Trans etiquette wise you aren’t correct. If someone transitions you apply current identity to all photos taken beforehand because the person is the same person. In the same way a picture of a pilot taken before they got their pilots licence is still a picture of a pilot your current understanding of a person updates to current and is retroactively applied.
Saying " this is so and so back when they were a woman" is considered rude since people generally look at their pre transition selves as not having a gender that aligns with their birth sex but rather a stage where they and other people around them did not know their current needs. People will generally not check you on it though if they think that your understanding is very basic. Proper nuance would say “Back when they identified as a woman” because then the implication is that the person didn’t nessisarily change, but the general understanding and social category did… but functionally speaking it’s close enough for someone who isn’t up on best practice.
I don’t think I follow that logic. If I was shown a photo of a baby (that eventually grows up to become a pilot) and asked if it was a photo of a pilot, I would say “no, it’s a photo of a baby, babies can’t be pilots”. Sure, it’s a photo of a baby that will become a pilot, but at that point, it’s just a baby, even though they are the same person.
“Back when they identified as a woman” is the same thing as “back when they were a woman”, because being a woman is merely an act of identifying as one, consciously or otherwise. There’s no universal truth for “being a woman”, gender is a human construct and therefore subjective, which means identifying as a woman is being a woman and vice-versa.
I mean you can get it or not it’s not a debate. Trans etiquette is something that a concensus of trans people request of other people and we set the standards based on how gender makes us feel, not how cis or even isolated trans individuals understand gender. This isn’t an exercise of strict logic. This is dealing with a culture of people dealing with a problem you don’t have and telling you where their pain points are. You don’t have to listen just like you don’t have to obey another culture’s etiquette when you are abroad… but expect to be treated as out to lunch or annoying to deal with. If I took you to meet other people in my community and you did that to one of their past photos I would be embarrassed on your behalf. If you did that to me I would probably not bring it up but internally wince because unless you were a friend I would treat you as a temporary inconvenience.
When someone says “I used to be a woman” my reaction is largely that is just incorrect. I never was a woman there was simply a stage of my life where I was afraid to be a man or unaware that other options were possible. In short - I was coerced. Other people identified me as a woman based on the sex characteristics I had and I identified as a woman because I did so out of fear of social reprisal or because I was kept in ignorance by dint of a society refusing to treat that knowledge as something I was allowed to have. Saying I “was a woman” would imply that I chose to do so freely, which I did not. Quite frankly when they look at a picture of me and read my past self as a woman it’s a reminder that to a lot of people that presentation and body type is all that they need to misgender me in a round about way. They are referring to a time when I was a prisoner to a system and identifying based on what they think I should be coded, not how I code myself. You think it’s fine to say I changed from woman to man because of social category and that it’s a construct - but to be honest that’s a pretty cis take. I react negatively to my SEX characteristics and use gender performance to stop people from bringing up my assumed sex characteristics into conversation. Language is a mirror through which we catch glimpses of ourselves. The mirror does me damage, I don’t linger in front of physical ones and I ask people not to use linguistic ones. When you call me “she” even in past tense you are referring to aspects of my body that I do not have the capacity to feel neutrally about.
I know a fair number of other trans folks who wish to expunge every pretransition photo from existence in part because they invite people to comment on this sort of temporal understanding of gender. If we could have you forget we were ever our birth sex we would. Instead most compromise by asking for a retroactive update.
Frankly, I don’t understand most of what you said, I must be lacking some context. But I do want to clarify one point, which will help me understand a lot of things better. You said:
Saying I “was a woman” would imply that I chose to do so freely, which I did not.
How does one actually identify if they are a “man” or a “woman”? What list of criteria makes one of a certain gender?
In the same way a picture of a pilot taken before they got their pilots licence is still a picture of a pilot
Except you don’t do that unless you’re talking about the person in the present context and comparing to the old one. Getting a pilots license or some other certification doesn’t make you always have had been that. A picture of a three year old playing with blocks is not a picture of a pilot, even if twenty years later they would get a pilot’s license. But it might be a picture of Bob, who later on would become a pilot.
trans people are trans from birth. he was always trans, he just didn’t know it at that point. transitioning does not retroactively change reality, reality was always like that we just didn’t know. I think they handled his transition amazingly in the show, but your take is bad.
The photo is of a woman because at the time of taking it the character (and the actor) was a woman. Transition shouldn’t retroactively change reality.
Trans etiquette wise you aren’t correct. If someone transitions you apply current identity to all photos taken beforehand because the person is the same person. In the same way a picture of a pilot taken before they got their pilots licence is still a picture of a pilot your current understanding of a person updates to current and is retroactively applied.
Saying " this is so and so back when they were a woman" is considered rude since people generally look at their pre transition selves as not having a gender that aligns with their birth sex but rather a stage where they and other people around them did not know their current needs. People will generally not check you on it though if they think that your understanding is very basic. Proper nuance would say “Back when they identified as a woman” because then the implication is that the person didn’t nessisarily change, but the general understanding and social category did… but functionally speaking it’s close enough for someone who isn’t up on best practice.
I don’t think I follow that logic. If I was shown a photo of a baby (that eventually grows up to become a pilot) and asked if it was a photo of a pilot, I would say “no, it’s a photo of a baby, babies can’t be pilots”. Sure, it’s a photo of a baby that will become a pilot, but at that point, it’s just a baby, even though they are the same person.
“Back when they identified as a woman” is the same thing as “back when they were a woman”, because being a woman is merely an act of identifying as one, consciously or otherwise. There’s no universal truth for “being a woman”, gender is a human construct and therefore subjective, which means identifying as a woman is being a woman and vice-versa.
I mean you can get it or not it’s not a debate. Trans etiquette is something that a concensus of trans people request of other people and we set the standards based on how gender makes us feel, not how cis or even isolated trans individuals understand gender. This isn’t an exercise of strict logic. This is dealing with a culture of people dealing with a problem you don’t have and telling you where their pain points are. You don’t have to listen just like you don’t have to obey another culture’s etiquette when you are abroad… but expect to be treated as out to lunch or annoying to deal with. If I took you to meet other people in my community and you did that to one of their past photos I would be embarrassed on your behalf. If you did that to me I would probably not bring it up but internally wince because unless you were a friend I would treat you as a temporary inconvenience.
When someone says “I used to be a woman” my reaction is largely that is just incorrect. I never was a woman there was simply a stage of my life where I was afraid to be a man or unaware that other options were possible. In short - I was coerced. Other people identified me as a woman based on the sex characteristics I had and I identified as a woman because I did so out of fear of social reprisal or because I was kept in ignorance by dint of a society refusing to treat that knowledge as something I was allowed to have. Saying I “was a woman” would imply that I chose to do so freely, which I did not. Quite frankly when they look at a picture of me and read my past self as a woman it’s a reminder that to a lot of people that presentation and body type is all that they need to misgender me in a round about way. They are referring to a time when I was a prisoner to a system and identifying based on what they think I should be coded, not how I code myself. You think it’s fine to say I changed from woman to man because of social category and that it’s a construct - but to be honest that’s a pretty cis take. I react negatively to my SEX characteristics and use gender performance to stop people from bringing up my assumed sex characteristics into conversation. Language is a mirror through which we catch glimpses of ourselves. The mirror does me damage, I don’t linger in front of physical ones and I ask people not to use linguistic ones. When you call me “she” even in past tense you are referring to aspects of my body that I do not have the capacity to feel neutrally about.
I know a fair number of other trans folks who wish to expunge every pretransition photo from existence in part because they invite people to comment on this sort of temporal understanding of gender. If we could have you forget we were ever our birth sex we would. Instead most compromise by asking for a retroactive update.
Frankly, I don’t understand most of what you said, I must be lacking some context. But I do want to clarify one point, which will help me understand a lot of things better. You said:
How does one actually identify if they are a “man” or a “woman”? What list of criteria makes one of a certain gender?
Except you don’t do that unless you’re talking about the person in the present context and comparing to the old one. Getting a pilots license or some other certification doesn’t make you always have had been that. A picture of a three year old playing with blocks is not a picture of a pilot, even if twenty years later they would get a pilot’s license. But it might be a picture of Bob, who later on would become a pilot.
Except they were never a woman, they just weren’t out
trans people are trans from birth. he was always trans, he just didn’t know it at that point. transitioning does not retroactively change reality, reality was always like that we just didn’t know. I think they handled his transition amazingly in the show, but your take is bad.
I think this depends how you perceive your pre-transition self. That advice is a good default though.
Personally I find myself switching between both perceptions of my past self, which is even more fucky since I’m closeted.
Gender is a fuck.
Identified* as a woman
That’s what being a woman means, no?
Sure, but I think the clarity is important, especially when others see dishonesty without it