Theories that were Bunk

[JasonJ]

Most trans men and women are indistinguishable with cis men and women now. Most of the public's awareness of trans people is based on media where trans women are played by cis men, which is deeply offensive and ends up getting trans women murdered.

I hate the idea that this reasoning would be an excuse to just cast a cis women to play a trans woman and pushes the idea that all women are supposed to look exactly the same.

I would presume that the indistinguishability would be variable, based on where the person is in the process of transitioning. I would like to see us get to the point where it doesn't matter what someone looks like relative to their identified gender. Because to me, it doesnt. A person is a person, regardless of all of that.

I too don't believe that producers and casting directors should cast a cis woman to play a trans woman... that makes no sense to me other than they think they are going for the aesthetic, which misses all of the points entirely and is insulting to everyone.

 

[Awesome Possum]

I would presume that the indistinguishability would be variable, based on where the person is in the process of transitioning. I would like to see us get to the point where it doesn't matter what someone looks like relative to their identified gender. Because to me, it doesnt. A person is a person, regardless of all of that.

Youve probably been around trans people and didn't notice. There's such a large variation among cis people that most trans people fit in. No one looks 100% male or female, if there even is such a thing.

Except for the Rock, maybe.

 

[ComicbookContinium]

I think Star Trek is at a place where say 'Superman'....was say 2006- to present with the attempted revivals, not counting that Kevin Smith script for Nick Cage with the giant spider.... it has become a property that is kinda too big but still not big enough to stand on its own feet and make profit...people kinda know the story and characters so expect things to already be a certain way...however this can also hold back a series, restrain its creativity...Star Trek is too well known and kinda too big and not big enough at the same time. A new franchise like say the Harry Potters or the Matrix the Bourne movies or Hunger Games or like say Marvel with Thor and Ironman or whatever they are new territory, new actors, new scripts, they are simply fresher, they are newer so they are not so restrained by their own brand and their own continuity.

That it's a reboot.

that it is a good series and is going to 'revive' Star Trek...so far I have found it to be kinda crap

 

[JasonJ]

Youve probably been around trans people and didn't notice. There's such a large variation among cis people that most trans people fit in. No one looks 100% male or female, if there even is such a thing.

Except for the Rock, maybe.

All fine and good by me. I was thinking more in the sense that if a physical male put on a dress and make-up and wore his hair long, he'd still be identifiable as a physical male; as opposed to someone who had been taking hormones or has had surgical procedures completed, et al ... which in my mind, causes them to appear and sound more like their identified gender.

My wife, an alternative high school teacher has a number of trans students in her classes, most are completely indistinguishable from those born male or female - they are their own person and their sound and appearance match exactly who they feel they are.

In my own life experience, I've come to conclude that your questioning about 100% male or female is in fact as amorphous as it sounds; there is no such thing as 100% either one in my opinion. Everyone has some attribute of the other gender, in some way. They may not realize it, but it's there. Personally, I am a very nurturing father, and emotionally sensitive at times; a lot of people would classify those as traditionally female traits. But I say traditional gender roles are crap and out-dated. Personally, my ideal job would be stay-at-home dad. Not traditional or "typical male" at all.

 

[Awesome Possum]

All fine and good by me. I was thinking more in the sense that if a physical male put on a dress and make-up and wore his hair long, he'd still be identifiable as a physical male; as opposed to someone who had been taking hormones or has had surgical procedures completed, et al ... which in my mind, causes them to appear and sound more like their identified gender.

It depends on the individual really. The line between male and female is lot more fluid than most people realize. Most of it is really based on presentation alone.

 

[ComicbookContinium]

Edit by mod: transphobic trolling.

 

[mattyhugh]

I bet if there was an expensive fan film about Superman in 2006, complete with its own "liscened" coffee, if have been superior to what Bryan Singer did.

 

[Awesome Possum]

A waste of text.

Yeah, you can take that transphobic shit and shove it in a black hole. Trans children are kept under pretty strict medical and psychological observation until they're 18 and no permanent treatment or surgery is done without serious thought. No one is ever "talked into" being trans, you either are or aren't.

 

[JasonJ]

I bet if there was an expensive fan film about Superman in 2006, complete with its own "liscened" coffee, if have been superior to what Bryan Singer did.

Sooo.. I'm the only one who liked Superman Returns then? Bummer...

 

[Awesome Possum]

I liked it even if it was a whole movie where Superman picked things up and put them back down.

Say what you want about it, but at least he was actually heroic and not a murderous creep.

 

[{ Emilia }]

Transphobic post and troll removed. Fuck that shit.

 

[JasonJ]

I liked it even if it was a whole movie where Superman picked things up and put them back down.

Say what you want about it, but at least he was actually heroic and not a murderous creep.

I also thought that while the evil plot was lame, but scientifically sound, Kevin Spacey made for a great Lex Luthor. And Routh was fantastic as the Man of Steel. It was nice to seem address a long standing issue with Superman and his apprehension of "bad guys"... due process.. you can't just grab people and drop them off in prison whenever and however you feel like because you are more empowered than everyone else.

That's the real abuse.

 

[mattyhugh]

Sooo.. I'm the only one who liked Superman Returns then? Bummer...

I liked it. I just haven't seen it for a long time.

 

[Christopher]

All fine and good by me. I was thinking more in the sense that if a physical male put on a dress and make-up and wore his hair long, he'd still be identifiable as a physical male; as opposed to someone who had been taking hormones or has had surgical procedures completed, et al ... which in my mind, causes them to appear and sound more like their identified gender.

That's transvestism, which is an entirely different thing from transsexuality. From what my college textbooks said, male transvestites see themselves as male and are usually heterosexual. Their interest in wearing women's clothing is more about social roles than sexuality. They're often men who were raised with very rigid gendered standards of behavior, the idea that men had to be tightly controlled and unemotional and aloof and that only women were free to be vulnerable and emotionally open -- so adopting a female persona and social role gives them a freedom they don't feel they can have in a male role, even though they still consider themselves fundamentally male. It's about outward performance and social presentation, rather than innermost identity.

I'm not sure there have been a lot of transvestite protagonists in popular series fiction. I don't count Klinger from M*A*S*H because he wasn't wearing dresses as self-expression, he was doing it as a con to make the military give him an insanity discharge (the unfortunate standards of another time, both the 1950s setting and the 1970s reality). But Shaenon T. Garrity's webcomic Skin Horse features a transvestite character named Tip, who loves wearing dresses and is an absolute fashion plate but is also intensely and promiscuously heterosexual and irresistible to women. He does eventually end up being seduced by the universe's other irresistible male but decidedly gay character, Artie (an import from Garrity's previous strip Narbonic), but it's a novel experience for him. Oh, and there was Drew's brother on The Drew Carey Show, who was this macho blue-collar guy who just liked wearing women's clothes.

Then again, what constitutes being "transvestite" is a matter of opinion. Sixty years ago, a woman wearing a t-shirt and blue jeans would've been considered a transvestite; now it's considered perfectly acceptable women's clothing. Maybe in a hundred years, it'll be seen as perfectly ordinary for a man to wear a dress.

 

[JasonJ]

That's transvestism, which is an entirely different thing from transsexuality. From what my college textbooks said, male transvestites see themselves as male and are usually heterosexual. Their interest in wearing women's clothing is more about social roles than sexuality. They're often men who were raised with very rigid gendered standards of behavior, the idea that men had to be tightly controlled and unemotional and aloof and that only women were free to be vulnerable and emotionally open -- so adopting a female persona and social role gives them a freedom they don't feel they can have in a male role, even though they still consider themselves fundamentally male. It's about outward performance and social presentation, rather than innermost identity.

I'm not sure there have been a lot of transvestite protagonists in popular series fiction. I don't count Klinger from M*A*S*H because he wasn't wearing dresses as self-expression, he was doing it as a con to make the military give him an insanity discharge (the unfortunate standards of another time, both the 1950s setting and the 1970s reality). But Shaenon T. Garrity's webcomic Skin Horse features a transvestite character named Tip, who loves wearing dresses and is an absolute fashion plate but is also intensely and promiscuously heterosexual and irresistible to women. He does eventually end up being seduced by the universe's other irresistible male but decidedly gay character, Artie (an import from Garrity's previous strip Narbonic), but it's a novel experience for him. Oh, and there was Drew's brother on The Drew Carey Show, who was this macho blue-collar guy who just liked wearing women's clothes.

Then again, what constitutes being "transvestite" is a matter of opinion. Sixty years ago, a woman wearing a t-shirt and blue jeans would've been considered a transvestite; now it's considered perfectly acceptable women's clothing. Maybe in a hundred years, it'll be seen as perfectly ordinary for a man to wear a dress.

Interesting....

 

[Awesome Possum]

That's transvestism, which is an entirely different thing from transsexuality. From what my college textbooks said, male transvestites see themselves as male and are usually heterosexual. Their interest in wearing women's clothing is more about social roles than sexuality. They're often men who were raised with very rigid gendered standards of behavior, the idea that men had to be tightly controlled and unemotional and aloof and that only women were free to be vulnerable and emotionally open -- so adopting a female persona and social role gives them a freedom they don't feel they can have in a male role, even though they still consider themselves fundamentally male. It's about outward performance and social presentation, rather than innermost identity.

I'm not sure there have been a lot of transvestite protagonists in popular series fiction. I don't count Klinger from M*A*S*H because he wasn't wearing dresses as self-expression, he was doing it as a con to make the military give him an insanity discharge (the unfortunate standards of another time, both the 1950s setting and the 1970s reality). But Shaenon T. Garrity's webcomic Skin Horse features a transvestite character named Tip, who loves wearing dresses and is an absolute fashion plate but is also intensely and promiscuously heterosexual and irresistible to women. He does eventually end up being seduced by the universe's other irresistible male but decidedly gay character, Artie (an import from Garrity's previous strip Narbonic), but it's a novel experience for him. Oh, and there was Drew's brother on The Drew Carey Show, who was this macho blue-collar guy who just liked wearing women's clothes.

Then again, what constitutes being "transvestite" is a matter of opinion. Sixty years ago, a woman wearing a t-shirt and blue jeans would've been considered a transvestite; now it's considered perfectly acceptable women's clothing. Maybe in a hundred years, it'll be seen as perfectly ordinary for a man to wear a dress.

Transsexuality is an outdated term. The preferred one is transgender, which is an umbrella term for anyone on the gender spectrum who isn't cisgender. I believe that transvestite is also outdated as well.

 

[Noname Given]

That it's a Star Trek series.

Spoiler

Come on guys, you know I had to.

^^^
Don't inject a discussion about how TNG was viewed after its premiere in 1987 into this.

 

[Mirror Mirror]

A trans person's gender does not change, they were always the gender they identify as.

Also I'd never want to see a cis person play a trans person on Star Trek or any other form of media in the future. It takes opportunities from actual trans people.

I meant Biological sex, totally misspoke there. My apologies

...But but...If women are in fact called Michael, and a biologically male-born person named Michael becomes female, and they want to take a female name, then why can't that female name be Michael?

[so confused, I blow up like android Norman and computer-Landru].

Fair point, there are cis women named Micheal.

This is just about the same level (mayhaps lower) as the early TNG speculation that Picard HAD to be a deltan since he was bald.

But he was not totally bald.....

 

[Christopher]

Transsexuality is an outdated term. The preferred one is transgender, which is an umbrella term for anyone on the gender spectrum who isn't cisgender.

Gender is a matter of identity and social roles. Sex is a matter of biology and anatomy. They're two different things that don't automatically align. If someone actually surgically and hormonally alters their sexual anatomy, that is transsexuality. It is a specific subset of transgenderism, not an umbrella term for the whole thing. If anything is outdated, it's the tendency to use them interchangeably. That doesn't mean the more specific term doesn't still have value.

 

[Kemaiku]

Gender is a matter of identity and social roles. Sex is a matter of biology and anatomy. They're two different things that don't automatically align. If someone actually surgically and hormonally alters their sexual anatomy, that is transsexuality. It is a specific subset of transgenderism, not an umbrella term for the whole thing. If anything is outdated, it's the tendency to use them interchangeably. That doesn't mean the more specific term doesn't still have value.

Transgenderism and transexual are simply no longer terms that are widely used or accepted, they're being phased out in favour of simply using transgender. And please could you not try to explain this to two trans people who know better?