ve been out for about five months, and feel similarly? I just hate feeling fake when I forgot about gender and just act however, as if I’m expected to act a certain way now. Like, not more “feminine” but just differently than before I came out. I dunno it’s super weird to put into words.

    This kind of thing right here just reinforces how bs gender coding is things is. You shouldn’t have to act differently to be the person you are. You should be allowed to be as you are and that be valid. At least, that’s how it strikes me at any rate.

    Sure but it's more complicated than that:

    1. Maybe I need to act and look and sound a certain way in order to be read the way I want to be
    2. Maybe I only now have the freedom and the ability to be more masculine than I was before, so it's something I want to explore and enjoy
    3. Maybe it irritates me that I have to act any differently though
    4. Maybe I actually have the freedom to be more feminine now because actually having coming out and insisting to people that I'm male and making physical changes means that I don't have to arrange my entire fucking life around expressing some sort of frustrated and inexpressed masculinity (eg by being an asshole, avoiding certain activities, doing a certain type of career and studies)

    Yeah, I don't know; it's a lot.

    Steam, LoL: credeiki
  • Blackhawk1313Blackhawk1313 Demon Hunter for Hire Time RiftRegistered User regular
    I hadn’t thought about it that way. Thank you for sharing the perspective.

  • V1mV1m Registered User regular
    credeiki wrote: »
    2. Maybe I only now have the freedom and the ability to be more masculine than I was before, so it's something I want to explore and enjoy

    This point made me sit my cis-male ass down and think for a while. What does "be more masculine" mean? How would I be more (or less) masculine if I needed to be?

    Spoilered for self-reflective burbling
    It's socially acceptable for men to do a whole bunch of things that would have been "female" gender roles in the 50s, so the set of definitely non-masculine activities has shrunk a lot. Most of my defining character traits seem to be fairly gender-neutral, and the ones that aren't are negative ones, in the sense that they're things I don't do rather than things I do: I care very little about looking fancy, so I buy comfortable natural fibre clothes from outlet shops and I maintain my hair by putting a #2 filter on a trimmer and running it over my head until hair stops falling off a few times year - that's a pretty stereotypically masculine trait, but could I in good conscience suggest "You'd be better at being male if you spent the bare minimum amount of effort that's socially acceptable on your appearance"? I do not think so. Another that occurs to me is that I when I go out to a bar alone, it's not my safety or privacy that concerns me. Again the trait here is a negative one: not being concerned with sexual harassment or personal space infringement. Again, it's not an example that I'd feel wholly comfortable in encouraging.

    If you were to ask me "But V1m, what should I do to be more masculine" I'm not sure I'd have many good answers for you. There are some classes of activity that really do seem to be masculine. It's a 'male' trait to take physical risks or challenges purely for the satisfaction of overcoming them, for instance (eg: mountain-climbing). I don't know if that appeals to you? It doesn't to me. I climbed trees and walked along the top of high walls as a kid, but since puberty. I couldn't honestly say doing that stuff made or makes me more masculine. I did work out a little in my 20s, but that was 80% being broke and bored and 20% wanting to look good for girls, and 0% because I felt I needed to confirm or enhance gender.

    Maybe I could say that, well, one thing about male privilege is that you can not do things that you don't want to and be reasonably confident that it's everyone else's job to accept that, not yours to worry about it, so the most masculine thing to do is as you damb well please - but that doesn't feel like a very useful answer to someone who hasn't had a lifetime of internalising that privilege (and might well prefer not to).

    It's an extremely good question to ask, and you are quite likely to ultimately be in a better position to answer it than cis guys like me. The best I can give you is to say that you are male, so what you do (or don't do) is 'masculine'. I hate to sound all Saturday morning special, but where I end up is with you answering it pretty well with "so it's something I want to explore and enjoy"

  • SeidkonaSeidkona Had an upgrade Registered User regular
    Sterica wrote: »
    credeiki I’ve been out for about five months, and feel similarly? I just hate feeling fake when I forgot about gender and just act however, as if I’m expected to act a certain way now. Like, not more “feminine” but just differently than before I came out. I dunno it’s super weird to put into words.

    This one has really messed with me. Everyone excpts me to act different.

    And in some ways I actually do?

    But it's weird that people I keep all my life treat me different than before in some amorphous way I can't put my finger on.

    Mostly just huntin' monsters.
    XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
  • credeikicredeiki Registered User regular
    V1m wrote: »
    credeiki wrote: »
    2. Maybe I only now have the freedom and the ability to be more masculine than I was before, so it's something I want to explore and enjoy

    This point made me sit my cis-male ass down and think for a while. What does "be more masculine" mean? How would I be more (or less) masculine if I needed to be?

    Spoilered for self-reflective burbling
    It's socially acceptable for men to do a whole bunch of things that would have been "female" gender roles in the 50s, so the set of definitely non-masculine activities has shrunk a lot. Most of my defining character traits seem to be fairly gender-neutral, and the ones that aren't are negative ones, in the sense that they're things I don't do rather than things I do: I care very little about looking fancy, so I buy comfortable natural fibre clothes from outlet shops and I maintain my hair by putting a #2 filter on a trimmer and running it over my head until hair stops falling off a few times year - that's a pretty stereotypically masculine trait, but could I in good conscience suggest "You'd be better at being male if you spent the bare minimum amount of effort that's socially acceptable on your appearance"? I do not think so. Another that occurs to me is that I when I go out to a bar alone, it's not my safety or privacy that concerns me. Again the trait here is a negative one: not being concerned with sexual harassment or personal space infringement. Again, it's not an example that I'd feel wholly comfortable in encouraging.

    If you were to ask me "But V1m, what should I do to be more masculine" I'm not sure I'd have many good answers for you. There are some classes of activity that really do seem to be masculine. It's a 'male' trait to take physical risks or challenges purely for the satisfaction of overcoming them, for instance (eg: mountain-climbing). I don't know if that appeals to you? It doesn't to me. I climbed trees and walked along the top of high walls as a kid, but since puberty. I couldn't honestly say doing that stuff made or makes me more masculine. I did work out a little in my 20s, but that was 80% being broke and bored and 20% wanting to look good for girls, and 0% because I felt I needed to confirm or enhance gender.

    Maybe I could say that, well, one thing about male privilege is that you can not do things that you don't want to and be reasonably confident that it's everyone else's job to accept that, not yours to worry about it, so the most masculine thing to do is as you damb well please - but that doesn't feel like a very useful answer to someone who hasn't had a lifetime of internalising that privilege (and might well prefer not to).

    It's an extremely good question to ask, and you are quite likely to ultimately be in a better position to answer it than cis guys like me. The best I can give you is to say that you are male, so what you do (or don't do) is 'masculine'. I hate to sound all Saturday morning special, but where I end up is with you answering it pretty well with "so it's something I want to explore and enjoy"

    I mean, as I wrote earlier, I don't necessarily consider myself male, exactly. I mean not not male either, but. For the record (and you don't know this, and you're just trying to be kind and affirming, which I understand and is nice of you), I don't need other people to try to be affirming at me; I don't like it very much (the statement "you are male" to me, reads as both not exactly true and also fairly condescending. I know you don't mean it that way though! So do not worry. I'm just stating preferences for the future. Any number of people changed the way they were with me to try to call me dude or similar and not in a way that comes naturally to them, and I'm like, bro, just stop, pls.)

    some amorphous thoughts
    Yeah a positive, useful definition of masculinity is pretty hard to come by in 2019 (which is causing us all sorts of problems as a society). There's a lot of negative stuff, avoiding stuff--clothing, activities, actions--that makes you seem feminine or gay, which is something that I have always partially done (and partially not done).

    But like, what do men do? When I pose myself this question, the first answer that pops into my brain is 'violence against women', and that's both horrifying and something that in the right crowd I can deliver as a super dark joke.

    Hm yeah physical risk taking I mostly stopped doing since I was a teenager, where yeah of course I did the sort of dumbass climbing all the time you mentioned, and I channel that instinct more productively into safe rock climbing, which is like 40% female at my gym, not too tilted of a gender ratio at all. I've actually never considered my risk-taking instinct masculine-coded at all. My best friend told me she thought it was because of toxoplasmosis (??? who even knows)

    I work at a management consulting firm, so actually all the men around my put a lot of care and attention into their appearance and dress; there's a lot of pretty people there. I started doing more with my hair and clothes after I started transitioning, which is part of how this is more complicated.

    The thing that I do which is most male-coded to me is my course of studies and career, which is *extremely* problematic. And to be clear, I will /always/ advocate for women in STEM and try to boost the career of female colleagues and make sure their voices are heard. But I grew up in a family where my dad is a mathematician and my mom was stay at home and now is an admin, and plus the reality of majoring in physics is that I was the only women in my year, and the reality of being a machine learning programmer now is that women are hard to come by. So being quantitative is, terribly, a really big part of that masculine identity to me, to the point where I've had a hard time thinking about careers outside of that field. "I can't become a technical writer; that's a career for burnout postdoc /moms/" --where moms, here, is the key. I have a non-binary friend who feels very similarly about this, so at least it's not just me. But it's *terrible*. It's so completely unacceptable as a way to feel and I don't talk about it much.

    The way in which I am arrogant (I mean, I'd say confident, but other people wouldn't...but maybe now they would, because my level of confidence is more matched with my gender presentation) is unambiguously coded masculine for other people. I actually never thought of it much that way (more just thinking, damn, I am a far, far outlier on the distribution curve of how women can be), but I have gotten throughout my life so much fucking pushback for taking up space, talking over people, putting forth my ideas, confronting authority, etc. And these aren't all charming traits, but they're things that men get away with always, and they are core parts of being me.

    I view stoicism as super masculine but I am really open about my emotions and very communicative, so, that isn't me at all. I clearly cannot rely on other people for emotional support and have been insanely resilient, but throughout I have at the very least been telling people about my feelings, if not necessarily getting anything in return from them. I do make a lot of stoic, violent men in roleplaying games though heh.

    I play videogames in a way that is pretty male-coded. In general, although statistically women play videogames at a high rate, women play different videogames and are less likely to identify as gamers; if you bring it up in conversation as a woman, people think you are unusual. If you bring it up as a man, people say, 'oh, my husband plays xyz.' Still very much a male-coded hobby in mainstream society. Well, and the specific game I play is 90% male...And for years I resisted my calling as a support player actually cause that's the one more female-coded position. But I do prefer to play as female characters (...why! I don't know. But it's still true for every videogame I play.) and at a certain point I decided my winrate was more important than dumb shit about who does and does not play support (I mean plus every professional support player is male), and it's not like I play egirl heal+shield champs anyway, so w/e.

    I eat in a way that's unfortunately feminine, because I don't eat a lot, and I don't eat a lot of meat and whatnot. I'm not dieting and will never diet, cause I'm not a girl, but I got digestive issues so I have to eat in a measured way or face the consequences after...

    Never been concerned about walking around alone at night or anywhere, cause I'm not a girl, and also see above: re, some alignment to risk-taking behaviors.

    I don't know, there's a lot more to say and just listing a bunch of stuff that I and/or broader society views as masculine or feminine isn't the most useful exercise, and also I'm bored of typing, so this is what we get

    Steam, LoL: credeiki
  • SeidkonaSeidkona Had an upgrade Registered User regular
    edited May 2019
    I haven't felt good all week. Today I do:

    Seidkona on
    Mostly just huntin' monsters.
    XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
  • DepressperadoDepressperado I just wanted to see you laughing in the pizza rainRegistered User regular
    my visible gender identity is some nonsense

    Orson Welles beard, generally painted nails, definitely wearing a woman's overshirt but it's flannel (they get better color combos), sometimes put a little foundation on to clear up my awful skin and maybe draw attention away from my sunken eyes

    I read in some magazine for ladies about ways to get rid of those dark circles under your eyes that I'm thinking about trying out

  • GrogGrog My sword is only steel in a useful shape.Registered User regular
    Lately I've had most of my instances of gender euphoria when I look a mess. Tangled hair, chipped nails, crumpled t-shirt and I just can't stop giggling at the mirror.

    Be the goblin you want to see in the world.

  • V1mV1m Registered User regular
    credeiki wrote: »
    V1m wrote: »
    credeiki wrote: »
    2. Maybe I only now have the freedom and the ability to be more masculine than I was before, so it's something I want to explore and enjoy

    This point made me sit my cis-male ass down and think for a while. What does "be more masculine" mean? How would I be more (or less) masculine if I needed to be?

    Spoilered for self-reflective burbling
    It's socially acceptable for men to do a whole bunch of things that would have been "female" gender roles in the 50s, so the set of definitely non-masculine activities has shrunk a lot. Most of my defining character traits seem to be fairly gender-neutral, and the ones that aren't are negative ones, in the sense that they're things I don't do rather than things I do: I care very little about looking fancy, so I buy comfortable natural fibre clothes from outlet shops and I maintain my hair by putting a #2 filter on a trimmer and running it over my head until hair stops falling off a few times year - that's a pretty stereotypically masculine trait, but could I in good conscience suggest "You'd be better at being male if you spent the bare minimum amount of effort that's socially acceptable on your appearance"? I do not think so. Another that occurs to me is that I when I go out to a bar alone, it's not my safety or privacy that concerns me. Again the trait here is a negative one: not being concerned with sexual harassment or personal space infringement. Again, it's not an example that I'd feel wholly comfortable in encouraging.

    If you were to ask me "But V1m, what should I do to be more masculine" I'm not sure I'd have many good answers for you. There are some classes of activity that really do seem to be masculine. It's a 'male' trait to take physical risks or challenges purely for the satisfaction of overcoming them, for instance (eg: mountain-climbing). I don't know if that appeals to you? It doesn't to me. I climbed trees and walked along the top of high walls as a kid, but since puberty. I couldn't honestly say doing that stuff made or makes me more masculine. I did work out a little in my 20s, but that was 80% being broke and bored and 20% wanting to look good for girls, and 0% because I felt I needed to confirm or enhance gender.

    Maybe I could say that, well, one thing about male privilege is that you can not do things that you don't want to and be reasonably confident that it's everyone else's job to accept that, not yours to worry about it, so the most masculine thing to do is as you damb well please - but that doesn't feel like a very useful answer to someone who hasn't had a lifetime of internalising that privilege (and might well prefer not to).

    It's an extremely good question to ask, and you are quite likely to ultimately be in a better position to answer it than cis guys like me. The best I can give you is to say that you are male, so what you do (or don't do) is 'masculine'. I hate to sound all Saturday morning special, but where I end up is with you answering it pretty well with "so it's something I want to explore and enjoy"

    I mean, as I wrote earlier, I don't necessarily consider myself male, exactly. I mean not not male either, but. For the record (and you don't know this, and you're just trying to be kind and affirming, which I understand and is nice of you), I don't need other people to try to be affirming at me; I don't like it very much (the statement "you are male" to me, reads as both not exactly true and also fairly condescending. I know you don't mean it that way though! So do not worry. I'm just stating preferences for the future. Any number of people changed the way they were with me to try to call me dude or similar and not in a way that comes naturally to them, and I'm like, bro, just stop, pls.)

    some amorphous thoughts
    Yeah a positive, useful definition of masculinity is pretty hard to come by in 2019 (which is causing us all sorts of problems as a society). There's a lot of negative stuff, avoiding stuff--clothing, activities, actions--that makes you seem feminine or gay, which is something that I have always partially done (and partially not done).

    But like, what do men do? When I pose myself this question, the first answer that pops into my brain is 'violence against women', and that's both horrifying and something that in the right crowd I can deliver as a super dark joke.

    Hm yeah physical risk taking I mostly stopped doing since I was a teenager, where yeah of course I did the sort of dumbass climbing all the time you mentioned, and I channel that instinct more productively into safe rock climbing, which is like 40% female at my gym, not too tilted of a gender ratio at all. I've actually never considered my risk-taking instinct masculine-coded at all. My best friend told me she thought it was because of toxoplasmosis (??? who even knows)

    I work at a management consulting firm, so actually all the men around my put a lot of care and attention into their appearance and dress; there's a lot of pretty people there. I started doing more with my hair and clothes after I started transitioning, which is part of how this is more complicated.

    The thing that I do which is most male-coded to me is my course of studies and career, which is *extremely* problematic. And to be clear, I will /always/ advocate for women in STEM and try to boost the career of female colleagues and make sure their voices are heard. But I grew up in a family where my dad is a mathematician and my mom was stay at home and now is an admin, and plus the reality of majoring in physics is that I was the only women in my year, and the reality of being a machine learning programmer now is that women are hard to come by. So being quantitative is, terribly, a really big part of that masculine identity to me, to the point where I've had a hard time thinking about careers outside of that field. "I can't become a technical writer; that's a career for burnout postdoc /moms/" --where moms, here, is the key. I have a non-binary friend who feels very similarly about this, so at least it's not just me. But it's *terrible*. It's so completely unacceptable as a way to feel and I don't talk about it much.

    The way in which I am arrogant (I mean, I'd say confident, but other people wouldn't...but maybe now they would, because my level of confidence is more matched with my gender presentation) is unambiguously coded masculine for other people. I actually never thought of it much that way (more just thinking, damn, I am a far, far outlier on the distribution curve of how women can be), but I have gotten throughout my life so much fucking pushback for taking up space, talking over people, putting forth my ideas, confronting authority, etc. And these aren't all charming traits, but they're things that men get away with always, and they are core parts of being me.

    I view stoicism as super masculine but I am really open about my emotions and very communicative, so, that isn't me at all. I clearly cannot rely on other people for emotional support and have been insanely resilient, but throughout I have at the very least been telling people about my feelings, if not necessarily getting anything in return from them. I do make a lot of stoic, violent men in roleplaying games though heh.

    I play videogames in a way that is pretty male-coded. In general, although statistically women play videogames at a high rate, women play different videogames and are less likely to identify as gamers; if you bring it up in conversation as a woman, people think you are unusual. If you bring it up as a man, people say, 'oh, my husband plays xyz.' Still very much a male-coded hobby in mainstream society. Well, and the specific game I play is 90% male...And for years I resisted my calling as a support player actually cause that's the one more female-coded position. But I do prefer to play as female characters (...why! I don't know. But it's still true for every videogame I play.) and at a certain point I decided my winrate was more important than dumb shit about who does and does not play support (I mean plus every professional support player is male), and it's not like I play egirl heal+shield champs anyway, so w/e.

    I eat in a way that's unfortunately feminine, because I don't eat a lot, and I don't eat a lot of meat and whatnot. I'm not dieting and will never diet, cause I'm not a girl, but I got digestive issues so I have to eat in a measured way or face the consequences after...

    Never been concerned about walking around alone at night or anywhere, cause I'm not a girl, and also see above: re, some alignment to risk-taking behaviors.

    I don't know, there's a lot more to say and just listing a bunch of stuff that I and/or broader society views as masculine or feminine isn't the most useful exercise, and also I'm bored of typing, so this is what we get

    I wasn't so much trying to be affirmative with that sentence as attempting to express that to a great extent, the things that men do are consequently masculine, rather than men are masculine because of the things that they do*. And therefore to the extent that you're male, the things that you do are therefore masculine. (The next line was meant to be affirmative-y though. Apologies.)
    Eg: If you were sat in the spaceport bar in the Altair VI Orbital and attempting to explain the concept of gender roles to a curious Betelgusian, and told them that stereotypically, men are stronger but less patient than women, generally more privileged, and that weaving and angling are both strongly gender coded activities, that alien would probably not be able to reliably assign those roles. Some roles would make sense, or at least be explicable post hoc (for example I.T. originally being a female-coded activity, but switching very quickly and strongly to male once it became an huge source of social and economic power), but a lot would appear as arbitrary (eg: pink being coded female - it used to be a super-masculine colour!) as they actually are.

    It's tempting to just pour yourself and the Betelgusian a large shot of good brown liquor and declare all this gender coding bullshit makes no sense, so fuck it anyway. But declaring independence from societal expectations isn't as easy as that.

    *Which is why performative masculinity usually comes across so badly. When we see a guy who insists on driving a huge muscle car or talking about his high calibre guns or whatever, the instant response is "what's he compensating for...?". You're right to say we as a society haven't figured out a positive definition to replace the old toxic one. We should probably put more focus on this, because there's always going to be a very strong incentive to maintain/re-establish the old model until there's something to actually replace it with.

  • PlatyPlaty Registered User regular
    Platy wrote: »
    I got one of the letters I need for HRT from my psychotherapist and I expected to be happier

    I also need to show it to the psychiatrist I'm going to see next week and what's in there doesn't feel very representative of me as a person, the pronoun usage also bugs me

    I hope next week goes well, this could take anywhere from one to six sessions

    My acquaintance, who did her legal gender change half a year ago, has to go again

    Great

    She also had to wait a month for her IQ test, my therapist said that I'm "obviously" of normal intelligence, but then why do I have to take an IQ test in the first place

  • mysticjuicermysticjuicer [he/him] I'm a muscle wizard and I cast P U N C HRegistered User regular
    I...Q... test? wtf

    narwhal wrote:
    Why am I Terran?
    My YouTube Channel! Featuring silly little Guilty Gear Strive videos and other stuff!
  • PlatyPlaty Registered User regular
    edited May 2019
    The idea behind it seems to be that they want to test whether you're capable of understanding what a terrible thing you're doing to your body

    Also seems like a way to permanently gatekeep mentally disabled transfolk

    Platy on
  • SeidkonaSeidkona Had an upgrade Registered User regular
    That's. . .criminal.

    Mostly just huntin' monsters.
    XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
  • WhippyWhippy Moderator, Admin Emeritus Admin Emeritus
    platy what’s the likelihood you could, uh, move to another country with better trans care. cause that’s past gatekeeping and well into torture.

    I’m sorry, I know it’s a shitty thing to ask because of course if you could or wanted to you would have already. but. jesus. they make you take an iq test?

  • WhippyWhippy Moderator, Admin Emeritus Admin Emeritus
    that’s fucking monstrous I’m so mad

  • PlatyPlaty Registered User regular
    It seems designed to allow doctors a way to deny access to HRT on the basis of intellectual disability

    I was able to experience gender dysphoria when I was 5 so I have no doubt someone with e.g. Down syndrome can experience it as well

    It mostly affects me in that it's probably going to add another month, the doctors I talked to were unfortunately not receptive to writing me a prescription for finasteride

  • SeidkonaSeidkona Had an upgrade Registered User regular
    I have heard of some regressive and terrible gatekeeping but that's up there in aweful.

    I am sorry, Platy.

    Not just for this but for you having to endure such shit over and over.

    Mostly just huntin' monsters.
    XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
  • MorivethMoriveth BREAKDOWN BREAKDOWN BREAKDOWN BREAKDOWNRegistered User regular
    That IQ test thing is straight up bullshit, what the fuck

  • OmnipotentBagelOmnipotentBagel floof Registered User regular
    Like intended gatekeeping aside

    IQ tests are in and of themselves bullshit! Intelligence isn't quantifiable!! There's no such thing as an accurate "general intelligence" test. At best you can test for very specific individual conditions and even then the accuracy is highly dependent on various unique individual traits!

    cdci44qazyo3.gif

  • credeikicredeiki Registered User regular
    V1m wrote: »
    credeiki wrote: »
    V1m wrote: »
    credeiki wrote: »
    2. Maybe I only now have the freedom and the ability to be more masculine than I was before, so it's something I want to explore and enjoy

    This point made me sit my cis-male ass down and think for a while. What does "be more masculine" mean? How would I be more (or less) masculine if I needed to be?

    Spoilered for self-reflective burbling
    It's socially acceptable for men to do a whole bunch of things that would have been "female" gender roles in the 50s, so the set of definitely non-masculine activities has shrunk a lot. Most of my defining character traits seem to be fairly gender-neutral, and the ones that aren't are negative ones, in the sense that they're things I don't do rather than things I do: I care very little about looking fancy, so I buy comfortable natural fibre clothes from outlet shops and I maintain my hair by putting a #2 filter on a trimmer and running it over my head until hair stops falling off a few times year - that's a pretty stereotypically masculine trait, but could I in good conscience suggest "You'd be better at being male if you spent the bare minimum amount of effort that's socially acceptable on your appearance"? I do not think so. Another that occurs to me is that I when I go out to a bar alone, it's not my safety or privacy that concerns me. Again the trait here is a negative one: not being concerned with sexual harassment or personal space infringement. Again, it's not an example that I'd feel wholly comfortable in encouraging.

    If you were to ask me "But V1m, what should I do to be more masculine" I'm not sure I'd have many good answers for you. There are some classes of activity that really do seem to be masculine. It's a 'male' trait to take physical risks or challenges purely for the satisfaction of overcoming them, for instance (eg: mountain-climbing). I don't know if that appeals to you? It doesn't to me. I climbed trees and walked along the top of high walls as a kid, but since puberty. I couldn't honestly say doing that stuff made or makes me more masculine. I did work out a little in my 20s, but that was 80% being broke and bored and 20% wanting to look good for girls, and 0% because I felt I needed to confirm or enhance gender.

    Maybe I could say that, well, one thing about male privilege is that you can not do things that you don't want to and be reasonably confident that it's everyone else's job to accept that, not yours to worry about it, so the most masculine thing to do is as you damb well please - but that doesn't feel like a very useful answer to someone who hasn't had a lifetime of internalising that privilege (and might well prefer not to).

    It's an extremely good question to ask, and you are quite likely to ultimately be in a better position to answer it than cis guys like me. The best I can give you is to say that you are male, so what you do (or don't do) is 'masculine'. I hate to sound all Saturday morning special, but where I end up is with you answering it pretty well with "so it's something I want to explore and enjoy"

    I mean, as I wrote earlier, I don't necessarily consider myself male, exactly. I mean not not male either, but. For the record (and you don't know this, and you're just trying to be kind and affirming, which I understand and is nice of you), I don't need other people to try to be affirming at me; I don't like it very much (the statement "you are male" to me, reads as both not exactly true and also fairly condescending. I know you don't mean it that way though! So do not worry. I'm just stating preferences for the future. Any number of people changed the way they were with me to try to call me dude or similar and not in a way that comes naturally to them, and I'm like, bro, just stop, pls.)

    some amorphous thoughts
    Yeah a positive, useful definition of masculinity is pretty hard to come by in 2019 (which is causing us all sorts of problems as a society). There's a lot of negative stuff, avoiding stuff--clothing, activities, actions--that makes you seem feminine or gay, which is something that I have always partially done (and partially not done).

    But like, what do men do? When I pose myself this question, the first answer that pops into my brain is 'violence against women', and that's both horrifying and something that in the right crowd I can deliver as a super dark joke.

    Hm yeah physical risk taking I mostly stopped doing since I was a teenager, where yeah of course I did the sort of dumbass climbing all the time you mentioned, and I channel that instinct more productively into safe rock climbing, which is like 40% female at my gym, not too tilted of a gender ratio at all. I've actually never considered my risk-taking instinct masculine-coded at all. My best friend told me she thought it was because of toxoplasmosis (??? who even knows)

    I work at a management consulting firm, so actually all the men around my put a lot of care and attention into their appearance and dress; there's a lot of pretty people there. I started doing more with my hair and clothes after I started transitioning, which is part of how this is more complicated.

    The thing that I do which is most male-coded to me is my course of studies and career, which is *extremely* problematic. And to be clear, I will /always/ advocate for women in STEM and try to boost the career of female colleagues and make sure their voices are heard. But I grew up in a family where my dad is a mathematician and my mom was stay at home and now is an admin, and plus the reality of majoring in physics is that I was the only women in my year, and the reality of being a machine learning programmer now is that women are hard to come by. So being quantitative is, terribly, a really big part of that masculine identity to me, to the point where I've had a hard time thinking about careers outside of that field. "I can't become a technical writer; that's a career for burnout postdoc /moms/" --where moms, here, is the key. I have a non-binary friend who feels very similarly about this, so at least it's not just me. But it's *terrible*. It's so completely unacceptable as a way to feel and I don't talk about it much.

    The way in which I am arrogant (I mean, I'd say confident, but other people wouldn't...but maybe now they would, because my level of confidence is more matched with my gender presentation) is unambiguously coded masculine for other people. I actually never thought of it much that way (more just thinking, damn, I am a far, far outlier on the distribution curve of how women can be), but I have gotten throughout my life so much fucking pushback for taking up space, talking over people, putting forth my ideas, confronting authority, etc. And these aren't all charming traits, but they're things that men get away with always, and they are core parts of being me.

    I view stoicism as super masculine but I am really open about my emotions and very communicative, so, that isn't me at all. I clearly cannot rely on other people for emotional support and have been insanely resilient, but throughout I have at the very least been telling people about my feelings, if not necessarily getting anything in return from them. I do make a lot of stoic, violent men in roleplaying games though heh.

    I play videogames in a way that is pretty male-coded. In general, although statistically women play videogames at a high rate, women play different videogames and are less likely to identify as gamers; if you bring it up in conversation as a woman, people think you are unusual. If you bring it up as a man, people say, 'oh, my husband plays xyz.' Still very much a male-coded hobby in mainstream society. Well, and the specific game I play is 90% male...And for years I resisted my calling as a support player actually cause that's the one more female-coded position. But I do prefer to play as female characters (...why! I don't know. But it's still true for every videogame I play.) and at a certain point I decided my winrate was more important than dumb shit about who does and does not play support (I mean plus every professional support player is male), and it's not like I play egirl heal+shield champs anyway, so w/e.

    I eat in a way that's unfortunately feminine, because I don't eat a lot, and I don't eat a lot of meat and whatnot. I'm not dieting and will never diet, cause I'm not a girl, but I got digestive issues so I have to eat in a measured way or face the consequences after...

    Never been concerned about walking around alone at night or anywhere, cause I'm not a girl, and also see above: re, some alignment to risk-taking behaviors.

    I don't know, there's a lot more to say and just listing a bunch of stuff that I and/or broader society views as masculine or feminine isn't the most useful exercise, and also I'm bored of typing, so this is what we get

    I wasn't so much trying to be affirmative with that sentence as attempting to express that to a great extent, the things that men do are consequently masculine, rather than men are masculine because of the things that they do*. And therefore to the extent that you're male, the things that you do are therefore masculine. (The next line was meant to be affirmative-y though. Apologies.)
    Eg: If you were sat in the spaceport bar in the Altair VI Orbital and attempting to explain the concept of gender roles to a curious Betelgusian, and told them that stereotypically, men are stronger but less patient than women, generally more privileged, and that weaving and angling are both strongly gender coded activities, that alien would probably not be able to reliably assign those roles. Some roles would make sense, or at least be explicable post hoc (for example I.T. originally being a female-coded activity, but switching very quickly and strongly to male once it became an huge source of social and economic power), but a lot would appear as arbitrary (eg: pink being coded female - it used to be a super-masculine colour!) as they actually are.

    It's tempting to just pour yourself and the Betelgusian a large shot of good brown liquor and declare all this gender coding bullshit makes no sense, so fuck it anyway. But declaring independence from societal expectations isn't as easy as that.

    *Which is why performative masculinity usually comes across so badly. When we see a guy who insists on driving a huge muscle car or talking about his high calibre guns or whatever, the instant response is "what's he compensating for...?". You're right to say we as a society haven't figured out a positive definition to replace the old toxic one. We should probably put more focus on this, because there's always going to be a very strong incentive to maintain/re-establish the old model until there's something to actually replace it with.

    @V1m , I will push back on this post also. We live in a society and gender roles are societally defined. They might not be immediately obvious to an alien but you could tell the alien the rules and they would get it right a pretty good % of the time. Of course not everything a man or a "man" does is inherently masculine. Men and women both punish men who fall outside of acceptable masculine behavior with anything from social disapprobation to physical violence.

    Also, maybe think for a second about who you're talking to before you start talking about how unbecoming 'performative masculinity' inevitably is. What's he compensating for, yeah, I fucking wonder, maybe not having a dick and in general not actually being a man, hm.

    Steam, LoL: credeiki
This discussion has been closed.