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what questions do you have but don't feel you can ask trans people? (lemmy.blahaj.zone)

submitted 1 week ago by dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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Politeness norms seem to keep a lot of folks from discussing or asking their trans friends questions they have, I figured at the very least I could help try to fill the gap. Lemmy has a decent trans population who might be able to provide their perspectives, as well.

Mostly I'm interested in what people are holding back.

The questions I've been asked IRL:

why / how did you pick your name?
how long have you known?
how long before you are done transitioning?
how long do you have to be on HRT?
is transgender like being transracial?
what do the surgeries involve?

For the most part, though, I get silence - people don't want to talk about it, or are afraid to. A lot of times the anxiety is in not knowing how to behave or what would be offensive or not. Some people have been relieved when they learned all they needed to do is see me as my gender, since that became very simple and easy for them.

If there are trans people you know IRL, do you feel you can talk to them about it? Not everyone is as open about it as I am, and questions can be feel rude, so I understand why people would feel hesitant to talk to me, but even when I open the door, people rarely take the opportunity.

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[–] CanadaPlus 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Tribalism is ancient for sure. As is cultural bigotry. Hating people primarily do to skin colour and related features is a thing that specifically developed 1500-1700, as the trans-Atlantic slave trade got going (and needed to be rationalised).

When the Romans or Mesopotamians hated on their neighbors, it was over food preferences, language and customs. If they ascribed anything biological to it, the prevailing theory was more about response to the local climate than heredity. Then, once monotheism got going deviation from religious orthodoxy became the most popular way to hate. It's not a coincidence that "Slav" and "slave" sound similar, because pagan Slavic people were a major source of slave labour in medieval Europe. It drove the crusades, and it had a role in the early stages of expansion into the new world.

The first slave ship came to English North America in 1619, but the passengers were treated as normal indentures, and at least some became free later on. They kept coming, though, and by 1700 or so black people had to be slaves and that was pretty much it. (Colonial Spain had their own, somewhat divergent system a bit earlier)

The Romans had emperors drawn from Africa and the Middle East, and had conflict with Germanic and Celtic people that could easily have been Latin by appearance. The first sub-Saharan African in Japan was made a Samurai, and now there's a videogame about it. That's not to say the difference in appearance wasn't noticed or remarked upon (they tried to wash the dark off of Yasuke, and Heterodotus makes special note of the woolly hair and stature of the distant Africans) but in every pre-modern story I can think of it was gotten over quickly compared to other, behavioral things.

Anyway, I guess the point is just that there's been steps backwards as well. There would have to be, otherwise ignorance would have gone extinct over the millennia, right? Maybe it still will; we live in a totally transformed world now, but it's going to require continuous effort. Hate is always shifting and changing and evolving from things that might even have started off as harmless or positive (Jesus is less controversial than later Christians).