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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