Chesticles

[Joe Guy]

I missed this one of Scooter's comments the first time I read this thread. It wasn't until Meade's post that I went back and found it...

Some of the people who are giving birth are men. One can either choose to acknowledge that reality, and adapt to it, or not.

How are men giving birth? Are you talking about situations like Meade referenced?

[Scooter]

I'm talking about transgender men, who were born with ovaries and a uterus and still have them, even as their gender identity is male.

[Joe Guy]

I'm talking about transgender men, who were born with ovaries and a uterus and still have them, even as their gender identity is male.

Thanks.

[Bicycle Bill]

Scooter you’re just tossing pearls on this subject. I think you must know that. The toxic transphobia on this board ain’t going away.

Tell you what, BSG (and you too, Scooter).  See below, and try either one — take your pick — and let me know how it works out for you.



Just because YOU say something and are willing to believe your own bullshit doesn't mean the rest of us have to.

-"BB"-

[Joe Guy]

At one time Mr Garrison might have been able to use a carpool lane...



Of course that all ended after he had a sex change...

[MajGenl.Meade]

I'm talking about transgender men, who were born with ovaries and a uterus and still have them, even as their gender identity is male.

Thanks.

Did that help, Joe? Since Scooter doesn't recognize any post I make, try copying mine but removing any reference to me. Let's see if what he writes above is indeed confirmation of the article I posted (and which I thought should appeal to people here). Or if he has a different take.

[Econoline]

If we could get away from all the dust-stomping and chest-thumping, read this article (suggested):

https://www.theguardian.com/society/201 ... -mcconnell

It's a sensitive and thoughtful look at the subject. However, this person (a woman reassigned as a man) required hormonal reversal - to go back from the man-track to being female - in order to achieve pregnancy and birth.

Let's say that again. A woman who identified as a man had hormone therapy to become a man and the removal of chest furniture. "He" then decided "he" had some kind of natural urge to have a child. To do so, "he" went through medical procedures to reverse from "him" to "her" because it isn't "hims" who can bear children but "hers". "She" then re-reversed the process to grow a mustache and beard and be "dad".

Whatever I may think of this - and whatever Scooter may think of this - the FACT is that a "man" didn't give birth. A woman did.

[Econoline]

The toxic transphobia on this board ain’t going away.

The definition of "phobia" is "extreme or irrational fear of or aversion to something". When did the the word "uncomfortable" become a synonym for "afraid"? When did the the word "inexperienced" become a synonym for "afraid"?

[Gob]

A dislike of language abuse does not equal transphobia.

[Scooter]

Insistently using language that excludes or misgenders trans people does, however.

[Big RR]

Gob--language abuse? Why is it language abuse to address a person in the way they prefer to be addressed? I agree some of it is silly (chesticles?) but is it really abusing the english language by using terms such as "birthing parent"? I am the adoptive parent of two children but prefer to identify only as "parent"; does that abuse the language as well? After all, the term "parent" refers to the person(s) who "brought forth" the child, which I clearly did not do, but then, is that the business of anyone but my family? I have said it before, but I think the same applies to transgender persons; it doen't cost me anything at all to address the person the way they choose to be addressed, and in the vast majority of circumstances the gender of a person does not make a difference at all. So how is it abuse of the language?

There may have been a time when age, marital status, fertility status, or gender made a big difference socially, but those times are changing and recognizing that does not abuse the language.

[Gob]

Insistently using language that excludes or misgenders trans people does, however.

Not using the words other proclaim we need/must use, does not "exclude" anyone.

[Gob]

Gob--language abuse? Why is it language abuse to address a person in the way they prefer to be addressed?

If I chose to call it "language abuse" you must conform to it, otherwise you're excluding me and my fellow pedants and are guilty of pedantphobia.

[BoSoxGal]

Like I said, toxic and never ending.

[MajGenl.Meade]

I am the adoptive parent of two children but prefer to identify only as "parent"; does that abuse the language as well? After all, the term "parent" refers to the person(s) who "brought forth" the child

And that has f-all to do with anything. You are wrong anyway - "parent" is the caregiver of minor offspring of the same species. Biological parent is one kind; adoptive is another; surrogate is another; foster parent yet another and I am sure there are more. All of them are "parents" whether they modify the descriptor or not.

"Chest feeding" is just stupid. And has nothing to do with trans-anyone - except perhaps transmorons

[Big RR]

And was that always the case; likely not since the tymology of parent refers to those who brought the person forth.

As for f-all to do with it, I disagree. It shows how language changes; for many years adoptive parents were referred to as guardians (and the adoptive children their wards) until the language evolved. The same is true of foster parents and their "charges". Surrogacy is relatively new (unless one looks at Abraham and Sara's story, but then Ishmael was not recognized as Abrahm's son and was even banished to the desert.

And I agree, chest feeding is pretty stupid; the sternum is called the chest bone. But if it becomes part of the common language, I will use it, as I have many other words.

[MajGenl.Meade]

I don't think "guardianship" was or is the same thing as "adoption". They are separate legal classes with differing circumstances.

Language changes. But I still insist on "should have" (or "should've" if need be) in preference to "should of", no matter how many ignoramuses use the latter. Babies are not feed by chest milk but breast milk (not to cause hurt by leaving out those bottle-fed on formula etc). And I won't be referring to a bottle as a "hollow cylindrical thingie with a sucky-hole-in-the-top doodad" no matter who is offended by my intransigence. oooooh! Intrans!!!!

You are of course free to be as silly as you wish. Me too!

[Big RR]

And we wil both live up to that in the future.

[Scooter]

Jim Wright

Milton, Florida.

Hick, backwater (literally), Southern town. This guy is mad about trans people.

Last week the sign said "Biden Stole It!"

But this week, it's trans folk. And he's mad enough to put up this sign in his front yard.

I've seen this guy, got to be in his 70s. Old white guy, from Milton, Florida.

Milton, this is about as Southern redneck as it gets. Confederate flags, rusty pickup trucks, aching poverty, and a Baptist church on every corner with a sign out front damning you to hell.

Milton, Florida. A couple hundred yards from this guy's house is a local train museum, where you can visit the old Milton Station, where there's a waiting room for white people and one for "the coloreds." From the 1960s. The LATE 1960s. THAT's the kind of place this is.

Now, that sign, right? XY don't lie. Male=Male.

Figure this guy is a real geneticist, do you? Weird how it's ONLY XY chromosomes though, isn't it? Not XX. Just XY. Just male equals male. He's not worried about female equals female, JUST males.

You see it, right? You see what he's REALLY afraid of, don't you?

Genetics. Biology. Science. XY don't lie.

I mean, you've GOT to see the irony here, next to that Trump Pence sign.

I'd be willing to bet you a crip $5 bill this guy's ideology comes from religious beliefs that discount that very same science at every turn.

But here's the thing: how many trans people does this guy actually know?

I mean, in THIS town, right? In THIS place. How many trans people has he actually met? Okay, not even met, seen? Today? This month? This year? EVER?

I'd be willing to bet that number is zero.

I'd be willing to bet this guy has never met a trans person in his entire life, that he knows of.

I'll bet that in the 7 decades of this guy's existence, a trans person has never impacted his life in any measurable fashion whatsoever.

And yet, here he is, so terrified of trans people that he's got a huge sign in his front yard. And not just a sign, but SCIENCE -- not good science, but it's Milton, Florida and the sign has GENES on it and not JESUS.

You'd have to live here to see how weird THAT is.

Where did this come from? Who radicalized this guy?

Seriously, if you looked -- really looked -- I suspect you'd be hard pressed indeed to find anything that impacts this guy LESS than trans people existing somewhere.

And yet, THAT's what he's mad about.

That's modern conservatism, right there.

Madder than hell about things that have nothing to do with them.

Furious other people even exist.

Enraged others dare live their lives without permission from this guy's miserable small god.

Mad every day.

Because that's all they have, rage, hate, and fear.

They're pissed off because somebody somewhere identifies as something they don't approve of, but they've never ONCE stopped to look at their own identity. At what THEY have become.

Their own religion commands them to leave judgement to their lord, to look to the the beam in their own eye and not the mote in their neighbors'. It commands them to feed the hungry, clothe the poor, heal the sick.

Trans people aren't mentioned once by their deity.

Yet, this guy doesn't have a sign in his yard because he's mad about poverty, or hunger, or the vast uninsured multitudes of sick people in this very town where he lives. People HE ACTUALLY MEETS EVERY DAY. People who actually DO impact his life. People he actually knows. Friends, neighbors, family

No, it's trans people he's mad about. It's chromosomes, biology, and science that he doesn't even believe in. He's mad enough to put a sign in his yard about a thing that affects him not at all.

I ask again, who radicalized this guy?

I know the answer. I bet you do too.

Those who are sitting back saying, "I'm NOTHING like this guy," have more in common with him than they want to admit.

[Joe Guy]

I get it now. All old white guys in Florida are rednecks and bad people because this guy has those signs on his property.