So recently I had a problem. And oddly enough it was virtual, as opposed to a real, problem in my everyday life. As I may have eluded upon occasion here in the blog, one of the catalysts for me in figuring out being trans was Second Life (SL). I am not going to go into a long post here about SL. I only mention it for context for the rest of this post.
In SL there are group meetings, very similar to the ones I have in Real Life (RL). We collect, and talk about issues, problems, concerns etc. One of these SL groups has transmen and transwomen in it. Now you cannot really tell how far along anybody really is in SL as we all have avatars, and of course the women are slim, shapely and lovely and the men are buff and studly. And the only communication, at least in this group, is text chat. Which can be misunderstood! But I made a big mistake in group recently.
The ratio of FtM vs MtF is pretty low, meaning there are a lot of us (MtF) and not so many of them. This is true in group as well. And what happened to me recently is, there was a discussion about how clean a public restroom is and the thread went to the "fact" that the ladies room, tends to be cleaner than the "Mens" room. And I made a joke, or what I thought was a joke, with the only FtM in the "room". "Name Redacted, see what you can do about that ok?". This transman took offense to my comment. Not just a little, but alot. In fact he was so offended he left the meeting. Now this was a person that I had had some dialog with off and on for months in SL, so I was really surprised by this reaction. I went on to find the person and apologize if I had offended him, and then did so publicly to the group.
But I want to pick at the crux of the issue. He felt I had made a sweeping derogatory comment about his gender, and in specific him. Now let me say this for the record, I have been a guy for 47 years. I have first hand knowledge that in general the mens room is a pig sty. No, not all of them, no not all men, but as a trend, compared the ladies room, it is. Sorry, fact, deal with it. Women in general try to be cleaner then men. And now that I am both, moving toward the "fairer sex", I see it more clearly now than ever. So I am not going to apologize for calling something for what it is. And my comment was a joke! Humor, ha ha, funny, I was looking to a transman to fix an endemic problem with men in general. That probably would not happen. Which makes it funny to ask...
But it would be like him telling me to see if I can get women to stop putting on makeup at a stop light. Since I have actually found myself putting on my lipstick at a stop light, I would resemble that remark. Would I be offended, maybe, is it a generalized statement, yep, do all women do it, no, but enough do for it to be a common behavior, and the brunt of male humor, along with probably other hundreds of gender based jokes regarding maps and asking for directions and the orientation of toilet seats and how long it takes to get ready. And the truth is, most of those things have some truth to them. That is what makes them funny!
And so I was astounded that the battle of the sexes apparenly applys to transwomen and transmen. I had not considered this before. That transmen might be offended by references to male sterotypes, and that transwomen might be so about female stereotypes. The thing is, unless you are trying to tell me I am stupid, or insignifigant, or unimportant, I am probably not offended. In fact as I was putting my lipstick on at the red light, I asked myself how did that happen? The answer was the same that any natal woman would have said, well I ran out of time, and so this is best I could do and I want to look good. So there. Men, might not get that. But I do now.
And is it funny that I am now enough of a woman to find myself performing in stereotypical behaviors that seem to come naturally. Am I offended when somebody points it out and includes me in with all women when I do it? Actually, no. I am flattered that they think enough of who I am to think of me as a woman first.
So what do I do when a guy infers that I cannot read a map because I am female. I take the map and show them where they are. That way they won't have to ask me for the directions. :) See always ready to help, and with a joke. But what I don't get, is mad about it.
And oh yeah, I prefer the ladies room. At least when most of us pee in there, it ends up in the bowl and no matter how you look at that, it is a step up.
Mouse Hunt
6 years ago
Hey, Jude here.
ReplyDeleteActually, it's much more complicated than that, and there are cliques and dislikes that can be significant between the groups.
The bathroom comment might have offended the FtM on at least 2 levels that I can think of:
1) Women are typically the "cleaners", as you've alluded to. The FtM in question may have thought that you were trying to send him back into the women's domain, thereby ignoring and minimizing his hard-fought-for male status.
2) FtMs rarely get enough surgery to be able to pee standing up. So you were telling him to go clean up the pee from the "real" guys.
3) the "go clean that up, will ya?" could be perceived as dismissive of him.
As far as bathrooms - there are some ladies, apparently, who don't actually sit down, but "hover" over the toilet and therefore leave drops on the seat too. And luckily, my office has single-occupancy handicapped bathrooms on each floor, and I've been using the mens handicap for like 2 years now. At least I get to be in the can by myself and not with guys.