Just, for real. There's a dickload of trans characters on this site and those of us who own them... Really don't appreciate having to wear a label like "Dickgirl".

Just.

Kinda' wondering why there's a no trans allowed rule.

its mostly because 1. tagging operates nearly entirely on the "tag what you see, not what you know" rule, and character's gender identity cannot be seen in the image (and it sucks, i know since i have uploaded my share of art of my trans characters) 2. its difficult to separate characters that are trans women and characters that are literally just women with a dick slapped on them for fetish purpose, so they all are lumped under same tag.

though we do have visibly trans tag for that when there is visible surgery scarring and such from medical transitioning. also there is someone running a set where they gather artwork of canonically trans characters

also we did decide to change the cuntboy and dickgirl tags to something more respectful, but nothing has happened since the decision was made year or two ago.

KCDodger said:
Kinda' wondering why there's a no trans allowed rule.

You're presenting the problem in a deliberately misleading way.
It's not as if "no trans tags allowed" is a stated goal, but rather, a consequence of the fact that trans characters and non-trans (not specifically "cis", just characters who haven't transitioned) intersex characters are functionally indistinguishable most of the time.
This doesn't even have anything to do with trans characters, you'll even see males tagged as female (post #1546674) simply because they appear to be female because of the information that's present in the image; Tag What You See, as mentioned by the above post.
An inelegant solution that I've seen discussed is having "lore tags" in the description. Just use that, or edit the wiki page to specify that the character is trans.

Because furries usually care more about fetishizing trans people than about their identities.

Think about it: people search tags on this site to reflect their kinks. If a certain kind of genital arrangement or body type is present in the image, that's somebody's kink.

The only reason trans characters would be appropriately tagged here is because, lord forbid, someone was actually fetishizing the trans identity itself.

I've spent more than ten years as an openly trans person in this fandom and this is my general overlook from that experience.

Reasoning is simple:
1. We go by visuals alone, TWYS. Trans people can be visually identical to fictional character genders or to a regular male/female characters, so thus these are extremely hard or impossible to tag based on TWYS.
2. There are fictional characters which just happen to have penis on female character and they aren't trans.
3. Absolutely nobody seems to come to conclusion what's proper tag to be used with these kind of characters which wouldn't alter tags purpose. We would definitely like to get rid of slurry/pornographic tags like dickgirl and cuntboy.

So as long as someone has actual solutions which doesn't devolve into mindless shouting how the site is transphopic and which works with TWYS and fictional genders, do tell. Because we can alias tags into something else, but thread about possible tags to be used got so long that everyone was just shouting same insults and points that were already countered.

Also as reminder, tags are still computer based system, if you know that character who is posted here is trans, you can write bio for their wiki page with ? next to character tag and use description field to indicate this as well (as long as it's not extremely passive aggressive commenting about sites tagging guidelines).

Transgender identity isn't physical. You can't see it, regardless of anatomy.

A subject with breasts and a penis isn't necessarily trans, so you can't accurately tag that. The same is true for a subject with a vulva and a flat chest: not necessarily trans.

Trans folks are very welcome here.

Just... okay. There are a lot of characters who are not 'trans' they're just fetish characters. They're there because 'futa' is a thing. These characters don't really have anything to do with the transgender experience and.... at least to *my* knowledge*, the trans people *I* have spoken to don't like being lumped in with Missy "tee hee, my penis is as big as a horse's" McTiffers... (aka the "fetish character")

I *want* to say that, several years ago, we allowed some of the trans-related tags, but people used them wrong.... *thoughtful squinting*

Heck, several years ago, the language was pretty different. That's kind of an important thing to remember too.... I grew up with FTM/MTF being the basic standard for trans-person chatter, but these days, from what I understand, that's actually a really rude set of words, minus a few particular circumstances. Heck, I remember when Tranny was an okay word!

The language and CULTURE changes a lot, year to year. and it can be hard for a place like this to keep up because... we can change the name of a tag, no problem... but if we change the *definition* of a tag, it gets messy.

(actually while looking at this, I was reminded of a circumstance, 7 years ago, where a thread had been started arguing that cuntboy and dickgirl should be removed. I spoke with several trans folks who were too shy to stop forward, and they generally agreed that cuntboy and dickgirl were BETTER than some of the other options because.. to paraphrase, a cuntboy is being identified as a MALE primarily, rather than focusing on the genitals. Likewise, dickgirl was preferable to being erased/aliased into a male. Obviously, we should expect better these days, but it's an interesting reflection on how time has changed.)

The reason we do 'tag what you see' is so that we can trying to deliver what people expect to see when they do a search... (if you search female, you're expecting a character with breasts and a pussy. surprise penis is not really what we're lookin' for, y'know? ) having a set in stone rule about certain physical configurations means that there's not any room to fight over the rules. We have rules about what makes a post explicit, or safe, so that we don't have to fight over if a picture is meant to be artistically nude, or sexually nude. It's messy but it was a whole lot worse when some of our rules were based on gray areas..... For example post #1426968 is rating:e because it has a dick sheath. OBVIOUSLY, that's a bit silly, but having the rule set in stone cuts down on a lot of fighting.

Anyway....

This is why we have visibly_trans... so that these trans characters--which DO deserve recognition and love--can be specifically searched for. we would love to see this tag be full of wonderful characters. They're not banned or outlawed or anything. <3

Maybe one day we can come up with a better solution other than trans-sets, and filling out in the description the gender and pronouns, but right now, we're not sure we have one. (What I would give to travel back in time and tell the person designing this thing to make 'tag containers' so that we could apply tags to Character A...)

THAT SAID

KCDodger said:
Really don't appreciate having to wear a label like "Dickgirl".

Ruikuli said:
also we did decide to change the cuntboy and dickgirl tags to something more respectful, but nothing has happened since the decision was made year or two ago.

The thing is we decided to change it, and basically every last person here agrees that it's a good idea to change it, but the question is "to what".

and it's not a small change we can make either. it takes TIME to do an alias (like, the server needs time to process that shit. Sometimes a lot of time.

but I promise it's still on the table, we're giving it thought and consideration. Just, we're trying hard to measure thrice and cut once and not fuck up everything.

I have a herm and cuntboy character, it isn't transgender and never has been(not that I have an issue with transgender people). However, please do not accuse people of fetishizing transgender people just for having a dickgirl/cuntboy/herm character, this only hurts your cause by making people not like transgender people by making them look/seem obnoxious. Hermaphroditism/vagineers/chicks with dicks have been around way longer than transgender people.

We do have a transgender tag, but it requires some sort of visual identification like mastectomy(I think thats the word for boob removal?) scars. We can't just tag what we know because then the tags would be all over the place, for example: a transgender male character pre-op who has no visible identifying characteristics of being female getting tagged female. This would destroy the search results.

As for the tags, as much as I'd like to see dickgirl and cuntboy changed to andromorph and gynomorph, we are in a lose/lose situation:
1) We change dickgirl/cuntboy to andromorph/gynomorph. This pleases people who do not like the dickgirl/cuntboy tag but upsets people who don't know how the search system works and that they can still search/tag cuntboy/dickgirl and get the same results. We end up getting called SJWs(which we are not), people throw a fit on the forum, etc.
2) We don't change it and it upsets people who do not like the dickgirl/cuntboy tag but it makes everyone who don't understand aliases/implications happy.

[color=white]A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.[/color]

Chaser said:
We end up getting called SJWs(which we are not), people throw a fit on the forum, etc.

Since that already happens, how much worse could that option be? :P

(No, I really do get it, the fluid nature of language makes it extremely difficult to come up with tags that won't generate bad feelings even a few years down the road.)

But, question about mastectomy scars implying cuntboy - there are reasons for breast removal besides gender transitioning, so would cuntboy be considered the default unless other visual cues were provided, such as "Congrats Survivor" cakes, or something?

Chaser said:
However, please do not accuse people of fetishizing transgender people just for having a dickgirl/cuntboy/herm character, this only hurts your cause by making people not like transgender people by making them look/seem obnoxious. Hermaphroditism/vagineers/chicks with dicks have been around way longer than transgender people.

Transgender people have existed as long as society has. People already don't like transgender people simply because we exist.

The point of telling people to not to use slurs or objectifying language to describe trans people isn't to make the speaker more likable, it's to make it loud and clear that disrespect and dehumanization isn't acceptable.

iceink said:
Transgender people have existed as long as society has. People already don't like transgender people simply because we exist.

The point of telling people to not to use slurs or objectifying language to describe trans people isn't to make the speaker more likable, it's to make it loud and clear that disrespect and dehumanization isn't acceptable.

Ok so falsefully accusing people of fetishising transgender people for your intentional misgendering of a character isn't disrespectful, got it.

Chaser said:
As for the tags, as much as I'd like to see dickgirl and cuntboy changed to andromorph and gynomorph, we are in a lose/lose situation:
1) We change dickgirl/cuntboy to andromorph/gynomorph. This pleases people who do not like the dickgirl/cuntboy tag but upsets people who don't know how the search system works and that they can still search/tag cuntboy/dickgirl and get the same results. We end up getting called SJWs(which we are not), people throw a fit on the forum, etc.
2) We don't change it and it upsets people who do not like the dickgirl/cuntboy tag but it makes everyone who don't understand aliases/implications happy.

It's a choice between upsetting some and upsetting many. Even if ye did change the terms over, it's only a matter of time before the ones who wanted them start complaining about those terms being just as offensive as the terms they replaced and ye're right back where ye started. What do ye do then, change the terms again and wait for the next round of complaints?

Chaser said:
Ok so falsefully accusing people of fetishising transgender people for your intentional misgendering of a character isn't disrespectful, got it.

It's an order of degrees less disrespectful than the originator, at the very least. It's like when a comedian shuts down a heckler. No one wants that person to keep talking, so the right thing to do is settle them down with some sick diss that everyone can appreciate and laugh at them about.

iceink said:
Transgender people have existed as long as society has.

Not in their current form, no. Even just a hundred years ago someone who was unhappy with their assigned birth sex was simply unable to transition and forced to live with a mismatched body. Those people were, birth defects not withstanding, biologically male or female. Only in recent times has it become possible to nudge a person's body to go against its genetic programming to allow people to look like their desired gender.
Meanwhile the fetishised hermaphroditism, the true hermaphroditism, and "perfect" intersex, again not the kind caused by birth defects, has been around in human mythology since thousands of years.

At the end of the day our tagging system needs to be consistent in itself, and considering everything we tag is visual we require visual evidence for our tags.
Gender is not the same biological sex and can't be seen, thus we can only tag the apparent biological gender.
The same logic is applied to many other things, characters get tagged as policemen if they wear a police uniform or have a police badge, they do not get the tag if there is no evidence visible of them being police. Meanwhile this means even just characters cosplaying as police get the tag despite them most likely not being "real" police.

iceink said:
It's an order of degrees less disrespectful than the originator, at the very least. It's like when a comedian shuts down a heckler. No one wants that person to keep talking, so the right thing to do is settle them down with some sick diss that everyone can appreciate and laugh at them about.

This is a discussion forum, not an audience for a paid performer. There is no comedian on a podium dissing an interrupting heckler, there are only peers equal to each other discussing a topic.

You'd garner more support for your cause if you'd actually treat your peers the same way you'd like to be treated.

I don't remember/was in deep lerk mode when the intersex tagging conversation happened. Did anyone suggest intersex_xx and intersex_xy, as replacements for dickgirl and cuntboy respectively, that would probably not make anyone "happy" but hopefully wouldn't risk becoming deeply offensive in the future?

I suppose it would be safe to guess, though, that someone would have suggested intersex_female and intersex_male, as similar terms that sound less clinical, but they'd probably rub a bunch of people the wrong way.

ikdind said:
I suppose it would be safe to guess, though, that someone would have suggested intersex_female and intersex_male, as similar terms that sound less clinical, but they'd probably rub a bunch of people the wrong way.

Call a dickgirl "intersex_male", people will get the shits for suggesting something that looks female is male.

Call a dickgirl "intersex_female", people will get the shits for suggesting something with a male reproductive system is female.

People are gonna get the shits either way.

BlueDingo said:
Call a dickgirl "intersex_male", people will get the shits for suggesting something that looks female is male.

Call a dickgirl "intersex_female", people will get the shits for suggesting something with a male reproductive system is female.

People are gonna get the shits either way.

Yeah, that's the maybe-benefit of choosing xx/xy, it's more similar to the clinical terms for intersex-related conditions, and hopefully choosing xx/xy directs peoples minds' towards anatomy over gender identity.

The kinds of intersex most commonly posted here would most likely be called "true gonadal intersex" (compare with 46, XX; 46, XY; 45, XO; 47, XXY; and 47, XXX intersex, which would all probably be considered as type of birth defects to most people). "True gonadal intersex" is a term which refers equally to both of the kinds of intersex specifically at issue in this thread, however, so it's not really informative for finding alternatives to "cuntboy" and "dickgirl".

Edit: I'm probably just retreading old territory. If any of this is novel, though, then yay I'm helping?

ikdind said:
Yeah, that's the maybe-benefit of choosing xx/xy, it's more similar to the clinical terms for intersex-related conditions, and hopefully choosing xx/xy directs peoples minds' towards anatomy over gender identity.

The kinds of intersex most commonly posted here would most likely be called "true gonadal intersex" (compare with 46, XX; 46, XY; 45, XO; 47, XXY; and 47, XXX intersex, which would all probably be considered as type of birth defects to most people). "True gonadal intersex" is a term which refers equally to both of the kinds of intersex specifically at issue in this thread, however, so it's not really informative for finding alternatives to "cuntboy" and "dickgirl".

Edit: I'm probably just retreading old territory. If any of this is novel, though, then yay I'm helping?

The problem there is ye can't see a character's genetics and their appearance may have nothing to do with their genetics anyway.

And yes, this is treading old ground.

NotMeNotYou said:
Not in their current form, no. Even just a hundred years ago someone who was unhappy with their assigned birth sex was simply unable to transition and forced to live with a mismatched body. Those people were, birth defects not withstanding, biologically male or female. Only in recent times has it become possible to nudge a person's body to go against its genetic programming to allow people to look like their desired gender.

Taking hormones isn't what makes somebody transgender. People who are not intersex, but don't choose to undergo hormone replacements, but identify as trans are still trans. Someone who is cis taking hormones doesn't make them transgender either.

Glad I could clear this up for you.

iceink said:
Taking hormones isn't what makes somebody transgender. People who are not intersex, but don't choose to undergo hormone replacements, but identify as trans are still trans. Someone who is cis taking hormones doesn't make them transgender either.

Glad I could clear this up for you.

You missed the entire point of my message.

The point is that what people think and believe is entirely irrelevant to our tagging system. The only things we can tag are visually based, and that portion has only been possible since very recently.

As such, if you can provide visual differences between a biological male person that identifies as male, and a biologically male person that identifies as trans I'll be glad to green light tags for that.

I hope I could clear this up for you. If not let me know which part requires further elaboration and I'll be glad to provide.

NotMeNotYou said:
You missed the entire point of my message.

The point is that what people think and believe is entirely irrelevant to our tagging system. The only things we can tag are visually based, and that portion has only been possible since very recently.

As such, if you can provide visual differences between a biological male person that identifies as male, and a biologically male person that identifies as trans I'll be glad to green light tags for that.

I hope I could clear this up for you. If not let me know which part requires further elaboration and I'll be glad to provide.

The problem with your whole reasoning is what you think and believe based on what you visually see is also a judgment based on thought. The sky isn't actually blue. The sun isn't actually yellow. They only appear that way to you. And to people whose eyes cannot see that color, they won't appear that way either.

Idk what you mean about biologically male people identifying as men or identifying as trans. Are you talking about cismen or transmen? Both of them are biologically male.

The whole tagging system for e621 stinks for trans people and people with trans sonas, it always has, and no one wants to change it because making it easy for furries to consume art about catering to people's kinks and desire to treat trans people as a fetish is a higher priority than to validate their identities.

iceink said:
The problem with your whole reasoning is what you think and believe based on what you visually see is also a judgment based on thought. The sky isn't actually blue. The sun isn't actually yellow. They only appear that way to you. And to people whose eyes cannot see that color, they won't appear that way either.

The sky has a rather narrow chemical makeup which interacts in very well studied ways with the light coming from our star, the sun. The sun's light is also very well studied and we know exactly the wave lengths of light that comes from the star and reaches the atmosphere. The fracturing of the light in the atmosphere makes different wavelengths of light more or less dominant. Some of those wavelengths have been defined as "blue".
The disability of color blind people does not change the coloration of the sky in any way. As such, even if they can't perceive the sky as being blue, it most certainly is blue.

iceink said:
Idk what you mean about biologically male people identifying as men or identifying as trans. Are you talking about cismen or transmen? Both of them are biologically male.

That is my point, all of our tags are rooted in visual cues. There are no visual cues between cismen and transmen, therefor we can't tag them differently.

iceink said:
The whole tagging system for e621 stinks for trans people and people with trans sonas, it always has, and no one wants to change it because making it easy for furries to consume art about catering to people's kinks and desire to treat trans people as a fetish is a higher priority than to validate their identities.

We don't validate anyone's identity, be it cismen, transwoman, people of color, myself, or anyone else. The tags are a classification system aimed at labeling what is visible inside the image. Nothing more and nothing less.

iceink said:
The whole tagging system for e621 stinks for trans people and people with trans sonas, it always has, and no one wants to change it because making it easy for furries to consume art about catering to people's kinks and desire to treat trans people as a fetish is a higher priority than to validate their identities.

Of course it is, have you forgotten where you are? This is a booru for looking up documented/achived artwork, not a social platform for users to express themselves. Everything's broken down to it's most basic elements in order to make looking for them easier, that's entirely the point. I get it, no one likes having "themselves" reduced to a fetish catigory, but that's the nature of the beast.

NotMeNotYou said:
We don't validate anyone's identity, be it cismen, transwoman, people of color, myself, or anyone else. The tags are a classification system aimed at labeling what is visible inside the image. Nothing more and nothing less.

All systems have biases, no matter the language we use to describe them as seeming to be 'fair'. You may not think that you invalidate anyone, but the system you are accessory to does.

iceink said:
All systems have biases, no matter the language we use to describe them as seeming to be 'fair'. You may not think that you invalidate anyone, but the system you are accessory to does.

I used "validate", not "invalidate". We do not "validate" anyone.

ThatBIackGuy said:
This is a booru for looking up documented/achived artwork, not a social platform for users to express themselves.

Artwork is used by people to express themselves.

Let me rewrite your sentence in a way that makes a bit more sense:

This is a booru for looking up documented/achived artwork, a social platform for users to express themselves.

NotMeNotYou said:
I used "validate", not "invalidate". We do not "validate" anyone.

Stated more clearly: You allow the system in place to validate the people it already validates, and invalidate the people it already invalidates.

This is a booru for looking up documented/achived artwork, a social platform for users to express themselves.

Stated more clearly: You allow the system in place to validate the people it already validates, and invalidate the people it already invalidates.

Belittling the person that wrote the gender tag system wont win you any browny points. Don't like the current name? Produce a reasonable alternative tag that could be used for consideration. But I ask you this, if you see an image of a cuntboy drawn by an artist you don't know and is a character you don't know, do you know if it is trans, a masucaline female, or an actual cuntboy?

iceink said:
Artwork is used by people to express themselves.

Great, but that doesn't change how boorus operate. Nor does that make it explicitly a social platform for the specific expression of oneself.

iceink said:
Artwork is used by people to express themselves.

Let me rewrite your sentence in a way that makes a bit more sense:

This is a booru for looking up documented/achived artwork, a social platform for users to express themselves.

Incorrect. The tags are strictly for archiving/documenting artwork and adhere to a rigid standard; the social aspects are purely limited to comments, the forum, the blips, and to some extent the description on posts.

iceink said:
Stated more clearly: You allow the system in place to validate the people it already validates, and invalidate the people it already invalidates.

If someone feels validated by our tags they're misusing the system, plain and simple. That is not something we have any power over.

NotMeNotYou said:
If someone feels validated by our tags they're misusing the system, plain and simple. That is not something we have any power over.

If someone is tagging their character in a manner that conforms to their cis identity, they probably neither feel validated nor invalidated. The reason being that they have not ever experienced the kind of invalidation that trans people do towards their identity.

Whereas, when the tagging system provides invalid labels to someone who's trans, this invalidation is a lot more painful and explicit.

Whether you have any power over it or not, that is how the system works.

NotMeNotYou said:
That is my point, all of our tags are rooted in visual cues. There are no visual cues between cismen and transmen, therefor we can't tag them differently.

Ye mean transwomen. Transmen don't have penises and can look just like the women they claim not to be.

BlueDingo said:
Ye mean transwomen. Transmen don't have penises and can look just like the women they claim not to be.

Please don't start, eh? We don't need to be getting into trans/anti-trans rhetoric.

OP, it's way too difficult to discern a character's gender identity when we run off of 'tag what you see; not what you know'.

☑️ Gender identity is immaterial; it cannot be seen
☑️ e621 operates under a tag-what-you-see system
☑️ If you cannot see something it cannot be tagged

Also while we're at it, why the hell are SO MANY trans people so anti-science? The sky isn't really blue because colourblind people don't see it that way?? WHAT? Trans men are biologically male?? LITERALLY HOW?

I think it's actually really hard to tell the proportion of a social group who are anti-science (or parrot anti-science talking points), since you don't know anything much about the people who say nothing on the subject. You see those who are vocal.

BlackLicorice said:
Also while we're at it, why the hell are SO MANY trans people so anti-science? The sky isn't really blue because colourblind people don't see it that way?? WHAT? Trans men are biologically male?? LITERALLY HOW?

The same reason anyone is anti-science. It clashes with their beliefs.

FA now has "Trans(Male)" and "Trans(Female)" gender tags, and it's been so freaking confusing. Gender is psychological identity, not objective sex, so I assume "Tran(Female)" is a female that identifies as a "man" and "Trans(Male)" is a male that identifies as a "woman" ... but no; apparently some people think having a transman character makes them "Trans(Male)." -Nevermind the character is still presenting 100% female... and is pregnant.

The tags on FA are listed under "gender" anyway, which has always been odd; but they should at least be consistent and not scramble it with sex. Anyone can make the argument that a "man" can get pregnant, cause an argument against it is semantically null; but there has not -and will not ever be- a physically-"male" individual, pregnant.

Unless the structure of this site changes drastically; the "tag what you see" mentality is the best way to go.

BlackLicorice said:
Also while we're at it, why the hell are SO MANY trans people so anti-science? The sky isn't really blue because colourblind people don't see it that way?? WHAT? Trans men are biologically male?? LITERALLY HOW?

i think that its more the fact that our entire lives revolve heavily around fighting to seen as the gender we identify as, and most of us loathe to be called as our assigned gender. this includes stuff like "yes, you identify as man, but still you are biologically female!1 its just scientific fact!!". so its probably less "anti science" and more "im a man, stop calling me as female"

Ruikuli said:
i think that its more the fact that our entire lives revolve heavily around fighting to seen as the gender we identify as, and most of us loathe to be called as our assigned gender. this includes stuff like "yes, you identify as man, but still you are biologically female!1 its just scientific fact!!". so its probably less "anti science" and more "im a man, stop calling me as female"

It's a derailing of the tagging conversation, but biological fundamentalism is inherently anti-science because it espouses that gender and sex are determined by chromosome pairings. This isn't the case because gender and sex are separate, gender is determined socially, sex is determined biologically and the biological factors that determine sex are far more variable than just what a person's chromosomes indicate.

I dunno how e621 would handle tagging my 'sone based on just 'visual', since I gave her no primary sex characteristics, but she's female. Maybe I should upload some art to confuse everyone to using this outdated obscure system. Lmao.

iceink said:
Maybe I should upload some art to confuse everyone to using this outdated obscure system. Lmao.

1. All tagging systems have problems, they just have those problems in seperate areas. Visual based tagging system just means that everyone with absolutely zero idea of the lore or story behind the image can search it and everyone aware of the lore and story behind it can adjust their thinking into level of someone who doesn't have any idea.
2. We have 1 786 255 posts as of writing this. Any kind of fundemendal change to tagging system needs to reflect ALL of these posts, meaning that once the change is made, we are up for a massive undertaking. Because of this there won't be such made change just because of couple characters owners being offended what they were being called in visual based system.

Do remember there are humans which by lore are dragons and toddlers who by lore are thousand years old, so just giving single exclusion for trans characters to go by their bio will open full can of worms.

As such, use character wiki and description as described earlier. Tags do not objectively reflect on characters bio, but rather visuals, so both information are vital.

iceink said:
Maybe I should upload some art to confuse everyone to using this outdated obscure system. Lmao.

I looked at your FA gallery, there's nothing on your character that would cause confusion. The tags would depend on the image(s) you upload but it's basically just another Mikhaila. Depending on what is visible they will get the corresponding gender tag.

BlackLicorice said:
Also while we're at it, why the hell are SO MANY trans people so anti-science? The sky isn't really blue because colourblind people don't see it that way?? WHAT? Trans men are biologically male?? LITERALLY HOW?

They aren't.

It's more that people are speaking using slightly different languages and slightly different definitions of what words mean.

Imagine that we're making a cake together. I ask you for the baking powder. You go into the cabinet I indicated and look around. You don't see any Baking powder... just some baking soda, which you get down and hand to me. I get upset because this is baking SODA, not baking powder, and you tell me that it's baking soda, and it's a powder, so it's baking powder, isn't it?

Both sides have their logic: You didn't see anything with the 'right' name, so you made the best guess with the information you had available, and with the knowledge you had. I, on the other hand, know that baking soda and baking powder are very different and that the wrong ingredient can cause the cake to come out wrong. Neither of us are "wrong" for going through the logic patterns that we have, we jsut are operating with different informations.

( As a note, I'm speaking about groups with a broad paint brush here. I say "cis people" but obviously, not all cis people. I'm referring mostly to the one who's never had to learn more, or doesn't want to learn more. Or maybe just hasn't been taught in a way they understand yet, or it's never mattered enough to them. <3)

and it's basically the same thing in a lot of circumstances around this stuff. a lot of cis people use man, male, boy to all mean the same thing: a person with a penis who has XY chromosomes, who does man-stuff. A potential future daddy. Socially male. The cis person sees all of these things as linked together, and as a very firm "boys have a penis, girls have a vagina." set of rules.

While the transwoman says that she is, very emphatically, not a man, not a male, not a boy. She may have been born with a penis. She may or may not still have a penis (but that none of your business unless you are dating), she may have XY chromosomes, but she is not a man. She does not do man-things. She is not masculine.

And every transperson at some point has been faced with someone who is very keen to step into Professor Oak's shoes and determine if they have a penis or not and, as a result, if they are a boy or a girl.

When the trans person's whole point is that the body doesn't matter. The penis is irrelevant. Gender is in the mind, and she is female. She wants to be treated as a female. She wants to be called 'she' and 'her.'
But the cis man gets stuck on "but you got a penis so you're a man."

It's not hard to see how these viewpoints clash a little bit. One side is using a definition based on a physical determination to determine gender, while the other is saying to disregard that.

(And gosh, some times people snowball down hill REALLY fast if you give them an inch. I once knew someone who had decided that since the transman he was speaking to and working with didn't have a penis, that he'd call "her" by her "real" name. The problem is, he didn't know what their birth name was, so made up a girl's name to call him by. Made it a point to tell everyone they met that "She looks like a man but is really a girl. I call her Jane.")

Anyway.

That said, that whole "both of them are biologically male" thing is ... pretty dumb c_c; Maybe english is not their primary language, and they are confused as to while "biological" means. it's also possible that they might be young, and didn't may enough attention in science class, however I would hope that they would learn about an aspect of themselves that means a lot to them.

iceink - Biological is referring to the DNA structure. Hormones and social structure have no affect on your DNA. Your DNA is important, at least from a medical standpoint. (a medical professional should, for example, be aware if you have ovaries, a uterus, a prostate, or other internal parts that may need to be monitored for health reasons.) you DNA does not matter from a social perspective and should not affect your life or how others treat you.

a cis man is biologically male. He has the DNA for 'male parts.' He has XY chromosomes.
a transman is not biologically male. He has the DNA for 'female parts.' He has XX chromosomes.

Both are men.

iceink said:
I dunno how e621 would handle tagging my 'sone based on just 'visual', since I gave her no primary sex characteristics, but she's female. Maybe I should upload some art to confuse everyone to using this outdated obscure system. Lmao.

It's not really obscure. it's just tag what you see.

IS it outdated? Maybe a little. The problem is we've got something like 1.7 million posts and if we change it, we'll have to change all of those posts too. (that would take a very long time ... if each post took a second, it would take 20 days of tagging without breaks. Each post would take a lot longer than a second though...).... and right now, we don't really have a better solution that is possible with the mechanical way that the website works.

That said, if you have any *constructive* advice on how to make this place better, we'd love to hear it. Telling us "e6 has a problem in how it handled trans folks" doesn't help. we KNOW that there are a lot of peopel who are unhappy about that. Provide options for solutions. Maybe you'll think of something we havn't! Maybe you can help this "outdated obscure system" become better! but right now you're just standing on the porch saying "yep. that rain sure is wet." and "you should probably cover that cake up so it doesn't get wet..." as I stand, nude, in the empty cabin, wondering if the cake will fall apart if i take it off the plate and use the plate as a cake-umbrella...

SnowWolf said:
iceink - Biological is referring to the DNA structure. Hormones and social structure have no affect on your DNA. Your DNA is important, at least from a medical standpoint.

No... biology is the study of cells. DNA is only one characteristic of a cell. The map is not the territory. Your hormones definitely affect your biology, they are responsible for signaling every single change your body makes.

you DNA does not matter from a social perspective and should not affect your life or how others treat you.

That works great until you run into a biological fundamentalist who wants people to be forced to live corresponding to their chromosomal sex or face imprisonment and criminal punishment. These people are running the government.

That said, if you have any *constructive* advice on how to make this place better, we'd love to hear it. Telling us "e6 has a problem in how it handled trans folks" doesn't help. we KNOW that there are a lot of peopel who are unhappy about that. Provide options for solutions.

My main piece of constructive advice is to stop being so dismissive and stop calling people 'pretty dumb' or 'not paying attention in science class.' Anything anyone ever suggested here gets shot down anyways.

iceink said:
... These people are running the government.

I'd advise you don't bring up political discussion or this thread is going to get locked real fast. Any mention of politics like that is a sure fire way to start a shit flinging fest.

Chaser said:
I'd advise you don't bring up political discussion or this thread is going to get locked real fast. Any mention of politics like that is a sure fire way to start a shit flinging fest.

Can we just go ahead and lock this thread anyway? The reasons for trans-related tags are here and leaving it open would just give opportunity for mud-slinging in either direction.

iceink said:
No... biology is the study of cells. DNA is only one characteristic of a cell. The map is not the territory. Your hormones definitely affect your biology, they are responsible for signaling every single change your body makes.

Look, I"m trying to give you the benefit of the doubt here. What you said is not related to what I said.

DNA is the source code for your body. It is what makes your hair red, your eyes blue, it's what gives you the inclination to have freckles. It is what makes you grow short or tall. It's what gives you the possibility of gaining certain types of illnesses. (for example, several cancers run in my family, which means they are more likely to affect me too.)

Your DNA includes your sex chromosomes. In humans, a male typically has XY sex chromosomes. A female has XX. (I would say that this is true for all life, but not all life reproduces sexually, and there are a lot of sex-determination systems that do not use XY/XX chromosome pairs. (Some use XX/X0, some use ZW or UV ... most MAMMALS do XX/XY however.)

This is literally the genetic material your parents gave you.

Your hormones do not affect your DNA> Your hormones DO affect your biology. Hormones can, and DO allow someone with male-DNA to grow female features. However, at this current point in time, the physical chunks of meat that are the reproductive sex parts are formed in the womb. Hormones cannot, to our current scientific knowledge, cause an ovary to change into a testicle and descent out of the body. They cannot cause the womb to be reabsorbed. They cannot reroute the urethra through the clitoris, though they CAN encourage the clitoris to grow larger. They cannot cause a uterus to be formed, or for a set of testicles to slide up into the body cavity and transform into ovaries.

Maybe one day, but we're not there yet.

Hormones influence your body and your development considerably--especially as one goes through puberty. they influence your attitude and behavior.

But they can. not. change your DNA, which is your source code.

Think of it this way: your DNA is the game. HRT is an addon that can COMPLETLY CHANGE how you and others view, interact with and perceive the game.... however, at the end of the day, the game still has some rules that can't be changed.

That doesn't make the mods bad, it jsut means that there are some hard coded limitations that can't be avoided with our current technology. (for example, a womb is required to physically carry a child inside of your body. However, there are plenty of 'hacks' to get around that and still be a mother, but the physical carrying part is not possible. this does not make any woman less of a woman, it's just a literal limitation of having the right sort of body organs, right now, at this stage of medical technology.)

Hormones do not change your DNA.
Social structure does not change your DNA. No factor of life, raising, or social habits, at current, can cause the DNA to rewrite itself.

If you are born with XX chromosomes, you will always have them.

Having XX or XY chromosomes does not make you a man or a woman. It does not affect your gender identity, or how you wish to present.

I mean, I'm a pansexual genderfluid-ish person, married to a genderqueer, my best friends are genderfluid and trans, who are raising a delightful little girl who likes pink and rainbows and unicorns and has her first little girlfriend who she spends a lot of time holding hands with. My brother's gay, and all in all, I don't give a fuck what's in your pants or your DNA. I respect you and your identity. I'm just talking, literally, about the science here.

You can't change your DNA. we're not there yet. We need more science. I hope we get there quickly.
But your DNA is not who you are and is not what determines your pronouns or identity. But affects what body parts you were born with. Your body parts are not your pronouns or identity. :|

That works great until you run into a biological fundamentalist who wants people to be forced to live corresponding to their chromosomal sex or face imprisonment and criminal punishment. These people are running the government.

You are literally singing to the choir over here.

Believe me. I know. I have people who are also affected by these ideas.

but saying that "trans men are biologically male" makes you seem like you're ignorant and it makes you easier to dismiss. It makes you into a potential tool to be used by the enemy.

That whole "santa should be a gender nuetral!" thing was the result of a survey, done by a graphic design company about modernizing santa done. They turned it into something that "all" of "us" want to do to "ruin" christmas, rather than as the result of a multiple choice question about what gender santa should be. 1000 people took part. 17% said gender neutral was a good idea. so, like, 170 people liked that idea, and now: Christmas is ruined.

Being illinformed makes you a weapon. You are now an example of "this idiot trans-whatever who thought that hormone stuff could change it's DNA". You've proved that to someone, here, today.

Understand the science. Understand your culture. Be well spoken. Be reasonable. be polite and kind. Anger doesn't win hearts. Anger turns you into the enemy. The enemy is easy to dismiss. Be a friend and a neighbor, a smile and a kind face and you gain friends. Friends learn. Friends understand. friends change their minds. Be a friend. Be informed. Help, don't hurt. Especially when you're speaking on the internet. Someone reading your words might be being exposed to these concepts for the very first time. Be reasonable. be informed. there's only one first impression. don't blow that and become someone's reason to hate people who are different. :/

My main piece of constructive advice is to stop being so dismissive and stop calling people 'pretty dumb' or 'not paying attention in science class.'

I didn't say you were pretty dumb. I said that your information was pretty dumb. That's different. as for not paying attention ins science class, I sure as hell didn't pay attention. I had to learn everything later on my own. There's no shame in not knowing something you don't care about. Especially as a student. That shit is awful and I sure as heck don't need a lot of what I was taught in high school. I can't tell you jack about the literary themes in the Great Gatsby. I didn't care. Biology is rough. most people don't want to be scientists, and most people don't CARE about it. they don't NEED it.

Anything anyone ever suggested here gets shot down anyways.

er... no? I"m not sure how you've come to that conclusion, but we regularly implement suggestions on a regular basis.

Just, as I said, this is a really big thing that we've discussed a LOT Over the years.

we're happy to talk about it again. Just bring some suggestions to the table, don't just complain about how everything is awful. Be constructive.

iceink said:
Your hormones definitely affect your biology, they are responsible for signaling every single change your body makes.

Of course hormones affect your body. But they don’t magically change a penis into a vagina or vice versa. There are a few women out there who naturally produce more testosterone than oestrogen — in fact I know one — so my question for you is: are those women men just because they produce more testosterone? Why or why not? I believe they are women because I believe a woman is an adult human female.

My main piece of constructive advice is to stop being so dismissive and stop calling people 'pretty dumb' or 'not paying attention in science class.' Anything anyone ever suggested here gets shot down anyways.

No one is being dismissive towards you and no one called you dumb. What you are saying, however, is what is being called dumb — because it is. A lot of the things you’re arguing, like “trans men are biologically male” is false and at odds with scientific facts.