Probably, this subject has been brought before. Personally, I don't know if Shemales see themselves as bisexuals. I know they have sex with men and women and I think they are bisexuals. However, I can not relate to the usage of the word bisexual to refer about them because, they have gone through a path different from mine. Any comments?
F*ck these stupid labels...and who cares what Transgender (or Shemales as you stupidly use to describe someone you can't possibly understand) see themselves except for the Transgender PERSON themselves. Personally, I try to see people for what they want me to see them as. Try getting to know someone before making judgement calls about them. Walk a mile in someone's shoes before acting like you opinion is valid.
First, I would direct you to the many threads on here where transgender members on this site express their opinions of the use of the word "shemale" to describe them. To many of us, it is offensive.
In answer to your question, asking whether transgender people are bisexual is a bit like asking whether doctors are bisexual. Some are gay, some are straight, and some are bisexual.
tm
Presently, wanting to socialize with bisexuals, and starting a relationship with a biological female who has dangling ovaries- I would prefer one who is sexually attracted to males and females. Your question once again reminds me that too many humans think genital structure has cosmic meaning in determining sex and sexuality. My view is that genitals provide as much significance in the matter as does the length of the left leg. We need to evolve beyond the idea that there is such a thing as masculine and feminine sex organs and gender/sex dichotomies and just hump our brains out.
Interesting points of views. Thank you for your opinions.
DrBimind: I think you are judging me wrong. I'm not; “making judgment calls about them.” You are. You call them Transgender. Thank you for your clarification. Now, if someone thinks I offended them by asking if you see them as bisexual, it was not my intention to offend anyone. One more thing, when you initiate your point of view you put; “F*ck these stupid labels…” are you suggesting this site should be considered to be renamed.
trascendMental: you said “I would direct you to the many threads on here where transgender members on this site express their opinions…” I appreciate your initiative.
Later guys.
eightsok,
I'm sorry the person above chose to reprimand you in such a crude way.
It's obvious that you are new here. You may not be aware that some commonly used descriptive words, in your location, can be considered impolite, elsewhere.
It would have been more appropriate to give you a gentle education about what terms are best used, in this case.
If you had continued to use offensive language, after being asked not to.......then, maybe you'd earn a reprimand, or censure.
Anyway, welcome to the site. I hope this rocky start will be the last verbal conflict for you!
As I understand it, gender is not connected to sexuality (heterosexual, bisexual, gay).
Transgender is a gender category(male, female, transgender, intersex and a few more terms).
A male may be heterosexual, bisexual, gay just as a transgender person may be heterosexual, bisexual, gay.
As someone else has pointed out, generally each person decides their own sexuality....within reason unless their behaviour strongly contradicts their perception of themselves, we should accept how a person sees their sexuality.
Thank you all. Truly.
Eightsok I apologize for my reprimand and tone I used....Realist is correct in that I should had been more educating a new member than being offended by your assumption...but you did ask for comments LOL.
TranscendMental and LastGent did a much better job at explaining why the terminology is offensive to many here. I just reacted in a knee jerk way as I have seen way to much pain caused by such assumptions. Your right, it's just a label, just as bisexual is a label. But labeling me as a bisexual does not describe who I am, just my sexual preference.
"Shemale" is a porn term and I have quite a few transgender friends who find the term very offensive just because non TG people assume that they know what someone is by that label. Take for instance my friend "Ray" who was born with female genitals but identifies as a male, is only interested in relationships with females and hates the fact that most people label him as a Lesbian and use "Shemale" to piss him off. Please accept my apology, and please understand I was not attacking you and welcome to the site. Peace and love, all.
Look, I'm sorry if I spoke too abruptly, or offended or scared off a newbie. The first however-many times this issue comes up, I'm ok with trying to educate. But nearly every time I've done that, I feel like I've been reprimanded for telling others what to do, or for obsessing about trans issues on a bisexual site, and I get sick of engaging in the debate. But I'm still offended and if I remain fully silent, then other readers get the idea that it's ok - or even get confused about the difference between shemales and transsexuals. So I decided to keep it brief, and move on to addressing the question, and tried to be polite. Maybe I failed.
Thanks generally, tenni, for translating my point. But I disagree that transgender and intersex are gender qualities. They are sex qualities: intersex refers to people with anomolous or ambiguous sex organs and/or people with physical sex qualities of both sexes. Transsexual refers to people whose physical sex differs from their gender. Transgender is a blanket term that encompasses the whole range of gender conditions, including transsexualism, cross-dressing, shemales, etc. While it can have some gender ramifications, being intersexed in itself has nothing to do with gender, just like transgender has nothing to do with sexuality.
To the OP, I did assume that by "shemales" you meant "transsexuals", because that's what people usually mean by that. If that was wrong, I apologize. I phrased my post in terms of transgendered people of all stripes, because, well, what I say is true of all of them, including shemales, so my post should still have been relevant to what you were asking.
Oh well, there I go trying to educate again. I'll shut up now, so people can slam me for it again.
tm
Let's also keep in mind that there are Transgendered and Trans-sexual people who do call themselves shemales or even trannies and they do not find these terms to be offensive or "slurs" like some of the PC people here do.
Yes, just like there are gays who call themselves faggots and black people who call themselves niggers, and do not find these terms to be offensive like some of the PC people here do.Originally Posted by drugstore cowboy
Of course, if I find a term offensive, it's just because I'm PC. So my opinion is naturally invalid.
But in my ridiculous PC-ness, I find that terms that originate in the porn industry (such as "shemale" and "trannie") aren't the most sensitive to use when referring to any class of people, let alone a class that is chronically misunderstood as having a sexual perversion. Since I belong to this class, I take offense. Sorry if that's too PC for you.
Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical, minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.
"But I disagree that transgender and intersex are gender qualities."
Transcend
I've always enjoyed your writing and perspective even if I don't completely understand your views at times. I didn't write about gender qualities but referred to gender categories. A category is not the same as a quality. Was I incorrect? It seems to me that using the word "sex" makes it easier to confuse the concepts with the idea of sexuality if you are completely naive on the subject? Now, I haven't looked this up but gender is more how we perceive ourselves while genetalia is more about the anatomical aspects of gender?
I have an aquaintance who refers to Americans not as "yanks" but as "wanks", the french as "slug munchers", Italians as "grease balls" and black people as "nig nogs" and the Irish as "bomb bandits"... he refers to Catholic priests as "holy boy bandits", Catholics as "fenian bastards", Jews as "God killers", women as "fannies", gay men as "shirt lifters" and "arse bandits", lesbians as "rug munchers". You will understand that he is not a friend.
There is a difference between calling people these names and calling the transgendered "she males" and trannie"? These words encourage respect for others? They are polite?
..and the last 19 words of your post do not exactly give me confidence that respect for others is something that you know much about...
Do not think so little of me as to grant me your tolerance. Allow me your acceptance and understanding of who and what I am with the love, respect and dignity with which I do you.
Isn't there a posting somewhere delaing with the flexibility of the word "Fuck"
It can mean anything from hate to love depending on the intentions of the person using it. Personally I struggle to understand the concept of disrespect as applying to the word shemale, but there you go.
Just so long as it is not the word "Smurf".
Or niche!
"Political Correctness" is often used as a cover for those who wish to bully other folks. People who used to be the playground bullies. It's most often used as a way of making themselves look good.
It's supposed to be a way of appearing like they're just being honest and straight forward, but in many cases there are other ways of being honest and straight forward than using terms that describe people in demeaning and damaging ways.
The supposed cases where people appear to have been limited by "political correctness" turn out to be urban legends, with no basis in fact.
Really, what does it matter. Why can't people just be people. Why all the labels. You should know the person first.
The way I understand it is that a trans individual's self image personally identifies with characteristics of the opposite gender, but I would think that sexual or romantic attraction could be just as varied as it is for any other person.
I agree that a category is not the same as a quality, and I'm sorry I either misread what you wrote, or misinterpreted what you meant (I think there was some of both in there).
But personally, I do not find "transgender" to be a gender category, and I can't see how intersex could possibly be one.
My gender is female. Full stop, and end of discussion. It is certainly how I identify and how I feel, and virtually everyone who interacts with me in real life can tell that my gender is female, and they feel the feminine energy in a visceral way. People who meet me for the first time appear to have no doubt that I am a woman.
I have a FtM (born female, transitioned to male) friend who is clearly male. If you met him, you'd have no doubts.
I've known crossdressers (as opposed to transsexuals), all biologically male, who are clearly male gendered, and I've known others who seem female gendered (and who I suspect might actually be transsexuals).
I've spoken with self-identified shemales, and I have no idea what they consider their gender to be, but the ones I've spoken with seemed/felt male to me. I'm sure there are others who seem female in interaction.
This is only a small cross-section of all transgendered people and issues, but clearly, putting us all into a single gender category is wrong. And for most of us, putting us into the existing (standard m/f) categories works perfectly well.
But I also have to add that there is a large number of people under the transgender umbrella who to identify as neither male nor female, or as what they call a third gender. And some consider themselves genderless. I believe that many of these people would be happy to consider "transgender" as a gender category. But I think that if they want a word other than male or female, then they need to devise one of their own, since the binary works for so many of us.
Intersex describes characteristics of a person's genitalia or secondary sex characteristics, so to me, the whole concept of that as a gender category just doesn't fit. Maybe LDD could comment?
Here's the whole confusing breakdown of terms:It seems to me that using the word "sex" makes it easier to confuse the concepts with the idea of sexuality if you are completely naive on the subject? Now, I haven't looked this up but gender is more how we perceive ourselves while genetalia is more about the anatomical aspects of gender?
Sex refers to a person's physical being, but is less straightforward than people think. First, you have to decide whether you are concerned with chromosomal sex (XX, XY, XXY, XYY, XXXY, etc.; there are about 16 distinct chromosomal sexes recognized in humans, although the most common are XX and XY), sex organs (there are XX people born with functional penises and XY people born with vaginas), or hormonal sex (production of testosterone or estrogen is not universally cleanly associated with XX and XY). There may be some other categories here I am forgetting, but I think it's enough to justify the claim that it gets complicated.
Gender refers to a person's role in society. Technically, the standard genders are not male and female, but rather masculine and feminine. You play a masculine role in society; I play a feminine role in society. Clearly, how you are perceived by society plays an important part in what role you can play, and this is a big part of why transsexuals transition. But most people don't know enough gender theory to use the words correctly, and everyone slings male and female around casually, so it's not a big deal to talk about a male-gendered person. Of course this does encourage the notion that sex and gender are really the same thing (which is true for most people).
Gender Identity is how we perceive ourselves (and there is some good evidence that this is determined by brain structure).
So supposing a person is born with XY chromosomes and raised as male, but comes to recognize that they are not masculine-gendered. Suppose with the help of a therapist, they decide to transition to female (with or without surgery). Now suppose further that later in their life they come to understand that they really don't feel male or female, and consider themselves a third gender. Such a person's sex, gender, and gender identity would all be different!
So finally:
A transsexual is someone whose gender identity does not match their birth sex.
An intersexed person is someone whose birth sex is ambiguous, because all those sex determinations I described under Sex above don't match up (i.e., genitalia don't match chromosomes; or don't match any standard genitalia; genitalia don't match hormones, etc.).
A crossdresser is someone who dresses in clothes of the opposite sex, for a host of reasons, many of which were discussed in another thread. The majority of crossdressers are straight males with a firm male gender identity.
A shemale (to the best of my understanding) is a male who decides that he wants to be able to pass as female, except for his genitalia. Sometimes this is done for sexual purposes or to satisfy a sexual fetish; sometimes it is done to gain a niche (sorry liz) in the porn industry.
So Hephaestion, there need be nothing specifically disrespectful about the word itself. But it is used sloppily to describe people to whom it does not apply, and the sloppiness is disrespectful, especially as it associates us with pornography. It's like if I described you as a Franc, 'cause hey, you're all European, right?
tm
DSC:-
'Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical, minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.'
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I found this definition of political correctness quite amusing. As human beings are multi-faceted I don't think we are defined by any one aspect of our characters. So when I read of people agonising what to call themselves my eyes glaze over.
Just as the word gay, which meant happy and carefree was usurped to mean homosexual, a misnomer if there ever was one. Most of the homosexuals I have ever met, including this site, seem to spend an inordinate amount of their time bickering and being miserable.
You have a life, enjoy it and stop worrying about labels and what other people think of you, that is their problem, not yours.
I am a male that would love to be totally feminine. I married my wife and she came out totally gay to me. I confessed that I wanted to be a female and she was ecstatic! She has gone out 100% to do anything to make me a girl. She and her mom both(!) bought all kinds of panties, then a bra, which, thanks to my gynecomastia(sp?) were nicely large anyway. This is in a SE Asian country where there really are no defined sexual roles. I love the makeup! All I wear is a sarong and my eye makeup, even in public. Nobody cares.
So, what do I call myself? I like shemale but maybe it's male lesbian? Don't know but who cares?
I can be a Franc if you want. I have been a George, a Fred and even a Gemima/Jimima. Just so long as I am respected afterwards.
Frances and France are named after the Francs "mon brave". It is a name of long standing in my family tree. However, I am not so sure how we stand with the Guelfs and the Ghibelines. Thus we prefer those ancestral links which point to a historically more stable Orthodoxy.
Last edited by Hephaestion; Aug 18, 2011 at 5:27 AM.
All the best peeps are called Frances...
Do not think so little of me as to grant me your tolerance. Allow me your acceptance and understanding of who and what I am with the love, respect and dignity with which I do you.
It's interesting the way things work out sometimes, I think more masculine or feminine energy isn't necessarily constrained by physical gender - my parents did a good job of making me feel ashamed of wanting to be loving and affectionate in a "feminine" way. Although I'm not sure that's just the way men are, the same way that some women want to be adventurous, athletic and independent but society treats them differently. It is changing here, sometimes very fast, sometimes very slow. I remember a few years ago men who wore earrings were considered gay but now I see so many young men wearing them it just doesn't mean the same thing - that's not necessarily bad.
I'm glad that you found each other because it sounds like just what you both needed to me.. <smiles>
Last edited by elian; Aug 18, 2011 at 6:28 AM.
[QUOTE=Hephaestion;207530]Isn't there a posting somewhere delaing with the flexibility of the word "Fuck"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXk9EPxZw48
[QUOTE=shewolf50;207685]Merci bunkup (C'est le meme mot 'fuck' mais dans la langue FrAnglais)
Very unpolite comment...
Only in its first five words. Thereafter spot-on.
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