understand
Jun. 10th, 2010 09:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
replacementpartsI keep picking up this book my roommate, Eira got. "True Selves- Understanding Transexualism" She's going to be sending it to her parents, soon, to help them understand her situation. So If I want to read it I need to hurry up.
I'm having a hard time relating to it. Maybe it would be easier if they used the right pronouns, but through the whole book they use birth pronouns and gendered names. And I hate it, even if in most other respects it does a good job of explaining things to 'families, friends, coworkers, and helping professionals.' That that one, simple, most basic courtesy is completely ignored just undermines all the good the book could do. At least in my mind.
I think what a lot of people fail to understand is that transgender people aren't 'girls who want to be boys' or 'boys who want to be girls.' We are men and women trapped from birth in BODIES of the opposite/wrong gender.
Forced, in most cases, into a society that expects us to behave according to certain gender stereotypes of that wrong gender. And oh my god society is cruel to those who fail to conform.
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I had kind of intended to write more about my history in this post but I'm in a foul mood compared to saturday-tuesday and everything I've been writing looks incredibly snarky and grumpy to me so I'll save it.
I'm having a hard time relating to it. Maybe it would be easier if they used the right pronouns, but through the whole book they use birth pronouns and gendered names. And I hate it, even if in most other respects it does a good job of explaining things to 'families, friends, coworkers, and helping professionals.' That that one, simple, most basic courtesy is completely ignored just undermines all the good the book could do. At least in my mind.
I think what a lot of people fail to understand is that transgender people aren't 'girls who want to be boys' or 'boys who want to be girls.' We are men and women trapped from birth in BODIES of the opposite/wrong gender.
Forced, in most cases, into a society that expects us to behave according to certain gender stereotypes of that wrong gender. And oh my god society is cruel to those who fail to conform.
---
I had kind of intended to write more about my history in this post but I'm in a foul mood compared to saturday-tuesday and everything I've been writing looks incredibly snarky and grumpy to me so I'll save it.
no subject
on 2010-06-11 02:50 pm (UTC)I don't even consider myself trapped in the wrong body so I fail to relate to this sort of account. I'm perfectly happy with my out-of-ordinary, modified body. <3
I also think thinking we're women or men from birth completely miss the point of identity being a constructed thing, even though you don't have control over it. At birth you're not necessarily already pre-set as an individual. Masculine and feminine only are opposite according to the traditional view of gender so describing trans people are having the opposite anything in comparison to the standard anything is a misconception to me.
no subject
on 2010-06-19 04:31 pm (UTC)I did finish reading the book and I have to say it got better toward the end, though in some places very dated. I don't remember the publishing date, early or mid nineties I think. But yes, definitely more medically-termed. I actually do wish there was a more modern version of it, because once I finally got into the meat of the book it was much more balanced and fairly informative for people not going through it personally.
I used to think of myself as having the wrong body a lot... but I agree with what you said, too. I think once I'm a little further along in my physical transition I'll be quite happy in my own skin. =3