on gender words

[egypturnash]

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****** (Today at 3:12:27PM) -- this occured to me.. is there a mental difference/distinction between being a dickgirl and guy with tits? i've seen "dickgirl" used, not just by you but in other places to refer to transgender MtF stuff.. does "titboy" mean anything? "titboi"? i'm mildly confused, and hopefully inoffensive.
*Done*
You quick-mail "There's *definitely* a difference between "dickgirl" and "titboy"! Think about it: one is a contraction of "a girl with a dick", while the other would be "a boy with tits". Which kinda obliviates the whole *social gender* aspect - if you called me a titboy, I'd be pretty peeved, because your choice of language is wholly ignoring the fact that *I am a girl*. I've never seen anyone use it. This is probably also why I prefer 'dickgirl' to 'shemale'; 'dickgirl' only has the proper gender assignment in it, while 'shemale' assigns both..." to ******

And "pussyboy" is similar, the other way around. Like "dickgirl", it succinctly says "I am this gender, but my genitals are the other set". I haven't really heard any other terms for FtMs yet. If anyone has, I'm curious.

Of course, my word is not Law. Every genderqueer person has their own preferences as to what they should be called, and may get absolutely horrified if you call them the Wrong Thing. Dickgirl/girl/woman are all fine for me; calling me an it or a sie or a he wil piss me off, unless you're someone I haven't come out to at all.

Comments

[lediva.livejournal.com]

I've never heard pussyboy used anywhere before PB. I mean, it makes perfect sense... but it was new to me.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

*nod* It might just be a coinage from outside. I think 'dickgirl' is probably reclaimed from pr0n, for that matter - a label imposed from without that I've decided to claim for myself.

I'm starting to make slight ventures into the trans society around LA; if I end up making any FtM friends I'll be sure to see what they've been called, and what they prefer. 'Pussyboy' has an element of insult in it, given that guys tend to call each other a 'pussy' for being cowardly - I can see not wanting to use it for that reason.

[martes.livejournal.com]

Just as long as you don't use "shi" or "hir." I always thought those were the dumbest terms.

In the comic I'm currently working on there'll be a character that's truely genderless (an artifical construct that has no sex organs of any sort) The people that don't like this person use the term "It," but most of the other people just default to "he." Unfortunately English has no gender neutral word except "it," which generally refers to an object or a creature where the gender is unknown.

In Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis trilogy they had to deal with a third gender, and usually defaulted to "it." She mentioned that Spanish has no real gender-nuetral term, so the Spanish-speakers had to use male or female terms, depending on how they felt.

[postrodent.livejournal.com]

Various people, usually on the cultural fringe, have tried to introduce neutral pronouns into English; I read an sf story awhile back that used ne/ner, and more recently some gender/queer/? activists started using "xe", which may be the term that's gained the widest acceptance, although admittedly usually only in academic and queer circles. I use "xe" to denote gender-neutrality on our muck, which at last count has representatives of at least a dozen genders, including he/she/it/xe, the controversial shi/hir, the alternate neuter form zie/zir, and a strange gender known as "music box", denoted with o/~e and o/~r. :)

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Sentences like

o/" tickles *r nose while o/" looks at (her). "What, you haven't met Mintanto yet? Zie's a wonderful person!"

are perfectly ordinary around Puzzlebox. n.n

I mostly read 'sie' as referring to hermaphrodites... if I identified as third-sex I might use it for myself rather than 'she'. But I identify more as "weird girl" than as "neither" or "both".

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't like sie/hir much either. Partially because they've become so associated, in the world of furry stuff, with giant shlongs and hooters. I've been using 'xie' a lot lately for 'indeterminate', though I haven't gotten to the point of just using it in casual RL conversation...

'It' definitely has an element of insult for me. 'It' is an object, not a person.

And then there's semi-textual games. I consistently refer to Twin as a '(she)', because (she)'s absolutely sexless, physically, but has an attitude and social role that's fairly female. I'm not sure how I'd indicate that in spoken English, if at all; the conceit on Puzzlebox is that at least half the characters are speaking languages completely alien to each other, and are all being auto-translated! (Usually, when I talk about Twin, I just say 'she' in a normal tone of voice, maybe a slight pause around it to suggest the parenthesis.)

Gender is weird shit.

[pathia.livejournal.com]

I've never had a problem with shi/hir, but.....
.
.
.
.
Then again, I have huge hooters and sometimes a giant shlong.

[sirius-achamoth.livejournal.com]

'It' is an object, not a person.

You mean... we're not objects?! Damn. I was getting so used to telling everyone my gender is toaster...

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Hey, if you want to be treated as an object, that's fine by me.

[sirius-achamoth.livejournal.com]

Oh, but it depends on what type of object, doesn't it? *snerk*

[403.livejournal.com]

'It' is an object, not a person.
You mean... we're not objects?! Damn. I was getting so used to telling everyone my gender is toaster...

Hee. Not applicable/it/they have worked well enough for me (elsewhere of course), but it's usually fairly simple to get across that one's playing a personified idea.

[koogrr.livejournal.com]

tomgrrl

just a note...

[milkpanzer.livejournal.com]

Last night on Taboo: Entertainment they were referring to the TS cabaret girls as 'ladyboys' which was a new one on me. It has the gender-assignment issue like you mention but otherwise I rather like the term. It doesn't have the masculine crudeness of having 'pussy', or 'tit' or 'dick' in the term. (Thought I rather fancy the term 'dickgirl' as you know ;)

Re: just a note...

[eselgeist.livejournal.com]

i think ladyboy is charming

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

Please please please make the first transgendered superhero duo, DickGirl and Pussyboy!

But what would their super powers be? Hmmm. Perhaps Pussyboy is tiny and meek but takes a syringe of testosterone and suddenly hulks out or gains amazing pubic hair ability! And ummm... Dickgirl's power could be.... Um... Cry... A lot! In fact whole gushing blasts of tears. Or perhaps she has some seduce pop-dancing related power... Hmm... I think I'm way too sober...

-Samantha

[kriscrash.livejournal.com]

Ha! My pussyboys would have, hmm, the power of mascare, or even better - macig labia. Go figure. And the dickgirls are big bad doms. http://www.deviantart.com/view/5972487/ nuff said ;)

[kriscrash.livejournal.com]

fneh. What also bothers me is when someone uses the term "hermaphrodite" for a dickgirl, when she doesn't have anything like female genitals at all. I mean sure, my hermaphrodites are probably impossible and such, but at least I tried...

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Yeah, "hermaphrodite" has both a general meaning of "someone who combines male and female" and "someone with male and female genitals". Both have history; I think the term originally comes from a story in Greek myth about a man and woman who were magically fused into one being, that was known as Hermaphrodite - a being who combined elements of Hermes, a rather masculine god, and Aphrodite, a decidedly female god.

(Which is why people who abbreviate "hermaphrodite" to "herm" always look a little silly. They don't know it, but they're abbreviating the female part right out of the word.)

And then medically, "hermaphrodite" refers to someone with a particular kind of in-betweenness - I'm not sure of the exact definition, and I really don't think going googling for "hermaphrodite" around work is a good idea.

And in modern fantasy art, "hermaphrodite" pretty much means "has penis, has vagina". Balls are an option, as is a functioning womb, and the exact placement of these bits varies (usually penis above vagina, sometimes vagina with cock-clit, very rarely vagina above penis), but being able to both give and recieve in genital-genital sex is a requirement.

These definitions are off the top of my head, and not backed up by immediate research, by the way. So I could be a little off.

I think that I qualify as a "hermaphrodite" under the oldest definition. So might an FtM. But in the current common use among people who fancy intergendered states... I don't. I'm a boy-with-tits or girl-with-dick, depending on how well I pass on a particular day, and how tied genitals are to gender in the viewer's mind.

[kriscrash.livejournal.com]

I know the greek myth. And yeah, that abbreviation is silly. Speaking of which, we have this perculiar statue of Hermes where I live, more or less portrayed as a pussyboy! And a woman's heel on one foot.

Google? Been there, done that. Regretted turning the kiddie filters off O_O But yeah, I nerd hardcore on the hermaphrodites... actually spend the time to imagine how the embryo could develope without specialising into any direction. Try to make a correct functional... but the result would probably still be sterile *shrugs*

I'm a bit curious about your dickgirlness - is it how you intend to stay or is there an operation around the corner? Just curious. I know it's usually a long process too and such.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

I'm never sure how well-grounded people are in myth.

For now, I seem to be pretty happy as a dickgirl. I seem to definitely be reading as female, which makes me happy; what's in the pants isn't an issue to me. I'm more interested in getting rid of the bulgy trachea and fixing the chin - it's manly enough that I hate it when I see the cleft.

Further down along the line, well, I'm more interested in looking less human but still feminine. Maybe I'll get a set of crotch-tentacles when the technology's there. It's all for fun anyway, why limit yourself to the basics? My hair's bright pink in real life; I've long since declared that I'm one of the freaks. I've got no problem being a freak when you shave my head and pull down my dress, too.

(repost and slight additions due to broken html)