Results 31 to 45 of 45
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2019-12-19, 06:21 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2007
- Location
- France
- Gender
Re: Trans woman playing more TTRPGs can cis woman?
I can see how what you were assigned at birth may be relevant, if you transitioned later in life. That doesn't mean that's true for all trans people, but people are treated by others based on what they were assigned at birth before they transition, so I can definitely imagine someone who was AMAB being encouraged (or at least not discouraged) from playing "boy" games, while someone who was AFAB being actively discouraged.
Being the only female out of 4 kids, I can definitely attest to that kind of thing. I was activelly discouraged from playing MtG and WoW when they first came out, and didn't even question it enough to try them out until much, much later, when I realised most of that stuff is BS and what you liked has no basis on your gender (and vice-versa). And that's despite the fact that I was already a tomboy in pretty much every way.
I think we'd need clear figures about it to know for sure, although I realise that studies that separate trans people from cis people can be transphobic. But the thing is, if we don't study this kind of thing, we could have huge blind spots that will end up hurting trans people. Studying things only along the lines of men and women erases not just nonbinary people, but also the fact that many trans people's experience won't be the same as their cis peers.
When medicine started studying people of all races and not just white people, it was found out for instance, that black people are more susceptible to diabetes, and that they have a different bone density compared to white people. Had the studies only been split by gender and ignored race, that's something that could have been missed, and black people would be receiving inadequate care.
I guess what I mean is that yes, trans women are women, trans men are men, but it could be significant that they were treated as a different gender for years, and studies that take trans status into account can allow us to determine those things.
How they phrase it on the forms can be transphobic though, definitely.
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2019-12-19, 06:47 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2008
- Location
- Trapped in England
- Gender
Re: Trans woman playing more TTRPGs can cis woman?
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2019-12-19, 11:04 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2008
- Location
- Hudson Valley, NY
- Gender
Re: Trans woman playing more TTRPGs can cis woman?
{{Scrubbed}}
Last edited by LibraryOgre; 2019-12-20 at 01:56 PM.
"We are the people our parents warned us about!" - J.Buffett
Avatar by Tannhaeuser
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2019-12-19, 11:09 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2014
- Location
- Avatar By Astral Seal!
Re: Trans woman playing more TTRPGs can cis woman?
This isn't a medical condition thing. This is a societal thing. A trans woman is just as much a woman as someone born in the right body, when it comes to society and how they should be treated. Sure, a trans woman is at risk for prostate cancer while an AFAB woman is not, but that's absolutely no reason to treat her any differently, unless you happen to her oncologist.
I have a LOT of Homebrew!
Spoiler: Former AvatarsSpoiler: Avatar (Not In Use) By Linkele
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2019-12-20, 01:10 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2009
- Location
- Washington D.C.
- Gender
Re: Trans woman playing more TTRPGs can cis woman?
The Mod on the Silver Mountain: Please keep conversation respectful towards trans people.
Last edited by Peelee; 2019-12-20 at 02:26 PM.
Cuthalion's art is the prettiest art of all the art. Like my avatar.
Number of times Roland St. Jude has sworn revenge upon me: 2
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2019-12-20, 02:31 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2014
- Location
- Avatar By Astral Seal!
Re: Trans woman playing more TTRPGs can cis woman?
So, anyone else have any anecdotes or data to share? As mentioned earlier, my anecdotes matched the OP's.
I have a LOT of Homebrew!
Spoiler: Former AvatarsSpoiler: Avatar (Not In Use) By Linkele
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2019-12-20, 02:38 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2018
- Gender
Re: Trans woman playing more TTRPGs can cis woman?
Similarly, though, it seems odd to discount the fact that some people do experience stereotyping based on their assignment-at-birth. In fact, Cox's experience seems to support, not refute, the fact that AMAB people are pushed away from traditionally feminine pursuits (and one can extrapolate that the converse may be true):
"I was a very feminine child though I was assigned male at birth. My gender was constantly policed. I was told I acted like a girl and was bullied and shamed for that."
"Patriarchy and cissexism punished my femininity and gender nonconformity."
Cox's experience seems to match that of a lot of people in the RPG gamer community inasmuch as that she was shamed precisely for showing an interest in things outside her assignment at birth.
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2019-12-20, 05:19 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2008
- Location
- Trapped in England
- Gender
Re: Trans woman playing more TTRPGs can cis woman?
Which is why it can take a long time for some trans people to even realise what their gender actually is because they deliberately channel themselves into the gender they're assigned to at birth, and suppress anything to the contrary.
But I think it's also why we're so constantly drawn to fantasy role-playing. A world in which anyone can be anything they want.
Naturally the obsession with transformational concepts, the inexplicable glee at the possibility that a character might have their physical sex changed by being brought back with a reincarnation spell, or the sudden intrigue at the possibilities of certain girdles comes pretty immediately afterwards.
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2019-12-20, 07:17 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2007
- Location
- France
- Gender
Re: Trans woman playing more TTRPGs can cis woman?
Why my own experience with gaming was very cis, my ex is now part of a gaming group with his nonbinary significant other, and it seems that group is entirely LGBT (my ex is bi) and trans-heavy.
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2019-12-25, 08:39 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2006
- Location
- Eastern US
- Gender
Re: Trans woman playing more TTRPGs can cis woman?
A friend of mine who played a lot of MMOs told me he* almost always played female characters "because if I am going to have to look at my PC's rear end, I may as well enjoy what I see." After knowing him for several years, he came out as trans. It made me wonder if playing female PCs was her way of subconsciously being herself.
* I use male pronouns here because at the time my friend told me this, she was still living as male.
You sure about that? I played in a gaming group for well over a decade, and as far as I know, none of them know I'm trans. You may have been playing with a transperson and just never knew it.Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.
Proud member of the "I Love Anyway" Club
Thank you, Ceika, so much for the avatar!
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2019-12-25, 07:09 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2019
- Location
- Melbourne, Australia
- Gender
Re: Trans woman playing more TTRPGs can cis woman?
Certainly possible. This is where terms/experience/appearance can be confusing. (Surely some people are, or consider themselves cis, then later realise they are trans.) I've always played with people who I'm certain were cis, presented themselves as if they were cis, they have given no indication of anything different, and nothing has changed since that time. There is one exception, being my now sister who is trans, but at the time "he" gamed (as a almost teenager decades ago and not for long) I'm certain even he considered himself cis, not realising anything different until many years later. (Stopping gaming had nothing to do with cis/trans.) I have had two other cis women part of my group, though the majority of players have always been male.
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2019-12-25, 09:00 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2010
Re: Trans woman playing more TTRPGs can cis woman?
That "I like to ogle the character I play" thing is extremely common. If all male players who said it were secretly trans, there would be ... a much higher percentage of transpeople than there actually is.
And if all female writers of slashfic who say they write it because "one hot man is nice, two hot men are better", were secretly gay transmen, there'd be hardly any women left in some areas of the internet.
So if that friend you are talking of is sexually attracted to women, then I am pretty sure that is really all there is to it.
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2019-12-26, 06:27 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2006
- Location
- Eastern US
- Gender
Re: Trans woman playing more TTRPGs can cis woman?
I was trans the entire time I was playing with that group. When I started with them, I'd been on hormones a little over 2 years. I played with them for several months before leaving for 3 years to go to school. After graduating, I came back and played with them for another 5 years before moving away for my job. (So I guess my math was off, I only knew them for 8 years, though we're still friends and it has now been over a decade since we met.)
I didn't mean to imply "any male player who plays female is actually a transwoman." (I play female characters in MMOs sometimes...) I only meant "I wonder if that was (insert friend's female name here) expressing herself before (dead name) could come out to herself."Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.
Proud member of the "I Love Anyway" Club
Thank you, Ceika, so much for the avatar!
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2019-12-27, 03:13 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2012
- Gender
Re: Trans woman playing more TTRPGs can cis woman?
Perhaps I'm just tired - I am - but I'm not super clear on what this means. I understand the concept of experiencing stereotyping based on ethnicity, as I'm sure you do. "Black people are less intelligent than white people" is an incredibly racist stereotype that Black people face because they're Black. And I understand the concept of experiencing stereotyping based on gender. "Women should be in the kitchen and out of politics" is a vile sexist stereotype that women experience because of their womanhood. But what does it mean to experience stereotyping based on your AGAB?
I think you might be saying something like, "Cis boys and trans girls are expected to act in similar ways." This does seem obvious, almost like common sense. Many people in this thread have made these kind of "common sense" assumptions, probably without even realizing it. But I would caution against assuming this, for this kind of common sense is connected to cissexism far more deeply than it is connected to reality. Sophia Burns has an article explaining the expectations foisted on her growing up. Those are not the expectations foisted on cis boys.
See Burns' essay for an argument against yours. But I'd also argue that you're unintentionally taking Cox's writing out of context. The thread's about her experiences growing up with a twin brother. Both of them were AMAB, but because she was a girl and her brother was a boy, they grew up totally differently. There was no coherent social AMAB experience for them to draw on. (Other than, I suppose, being pulled out of the womb and having a doctor declare them boys. But I don't think that's what any of us mean when we talk about AMAB/AFAB being or not being coherent social categories.)
I'm ill-inclined to pull excerpts from the thread, but take again the sentence that you pulled out: "Patriarchy and cissexism punished my femininity and gender nonconformity," and look at the sentences surrounding it:
Originally Posted by Cox
Let's say that a trans boy is indeed shamed for liking, say, video games. And let's say that the shamers say things like, "Girls shouldn't play video games cuz those are only for boys." It's coherent to argue that he was shamed because he was AFAB. That is to say, it's logically consistent and "makes sense" for that to be true. But coherency is not necessarily the same thing as truth. But it's also coherent to argue that he was shamed because he wasn't acting like he "should" - like a stereotypical girl. I'd argue that that's probably what's happening there instead.
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2019-12-28, 02:09 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2007
- Location
- France
- Gender
Re: Trans woman playing more TTRPGs can cis woman?
I guess it's not impossible, I mean, you can't tell by just looking at someone. Gender identity tends to come up in my groups though, so we've mentioned being cis (not to mention the ones I have been intimate with and the ones who are close enough friends I can't imagine how it could have never come up). But yes, I should preface that with "as far as I know", I guess.