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Old Aug 28, 2013, 01:19 PM
Inedible Inedible is offline
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Member Since: Jun 2011
Posts: 837
Quote:
Originally Posted by Teen Idle View Post
ALL of these questions are EXTREMELY triggering. I can not speak for others, but I have been sexually assaulted multiple times by people trying to figure out if I am a "boy" or "girl". And they all got away with it. Being asked these questions are an EXTREME invasion of privacy.
Do you mean that they eventually reached into your clothing to attempt to determine for themselves which set of organs you possess? And that is why it is triggering when someone starts in this direction by asking you?

Anyway, what it amounts to is this. I am in a casual social setting with someone I don't know. Most of the time we aren't going to talk even. In my mind my first impression is based on the approximate age, sex, and race of this person physically. Then I will add on additional information based on the way they are dressed, jewelry, tattoos, and accessories. All of this normally happens instantly. Most of the time everything fits into place immediately. There are no unanswered questions, so it does not occur to me to ask. All this just gets filed away. A person's sex is one of the most basic characteristics and if there are lingering questions, then it doesn't just get dropped. It is necessary to make a conscious decision about how to interact with this person. The easiest thing to do is to just ask, and when the answer is given, to go with it. For most people, either a person's sex is male or female and if that fails, the person is reduced to being an object. An "It". And I'm not saying that's right. Most people don't think it is right to look at a person as an "It" so they just want to know, is this person's sex male or female, so they can figure out how to interact and put it behind them. It isn't personal.

For the most part, it is considered politically correct to interact with people the same way, regardless of sex. The exceptions are bathrooms, locker rooms, and bedrooms. The ideal is to see differences and overlook them. It sounds like you are going in the opposite direction with this. You want us to be more aware of these differences and to put a greater emphasis on these differences. Or am I mistaken?
Thanks for this!
hamster-bamster