March 26, 2008
Transgendered men, but . . . men nonetheless.
I mean, I know it's a rather challenging topic, and I do remember finding out that my ex-girlfriend was now cross-living, and IM'ing about this new development with a prominent blogger.
"Wait a minute," he asked. "If the disconnect is due to the person being 'mentally' the other gender, why couldn't simply change this person's brain chemistry? I mean, to be politically incorrect about it."
Well," I explained, "in many cases it isn't about the human brain. It's about genetic irregularities, and those are immutable. To my knowledge, one cannot change one's chromosomes. They are, after all, in every freakin' cell in our bodies."
"You know," he confided, "men don't like the idea that they might be dating a girl, and find out that she'd once been a man. It's just weird to us."
"Oh, okay," I responded. "In that case, we should outlaw gender-reassignment surgery, cross-living, and probably even cross-dressing. I didn't realize it was making you uncomfortable."
Okay: I didn't say that. I think I wrote: "interesting; gotta go. Working in the office tonight. Please link me soon, 'kay?"
Just think about it. This kind of thing is not very common, but it does happen. It worries me that we seem to be lumping it in with homosexuality. Truth be told, there is some overlap: I think people with a gender-disconnect often flee to the gay community (and its "agenda," which is bound in crocodile and contains a Mont Blanc pen), but I'm not sure that is how it would go if the mainstream were more accepting.
When, for example, did The Advocate become a "transgender" publication? And why do we use the designation LGBT all over the place? Furthermore, why are left-handed people excluded from that grouping? Are left-handed people not real "equals" in the LGBT community?
And why can't we simply give left-handed people drugs to make them right-handed? Not, you know, to be politically incorrect about it . . . but they make me uncomfortable. I mean, I give someone a document to sign, and suddenly they're angling the paper in the wrong direction. I don't like it.
Posted by: Attila Girl at
10:47 PM
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I guess what makes me uncomfortable about it is that it seems very stereotypey if you think you like X so you can't be Y gender. Or is it different? I quite honestly don't know. I just know I was the ungirly girl, but I never thought, "Hey! I must really be a man inside!"
Hmm.
And, just so you know, I was left-handed once. But thanks be to my parents, I have seen the light, and am now unequivocally right-handed. And I thank God for their guidance, because they increased my life expectancy by about 10 years or so.
But you know why I'm not so bothered about lefty-handy folk? They're not trying to telll me that it's 'normal', they're not trying to force my kids to see if they're left- or right-handed, and they're most definitely not forcing companies to accommodate their strange and unusual practices.
btw, it really was true, I was left-handed when I was young. My Mum had to tie my hand behind my back and force me to write with my right hand. I'm fine now. Honest. But I do more typing than writing.
And to try to answer your facetious question seriously, or semi-seriously, Atilla, it would probably be much, much better for left-handed people if there really was a procedure that would turn them into right-handed people. Southpaws tend to die younger, because this world is adapted for right-handed folk. Not that I'd force them, but the option would be a good one.March 12, 2008
I'm not an authority on gender relations, since I haven't seen any healthy marriages up close in real life.
There are, of course, four leading men in my life: my father, who loves it when I pick on him, because what is bullying behavior from his wives is just cunning when it's his older daughter tearing him down (yes—I don't do it often any more; I know it isn't healthy); my older brother and real father figure, who withdraws from me, judges the hell out of me, and loves me secretly far more than he will ever let on; my husband, whom I tend to either cater to or take for granted—but love desperately, all the same (and if only that were enough to sustain a relationship—it's "necessary, but not sufficient"); and my best friend Count Linguist, who is often accused of being "gay-like" because he's a die-hard nonviolent intellectual—though he is as brutal verbally as any serial killer is in the blood-and-guts realm—and, oddly enough, he is the strongest person physically I've ever met, if one were simply measuring raw upper-body power.
All that said, I do think people need to let off steam, particularly when they feel dominated by their spouses—which, let's face it, everyone is. Marriage is never easy, and it certainly isn't for wimps.
But there is a point beyond which one shouldn't go. If you're blowing off steam, you can make a couple of pointed remarks about your spouse the way one might talk about upper management (or the Board of Directors, or the stockholders, or any "ball and chain") at a company for which you work, and at which you largely like to work: "God love 'em; they aren't perfect—much as I sometimes wish they were. I do, however, respect the good in what they are accomplishing."
There are certain things that are simply beyond the pale: suggesting that your husband or boyfriend isn't a "real man" (which, of course, he would be if he only did what you want him to do, all the damned time), suggesting he's a little boy for having any human emotions, or holding against him whatever intellectual limitations he might incur as a result of being male. (This is often combined with taking advantages of the areas wherein his brain provides benefits to the household or partnership: "You're so absent-minded, Honey; here's the map, by the way. You navigate." Not cricket, people.)
I wouldn't know about the last, precisely. My mapping and spatial relationship skills run, as withmy-anything-mathematical, to either very good, or very bad. (Like my parallel parking, or my restaurant arithmetic/tip calculations. I'm either on, or completely off.)
But between two people each person will always have strengths and weaknesses, and it's just as well to acknowledge one's weaknesses on those occasions when one is trumpeting one's strengths.
Otherwise, male or female, one risks turning into a monster.
Posted by: Attila Girl at
07:22 PM
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March 05, 2008
Insty got me thinking about it. I remember having some sort of conversation with a male blogger once in which he mentioned the presumption of paternity within a marriage as an "anti-male" law. I told him I didn't see it that way: I perceive that as a protection for the husbands, who might otherwise have their children wrenched away from them in the event that their wives had had affairs.
He couldn't see my point: in fact, he seemed to regard fatherhood as a matter of contributing genetically to the formation of a child. No, no. That's not it, at all.
These matters shouldn't be defined strictly by biology, but by a parent's willingness to play a role in his or her child's life.
Posted by: Attila Girl at
06:31 PM
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