StarDestroyer.Net BBS

I don't know if it counts since she's a real person and not a character, but I think Kim Petras is rather well represented in the media:



She's also an excellent example of how well we can treat gender identity disorders now. Unless someone informed you of it, the possibility of her not having been born female would never cross your mind.

Vehrec wrote:Hmmm. I'm not sure if Naoto Shirogane counts as a Trans-man, since it's only the Shadow that wants to go through with the operation. Then again, this is hir Jungian Shadow, so she's literally trying to force hir own self into a sex change operation. A lot of the rest of the game then goes to a lot of trouble to downplay this. Actual case of transexuality, or just a teenager with no strong female role model trying to destroy her feminine traits in order to fit into a male dominated profession?

Naoto sort of fits, but her dilemma isn't that she wants to be a guy. Her dilemma is that as a female, it's much harder to be taken seriously as a genius detective.
Spoiler

I don't know if it counts since she's a real person and not a character, but I think Kim Petras is rather well represented in the media:

Well i was mostly talking about fictional portrayals in the media.

But yes, the portrayal of real transsexual people is often good, or at least not-bad.

You still run into stuff like "former *male name*"; "she was once a he" and such which can be quite sensationalist - of course it's the subject of the report, which is why you mention it, but it often get's mentioned in, like, every second line. It's like reporting on a successfull black person or woman to show how minorities can be in leadership positions and mentioning all the time "oh, that person is black/female".
There are also generally tons of errors in such reports, tough they are rarely grave - it's more like "i am an expert and therefore i spot every single error" than "the media are dumb and get everything wrong".
What is REALLY annoying however is when the media portray crossdresses, draqkings and other people of the transgender-spectrum as transsexual. This is often not just a mix-up of terminology - a crossdresser does not WANT an operation, so calling him a "pre-op transsexual" is blatantly wrong.
Oh, and of course you have those shitty media that are referring to transwomen as "the transsexual *name*" - which is worse in german, because then it's often "der transsexuelle", which is the male form.

On the good side, you have quite sensitive reports, and not just in the big media - i have seen plenty of good reports in local newspapers and such. A young transwoman i know (14) recently got an excellent two-side interview/report in her local newspaper as part of her transition in school. Many reports also go beyond just showing a single case and explaining what we know about the causes of transsexuality, and transsexuality in general.


Overall, i would say:
-The portrayal of transsexual people in fictional media still needs a lot of improvement. Transsexuality is often the defining characteristic of such characters, which is as offensive as if "being black" was the defining characteristic of a black person.
-In non-fictional media, the media mostly need to learn that calling transwomen male and transmen female is offensive, and that this concludes constant reminders "hey, she was once a man". Also, transmen are underrepresented.

Thanas wrote:WTF?

You better explain yourself real fast.

Transexual characters that I can think of

One from 'The Jeffersons' Old buddy gets sex change causes comedy with wife
Barry the Butcher -killer
The one from Cased Closed-Killer
Harry's Law- Had an affair with a husband, though there were other transexuals in the background, but they didn't have any lines.

The one transman I saw was also a killer.

There are some good movies with transexual characters, such as Julie in Better Than Chocolate, which is admittedly a lesbian romantic comedy. And of course movies such as Transamerica, which is actually about someone trying to tie up loose ends in her life before completing her surgical transition to female. The main problem, as Serafina pointed out, is conflation of transvestites and transexuals, when the two groups are quite separate. Since most people don't identify with either group, they're seen as good for a quick laugh.

Serafina wrote: Also, transmen are underrepresented.

Not to be offensive, but i heard somewhere that Female-to-Male Transexuals are rarer than Male-to-Females. Is this true?

Zor

Serafina wrote:It's kinda like racism or sexism and it's development over time. You have reached a good level of tolerance and acceptance if you can switch a characters race or gender without changing the character much. Perhaps you can display a few additional problems due to doing so, but your character remains the same. Well, in the case of gender it's mostly that the role of the character remains the same - instead of a male action hero, you have a female action hero with few if any changes. "Salt" is a good recent example - originally planned for as a male role, it was re-casted for a female role with little changes (husband instead of wife etc.)

For well-built character development, I'd think it rather difficult to flip the gender of a character without changing some substantial details or reducing the development of the character. It's going to have a lot more effects on the way they think, and should have second-order effects on behavior- mostly in the details, which is what makes the difference between good and mediocre characters anyway.

If you've got a 2D action hero, you can probably turn them into a 2D action heroine without too much trouble. For three-dimensional characters, I'm not so sure. A lot of things that seem very natural for a male character to do are less so for a female character and vice versa, to me at least.

note: CSI also had a multipal transgendered character's in one episode, where the real crime was that the doctor doing the operations was an alcoholic butcher, because the operations are illegal in NV.

close to this would be the Japanese Anthropologist from Bones, who was completely androgenous, and played by a woman.

It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia is a pretty good example of it. One of the main characters dates a beautiful pre-op transwoman on and off for a few seasons. after he finds out she's trans it takes him about 30 seconds to go from 'You lied to me!' to 'okay that's cool' because she compliments his muscles. There's a few slurs against their relationship behind her back (but generally not anything beyond 'that's gross' because of the visible bulge of her enormous dick), but generally it's from the main characters, who are portrayed as idiotic miscreants and sociopaths, while she's portrayed as basically upstanding. Also when the guy dating her accidentally punches her he's pursued mercilessly by two random bystanders because they think it's a hate crime. Eventually she gets srs and marries a normal dude and gets a surrogate child.

In fact, out of all of the characters on that show she's probably come out the best of any of the minor characters, who generally go into a downward spiral due to contact with the gang. Aside from the lawyer who got rich but also became a monster.

Zor wrote:

Serafina wrote: Also, transmen are underrepresented.

Not to be offensive, but i heard somewhere that Female-to-Male Transexuals are rarer than Male-to-Females. Is this true?

Zor

I'm not an expert exactly (for one I've never met a female-to-male transsexual (henceforth transman) to ask, and they'd probably know) but I think it's just that they're stealthier- I dunno if it's true, but it seems to me it'd be easier to get judged on the male side of the spectrum if you're androgynous than if you're trying to look female, because A our culture treats male as the standard for all unknown people and B (the one I bet I'm wrong on) women are judged to far higher standards than men to look acceptable (men have standards to look good, but I think looking ugly or unkempt doesn't immediately cast aspersions onto your masculinity as quickly)

Also, they aren't as stigmatised- women (and assumed 'women' like transmen) who act and dress like men are tomboys or sporty* and are considered cute, so a transman can just sort of get away picking an androgynous name and acting masculine and modern society doesn't flip out as much even if they aren't complete in their transition (not trivialising their troubles or anything, and when outed they suffer a lot of problems of course). Men who act and dress feminine are 'gay' or a 'drag queen' and thus male-to-female transsexuals get serious stigmatisation.

*By now actually I question what a man could wear that women can't. I see lots of girls in mens' t-shirts and blue jeans, and women can wear suits (if with a different cut usually) and everything. I mean, women get female shaped ones like to look good, but a transman could just buy male-cut t-shirts and whatnot and nobody would blink at it even if she doesn't manage to pass as male in public (which I still think would be easier). If a person born as a male begins wearing female-only clothing, even just skinny jeans and a blouse, then people will stare unless they look female enough that people don't notice.

A thought:

I would expect that a female-to-male transsexual who starts taking hormones will start 'looking male' to a standard that satisfies instinct-level judgment pretty quick. They may look like a short, lightly built male, but as long as they wear male or unisex clothing, don't have visible breasts, and do have visible facial hair (or any noticeable stubble thereof), they're going to be viewed as male pretty much by default. If I look at a person and see a a 2 o'clock shadow* and no breasts, they're sporting what are, to my hindbrain, very clear secondary sex characteristics hardly ever seen in women, identifiers that scream "MAN!": facial hair and a flat** chest. Add clothing cut for men, and it would never even occur to me to question whether that person is male.

Male-to-female... not so simple. The positive identifiers that scream "WOMAN!" and are hardly ever seen in men aren't going to appear quickly, not without cosmetic surgery. And the subtler ones that are saying "man!" are harder to get rid of- the opposite side of the same coin.

*Like a 5 o'clock shadow, only less so.
**I mean, significantly flatter than I normally see even on thin girls. Yes, there are girls who are quite flat-chested; it's... hard for me to explain what I'm getting at, but I hope it's fairly clear.

Simon_Jester wrote: **I mean, significantly flatter than I normally see even on thin girls. Yes, there are girls who are quite flat-chested; it's... hard for me to explain what I'm getting at, but I hope it's fairly clear.

As an expert in female bodies ( ) I think what you're seeing there is skeletal structure and fat distribution. Even a flat-chested woman who is post-pubescent has a different... body shape, really, than a man. There's a reason they're called 'boyish' and not 'mannish' (unless someone's being a jerk and even then it's almost always inaccurate).

Hormones will reshape the body, but there's no way to reshape the skeleton, so that's only partially mitigateable for either: female-to-males will never get the broad shoulders, male-to-females will never lose them (unless they didn't have them in the first place, either by not undergoing puberty (I think those are caused by puberty, children look much less sex-distinct and in particular young boys don't have strong jawlines or large shoulders really) or just being a particularly opposite-sex looking example of their original sex).

Granted, a lot of the things you'd think would be important skeletally like the fact that the pelvis is completely different shaped I suspect isn't because hips cover most of that anyhow. And facial bones are fixable with facial surgery for women, as harrowing of an operation as it sounds, though I dunno about female to males (I think like in a lot of things, they're SOL, unless there's some kind of implant you can put to broaden a jawline. Harder to add than remove and all that).

Well, what I'm getting at is that, pursuant to your own argument about 'stealthiness,' it would seem to me that an FTM would have a much easier time projecting enough physical traits that shout "MAN!" to overwhelm any subtle hints that whisper "woman" than is true in the reverse case.

Hence the stealthiness, above and beyond clothing and mannerism.

If a transman starts transitioning early in puberty then he'll develop the broad shoulders/strong jaw/etc. of a cismale, and maybe even something closer to average male height.

Of course, there is considerable "normal" range - women who exceed most men in height, short men, narrow-shouldered men, broad shouldered women.... These are not hard and fast numbers. Then you have muscle and fat distribution on top of the skeleton, which can alter an observer's perception, and those can be affected by hormones, weight, activity, and so forth even past puberty.

Duckie and Simon pretty much answered the question:
Transmen are MUCH stealthier. Even if they are not, they don't register as "trans" and just as "butch" or such.

Are transmen actually rarer than transwomen?
Well keep in mind that the official, widely-used statistics SUCK, since they are from the early 60s. According to them, there are about three times more tranwomen than transmen. However, according to more modern statistics(2001) transsexuality is not only much more prevalent than portrayed in those outdated statistics, but the male-to-female/female-to-male ratio is aso more even.

Even if transmen were rarer than transwomen, their presence in the media is quite disproportionate. The only transmen in fictional media i can remember are from lesbian media and from one or two movies specifically about transmen (such as the excellent "Boys don't cry"). Compared to that, transwomen are much more prominent in the mainstream fictional media. However, this leads to a more sensitive portrayal of transmen - if they are portrayed at all, it's often a good portrayal.


Which leads me to another rant, tough that's quite specific:
This situation is sorta inverted in lesbian media - you see transmen with some regularity, but you very rarely see transwomen. For example, the L-Word had a transman as a regular character, but never portrayed any transwomen (granted, their portrayal of that transman was....controversial). The same applies to many lesbian movies.
The reason for this is quite obvious: Many transmen live as butch lesbians before they transition - it allows them to be very masculine without the whole "oh my god i'm trans"-realisation. They are therefore not a rarity in lesbian communities - in my local one, i am pretty much the only transwoman almost all of the other girls have met, but many of them know at least one transman. And no, it's not the other way round in the (male) gay community, since there is no real male counterpart to the butch lesbian.
@Duckie: Due to this, i am a bit surprised that you don't know any transmen. Is it that different in american lesbian communities?

Serafina wrote: @Duckie: Due to this, i am a bit surprised that you don't know any transmen. Is it that different in american lesbian communities?

Can't say I'm in touch with most elements of the local scene, so I dunno. I don't really go looking, though I think I've seen 1 or 2 transmen actually come to think at a distance, but I don't know for sure. Just set off my suspicions, the way they looked. There's no real polite way to go and ask, after all.

Broomstick wrote:If a transman starts transitioning early in puberty then he'll develop the broad shoulders/strong jaw/etc. of a cismale, and maybe even something closer to average male height.

Of course, there is considerable "normal" range - women who exceed most men in height, short men, narrow-shouldered men, broad shouldered women.... These are not hard and fast numbers. Then you have muscle and fat distribution on top of the skeleton, which can alter an observer's perception, and those can be affected by hormones, weight, activity, and so forth even past puberty.

Yes, and the distribution of all these different ranges tends to cluster- very strong correlation in men between being tall, broad-shouldered, rough-faced, and so on, and different set of correlations for women. Someone may be an exception to the general rule in one or two ways, but they're unlikely to be an exception in several ways- excepting, of course, transgender people going through transition, which is why that can set off weirdness alarms in the brain.

Though there is a certain je nais se quoi about it that is unsatisfying because I want to know why certain people look masculine and others look feminine even when the traits are the same.

Like, Lauren Jackson is 6'5" and rather broad shouldered, yet even in a tight jersey that minimises the appearance of breasts she doesn't set off any 'male' sensors to me at all. I think she looks really cute, actually. I dunno what's up with it. Maybe it's still face shape and fat distribution. Like, non-overweight women tend to have, at minimum, a barely noticeable dent in their midsection due to different fat distributions even if they aren't hourglass figured, compared to men who are literally | | rather than somewhat ) ( looking.

Duckie wrote:Though there is a certain je nais se quoi about it that is unsatisfying because I want to know why certain people look masculine and others look feminine even when the traits are the same.

Like, Lauren Jackson is 6'5" and rather broad shouldered, yet even in a tight jersey that minimises the appearance of breasts she doesn't set off any 'male' sensors to me at all. I think she looks really cute, actually. I dunno what's up with it. Maybe it's still face shape and fat distribution. Like, non-overweight women tend to have, at minimum, a barely noticeable dent in their midsection due to different fat distributions even if they aren't hourglass figured, compared to men who are literally | | rather than somewhat ) ( looking.

I would say that you have a bias due to your sexual orientation. I would say the same thing about myself, and about the general population.

I also notice my bias in another situation: I am very "trans-bling" in regard to transwomen - I tend to overlook their masculine features unless i really concentrate on them (in order to give passing-advice and such).


By the way, you can tell me that this transmen still looks somewhat like a woman here:

However, you can't possibly tell me that he is still looking anything like a woman here:

However, to me, he already looked male here, which was pre-transition:

Yes, that's all the same person (shortly after, after and before testosterone). Testosterone tend to do that. However, it is also about facial expression and a persons "aura" - body language and so on. Which is often missing from photographs.

Serafina wrote:I would say that you have a bias due to your sexual orientation. I would say the same thing about myself, and about the general population.

Ah, but, like, how do I tell if they're male or female, especally in poor lighting, at a distance, or with a partial view? Very rarely do I find myself wondering if someone is male or female, and very rarely do I find myself then attracted to a girl before finding out she's actually a boy. Despite this, I am somewhat regularly attracted with no reservations to rather masculine looking girls at times (lauren jackson has a bit of hourglass and a feminine jawline, but that's not always the case) without any confusion as to their look. (Although when I'm exceptionally excited or happy, this ability sometimes falters, but in the strangest way: I see female versions of people- not just like, misperceive the exact same person as female, but if you asked me later I'd describe roughly what someone would look like had they stepped into a gender swap machine, which is just brainhurtingly weird).

Thus my question and why I keep speculating and theorizing, because an interesting point was either raised in here or I thought of it myself, is: How am I (or anyone, really) able to tell? I clearly can in most cases, even when I can't identify what traits are the 'no doubt' level female markers on an actual person or picture, even with careful thought and study.

----

Honestly I'll tell you that those pictures set off respectively '... male or maybe an older woman or girl with cancer or something.', 'male huh he looks kinda like derren brown a little' and 'male head on a body that I would go "I dunno, male, maybe?" about, so overall male', so I guess I'm either really good at this or bad at this depending upon what reaction I was supposed to have.

Partially another factor that occured to me: it might be lighting at times- the second picture you posted is a lot differently lit and has a more masculine vibe (plus there's minor facial hair which automatically unconsciously throws people towards male). As other examples, sharp, bright fluorescent light will tend towards highlighting stubble and blemishes, for example, and soft-lit tones tend to evoke a feminine feeling.

And selection effect too is probably serious. Photographers are going to throw out any pictures of Lauren Jackson that make her look 'ugly' (that is male in this case) unless they're doing a hit piece, so that might be why none of the pictures of her seem to set off my maleness-detection. If those are pre and post transition, perhaps the photographers were looking for and thus made/found a picture more feminine and a picture more masculine for the before and after pictures (perhaps even not out of disrespect in the first case but an instinctive desire to minimize someone in a picture 'looking terrible'.) Similarly, a sympathetic piece on Kim Petras is going to do their best to get good lighting to make her look as attractive as any other woman (which she is, mind, she's actually adorable), while a negative piece* on would probably go for lighting that makes her look worse.

*Or a sympathetic 'look, these transexuals have it pretty hard' piece might do that for varying reasons. I think I saw watched a piece of a special about that once and they had very masculine-emphasizing lighting at times.

Ah, but, like, how do I tell if they're male or female, especally in poor lighting, at a distance, or with a partial view?

Body language and clothing?

(Although when I'm exceptionally excited or happy, this ability sometimes falters, but in the strangest way: I see female versions of people- not just like, misperceive the exact same person as female, but if you asked me later I'd describe roughly what someone would look like had they stepped into a gender swap machine, which is just brainhurtingly weird

I'm doing that a lot as well (too rarerly with myself tough).
As i said, i think people tend to be biased in their perception of feminine and masculine features based on their sexual orientation. When you are interacting with them, you get a constant input, and this input is normally more than enough to overcome any bias - even if a man has a somewhat feminine face, you'll see a beard shadow, male clothing, a masculine voice, male behaviour and so on. Memory however is always idealized - and your idea of an "ideal person" is female, so you probably remember female features more than male features. You probably don't alter your memory so that that man is now wearing female clothing - but rather you don't remember the clothing precisely, as well as various other features, so that the overall image is now much more ambigous and your perception-bias can shift your perception of it into "female".

In addition to that positive reinforcement, it probably works the other way round as well - a heterosexual man could be apt at picking up masculine features as a "warning sign", so that he does not hit on a male person. Which one is stronger in which case would be an interesting question to which i have no answer. However, i suspect that those features need to be prominent in the first place and are then given top-priority in ones perception - if they are more subtle, this won't happen.

Now sexual orientation is most likely not the only thing influencing your perception that way, but it's one factor and probably a strong one.
Of course there are more complicated cases, such as butch lesbians or transsexual people. My general impression is that this mechanism works there as well - lesbians generally do not mistake butch lesbians as male, bisexual women slightly more often (according to the few i know and asked) and androphile (attracted to men) people more often. If that impression is correct, it would reinforce my theory that sexual orientation influences our perception of other peoples gender.


So basically:
-You are good at picking up the features you find attractive, which means that if you like women, you are more likely to pick up feminine features rather than masculine ones.
-You are also good at picking up the features that really put you off
-This is normally not relevant for our perception of another persons gender, since we have lot's of other indicators and this bias is not strong enough to overcome them.
-However, it does play a role when someone gender appears ambiguous or has mixed features, such as early-transition transsexual people or butch lesbians.

I see! I don't really see any problems with your theory, though I think unlike you I tried to consistently use 'male trait' and 'masculine trait' for men and women respectively because being a dyke-y girl to me has different, albeit similar traits to a man, because I can easily tell them apart, so sometimes I'm not sure exactly what you mean like in "If you like women you're more likely to pick up feminine (I would say female here I think) than masculine ones (same, 'male')" because I split those. But I'm pretty sure I understood regardless.

But other than that, that sounds like a sensible thing. It was quite interesting- the 'ideal person' stuff is spot on for example.

Duckie wrote:I see! I don't really see any problems with your theory, though I think unlike you I tried to consistently use 'male trait' and 'masculine trait' for men and women respectively because being a dyke-y girl to me has different, albeit similar traits to a man, because I can easily tell them apart, so sometimes I'm not sure exactly what you mean like in "If you like women you're more likely to pick up feminine (I would say female here I think) than masculine ones (same, 'male')" because I split those. But I'm pretty sure I understood regardless.

But other than that, that sounds like a sensible thing. It was quite interesting- the 'ideal person' stuff is spot on for example.

Ah, yes, my terminology was a bit sloppy here. Could you elaborate on yours?
Right now it seems that you are using "male/female" for body-traits, such as skelettal build, fat distribution, facial features and such, while you are using "masculine/feminine" for behavioral traits, clothing and similar things. If that is the case, then i completely agree with it.

Also, i definetly agree that butch lesbians are a completely different matter than men - i know some very attractive butch lesbians (who are very masculine), but i never had any sexual attraction towards men (including more feminine ones). That would fit with the masculine/male, feminine/female-definition above: I am attracted to female traits and certain masculine and feminine traits.


Anyway, i'm off to bed now.
I would like to ask for this thread not to be deleted - it doesn't have to be moved to another forum (tough that would be nice), it just want to go on with this discussion.

Yeah pretty much, although my conception of gender is a little different than yours, but basically, what I call generally 'dykey' seems to be what most people call 'butch' (which I don't like because butch to me implies unattractive whereas with the diminutive adjective suffix I find dyke-y cute sounding), which is the traits one would attribute to supposedly-masculine women. (I further would distinguish 'punk' and 'sports' as two of many subtypes within this because an athletic, muscular sporty girl is not at all the same as the body-image rejecting strange-hair-colour and piercings punk girl despite both being "masculine". There's others for other categories but let's not get into that)

Whereas 'male' and 'female' are things I use for discrete, quantifiable things, for me 'masculine' 'feminine', because they're more adjectival than strict descriptors* is generally something I use for behaviour. For example, wide shoulders is a male trait (or, when a woman has them, I tend to soften it by saying 'male-ish' cause I think it's potentially less problematic. [just for information's sake, I'd personally soften something as 'somewhat masculine' or something if I wanted to not make a girl feel bad if she was embarassed about liking cars or something]

*they come from and retain markers in their use from the latin suffix -inis, which is roughly 'like a female' or 'characterised by being female-ish' rather than 'female' literally, thus why I use them for the more malleable things like behaviour as opposed to fixed physical things that are always male or always female crossculturally. Most anglophones haven't thought about this so the distinction isn't as strong, but the words definitely do carry that implication.

This may be motivated by my desire to avoid liking anything that is strictly male (which granted is a very limited subset of features, mainly 'lacking breasts' and 'square shape'). So I use 'masculine' as a substitute word to avoid implying anything about men whereas male for any trait I don't like, cause I'm biased that way.

This may be motivated by my desire to avoid liking anything that is strictly male (which granted is a very limited subset of features, mainly 'lacking breasts' and 'square shape'). So I use 'masculine' as a substitute word to avoid implying anything about men whereas male for any trait I don't like, cause I'm biased that way.

Oh i SO know that myself

Yeah pretty much, although my conception of gender is a little different than yours, but basically, what I call generally 'dykey' seems to be what most people call 'butch' (which I don't like because butch to me implies unattractive whereas with the diminutive adjective suffix I find dyke-y cute sounding), which is the traits one would attribute to supposedly-masculine women.

Hmm, another good point. Neither word is really used in my community, so i'm not really using them all that often.

(I further would distinguish 'punk' and 'sports' as two of many subtypes within this because an athletic, muscular sporty girl is not at all the same as the body-image rejecting strange-hair-colour and piercings punk girl despite both being "masculine". There's others for other categories but let's not get into that)

Oh, i hope you don't mind if i DO get into that
I would add a third category. Sort of a "bussiness-woman"-category - suit-like clothing (obviously not always a suit), short but still feminine haircut et cetera. I wouldn't really say that that fits the "sporty"-category, since that style is "more elaborate, less comforable" and it certainly doesn't fit with the punk-stlyle, so it's not a sub-category of either.
If you want an example of what i mean, look at Rachel Maddow.

IMO, that definetly goes into the dykey-direction. That's of course debatable, but i would not call her an overly feminine women, tough i would certainly call her VERY attractive.