Comments on: An Introduction to Gender Terminology

By: Cesy

Cesy — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 14:56:26 +0000

Thanks for explaining the reasoning behind the space in trans woman. I could never remember which way was correct before because I didn’t understand why.

By: Kali

Kali — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 00:42:23 +0000

I’m cis, and it was my great fortune to be educated very kindly but forcefully on the fact that the best person to make any sort of determination on someone’s gender is…that person! I was in high school and used a thoughtless pronoun that hurt a guy who was a good friend.

I try to be an ally. I know I make mistakes, but I try. I do my best to refer to a person by the pronouns and terms ze prefers. I do find some of the ways we talk about genders grammatically awkward, but I know that’s my bias and one I have to work on. But that’s part of being an ally, right? Acknowledging your mistakes and making a commitment to try to better them. I don’t want a cookie, I want a better world. I can only hope to be part of that if people can tell me when I have made a mistake.

~Kali
http://www.brilliantmindbrokenbody.wordpress.com

By: Amanda

Amanda — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 17:54:10 +0000

I’m nongendered, and I started using the term to have a way of saying that I was not trans or cis.

By: dasha

dasha — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 06:11:22 +0000

I just gained a lot of enlightenment points. This was truly great. I’m always so awkward identifying my genders and sometimes lack of gender. I tend to put a sock in it in for fear of offending others who don’t fall within the binary limits and use different language than me. Thanks, everyone.

English can really be inadequate…it’s the bending, breaking, and fusing of the language which keeps it vital.

By: Samantha

Samantha — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 04:51:00 +0000

@Romham: totally agreed. Sometimes it is appropriate to talk about birth sex though. Maybe “this person’s assigned birth sex was male” would be best. I know I do a double take when people refer to me as male assigned at birth. When I’m talking and using those terms about myself I keep messing up too and saying I’m FAAB. I guess the whole female identity thing runs deep. :p

By: romham

romham — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 02:55:43 +0000

Just my 2c. The idea of FAAB/MAAB has really REALLY limited use, and i would seriously steer cis folks away from using these terms as any sort of default.

Consider this from http://dglenn.dreamwidth.org/1588929.html

“Note that while ‘FAAB’ and ‘MAAB’ are useful in certain contexts when discussing the ideas of sex and gender abstractly, when used casually outside of that context they still reveal too much emphasis on the idea that initially-apparent biology = destiny, and can be used as sneakier ways of saying “real man” or “real woman” for cisgendered in order to exclude trans individuals from gendered spaces.”

By: Samantha

Samantha — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 20:34:15 +0000

@Myriad: I know a couple of DID trans people too. You’re definitely not alone out there.

By: myriad

myriad — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 20:10:16 +0000

@Diamond – just wanted to thank you for commenting; i (we) have DID as well and definitely get tripped up on language. we not only have many genders in our system, we also identify as a trans man, and are on hormones and had surgery. (i am not accustomed to putting the space in, but the rationale makes sense. it’ll take some time to train myself to put the space in, but i’ll work on it!) and the person/people who deal with the outside world on a day-to-day basis is/are not genderqueer – they are very comfortable with being identified solely as male. so we don’t want to intrude in genderqueer spaces, because that is a different experience and we do live within the binary most of the time. but we will always have many other genders inside. in the past, we’ve generally referred to it as multigendered, but these days we are afraid to claim that because we live as male pretty comfortably. we have the privileges that come from living within the binary and the challenges/risks of being a person with an explicitly trans body as well, and multigendered tends to erase that. it’s so tangled, and i don’t think we’ll ever find a single word we’re comfortable with that really represents our whole experience. i guess that’s pretty much part of being multiple.

anyway, it just really warms my heart that other multiples are part of this community, because we usually feel so outside of groups (that aren’t specifically multiple) because being multiple necessarily tends to supercede all other forms of identity (for me). we tend to feel very very other, so it’s nice to know we’re not alone. (o:
.-= myriad´s last blog ..low, low, low =-.

By: Sammie

Sammie — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 20:10:07 +0000

abby jean: That’s so true. I’ve had people say they don’t like the term “cis” because they didn’t get to choose it, but when given the chance they never come up with an alternative which isn’t “normal” or “non-trans”. Or, you know, something much worse.

By: Samantha

Samantha — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 19:19:39 +0000

In Re: FAB

There’s also FAAB, which is more value neutral. It means “female assigned at birth” and has its male counterpart, MAAB. It’s still a little binary enforcing but it really does pay homage to the fact that it’s ASSIGNED. Used a lot in with the genderqueer ect… community. Which is a bit problematic in itself because, just like referencing back to trans peoples’ birth assignment is erasing to our identities, it’s erasing towards non-binary people’s identity too.