Transgender Days

[dreamshark]

I see from my LJ f-list that today is International Transgender Day of Remembrance.

THIS LINK is more appropriate for TransAction! Day, but I wanted to post it while I was thinking of it. It does have senseless hatred of transgender people in it, but I admit that it has a happier ending than the events that inspired the Day of Remembrance. I hope people don't think it's inappropriate for the day.

I heard this story on MPR and looked it up online. It's not spelled out in the newspaper story, but what makes this story so cool is that Silverton is NOT one of those ultra-hip Portland suburbs. It's a very traditional small town from the Republican side of Oregon. You have to know that to appreciate the significance of the men in dresses.

Comments

[jiawen]

It's not clear that the mayor is a "man in a dress". I'm honestly unsure how their mayor identifies, but my guess is that it's more complicated than just as a man.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

According to the podcast, the mayor definitely identifies as transgender. He made the transformation gradually, starting with the fingernails. Eventually he got breast implants. Not clear if he has had other surgery, but I'm not sure it matters. As you said, much more complicated than "a man in a dress."

The part I thought was interesting was his male neighbors, many of whom turned up wearing dresses to support him against the Rev. Phelps gang. This might not seem like a big deal in a sophisticated metropolis, but it's clearly not the kind of thing the residents of Silverton were accustomed to a few years ago.

[jiawen]

I guess my reply wasn't very well expressed. It's clear the mayor is transgender of some flavor; the question is whether or not the person in question identifies as a man, and whether or not masculine pronouns are correct.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

All the people interviewed in the podcast used the masculine pronoun and the question was not mentioned.

[jiawen]

Right. That still leaves open the question of how the mayor identifies. The way the mayor identifies in private may be quite different from the public's perception.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

It's possible that Stu would prefer that people use the feminine pronoun, and perhaps a more feminine name. However, there is no indication that he has made such wishes known generally, so I used the same pronoun that everybody else was using. Is that a faux pas?

[jiawen]

Hard to say. Trans people are put in difficult situations all the time; it's possible Stu wants to use feminine pronouns, but history, public perception or whatever else won't allow that. As far as using the same pronoun everyone else uses... well, just because a lot of people there do it, that doesn't mean it's necessarily correct, know what I mean?