Existence precedes essence
A new cartoon from Assigned Male:
I’m not transitioning because”I want to become a girl” ; I’m transitioning because I AM a girl.
Same for boys and non-binary folks. heart emoticon
Then what does “I’m transitioning” mean?
Tip Jar
,
“I’m telling everyone I’m a girl, and possibly changing the way I dress,” is what it means, mostly. (For a grown-up it could also mean hormones and maybe surgery.) This way of putting it emphasizes that external changes are being made in order to more closely reflect consistent internal “identity” (identity in quotes because I think it’s a slippery concept but that’s another subject.)
Be that as it may, if there’s a more annoying cartoon character than this kid, I haven’t seen it.
Thank you, Stacey! This is “anime activism.” Self-absorbed virtual costume play tarted up as serious business. L’il Sophie is enjoying an extended toddler-hood.
Our language, for better or worse, entails gendered referents (the words we use to refer to one another). If we’re to answer a question, “Who just coughed”, we’re pretty much forced to use a gendered-referent.
“Lisa coughed” vs “Bill coughed”. “She coughed” vs “He coughed”. “My sister coughed” vs “My brother coughed”. “That girl coughed” vs “That boy coughed”.
There’s very few ways to refer to a person in a non-gendered way, without using unconventional grammar or descriptors.
Because gendered referents are so ingrained in the language we speak, there’s an underlying cultural paradigm which pressures everyone to make it clear which set of referents refer to them. The names we introduce ourselves (or our children) with are often such cues. There are cultural norms (how we dress and, more subtly, how we speak and the variety of mannerisms we use). Largely out of our control, many people will assess physical characteristics (facial bone structure and body type) in making the call. Of course, when all else fails, and people are not able to settle on a consistent “referent set” for an individual, that individual will often resolve the confusion directly: “I am female” or “I’m a ‘she'”.
“Transitioning” is flipping of all the above (to an individual’s best ability). For children, it’s usually informing one’s teachers and classmates, “My name is not ‘Mark’, not ‘Marcy’. I am a boy”, and expecting that, unlike in every social interaction leading up to the pronouncement, they well forth-going refer to you as “Mark”, “the boy over there”, “he/him”, “your son”, etc.; rather than “Marcy”, “the girl over there”, “she/her”, and “your daughter”.
@Lady Mondegreen – the cartoon seems to strike me very differently than you. My son’s transition played out over about 48 hours, quickly escalating from “let’s try it tonight” to “just around the house” to “okay, okay, we’ll have sit down and talk to your pre-K teachers and administration”. Shortly thereafter, I witnessed my son express the same sentiment as cartooned, almost verbatim (and obviously inverted). Seeing him do so (to an authority figure no less) was seeing him stand up to someone who’d been describing his transition with a false narrative which grossly mischaracterized his lived experience. So to me, the cartoon gave a pleasant flashback to a memory of seeing my son speaking confidently and proudly as to who he was. In that regard, your assessment of the cartooned child baffles me (especially the *depth* of distaste you expressed: “most annoying cartoon character you’ve *ever* seen?) Is it the sentiment she’s expressing that you find annoying? The confidence and body language with which she’s expressing it? The clothing?
@Kevin Kirkpatrick, this is not the first time I’ve seen this cartoon. My opinion is not based solely on the image above.
Yes.
Josh Spokes,
Speaking of extended toddlerhoods, allow me to introduce Stefonknee, a trans-six-year-old-girl:
https://youtu.be/MbiAHnjHlHg
Stick with me here, this is not a joke AFAICT.
After living as a man, being married to a woman for more than two decades and having 7 kids together, Stefonknee came out as a trans woman. At some point in the process she also came out or has decided to live as a six year old and had found someone willing to let her play with their children in that capacity.
As for Ophelia’s question in the OP, I’m not an expert in any sense, but I believe transitioning refers to the process of coming out and transitioning their outward identity or the way they present to others. They were always women or they always felt like women on the inside and now they are transitioning their outward identity to match that. They are transitioning from describing themselves as a man to self-identifying as a woman.
Yeah sorry nevermind. Please diregard my previous comment. I now see Ophelia wrote about this already. I hadn’t read through your other recent posts carefully enough before posting that.
No problem. There’s no requirement to read all recent posts before commenting. :)
So, a member of the ‘trans women = women without a single difference in any trait’ clan.
I’m a bit bemused by what is going on in the crotch region.
@Lady Mondegreen,
That clarifies somewhat – I wasn’t familiar with the comic nor aware that the character was part of a series, so I’d taken your comment to mean this specific expression of this panel was sufficient to propel the girl beyond even “Family Circus” levels of annoying. That said, your qualifier “solely” indicates that something about this panel contributed to the annoyance you attribute to the character. That’s what my questions (which you hadn’t answered) were aimed at.
@jusinr,
Bluntly – that was a creepy fucking comment to read. What the fuck draws your attention to the genitals/crotch areas of transgender children?
It’s not “the genitals/crotch areas of transgender children.” It’s how this particular cartoonist chose to draw this particular crotch.
With wrinkles?
I had to go back 1 comic in the Family Circus page to find an annoying comic.
http://familycircus.com/comics/december-12-2015/
It’d be really creepy if my only comment on it was, “I’m bemused by the way Bill Keane drew this child’s crotch”. But I guess if it were a transgender boy – then, not a weird thing to fixate on?
But nobody did “fixate” on it.
Replace “fixate” with “comment”; the point stands.
I see nothing even “a bit” bemusing about how this child’s pants were depicted to fold (at least, nothing which would not require an unhealthy/creepy level of focus on children’s genitals to see). But if I’m overlooking it, please let me know what I’m missing.
I think the drawing is a little peculiar, but not very peculiar. But either way I don’t think there is any focus on children’s genitals; I think that accusation is just silly. Again: this is not an actual child, it’s a cartoon drawn by an adult. The cartoonist is making a point. I don’t think it’s particularly unhealthy or creepy to notice how she drew the crotch of the shorts.
Sorry, Kevin, but I think your reaction is just weird. You’re talking as if this cartoon of Stephie were an actual child, with creepy adults staring at her crotch. Why are you seeing it that way? No trans children were harmed by justin’s comment. Your “blunt” accusation of creepiness is what’s creepy here, in my view – it’s reminiscent of Darlene Pineda shouting that I have the blood of murdered trans people on my hands. This kind of rhetorical overkill (aimed at actual people) is not a good sign of a healthy politics.
Is it truly your stance that no comment about a cartoon can be construed as “creepy”. That if justinr had instead said, “Personally, I just have to say how attractive I find this girl, and all the things I’d like to do with her”. Not creepy because “cartoon”? Not creepy because “no-one harmed”? Would you think me “creepy” for replying to a comment like that with “Dude, that’s a creepy comment.”
How absurd for Anita Sarkeesian to focus so much time and effort on pointing out the sexist ways women are portrayed in video games! She’s the weird one for saying anything – doesn’t she realize that since these are fictitious characters and that video game makers aren’t doing any actual people any harm?
Do we really need to argue about how absurd this line of argument is?
Of course I’m aware it’s a cartoon character. And of course I’m not concerned about the well being of the cartoon character. But in the real, not cartoon, world we live in, abnormal levels of attention to, focus on, and open discussion of transgender kids’ genitals [what we tell them are their PRIVATES and nobody else’s business, period] is very real. The behavior is a huge component of the humiliating marginalization to which they are routinely subjected. This attitude “ooh, someone drew a transgender child, let’s squint our eyes at the folds near the crotch and chuckle at what we might read into them” is not healthy and should not be normalized.
Justinr’s comment, and it’s “don’t point out how creepy it is” acceptance, is normalization of behavior that harms real people.
If comments were open on the Family Circus website, how do you think a standalone comment “I’m a bit bemused by what is going on in the crotch region.”, in response to the comic I linked, http://familycircus.com/comics/december-12-2015/ , would be received? Would you accuse people of being “weird” or “creepy” for objecting to the sentiment? If not – what is it about the child depicted in Sophie Labelle’s comic that reverses things – that makes such a musing “normal” (and objections “creepy”)?
I know what your leading questions were “aimed at.” I did not appreciate being interrogated by you, and am not going to justify my feeling about a comic character to you.
I hope that clears that up.
I apologize for wording questions in a leading way, and for asking them “interrogating” way.
If there’s something about how this child was depicted in this panel that you find annoying, I’m curious as to what that is. I’m simply not seeing it. If you’d prefer to share only that you were annoyed, but would prefer not to explain what made you feel that way (or at least, would prefer not to explain it in response to the tone of my original questions), that’s fine by me.
I find the cartoon didactic and visually unappealing, and the child character unbelievable and overly earnest. Other strips I’ve seen have her in exaggerated poses meant to emphasize her childlike ingenuousness (arms behind head; shrugs,) while she elucidates some point of dogma the author wants to highlight. This particular image, with the kid in sunglasses making the power fist beneath the point the grownup author attributes to her is just as contrived as the rest.
I know you know this, but there’s no child there to be depicted. I realize you have personal reasons for it, but Kevin you really are responding to this character almost as if she were an actual child. I don’t feel that way about her.
Maybe it would work as a cartoon for kids? I don’t think it’s aimed at kids, though. I think I would have been put off by it as a kid. My taste ran to Mad Magazine.
Its quite possible that the illustrator drew the crotch in that manner precisely because the intention was to imply penis. I know that mine occasionally causes such trouser-folds to occur.
some of the most gorgeous women in the world have enormous penises – Alaska Thunderfuck 5000
But OB never said no comment about a cartoon could be creepy, she said the particular one under consideration is not creepy. There is a wide gulf between OB’s comment and the drastically absolute comment you read it to be. That you extrapolate even further, implying that OB is against all denunciations of creepiness anywhere is pure absurdity.
For my part, I noticed the trouser fold too; I put it down as an attempt by the artist to convey the crotch fold pants can often get independant of having a penis tent it outwards, and I see nothing creepy in noting that it was done poorly. And that there is, I think, the primary difference between your view and mine (and others, it seems): this line of commentary is about the quality of the art, but you see it as being about the child. Hence, criticism of a mediocre artist making a crotch look weird comes across as calling a child weird for being trans.
Hmm, last sentence of paragraph one could be more clear; something like
That you extrapolate even further – implying that OB is against all denunciations of creepiness anywhere – is pure absurdity.