On 9/22/2013 8:44 AM, Powers wrote:
I'll leave the rest of your post to the others on this list, but I can answer this question:
What is it I am allowed to say about my gender identity or anyone elses and what is it I am not allowed to say?
You can say anything you want about your own gender identity. What you cannot (politely) do is contradict what someone else says about his or her own gender identity.
So if someone (anyone, not just a list participant) says "I'm a woman and I always have been", you should never say "No, you aren't." Nor "That person is only pretending to be a woman." Nor "He may feel like a woman but until he's taken a legal or surgical procedure, he's a man."
It's that simple.
Powers &8^]
Rational people don't really care how others define themselves. What they have a problem with is people asserting such identities insulting others, saying things like: "No matter how you were born, or what your experiences are, I'm a better man/woman than you'll ever be" or "You don't (wear clothes/useaccountrements/or otherwise appear to conform to my personal stereotype of what a man/woman is so you aren't really one" or "You didn't mention my specific variation on gender identity in your generalized discussion so you are a bigot" or "We're going to close down your conference/speech/etc. because we don't like your questions/discussions of gender identity from a perspective that differs from ours."
I assume they also would be discouraged on this list, per Kevin's comments. Thanks for clarifying that. Frankly I didn't even understand john allyn's comments on equality and sameness so couldn't get too bothered about them one way or the other...
In the real world of course, comment like the above can provoke a reaction in some people like "I don't accept your identity because you insult mine or threaten me, etc." Of course, in some cases some people may provoke that kind of reaction in order to complain about continuing oppression against them. So keeping discussions cool from every perspective helps.
I really don't have a lot of energy for this issue or I'd work on the relevant articles where I see a lot of problems. But BOOM certainly got my attention :-)
CM