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Cross Product, thank you for being here and sharing your story and your views. I hope you stick around.
I wanted to explore the thread title further, as the medical profession and society clearly still consider Klinefelter's to be a disorder.
I am expecting and it is one of the things that the doctor called "a genetic disorder" and that can be tested for prenatally. I had of it before in university, but had never really considered it much up until that point. I turned down the genetic testing (it also tests for Down's Syndrome, etc.), as I had already made the choice not to terminate. About 50% of fetuses are terminated if Klinefelter's is detected prenatally versus 90+% for Down Syndrome, so clearly the attitude still exists that this is a disorder but not as many people who view a disability as a disorder. The doctor spoke of this as something negative from the get go however and likened it to a disability.
I was wondering if you have encountered doctors who have been more progressive in speaking about your gender in a way that does not begin with the "disordered" assumption? I was also curious about whether you think this testing should be okay or what in your mind can be done on a societal level to reassure prospective parents about having a child with Klinefelter's?
That's a problem with science in general, IMV; you have to memorize a whole lot of boring stuff before you get to the good stuff.
Re the whole cis-trans thing: I knew these as chemistry terms long before they were being applied to people. But like jas says, there are people who identify on a continuum of gender identity and this labelling becomes inaccurate, because people are not molecules.
I suspect it came out of a chemistry textbook somebody on a usenet group picked up sometime in the early '90s. If it ends up in the OED, jas and I (and some other people on babble) will just have to get used to it. But in the meantime, I think it's useful to have a conversation about labelling, who gets to do it, and what uses it has. Maysie makes a point about labelling from the perspective of a dominant group, and that's a point; however, if the dominant group (and I'm not all that dominant :) objects to the label, it doesn't help the dialogue move forwards with the oppressed group. It's pointlessly divisive (and you want to multiply your support, not divide would-be allies).
Oh great, here we go again. Do you consider yourself an ally when all you've done is harp on about yourself? Same with Jas - again we see the obvious frustration of Cross Product _ ONCE AGAIN - having to defend themselves.
And no, Cross Product did not start out being defensive, and if that occurred no fucking wonder, given the base level of discourse on this topic from so-called allies.
Fuck. Just stop already. Check your privilege at the door. Listen and stop telling others they have no right to say what the think and feel.
And that is why you fail. You don't listen, or at least you don't hear. Even now, you primarily talk about me, rather than to me.
I am not personally asking for any protected status of any kind. I can take care of myself and don't need any protection. Remember the business about the blue-blood wealthy old money family. I could fight a court battle knowing that there are millions of dollars standing behind me. I have dual nationality, meaning I can up pegs and move any time I want.
It's not for me that I'm writing this. It's for all the children, a few of those I have known personally. It's for the people with no money, no power who get kicked out of their houses at 15, who are dropped off downtown by their mothers and told "good luck faggot" before roaring away. It's for those that have to resort to survival sex because nobody, nobody will hire them. It's for those who eventually take their grandmothers' advice and kill themselves to save their family from shame. It's for the people who have their houses vandalized on a nightly basis by the local hooligans that the police do not and will never control. It's for the people who have their skulls caved in with fire extinguishers by someone who then told the police "I think I killed it," just because they so desperately wanted to feel what it was like to be loved.
jas, the fact that you are taking this so very, very personally and insist unceasingly trying to make it all about you, tells me more about you that perhaps you intended. I can't ask you to leave, so instead I will no longer be answering anything you say. Good bye.
When something happens in downtown Eastside, nothing happens. It's just another tranny dead.
Dead
Dead
hey CP - there is a handy Igorne tool here for IE and Firefox if you are so inclined. It works great.
?? This is when histrionics get in the way of dialogue.
Okay, then. Bye.
Maysie, please help...
Am I really crazy? Am I really the one in the wrong here? Is jas' e-psychiatry accurate? Obviously I know jas' and Stargazer's answers. It would be nice if others could chime in with their opinion.
I'm not going to talk to jas, but I will happily talk about hir.
Stargazer, Cross Product is a big grown-up. She is a blue-blood from a wealthy, old-money family and can fight court battles knowing that there are millions of dollars standing behind her. She has dual nationality, meaning she can up pegs and move any time she wants.
She said she can take whatever she dishes out.
Hi, (I assume you meant ignore :) thanks for the tip, I didn't know that. It's like the old USENET killfile days!
Folks we need to keep the tenor and dialogue here respectful. Cross Product has shared a great deal of personal information. Anyone who is cis-gendered or non-trans, or a Muggle, needs to really watch their privilege here.
What is theory and ideas for one person, is lived reality, pain and trauma for another. How many gajillion times have I said this to white folks about issues of race and racism? Can we all please try to make the connections? Is that at all possible?
Only if the oppressed group is willing to always be a supplicant rather than an equal. Since there is no derogatory connotation to the "cis" modifier, since it implies no handicap, "moral shortcoming", or failure on the part of those of us so gendered -- since it is not being used in a way that can, by any stretch of the imagination, be considered a pejorative -- I fail to see how it can be considered divisive.
It appears, to me, that objections to it are being raised in defence of the privilege of the dominant to control the discussion. It raises the spectre of the dominant group defending itself as "normal" and those outside the dominant group as "abnormal" -- and I don't think one has to go very far out on a limb to see the pejorative connotations of "abnormal" as a label.
Cross Product is indeed all that. It's not a boast or brag, it's simply the truth. She doesn't actually have any money (you don't get to have that kind of money by giving it away to relatives), so instead she has a successful professional / academic career. She works in a university. Her younger sister is an up-and-coming scientist whom Cross Product was delighted to see reported about in the Globe and Mail and Quirks and Quarks, and Slashdot, and New Scientist, and the Guardian, whose Ph.D paper was published in Nature. Her father is a successful, retired marine biology professor. Her uncle is a Eurocrat who just spent €3.2 million on renovating his house in Brussels. Her great uncle on her mother's side was a famous sculptor who has an entire room dedicated to his work at the AGO, as well as the sculptures in front of Toronto City Hall. One of Cross Product's more obscure cousin-of-an-aunt type relatives is married to some sort of German nobility and lives the drive-the-Ferrari-for-a-weekend-in-Monaco sort of lifestyle and has the most spectacular drug problems.
On top of that, Cross Product as a teenager once illustrated a paper for Sarah McLachlan's father.
All these things are entirely true, and if someone wants to PM me I'll tell them names and they can phone them up and verify all this.
[Edit for grammar fail]
I agree with that actually. Or at least partially. Gender identity can be a pretty painful issue for a lot of non-trans (muggle) women, too. But TransProduct has described a painful history. We need to be careful of each others' wounds and tender spots and try not to hurt each other. But we also need to be able to disagree with each other if we're going to have a useful discussion. It should be possible to do both!
I don't doubt it's the truth. I don't doubt that your blood is actually, physically, blue. I don't doubt that this information is absolutely necessary and entirely relevant to the issues you are apparently trying to discuss here. Please, carry on.
I realize it raises that specter for you but that doesn't mean that's what's going on. I have reservations about "cis", too - not the label, but the definition. And it's not because I think I'm normal. (Quite the reverse.)
Sineed comes from poor white trash. Three of her four grandparents were alcoholics. One of her uncles is bipolar and spent five years in prison for armed robbery. Sineed currently wastes too much time getting into pissing contests on the internet.
I would be more than happy if you would provide an alternative explanation. I have been trying to follow the trans threads over the past several months and am somewhat surprised at the vehemence with which the non-trans have been expressing themselves. [Of course I bring along my own baggage and am drawing analogies in my head about the arguments against the appropriation of the word "gay" by my nearest and dearest...] I guess (and I am trying not to be sarcastic) I need a 101 from those who are opposed to the "cis" label as to the reasons for their opposition. If someone has clearly spelled it out and I missed the point, could you link to the thread?
Cross Product doesn't look down on anyone for their or their parents' circumstances. Cross Product admits that she has been successfully baited by jas' (once again) taking a single paragraph and making it the central part of the story. Cross Product does not get into pissing contests.
Cross product is a leftist in spite of her blue copper-based blood, because she has empathy and a conscience, and a very strong sense of justice. Cross Product's only route, should she ever give up on the Left's ever being able to improve itself, would be epistemeological nihilism and a terminal case of misanthropy. Beyond that, Cross Product cannot see. Always in motion is the future.
Okay, back to first person, this is getting childish.
Great idea, and hopefully this thread will not be about those who object to the term, but more about what it means to be trans-gendered because frankly, I find the pile ups on trans people disgusting, unwarranted and seriously deeply screwed.Why? Because for the life of me I cannot figure out exactly why they are so freaked out and so judgmental. I would expect this crap from the right, but not from those on the left.
Okay, I'm done here. This is too much for me. I've been in tears all day from this. I would chalk this up as another failure, but my blackboard is full.
Stargazer, please continue rocking (I am confident you will). Maysie, please delete my account.
Good bye.
I really think it depends on how it's defined. If all it means is that you're not trans-sexual, I'm not bothered. If it means that a person is comfortable with social expectations and constrictions related to their assigned gender (and I have seen it defined that way, though I suspect Cross Product would not define it that way), I find that worrisome because it seems to leave no conceptual space for women and girls to resist and oppose the way "femaleness" is socially defined, unless they are trans-gendered (thereby - I fear - reaffirming and upholding all the old categories). That's all. I don't think I'm being vehement
(I'm still not saying this right. I need to spend some more time on it.)
ETA: OK. I guess it's over. I won't try this again.
Christ. This makes me sad and angry all at the same time. Thanks to ennir, maysie and bagkitty and no thanks to jas and sineed.
I think some people really need to have a deep look at themselves and question why they are so freaking spiteful/hurtful/self centered.
Cross Product thank you for your response to my question.
I am sorry that this is the way it goes here, I can't figure it out either, for me progressive goes with being open. I find I am tending to post less and less because of that.
You did not fail.
BTW, there doesn't seem to be any way to delete my account. Can a mod do it please?
TransProduct, I really hope you'll stay. But if you're determined to go, it's not necessary to delete the account. All you have to do is ignore the thing from now on. But I hope you'll stay.
For the life of me I can't figure out why it oppresses anybody to disagree with something they say. Isn't that why people come here? Wouldn't it be boring if everybody agreed on everything?
But apparently, if I don't agree, I'm a hater.
This is nicely said; I'd reiterate that people are on a continuum of gender identity and to identify all people who are not trans as "cis" is just not accurate.
There's a fairly lively debate about the whole "cis" thing out there; here's a teensy sample:
http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/12831/uniracial-vs-cisgender-why-lan...
At the end of it all, "cis" may enter the lexicon, and I'll just have to deal. But in the meantime, folks will debate it. Nothing wrong with that, IMV.
Thanks to you Stargazer
I've been near tears all day just thinking of how utterly vicious people can be, it seems to me much associated with fear and the need for control that arises out of that and while that gives me a way to comprehend it, it doesn't make it any easier to accept.
What is this mono-mind that says there is only one way to be?
When I was sixteen, some forty years ago, I had a friend, a lovely young man and though at the time I did not know he was gay I did know that he was bullied by the biggest and stupidest of the other boys. I hated them for that and it broke my heart to see how he was hurt by it. I have been thinking about him all day, he died of AIDS many years ago, okay now I'm crying.
Of course there is nothing wrong with that FOR YOU. But you and jas have effectively not only read someone spill their guts here, all their pain, all their positiveness, all their emotions, and then you figured it was a dandy idea to hey, just forget all that CP posted and start some stupid fucking bullshit about the label "cis". FFS.
ennir, I feel you. Completely. I am ashamed to be a part of babble right now. Deeply so.