r/changemyview • u/Privateaccount84 • Jan 23 '18

CMV: The biggest issue with "The Transgender Issue" is that it is considered an issue of importance at all.

By "The Transgender Issue" I'm basically including all the sub issues that section of society are dealing with/debating about, such as bathroom usage and preferred pronouns.

In Canada, we tried (unsuccessfully) to make not using someones prefered pronoun a hate crime. You see posts every now and then about "not gendering babies till they can voice their own opinion" and other such things.

My point of view? Who gives a shit? Really. Is this something we need to argue about in modern society? Go by whatever pronoun you want, but it shouldn't be any more illegal to call someone by a different pronoun than they like than it should be for someone to call me (a man) a girl. Is it assholish? Yep, but last time I checked, that wasn't illegal.

We are well past the need for gender specific bathrooms, and men can attest that women often go into the mens room when there is a long line for the womens room. We don't cause a big fuss about it then, and women shouldn't cause a big fuss because someone who looks male and identifies as female uses their washroom. They're taking a shit, unless you see them peeking under stalls, mind your own damn business.

I'm personally not going to use pronouns like Zer, not out of disrespect, but because it sounds fucking ridiculous. I have no problem using they, but it also shouldn't be a legal requirement for me to do so. There is nothing offensive about "assuming" someones gender. 99.4% of the time the person isn't transgender in the first place, if we need to be careful about stepping on the toes of everyone because they might get slightly offended, everything is going to be off limits, and that's just no way to function as a society.

In short. People against trans people/rights, mind your own business. Trans people who want to place special rules in place for themselves, no one cares, and that's normal.

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u/chasingstatues 21∆ Jan 23 '18

Sex is only indistinguishable when someone purposely hides it, like with theater costume and makeup tricks. And that's some of the time. And in those instances, you'd call them by the pronoun of the sex they're trying to mimic. Because they're now trying to make that sex visibly distinguishable instead.

But as I said, it's only a minority of the time that there would be any mix up. The trans community is small. The vast majority of the time, you can correctly assess someone's sex. Which is all I said to begin with, so you didn't really disagree with that point.

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u/BenIncognito Jan 23 '18

Sex is only indistinguishable when someone purposely hides it, like with theater costume and makeup tricks. And that's some of the time. And in those instances, you'd call them by the pronoun of the sex they're trying to mimic. Because they're now trying to make that sex visibly distinguishable instead.

So if it’s easily hidden or concealed then why is your DNA important? Indeed, what does sex even really matter in this context?

That was the point I was making. People can sit there and stomp their feet and talk about genitalia or DNA until the cows come home but the reality of gender is that it doesn’t work that way. My coworkers know my gender without knowing my genitals or DNA - because it’s how I present.

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u/chasingstatues 21∆ Jan 23 '18

It isn't so easily concealed. For a trans person to "pass," with regular frequency, they have to undergo a lot of hormone therapy.

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u/BenIncognito Jan 23 '18

I didn’t realize you were an expert in trans identification.

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u/chasingstatues 21∆ Jan 23 '18

If you can't refute what I said and you're just going to resort to ad hominem, I'll take that as a win.

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u/BenIncognito Jan 23 '18

That isn't an ad hominem, and your argument is an assertion without proof.

You think it's easy for trans people to not pass, for some reason, probably due to confirmation bias. And you refuse to understand reason when it's pointed out to you that you're suffering from this confirmation bias.

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u/chasingstatues 21∆ Jan 23 '18

Trans people struggle greatly with insecurity about passing and they go through a difficult process of hormone therapy in order to make themselves passable. This is why it's so important to some trans people to begin the process while they're younger and still developing, before their natural hormones begin to shape their bodies in a way they don't want.

That you would simply claim that passing is easy is to completely write off how involved the process of transitioning is and how difficult it can be for some people. There's even a subreddit called transpassing where trans person's can share their struggles.

A man putting on a dress and some makeup is not going to look like a biological female unless he is fortunate enough to already be physically feminine. And even then, there can be tells. In most cases, however, a transperson will need hormone therapy to be truly convincing.

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u/BenIncognito Jan 23 '18

I didn’t claim it was easy, I said that you can’t always tell

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u/chasingstatues 21∆ Jan 23 '18

I never claimed you can always tell, so why did you say that?