Okay, Well, that’s why we’re talking.
That’s great!
Sounds healthy, why do you need a special label for that?
I’m not sure I can give you an answer that you’d like, so I’ll just say that it FEELS good. That’s really all I have to offer ya.
So it’s purely selfish?
I think the “labels” thing helps us identify and understand ourselves better within smaller subsets or communities. This has grown a million fold with the explosion of the Internet. I’ll give an example of my own experience. I’ve always struggled with a weird obsessive compulsive disorder called “TRICHOTILLOMANIA”. In short, it’s “hair pulling”. Yeah, there are people that can’t stop pulling out their hair, plucking eyebrows/ eyelashes, body hair, etc. It was its worse when I was about 12-13 and I never came out to tell my parents what I was really doing, but the growing bald spot on the back of my head could no longer be hidden. They thought it was some weird dermatological condition and I never told them otherwise. I even got “diagnosed” with Aloepaecia (sp?) and prescribed a topical steroid to stimulate regrowth. Ironically, the treatment worked, not because it was some wonder drug, but it was so greasy that I was able to stop pulling my hair, hahaha.
Anyway, I still sometimes bite hair off my arms, pull it off my legs, and have to stop myself from pulling eyebrows and lashes, but nothing ever gets grossly visible to others or anything now.
In college I was watching some TV show and . . . holy shit, people were talking about the same fucking condition and I found out that there was a WORD for it, from Scientists and Psychologists and whatnot. It honestly felt good to know I wasn’t the only fucking weirdo that fought such a battle. And when the Internet opened up, there were others ready to lean on each other, draw strength and share struggles together. I only rarely look at them anymore, but I fully understand their power and significance.
And I suspect that Ice’s experience may be similar in some ways. Things he’s struggled with over time may be things that others have struggled with. And giving a name to such experiences or leanings (whether engineered or genetic) can really help ground someone and help them connect to others who may be in a similar reality.
Anyway, Ice can tell me I’m completely off base and missing the point, but this is probably the best way I have of trying to put myself in someone else’s shoes.
Wishing ALL of you weirdos the best life whatever you call yourselves and whatever struggles you may or may not be going through. Like Grumps and DJ, I’m also really happy to see that such dialogue can take place here and think there’s value for everyone.
Cheers, Bitches!
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That’s actually pretty spot-on!
good post dude!
it’s pretty concise.
I guess my only question is: That behavior doesn’t define you, so why are we letting behavior assign gender? and why are we getting so caught up and angry over it? (As a society) these things are are part of us not specifically us.
Gunnar introduces himself as Gunnar not “hair puller gunnar” there’s more to People than one action or trait. I’m wondering why gender is now coming down to stereotypes. That seems to be the over all theme here as we continue to write about this
Thanks everyone who contributed to this thread. Even Vic and Mooney who decided to get angry at me. This thread was never intended to ridicule trans people but try to understand what’s going on. Explanations gave way to more questions, sometimes uncomfortable, but I think everyone was pretty decent and sincere in their replies. I hope the thread continues. Also this has to be a record… 77 replies and not one change of topic? that’s certainly a record!
Not angry, frustrated.
You have to ask the right person the right question at the right time to get the right answer.
I had a similar experience after reading Hanz Kafka’s letter to his father Hermann: Both of my parents are narcissists. I didn’t have a name for the mental and emotional abuse I had suffered with from the age of three until that point. It allowed me to understand the issues and develop techniques to deal with them.
As a female engineer, I can tell you all about gender role nightmares. Additionally, one of my friends is a high level Director. Her husband doesn’t work and takes care of their kids.
It’s an open topic and it’s on the Internet in a fairly open and free forum. Literally everyone in the group can see it and can contribute if and as they see fit at any time. I think that’s why Grumpy posted HERE instead of wandering the land like Kane of Kung-Fu and hoping to ask the right question to the right person at the right time to get the right answer (whatever that means). Especially since we’re largely not allowed outside or to get up close and personal with people in the street anyway, haha.
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Gender roles are stupid. If the trans movement is an attempt (whether knowingly or unknowingly) to abolish them then I’m all for it. I have a buddy that stays home and watches after the kids while his wife goes to work. That doesn’t mean he’s a woman and she’s a man. It just means that those are the jobs that they perform within their family unit. By changing your gender to accommodate those gender roles it would seem you’re doing more harm than good because you’re buying into those gender roles and reinforcing them.
It’s 2020. If your homies give you shit for being a woman CEO or a stay-at-home dad you don’t need to change your identity or your genitalia. You just need to change your friends.
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That is some sage old mom advice right there. “If they were laughing you don’t need them cause they’re not good friends.” -Fresh Prince
Spoken like a true White Privileged Binary Hetero Cis Male…
(I’m probably forgetting a few dozen tags, but . . . yeah, all that)
Ha! I remember the first time someone referred to me as “cis”…I had absolutely fucking no idea what they were talking about…thought they were calling me a sissy…I know what it means now,I just don’t care…
LOL
…
To throw a couple logs on this fire, and something to think about:
I don’t choose to identify as such explicitly to wave it in front of people. In fact, I don’t make my orientation or my feelings about my gender public at all cuz it’s really no one’s business. It’s literally for me and me alone (and whomever I decide to get into a relationship with or whomever wants to get into one with me, though that gets a bit dicey). I think I’ve told a grand total of like 4 people IRL what exactly the deal is, and while I’ve publicly stated in the past that I’m open-minded, I’m not trying to “rub it in anyone’s faces,” nor let my orientation or identity define me. This is what I am. It’s not ALL I am.
Some perspective from the outside: The overwhelming majority of people who have that opinion (disliking the flaunting of “other” sexualities in people’s faces) tend to be cisgendered, heterosexual, white men. It’s no secret that cishet white dudes have run things and dictated history for years. Not much of that is positive to people of color or LGBTQA++++ folk. There is a very real concern with cishet white folk that if “we” (LGBTQA+++ and POCs) get too many rights and too much time in the limelight, that all of a sudden THEY will be the minority and will get the same treatment they’ve dished out for centuries. (Source: live in Arizona and have friends and family that are very old school/GOOD OL BOY types that in different shades of severity have expressed these opinions, also just go on Twitter/Reddit and try not to throw up.)
It’s a bit sad, really. I just wanna BE. Other people also likely just wanna BE.
Kind of could be interpereted as a mean-spirited take, but here goes: Speaking of alleged rubbing of one’s sexuality in everyone’s face, public displays of affection between a cishet couple is very much the default and very much a socially accepted norm. A cishet couple can hold hands, kiss, propose marriage in public and not many would bat an eyelash (cheering might ensue in the case of the latter, I know I’ve whooped it up upon seeing a proposal in the wild lololol). For people that aren’t the default, that perception is wildly different, both inside and out. I personally know that multiple times in my life, I’ve seen a couple just doing regular couple things, and looked at my partner and was just like “I wish we could do that and not face some kind of repercussion, no matter how minor, severe, immediate or delayed.”
Things are complicated, man. I’m still learning.
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Sometimes it is just that easy! I’m fortunate that a lot of my friends are really chill and open to me and my weirdness! Sometimes, though, yeah, not so much.
When you are asked in 2020 to fetch someone’s coffee, make copies, set up the teleconference, or bake cookies because someone thinks you are the secretary, then we’ll talk.
There are secretaries who bake cookies?
No, that’s the point.