froghawk on 6/2/2015 at 21:21
So basically it's too taboo for trans people to come out of the closet in France, so you think they don't exist. Got it.
But really, lol @ you claiming to speak for your entire country (and Europe at large). I've been to France and I have plenty of French and Belgian friends, and yet I've never encountered your attitude before. I wonder why... It really is obvious that you've never met a trans person and talked to them about it, because if you had then you'd realize that it's a much bigger issue than you're making it out to be. It is VERY difficult for people to be trans, and no one asked it for it. It's not a whim or convenience - it's a very deep seated thing. (Side note for Tony - surgery is not necessary for someone to be trans, just an identifier.)
Also lol @ the implication that still with all the conveniences of Western society, the only thing we should be worried about is survival and making ends meet... if you really believe that, then why are you wasting your time on a video game forum?
And Tony, FWIW, I don't think social justice should necessarily include bullying, but rather attempts to genuinely change people's minds instead of silencing them. To me, it's about inclusiveness and equality - working towards a society in which no demographic is marginalized, oppressed or excluded.
Manwe on 6/2/2015 at 23:41
Quote Posted by froghawk
So basically it's too taboo for trans people to come out of the closet in France, so you think they don't exist. Got it.
Or, again, the logical explanation is that maybe, they simply don't exist. We are a fairly tolerant country (liberty, equality, fraternity being our motto) and are fairly attached to human rights (having invented them) unlike some other countries. No reason why in such a society people like that should live in fear and hiding. Yet we don't see them. In fact we've never seen or heard a single one of them, ever... Mmm strange. Probably my bias speaking, they were probably there all along but I couldn't see them!
Quote Posted by froghawk
But really, lol @ you claiming to speak for your entire country (and Europe at large). I've been to France and I have plenty of French and Belgian friends, and yet I've never encountered your attitude before. I wonder why...
Yeah, silly me talking about my own country like I know it. I'm sure you're better qualified than me to talk about it, what with all the Belgian friends you have.
Quote Posted by froghawk
It really is obvious that you've never met a trans person and talked to them about it, because if you had then you'd realize that it's a much bigger issue than you're making it out to be.
If I ever travel to the US where they are all over the place apparently (0.3% is that right?), I'll be sure to ask them how they feel about it.
Quote Posted by froghawk
It is VERY difficult for people to trans, and no asked it for it. It's not a whim or convenience - it's a very deep seated thing.
Keep telling yourself that, I'm sure eventually it will become true.
Quote Posted by froghawk
Also lol @ the implication that still with all the conveniences of Western society, the only thing we should be worried about is survival and making ends meet...
It's not a question of choice, it's a reality. Making ends meet is people's main concern right now. I think you're not very well informed on the economic situation of France and Europe in general (Hint: it's not very good, and only getting worse). And yes, the internet is more readily available than jobs around here.
Quote Posted by froghawk
And Tony, FWIW, I don't think social justice should necessarily include bullying, but rather attempts to genuinely change people's minds instead of silencing them. To me, it's about inclusiveness and equality - working towards a society in which no demographic is marginalized, oppressed or excluded.
Ugh, and I'm the crazy one. "Oh no, it's not about bullying, we don't want to silence anyone, that's such a fascist thing to do, we only just want to make them change their thoughts. Because they're wrong. Not like, violently but through the use of propag... er studies based on real science and stuff. Oh and of course it's all in the name of inclusiveness and equality. Except for the people that don't agree with us, they can be marginalized, oppressed, excluded, laughed at, or shitted on, at leisure. What a bunch of weirdoes anyway. Remember, we're the good guys here. Repeat after me, WE ARE THE GOOD GUYS."
froghawk on 7/2/2015 at 00:04
Which... isn't what I said at all.
It's incredible that anyone could possibly be deluded enough to think that their country is some sort of paragon of acceptance and equality where absolutely no one should feel marginalized or oppressed and everyone is free to speak up without fear of retribution because hey, everything is great here and everyone is equal!
NEWSFLASH: There isn't a country in the entire world that fits that description, and the fact that you believe that shows that your head is shoved so far up your ass that it's not even funny. You even used the term 'fairly' yourself, which implies that you're not entirely tolerant or attached to human rights, so some groups are still getting swept under the rug by your own admission. Especially considering your country's history of imperialism - I'm sure there are no hard feelings leftover from all of that!
You do realize that France was the first country to stop classifying transsexualism as a disease, right? I'm sure they just did that on a whim for a nonexistent trans population. Certainly not to accommodate all the trans people that live in France.
Do me a favor before making another post. Take a second and google 'french transexuals' and learn about the people living in your own country. It would take one 5 second google search to figure out that your so-called logical conclusion makes no sense whatsoever and is easily disproven with hard facts.
And then once you've done that, tell me this - why do you care so much about what other people you've never met do with their lives and their bodies to the extent that you felt the need to hijack this thread to go an a completely off-topic and misinformed rant about it, and then continue perseverating on it for a long while after? It doesn't concern you at all or have anything to do with your life, so what's the problem? Why are you so angry?
TTK12G3 on 7/2/2015 at 02:40
I am surprised you guys are getting so worked up over what is probably going to be a quick little time-waster.
demagogue on 7/2/2015 at 02:49
Well at least this is the perfect thread to piss on.
Quote Posted by Tony_Tarantula
I'm also not as sure about the Trans aspect. While it's blatantly obvious that gay people are naturally gay, being "trans" requires the intervention of surgical procedures that until very recently did not exist. Prior to the last 20, maybe 30 years (out of the 60,000 + years that human civilization has existed) there was no such thing as a surgically trans person.
I doubt this. Some cultures like in S and SE Asia have very ancient traditions of trans people, and humans have been performing surgeries as long as they've been sharpening rocks into knives. Granted it probably wasn't a regular practice most places most of the time.
From my experience, most postop trans have no doubts about the surgery once they're to that stage. For one, they've probably been taking hormones that have already irrevokably changed their body and living as the other gender for many years prior. All my trans friends similarly describe their preop life as pretty traumatic. I don't doubt that going back in history people have felt that same trauma in societies that didn't allow them much liberty to do much about it, although I bet social transgenderism was more common than you might expect.
From a genetic and evolutionary psych perspective, transgenderism is even easier to predict and explain than homosexuality, so just as natural anyway.
faetal on 7/2/2015 at 10:06
Tony - trans-gender is thought to be directly linked to the relative amounts of hormones received while in the womb. Feeling feminine or masculine is very much a process of neurophysiology. The alternative that people just for some reason decide "I really feel like a woman" out of the blue is just odd. This is why there is a distinction between sex and gender. The former refers to physical sexual characteristics, the latter refers to which gender a person feels they are. The phrase "woman in a man's body" is pretty apt. Like most biological phenomena, it operates on a spectrum. For example, a friend of mine has a girlfriend, goes to work as normal, but when he goes out, he goes out as a woman, because this is how she identifies with himself in her spare time.
Now I guarantee the fact that I switched pronouns there has probably annoyed some people - this is because some people see this is pandering to someone's perversion or whatever, but the fact is that this feeling of trans-gender is a foundational feature of a trans person's identity. You aren't using this pronoun in a "gender-LARP" fashion, you are describing the person as they feel. It's a pretty basic courtesy.
So yeah, my friend is what you might call "mildly" trans, but there are those who feel so feminine that they basically operate as a women the entire time. This can present some interesting issues. I used to work with someone who basically started living as a woman for a year pending surgery. Our employer was completely cool about it (quite a big employer too - 2000 people in our city), even sent out announcements about how she'd be using the women's toilets after the transition and no one complained or made it weird for her. After about 6 months, he decided to go back to being male, at least at work (I wasn't that close to him), and presumably never went ahead with any surgery. Again, everyone was cool about it (that I saw). I'm not sure if he is straight or gay, it can vary.
It's a very complicated state of affairs because no matter what, a person who is born a man but feels completely feminine is never going to have a body which matches their mind and are always going to have to settle for some kind of compromise which will make them feel incomplete and alien in their own body. On top of this, they have the pressure from society. I don't think we can currently do much about the psychological, neurological and physical issues outside of gender re-assignment surgery, which is not a complete fix. We can however adjust our attitudes. Stopping being outraged or disgusted by people whose gender doesn't align with their sex is no net loss to society. Anyone wanting to hang on to it, aren't doing so for any good reason.
As for whether or not trans-gender people exist in France? Here is an article about the
17th Existrans march in Paris: (
http://www.demotix.com/news/3007109/17th-existrans-march-paris#media-3006971)
It should also be noted that transsexuality was declassified as an illness in France in 2009 - seems a bit unnecessary to expend all of that effort on something which doesn't exist.
Tony - I'm not advocating bullying. If someone says something racist and people respond with ridicule and ostracism - do we class that as bullying the racist? It's the same thing with homophobia and sexism, just not as controversial currently because homophobia and sexism are still accepted to a larger degree than racism.
(Before you reach for your favourite "so you're equating sexism with racism?!!" response - I'm not saying they're equivalent, they just exist and the latter are seen as more acceptable than the former)
The brain-link to trans-gender has been about for a while: (
http://depot.knaw.nl/821/1/15106_285_swaab.pdf) (note that the parts of the brain relating to sexual orientation are different - which is part of what makes it hard for people to get their heads round)
DaBeast on 7/2/2015 at 12:12
How many copies of Revolution 60 have you bought?
faetal on 7/2/2015 at 13:13
None I guess, since I had to look up what that is.
Manwe on 7/2/2015 at 17:33
Quote Posted by froghawk
You even used the term 'fairly' yourself, which implies that you're not entirely tolerant or attached to human rights
Right, so by using an understatement (which totally flew over your head apparently) I admitted I was a bigotted, homophobic, racist. Gotcha!
Quote Posted by froghawk
so some groups are still getting swept under the rug by your own admission.
But, but I thought I wasn't qualified to talk about what goes on in my own country? Which one is it?
Quote Posted by froghawk
You do realize that France was the first country to stop classifying transsexualism as a disease, right? I'm sure they just did that on a whim for a nonexistent trans population. Certainly not to accommodate all the trans people that live in France.
Certainly not because of the incredible lobbying power of the LGBT community. No, no such things as lobbys right?
Quote Posted by froghawk
Do me a favor before making another post. Take a second and google 'french transexuals' and learn about the people living in your own country. It would take one 5 second google search to figure out that your so-called logical conclusion makes no sense whatsoever and is easily disproven with hard facts.
Your facts are so hard they physically hurt me. So according to a (
http://www.huffingtonpost.fr/2012/07/18/les-trans-en-france-loi-avancee-retrograde_n_1681765.html) random news article we're talking about 15 thousand people. Yup I agree with you now, the whims of 15 thousand totally outweigh the needs of 65 millions. Thank you America for reminding us of what's important for us.
Quote Posted by froghawk
And then once you've done that, tell me this - why do you care so much about what other people you've never met do with their lives and their bodies to the extent that you felt the need to hijack this thread to go an a completely off-topic and misinformed rant about it, and then continue perseverating on it for a long while after? It doesn't concern you at all or have anything to do with your life, so what's the problem? Why are you so angry?
But that's the thing, I don't actually care one bit about any of this. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Nobody around here cares about any of this. You guys are the ones frothing at the mouth ready to burn alive any dissenter. And I'm talking as someone living in Montpellier, one of the most gay-friendly city in France. Many of the people I go to university or work with are either gay or bisexual. It's extremely common to see gay couples in the street here. We have no problem with that. What we have a problem with is the importation from America of asinine debates on societal issues that don't concern a vast majority of our population. We have more pressing issues than your fucking "outrage du jour".
If you're gonna accuse me of something terrible to discredit my opinion, at least accuse me of the thing I'm actually guilty of. In case you don't get it yet, I DON'T LIKE THE USA VERY MUCH.
froghawk on 7/2/2015 at 17:52
I don't like the USA very much either, and I live here. What's your point? You're the one that brought this whole thing up, so if you truly don't care as much as you claim you don't why talk about it at all? As for the rest of that, you completely misinterpreted everything I said and you've been sending bizarre mixed messages the entire time, so I'm not going to continue this because I don't see your constant twisting of the conversation ceasing anytime soon.
