Obama Outlines Plan for LGBT issues

[JCady]

In my experience, older transexuals from the previous generation are (usually) tremendously bigoted against gays and against transgender persons who are not transexual because a huge portion of their sense of self is built around social gender role. Therefore, they take anything that challenges the mainstream definition of "normal" maleness or femaleness as a personal attack against their entire identity; that's why they tend to be among the most vitriolic social conservatives in the country.

Fortunately, such people are rapidly becoming obsolete; the current generation of transexual men and women are typically VERY heavily involved in the LGBTI movement and believe very strongly in equal rights for all. A very substantial percentage of them are gay, lesbian, or bisexual in addition to being trans, and they see gender identity and sexual orientation as separate but parallel and closely linked social justice issues.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Agreed. I know of some transsexuals that still appear male and will bitch you out for calling them sir or any other male pronoun. I mean what the fuck people!?

You don't understand why someone who identifies as female would be upset at being referred to as male?

I think it is more an issue of overcoming prior programming. It is not easy. I have a lot of transexual, transgendered and otherwise genderqueer friends.

But sometimes even I slip up and still use the wrong pronoun. Especially when I knew the person for years prior to transition, or when transition has not started.

A bit of forbearance would go a long way sometimes.

[JCady]

You don't understand why someone who identifies as female would be upset at being referred to as male?

If they dress like a guy, look a guy and are using the men's restroom
then no, no I do not.

Edit: Before you rant about it I know the trans community doesn't also get to use the restroom they feel they should but still doesn't excuse them lashing out at someone for going for nodding and saying "Hello, Sir" as they walk past.

If it's a random stranger, no, I don't get upset. If it's a friend who knew me prior to transitioning and so is legitimately in the habit of thinking of me as a guy, I'm patient but I will point it out when they slip up so that they can correct the habit. If it's someone who knows I'm a trans girl but insists on referring to me with male pronouns because that person insists that I'm "really" a man. . . then, and only then, am I going to get pissed off over pronoun usage. And I think in that case, it's completely justified.

I think that you'll find that trans people who "blow up" over innocent pronoun misuse are generally just having a very bad day -- pronoun usage tends to be a very sore spot for non-passing trans girls in particular, and poking someone's sore spots when they're already cranky is generally going to get you an angry explosion no matter who they are and what those sore spots are.