LGBTAI+ Question and Discussion Thread III: Third Time's A Charm

[Lycunadari]

Hello!
Welcome to the LGBT+ information thread. This thread is meant to answer all sorts of questions one may have about the community, and have a casual atmosphere.
As such, this is an education thread, not a support thread (which you can conveniently find there instead). Why the split? Because the main thread is mostly populated by LGBT people who are seeking, well, support, and some questions or misunderstandings can be causes of additional stress. You can ask these questions here instead, and receive answers from LGBT people or allies. They can be as general or as precise as you want.

A couple things you need to know before browsing the rest of this thread:
- if you are LGBT+ but do not wish to educate people, or are likely to be offended by the lack of knowledge of some people, you're probably better off not reading this thread.
- if you have questions, go ahead! But try to stay polite and open-minded. If your question has an element of support (like “I think I might be transgender, how do I know for sure?” or “my LGBT friend has problems with their parents, how could I help?”), the support thread may also help, so try there as well.
- avoid misinformation. If you don't know the answer, don't intentionally pull stuff out of your backside. If you do so repeatedly, I will hunt you down, and GM your next game, which will include Drizz't and a Kender as GMPCs. (Theoretically unenforceable? You can never be 100% sure. Don't tempt your luck.)
- mind the forum rules and avoid the subjects of politics or religion (or sexually-explicit content for that matter). Otherwise, there is no subject that is preemptively banned, and we'd like it to stay this way; therefore, if a discussion upsets or angers you, report the offending posts (if a forum rule has actually been infringed) and/or step away from the computer until you calm down, instead of starting a flame war. This is the Internet. We're physically stuck behind your screen. The worst we can do is send stupid PMs until the inbox is full – and you don't even have to acknowledge their content before deleting them! We can't follow you and force you to keep arguing.
- no one here should be shunned here for unfortunately lacking some knowledge but desiring to learn. Nothing is self-evident, and that's even more true where gender and sexuality are concerned. (Now, if you request to be educated but act deliberately obtuse when replied to, you're gonna have a bad time. Don't be deliberately obtuse. Nobody likes morons.)

Spoiler: Glossary (thanks Zorg!), read first before asking a vocabulary question

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And, for reference, here is a list of commonly used words and definitions by our community. Please understand that this list is currently undergoing construction right now. Any contributions to the list are appreciated.
LGBT: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans*

LGBTAI: LGBT+Asexual/Allies+Intersex+All Inclusive

QUILTBAG:
Q - Queer and Questioning
U - Unidentified
I - Intersex
L - Lesbian
T - Transgender, Transexual
B - Bisexual
A - Asexual, Agender, Aromantic
G - Gay, Genderqueer

Where a word below is in italics, that means it has it's own entry on the list.

A note on labels: many of these labels are seemingly interchangeable, and for some people they are. However, please do not presume to correct or judge another person's use of a label. Bisexual and Pansexual are especially tricky in this regard, as are transgender and transsexual to a lesser degree.
Often the difference in why one person feels one label is appropriate and not another is deeply personal. If you wish to know more it is probably a topic to seek private advice on, from one of the people listed in the next section.


AFAB/AMAB: Assigned Female/Male at Birth

Agender(ed): Someone who lacks a gender.

Androgyne: Gender Identity with male and female aspects.

Androsexual: A person who is attracted to men.

Aromantic: A person who does not feel any romantic feeling toward anyone, independently of sexual attraction.

Asexual: A person who does not feel any/some sexual attraction, independently of any romantic feeling.

Binary, The: See: Gender Binary.

Bisexual: 1. attracted to two genders; 2. attracted to one's own gender and another gender; 3. attracted to various genders; 4. attracted to people regardless of gender; 5. ask the person who says they're bi what exactly they mean by that. See also Pansexual

Cis: See: Cisgender

Cisgender (CG): Somebody whose gender and sex align.

Demisexual: A person who is sexually attracted to someone(s) only after they have formed an intense emotional relationship with.

Dysphoria: The disassociation Trans* people feel with their own body.

Male-to-Female (MtF): Someone who was assigned male at birth, but is female. (AKA: trans woman)

Female: See: Woman

Female-to-Male (FtM): Someone who was assigned female at birth, but is male. (AKA: trans man)

FAAB: Female Assigned at Birth.

Feminine: Something generally associated by society with women.

FFS: Facial Feminization Surgery: Surgery to reduce chin/nose/cheekbones. Associated primarily with MAAB Trans people

FtM: See: Female to Male

Gay: A man who is attracted to men.

Gender Binary: The commonly held notion that there are only men and women on two extremes, with nothing in between.

Gender Expression (GE): How one expresses their Gender Identity to society.

Gender Identity (GI): How one feels inside society's idea of "man, woman, or other".

Genderfluid: Someone who fluctuates between different genders.

Genderqueer (GQ): Someone who is not of a binary gender; someone who is not male or female.

Gynosexual: A person who is attracted to women.

Heterosexual: A person who is attracted to members of the opposite gender.

Homosexual: A person who is attracted to members of their gender.

HRT: Hormone replacement therapy. MtF's tend to progestrogens, oestrogens and androgen blockers, while FtM's take testosterone almost exculsively.

Lesbian: A woman who is attracted to women.

MAAB: Male Assigned at Birth.

Male-to-Female (MtF): Someone who was assigned male at birth, but is female. (AKA: trans woman)

Man/men: A cis man or trans man. Male.

Masculine: Something generally associated by society with men.

Pansexual: A person who is attracted to people regardless of gender. See also Bisexual

Polyamorous: A person who is interested in a relationship with more than one person.

Presenting: Trans* shorthand for appearing as their preferred gender, regardless of any HRT, SRS or other changes.

Trans*: Transsexual and Transgender primarily, with the asterisk denoting that the trans- prefix could be followed by any number of appropriate words. It also includes other labels, and is a catch-all term for people who identify as something other than their biological sex at birth.

Transgender: Used in reference to a person whose sex(body) and gender(mind) are at odds or do not match. A transgender person can also identify as genderqueer, transsexual, or may use transgender as their only identity.

Transitioning: The process a Trans* person undergoes to move to their preferred gender. Often includes HRT, SRS, FFS.

Transsexual: In common terms the same as transgender above. In medical terms refers specifically to people who wish to transition from male to female or female to male, not accommodating any other options.

SRS: Sex Reassignment Surgery: Surgery to replace/transform a vagina into a penis, or vice versa. Mastectomies or plastic surgery may be used on breasts.

Sexual Orientation (SO): How one identifies who they are attracted to.

Significant Other(s) (SO): Person(s) you are in a relationship with.

Third-gendered: Someone who fits in a local society's third gender, usually male performing female tasks, occasionally vice versa. Also a person who feels they do not identify with any other gender identity.

Woman: A cis woman or trans woman. Female.

Allies: Hetereosexual-Cisgender people who support equality for sexual, gender, and romantic minorities.

Spoiler: Personal Consulting List: because sometimes, you'd rather ask something by PM.

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-Philemonite, for gay-related subjects.
-Mono Vertigo, for asexuality-related subjects.
- Rain Dragon, for trans-related subjects (particularly trans men/FtM).
-Miriel, for feminism, gender, asexuality, and trans-related subjects (particularly trans women/MtF).
-Golentan for bisexuality, genderfluidity/questioning-related subjects, and issues of childhood abuse.
-Irish Musician for cis/straight point of view on general LGBT+ subjects.
-Jormengand for bisexuality, trans, polyamory, and genderfluidity-related subjects.
-Arachu for trans (particularly trans women/MtF), hormones, bisexuality, pansexuality, and polyamory-related subjects.
-Astrella for trans (particularly trans women/FtM), LGBT+ rights, and lesbianly subjects. (Lesbianly is totally a word, shut up.*)
-Eldest for bisexuality, pansexuality, polyamoury, and kink-related subjects (still keep it PG-13 please).
-Kesnit for trans-related subjects (particularly trans men/FtM).



*this is why savvy people don't usually let me manage a thread.

Last thing: knowledge is power. You might be one of the lucky 10,000 today.



First thread
Second thread

[Lycunadari]

Continued discussion from the support thread:

Spoiler: Hidden so only the interested can see if they want

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Yeah, I know. I used "validity" for lack of a better term, and just that the artist doesn't make any comment or opinion on that subject either way. Most of the definitions seem to come straight from a specific person, often someone who coined the term themselves. My own opinions on it don't go any further than the tip of my own nose. One of the harder lessons I've had to learn (and still am) is you don't have to agree with or understand something to respect someone's application of it. If anyone ever tells me they're nyxgender or whatever it was (I'm not being flippant, I just can't remember what it was), I might ask for clarification on what that means to that person, and otherwise respond with a shrug and "okay" and maybe "so what pronouns does that come with?" even if I think [opinion redacted, because it's not relevant past the tip of my own nose]
Heck, I even felt an affinity with some of the hyper-specific terms, and was even kinda bummed out that "gender apathetic" wasn't included (though "gendermeh" is probably close enough).

Yes, exactly, that's what I meant. One doesn't have to understand something to be respectful and accepting of it.

Yeah, that's why I question whether the hyper-specific labels are "necessary" and not whether the underlying identities are valid. But necessity is subjective. For me, I feel like there can be a point between coining enough new words to improve communication and coining too many new words and confusing communication. I generally identify as asexual or just avoid the topic because I don't even want to explain asexuality or demisexuality to cishet people, forget anything more complicated.

Honestly, I doubt the people using hyper specific labels expect people to know what these lables mean, and for a many it's probably enough to have a word that feels right for themselves, without needing other people to know about it. I don't use very specific labels myself (though "bi grey ace and genderfluid" is probably seen as hyper specific by some...), but depending on who I'm talking to I just say bi or genderqueer/nonbinary/trans, because yeah, explaining that is already complicated enough.

Spoiler: devil's advocate

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This works the other way too. If you keep automatically accepting the "validity" of those with increasingly obscure identities, eventually it'll pass that anything goes and LGBTAI+ will end up (seen as) some sort of nutjob group. I'm not saying that people with non-cis-etc. identities/sexualities are nutjobs, after all we're all tolerant here, it's just that others aren't as much and given current events, it's clear that those who aren't as much are more likely to judge a group based on those on the edge of its bell curve. Even if we ourselves are free of lines, others aren't, and if they see a line cutting through this group it'll taint the perception of the group as a whole. Hyper-specific labels are at best confusing and at worst alienating and exclusive, not inclusive (I didn't know what some of those terms meant, people not in this group won't know even more).

Are you aware that in this case "devil's advocate" is actully just the mainstream cis/straight opinion?
Anyway, I think you are missing the point I was trying to make - if we allow ourself to have lines that throw people out because they are too wierd, then of course cis people will also dismiss them ("if not even trans people see them as valid, we don't need to accept them either"), and then the group of "acceptable" people will get smaller and smaller.
And because people will look at the edges of the bell curve, we need to include everyone who wants to be included - because by including fringe identities, we are normalising other queer identities. Trying to assimilate to straight people by saying "hey, at least we are not weird like those people, please accept us" doesn't work, and has been tried before (see: the black bi trans women who started the stonewall movement being thrown under the bus by white cis gay people).
I feel like I'm doing a bad job explaining this, so I'll quote some of the things that have been written elsewhere on this topic:

Spoiler: Spoilered for lenght

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We get the idea that all orientations exist in small boxes with rigid walls that cannot coexist within a space comes from Straight people, because Straightness constructs itself as a small box with rigid walls that cannot coexist with other orientations (this is how it maintains its exclusivity and therefore its social capital). Heteronormativity teaches us that, because it’s what Straightness does, this is the only correct way to construct orientation.

(there is not a little bit of colonial thinking tied up in this framework, as well, because heteronormativity also teaches us that this is how we must construct other people’s orientations for them, in order to better reshape their experiences into something more easily catalogued and consumed)

I wish I were naïve enough to say, “Hey, maybe let’s not cling to heteronormative frameworks, there’s nothing in them for us,” and leave it at that. Because I know, for a lot of people, buying into things like non-fluid sexuality, or toxic monogamy, or conflating sex and romance, really is just a matter of, “we never learned better.” Heteronormativity is, well, normative. It makes itself invisible so that it can’t be contested, so that for the most part, we only ever recognize and unlearn the aspects of it that directly harm us. Anywhere else, all the other arenas where we still “fit in,” we never think to look for the writing on the wall.

The problem arises when people are shown these systems and choose to ignore, erase, or even embrace them. That’s when it turns into respectability politics: by adopting all of the heteronormative frameworks that do not directly conflict with one’s own identity, one hopes to “switch sides,” to reposition one’s own identity into the privileged social class by promising not to rock the boat—at the expense of anyone who doesn’t fit the new mold.

But what happens when these respectability politics backfire? What happens when someone invested in pushing this new framework realizes that there’s still no room in it for them, that once the borders are redrawn they’ll still be standing on the wrong side of them?

Here’s the thing: when you try to infiltrate normative structures, when you try to reposition Gay™ as Normal™, then other deviations from normative structures (that would otherwise be branded “queer” by heteronormativity) also get repositioned—as Less Gay.

You can imagine this didn’t sit well with people who thought they were on their way in. So now, even while we still deal with respectability politics that appeal to heteronormativity, we can see a new brand of respectability politics crop up, designed specifically to appeal to the first:

“Of course we know that sexual orientations are non-fluid, and can never intersect or overlap with other orientations. That’s why our asexuality isn’t an orientation, it’s just a modifier (or maybe it’s even a kink!). We promise it won’t threaten your normative framework if you take us with you.”

By all rights, this should be taken as an omen by everyone who engages in respectability politics: it will always backfire. Normative structures can only elevate so many people before they collapse under their own weight; they need to find as many ways as possible to cut people out of the paradigm. And no matter how safe you think you are in your framework, someone else will find an excuse to write you out of it.

You will never be able to guarantee your own inclusion in an exclusionary politics.

Respectability politics is a phrase that describes two very closely linked principles:
First, it blames a marginalized community for its own oppression, and second, it says, “if you just behaved in the way the oppressor class behaves, you would have social freedom and capital as well.”

This results in members of the marginalized group treating anyone they see as not adhering properly to the oppressor class’s values as inferior and unworthy of association.

And since one part of the oppressor class’s values is the violent expulsion and mistreatment of those who do not conform, respectability politics inevitably leads to exclusionary gatekeeping, to the tune of, “look how good we are, because we’re nothing like those people you associate us with.”

This happens in almost every oppressed group. It is most vibrantly researched and understood in terms of Black american communities, but it’s everywhere.

It happens when the mentally disabled distance ourselves with the physically disabled, claiming that we’re nothing like those people because at least they can still work. It happens when the physically disabled distance ourselves form the mentally disabled, because we’re nothing like those people, because they’re not crazy. It happens when non-muslim Arabs distance ourselves from islam, because we’re nothing liek those people, we’re good christian folk who would never hurt you.

In all cases, instead of saying to overlapping oppressed groups, “you are valuable people, even if your needs are different from my own, and I would be proud to band together to create a stronger force working towards a better world for all of us,” the respectability politician say to the oppressor, “You see? I am not like them. I am safe to elevate to your status. I will not force radical revolution. Let me into your class, and I will make sure the classes still exist by engaging in oppressive behaviour with you.”

Respectability politics is ignoring your own history and culture in favour of the oppressor’s, so that the oppressor will consider assimilating you and you will have the power and safety of being in that oppressive class, rather than abolishing the power structure in its entirety.

Both quotes are from intersex-ionality who has written a lot on this topic (mostly discussing the question if asexual and aromantic people are a part of the LGBT+ community, but I think it's aplicable here as well.)

And another one, from robotbisexual:

But to answer, its the idea of respectability politics, pushing away more laughable or “embarrassing” identities so that you don’t get associated with them, trying to appeal to your oppressors by conveying yourself as “really the same as you,” rather than realizing the community as a whole is radically different and that some people are incapable of conforming.

The act of assimilation among the community has manifested in sacrificing certain members of the community in order to ascertain rights/support for what are considered “gold star” members, and creating a separation in the community by refusal to associate with ideas, language, and identities that are deemed too radical, too hard to sell to the Straights to get them accept the community (eg. Queer, pansexuality, nonbinary genders, and yes, asexuality.)

Its all the “pick a side, you can’t be bisexual"s, all the "special snowflake gender"s, all the "you can’t identify as queer because its evil"s, and all the "asexuality isn’t a real orientation stop trying to be special"s. All the identities and movements that are considered a hindrance to mainstream Gay respectability politics and the effort to assimilate the smaller community into "Normal” society, stomping on people that can’t be “acceptable” in the same way and thus cutting them off to gain limited rights for a section of the community.

That’s assimilation.

Alright, I've never heard of these, so I decided to look them up.

Magigender sadly doesn't mean 'I identify as a magical being' but rather 'I identify as mostly _____'. Couldn't that be just as easily summed up by genderqueer (somebody who identifies as more than one gender to some extent)?

Lithsexual and frayromantic apparently refer to somebody who experiences sexual or romantic attraction (respectively) but that attraction abates if reciprocated or as they get to know a person better. That doesn't sound like an orientation. That just sounds like a personal thing in the former case, and in the latter... Well, frankly, lots of people experience romantic attraction to a person that goes right out the window as they get to know them better. That's just infatuation.

The definition I found for 'maverique' was 'characterized by autonomy and inner conviction regarding a sense of self that is entirely independent of male/masculinity, female/femininity or anything which derives from the two while still being neither without gender nor of a neutral gender'. Except, well, that sounds exactly like a neutral gender. If you identify as a specific gender that's independent of maleness or femaleness (and don't identify as one of the third genders that exist amongst numerous peoples outside the standard Western binary) then that's neutral gender. 'Maverique' just sounds like a word for one who is neutral gender but wants a mildly more exciting word for it.

While genderqueer can be used as a specific identity, it is also an umbrella term that covers everything that's not 100% male or female, e.g. agender, bigender, genderfluid, noitrois etc. Magigender is way more specific, so while someone who is a magigirl/magiboy could also identify as genderqueer, it isn't the same.

Lith/fraysexuality isn't losing attraction when you get to know someone better, it's losing attraction when the attraction is reciprocated. Also, aren't all orientations just personal things in that case? Where is the difference between "only attracted to people of my gender", "not attracted to anyone" and "only attracted to people who are not attracted to me" that makes two of the orientations and one just a personal thing?

No, it's not the same. If you think of gender not as a linear spectrum, it makes more sense. Think if it like colours - if male is blue, and female is yellow, a neutral gender would be white (or black), while maverique would be red - not a mix of the two, and not neutral, but completely different.

Also, I'm sure you didn't mean it like that, but saying "sounds like a word for one who is neutral gender but wants a mildly more exciting word for it" sound a lot like "you're just a special snowflake", which is extremely disrespectful to say to anyone, but especially to nonbinary people, because that's one of the favourite insults from transphobes, antifeminists etc for everyone who doesn't exactly fit into the acceptable identities. So yeah, not cool.

I don't really see how that's analogous (and I think it's a stretch to connect that statement to prejudice against asexual people). Somebody earlier requested this discussion stop, so if you want it can be moved to the other thread (which I think is more amenable to such discussion) or PM.

The reason this line sounds aphobic is that asexuality is often called "just a preference", a "modifier (it doesn't say who you are attracted to, but how), a personal quirk, or even a kink, all dismissing it as a real sexuality (often coupled with denying the experiences of asexual people). Lith-/fraysexuality falls on the asexual spectrum (and lith-/frayromanticism on the aromantic spectrum), so saying Lith-/fraysexuality isn't a sexuality comes awfully close to saying asexuality isn't a sexuality - which is aphobic.

[Knaight]

Honestly, I doubt the people using hyper specific labels expect people to know what these lables mean, and for a many it's probably enough to have a word that feels right for themselves, without needing other people to know about it. I don't use very specific labels myself (though "bi grey ace and genderfluid" is probably seen as hyper specific by some...), but depending on who I'm talking to I just say bi or genderqueer/nonbinary/trans, because yeah, explaining that is already complicated enough.

On top of this, the whole idea that more labels and more specificity deligitimizes something only works for some people. Other people will look at it and come to the conclusion that as something is studied in more depth the field of study adopts more jargon. There's no reason that human gender or sexuality should be exempt, it's just something much more personal to a lot of people so the knowledge base ends up much less concentrated in academic theorists.

I'll grant that this comes from someone in a jargon heavy field, and as such someone who is really tired of the "this set of concepts has a large vocabulary, it must be BS" argument, but still.

[WarKitty]

Question for you guys:

A lot of people try to say that transgender people shouldn't be allowed to transition by comparing it to Body Integrity Identity Disorder - where people think an otherwise healthy limb doesn't belong to their body and want it amputated. How would you respond to that?

[Knaight]

A lot of people try to say that transgender people shouldn't be allowed to transition by comparing it to Body Integrity Identity Disorder - where people think an otherwise healthy limb doesn't belong to their body and want it amputated. How would you respond to that?

The end result of transitioning is having a physical body with particular primary and secondary sexual characteristics. The end result of a comparable hypothetical surgery for BIID would be missing a limb. Missing a limb is a demonstrably bad thing, having particular primary and secondary sexual characteristics isn't.

[Serpentine]

The end result of transitioning is having a physical body with particular primary and secondary sexual characteristics. The end result of a comparable hypothetical surgery for BIID would be missing a limb. Missing a limb is a demonstrably bad thing, having particular primary and secondary sexual characteristics isn't.

This, and also I think the issues of "First, do no harm" and treatability.

Current understanding of trans people is that it's an intrinsic feature of their brains. We currently cannot treat this in the brains of those people who want to transition, and it seems likely we never will (and if we could, there would be a whole barrelload of ethical issues to deal with re. identity, self, etc). But we can treat the body. Treating the body is risky and can go wrong, like any other surgical procedure, but the evidence I've seen suggests that most of the time the net result is much more benefit than detriment. The result of transitioning for a trans person is a whole, healthy person. Not treating the body and insisting on treating the brain, even though we know that doesn't work, can and often does result in significant, even catastrophic, physical and/or emotional harm.
For BIID, I don't know how much we know about it, but there's a fair chance it's not intrinsic and inextricable to the brains of the people who have it like transness is. It is likely that it can be treated in the brain without having to treat the body, and the result of treating the body, which is a risky procedure like any other surgery, is a non-whole person stuck with many significant disadvantages. Not treating the body and treating the brain, instead, may result in a whole, healthy person.
If it turns out that BIID is an intrinsic feature of a person's brain, and/or we don't currently have the means to treat it in the brain, and/or a person's BIID is so extreme that they are at substantial risk of causing significant damage to their bodies, then it may be that amputation is, in fact, the best method of treatment for that person - not treating the body, in that case, would cause more harm than treating it, as with trans people.

Disclaimer: I am not trans, I don't have BIID, and I am no form of medical professional. This is therefore just a fairly uninformed opinion of a person not directly affected by any part of the subject.

[Inevitability]

Question for you guys:

A lot of people try to say that transgender people shouldn't be allowed to transition by comparing it to Body Integrity Identity Disorder - where people think an otherwise healthy limb doesn't belong to their body and want it amputated. How would you respond to that?

That argument only works if one assumes that allowing BIID-patients amputation is wrong. That's a very debatable notion.

Even if one does, there's still a number of other arguments. Chief amongst them is probably the fact that losing a limb or sense significantly restricts a person's freedom and autonomy, while hormone therapy and SRS simply don't harm the body in the same way.

Having BIID is only similar to being transsexual in that a change to the body is desired. The extent of such a change, as well as the specific conditions' traits, are in no way comparable.

[Asmodean_]

Continued discussion from the support thread:

Are you aware that in this case "devil's advocate" is actully just the mainstream cis/straight opinion?
Anyway, I think you are missing the point I was trying to make - if we allow ourself to have lines that throw people out because they are too wierd, then of course cis people will also dismiss them ("if not even trans people see them as valid, we don't need to accept them either"), and then the group of "acceptable" people will get smaller and smaller.
And because people will look at the edges of the bell curve, we need to include everyone who wants to be included - because by including fringe identities, we are normalising other queer identities. Trying to assimilate to straight people by saying "hey, at least we are not weird like those people, please accept us" doesn't work, and has been tried before (see: the black bi trans women who started the stonewall movement being thrown under the bus by white cis gay people).
I feel like I'm doing a bad job explaining this, so I'll quote some of the things that have been written elsewhere on this topic:

Spoiler: Spoilered for lenght

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Things in spoilers disappeared for some reason. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ -asmo

Both quotes are from intersex-ionality who has written a lot on this topic (mostly discussing the question if asexual and aromantic people are a part of the LGBT+ community, but I think it's aplicable here as well.)

And another one, from robotbisexual:

I didn't phrase my argument that well, looking back on it. My point wasn't that we need to be accepted, it's that having these hyper-specific labels isn't conducive to being understood, and being understood is a base requirement for tolerance. From my (admittedly limited) experience in this world, most of these are obscure to the point where I need to google them. Personally, I'm pan. But saying I'm bi is so much easier since it's immediately understood by so many more people. It's inaccurate, but it's close enough and generally more convenient. Having more and more labels only alienates you from the non-LGBTAI+ community, since all you're doing is confusing them. It's not our duty to make everything nice and easy for them, but doing so is also easier for us. All we're doing by having hyper-specific labels is telling them that you're not good enough because you don't understand our labels, and that we're superior because we do. All we're doing is pushing them further away.
And isn't tolerance supposed to do the opposite?

[noparlpf]

One common argument I've heard when people start debating amputating an arm vs. transitioning is that a lot of people consider genital surgery and loss of fertility to leave the patient similarly "incomplete" or "damaged" as if they had lost a limb.

Personally I don't consider genitalia or gonads to be equivalent to limbs, but I've heard that argument a lot of times as an attempt to delegitimise gender dysphoria.

[lio45]

Magigender
Lithsexual

Gotta hand it to Rich for including some of these more extreme boutique queerness concepts in his works. Vaarsuvius, a character whose libido is nil and whose only passion is magic, who isn't a male nor a female, and who is a mage, is clearly as magigendered as can be. And Tsukiko is a perfect example of lichsexual.

:P

[Ursus the Grim]

I got kind of a weird one for you.

First, full disclosure. Despite the whole 'bear' thing, I'm a heterosexual cismale.

Anyway. I've been watching All in the Family for the first time, and I've kind of been pleasantly surprised by how it took on some pretty controversial stuff. Specifically, as it relates to this thread, how Archie and his family deal with LGBT issues.

From my perspective, Archie's portrayed as a well-intentioned, if older and somewhat ignorant guy. His ignorance and age aren't meant to portray him as a bad person, per se, just to explain why he's so befuddled and vexed by members of subcultures and alternative lifestyles. A lot of what he says and does are offensive. He often learns something of a lesson at the end (ie, the episode when he realizes that his super-butch bar buddy is gay) but that doesn't necessarily absolve him of the things he's said, nor does it completely change his outlook.

I know this is probably going to vary from person to person, but I'm really interested in how the show (and Archie) look through the lens of an LGBT+ individual. Do you see a good-hearted but out of touch Archie in some of your own family members? Does Archie just come across as a lot less sympathetic than he does to me?

I have been ruminating on it because this seems like it might be a simple-ish, shared experience with which I can compare perspectives.

[Coidzor]

Question for you guys:

A lot of people try to say that transgender people shouldn't be allowed to transition by comparing it to Body Integrity Identity Disorder - where people think an otherwise healthy limb doesn't belong to their body and want it amputated. How would you respond to that?

I'd say I run into the other way around more often, people arguing that they should have their desire to amputate various parts of their bodies be accepted without question by others because otherwise one must be invalidating trans people who seek SRS.

At any rate, I find them to be uniformly intellectually dishonest and bankrupt, so I've stopped engaging with such people as a pointless exercise, like any other internet troll, really.

[Serpentine]

One common argument I've heard when people start debating amputating an arm vs. transitioning is that a lot of people consider genital surgery and loss of fertility to leave the patient similarly "incomplete" or "damaged" as if they had lost a limb.

Personally I don't consider genitalia or gonads to be equivalent to limbs, but I've heard that argument a lot of times as an attempt to delegitimise gender dysphoria.

I'd say that, in that case, in order to be consistent that person must also be against hysterectomies, vasectomies and so on.

[Troacctid]

Question for you guys:

A lot of people try to say that transgender people shouldn't be allowed to transition by comparing it to Body Integrity Identity Disorder - where people think an otherwise healthy limb doesn't belong to their body and want it amputated. How would you respond to that?

I would say that those people have no idea what they're talking about. Then I would ignore them and stick with the actual consensus of modern medical science, which is that transition is a safe and effective treatment for gender dysphoria, and that it has a proven track record of both improving and saving patients' lives.

[Raistlin1040]

I didn't phrase my argument that well, looking back on it. My point wasn't that we need to be accepted, it's that having these hyper-specific labels isn't conducive to being understood, and being understood is a base requirement for tolerance. From my (admittedly limited) experience in this world, most of these are obscure to the point where I need to google them. Personally, I'm pan. But saying I'm bi is so much easier since it's immediately understood by so many more people. It's inaccurate, but it's close enough and generally more convenient. Having more and more labels only alienates you from the non-LGBTAI+ community, since all you're doing is confusing them. It's not our duty to make everything nice and easy for them, but doing so is also easier for us. All we're doing by having hyper-specific labels is telling them that you're not good enough because you don't understand our labels, and that we're superior because we do. All we're doing is pushing them further away.
And isn't tolerance supposed to do the opposite?

I think the fundamental disconnect here is between "understanding" and "accepting", and I'm not sure that being understood is the floor for tolerance. I don't need people to understand me, necessarily, but I do need them to accept me.

I've come around to the idea, and this is certainly arguable and just my opinion and anyone can give their thoughts on it, that in some ways, we just can't understand other people the way we want to all the time. A former partner of mine recently began thinking of her identity, and decided to identify herself as asexual. We had a long talk about it, and I walked away with a lot of intellectual knowledge of what she was talking about, but basically no understanding of what it's like. So much of my life has revolved around love and sex, for so long, that I find the idea that someone doesn't feel any strong interest in those things, or might outright not want them at all, completely foreign. But I'm thinking that's okay, because I can still accept that when someone says "I am asexual" or "I am aromantic", I know what those words mean, and I believe the person. I don't know if I can UNDERSTAND it, I can't put myself in that position, but I can accept that it's real and accept that being asexual or aromantic is valid and doesn't mean anything negative for the person.

On the other side of the conversation, I recently spoke with a girl who felt the need to tell everyone that she didn't "believe" in third gender, or agender, or bigender people. If you were trans, she said, that was fine, but no one could be both or neither or something separate altogether. She was very kind about it, but she didn't believe it and was firm. We spoke for a while, and I don't know if she ever reached a point of understanding, but she did eventually end up conceding that someone else's identity doesn't affect her at all. It takes her no effort to respect someone's pronouns, or accept their identity. I assume she still doesn't understand why someone would identify as something other than male or female, but she did seem to understand that her lack of understanding doesn't matter. When faced with someone who identifies that way, her options are to be combative and invalidate them, or accept that they are what they say they are and react appropriately.

There is merit to the argument that the social queer movement must be conscious of its presentation, and in some ways, that means "packaging" ourselves in a way that makes people see us as normal and standard and not weird pervert freaks, and in that essence, you're probably right, that simple is best. We've just reached the point, maybe, where there is some degree of trans awareness, for example, in mainstream culture, and if you go to the young, liberal areas, there are people who have some knowledge of genderqueer or nonbinary, labels like that. To "add" new labels feels like pulling the rug out from under people who might be on-board, this idea that as soon as they get comfortable, we change it up. That's not a bad argument.

I think the more convincing argument, though, is that if you denigrate someone based on your opinion of their identity, you're being a jerk. In nearly any scenario, if someone says "I am this thing," and your response is "No you're not, get over yourself," you're being a jerk in that situation. It's true, if you label yourself pansexual, fewer people will immediately know what that means relative to bisexual, but if you are confident in that label for yourself and comfortable explaining it, that's something you can do. You can define it, you can explain it, you can educate. It's not your "duty", but if you care enough to use a nonstandard label, then hopefully you're comfortable enough explaining it, and then the ball is in the other person's court as to whether they want to say "Okay, if that's what you say you are, then I support that," or to recoil and go "whoa whoa, it used to just be gay or straight, what's all this new stuff?"

Appealing to understanding works in a sort of simplistic way where you can say things like "Well, you know how you like boys? Well I like girls in the same way, so it's sort of like that, understand?", but I think the further you get away from that, the harder it is to understand. I don't know that it's so simple to make people understand what it's like to be trans, or nonbinary, or asexual, or whatever, but I'm not sure complete understanding is a reasonable goal, nor do I think it needs to be. Understanding places a strong emotional and intellectual burden on the other person, while acceptance allows you to ask, "I know this may not be something you can empathize with, but I am asking you to respect me, validate me, support me, and love me even if you don't completely understand," which I think is both easier, and maybe closer to what we want, and if that's the case, then I don't see why we would exclude "alternative" labels from that.

[Serpentine]

@^ Yes, that's what I was saying. You don't have to understand something to accept it. But it is a very hard lesson to learn.

[Asmodean_]

There seems to be a disconnect in what we mean by" "understand". I said it in the sense of "oh I know what this means" instead of "I've been there and/or know how you feel".
My point was that knowing what the terms mean is, if not absolutely required, at least very helpful in the path to acceptance, and having increasingly more terms isn't going to help that.

[The Succubus]

I'd say that, in that case, in order to be consistent that person must also be against hysterectomies, vasectomies and so on.

Or even trimming their fingernails, for that matter. I would very much like to see the medical data for BIID, particularly relating to morbidity. I strongly suspect that transgenderism is a much more common condition by at least one or two orders of magnitude.

EDIT: My google searches have found very little concrete medical information. A lot of internet discussion but only found a short wiki article and a paper from the University of Amsterdam which wasn't able to draw any concrete conclusions. It does note that BIID doesnt have an established entry in the DSM and no morbidity data is available.

[Heliomance]

<snip>

But if you're accepting all that, then do you also allow self-identification as a dog? As a unicorn? As an Apache helicopter?

[The Succubus]

The thing is, no-one has ever genuinely known themselves to be an attack helicopter, a tree or a Shoggoth because there is no physiological overlap between humans as a species and these beings. There is a massive overlap between male and female identity. My personal belief is that trying to see transgenderism as a mental issue ultimately doesn't work as it as doesn't have anything to do with conciously thinking "I am a girl" or "I am xyz". The feeling of dysphoria, as I understand from what people have described, is a disconnect from much deeper within the body. Its the reason why conversion therapy is the miserable failure it is - that sense of identity comes the layout of nerves in the body mismatching a mental map that passively exists in the brain independantly of our normal thought processes, like the parts of our brain that handle skin sensation, digestion, kidneys and sex cell production. We cannot change that part of the brain (nor should we, I believe) so instead, we change the body to match that map. Its the reason why HRT and gender affirmation surgery have the high success rates they do.

[Lycunadari]

But if you're accepting all that, then do you also allow self-identification as a dog? As a unicorn? As an Apache helicopter?

If you're talking about otherkin, then yes, I do. If it makes you happy to identify as a dog, why should I mind? It's not like you're hurting anyone. Also, a lot of otherkin a mentally ill kids, often abuse survivors, who use their kin as a way to cope - and I think any thing that helps you to cope and isn't actively harmful to you or others is a good thing.
Also, from what I've read being otherkin is less like being trans and more a spiritual belief, like believing you used to be a certain animal in a former life, or just having a really strong connection to something to the point where you identify with it, so to me it isn't any more strange than other believes and religions.
Most otherkin people are also either trans themselves, unrelated to their kintype, or are not trans, but are aware that being kin is not the same as being trans. The people who make a big deal out of it, saying stuff like picking flowers is offensive to flowerkin, claming they are oppressed for being kin, or those who use identities like apache helicopter are usually trolls who are transphobic and just want to make fun of otherkin.
Generally, the argument "but what if people want to ID as X?" is a pretty transphobic argument that has been used for ages not just against unusual nonbinary identities, but also against binary trans people. So I'm pretty tired of hearing it over and over again, especially from people who are not 4chan trolls (because I just ignore them and don't bother explaining it to them).

[Ursus the Grim]

If you're talking about otherkin, then yes, I do. If it makes you happy to identify as a dog, why should I mind? It's not like you're hurting anyone. Also, a lot of otherkin a mentally ill kids, often abuse survivors, who use their kin as a way to cope - and I think any thing that helps you to cope and isn't actively harmful to you or others is a good thing.
Also, from what I've read being otherkin is less like being trans and more a spiritual belief, like believing you used to be a certain animal in a former life, or just having a really strong connection to something to the point where you identify with it, so to me it isn't any more strange than other believes and religions.

I'm going to sidestep the comparison to religion for a minute and ask this instead.

If you believe many other kin are mentally ill, the victims of abuse. . . Do you not also see parallels between that attitude and some rather ignorant and outdated assumptions about homosexuality and other LGBT+ lifestyles?

I would be interested in reading any studies you have regarding mental illness in the other kin community.

Edit: realized how accidentally aggressive this sounds. Didn't intend it to be.

[Lycunadari]

I'm going to sidestep the comparison to religion for a minute and ask this instead.

If you believe many other kin are mentally ill, the victims of abuse. . . Do you not also see parallels between that attitude and some rather ignorant and outdated assumptions about homosexuality and other LGBT+ lifestyles.

I would be interested in reading any studies you have regarding mental illness in the other kin community.

Ah, I think I phrased that badly, I didn't mean to say that being kin is necessarily related to being mentally ill - I just have seen many otherkin people state that being kin helps them with coping with metal illness or abuse, and I think that invalidating something that people use to cope, regardless of cause, is bad. I admit that it's only based on what I've personally observed, not on actual studies (are there even studies on being otherkin? If there are, I'd be interested in them as well). Also, I'm not otherkin myself and am not very knowledgable about kin stuff in general, so if someone who is kin themseves wants to correct me, I'm happy to listen and change my opinion.

[Knaight]

But if you're accepting all that, then do you also allow self-identification as a dog? As a unicorn? As an Apache helicopter?

I'll get to this as a whole, but to start with take this post:

The thing is, no-one has ever genuinely known themselves to be an attack helicopter, a tree or a Shoggoth because there is no physiological overlap between humans as a species and these beings. There is a massive overlap between male and female identity. My personal belief is that trying to see transgenderism as a mental issue ultimately doesn't work as it as doesn't have anything to do with conciously thinking "I am a girl" or "I am xyz". The feeling of dysphoria, as I understand from what people have described, is a disconnect from much deeper within the body. Its the reason why conversion therapy is the miserable failure it is - that sense of identity comes the layout of nerves in the body mismatching a mental map that passively exists in the brain independantly of our normal thought processes, like the parts of our brain that handle skin sensation, digestion, kidneys and sex cell production. We cannot change that part of the brain (nor should we, I believe) so instead, we change the body to match that map. Its the reason why HRT and gender affirmation surgery have the high success rates they do.

This. Looking at the subset of otherkin that would say something like "I am a bear in a literal sense" while using a standard definition of bear*, it's not even vaguelly comparable. The underlying reality needed for one person specifically to have been a bear is that humans in general are capable of having bears as children. Meanwhile the underlying reality needed for one person specifically to be trans or have a non-binary gender or sexuality is for that humans in general be capable of having children who don't neatly fit into two large categories that were constructed as imprecise models for an incredibly complicated and messy biological process that demonstrably produces humans who don't fit in said model for other reasons even when you completely ignore the mental side. One of these is a pretty outlandish claim. For the other, the outlandish claim is the opposite. There's some amount of digging into specifics that can be done, but

But lets put the staggering ignorance it takes to deny that trans people exist aside for a moment. Lets even put aside those cis supremacists who are somehow convinced that biology is on their side and their god awful understanding of human biology. What exactly is meant by "accept" and "allow" in this context? Accept could mean "take to be factually accurate", or it could mean "consider inaccurate but respect inasmuch as using chosen pronouns and the like". Allow usually just means "not-prohibit", but that just pushes the question to what prohibition looks like. Using the "take to be factually accurate" definition, with atypical genders and sexualities I'd accept it to about the standard amount, which is that they can generally be assumed to be true with caveats about how all of the labels are imperfect models over a very complicated set of concepts we don't understand. That caveat actually applies less to the hyper specific ones than something like "straight"; I'd argue that the hyper specific ones are likely a better model of the truth for people who fit in them. That doesn't extend to otherkin, and there's no real reason to think that it would given the biological side. The slippery slope just doesn't fit here. There's also a whole bunch of definitions of accept that basically work out to "you think that way and I won't respond with hostility to it", and at that point otherkin are in. They have a belief that I think is factually incorrect, whoop de doo. Everyone I know has at least one belief that I think is factually incorrect, I can point to a whole bunch of beliefs I had that turned out to be factually incorrect (while I can't point to any that I currently have on account of how I would thus no longer believe them I obviously still think that they're there and still try to find them). Factually incorrect is not the metric that a belief needs to meet to warrant hostility in response. As for allowing, that's a can of worms I'm not going to get into.

*Which by all indications is a pretty tiny subset.

[Astrella]

Question for you guys:

A lot of people try to say that transgender people shouldn't be allowed to transition by comparing it to Body Integrity Identity Disorder - where people think an otherwise healthy limb doesn't belong to their body and want it amputated. How would you respond to that?

Well, there are a few differences between being trans and say having anorexia or BIID; one of them is that trans people's perception of their own bodies tends to be pretty accurate, it just cause them distress, contrary to say anorexia where there is a shifted perception of the self; but the main argument is really a partical one, BIID / anorexia whathavit respond very well to psychotherapy, while actually losing wait, doing amputations and such tends to not actually achieve relief; the distress just continues afterwards. For trans people psychotherapy essentially does nil, while transitioning helps out a ton and reduces distress and increases wellbeing a lot. We might not perfectly understand the underlying mechanics, but we do know what works.

[The Succubus]

Well, there are a few differences between being trans and say having anorexia or BIID; one of them is that trans people's perception of their own bodies tends to be pretty accurate, it just cause them distress, contrary to say anorexia where there is a shifted perception of the self; but the main argument is really a partical one, BIID / anorexia whathavit respond very well to psychotherapy, while actually losing wait, doing amputations and such tends to not actually achieve relief; the distress just continues afterwards. For trans people psychotherapy essentially does nil, while transitioning helps out a ton and reduces distress and increases wellbeing a lot. We might not perfectly understand the underlying mechanics, but we do know what works.

From what I understand, good trans-centric psychotherapy is mainly to undo the damage done by forced negative perceptions from others. If all people were accepting of trans folks, there would be considerably less need for it, save one or two sessions if help is needed for exploring gender identity, or possibly with paediatric trans people.

[Ifni]

Well, there are a few differences between being trans and say having anorexia or BIID; one of them is that trans people's perception of their own bodies tends to be pretty accurate, it just cause them distress, contrary to say anorexia where there is a shifted perception of the self; but the main argument is really a partical one, BIID / anorexia whathavit respond very well to psychotherapy, while actually losing wait, doing amputations and such tends to not actually achieve relief; the distress just continues afterwards. For trans people psychotherapy essentially does nil, while transitioning helps out a ton and reduces distress and increases wellbeing a lot. We might not perfectly understand the underlying mechanics, but we do know what works.

This seems true for anorexia (where as you say there's an incorrect self-image involved, although a very quick google does indicate that a non-negligible fraction of people don't respond well to therapy); I don't think it's true for BIID though?

This page says there's no cure and some people continue to experience symptoms after years of psychotherapy, and that amputation has a 70% success rate in resolving symptoms (which is a long way from high enough for it to be uncontroversial, but isn't "fails to work most of the time", either). This paper, referenced in that article, says that "Surgery is found helpful in all subjects who underwent amputation and those subjects score significantly lower on a disability scale than BIID subjects without body modification", although their sample size is very small.

This obviously does not come close to the evidence that transition is helpful for trans subjects, and amputation-as-a-treatment-for-BIID seems to be extremely controversial in a way that gender-affirming surgery is not, probably for very good reasons. But I'm not sure we can say yet that amputation is clearly not the right treatment for BIID, or that there is a substantially better approach. It wouldn't be particularly surprising to me if humans could have a range of disorders relating to mismatches between the body and the brain's body map, and that those disorders would be resistant to treatment with therapy.

But yeah, the reason BIID sufferers are a bad comparison group for trans people is that we understand BIID even less than we understand gender dysphoria, and in particular I agree that in the case of gender dysphoria we have good, clear evidence that transition is a helpful treatment. You shouldn't need to understand an unrelated problem in order to say "if it's helpful - that is, of all the options we know about, this approach generally leads to the best outcomes with the minimum of harm - then we should support it".

[The Succubus]

You shouldn't need to understand an unrelated problem in order to say "if it's helpful - that is, of all the options we know about, this approach generally leads to the best outcomes with the minimum of harm - then we should support it".

The best outcomes with the minimum of harm....a noble statement that very often can twisted. The appalling practice known as a conversion therapy can be said to have the best outcomes for transphobic relatives pressuring a trans person. "It's for your own good" is an excuse often deployed by people harming someone for a best outcome. Ignore what a patient says is best for them at your peril.

"But Succubus, what about suicidal people and schizophrenic people? Should we encourage them to do potentially harmful things if they feel it is in their best interests?" Personally, I believe not although it greatly depends on circumstance. The problem is you are trying to compare mental illnesses (severe depression, etc) with a physiological condition (transgenderism). It doesn't work.

[golentan]

The best outcomes with the minimum of harm....a noble statement that very often can twisted. The appalling practice known as a conversion therapy can be said to have the best outcomes for transphobic relatives pressuring a trans person. "It's for your own good" is an excuse often deployed by people harming someone for a best outcome. Ignore what a patient says is best for them at your peril.

"But Succubus, what about suicidal people and schizophrenic people? Should we encourage them to do potentially harmful things if they feel it is in their best interests?" Personally, I believe not although it greatly depends on circumstance. The problem is you are trying to compare mental illnesses (severe depression, etc) with a physiological condition (transgenderism). It doesn't work.

Honestly? I feel like listening to schizophrenic people more would do a lot of good. Not to the extent of humoring "this clearly nonexistent thing is real," but maybe listening to the fears and emotions that the stuff engenders, not telling people it's all in their head, accepting coping mechanisms even if they're kind of out of the ordinary or outside your comfort zones because the person tells you they need them. The times I've gone off my antipsychotics it was usually because I felt like they were pushing an agenda on me without caring about what I wanted out of life. The times I've been highest functioning and least depressed have been the times when the people who had authority over me listened to and accommodated the quirks that are part of "life as me" like "My memory gets jumbled sometimes, a list helps me stay focused during routine tasks," rather than trying to push "you must act this neurotypical to keep your job."

Cuz I gotta be honest. I'm really scared these days that any would be employers and most of the people outside my family would rather I go away forever than have to deal with the fact that my mind is a bit broken. And that makes it really hard to trust that the people who are making a thousand dollars a month of money I can't afford without a job that nobody will give me cuz I'm too weird and too much of a risk have my best interests at heart when they push psychoactive medications on me and tell me to suck up the pain, it's all in your head, your attempts to live a little more like what makes you comfortable are an illness.

[The Succubus]

Honestly? I feel like listening to schizophrenic people more would do a lot of good. Not to the extent of humoring "this clearly nonexistent thing is real," but maybe listening to the fears and emotions that the stuff engenders, not telling people it's all in their head, accepting coping mechanisms even if they're kind of out of the ordinary or outside your comfort zones because the person tells you they need them. The times I've gone off my antipsychotics it was usually because I felt like they were pushing an agenda on me without caring about what I wanted out of life. The times I've been highest functioning and least depressed have been the times when the people who had authority over me listened to and accommodated the quirks that are part of "life as me" like "My memory gets jumbled sometimes, a list helps me stay focused during routine tasks," rather than trying to push "you must act this neurotypical to keep your job."

Cuz I gotta be honest. I'm really scared these days that any would be employers and most of the people outside my family would rather I go away forever than have to deal with the fact that my mind is a bit broken. And that makes it really hard to trust that the people who are making a thousand dollars a month of money I can't afford without a job that nobody will give me cuz I'm too weird and too much of a risk have my best interests at heart when they push psychoactive medications on me and tell me to suck up the pain, it's all in your head, your attempts to live a little more like what makes you comfortable are an illness.

I 100% agree with you - I may have phrased it incorrectly in my last post, so I apologise for any offence caused. I often work with people that have problems with tinnitus and the dismissive attitude of a lot of doctors really annoys me. When you take the time to truly listen and absorb what they're telling you, even that simple act can make a world of difference.