A better term than “Male to Female” is Maab trans* (Male Assigned At Birth) or DMAB trans* (Designated Male at Birth). On their own, neither M/FAAB nor DM/FAB indicate a trans* person, but MtF and FtM have been criticized because it indicates that genitals are important to gender identity. Another reason that M/FaaB and DM/FaB are more widely used by the trans* community is because both terms include non-binary trans* people AND intersex people. (Trans* with an asterisk also indicates that you’re dealing with the trans* umbrella, not just transgender people.)
Personally i think Maab etc is appropriate more for when you don’t know what would go at the end of MtBLAH etc, otherwise use the term appropriate. I know i prefer MtF, but then again whatever terminology the person referred to prefers is the correct one xD
There is never a good idea to self identify with anyone else than yourself. Each and every case of human personality/sexuality/philosophy/religion/politics is uniquely different. I feel by appropriating a generic term for any of them, you “lose” part of yourself and what makes you you, and stand the risk of letting your personal feeling and thoughts being automatically decided for you just because the group you choose to identify with have taken a collective stance towards an issue. But just because you may have a lot of common with a certain group of people, doesn’t mean that you now suddenly ARE those people. I think too much focus today has been put on the whole “self identifying” thing, as in identifying with someone else. It is a good thing to identify yourself, of course, but look at it more as a catch-all phrase that partly describes you, and be aware that others may have entirely different opinions on what that phrase or word actually MEANS.
And neither religion, politics or sexuality are that imporant. The important things are how you treat yourself, how you treat others, and that you know what you like and don’t like.
@NightRaven … Except those aren’t the only things that matter. What about how others treat you. Or how you want to be treated. Or what you want people to know about you when entering into a dialogue or relationship.
Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world where every human sees every other human as a blank slate with no labels attached. More often than not, somebody is going to look at you an assume something about your gender, sexuality, race, identity.
You are right that no label is perfect, and some people may choose not to self-identify with one label or another or any labels at all. And that is fine, and I respect that choice! But because a thing is unimportant to one person does not mean it is unimportant to others…
Indeed. As long as nothing is said with malice I’m pretty forgiving if people don’t know what I prefer. I personally find MtF to be easy to use and comprehend.
That is kind of how I’ve viewed everything my whole life. The words are not necessarily the most important thing. The way those words are said has always been much more important to me. The slang/meanings of words are always changing but you can almost always tell if the feeling behind something is judgemental/rude/just plain mean, regardless of what they actually said.
I usually just use “trans,” if that level of classification is necessary- or if I really have to be specific I say transwoman. For day-to-day I just say I’m a woman. ‘Cause I am one.
Well, Genital Are important for gender identity. I mean, if it weren’t, Trans wouldn’t desire to change them in the first place. Genital are important for gender identity because many trans actually desire to modify them so that the gender of their genital fit the gender of their brain. It’s kind of a big issue.
Not really. I know at least one individual who identifies as a female, yet entirely happy with her male genitalia. I’m lead to understand that such a thing is not entirely uncommon. Identity itself is not just about your physical self. You can be ambivalent about it or even prefer the form that is opposite to your gender identity. Hence the comment that starts this branch of discussion.
On the other hand, there are Trans who will kill themselves for not being born with the right set of genital. Seriously, the Trans Community is the one with one of the highest ratio of suicide (tough it’s also due to rejection by the family/community, but also caused by the feeling of body inadequacy).
So saying the gender of the genital is not important is far from being true for everyone.
Of course. But it’s not a contradiction with the above. Nobody said that genitals are never a factor. Just that a label which implies that they always are is misleading. So long as we accept the fact that there are exceptions either way, presented argument against MtF label follows.
Though, I would argue that any label is going to have such problems, but that’s a separate discussion. As somebody said earlier, whatever label an individual uses to self-identify, I’m happy with that.
As a non-op trans woman, I can definitely agree with K^2’s statements. Genital importance varies wildly in our community, from those who absolutely cannot stand the anatomy they were born with to people like me, who are totally fine with it, and had other issues with the sex they were assigned at birth.
Also, for the record, “trans” is an adjective (usually modifying man/woman/person or similar), not a noun. Referring to us as “a trans” or just “trans” in a manner such as in “…there are trans who…” is incorrect and potentially very offensive, depending on who you’re dealing with, because it is dehumanizing. We are trans women and trans men, along with the many shades of nonbinary trans people, not transwomen, transmen, or transpeople.
^ “trans people” seems rather redundant, as we are all people. Hence why ‘trans’ is winning out in common parlance.
Not quite an adjective, really. Mostly because ‘trans’ isn’t a proper word in English, but slang – shorthand for that matter. Since it doesn’t have long-established parameters fencing it in, people tend to use it as they -think- is appropriate.
Funny thing though – the more it gets used a certain way, the more accepted it becomes by the general speaking public, which in turn may eventually lead to it becoming a official word fitting the perception most hold of it.
This is how a shorthand adjective can in time become a proper noun. It’s not there yet officially, but as far as most people are concerned, it is already there.
TL;DR: In common parlance “trans” = (newly formed) noun , “transgendered” = adjective.
1) “Not quite an adjective, really. Mostly because ‘trans’ isn’t a proper word in English, but slang – shorthand for that matter.”
Whether or not something is slang has no bearing on its usable syntax.
“Trans” is short for “transgender” (not “transgendered” by the way – it’s not a verb), which if you look it up in most any dictionary, turns out to be an adjective, not a noun. As a shortened version of the word, it shares the same syntactical significance and should thus be (and most commonly is) used as an adjective.
2) Yes, that is an explanation of how slang is incorporated into the “official” language pool, but you should listen to your own explanation. I don’t know where you got the idea that those are the “common parlance” terms – any dictionary (including urban dictionary – a slang hub) will show you the adjective definition of “trans” as a shortening of “transgender”.
3) You’re missing the main point here.
Syntactical significance, slang evolving into “official language,” and all else aside…
Calling someone “a trans” is offensive and is often used in a derogatory context. The poster before you clearly pointed this out, but you ignored their primary argument. The word “fag” is also a shorthand noun that has been accepted into common use. Does that mean it’s okay to use it regularly to refer to gay people? Nope! Because it’s offensive. Just because something is syntactically significant doesn’t mean you should use it.
There really is no hard and fast rule regarding the gender you identify as and the type of plumbing you keep between your legs, though many people in all sides of the Gender Identity Clusterfuck™ do try to assign rules! Take me, for example. Physically male, by preference bisexual, and by mentality somewhere between androgynous and hermaphroditic. I don’t know if that makes me generic genderqueer, or just strange, since all my “gender variances” are strictly internal.
I don’t think I have a mental gender either. I like girls and I’m physically male, and that’s always been my definition of straight male, but if that’s not accurate, I might as well be a lesbian woman. And if you believe in re-incarnation, who can say how many times I might have been and will be again female?
Since there are no real futa irl, I’ve pretty much just went with ‘pansexual’ and called it a day. As for ‘internal gender variance’ – it’s a clusterfuck of rainbows, kittens, explosions and blood in there.
It all mixes into a hot gooey mess that is my psyche.
To clarify: I’d be most attracted to futa, then women, then a very few select men. I’m not saying I’d be a futa… though… now that I mention it… excuse me, my penis is calling.
Also: “real […] irl” is redundant. Mah bad, it’s late.
just chiming in a couple days late to say that actually, whether or not genitals are important depends on the trans* person. I’m trans* and have no issue with my genitals. A dear friend of mine is trans* and as deep issues with dysphoria. It varies from person to person.
As a transman, I disagree that FtM/MtF are used solely to refer to genitalia. Personally, I would say “female to male” would refer to my life experiences and what I “lived as”. Whether I like it or not (obviously I don’t) I have experiences of living and being viewed as female, and that has been a large influence in shaping who I am.
But I’m more or less the opposite of “active in the trans* community”, so that’s just my thoughts.
Choosing to go by a female alias doesn’t necessarily tell us that they suffer from gender dysphoria or what their gender identity is, however, so I’m not assuming one thing or another about J. Brown the Second Child just yet.
Yup! My fiance was given it a year ago, and at the time I believe it was quite new. It’s mostly used for the internet and to fuel his Angry Birds obsession- amusingly, I don’t think we’ve ever actually read a book on it.
The lack of alt text is a downer, but at least I can read stuff as he works or studies.
Better, but as someone who’s been exposed to (…okay, this is gonna sound awkward but I’m low on both sugar and caffiene) this sorta thing for probably 15 years now, I can’t say I’ve ever heard any of those terms you use, so they might take a little more time to catch on.
For now, MtF / FtM is a reasonable descriptor is it not? It describes both their birth assignment and/or naturally expressed phenotype, and their mental gender / surgically and artificial-hormonally target/acquired phenotype in one easily written and understood package.
That said, I’m still confused here. Either we’re dealing with, ahem, a MaaB sibling who still fronts up as a male “Joshua” to their parents, but is actually Jocelyne in private/on the quiet – which I think is more likely* – or FaaB who was originally named Jocelyne but now passes for male, as “Josh”, full time.
* Clues: Parents and presumably Joyce also “don’t know very much”, and call “him” Josh, and accept the presented male (if still a touch effeminate – enough to trip Ethan’s gaydar) outlook without protest; and the site that s/he texted to Ethan – in preference to saying it out loud in front of Joyce – bears a generally female name…
Since Joyce mentioned she was the only girl in one comic or the other, I’m’a go with ‘a MaaB sibling who still fronts up as a male “Joshua” to their parents, but is actually Jocelyne in private/on the quiet’ too
well, it’s important to not feel like one term is superior to another, especially if that superiority is based in length of time of use of said term. we’re always coming up with better descriptors, we humans, and it’s typically the people who those labels affect that decide, and that get to decide, not cisgendered people like myself! of course I do not know how you identify, but I am always trying to keep up on the kindest terminology out there to have as few barriers of communication between myself and those around me, in general!
You know, I’m sympathetic to LGBTQ/”Alphabet Soup” issues, but maybe inventing and teaching a complicated new glossary of artificial PC vocabulary isn’t the best way to earn mainstream support.
Support shouldn’t have to be “earned.” People should be treated like people, regardless of their preferred lexicon. Heck, even if a group consists entirely of total jerks, they should still be treated like people, and that’s way worse than having a complex set of terminology to describe, as accurately as possible, one’s identity.
There’s a reason certain parts of the queer community use “ally” disparagingly.
If your criteria for granting people basic human rights is that they bend over backwards to make your life easier, then I can’t bring myself to care about what you think.
It’s not about bending over backwards to do anything. The main reason for most prejudices is a lack of understanding. If you’re introducing so many terms and phrases that it seems like trying to read an advanced coding textbook and even trans* people often get lost, you’re not fostering understanding. By making it much harder to understand, you’re making it harder for the prejudice to die.
I never understood the need for fifteen different phrases. I am a man. I am also transsexual. If I ever need to explain this to someone (which seldom happens because it’s not their business), I call myself “a transsexual man”. People can identify with whatever label fits them, but if you want people to understand and accept aspects of you, you have to communicate in a way they can understand.
If your criteria for effective communication is accusing anyone that fails to perfectly digest your confusing, constantly changing, and inconsistent lexicon of terms as being homophobic, then I can’t bring myself to care about what you think either, Toad. But I’ll continue to try to make the world a better place despite your efforts to make it worse.
My point was not that the trans* lexicon, such as it is, is a shining example of effective communication. My point was that one ought not use effective communication as the metric by which to measure how many human rights are deserved. Refusing to support a minority group because they use confusing words is a pretty shitty example of “making the world a better place.”
You are arguing against a point I didn’t make, TPRJones. I never said that people who don’t perfectly use the language considered currently appropriate are homophobic or transphobic. I did say that refusing to support the cause of gay/queer/trans rights because they use too many acronyms, or are annoying sometimes, or whatever, is awful.
If you think a human rights cause is just, then you should support it. (At least passively; I don’t demand that anyone go out and protest for every single cause they theoretically support.) If every single member of some group was a total jerk, and they were being denied human rights, I’d still support them. That people think being confusing is a reasonable rationale for denying people rights is pretty disgusting.
And just as equally you are arguing against a point I didn’t make, Toad. I never said that people who are unwilling to use effective communication don’t deserve human rights and equality under the law. I did say that if you throw a raging hissy fit every time someone doesn’t use exactly the right term you have chosen for yourself rather than attempt to actually communicate with them about these things they don’t understand, then you aren’t going to be changing anyone’s minds that way.
@TPRJones: Then you are arguing against a point I didn’t make. If you read the post of mine you initially responded to, you will see that I was objecting to people holding their “ally” status hostage over minority groups behaving the way they think they should. If you don’t disagree with me on that point, then why did you throw a “hissy fit” over a point I didn’t make? Remember, you responded disparagingly to me in the first place, not the other way around.
Actually I was defending stevecharb’s point that winning support by attacking someone for failing to understand complex and relatively arbitrary terminology is not a practical expectation. Neither he nor I said that it was therefor valid to treat people as less than human, that was your assumption that you added – rather insultingly, I might add – to the conversation.
Clearly this is getting us nowhere. I give up. You go ahead and keep shitting on everyone around you and hoping that might make them change their minds. Good luck with that.
There’s a lot of words for trans people. There’s also a lot of words for angry people. There are a lot of words for happy people. Communicating well means learning a large vocabulary, period.
@TPRJones: stevecharb’s original post said nothing about anyone being attacked; it was specifically about “inventing and teaching” a bunch of terms. Your initial response to my criticism was sarcasm. You quickly escalated to claiming that I was actively trying to make the world a worse place, throwing a hissy fit, and shitting on everyone around me. I fail to see how that makes me the one who’s being insulting. (Or, for that matter, the one behaving as you claimed I was.)
I said that it was not acceptable to treat people as less than human for describing themselves in a complex manner. I did not even say that stevecharb said that it was acceptable. When you angrily disagreed with my post, I assumed you therefore disagreed with the contents of that post, and responded accordingly.
If your ‘support’ is unable to include the learning of a few terms, it may be a good idea to re-evaluate the value you think those communities should assign to it.
Its not a few terms though. Its an inconsistent ever changing dictionary of terms, some of which are preferred by some while others are seen as offensive by the same community. I can deal with individual people, but I can’t deal with the trans ‘community’ because I can’t get through their layers of terminology. Even my transsexual friends have problems with what the term of the week is, and the ‘community’ can apparently get pretty caustic about it even with trans* people.
I call people whatever they identify as, provided they stay within the boundaries of english (xie is stupid). I do not care what is in their pants, unless its of burning importance to them that I know, and then I usually tell them Id rather not have known.
That’s a fine complaint. The terminology is inconsistent and confusing. That’s an issue that should be addressed. Denying a group your support because its members can’t agree on what they want to be called is pretty atrocious. People aren’t taking umbrage with someone saying “your usage of terms is confusing;” the problem is that people hold their “ally” status hostage over it. Phrases like “you’re making it really hard for me to support you right now!” and “if you want me to support you, you should just make it less confusing for me” are all too common. Being confused is acceptable; no one denies that the lexicon has gotten a bit confusing. Denying a group of people fundamental human rights because they all describe themselves with different acronyms is pretty messed up.
“….the problem is that people hold their “ally” status hostage over it.” You’ve spelled out something which has often bothered me about these arguments without me quite being able to put my finger on it. Thanks! (And actually, most LGBTQ etc people I know seem pretty tolerant of well-intentioned fumblings with the terminology. Though that could just be low expectations.)
“Phrases like “you’re making it really hard for me to support you right now!” and “if you want me to support you, you should just make it less confusing for me” are all too common”
Well, that’s just people being assholes. Tell them to stop being assholes.
Look, it doesn’t matter who a person is, they deserve equal rights under the law and the opportunity to pursue their own life goals as best they can. If someone will not support the rights of even their worst and most hated enemy, then they have failed at freedom and clearly don’t understand the basic responsibilities of being a citizen. Or maybe they are just douche-nozzles. That’s also possible.
All that having been said, all too many times I’ve seen some poor schmuck who doesn’t understand LGBTQ issues but is trying to be supportive being viciously attacked because he used the wrong pronoun. If he’s not a douche he’s not going to then “withdraw support” because he would know that even assholes deserve equality. But he’s less likely to actively go out of his way to champion the cause than he was before.
Some people in the trenches of this war need to realize that attacking everyone indiscriminately when they don’t use the proper gender passwords of the week doesn’t make things better.
Sure, TPRJones, I’ll agree with you on those points. I was writing about the assholes who like to imagine they’re paragons of tolerance while demanding that queer people do XYZ thing in order for them to be willing to support them. I suspect you read my criticism of those people as a criticism of genuinely well-meaning but confused allies.
TRPJones has it dead on.
Toad, you’re missing the fundamental problem, which is that yes, it’s one thing if someone says “hey, I prefer you call me ____” but it’s total complete asshattery to blow up at people who make an assumption that would be valid 97% of the time when you haven’t even told them in the first place. Being part of a minority group does not, last time I checked, confer powers of telepathic projection (if it does, mine must’ve got lost in the mail, the jerks), so it’s really illogical to expect other people to know every nuance of our existence.
@Ash: I agree with everything in your post except the part where you implied that I ever disagreed with anything you just said. Honest mistakes are just that, honest mistakes, and should be treated as such. Demanding that queer people stick to the terms that straight people prefer to make it easier on “allies” is what I was taking exception to in my posts.
Oh, and I’m going to assume that you have no objection to “google” being used as a term for “internet search,” so why is “xe” any different? Language changes. Some language is intentionally invented. Some of it occurs “organically.” None of it is passed down from like, mischievous river spirits or something.
It’s no hardship to you to call someone “xe” instead of “it,” if they specifically ask you to, so why not?
“xe”? I’m sorry, but there’s new English terms and then there’s faux-Mandarin. Language can only be organic, otherwise people won’t use it. You can’t actually impose a set of terms onto others –
because only they have the power to use them or not.
A word that only a handful know of is slang and therefore unimportant. If people use it enough it MIGHT become an official term, sure, but that’s unlikely to happen if you construct something that is not pleasing to the ear of a speaker of sed language – in this case English.
In other words “xe” sounds stupid, therefore it will not gain large acceptance, hence it will not be an effective tool of communication.
It can be a masturbatory aid if you so choose, but I was of the strange impression you’d rather want to confer an idea, not just hear words you like more.
I *don’t* think that’s what people are saying, though. It’s not that we’re unwilling to learn. It’s that we’re often taught a set of terms, and then when we use those terms down the road, we’re suddenly hit in the face with “Don’t say that like that! It’s offensive!” Some people are flexible and mature enough not to be upset when someone comes at them like that, but most people would be understandably upset if they were trying to be non-offensive and someone said “You are being offensive” when they were using the words that they were taught to say.
A learning moment can be handled much better than infodumping a new set of rules onto an unsuspecting person. Like, “You know, Male to Female *did* used to be the broadly-accepted term, but since then, a lot of us have been switching over to ‘male assigned at birth’ because of x y z reasons. But a lot of transpersons use different descriptors based on what they feel comfortable with!”
You might not be saying that, but some people do and are. Lots of “allies” base their support on whether or not queer people are nice to them, and use it as some sort of perverse bribe. “If you behave well, I’ll help you get human rights.” That is a separate issue from language being confusing.
And if you think it’s upsetting to be told that something you said is hurtful, just imagine how it feels to constantly be on the receiving end of that, along with constant misgendering, intentional or not, and with a few blatantly hurtful slurs thrown in now and again. Cis folk are the majority. We have it better than trans* folk, in this instance, no matter how confused we might be. (And before anyone says anything, that doesn’t mean that any given cis person is better-off than any given trans* person, just that, all else being equal, being cisgender confers a certain level of privilege.)
Actually, behaving well SHOULD be the basis on which you get ANY ‘rights’ (socially, not legally – though personally I’d run with legally as well, but suppose too few would qualify then to actually
form a country).
As a matter of fact, the worse of a person you are to others, the worse you DESERVE to be treated in turn. That’s got nothing to do with any self-identification, that’s just basic common sense.
What you just sed reeks of self-importance.
See, the really funny thing here is you got ME to act in a less-then-hospitable manner when I’m usually the one to def end queers/trans/etc, but in this case you don’t seem like the kind of person that I’d find amiable, therefore I won’t act friendly to you.
The problems you mentioned seem to be more caused by sed people being unlikeable, rather then them belonging to any minority.
The terminology keeps changing, though, and there are a couple dozen different competing ideas of how to describe people whose bodies don’t match their souls, all of which seem to have emerged in the past decade or so. Some are so bizarre, they’re barely recognizable as English. If I use the “wrong” one, I’ll be treated like a jerk.
I always make a good effort to be equally kind and respectful to people regardless of who or what they are, even when I have to go out of my comfort zone, and I stand up to those who condemn or mock people because they are different. I do this not for praise, nor for necessity; I do it because it is right.
I will persist in doing the right thing even if you call me a jerk for using a word that was politically correct within five years ago (doesn’t mean you should).
But good luck convincing Joe Sixpack to turn his prejudices around with this strategy.
I’d vehemently argue that anyone calling someone else a jerk for not using the word they want you to use has something stuck up his arse somethin’ fierce (note: as long as it’s not obviously
a slur).
Also, overly PC-ish terms are bullshit. Feel free to use them in your own community if you like, but don’t shove them down other peoples throats.
Weather I use ‘trans’, ‘xe’, ‘MAAB’ etc should make no difference if I’m sharing a beer with you.
Likewise, if I’m punching you in the dick, me using the term you like more won’t make your dick any less punched.
The “standard” terms simply do not describe trans* people. It’s not that trans* people want to make you learn new phrases for the hell of it – its that, to describe themselves, they have had to discover and develop new phrases. To think that they are artificial and “PC” is like saying to someone who is Hispanic or Asian “so, are you black or white? Cos those are the only races.”
Only… Hispanic and Asian ARE arbitrary and PC terms, and ALSO simplifies things to the point of uselessness. There are [large number] different Hispanic countries all over the world, just as there are [even larger number] Asian countries. These people have very little in common, other than a shared cultural/racial heritage at an arbitrary point in time. (Arbitrary, in that if you count from the beginning, we are all the same race as are the amoebas ) . Ultimately terms are meaningless, it is what you put in them that gives them meaning. I would say details and anecdotes are more useful in communicating than new terminology.
“a shared cultural/racial heritage” – there you go, that’s why it’s not quite a worthless term.
Also I’d add “general geographical region of origin” to
why the terms are actually useful.
I’d rather call someone ‘Japanese’ over ‘Asian’, as it confers more information – but if I only have visual data on them, I can make some usually valid assumptions if the context doesn’t contradict such.
I agree with you up to a point. But I learnt the names of 150 pokemon when I was 7, and the three trans people I’ve talked to were totally fine with asking what pronouns to use, just like the tumblr posts said.
Oh god what did I start. Okay first off MtF here, second off basically I said that Maab Faab are in my opinion better for when you don’t know what the person identifies as but that what ever they want to be called is the correct term.
FtM here, I agree with Night Raven, terms get way too political and don’t actually mean anything once they get to the point they have. If you want a technical argument, you don’t know what someone was assigned at birth unless you have their birth certificate, so, major flaw right there. Just call someone what they present as. If you get it wrong, and they tell you, then correct yourself in the future. The terms __t___ and __aab, they’re only necessary in a specifically trans context, as in, they convey information about the person’s gender identity and sexual construction, and really only mean anything if you’re talking about health concerns or social/legal questions in a situation specifically regarding transgender issues.
See, I’m fortunate enough to have an understanding family, and I’ve been around my share of bigots, but the single biggest problem I had to (and still have to) overcome regarding my trans identity is this bullshit about labels and political correctness. I have been told I’m not trans enough, I’ve been told I’m not allowed to talk about certain things, or share my experience, or that my identity put other people down, when in reality, it’s the PC crusaders who put everyone else down and try to make everyone conform to their idea of transgender identity. Hardcore Christians have said I’m abnormal, but it’s LGBT activists who send me death threats.
I’ve been pretty much living in reddit’s LGBT (mostly T) groups for a half a year now – for the obvious reason someone would start hanging out on T related forums – and MtF and FtM are by far the most common terms used by people to describe themselves. The community there uses trans and trans* as general nouns for themselves and the community as a whole with no one there seeing such use as offensive or dehumanizing. MAAB/FAAB come out a bit, but I’ve never once heard anyone use DMAB/DFAB, and I haven’t seen anyone in the community indicate that MtF or FtM has any connotation of reducing someone’s identity to their genitals, or dividing trans* people into categories of “need to change their plumbing” vs “OK with original equipment”.
Is the reddit transgender community very different from the rest of the transgender community? I live in a small community without much face-to-face contact, so online is pretty much all the exposure I’ve had so far.
I mean, I don’t like the term FtM b/c I feel like it implies that at some point I was female, and I know a few trans people who feel the same. But that’s not everybody, so if someone identifies with that than they should absolutely feel free to use it. The term itself is not bad, some people just have reasons not to use it.
Tumblr community generally uses dmab/dfab, and there i never heard maab/faab. And FtM and MtF are falling out of practice because they are too binary I think, that’s all.
I mean, generally people just use ‘she/her’/’he/him’/’they/them’ to indicate gender, dmab/dfab is just for when it’s relevant to the discussion at hand.
Oh, and dmab/dfab or maab/faab are better when FtM/MtF when you actually want to include cis people with it. Like ‘dfab people get inferior health care compared to dmab people’.
… MtF and “not gay”… so totally into Ethan? Oh yeah. Now Ethan’s *really* confused. Nice thing about being pansexual: not giving a shit about the inward / outward gender of a potential lover. Nice thing about being married: not giving a shit about anybody else’s anything.
Ethan is currently into her, obviously. We have no way of knowing
A) If she intends to physically transition, or to what extent
B) If Ethan would continue to feel attraction to her if she did
Assuming either piece of information would be pretty presumptuous.
There’s also a matter of whether or not Ethan is attracted to bodies or people. There are cisgendered gay men who would date a trans*woman and there are cisgendered gay men who would not, but would gladly date a trans*man. It depends, person-to-person, on how much of their attraction is based on romantic attraction and how much is based on physical attraction. Some people have a different sexual orientation to their romantic orientation, and some do not. Some people are largely driven by romantic attraction and some are largely driven by sexual attraction. The next step largely depends on who Ethan is in this equation.
Transgendered people actually have a pretty high quota of gays (meaning their choice of partner in relation to their chosen gender): “trans” is not really about who you can accept as a partner, but who you can accept as yourself. And if you have come to reject the reproductive organs you have been stuck with at birth, it gets harder to embrace them in a partner. A non-trans person starts with a less loaded relationship to the complementary body type.
Thanks for saying this, being trans does have a way of making any minor bisexual leanings… less minor. I would probably identify as straight if I had been born with male genitalia- I still have a strong preference for the ladies, but between revulsion for what I was born with, the fact that I could never make love to a lady in a way that would feel “right” to me, and my fascination for the genitalia I wasn’t born with… ladies, sadly, end up for little more than ogling.
(I was lucky enough to fall for an androgynous male-bodied a-gendered sweetie so WHO CARES.)
The two trans ladies I’ve known both had bisexual tendencies, but identified as lesbian.
It’s an intriguing blend of two very separate parts of a person’s identity coming into contact, and it fascinates me.
Frustratingly enough, my own sexuality is ridiculously compartmentalized – technically, you could say I’m bi, but that doesn’t quite cover it. I have different ways of being attracted to different genders based on what gender I am at the moment. So basically, I’m stuck feeling dysphoric half the time, and probably will have a very unsatisfying love/sex life.
I am attracted to someone who’s personality is not being fixated on being too princessy, meaning he/she is setting not expectations to me to become his/her prince charming (e.g. providing flowers, financial provider on dates, me doing all the surprise for him/her, me doing all the masculine labor without him/her trying, expects me not to feel under-appreciated cause I’m a guy). I prefer the relationship to be a mutual effort (I want to have a romantic surprise as well), and guys mostly are the ones that are able to do so. I am yet waiting for a girl that can get along with my personality.
Gender/sexuality truly is a individual thing. That’s probably why there are so many individual terms trying to lump people together. I personally identify as a straight male, but I am in a polyamourus relationship with two women and another straight man, so that means I don’t exactly fit in the traditional sexuality roles either. It is wonderful that we are becoming more inclusive as a whole to all this individual identities and feelings.
I’m male, but it seems I act/think/feel as a mix of both traditional male and female roles.
I COMPLETELY get the ‘I want to have a romantic surprise as well’ part – I’ve shocked all my girlfriends when I told them that I would LOVE to be given flowers.
Only one of them actually did so, but that is one of the happiest memories I have. Also one of the most erotic ones I have.
Though a comment was left there stating that one random comic before that has alttext now, so binge at your own risk. Also shortpacked got alttext at the same time, just so you know.
Without the hovertext I would have thought that Joshua was actually just running out of his sister’s sight (what with Joyce sounding like a good truncated version of Jocelyn.) I wonder if that sounds as dumb as I think it sounds.
I’ve been going through the archive assembling a timeline of events. I wish I’d known to look for stray hovertext before I got through the first week and a half of DoA-time.
You know, are you being serious about this or a joke?
Because I’m into anthro characters, draw them etc. My parents, my husbands parents and a good portion of our friends and family know my husband and I are furry (the rest it hasn’t come up).
They don’t care – they know it isn’t all costumes and sex.
I’ve been into anthro characters since I was little and going to church and drew them then as well. No one thought that was odd or weird even as I got older.
I was serious that I thought Jocelyne was possibly furry. I figured Willis would make her some sexual minority or queer. Especially with the “I’m not actually gay” line.
I’m gonna’ say that it is, as long as there is a sexual aspect to it. Any kink/fetish puts one in the “sexual minority” category in my book, though obviously being gay, trans, asexual, etc. will have a larger influence on one’s life. Having, say, a foot fetish would put someone in the sexual minority (since the majority of people DON’T get aroused by feet) but it will be less “important” (bad word, but can’t think of a better alternative right now) than being trans, for example, since the former is easily kept secret (except from one’s sexual partners, of course) and only impacts one’s sex life, not one’s life outside of the bedroom. Does that make sense?
But being furry isn’t necessarily sexual – it isn’t a kink/fetish.
Fursuit sex – yes
But in that sense so is cosplay sex.
Any kink in furry can be placed in a kink under normal terms too. Using your foot fetish example – just they use paw fetish.
As for drawn porn, well – people have been aroused by it since dawn of time. Even antho styled porn has been found dating back quite a bit – before furries were even around. I think it was Egyptian?
You would probably be surprised how accepted anthro characters as a whole are.
As I said they have been around for ages. Also, most people forget about the bad MTV and NCIS episodes long as you don’t point them out all the time.
My parents thought the NCIS episodes were hilarious, but know I draw anthro characters and know I hang out in the furry community (since I was 19 mind you they have known). My husband is a furry as well.
Stereotypes are not as bad as you may think if you just talk to people.
Fursuits are even allowed in public in a lot of places people enjoy the players.
Granted I think if you use the suit for personal purposes you need to swap the bodies out but…you know most furries even agree with that.
I’m queer myself, no one in my family cares. Coming out as anything depends a lot on your context. What’s fine and acceptable to some people is a heinously deviant transgression to others. (I’m guessing this one wouldn’t be all sunshine and rainbows to Jocelyn’s folks)
Not always, some people don’t understand about referring to a person as their preferred gender.
Or, what could be worse, is she thinks it can be cured like what she’s trying to do with Ethan and assumes her brother’s just going though a phase or something.
That’s deep, and terrifying. I don’t want to think about that.
But, this is Joyce we’re talking about here. I think, given how kind she is, if she knew she’d say sister… At least in private to spare Jocelyne’s feelings if she didn’t want to be pushed into open so fast.
Jocelyne’s probably keeping it a secret from Joyce because she loves her, and knows with everything else going on in her life (college, finding herself, and now having a gay boyfriend) she doesn’t want to strain her emotionally or mentally any more than already going on.
If her sister is still representing herself as a he to most of the world, than Joyce may be respecting her privacy. I’ve been friends with a gal who hasn’t come out yet or made the switch. So I always refer to her as he unless it’s a private conversation to protect her.
That being said, I tend to suspect that Joyce has no idea. I doubt Jocelyne would have felt okay confiding in her prior to this. But with her world views expanding in college…maybe that conversation will happen soon.
I’m friends with… an individual who has made a decision to NEVER transition. (For several reasons.) Instead, they treat the male they’ve learned to present and live as, and the female they wish they could live as, as two different people.
Confused yet? “He” has a bisexual girlfriend, who is friends with “her”. The girlfriend said she would support their transition but only as a friend, because she “fell in love with the man, not the woman.”
You start laying on the layers of hiding and pretence and this shit can get mind boggling.
“He” definitely takes the loss of his girlfriend into account, but “he” also feels that other factors are large enough to stop it ever happening. “His” family, health, age, career are all factors that make “him” feel he can never be “her” full time.
It’s still incredibly sad though. They’re how I learned what gender dysphoria was, what it meant, and set the foundations for my own “coming out” three years later.
There’s also force of habit. I knew a friend of mine for a year before finding out they were trans, so for a while I had trouble remembering to use the correct pronouns.
I’m guessing no. Given her earlier reactions to the gay thing, there’s no way she would’ve been able to handle it before college. She might take better to it nowadays, but I’m assuming that’s a process we’ll have to see ourselves sometime in the future.
Sorry, disregard my post above. I posted before I let my admittedly narrow mind expand to consider all the possibilities, and was thinking that Joshua was a female transvestite passing as male.
Nope, I think he means what he says. I think he thought that Jocelyn was a drag king, basically. Why he thought that her parents would be okay with that, and refer to her by a “drag name”, I’m unsure, but that was what his impression sounded like to me.
I think Joyce may end up surprising us if/when she does find out, considering the strides she’s already made… I’m imagining Joyce being excited to have a sister instead of the house full of brothers she thought she had.
I think it might have been more “If I don’t actually register this domain, then someone else will buy it up and fill it with porn and/or viruses” than anything else.
Not all trans* people have the same experiences though. Your trans* friend might not want to date straight dudes, but we have no evidence that Jocelyn doesn’t want xir male sex characteristics, nor that xe wouldn’t consider dating gay dudes. Sexuality is way complex.
‘Xe’ and similar invented pronouns should really only be used in reference to people who request those pronouns be used in reference to them. “The broadest terms” possible would be singular they.
I agree with Ae. I’m gender-neutral/fluid, and I have never liked the ‘xe’ ‘zhi’ and so on pronouns that people keep throwing around. If others want to use them, fantastic for them, but please don’t use them to refer to me. ‘They’ is a much more acceptable answer, but I’d err on the side of caution and ask the person (or the character’s creator) what pronouns to use. I actually request people use male pronouns for me, but don’t get upset if they mess up.
Except that then grammatical prescriptivists would get mad at me. The theoretical purpose of “invented” GN pronouns is to act as unabiguously singular pronouns that can be used to describe any individual, regardless of gender identity. Large segments of the queer community prefer that GN pronouns be used for those whose preferred pronouns are unknown. Others, like you, don’t like them. So please don’t act like your solution is the only correct one. I never claimed that anyone was wrong for using “she” or “they,” because it is a matter of such debate, even within the trans* community. I merely defended my use of GN pronouns, which is consistent with much of current queer theory.
(And of course, I would never use pronouns you have specifically requested not be used.)
Rule of thumb for transsexual people, I think, is to not date people who want to date you BECAUSE of the gender you were assigned at birth. Everyone is different, sure, and some people will feel differently, but that’s a damn good rule for most transsexuals.
Can’t comment on any other trans* people though.
A wild gender-neutral neologism appeared!
Toad used “Xe”
It’s not very effective…
😉
Don’t worry about it, dude. I think we can for now assume “she / her”, and if it turns out later to be incorrect, make our embarrassed apologies and correct as necessary.
After all, using the made-up terms is fairly presumptive in of itself and imho about as discriminatory and dehumanising as using “it” (as I say – just my own opinion :P), when we do already have “they” and “their” to refer to a person whose gender we don’t know or who may be either, without resorting to objectifying or sci-fi’ing them.
Well, he liked Josh. That attraction is likely to remain at least until Josh transitions more, but yeah, kinda realized it was actually a doomed proposition either way.
Unfortunately for the ship, Joshua identifies as a woman and Ethan is only attracted to men. If ever she decides to transition, that would could major issues.
One of my mom’s soap operas had a story where a lesbian was attracted to a man who identified as a woman (except as his rock star persona). And this wasn’t the one with the vampire rock star and guy being possessed by a demon to become a cloaked Punisher who went after rapists and other sexual abusers.
I’m still holding out for Joyce to figure out that she neither can nor should save Ethan from his gayness by marrying him, and for Ethan to figure out a pretend romance that lets him think he doesn’t have to deal with his sexuality isn’t very healthy for either of them. Once all that is sorted out, they should be busy thanking everyone who in any way tried to ruin their relationship.
Well either way, Joyce/Ethan is an unhealthy relationship. Ethan is gay and Joyce is a girl. It’s doomed right from the start. Joshua might identify as female, but unless she decides to transition to female, she’s got a physically male body that Ethan is attracted to. Sure, that relationship would also have plenty of complications, but at least Ethan won’t have to hide his sexuality to make it work.
Putting aside the fact that Ethan is currently dating Joyce… There’s nothing wrong, or even uncommon, with a person being attracted to another person despite sexual orientation of either party. Which is to say, a heterosexual person can still get the hots for a specific same-gendered person, even though this isn’t typically true for them. It also does *not* make them bisexual.
Also, there’s the whole sexual vs emotional vs intellectual attraction issue, where you need to determine what kind of attraction it is before you even decide if gender (external or internal) is a factor. Humans, they’re so complicated — and so busy trying to simplify things past the point of clarity 🙂
Sexuality is often more complex than that. People can be attracted primarily on the basis of physical sex, on the basis of gender, or on something else entirely (e.g. for some people the most relevant trait is dominance/submissiveness.) And emotional attraction or physical attraction are separate things.
Ethan seems to be physically attracted to male-bodied people, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he were biromantic.
For Ethan to date Jocelyn because he identifies her as male, despite the fact she identifies as female and is attracted to him in a heterosexual way (so to speak) would be an enormously selfish dick move. And I don’t think Jocelyn would put up with it anyway.
Okay, not true at all. Sexuality is very wibbly-wobbly. You can be extremely gay and STILL fall in love with a trans*. I know two married people, where they were considered homosexual until one partner came out to everyone as trans*. Both persons involved are still extremely committed to each other even since one of them is working on transitioning to female.
So do not tell me that gay men cannot love a trans* woman, because i just proved you wrong. 😛
beege wasn’t saying it’s impossible. They’re saying if Ethan went into the relationship basically viewing Joc as male, then that would be awful and everyone would be even madder at him than we already are.
I agree with you, although Raibean isn’t entirely wrong either. It’s great that your friends stayed together, but it probably wasn’t easy for them to go through the transition. Just as it was probably really hard for the trans* person to come out to her partner (knowing what challenges they’d have to face).
But really, I don’t think we should punch fairies in the face. It’s not nice. Plus, if you wanna make it hurt, it’s better to surprise pussy-punch someone, according to the latest Machete…
….See, it’s not that gay people can’t love trans people. I’m a lesbian with a trans wife. But I’m not attracted to her ‘because she’s a dude’, and she is actively transitioning to a body I like better (An incidental benefit to her getting to feel better about her body, I assure you). Ethan seemed to zero in on the physical side with Jocelyn. A physical side that, in all probability, Jocelyn wants to bury with a hatchet.
By saying “xe”, you’re defeating the purpose of your otherwise transphilic statement. Jocelyn identifies as female, therefore call her “she”. “Xe” is implying that she is neither male nor female.
… No. Gender-neutral pronouns are gender-neutral. They do not indicate a gender. That does not mean that they indicate no gender. It is acceptable to refer to any person with gender-neutral pronouns, regardless of their gender identity. That is actually the point of those words: you can refer to people without specifying a gender or lack thereof. Jocelyne has not specified PPPs, and therefore I am erring on the side of caution, since I cannot ask xir directly.
I did read the hovertext, but identifying as female and using female pronouns do not necessarily go together. There’s a reason so many queer groups start meetings by asking everyone for their PPPs. Some trans*women prefer gender-neutral pronouns.
But some don’t. What if by “playing it safe” you’re also being offensive. By that logic I don’t really care. It is MUCH too much work to worry about offending people all the time.
That is… uh. I’ve never actually hear of anyone who does that…? I mean, I don’t deny they exist, but it seems infinitely more likely that she uses feminine pronouns.
And in any case, not everyone likes xe/xir. Some people use ‘they’. Some use ‘ze’ and ‘hir’. I am sure there is at least one person out there who prefers ‘it’. You can’t know, and arbitrarily using one incredibly uncommon set of pronouns to refer to someone who clearly identifies as female seems… well, kind of presumptuous, tbh.
To add onto what Yotamoe said (if I may), while I understand the positive intent of more recently created gender-neutral pronouns, terms like “xe,” “ey” and so forth, such terms aren’t universally endorsed in GSM communities, and still carry the broader connotation of being *specifically* associated with issues surrounding said communities.
If you don’t know how someone who is trans* feels about such terms (and, again, there isn’t universal agreement), by casually dropping them into conversation about said person, you may actually be doing more to draw unwanted attention to their trans* status than if you’d even just used singular “they” (which already has a long history of use for people when referring to cis-persons in similar gender neutral contexts).
It is also more likely that any given person is straight and cisgendered than otherwise, but presuming that EVERYONE belongs to the majority would be highly problematic. As soon as Jocelyne or Willis weigh in on what pronouns are appropriate, I’ll happily switch to those.
The distinction between various gender-neutral pronouns is largely irrelevant as well. “It” is frowned upon because it typically refers to non-persons, but “xe” “ze” and “hir” are interchangeable, given that they are all invented to fill the same niche and none are really more widely accepted than the others in common usage. “They” is another bucket of issues, since it brings the plural/singular debate with it.
(And as for having not heard of someone identifying as XYZ, you clearly don’t spend much time on tumblr. Hang out there and you’ll end up with more combinations of identities than you’d ever thought possible!)
@Sgore: First off, thanks for introducing me to the term GSM; that’s one I somehow hadn’t heard before! Secondly, I agree that referring to someone who isn’t out with gender-neutral pronouns in mixed company would be ill-advised. However, everyone here is aware of Jocelyne’s trans* status, and it is the topic of conversation du jour, so calling attention to it isn’t a problem.
@A-A-A-Albi: Because in current usage, it is standard to use “they” as a plural. I am sympathetic to the cause of the singular they, however, and won’t say it’s wrong. There is a good deal of debate around the most appropriate gender-neutral pronouns, but that is really a separate issue.
Not in the variety of English I speak (in, well, England). Much like multi-use pronouns in other languages such as German (“Sie” can be “she” or “they (plural)”, IIRC), it can be either; it’s a nonspecific personal pronoun that cares not for gender or number, and thus is just fine so long as your subject is OK with it. I tend to use it as a nongendered singular pronoun quite a lot when e.g. writing technical instructions or the like.
How is it irrelevant? Pronouns are a very personal thing to people with gender identity issues. No matter what, there will be the possibility of making someone feel bad, even using gender neutral pronouns. Hell, my gender identity is certainly atypical, and I would hate to be called any of the gender neutral pronouns that currently exist in our language (including they).
Before Willis actually came out and told us she was female, there were two very big indicators that this was the case. It just seems odd to me that you would favor one set of pronouns over the countless others, even when all the evidence pointed to the very particular set you specifically avoided.
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that pronouns are irrelevant. I just meant that with regards to this particular discussion, it didn’t matter which GN pronoun I used, since they are roughly interchangable and I had no way of knowing which Jocelyne could possibly prefer. That is, given that I was using GN pronouns, which one I used was irrelevant in this particular case.
I personally like xe more than ze or hir, simply as personal preference. My usage of it was not intended to be a rejection of any others. I was “favoring” xe by necessity–I had the choice between either picking one to “favor” or being inconsistent, which seems even worse to me.
I have explained my choice to use GN pronouns repeatedly, and am not interested in defending it further, given that it is now irrelevant. Please reread my other posts if you are still confused about my position. I am acting in concordance with the consensus among the queer circles I frequent.
It is true that some people do identify as gender-neutral or nongendered, but gender-neutral pronouns do not exclusively refer to them. They specifically and intentionally do not indicate a gender or lack thereof. Furthermore, I do NOT know xir PPPs. I know that xe thinks of xirself as Joyce’s sister (or at least, so Willis would indicate) but that does not mean xe would want to be referred to by female pronouns.
I am actually supportive of the use of “they” as a singular gender-neutral pronoun, but that’s really beside the point.
“It is also more likely that any given person is straight and cisgendered than otherwise, but presuming that EVERYONE belongs to the majority would be highly problematic. ”
When, exactly, did we decide as a society that using the most likely option until told otherwise is the same thing as “presuming that someone belongs to the majority”?
Using “she” now is certainly no worse than using “he” yesterday, so you’ve really got no room to argue.
Gender-neutral pronouns are typically for people of indeterminate gender; generally for reasons of anonymity, but sometimes for not falling on the binary at all. Jocelyn’s a woman, not a random person of indeterminate gender. Use it smartly, please.
Posting here simply to point out how the avatars on the previous run of comments make a very nice rainbow sequence with their background / hair / clothing colours.
Does Ethan’s mom suffer from some variety of depression or melancholy? No other parent in these strips has looked as consistently miserable or visibly burdened as she has. Her nastiness be put aside for one moment, something is rotten in the house of Siegel.
That would be a very odd thing for a Jewish person to worry over – despite our reputation as chronic worriers. 🙂
“Some people look at these teachings and deduce that Jews try to ‘earn our way into Heaven’…unlike some religions, Judaism is not focused on the question of how to get into heaven. Judaism is focused on life and how to live it.”
Since this is a Willis comic, that seems like a very workable theory. Seriously, what percentage of people are heterosexual and not gender confused in any way in the Willis-verse? I’m thinking it has to be less than 5%. =P
Let’s see… off the top of my head (and of course, without knowing anything about the private thoughts of these characters):
Joe, Danny, Dorothy, Amber and Walky all appear to possess gender identities in line with their biological sex, and also to be heterosexual. Pretty sure that already puts us above 1 in 20, so… yeah.
having a realistic number of gender/sexual minorities in media comes across has having an IMPOSSIBLY INFINITE number of them given how used people are to not seeing them at all
it might be she blames herself for ethan’s deviation from the norm, in the sense that she didn’t do the parent thing right or something. like if she’d been better at being a mother he wouldn’t have “turned gay.” (because some people think that’s a thing you can do on purpose)
i mean, she definitely rolled a critical failure on the whole mom thing, but not for that reason.
oooor maybe she’s one of those people just absolutely determined to be miserable, and if she isn’t happy then NO ONE IS HAPPY.
oh, they didn’t miss the spot check, they just REALLY wanted a son (another son? i forget where joz ((joss? how the heck do you abbreviate jocelyne :L )) falls in the brown child order of ascension) and raised her as a dude under the philosophy that anything is possible if you just BELIEVE hard enough, and the real her that “josh” has been hiding from her parents/family is that she, ya know, noticed at some point.
Xe is “really” a she. Gender != physical sex. Joshua/Jocelyne presumably has male genetalia, but was not necessarily “born in the wrong body” any more than people with acne they don’t like are born in the wrong body. Trans* folks only have the one body, and it’s theirs, regardless of what aspects of it they do or do not like.
Can we not use ‘xe’? Or ‘ze’? Firstly, it is presumptuous to use a pronoun a person has not themselves endorsed. Secondly (on purely personal level), I can’ stand them. English is in desperate need of neutral, non-plural pronouns, but simply making them on and trying to stuff them into the language isn’t going to work. They look out of place: true gender-neutral pronouns that work will emerge only when English etymology and orthography are taken into account. English’s strength has always been tis ability to change, absorb, and mutate into something (usually) stronger. Imposed adjustments are too L’Académie Française for my tastes.
English has gender-neutral singular pronouns: “they”, “their”. It’s been standard usage for hundreds of years. Like it or not, that’s what the natural evolution of the language has given us, and trying to displace it by imposing artificial substitutes is doomed to failure.
Especially since no one can agree on which made-up bullshit pronouns to use instead.
Well I had to use *some* pronoun, and Jocelyne, being fictional, couldn’t really weigh in to let me know which she “endorsed.” As soon as Willis said she preferred female pronouns, I switched.
Your personal preferences are largely irrelevant. There are plenty of trans* prescriptivists who hate the singular they. Plenty hate any “invented” GN pronouns but they. The queer circles I frequent endorse the use of xe, and so that’s what I use. Won’t say you’re wrong to use the singular they, and I’ve even used it myself, but it’s also presumptuous to tell someone not to use a term preferred by large sections of the trans* community.
My (admittedly basic) understanding of the procedures involved are that MtF surgery can make a very reasonable facsimile of a natural born female body. As in, the parts work and you could even keep it a secret from people you have sex with if you wanted. Meanwhile FtM as medical advancement stands now isn’t there yet. They can make you something that sort of looks like a dick, but it doesn’t work and you’ve butchered your junk to make it. Which could be bad if they ever come up with a process that actually does work.
I would be cool with anyone else telling me that synopsis is out of date.
If you get on T, your, uh… wow, this is awkward. Basically, it’s possible for a certain… part to become large enough to be used in, uh… sex. Not always, but it’s possible.
At least she is actually in a difficult position related to her identity, unlike a certain other webcomic where there is a trans character who is completely indistinguishable from the other female characters except for those two comics where she told her secret to somebody.
i dunno, considering how instantly-protective her twin brother was upon learning that she came out to marten, i’d say there was definitely the unfortunately usual “people being horrible to other people” in her background. i’m super happy for claire that she has friends that are so accepting now. kudos to mr jacques for such a chill cast of characters.
Yeah. It’s nicer than nice to have some representation where the character isn’t entirely defined by her gender identity – and ESPECIALLY nice to have her not entirely defined by ANGST over it.
(Also, Clinton isn’t Claire’s twin – he’s several years younger than her. Yeah, he’s protective of his ELDER sibling. It’s an interesting relationship.)
oops, that’s right. apologies for the brain fart. guess at some point my mind went from “close familial resemblance, might as well be twins” to “they are actually twins”.
true. I always feel awkward talking about how things are for transsexuals because i’m only talking from my perspective and have no idea if it applies in a similar way for the guys. But it’s also really awkward to always add a disclaimer telling that it’s only a MtF experience i’m talking about
Part of the reason for this (historically, back when all stories about trans people were massively offensive) is the same as why you still see more gay guys in media than gay ladies – more interest in “men’s” stories, even if those stories were basically super offensive “lady was a dude!” Mostly the people who wrote those stories didn’t see trans women as women, but hyper deviant gay men a la the transphobic writings of J. Michael Bailey. Obviously not the case here or in many of the modern stories, thankfully.
This is the Willis Commentariat. Open-minded and accepting. In this case, Toad, there is no choice but to revel in the delicious irony of your comment’s Grav-conflict!
Exactly. I’m actually uh, very bountiful but by god, I’m a man. I don’t need a penis or a flat chest to prove it, and you better use the male pronoun for me.
Well, that’s a complex issue. Some gay men will date trans* men and some won’t, and some will date trans* women and some won’t. It’s really a very personal and individualized choice. Given that xe is male-bodied, Ethan might still be into xir. On the other hand, identifying as female might be a deal-breaker.
Last I checked, a man dating a lady was straight – not gay. Doesn’t matter if they are transexual or not.
My husband is pansexual when it comes to love, but straight when it comes to sexual attraction. Meaning he isn’t gay, but straight even if he dated a MtF because he wouldn’t date a FtM.
I’m Pansexual and Asexual – I don’t care what gender when it comes to love, but I’m not sexual attracted to males, females, or hermaphradites.
Granted I could be confused, but since I was told this by an actual transexual maybe it is wrong? Maybe they all see things differently?
Everyone sees sexuality differently. Guess it is up to Willis to let us know if Ethan still likes Jocelyne, but I don’t see that happening considering Jocelyne will be fully female eventually if all goes well.
Toad is right though. It’s complicated. Being gay doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily date transmen just as lesbians won’t necessarily date transwomen. And some gay men actually will date transwomen and some lesbians will date transmen.
That’d make you panromantic and asexual, I believe.
Also “Last I checked, a man dating a lady was straight – not gay. Doesn’t matter if they are transexual or not.” is inaccurate. They could be bi or pan or asexual or anything, really, except specifically homosexual or homoromantic.
‘S fine. I personally am heteromantic asexual, which made me very confused and conflicted until someone pointed out that romantic and sexual love were separate spectrums. I wish I could remember who it was so I could thank them for not feeling so lost anymore.
Ugh tell me about it. When I found out that me not being sexual attracted to people and not liking sex was NORMAL and had a name OMG – was so relieved.
I think sexual identity is a big part of who we are as a species – and really it becomes stressful not knowing.
I urge you to reread my post. Your personal anecdotes aren’t relevant to the topic at hand, so I’ll skip them. But the point remains, there are lots of men who identify as gay that would still date/not date trans-men or trans-women. Sexual/romantic attraction is not exclusively limited to gender, and everyone draws lines in different places. Ethan has not indicated his feelings on the matter.
“Jocelyne will be fully female eventually if all goes well.”
Erm, nope. We do not know if Jocelyne intends to physically transition or not. Not all trans* people want or intend to physically transition. Many are perfectly happy to have the body they have, while still identifying as whatever gender.
That was exactly my point. All trans* people are different. You made a hard generalization: Ethan, as a gay man, would not date a trans* woman. I disagreed, since some gay men would and some wouldn’t, and some trans* people would be okay with it and some wouldn’t.
Don’t you mean panromantic? In terms of your and your husband’s romantic attraction. It sounds like it, considering you both are “pansexual in terms of love” but not sexually. You can’t be both pansexual and asexual, but you can be a panromantic asexual, just sayin’. (Sorry if this came across as too didactic…)
Anyway, it’s super cool to meet another ace! I’m an aromantic asexual, myself. 🙂
Yeah I didn’t hear of panromantic until today and I’m glad I did. Wack’d pointed it out to me.
It did confuse me before today as well. So thank you on that.
I’ve seen more and more of those that identify as asexual around. As I said above it is normal and I’m glad I’m not just odd. –Though odd is relatively speaking when it comes to me XD.
I feel like I’ve been meeting more and more asexuals too! For National Coming Out Day, the LGBTQIA club hosted a T-shirt making event for people to declare their sexualities on and I found out that quite a few people I knew IRL were asexual, which I found pleasantly surprising.
Mine has mostly be online, I’m not a very outgoing person unfortunately. Though I’m sure there are communities down where I live despite the rest of my state being hick ville USA XD.
I think you’re forgetting the Kinsey scale of sexuality. Speaking as someone who is bi-sexual- things aren’t one thing or another. I’m bi-sexual in technical terms-but only just. I date more men than I do women, and I prefer relationships with men- less drama. But I’m attracted to both. Nothing is simple.
…Or maybe you’re just making generalizations based on gender that don’t actually have anything to do with sexual preference.
If you like guys more than girls, that’s fine. Do realize that your reasoning is based on stereotypes (and probably confirmation bias and/or bad luck with women).
my relationships are between me, my partner, and if I choose, a qualified therapist. I don’t remember asking anyone to pass judgement on what I find to be attractive in a mate. Realize that when you comment on someone else’s sexuality, and what they find attractive so freely and with such easy judgement it can be damaging even with the best of intentions. You do not know the past that they went through to get where they are. *tone: kind*
Nobody was commenting on your sexuality, as far as I can tell. The statement that raised some eyebrows was you saying that dating men was “less drama” than dating women. While that may be your personal experience, it does come off as a bit gender-essentialist, as though you’re saying that dating men is inherently less drama than dating women. Which is silly, because as we all know, the amount of drama a person causes has very little to do with what gender they are! 🙂
As someone who is technically not on the Kinsey scale, that thing can go fuck itself, but only after it figures what number one ascribes to being attracted to bar graphs.
I mean, it’s a very rough tool, but can still be useful in some cases. For instance, “bisexual” is very broad, but I can say that I’m a “Kinsey 2” and people who know what that is have a pretty good sense of how I identify. It’s easier than laying out some huge diagram of my complicated sexual preferences, but still provides more detail than I could otherwise quickly provide.
If you don’t mind me asking, in what way are you not on the Kinsey scale? I assume ace, which is sort of a special case, but you might also identify as something else?
I think I mentioned being asexual further up–well, actually “gray asexual” I guess, given that I get sexual attraction the way most people get the hiccups. But I’m also heteromantic, and lemme tell you that confused the fuck out of me for a long time because hey, I want a relationship, I must also want sex, right? And having the only real divisions I was aware of come from that fucking chart (heh) did not help.
I’ve heard ace described as i (i.e. sqrt(-1)) on the Kinsey scale. Other complex numbers can be used to describe variations thereof. This does not help with the simplicity thing, however.
@Kerry: No, 0 is “exclusively heterosexual” (that is, straight).
@Wack’d: Yeah, I’ve seen Ace listed as X, typically. But regardless, the Kinsey scale is a way of categorizing types of sexual attraction. So if you don’t experience sexual attraction (or in your case, rarely), then it would make sense that you wouldn’t be on the chart, right?
That said, it is outdated and unscientific and pretty useless for anything but “this is what flavor of bisexual I am!”
You make a good point- but again, the Kinsey scale is a good rough starting point for sexual attraction. I does assume a desire for sexual relationships, which many don’t have.
Hopefully this comes across the way I intend, but why would a lack of sexual attraction be on a chart detailing types of sexual attraction? Like, if I made a chart of a bunch of types of food, arranged from sweetest to sourest, it wouldn’t make sense for non-food things to be on the chart at all, right?
@Toad – I don’t know, I think asexual does count as a sexual orientation, and it does make sense to me to include it in something that describes/labels people’s sexual orientations.
But then, I think we also need a scale to be a shorthand for people who aren’t quite male or female, or are both, or whatever, and for what trans* identities people are attracted to, and I understand there IS a scale though not very widely used for how polyamorous/monogamous you are.
Labels suck when others pin them on you as a way to reinforce their power, but DAMN can they be handy when you’re trying to explain your sexual/romantic preferences.
@Leah: Oh yeah, it’s definitely a sexual orientation, but I don’t know that the Kinsey scale, at least in its modern usage, is used to describe all orientations (though that may have been Kinsey’s original intent). I think that instead of being a scale of orientations, it’s a scale of types of attraction. And thus, “no attraction” wouldn’t be on the chart.
And yeah, I’m all for people having as many tools for self-description as possible. Language is how we understand concepts; if you don’t have words to describe yourself, how are you ever going to understand yourself?
“considering Jocelyne will be fully female eventually if all goes well.”
not all transgender people undergo surgery or even want to! she is “fully female” because she identifies as such. don’t make assumptions about anyone’s relationship with their body, please.
As I’m not transgender myself and still learning the language needed – I apologize for my flub. When I say Fully Female I mean able to come out as female – not surgery.
And it is my bad on that. As I said – still learning.
Your terms would be panromantic/asexual and heterosexual. If we’re going to go there about proper terms, sexual=/=romantic attraction. I’m pansexual/demiromantic, for example.
Wouldn’t the inverse of demisexual be… NOT being sexually attracted to people with whom a strong bond is formed? Maybe being sexually attracted only to people with whom a strong bond ISN’T formed?
I guess what I’m saying is, romance isn’t the opposite of sex, is it?
No, I’m sexually attracted to a lot of people, but I’m only emotionally/romantically attracted to them after a bond has been formed. I tend to crush on a lot of my friends because of this.
Assuming you mean that Jocelyn’s in the same boat as you, I just wanted to wish you the best of luck. I’m still on my own walk down that road, and it’s a hard road to keep on sometimes, but every step of the way makes me happier I’m on it.
It’s tough, it’s gonna get tougher, but it gets better. Someone told me that when I was still early on and I’ve been thinking about that lately. It really does.
Yeah. I’m both really happy and sad to see this crop up in the story. Its really amazing how fearless Willis is in his story execution. Its a rough topic to skirt on. But, knowing that road Jocelyn is on, when she does reappear it might just lead to some really sad story lines.. Its great having someone in DOA to identify with, but being torn a way from em so soon and knowing rough times are headed her way? I can only give a solemn ‘Dammit Willis.’
Also side note: I love how he renamed all the tags Joshua->Jocelyn. It was really sweet and respectful.
Okay, got a question, hope I don’t come off as insensitive or rude, but I’m honestly not sure what the best way to phrase this is.
When Josh says he’s not gay, did he mean “I’m into guys but I identify as female, so I consider that being straight”? Or did he mean “I’m into girls, but even though I identify as female I am biologically male, so that doesn’t count as gay”?
Unless Willis answers this himself, everyone else who answers you will be answering off of speculation. My own thought is that Joshua seemed attracted to him, and identifies as female, so therefore not gay.
Even though she did seem to be attracted to Ethan, there is nothing that indicates Jocelyne is straight. And with transgender people you really shouldn’t assume their preference.
It could mean either. But a thing me and my friend talked about is that, even if he IS into guys, he wouldn’t want to be with Ethan, because Ethan likes boys, something Jocelyn doesn’t associate with. Regardless of the attraction, the features Ethan would be attracted to are features Jocelynn would want to be getting rid of.
Not necessarily. Ethan is attracted to a cute, smart, nerdy writer with big blue eyes and (presumably) a dick. Jocelyn certainly doesn’t want to get rid of any but the last of those, and not necessarily even then. There are lots of trans* folks who are perfectly happy with the body they have, and do not want to alter their genetalia in any way. “Gay” and “straight”, in their typical definitions, do not take into account any possible differences between sex and gender. Therefore, Ethan could be into “persons who identify as male” or “persons who have male sex characteristics.” We have no way of knowing which he is. It is also possible that he could be “gay with an exception.” Saying that people at either end of the Kinsey scale are attracted to people solely based on their gender is a pretty flawed oversimplification.
The only thing that we know in canon about Jo is that she identifies as “Jocelyn”. We couldn’t even say for certain that she identifies as female at this point except for Willis’s hover-text. Making any other assumptions at this time–and scolding other posters for it–is more than just a little presumptuous.
Looking back on Saturday’s comic. Joce is smiling when she says “not actually gay”, then is abrubtly disappointed when she realizes Ethan IS gay. Despite the situation with Joyce, she was still attracted to him and thinking about hooking up with Ethan as a straight couple, up until Ethan tipped his hand.
Considering the “not *actually* gay” comment, I’m assuming she’s into guys but identifies as a straight woman. I wouldn’t be surprised if she realized she was into men before she realized she identified as female and thought she was gay for a while–certainly sheltered me knew more about homosexuality than I knew about trans* folks when I was younger.
I don’t know. I’m a lesbian and I’ve only recently came to terms with the word “gay”. I don’t self-identify as gay; it sounds so “masculine” (for lack of a better word).
The gender-reversed version of this situation happened to a friend of mine.
She’s a lesbian and had a short fling with a Female-to-male transexual. It was short lived.
At university I had a male friend who was gay and often dressed like a woman. The last time I saw him he was dating a woman, who was gay and often dressed like a man.
It was a beautiful symmetry that made almost no sense.
Well, unfortunately, I’ve seen people claim that transgender/sexual means that you’re rejecting the body/life god gave you and that’s a sin.
There’s a really toxic woman on the board I’m on, she ‘prayed the gay away’ and she was explaining how she won’t let her kids know her husband’s sister (cousin?) because she’s trans and she feels that by respecting the trans relative’s identity she’s harming her by keeping her from god.
Yeah. I felt sorry for her in the beginning, because holy shit self hate. But then she started talking about how if her toddlers started showing any ‘same sex attraction struggles’ she’d put a stop to it, and things like forcing them to play with gender appropriate toys if they acted too masculine or feminine.
Also, the nasty nasty things she said about the relative.
Now I just wish she’d wise up before she has an affair with a soccer mom and things go really bad.
Which brings to mind something I read a while back about the behavior of male dogs who are fixed prior to sexual maturity vs. after. The ones who have already sexually matured still hump things.
Yes and “asexual” is a sexual orientation meaning that a person does not experience sexual attraction. And yet many of them have perfectly functioning genitals.
That’s not what I was saying. My reasoning was that if you do not have sex organs (ovaries/testes), sex steroids cannot be produced, meaning you cannot feel the effects of them.
I was corrected above that you can if you’ve already gone through puberty, which sounded reasonable, as a person’s brain would likely have already been sufficiently altered by the chemicals to make a difference.
Yes.
Their logic behind this is that Homosexuality is a sin and treated as a crime, but the Ayatollah accept the idea that a man may be born inside a woman’s body (or the reverse), and so they allow such people to get an operation.
The consequence is that some homosexuals/lesbians are forced to have their sex changed in order to avoid being jailed or beaten.
The state actually promote sex change! If you are a guy and loves another guy, you are a sinner and a criminal in the state’s eyes, but if you turns into a girl, problem solved!
Weird world …
Can I get nit-picky and say “woman, not female”? At least in sociology and other social sciences, we use “woman/man” for gender (identity/expression/social part) and “male/female” for sex (biology)
Well, I’ve never seen it that way. In every context I’ve seen, female is used for both. So is woman. And as a transwoman myself, I’m not uninformed about the topic. We probably need to be more specific, but really, gender/sex is the only situation where the words are clearly separate, and even then there’s a lot of overlap. And honestly, while it’s nice to be recognized, it’s not necessary to overhaul the entire language for this. I mean, how often do we really need to identify the sex, and not the gender of a person? Only when we’re discussing a transgender person, and only when we want to highlight their transgender status. And I know many of us would rather not do that. We want to be seen as women, female, girls, whatever. Many of us don’t like to be reminded that we were born into the wrong body.
Yes, you can. I personally hate the way “female” has displaced the word “woman” in conversation. You can have a “female” cat, squirrel, or hamster. Only humans can be “women.”
Exactly. Male and female (among other terms) refer to sex. Man and woman (among other terms) refer to gender. But for some reason, it’s become common to refer to women as females in contexts where men are being called by gender terms (men, guys, bros, etc.).
Jocelyne? Is that even a real name? C’mon Joshua, couldn’t you think of something more original? Like Susan, or Alice, or maybe Laquisha if you were going in that direction…
This isn’t even close to true – I’m trans myself and have met something on the order of a thousand others who are, and I could count on one hand the number whose names resemble their give names. Most trans folk, at least that I know, want to distance themselves from their old identity as much as possible.
James to Siubhan (Scottish Gaelic version of ‘Joan’, also used to translate ‘Judith’) for me. (I also tend to use my mother’s maiden name with Siubhan, just for the sake of euphony…it matches badly with my legal last name.)
I went with Jessie because technically, that was the name my parents wanted me to have to begin with… Or rather, Jesse. I was Josh, became Jess.
I’m … not really going anywhere with this.
Quite the opposite, in fact. Most trans folk choose names that are very different from their birth names. (I know one who chose one that allowed her to keep her nickname, though the two names are entirely unrelated, save for sharing a single syllable. But other than her, nooooope.)
I picked something completely different. The only thing in common is that my parents picked it. (which i’m really grateful that could happen. Also really grateful they don’t have terrible taste in names)
Claire!
*ehem*
I’m not sure what came first and how it exactly happened.
I think i’ve always had some connection to this name, and i think my parents had a few names picked out when i was born and then just chose according to my birth sex.
Some time after deciding that i have to transition some day i asked my mother what names they had thought about and what name they would have chosen if i had been a girl. There were a few options (a few terrible ones) but the one i have now was their favorite, i think.
When i did start transitioning years later i talked with them about it to confirm and we all agreed on the name.
oh to clarify. My parents took a long time to become supportive (it wasn’t fun the first time i came out. That’s right, i came out twice to them. That’s how much they were in denial), but once i started transitioning they’ve been with me every single step of the way.
According to Wolfram alpha, it is currently the 92nd most common baby name in the US, and the 599th most populous name in the US. Approximately 1 in every 3054 people in the US are named Jocelyn.
Also, it’s my mother’s aunt’s name, so if I were a cartoon, I’d have probably had an eyebrow fly off my face when I read you imply it’s not a real name. (‘Joc’ is the nickname – pronounced the same as Joss.)
Okay, I apologize for my comment. It was kind of rude. It’s just that I seriously have never heard that name before. Learn something new every day I guess.
There are also a lot of non-gender pronouns accepted by the LGTB community that are all listed on the wiki page for gender-neutral pronouns, like Ze and Hir.
I feel the need to point out that it’s equally disrespectful to refer to a trans* person who identifies as a man or woman with gender-neutral pronouns. That’s denying their gender in another manner.
As a transwoman myself, I want to concur with Daphnaie. I do not want to be referred to as “xe”. Especially since that will get you so many strange looks. While it would be nice to have gender-neutral pronouns in English, it’s not gonna happen anytime soon. And language rarely changes by such artificial means. Besides, singular “they” works fine. And it’s not wrong. Shakespeare used it.
In that case, I would certainly not refer to you with gender-neutral pronouns. If I know how someone would prefer to be referred to as, I will always refer to them that way.
However, IN GENERAL, when one doesn’t know a person’s PPPs, it is appropriate to use gender-neutral ones. Not specifying a gender isn’t the same as specifying no gender. In this case, I do not yet know Jocelyne’s preferred pronouns, and so I am choosing to err on the side of caution.
(And I do actually agree that “they” should be an accepted singular gender-neutral pronoun.)
Except that it’s not accepted. Lots of people use it, but also lots of people don’t like it. You can’t say that something is the only correct way to say something if your elementary school English teacher would tell you it’s wrong.
(Now, I still think it is acceptable, as long as you don’t insist that all alternatives are wrong.)
That’s… not really relevant? I’m not saying we should use what the majority of people use; I’m just saying that you can’t say that XYZ is the only acceptable term if there are a bunch of people that don’t like it.
Note that I never said anyone else had to use xe, just defended my own use of it.
The exact same thing could be said about “xe/hir” – lots of people use it, but lots of people don’t like it. Your elementary school English teacher would also tell you it’s wrong.
Yes grammar essentialists will argue that singular “they” is incorrect, but they’re flat-out wrong.
I think a bigger problem is that most people of indeterminate gender who haven’t specified their pronouns tend to be trans people. And speaking as a trans person, it really sucks to be othered like that. Many trans people have spoken here saying it hurts them to have “xe/hir” directed towards them, and it’s really important to listen to that if you’re trying to help trans people. I know your circle might say differently, so feel free to continue using xe/hir among your circle of people you know prefer it – but don’t try to extend that out to other people if you don’t know that they’re okay with it.
In my experience, if someone appears to have a binary identification and there are clues that they have a binary identification, it’s generally best to go with that. If you’re a trans person trying your hardest to pass and you still get referred to arbitrarily by gender-neutral pronouns, it makes you feel singled out as a trans person rather than affirmed as your actual gender, and only serves to remind you how you’re not male/female-enough.
I guess you can just never refer to them at all… there’s not really that many instances that you have to call someone their name to their face in casual conversation. I have been really good friends with people who’s names I can’t remember or that they never told me.
This. I’m horrible at remembering names, unless they are names from some game. I cannot remember how many times I chatted daily with someone for weeks without knowing or remembering their names, and the issue never pops up.
This is, again, difficult due to the fact that we don’t know what Jocelyn wants. Xe presents as male to everyone (as far as we know) besides Ethan. We cannot assume xe would want to be referred to by female pronouns. When in doubt, gender-neutral is the way to go.
… Say, does this mean Ethan can now admit to his family that he found her attractive? (I’m still unsure about the protocol when it comes with trans people. I get that you rifer to them by their preferred gender, but I don’t have the subtle stuff down yet (well, I don’t have the subtle stuff when interacting with other people in general down, but this is something where I think there’s a lot less room for error))
But for what it’s worth Pat friggin’ Robertson is okay with trans people–the same dude who, just six days ago, said that low-carb diets were a sin against God and thinks gay folks transfer their gayness via blood with spiked rings. It’s possible Ethan’s folks are similarly accepting.
It’s possible that Naomi is fine with transpeople, but even if she is, I think Ethan being attracted to a transwoman who is currently presenting as male would not reassure her that Ethan is not gay.
(And obviously Ethan shouldn’t tell her anyway, unless Jocelyne gives him permission, and I can’t imagine why she would. Too much risk of it getting back to her parents.)
Why do you keep using the fabricated gender-neutral pronouns “xe” and “xir?” They don’t really apply to Jocelyne. You should use feminine-gendered pronouns for her, shouldn’t you?
I agree with your point about using she/her (because through both the hovertext and the email we have evidence that Jocelyne identifies as female) but why the use of the word ‘fabricated’? How else do you think words are made?
Words evolve, like organisms. What you’re saying is the equivalent of saying that evolution is creationism because animals didn’t just come out of nowhere.
We wouldn’t be having this conversation about the words “Muggle”, “Gallifrey”, “toke”, “spliff”, “skag”, “juju”, “due backs”, “bundie”, “slodge”, “slurg”, “yoot”, or “zorros”. A lot of these last ones were 1950s slang and according to Etymonline, have either questionable origins or are simply not listed. Language has ALWAYS been invented. Even if we take two affixes and stick them together for a new word, that’s not language EVOLVING. It’s language being created.
The difference between those words and gender-neutral pronouns is that the former do not challenge an entire society’s basic assumptions about what they view as essential.
It’s also sort of like the difference between a meme and a forced meme – those words caught on*. There’s any number of reasons why the gender-neutral pronouns that have been proposed have not. It might be because of a general lack of awareness, it might be because people don’t want to have to keep track of more than four kinds of pronoun (he, she, they, it), or it might simply be because they sound unnatural to a majority of English speakers**.
*At least, I’ll take your word that they caught on. I’ve never heard of like, a third of those.
**I’m not actually certain of this, but seeing as most people don’t use them, I’m inclined to think it does have an impact.
Gender-neutral pronouns apply to everybody. That’s… exactly the point. They’re gender-neutral. Jocelyne has not indicated a pronoun preference, and therefore I am erring on the side of caution.
“Yet Toad’s argument remains : “by using a gender-neutral pronoun one cannot mis-gender anyone. Because it isn’t assigning any gender to start with”.”
And that argument fails unless you use them by default with everyone It’s othering. The message is “cis people get normal pronouns, trans people’s pronouns are negotiable”. I can count on one hand the number of people who used any pronoun-set other than he/him/etc to refer to the person they understood to be called Joshua yesterday… or I could if there was a standard hand-sign for “zero”, anyway.
@Random: Your argument is entirely correct, and I make an effort to always use a person’s preferred pronouns, whatever they may be, if I know them. The issue arises when a person’s gender identity, for whatever reason, is in question. Until Willis weighed in, I wasn’t sure how Jocelyne identified, and so I used a neutral pronoun. Now I refer to her as “her,” since I know that she is a woman. Jocelyne was a woman yesterday, but we had no way of knowing that, and therefore used the potentially harmful “he.” Upon realizing that I had previously been in error, I switched to what I understand to be the least harmful alternative, and then switched again once I learned what she preferred.
Well, based on what we know, I’d say would prefer to be referred to as female but accepting to be referred to as male do to not actually being out yet. (Well, to her family, I think she has a circle of friends she’s out to, as well as the fact she’s using a female name for publishing her works.)
Also, is it out of the closest for trans people as well, or do they come out of another thing?
That Jocelyne prefers female pronouns is a reasonable guess. However, if I’ve learned one thing from queer groups, it’s that guessing at people’s identities is a very dangerous and potentially harmful thing.
You really need to get a more realistic look at politeness in referring to people. It is forgivable when meeting a stranger to refer to them by the wrong gender if you don’t know any better, but it is NEVER a good thing to refer to them as an ‘it’. I wouldn’t want my cat or dog to be referred to as an it much less myself.
If you really don’t want to offend someone by using the wrong pronoun then skip using a pronoun at all. Use words such as “y’all” or “person” or “you” which do not have a gender context in the English language. That’s safer than making a guess to gender preferrences, but avoids making that person think they are a disgusting sludge monster in your eyes.
I feel as if you mayhap been attempting to respond to me, as I brought up “it” as a potential pronoun. If this is the case, let me just address it now:
I am not advocating that people should refer to ANYBODY as “it” unless they themselves ask to be. Again, I doubt it is at all common, but there has to be at least one person out there who prefers those pronouns (maybe otherkin who identify as inanimate objects?). The point is that misgendering happens, and it’s not always malicious in intent. Honestly, the onus is kind of on the person in question to specify which pronouns they would like to be referred to as.
Well that answers the question of whether or not there will be a Trans character in DoA. That it’s Joyce’s brother (sister, really, but neither she nor her parents know that yet) makes it all the more interesting and I hope we see more of Jocelyne.
How so? Neither Joyce nor her parents know about Josh really being Jocelyne, especially since Joyce states that she’s always wanted an older sister. Jocelyne also said a few comics ago that her parents know nothing about her, which is why she’s their favorite.
From a meta standpoint, people have been asking Willis for weeks (months?) if there would be a transgender character and his answers on that front have been “wait and see” for the most part.
So I’m not sure how the hovertext disagrees with my reasoning. I think it’s interesting that, as the story is mostly about Joyce’s journey from super-sheltered fundie to well-rounded human, that eventually she and her family will have to confront the reality of Jocelyne’s gender. And for that reason, I hope we’ll see more of her.
It’s too bad WordPress doesn’t have the ability to synonymize tags, so ‘Joshua’ could have been left on the old strips to preserve the surprise of the reveal for archive-diving newbies…. (Those archive-diving newbies who pay attention to the tags, anyway…)
If Jocelynejbrown.com is where you can find Jocelyne’s/Joshua’s writing and that link just takes you straight back to Dumbing of Age that must mean that she writes Dumbing of Age which means David Willis is Joyce’s oldest sibling.
Guys, the comic has been up for like, fifteen minutes. How has no one else come to this conclusion?
One problem with you saying that Jocelyn is our beloved reality creator…
Willis’ own FAQ section states that Joyce is autobiographical character. Meaning that Joyce is Willis. Furthermore, Walky’s real first name is David as is Willis’ first name thus making him an autobiographical character as well.
Now then, as an avid member of the chorus for the church of Joyce x Dorothy shipping, I can tell you that while I would like to say Joyce and Walky do not share a lot of traits, there are also a great many that they do. Which is why I wasn’t entirely against a threesome between the three characters before I realized Joyce and Walky were both autobiographical characters and decided it was very weird having a threesome with yourself…
Regardless, the point remains that if we’re going to accept that Jocelyn is also an autobiographical character then that makes at least 3 characters that are. At which point one has to ask whether or not _all_ of the characters are autobiographical and that our dear Willis is secretly a diagnosed case of Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly Multiple Personality Disorder) and how weird is it that Willis’ many personalities are all macking on one another…..
Jesus fuck, can we please stop asking like the existence of trans* people in other fiction is the only possible reason this could’ve happened? I’ve seen like two other posts that are making really stupid intertexual connections and it’s pissing me off.
No, no, no! That is so offensive. If he’s attracted to her when she is presenting as male, then he’s not really attracted to her. If Ethan can’t make it work with Joyce, then he can’t make it work with Jocelyne!
“If Ethan can’t make it work with Joyce, then he can’t make it work with Jocelyne!” I feel like this is very incorrect… Maybe there’s a better phrasing?
Ethan may be pan-romantic! Which means that he could be romantically attracted to her but sexually attracted to only people who have male gentalia.
So they might be able to have a sexual relationship, as long as /she/ decides that she is comfortable with not-transitioning (as occasionally happens!). It’s not a very likely scenario, but it could happen. (I’d hope that fic or whatever of them would address this because it would be an important and very tricky part of their relationship, should they choose to persue one ever).
Because he didn’t work with joyce, is it impossible to him to discover that he is, for example, gay with an exception? Or that he is attracted to transgender people af any type? Or that he just find that hair coupled with those glasses VERY attractive when paired with the sense of humor?
I dunno, the more I learn about the human mind, the more I think that the important isn’t the label, but the people involved.
“If Ethan can’t make it work with Joyce, then he can’t make it work with Jocelyne!”
Accusing someone’s orientation of being inherently offensive just makes you come across as crazy. People don’t control who they’re attracted to. If they did, then Ethan wouldn’t be gay.
(I’m not saying that no-one would choose to be gay, but given the choices that Ethan has made, if being straight were a choice I’m confident he would choose it.)
The ship is not sunk, good sir. “Not technically gay” is what was said, as she identifies as female, and was shown looking attracted to Ethan. So, until an operation, the ship still sails!
Oh.
Yeah, Ethan’s reaction pretty much sums up mine. And it explains her reply earlier, that she’s not gay. She likes guys, so she’s straight, just not currently perceived that way by a lot of people.
And oh, as in “Oh Jesus fuck” because it’s bad enough being gay and having fundamentalist parents, but being trans? Poor girl.
Not really, but they’re the two most likely options with anyone. I identify as demi without preference of any sort, but it’s in such a low percentage, I wouldn’t expect anyone to guess. Sexuality is pretty varied, so I assume most people do what I do where you first try to figure out where the person falls (Green, let’s say) and then what shade exactly (laurel green).
…it should be noted that I use the system with characters, not real people. I don’t like being nosy.
Wow, Jocelyn is a transwoman! This is a wonderous twist of events; I’m ridiculously pleased it went down this way.
(Note, though: I’ve seen a lot of people refer to her as ‘MtF’. Just letting you guys know that a lot of trans* people I know find that format offensive because they don’t see themselves as ever being anything other than what they identify as. The newer format is Assigned (Whatever’s on the birth certificate) at Birth. Jocelyn would be AMAB- Assigned Male At Birth. As a cis lady, I can’t really tell you what to say/not say; I’m just relaying some information I’ve been told!)
Seriously, though: RIDICULOUSLY EXCITED TO SEE THIS UNFOLD.
The human race as a whole, no matter what, will find things to be offended by, even if it really isn’t offensive. Empathy is required on both ends, and just crying “offensive!” to everything isn’t going to help win any arguments, especially if they try to make it even more complicated to refer to someone. MtF and FtM are simple, short, and to the point, and unless their parent paid to have their child a specific gender (or you’re highly religious) then nobody assigned anything, your cells just formed you that way.
No, no they don’t, but people might actually listen to you if you’re not so dismissive and mocking – and assuming your objective is actually to change their minds instead of just feeling superior, then that might be something you actually care about, no?
misinformed doesn’t equal telling people you don’t care about not being an asshole because it’s too much work. someone already explained to them why it wasn’t appropriate, and their response was totally dismissive.
No, but seriously, while MtF and FtM might be ‘simple’ they’re also fucking wrong and exclude non-binary people, btw. I would also like to add that, yes, children are assigned gender at birth in accordance to their biological sex, as their is no way of identifying how they’ll identify. Yes, it is an assignation because biological sex and gender are not the same thing!!!!! Basically they guess with the evidence they’ve been given and hope for the best!!!!
Still, the sex is not assigned (except in case of an intersex baby), it is identified (saddly sometime mistakes are made when identifying it). So the MtF and FtM designation is correct, when refering to a person’s sex and not gender.
Just because it doesn’t cover every possbilities (excluding non-binary people) doesn’t mean it is a completely useless category.
Except that we’re not talking about sex, and we are talking about gender, which is the exact opposite of what you’re saying. MtF and FtM could be used to mean sex in post-op situations, but that’s irrelevant to what we’re discussing right now.
I … still disagree with your proposed use of “AMaB/AFaB”, even in this situation.
However you’re right, Jocelyne does not appear to have been through sex reassignement surgery (and we cannot know wether she plans to do so or not), so we have to keep talking about gender only.
… so she’s a male-borned-transgender / female-transgender ?
I’m starting to hate semantics.
Also I just realised I don’t have the smallest idea wether or not she’s been through surgery.
I think I’ll just go to sleep and wait for Willis to drw more strips with her.
I’d say she almost definitely hasn’t. Usually (if not always) to get surgery, you need to have been on hormone replacement therapy for a long while, and she doesn’t look like she’s started that yet.
I do have to comment on this. The whole “assigned male/female at birth” thing is not accurate, unless you’re referring to someone who’s intersexed and who thus gets assigned a sex at birth (often through surgery of some kind). But someone who’s born physically male, or physically female for that matter, and who mentally identifies as the opposite sex, was not ‘assigned’ their birth sex. They were literally born as that sex.
Don’t get me wrong, I do sympathize. But it’s not going to help to use incorrect terminology. I’d personally suggest, “Born Male, Identifies Female” (or vice versa), so BMIF or BFIM.
Guess I can see where you’re coming from, but considering that they’re talking about gender and not sex at all, it could be used for both. I can see why that would be confusing. Yours does seem clearer, but it still sort of raises the same problems as MtF and FtM. Like I said, I’m cis, so I’m really not qualified to argue about it, I’m just theorizing at this point!
Really, though, we’re not going to get any clear, precise terminology until more people start recognizing them as the gender they identify as.
One problem is that it’s currently impossible to determine what gender someone identifies as until they’re old enough to communicate it, which is several years after birth at the earliest. Another problem is that, depending on the context, gender can mean biological sex, social identity, or mental identity.
I totally agree that the old rules about “you’re either male or female, nothing in between” don’t work. That just leads to all sorts of problems.
Doctors do too assign sexes to babies. They put down F or M (usually) in the papers, which legally assigns the baby a sex and even a first name (“Baby Girl” or “Baby Boy”) if it doesn’t have one. They do this with an understanding of how biology works and most of the time they assign sexes that correlate with the baby’s actual biological sex, but the sex you’re born with doesn’t just magically become legal fact.
Alright, I looked it up, and you’re right that the technical term is assign. However, what they’re actually doing is identifying a baby’s biological sex for the birth records. Frankly, I think they should not refer to it as ‘assignment’, as that carries some fairly strong implications (such as in the case of intersexed individuals).
In any case, I don’t think the AMAB/AFAB acronyms work to designate transgendered individuals. Every single person is “assigned male” or “assigned female” at birth (including the intersexed). Referring to a transgendered person that way doesn’t really clarify or resolve anything. What matters is if the sex they identify as is different from the one that society recognizes them as.
I have no problem with that designation. It’s simple, clear. I’d rather you refer to me as a transwoman. But as long as they only use that in describing my exact transgender status, and from then on just refer to me as a woman, it’s fine with me. Now if someone called me MtF every chance they got, then I’d be annoyed.
I take it you’ve never heard of back-formation. It’s where you take a noun (usually from another language, though not always) and back-form it to make a verb. For example, resurrection eventually back-formed the verb (to) resurrect, and editor eventually back-formed the verb (to) edit.
Thus, transgender, a noun, backformed to (to) transgender, a verb.
I’m pretty sure that “transgendered” was formed from “gendered”, and “transgender” is a word that did not exist in any form until coined as back-formation by people (e.g. you) who wrongly think that “transgendered” somehow implies that “transgender” exists and is a verb.
“red-haired” isn’t a participle either. It’s an adjective meaning “with red hair.”
I’ve always assumed “transgendered” was intended to be parsed similarly, as “has a trans gender”, that is, a gender not in accordance with the designated sex at birth.
There isn’t a correct way to address a transperson.
There are correct ways to address SPECIFIC transpeople, but there’s no general one-term-fits-all. Any transperson saying there is is generally assuming they personally are representative of all transpeople.
Basically if you want to know the right term, ask them. If you want people to use the right term, tell them. That’s the only way it’s going to work, ever.
In this case, we’d ask Willis. The use of “sister” as opposed to “sibling” is a good indicator of her identifying as female, but if we’re wrong, than Willis will be the one to inform us
Now im not accusing anyone of stealing anything from one another but would this story inclusion possibly be influenced by Jacques the Rippers own story element of Claire the MtF librarians aid.
There better be a hell of an explanation for this, because as far as I’m aware these stories have nothing in common except MtF characters. Which means you pretty much just implied that the only reason someone would include such a character is seeing them in other fiction, which is all kinds of fucked up.
i dont think he directly implied that the ONLY reason someone would include such a character is seeing them in other fiction. i read it more like willis reading qc and thinking “wait i dont have a trans character, it will be good that i did”. Just like you would with a bold character,etc. Why you so easily asume he thinks its the ONLY reason?? he just said its a posible reason (used would and possibly). I am not attacking you , i just wanna now why you jump to that conclusion
Im sorry Wack’d i wasn’t trying to imply anything for all my dumbass knows Jeph and Dave though of the same thing at the same time and it just took longer for Willis to introduce his character. Im not accusing willis of not having good reasons to include this character im just wondering is if since they are good friends and fans of each others work perhaps they may have influenced each other slightly.(Willis has included Faye from Questionable content as a cameo in Dumbing of age after all)
Lots of people seem to be making a fairly typical mistake when it comes to TG people. Joshua isn’t actually female. He self-identifies as female, but he is still physically male – and more to the point, he still fills a male role in society.
To put it very simply, he’s still in the closet, except online. I know quite a few people in that situation, one of whom is a close friend of mine, so I know that of what I speak.
Yeah, but considering that Jocelyn would PREFER to present as female, and can’t because of a problematic enviroment, we’re being polite and referring to her as such.
There’s not even any indication that she’s ‘in the closet’ in general, rather than just with her family – she’s definitely out in her writing, and it’s likely that most of her friends know her as female, given apparently not wanting them to meet her parents.
There’s also no indication that he’s out of the closet, which is my point.
Yes, the website name is certainly suggestive, but we don’t actually know where he falls in the TG spectrum. There are TG people who have a female (or male) online identity but are basically okay, or at least tolerant of, being male (or female) in real life. Until we find that out, I’m erring on the side of caution.
In a sense, it doesn’t matter, since he’s not actually a real person, but a character in a comic. But it is a real issue for actual people who are transgendered, especially as online walls of privacy start to break down.
I don’t see a lot of people making that mistake…Most are just squeeing over the reveal, but only a handful seem to be thinking the wrong thing. Also, transexual, not transgender. TG is an umbrella term for everything that doesn’t conform with typical gender rolls, including transvestism, which has nothing to do with sexuality.
A lot of transsexual people consider themselves to fall under the ‘transgender’ umbrella though. Some don’t, but I personally use both terms for myself and my experience has been that it’s pretty common to do so.
That was the general feel I got. I didn’t read every comment, so it’s entirely possible that it wasn’t actually a lot of people.
Personally, I fall into the TG category, because I’m mentally androgynous, perhaps leaning a bit female. One of the reasons I picked the nickname “Jaime” (which is an acronym of my initials) is because it is a gender-neutral name.
I also have a close real-life friend who is much more strongly transgendered than I am, to the point of having changed his name and presenting himself as female in the past. Note that the reason I refer to him as ‘him’ is because he lives in a state where that sort of thing is very much frowned upon, and he needs to present himself as male in order to make a living.
Anyway, transgender/transsexual have different meanings based on who’s using them. Personally, I prefer to use transgender because it has a much more general meaning than transsexual. To be honest, it’s enough more difficult to pin down what someone means by transsexual that it usually isn’t worth the effort.
um wtf, no one’s making a mistake except you. Jocelyn identifies as woman, is a woman, and fill’s a ‘woman’s role in society’ (whatever the fuck that means) by virtue of being a woman. And unless Jocelyn herself wants to describe her body as ‘physically male’ you shouldn’t say that either.
Unless you can show that he’s legally changed his sex to female, you don’t have a basis for that statement.
Not that I have a problem with referring to him in the feminine – and if he actually starts presenting himself as female (that is to say, dressing as female and changing his name), then it’s a whole different story. But until then, I stand by what I said.
Right, we shouldn’t say things based on speculation (which totally isnt what you’re doing too) because we run the risk of offending a completely fictional character. Thats totally logically sound.
I’m almost inclined to take a screen cap of this comment chain and caption it “this is why David Willis’ comment sections are the best on the internet”.
jaimehlers seems to be making a fairly typical mistake when it comes to his own views. jaimehlers isn’t actually correct. He self-identifies as correct, but he is still completely wrong– and more to the point, he still fills a wrong role in our comments section.
To put it very simply, he’s a dickweed, especially online. I know quite a few people in that situation, one of whom is a close friend of mine, so I know that of what I speak.
Wack’d seems to not understand that he is projecting his own attitudes onto other people, and thus is making himself an even bigger “dickweed” than he accuses me of being. Once he realizes this and figures out how to address other people without trying to project on them, then it might be possible to have an actual conversation with him.
Yeah, no, I’m sorry, if you’re gonna try and call technicality on someone’s identity I am absolutely not going to try to have an actual conversation with you. That would require a level of respect for your viewpoint that you clearly don’t have for other people’s.
Joshua is (at least as far as I can tell) physically and biologically male. However, he identifies as female. His sex doesn’t match his gender, in short. Given other cues within the comic (the way he’s drawn, his body shape, his short hair, and what we’ve seen of his body language), I think it’s unlikely that he’s actually come out as transgendered, except for online. That’s probably due to him being afraid of how his parents and other real-life friends/acquaintances would react – I’m well aware of how that works.
Well then, you should be aware that even transgender people who are only out online like to be addressed in the manner in which they like to be addressed. Trust me, I’m kind of an expert in this area. If you catch my drift.
@Jaimehlers – We know for certain that Jocelyne identifies as a woman, because Willis made it clear in the hovertext. It’s true, it isn’t clear in what areas she is “out” (although we know she isn’t with her parents). But the ONLY reason not to call someone by her real gender would be if she asked you to – for instance, in the company of people to whom she wasn’t yet out. Or if she didn’t ask you to but you know you’d be outing her without permission.
It doesn’t matter if she hasn’t come out to every single person she knows yet. If she’s out to you, you call her by her real gender unless asked to do otherwise, or unless you’re jeopardising her right to tell people herself in her own time.
So, it doesn’t matter that Jocelyne isn’t out to her parents. It wouldn’t even matter that she isn’t out to ANYONE except Ethan. WE know her real gender, and we’re not jeopardising her right to choose when and to whom she comes out, so it is a matter of basic respect to call her “she”.
She’s a woman. Who she’s out to doesn’t change that. How she chooses to dress certainly doesn’t change that. And it’s disrespectful not to acknowledge it.
Ethan is gay. Jocelyn is not a male. Thus dead. If Jocelyn had been born Jocelyn and identified as Josh, there might be a possibility, but now there really isn’t anything, or at the very least, nothing that could last.
Except that she is currently male despite her identification AND has an obvious attraction to Ethan. Meanwhile, until an operation happens, Ethan also has an attraction. They may not have sex due to the mental stress that those in Jo’s situation tend to have, but that doesn’t mean a relationship cannot be formed and maybe even worked through.
A temporary one, maybe, but it would never last, especially if Jocelyn has any form of dysphoria. She would probably want to be with someone who was attracted to her for being female.
I say the EthanXJosh/Jocelyn ship is dead because I WANT it to be dead, and I say it as someone who shipped it very much just a strip previously. It DESERVES to be dead. Because Jocelyn deserves someone who is attracted to her, not him.
True, and attraction is simply the bare bricks, so even if she didn’t identify as such, there’s nothing saying how long it would last had they ever gotten together. Be that the case, all ships shouldn’t exist unless they had a 100% chance of working…yet they do. So, yeah, it may be a small one with some holes, but whose to say it couldn’t end up being the one to reach the other shore?
It could still happen, and so could a million other ships. Heck, Ryan could show up again and start dating Joyce and it would be horrible. Just because it can be argued doesn’t mean it’s gonna happen. That’s not the point.
JoshxEthan is a dead ship. Josh is not the person we have been reading. Jocelyn is. So the ship as we know it is dead. Thus it’s a dead ship. I don’t see how much more clear we can make it.
I don’t think that’s necessarily true. They obviously had a cute kind of chemistry. Plus, how sweet would the irony of Joyce’s “brother” turning out to be the ACTUAL exception to her gay boyfriend’s sexuality be? I don’t see how Willis can pass an opportunity for conflict like that up.
i never comment on this comic but holy shit i know they’re getting more common but every time i see a trans* storyline especially one like this i get choked up.
also can we not be yelling that the ship is dead or not dead when gender and sexuality and people are so much more complicated than just a basic flowchart
Please don’t mention shipping and charts in the same sentence, I’m still recovering from a certain shipping chart from a certain webcomic by a certain grey-skinned, rowdy individual.
As I’ve said to a few people now, Jo has an obvious attraction to Ethan, and pre-operation is still what Ethan is attracted to. There’s nothing saying a ship can’t happen, hell fanfic writers can have a ball with storylines of them working through it all.
That had to be the most complicated way to describe that due to no indication of where the split between the two people are. You meant Gay Male x pre-op MtF if I’m reading that right?
Due to the law of conservation of detail (TV tropes link not provided), showing her website to Ethan indicates that he will use this information in the future. Her part might theoretically have been added just to motivate Ethan’s acceptance of his own sexuality, but I doubt this is the case. It seems like there is too much potential character development for the other characters.
to everyone who thinks that this comic is pushing it with adding a transexual to the already large plethora of LGBT characters in this comic. Chances are you know someone who is transexual and dont even know that they are. Most people only share that they are with those they are close to. its not usually obvious that someone is trans with how far technology and treatments have come today.
Anyone who thinks that it’s statistically unlikely for a trans* person to exist in the vicinity of multiple nonheterosexuals can go eat a bag of hammers.
I’ve never really understood people crying about how unrealistic this all is. For one thing, the entire cast is fictional (heh), and for another, I mean, just speaking from personal experience, but I’ve known numerous trans* individuals, starting from fairly early in life, many people whose orientations were largely or entirely homo- or bisexual – in short, all manner of different locations along the various human spectra. How can it be construed as unrealistic just to have a trans* character, for example, or several homosexual characters in one spot?
And no, fuckos, your anecdotal “BUT I NEVER KNEW ANYONE LIKE THAT!” is completely invalid, because 1 – your experiences do not reflect a statistical sample of anything except “people who have met you,” and 2 – hey, maybe you did, but they just never told you (maybe there was even a particular reason why they chose not to tell you…? :P)
Anyway, I just wanted to chime in here after Wack’d and second his invitation to hammer-eating for those still unconvinced. I live in a Canadian province with fewer than a million residents, and I PERSONALLY have known more than five trans* people who are out.
I’m still a bit lost. Or maybe just dense. Is Josh physically female but identifies as male and openly dresses and behaves as such, or is she/he physically male, but identifies as female, but not openly? The latter seems much more likely, because that’s the only one of the two scenarios that could plausibly be kept hidden from the family. But some of the comments seem to suggest the former. For that the family would almost certainly have to know about it and apparently accept it.
Jocelyn was born male, but identifies as female, but not openly. However, once someone chooses to explain as such, it is considered polite and basic ettiquette to use their chosen name and pronouns only, for the most part. So she is a she. That help?
The comments. Definitely the comments. Remaining politically correct when dealing with gender situations our language is ill-prepared to handle is much more confusing than the situations themselves.
The annoying thing is, the word “man”/the word “man” came from used to be gender-neutral. And I’m pretty sure proto-English used to have gender-neutral pronouns as well.
I’ve started a movement to reclaim the gender neutrality of “man” and start calling masculine men “remen” to get an equal alternative to “women”, although it hasn’t caught on a lot yet. . .
Why “reman”? It’s short for were-man, which in Old English might translate to “masculine human”. And it’s a pretty big reconstruction of the language and redefinition of gender norms too, so that’s pretty funny.
Haha, that sounds pretty cool. Sadly, I don’t think it’ll catch on… at least, not for a while. I’d like to hear your other words for things though – sounds like stuff I could use in a story.
You only really need gendered pronouns when it’s important to distinguish the gender of the third person. Once people get used to that, they/them is going to dominate the third person objective the same way the formal plural “you” has come to replace words like thee and thou. There’s a slight trend towards formality inflation in the way people address each other in many languages; in a few hundred years maybe “those-all-y’alls” will be the norm.
Modern English has them too: only you wouldn’t use them to refer to people ;3 And, to the best of my knowledge, no language has proper pronouns for people whose body is the wrong gender.
Which is why gender-neutral pronouns are so nice – they don’t refer to any specific gender, just people.
Kinda confused though. I don’t think anyone who felt like they were in the wrong body would want that fact to be pointed out to them all the time in everyday conversation.
She was. She was really beautiful, inside and out. She looked a lot like Miranda from the new Brave movie, just for comparison.
I wasn’t there, but then, none of us were. The police report the witnesses gave said that some guys in a pick-up truck at a gas station in Plano, TX somehow figured out what Ivy was. I’m not sure how, I never found out… but they cornered her, kept her from leaving, and ran her down.
It bugged me for a long time. When I remember her, I remember her laughing; she was always laughing.
Ah, I guess saying all this now seems really weird.
Anyway, thanks for wanting to hunt them down 🙂 But, Ivy would have wanted me to forgive them. I find that, the people who you’d want to avenge are never the ones who want you to. They always just… were so kind… that they would ask you to let it go and they’ll see you later…
That depends on what she meant when she said she was “not actually gay.” Did she mean to tell Ethan “not interested in dudes”, regardless of the accuracy of the term “gay” as applied to her, or was that one of those lines that takes on a whole new meaning in hindsight?
She was correcting his assumption that she was a gay man. She might be a het/bi/pan lady, but I’m like 99.9995% sure she’s not a lesbian (both because she said she’s not gay and because there was definitely chemistry with Ethan). She could be het and into blokes exclusively. We don’t know.
Man, Ethan’s gonna have to watch his pronouns to avoid outing her to Joyce.
Also, I wonder if older brother whatsisJname knows about Jocelyne and is on the outs from the family for arguing that being Trans is okay in a “rhetorical” fashion?
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU WILLIS!!! As a transwoman myself, you can’t imagine how happy this makes me. I’ve been a long time reader, but only recently signed on to Gravatar, and decided to leave comments on your comics. What perfect timing. The transgender community needs all the visibility it can get. I don’t care about “unrealistic over-representation of LGBT individuals.” There’s too much misinformation and misconception about transgender people. In fact, that misinformation kept me from figuring myself out much earlier. (“I like girls, I can’t be transgender.” “Ummm, actually, you can.” “Whhhhhaaaaaaaat? OMG! Everything makes so much sense!”). Also, when you compare how often LGBT people have appeared in all media, they’re woefully underrepresented. Transgender people especially. Even in the gay community, there’s a lot of misunderstanding, and sadly, even some hatred and discrimination.
Also, I think it’s sooo neat that Jocelyne has the same name (well, almost) as the transwoman author of the absolutely cutest, and most open and honest webcomic about the transgender experience (and LGBT in general), Jocelyn Samara DiDomenick of Rain LGBT. Her art is the source of my cute avatar ^_^.
Okay, I think I’ll just opt out of this one. Not because of any prejudices or shit like that. It’s just really really exhausting watching everyone react to a shade of grey when everything before was black and white.
Education, Re-education, Miseducation, Assumption, Counter-Assumption, Inference, Innuendo, Indignation, Offensiveness, Defensiveness, Epiphany, Acceptance, and Recoil–all tossed together in a big disorganized heap. I’ll leave the hopping from thread to thread to you young people.
Admittedly all this talk of Trans and Ninjas and Halloween reminded of that one Tales from the Crypt episode where it turned out the former Secret Assassain had become a woman and married a guy who the Secret Agent Dudes thought was her but it turned out she cooked them for dinner.
A veritable stew of abbreviations to describe a situation that is not that difficult. Men, women. Men who identify as women. Women who identify as men.
The difficulty appears to be in so many people attempting to put tags on them and the way in which they chose to live their lives. Which is really nobodies business anyway.
Niomi being the mother, very likely knows that Josh/Joycelyn is not what he appears to be, even if she does not know that she knows. She is just a person that even if all is well, will find some way to make it not be well.
I am not sure that Joycelyn is all that nice a person either. Joycelyn knows that Ethan is dating Joyce – even called him out on it: and yet still sent Ethan a link when Ethan asked to ‘read his writings” -Yeah, right.
Joyce does not know about her ‘brother’ I don’t think or would not be exhibiting jealousy or making such a large attempt (pushing Josh/Jocelyn down the street physically).
I don’t think this relationship has a chance and not because either of the characters is all that nice a person either. Ethan likes guys and Jocelyn is not, by choice, a guy. Jocelyn thinks Ethan is a dick for dating his sister, and yet sent him a link, why? because getting recognized for your writing is a cool thing – even if it is by a dick? Makes him kind of a dick himself to my way of thinking.
…or, y’know, Jocelyn legitimately wants to be friends with Ethan, given that they enjoyed talking earlier, and Ethan is legitimately interested in what Jocelyn has written. We see no evidence that Jocelyn thinks Ethan is a “dick” even if he doesn’t agree with his actions, nor do we see any evidence that he’s desperate to have his stuff read. You’re making a lot of really weird assumptions.
I really hope they do become friends. Based on, er, thirty seconds of interaction they seem to get on well, and I think Ethan could use a friend who knows about being different.
I think that depends on if the man in question has been trained to think that having any level of regard or appreciation for a woman means that he wants to have sex with her. Not that society doesn’t go out of its way to do that to every man in the world.
… Also, something I can’t help but notice. She could’ve chosen any name for herself, and she still went with one that goes with the theme naming of her siblings. Is the J name that ingrained in the family?
I don’t know how it goes in the states, but up here in Canada you have to pay to change your name, and keeping the first letters of your original name facilitates the whole process as well as reduce the bill considerably.
Names shmames. You didn’t do fanart of your mother, did you? 😉
My friend married a guy with the same name as her dad. That’s way more awkward. But even they got over it eventually xD
BOY have I ever made that particular identification mistake before.
Finding out that someone you thought was a cute gay boy is actually a cute straight girl: Very jarring! Bit like trying to take the next stair after the staircase ends.
To people who think that the Ethan/Joshua ship is still kinda valid: it is not. Ethan/Joshua is dead, and Ethan/Jocelyne cannot exist based on the principle that gay males are not attracted to females. Also, the fact that Jocelyne has a good head on her shoulders means that she will not forgive Ethan if he broke up with Joyce for the express purpose of dating her.
Ethan/Jocelyne is dead, and anyone who thinks otherwise insults Jocelyne’s very existence as a woman.
“Gay” is not as well-defined as you might think, especially when gender and sex differ. Some gay men are into trans*men and some are into trans*women and some are into both and some are into neither. It depends on the individual. There are even plenty of “homoflexible” people, or people who identify as gay, but still have exceptions for certain women, cis or trans*.
Agreed, there are a lot of potential gender and attraction issues to be had here, which isn’t the greatest situation for Ethan; assuming this doesn’t turn out to be just a crush, he’d have yet another spanner in the gears of his sexuality as he tries to figure it out, even as two members of the same family are attracted to him.
Unrelated, but I was also trying to figure out what Ethan goes for in a guy, if you compare across universes, it could be the whole blue eyes thing, but Manny didn’t have that… I’m assuming Jacob is just more of a ‘here be buff working out guy, quick avert eyes’ rather than any actual attraction.
I’ll be honest, I don’t entirely understand this. People ship people across sexual orientation all the time. A fuckload of people do it for this very comic. I’d argue that by making Jocelyne a special case, you’re insulting her validity as a woman because we’re suddenly not allowed to ignore her preferences for the sake of fanart as is done with other women.
…okay, no, actually, I wouldn’t. That would be a stupid argument. But the point stands. There are more fucked-up ships than Ethan/Jocelyne and I’m not sure why this one has an extra squick factor.
I agree with Wack’d. I’m currently drawing all sorts of straight ladies making out with each other for Kickstarter rewards. It’s for fun, so why not. Jocelyne is also a straight lady, and so I’m not sure why I wouldn’t hypothetically allow her to make out with whomever, were she to have existed back when the Kickstarter ran.
I draw straight guys making out if someone who paid $300 requests I do so. It’s their choice, not mine. I’m a little sad nobody chose two dudes, but whatcha gonna do.
From my understanding, all people are saying is that the ship has been sunk in-universe. Of course, if they’re taking it farther than that, that’s kind of messed up, but that was my take on it.
I suppose I’m just sheltered, but it’s my understanding that persons who gender identify differently from their sex are pretty rare. Rarer than being gay, even. Presuming that this is true, the chances that one happens to turn up in Joyce’s family would, I would think, be pretty low. And which is the one family in the story that the transsexual turns up in? By sheer chance, the one that would happily kill him/her for it! That’s…dramatically convenient.
Don’t get me wrong – in my own efforts as a writer, I allow myself up to three longshot coincidences per story. But I think they’re to be avoided.
The other thing that bugs me slightly is that this takes away the element of choice from Josh, er, Jocelyn’s rebellion. (Admittedly, so would being gay.) I liked the idea of Joshua’s secret being atheism because it would mean that he had made the personal choice to take on a lifestyle that he knew was right, despite the fact that it wasn’t the one forcefed him by his parents. That takes a little balls, and we’d know he chose the trials he would be facing when it came out. But being trans is not a choice, and so her family situation is a trap she was born into rather than something that was chosen. And with the inevitable explosion and collapse… a doom that is forced upon a person is just depressing.
Not to mention Dexter and Monkey Master fans literally don’t even exist in our world, yet the comic cast is overflowing with them.
Taking statistically probable phenomena and deciding at your whim if they should happen or if the opposite should happen is the funniest part of being a writer I think. Juggling what is believable and what makes a story good, all the while drinking in the bitter tears of readers inventing reasons that things they don’t like shouldn’t happen instead of taking off and creating things of their own. . .
Was that last part directed at me? If so I find it amusing, because I HAVE taken off and created something of my own. I’m currently working on the sequel. (And if I finish it and it looks good, then I’m seriously considering releasing both of them to the public, imitating real creators like Willis.)
Regarding juggling what is believable/probable, I find this amusing too because one of the questions I’m currently chewing over is whether, among a group of five essentially random girls who will become close friends, one or more of them should be gay. Doing so or not wouldn’t have a significant influence on the story either way, or even the characterizations really (this does *not* happen to be the one group in the area likely to react in an extreme way to gays); I’m just pondering how the characters should be built. The only significant outcome I’d expect would be that, unless I make *two* of them gay, I’d probably be sentencing the poor girl to a one-sided crush before everything hashes out.
Anyway, I’m currently leaning away from the idea. Because I’m a mean old homophobe? Nope. (If I was I wouldn’t have even considered it.) It’s because there’s only five people in the group. Last I checked, the percentage of people in the population who are gay/lesbian is a fair bit less than 20%, which means that I’d be beating the odds to have one in this crowd. Since my story doesn’t actually need a gay person here, why should I push the odds?
So yeah. The accusation that I’m reacting this way due to my rampant homophobia as opposed to the (stated) likelihood concerns amuses me.
Not every group represents the statistical average. It’s kinda like you’re saying if the group of characters is from the Midwest, then you can’t put any Asians in the cast because less than 20% of the population is Asian. You also seem to be treating characters as if there is a certain template that is “Normal” and you feel you should only deviate from “Normal” if there is a statistically valid reason to do so.
With the construct you’ve developed I get the impression (and this could be wrong) that if any of your cast members differ from stereotypical, mainstream white, it will only be in one way, because differing from “Normal” in two ways is statistically unlikely — which I think is incorrect, but seems to be a common belief of writers and marketing directors. How many times have we seen the advertisement or the show with the white jock guy (“Normal”) and the white girl (deviates from “normal” by gender) with three people chosen from the following list: the black guy (deviates by race), the smart guy (deviates by being geeky, but is still white and male), the Asian character (deviates by race and sometimes gender), the white gay man or lesbian (deviates by sexual orientation, but rarely race) the Latino/Latina/Indian/Native American/Pacific Islander/etc. (but only one of them and generally not if the group already has “the black guy”), and/or the one with some sort of disability (but is normally still white). And each of them in the show is often defined by their subgroup, as if that is the only characteristic they have that contributes to their personality. We never/rarely see the goth, black lesbian who is deaf, because heaven forbid someone deviates from “Normal” in more than one way.
You may not have meant it to come off that way, but that’s how your posts read, to me at least.
First of all, while you would be “beating the odds” by having one in five characters be gay, you will have significantly fewer than the average number of queer folks if you don’t include any. Furthermore, statistics doesn’t say that every group will perfectly represent the average. It would be equally realistic for two of them to be queer as for one of them as for none of them as for all of them. Averages represent overall trends, but say very little about individuals and small groups. Or are you going to tell me that my little friend group is “unrealistic” because 5/6 of us identify as some flavor of queer? (1 straight, 3 bisexuals, 2 heteroflexibles.)
And as Willis keeps saying, diversity is interesting. If it doesn’t have any significant impact, then there’s no reason not to include minority characters. If you really want to pretend to be not homophobic, try asking why you need your entire cast to be straight, rather than why you need a queer character.
Lastly, there is very little queer representation in media of all kinds, and it has been shown to be pretty harmful for a variety of reasons that I’m not well-equipped to explain.
Well, there’s a big difference between unlikely story elements and unbelievable story elements. Does it strain the suspension of disbelief to have one out of five characters be gay, or is it an improbability that you can justify in the story if you think it’ll make the story better?
Jocelyn isn’t a coincidence. If Joyce was reading her fiction on line, and it was her favorite fiction, and she didn’t realize she even had an older sibling, That would be a coincidence. This is just a character in the story, introduced with a specific purpose. Saying her existence is a big, unlikely coincidence because she has an unusual trait is like saying It’s too big a coincidence to conceive that “Harry Potter just happens to tell the story of the one person who could deal with this coincidence! What are the odds that, out of all the students at Hogwarts, our viewpoint character just happens to be the one that everything happens to!”
(Granted, Harry Potter is full of unlikely coincidences, but who the characters are and why they’re in the story isn’t one of them.)
How I define what is or isn’t too much of a coincidence could be a little complicated to explain. This may take a bit:
First, there are certain things I think that you get for free – the whole setting, for example. Psychics exist in your world? Sure. Magic? Prophecies? Aliens? Dragons? Hobbits? Honest politicians? All allowed as part of the setting, since the setting is malleable. You get to build your world for free
And so, given that, looking at Potter: Magic is defined, prophecies are defined, and magically prophesied chosen ones are prophesied. So, given a big evil Voldemort, it’s not improbable that there would be somebody prophesied to beat him.
Okay, then what are the odds that a given person is that chosen one? Depends on how you look at it – it’s either vanishingly small, or a sure thing. How could that be? Well, if Voldy has a chosen one, then it’s a sure thing that somebody is that person. The story just happens to be about that person. No problem. No improbability.
Coming back to the current situation, there’s nothing about fundy families that requires them to bear trans children. (At least, nothing that I know of.) So it’s a coincidence that it happened in this case. How coincidental? Hard to say. But the situation isn’t really comparable to Harry Potter’s chosen one status.
I guarantee there are a non-zero number of fundie families with trans* children. This comic happens to include one of them. There is no coincidence there, just Willis choosing the most dramatically interesting elements with which to build his story.
Not exactly the point of what I was saying. Let’s ignore speculative fiction and go with something more realistic, so we aren’t cluttered with speculative issues. Say, an episode of Law & Order. What are the odds that, out of all the cops in New York City, and all the people murdered, that this particular cop is working this particular murder? Doesn’t matter. The story is about this particular cop working this particular case.
Same here. The story thread involves a trans* woman in a fundamentalist Christian family. That’s not a coincidence, that’s a story foundation.
Maybe it is just in my experience, but I’ve run across a number of trans* people in my life. Not as many as gay or lesbian but a good number.
Not going to get into your stance on theism except – there are a number of atheist in this story already. Of which Joyce is friends with and stood up for.
And yes being trans* is not a choice, but it is her choice how she deals with it. And if it is only with using an online handle then – that is how she is doing it.
That may change in the future, but that is her choice in the matter.
And as it happens, to my knowledge I’ve never yet met a single trans* person in real life. Not one! (At least, not one that admitted it.) Small reference pools are a funny thing, huh?
The * signifies that they’re including everyone who puts themselves in the “trans” label. It’s meant to be inclusive for the entire spectrum.
And I’m willing to bet that just because you don’t know anyone who has told you they’re trans, it doesn’t mean they don’t exist. I know at least one person who is definitely somewhere on the spectrum, because they changed their name, but I don’t know them well enough to ask which pronouns they prefer. If I hadn’t known them before they changed their name, I wouldn’t know they were anything except androgynous in appearance.
My nephew used to identify himself as a woman for many years before he realized that he had been born in the body of the opposite gender. It was the first time I met one in person, but since then I’ve met two others in the city where I live alone, and we’re only 75000 people. It’s understandable that you can have a hard time believing in what you’ve never personally observed, but that doesn’t mean you should disregard other peoples’ observations.
While my best friend’s mother suffered from anorexia, I’ve never personally met a bulimic person, but I know they exist. I’ve never lost a close friend to a car accident, but I know they happen. I’ve never been stabbed with a knife, but I know friends who have, years before we met, and I believe them when they say it hurts. If we based everything solely on personal observation, we’d be a lot more ignoreant.
I don’t really remember, but that IS the real question.
You could look up the study if interested:
“Sexuality and the Secular” [Linneman and Clendenen 2009].
Corrected statistics are that 42% of atheists and 29% of agnostics believe that “same sex behavior” is wrong, vs 75% for ‘believers’. It’s a bit vague.
I did a quick search and found 3 counter-arguments that athiests/agnostics gave:
1. tradition of a man and a woman being married
2. marriage being about procreation
3. gay marriage somehow giving gays a financial leg up on people who live together nonromantically (although straight couples already have a leg up…)
What the hell? You’d think atheists of all people would reject the silliness of the first two arguments for the same reason they reject the silliness of religion/God.
Then again, I guess that just goes to show that not all atheists are critical thinkers…
I always remind myself that all statistics are based off the percentage of people interviewed. In this situation, I am unable to access those pages, so I cannot see where they got their research pool from to garner those statistics. Depending upon the focus of their study, it could simply be they chose to small a pool to be representative of the population as a whole.
Anderhail, no. You can calculate when a sample is large enough to be representative (although the sample might be biased, but that’s a whole different problem), and if a study has too small a sample size, it should not have been published at all.
Why so many of us desperately want to be better than religious people? The fact that we’re (probably) right about this one thing does not make us better people. It’s healthier if we just all accept that. Yes, religion can make you believe crazy things, but that doesn’t mean we are magically safe from irrational, bigoted or simply unlikely beliefs.
That kind of bigotry is virtually never about God’s mandates in the first place. It’s cultural. Just because someone rejects one part of a culture doesn’t mean they don’t blindly follow some of its other ignorant bits.
LGBTQQ people are different. We’re a minority. Not believing in God doesn’t automatically take away the fear and distrust people feel toward those who are different.
Honestly I think that’s what it comes down to. We’re different, and some people are squicked out thinking about us. They can come up with a lot of fronts to justify their disapproval – God isn’t the only excuse available.
By that logic, you’d think Christians would reject the silliness of rejecting someone in God’s name when Jesus’ entire ministry was about love and forgiveness.
Atheists and Christians who hate gays are bigots because they’re bigots. Not because of any of their beliefs on the subject other than their bigotry.
I’d respond with “The writers create the Doctor. He has no agency, no desires, no characteristics other than what they give him. If he wants to be a man it’s because they want him to want that. If they want to justify him wanting to be a woman, they can do that because they write the show.”
Fans have the right to not watch things they’re not happy with. I guess that’s about it.
I think that argument is saying that if the writers make decisions about the character for the wrong reasons (such as audience demands), it reduces the veracity of the character, makes him a product of committee design rather than a honest artistic vision, which is a fairly ridiculous complaint to make about any TV show, and especially one that’s gone through nearly a hundred different writers.
Should the writers make the Doctor a woman because X audience members say they want it? Yes, if they can make it a good story. Should they do it if they think it would send a positive message and get more people to watch the show? Yes, if they can make it a good story. Should they do it if focus groups say it would sell? Yes, if they can make it a good story. Should they do it if they think it would make a good story? Yes, if they can make it a good story.
My general experience is that when a character has been sufficiently established in a certain way, having them act in a different way does indeed ‘reduce veracity’ because, well, they’re out of character.
Of course, my microscopic understanding of Dr. Who is that when the Doctor reincarnates/reformats/whatever they call it, there’s a complete personality change. So…yeah. If that’s the case, nothing they could do would be out of the question from a character standpoint. So yeah – the writers could do what the like, as long as it works for the story.
Thanks for your help! I mean, I’ve actually covered these arguments in other parts of the blog, but you couldn’t have known that, and it’s nice to find like-minded people.
begbert2, you are missing one key fact: There are lots of other fundamentalist christian families in the DOA universe who do not have a transgender person (or a daughter with a gay boyfriend, for that matter), they simply are not featured in the comic. The characters of a fictional work are not selected at random from the set of all people in the universe the work takes place in.
And even if you take the odds that a group exactly matching all of the characters would come together as freshman students at one university… which has got a lot in common with, of all things, one of the ridiculous arguments creationists make about evolution… well, the IU class of 20X7 is just one of many possible places and times that could happen.
In other words, unless the answer to “what are the odds?” is _significantly_ worse than “one in seven billion”, it’s really not justified to say that it is implausible that some character exists as they are – and you have to stack a lot of irrelevant things to get the odds to that point.
If the situation was, “Is there at least one fundy family with a transgender child? We’re going to write about that story”, then of course, there almost certainly is such a family, and the story could be just focusing on that family. But the situation is actually, “The family in question is the family of the established character Joyce.” Joyce is not a random person; she’s been around a while. So we’re not sorting through all the fundy familys looking for one with a Jocelyn, we have a starting set of one family: Joyce’s family. The chances of that family having a Jocelyn are thus the chances of any random fundy family having a Jocelyn. Pretty sure that’s not 1:1.
It’s sort of how that chances that somebody somewhere will be struck by lightning are really high, but what are the chances *you* will be?
Okay, but this is the story about Joyce. Joyce is one of ~7B people in the world. She happens to belong to a fundie family and have a trans* sister. There are a non-zero number of people like Joyce in the world. This is about one of them. That you did not previously know about her sister does not mean that she did not exist in-universe.
And actually, the odds of Joyce’s family having a Jocelyne are 1. Because, regardless of how likely it is in theory, we have proof that it actually happened.
So true, Willis. Heck, statistically, I shouldn’t exist but that doesn’t mean I’m going to go off and kill myself so that I eliminate the statistical outlier that is my life. 😉
Statistics really shouldn’t come into it. Authors write stories without any regard to statistics anyway.
If someone’s incorporating minorities just to have minority presence, I’d find that strange, but almost nobody does that. Willis is incorporating minorities because he wants to tell stories related to them. Just because he hasn’t set DoA in a gay bar doesn’t mean he can’t have LGBT characters.
I just find it strange that Willis could introduce Samuel, the AI Jason programmed while teaching math class because he was bored, and nobody would bat an eye. Statistically speaking 0% of the population are sentient computer programs, but we’d all be cool with it.
I always consider statistics in my writing. Not that it matters exactly how unlikely the things that I want to happen are to happen cause they’re going to happen anyway, but it’s useful to determine that it’s possible for them to happen.
The weird thing is that statistically it’s always possible for the things I want to happen to happen.
So… was I the only one who thought that “Jocelyn” was just a nom de plume he was using? For atheist writing? Was not actually expecting that bombshell.
Well, she said she likes writing because it allows her to be herself. If “he” just wanted a psuedonym to write to the heathen masses, he could have picked a male one.
I thought that at first; in fact, I was momentarily puzzled because I thought this was Joyce’s actual name and couldn’t understand why Ethan was getting a text with that information.
I now feel obliged to go through the archives and count how many times Willis has been asked if he’d ever have a trans* character since “Josh” was introduced. And then to wonder how many times he’s been asked since that strip was put in the buffer.
Running away from all the Jocelyn discussion for a moment, what would she do if her family ever asked to see her writing? I can’t imagine it’s something they’d never profess interest to, so does she set up a dummy website or something?
It’s nice that Jocelyn trusts Ethan enough with this though.
She did say ‘some links’, not ‘a link’. She probably writes under multiple names, for multiple publications/sites, and just gives the ones under her birth name, or with a gender-neutral pseudonym, to her parents.
Same here, to the point i thought that the website name was a shipping name for Joyce and someone else, until I actually thought about it for a moment.
Friend of mine went from Cera to Seyr. Seyr. I’m pretty sure that’s not even a first name! (Actually I’m pretty sure neither are first names but there’s way more hits for Cera on baby-name sites than Seyr by like 100:1.)
Some trans* people don’t give two fucks about distancing themselves from their old identities. Nothing wrong with that.
That’s why I said TECHNICALLY. Joshua may not be a cisgendered male, but he does identify himself as a male. So TECHNICALLY, Ethan would be dating a guy, but since Joshua still has the lady parts, Ethan would TECHNICALLY be in a heterosexual relationship.
I think you have it backwards. Jocelyne is a trans woman; she identifies as a woman, but she is not out to her family – and is still presenting as male to them.
Physically she does not have ‘lady parts’ as you put it.
Ethan/Jocelyne would involve Ethan dating a woman, but as Jocelyne hasn’t transitioned, I doubt that would go over well with either Naomi or the Browns. (Not to mention it would likely hurt Joyce.)
As well, if Ethan is exclusively attracted to male bodies, that would cause major difficulties in the hypothetical relationship should Jocelyne decide she wants to transition/present more as a woman.
Oh, OK. The whole time, I thought that Joshua was a cisgendered woman presenting as a male, when Joshua is really a cisgendered male that identifies as a female but isn’t openly presenting as a woman yet. Mea culpa.
Jocelyne is “technically” a woman, not a man. (although i’m pretty dang certain that using the term “technically” with regards to a person’s gender identity is pretty gross)
Sorry, I don’t mean “technically” in a patronizing way, as if i’m doing air quotes and rolling my eyes while doing it, like those assholes who think that transgendered people are “mentally sick” or refuse to acknowledge them by the gender they identify with. (Or worse, call them a “thing” or “it”)
I do agree, but it’s great that folks debate usage of a word or another… I for one rarely have the chance to discuss such issues with friends, so I’m just glad that there are so many views expressed.
Well, you have to use *something*. Heck, I picked the option that I thought was the least likely to cause offense, since it doesn’t indicate anything about the person that it refers to, and you can see what THAT got me!
Basically, the comments are mostly transphillic people with various degrees of interest and knowledge on the subject having a hell of a confusing argument about how to be transphillic regarding a fictional character and her real-life counterparts.
It’s giving me a huge headache.
Depends on where she’s living and if there’s any chance of her parents seeing her mail and such.
Considering the family, there is no way in hell she’s let them know. MAYBE Jordan, depending on what his deal is, but not their parents and not sheltered little Joyce. Considering Joyce’s character development so far, I wouldn’t be surprised if she comes out to her eventually, but it won’t be for a while. Like, I wouldn’t expect to see that strip for another five years at LEAST.
And the parents? Yeah, they’re not finding out unless Jocelyn’s willing to get disowned.
Sorry, just happy to see a nice character on a webcomic i like to be like me. Well of course there’s a lot more to me, but this aspect is preeetty rarely well depicted as everyone of course knows
I’ll try it, thanks. I wonder how i missed it. Back then i read so many webcomics made by trans women which were about the experiences. Although back then might have been a bit earlier than that.
Admittedly nowadays i prefer when comics about something else entirely (like dumbing of age and questionable content) include a trans character and occasionally show their struggles, but not as the main theme. I dunno, might be because it fits more with my life how it is now 😛
Venus Envy is/was pretty good (venusenvycomic.com (because I suck at things like hyperlinking)), but it’s apparently really slow to update nowadays. I thought it’d actually died off a few years back, but apparently it’s just worse than SGVY for updating now.
Oh Venus Envy! That webcomic was the one that accompanied me through my darkest times.
I had completely forgotten about SGVY! Wow the website changed!
I also used to read Closetspace, but i couldn’t connect so well with it.
khaos komix is actually the same story as told by the 8 characters, and was written by a gay man, but features characters of multiple sexualities, and was a romance story
Also, to the absolute CLUSTERFUCK that is this thread discussing labels. It doesn’t matter in the slightest. The only thing that matters is that Jocelyne is unhappy with her biological gender and therefore most likely needs to change it.
Granted I have not read every comment but I do think that there are some good discussions going on in the comments. If you have the time you could read them all or at the very least skim through them. (This is what I do since I only have so much time to read 700+ comments).
I feel that I have learned a great deal this morning and I found reading the comments worthwhile.
1) “Biological gender” doesn’t exist.
2) You have no way of knowing how Jocelyne feels about her physical sex. Many trans* folks do not feel the need to physically transition at all. She could be perfectly happy with her body (I mean, as much as anyone ever is) or she could loathe every inch of it. There are trans* people all along that spectrum.
I know. (Also a Karen that is trans – I go by transkaren on Twitter – Willis misgendered me at ECCC last year and we talked for a bit after he apologized) My egotistical self wants to say that this was due to that encounter (I spent most of ECCC talking to artists encouraging them to have T* characters; If I remember correctly I guilt-tripped a bit to Willis, talked about having a T* superhero to Thom Zahler, and I think to one or two others), but the fact of the matter is that he probably had this planned WAY in advance and was sitting there trying to keep from spoiling it for me.
Yeah, I’ve run into that misread a few times. That’s part of the reason I started using Just Karen (the other part being that once I got used to the idea that I was, in fact, able to blend in with the rest of womankind – why tell people up front that I’m trans, when I’ve worked with people that can’t tell after a year of working together?)
Jesus. This comic has more comments than I could even attempt to read right now, with far too much arguing about labels. It’s all arguments about what the correct way to label someone is, if you should label them at all, etc, etc. Which… all just kind of depends on whether you’ve been around someone who’s trans, how much you know about it, and what the view point of that particular person is. But, y’know, I’m just going to say — at least all of the arguments I’ve seen are in Jocelyne’s favour (from what I’ve read), regardless of who’s arguing what. People are wrong, people are right. But whatever their argument is in most of these posts? They’re still arguing for Jocelyne. For trans people. Technicalities be damned, that’s pretty badass. Admittedly, could be that the jerkier comments have been deleted/not allowed through at all, BUT STILL. That’s a shit ton of people arguing in her favour.
I rarely have time to comment in DoA, 600 comments 2 days ago is too much time consuming. This already hit…. Almost 800 comments. I think I will check the comments gradually.
I concur! And I can see myself coming back to this page in the future, just to take another reading of the mostly smart things being written in over 1,100 comments. It’s certainly more encouraging than some of the gaming article comments I’ve stumbled upon lately… Ugh.
Hell, if it was just the Kotaku lot I wouldn’t mind quite so much but it really, really isn’t 🙁
…Although someone on there posted a link to Shortpacked’s “False Equivalence” strip some ways back; which is why I’m even here in the first place, so at least there’s that.
The problem is that people don’t understand that it’s not simply a matter of being male or female. Gender identity is composed of many smaller sub-categories, but the big ones are biological / dna, sexual partner preferrence, behavioral traits, mental traits, and physical appearrance.
A person can have traits typical of one gender in any of those categories and still overall fall on the other side of the gender spectrum. Let’s take DoA’s Danny for example. A lot of people hate him because he feels wrong to them. The reason for that is that a lot of his innate characteristics fit better to the female accepted mode than the male and the dissonance causes people to fall back on anger. Some people feel he’s a tool, a wimp, stupid, and the list goes on. Others feel he’s an ass, a bastard, a brute, and that list goes on as well. The reality is that he’s a male who displays bits of female-oriented belief system while still placing himself in a position as a regular heterosexual male. The dissonance from what is ‘accepted right’ and what is ‘seen’ in his behavior causes people to fall back on anger because of the old hammer the odd nail into place defense. As Danny himself said at one point, “Is it so wrong to believe that love is more important than stupid harvard.” or “We are soulmates.” while being perfectly acceptable things to say as a man, they are still considered to be ‘feminine’ in nature. If he was a girl or even a gay male character he would be given a lot less hatred than he gets. But because he has the audacity to display characteristics that society accredits to the feminine spectrum while still portraying himself as a straight and masculine man causes the dissonance to set in.
The reality is that every single one of us even those of us who consider ourselves to be firmly on one side of the spectrum male or female is shades or pastels in between. The only absolute in gender is the dna you were born with. Everything else that makes up gender and gender choices is a mix and match somewhere in the middle.
Not even going to get into the meat of your argument, but I will say that DNA and gender are unrelated. Your gender is exactly how you identify, and nothing else. If you identify as a dude, you are a dude, genetics be damned. If you identify as a lady, you’re a lady. If you tell me your gender is “potted plant,” then your gender is potted plant, and I won’t say a word about your human DNA.
It’s kind of disingenuous to say they are unrelated. DNA is certainly not a determinant of gender, but it does have a positive correlation. However, that obviously does not mean that you can use that as a basis to deny somebody’s identity.
Sure, sure. It’s a, like, 80% accurate predictor, even, but only because sex and gender so frequently align. Gender is not determined by DNA; they just happen to correlate a lot.
Oh man, thumbs up for you Willis, you not just torpedoed the ship but actually send in the Kraken to drag it down to the bottom. Kudo to you good sir. I love this kind of plot twist.
“A long time ago, this land used to be empty and barren. But survivors of Josheth shipping landed here after escaping their sinking ship. They want to fix the ship to keep it afloat. But the wrath of gods fell upon them as the Kraken was sent to drag the ship down to the bottom. The shippers was crying so hard their tears turn into a river, turning this land into a lush, fertile land we live in now.”
Kerry, you and I both love shipping. Building them and launching them is a beautiful thing to do. But I…. I prefer to be the Chaotic Neutral Captain. I also love to watch some ships torn assunder. Do you know how much schadenfreude I enjoyed when Digimon fans saw the ending of the anime? Or when this happened?
Shipping business is not a kind one. Shipping war always waged off shore. Ship sunk because the plot say so and how shippers will salvage the pieces trying to hold their beloved shipping afloat…..
Shipping world is like a poetry in motion. They sail on the ravaged sea of message boards.
PS: I like your vsophi name better, did you change it because vsophi decided to goes down with the ship?
It’s not just you expressing glee over ship-sinking. It’s this plus some of the other troubling remarks you made yesterday. It’s like jeez, dude, people are trying to have fun with this shit and you’re just gloating about it and passing judgement.
PS: No, my name change had nothing to do with that particular ship because I did not PARTICULARLY CARE FOR THAT SHIP.
Well, that just about did it, Willis. You might break the comment record again!
I was kinda half-expecting that after one of yesterday’s comments (I think?) said it might be a possibility, but still, fair play, that was somewhat unexpected.
I didn’t saw that comming, I didn’t understand what was happening until I read the comments and I’m still not sure how to feel about this, because Ethan clearly had in interest in Jocelyn and well. She’s a girl.
That’s conflict on a whole new level…
I’m having trouble getting my head around this question, it has to be said. Like including a trans character is some kind of bandwagon, and one started by JJ.
Then you have to wonder, if Willis got the idea from another comic, then that comic must have gotten it from another comic, right? And on and on it goes, until you get to the Original Trans* of Webcomics.
EGS is not even remotely trans*, and in fact is a tad insulting to the whole trans* concept in general, since it basically ignores the whole concept of gender identity, and shoves it violently under the rug.
ooh wow i’m reading all the comics where Jocelyn appears and wow. So that must be what it’s like when someone comes out to you. Things suddenly click into place and everything makes so much more sense!
well i did have to go back and reread all those strips. But i’ve had my family react like that. My brother was the most obvious. “wow suddenly i understand you. So when you… oh.. and when… oooh”
So it isn’t like that that often? I imagine at least there’s a massive reevaluation of what you know about the person?
She obviously puts a lot of effort into staying closeted. I wonder if she writes decoy articles about how traditional family values and Jesus are going to save America from the heathenous liberals to show to her parents when they ask?
She probably doesn’t show them it, or shows them only safe stuff. My parents take a lot of interest in my writing, but I absolutely refuse to show them some of it, just because they don’t like cursing.
I can only imagine the hoops she has to jump through.
Yeah, I figured she would. But when? I can plausibly see it when Joyce goes home for Thanksgiving, but that’s two months of strip time away. So how many years will we have to wait? @_@
I think I understood what happend. But then I read the comments and my head starts to spin with all those confusing terms and what if’s and why and feelings and own identifications.
Suddenly me still being a virign seems less of a problem than having to deal with not liking my own gender/feeling like a woman instead of a man while living in a male body.
First error — considering “still being a virgin” to be a problem.
And given the complexities of modern-day interpersonal relationships, maybe staying a virgin is going to be a lot less stressful and problematic than the alternative.
First, I wouldn’t worry about being a “virgin”, whatever the hell that actually means, lol. I mean, what benefit does having had sex actually give you? There’s no change in character or personality other than a placebo of confidence created by an odd social standard, which was in turn created by teenagers to make a social hierarchy, out of an attempt to establish a sense of identity, based around gender roles which are constantly changing, and an artificial feeling of acceptance from a group of peers who are just as awkward and afraid of growing up as you are.
So really, don’t worry about it. 🙂 There’s a time and a place for everyone’s first time, and I guarantee you it’ll be just as bad as anyone else’s first time. 😀 Just be you and the rest will follow.
Secondly, I agree that the complexities of gender/sex/orientation is a bit overwhelming, but here’s a video that’s helped me understand it. 🙂
All the rest of this aside, I think the most impressive thing is that her middlename is “J”. Assuming the rest of them have middle name like that, the Brown must have dug up 8 Biblical male names starting with J and assigned them all.
Which is pretty impressive, honestly considering I didn’t think there was more than like 6, minus the ones that you wouldn’t want to assign.
Well, no, posting under “his” own name on the website they shared; I thought the big secret was going to be something about the wife (perhaps something Ethan had read), which was why the Browns didn’t seem to know about… oh, never mind. I’m stupid.
Oy, this whole thing has been a huge barrel of confusion and feels on my part. Why can’t we go back to discussing religion and complex philosophy? That’s much simpler.
You know, I wondered if this would happen, but I didn’t think that Willis would actually go there. In retrospect, why I didn’t think Willis would go somewhere, I don’t know. 🙂
Not that I think this would happen, but the ship would hardly sink if Ethan also turned out to be trans — and “I guess I must be gay but I don’t feel like that’s right somehow so I’m going to do preposterous things around my sexual identity” is certainly something I did before my transition, so. HEADCANON ACQUIRED.
Ok, Count me confused. Can someone please clarify? (Sorry, but I don’t have time to read through 1000 comments to find answers.)
1. Is Joshua transgendered, currently male but wanting to be female?
2. Or is she already female? If so, how the hell did she pull that off w/o the parents knowing? Seems impossible to me.
3. Why is he/she writing under his sister’s name? Joyce is short for Joycelyn, right?
4. Or is he not transgendered, but wants Ethan to consider his dating status more closely by leading him to Joyce’s website?
5. What will the website show?
All “Joshua” tags have become “Jocelyne”. This tells me that the character is to be considered female, plumbing fixtures (or lack of them) notwithstanding, which means that #1 and #2 are sort of irrelevant. However, there is one clue; the line about how the character “is still the favorite because they know the least about me”.
3) “Jocelyn” and and “Joyce” would not be appearing as two separate tags if they were the same person.
4) “JocelynJBrown.com” is not Joyce’s website. See the above reasoning; besides, what need would Joyce have for her own website anyway?
5) In theory, it would show Jocelyn’s writings, blogs, bibliography, etc just like any other writer’s website. See neilgaiman.com as an example. But Willis has set it up so that it redirects to the Dumbing of Age homepage.
I might also add that this latest plot twist puts a whole different meaning on the title of the 9/7/13 comic (“Undeclared”).
1. That is more or less correct, but semantics might disagree (some people see themselves as the gender they identify as, regardless of what they biologically are. It can be a hard concept to understand when initially diving in.)
2. She identifies as female. Uses female name and female pronouns, but probably does not try to pass as one, or at least, not in front of her parents.
3. Joyce is not short for Jocelyn.
4. Inaccurate due to what I said above.
5. Probably a lot of stories that her parents would throw a fit about.
“Joshua” identifies as female, but hasn’t told anyone in her family, not even Joyce. Her chosen name is “Joycelyn”.
If you’re the sort of person who wants to know what’s under the pants, Joycelyn most likely still has what most people would assume are “boy parts”.
Joyce isn’t short for anything. Joycelyn is it’s own name. You’d have to ask her why she chose it. But since she’s A) Fictional and B) On her way out of the comic, that probably wont happen any time soon.
HTH
1) Jocelyne is transgender (no -ed). She was assigned male at birth, but identifies (and thus is) female. She presumably has male genetalia.
2) She is female. She likely has not undergone any sort of physical transition.
3) She is writing under her own name, Jocelyne. Joyce is not short for Jocelyne.
4) She is trans* and the link is to her website where she writes under her own name.
5) The website will, presumably, show her writing.
I do see her as staying in contact with Ethan, because she sees he needs some help and guidance – and he needs to step away from Joyce. Applause, since I thought we might lose the character altogether after parent’s weekend.
Plus we need some more time in the gender studies class, so the kids can work this out.
And the record is broken. This calls for a celebration…and since it’s still October 14th in other parts of the world, I would like to propose a virtual toast….for it is my birthday today(or yesterday…in my country in the time of typing) and for breaking the record.
A random check shows that it’s been there on other days as well. Or, knowing now how devious Willis can be, he just started adding it but went back and added it to all of them to cover his tracks.
Given that I identify as female but my family doesn’t know about it, and that my family is religious in very much the same tradition as Jocelyne’s (if less blatantly awful than the awfulness presented in the previous comment record holding page), I question whether or not there will ever be a fictional character I identify with more strongly than her. So good job Willis. It’s rare enough to see positive depictions trans* characters, and I never imagined I’d see one that’s basically in the exact same situation I am. It means a lot to me, is what I’m saying.
I think the people suggesting Joyce knows about this, or would be accepting, or… well, anything with Joyce and not “freaking out in complete denial and suggesting her sister is possessed by the devil” are nearly as delusional as she is.
We’re talking about a young woman who is so far down the rabbit hole she’s openly freaking out at the mere existance of Atheists. A Transgendered sister, someone she can’t just demonize as “other,” wouldn’t be something she could handle. I think it would be good for her development as a person, but at the same time, given how horrible she is I half expect her to just disown Jocelyne outright and continue living in denial.
(As an aside, didn’t Joyce and Jocelyne’s mother give Jocelyne the stink eye earlier on? Do you think her mother knows…?)
The “Xe” pronouns used throughout here are also kinda annoying to me. Jocelyne isn’t a “thirdgender” or “genderqueer” or what have you. She’s a transwoman. That means the proper pronoun is “She.” “Xe” or “Zie” or what have you… eww.
And finally, I totally am shipping Jocelyne and Ethan, even more than before. Jocelyne is obviously very attracted to Ethan, and those who consider their sexualities to be incompatible aren’t considering that you have a gay man who is attempting to force himself into a straight relationship who is obviously attracted to a presumably not-transitioning transwoman. I think they’re kinda made for each other, to be honest.
(Lord, big post, but been chew on this one for 14 hours, heh.)
Man, if you think Joyce would disown Jocelyne for being trans* you clearly haven’t been paying much attention to this arc! Joyce might try to “fix” Jocelyne the way she has Ethan, or she might try as best she can to not let it bother her as she has with Dorothy, but I think it’s worth noting that despite both of them being brain-breakers for her she’s been more than willing to accept them into her life. Disowning Jocelyne is the absolute last thing she would do.
You are totally correct that in this case people should go with “she”, but would you mind not putting genderqueer in quotes and not expressing distaste for the pronouns people choose to use when their language gives them very few gender neutral options? It comes across as subtly belittling.
Not really, it doesn’t? My issue is that people are including these unofficial gender neutral pronouns (to wit: I always thought it was “Zie” not “Xe”, I guess it’s changed again this week) with someone who actually DOES self identify with a gender.
The proper pronoun for a Transwoman is “She.” The proper pronoun for a Transman is “He.” I put Genderqueer in quotes because the last time I tried to use that word, I had some Internet moral crusader type rip me a new one for being transphobic. Yeah, cause that makes sense.
I have to say, I totally did not expect a trans character to show up here. I’m definitely pleased though. I love seeing us represented. I hope it’s handled well, though I’ve yet to be disappointed with David’s writing, and I hope that continues.
I’m also surprised at just how many of my fellow trans people are here in the comments. I’m so unused to seeing large groups of us in one place that isn’t explicitly trans related. XD
Okay so as a cis scum I don’t fully understand all this terminology here so please bear with me.
But are we supposed to refer to someone who just feels like he’s a woman or vice versa even though s/he doesn’t crossdress nor had any sort of operation done as “trans”? If I feel like I’m actually the opposite of the gender I was born into I can say I’m trans even if I dress and act publicly in a way that people of the gender I was born with usually do?
Also do we autmatically have to refer to him as “her” now? Just because he feels like he’s a woman trapped in a man’s body? I thought first you have to take some steps to earn that or something.
Given that mental sexual dimorphism isn’t actually a thing and that there’s no “acting like a man” or “acting like a woman” except for what society has arbitrarily decided, I’d say that no, you can absolutely be trans* without wearing clothes or preforming actions traditionally associated with masculinity or femininity. And identity isn’t something you have to earn, there’s no hoops to jump through. If you feel like you’re not the gender biology says you are than you’re not and people should respect that.
Actually the trans label is more relevant before transitioning than afterwards.
oh uh Sex = physical, Gender = mental
At this point the only reason i even mention that i’m transsexual is to create awareness, my birth sex has hardly any impact on my life anymore, which means that i’m starting to feel like any cis person. The trans label is starting to not matter anymore. And thus it shouldn’t matter to anyone else
Before transitioning however was the time where my birth sex and my gender were the most at conflict. It hurt so much. THAT is already part of being trans and as such there is no point where i “became” transsexual. I already was at birth because that conflict was there from birth. Discovering that label and finding that it applied to me is what helped me understand what was going on with me.
and well David Willis confirmed that Jocelyn identifies as female, which means she is and always has been a woman. (i honestly have no idea how it is with gender fluid people, but when the author directly states she’s a woman without any addendum, then she’s definitely always been a woman)
There’s at least two schools of thought, depends on your point of view.
a) The Journalistic point of view, which is you always refer to (in third person) a subject by their presented gender UNLESS it’s clear there are mitigating circumstances for the the presented gender, or you just use their preferred name if known. http://www.glaad.org/reference/transgender
b) The subjects point of view, in which you use their preferred pronouns, terms and name.
The difference is that in A, you may be writing about someone (eg from a police report) that may present conflicting data. Police reports usually only refer to the legal status of the individual, even if they present otherwise. In B you may be in direct contact with the individual or have information that is written by the subject themselves (eg a blog or book.)
Most of the labels and terminology you read that go along with trangender and queer topics you should avoid using entirely unless that label is presented by the subject themselves. To do otherwise is being just as disrespectful. You may not agree their terms fit your definition, but if that’s what they want to use, let them.
More to the point, some people intentionally dress or present in ways that are just “safe” for their situation where they may otherwise present differently if the situation was different. That’s the point of this specific comic. Ethan may visit the site and see a completely conflicting presentation than what he saw around Joyce’s parents.
So to answer “Also do we automatically have to refer to him as “her” now?”, the alt-text says “Joyce’s sister is adorable”, so WOG(word of god) says yes.
Aha. I completely missed the alt-text in this comic.
So he’s a woman, it’s just that nature fucked up a little bit when s/he was born. He’s a woman and he always has been, except for his body. But since he identifies himself as female, he’s a woman, therefore he’s trans. Aha okay. No operation or crossdressing needed, it’s enough if you discover that your inner soul belongs to the other gender.
If someone identifies as a given gender, you treat them as you would any other person of that gender, cis or trans. It’s not that complicated. She says she’s a woman. Basic respect means you treat her as one.
It doesn’t matter what she wears, whether her voice is high or low, whether she’s told her mum and dad, whether she’s told her friends. If someone says, hey, I’m a woman, you respect that. She doesn’t have to prove her femininity to you any more than any other woman should.
You’re not “too fucking cis for this shit.” Being cisgendered doesn’t mean you’re too stupid to handle basic courtesy once it’s been explained to you. Being an asshole might, though. Please don’t call self-identified women “he”.
Wonder if it was difficult or time consuming to replace all previous Joshua tags with Jocelyne tags. It’s a potential spoiler for any future new readers.
Ah well.
It’s actually quite easy to change the name. The system grabs the name from one source so if you change the name once it will affect all of the names. You could create a new name for her but then it wouldn’t connect to the other comics where her name is different. Could be a way to get that to work but at the moment I don’t think there is.
If Ethan’s attacted to Jocelyne’s masculine form but not Joyce, there’s no way he’s going to like Jocelyne once she’s presenting more feminine. I mean, have you seen the similarities?
On that note, I can’t wait for all the adorable Jocelyne drawings in pretty dresses. For some reason, I see her as dressing a little less sweater-vesty than her little sister, but still demure.
Ah, thank you for putting my thoughts to words! I thought it would be unlikely that Ethan would still be attracted to her after this, but I couldn’t really articulate why.
Just because a person identifies as female doesn’t mean they like wearing dresses and make up. Jocelyne might be the type of girl who likes to wear boy’s cloths. For comfort!
1188 Comments. Is this some kind of new record here? And also, I am new to Davie’s comics. Were those two in a relationship previously in other comics?
All day I’ve just been wondering whether Jocelyn would want to still be described as Joyce’s ‘brother’. Because, yes, it’s gendered, but I’ve known at least one person with a trans family member who feels that family relationship terms are more accurately definitive and don’t make them feel any less of a man and/or woman…
Wow, I completely misunderstood what just happened 😛 I originally thought that Joshua was born as a female but became a man. And I was thinking, “wow, for all the grief Joyce’s parents gave her about an Atheist friend, they seem rather accepting of their transgender son.”
Dramatic twist: Jocelyne is their birth name, and they are FtM. Joyce and her parents have no problem with this since the bible has nothing against trans* people.
I’d like to agree, but unfortunately there are still a lot of christians who dislike it because apparently it’s “Denying how God created you.” and “Going against God’s plan.” And the Browns could very well be such a group of christians, even though I have no proof in either direction, so it’s pure speculation.
The bible might not say anything on the matter, but that won’t stop some people from quoting something out of it that they consider proof that they are justified in their bigotry, as long as they know what they want to see before they find it.
It’s possible they would be accepting. We could have a drama-filled flashback to their childhood, where their parents eventually learn to accept their child’s identity.
Of course. I myself have a nephew who used to identify himself as a homosexual woman before he realized he had been born in the body of the opposite gender and he’s never had to face any prejudice from us, though some family members (unfortunately) did speak of him by his girl name for a while when speaking of past events before his realization.
I just meant to say that just because the bible doesn’t mention it, that doesn’t mean some fundies won’t find a way to condemn it anyway.
It’s possible that parents like the Browns could be accepting. I’ve certainly heard some stories like that, and it’d make for a nice, if not so terribly dysfunctional, story. However, given that Jocelyne said that she’s the favorites because her parents know nothing about her, can’t be true.
ITT: A whole fuckton of people who can’t wrap their heads around the idea that gender isn’t binary.
First of all, nobody can agree on terminology, which can be a problem when you’re trying to convince people that you’re not just looking for attention. For example, “transwoman”, “trans*woman”, or “trans woman”? Is it “gender identity disorder”, “gender dysphoria”, or “transgender(ism?)”.
FYI, I’m on the side of “fuck the labels, I am who I am, even if I don’t look like it yet”. I’m fine if you use male pronouns for me, since I’m still male to everyone outside of The Internet (and most people on it).
Then there’s the transition process, which seems more than a little ass-backwards. Living as a woman before HRT? I’ve never really been anything other than a t-shirt and jeans person, and I don’t see that changing much (maybe the clothes get a little tighter…but that’s it). If the doc won’t accept that, then I’ll find one who will (heard there’s a good one in Minneapolis, which is close enough for me).
By the way, this is the first time I’ve done the whole “I’m trans” thing with my main username. The gravatar was done this summer by someone who only knew me over IRC, right before I was ready to finally admit it to myself (had been questioning off-and-on for a decade). I wasn’t exactly fooling anyone, was I? Best part is, this is over 1200 comments down, which barely counts as “coming out”.
That reminds me of a joke.
Q: “How many trans* people does it take to change a light bulb?”
A: “One, but they have to spend a year in the dark to be completely sure the light needs changing.”
The Real life test is disgustingly outdated and barbaric, but there are ways around it. Do you know if there are any Informed Consent Clinics around where you live?
Sexual identity politics is great, isn’t it? Look at the sheer amount if correspondence, much if it contradictory and most if it unintelligible to anyone outside the loop, based on a very small amount if ambiguous information.
I don’t know about most if this stuff but I don’t believe fir a moment that Josh/Jocelyne has”come out’ to his parents, nor do I believe that they regard him as anything but male. Religious fundamentalists, seeing a baby with a penis can be like that.
You could probably start by referring to a trans woman character by female pronouns, that’s a pretty basic and rudimentary thing in “identity politics” right there
I am not sure if Joyce’s brother was being brave or reckless revealing that to Ethan. Here you go Ethan, attached as you are to the family now, here’s something explosive I’m keeping from all of them (inc. my sister, your girlfriend). Sleep well.
I’ve been thinking about that on and off all day. I think she feels sympathy for Ethan and is encouraging him to think about his choices. Jocelyne is closeted because she has to be. Although she doesn’t know much about Ethan, she knows he is closeted for some reason. Also, I think they did build a bit of rapport, and Jocelyne, I imagine, wants someone to know who she is. The last person she’d expect to spill it to her family would be her sister’s gay boyfriend. It almost restores the balance to – she knows something about Ethan that she presumes he doesn’t want anyone else to know, she clearly likes him a bit, so she opens up. Now they’re both vulnerable, and I don’t think either of them will go down the mutually assured destruction route.
I think she’s lonely, and a cute boy hit on her, and she wants to be seen. I think she’s warning him. I think she maybe even regretted sending that link the second after she did it. I wonder when her family asks about her writing and what she does.
Maybe a bit of both. It strongly reminds me of times when I’ve revealed to people that I’m bi and genderfluid. You make a snap judgement because you trust that the people you’re telling are emotionally intelligent enough to deal with it and accept you.
Though I personally think Ethan’s relationship choices are, at best, misguided I don’t think he’s the worst person to tell. At the very least he’s well-placed to understand the scale of the problems facing her.
However I’m nervous because Ethan comes across as very selfish and self-absorbed. If that’s accurate, then no-one’s secrets are safe with Ethan :-s
I really, really doubt he’ll say anything. He might be selfish, but he’s not a bad person. And even if he was willing to sell her out, he has nothing to gain from it.
^Makes it sound a little more dramatic than I intended.
I didn’t mean to imply that Ethan is remotely nefarious or consciously ‘bad’. He just strikes me as one of those who might have a tendency towards not taking responsibility for the impact of their actions. But not meaning to hurt anyone isn’t really good enough.
I’m personally sickened that he’s using Joyce as cover in order to remain closeted. It’s inexcusable that he’s taking advantage of Joyce’s weakness for him – especially as he doesn’t even seem to put any effort into making the relationship work. Remaining closeted is fine in itself. But Ethan’s behaviour amounts to emotional abuse.
Now tomorrow I’ll read thru all your posts here,.. you guys are fairly good at hashing out and debasing the bottom line as far as what is going on on the page. Hopefully I’ll get it w/o too much pain.
The way I look at this whole “what pronouns to use thing is this I use the normal he or she depending on what they identify as and if the person says hey I’d prefer ______ then I’ll use that term
Addendum: Man, but the sun goes down quick round there. In the space of a short argument and simultaneous heart-to-heart, it’s gone from early golden-hour to full-on twilight.
You’re right, “Jocelyne identifies as female.” could mean ANYTHING. It’s probably a clue that Joshua’s really a time traveler. Or a space lizard. Those would make way more sense.
No, you are not the only one, until I waded through the comments, that was my thought as well. He writes romance, and so writes as a woman as male writers have a hard time gaining acceptance.
Gender and sexuality can be fluid. Or they can not be. There are just so many different options and it all just depends on the person and I love that this community here is so accepting about that.
My biggest fear about trying to be inclusive is accidentally insulting someone because I’m unaware of their situation, so it’s been way informative to read through everyone’s comments.
This strip has compelled me to say something that I’ve never admitted to anyone before. Even now, speaking anonymously to a largely-understanding group of people who I’ll probably never meet, I’m scared to actually type it.
I’m trans. I’ve known it since I was about twelve. I remember being in the same situation as Jocelyn; knowing that I didn’t quite fit, but afraid of the consequences if I said anything about it. I agonised about it for years and then… basically wimped out. I convinced myself that it was all just a silly phase I was going through, that I would forget all about it if I just “manned up” and got on with my life.
Exactly how much I regret that decision tends to vary. I don’t think I’ve ever exactly been happy to think of myself as a guy, but at times I can go months or even years being largely apathetic to my own gender before the dysphoria comes back.
I look forward to seeing how Jocelyn’s story turns out, and if she can inspire even one girl to have the courage I lacked, then it’s all worth while.
It’s never too late to change. 🙂 Now that it’s out in the open, why not change the way you live your life now into one you can be proud of? Not to dismiss this change as something that can be done easily; nothing worthwhile is easy. However, I believe it is important to be true to yourself, and to love yourself. I think being able to speak out about your true self is a good first step, and I’m proud that you were able to find the courage to do so.
But please don’t stop. I think that, regardless of what circumstances you may be in right now, you should continue to face yourself and accept who you are, and eventually work up towards letting people in your own life know. There are websites you can go to for support. This is the perfect opportunity for you to keep going. 🙂
I feel a little bit dissapointed because my previous comment (the first one I made here) about how chromosomes identify people as male or female regardless one’s orientation doesn’t seem to have passed through moderation. I’m sorry if anybody found it offensive, it was just my honest point of view, I didn’t want to start an argument, nor I want to start one now. I just wanted to share my opinion.
Of course everybody can choose which gender or sexual orientation fit them the most. I just said that because of all the polemic about how should they be called (MtF, MaaB, etc.), while I think that Biology makes it easier.
Anyway, even if this comment isn’t published either, I will continue reading this comic, because I find it really moving, full of grat characters, well written and drawn. Please, keep up with the good work.
Your name sounds male to me. If I called you a woman, you’re correction of me would probably be more than a correction of grammar. I would have been wrong aoutYOU!
No? I mean, what if I wanted to talk about Creaks, and I said that Creaks posted a message about how Creaks thought everyone should call everyone else by their names. But what Creaks failed to take into account was that pronouns actually make Creaks’ life a lot easier, or at least give Creaks a lot more free time, since Creaks spends a lot less time saying people’s names in favor of single-syllable pronouns. 😉
But actually though, labels are pretty important parts of peoples’ identities. Saying “let’s just all be people” is actually pretty problematic, since it lets people pretend that minorities don’t exist. There’s a good body of evidence to suggest that it is much easier to visualize something if you have language to describe it, which makes having labels a vital part of the quest for queer acceptance. (This is the same reason it’s problematic when white people claim to be “colorblind.”)
The labels do carry important information about identity, but atomizing those labels in an attempt to achieve perfect communication of those individual identities seems to me to be self-defeating. Wouldn’t it make more sense to use fairly broad categories for “first contact,” with the understanding that they aren’t intended to be ideal descriptions, and allow the true details to be communicated through actually getting to know a person, rather than trying to convey the individual by trying to fit them into a series of ever-more-specific boxes?
Labels cause problems in Queer communities because one person’s definition is not the same as another. Likewise people who subscribe to one strict definition of that label are quick to scream betrayal should someone want to adopt a different label. Just ask Erika Moen.
Like the easiest way to deal with any gender topic that you don’t have knowledge of yourself is to use the subject’s name, no pronouns. If the subject is present, use whatever pronoun they volunteer.
It’s disrespectful to use the wrong label or pronoun, and will feel intentionally disrespectful.
Not fun story, don’t ask how I got involved in this. I had a conversation that involved two MTF people (in the same game,) one of them wasn’t aware the other was also MTF. This resulted in one of them flipping out at the other because she thought the other girl was intentionally using the wrong pronoun, when it was a typo and obviously wouldn’t do that on purpose. This made one of them quit the game permanently.
At some point you have to draw a line and just accept people for whatever they say they are, even when they don’t fit your definition.
I…. Actually rather enjoy that over usage of my handle :3 …. I dont consider pronouns on the same level as ever increasingly specific acronym labels like mtf. I also dont typically use gender specific pronouns in general on the internet since its pointless to me, I cant identify the difference between thoughts expressed by different genders when talking about a graphics card, or an old cartoon, I refer to people by their user names. I tend to adress people directly, rather than talking about them to others, so I suppose I use ‘you’ a lot more than he/she. Should the need for a pronoun be necessary, I use what I identify with in how they present themselves, if thats incorrect and they correct me, I use what they provide. Him, her, Im not going to call people mtf’s or ftm’s, or any other acronym label. Ill just use their name.
I’ve got to admit, I was expecting the deal to be atheism. Trans caught me entirely off guard.
As a currently transitioning mtf still living in a male role, I’m interested in seeing her make a visual shift. ‘Course, it’s not exactly an expedient process, and seeing as how we’re on Willis Time it may never happen.
Willis, I just want to awkwardly express my undying love and affection for you because good god damn first you write my childhood in Joyce and then you give me a trans* character who is trans* but also a lot of other things, even if she’s not out yet.
I just. Yes good. To me that was just the right kind of twist for this sort of reveal, and yeah. I. Yeah. Thank you.
(but even if jocelyn’s not a cute gayboy i still totally ship it…)
I know it’s been said a lot of times already, but this comment thread is MASSIVE, and as I’ve seen people have problems with this several times in it, I had a strong urge to type up a PSA to anyone who happens to glance at this comment as you’re typing up your comment:
Jocelyne is a woman. Her physiology, how she dresses and whether she’s out or not do not change this basic fact.
One vital way of showing respect to another human being is to allow them the right to identify themselves. Your opinion isn’t what’s relevant when it comes to someone else’s identity. Respect people’s right to self-identification. She’s fictional, but lots of people here are in her boat, and they’re not.
Jocelyne, we now know, is not really Josh. She is not a “he”. Out of respect for the basic human right to self-identify, please refer to her as “she”.
Okay,…. I think I have it.
The guy identifies himself as a woman who is “straight,.. as in as a woman, he likes guys.
(Why does my head still hurt.)
I’m trying to understand while not offending too many WHY there is a distinction between gender pref same sex and gender identity opposite while preferring same gender physically.
Hopefully you’ll check back and this isn’t too late.
First off, as we know Jocelyne identifies as a woman, you should really be using feminine pronouns. It’s rather offensive to use the wrong ones. And yes, as she isn’t gay, we can assume she’s straight or somewhere on the bisexual line.
Gender identity and sexual orientation are completely unrelated*. A person may lie anywhere along the gender spectrum, and that point will be independent of where they lie along the sexual orientation spectrum. In otherwords, anyone can be into guys, girls, both, neither, or all genders regardless of their gender identity. Similarly, you can identify as a guy, a girl, androgynous, agender, neutrosis, bigender, or anything else along the gender spectrum regardless of who you’d like to bang or date. It’s easier if you don’t think of people, especially people who don’t identify as guys or girls (“non-binary”) as gay. Instead, just thing, person A is into dudes! Person A can be cisgender or transgender, and identify as any gender. Or, person B is a trans man. He can be into guys (gay), girls (straight), or something else or some combination.
*though stress from your gender identity (dysphoria) if you are trans can influence your ability to handle relationships with a certain sex in some cases.
Am I the only one thinking that maybe he just uses a female pseudonym and his parents don’t know what he writes? That maybe we’ve misread the character’s sexuality completely and seen signals that aren’t there? Hell, Ben Franklin did it.
while i appreciate the importance of discussing the terminology for self-identities, i really need to say that I just said “oh my god” out loud and started crying. I’m nonbinary and use he/him prounouns, but i’ve been hiding it, and my sexuality from my parents, and this is the first time ive ever seen a character in anything i can identify with so much, so i’m just a big weepy ball of tears right now ;u;
shut up i know thats bad, but “joshua” as a girl is suddenly super cute in my head, jocelyn would be my type because im weird like that, being into transgender people (going in either direction)
I understand why you feel awkward/defensive about it, but the trans people I know generally don’t enjoy when people say that being attracted to them is “weird”! They’re just people. Most of us here aren’t gonna judge you for the attraction itself, just your behavior towards the people to whom you’re attracted, so I’d suggest trying to relax a little. 🙂
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Dun Dun DUN!
Wait, what?
She’s MtF
A better term than “Male to Female” is Maab trans* (Male Assigned At Birth) or DMAB trans* (Designated Male at Birth). On their own, neither M/FAAB nor DM/FAB indicate a trans* person, but MtF and FtM have been criticized because it indicates that genitals are important to gender identity. Another reason that M/FaaB and DM/FaB are more widely used by the trans* community is because both terms include non-binary trans* people AND intersex people. (Trans* with an asterisk also indicates that you’re dealing with the trans* umbrella, not just transgender people.)
Personally i think Maab etc is appropriate more for when you don’t know what would go at the end of MtBLAH etc, otherwise use the term appropriate. I know i prefer MtF, but then again whatever terminology the person referred to prefers is the correct one xD
I think it’S too late in the night for me to be able to follow what you’re saying @.@
I’m transgendered and I can’t follow all this terminology, time of day be damned.
I just heard: “A better term than “[human]” is [human] ([homo sapian]) or [human] ([homo sapian])….”
Please don’t do that… people who self-identify do it for a reason…
There is never a good idea to self identify with anyone else than yourself. Each and every case of human personality/sexuality/philosophy/religion/politics is uniquely different. I feel by appropriating a generic term for any of them, you “lose” part of yourself and what makes you you, and stand the risk of letting your personal feeling and thoughts being automatically decided for you just because the group you choose to identify with have taken a collective stance towards an issue. But just because you may have a lot of common with a certain group of people, doesn’t mean that you now suddenly ARE those people. I think too much focus today has been put on the whole “self identifying” thing, as in identifying with someone else. It is a good thing to identify yourself, of course, but look at it more as a catch-all phrase that partly describes you, and be aware that others may have entirely different opinions on what that phrase or word actually MEANS.
And neither religion, politics or sexuality are that imporant. The important things are how you treat yourself, how you treat others, and that you know what you like and don’t like.
@NightRaven … Except those aren’t the only things that matter. What about how others treat you. Or how you want to be treated. Or what you want people to know about you when entering into a dialogue or relationship.
Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world where every human sees every other human as a blank slate with no labels attached. More often than not, somebody is going to look at you an assume something about your gender, sexuality, race, identity.
You are right that no label is perfect, and some people may choose not to self-identify with one label or another or any labels at all. And that is fine, and I respect that choice! But because a thing is unimportant to one person does not mean it is unimportant to others…
Never describe things. Being able to communicate is EVIL.
oh good. I thought i was the only on… No actually i’m pretty aware that we’re all confused about all the terminology people keep making for us
Indeed. As long as nothing is said with malice I’m pretty forgiving if people don’t know what I prefer. I personally find MtF to be easy to use and comprehend.
That is kind of how I’ve viewed everything my whole life. The words are not necessarily the most important thing. The way those words are said has always been much more important to me. The slang/meanings of words are always changing but you can almost always tell if the feeling behind something is judgemental/rude/just plain mean, regardless of what they actually said.
Indeed, intent over vocabulary.
Many of us prefer “transwoman” for Maab and “transman” for Faab since it has slightly less association with our biological sex.
“I want to be FAABulous, but all I am is MAABulous”
Yeah, “transwoman” is the term my friend uses to refer to herself.
I usually just use “trans,” if that level of classification is necessary- or if I really have to be specific I say transwoman. For day-to-day I just say I’m a woman. ‘Cause I am one.
Kinda old, but maybe you’ll see this…
You look like Galasso to me.
Galasso could be a woman. Galasso doesn’t really understand gender.
i really just want to make a saab joke right here
Sedan Assigned At Birth
^Victory
Swedish Assigned At Birth
transwoman is what I use, until I find an appropriate name to use 😛
I prefer AMAB (“assigned male …”) to MAAB just because it’s clearer when you pronounce it.
Sounds like the MOBA vs ARTS debate. Eventually MOBA won because it just sounds better to most. Language sometimes goes the path of least resistance.
Well, Genital Are important for gender identity. I mean, if it weren’t, Trans wouldn’t desire to change them in the first place. Genital are important for gender identity because many trans actually desire to modify them so that the gender of their genital fit the gender of their brain. It’s kind of a big issue.
Not really. I know at least one individual who identifies as a female, yet entirely happy with her male genitalia. I’m lead to understand that such a thing is not entirely uncommon. Identity itself is not just about your physical self. You can be ambivalent about it or even prefer the form that is opposite to your gender identity. Hence the comment that starts this branch of discussion.
On the other hand, there are Trans who will kill themselves for not being born with the right set of genital. Seriously, the Trans Community is the one with one of the highest ratio of suicide (tough it’s also due to rejection by the family/community, but also caused by the feeling of body inadequacy).
So saying the gender of the genital is not important is far from being true for everyone.
Of course. But it’s not a contradiction with the above. Nobody said that genitals are never a factor. Just that a label which implies that they always are is misleading. So long as we accept the fact that there are exceptions either way, presented argument against MtF label follows.
Though, I would argue that any label is going to have such problems, but that’s a separate discussion. As somebody said earlier, whatever label an individual uses to self-identify, I’m happy with that.
As a non-op trans woman, I can definitely agree with K^2’s statements. Genital importance varies wildly in our community, from those who absolutely cannot stand the anatomy they were born with to people like me, who are totally fine with it, and had other issues with the sex they were assigned at birth.
Also, for the record, “trans” is an adjective (usually modifying man/woman/person or similar), not a noun. Referring to us as “a trans” or just “trans” in a manner such as in “…there are trans who…” is incorrect and potentially very offensive, depending on who you’re dealing with, because it is dehumanizing. We are trans women and trans men, along with the many shades of nonbinary trans people, not transwomen, transmen, or transpeople.
^ “trans people” seems rather redundant, as we are all people. Hence why ‘trans’ is winning out in common parlance.
Not quite an adjective, really. Mostly because ‘trans’ isn’t a proper word in English, but slang – shorthand for that matter. Since it doesn’t have long-established parameters fencing it in, people tend to use it as they -think- is appropriate.
Funny thing though – the more it gets used a certain way, the more accepted it becomes by the general speaking public, which in turn may eventually lead to it becoming a official word fitting the perception most hold of it.
This is how a shorthand adjective can in time become a proper noun. It’s not there yet officially, but as far as most people are concerned, it is already there.
TL;DR: In common parlance “trans” = (newly formed) noun , “transgendered” = adjective.
@DarkVeghetta
1) “Not quite an adjective, really. Mostly because ‘trans’ isn’t a proper word in English, but slang – shorthand for that matter.”
Whether or not something is slang has no bearing on its usable syntax.
“Trans” is short for “transgender” (not “transgendered” by the way – it’s not a verb), which if you look it up in most any dictionary, turns out to be an adjective, not a noun. As a shortened version of the word, it shares the same syntactical significance and should thus be (and most commonly is) used as an adjective.
2) Yes, that is an explanation of how slang is incorporated into the “official” language pool, but you should listen to your own explanation. I don’t know where you got the idea that those are the “common parlance” terms – any dictionary (including urban dictionary – a slang hub) will show you the adjective definition of “trans” as a shortening of “transgender”.
3) You’re missing the main point here.
Syntactical significance, slang evolving into “official language,” and all else aside…
Calling someone “a trans” is offensive and is often used in a derogatory context. The poster before you clearly pointed this out, but you ignored their primary argument. The word “fag” is also a shorthand noun that has been accepted into common use. Does that mean it’s okay to use it regularly to refer to gay people? Nope! Because it’s offensive. Just because something is syntactically significant doesn’t mean you should use it.
There really is no hard and fast rule regarding the gender you identify as and the type of plumbing you keep between your legs, though many people in all sides of the Gender Identity Clusterfuck™ do try to assign rules! Take me, for example. Physically male, by preference bisexual, and by mentality somewhere between androgynous and hermaphroditic. I don’t know if that makes me generic genderqueer, or just strange, since all my “gender variances” are strictly internal.
I don’t think I have a mental gender either. I like girls and I’m physically male, and that’s always been my definition of straight male, but if that’s not accurate, I might as well be a lesbian woman. And if you believe in re-incarnation, who can say how many times I might have been and will be again female?
Where did you get a Spider Jerusalem Gravatar?
Since there are no real futa irl, I’ve pretty much just went with ‘pansexual’ and called it a day. As for ‘internal gender variance’ – it’s a clusterfuck of rainbows, kittens, explosions and blood in there.
It all mixes into a hot gooey mess that is my psyche.
To clarify: I’d be most attracted to futa, then women, then a very few select men. I’m not saying I’d be a futa… though… now that I mention it… excuse me, my penis is calling.
Also: “real […] irl” is redundant. Mah bad, it’s late.
just chiming in a couple days late to say that actually, whether or not genitals are important depends on the trans* person. I’m trans* and have no issue with my genitals. A dear friend of mine is trans* and as deep issues with dysphoria. It varies from person to person.
As a transman, I disagree that FtM/MtF are used solely to refer to genitalia. Personally, I would say “female to male” would refer to my life experiences and what I “lived as”. Whether I like it or not (obviously I don’t) I have experiences of living and being viewed as female, and that has been a large influence in shaping who I am.
But I’m more or less the opposite of “active in the trans* community”, so that’s just my thoughts.
Choosing to go by a female alias doesn’t necessarily tell us that they suffer from gender dysphoria or what their gender identity is, however, so I’m not assuming one thing or another about J. Brown the Second Child just yet.
…And then I hopped on the laptop to check the alt text. Damn Kindle not letting me see it!
can someone PLEASE explain what the hell is going on and who is joceylin? is that joyce’s full name or something?
The character that we were introduced to as Joshua, Joyce’s brother, identifies as a female, Jocelyne.
Y-You can read Webcomics on a kindle? But what about the colors?
And I feel your pain brother, my smartphone also hates alt-text ;-;
Probably one of the fancy full-color ones.
Yup! My fiance was given it a year ago, and at the time I believe it was quite new. It’s mostly used for the internet and to fuel his Angry Birds obsession- amusingly, I don’t think we’ve ever actually read a book on it.
The lack of alt text is a downer, but at least I can read stuff as he works or studies.
Better, but as someone who’s been exposed to (…okay, this is gonna sound awkward but I’m low on both sugar and caffiene) this sorta thing for probably 15 years now, I can’t say I’ve ever heard any of those terms you use, so they might take a little more time to catch on.
For now, MtF / FtM is a reasonable descriptor is it not? It describes both their birth assignment and/or naturally expressed phenotype, and their mental gender / surgically and artificial-hormonally target/acquired phenotype in one easily written and understood package.
That said, I’m still confused here. Either we’re dealing with, ahem, a MaaB sibling who still fronts up as a male “Joshua” to their parents, but is actually Jocelyne in private/on the quiet – which I think is more likely* – or FaaB who was originally named Jocelyne but now passes for male, as “Josh”, full time.
* Clues: Parents and presumably Joyce also “don’t know very much”, and call “him” Josh, and accept the presented male (if still a touch effeminate – enough to trip Ethan’s gaydar) outlook without protest; and the site that s/he texted to Ethan – in preference to saying it out loud in front of Joyce – bears a generally female name…
Since Joyce mentioned she was the only girl in one comic or the other, I’m’a go with ‘a MaaB sibling who still fronts up as a male “Joshua” to their parents, but is actually Jocelyne in private/on the quiet’ too
well, it’s important to not feel like one term is superior to another, especially if that superiority is based in length of time of use of said term. we’re always coming up with better descriptors, we humans, and it’s typically the people who those labels affect that decide, and that get to decide, not cisgendered people like myself! of course I do not know how you identify, but I am always trying to keep up on the kindest terminology out there to have as few barriers of communication between myself and those around me, in general!
@tahrey Also MtF/FtM is shorter then MAAB/FAAB. Hence more pleasing to use in general. Rolls off the keyboard/tongue better too.
You know, I’m sympathetic to LGBTQ/”Alphabet Soup” issues, but maybe inventing and teaching a complicated new glossary of artificial PC vocabulary isn’t the best way to earn mainstream support.
Support shouldn’t have to be “earned.” People should be treated like people, regardless of their preferred lexicon. Heck, even if a group consists entirely of total jerks, they should still be treated like people, and that’s way worse than having a complex set of terminology to describe, as accurately as possible, one’s identity.
There’s a reason certain parts of the queer community use “ally” disparagingly.
Right, and no one should be racist and there should be no wars.
But that’s not the world we live in. It isn’t about should or shouldn’t, it’s about what will be most effective in making the world a better place.
If your criteria for granting people basic human rights is that they bend over backwards to make your life easier, then I can’t bring myself to care about what you think.
^
Not going out of your way to fail at communication =/= bending over backwards to make someone else’s life easier.
Using accurate terminology to describe yourself =/= failing at communication.
It’s not about bending over backwards to do anything. The main reason for most prejudices is a lack of understanding. If you’re introducing so many terms and phrases that it seems like trying to read an advanced coding textbook and even trans* people often get lost, you’re not fostering understanding. By making it much harder to understand, you’re making it harder for the prejudice to die.
I never understood the need for fifteen different phrases. I am a man. I am also transsexual. If I ever need to explain this to someone (which seldom happens because it’s not their business), I call myself “a transsexual man”. People can identify with whatever label fits them, but if you want people to understand and accept aspects of you, you have to communicate in a way they can understand.
If your criteria for effective communication is accusing anyone that fails to perfectly digest your confusing, constantly changing, and inconsistent lexicon of terms as being homophobic, then I can’t bring myself to care about what you think either, Toad. But I’ll continue to try to make the world a better place despite your efforts to make it worse.
In this case it’s more that they not bend over backwards to be a pain in the ass.
My point was not that the trans* lexicon, such as it is, is a shining example of effective communication. My point was that one ought not use effective communication as the metric by which to measure how many human rights are deserved. Refusing to support a minority group because they use confusing words is a pretty shitty example of “making the world a better place.”
You are arguing against a point I didn’t make, TPRJones. I never said that people who don’t perfectly use the language considered currently appropriate are homophobic or transphobic. I did say that refusing to support the cause of gay/queer/trans rights because they use too many acronyms, or are annoying sometimes, or whatever, is awful.
If you think a human rights cause is just, then you should support it. (At least passively; I don’t demand that anyone go out and protest for every single cause they theoretically support.) If every single member of some group was a total jerk, and they were being denied human rights, I’d still support them. That people think being confusing is a reasonable rationale for denying people rights is pretty disgusting.
@sd: People are people, even if they are a pain in the ass, and therefore deserve your support.
And just as equally you are arguing against a point I didn’t make, Toad. I never said that people who are unwilling to use effective communication don’t deserve human rights and equality under the law. I did say that if you throw a raging hissy fit every time someone doesn’t use exactly the right term you have chosen for yourself rather than attempt to actually communicate with them about these things they don’t understand, then you aren’t going to be changing anyone’s minds that way.
@TPRJones: Then you are arguing against a point I didn’t make. If you read the post of mine you initially responded to, you will see that I was objecting to people holding their “ally” status hostage over minority groups behaving the way they think they should. If you don’t disagree with me on that point, then why did you throw a “hissy fit” over a point I didn’t make? Remember, you responded disparagingly to me in the first place, not the other way around.
Actually I was defending stevecharb’s point that winning support by attacking someone for failing to understand complex and relatively arbitrary terminology is not a practical expectation. Neither he nor I said that it was therefor valid to treat people as less than human, that was your assumption that you added – rather insultingly, I might add – to the conversation.
Clearly this is getting us nowhere. I give up. You go ahead and keep shitting on everyone around you and hoping that might make them change their minds. Good luck with that.
There’s a lot of words for trans people. There’s also a lot of words for angry people. There are a lot of words for happy people. Communicating well means learning a large vocabulary, period.
@TPRJones: stevecharb’s original post said nothing about anyone being attacked; it was specifically about “inventing and teaching” a bunch of terms. Your initial response to my criticism was sarcasm. You quickly escalated to claiming that I was actively trying to make the world a worse place, throwing a hissy fit, and shitting on everyone around me. I fail to see how that makes me the one who’s being insulting. (Or, for that matter, the one behaving as you claimed I was.)
I said that it was not acceptable to treat people as less than human for describing themselves in a complex manner. I did not even say that stevecharb said that it was acceptable. When you angrily disagreed with my post, I assumed you therefore disagreed with the contents of that post, and responded accordingly.
If your ‘support’ is unable to include the learning of a few terms, it may be a good idea to re-evaluate the value you think those communities should assign to it.
Ding ding ding! Freemage gets it.
Its not a few terms though. Its an inconsistent ever changing dictionary of terms, some of which are preferred by some while others are seen as offensive by the same community. I can deal with individual people, but I can’t deal with the trans ‘community’ because I can’t get through their layers of terminology. Even my transsexual friends have problems with what the term of the week is, and the ‘community’ can apparently get pretty caustic about it even with trans* people.
I call people whatever they identify as, provided they stay within the boundaries of english (xie is stupid). I do not care what is in their pants, unless its of burning importance to them that I know, and then I usually tell them Id rather not have known.
That’s a fine complaint. The terminology is inconsistent and confusing. That’s an issue that should be addressed. Denying a group your support because its members can’t agree on what they want to be called is pretty atrocious. People aren’t taking umbrage with someone saying “your usage of terms is confusing;” the problem is that people hold their “ally” status hostage over it. Phrases like “you’re making it really hard for me to support you right now!” and “if you want me to support you, you should just make it less confusing for me” are all too common. Being confused is acceptable; no one denies that the lexicon has gotten a bit confusing. Denying a group of people fundamental human rights because they all describe themselves with different acronyms is pretty messed up.
“….the problem is that people hold their “ally” status hostage over it.” You’ve spelled out something which has often bothered me about these arguments without me quite being able to put my finger on it. Thanks! (And actually, most LGBTQ etc people I know seem pretty tolerant of well-intentioned fumblings with the terminology. Though that could just be low expectations.)
“Phrases like “you’re making it really hard for me to support you right now!” and “if you want me to support you, you should just make it less confusing for me” are all too common”
Well, that’s just people being assholes. Tell them to stop being assholes.
Look, it doesn’t matter who a person is, they deserve equal rights under the law and the opportunity to pursue their own life goals as best they can. If someone will not support the rights of even their worst and most hated enemy, then they have failed at freedom and clearly don’t understand the basic responsibilities of being a citizen. Or maybe they are just douche-nozzles. That’s also possible.
All that having been said, all too many times I’ve seen some poor schmuck who doesn’t understand LGBTQ issues but is trying to be supportive being viciously attacked because he used the wrong pronoun. If he’s not a douche he’s not going to then “withdraw support” because he would know that even assholes deserve equality. But he’s less likely to actively go out of his way to champion the cause than he was before.
Some people in the trenches of this war need to realize that attacking everyone indiscriminately when they don’t use the proper gender passwords of the week doesn’t make things better.
Sure, TPRJones, I’ll agree with you on those points. I was writing about the assholes who like to imagine they’re paragons of tolerance while demanding that queer people do XYZ thing in order for them to be willing to support them. I suspect you read my criticism of those people as a criticism of genuinely well-meaning but confused allies.
TRPJones has it dead on.
Toad, you’re missing the fundamental problem, which is that yes, it’s one thing if someone says “hey, I prefer you call me ____” but it’s total complete asshattery to blow up at people who make an assumption that would be valid 97% of the time when you haven’t even told them in the first place. Being part of a minority group does not, last time I checked, confer powers of telepathic projection (if it does, mine must’ve got lost in the mail, the jerks), so it’s really illogical to expect other people to know every nuance of our existence.
@Ash: I agree with everything in your post except the part where you implied that I ever disagreed with anything you just said. Honest mistakes are just that, honest mistakes, and should be treated as such. Demanding that queer people stick to the terms that straight people prefer to make it easier on “allies” is what I was taking exception to in my posts.
Oh, and I’m going to assume that you have no objection to “google” being used as a term for “internet search,” so why is “xe” any different? Language changes. Some language is intentionally invented. Some of it occurs “organically.” None of it is passed down from like, mischievous river spirits or something.
It’s no hardship to you to call someone “xe” instead of “it,” if they specifically ask you to, so why not?
“xe”? I’m sorry, but there’s new English terms and then there’s faux-Mandarin. Language can only be organic, otherwise people won’t use it. You can’t actually impose a set of terms onto others –
because only they have the power to use them or not.
A word that only a handful know of is slang and therefore unimportant. If people use it enough it MIGHT become an official term, sure, but that’s unlikely to happen if you construct something that is not pleasing to the ear of a speaker of sed language – in this case English.
In other words “xe” sounds stupid, therefore it will not gain large acceptance, hence it will not be an effective tool of communication.
It can be a masturbatory aid if you so choose, but I was of the strange impression you’d rather want to confer an idea, not just hear words you like more.
I *don’t* think that’s what people are saying, though. It’s not that we’re unwilling to learn. It’s that we’re often taught a set of terms, and then when we use those terms down the road, we’re suddenly hit in the face with “Don’t say that like that! It’s offensive!” Some people are flexible and mature enough not to be upset when someone comes at them like that, but most people would be understandably upset if they were trying to be non-offensive and someone said “You are being offensive” when they were using the words that they were taught to say.
A learning moment can be handled much better than infodumping a new set of rules onto an unsuspecting person. Like, “You know, Male to Female *did* used to be the broadly-accepted term, but since then, a lot of us have been switching over to ‘male assigned at birth’ because of x y z reasons. But a lot of transpersons use different descriptors based on what they feel comfortable with!”
You might not be saying that, but some people do and are. Lots of “allies” base their support on whether or not queer people are nice to them, and use it as some sort of perverse bribe. “If you behave well, I’ll help you get human rights.” That is a separate issue from language being confusing.
And if you think it’s upsetting to be told that something you said is hurtful, just imagine how it feels to constantly be on the receiving end of that, along with constant misgendering, intentional or not, and with a few blatantly hurtful slurs thrown in now and again. Cis folk are the majority. We have it better than trans* folk, in this instance, no matter how confused we might be. (And before anyone says anything, that doesn’t mean that any given cis person is better-off than any given trans* person, just that, all else being equal, being cisgender confers a certain level of privilege.)
Actually, behaving well SHOULD be the basis on which you get ANY ‘rights’ (socially, not legally – though personally I’d run with legally as well, but suppose too few would qualify then to actually
form a country).
As a matter of fact, the worse of a person you are to others, the worse you DESERVE to be treated in turn. That’s got nothing to do with any self-identification, that’s just basic common sense.
What you just sed reeks of self-importance.
See, the really funny thing here is you got ME to act in a less-then-hospitable manner when I’m usually the one to def end queers/trans/etc, but in this case you don’t seem like the kind of person that I’d find amiable, therefore I won’t act friendly to you.
The problems you mentioned seem to be more caused by sed people being unlikeable, rather then them belonging to any minority.
The terminology keeps changing, though, and there are a couple dozen different competing ideas of how to describe people whose bodies don’t match their souls, all of which seem to have emerged in the past decade or so. Some are so bizarre, they’re barely recognizable as English. If I use the “wrong” one, I’ll be treated like a jerk.
I always make a good effort to be equally kind and respectful to people regardless of who or what they are, even when I have to go out of my comfort zone, and I stand up to those who condemn or mock people because they are different. I do this not for praise, nor for necessity; I do it because it is right.
I will persist in doing the right thing even if you call me a jerk for using a word that was politically correct within five years ago (doesn’t mean you should).
But good luck convincing Joe Sixpack to turn his prejudices around with this strategy.
I’d vehemently argue that anyone calling someone else a jerk for not using the word they want you to use has something stuck up his arse somethin’ fierce (note: as long as it’s not obviously
a slur).
Also, overly PC-ish terms are bullshit. Feel free to use them in your own community if you like, but don’t shove them down other peoples throats.
Weather I use ‘trans’, ‘xe’, ‘MAAB’ etc should make no difference if I’m sharing a beer with you.
Likewise, if I’m punching you in the dick, me using the term you like more won’t make your dick any less punched.
The “standard” terms simply do not describe trans* people. It’s not that trans* people want to make you learn new phrases for the hell of it – its that, to describe themselves, they have had to discover and develop new phrases. To think that they are artificial and “PC” is like saying to someone who is Hispanic or Asian “so, are you black or white? Cos those are the only races.”
Only… Hispanic and Asian ARE arbitrary and PC terms, and ALSO simplifies things to the point of uselessness. There are [large number] different Hispanic countries all over the world, just as there are [even larger number] Asian countries. These people have very little in common, other than a shared cultural/racial heritage at an arbitrary point in time. (Arbitrary, in that if you count from the beginning, we are all the same race as are the amoebas ) . Ultimately terms are meaningless, it is what you put in them that gives them meaning. I would say details and anecdotes are more useful in communicating than new terminology.
“a shared cultural/racial heritage” – there you go, that’s why it’s not quite a worthless term.
Also I’d add “general geographical region of origin” to
why the terms are actually useful.
I’d rather call someone ‘Japanese’ over ‘Asian’, as it confers more information – but if I only have visual data on them, I can make some usually valid assumptions if the context doesn’t contradict such.
RE: Too many words stops mainstream support;
I agree with you up to a point. But I learnt the names of 150 pokemon when I was 7, and the three trans people I’ve talked to were totally fine with asking what pronouns to use, just like the tumblr posts said.
I’m IN that soup, and I agree full-heartedly. Confusing labels are confusing.
Oh god what did I start. Okay first off MtF here, second off basically I said that Maab Faab are in my opinion better for when you don’t know what the person identifies as but that what ever they want to be called is the correct term.
FtM here, I agree with Night Raven, terms get way too political and don’t actually mean anything once they get to the point they have. If you want a technical argument, you don’t know what someone was assigned at birth unless you have their birth certificate, so, major flaw right there. Just call someone what they present as. If you get it wrong, and they tell you, then correct yourself in the future. The terms __t___ and __aab, they’re only necessary in a specifically trans context, as in, they convey information about the person’s gender identity and sexual construction, and really only mean anything if you’re talking about health concerns or social/legal questions in a situation specifically regarding transgender issues.
See, I’m fortunate enough to have an understanding family, and I’ve been around my share of bigots, but the single biggest problem I had to (and still have to) overcome regarding my trans identity is this bullshit about labels and political correctness. I have been told I’m not trans enough, I’ve been told I’m not allowed to talk about certain things, or share my experience, or that my identity put other people down, when in reality, it’s the PC crusaders who put everyone else down and try to make everyone conform to their idea of transgender identity. Hardcore Christians have said I’m abnormal, but it’s LGBT activists who send me death threats.
uhhhh… dyslexic head spinning……
Coming in a little late here, but…
I’ve been pretty much living in reddit’s LGBT (mostly T) groups for a half a year now – for the obvious reason someone would start hanging out on T related forums – and MtF and FtM are by far the most common terms used by people to describe themselves. The community there uses trans and trans* as general nouns for themselves and the community as a whole with no one there seeing such use as offensive or dehumanizing. MAAB/FAAB come out a bit, but I’ve never once heard anyone use DMAB/DFAB, and I haven’t seen anyone in the community indicate that MtF or FtM has any connotation of reducing someone’s identity to their genitals, or dividing trans* people into categories of “need to change their plumbing” vs “OK with original equipment”.
Is the reddit transgender community very different from the rest of the transgender community? I live in a small community without much face-to-face contact, so online is pretty much all the exposure I’ve had so far.
I mean, I don’t like the term FtM b/c I feel like it implies that at some point I was female, and I know a few trans people who feel the same. But that’s not everybody, so if someone identifies with that than they should absolutely feel free to use it. The term itself is not bad, some people just have reasons not to use it.
Tumblr community generally uses dmab/dfab, and there i never heard maab/faab. And FtM and MtF are falling out of practice because they are too binary I think, that’s all.
I mean, generally people just use ‘she/her’/’he/him’/’they/them’ to indicate gender, dmab/dfab is just for when it’s relevant to the discussion at hand.
Oh, and dmab/dfab or maab/faab are better when FtM/MtF when you actually want to include cis people with it. Like ‘dfab people get inferior health care compared to dmab people’.
And that’s what we queers call “alphabet soup”.
… MtF and “not gay”… so totally into Ethan? Oh yeah. Now Ethan’s *really* confused. Nice thing about being pansexual: not giving a shit about the inward / outward gender of a potential lover. Nice thing about being married: not giving a shit about anybody else’s anything.
He isn’t gay. SHE is Trans.
When Josh said “I’m not gay”… I thought it was something really small…
And if she’s a straight woman that would explain why she seemed flirty with Ethan.
But Ethan wouldn’t fell attracted to her if her body was female. She probably know that.
Ethan is currently into her, obviously. We have no way of knowing
A) If she intends to physically transition, or to what extent
B) If Ethan would continue to feel attraction to her if she did
Assuming either piece of information would be pretty presumptuous.
There’s also a matter of whether or not Ethan is attracted to bodies or people. There are cisgendered gay men who would date a trans*woman and there are cisgendered gay men who would not, but would gladly date a trans*man. It depends, person-to-person, on how much of their attraction is based on romantic attraction and how much is based on physical attraction. Some people have a different sexual orientation to their romantic orientation, and some do not. Some people are largely driven by romantic attraction and some are largely driven by sexual attraction. The next step largely depends on who Ethan is in this equation.
Considering Ethan couldn’t get attracted to his former best friend, I’d say he’s more in the physical over romantic side of things.
Transgendered people actually have a pretty high quota of gays (meaning their choice of partner in relation to their chosen gender): “trans” is not really about who you can accept as a partner, but who you can accept as yourself. And if you have come to reject the reproductive organs you have been stuck with at birth, it gets harder to embrace them in a partner. A non-trans person starts with a less loaded relationship to the complementary body type.
Thanks for saying this, being trans does have a way of making any minor bisexual leanings… less minor. I would probably identify as straight if I had been born with male genitalia- I still have a strong preference for the ladies, but between revulsion for what I was born with, the fact that I could never make love to a lady in a way that would feel “right” to me, and my fascination for the genitalia I wasn’t born with… ladies, sadly, end up for little more than ogling.
(I was lucky enough to fall for an androgynous male-bodied a-gendered sweetie so WHO CARES.)
The two trans ladies I’ve known both had bisexual tendencies, but identified as lesbian.
It’s an intriguing blend of two very separate parts of a person’s identity coming into contact, and it fascinates me.
Bigender here, and IKTF.
Frustratingly enough, my own sexuality is ridiculously compartmentalized – technically, you could say I’m bi, but that doesn’t quite cover it. I have different ways of being attracted to different genders based on what gender I am at the moment. So basically, I’m stuck feeling dysphoric half the time, and probably will have a very unsatisfying love/sex life.
I’m bigender, physically male and straight/lesbian.
Gender identity and sexuality are complicated things. Trying to cover them with umbrella terms is stupid.
omfg, you are the only other bigender person I have ever met!
Good to know I’m not alone here. c:
(also totz, you prolly missed it yesterday, but what ever happened to the d&mm episode and synopsis list?)
Shit! A lot of stuff’s been going on in my life (breakup, losing a cat to cancer, new kittens, family drama, etc.) that I forgot about it!
It’s partially done. I need to get back on it.
Thanks for reminding me! Sorry it fell by the wayside.
Also: *bigender high-five!*
No, it’s cool! I’m glad you’ll be working on it again. :’B
/bi-five yo
Gay here, but not really.
I am attracted to someone who’s personality is not being fixated on being too princessy, meaning he/she is setting not expectations to me to become his/her prince charming (e.g. providing flowers, financial provider on dates, me doing all the surprise for him/her, me doing all the masculine labor without him/her trying, expects me not to feel under-appreciated cause I’m a guy). I prefer the relationship to be a mutual effort (I want to have a romantic surprise as well), and guys mostly are the ones that are able to do so. I am yet waiting for a girl that can get along with my personality.
Physical attraction, for me, comes secondary.
God, I hate too much taxonomies.
sorry, *not setting expectations
Gender/sexuality truly is a individual thing. That’s probably why there are so many individual terms trying to lump people together. I personally identify as a straight male, but I am in a polyamourus relationship with two women and another straight man, so that means I don’t exactly fit in the traditional sexuality roles either. It is wonderful that we are becoming more inclusive as a whole to all this individual identities and feelings.
…and with that, “Can you tell me where to find your writing?”, BayoWolf? 😀
I’m male, but it seems I act/think/feel as a mix of both traditional male and female roles.
I COMPLETELY get the ‘I want to have a romantic surprise as well’ part – I’ve shocked all my girlfriends when I told them that I would LOVE to be given flowers.
Only one of them actually did so, but that is one of the happiest memories I have. Also one of the most erotic ones I have.
I totally missed this. I just figured he knew Ethan was on the pull and sent over Joyces site as a hint to the boy dating his sister.
Wat
Is he actually a she, still presenting as male to her parents?
Okay, just saw the hover text. I’m dumb.
There’s hover text to these?! Frak, back to page one
Actually it starts sometime around Book two. Don’t remember when.
First occurance of alttext: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/02-guess-whos-coming-to-galassos/scoot/
Though a comment was left there stating that one random comic before that has alttext now, so binge at your own risk. Also shortpacked got alttext at the same time, just so you know.
Without the hovertext I would have thought that Joshua was actually just running out of his sister’s sight (what with Joyce sounding like a good truncated version of Jocelyn.) I wonder if that sounds as dumb as I think it sounds.
Dumb, I don’t know. But spelling ‘site’ as ‘sight’ sure makes it confusing.
I actually found the one with the extra alt text. I forgot which strip it was for, though.
I’ve been going through the archive assembling a timeline of events. I wish I’d known to look for stray hovertext before I got through the first week and a half of DoA-time.
Her sister IS adorable.
Hi, accessing through a mobile device here.
What exactly does this alt-text say?
“joyce’s sister is adorable”
Yea i m really confused
For future reference to all mobile users:
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20100404045906105
Thank you!
iOS users =/= all mobile users
IT’S OVER NINE THOU…. oh wait, wrong question.
Thought so.
High Five!
This was my first guess! (My second was furry.)
Admittedly, I only had 2 internet dollars ridding on that (and another 2 for otter fursona).
You know, are you being serious about this or a joke?
Because I’m into anthro characters, draw them etc. My parents, my husbands parents and a good portion of our friends and family know my husband and I are furry (the rest it hasn’t come up).
They don’t care – they know it isn’t all costumes and sex.
I’ve been into anthro characters since I was little and going to church and drew them then as well. No one thought that was odd or weird even as I got older.
Dunno, just thought I’d ask.
I was serious that I thought Jocelyne was possibly furry. I figured Willis would make her some sexual minority or queer. Especially with the “I’m not actually gay” line.
are you saying being a furry counts as a sexually minority????
That is why I wanted to know if they were serious.
Being furry is nothing like coming out as different sexually.
Probably to their fundie parents it would be.
I’m gonna’ say that it is, as long as there is a sexual aspect to it. Any kink/fetish puts one in the “sexual minority” category in my book, though obviously being gay, trans, asexual, etc. will have a larger influence on one’s life. Having, say, a foot fetish would put someone in the sexual minority (since the majority of people DON’T get aroused by feet) but it will be less “important” (bad word, but can’t think of a better alternative right now) than being trans, for example, since the former is easily kept secret (except from one’s sexual partners, of course) and only impacts one’s sex life, not one’s life outside of the bedroom. Does that make sense?
But being furry isn’t necessarily sexual – it isn’t a kink/fetish.
Fursuit sex – yes
But in that sense so is cosplay sex.
Any kink in furry can be placed in a kink under normal terms too. Using your foot fetish example – just they use paw fetish.
As for drawn porn, well – people have been aroused by it since dawn of time. Even antho styled porn has been found dating back quite a bit – before furries were even around. I think it was Egyptian?
This is true. However, given the context, I believe EvergreenFir was using “furry” in the sexual sense.
To some extent, yes. It’s not the same, but it is definitely not accepted by mainstream.
And yes, I do know the difference between asexual and sexual furries.
You would probably be surprised how accepted anthro characters as a whole are.
As I said they have been around for ages. Also, most people forget about the bad MTV and NCIS episodes long as you don’t point them out all the time.
My parents thought the NCIS episodes were hilarious, but know I draw anthro characters and know I hang out in the furry community (since I was 19 mind you they have known). My husband is a furry as well.
Stereotypes are not as bad as you may think if you just talk to people.
Fursuits are even allowed in public in a lot of places people enjoy the players.
Granted I think if you use the suit for personal purposes you need to swap the bodies out but…you know most furries even agree with that.
I’m queer myself, no one in my family cares. Coming out as anything depends a lot on your context. What’s fine and acceptable to some people is a heinously deviant transgression to others. (I’m guessing this one wouldn’t be all sunshine and rainbows to Jocelyn’s folks)
Considering they were trying to make their daughter stop being friends with an atheist, I think this is way beyond what they want to deal with.
I called it right around the time I heard the phrase “not allowed to be my real self” (paraphrased).
I didn’t and… Wow, I feel like I should have.
Well. Didn’t see that coming.
Same. Wonder if Joyce knows or not?
Since she referred to him as her “brother”, I’d give it a probable “no”.
Not always, some people don’t understand about referring to a person as their preferred gender.
Or, what could be worse, is she thinks it can be cured like what she’s trying to do with Ethan and assumes her brother’s just going though a phase or something.
That’s deep, and terrifying. I don’t want to think about that.
But, this is Joyce we’re talking about here. I think, given how kind she is, if she knew she’d say sister… At least in private to spare Jocelyne’s feelings if she didn’t want to be pushed into open so fast.
Jocelyne’s probably keeping it a secret from Joyce because she loves her, and knows with everything else going on in her life (college, finding herself, and now having a gay boyfriend) she doesn’t want to strain her emotionally or mentally any more than already going on.
If her sister is still representing herself as a he to most of the world, than Joyce may be respecting her privacy. I’ve been friends with a gal who hasn’t come out yet or made the switch. So I always refer to her as he unless it’s a private conversation to protect her.
That being said, I tend to suspect that Joyce has no idea. I doubt Jocelyne would have felt okay confiding in her prior to this. But with her world views expanding in college…maybe that conversation will happen soon.
I’m friends with… an individual who has made a decision to NEVER transition. (For several reasons.) Instead, they treat the male they’ve learned to present and live as, and the female they wish they could live as, as two different people.
Confused yet? “He” has a bisexual girlfriend, who is friends with “her”. The girlfriend said she would support their transition but only as a friend, because she “fell in love with the man, not the woman.”
You start laying on the layers of hiding and pretence and this shit can get mind boggling.
That’s sad though, unless “he” doesn’t feel like he’s just complying to “his” girlfriend.
“He” definitely takes the loss of his girlfriend into account, but “he” also feels that other factors are large enough to stop it ever happening. “His” family, health, age, career are all factors that make “him” feel he can never be “her” full time.
It’s still incredibly sad though. They’re how I learned what gender dysphoria was, what it meant, and set the foundations for my own “coming out” three years later.
I know this is late, and probably no one will ever seen this, but this is exactly why I go for pansexual people.
Agree. Jocelyn is still presenting as male to her whole family. She’ll have to come out eventually, but that’s not a family in which it’ll be easy.
There’s also force of habit. I knew a friend of mine for a year before finding out they were trans, so for a while I had trouble remembering to use the correct pronouns.
You’re kidding right.
I’m guessing no. Given her earlier reactions to the gay thing, there’s no way she would’ve been able to handle it before college. She might take better to it nowadays, but I’m assuming that’s a process we’ll have to see ourselves sometime in the future.
‘Course she doesn’t. It would have blown her mind, and her bro- her sister wouldn’t want to put her through that.
Joyce knows. There is no way she could not know.
Why she is still maintaining the charade, though, is anybody’s guess.
Joyce likes her delusions, they’re warm and comforting
Sorry, disregard my post above. I posted before I let my admittedly narrow mind expand to consider all the possibilities, and was thinking that Joshua was a female transvestite passing as male.
I’m sorry what now?
You just don’t have a single gram of patience for anyone who doesn’t already fully understand this stuff, do you?
Er, I don’t think that means what you think that means…
Someone not understanding the distinctions between gender identities? INCONCEIVABLE!
Nope, I think he means what he says. I think he thought that Jocelyn was a drag king, basically. Why he thought that her parents would be okay with that, and refer to her by a “drag name”, I’m unsure, but that was what his impression sounded like to me.
I think Joyce may end up surprising us if/when she does find out, considering the strides she’s already made… I’m imagining Joyce being excited to have a sister instead of the house full of brothers she thought she had.
OH SHIT
i said the exact same thing
Oh.
Well, that was awesome.
…oh
Called it.
Jocelyne? Oh…..
jocelynejbrown.com redirects to dumbingofage.com
All links lead to Willis.
example: http://www.google.com
WILLISCRAFT!
I smell hyperlinks!
Oh no. IT BEGINS.
it’s cute and awesome when Willis spent money to get this joke going!
I think it might have been more “If I don’t actually register this domain, then someone else will buy it up and fill it with porn and/or viruses” than anything else.
But it could have been some nice, contextual DoA porn. Not your normal R34 garbage.
Huh. I tried and got redirected to “ww35.jocelyn…” Which turned out to be one of those placeholder search screens. I feel let down.
And I see I misspelled Jocelyne. Go me!
NOT actually gay.
But if she’s a chick, then…
Ethan! You still have a chance!
Yeah, but she doesn’t date enormous assholes. And also you can’t date her for the reason I can’t date MY trans friend.
Why can’t you date your trans friend?
Xe’s a fictional character, presumably.
Because I’m not gay. And he’s a guy now. And if I touch his boobs it’ll just make him frustrated cuz he does not want them.
Not all trans* people have the same experiences though. Your trans* friend might not want to date straight dudes, but we have no evidence that Jocelyn doesn’t want xir male sex characteristics, nor that xe wouldn’t consider dating gay dudes. Sexuality is way complex.
True, I’m just presenting issues “In my personal experience”
Fair enough!
Why are you using gender-neutral pronouns? She’s a girl, yo. Willis used “sister” in the hovertext.
I’m erring on the side of caution. Gender-neutral is gender-neutral. Until xe specifies xir PPPs, I’ll keep on using the broadest terms I can.
‘Xe’ and similar invented pronouns should really only be used in reference to people who request those pronouns be used in reference to them. “The broadest terms” possible would be singular they.
I identify as gender-neutral and ‘xe’ has always made me feel like a Martian.
I agree with Ae. I’m gender-neutral/fluid, and I have never liked the ‘xe’ ‘zhi’ and so on pronouns that people keep throwing around. If others want to use them, fantastic for them, but please don’t use them to refer to me. ‘They’ is a much more acceptable answer, but I’d err on the side of caution and ask the person (or the character’s creator) what pronouns to use. I actually request people use male pronouns for me, but don’t get upset if they mess up.
Except that then grammatical prescriptivists would get mad at me. The theoretical purpose of “invented” GN pronouns is to act as unabiguously singular pronouns that can be used to describe any individual, regardless of gender identity. Large segments of the queer community prefer that GN pronouns be used for those whose preferred pronouns are unknown. Others, like you, don’t like them. So please don’t act like your solution is the only correct one. I never claimed that anyone was wrong for using “she” or “they,” because it is a matter of such debate, even within the trans* community. I merely defended my use of GN pronouns, which is consistent with much of current queer theory.
(And of course, I would never use pronouns you have specifically requested not be used.)
Rule of thumb for transsexual people, I think, is to not date people who want to date you BECAUSE of the gender you were assigned at birth. Everyone is different, sure, and some people will feel differently, but that’s a damn good rule for most transsexuals.
Can’t comment on any other trans* people though.
A wild gender-neutral neologism appeared!
Toad used “Xe”
It’s not very effective…
😉
Don’t worry about it, dude. I think we can for now assume “she / her”, and if it turns out later to be incorrect, make our embarrassed apologies and correct as necessary.
After all, using the made-up terms is fairly presumptive in of itself and imho about as discriminatory and dehumanising as using “it” (as I say – just my own opinion :P), when we do already have “they” and “their” to refer to a person whose gender we don’t know or who may be either, without resorting to objectifying or sci-fi’ing them.
I keep imagining Xe from the Untitled! webcomic.
But Ethan doesn’t like girls do.
do what
do not have a penis, obviouisly.
Well, he liked Josh. That attraction is likely to remain at least until Josh transitions more, but yeah, kinda realized it was actually a doomed proposition either way.
Not necessarily, Jocelyn might want to keep her penis, and Ethan might not mind date Transwoman. There are many variables.
*though. I meant though.
Actually…that’s true. Since she did seem attracted.
Unfortunately for the ship, Joshua identifies as a woman and Ethan is only attracted to men. If ever she decides to transition, that would could major issues.
One of my mom’s soap operas had a story where a lesbian was attracted to a man who identified as a woman (except as his rock star persona). And this wasn’t the one with the vampire rock star and guy being possessed by a demon to become a cloaked Punisher who went after rapists and other sexual abusers.
Soap operas are weird
I KNOW RIGHT?! I don’t know why more people don’t embrace the lunacy!
Because you have to wade through a lot of boring to get to the good stuff.
Unfortunately for the ship, Jocelyne’s *sister* is already dating Ethan! Why does everyone act like she’ll just throw Joyce over like that???
“Sorry, sis! It was love at first sight. Your feelings aren’t *that* hurt, are they?” NOT.
THANK YOU.
I’m still holding out for Joyce to figure out that she neither can nor should save Ethan from his gayness by marrying him, and for Ethan to figure out a pretend romance that lets him think he doesn’t have to deal with his sexuality isn’t very healthy for either of them. Once all that is sorted out, they should be busy thanking everyone who in any way tried to ruin their relationship.
Well either way, Joyce/Ethan is an unhealthy relationship. Ethan is gay and Joyce is a girl. It’s doomed right from the start. Joshua might identify as female, but unless she decides to transition to female, she’s got a physically male body that Ethan is attracted to. Sure, that relationship would also have plenty of complications, but at least Ethan won’t have to hide his sexuality to make it work.
Putting aside the fact that Ethan is currently dating Joyce… There’s nothing wrong, or even uncommon, with a person being attracted to another person despite sexual orientation of either party. Which is to say, a heterosexual person can still get the hots for a specific same-gendered person, even though this isn’t typically true for them. It also does *not* make them bisexual.
Also, there’s the whole sexual vs emotional vs intellectual attraction issue, where you need to determine what kind of attraction it is before you even decide if gender (external or internal) is a factor. Humans, they’re so complicated — and so busy trying to simplify things past the point of clarity 🙂
Sexuality is often more complex than that. People can be attracted primarily on the basis of physical sex, on the basis of gender, or on something else entirely (e.g. for some people the most relevant trait is dominance/submissiveness.) And emotional attraction or physical attraction are separate things.
Ethan seems to be physically attracted to male-bodied people, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he were biromantic.
For Ethan to date Jocelyn because he identifies her as male, despite the fact she identifies as female and is attracted to him in a heterosexual way (so to speak) would be an enormously selfish dick move. And I don’t think Jocelyn would put up with it anyway.
I don’t think it would be selfish. At least not anymore than any relationship.
It would just be plain fucked-up.
And those are plenty welcome in Willis’ comics! Aha!
Seriously though, I realized the pairing concept was broken once I thought about the loop for more than two seconds.
Yeah, the kind of fucke-up stuff you’d expect from a David Willis comic. But I get the feeling that Jocelyn isn’t up to it.
I think Jocelyne’s writing *is* up to it.
I agree. Labels can really mess you up if you find out about your gender identity after you’re already in a relationship, too.
Remember, kids, whenever you see the Misgender Fairy, punch her in the face.
Ironically, the Misgender Fairy identifies as male. XD
*Crossdressing* male. His name is Lola.
How is Coulson’s car involved in all of this??
Did it go to Tahiti as well and cause all this??
(It’s a magical place)
Okay, not true at all. Sexuality is very wibbly-wobbly. You can be extremely gay and STILL fall in love with a trans*. I know two married people, where they were considered homosexual until one partner came out to everyone as trans*. Both persons involved are still extremely committed to each other even since one of them is working on transitioning to female.
So do not tell me that gay men cannot love a trans* woman, because i just proved you wrong. 😛
beege wasn’t saying it’s impossible. They’re saying if Ethan went into the relationship basically viewing Joc as male, then that would be awful and everyone would be even madder at him than we already are.
I agree with you, although Raibean isn’t entirely wrong either. It’s great that your friends stayed together, but it probably wasn’t easy for them to go through the transition. Just as it was probably really hard for the trans* person to come out to her partner (knowing what challenges they’d have to face).
But really, I don’t think we should punch fairies in the face. It’s not nice. Plus, if you wanna make it hurt, it’s better to surprise pussy-punch someone, according to the latest Machete…
….See, it’s not that gay people can’t love trans people. I’m a lesbian with a trans wife. But I’m not attracted to her ‘because she’s a dude’, and she is actively transitioning to a body I like better (An incidental benefit to her getting to feel better about her body, I assure you). Ethan seemed to zero in on the physical side with Jocelyn. A physical side that, in all probability, Jocelyn wants to bury with a hatchet.
Those might not be his reasons though. I’m gay and I’m with a transwoman. I’m attracted to her because I love her, not her male body parts.
Well that explains a lot.
Protip: The website just brings you back to Dumbing of Age.
Looks like the people who guessed Trans were right.
woot woot!
Oh man, she’s trans*. No wonder she was so afraid of her parents finding out that their favorite “son” had her own secrets.
Indeed.
Well played Gravicon
I was going to say.
No way…
DON’T TELL ME I CALLED IT TWICE!!!!
I FRIGGIN’ CALLED IT TWICE!!!
Did you ever say he was a trans?
Yes, like…on 3 seperate occassions.
Granted they’re pretty spread out.
The first documented case of Yotomoe calling it was in Gutenberg, on August 25th at 6:14 AM. Only one witness survived.
That witness? Yotomoe.
However some critics point out that he may not have had all that faith in his predictions, citing certain recent evidence.
BUT WHAT WAS THE YEAR?!
Afraid I missed those. When did they happen?
You can’t be “a” trans. Xe is a transgender person.
By saying “xe”, you’re defeating the purpose of your otherwise transphilic statement. Jocelyn identifies as female, therefore call her “she”. “Xe” is implying that she is neither male nor female.
… No. Gender-neutral pronouns are gender-neutral. They do not indicate a gender. That does not mean that they indicate no gender. It is acceptable to refer to any person with gender-neutral pronouns, regardless of their gender identity. That is actually the point of those words: you can refer to people without specifying a gender or lack thereof. Jocelyne has not specified PPPs, and therefore I am erring on the side of caution, since I cannot ask xir directly.
already responded to this above, but did you read the hovertext
I did read the hovertext, but identifying as female and using female pronouns do not necessarily go together. There’s a reason so many queer groups start meetings by asking everyone for their PPPs. Some trans*women prefer gender-neutral pronouns.
But some don’t. What if by “playing it safe” you’re also being offensive. By that logic I don’t really care. It is MUCH too much work to worry about offending people all the time.
That is… uh. I’ve never actually hear of anyone who does that…? I mean, I don’t deny they exist, but it seems infinitely more likely that she uses feminine pronouns.
And in any case, not everyone likes xe/xir. Some people use ‘they’. Some use ‘ze’ and ‘hir’. I am sure there is at least one person out there who prefers ‘it’. You can’t know, and arbitrarily using one incredibly uncommon set of pronouns to refer to someone who clearly identifies as female seems… well, kind of presumptuous, tbh.
To add onto what Yotamoe said (if I may), while I understand the positive intent of more recently created gender-neutral pronouns, terms like “xe,” “ey” and so forth, such terms aren’t universally endorsed in GSM communities, and still carry the broader connotation of being *specifically* associated with issues surrounding said communities.
If you don’t know how someone who is trans* feels about such terms (and, again, there isn’t universal agreement), by casually dropping them into conversation about said person, you may actually be doing more to draw unwanted attention to their trans* status than if you’d even just used singular “they” (which already has a long history of use for people when referring to cis-persons in similar gender neutral contexts).
It is also more likely that any given person is straight and cisgendered than otherwise, but presuming that EVERYONE belongs to the majority would be highly problematic. As soon as Jocelyne or Willis weigh in on what pronouns are appropriate, I’ll happily switch to those.
The distinction between various gender-neutral pronouns is largely irrelevant as well. “It” is frowned upon because it typically refers to non-persons, but “xe” “ze” and “hir” are interchangeable, given that they are all invented to fill the same niche and none are really more widely accepted than the others in common usage. “They” is another bucket of issues, since it brings the plural/singular debate with it.
(And as for having not heard of someone identifying as XYZ, you clearly don’t spend much time on tumblr. Hang out there and you’ll end up with more combinations of identities than you’d ever thought possible!)
Jocelyne identifies as female.
@Sgore: First off, thanks for introducing me to the term GSM; that’s one I somehow hadn’t heard before! Secondly, I agree that referring to someone who isn’t out with gender-neutral pronouns in mixed company would be ill-advised. However, everyone here is aware of Jocelyne’s trans* status, and it is the topic of conversation du jour, so calling attention to it isn’t a problem.
@David Willis: I’ll assume that includes using female she/her pronouns then? Thanks for weighing in.
She/her it is from here on out then!
So why can’t you use “they”?
@A-A-A-Albi, because it’s insensitive/offensive to grammar nazis.
@A-A-A-Albi: Because in current usage, it is standard to use “they” as a plural. I am sympathetic to the cause of the singular they, however, and won’t say it’s wrong. There is a good deal of debate around the most appropriate gender-neutral pronouns, but that is really a separate issue.
Not in the variety of English I speak (in, well, England). Much like multi-use pronouns in other languages such as German (“Sie” can be “she” or “they (plural)”, IIRC), it can be either; it’s a nonspecific personal pronoun that cares not for gender or number, and thus is just fine so long as your subject is OK with it. I tend to use it as a nongendered singular pronoun quite a lot when e.g. writing technical instructions or the like.
Also, my head hurts.
🙂
How about I take the path of “I don’t care”? Call yourself what you want, but don’t expect me to do the same.
How is it irrelevant? Pronouns are a very personal thing to people with gender identity issues. No matter what, there will be the possibility of making someone feel bad, even using gender neutral pronouns. Hell, my gender identity is certainly atypical, and I would hate to be called any of the gender neutral pronouns that currently exist in our language (including they).
Before Willis actually came out and told us she was female, there were two very big indicators that this was the case. It just seems odd to me that you would favor one set of pronouns over the countless others, even when all the evidence pointed to the very particular set you specifically avoided.
Also, thanks for clearing it up, Willis.
responded to the wrong person, oopsie
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that pronouns are irrelevant. I just meant that with regards to this particular discussion, it didn’t matter which GN pronoun I used, since they are roughly interchangable and I had no way of knowing which Jocelyne could possibly prefer. That is, given that I was using GN pronouns, which one I used was irrelevant in this particular case.
I personally like xe more than ze or hir, simply as personal preference. My usage of it was not intended to be a rejection of any others. I was “favoring” xe by necessity–I had the choice between either picking one to “favor” or being inconsistent, which seems even worse to me.
I have explained my choice to use GN pronouns repeatedly, and am not interested in defending it further, given that it is now irrelevant. Please reread my other posts if you are still confused about my position. I am acting in concordance with the consensus among the queer circles I frequent.
“Gender-neutral” is a gender identity. Using “xe” when you already know the person’s preferred pronouns (in this case, she/her) is misgendering them.
Also, they/them is actually a singular pronoun that does not imply gender identity. Even Shakespeare used it.
It is true that some people do identify as gender-neutral or nongendered, but gender-neutral pronouns do not exclusively refer to them. They specifically and intentionally do not indicate a gender or lack thereof. Furthermore, I do NOT know xir PPPs. I know that xe thinks of xirself as Joyce’s sister (or at least, so Willis would indicate) but that does not mean xe would want to be referred to by female pronouns.
I am actually supportive of the use of “they” as a singular gender-neutral pronoun, but that’s really beside the point.
“It is also more likely that any given person is straight and cisgendered than otherwise, but presuming that EVERYONE belongs to the majority would be highly problematic. ”
When, exactly, did we decide as a society that using the most likely option until told otherwise is the same thing as “presuming that someone belongs to the majority”?
Using “she” now is certainly no worse than using “he” yesterday, so you’ve really got no room to argue.
Gender-neutral pronouns are typically for people of indeterminate gender; generally for reasons of anonymity, but sometimes for not falling on the binary at all. Jocelyn’s a woman, not a random person of indeterminate gender. Use it smartly, please.
As a complete aside, two identical Joe gravatars discussing transgender issues is incredibly amusing.
Thought the same thing!
He Did, good call Yotomoe. 🙂
Good job. Call it three times and you win a prize.
Call it three times while looking in a mirror and then turn off the lights.
OK, THIS is where you start firebombing the survivors
I hope this track record doesn’t have implications for the accuracy of your Dinafaz horror.
Not even Willis would do that to us.
Now you’ve called down the WillisThunder…
Yer a wizard Yotomoe
It’s witchcraft, isn’t it?
You did too!
You missed a perfect chance to say “Someone pick up that phone because I called it!”
You had a chance Yoto… You had a chance…
You had the chance on a punchline, Morningstar. You had the chance…
Hmmm..
(just to break the “oh” ice) 🙂
Wait… Josh identifies as a girl???
Of course.
Yeah, Plasma — I was also surprised, despite all the folks who guessed this yesterday. (D’oh!)
Monday morning quarterbacks.
I knew it. … Alright, I was kinda thinking it from the not exactly feeling bi would be too obvious. Still, enough to fill my need to feel smart. XD
Posting here simply to point out how the avatars on the previous run of comments make a very nice rainbow sequence with their background / hair / clothing colours.
…finishing with mine, in a fetching black / white / transparent / pale pink combination.
OH MY GOD yesssss I didn’t think he would be a she but I am not disappointed at all!
That’s a curveball if I ever saw one.
Does Ethan’s mom suffer from some variety of depression or melancholy? No other parent in these strips has looked as consistently miserable or visibly burdened as she has. Her nastiness be put aside for one moment, something is rotten in the house of Siegel.
Ethan’s dick isn’t currently in a female so she’s not happy.
She’s probably just pissy because she hasn’t gotten laid since nine months before Ethan was born.
Do we know that Ethan has no siblings? They could be substantially younger than he is; it’s not uncommon in some Jewish families.
Fear that your loved ones won’t get into Heaven can present huge amounts of stress.
That would be a very odd thing for a Jewish person to worry over – despite our reputation as chronic worriers. 🙂
“Some people look at these teachings and deduce that Jews try to ‘earn our way into Heaven’…unlike some religions, Judaism is not focused on the question of how to get into heaven. Judaism is focused on life and how to live it.”
Source: http://www.jewfaq.org/olamhaba.htm
My theory is she is gay and refuses to accept it.
Naomi and Saul are both gay. It is the Siegal legacy.
oh god no not THAT person
Since this is a Willis comic, that seems like a very workable theory. Seriously, what percentage of people are heterosexual and not gender confused in any way in the Willis-verse? I’m thinking it has to be less than 5%. =P
Let’s see… off the top of my head (and of course, without knowing anything about the private thoughts of these characters):
Joe, Danny, Dorothy, Amber and Walky all appear to possess gender identities in line with their biological sex, and also to be heterosexual. Pretty sure that already puts us above 1 in 20, so… yeah.
As much as we like to joke about it, most of Willis’ characters are straight and cis.
having a realistic number of gender/sexual minorities in media comes across has having an IMPOSSIBLY INFINITE number of them given how used people are to not seeing them at all
it might be she blames herself for ethan’s deviation from the norm, in the sense that she didn’t do the parent thing right or something. like if she’d been better at being a mother he wouldn’t have “turned gay.” (because some people think that’s a thing you can do on purpose)
i mean, she definitely rolled a critical failure on the whole mom thing, but not for that reason.
oooor maybe she’s one of those people just absolutely determined to be miserable, and if she isn’t happy then NO ONE IS HAPPY.
So basically she’s Livia Soprano
Criminy! You brought it all back to me:
“What makes you think you’re so special?”
“My Johnny was a Saint.”
“I wish the Lord would take me now.”
Lather, rinse, repeat.
You forgot “OH POOR YOU”
She may not have an actual mental illness – she could, in fact, be a miserable person.
Or, she could be perfectly happy, and just have Resting bongo Face. (Something I suffer from myself.)
Yeah, well, hate really sucks the life out of you
Haha all those guesses yesterday were right!
I’m just as surprised as you are, actually.
Well, except for that one guy who guessed that Joshua is a cyborg ninja.
There’s no evidence he isn’t one.
There’s no evidence she isn’t one.
Right, sorry. Gonna be hard to drop that habit.
No, that was my failure at tone. No worries. 🙂
Well, it’s not really easy to read tones on a text.
No, it’s not — that’s why the fault’s mine.
Yeek — that came off dickish. Sorry — imagine that was said with a squeal of delight at this turn, not a comment on your comment. 🙂
Happy birthday to me! And either Joshua is person who felt like he’s born in the wrong body or…he is really a she.
Parents missed a spot check when she was born. So did the doctors. It happens.
Or she took a dip in a hot spring where a dude drowned in it when she was a kid..or something.
Ranma?
oh, they didn’t miss the spot check, they just REALLY wanted a son (another son? i forget where joz ((joss? how the heck do you abbreviate jocelyne :L )) falls in the brown child order of ascension) and raised her as a dude under the philosophy that anything is possible if you just BELIEVE hard enough, and the real her that “josh” has been hiding from her parents/family is that she, ya know, noticed at some point.
Xe is “really” a she. Gender != physical sex. Joshua/Jocelyne presumably has male genetalia, but was not necessarily “born in the wrong body” any more than people with acne they don’t like are born in the wrong body. Trans* folks only have the one body, and it’s theirs, regardless of what aspects of it they do or do not like.
Can we not use ‘xe’? Or ‘ze’? Firstly, it is presumptuous to use a pronoun a person has not themselves endorsed. Secondly (on purely personal level), I can’ stand them. English is in desperate need of neutral, non-plural pronouns, but simply making them on and trying to stuff them into the language isn’t going to work. They look out of place: true gender-neutral pronouns that work will emerge only when English etymology and orthography are taken into account. English’s strength has always been tis ability to change, absorb, and mutate into something (usually) stronger. Imposed adjustments are too L’Académie Française for my tastes.
English has gender-neutral singular pronouns: “they”, “their”. It’s been standard usage for hundreds of years. Like it or not, that’s what the natural evolution of the language has given us, and trying to displace it by imposing artificial substitutes is doomed to failure.
Especially since no one can agree on which made-up bullshit pronouns to use instead.
Plus Willis said in comments somewhere above this that Jocelyn identifies as female so ‘she’ and all its variants is appropriate.
Well I had to use *some* pronoun, and Jocelyne, being fictional, couldn’t really weigh in to let me know which she “endorsed.” As soon as Willis said she preferred female pronouns, I switched.
Your personal preferences are largely irrelevant. There are plenty of trans* prescriptivists who hate the singular they. Plenty hate any “invented” GN pronouns but they. The queer circles I frequent endorse the use of xe, and so that’s what I use. Won’t say you’re wrong to use the singular they, and I’ve even used it myself, but it’s also presumptuous to tell someone not to use a term preferred by large sections of the trans* community.
Guys, it’s not that Joshua/Jocelyne is a woman at the moment.
He’s trans, ya’ll. MTF (Male to Female)
Which kind of makes me sad. You see a lot of MTF, but I rarely ever see FTM.
I think thats do to the surgery, I think MtF is much cheaper than FtM.
It’s easier to make a hole than a pole. (sorry)
damnit ninja’d
It’s cheaper to dig a hole than to build a pole
you get a cookie if you place that reference
My (admittedly basic) understanding of the procedures involved are that MtF surgery can make a very reasonable facsimile of a natural born female body. As in, the parts work and you could even keep it a secret from people you have sex with if you wanted. Meanwhile FtM as medical advancement stands now isn’t there yet. They can make you something that sort of looks like a dick, but it doesn’t work and you’ve butchered your junk to make it. Which could be bad if they ever come up with a process that actually does work.
I would be cool with anyone else telling me that synopsis is out of date.
If you get on T, your, uh… wow, this is awkward. Basically, it’s possible for a certain… part to become large enough to be used in, uh… sex. Not always, but it’s possible.
(Psst… The word you’re looking for is “clitoris”.)
I am a child, I cannot say such things.
frick, wrong email
Oh hell, my other email is Roz.
That is perfect and wonderful.
please don’t equate identifying as transgender with the desire or ability to undergo surgery
what lee said
At least she is actually in a difficult position related to her identity, unlike a certain other webcomic where there is a trans character who is completely indistinguishable from the other female characters except for those two comics where she told her secret to somebody.
i dunno, considering how instantly-protective her twin brother was upon learning that she came out to marten, i’d say there was definitely the unfortunately usual “people being horrible to other people” in her background. i’m super happy for claire that she has friends that are so accepting now. kudos to mr jacques for such a chill cast of characters.
Yeah. It’s nicer than nice to have some representation where the character isn’t entirely defined by her gender identity – and ESPECIALLY nice to have her not entirely defined by ANGST over it.
(Also, Clinton isn’t Claire’s twin – he’s several years younger than her. Yeah, he’s protective of his ELDER sibling. It’s an interesting relationship.)
oops, that’s right. apologies for the brain fart. guess at some point my mind went from “close familial resemblance, might as well be twins” to “they are actually twins”.
At one point I was convinced they were cousins, so…
true. I always feel awkward talking about how things are for transsexuals because i’m only talking from my perspective and have no idea if it applies in a similar way for the guys. But it’s also really awkward to always add a disclaimer telling that it’s only a MtF experience i’m talking about
what i mean is that i have absolutely no idea how things are for FtMs and i’d like to know more about them.
Part of the reason for this (historically, back when all stories about trans people were massively offensive) is the same as why you still see more gay guys in media than gay ladies – more interest in “men’s” stories, even if those stories were basically super offensive “lady was a dude!” Mostly the people who wrote those stories didn’t see trans women as women, but hyper deviant gay men a la the transphobic writings of J. Michael Bailey. Obviously not the case here or in many of the modern stories, thankfully.
So then… she is a woman at this moment.
I am distressed by what this Gravatar has done to that comment.
We are all distressed by it, Toad.
You are saying one thing, but your gravatar is saying another.
(my gravatar, on the other hand, is right there with me)
This is the Willis Commentariat. Open-minded and accepting. In this case, Toad, there is no choice but to revel in the delicious irony of your comment’s Grav-conflict!
No, this is the perfect gravatar for this comment.
It’s probably extremely inappropriate, but I find your gravatar hilariously funny and appropriate.
No. She’s trans. Sex doesn’t matter. Gender is all that counts. Not having transitioned yet doesn’t make her any less a woman.
Exactly. I’m actually uh, very bountiful but by god, I’m a man. I don’t need a penis or a flat chest to prove it, and you better use the male pronoun for me.
This is delightful!
Yeah someone called it. Nicely played, though. Think Joyce knows? (Nope)
Lots of people called this one I think…
There’s a difference between knowledge and comprehension.
Ok so Ethan DOES still have a chance!
No, he doesn’t – he doesn’t like women.
Well, that’s a complex issue. Some gay men will date trans* men and some won’t, and some will date trans* women and some won’t. It’s really a very personal and individualized choice. Given that xe is male-bodied, Ethan might still be into xir. On the other hand, identifying as female might be a deal-breaker.
Last I checked, a man dating a lady was straight – not gay. Doesn’t matter if they are transexual or not.
My husband is pansexual when it comes to love, but straight when it comes to sexual attraction. Meaning he isn’t gay, but straight even if he dated a MtF because he wouldn’t date a FtM.
I’m Pansexual and Asexual – I don’t care what gender when it comes to love, but I’m not sexual attracted to males, females, or hermaphradites.
Granted I could be confused, but since I was told this by an actual transexual maybe it is wrong? Maybe they all see things differently?
Everyone sees sexuality differently. Guess it is up to Willis to let us know if Ethan still likes Jocelyne, but I don’t see that happening considering Jocelyne will be fully female eventually if all goes well.
Toad is right though. It’s complicated. Being gay doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily date transmen just as lesbians won’t necessarily date transwomen. And some gay men actually will date transwomen and some lesbians will date transmen.
That’d make you panromantic and asexual, I believe.
Also “Last I checked, a man dating a lady was straight – not gay. Doesn’t matter if they are transexual or not.” is inaccurate. They could be bi or pan or asexual or anything, really, except specifically homosexual or homoromantic.
Panromantic. Thanks for that – I’ve just been told I was pansexual – which is odd because, yeah asexual.
And as I said below I wasn’t thinking on that first sentence – forgot the pan, bi, asexual etc in that list. Which is really bad on me sorry.
‘S fine. I personally am heteromantic asexual, which made me very confused and conflicted until someone pointed out that romantic and sexual love were separate spectrums. I wish I could remember who it was so I could thank them for not feeling so lost anymore.
Ugh tell me about it. When I found out that me not being sexual attracted to people and not liking sex was NORMAL and had a name OMG – was so relieved.
I think sexual identity is a big part of who we are as a species – and really it becomes stressful not knowing.
“Last I checked, a man dating a lady was straight ”
…or bi or pan????
Yeah I meant that. Left it out.
Sorry about that.
I urge you to reread my post. Your personal anecdotes aren’t relevant to the topic at hand, so I’ll skip them. But the point remains, there are lots of men who identify as gay that would still date/not date trans-men or trans-women. Sexual/romantic attraction is not exclusively limited to gender, and everyone draws lines in different places. Ethan has not indicated his feelings on the matter.
“Jocelyne will be fully female eventually if all goes well.”
Erm, nope. We do not know if Jocelyne intends to physically transition or not. Not all trans* people want or intend to physically transition. Many are perfectly happy to have the body they have, while still identifying as whatever gender.
Everyone transexual is different. I’m going to say that and leave it at that. Painting a broad brush is bad on both of us.
My trans friend said one thing, you know another. Neither of use are right or wrong.
That was exactly my point. All trans* people are different. You made a hard generalization: Ethan, as a gay man, would not date a trans* woman. I disagreed, since some gay men would and some wouldn’t, and some trans* people would be okay with it and some wouldn’t.
My bad, I think I misread your initial post then. Even when I reread it. Sorry about that, and thanks for clarifying.
I guess I brought up my own thing because I was trying to convey the point personally. *shrug*
Great thing about being human is we are all different :).
It would be awfully boring if we weren’t! 🙂
Don’t you mean panromantic? In terms of your and your husband’s romantic attraction. It sounds like it, considering you both are “pansexual in terms of love” but not sexually. You can’t be both pansexual and asexual, but you can be a panromantic asexual, just sayin’. (Sorry if this came across as too didactic…)
Anyway, it’s super cool to meet another ace! I’m an aromantic asexual, myself. 🙂
Whoops, just saw that Wack’d already pointed that out. Sorry to repeat a post. 🙁
Yeah I didn’t hear of panromantic until today and I’m glad I did. Wack’d pointed it out to me.
It did confuse me before today as well. So thank you on that.
I’ve seen more and more of those that identify as asexual around. As I said above it is normal and I’m glad I’m not just odd. –Though odd is relatively speaking when it comes to me XD.
I feel like I’ve been meeting more and more asexuals too! For National Coming Out Day, the LGBTQIA club hosted a T-shirt making event for people to declare their sexualities on and I found out that quite a few people I knew IRL were asexual, which I found pleasantly surprising.
Mine has mostly be online, I’m not a very outgoing person unfortunately. Though I’m sure there are communities down where I live despite the rest of my state being hick ville USA XD.
I think you’re forgetting the Kinsey scale of sexuality. Speaking as someone who is bi-sexual- things aren’t one thing or another. I’m bi-sexual in technical terms-but only just. I date more men than I do women, and I prefer relationships with men- less drama. But I’m attracted to both. Nothing is simple.
….less drama. really.
okay then…
It’s my personal sexual preference. Really gonna judge me on that?
So, less drama turns you on?
…Or maybe you’re just making generalizations based on gender that don’t actually have anything to do with sexual preference.
If you like guys more than girls, that’s fine. Do realize that your reasoning is based on stereotypes (and probably confirmation bias and/or bad luck with women).
my relationships are between me, my partner, and if I choose, a qualified therapist. I don’t remember asking anyone to pass judgement on what I find to be attractive in a mate. Realize that when you comment on someone else’s sexuality, and what they find attractive so freely and with such easy judgement it can be damaging even with the best of intentions. You do not know the past that they went through to get where they are. *tone: kind*
Nobody was commenting on your sexuality, as far as I can tell. The statement that raised some eyebrows was you saying that dating men was “less drama” than dating women. While that may be your personal experience, it does come off as a bit gender-essentialist, as though you’re saying that dating men is inherently less drama than dating women. Which is silly, because as we all know, the amount of drama a person causes has very little to do with what gender they are! 🙂
As someone who is technically not on the Kinsey scale, that thing can go fuck itself, but only after it figures what number one ascribes to being attracted to bar graphs.
I mean, it’s a very rough tool, but can still be useful in some cases. For instance, “bisexual” is very broad, but I can say that I’m a “Kinsey 2” and people who know what that is have a pretty good sense of how I identify. It’s easier than laying out some huge diagram of my complicated sexual preferences, but still provides more detail than I could otherwise quickly provide.
If you don’t mind me asking, in what way are you not on the Kinsey scale? I assume ace, which is sort of a special case, but you might also identify as something else?
I think I mentioned being asexual further up–well, actually “gray asexual” I guess, given that I get sexual attraction the way most people get the hiccups. But I’m also heteromantic, and lemme tell you that confused the fuck out of me for a long time because hey, I want a relationship, I must also want sex, right? And having the only real divisions I was aware of come from that fucking chart (heh) did not help.
I think aces are 0s on Kinsey.
I’ve been told it’s an X. I dunno. I never found evidence of either.
I’ve heard ace described as i (i.e. sqrt(-1)) on the Kinsey scale. Other complex numbers can be used to describe variations thereof. This does not help with the simplicity thing, however.
@Kerry: No, 0 is “exclusively heterosexual” (that is, straight).
@Wack’d: Yeah, I’ve seen Ace listed as X, typically. But regardless, the Kinsey scale is a way of categorizing types of sexual attraction. So if you don’t experience sexual attraction (or in your case, rarely), then it would make sense that you wouldn’t be on the chart, right?
That said, it is outdated and unscientific and pretty useless for anything but “this is what flavor of bisexual I am!”
oh pft, you’re right, sorry
You make a good point- but again, the Kinsey scale is a good rough starting point for sexual attraction. I does assume a desire for sexual relationships, which many don’t have.
It’s a pretty terrible starting point if people are incapable of starting at it!
Hopefully this comes across the way I intend, but why would a lack of sexual attraction be on a chart detailing types of sexual attraction? Like, if I made a chart of a bunch of types of food, arranged from sweetest to sourest, it wouldn’t make sense for non-food things to be on the chart at all, right?
@Toad – I don’t know, I think asexual does count as a sexual orientation, and it does make sense to me to include it in something that describes/labels people’s sexual orientations.
But then, I think we also need a scale to be a shorthand for people who aren’t quite male or female, or are both, or whatever, and for what trans* identities people are attracted to, and I understand there IS a scale though not very widely used for how polyamorous/monogamous you are.
Labels suck when others pin them on you as a way to reinforce their power, but DAMN can they be handy when you’re trying to explain your sexual/romantic preferences.
@Leah: Oh yeah, it’s definitely a sexual orientation, but I don’t know that the Kinsey scale, at least in its modern usage, is used to describe all orientations (though that may have been Kinsey’s original intent). I think that instead of being a scale of orientations, it’s a scale of types of attraction. And thus, “no attraction” wouldn’t be on the chart.
And yeah, I’m all for people having as many tools for self-description as possible. Language is how we understand concepts; if you don’t have words to describe yourself, how are you ever going to understand yourself?
*Wheels out the still duct taped Faz, Kinsey scale glued to his forehead*
Was waiting to use this…
+1
“considering Jocelyne will be fully female eventually if all goes well.”
not all transgender people undergo surgery or even want to! she is “fully female” because she identifies as such. don’t make assumptions about anyone’s relationship with their body, please.
As I’m not transgender myself and still learning the language needed – I apologize for my flub. When I say Fully Female I mean able to come out as female – not surgery.
And it is my bad on that. As I said – still learning.
yes yup yes
Nobody else thinks that’s absurd?
No???
Like, I can’t even figure out what you might think is absurd about that?
Your terms would be panromantic/asexual and heterosexual. If we’re going to go there about proper terms, sexual=/=romantic attraction. I’m pansexual/demiromantic, for example.
Hold up, what’s demiromantic? Is it just the inverse of demisexual?
Wouldn’t the inverse of demisexual be… NOT being sexually attracted to people with whom a strong bond is formed? Maybe being sexually attracted only to people with whom a strong bond ISN’T formed?
I guess what I’m saying is, romance isn’t the opposite of sex, is it?
No, I’m sexually attracted to a lot of people, but I’m only emotionally/romantically attracted to them after a bond has been formed. I tend to crush on a lot of my friends because of this.
I… I thought most people didn’t get romantic feelings until a strong bond was formed? Is that not most people? Do I need a new label?
Sometimes I think I need to have cards printed up explaining my whole “deal”.
I’m a gay man who’s been with a transwoman for close to 3 years now. We’re all different :3
Willis swerves it again….and it’s better that any of Russo’s swerve.
“It’s me, Ethan! It was me all along, Ethan!”
“Oh, son of a bongo!”
The reveal is that Joshua is God. Go ahead. Try his URL.
Haha, clever. Also, that means I totally called it! 😀
Well played, Willis. Well played.
And just when the scene seemed to be over!
Huh. He’s further ahead what I’m dealing with but. Wow. I just wonder how well you’ll portray this..
Assuming you mean that Jocelyn’s in the same boat as you, I just wanted to wish you the best of luck. I’m still on my own walk down that road, and it’s a hard road to keep on sometimes, but every step of the way makes me happier I’m on it.
It’s tough, it’s gonna get tougher, but it gets better. Someone told me that when I was still early on and I’ve been thinking about that lately. It really does.
Yeah. I’m both really happy and sad to see this crop up in the story. Its really amazing how fearless Willis is in his story execution. Its a rough topic to skirt on. But, knowing that road Jocelyn is on, when she does reappear it might just lead to some really sad story lines.. Its great having someone in DOA to identify with, but being torn a way from em so soon and knowing rough times are headed her way? I can only give a solemn ‘Dammit Willis.’
Also side note: I love how he renamed all the tags Joshua->Jocelyn. It was really sweet and respectful.
“Its a rough topic to skirt on”
Heh.
But yeah, so far Willis has been respectful and Jocelyne has been well-written, it’s… odd? Uncommon, at least.
Damn, there’s a lot of us here.
Best of luck to the both of you.
Well there goes my ship I guess. Also that is cool, I hope Jocelyne appears more
Okay, got a question, hope I don’t come off as insensitive or rude, but I’m honestly not sure what the best way to phrase this is.
When Josh says he’s not gay, did he mean “I’m into guys but I identify as female, so I consider that being straight”? Or did he mean “I’m into girls, but even though I identify as female I am biologically male, so that doesn’t count as gay”?
Almost certainly the first one. The second would be kind of weird.
There’s a person I’ve met through mutual friends who is FTM and is gay, so it happens.
Probably the former.
Unless Willis answers this himself, everyone else who answers you will be answering off of speculation. My own thought is that Joshua seemed attracted to him, and identifies as female, so therefore not gay.
She is probably a straight trans-woman. Her sex may not be the same as her gender, but she’s a she, and she’s not ”not really a she”.
Even though she did seem to be attracted to Ethan, there is nothing that indicates Jocelyne is straight. And with transgender people you really shouldn’t assume their preference.
It could mean either. But a thing me and my friend talked about is that, even if he IS into guys, he wouldn’t want to be with Ethan, because Ethan likes boys, something Jocelyn doesn’t associate with. Regardless of the attraction, the features Ethan would be attracted to are features Jocelynn would want to be getting rid of.
Not necessarily. Ethan is attracted to a cute, smart, nerdy writer with big blue eyes and (presumably) a dick. Jocelyn certainly doesn’t want to get rid of any but the last of those, and not necessarily even then. There are lots of trans* folks who are perfectly happy with the body they have, and do not want to alter their genetalia in any way. “Gay” and “straight”, in their typical definitions, do not take into account any possible differences between sex and gender. Therefore, Ethan could be into “persons who identify as male” or “persons who have male sex characteristics.” We have no way of knowing which he is. It is also possible that he could be “gay with an exception.” Saying that people at either end of the Kinsey scale are attracted to people solely based on their gender is a pretty flawed oversimplification.
Okay, everyone. This.
The only thing that we know in canon about Jo is that she identifies as “Jocelyn”. We couldn’t even say for certain that she identifies as female at this point except for Willis’s hover-text. Making any other assumptions at this time–and scolding other posters for it–is more than just a little presumptuous.
Thanks, Thor. That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to say.
Looking back on Saturday’s comic. Joce is smiling when she says “not actually gay”, then is abrubtly disappointed when she realizes Ethan IS gay. Despite the situation with Joyce, she was still attracted to him and thinking about hooking up with Ethan as a straight couple, up until Ethan tipped his hand.
Mmmmm I think she was way more pissed/serious about a self-aware gay man dating her brother.
Sister. Dammit. Still getting the pronouns figured out.
Given that said sister is Joyce whose gender was never in question in the first place, I’d say you’re actually getting the pronouns figured back in.
Damn, you’re right. Looking back on all the Joc strips with an all new perspective.
Almost certainly that she likes guys, because she’s a woman.
“She likes guys because she’s a woman”? You know that’s not causality right? That’s a joke?
She could be asexual or a lesbian for all we know, and her being a woman doesn’t mean she likes guys. It really, really doesn’t.
Actually, we do know she’s straight (Willis said it down below), but yeah, dumb assumption.
I don’t understand you use he even when both your examples have Jocelyn identifying as a woman.
Pronoun trouble.
This is why in real life I call literally everyone I know “dude”.
I’d work on that if I were you…
I call everyone dude too, be they male or female. My best friend is a woman and I call her dude all the time.
If someone asks me not to however I stop.
I consider it good practice if I ever reincarnate as a prinny, dood.
I just want to go ahead and tell you that I find you really overly combative on the subject of pronouns.
Dude.
Considering the “not *actually* gay” comment, I’m assuming she’s into guys but identifies as a straight woman. I wouldn’t be surprised if she realized she was into men before she realized she identified as female and thought she was gay for a while–certainly sheltered me knew more about homosexuality than I knew about trans* folks when I was younger.
I don’t know. I’m a lesbian and I’ve only recently came to terms with the word “gay”. I don’t self-identify as gay; it sounds so “masculine” (for lack of a better word).
Or maybe Jocelyne is multisexual or asexual.
So Joyce is finally going to get that sister she wanted. It’s just going to be in the least ideal situation possible.
This has happened to me as well, Ethan. You’re not alone.
You realize Willis is going to enshrine this in his tumblr now so he can throw it at people who claim he’s being far fetched.
Yay, I’m a primary source!
That must mean you are not realistic!
The gender-reversed version of this situation happened to a friend of mine.
She’s a lesbian and had a short fling with a Female-to-male transexual. It was short lived.
So basically reality is as messed up as fiction.
At university I had a male friend who was gay and often dressed like a woman. The last time I saw him he was dating a woman, who was gay and often dressed like a man.
It was a beautiful symmetry that made almost no sense.
That is odd but also cool at the same time!
Confirmed: The world is indeed an place filled with wonderful and strange things.
Woah, that’s fascinating.
Wow!! Good job, Willis!
No wonder Jocelyn doesn’t want her parents to know anything. OMG. Can you just imagine what they would act like?
I don’t think the Bible, either the Christian or the Tanach, even addresses transexuality. They might not have a scripture to stand on.
That never stops them from judging you, unfortunately 🙁
Well, unfortunately, I’ve seen people claim that transgender/sexual means that you’re rejecting the body/life god gave you and that’s a sin.
There’s a really toxic woman on the board I’m on, she ‘prayed the gay away’ and she was explaining how she won’t let her kids know her husband’s sister (cousin?) because she’s trans and she feels that by respecting the trans relative’s identity she’s harming her by keeping her from god.
It was horrid.
That’s terrible.
All the same, I do feel sorry for that woman. That has to be a terrible state to be in, what with the denial and the brainwashing.
Yeah. I felt sorry for her in the beginning, because holy shit self hate. But then she started talking about how if her toddlers started showing any ‘same sex attraction struggles’ she’d put a stop to it, and things like forcing them to play with gender appropriate toys if they acted too masculine or feminine.
Also, the nasty nasty things she said about the relative.
Now I just wish she’d wise up before she has an affair with a soccer mom and things go really bad.
It doesn’t, but everything is evil, remember?
Except evil people who are devout. They’re just misguided.
Sarcasm? Cuz if not, then boy, do I have some things to say there, lol
Pretty sure that was sarcasm.
Oddly, the New Testament actually sort of does address trans people. Matthew 19 mentions eunuchs in the context of marriage law.
I don’t know if eunuchs would qualify as trans. Maybe more “forced asexuality?” But I could be wrong.
Trans* umbrella!
Also, not asexuality. Asexuality is attraction, not action!
Kinda impossible to be sexually attracted to someone if you don’t have any sex organs.
You’d be surprised.
OMG, who is that adorable gravatar?
Eunuchs who are castrated after puberty can be sexually attracted to someone they just can’t do anything about it.
Okay, well, thank you, now I can stop fantasizing about lopping this fucking (heh) thing off.
Really? I suppose that makes sense.
Which brings to mind something I read a while back about the behavior of male dogs who are fixed prior to sexual maturity vs. after. The ones who have already sexually matured still hump things.
Yeah my dog did that when we waited to long to have him nuetered
(Nutered? Nootored? How the hell do you spell that)
Neutered!
Well, they can do something about it, just not all the same things men with intact genitals can.
If you think -sexual refers solely to genitals, you should return to 1800s botany where you belong and study the bisexual plants
Sex steroids are produced in the ovaries/testes.
Yes and “asexual” is a sexual orientation meaning that a person does not experience sexual attraction. And yet many of them have perfectly functioning genitals.
That’s not what I was saying. My reasoning was that if you do not have sex organs (ovaries/testes), sex steroids cannot be produced, meaning you cannot feel the effects of them.
I was corrected above that you can if you’ve already gone through puberty, which sounded reasonable, as a person’s brain would likely have already been sufficiently altered by the chemicals to make a difference.
I know in Iran the state will actually fund sex change operations because the Koran doesn’t say anything about it.
Wait a country run by religious fundamentalists allows sex change operations?
Yes.
Their logic behind this is that Homosexuality is a sin and treated as a crime, but the Ayatollah accept the idea that a man may be born inside a woman’s body (or the reverse), and so they allow such people to get an operation.
The consequence is that some homosexuals/lesbians are forced to have their sex changed in order to avoid being jailed or beaten.
Excuse me my brain shut-down trying to process that.
Good, because I’m pretty sure having your brain shut down is exactly what needs to happen for that to make sense.
Woah.
The state actually promote sex change! If you are a guy and loves another guy, you are a sinner and a criminal in the state’s eyes, but if you turns into a girl, problem solved!
Weird world …
Is it safe to say that Joshua is Pyro?
Yup.
Flamingly yes?
Oh god, the sarcastic face your gravatar is making is just perfect.
I kinda think (s)he’s a girl that likes other girls. Otherwise I feel like his/her reaction to Ethan would have been a little different.
I think she’s a girl that likes guys. She identifies as female. If she were into girls she would identify as gay.
Can I get nit-picky and say “woman, not female”? At least in sociology and other social sciences, we use “woman/man” for gender (identity/expression/social part) and “male/female” for sex (biology)
Well, I’ve never seen it that way. In every context I’ve seen, female is used for both. So is woman. And as a transwoman myself, I’m not uninformed about the topic. We probably need to be more specific, but really, gender/sex is the only situation where the words are clearly separate, and even then there’s a lot of overlap. And honestly, while it’s nice to be recognized, it’s not necessary to overhaul the entire language for this. I mean, how often do we really need to identify the sex, and not the gender of a person? Only when we’re discussing a transgender person, and only when we want to highlight their transgender status. And I know many of us would rather not do that. We want to be seen as women, female, girls, whatever. Many of us don’t like to be reminded that we were born into the wrong body.
This. Why the freak does it matter what parts you have to anyone but your doctor or partner?
Some humans are more Freudian than others. To me you are a mortal.
yeah , but people just thinks im weird when i call everyone mortal, like i have some Zeus delyrium
Yes, you can. I personally hate the way “female” has displaced the word “woman” in conversation. You can have a “female” cat, squirrel, or hamster. Only humans can be “women.”
Well, you also don’t get “man” cats either. Man and Woman in general have strange semantics when you think about it.
Exactly. Male and female (among other terms) refer to sex. Man and woman (among other terms) refer to gender. But for some reason, it’s become common to refer to women as females in contexts where men are being called by gender terms (men, guys, bros, etc.).
Yep, that’s semantic drift for you.
But you do get Manbat.
Also, everyone (in this thread at least) has been using the term “girl”, not “female”. They haven’t really even been saying “woman”.
That’s a whole different problem.
WHAT
Jocelyne? Is that even a real name? C’mon Joshua, couldn’t you think of something more original? Like Susan, or Alice, or maybe Laquisha if you were going in that direction…
Most people who are trans go for a name that’s similar to their own, usually starting with the same letter. Richard to Rachel, for example.
This isn’t even close to true – I’m trans myself and have met something on the order of a thousand others who are, and I could count on one hand the number whose names resemble their give names. Most trans folk, at least that I know, want to distance themselves from their old identity as much as possible.
(Nathan -> Rachel for me)
I think maybe we should not go about generalizing stuff like this. Some do, some don’t, and probably for lots of different reasons. That simple.
My friend went from Mackenzie to Lucas.
I still believe that it’s because Mother 3 is her favorite game.
James to Siubhan (Scottish Gaelic version of ‘Joan’, also used to translate ‘Judith’) for me. (I also tend to use my mother’s maiden name with Siubhan, just for the sake of euphony…it matches badly with my legal last name.)
Of the people I’ve known and known of, most picked an unrelated name, but not a huge majority.
Personally, I went with a feminized version of my middle name. Clayton Eugene -> Caitlin Jean.
it happens in movies so it must be true
*similar to their birth name
I went with Jessie because technically, that was the name my parents wanted me to have to begin with… Or rather, Jesse. I was Josh, became Jess.
I’m … not really going anywhere with this.
My sibling is genderqueer and still prefers their original name.
I went with my middle name, pronounced the french way. That way I can use it for shipping packages and such, since it’s on my ID.
I just prefer to spell it ‘John’ online so no one gets confused.
Quite the opposite, in fact. Most trans folk choose names that are very different from their birth names. (I know one who chose one that allowed her to keep her nickname, though the two names are entirely unrelated, save for sharing a single syllable. But other than her, nooooope.)
I picked something completely different. The only thing in common is that my parents picked it. (which i’m really grateful that could happen. Also really grateful they don’t have terrible taste in names)
How do you mean your parents picked it? After you began transitioning, they came up with a name for you? (If so, that’s pretty awesome.)
Claire!
*ehem*
I’m not sure what came first and how it exactly happened.
I think i’ve always had some connection to this name, and i think my parents had a few names picked out when i was born and then just chose according to my birth sex.
Some time after deciding that i have to transition some day i asked my mother what names they had thought about and what name they would have chosen if i had been a girl. There were a few options (a few terrible ones) but the one i have now was their favorite, i think.
When i did start transitioning years later i talked with them about it to confirm and we all agreed on the name.
oh to clarify. My parents took a long time to become supportive (it wasn’t fun the first time i came out. That’s right, i came out twice to them. That’s how much they were in denial), but once i started transitioning they’ve been with me every single step of the way.
Oh, man, ouch. But I’m glad they came around, eventually. ^_^
Jocelyne is a name…A pretty common one actually.
Really? I’ve never heard it. Like, ever. There are probably people with that name, but still.
I was hanging out with a lady by the name of Jocelyn just last night.
I know two women named Jocelyn. (Spelled slightly different than Willis’s, but same name.)
According to Wolfram alpha, it is currently the 92nd most common baby name in the US, and the 599th most populous name in the US. Approximately 1 in every 3054 people in the US are named Jocelyn.
One very famous one…
Also, it’s my mother’s aunt’s name, so if I were a cartoon, I’d have probably had an eyebrow fly off my face when I read you imply it’s not a real name. (‘Joc’ is the nickname – pronounced the same as Joss.)
Why are you using Joshua though
This is the most amusing “Willis this is so far from realistic” comment I’ve seen in a while. It’s a not uncommon name.
hm… i’m billie now. Nothing against mike but he is not one of the characters I associate with myself.
My niece’s name is Jocelyne you jerk!
The Mike gravatar made that so much better than it probably was.
Hahaha my mom’s name is Jocelyne actually
Okay, I apologize for my comment. It was kind of rude. It’s just that I seriously have never heard that name before. Learn something new every day I guess.
Oh, awesome! Jocelyne’s a nice name, too. I hope Joyce reacts well to discovering she has a sister.
Considering how similar it is to “Joyce”, perhaps this is her way of paying her sister a compliment.
By the way, what is a proper pronoun for a MTF?
She, Her
There are also a lot of non-gender pronouns accepted by the LGTB community that are all listed on the wiki page for gender-neutral pronouns, like Ze and Hir.
I feel the need to point out that it’s equally disrespectful to refer to a trans* person who identifies as a man or woman with gender-neutral pronouns. That’s denying their gender in another manner.
So the answer is, as norj said, she or her.
As a transwoman myself, I want to concur with Daphnaie. I do not want to be referred to as “xe”. Especially since that will get you so many strange looks. While it would be nice to have gender-neutral pronouns in English, it’s not gonna happen anytime soon. And language rarely changes by such artificial means. Besides, singular “they” works fine. And it’s not wrong. Shakespeare used it.
My sib uses they/them. 🙂
In that case, I would certainly not refer to you with gender-neutral pronouns. If I know how someone would prefer to be referred to as, I will always refer to them that way.
However, IN GENERAL, when one doesn’t know a person’s PPPs, it is appropriate to use gender-neutral ones. Not specifying a gender isn’t the same as specifying no gender. In this case, I do not yet know Jocelyne’s preferred pronouns, and so I am choosing to err on the side of caution.
(And I do actually agree that “they” should be an accepted singular gender-neutral pronoun.)
“They” is the accepted singular gender-neutral pronoun.
Oops, left out the closing tag after the “is”. I didn’t mean to be quite that emphatic.
Except that it’s not accepted. Lots of people use it, but also lots of people don’t like it. You can’t say that something is the only correct way to say something if your elementary school English teacher would tell you it’s wrong.
(Now, I still think it is acceptable, as long as you don’t insist that all alternatives are wrong.)
Even less people accept xe/xir. Your argument makes no sense.
That’s… not really relevant? I’m not saying we should use what the majority of people use; I’m just saying that you can’t say that XYZ is the only acceptable term if there are a bunch of people that don’t like it.
Note that I never said anyone else had to use xe, just defended my own use of it.
The exact same thing could be said about “xe/hir” – lots of people use it, but lots of people don’t like it. Your elementary school English teacher would also tell you it’s wrong.
Yes grammar essentialists will argue that singular “they” is incorrect, but they’re flat-out wrong.
I think a bigger problem is that most people of indeterminate gender who haven’t specified their pronouns tend to be trans people. And speaking as a trans person, it really sucks to be othered like that. Many trans people have spoken here saying it hurts them to have “xe/hir” directed towards them, and it’s really important to listen to that if you’re trying to help trans people. I know your circle might say differently, so feel free to continue using xe/hir among your circle of people you know prefer it – but don’t try to extend that out to other people if you don’t know that they’re okay with it.
In my experience, if someone appears to have a binary identification and there are clues that they have a binary identification, it’s generally best to go with that. If you’re a trans person trying your hardest to pass and you still get referred to arbitrarily by gender-neutral pronouns, it makes you feel singled out as a trans person rather than affirmed as your actual gender, and only serves to remind you how you’re not male/female-enough.
i feel the same way about pronouns.
How do you even pronounce “xe” and “xir” and all those other gender-neutral pronouns?
Assuming that was a genuine question:
Xe/Ze: “zee” (like “he” but with a z at the beginning)
Xir/Zir: “zer” (like “her” but with a z at the beginning)
Hir: “heer” (like “hear” or “here”)
I swear this wasn’t here when I pressed reply. 😛
it was a genuine question. Thank you
“zee” and “zurr,” at least that’s how I’ve always pronounced them.
She, MTF are female so you should refer to them as such.
If you want to be respectful refer to anyone in the manner they desire.
So, if the person wants me to refer to said person as cuddlebuns, I should do that?
Yep.
Only if you want to be respectful.
I don’t think I’d want to be respectful to someone who insisted on me referring to them as “cuddlebuns”.
I guess you can just never refer to them at all… there’s not really that many instances that you have to call someone their name to their face in casual conversation. I have been really good friends with people who’s names I can’t remember or that they never told me.
This. I’m horrible at remembering names, unless they are names from some game. I cannot remember how many times I chatted daily with someone for weeks without knowing or remembering their names, and the issue never pops up.
Note that you should refer to people by their preferred pronouns regardless of whether or not they can hear you.
Why shouldn’t you?
This is, again, difficult due to the fact that we don’t know what Jocelyn wants. Xe presents as male to everyone (as far as we know) besides Ethan. We cannot assume xe would want to be referred to by female pronouns. When in doubt, gender-neutral is the way to go.
Ask the trans person in question, since it may vary with how out they are. Then go with what they say.
… Say, does this mean Ethan can now admit to his family that he found her attractive? (I’m still unsure about the protocol when it comes with trans people. I get that you rifer to them by their preferred gender, but I don’t have the subtle stuff down yet (well, I don’t have the subtle stuff when interacting with other people in general down, but this is something where I think there’s a lot less room for error))
This is pretty tough, since xe isn’t out to… anyone, really, besides Ethan. Yay for gender-neutral pronouns!
In that case Ethan really shouldn’t say anything.
But for what it’s worth Pat friggin’ Robertson is okay with trans people–the same dude who, just six days ago, said that low-carb diets were a sin against God and thinks gay folks transfer their gayness via blood with spiked rings. It’s possible Ethan’s folks are similarly accepting.
…I never thought I’d be in the position of hoping anyone is as good a person as Pat Robertson. This is supremely weird.
It’s possible that Naomi is fine with transpeople, but even if she is, I think Ethan being attracted to a transwoman who is currently presenting as male would not reassure her that Ethan is not gay.
(And obviously Ethan shouldn’t tell her anyway, unless Jocelyne gives him permission, and I can’t imagine why she would. Too much risk of it getting back to her parents.)
He could just be really vague about it: “Hey, Mom, the other day I found a girl I was attracted to.”
“Oh, and, uh, she’s the sister of the girl I’m already dating.”
Naomi: Ethan…you go in there right now and have a threesome!
Why do you keep using the fabricated gender-neutral pronouns “xe” and “xir?” They don’t really apply to Jocelyne. You should use feminine-gendered pronouns for her, shouldn’t you?
I agree with your point about using she/her (because through both the hovertext and the email we have evidence that Jocelyne identifies as female) but why the use of the word ‘fabricated’? How else do you think words are made?
They’re fabricated in the same way Esperanto is a conlang instead of just another language.
That’s right
words are never created by people
they are handed down from the heavens on a stone tablet
Words evolve, like organisms. What you’re saying is the equivalent of saying that evolution is creationism because animals didn’t just come out of nowhere.
I think Raibean was being facetious.
In a way meant to highlight the deficiencies of my point of view.
We wouldn’t be having this conversation about the words “Muggle”, “Gallifrey”, “toke”, “spliff”, “skag”, “juju”, “due backs”, “bundie”, “slodge”, “slurg”, “yoot”, or “zorros”. A lot of these last ones were 1950s slang and according to Etymonline, have either questionable origins or are simply not listed. Language has ALWAYS been invented. Even if we take two affixes and stick them together for a new word, that’s not language EVOLVING. It’s language being created.
The difference between those words and gender-neutral pronouns is that the former do not challenge an entire society’s basic assumptions about what they view as essential.
It’s also sort of like the difference between a meme and a forced meme – those words caught on*. There’s any number of reasons why the gender-neutral pronouns that have been proposed have not. It might be because of a general lack of awareness, it might be because people don’t want to have to keep track of more than four kinds of pronoun (he, she, they, it), or it might simply be because they sound unnatural to a majority of English speakers**.
*At least, I’ll take your word that they caught on. I’ve never heard of like, a third of those.
**I’m not actually certain of this, but seeing as most people don’t use them, I’m inclined to think it does have an impact.
i keep on responding in the wrong place god what is wrong with me
Gender-neutral pronouns apply to everybody. That’s… exactly the point. They’re gender-neutral. Jocelyne has not indicated a pronoun preference, and therefore I am erring on the side of caution.
You’re being a dick. Just like the rad-fems who alter the spelling of “wymyn” and “herstory”.
????????????????????????
You’re misgendering her.
No, I’m… not gendering xir at all. I do not know what pronouns xe wants people to use, and so I am avoiding any that indicate a specific gender.
The hovertext refers to Jocelyn as a “sister”, so I think that gives a good indication of “she”
Yet Toad’s argument remains : “by using a gender-neutral pronoun one cannot mis-gender anyone. Because it isn’t assigning any gender to start with”.
And we’re also talking about a fictional character so we’re not disrepecting anyone by using the pronouns we considerto be the most appropriate.
Thanks, Leonou, that was exactly what I was trying to say.
It’s more or less a moot point now, since Willis has chimed in, but still an important conversation to have in general.
“Yet Toad’s argument remains : “by using a gender-neutral pronoun one cannot mis-gender anyone. Because it isn’t assigning any gender to start with”.”
And that argument fails unless you use them by default with everyone It’s othering. The message is “cis people get normal pronouns, trans people’s pronouns are negotiable”. I can count on one hand the number of people who used any pronoun-set other than he/him/etc to refer to the person they understood to be called Joshua yesterday… or I could if there was a standard hand-sign for “zero”, anyway.
@Random: Your argument is entirely correct, and I make an effort to always use a person’s preferred pronouns, whatever they may be, if I know them. The issue arises when a person’s gender identity, for whatever reason, is in question. Until Willis weighed in, I wasn’t sure how Jocelyne identified, and so I used a neutral pronoun. Now I refer to her as “her,” since I know that she is a woman. Jocelyne was a woman yesterday, but we had no way of knowing that, and therefore used the potentially harmful “he.” Upon realizing that I had previously been in error, I switched to what I understand to be the least harmful alternative, and then switched again once I learned what she preferred.
Well, based on what we know, I’d say would prefer to be referred to as female but accepting to be referred to as male do to not actually being out yet. (Well, to her family, I think she has a circle of friends she’s out to, as well as the fact she’s using a female name for publishing her works.)
Also, is it out of the closest for trans people as well, or do they come out of another thing?
That Jocelyne prefers female pronouns is a reasonable guess. However, if I’ve learned one thing from queer groups, it’s that guessing at people’s identities is a very dangerous and potentially harmful thing.
Yeah, I can understand why this might be a touchy subject for the people this effects. Something I shall keep in mind from now on.
You really need to get a more realistic look at politeness in referring to people. It is forgivable when meeting a stranger to refer to them by the wrong gender if you don’t know any better, but it is NEVER a good thing to refer to them as an ‘it’. I wouldn’t want my cat or dog to be referred to as an it much less myself.
If you really don’t want to offend someone by using the wrong pronoun then skip using a pronoun at all. Use words such as “y’all” or “person” or “you” which do not have a gender context in the English language. That’s safer than making a guess to gender preferrences, but avoids making that person think they are a disgusting sludge monster in your eyes.
I feel as if you mayhap been attempting to respond to me, as I brought up “it” as a potential pronoun. If this is the case, let me just address it now:
I am not advocating that people should refer to ANYBODY as “it” unless they themselves ask to be. Again, I doubt it is at all common, but there has to be at least one person out there who prefers those pronouns (maybe otherkin who identify as inanimate objects?). The point is that misgendering happens, and it’s not always malicious in intent. Honestly, the onus is kind of on the person in question to specify which pronouns they would like to be referred to as.
Is this… supposed to be in response to me? ‘Cause I never called anyone an “it”…
Does Naomi just frown perpetually? Is that just like her default expression?
Naomi hates joy and laughter.
Naomi hates.
That’s it.
She just hates.
She’s actually Mike’s biological mother, but him and Ethan were switched at birth.
Naomi hates all
That is all there is to it
She simply hates all
I fixed your Haiku for you.
Maybe it’s just “resting bongo face”
Naomi once tried having fun. It was awful
Well then.
Well that answers the question of whether or not there will be a Trans character in DoA. That it’s Joyce’s brother (sister, really, but neither she nor her parents know that yet) makes it all the more interesting and I hope we see more of Jocelyne.
The hover text disagrees with your reasoning.
How so? Neither Joyce nor her parents know about Josh really being Jocelyne, especially since Joyce states that she’s always wanted an older sister. Jocelyne also said a few comics ago that her parents know nothing about her, which is why she’s their favorite.
From a meta standpoint, people have been asking Willis for weeks (months?) if there would be a transgender character and his answers on that front have been “wait and see” for the most part.
So I’m not sure how the hovertext disagrees with my reasoning. I think it’s interesting that, as the story is mostly about Joyce’s journey from super-sheltered fundie to well-rounded human, that eventually she and her family will have to confront the reality of Jocelyne’s gender. And for that reason, I hope we’ll see more of her.
Willis already changed the “Joshua” tag “Jocelyne”.
That sneaky dick waffle!
Dick -> Dickweed -> Dickwaffle
Wonder what its mega-evolution is.
Mike.
It’s too bad WordPress doesn’t have the ability to synonymize tags, so ‘Joshua’ could have been left on the old strips to preserve the surprise of the reveal for archive-diving newbies…. (Those archive-diving newbies who pay attention to the tags, anyway…)
Oh. My. Goddess.
Totally expected this! 😐
*Nods furiously in agreement
Willis has a transgender person “yay yay yay yay yay omg yay yay this is the best yay”
i meant to type “Willis, as a transgender person,” but i failed to catch the typos in my excitement sorry
I think they’re both valid
If Jocelynejbrown.com is where you can find Jocelyne’s/Joshua’s writing and that link just takes you straight back to Dumbing of Age that must mean that she writes Dumbing of Age which means David Willis is Joyce’s oldest sibling.
Guys, the comic has been up for like, fifteen minutes. How has no one else come to this conclusion?
It would also mean Willis is trans.
Dun Dunn Dun??
Who’s going to tell his wife?
I think you mean xir wife. 😉
AHA! So all those robot toys are just a cover!
“I’m totally a trans…formers fan! Yeah! That’s what I meant to say!”
Maybe Jocelyn just writes the blog posts and Willis draws the comics.
But who writes the songs that make the whole world sing?
Looks like the people who guessed She was actually Willis were also right.
You can’t just say “how can no one else come to this conclusion” when people actually did…
Haha. It could happen 😀
If Joycelyn’s writing in-universe is the comic itself, isn’t she God of the DOAverse?
the real Jocelyn Brown is a little girl with a snowglobe.
One problem with you saying that Jocelyn is our beloved reality creator…
Willis’ own FAQ section states that Joyce is autobiographical character. Meaning that Joyce is Willis. Furthermore, Walky’s real first name is David as is Willis’ first name thus making him an autobiographical character as well.
Now then, as an avid member of the chorus for the church of Joyce x Dorothy shipping, I can tell you that while I would like to say Joyce and Walky do not share a lot of traits, there are also a great many that they do. Which is why I wasn’t entirely against a threesome between the three characters before I realized Joyce and Walky were both autobiographical characters and decided it was very weird having a threesome with yourself…
Regardless, the point remains that if we’re going to accept that Jocelyn is also an autobiographical character then that makes at least 3 characters that are. At which point one has to ask whether or not _all_ of the characters are autobiographical and that our dear Willis is secretly a diagnosed case of Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly Multiple Personality Disorder) and how weird is it that Willis’ many personalities are all macking on one another…..
…… OH.
Jocelyne is a beautiful name. There is a haunting piece of music called the Berceuse Jocelyn by Godard. I recommend the cello solos.
So Josh has Cooties?
please don’t
Oh my.
Now my slash art feels suddenly awkward.
“Now my slash art feels suddenly awkward.”
I just checked Google. You are the first person in the history of the internet to say that.
A day that will go down in history.
iktf
WHAM.
Willis, you are the master of the bait and switch.
Master…bait…? I’ll stop.
Yeah, you had to go out of your way to make that connection.
Cutting out two words != going out of your way.
Someone looking up what “!=” means after reading this is.
Does not equal
Yeah, I walked into that one.
You walked into him masterbating!?
His gravitar’s face agrees.
ruse within a ruse
I guess this is Willis’ answer to Claire of QC.
Or, you know, his answer to trans* people in the real world.
Jesus fuck, can we please stop asking like the existence of trans* people in other fiction is the only possible reason this could’ve happened? I’ve seen like two other posts that are making really stupid intertexual connections and it’s pissing me off.
Clearly, the only reason to discuss the existence of trans people is to be more like Jeph Jacques – I don’t see the problem here. 😛
The most important question that must be asked now is, Who are we going to ship Jocelyne with?
Not Ethan!
Why not? Pre-op and they’re attracted to each other.
No, Ethan is attracted to him. Jocelynn is polite.
No, no, no! That is so offensive. If he’s attracted to her when she is presenting as male, then he’s not really attracted to her. If Ethan can’t make it work with Joyce, then he can’t make it work with Jocelyne!
Pretty good point there.
“If Ethan can’t make it work with Joyce, then he can’t make it work with Jocelyne!” I feel like this is very incorrect… Maybe there’s a better phrasing?
Ethan may be pan-romantic! Which means that he could be romantically attracted to her but sexually attracted to only people who have male gentalia.
So they might be able to have a sexual relationship, as long as /she/ decides that she is comfortable with not-transitioning (as occasionally happens!). It’s not a very likely scenario, but it could happen. (I’d hope that fic or whatever of them would address this because it would be an important and very tricky part of their relationship, should they choose to persue one ever).
Interesting parallel:
Joyce fell for Ethan, thinking he is straight.
Ethan was interested in Joycelyn, thinking she is gay.
Sounds like a wacky sitcom in the making.
entitled “The Tweeest”?
Directed by M. Night Shamylan
Honest Trailer voice: “Oh god, not him again”
And as others have pointed out, it seems Jocelyne is/was reciprocating that interest.
I feel kind of bad for Ethan. He has girls falling all over him (Amber, Joyce, maybeprobably Jocelyne), but he hasn’t met any eligible guys.
Oh yeah, and Billie…
(and carol? eugh)
Still, HOW!? Am I the only guy who thinks smiling at a dude doesn’t mean you like them?
… Why not?
Because he didn’t work with joyce, is it impossible to him to discover that he is, for example, gay with an exception? Or that he is attracted to transgender people af any type? Or that he just find that hair coupled with those glasses VERY attractive when paired with the sense of humor?
I dunno, the more I learn about the human mind, the more I think that the important isn’t the label, but the people involved.
“If Ethan can’t make it work with Joyce, then he can’t make it work with Jocelyne!”
Accusing someone’s orientation of being inherently offensive just makes you come across as crazy. People don’t control who they’re attracted to. If they did, then Ethan wouldn’t be gay.
(I’m not saying that no-one would choose to be gay, but given the choices that Ethan has made, if being straight were a choice I’m confident he would choose it.)
Joe’s dad.
Mike
but I ship everyone with Mike
Seconded 🙂
Oh my Glob. ‘Not actually gay’, indeed O_o
Wait, are the parents finally leaving? Is the nightmare finally over?
Parents “Weekend”.
So maybe not!
Yeah, they’re probably gonna be back tomorrow.
I believe it’s still Saturday, so some of them might be back in the morning. D:
where’s that guy Azlat with his concerned lion avatar to say Dear God to this post?
Oh….My!
Huh. Didn’t see that one coming. Well-played, Willis.
Dumbing of Age leveled up!
+1 Diversity!
-2 Bigoted Fans
+2 Ship Sinking
The ship is not sunk, good sir. “Not technically gay” is what was said, as she identifies as female, and was shown looking attracted to Ethan. So, until an operation, the ship still sails!
I…I feel like we just dredged up some old boat, tacked cardboard over the holes, and just set it adrift.
+1 Metaphoring
dude that’s such a fucked up thing to say
Wait, is Joshua/Jocelyn born with two genitals or is this one of the cases where the person is male but with a female genitalia?
This would be a case where someone was born with male genetalia but identifies as female.
Two genitalia is called hermaphrodite.
It gets complicated…
no nope no no. not in humans. intersex might be what you mean.
“Complicated” mainly by the fact that there’s actually no such thing.
NO. See my comment above.
She said ‘not ACTUALLY gay’. The word ‘technically’ was never used. She said she isn’t gay. So she isn’t gay. Respect what people identify as.
It’s dead. Jocelyne is female. Ethan is gay and male. There is nothing there. ONLY A GHOST SHIP.
Some say that, on misty nights when the moon is full, you can still hear it updating the transformers wiki…
Oh.
Yeah, Ethan’s reaction pretty much sums up mine. And it explains her reply earlier, that she’s not gay. She likes guys, so she’s straight, just not currently perceived that way by a lot of people.
And oh, as in “Oh Jesus fuck” because it’s bad enough being gay and having fundamentalist parents, but being trans? Poor girl.
Are “gay” and “straight” our only two options now
Not really, but they’re the two most likely options with anyone. I identify as demi without preference of any sort, but it’s in such a low percentage, I wouldn’t expect anyone to guess. Sexuality is pretty varied, so I assume most people do what I do where you first try to figure out where the person falls (Green, let’s say) and then what shade exactly (laurel green).
…it should be noted that I use the system with characters, not real people. I don’t like being nosy.
…Except this is a Willis comic, and even if it weren’t it’s generally best not to assume things?
It is so comforting to know that “Jesus fuck” isn’t just a me thing, thank you.
So, wait. When did Jocelyn get Ethan’s phone number? Did Joyce give it to her, or…?
I’ll go with option 1. Unless, Jocelyn had met Ethan before and then erased his memories with a neuralizer.
I’m going to chalk it up to “We don’t have to see every little thing that happens” and giving a phone number is one of those little things.
It could even be e-mail. Those go to phones these days…
‘cept she specifically said “I’ll text you some links.”
Moments ago I was surfing on the Joshua tag… and now Willis changed it to Jocelyn. Well (and so fast!) done!
Newcomers will be so confused.
You are correct!
Wow, Jocelyn is a transwoman! This is a wonderous twist of events; I’m ridiculously pleased it went down this way.
(Note, though: I’ve seen a lot of people refer to her as ‘MtF’. Just letting you guys know that a lot of trans* people I know find that format offensive because they don’t see themselves as ever being anything other than what they identify as. The newer format is Assigned (Whatever’s on the birth certificate) at Birth. Jocelyn would be AMAB- Assigned Male At Birth. As a cis lady, I can’t really tell you what to say/not say; I’m just relaying some information I’ve been told!)
Seriously, though: RIDICULOUSLY EXCITED TO SEE THIS UNFOLD.
The human race as a whole, no matter what, will find things to be offended by, even if it really isn’t offensive. Empathy is required on both ends, and just crying “offensive!” to everything isn’t going to help win any arguments, especially if they try to make it even more complicated to refer to someone. MtF and FtM are simple, short, and to the point, and unless their parent paid to have their child a specific gender (or you’re highly religious) then nobody assigned anything, your cells just formed you that way.
shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up
Wow…rude much!
Did you read their comment?? How is it more appropriate for them to say offensive shit than it is for me to tell them to stop doing it?
There are better ways to tell someone that they are misinformed than “shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up”
hey they’re the one who said people get too ‘offended’.
and no people don’t need to be coddled through their transphobia.
No, no they don’t, but people might actually listen to you if you’re not so dismissive and mocking – and assuming your objective is actually to change their minds instead of just feeling superior, then that might be something you actually care about, no?
misinformed doesn’t equal telling people you don’t care about not being an asshole because it’s too much work. someone already explained to them why it wasn’t appropriate, and their response was totally dismissive.
Hey let’s police someone’s reaction to bigotry and oppression rather than the actual bigotry and oppression
Welp…looks like I’m the bad guy, just because I found a response “rude”
🙁
I came out of the ocean because you need to stop.
No, but seriously, while MtF and FtM might be ‘simple’ they’re also fucking wrong and exclude non-binary people, btw. I would also like to add that, yes, children are assigned gender at birth in accordance to their biological sex, as their is no way of identifying how they’ll identify. Yes, it is an assignation because biological sex and gender are not the same thing!!!!! Basically they guess with the evidence they’ve been given and hope for the best!!!!
Still, the sex is not assigned (except in case of an intersex baby), it is identified (saddly sometime mistakes are made when identifying it). So the MtF and FtM designation is correct, when refering to a person’s sex and not gender.
Just because it doesn’t cover every possbilities (excluding non-binary people) doesn’t mean it is a completely useless category.
Except that we’re not talking about sex, and we are talking about gender, which is the exact opposite of what you’re saying. MtF and FtM could be used to mean sex in post-op situations, but that’s irrelevant to what we’re discussing right now.
I … still disagree with your proposed use of “AMaB/AFaB”, even in this situation.
However you’re right, Jocelyne does not appear to have been through sex reassignement surgery (and we cannot know wether she plans to do so or not), so we have to keep talking about gender only.
… so she’s a male-borned-transgender / female-transgender ?
I’m starting to hate semantics.
Also I just realised I don’t have the smallest idea wether or not she’s been through surgery.
I think I’ll just go to sleep and wait for Willis to drw more strips with her.
I’d say she almost definitely hasn’t. Usually (if not always) to get surgery, you need to have been on hormone replacement therapy for a long while, and she doesn’t look like she’s started that yet.
“The human race as a whole, no matter what, will find things to be offended by, even if it really isn’t offensive.”
And I am offended by that!
I do have to comment on this. The whole “assigned male/female at birth” thing is not accurate, unless you’re referring to someone who’s intersexed and who thus gets assigned a sex at birth (often through surgery of some kind). But someone who’s born physically male, or physically female for that matter, and who mentally identifies as the opposite sex, was not ‘assigned’ their birth sex. They were literally born as that sex.
Don’t get me wrong, I do sympathize. But it’s not going to help to use incorrect terminology. I’d personally suggest, “Born Male, Identifies Female” (or vice versa), so BMIF or BFIM.
DMAB, DFAB are ones I’ve seen around a lot. BMIF and BFIM are likely to have the same issues as MtF and FtM.
What does the ‘D’ stand for, if I may ask? I might start using those instead!
Designated
Deemed Male At Birth and Dragon Farts Are bongoin’
“Dragon farts are bongoin'”
….ohhhhhkkkkaaaay!
If you had left off the “ooookay” comment at the end, your Grav would be perfect!
Guess I can see where you’re coming from, but considering that they’re talking about gender and not sex at all, it could be used for both. I can see why that would be confusing. Yours does seem clearer, but it still sort of raises the same problems as MtF and FtM. Like I said, I’m cis, so I’m really not qualified to argue about it, I’m just theorizing at this point!
Really, though, we’re not going to get any clear, precise terminology until more people start recognizing them as the gender they identify as.
One problem is that it’s currently impossible to determine what gender someone identifies as until they’re old enough to communicate it, which is several years after birth at the earliest. Another problem is that, depending on the context, gender can mean biological sex, social identity, or mental identity.
I totally agree that the old rules about “you’re either male or female, nothing in between” don’t work. That just leads to all sorts of problems.
sex is actually way more complicated than that, and not this sort of biological truth people seem to think it is.
Doctors do too assign sexes to babies. They put down F or M (usually) in the papers, which legally assigns the baby a sex and even a first name (“Baby Girl” or “Baby Boy”) if it doesn’t have one. They do this with an understanding of how biology works and most of the time they assign sexes that correlate with the baby’s actual biological sex, but the sex you’re born with doesn’t just magically become legal fact.
Alright, I looked it up, and you’re right that the technical term is assign. However, what they’re actually doing is identifying a baby’s biological sex for the birth records. Frankly, I think they should not refer to it as ‘assignment’, as that carries some fairly strong implications (such as in the case of intersexed individuals).
In any case, I don’t think the AMAB/AFAB acronyms work to designate transgendered individuals. Every single person is “assigned male” or “assigned female” at birth (including the intersexed). Referring to a transgendered person that way doesn’t really clarify or resolve anything. What matters is if the sex they identify as is different from the one that society recognizes them as.
Not every intersex person is diagnosed at birth, but EVERYONE is assigned a gender.
I have no problem with that designation. It’s simple, clear. I’d rather you refer to me as a transwoman. But as long as they only use that in describing my exact transgender status, and from then on just refer to me as a woman, it’s fine with me. Now if someone called me MtF every chance they got, then I’d be annoyed.
I have known transgendered people my whole adult life, and I have no idea what half the abbreviations used in the above comments mean.
I guess because when I see a transgendered person portrayed in comics and TV… I don’t think of abbreviations. I think of my friends’ faces.
*transgender, not transgendered
It’s not a participle because “transgender” isn’t a verb
I take it you’ve never heard of back-formation. It’s where you take a noun (usually from another language, though not always) and back-form it to make a verb. For example, resurrection eventually back-formed the verb (to) resurrect, and editor eventually back-formed the verb (to) edit.
Thus, transgender, a noun, backformed to (to) transgender, a verb.
Transgender has never been a noun, either.
I’m pretty sure that “transgendered” was formed from “gendered”, and “transgender” is a word that did not exist in any form until coined as back-formation by people (e.g. you) who wrongly think that “transgendered” somehow implies that “transgender” exists and is a verb.
Dani said she was transgendered. Correct grammar or not, I am calling it what she said it.
“red-haired” isn’t a participle either. It’s an adjective meaning “with red hair.”
I’ve always assumed “transgendered” was intended to be parsed similarly, as “has a trans gender”, that is, a gender not in accordance with the designated sex at birth.
There isn’t a correct way to address a transperson.
There are correct ways to address SPECIFIC transpeople, but there’s no general one-term-fits-all. Any transperson saying there is is generally assuming they personally are representative of all transpeople.
Basically if you want to know the right term, ask them. If you want people to use the right term, tell them. That’s the only way it’s going to work, ever.
Okay.
Joshua/Jocelyn, which pronoun would you prefer?
In this case, we’d ask Willis. The use of “sister” as opposed to “sibling” is a good indicator of her identifying as female, but if we’re wrong, than Willis will be the one to inform us
Exactly.
I’ve never ever heard that before. Admittedly it always felt odd and is feeling even odder to have that M there, but, eh, it is what it is.
Oh god, I hate my new gravatar
I think people are intended to hate Mary.
Willis should just change all the random gravatars to characters people hate. Mary, Blaine, Faz, Ryan…
That way everyone will get a custom one.
Noooooo…I don’t want to have to deal with the shuffling again!
Everyday I’m shufflin’…
I love my new gravatar. It’s so much better than my old Mary one.
Squee! You may continue with what you were doing.
Alright, Josh/Jocelyne’s face in the first panel is still kinda creepy.
Not pictured: Ethan giving Josh/Jocelyn his number.
And this explains the parents knowing the least about her comment thing.
Now im not accusing anyone of stealing anything from one another but would this story inclusion possibly be influenced by Jacques the Rippers own story element of Claire the MtF librarians aid.
There better be a hell of an explanation for this, because as far as I’m aware these stories have nothing in common except MtF characters. Which means you pretty much just implied that the only reason someone would include such a character is seeing them in other fiction, which is all kinds of fucked up.
i dont think he directly implied that the ONLY reason someone would include such a character is seeing them in other fiction. i read it more like willis reading qc and thinking “wait i dont have a trans character, it will be good that i did”. Just like you would with a bold character,etc. Why you so easily asume he thinks its the ONLY reason?? he just said its a posible reason (used would and possibly). I am not attacking you , i just wanna now why you jump to that conclusion
Im sorry Wack’d i wasn’t trying to imply anything for all my dumbass knows Jeph and Dave though of the same thing at the same time and it just took longer for Willis to introduce his character. Im not accusing willis of not having good reasons to include this character im just wondering is if since they are good friends and fans of each others work perhaps they may have influenced each other slightly.(Willis has included Faye from Questionable content as a cameo in Dumbing of age after all)
You know, looking back it would’ve been clear as day to see this coming, seeing that yesterday’s comic’s tags were Jocelyne and no Joshua.
Oh shit all the tags were changed, goddamn.
Those wawskawwy webcomic authows!
Lots of people seem to be making a fairly typical mistake when it comes to TG people. Joshua isn’t actually female. He self-identifies as female, but he is still physically male – and more to the point, he still fills a male role in society.
To put it very simply, he’s still in the closet, except online. I know quite a few people in that situation, one of whom is a close friend of mine, so I know that of what I speak.
Yeah, but considering that Jocelyn would PREFER to present as female, and can’t because of a problematic enviroment, we’re being polite and referring to her as such.
She’s in the closet in the DoAverse, but has been outed in our universe, thus it’s polite to use female pronouns unless further shown in universe.
There’s not even any indication that she’s ‘in the closet’ in general, rather than just with her family – she’s definitely out in her writing, and it’s likely that most of her friends know her as female, given apparently not wanting them to meet her parents.
There’s also no indication that he’s out of the closet, which is my point.
Yes, the website name is certainly suggestive, but we don’t actually know where he falls in the TG spectrum. There are TG people who have a female (or male) online identity but are basically okay, or at least tolerant of, being male (or female) in real life. Until we find that out, I’m erring on the side of caution.
In a sense, it doesn’t matter, since he’s not actually a real person, but a character in a comic. But it is a real issue for actual people who are transgendered, especially as online walls of privacy start to break down.
I don’t see a lot of people making that mistake…Most are just squeeing over the reveal, but only a handful seem to be thinking the wrong thing. Also, transexual, not transgender. TG is an umbrella term for everything that doesn’t conform with typical gender rolls, including transvestism, which has nothing to do with sexuality.
http://cf.broadsheet.ie/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/rolls.jpg
that is brilliant
A lot of transsexual people consider themselves to fall under the ‘transgender’ umbrella though. Some don’t, but I personally use both terms for myself and my experience has been that it’s pretty common to do so.
That was the general feel I got. I didn’t read every comment, so it’s entirely possible that it wasn’t actually a lot of people.
Personally, I fall into the TG category, because I’m mentally androgynous, perhaps leaning a bit female. One of the reasons I picked the nickname “Jaime” (which is an acronym of my initials) is because it is a gender-neutral name.
I also have a close real-life friend who is much more strongly transgendered than I am, to the point of having changed his name and presenting himself as female in the past. Note that the reason I refer to him as ‘him’ is because he lives in a state where that sort of thing is very much frowned upon, and he needs to present himself as male in order to make a living.
Anyway, transgender/transsexual have different meanings based on who’s using them. Personally, I prefer to use transgender because it has a much more general meaning than transsexual. To be honest, it’s enough more difficult to pin down what someone means by transsexual that it usually isn’t worth the effort.
um wtf, no one’s making a mistake except you. Jocelyn identifies as woman, is a woman, and fill’s a ‘woman’s role in society’ (whatever the fuck that means) by virtue of being a woman. And unless Jocelyn herself wants to describe her body as ‘physically male’ you shouldn’t say that either.
Unless you can show that he’s legally changed his sex to female, you don’t have a basis for that statement.
Not that I have a problem with referring to him in the feminine – and if he actually starts presenting himself as female (that is to say, dressing as female and changing his name), then it’s a whole different story. But until then, I stand by what I said.
Right, we shouldn’t say things based on speculation (which totally isnt what you’re doing too) because we run the risk of offending a completely fictional character. Thats totally logically sound.
Jesus no. Stop.
I’m almost inclined to take a screen cap of this comment chain and caption it “this is why David Willis’ comment sections are the best on the internet”.
jaimehlers seems to be making a fairly typical mistake when it comes to his own views. jaimehlers isn’t actually correct. He self-identifies as correct, but he is still completely wrong– and more to the point, he still fills a wrong role in our comments section.
To put it very simply, he’s a dickweed, especially online. I know quite a few people in that situation, one of whom is a close friend of mine, so I know that of what I speak.
Wack’d seems to not understand that he is projecting his own attitudes onto other people, and thus is making himself an even bigger “dickweed” than he accuses me of being. Once he realizes this and figures out how to address other people without trying to project on them, then it might be possible to have an actual conversation with him.
(yay for the passive-aggressive approach?)
Yeah, no, I’m sorry, if you’re gonna try and call technicality on someone’s identity I am absolutely not going to try to have an actual conversation with you. That would require a level of respect for your viewpoint that you clearly don’t have for other people’s.
Whoa, whoa, whoa….I’m confused here. I thought that Joshua is woman presenting as a male, not a male who wants to present as a woman.
Her parents would never be okay with that.
Joshua is (at least as far as I can tell) physically and biologically male. However, he identifies as female. His sex doesn’t match his gender, in short. Given other cues within the comic (the way he’s drawn, his body shape, his short hair, and what we’ve seen of his body language), I think it’s unlikely that he’s actually come out as transgendered, except for online. That’s probably due to him being afraid of how his parents and other real-life friends/acquaintances would react – I’m well aware of how that works.
Well then, you should be aware that even transgender people who are only out online like to be addressed in the manner in which they like to be addressed. Trust me, I’m kind of an expert in this area. If you catch my drift.
@Jaimehlers – We know for certain that Jocelyne identifies as a woman, because Willis made it clear in the hovertext. It’s true, it isn’t clear in what areas she is “out” (although we know she isn’t with her parents). But the ONLY reason not to call someone by her real gender would be if she asked you to – for instance, in the company of people to whom she wasn’t yet out. Or if she didn’t ask you to but you know you’d be outing her without permission.
It doesn’t matter if she hasn’t come out to every single person she knows yet. If she’s out to you, you call her by her real gender unless asked to do otherwise, or unless you’re jeopardising her right to tell people herself in her own time.
So, it doesn’t matter that Jocelyne isn’t out to her parents. It wouldn’t even matter that she isn’t out to ANYONE except Ethan. WE know her real gender, and we’re not jeopardising her right to choose when and to whom she comes out, so it is a matter of basic respect to call her “she”.
She’s a woman. Who she’s out to doesn’t change that. How she chooses to dress certainly doesn’t change that. And it’s disrespectful not to acknowledge it.
Oh wow, this was completely unexpected, and very pleasantly surprising. EthanXJosh is dead, but this is still great.
Whose to say it’s dead?
Ethan is gay. Jocelyn is not a male. Thus dead. If Jocelyn had been born Jocelyn and identified as Josh, there might be a possibility, but now there really isn’t anything, or at the very least, nothing that could last.
Except that she is currently male despite her identification AND has an obvious attraction to Ethan. Meanwhile, until an operation happens, Ethan also has an attraction. They may not have sex due to the mental stress that those in Jo’s situation tend to have, but that doesn’t mean a relationship cannot be formed and maybe even worked through.
A temporary one, maybe, but it would never last, especially if Jocelyn has any form of dysphoria. She would probably want to be with someone who was attracted to her for being female.
I say the EthanXJosh/Jocelyn ship is dead because I WANT it to be dead, and I say it as someone who shipped it very much just a strip previously. It DESERVES to be dead. Because Jocelyn deserves someone who is attracted to her, not him.
*be that her-with-penis or her-with-vagina or her-with-genitals-of-something-in-between. Either way, someone attracted to her.
True, and attraction is simply the bare bricks, so even if she didn’t identify as such, there’s nothing saying how long it would last had they ever gotten together. Be that the case, all ships shouldn’t exist unless they had a 100% chance of working…yet they do. So, yeah, it may be a small one with some holes, but whose to say it couldn’t end up being the one to reach the other shore?
It could still happen, and so could a million other ships. Heck, Ryan could show up again and start dating Joyce and it would be horrible. Just because it can be argued doesn’t mean it’s gonna happen. That’s not the point.
JoshxEthan is a dead ship. Josh is not the person we have been reading. Jocelyn is. So the ship as we know it is dead. Thus it’s a dead ship. I don’t see how much more clear we can make it.
I was thinking about ships and Ethan as I began reading this comment, then came across Ryan’s name, and…
…dear god, what would that even be like.
I don’t think that’s necessarily true. They obviously had a cute kind of chemistry. Plus, how sweet would the irony of Joyce’s “brother” turning out to be the ACTUAL exception to her gay boyfriend’s sexuality be? I don’t see how Willis can pass an opportunity for conflict like that up.
she’s not a male
i never comment on this comic but holy shit i know they’re getting more common but every time i see a trans* storyline especially one like this i get choked up.
OH SHIT
Yep!
also can we not be yelling that the ship is dead or not dead when gender and sexuality and people are so much more complicated than just a basic flowchart
Please don’t mention shipping and charts in the same sentence, I’m still recovering from a certain shipping chart from a certain webcomic by a certain grey-skinned, rowdy individual.
The great Faz has a chart showing how people no matter their gender or sexuality desire to mate with him.
By chart, you mean just a picture of Faz.
This chart shows desirable parts of Faz.
/throws all joshua/ethan(/amber) fanart into a fire
I wish I could take the one I already posted off the internet. ; ~ ;
As I’ve said to a few people now, Jo has an obvious attraction to Ethan, and pre-operation is still what Ethan is attracted to. There’s nothing saying a ship can’t happen, hell fanfic writers can have a ball with storylines of them working through it all.
read rain…its an lgbt comic that, just up to recently had a gay male pre op mtf trans relationship in it.
That had to be the most complicated way to describe that due to no indication of where the split between the two people are. You meant Gay Male x pre-op MtF if I’m reading that right?
Except in my fan comic, Jocelyne’s* (male-identifying) Joshua. “His” secret is that he’s bi. Now, Joc may still be bi, but that’s beside the point.
And crap, I did some Jacob/Joshua fanart too (the secret being sex addiction this time)!
*why the freak did she spell her name that way, Jocelyn would have sufficed hnnnngh
Well at least my comment awhile back about your “Fem Joshua” avatar technically became true!
But seriously…your picture is cute, don’t get rid of it just because of today’s comic, it would be such a waste! 🙁
haha well played
Nyeh, I will prolly replace the grav once I finish with my new stuff. Probably some Joyce/Dorothy thing.
You could make some in-gender fanart of her to make up for it. Please?
That’s what I’m doing!
Will we be seeing Jocelyn again?
Jocelyn died on the way back to her home planet.
Due to the law of conservation of detail (TV tropes link not provided), showing her website to Ethan indicates that he will use this information in the future. Her part might theoretically have been added just to motivate Ethan’s acceptance of his own sexuality, but I doubt this is the case. It seems like there is too much potential character development for the other characters.
Watch Jocelyne become a mentor-type/life coach figure for Ethan.
That would be cool.
to everyone who thinks that this comic is pushing it with adding a transexual to the already large plethora of LGBT characters in this comic. Chances are you know someone who is transexual and dont even know that they are. Most people only share that they are with those they are close to. its not usually obvious that someone is trans with how far technology and treatments have come today.
Tr*ans*xual should really only be used specifically for a person who identifies that way. Otherwise, it’s better to use transgender.
No, he’s still right, it’s a lot more common than people will admit to due to society today.
What…? I didn’t say he was wrong??
What if someone was TRAINsexual? :O
Sheldon Cooper?
I personally know two trans* people who are out.
Anyone who thinks that it’s statistically unlikely for a trans* person to exist in the vicinity of multiple nonheterosexuals can go eat a bag of hammers.
I’ve never really understood people crying about how unrealistic this all is. For one thing, the entire cast is fictional (heh), and for another, I mean, just speaking from personal experience, but I’ve known numerous trans* individuals, starting from fairly early in life, many people whose orientations were largely or entirely homo- or bisexual – in short, all manner of different locations along the various human spectra. How can it be construed as unrealistic just to have a trans* character, for example, or several homosexual characters in one spot?
And no, fuckos, your anecdotal “BUT I NEVER KNEW ANYONE LIKE THAT!” is completely invalid, because 1 – your experiences do not reflect a statistical sample of anything except “people who have met you,” and 2 – hey, maybe you did, but they just never told you (maybe there was even a particular reason why they chose not to tell you…? :P)
Anyway, I just wanted to chime in here after Wack’d and second his invitation to hammer-eating for those still unconvinced. I live in a Canadian province with fewer than a million residents, and I PERSONALLY have known more than five trans* people who are out.
then again…this is indiana
I’m still a bit lost. Or maybe just dense. Is Josh physically female but identifies as male and openly dresses and behaves as such, or is she/he physically male, but identifies as female, but not openly? The latter seems much more likely, because that’s the only one of the two scenarios that could plausibly be kept hidden from the family. But some of the comments seem to suggest the former. For that the family would almost certainly have to know about it and apparently accept it.
Jocelyn was born male, but identifies as female, but not openly. However, once someone chooses to explain as such, it is considered polite and basic ettiquette to use their chosen name and pronouns only, for the most part. So she is a she. That help?
physically male, identifies as female. if he was originally female his parents probably would have caught on by now.
I don’t know what I find more confusing: what’s happening in the comic, or the comments about what happened in the comic…
The comments. Definitely the comments. Remaining politically correct when dealing with gender situations our language is ill-prepared to handle is much more confusing than the situations themselves.
The annoying thing is, the word “man”/the word “man” came from used to be gender-neutral. And I’m pretty sure proto-English used to have gender-neutral pronouns as well.
I’ve started a movement to reclaim the gender neutrality of “man” and start calling masculine men “remen” to get an equal alternative to “women”, although it hasn’t caught on a lot yet. . .
Why “reman”? It’s short for were-man, which in Old English might translate to “masculine human”. And it’s a pretty big reconstruction of the language and redefinition of gender norms too, so that’s pretty funny.
Haha, that sounds pretty cool. Sadly, I don’t think it’ll catch on… at least, not for a while. I’d like to hear your other words for things though – sounds like stuff I could use in a story.
If you tell me some things I might have words for them?
What’s your idea for pronouns?
You only really need gendered pronouns when it’s important to distinguish the gender of the third person. Once people get used to that, they/them is going to dominate the third person objective the same way the formal plural “you” has come to replace words like thee and thou. There’s a slight trend towards formality inflation in the way people address each other in many languages; in a few hundred years maybe “those-all-y’alls” will be the norm.
I see, I see…
Anything else you can think of?
(definitely using this system in a story at some point)
Modern English has them too: only you wouldn’t use them to refer to people ;3 And, to the best of my knowledge, no language has proper pronouns for people whose body is the wrong gender.
Which is why gender-neutral pronouns are so nice – they don’t refer to any specific gender, just people.
Kinda confused though. I don’t think anyone who felt like they were in the wrong body would want that fact to be pointed out to them all the time in everyday conversation.
I will be joining the comment reply to all this really soon, but I wanted to say…
Ivy, wherever you are now… I miss you. I hope you’re smiling.
Your friend,
Kaci
P.S. Those guys that did that to you… I forgive them now. I know you would have wanted that.
Who’s Ivy?
Probably a trans woman she knew. I’m guessing she was assaulted by some transphobic assholes.
I say that we hunt ’em. Any takers?
Your avatar is appropriate, as is mine. Let’s do this.
If only my grav was Amber, then the SP! circle would be complete.
…Let me go get the corn popper.
She was. She was really beautiful, inside and out. She looked a lot like Miranda from the new Brave movie, just for comparison.
I wasn’t there, but then, none of us were. The police report the witnesses gave said that some guys in a pick-up truck at a gas station in Plano, TX somehow figured out what Ivy was. I’m not sure how, I never found out… but they cornered her, kept her from leaving, and ran her down.
It bugged me for a long time. When I remember her, I remember her laughing; she was always laughing.
Ah, I guess saying all this now seems really weird.
Anyway, thanks for wanting to hunt them down 🙂 But, Ivy would have wanted me to forgive them. I find that, the people who you’d want to avenge are never the ones who want you to. They always just… were so kind… that they would ask you to let it go and they’ll see you later…
I am a trans woman, and I did not see this coming. Although looking back at the archives it seems pretty obvious. Cissexual assumption in action.
I do agree with the alt text that Jocelyn is adorable.
Ahhhhhhhh, I love it. I’m so happy. I’m not even sad anymore that the ship sunk. Because this is so much better.
Shipping Jocelyn/Dina in 3… 2… 1…
I ship Dina with the T-Rex from Jurassic Park.
Nah. No feathers.
Besides, Dina clearly has a thing for The Big One anyway.
Looking for clever girl on girl action?
YES.
That depends on what she meant when she said she was “not actually gay.” Did she mean to tell Ethan “not interested in dudes”, regardless of the accuracy of the term “gay” as applied to her, or was that one of those lines that takes on a whole new meaning in hindsight?
She was correcting his assumption that she was a gay man. She might be a het/bi/pan lady, but I’m like 99.9995% sure she’s not a lesbian (both because she said she’s not gay and because there was definitely chemistry with Ethan). She could be het and into blokes exclusively. We don’t know.
Man, Ethan’s gonna have to watch his pronouns to avoid outing her to Joyce.
Also, I wonder if older brother whatsisJname knows about Jocelyne and is on the outs from the family for arguing that being Trans is okay in a “rhetorical” fashion?
With these volume of posts on the confusion, another unnecessary PSA will probably happen.
Wouldn’t the presence of confusion make a PSA completely necessary?
Not really, but previously it did.
Tomorrow, we find out that it’s just a pen name because Joshua writes romance novels and Willis was trolling the comments section.
I’m fairly confident that Willis knows about queerbaiting and is also not a jackass.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU WILLIS!!! As a transwoman myself, you can’t imagine how happy this makes me. I’ve been a long time reader, but only recently signed on to Gravatar, and decided to leave comments on your comics. What perfect timing. The transgender community needs all the visibility it can get. I don’t care about “unrealistic over-representation of LGBT individuals.” There’s too much misinformation and misconception about transgender people. In fact, that misinformation kept me from figuring myself out much earlier. (“I like girls, I can’t be transgender.” “Ummm, actually, you can.” “Whhhhhaaaaaaaat? OMG! Everything makes so much sense!”). Also, when you compare how often LGBT people have appeared in all media, they’re woefully underrepresented. Transgender people especially. Even in the gay community, there’s a lot of misunderstanding, and sadly, even some hatred and discrimination.
Also, I think it’s sooo neat that Jocelyne has the same name (well, almost) as the transwoman author of the absolutely cutest, and most open and honest webcomic about the transgender experience (and LGBT in general), Jocelyn Samara DiDomenick of Rain LGBT. Her art is the source of my cute avatar ^_^.
Okay, I think I’ll just opt out of this one. Not because of any prejudices or shit like that. It’s just really really exhausting watching everyone react to a shade of grey when everything before was black and white.
Education, Re-education, Miseducation, Assumption, Counter-Assumption, Inference, Innuendo, Indignation, Offensiveness, Defensiveness, Epiphany, Acceptance, and Recoil–all tossed together in a big disorganized heap. I’ll leave the hopping from thread to thread to you young people.
Hmmm. Interesting.
Admittedly all this talk of Trans and Ninjas and Halloween reminded of that one Tales from the Crypt episode where it turned out the former Secret Assassain had become a woman and married a guy who the Secret Agent Dudes thought was her but it turned out she cooked them for dinner.
o_o
hold on… if I’m doing my sums properly, then by my calculations, this ship still has some hope for success!
lol if you type that url into your browser it links to this page. That’s pretty neat.
The URL seems to link back here <,<
So, leaving aside the bombshell itself, who else here went to jocelynjbrown.com to see what was there?
And, several replies JUST beating me to the punch, saying the same thing. Curses!
I know.right? Sucks.
A veritable stew of abbreviations to describe a situation that is not that difficult. Men, women. Men who identify as women. Women who identify as men.
The difficulty appears to be in so many people attempting to put tags on them and the way in which they chose to live their lives. Which is really nobodies business anyway.
Niomi being the mother, very likely knows that Josh/Joycelyn is not what he appears to be, even if she does not know that she knows. She is just a person that even if all is well, will find some way to make it not be well.
I am not sure that Joycelyn is all that nice a person either. Joycelyn knows that Ethan is dating Joyce – even called him out on it: and yet still sent Ethan a link when Ethan asked to ‘read his writings” -Yeah, right.
Joyce does not know about her ‘brother’ I don’t think or would not be exhibiting jealousy or making such a large attempt (pushing Josh/Jocelyn down the street physically).
I don’t think this relationship has a chance and not because either of the characters is all that nice a person either. Ethan likes guys and Jocelyn is not, by choice, a guy. Jocelyn thinks Ethan is a dick for dating his sister, and yet sent him a link, why? because getting recognized for your writing is a cool thing – even if it is by a dick? Makes him kind of a dick himself to my way of thinking.
…or, y’know, Jocelyn legitimately wants to be friends with Ethan, given that they enjoyed talking earlier, and Ethan is legitimately interested in what Jocelyn has written. We see no evidence that Jocelyn thinks Ethan is a “dick” even if he doesn’t agree with his actions, nor do we see any evidence that he’s desperate to have his stuff read. You’re making a lot of really weird assumptions.
I really hope they do become friends. Based on, er, thirty seconds of interaction they seem to get on well, and I think Ethan could use a friend who knows about being different.
Didn’t you know! No one can be friends ever. If they are sexually attracted to someone they can never EVER be friends.
Especially men and women, because they have to want to hump each other silly.
And – that was sarcasm to the extreme…I feel dirty.
this reminds me of this video on “can men and women be just friends”.
the guys they showed said “no,” and the girls said “yes” at first.
But then they accused the girls of lying, prodding them until they changed their answers to “no.”
Science at its best 😛
Just to be clear – I think this study was a bit biased :-/
“A Bit”?
lol, more than a bit
I think that depends on if the man in question has been trained to think that having any level of regard or appreciation for a woman means that he wants to have sex with her. Not that society doesn’t go out of its way to do that to every man in the world.
And this could be Jocelyn’s way of keeping tabs on Ethan . . .
Yes she is. You need to stop.
Man, it seems I’m making a habit out of replying to comments that then dissapear, so my comments look lost in the wilderness lol.
… Also, something I can’t help but notice. She could’ve chosen any name for herself, and she still went with one that goes with the theme naming of her siblings. Is the J name that ingrained in the family?
It has been passed down through the ages from the dawn of time.
It has been passed down the Brown family line For Generations!!!
*Sparkle*
Olivier: *headdesk*
I don’t know how it goes in the states, but up here in Canada you have to pay to change your name, and keeping the first letters of your original name facilitates the whole process as well as reduce the bill considerably.
In the states it depends on the state. My home state required you to pay for it, but keeping the same initials doesn’t make anything easier.
Jocelyn: the most adorable of big sisters.
Man, Joyce is gonna have an aneurysm when she finds out about her.
I hope it’s a funny aneurysm.
It’s the best kind of aneurysm!
Aneurysm, yes. Followed later by “OMG, I got a big sister! My dream’s come true!”
From the weird, wise and wonderful mind of Coelasquid comes one of my favorite lines about how society should deal with trans* individuals:
“Look, way I figg’r it don’t matter worth two shits what a person got in their pants if y’aren’t plannin’ on gettin’ in there.”
http://thepunchlineismachismo.com/archives/comic/every-rose-has-its-thorn
Guys! If you type in that link it redirects to this very website!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
YES! Best comic ever!
I’ve read it a couple more times now, and feel I have to agree with myself: best comic ever.
Woo Jocelyn! Very much loving the twist here.
also my mom’s name is jocelyn (without an e), so this is really super awkward guys
No, just continue. Make it as a spin-off if you must.
Names shmames. You didn’t do fanart of your mother, did you? 😉
My friend married a guy with the same name as her dad. That’s way more awkward. But even they got over it eventually xD
This shouldn’t have surprised as many people as it did. The tags for this page and the previous both included “jocelyne”. Willis pulled a fast one.
I updated all of the tags at midnight. Comicpress lets you do that.
For those who are having arguments about sex assignments, I’ll just leave this here. This opened me to not identify a person biologically.
I enjoy Ethan’s constant disappointment in Joshua’s unwillingness to enable him to act like a complete shit.
BOY have I ever made that particular identification mistake before.
Finding out that someone you thought was a cute gay boy is actually a cute straight girl: Very jarring! Bit like trying to take the next stair after the staircase ends.
To people who think that the Ethan/Joshua ship is still kinda valid: it is not. Ethan/Joshua is dead, and Ethan/Jocelyne cannot exist based on the principle that gay males are not attracted to females. Also, the fact that Jocelyne has a good head on her shoulders means that she will not forgive Ethan if he broke up with Joyce for the express purpose of dating her.
Ethan/Jocelyne is dead, and anyone who thinks otherwise insults Jocelyne’s very existence as a woman.
Not to mention the fact that Jocelyne may not be attracted to men.
My family’s friends with a lesbian woman. She’s married to a man and is going to give birth to their kid very, very soon.
STOP CHANGING THE RULE AROUND MY NARROW CIS-CENTRIC MIND CAN’T KEEP UP ;~;
RULES**
never
“Gay” is not as well-defined as you might think, especially when gender and sex differ. Some gay men are into trans*men and some are into trans*women and some are into both and some are into neither. It depends on the individual. There are even plenty of “homoflexible” people, or people who identify as gay, but still have exceptions for certain women, cis or trans*.
Agreed, there are a lot of potential gender and attraction issues to be had here, which isn’t the greatest situation for Ethan; assuming this doesn’t turn out to be just a crush, he’d have yet another spanner in the gears of his sexuality as he tries to figure it out, even as two members of the same family are attracted to him.
Unrelated, but I was also trying to figure out what Ethan goes for in a guy, if you compare across universes, it could be the whole blue eyes thing, but Manny didn’t have that… I’m assuming Jacob is just more of a ‘here be buff working out guy, quick avert eyes’ rather than any actual attraction.
I don’t think Ethan actually has a type. He just likes conventionally attractive dudes.
Which is a type, just broader and less idiosyncratic than some.
Good point. :B
Oh sure, it’ll be complicated as all get-out if it does go that way. But that’s why we read David Willis comics, isn’t it? 😛
I agree with you that the ship is probably dead, but human sexuality is pretty complicated stuff.
I’ll be honest, I don’t entirely understand this. People ship people across sexual orientation all the time. A fuckload of people do it for this very comic. I’d argue that by making Jocelyne a special case, you’re insulting her validity as a woman because we’re suddenly not allowed to ignore her preferences for the sake of fanart as is done with other women.
…okay, no, actually, I wouldn’t. That would be a stupid argument. But the point stands. There are more fucked-up ships than Ethan/Jocelyne and I’m not sure why this one has an extra squick factor.
I agree with Wack’d. I’m currently drawing all sorts of straight ladies making out with each other for Kickstarter rewards. It’s for fun, so why not. Jocelyne is also a straight lady, and so I’m not sure why I wouldn’t hypothetically allow her to make out with whomever, were she to have existed back when the Kickstarter ran.
Ship who you want. It’s sort of the point.
I ship Willis/Jacques.
Canon ships are no fun!
You’re confusing Willis/Jacques with Willis/Watson
Then I ship Jocelyne and Claire from QC. Muahahahahaha.
… I approve of this idea.
Jocelyne is straight?
*mentally invokes The Author is Dead*
Willis, unless you draw straight guys making out I will be forced to decry your actions as sexist.
I draw straight guys making out if someone who paid $300 requests I do so. It’s their choice, not mine. I’m a little sad nobody chose two dudes, but whatcha gonna do.
And to think we’re the ones that have disposable income.
From my understanding, all people are saying is that the ship has been sunk in-universe. Of course, if they’re taking it farther than that, that’s kind of messed up, but that was my take on it.
Of course I meant in-universe. I’m not a crazy person. 😀
Also, THANK YOU DAVID WILLIS FOR GRANTING JOYCE’S WISH FOR A BIG SISTER! 😀
I’d like to see a fight between Jocelyn and Sarah for big sister
I think they’d get along fine, really. 😀
Why would you like to see that? Sarah would break Jocelyne. And then Joyce would be sad. Do you want to see Joyce sad?
Thank you, ninja_jesus, for inspiring fanart!
I wanna see later! 😀
Hopefully everyone shall!
Sadly, it’ll probably be a couple of weeks before I’ll be able to show you guys. I hope it’s worth the wait.
Freakin called it!
Also, can there be Jocelyne x Claire slash fiction now please? :3 PLEASE?
This is the internet, and this comic was posted several hours ago. I guarantee you that it already exists.
Wait, what? Um…
I suppose I’m just sheltered, but it’s my understanding that persons who gender identify differently from their sex are pretty rare. Rarer than being gay, even. Presuming that this is true, the chances that one happens to turn up in Joyce’s family would, I would think, be pretty low. And which is the one family in the story that the transsexual turns up in? By sheer chance, the one that would happily kill him/her for it! That’s…dramatically convenient.
Don’t get me wrong – in my own efforts as a writer, I allow myself up to three longshot coincidences per story. But I think they’re to be avoided.
The other thing that bugs me slightly is that this takes away the element of choice from Josh, er, Jocelyn’s rebellion. (Admittedly, so would being gay.) I liked the idea of Joshua’s secret being atheism because it would mean that he had made the personal choice to take on a lifestyle that he knew was right, despite the fact that it wasn’t the one forcefed him by his parents. That takes a little balls, and we’d know he chose the trials he would be facing when it came out. But being trans is not a choice, and so her family situation is a trap she was born into rather than something that was chosen. And with the inevitable explosion and collapse… a doom that is forced upon a person is just depressing.
Oh look, another “your comic is unrealistic because lgbtq!!!!”.
Gotta wonder why so many people get rubbed the wrong way by diversity.
I don’t think that’s the attitude he’s taking here, yet fuck if I know how to explain his standpoint.
OT…I initially misread that as ‘LGBBQ’…that would be a good name for a queer-friendly rib place, I think…
I approve of this! My hometown of San Diego would be perfect. We already have the world’s first LGBTQ brewery, Hillcrest Brewing Company.
It’s even rarer to dress up like a superhero and fight crime.
+1
It’s rare but it’s not unheard of. Real-Life Superhero Project
Not to mention Dexter and Monkey Master fans literally don’t even exist in our world, yet the comic cast is overflowing with them.
Taking statistically probable phenomena and deciding at your whim if they should happen or if the opposite should happen is the funniest part of being a writer I think. Juggling what is believable and what makes a story good, all the while drinking in the bitter tears of readers inventing reasons that things they don’t like shouldn’t happen instead of taking off and creating things of their own. . .
Was that last part directed at me? If so I find it amusing, because I HAVE taken off and created something of my own. I’m currently working on the sequel. (And if I finish it and it looks good, then I’m seriously considering releasing both of them to the public, imitating real creators like Willis.)
Regarding juggling what is believable/probable, I find this amusing too because one of the questions I’m currently chewing over is whether, among a group of five essentially random girls who will become close friends, one or more of them should be gay. Doing so or not wouldn’t have a significant influence on the story either way, or even the characterizations really (this does *not* happen to be the one group in the area likely to react in an extreme way to gays); I’m just pondering how the characters should be built. The only significant outcome I’d expect would be that, unless I make *two* of them gay, I’d probably be sentencing the poor girl to a one-sided crush before everything hashes out.
Anyway, I’m currently leaning away from the idea. Because I’m a mean old homophobe? Nope. (If I was I wouldn’t have even considered it.) It’s because there’s only five people in the group. Last I checked, the percentage of people in the population who are gay/lesbian is a fair bit less than 20%, which means that I’d be beating the odds to have one in this crowd. Since my story doesn’t actually need a gay person here, why should I push the odds?
So yeah. The accusation that I’m reacting this way due to my rampant homophobia as opposed to the (stated) likelihood concerns amuses me.
Not every group represents the statistical average. It’s kinda like you’re saying if the group of characters is from the Midwest, then you can’t put any Asians in the cast because less than 20% of the population is Asian. You also seem to be treating characters as if there is a certain template that is “Normal” and you feel you should only deviate from “Normal” if there is a statistically valid reason to do so.
With the construct you’ve developed I get the impression (and this could be wrong) that if any of your cast members differ from stereotypical, mainstream white, it will only be in one way, because differing from “Normal” in two ways is statistically unlikely — which I think is incorrect, but seems to be a common belief of writers and marketing directors. How many times have we seen the advertisement or the show with the white jock guy (“Normal”) and the white girl (deviates from “normal” by gender) with three people chosen from the following list: the black guy (deviates by race), the smart guy (deviates by being geeky, but is still white and male), the Asian character (deviates by race and sometimes gender), the white gay man or lesbian (deviates by sexual orientation, but rarely race) the Latino/Latina/Indian/Native American/Pacific Islander/etc. (but only one of them and generally not if the group already has “the black guy”), and/or the one with some sort of disability (but is normally still white). And each of them in the show is often defined by their subgroup, as if that is the only characteristic they have that contributes to their personality. We never/rarely see the goth, black lesbian who is deaf, because heaven forbid someone deviates from “Normal” in more than one way.
You may not have meant it to come off that way, but that’s how your posts read, to me at least.
First of all, while you would be “beating the odds” by having one in five characters be gay, you will have significantly fewer than the average number of queer folks if you don’t include any. Furthermore, statistics doesn’t say that every group will perfectly represent the average. It would be equally realistic for two of them to be queer as for one of them as for none of them as for all of them. Averages represent overall trends, but say very little about individuals and small groups. Or are you going to tell me that my little friend group is “unrealistic” because 5/6 of us identify as some flavor of queer? (1 straight, 3 bisexuals, 2 heteroflexibles.)
And as Willis keeps saying, diversity is interesting. If it doesn’t have any significant impact, then there’s no reason not to include minority characters. If you really want to pretend to be not homophobic, try asking why you need your entire cast to be straight, rather than why you need a queer character.
Lastly, there is very little queer representation in media of all kinds, and it has been shown to be pretty harmful for a variety of reasons that I’m not well-equipped to explain.
Well, there’s a big difference between unlikely story elements and unbelievable story elements. Does it strain the suspension of disbelief to have one out of five characters be gay, or is it an improbability that you can justify in the story if you think it’ll make the story better?
One big unlikely coincidence down, only two left.
Now only one left.
Jocelyn isn’t a coincidence. If Joyce was reading her fiction on line, and it was her favorite fiction, and she didn’t realize she even had an older sibling, That would be a coincidence. This is just a character in the story, introduced with a specific purpose. Saying her existence is a big, unlikely coincidence because she has an unusual trait is like saying It’s too big a coincidence to conceive that “Harry Potter just happens to tell the story of the one person who could deal with this coincidence! What are the odds that, out of all the students at Hogwarts, our viewpoint character just happens to be the one that everything happens to!”
(Granted, Harry Potter is full of unlikely coincidences, but who the characters are and why they’re in the story isn’t one of them.)
^”is the one person who could deal with this situation“
How I define what is or isn’t too much of a coincidence could be a little complicated to explain. This may take a bit:
First, there are certain things I think that you get for free – the whole setting, for example. Psychics exist in your world? Sure. Magic? Prophecies? Aliens? Dragons? Hobbits? Honest politicians? All allowed as part of the setting, since the setting is malleable. You get to build your world for free
And so, given that, looking at Potter: Magic is defined, prophecies are defined, and magically prophesied chosen ones are prophesied. So, given a big evil Voldemort, it’s not improbable that there would be somebody prophesied to beat him.
Okay, then what are the odds that a given person is that chosen one? Depends on how you look at it – it’s either vanishingly small, or a sure thing. How could that be? Well, if Voldy has a chosen one, then it’s a sure thing that somebody is that person. The story just happens to be about that person. No problem. No improbability.
Coming back to the current situation, there’s nothing about fundy families that requires them to bear trans children. (At least, nothing that I know of.) So it’s a coincidence that it happened in this case. How coincidental? Hard to say. But the situation isn’t really comparable to Harry Potter’s chosen one status.
I guarantee there are a non-zero number of fundie families with trans* children. This comic happens to include one of them. There is no coincidence there, just Willis choosing the most dramatically interesting elements with which to build his story.
Not exactly the point of what I was saying. Let’s ignore speculative fiction and go with something more realistic, so we aren’t cluttered with speculative issues. Say, an episode of Law & Order. What are the odds that, out of all the cops in New York City, and all the people murdered, that this particular cop is working this particular murder? Doesn’t matter. The story is about this particular cop working this particular case.
Same here. The story thread involves a trans* woman in a fundamentalist Christian family. That’s not a coincidence, that’s a story foundation.
@captainswift
+1
Maybe it is just in my experience, but I’ve run across a number of trans* people in my life. Not as many as gay or lesbian but a good number.
Not going to get into your stance on theism except – there are a number of atheist in this story already. Of which Joyce is friends with and stood up for.
And yes being trans* is not a choice, but it is her choice how she deals with it. And if it is only with using an online handle then – that is how she is doing it.
That may change in the future, but that is her choice in the matter.
And as it happens, to my knowledge I’ve never yet met a single trans* person in real life. Not one! (At least, not one that admitted it.) Small reference pools are a funny thing, huh?
* ?
I went to an art university, so it probably explains how I’ve seen so many gender types in my life.
The * signifies that they’re including everyone who puts themselves in the “trans” label. It’s meant to be inclusive for the entire spectrum.
And I’m willing to bet that just because you don’t know anyone who has told you they’re trans, it doesn’t mean they don’t exist. I know at least one person who is definitely somewhere on the spectrum, because they changed their name, but I don’t know them well enough to ask which pronouns they prefer. If I hadn’t known them before they changed their name, I wouldn’t know they were anything except androgynous in appearance.
To her knowledge, neither has Joyce!
My nephew used to identify himself as a woman for many years before he realized that he had been born in the body of the opposite gender. It was the first time I met one in person, but since then I’ve met two others in the city where I live alone, and we’re only 75000 people. It’s understandable that you can have a hard time believing in what you’ve never personally observed, but that doesn’t mean you should disregard other peoples’ observations.
While my best friend’s mother suffered from anorexia, I’ve never personally met a bulimic person, but I know they exist. I’ve never lost a close friend to a car accident, but I know they happen. I’ve never been stabbed with a knife, but I know friends who have, years before we met, and I believe them when they say it hurts. If we based everything solely on personal observation, we’d be a lot more ignoreant.
Being an atheist is not a choice. I tried quite a bit and failed to convince myself to believe in a god, as a kid.
this
Pretty fair point, but I’m pretty sure that however much of a choice being an atheist is, being trans is even less.
I think it’s worth pointing out that non-religious, liberal-leaning people are just as capable of being anti-trans. Hell, just google “TERF”.
Also, I read in a study online something like:
75% of christians disapprove of homosexuality
50% of athiests disapprove of homosexuality
*mind blown*
wait what
50% of atheists? Did the study say why?
I don’t really remember, but that IS the real question.
You could look up the study if interested:
“Sexuality and the Secular” [Linneman and Clendenen 2009].
Corrected statistics are that 42% of atheists and 29% of agnostics believe that “same sex behavior” is wrong, vs 75% for ‘believers’. It’s a bit vague.
I did a quick search and found 3 counter-arguments that athiests/agnostics gave:
1. tradition of a man and a woman being married
2. marriage being about procreation
3. gay marriage somehow giving gays a financial leg up on people who live together nonromantically (although straight couples already have a leg up…)
-Victor
What the hell? You’d think atheists of all people would reject the silliness of the first two arguments for the same reason they reject the silliness of religion/God.
Then again, I guess that just goes to show that not all atheists are critical thinkers…
I always remind myself that all statistics are based off the percentage of people interviewed. In this situation, I am unable to access those pages, so I cannot see where they got their research pool from to garner those statistics. Depending upon the focus of their study, it could simply be they chose to small a pool to be representative of the population as a whole.
Anderhail, no. You can calculate when a sample is large enough to be representative (although the sample might be biased, but that’s a whole different problem), and if a study has too small a sample size, it should not have been published at all.
Why so many of us desperately want to be better than religious people? The fact that we’re (probably) right about this one thing does not make us better people. It’s healthier if we just all accept that. Yes, religion can make you believe crazy things, but that doesn’t mean we are magically safe from irrational, bigoted or simply unlikely beliefs.
@Robin: I agree with you, except that I want to point out the difference between “should not have been published” and “was not published.”
There is a very, very, very large amount of bad statistics out there, even in reputable journals.
That kind of bigotry is virtually never about God’s mandates in the first place. It’s cultural. Just because someone rejects one part of a culture doesn’t mean they don’t blindly follow some of its other ignorant bits.
LGBTQQ people are different. We’re a minority. Not believing in God doesn’t automatically take away the fear and distrust people feel toward those who are different.
Honestly I think that’s what it comes down to. We’re different, and some people are squicked out thinking about us. They can come up with a lot of fronts to justify their disapproval – God isn’t the only excuse available.
Why would my fellow atheist use the same logic as fundies to justify bigotry? I’m depressed now.
I’m gonna’ go ahead and guess that the main reason (regardless of one’s religious beliefs) is something along the lines of “I find it icky!”
Anything past that is semantics, in my experience.
By that logic, you’d think Christians would reject the silliness of rejecting someone in God’s name when Jesus’ entire ministry was about love and forgiveness.
Atheists and Christians who hate gays are bigots because they’re bigots. Not because of any of their beliefs on the subject other than their bigotry.
I agree with you. I was just surprised by how many there were.
Ugh, TERFs. They need to stop giving feminism a bad name. How about “trans exclusionary radical fuckwads?” That has a nice ring to it.
This article says 1:2500 post-op DMAB => Female as of (2001?), which is likely a huge underestimate. There may be a better estimate online, but as is, this doesn’t seem super rare.
http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/TSprevalence.html#Article
I think I have a new Cthulhu of arguments because fuck if I know how to respond to this.
“The writers shouldn’t turn the Doctor into a woman because he wouldn’t want that” has been demoted to the Yog Sothoth of arguments.
I’d respond with “The writers create the Doctor. He has no agency, no desires, no characteristics other than what they give him. If he wants to be a man it’s because they want him to want that. If they want to justify him wanting to be a woman, they can do that because they write the show.”
Yeah, but that reenforces “what right does the fan have to insist the writers do shit?” which I also see tossed around a lot.
Fans have the right to not watch things they’re not happy with. I guess that’s about it.
I think that argument is saying that if the writers make decisions about the character for the wrong reasons (such as audience demands), it reduces the veracity of the character, makes him a product of committee design rather than a honest artistic vision, which is a fairly ridiculous complaint to make about any TV show, and especially one that’s gone through nearly a hundred different writers.
Should the writers make the Doctor a woman because X audience members say they want it? Yes, if they can make it a good story. Should they do it if they think it would send a positive message and get more people to watch the show? Yes, if they can make it a good story. Should they do it if focus groups say it would sell? Yes, if they can make it a good story. Should they do it if they think it would make a good story? Yes, if they can make it a good story.
My general experience is that when a character has been sufficiently established in a certain way, having them act in a different way does indeed ‘reduce veracity’ because, well, they’re out of character.
Of course, my microscopic understanding of Dr. Who is that when the Doctor reincarnates/reformats/whatever they call it, there’s a complete personality change. So…yeah. If that’s the case, nothing they could do would be out of the question from a character standpoint. So yeah – the writers could do what the like, as long as it works for the story.
Thanks for your help! I mean, I’ve actually covered these arguments in other parts of the blog, but you couldn’t have known that, and it’s nice to find like-minded people.
clearly you have never been to tumblr.
begbert2, you are missing one key fact: There are lots of other fundamentalist christian families in the DOA universe who do not have a transgender person (or a daughter with a gay boyfriend, for that matter), they simply are not featured in the comic. The characters of a fictional work are not selected at random from the set of all people in the universe the work takes place in.
And even if you take the odds that a group exactly matching all of the characters would come together as freshman students at one university… which has got a lot in common with, of all things, one of the ridiculous arguments creationists make about evolution… well, the IU class of 20X7 is just one of many possible places and times that could happen.
In other words, unless the answer to “what are the odds?” is _significantly_ worse than “one in seven billion”, it’s really not justified to say that it is implausible that some character exists as they are – and you have to stack a lot of irrelevant things to get the odds to that point.
If the situation was, “Is there at least one fundy family with a transgender child? We’re going to write about that story”, then of course, there almost certainly is such a family, and the story could be just focusing on that family. But the situation is actually, “The family in question is the family of the established character Joyce.” Joyce is not a random person; she’s been around a while. So we’re not sorting through all the fundy familys looking for one with a Jocelyn, we have a starting set of one family: Joyce’s family. The chances of that family having a Jocelyn are thus the chances of any random fundy family having a Jocelyn. Pretty sure that’s not 1:1.
It’s sort of how that chances that somebody somewhere will be struck by lightning are really high, but what are the chances *you* will be?
Okay, but this is the story about Joyce. Joyce is one of ~7B people in the world. She happens to belong to a fundie family and have a trans* sister. There are a non-zero number of people like Joyce in the world. This is about one of them. That you did not previously know about her sister does not mean that she did not exist in-universe.
And actually, the odds of Joyce’s family having a Jocelyne are 1. Because, regardless of how likely it is in theory, we have proof that it actually happened.
> Joyce is not a random person; she’s been around a while.
And (assuming she’s the youngest) she’s had the same siblings all her life.
Statistics: Misused to shame stories for including minorities since basically forever.
Lies, damn lies, statistics.
So true, Willis. Heck, statistically, I shouldn’t exist but that doesn’t mean I’m going to go off and kill myself so that I eliminate the statistical outlier that is my life. 😉
Pixar story rule #19: “Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.”
Statistics really shouldn’t come into it. Authors write stories without any regard to statistics anyway.
If someone’s incorporating minorities just to have minority presence, I’d find that strange, but almost nobody does that. Willis is incorporating minorities because he wants to tell stories related to them. Just because he hasn’t set DoA in a gay bar doesn’t mean he can’t have LGBT characters.
I just find it strange that Willis could introduce Samuel, the AI Jason programmed while teaching math class because he was bored, and nobody would bat an eye. Statistically speaking 0% of the population are sentient computer programs, but we’d all be cool with it.
I always consider statistics in my writing. Not that it matters exactly how unlikely the things that I want to happen are to happen cause they’re going to happen anyway, but it’s useful to determine that it’s possible for them to happen.
The weird thing is that statistically it’s always possible for the things I want to happen to happen.
So… was I the only one who thought that “Jocelyn” was just a nom de plume he was using? For atheist writing? Was not actually expecting that bombshell.
Well, she said she likes writing because it allows her to be herself. If “he” just wanted a psuedonym to write to the heathen masses, he could have picked a male one.
I thought that at first; in fact, I was momentarily puzzled because I thought this was Joyce’s actual name and couldn’t understand why Ethan was getting a text with that information.
drawing new fanart to make up for my other stuff
…also because I like drawing cute things
And so it begins O_O
I now feel obliged to go through the archives and count how many times Willis has been asked if he’d ever have a trans* character since “Josh” was introduced. And then to wonder how many times he’s been asked since that strip was put in the buffer.
I think three times.
Running away from all the Jocelyn discussion for a moment, what would she do if her family ever asked to see her writing? I can’t imagine it’s something they’d never profess interest to, so does she set up a dummy website or something?
It’s nice that Jocelyn trusts Ethan enough with this though.
I agree on the writing.
He knows Ethan’s secret too. It could be ‘a secret for a secret’ :-. Not always a safe choice.
Probably. As I said a while back, I wouldn’t be surprised if she writes for some Christian site on the side or whatever.
She did say ‘some links’, not ‘a link’. She probably writes under multiple names, for multiple publications/sites, and just gives the ones under her birth name, or with a gender-neutral pseudonym, to her parents.
Or prints them out, old-fashioned style.
Its a bit eerie how this is very similar to something that has been happening at my work.
Oh. Oh? Oooooh! …Oh.
So Jocelyne was born a he, but Identifies as a She, She is keeping up the Josh persona to keep her parents out of the loop
Clever girl
It just occurred to me that “Jocelyne” is very similar to “Joyce”: take out the first e, the l, and the n, and you’re left with Jocye.
This very much bothered me too…
The Brown siblings are all basically clones anyway.
Same here, to the point i thought that the website name was a shipping name for Joyce and someone else, until I actually thought about it for a moment.
Yeah…it’s a bit too similar to both Joyce and Joshua for my taste, but…eh.
Friend of mine went from Cera to Seyr. Seyr. I’m pretty sure that’s not even a first name! (Actually I’m pretty sure neither are first names but there’s way more hits for Cera on baby-name sites than Seyr by like 100:1.)
Some trans* people don’t give two fucks about distancing themselves from their old identities. Nothing wrong with that.
He had to fit the Brown family theme of children with Jo- names.
Aw shit, I meant she, of course.
At least Joss found a nice name for herself and that she can be herself in her writing. Perhaps someday she can have the operations she needs.
Come on Joss…be brave and tell your parents!
I could bve wrong, but I’m fairly certain not all trans people feel the need to have gender changing surgery
You are not wrong.
It’s like a reverse Crying Game.
Can we get Boy George to make an awesome theme song to go with this storyline?
Now that I think of it, now Ethan can have it all – he can get it with a guy, and still be straight…technically.
“he can get it with a guy”
nope
That’s why I said TECHNICALLY. Joshua may not be a cisgendered male, but he does identify himself as a male. So TECHNICALLY, Ethan would be dating a guy, but since Joshua still has the lady parts, Ethan would TECHNICALLY be in a heterosexual relationship.
You’ve got it backwards! Jocelyne is an MAAB woman!
I think you have it backwards. Jocelyne is a trans woman; she identifies as a woman, but she is not out to her family – and is still presenting as male to them.
Physically she does not have ‘lady parts’ as you put it.
Ethan/Jocelyne would involve Ethan dating a woman, but as Jocelyne hasn’t transitioned, I doubt that would go over well with either Naomi or the Browns. (Not to mention it would likely hurt Joyce.)
As well, if Ethan is exclusively attracted to male bodies, that would cause major difficulties in the hypothetical relationship should Jocelyne decide she wants to transition/present more as a woman.
Oh, OK. The whole time, I thought that Joshua was a cisgendered woman presenting as a male, when Joshua is really a cisgendered male that identifies as a female but isn’t openly presenting as a woman yet. Mea culpa.
Cisgender (no -ed) means that you identify as the gender you were assigned at birth.
Right you are.
Jocelyne is “technically” a woman, not a man. (although i’m pretty dang certain that using the term “technically” with regards to a person’s gender identity is pretty gross)
Sorry, I don’t mean “technically” in a patronizing way, as if i’m doing air quotes and rolling my eyes while doing it, like those assholes who think that transgendered people are “mentally sick” or refuse to acknowledge them by the gender they identify with. (Or worse, call them a “thing” or “it”)
I dig. 🙂
P. sure that you have that backwards there, chum
Incorrect.
CURSE YOU FOR NOT HAVING EASY TO UNDERSTAND, UNIVERSAL TERMINOLOGY, TRANS PEOPLE!
CURSE YOUUUUUUUUU
I can’t believe how much of the comment section is just people arguing about labels.
People, unless the person gives you that label use, you don’t use any.
The only label I care about is “human being”.
Yes, I am hella species-ist.
Well, there are otherkin, but I guess that’s a whole ‘nother can of worms.
I do agree, but it’s great that folks debate usage of a word or another… I for one rarely have the chance to discuss such issues with friends, so I’m just glad that there are so many views expressed.
This is internet commenting FTW, I think.
Well, you have to use *something*. Heck, I picked the option that I thought was the least likely to cause offense, since it doesn’t indicate anything about the person that it refers to, and you can see what THAT got me!
Um… woah.
Bravo Willis. This is a trans charater I can get behind.
“Bravo Willis. This is a trans charater I can get behind.”
Oh yeah, how really mature of me.
No one is truly mature. Everyone has there moments of pure unbridled imaturity.
Some just have more then others.
Me being Ruth and all, I said that sarcastically though.
Well, the comments started out pretty positive. They aren’t against trans*folk, so I won’t complain.
Basically, the comments are mostly transphillic people with various degrees of interest and knowledge on the subject having a hell of a confusing argument about how to be transphillic regarding a fictional character and her real-life counterparts.
It’s giving me a huge headache.
This is nothing compared to the general internet’s transfillicness. I’m just glad I’m not seeing any slurs or dehumanizing stuff.
Damn does that family like the letter J.
And I wonder what Jocelyne’s middle name is? Joshua perhaps (Is she still legally called Joshua)?
Depends on where she’s living and if there’s any chance of her parents seeing her mail and such.
Considering the family, there is no way in hell she’s let them know. MAYBE Jordan, depending on what his deal is, but not their parents and not sheltered little Joyce. Considering Joyce’s character development so far, I wouldn’t be surprised if she comes out to her eventually, but it won’t be for a while. Like, I wouldn’t expect to see that strip for another five years at LEAST.
And the parents? Yeah, they’re not finding out unless Jocelyn’s willing to get disowned.
I’m maintaining Jordan’s a social justice activist.
Next we’ll find out that J. Jonah Jameson is Jocelyne’s crazy uncle who inspired her to be a writer.
Fundie families love the letter J. I knew several families who letter-coded their progeny this way.
HERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRmergerd I thought I was on a different comments page and did not mean to reply to a 3-year-old comment
This saga has been brought to you by Pinot Grigio
yes yes yes yes yes yessssssssssssssssssssssss. Woo!
Sorry, just happy to see a nice character on a webcomic i like to be like me. Well of course there’s a lot more to me, but this aspect is preeetty rarely well depicted as everyone of course knows
Thank you Willis!
…
…
It just feels weird to say thank you instead of dammit
Layn, have you read “Rain”?
http://rain.thecomicseries.com/comics/
Written by a woman like me(further along than me, but that’s congratulatory to her). Hope you enjoy it!
I’ll try it, thanks. I wonder how i missed it. Back then i read so many webcomics made by trans women which were about the experiences. Although back then might have been a bit earlier than that.
Admittedly nowadays i prefer when comics about something else entirely (like dumbing of age and questionable content) include a trans character and occasionally show their struggles, but not as the main theme. I dunno, might be because it fits more with my life how it is now 😛
http://www.khaoskomix.com/komix/steves-story-cover by tab kimpton, has a gay, lesbian, and two trans couples. does have violence & nudity (skipable bonus chapters). ended
oh i remember starting reading that a long long time ago. I wonder why i stopped.
Venus Envy is/was pretty good (venusenvycomic.com (because I suck at things like hyperlinking)), but it’s apparently really slow to update nowadays. I thought it’d actually died off a few years back, but apparently it’s just worse than SGVY for updating now.
Oh Venus Envy! That webcomic was the one that accompanied me through my darkest times.
I had completely forgotten about SGVY! Wow the website changed!
I also used to read Closetspace, but i couldn’t connect so well with it.
oh and i really could check up on The Wotch. I haven’t read it in ages
The writer has since let Venus Envy end. She’s finished with it. No more updates ever.
khaos komix is actually the same story as told by the 8 characters, and was written by a gay man, but features characters of multiple sexualities, and was a romance story
And they had a kickstarter I didn’t have money to throw at. It’s a great story! Anyone else anywhere along the spectrum, read it. It’s well done.
If we’re reccing webcomics with trans* themes, I’m fond of The Princess, which is about a preteen trans girl, and her family and friends.
Thanks! It’s a really good one. I forgot to check for updates this past week!
Sigh. Good fucking luck Jocelyne, you’re gonna need it.
Also, to the absolute CLUSTERFUCK that is this thread discussing labels. It doesn’t matter in the slightest. The only thing that matters is that Jocelyne is unhappy with her biological gender and therefore most likely needs to change it.
oh i was hoping for good discussions… so it’s better to not read the big comment threads?
Granted I have not read every comment but I do think that there are some good discussions going on in the comments. If you have the time you could read them all or at the very least skim through them. (This is what I do since I only have so much time to read 700+ comments).
I feel that I have learned a great deal this morning and I found reading the comments worthwhile.
1) “Biological gender” doesn’t exist.
2) You have no way of knowing how Jocelyne feels about her physical sex. Many trans* folks do not feel the need to physically transition at all. She could be perfectly happy with her body (I mean, as much as anyone ever is) or she could loathe every inch of it. There are trans* people all along that spectrum.
HOLY FUCK I’M CRYING RIGHT NOW
I can’t believe you just put a trans* character in your comic.
You are now in the top of my comics list beside Rain and Questionable Content(any comic including Claire).
And why am I still Joyce? This does not fit at all…
Yes it does. You have the big sister you always wanted! :O
… You win, Billie….
Pfff, of course I do. I’m a cheerleader. 😉
You’re a butt.
A sexy butt.
But a butt nonetheless. 😛
Now impart Cheerleader wisdom upon this lost soul.
Thank you, Dave Willis(is not, because of this page, a jerk face[QC]).
As a transwoman, I approve of this comic.
Can’t stop crying.
I know. (Also a Karen that is trans – I go by transkaren on Twitter – Willis misgendered me at ECCC last year and we talked for a bit after he apologized) My egotistical self wants to say that this was due to that encounter (I spent most of ECCC talking to artists encouraging them to have T* characters; If I remember correctly I guilt-tripped a bit to Willis, talked about having a T* superhero to Thom Zahler, and I think to one or two others), but the fact of the matter is that he probably had this planned WAY in advance and was sitting there trying to keep from spoiling it for me.
Thank Willis.
Man, I wish I hadn’t lost my Nano from a few years back, which was about a trans superhero…I’d have polished it and put it up for you. Heh.
I read that as Transkraken and I was about to go off about otherkin.
That was close.
Yeah, I’ve run into that misread a few times. That’s part of the reason I started using Just Karen (the other part being that once I got used to the idea that I was, in fact, able to blend in with the rest of womankind – why tell people up front that I’m trans, when I’ve worked with people that can’t tell after a year of working together?)
For a guy dude, Ethan sure crushes on the Brown ladies a lot
I guess you could say he’s brown nosing.
I’m sorry I’ll leave.
Please get help.
I would venture that it’s the other way around.
Jesus. This comic has more comments than I could even attempt to read right now, with far too much arguing about labels. It’s all arguments about what the correct way to label someone is, if you should label them at all, etc, etc. Which… all just kind of depends on whether you’ve been around someone who’s trans, how much you know about it, and what the view point of that particular person is. But, y’know, I’m just going to say — at least all of the arguments I’ve seen are in Jocelyne’s favour (from what I’ve read), regardless of who’s arguing what. People are wrong, people are right. But whatever their argument is in most of these posts? They’re still arguing for Jocelyne. For trans people. Technicalities be damned, that’s pretty badass. Admittedly, could be that the jerkier comments have been deleted/not allowed through at all, BUT STILL. That’s a shit ton of people arguing in her favour.
DOA = Fantastic. The end.
Sekritly, I like your post. Internet. I give to you.
+every number
Yeah, seriously. It’s great (especially for the comment section of THIS comic)!
I rarely have time to comment in DoA, 600 comments 2 days ago is too much time consuming. This already hit…. Almost 800 comments. I think I will check the comments gradually.
Yeah, that struck me too. Yay DoA readership!
I concur! And I can see myself coming back to this page in the future, just to take another reading of the mostly smart things being written in over 1,100 comments. It’s certainly more encouraging than some of the gaming article comments I’ve stumbled upon lately… Ugh.
Kotaku? Because if so, iktf so hard.
Hell, if it was just the Kotaku lot I wouldn’t mind quite so much but it really, really isn’t 🙁
…Although someone on there posted a link to Shortpacked’s “False Equivalence” strip some ways back; which is why I’m even here in the first place, so at least there’s that.
The correct way to label anything is with a Dymo labeler. That should clear up any confusion.
I hate to rain on the parades here, but it could just be a pen name.
iPad, no hover text. Never mind.
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20100404045906105
Newbie question: Could they (Joyce/Joycelin) be twins?
Jocelyne is older. She’s already out of college.
Oh, bravo that Willis. Very well done. *replaces monocle*
Oh.
…
…OH!
I have to admit, I didn’t see this twist coming. Bravo, Willis. Bravo.
Vat a tweest!
The problem is that people don’t understand that it’s not simply a matter of being male or female. Gender identity is composed of many smaller sub-categories, but the big ones are biological / dna, sexual partner preferrence, behavioral traits, mental traits, and physical appearrance.
A person can have traits typical of one gender in any of those categories and still overall fall on the other side of the gender spectrum. Let’s take DoA’s Danny for example. A lot of people hate him because he feels wrong to them. The reason for that is that a lot of his innate characteristics fit better to the female accepted mode than the male and the dissonance causes people to fall back on anger. Some people feel he’s a tool, a wimp, stupid, and the list goes on. Others feel he’s an ass, a bastard, a brute, and that list goes on as well. The reality is that he’s a male who displays bits of female-oriented belief system while still placing himself in a position as a regular heterosexual male. The dissonance from what is ‘accepted right’ and what is ‘seen’ in his behavior causes people to fall back on anger because of the old hammer the odd nail into place defense. As Danny himself said at one point, “Is it so wrong to believe that love is more important than stupid harvard.” or “We are soulmates.” while being perfectly acceptable things to say as a man, they are still considered to be ‘feminine’ in nature. If he was a girl or even a gay male character he would be given a lot less hatred than he gets. But because he has the audacity to display characteristics that society accredits to the feminine spectrum while still portraying himself as a straight and masculine man causes the dissonance to set in.
The reality is that every single one of us even those of us who consider ourselves to be firmly on one side of the spectrum male or female is shades or pastels in between. The only absolute in gender is the dna you were born with. Everything else that makes up gender and gender choices is a mix and match somewhere in the middle.
This is an… interesting interpretation.
Me personally, I’m just kinda in love with Amber, so I’m mad at Danny for (even unintentionally) causing her so much pain.
Not even going to get into the meat of your argument, but I will say that DNA and gender are unrelated. Your gender is exactly how you identify, and nothing else. If you identify as a dude, you are a dude, genetics be damned. If you identify as a lady, you’re a lady. If you tell me your gender is “potted plant,” then your gender is potted plant, and I won’t say a word about your human DNA.
It’s kind of disingenuous to say they are unrelated. DNA is certainly not a determinant of gender, but it does have a positive correlation. However, that obviously does not mean that you can use that as a basis to deny somebody’s identity.
Sure, sure. It’s a, like, 80% accurate predictor, even, but only because sex and gender so frequently align. Gender is not determined by DNA; they just happen to correlate a lot.
Not sure about the number, but yep.
Oh yeah, just pulled that number out of my ass.
I don’t dislike Danny because he’s ‘feminine’. I dislike him because he’s an ass and frequently misogynist.
Ze plot! It thickenz!
OHOHOHOHO HAHAHAHAHAHA HAAAAHAAAAHAAAA cough cough AHAHAHAHA HOHOHOHOHO HAHAHAHAHAHA HUHUHUHUHU wheeze HAAAAHAAAAHAAAA HOHOHOHOHO AHAHAHAHAHA whew…..
Oh man, thumbs up for you Willis, you not just torpedoed the ship but actually send in the Kraken to drag it down to the bottom. Kudo to you good sir. I love this kind of plot twist.
“A long time ago, this land used to be empty and barren. But survivors of Josheth shipping landed here after escaping their sinking ship. They want to fix the ship to keep it afloat. But the wrath of gods fell upon them as the Kraken was sent to drag the ship down to the bottom. The shippers was crying so hard their tears turn into a river, turning this land into a lush, fertile land we live in now.”
“Uncle, this river taste salty…. and delicious.”
“That, my niece, is the tear of the shippers.”
‘Kay, you’re just kinda coming off as mean-spirited now.
Kerry, you and I both love shipping. Building them and launching them is a beautiful thing to do. But I…. I prefer to be the Chaotic Neutral Captain. I also love to watch some ships torn assunder. Do you know how much schadenfreude I enjoyed when Digimon fans saw the ending of the anime? Or when this happened?
Shipping business is not a kind one. Shipping war always waged off shore. Ship sunk because the plot say so and how shippers will salvage the pieces trying to hold their beloved shipping afloat…..
Shipping world is like a poetry in motion. They sail on the ravaged sea of message boards.
PS: I like your vsophi name better, did you change it because vsophi decided to goes down with the ship?
It’s not just you expressing glee over ship-sinking. It’s this plus some of the other troubling remarks you made yesterday. It’s like jeez, dude, people are trying to have fun with this shit and you’re just gloating about it and passing judgement.
PS: No, my name change had nothing to do with that particular ship because I did not PARTICULARLY CARE FOR THAT SHIP.
Beware, though. Some say they see the ghost ship in the mists.
I have to say, reading these comments was a learning experience, and I’m not even halfway through.
Ilu Willis.
Willis thinks it’s a game to make us cry. It’s almost as if it’s just a crying game to him.
i c wut u did ther
And I laughed at it. Jack Finch wins an Internet.
oh lord I haven’t even had all my morning coffee yet and Willis drops this in my lap
OH GOD. PLAY WITH MY FEELS WHY DON’T YOU
(but yeah, I really like where this story is going, pls tell us moar)
Well, that just about did it, Willis. You might break the comment record again!
I was kinda half-expecting that after one of yesterday’s comments (I think?) said it might be a possibility, but still, fair play, that was somewhat unexpected.
I didn’t saw that comming, I didn’t understand what was happening until I read the comments and I’m still not sure how to feel about this, because Ethan clearly had in interest in Jocelyn and well. She’s a girl.
That’s conflict on a whole new level…
Even with the alt text I’m so very confused haha.
The person we knew as Joshua before today is actually a (partially-?)closeted trans* woman named Jocelyne.
did you plan this all along, or was it because of Claire from questionable content? good surprise either way
I’m having trouble getting my head around this question, it has to be said. Like including a trans character is some kind of bandwagon, and one started by JJ.
Then you have to wonder, if Willis got the idea from another comic, then that comic must have gotten it from another comic, right? And on and on it goes, until you get to the Original Trans* of Webcomics.
…El Goonish Shive?
EGS is not even remotely trans*, and in fact is a tad insulting to the whole trans* concept in general, since it basically ignores the whole concept of gender identity, and shoves it violently under the rug.
In the words of Quagmire: “…oh god, please just be gay.”
Welp. Two and a half hours to burn through 830+ comments. Thank god it’s Thanksgiving here in Canada. I’m going back to sleep.
Oh, and Bravo, Willis. Excellent twist and I hope we’ll see more of her.
Oh my gosh! It all makes sense now! Joshua is Amazi-Girl!
*Jocelyn
Picture of bulge on the underwear, that she’ll probably always cover because she’s ashamed by it. Oh no.
ooh wow i’m reading all the comics where Jocelyn appears and wow. So that must be what it’s like when someone comes out to you. Things suddenly click into place and everything makes so much more sense!
Every time someone came out to me (or was outed), it was more like “Well, that explains nothing.”
But then I’m incredibly oblivious about people.
well i did have to go back and reread all those strips. But i’ve had my family react like that. My brother was the most obvious. “wow suddenly i understand you. So when you… oh.. and when… oooh”
So it isn’t like that that often? I imagine at least there’s a massive reevaluation of what you know about the person?
When I first read this strip, my reaction was “wait, what?” and to some extent it still kinda is.
My college roommate always gave people that reaction. “What? He’s gay? I never realized… wait… okay, yeah, that all makes sense.”
I wonder what the record for most comments on a Willis comic was, and whether or not we have surpassed that today.
Sadly, no.
It’s still early.
It is now.
I think it’s kinda weird to link to the page we’re on now, but okay. 😛
My only question now is how the hell Jocelyne’s parent’s haven’t read any of her stuff.
Terrible parents right there, not taking an interest in their child’s work.
She obviously puts a lot of effort into staying closeted. I wonder if she writes decoy articles about how traditional family values and Jesus are going to save America from the heathenous liberals to show to her parents when they ask?
She probably doesn’t show them it, or shows them only safe stuff. My parents take a lot of interest in my writing, but I absolutely refuse to show them some of it, just because they don’t like cursing.
I can only imagine the hoops she has to jump through.
I’d be very surprised if *everything* she wrote was about her experience as a trans* woman. I mean, queer issues aside, that’s just boring! 😛
What makes me sad is that we probably won’t see Jocelyne for months or years, if ever again. She seems like such a cool character.
My thoughts exactly.
If you’ll see Ethan always texting, she’ll probably appear sooner than we think.
Willis confirmed on tumblr that she will reappear, since she’s in Joyce’s family and also an interesting character.
Yeah, I figured she would. But when? I can plausibly see it when Joyce goes home for Thanksgiving, but that’s two months of strip time away. So how many years will we have to wait? @_@
That’s what timeskips are for.
It’s parent’s weekend. It has only been one day. She may stick around.
Kudos to Mr. Willis. Much support to Jocelyne. I’m sorry she not attending this college, as I’ll be curious to know what happens to her.
And I can’t help but picture Joyce (while pushing her sibling) thinking “Is that a bra strap under there?”
I think I understood what happend. But then I read the comments and my head starts to spin with all those confusing terms and what if’s and why and feelings and own identifications.
Suddenly me still being a virign seems less of a problem than having to deal with not liking my own gender/feeling like a woman instead of a man while living in a male body.
First error — considering “still being a virgin” to be a problem.
And given the complexities of modern-day interpersonal relationships, maybe staying a virgin is going to be a lot less stressful and problematic than the alternative.
First, I wouldn’t worry about being a “virgin”, whatever the hell that actually means, lol. I mean, what benefit does having had sex actually give you? There’s no change in character or personality other than a placebo of confidence created by an odd social standard, which was in turn created by teenagers to make a social hierarchy, out of an attempt to establish a sense of identity, based around gender roles which are constantly changing, and an artificial feeling of acceptance from a group of peers who are just as awkward and afraid of growing up as you are.
So really, don’t worry about it. 🙂 There’s a time and a place for everyone’s first time, and I guarantee you it’ll be just as bad as anyone else’s first time. 😀 Just be you and the rest will follow.
Secondly, I agree that the complexities of gender/sex/orientation is a bit overwhelming, but here’s a video that’s helped me understand it. 🙂
All the rest of this aside, I think the most impressive thing is that her middlename is “J”. Assuming the rest of them have middle name like that, the Brown must have dug up 8 Biblical male names starting with J and assigned them all.
Which is pretty impressive, honestly considering I didn’t think there was more than like 6, minus the ones that you wouldn’t want to assign.
I’d find it funny if Jordan’s middle name turned out to be “Judas” because they ran out of the good ones.
Jesus also had a brother named Judas. There’s plenty of Judas to go around.
And I think due to the confusion, that Judas is the saint of lost causes because getting people to pray to him was a lost cause.
That very Judas is the patron of the church I go to, though they mostly just call him Jude.
I used to go to a St. Jude church where I lived. 😀 Cool place with an awesome pastor.
They usually call him (and every other Judas except the ones called Judah and for some reason Judas the Maccabee) “Jude” in English, though.
I saw “There’s plenty of Judas to go around,” as being said by the Joe avatar. Now I can’t unsee promiscuous Judas.
I like to think they rotated them around.
So we could have Jordan John Brown and John Jordan Brown. 😛
I AM SO VERY EXCITED AND HAPPY THAT THERE IS A TRANS* CHARACTER IN YOUR COMIC I JUST WISH SHE WAS GOING TO THECOLLEGE SO WE COULD SEE HER MORE
…until I read the alt-text, I was assuming this was “Joshua’s” wife, and wondering why Ethan reacted the way he did.
“oh neat. Joshua’s big secret is that he writes under his wife’s name.”
Well, no, posting under “his” own name on the website they shared; I thought the big secret was going to be something about the wife (perhaps something Ethan had read), which was why the Browns didn’t seem to know about… oh, never mind. I’m stupid.
*reads hover text*
*screams internally*
ho-ly-SHIT!!
Y’mean to tell me that he’s…SHE!? Wow…I’m done for now, thanks.
I guess we got a live one.
I will assume they are happy about it for now, and cannot continue commenting due to an excess of joy.
Yeah, that’s how I read it.
…oh
Haha wow, it just makes this more perfect that the gravitar shuffle gave me an Ethan pic.
Oy, this whole thing has been a huge barrel of confusion and feels on my part. Why can’t we go back to discussing religion and complex philosophy? That’s much simpler.
Man, this ship got the CRAP sunk out of it. Also surprising reveal.
… oh.
Yeah. That’s the other reason why they’d say they weren’t gay.
It’s if they were a she and she’s straight.
I’ve heard of jumping the shark, but have we just jumped ship?
Also how does she get a whole website to herself just for writing.
Am I just hanging around too many webcomic people because I NEVER see that happen.
Maybe it’s a blog.
Buys a domain and pays for virtual hosting. Same as lots of other people.
Yeah, I bought the domain for like eight bucks. Redirect that to a Tumblr account and you’re golden. (Or pay for hosting.)
I’m rereading this now in the morning, to make sure it wasn’t dream. Wow, I really didn’t dream it, Willis really did create a Trans character
Yes, he formed the character from his imagination.
You might even that he’s a…oh, I can’t say it.
Fight it, Thor! I know you can do it!
a writer??
An undercover autonomous robotic organism.
Damn You Thor! for putting that pun in my head.
Your agony is a feast to me.
OH MY GOD
HELL YES
Way too many comments! The system can’t take anymore, it’s going nuclear!
Haha. It still can! MOAR! MOAR!
This has to be the record.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/04-just-hangin-out-with-my-family/moral/ has 1,032, but we’re just 32 away from that right now.
You know, I wondered if this would happen, but I didn’t think that Willis would actually go there. In retrospect, why I didn’t think Willis would go somewhere, I don’t know. 🙂
Not that I think this would happen, but the ship would hardly sink if Ethan also turned out to be trans — and “I guess I must be gay but I don’t feel like that’s right somehow so I’m going to do preposterous things around my sexual identity” is certainly something I did before my transition, so. HEADCANON ACQUIRED.
I am pretty damn sure Ethan is not trans.
Not yet, but a contender.
This should be a response to saltchocolate’s post. Oh well.
Wow, sure are a lot of comments. Maybe that’s been the secret to getting views all along, trans people. We need more trans characters.
I am just very excited for transgender representation in my favourite webcomic
My laptop goes down for one night, and I miss the DoA that hits 1000+ in the comments.
Well dammit, Jocelyne, you’re still cute as all heck.
Ok, Count me confused. Can someone please clarify? (Sorry, but I don’t have time to read through 1000 comments to find answers.)
1. Is Joshua transgendered, currently male but wanting to be female?
2. Or is she already female? If so, how the hell did she pull that off w/o the parents knowing? Seems impossible to me.
3. Why is he/she writing under his sister’s name? Joyce is short for Joycelyn, right?
4. Or is he not transgendered, but wants Ethan to consider his dating status more closely by leading him to Joyce’s website?
5. What will the website show?
Please help!
The tag shall give you the answers.
Not helpful. Just took me to an archive of the strips, all of which I’m already read.
All “Joshua” tags have become “Jocelyne”. This tells me that the character is to be considered female, plumbing fixtures (or lack of them) notwithstanding, which means that #1 and #2 are sort of irrelevant. However, there is one clue; the line about how the character “is still the favorite because they know the least about me”.
3) “Jocelyn” and and “Joyce” would not be appearing as two separate tags if they were the same person.
4) “JocelynJBrown.com” is not Joyce’s website. See the above reasoning; besides, what need would Joyce have for her own website anyway?
5) In theory, it would show Jocelyn’s writings, blogs, bibliography, etc just like any other writer’s website. See neilgaiman.com as an example. But Willis has set it up so that it redirects to the Dumbing of Age homepage.
I might also add that this latest plot twist puts a whole different meaning on the title of the 9/7/13 comic (“Undeclared”).
1. That is more or less correct, but semantics might disagree (some people see themselves as the gender they identify as, regardless of what they biologically are. It can be a hard concept to understand when initially diving in.)
2. She identifies as female. Uses female name and female pronouns, but probably does not try to pass as one, or at least, not in front of her parents.
3. Joyce is not short for Jocelyn.
4. Inaccurate due to what I said above.
5. Probably a lot of stories that her parents would throw a fit about.
Hope that helps!
“Joshua” identifies as female, but hasn’t told anyone in her family, not even Joyce. Her chosen name is “Joycelyn”.
If you’re the sort of person who wants to know what’s under the pants, Joycelyn most likely still has what most people would assume are “boy parts”.
Joyce isn’t short for anything. Joycelyn is it’s own name. You’d have to ask her why she chose it. But since she’s A) Fictional and B) On her way out of the comic, that probably wont happen any time soon.
HTH
Jocelyne, not Joycelyn.
1) Jocelyne is transgender (no -ed). She was assigned male at birth, but identifies (and thus is) female. She presumably has male genetalia.
2) She is female. She likely has not undergone any sort of physical transition.
3) She is writing under her own name, Jocelyne. Joyce is not short for Jocelyne.
4) She is trans* and the link is to her website where she writes under her own name.
5) The website will, presumably, show her writing.
I’ll now make this post the record breaking one 🙂
I do see her as staying in contact with Ethan, because she sees he needs some help and guidance – and he needs to step away from Joyce. Applause, since I thought we might lose the character altogether after parent’s weekend.
Plus we need some more time in the gender studies class, so the kids can work this out.
Sweet Monkey on a stick! 1000+ comments? BTW, is there are prize for the 1000th commenter?
And the record is broken. This calls for a celebration…and since it’s still October 14th in other parts of the world, I would like to propose a virtual toast….for it is my birthday today(or yesterday…in my country in the time of typing) and for breaking the record.
You deserve a greeting from your virtual friends here at DoA. Happy Birthday! 🙂
Thanks Piers. 🙂
hooray! happy birthday! (it’s the 14th here)
Thank you, Layn.
Let’s add more comments so that breaking the record is going to be pretty difficult hence breaking it would be some sort of momentous occasion.
Am I going insane, or is there a super tiny smiley face in the bottom left corner of the site?
Well, ok, it could be both, but I just want to make sure this particular thing isn’t a manifestation of insanity…
No, it’s definitely there. Weird.
it’s there. it’s a tiny little smilie. g.gif. I wonder why it’s there
A random check shows that it’s been there on other days as well. Or, knowing now how devious Willis can be, he just started adding it but went back and added it to all of them to cover his tracks.
So, what you’re saying is that…Willis could be screwing with our minds?
Congratulations. You have just been awarded first prize for “Best Post in the ‘Firm Grasp of the Obvious’ category”.
I thought it was the “No Shit” category? When did they change that?
Frumph puts those at the bottom of the sites he helps build as a trademark, IIRC.
I was going to point out the plot hole of her knowing his phone number, but then I realized she probably just asked Joyce.
The comments… they are OVER ONE THOUSAAAAAAAND! O_O
If we keep it up, we could reach OVER NINE THOUSAND!!!*crushes Scouter in hand*
The number of comments on this strip makes it official. Nazi references have been relegated to second place in terms of stirring up the fandom.
Well, I did not Nazi see that coming. Ok, ok, I’ll can the Nazi puns.
Imagine if there was a strip about a trans Hitler.
Over 1000 comments and the only references to Hitler or Nazis are meta. Holy Internets, I’m sure that’s another record.
Well… the comments exploded for sure.
Also.
Ye!!! Great revelation. Have questions, but will wait for the story to explain them on its own. 😀
😀
I feel like I should have a lot more to say, and stuff, but mostly just 😀
As far as trans characters go, I still like Claire from Questionable Content better. She has the best lame jokes!
My jokes are not lame!
Riiiiiiiiiight
http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2437
Given that I identify as female but my family doesn’t know about it, and that my family is religious in very much the same tradition as Jocelyne’s (if less blatantly awful than the awfulness presented in the previous comment record holding page), I question whether or not there will ever be a fictional character I identify with more strongly than her. So good job Willis. It’s rare enough to see positive depictions trans* characters, and I never imagined I’d see one that’s basically in the exact same situation I am. It means a lot to me, is what I’m saying.
1.089 COMMENTS???????????????
We post a lot when hot button topics come up. Like gender issues, religion, and boobs. Especially boobs.
Nevertheless, I think we got a neat record here. I mean, it hasn’t been 24 hours yet O_o
… no? Seeing as if it would have been 24 hours, we would have a new comic? 😉
…which wouldn’t stop people from posting more comments here? ;3
Holy crap, nearly 1200 posts as of this writing.
I think the people suggesting Joyce knows about this, or would be accepting, or… well, anything with Joyce and not “freaking out in complete denial and suggesting her sister is possessed by the devil” are nearly as delusional as she is.
We’re talking about a young woman who is so far down the rabbit hole she’s openly freaking out at the mere existance of Atheists. A Transgendered sister, someone she can’t just demonize as “other,” wouldn’t be something she could handle. I think it would be good for her development as a person, but at the same time, given how horrible she is I half expect her to just disown Jocelyne outright and continue living in denial.
(As an aside, didn’t Joyce and Jocelyne’s mother give Jocelyne the stink eye earlier on? Do you think her mother knows…?)
The “Xe” pronouns used throughout here are also kinda annoying to me. Jocelyne isn’t a “thirdgender” or “genderqueer” or what have you. She’s a transwoman. That means the proper pronoun is “She.” “Xe” or “Zie” or what have you… eww.
And finally, I totally am shipping Jocelyne and Ethan, even more than before. Jocelyne is obviously very attracted to Ethan, and those who consider their sexualities to be incompatible aren’t considering that you have a gay man who is attempting to force himself into a straight relationship who is obviously attracted to a presumably not-transitioning transwoman. I think they’re kinda made for each other, to be honest.
(Lord, big post, but been chew on this one for 14 hours, heh.)
Man, if you think Joyce would disown Jocelyne for being trans* you clearly haven’t been paying much attention to this arc! Joyce might try to “fix” Jocelyne the way she has Ethan, or she might try as best she can to not let it bother her as she has with Dorothy, but I think it’s worth noting that despite both of them being brain-breakers for her she’s been more than willing to accept them into her life. Disowning Jocelyne is the absolute last thing she would do.
You are totally correct that in this case people should go with “she”, but would you mind not putting genderqueer in quotes and not expressing distaste for the pronouns people choose to use when their language gives them very few gender neutral options? It comes across as subtly belittling.
Not really, it doesn’t? My issue is that people are including these unofficial gender neutral pronouns (to wit: I always thought it was “Zie” not “Xe”, I guess it’s changed again this week) with someone who actually DOES self identify with a gender.
The proper pronoun for a Transwoman is “She.” The proper pronoun for a Transman is “He.” I put Genderqueer in quotes because the last time I tried to use that word, I had some Internet moral crusader type rip me a new one for being transphobic. Yeah, cause that makes sense.
I have to say, I totally did not expect a trans character to show up here. I’m definitely pleased though. I love seeing us represented. I hope it’s handled well, though I’ve yet to be disappointed with David’s writing, and I hope that continues.
I’m also surprised at just how many of my fellow trans people are here in the comments. I’m so unused to seeing large groups of us in one place that isn’t explicitly trans related. XD
I’m more confused now than ever.
BOOO jocelynejbrown.com routes right back to the comic
….or does it?
(Blatant hint: Willis is Jocelyne)
Okay so as a cis scum I don’t fully understand all this terminology here so please bear with me.
But are we supposed to refer to someone who just feels like he’s a woman or vice versa even though s/he doesn’t crossdress nor had any sort of operation done as “trans”? If I feel like I’m actually the opposite of the gender I was born into I can say I’m trans even if I dress and act publicly in a way that people of the gender I was born with usually do?
Also do we autmatically have to refer to him as “her” now? Just because he feels like he’s a woman trapped in a man’s body? I thought first you have to take some steps to earn that or something.
Given that mental sexual dimorphism isn’t actually a thing and that there’s no “acting like a man” or “acting like a woman” except for what society has arbitrarily decided, I’d say that no, you can absolutely be trans* without wearing clothes or preforming actions traditionally associated with masculinity or femininity. And identity isn’t something you have to earn, there’s no hoops to jump through. If you feel like you’re not the gender biology says you are than you’re not and people should respect that.
Actually the trans label is more relevant before transitioning than afterwards.
oh uh Sex = physical, Gender = mental
At this point the only reason i even mention that i’m transsexual is to create awareness, my birth sex has hardly any impact on my life anymore, which means that i’m starting to feel like any cis person. The trans label is starting to not matter anymore. And thus it shouldn’t matter to anyone else
Before transitioning however was the time where my birth sex and my gender were the most at conflict. It hurt so much. THAT is already part of being trans and as such there is no point where i “became” transsexual. I already was at birth because that conflict was there from birth. Discovering that label and finding that it applied to me is what helped me understand what was going on with me.
and well David Willis confirmed that Jocelyn identifies as female, which means she is and always has been a woman. (i honestly have no idea how it is with gender fluid people, but when the author directly states she’s a woman without any addendum, then she’s definitely always been a woman)
There’s at least two schools of thought, depends on your point of view.
a) The Journalistic point of view, which is you always refer to (in third person) a subject by their presented gender UNLESS it’s clear there are mitigating circumstances for the the presented gender, or you just use their preferred name if known. http://www.glaad.org/reference/transgender
b) The subjects point of view, in which you use their preferred pronouns, terms and name.
The difference is that in A, you may be writing about someone (eg from a police report) that may present conflicting data. Police reports usually only refer to the legal status of the individual, even if they present otherwise. In B you may be in direct contact with the individual or have information that is written by the subject themselves (eg a blog or book.)
Most of the labels and terminology you read that go along with trangender and queer topics you should avoid using entirely unless that label is presented by the subject themselves. To do otherwise is being just as disrespectful. You may not agree their terms fit your definition, but if that’s what they want to use, let them.
More to the point, some people intentionally dress or present in ways that are just “safe” for their situation where they may otherwise present differently if the situation was different. That’s the point of this specific comic. Ethan may visit the site and see a completely conflicting presentation than what he saw around Joyce’s parents.
So to answer “Also do we automatically have to refer to him as “her” now?”, the alt-text says “Joyce’s sister is adorable”, so WOG(word of god) says yes.
Aha. I completely missed the alt-text in this comic.
So he’s a woman, it’s just that nature fucked up a little bit when s/he was born. He’s a woman and he always has been, except for his body. But since he identifies himself as female, he’s a woman, therefore he’s trans. Aha okay. No operation or crossdressing needed, it’s enough if you discover that your inner soul belongs to the other gender.
I’m way too fucking cis for this shit.
She.
If someone identifies as a given gender, you treat them as you would any other person of that gender, cis or trans. It’s not that complicated. She says she’s a woman. Basic respect means you treat her as one.
It doesn’t matter what she wears, whether her voice is high or low, whether she’s told her mum and dad, whether she’s told her friends. If someone says, hey, I’m a woman, you respect that. She doesn’t have to prove her femininity to you any more than any other woman should.
You’re not “too fucking cis for this shit.” Being cisgendered doesn’t mean you’re too stupid to handle basic courtesy once it’s been explained to you. Being an asshole might, though. Please don’t call self-identified women “he”.
….Wow. I feel bad for Jocelyne now… having to hide who she really is and act like a dude in front of her parents.
How many of her smiles in this storyline were, ultimately, Stepford Smiles?
Considering that a lot of the time she was smiling because she could tell her sister was happy, it could be less than we might fear.
Over 1100 comments and 7 hours till midnight. Wow!
I’m not sure if you’re trolling or actually doing this.
All posters you see here is David Willis in disguise.
Wonder if it was difficult or time consuming to replace all previous Joshua tags with Jocelyne tags. It’s a potential spoiler for any future new readers.
Ah well.
It’s actually quite easy to change the name. The system grabs the name from one source so if you change the name once it will affect all of the names. You could create a new name for her but then it wouldn’t connect to the other comics where her name is different. Could be a way to get that to work but at the moment I don’t think there is.
So if Jocelyne was telling the truth about not being gay, does that mean she is attracted to guys, and her and Ethan could be an item?
I just don’t understand it.
well, but ethan is gay, but hey, queery folks sometimes wander all over these various labels! maybe!
regardless, I STILL SHIP IT
If Ethan’s attacted to Jocelyne’s masculine form but not Joyce, there’s no way he’s going to like Jocelyne once she’s presenting more feminine. I mean, have you seen the similarities?
On that note, I can’t wait for all the adorable Jocelyne drawings in pretty dresses. For some reason, I see her as dressing a little less sweater-vesty than her little sister, but still demure.
Ah, thank you for putting my thoughts to words! I thought it would be unlikely that Ethan would still be attracted to her after this, but I couldn’t really articulate why.
(also, joc art totes coming up)
Just because a person identifies as female doesn’t mean they like wearing dresses and make up. Jocelyne might be the type of girl who likes to wear boy’s cloths. For comfort!
1188 Comments. Is this some kind of new record here? And also, I am new to Davie’s comics. Were those two in a relationship previously in other comics?
It’s definitely a record! And no, these two didn’t have anything going on in the other comics (Jocelyne has only appeared in DoA).
Oh, hey, rad.
yaaaaaaaaaaaaay this is awesome yaaaaaay!!!!
All day I’ve just been wondering whether Jocelyn would want to still be described as Joyce’s ‘brother’. Because, yes, it’s gendered, but I’ve known at least one person with a trans family member who feels that family relationship terms are more accurately definitive and don’t make them feel any less of a man and/or woman…
For the introduction of a trans* character, this comment section is surprisingly positive.
David, your comment section is full of awesome people.
Hmmm now I just want to stop following Dorothy and see what happens with Joshua… I mean Jocelyne.
Wow, I completely misunderstood what just happened 😛 I originally thought that Joshua was born as a female but became a man. And I was thinking, “wow, for all the grief Joyce’s parents gave her about an Atheist friend, they seem rather accepting of their transgender son.”
I should have known better D:
Dramatic twist: Jocelyne is their birth name, and they are FtM. Joyce and her parents have no problem with this since the bible has nothing against trans* people.
I’d like to agree, but unfortunately there are still a lot of christians who dislike it because apparently it’s “Denying how God created you.” and “Going against God’s plan.” And the Browns could very well be such a group of christians, even though I have no proof in either direction, so it’s pure speculation.
The bible might not say anything on the matter, but that won’t stop some people from quoting something out of it that they consider proof that they are justified in their bigotry, as long as they know what they want to see before they find it.
It’s possible they would be accepting. We could have a drama-filled flashback to their childhood, where their parents eventually learn to accept their child’s identity.
Of course. I myself have a nephew who used to identify himself as a homosexual woman before he realized he had been born in the body of the opposite gender and he’s never had to face any prejudice from us, though some family members (unfortunately) did speak of him by his girl name for a while when speaking of past events before his realization.
I just meant to say that just because the bible doesn’t mention it, that doesn’t mean some fundies won’t find a way to condemn it anyway.
It’s possible that parents like the Browns could be accepting. I’ve certainly heard some stories like that, and it’d make for a nice, if not so terribly dysfunctional, story. However, given that Jocelyne said that she’s the favorites because her parents know nothing about her, can’t be true.
Point. game. Set. Match. Winner Clodia. +1 Internet
MUAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA GO DRAMA
ITT: A whole fuckton of people who can’t wrap their heads around the idea that gender isn’t binary.
First of all, nobody can agree on terminology, which can be a problem when you’re trying to convince people that you’re not just looking for attention. For example, “transwoman”, “trans*woman”, or “trans woman”? Is it “gender identity disorder”, “gender dysphoria”, or “transgender(ism?)”.
FYI, I’m on the side of “fuck the labels, I am who I am, even if I don’t look like it yet”. I’m fine if you use male pronouns for me, since I’m still male to everyone outside of The Internet (and most people on it).
Then there’s the transition process, which seems more than a little ass-backwards. Living as a woman before HRT? I’ve never really been anything other than a t-shirt and jeans person, and I don’t see that changing much (maybe the clothes get a little tighter…but that’s it). If the doc won’t accept that, then I’ll find one who will (heard there’s a good one in Minneapolis, which is close enough for me).
By the way, this is the first time I’ve done the whole “I’m trans” thing with my main username. The gravatar was done this summer by someone who only knew me over IRC, right before I was ready to finally admit it to myself (had been questioning off-and-on for a decade). I wasn’t exactly fooling anyone, was I? Best part is, this is over 1200 comments down, which barely counts as “coming out”.
That reminds me of a joke.
Q: “How many trans* people does it take to change a light bulb?”
A: “One, but they have to spend a year in the dark to be completely sure the light needs changing.”
The Real life test is disgustingly outdated and barbaric, but there are ways around it. Do you know if there are any Informed Consent Clinics around where you live?
“Thank you, thank you. You’re very kind. Actually you’re all kinds.”
An internet if you can reference the movie!
At first, I just thought Jocelyn was a pen name. Then I got really happy when I realized what was going on. I lurv it.
SO MANY COMMENTS
WOW…I actually just had somebody I went to high school with out themselves as a transwoman on Facebook on Friday for National Coming Out Day.
Willis, are you hacking into my Facebook feed?
Sexual identity politics is great, isn’t it? Look at the sheer amount if correspondence, much if it contradictory and most if it unintelligible to anyone outside the loop, based on a very small amount if ambiguous information.
I don’t know about most if this stuff but I don’t believe fir a moment that Josh/Jocelyne has”come out’ to his parents, nor do I believe that they regard him as anything but male. Religious fundamentalists, seeing a baby with a penis can be like that.
You could probably start by referring to a trans woman character by female pronouns, that’s a pretty basic and rudimentary thing in “identity politics” right there
Soooo if he goes post op then hook up with Ethan…
then would Ethen’s mom be happy?
…What?
James is asking if Naomi will be okay with Joc and Ethan seeing each other if the former transitions.
Thing is though, James, she may not actually want to transition. We don’t know.
(also, it’s “she”)
But isn’t Ethan gay? And if Naomi dislikes gay people, she probably dislikes transgender people as well.
Only if she gets grandchildren, presumably.
Man. I remember those awkward college days. So much to deal with for young people. Even more today it seems.
Holy sh…. That is a lot of comments.
is it a record? anybody got a link to an ep that beats this day in terms of comments?
the previous record was http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/04-just-hangin-out-with-my-family/moral/ with 1,032 comments.
I am not sure if Joyce’s brother was being brave or reckless revealing that to Ethan. Here you go Ethan, attached as you are to the family now, here’s something explosive I’m keeping from all of them (inc. my sister, your girlfriend). Sleep well.
I’ve been thinking about that on and off all day. I think she feels sympathy for Ethan and is encouraging him to think about his choices. Jocelyne is closeted because she has to be. Although she doesn’t know much about Ethan, she knows he is closeted for some reason. Also, I think they did build a bit of rapport, and Jocelyne, I imagine, wants someone to know who she is. The last person she’d expect to spill it to her family would be her sister’s gay boyfriend. It almost restores the balance to – she knows something about Ethan that she presumes he doesn’t want anyone else to know, she clearly likes him a bit, so she opens up. Now they’re both vulnerable, and I don’t think either of them will go down the mutually assured destruction route.
I think she’s lonely, and a cute boy hit on her, and she wants to be seen. I think she’s warning him. I think she maybe even regretted sending that link the second after she did it. I wonder when her family asks about her writing and what she does.
Oh man, now I want to give Jocelyne all the hugs.
Maybe a bit of both. It strongly reminds me of times when I’ve revealed to people that I’m bi and genderfluid. You make a snap judgement because you trust that the people you’re telling are emotionally intelligent enough to deal with it and accept you.
Though I personally think Ethan’s relationship choices are, at best, misguided I don’t think he’s the worst person to tell. At the very least he’s well-placed to understand the scale of the problems facing her.
However I’m nervous because Ethan comes across as very selfish and self-absorbed. If that’s accurate, then no-one’s secrets are safe with Ethan :-s
I really, really doubt he’ll say anything. He might be selfish, but he’s not a bad person. And even if he was willing to sell her out, he has nothing to gain from it.
^Makes it sound a little more dramatic than I intended.
I didn’t mean to imply that Ethan is remotely nefarious or consciously ‘bad’. He just strikes me as one of those who might have a tendency towards not taking responsibility for the impact of their actions. But not meaning to hurt anyone isn’t really good enough.
I’m personally sickened that he’s using Joyce as cover in order to remain closeted. It’s inexcusable that he’s taking advantage of Joyce’s weakness for him – especially as he doesn’t even seem to put any effort into making the relationship work. Remaining closeted is fine in itself. But Ethan’s behaviour amounts to emotional abuse.
the comments are OVER ONE THOUSAND!!!1
Was Joyce’s dialog added in after this strip went up? I don’t remember seeing that the other night.
Nothing was altered.
Huh. Must have missed it somehow.
(Officially)
HUH?? WHAT????
Now tomorrow I’ll read thru all your posts here,.. you guys are fairly good at hashing out and debasing the bottom line as far as what is going on on the page. Hopefully I’ll get it w/o too much pain.
The way I look at this whole “what pronouns to use thing is this I use the normal he or she depending on what they identify as and if the person says hey I’d prefer ______ then I’ll use that term
Addendum: Man, but the sun goes down quick round there. In the space of a short argument and simultaneous heart-to-heart, it’s gone from early golden-hour to full-on twilight.
Yep, totally not gay. Jocelyne Is a straight woman.
IDIC
So, if you’re gay (or straight) and attracted to someone, but then find out they identify as another gender, are you suddenly not attracted to them?
I’m bi so my attraction wouldn’t change, so I honestly don’t know the answer.
Speaking as a pansexual person, my thoughts may not mean much, but I think it varies a lot from person to person.
Am I the only one who just thought Joshua must be writing romance/erotica under a feminine pseudonym?
I think there are a lot of jumping to conclusions, yes. Could be a number of things.
There’s a lot of jumping to the correct conclusion.
You’re right, “Jocelyne identifies as female.” could mean ANYTHING. It’s probably a clue that Joshua’s really a time traveler. Or a space lizard. Those would make way more sense.
Well, other than that. I tend to stick with the story “in story” and will happily await reveals via awesome panels as to where things go.
Although I find Jocelyn identfiying as female AND Joshua identifying as a time-traveling space lizard is a very interesting thought.
(aka I loved all these characters and hope heartily they all come back)
No, you are not the only one, until I waded through the comments, that was my thought as well. He writes romance, and so writes as a woman as male writers have a hard time gaining acceptance.
I am going back and re-reading the last few comics, realizing that it’s Joyce’s big sister talking and not her big brother…
Gender and sexuality can be fluid. Or they can not be. There are just so many different options and it all just depends on the person and I love that this community here is so accepting about that.
My biggest fear about trying to be inclusive is accidentally insulting someone because I’m unaware of their situation, so it’s been way informative to read through everyone’s comments.
This should be the 1337:th comment. Will the leetness be preserved for future generations to behold?
I came back to check, and it already wasn’t 🙁
This strip has compelled me to say something that I’ve never admitted to anyone before. Even now, speaking anonymously to a largely-understanding group of people who I’ll probably never meet, I’m scared to actually type it.
I’m trans. I’ve known it since I was about twelve. I remember being in the same situation as Jocelyn; knowing that I didn’t quite fit, but afraid of the consequences if I said anything about it. I agonised about it for years and then… basically wimped out. I convinced myself that it was all just a silly phase I was going through, that I would forget all about it if I just “manned up” and got on with my life.
Exactly how much I regret that decision tends to vary. I don’t think I’ve ever exactly been happy to think of myself as a guy, but at times I can go months or even years being largely apathetic to my own gender before the dysphoria comes back.
I look forward to seeing how Jocelyn’s story turns out, and if she can inspire even one girl to have the courage I lacked, then it’s all worth while.
It’s never too late to change. 🙂 Now that it’s out in the open, why not change the way you live your life now into one you can be proud of? Not to dismiss this change as something that can be done easily; nothing worthwhile is easy. However, I believe it is important to be true to yourself, and to love yourself. I think being able to speak out about your true self is a good first step, and I’m proud that you were able to find the courage to do so.
But please don’t stop. I think that, regardless of what circumstances you may be in right now, you should continue to face yourself and accept who you are, and eventually work up towards letting people in your own life know. There are websites you can go to for support. This is the perfect opportunity for you to keep going. 🙂
I feel a little bit dissapointed because my previous comment (the first one I made here) about how chromosomes identify people as male or female regardless one’s orientation doesn’t seem to have passed through moderation. I’m sorry if anybody found it offensive, it was just my honest point of view, I didn’t want to start an argument, nor I want to start one now. I just wanted to share my opinion.
Of course everybody can choose which gender or sexual orientation fit them the most. I just said that because of all the polemic about how should they be called (MtF, MaaB, etc.), while I think that Biology makes it easier.
Anyway, even if this comment isn’t published either, I will continue reading this comic, because I find it really moving, full of grat characters, well written and drawn. Please, keep up with the good work.
Your name sounds male to me. If I called you a woman, you’re correction of me would probably be more than a correction of grammar. I would have been wrong aoutYOU!
Biology is not a binary. Gender is a social construct. Please do not conflate something humans made up with the varied facts of people’s bodies.
Wow… Thats a lot of labels being brought up. Cant we just call people by their names?
No? I mean, what if I wanted to talk about Creaks, and I said that Creaks posted a message about how Creaks thought everyone should call everyone else by their names. But what Creaks failed to take into account was that pronouns actually make Creaks’ life a lot easier, or at least give Creaks a lot more free time, since Creaks spends a lot less time saying people’s names in favor of single-syllable pronouns. 😉
But actually though, labels are pretty important parts of peoples’ identities. Saying “let’s just all be people” is actually pretty problematic, since it lets people pretend that minorities don’t exist. There’s a good body of evidence to suggest that it is much easier to visualize something if you have language to describe it, which makes having labels a vital part of the quest for queer acceptance. (This is the same reason it’s problematic when white people claim to be “colorblind.”)
+1 internet for you
The labels do carry important information about identity, but atomizing those labels in an attempt to achieve perfect communication of those individual identities seems to me to be self-defeating. Wouldn’t it make more sense to use fairly broad categories for “first contact,” with the understanding that they aren’t intended to be ideal descriptions, and allow the true details to be communicated through actually getting to know a person, rather than trying to convey the individual by trying to fit them into a series of ever-more-specific boxes?
Labels cause problems in Queer communities because one person’s definition is not the same as another. Likewise people who subscribe to one strict definition of that label are quick to scream betrayal should someone want to adopt a different label. Just ask Erika Moen.
Like the easiest way to deal with any gender topic that you don’t have knowledge of yourself is to use the subject’s name, no pronouns. If the subject is present, use whatever pronoun they volunteer.
It’s disrespectful to use the wrong label or pronoun, and will feel intentionally disrespectful.
Not fun story, don’t ask how I got involved in this. I had a conversation that involved two MTF people (in the same game,) one of them wasn’t aware the other was also MTF. This resulted in one of them flipping out at the other because she thought the other girl was intentionally using the wrong pronoun, when it was a typo and obviously wouldn’t do that on purpose. This made one of them quit the game permanently.
At some point you have to draw a line and just accept people for whatever they say they are, even when they don’t fit your definition.
I…. Actually rather enjoy that over usage of my handle :3 …. I dont consider pronouns on the same level as ever increasingly specific acronym labels like mtf. I also dont typically use gender specific pronouns in general on the internet since its pointless to me, I cant identify the difference between thoughts expressed by different genders when talking about a graphics card, or an old cartoon, I refer to people by their user names. I tend to adress people directly, rather than talking about them to others, so I suppose I use ‘you’ a lot more than he/she. Should the need for a pronoun be necessary, I use what I identify with in how they present themselves, if thats incorrect and they correct me, I use what they provide. Him, her, Im not going to call people mtf’s or ftm’s, or any other acronym label. Ill just use their name.
I’ve got to admit, I was expecting the deal to be atheism. Trans caught me entirely off guard.
As a currently transitioning mtf still living in a male role, I’m interested in seeing her make a visual shift. ‘Course, it’s not exactly an expedient process, and seeing as how we’re on Willis Time it may never happen.
Throw in family problems and you’ve got the drama tag all over it.
Willis, I just want to awkwardly express my undying love and affection for you because good god damn first you write my childhood in Joyce and then you give me a trans* character who is trans* but also a lot of other things, even if she’s not out yet.
I just. Yes good. To me that was just the right kind of twist for this sort of reveal, and yeah. I. Yeah. Thank you.
(but even if jocelyn’s not a cute gayboy i still totally ship it…)
Im confused.
So does Josh have a Y chromosome or doesn’t he/she/hir/shi/it/they/them/hirsh?
she does
I know it’s been said a lot of times already, but this comment thread is MASSIVE, and as I’ve seen people have problems with this several times in it, I had a strong urge to type up a PSA to anyone who happens to glance at this comment as you’re typing up your comment:
Jocelyne is a woman. Her physiology, how she dresses and whether she’s out or not do not change this basic fact.
One vital way of showing respect to another human being is to allow them the right to identify themselves. Your opinion isn’t what’s relevant when it comes to someone else’s identity. Respect people’s right to self-identification. She’s fictional, but lots of people here are in her boat, and they’re not.
Jocelyne, we now know, is not really Josh. She is not a “he”. Out of respect for the basic human right to self-identify, please refer to her as “she”.
Okay,…. I think I have it.
The guy identifies himself as a woman who is “straight,.. as in as a woman, he likes guys.
(Why does my head still hurt.)
I’m trying to understand while not offending too many WHY there is a distinction between gender pref same sex and gender identity opposite while preferring same gender physically.
Little help here?
Hopefully you’ll check back and this isn’t too late.
First off, as we know Jocelyne identifies as a woman, you should really be using feminine pronouns. It’s rather offensive to use the wrong ones. And yes, as she isn’t gay, we can assume she’s straight or somewhere on the bisexual line.
Gender identity and sexual orientation are completely unrelated*. A person may lie anywhere along the gender spectrum, and that point will be independent of where they lie along the sexual orientation spectrum. In otherwords, anyone can be into guys, girls, both, neither, or all genders regardless of their gender identity. Similarly, you can identify as a guy, a girl, androgynous, agender, neutrosis, bigender, or anything else along the gender spectrum regardless of who you’d like to bang or date. It’s easier if you don’t think of people, especially people who don’t identify as guys or girls (“non-binary”) as gay. Instead, just thing, person A is into dudes! Person A can be cisgender or transgender, and identify as any gender. Or, person B is a trans man. He can be into guys (gay), girls (straight), or something else or some combination.
*though stress from your gender identity (dysphoria) if you are trans can influence your ability to handle relationships with a certain sex in some cases.
Am I the only one thinking that maybe he just uses a female pseudonym and his parents don’t know what he writes? That maybe we’ve misread the character’s sexuality completely and seen signals that aren’t there? Hell, Ben Franklin did it.
Oh, haha. Very funny, random Gravatar. I see what you did there.
And never mind. Let it be a lesson to ctrl+find the author’s name in the comments to see if he confirms the gender identity angle. ><
Yeesh~ So many comments.
I just can’t get enough of Joyce! She’s just so adorable when she’s trying to fight gravity.
How long were you using jocelyne as a tag? damn it. I never noticed.
He goes back and changes the pre-existing tags in situations like this.
Which kinda ruins the surprise for a first time reader.
Ethan’s mom cannot smile to save her life, I swear.
Week it looks like a lot of Brown women like Ethan!
…
waitthatcameoutwrongoutabortabortabort
wooooooooooooooooooooooooow
while i appreciate the importance of discussing the terminology for self-identities, i really need to say that I just said “oh my god” out loud and started crying. I’m nonbinary and use he/him prounouns, but i’ve been hiding it, and my sexuality from my parents, and this is the first time ive ever seen a character in anything i can identify with so much, so i’m just a big weepy ball of tears right now ;u;
It’s really good that I’m rereading everything, because I had completly forgotten that O_o;
Me too.
Now I’ve been sitting and thinking about whether Ethan is really, actually, gay or bi…
O3O I see what you did there willis… +10
i am so afraid for her
holy shit this comment section
i refuse to read any of the “debates” and i hope for your sake you didn’t either mr. willis
………….Ooooh. Well, that does make sense.
Including the “not actually gay” part. (I can feel them, there. …Though in my case, it was the reverse: turns out I’m a lesbian. Oops.)
is it wrong that i find jocelyn cuter now?
shut up i know thats bad, but “joshua” as a girl is suddenly super cute in my head, jocelyn would be my type because im weird like that, being into transgender people (going in either direction)
DONT JUDGE ME
I understand why you feel awkward/defensive about it, but the trans people I know generally don’t enjoy when people say that being attracted to them is “weird”! They’re just people. Most of us here aren’t gonna judge you for the attraction itself, just your behavior towards the people to whom you’re attracted, so I’d suggest trying to relax a little. 🙂
Hurray! the website does work… oh okay its a redirect to some weird stuff…