I can’t imagine how terrible it would be to be born the wrong sex, nor
could a few of the women I know best — because I don’t feel like a
wrong sex exists. If I’d been born female I can’t see why that would
have been a severe problem. There may be a million ways in which the
two sexes are still routinely socialized differently, not to mention
the actual physical differences, but I think many people aren’t
constrained in ways that go to the core of their identities. There are
women who match me in one or two of the categories of job, hobbies, or
major personality traits, and society doesn’t punish them for
it. There are still some roles for which one sex is heavily favored,
but there are fewer of those roles than there used to be.
Some people are strongly gendered — they “get” the “imagine you woke up one day in the wrong-sex body” thing; gender *matters* and whether their gender matches their assigned-at-birth sex or not, they know very intensely what their gender is. Others are weakly gendered — their gender identity is a matter of convenience: as an ex-lover explained it to me, it’s easier to go with what society expects but they don’t see why it’s such a big deal and mostly don’t grok trans* people. (OTOH they also don’t usually understand why anybody else would be _bothered_ by tans* people, in my experience, so for a T* person who doesn’t need everybody around them to Understand It All, they can be great friends and allies.) And then there are those of us who are strongly gendered, but both strongly-male and strongly-female at the same time (so far we’re still in territory mapped by the Bem Sex Roles Inventory or BSRI — Google it). FWIW that’s where the BSRI places me, strongly both, a little more strongly femme, not that anyone here probably cares, but hey, if anyone wanted to know where I’m coming from …
Venturing outside of that map we get the folks who feel just as strongly that they’re _neither_ gender as strong-binary-gender people feel that they’re capital-M Male or capital-F Female … and the ones who see themselves as Something Else, not genderless, not one or t’other, not both. AFAIK, these categories also exist on a weakstrong spectrum (but admittedly I’m less familiar with these categories than the others I’ve listed).
When you say “I can’t imagine how terrible it would be to be born the wrong sex […] because I don’t feel like a wrong sex exists,” you are not alone … but yours is also not the most common experience of gender. You should have no trouble finding both people who say, “Yeah, that!” and people who say, “Wait, *what*?!” to you on that score.
I’m in the “yeah, THAT” camp, myself, and I needed (and was grateful to be granted) a similar explanation over on T Campbell’s forums during the short-lived QUILTBAG run.
I haven’t figured out if this means I’m agendered or bigendered. Since none of it really affects how I live my life (other than a tendency to play female characters in games and online just to see how the other side lives), I’ve never bothered identifying myself beyond *checks pants, yup, male*.
If you felt strongly that neither gender fit, you’d sound agendered. Your description of yourself just sounds weakly-gendered … an area of the map where it’s hard to tell if someone’s bigender, or a trans or cis mostly-male or mostly-female, simply because it doesn’t matter enough for you to notice much.
(Interested layperson speaking here, not a pshrink, but a layperson who has spent a lot of time poking at this, as most of us T* people have.)
There’s nothing holding people back from living the way they want except obsessive societal gender policing, which is EVERYWHERE. There’s nothing stopping me, for instance, from working in IT, except that the fact that I am a woman means I get paid some 10% less than my male colleagues (which is significant for someone who’s been in the field for 20 years), my opinions are treated less seriously than those of my male colleagues, and in some ways, I’m still treated as more “junior” than male persons I’ve got years of experience on chronologically. And that’s in a cosmopolitan, liberal city — I might not be able to get a job in some place less liberal because I also present as a masculine woman. If I were somewhere else, I might be pressured to wear femme clothing and makeup and hairstyles in order to just keep my job, if I could get one in the first place. Going femme literally makes my skin itch and makes me feel physically ill. And I’m cisgendered! It doesn’t take much imagination to think of what it might feel like to people who feel that their primary and secondary sexual characteristics are just *wrong*.
Hi actual trans woman here. I’m glad you/re comfortable with your gender as you percive it, I wasn’t. I’m vastly happier being on HRT and living as a woman then I ever was as a pretend man. I also don’t care how free society may become about gender roles I would still transition.
Even after hearing statements like yours for decades, I was surprised by _how_much_ happier & more comfortable I felt after starting HRT (well, after about two months in was when I noticed).
” I also don’t care how free society may become about gender roles I would still transition.”
*nod* This is something I’ve been asked a version of for years (not “would I transition?” because I’ve so far existed in a Tip-like mixed-presentation niche that nowadays the kids might call “genderqueet”, but “would I still be trans?”), at it’s something even a lot of cis people in the middle of the weakly-gendered<–>strongly-gendered range don’t get — that as much as social roles an expectations _matter_, gender identity goes deeper than that.
Thanks for the well-stated and reasonable replies. I agree with the large majority of what was said. And yes, the “society” I spoke of only represents the fairly liberal areas where I have lived, certainly not the entire globe.
oddly enough, it was the tiara that made me go “not quite She-Ra, but close enough”, and then I noticed the dress + the hair style 🙂
hmmm ….. does that mean Nick is going for a ‘Battle Princess’ look/style.
(no, not all Battle Princess’s look like Xena)
ah-ha!
If Marcie is reading this (or someone can pass the idea onto Marcie), how about getting Nick to cosplay a Battle Ball Gown but make it ‘tech oriented instead (eg: a plasma rifle instead of a halberd)
We’ve seen Nick do some impressive stuff through the power of being a relatively large aircraft. It’s impressive to see him do something through pure force of personality.
I dunno about you, but I think Tip fits great into his dresses.
In fact, as impressive of a dress as it is, I think it’d look better on Tip — I find the drone’s collorbones kinda distracting from the dress itself. (Disclaimer: I’m certainly no expert on dresses.)
What will I dare for the Little House?
And what will I wear? Not a skirt and blouse!
I’m saving the day, I can totes pull off this sock!
Hey, you! Little boar!
Would you please get the door?
Come on, it’s time to rock!
Princess Nick! Elegant chick!
Princess of Whimsy!
In a gown, cascading down,
Down to the floor!
Let ev’ryone take a glance!
My entrance now will entrance!
And all you boosters will scream and yell for more!
Princess Nick! Looking so slick!
Princess of Whimsy!
See these shoes? They’ll leave a bruise,
‘Cause I can kick!
I want no ifs, ands, or buts!
I’ll kick you right in the mutts!
‘Cause doorways nobody shuts
On Princess Nick!
In a dress made of silk that’s the best, here …
A tiara with rhinestones so thick …
Though’s there’s not too much milk on this chest here,
A small padded cup
Is pushing up,
Makes me look like a house of brick!
Princess Nick! Doing this shtick!
Princess of Whimsy!
So make haste, no time to waste,
Better move quick!
So come on, Treyfy, let’s go!
It’s time, we’re starting this show!
Now, like a princess I gotta behave,
And the Little House I’m gonna save!
But this parading
Is nauseating!
You dudes are making me sick! Frog you! I’m Prin-cess Nick!
Yeah, from about the point below forward about 4 strips or so. Link is purposely broken otherwise my post won’t appear. I’ve merely striped the http off the front.
Does anyone else have long load times trying to connect to this site, even quite often getting the message it can’t connect or the connection was reset? It’s been like this for me ever since I first started reading it about a month or so ago….
A few months ago I had the same problem with this site for a while, but it’s gotten better recently. It still takes a few seconds to load but it’s not nearly as long a wait as it was, and it doesn’t fail to connect anymore. No idea what changed.
I had an issue a while ago with not being able to reach the main page, but the feed was fine. Also, going through archives the connection would suddenly skip out and I’d be unable to load anything. Now, the main page works, but will occasionally take ridiculously long load times. Closing out then opening again usually helps with anytime it can’t connect.
Wow, that dress really sets off his gyroscopic array!
Almost as well as the pig’s tophat sets off Nick’s Geiger counter.
For once, Nick may find himself grateful for the Barney-Filter…
mnem
I just had the worst eggroll; it tasted like socks.
I can’t imagine how terrible it would be to be born the wrong sex, nor
could a few of the women I know best — because I don’t feel like a
wrong sex exists. If I’d been born female I can’t see why that would
have been a severe problem. There may be a million ways in which the
two sexes are still routinely socialized differently, not to mention
the actual physical differences, but I think many people aren’t
constrained in ways that go to the core of their identities. There are
women who match me in one or two of the categories of job, hobbies, or
major personality traits, and society doesn’t punish them for
it. There are still some roles for which one sex is heavily favored,
but there are fewer of those roles than there used to be.
Depending on what country you live in.
Or what company you work for.
Some people are strongly gendered — they “get” the “imagine you woke up one day in the wrong-sex body” thing; gender *matters* and whether their gender matches their assigned-at-birth sex or not, they know very intensely what their gender is. Others are weakly gendered — their gender identity is a matter of convenience: as an ex-lover explained it to me, it’s easier to go with what society expects but they don’t see why it’s such a big deal and mostly don’t grok trans* people. (OTOH they also don’t usually understand why anybody else would be _bothered_ by tans* people, in my experience, so for a T* person who doesn’t need everybody around them to Understand It All, they can be great friends and allies.) And then there are those of us who are strongly gendered, but both strongly-male and strongly-female at the same time (so far we’re still in territory mapped by the Bem Sex Roles Inventory or BSRI — Google it). FWIW that’s where the BSRI places me, strongly both, a little more strongly femme, not that anyone here probably cares, but hey, if anyone wanted to know where I’m coming from …
Venturing outside of that map we get the folks who feel just as strongly that they’re _neither_ gender as strong-binary-gender people feel that they’re capital-M Male or capital-F Female … and the ones who see themselves as Something Else, not genderless, not one or t’other, not both. AFAIK, these categories also exist on a weakstrong spectrum (but admittedly I’m less familiar with these categories than the others I’ve listed).
When you say “I can’t imagine how terrible it would be to be born the wrong sex […] because I don’t feel like a wrong sex exists,” you are not alone … but yours is also not the most common experience of gender. You should have no trouble finding both people who say, “Yeah, that!” and people who say, “Wait, *what*?!” to you on that score.
I’m in the “yeah, THAT” camp, myself, and I needed (and was grateful to be granted) a similar explanation over on T Campbell’s forums during the short-lived QUILTBAG run.
I haven’t figured out if this means I’m agendered or bigendered. Since none of it really affects how I live my life (other than a tendency to play female characters in games and online just to see how the other side lives), I’ve never bothered identifying myself beyond *checks pants, yup, male*.
If you felt strongly that neither gender fit, you’d sound agendered. Your description of yourself just sounds weakly-gendered … an area of the map where it’s hard to tell if someone’s bigender, or a trans or cis mostly-male or mostly-female, simply because it doesn’t matter enough for you to notice much.
(Interested layperson speaking here, not a pshrink, but a layperson who has spent a lot of time poking at this, as most of us T* people have.)
There’s nothing holding people back from living the way they want except obsessive societal gender policing, which is EVERYWHERE. There’s nothing stopping me, for instance, from working in IT, except that the fact that I am a woman means I get paid some 10% less than my male colleagues (which is significant for someone who’s been in the field for 20 years), my opinions are treated less seriously than those of my male colleagues, and in some ways, I’m still treated as more “junior” than male persons I’ve got years of experience on chronologically. And that’s in a cosmopolitan, liberal city — I might not be able to get a job in some place less liberal because I also present as a masculine woman. If I were somewhere else, I might be pressured to wear femme clothing and makeup and hairstyles in order to just keep my job, if I could get one in the first place. Going femme literally makes my skin itch and makes me feel physically ill. And I’m cisgendered! It doesn’t take much imagination to think of what it might feel like to people who feel that their primary and secondary sexual characteristics are just *wrong*.
Hi actual trans woman here. I’m glad you/re comfortable with your gender as you percive it, I wasn’t. I’m vastly happier being on HRT and living as a woman then I ever was as a pretend man. I also don’t care how free society may become about gender roles I would still transition.
Even after hearing statements like yours for decades, I was surprised by _how_much_ happier & more comfortable I felt after starting HRT (well, after about two months in was when I noticed).
” I also don’t care how free society may become about gender roles I would still transition.”
*nod* This is something I’ve been asked a version of for years (not “would I transition?” because I’ve so far existed in a Tip-like mixed-presentation niche that nowadays the kids might call “genderqueet”, but “would I still be trans?”), at it’s something even a lot of cis people in the middle of the weakly-gendered<–>strongly-gendered range don’t get — that as much as social roles an expectations _matter_, gender identity goes deeper than that.
I think this link belongs here:
http://tailotherat.blogspot.com/2013/07/spooky-ghost-arm.html
Thank you for posting that link here.
Thanks for the well-stated and reasonable replies. I agree with the large majority of what was said. And yes, the “society” I spoke of only represents the fairly liberal areas where I have lived, certainly not the entire globe.
All Nick needs is that sword from the She-Ra set and she’d be complete.
Agreed 🙂
I was just about to make a similar post.
oddly enough, it was the tiara that made me go “not quite She-Ra, but close enough”, and then I noticed the dress + the hair style 🙂
hmmm ….. does that mean Nick is going for a ‘Battle Princess’ look/style.
(no, not all Battle Princess’s look like Xena)
ah-ha!
If Marcie is reading this (or someone can pass the idea onto Marcie), how about getting Nick to cosplay a Battle Ball Gown but make it ‘tech oriented instead (eg: a plasma rifle instead of a halberd)
For some reason I just heard a mothering voice in my head say: “Oh don’t slouch dear, you look so much prettier when you stand up straight”.
Oh yeah, Nick’s rocking that look.
Y’know, as nifty and fun as I think Tip is, the last line completely makes today’s strip perfect for me. Big grin over here.
Also, did today’s _Something_Positive_ make anybody else immediately think of Nick? http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2502
Argh! Brain-fart! I meant _Questionable_Content_, of course!
Yes, May does need a nice princess dress and a military-grade profanity filter, doesn’t she?
Yes.
Yes it did.
Sexiest helicopter evah.
We’ve seen Nick do some impressive stuff through the power of being a relatively large aircraft. It’s impressive to see him do something through pure force of personality.
Never underestimate the willpower of an irritated nerd.
On one hand, Nick has a bit of an head start on Tip, considering that he currently possesses a body that dresses are designed to fit.
On the other hand, Nick definitely needs that head start.
I dunno about you, but I think Tip fits great into his dresses.
In fact, as impressive of a dress as it is, I think it’d look better on Tip — I find the drone’s collorbones kinda distracting from the dress itself. (Disclaimer: I’m certainly no expert on dresses.)
>>I dunno about you, but I think Tip fits great into his dresses.<<
Agreed, but I'm still waiting for Tip to break out the water balloons again.
Some of his outfits would work better with cleavage (IMO)
(TUNE: “Prince Ali” from Disney’s Aladdin, Ashman & Menken)
Hey there! It’s Princess Nick!
Don’t stare! It’s Princess Nick!
What will I dare for the Little House?
And what will I wear? Not a skirt and blouse!
I’m saving the day, I can totes pull off this sock!
Hey, you! Little boar!
Would you please get the door?
Come on, it’s time to rock!
Princess Nick! Elegant chick!
Princess of Whimsy!
In a gown, cascading down,
Down to the floor!
Let ev’ryone take a glance!
My entrance now will entrance!
And all you boosters will scream and yell for more!
Princess Nick! Looking so slick!
Princess of Whimsy!
See these shoes? They’ll leave a bruise,
‘Cause I can kick!
I want no ifs, ands, or buts!
I’ll kick you right in the mutts!
‘Cause doorways nobody shuts
On Princess Nick!
In a dress made of silk that’s the best, here …
A tiara with rhinestones so thick …
Though’s there’s not too much milk on this chest here,
A small padded cup
Is pushing up,
Makes me look like a house of brick!
Princess Nick! Doing this shtick!
Princess of Whimsy!
So make haste, no time to waste,
Better move quick!
So come on, Treyfy, let’s go!
It’s time, we’re starting this show!
Now, like a princess I gotta behave,
And the Little House I’m gonna save!
But this parading
Is nauseating!
You dudes are making me sick!
Frog you! I’m Prin-cess Nick!
“Treyfy McGee.” Heh. Also, it confirms that Nick’s Jewish, if that wasn’t confirmed already.
I don’t get it, did we skip to Nick’s second attempt on the star chamber, with him giving 250%, or did “Treyfy McGee” confuse Nick with Tip.
Yeah, from about the point below forward about 4 strips or so. Link is purposely broken otherwise my post won’t appear. I’ve merely striped the http off the front.
skin-horse.com/2013/and-sometimes/
Does anyone else have long load times trying to connect to this site, even quite often getting the message it can’t connect or the connection was reset? It’s been like this for me ever since I first started reading it about a month or so ago….
A few months ago I had the same problem with this site for a while, but it’s gotten better recently. It still takes a few seconds to load but it’s not nearly as long a wait as it was, and it doesn’t fail to connect anymore. No idea what changed.
I had an issue a while ago with not being able to reach the main page, but the feed was fine. Also, going through archives the connection would suddenly skip out and I’d be unable to load anything. Now, the main page works, but will occasionally take ridiculously long load times. Closing out then opening again usually helps with anytime it can’t connect.
Technically, a Queen is “your majesty”. A princess is “Your highness”
I thought so myself at first, but a google search showed me that it depends on localization.
I JUST realized Nick called the pig Trayfy McGee because he’s Jewish and pigs aren’t kosher.
Although Cunningham is a robot and not an actual pig, so who knows?