Sex and gender 101 - Illustrated ...

[annie]

This was just posted in our local group's discussion forum. Anyone who has been frustrated with the terminology used to try to define us and the labels which are used to tell us what we are or are not may find it of interest.

http://www.roostertailscomic.com/?p=994

This is one of the better attempts I've ever seen to explain things which does not try to put people into those little boxes with those labels which sometimes fit but often do not.

I do like the way they illustrate the various spectra as continua and not as discrete points or, as is often done, binary extremes.

[bobbiemlv]

And as usual, Annie hit the nail right on the head. I wonder who's going to change this subject and tell me I shouldn't start a sentence with a conjunction. LOL
Hooray for Annie!!!

[External Poster]

This posting is from: JB Green
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> Conjunction Junction what's your function?

hooking up phrases and clauses to make sentences....

JB

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(This posting was entered by JB Green, an external user of MyDLV.)

[annie]

> Hooray for Annie!!!

Well, I'll take the credit for passing it on. Lynne with RCGA was the one who posted it locally. I'm not sure who the original author is, but the thoughts are more along mine than is most of the wisdom out there circulating.

And, not only is a conjunction a good word to begin a sentence with, a preposition is a great word to end a sentence with!

[External Poster]

This posting is from: Susan Bane
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In this forum, you can start a sentence any way you want ... At least I think so.

SUSAN

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[External Poster]

This posting is from: Mabeco
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Conjunction Junction what's your function?

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(This posting was entered by Mabeco, an external user of MyDLV.)

[External Poster]

This posting is from: Cynthia Phillips
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Hi all,

Thanks for bringing this up, it is my favorite topic: trying to figure
out my personal self, while at the same time trying to place myself (as
well as all the rest of us) on some type of social spectrum within the
TGCD - read 'gay', which I am - community, as well as the 'mainstream'
population at large. Who am I? What am I? and Where am I in relation
to everyone else? It is a very personal and social question for me.
As the Rooster Tail Topic suggested, that spectrum is an ever changing
continuum, and I am constantly changing my position on it as well. It
would seem that nothing is settled about us as yet. I love topics
like this on our Group Chat Line, it gives me a chance to vent, rage,
and blog to gender people like me who might actually stop and read what
I've got to say, although I seriously doubt that more than four or five
of you will actually do so.

I believe that the achievement of legal equality in many states, as well
as nationally, has shifted our position on that social spectrum, both
within as well as outside of the GLBT community. We have gained more
social respect and legal rights, but we have lost some moral and ethical
support along the way. With our attainment of more legal equality and
social acceptance nationally, society and business are using new and
different ways to discriminate against us while maintaining a law
abiding liberal front to hide their samo -samo bigotry. It is an old
story in the good old USA, and any upwardly mobile immigrant group will
tell you the same thing. We're getting plenty of media attention;
Hollywood, television, and sports loves us, but for the rest of us who
ain't Ru Paul, but just like paradeing around in our dresses, you're
going to "feel the heat on the street, baby."

In talking to some of you I've found that those of you from smaller
towns have to be doubly careful about outing yourselves just any old
where, and of course, we're all familiar with the news accounts of the
crimes against us. Oddly, and what I experience here in Vegas, is
somewhat different. Vegas being what it is: a mob oriented, 24/7 casino
industry town which is continually expanding and becoming more
cosmopolitan yearly, I find that I can walk down the street or through
a casino, dressed in drag, anytime of the day or night, without being
molested or harrassed, and feel pretty comfortable while doing it, and
being asked to stop and pose for pictures for the tourists and being
thanked, hugged and complemented for doing so.

What creates that difference that I mentioned that I experience is
'diversity' itself. As our GLBT community diversifies, enlarges, and
becomes more differentiated, and as we settle into our positon within
it, good old American competition takes over; and once more us poor
downtrodden "trannies" find ourselves relegated to one of the binary
extremes of the continua, as our Annie would have it. So, on that
theory, I find that I personally experience more discrimination 'within'
the GLBT community here locally, than I do outside of it. While the
GLBT community here continues to gain social acceptance within the
larger mainstream hetrosexual community, the GLBT community continues to
relegate "us" to the bottom end of the totem pole. We never gain
ground with the rest of our kind because they simply won't accept us as
their kind.

So, what makes us seem different to them, you might ask?? Answer:
Imago - our image, our alter-egos - what we love to do more than
anything else in the world: Crossdress and Transgender. Why won't they
fully accept us?? Ans: Because we cannot be fully happy - read: ego
euphoric - unless we are fully out and exposed for all the world to see,
on the full spectrum of the GLBT rainbow as the beautiful trannies we
are; and they cannot risk nor afford to be seen with us, and I simply
refuse to do or be anything less. They consider us to be the outlaws
and rebels, the black sheep, the political radicals, the extremists of
the gay world.

I cannot be personally happy as a gender queer - thats right, you read
me right - "Gender Queer", while hiding in a man's clothes, hiding in
the concealing shadows of the hetrosexual mainstream world, and slinking
around on the sly after I get off work from my daytime job, looking for
love in all the wrong places; I've tried that route and it still leaves
me ego dysphoric and wanting. I've got to come out, and all the way
out. Nothing less will do; and I'm brave enough to do it, despite the
discrimination and bigotry from my own kind, and the deceiving lying
backstabbing tactics practiced by the mainstream community.

Politics make for strange bedfellows, as they say, and the times are
changing fast. That continuum is constantly shifting as new defining
terms come into use and old ones fall by the wayside. Those new terms
have new significance and power and meaning for us, while the old ones
are forgotten. Don't believe them and don't settle for them thinking
they hold the key to your happiness; they will change on you again and
again. Know who you are in your heart of hearts and be happy with
yourself, forget the continuum, change yourself until you are gender
euphoric, and that is where you will want to stay.

Cynthia

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[bobbiemlv]

> This posting is from: Cynthia Phillips
> "it gives me a chance to vent, rage,
> and blog to gender people like me who might actually stop and read what
> I've got to say, although I seriously doubt that more than four or five
> of you will actually do so."

Thank you very much for your usual eloquent soliloquy. I love the way you put things in words that anyone can understand and sincerely hope that more than 4 or 5 read it. It is both poignant, real and......
Hooray for Cynthia!!
There i did it. Ended a sentence with and.
I really can't help liking to hear myself talk.

I do hope you read what Annie posted and how Cynthia replied.

[External Poster]

This posting is from: bobbiemlv
----------

> "it gives me a chance to vent, rage,
> and blog to gender people like me who might actually stop and read what
> I've got to say, although I seriously doubt that more than four or five
> of you will actually do so."

Thank you very much for your usual eloquent soliloquy. I love the way
you put things in words that anyone can understand and sincerely hope
that more than 4 or 5 read it. It is both poignant, real and......

Hooray for Cynthia!!

There i did it. Ended a sentence with and.

I really can't help liking to hear myself talk.

I do hope you read what Annie posted and how Cynthia replied.

----------
(This posting was entered by bobbiemlv, an external user of MyDLV.)

[annie]

> While the GLBT community here continues to gain social acceptance
> within the larger mainstream hetrosexual community, the GLBT community
> continues to relegate "us" to the bottom end of the totem pole. We never
> gain ground with the rest of our kind because they simply won't accept us
> as their kind.

Some would say that we (the TG community) happen to be the red-headed stepchild of the GLB(T) movement, and in years past I might agree. As late as the early 1990s I definitely recall some "we're not really them and they're not really us" attitude.

I distinctly recall, during the 1970s, efforts of some in the TG community to distance the TG movement from the gay community.

However, in the recent decade the inclusion of "T" in the alphabet soup is far more the rule than the exception. There are many common issues and common concerns between all of the subgroups in such soup.

I do admit that there still appears to be a certain degree of anti-TG WAB/WBW bias amongst some in the lesbian community but that seems to have subsided over the past few years.

Intolerance is sooooooo 20th century!