Why do People Keep Putting Prefixes in Front of Their Gender?

[Philip027]

It isn't a prefix about their gender, it's saying what their sex was (or possibly still is).  It's covering two different things in one statement.

 

It isn't necessarily hurting oneself; them being AMAB/AFAB or trans is just stating a fact.

[Mezzo Forte]

Reminder that people are more likely to be specific about their identities in setting like (relatively) anonymous internet forums. We share these labels as a way of providing context to our experiences and thoughts much in the same way we share the fine details of our orientations on here in ways we might not elsewhere. Some people are quite private about these aspects of their identities in their offline life, and discussing them on a site like this becomes an avenue to explore your own thoughts on the matter.

 

For me, most the people I'm around knew me before transition, so I have little choice about how people see me. I often experiment with being casually stealth, and I am still fairly stealth at my work (I'm a professor), but there's a lot of tiring mental gymnastics that comes with maintaining that stealth status. I spent the first 22 years of my life assumed female, and that makes a lot of little scenarios in my past sound quite odd when I reminisce. There are also major experiences that happened as a direct result of my transition that I have to avoid discussing if I want to be stealth. (There are also physical features I am stuck with for life as a direct result of being trans.) It honestly feels like stepping into another closet, so while I like ensuring that my trans identity isn't the first thing people learn about me, I prefer to be open about my experiences. I'm not ashamed of my trans identity, and if sharing my perspective makes other people more empathetic to perspectives that are otherwise foreign to them, then good. There's a reason why I'm an educator.

 
Also, as someone actively using academia and research as a way to advocate for trans musicians, my own status as a transgender musician is quite relevant to my work. My research typically involves a decent amount of ethnography, and people react differently when they talk to someone that they classify as an "in-group" rather than an "out-group." Disclosing I'm trans puts me in the in-group and allows the interviews to go directions that they might not have gone otherwise. Trans people often perceive gender differently than cis people, and binary-gendered people perceive gender differently than nonbinary people. These perceptions can all help unravel tacit understandings of the very function of gender from culture to culture, (as well as within subcultures,) and that kind of knowledge is important for knowing how to dismantle the biases that work against certain groups of people.

[vmdraco]

7 hours ago, nate-1234 said:

Okay, but why do call yourself "trans" when you are male and always been male? Why don't you just say "I am male" not "I am trans male"?

Like @Starbogen has mentioned, I consider myself a trans man because I see my experience as going from one binary to the next, and not something that has never changed.  In my view, I don't think I was always male, and I know by saying that it can invite statements that I was never a guy at all.  I don't think that's the case for me at all.  I actually find it a bit uncomfortable when people tell me that, because I feel dishonest, and it erases what I've gone through to get to the point where I'm at now.  In a way I feel like it caters to the idea of the average cisgender person who thinks you don't change your gender identity at all.  I grew up a girl; for most of my life I identified as a girl, despite the dysphoria I didn't know I had.  So what?  That's what happened, yeah?  I used to be a girl, and now I'm not.  That's kinda the point, right?  

 

The only justification of that reasoning is that, perhaps, on the inside I was always a boy (since I recall having dysphoria as far back as 13/14 years old), but I had no knowledge of what I was feeling at the time because no one reasoned to me why I was different.

 

7 hours ago, nate-1234 said:

Hey everyone, I do not mean to be disrespectful in anyway. I am just confused and curious as to why this is.  

I apologize if I sounded defensive or hostile in my comments, that wasn't my intention, though I can see why you thought that.  You're cool dude, I was just putting my two cents in  

[Just Somebody]

48 minutes ago, Mezzo Forte said:

Reminder that people are more likely to be specific about their identities in setting like (relatively) anonymous internet forums. We share these labels as a way of providing context to our experiences and thoughts much in the same way we share the fine details of our orientations on here in ways we might not elsewhere. Some people are quite private about these aspects of their identities in their offline life, and discussing them on a site like this becomes an avenue to explore your own thoughts on the matter.

Can't think of better place other than AVEN. *CLAPS*

[Guest]

13 hours ago, daveb said:

I'm not sure how it hurts anyone. People are free to choose what they want to call themselves. Although I do "get" the argument to just use male or female, too. Whatever works. It's all good.  

I don’t get it either. 

Trans doesn’t only mean you’re transitioning: It means you don’t indentify as your assigned sex at birth.

 

PS: My prefix is Fabulous because that’s what i am! [as in Fabulous kaigendered gentleman. Kai means royal as a good friend once told me so you may also refer to me as your highness  ]

[nate-1234]

6 hours ago, Philip027 said:

It isn't a prefix about their gender, it's saying what their sex was (or possibly still is).  It's covering two different things in one statement.

 

It isn't necessarily hurting oneself; them being AMAB/AFAB or trans is just stating a fact.

But for peoples sex that is changed why do they need tell others unimportant things of the past?

[SkyWorld]

I don't mind calling myself trans, though I personally don't really like calling myself AFAB (even if it is FABulous). However, even though I do call myself trans, I don't really mention it IRL or even on my profile info. Though, in conversation, if necessary, I don't mind bringing it up to add context to the discussion. Even when I'm eventually well along on HRT, and/or if I decide to go along with some surgeries, I'd still call myself trans. When someone says they're trans, I don't see them any less of what they identify. However, I know that some (if not many) would disagree--that trans people are less than their gender identity (from being assigned at birth the opposite sex, or not having "all the parts" because some trans people simply do not want to for personal reasons). Which is why I avoid bringing up that I'm trans IRL because I wouldn't want people to think I'm "less than". If I was in an intimate relationship, I do feel it's very important information for them to know about myself. And if they treat/think of me "less than", then I wouldn't want them as a partner anyway.

 

Though if I brought it to broader terms and be more general when it comes to being considered "less than", even cis people could be made to feel that way by what others consider to be a "true man" or "true woman". That someone could consider a man to be "less than a man" if said man is feminine (because one's masculinity can be so fragile). Or if someone considered a woman to be "less than a woman" simply judging them with how they look and not fitting that "ideal image". I just thought it might be interesting to bring up.

 

Also, in regards to representation; representation does matter. Though I've never had the opinion that a public figure (celebrity or government official, etc) should be obligated to out themselves for the sake of representation, because it's a very personal thing people go through that not everyone needs to know. And if someone is comfortable enough to share that information publicly, that's fine too.

[nate-1234]

11 minutes ago, Jayce said:

I don’t get it either. 

Trans doesn’t only mean you’re transitioning: It means you don’t indentify as your assigned sex at birth.

 

PS: My prefix is Fabulous because that’s what i am!

But I think that people should not care at all or define themselves by what they were assigned at birth, it just seems like people put way too much emphasis on that.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, nate-1234 said:

But I think that people should not care at all or define themselves by what they were assigned at birth, it just seems like people put way too much emphasis on that.

So you want people to erase their identity? Why don’t you let them decide for themselves?

[nate-1234]

2 minutes ago, SkyWorld said:

I don't mind calling myself trans, though I personally don't really like calling myself AFAB (even if it is FABulous). However, even though I do call myself trans, I don't really mention it IRL or even on my profile info. Though, in conversation, if necessary, I don't mind bringing it up to add context to the discussion. Even when I'm eventually well along on HRT, and/or if I decide to go along with some surgeries, I'd still call myself trans. When someone says they're trans, I don't see them any less of what they identify. However, I know that some (if not many) would disagree--that trans people are less than their gender identity (from being assigned at birth the opposite sex, or not having "all the parts" because some trans people simply do not want to for personal reasons). Which is why I avoid bringing up that I'm trans IRL because I wouldn't want people to think I'm "less than". If I was in an intimate relationship, I do feel it's very important information for them to know about myself. And if they treat/think of me "less than", then I wouldn't want them as a partner anyway.

 

Though if I brought it to broader terms and be more general when it comes to being considered "less than", even cis people could be made to feel that way by what others consider to be a "true man" or "true woman". That someone could consider a man to be "less than a man" if said man is feminine (because one's masculinity can be so fragile). Or if someone considered a woman to be "less than a woman" simply judging them with how they look and not fitting that "ideal image". I just thought it might be interesting to bring up.

 

Also, in regards to representation; representation does matter. Though I've never had the opinion that a public figure (celebrity or government official, etc) should be obligated to out themselves for the sake of representation, because it's a very personal thing people go through that not everyone needs to know. And if someone is comfortable enough to share that information publicly, that's fine too.

Yup that happens to me...

[Just Somebody]

8 minutes ago, nate-1234 said:

But for peoples sex that is changed why do they need tell others unimportant things of the past?

I think you can't erase the past.

[nate-1234]

1 minute ago, Jayce said:

So you want people to erase their identity? Why don’t you let them decide for themselves?

I guess that makes sense, but why do some people push those type of identities on to others?

[SkyWorld]

1 minute ago, nate-1234 said:

I guess that makes sense, but why do some people push those type of identities on to others?

People do that? I haven't seen of that, personally. I simply think it should be a personal choice what someone would call themselves, not what others push for them to be.

[nate-1234]

2 minutes ago, Just Somebody said:

I think you can't erase the past.

No you can not, but it just seems irrelevant. Who cares what it was before? What matters is what you are now, at least that is what I believe.

[Just Somebody]

Just now, nate-1234 said:

No you can not, but it just seems irrelevant. Who cares what it was before? What matters is what you are now, at least that is what I believe.

It molded who you are right now ...

[nate-1234]

Just now, Just Somebody said:

It molded who you are right now ...

Maybe it does maybe it does not.

[Mezzo Forte]

3 minutes ago, Just Somebody said:

I think you can't erase the past.

Especially nowadays when everything is so documented. I have important items in my resume/CV that are credited to me under my birth name, so even professionally, I run the risk of getting outed as trans. My social media also has a ton of important connections I've built over the years, so I can't start anew, and I can't exactly delete every trace of my pre-transition self from those sites either. 

 

1 minute ago, nate-1234 said:

No you can not, but it just seems irrelevant. Who cares what it was before? What matters is what you are now, at least that is what I believe.

But it isn't always irrelevant. Experience shapes perception, so that life experience of being perceived as the wrong gender carries with you in some way. Trans identity may not always be relevant to a conversation, but there are definitely times when it is. For example: I'm a percussionist, and people used to make shitty sexist comments to me when they perceived me female, but not anymore. Should I deny that I've seen these kinds of differences firsthand if I talk about sexism within the percussion world?

[Just Somebody]

Just now, nate-1234 said:

Maybe it does maybe it does not.

nothing exists without an time line of events... everything changes though always and is constantly changing, you just can't erase from where you changed to where you achieve.

[Just Somebody]

I think everything is irrelevant in the universe, the universe careless about itself, the only ones who care about stuff are humans, things are relevant depending for who, what, where,   when for humans.

[Guest]

19 minutes ago, nate-1234 said:

I guess that makes sense, but why do some people push those type of identities on to others?

I haven’t seen people pushing these identities on others, the only thing i’ve seen is: “I think you might be this or that” not “You are this or that” 

 

I don’t agree with people pushing identities on others, they should decide for themselves.

[nate-1234]

14 minutes ago, Just Somebody said:

nothing exists without an time line of events... everything changes though always and is constantly changing, you just can't erase from where you changed to where you achieve.

True, but I just think that people live too much in the past and harp on all these little things of the past. It just seems that if you are changing sex to match your gender, there is no reason to talk about the past in that regard. You are done you are complete (I know this is not the case for some). Why not just let the things of the past die?  You live and you forget.

 

 

[nate-1234]

2 minutes ago, Jayce said:

I haven’t seen people pushing these identities on others, the only thing i’ve seen is: “I think you might be this or that” not “You are this or that” 

 

I don’t agree with people pushing identities on others, they should decide for themselves.

I have heard some heterosexual men call people "trans" woman instead of just woman and really emphasize that prefix.

[Just Somebody]

9 minutes ago, nate-1234 said:

True, but I just think that people live too much in the past and harp on all these little things of the past. It just seems that if you are changing sex to match your gender there is no reason to talk about the past in that regard. You are done you are complete (I know this is not the case for some). Why not just let the things of the past die?  You live and you forget.

 

 

You can't simply be born again... actually I think if you look the other way around : the past doesn't let people go while people do wish to let the past go.

 

 

You can't erase all the moments and memories you had, can't erase scars, diseases or biological processes,  can't erase lessons, can't erase your existence to others.

 

 

And things are changing all the time, life is about changes and surprises and experimenting and learning and keep moving on , it's chaotic and in motion , totally the opposite of death which is peaceful and eternal.

 

 

If you died 3 mins ago without reading my comment you wouldn't be answering or thinking about it right now. The past you indeed molds your present self.

[Just Somebody]

6 minutes ago, nate-1234 said:

I have heard some heterosexual men call people "trans" woman instead of just woman and really emphasize that prefix.

That's bc their "transness" is important to these men and could be interpreted as "problematic" for these men to deal with,

 

 

Their masculinity could also be fragile.

[nate-1234]

Just now, Just Somebody said:

You can't simply be born again... actually I think if you look the other way around : the past doesn't let people go while people do wish to let the past go.

 

 

You can't erase all the moments and memories you had, can't erase scars, diseases or biological processes,  can't erase lessons, can't erase your existence to others.

 

 

And things are changing all the time, life is about changes and surprises and experimenting and learning and keep moving on , it's chaotic and in motion , totally the opposite of death which is peaceful and eternal.

 

 

If you died 3 mins ago without reading my comment you wouldn't be answering or thinking abouy it right now. The past you indeed molds your present self.

I guess, but what about the people who do not remember things of the past, people like me. I barely remember what happened last year! I do not remember any of my childhood. I guess that is why I do not understand. haha

[nate-1234]

2 minutes ago, Just Somebody said:

That's bc their "transness" is important to these men and could be interpreted as "problematic" for these men to deal with,

 

 

Their masculinity could also be fragile.

I do not know why but that makes me a little annoyed.

[Just Somebody]

4 minutes ago, nate-1234 said:

I guess, but what about the people who do not remember things of the past, people like me. I barely remember what happened last year! I do not remember any of my childhood. I guess that is why I do not understand. haha

Well even though you don't... you're living the result of the actions and experiences of your past self. You don't have to go so far, even a second ago makes a difference.

 

 

Anyway, I think based, on that Greek philosopher , Aristotle and Renee Descartes :

 

YOU = who you are being right now = the experiences you already had in the past + the possible experiences life is willing to let you have in the future

[Just Somebody]

3 minutes ago, nate-1234 said:

I do not know why but that makes me a little annoyed.

Some straight cis men (TM) are really worried about the fragility of their manly privilege that's why the "transness" of a girl is so important for them...

 

For educated , evaluated humans it sounds really ridiculous, but for societies (specially liberalist capitalist and patriarchal sexist ones) who raise people to hate themselves and eachother bc hate makes money, they make it sounds like the end of the world.

[Guest]

38 minutes ago, nate-1234 said:

I have heard some heterosexual men call people "trans" woman instead of just woman and really emphasize that prefix.

Did it ever occur to you that trans folks call themselves trans too? Why is it such a bad thing to call yourself trans?

[nate-1234]

19 minutes ago, Just Somebody said:

Well even though you don't... you're living the result of the actions and experiences of your past self. You don't have to go so far, even a second ago makes a difference.

 

 

Anyway, I think based, on that Greek philosopher , Aristotle and Renee Descartes :

 

YOU = who you are being right now = the experiences you already had in the past + the possible experiences life is willing to let you have in the future

I just hate being tied to my past myself, probably a few years ago is not me now. I am always evolving and shedding old skin. I do not like to hoard old skin as it has served its purpose and now it's done, but I do understand where you are coming from.