(Untitled)
Last night I was re-watching The IT Crowd S3E4. It was one of my favourite episodes, and I still think it's beautifully constructed, but I found it a bit... squirmier this time round. For those who haven't seen it, one of the main characters meets a woman, invites her to dinner, then asks her to go to bed with him. She tells him that she's trans ("
( Read more... )
* Ally McBeal. I'd stopped watching the series regularly by this point, but I saw the last few minutes of an episode while I was waiting for the following program to start. Basically, a male character had been dating a female character, who then revealed that she was trans. Paraphrasing from memory, he said: "I've given this a lot of thought, and I just can't see you ... as anything other than a woman."
* South Park: Mr Garrison's Fancy New Vagina. One of the male characters had a sex change; meanwhile, other characters had "negroplasty" (to become black) and "dolphinoplasty" (to become a dolphin). The basic message of the episode was that all these operations are purely cosmetic, and don't really change anything about you. As I understand it, the main argument for having a sex change operation is that you're already male/female on the inside, and you want your outside to match; is it disrespectful to compare them to Otherkin?
When I tried out online dating a couple of years ago (via Guardian Soulmates), I don't think they had a box for trans status. However, I would expect anyone in that position to mention it in their (anonymous) profile, before they've arranged to meet people. I wouldn't expect them to advertise it to all their work colleagues etc., so it's more of a grey area as to how soon it should come up. I think that "before you go to bed with them" is reasonable, but that probably depends on someone's attitude to casual sex in general.
Reply
Question 1.3 of that FAQ makes the comparison explicitly, so the Otherkin at least don't mind... it would be very interesting to hear a trans perspective on this. AIUI, there's some evidence that trans people are neurologically more similar to their identified gender than their birth gender; it's hard to see how you'd get a similar result for (say) dragon-kin.
[I must say, though, I get a strong WTFWTFWTF reaction to that FAQ.]
Reply
That comparison usually goes the other way around - trying to legitimise otherkin experiences by comparing them to trans experiences. I for one wouldn't do it the other way around, for reasons that I hope are pretty obvious.
Also, that FAQ is a bit no. 'Transgendered people feel they were born into a body of the wrong gender' is a huge oversimplification/overgeneralisation of what being trans means, to the point of being harmful.
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment