Comic for Friday, August 26th, 2016

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Shar
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Re: Comic for Friday, August 26th, 2016

#61 Post by Shar »

MuonNeutrino wrote:
Shar wrote:stuff
Just FYI Shar, and this is probably the cause of some of the confusion, you're using a very nonstandard set of terminology here. What you're calling 'gender' is what the everyone else calls 'sex' (i.e. the biological XX/XY or physical arrangement of bits), and what you're calling 'orientation' is what everyone else calls 'gender' (the mental identification as a male or female). ('Orientation' is usually used for 'who do you find attractive'.) So when you say that gender is fixed, it's very easy to think that you're denying the existence of transgender people, which... isn't likely to come across very well.

Huh....

I admit i couldn't understand why people were taking it so harshly when i wasnt really saying anything that different. My apologies to anyone who may have been insulted by my misuse of terms. That is simply how i have always heard those terms used.
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Lightice
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Re: Comic for Friday, August 26th, 2016

#62 Post by Lightice »

Shar wrote: You say that its as malleable as breed or species but really that only proves my point. If you have a pug it will remain a pug for the rest of its life. It will never change breed or species not will any other life-form within the span of a single generation.
Yes, and a transgendered person remains transgendered for the rest of their life, ditto for an intersexed person. They still very much exist, just as genuinely as those pugs of yours. There's a reason why medical procedures related to transgenderism are called "corrective surgery".

aitaituo
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Re: Comic for Friday, August 26th, 2016

#63 Post by aitaituo »

Lightice wrote:
Shar wrote: You say that its as malleable as breed or species but really that only proves my point. If you have a pug it will remain a pug for the rest of its life. It will never change breed or species not will any other life-form within the span of a single generation.
Yes, and a transgendered person remains transgendered for the rest of their life, ditto for an intersexed person. They still very much exist, just as genuinely as those pugs of yours. There's a reason why medical procedures related to transgenderism are called "corrective surgery".
...this is the more medically controversial position and the perceived hostility of the transgendered rights movement has largely silenced the doctors who disagree for fear of discrimination lawsuits. There are no bad guys here. There are patients who want to feel healthy and there are doctors who want to make their patients feel healthy. I don't see the value in declaring people permanently static.

Natani has grown.

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Re: Comic for Friday, August 26th, 2016

#64 Post by ReBob »

aitaituo wrote:
Lightice wrote:
Shar wrote: You say that its as malleable as breed or species but really that only proves my point. If you have a pug it will remain a pug for the rest of its life. It will never change breed or species not will any other life-form within the span of a single generation.
Yes, and a transgendered person remains transgendered for the rest of their life, ditto for an intersexed person. They still very much exist, just as genuinely as those pugs of yours. There's a reason why medical procedures related to transgenderism are called "corrective surgery".
...this is the more medically controversial position and the perceived hostility of the transgendered rights movement has largely silenced the doctors who disagree for fear of discrimination lawsuits. There are no bad guys here. There are patients who want to feel healthy and there are doctors who want to make their patients feel healthy. I don't see the value in declaring people permanently static.

Natani has grown.
This. I don't like how black and white this subject is taken on this forum, or how I perceive it's taken anyway.
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Re: Comic for Friday, August 26th, 2016

#65 Post by amenon »

If people are going to discuss the topic, I would like to see more self-contained position statements and less ambiguous reactions to other people's ambiguous statements :P

It seems really likely to me now that Natani will remain predominantly male, and it would probably behoove some people to start dealing with that. Or at least start laying the groundwork, just in case you run out of excuses for good.

Open question to anyone calling Natani a 'her', that cares to take it: What would it take to get you to change?

Open question to anyone calling Natani a 'him', that cares to take it: What would it take to get you to change? (And my answer: For Natani to change.)
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Hayate
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Re: Comic for Friday, August 26th, 2016

#66 Post by Hayate »

amenon wrote:Open question to anyone calling Natani a 'her', that cares to take it: What would it take to get you to change?
Up until recently I have been calling Natani a 'her', though I have been trending towards neutral pronouns as they seemed more appropriate to me lately. I've been waiting for the whole link and Zen's influence on her mind thing to be resolved before I started calling Nat anything other than 'they'. Now that Natani knows the truth, I'm interested to see how they behave. If Natani still pursues being male then that's what I'll go with. I still think there is some femininity in Natani though, and I wish they didn't see it in such a negative way because females are strong too.
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amenon
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Re: Comic for Friday, August 26th, 2016

#67 Post by amenon »

Hayate wrote:I still think there is some femininity in Natani though, and I wish they didn't see it in such a negative way because females are strong too.
I think we'll get to see a Natani that's okay with / not embarrassed by his impulses for sure. That's like the one thing that has to happen, no matter what. Might still be some pain before he gets there, but... for sure.
SperoWolf wrote:If she ends her confusion with the realization that she is a male, I will refer to her as a male.
Why is he still confused? What does ending the confusion look like?
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Re: Comic for Friday, August 26th, 2016

#68 Post by Warrl »

amenon wrote:
SperoWolf wrote:If she ends her confusion with the realization that she is a male, I will refer to her as a male.
Why is he still confused? What does ending the confusion look like?
While Natani has been confused several times in this comic, I don't recall a point where I thought he was the least bit confused about either his sex (female) or his gender (male).

The mismatch between the two has been an occasional cause of confusion - mostly very mild confusion, except during estrus.

As to the hypothetical question: Natani to embrace being female, in at least moderate preference to being male. Which is a state Natani was not in even prior to the incident, according to Young!Natani, so seems distinctly improbable. Although he could embrace it part-time, genderfluid, in which case I would switch back and forth between male and female pronouns to match the apparent current preference.

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Re: Comic for Friday, August 26th, 2016

#69 Post by Ddraig »

amenon wrote:Open question to anyone calling Natani a 'her', that cares to take it: What would it take to get you to change?

Open question to anyone calling Natani a 'him', that cares to take it: What would it take to get you to change?
My impression is that, while she isn't strictly/only female, she only insists on "I'm a man, dammit!" because she doesn't want to be seen as what she associates with femininity and being partway there only makes it easier to justify the assertion to herself. I dislike using "they" etc. because they still feel like plural words and not singular (despite having educated myself on their exact definition recently) and I have yet to see her crushing over any females in any way similar to how she likes Keith.
For me to change my pronoun use, I guess that impression would have to change.

Related question: has it been proven possible, other than theoretically I mean, for someone to (non-jokingly) be a 'gay man in a woman's body' or vice versa? I could see it being real, but I've never heard of such a thing except in jest, but I'm also not very educated on the topic.
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Re: Comic for Friday, August 26th, 2016

#70 Post by SirJahar »

As to the question of Natani's pronoun, it would take Natani calmly stating, after this has happened, that they want to be thought of as male. Now that it would be from genuine personal identity rather than not wanting to be percevedas weak.

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Re: Comic for Friday, August 26th, 2016

#71 Post by MuonNeutrino »

amenon wrote:Open question to anyone calling Natani a 'him', that cares to take it: What would it take to get you to change?
Basically, for Natani to decide that he prefers a different pronoun.

For a long time I used female pronouns for Natani without really thinking about it. I don't know any transgendered people personally, and it wasn't a topic I had given much thought to before, so initially it never even occurred to me that I might *not* use female pronouns. I had seen some here on the forums using male pronouns, but it took a while for that to 'click' with me and realize that it might actually be important to some people. (I can be... a bit slow on the uptake sometimes. :oops:) I still continued using female pronouns for a while, but eventually I had to admit that I was doing it out of a bit of emotional discomfort with the idea rather than simply inertia or convenience as I tried to tell myself. I decided that I needed to sit down and think carefully about the whole topic of transgenderism and how I wanted to think about it, and eventually I decided that I really should use male pronouns instead.

Essentially, my personal position is that you can argue this entire topic up one side, down the other, across the floor, and up the first side again and you're never going to come to any real *ironclad* conclusions that will convince everyone. And that goes double for a fictional universe where the situation has some significant (and occasionally ill-defined) differences from real-world transgenderism. And so I personally think that the only real justifiable reason to go one way or the other is the preferences of the person involved. Gender - as in, 'what do you feel?' - is by definition a mental construct, and it's *their* mind, after all. And really, what is it that makes us a *person* if not our mind? If the mind/soul/whatever that we call 'Natani' considers itself to be male - for whatever reason, conscious choice or otherwise - then what grounds do we have to claim otherwise? To use a possibly silly analogy, if someone says they feel sad, is it reasonable to tell them that they must be wrong and can't possibly feel that way?

And so, in my book it comes down to pretty much the simplest possible question - 'what do *you* think you are?' And so far, Natani has expressed that he considers himself to be male. I don't care *why* he thinks of himself that way, because ultimately I don't think it *matters* why. If he thinks of himself as male, then he is. If he decides that he wants to think of himself differently, then I'll use different pronouns.
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Re: Comic for Friday, August 26th, 2016

#72 Post by ReBob »

amenon wrote: Open question to anyone calling Natani a 'him', that cares to take it: What would it take to get you to change? (And my answer: For Natani to change.)
Natani would have to change how he refers to himself. I've never been sold on the whole transgender thing (don't bother, I've read all the posts brought up in comic threads since joining [especially the last few] and there's harsher things I still question. PC is a fad), but if someone chooses to be called something then it's just a word in the end. What matters is the person, which for the record if Raine didn't exist then Natani would still be the best character in this comic.

You know, I still question if I even belong here considering my very different stance on social issues from most of you. It's strange and probably why I stick to comic discussion.
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Re: Comic for Friday, August 26th, 2016

#73 Post by Warrl »

Ddraig wrote:has it been proven possible, other than theoretically I mean, for someone to (non-jokingly) be a 'gay man in a woman's body' or vice versa? I could see it being real, but I've never heard of such a thing except in jest, but I'm also not very educated on the topic.
I'm not sure what you're asking. Given that the person was born with female genitalia but has a male gender identity, are you asking if the person can be sexually attracted to men? Or to women?

I think it's pretty well established that gender identity and sexual orientation don't have a strong correlation.

Jocelyn, the author/artist of Rain, is a transwoman (the comic is currently on hiatus as she recovers from sexual reassignment surgery) and on at least one occasion there was a comment post from her wife Kelly. Jocelyn herself most recently mentioned Kelly in June of this year, not long before the hiatus began. And yes, they both use the term "wife".

Also, Alexander James Adams had a husband, whom I met a couple times at Norwescon, before transitioning (he was formerly Heather Alexander, and I like her music and voice better than his), but I have no clue regarding his current relationship status.

Unfortunately I don't know very many trans folks that I'm aware of, so I don't have an example in the other direction.

People in between... I can absolutely certify that gender-neutral folks are not all neutral in sexual orientation. From personal experience. (Are some of them neutral? Probably. I dunno.)

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Shar
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Re: Comic for Friday, August 26th, 2016

#74 Post by Shar »

amenon wrote:If people are going to discuss the topic, I would like to see more self-contained position statements and less ambiguous reactions to other people's ambiguous statements :P

It seems really likely to me now that Natani will remain predominantly male, and it would probably behoove some people to start dealing with that. Or at least start laying the groundwork, just in case you run out of excuses for good.

Open question to anyone calling Natani a 'her', that cares to take it: What would it take to get you to change?
It would take her actual sex to change. I am a very analytical person, if she changes to a male biologically than i will acknowledge her as male. Biology is the only factor i personally see as relevant in the matter so if that changed then i would acknowledge it.
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Re: Comic for Friday, August 26th, 2016

#75 Post by Warrl »

Shar wrote:
amenon wrote:If people are going to discuss the topic, I would like to see more self-contained position statements and less ambiguous reactions to other people's ambiguous statements :P

It seems really likely to me now that Natani will remain predominantly male, and it would probably behoove some people to start dealing with that. Or at least start laying the groundwork, just in case you run out of excuses for good.

Open question to anyone calling Natani a 'her', that cares to take it: What would it take to get you to change?
It would take her actual sex to change. I am a very analytical person, if she changes to a male biologically than i will acknowledge her as male. Biology is the only factor i personally see as relevant in the matter so if that changed then i would acknowledge it.
Canonically in-comic, the soul is relevant and that's what was damaged in Natani's case.

Real-world, I'm amazed at the number of people who want the question to be strictly determined by biology/anatomy but seem unwilling to include the brain.

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