(no subject)

[ocelot]

For those more knowledgable about transexual issues than I am...

Someone in one of my communities posted a question about a FTM transexual, using the gender inclusive ze/zir .

It seem to me that, in this case, the gender inclusive language is for the benefit of those who feel the need to distinguish between the person in question and a biological male. He identifies as male - why the need to introduce ambiguity? On the other hand, the question does deal specifically with biological sex vs. chosen gender identity. I also don't know the feelings of the person in question. Maybe he/ze prefers the gender inclusive pronouns.

Comments

[nolly.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm not an expert, but I say the person referenced is not acting as though zie has transitioned fully to male, but is still living in the fuzzy between-lands, so zie seems appropriate. (I think that, if zie identified as 100% male, zie would not have chosen to give birth.)

[cathiis.livejournal.com]

Giving birth is a seperate issue altogether, I have two teenage daughters and I am an MTF transexual. I don't see that having concieved them in the natural way makes me any less of a woman.

[nolly.livejournal.com]

As I said, I'm no expert. If I may ask, did you consider yourself fully transitioned at the time of their conception?

[cathiis.livejournal.com]

No. I am still pre-op and the completion of transition (if there ever is such a thing) is after SRS, but that is merely physical. Mentally I have never identified as being male, so in that case yes I would consider myself as being mentally transitioned. There has to be qualifiers in this case however, I was closeted at the time of conception (my eldest daughter is 18 and my youngest 13) so I still acted like a boy, I was married, and I worked as a diesel mechanic for a mining company (a more male persuit I could not imagine).

There is a lot of fuzzieness in the transition process, but certainly for an FTM to give birth despite identifying male, whilst being unusual, would not be an admission of being female.

This might not make much sense but trying to explain these things is difficult.

Incidentally, you may ask that question and any others that you have. I would be happy to answer any question to the best of my ability.

Cathii

[nolly.livejournal.com]

Well, I certainly wouldn't call the person in the original post female, despite choosing to get pregnant, give birth, and nurse for 8 months, but it does seem to me, not knowing the individual or zir preferences, that "zie" is perhaps more appropriate than "he" at this point. If I knew zir and knew zie had a strong preference for "he", I would try to use it, although I know that I, personally, have had trouble switching for people I knew first as M and later as F, or vice versa -- not that I can't, but that it takes time, and "zie" causes less cognitive dissonance for me while I'm making the shift -- and that may also be what's going on here.