File spoon-archives/anarchy-list.archive/anarchy-list_1999/anarchy-list.9907, message 356


From: "Andy" <as-AT-spelthorne.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Transgendered folk - congrats
Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 09:03:37 +0100


Bunked off work early yesterday, so I missed all the transgendering issues
and all round "germaneness" I appear to have agent provocateured.

 Congratulations on the marriage thing. Hope you have a long and fun
partnership.

PS Emma Goldman did "marry" -a Welsh miner, I believe - to get a UK passport
: probably a good omen.


I wrote

>>Before, Randy was a deputy sherriff who carried
>>a big pistol. Afterwards, he/she/it was Miz Randi
>>Amanda and he/she/it no longer carried a big pistol.
>>I am sorry for saying he/she/it , but I really don't
>>know what to put.

and Freddie replied

>As the companera of a transgendered woman,
>I can authoritatively say that you should use
>the gender appropriate pronoun for a transgendered
>person. A person who identifies as a woman
>should be called she and her and as a man
>he and his. Even my 77 year old dad knows
>that.

> To call someone an it is highly insultive.

Well I am just taking my cue from somebody
a lot more directly concerned than your old dad.
These things must be a lot clearer to 77 year olds
than they are to 11 year olds. I have never actually
met the transgendered person in question myself,
but Randi's daughter sometimes says "he", sometimes
"she", and sometimes "it" ; so, although Randi has
talked a great deal with her about this, she apparently
still finds it extremely difficult to come to terms
with the idea that her dad has somehow become
a woman. What's more, I know for certain that
she isn't the only kid with this problem. Randi's
partner's kids have had extreme difficulty adjusting
to the idea of  _their_  father as a woman. And
there's my old friend Mike Malet, who became
Michaela. Some of his (I say "his" because the person
I first became friends with thirty five years ago was
a "he")  _seven_  children may have adjusted better
than others, but I know for definite that some of them
had big problems with parental gender confusion.

There is no point in laying down grammatical rules
for me and thinking that settles the confusion. It doesn't.
The confusion is not a joke, but a very serious matter
which deeply affects the lives of the many children concerned.
Merely using the politically correct term will not take
away the confusion in  _their_  minds.

See, Andy, I told you this was a matter for serious
discussion on the anarchy list.

Dave



   

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