re: Elliot Page discussion thread (formerly Ellen Page)
 

I definitely thought the first post with the five she/her drops was a joke, but I'll bite on this one.

This person is saying that despite their biological gender assignment of female, their personal sense of self is that their true gender identity is male. They are a transgender male.

And given that, they are no longer using the decidedly feminine moniker Ellen and are choosing to go by the masculine name Elliot.

Also, Elliot is requesting that, in accordance with his gender identity as a (trans) male, people do not refer to him with feminine pronouns like she and her, but rather that people use either the pronouns he/him or they/their.

So, I guess the point of the matter for you is that you have to decide if you want to insist that Elliot Page is still a female (and there is an argument to be made for that POV) or do you want to go along with what he wants? Elliot Page is a male, and we do not refer to males as she and her.

re: Elliot Page discussion thread (formerly Ellen Page)
 

But... she's NOT a male. That's the part I don't get. Is there somehow something wrong or offensive with being a female in her eyes?

I'm a guy, and she's not a guy. Period. She's biologically/anatomically/genetically a woman. And there is nothing whatsoever wrong with being a woman. There is also nothing whatsoever wrong with being a woman who prefers to live as a man - but she's still not a man. That's just a biological fact.

This seems like an emotion vs logic issue. There is no logic for calling a woman, "He," regardless of what that person wants. Just like I want to be recognized as a 35 year old, six foot tall, 180 pound man - except that I'm none of the first 3 things. I wish I were. Sometimes I feel like I am. But I'm not. Sucks to be me, I suppose.

I honestly want her to be happy, and believe that she should be able to live how she wants, dress how she wants, love how she wants, love WHO she wants. And no one should give her any shit for it. EVER. But she's not a guy. A guy is more than behavior. A guy is more than attitude. A guy is more than feelings. There is a biological, anatomical, genetic component to it that is essential to being a guy.

I really don't get this bending over backwards not to hurt someone's feelings just because they'd rather not be what they are. You can call her, "She," and that should never be considered some kind of insult. There is absolutely nothing wrong or offensive with being a woman (or a man, if the roles are reversed).

The other thing that this reminds me of is when I was a teenager in the 80's and we were far less enlightened. We didn't know how to cope with gay boys, so we made fun of them by calling them girly names. It was an insult (borne out of discomfort, immaturity, and insecurity). I felt bad about that later on (didn't do it but a couple times, but still felt bad about it not long after), and I swore never to do something like that again. Calling a lesbian, "He," just seems to be the same thing to me. It's like mocking the gay kids did back in the day.

I just can't keep up with all this. None of it makes any sense at all to me.

Just because we want to be something doesn't mean that we are.

re: Elliot Page discussion thread (formerly Ellen Page)
 

Like I said in my post, there is definitely an argument to be made for your POV.
And you can obviously proceed as you choose, and odds are it will never be an issue for you in your personal lived reality, despite your SoCal location.

But let me give you some unsolicited advice. If someone tells you what "their pronouns" are, you should just go along, even if you think it is wrong, and save yourself some grief.

re: Elliot Page discussion thread (formerly Ellen Page)
 

Just out of curiousity, if you knew someone who was intersex and BIOLOGICALLY had parts of both male and female genitalia, but this person strongly identified as one gender, would you call them by their preferred pro noun, or would you bring out your rule book and tell them that as per your biology I can’t call you a man I can only refer to you as he-she or it?

re: Elliot Page discussion thread (formerly Ellen Page)
 

I don't know. That is an exceptionally rare occurrence.

But that doesn't apply to Ellen/Elliott Page. At all. She's 100% female. She's not a guy. And I don't understand how people get offended by that. We can't claim to be something we're not. I can't claim to be a college graduate when I've only got 76 units. Sure, when I went to college the schedule was very limited, and I got to a point where I literally couldn't fit classes into my work schedule so I had to drop out or become homeless, but I didn't graduate so I can't claim to be a graduate, even though I worked hard at it and am more knowledgeable than many college graduates.

And I want to make clear - I'm not bashing her in any way. I am glad that she's come out and said that she identifies more as a male in terms of feelings, and that she prefers to dress as a male, etc. I genuinely hope that she is happy and feels a sense of relief and being able to be public about how she feels. But just feeling more comfortable playing a male role doesn't make her a man.

We don't get to choose what we are. I'm not six feet tall. I didn't get to choose my height. I would NEVER have chosen to be 5'7". No freaking way. But I can't change that, and claiming to be six feet tall wouldn't make it so. I feel like it sometimes when I'm around short(er) people, but I'm still not.

I'm not being judgmental against her in any way. I just don't buy into the, "I feel like X, so I am X." Life doesn't work that way. Reality doesn't work that way. She can take on a male role all she wants, and I will say that's great! Good for her. As a woman she shouldn't be limited to having to take on feminine life roles if she doesn't want to. And she should NEVER be criticized for doing so, either! But that still doesn't make her a man.

I really don't get it. It makes zero sense to me.

And I knew I'd get lambasted for saying so. But I don't get the logic of buying into this kind of thing. There is NOTHING offensive or bad about being a woman. So why is it wrong to call a woman a woman? That makes no sense.

re: Elliot Page discussion thread (formerly Ellen Page)
 

I said I did not care and if don't care how can I be upset.

You made it sound like I was a conservative and was offended by the change.

re: Elliot Page discussion thread (formerly Ellen Page)
 

1.7% of the population is born intersex. The number of intersex people on this planet is in the millions. People who are biologically neither 100% male nor 100% female. The reason you think it is exceptionally rare is because in a lot of cases, you may not even know it. Because as a child matures a strong idenification with one gender can present itself, or it can be there all along. My point is, the rigid way you define gender is very short sighted. It is much more complex and less black and white than you make it out to be.

re: Elliot Page discussion thread (formerly Ellen Page)
 

Whip It is on Starz right now, and when I looked at the program info, the star was listed as Elliot Page. That was pretty fast. Normally my provider is a little behind on current events.

re: Elliot Page discussion thread (formerly Ellen Page)
 

I never understood the reasoning "I feel male/female" it's like "I feel American/German/French". I mean, if you say gender male/female is more than the two sexes, you kind have to acknowledge that gender is a sociological concept and if so, does it even matter? That being said, I have enough respect to call Elliot Page a "he" if he wishes so. I won't call someone "they" out of respect for myself.

re: Elliot Page discussion thread (formerly Ellen Page)
 

That wasn't what I was trying to do at all, but you basically said that it didn't bother you becuase you weren't into her. That implies that it would bother you if someone that you were into came out as trans, and the point of my post was that it shouldn't bother you even if you were into her, as it has nothing to do with you and doesn't affect you.

re: Elliot Page discussion thread (formerly Ellen Page)
 

Oh good another Erik thread hijack. :rolleyes:

re: Elliot Page discussion thread (formerly Ellen Page)
 

But what if Elliot Page can prove that he can carry a proton pack? Would he then be able to call himself a man?

re: Elliot Page discussion thread (formerly Ellen Page)
 

You don't have to do anything. You can live your entire life without referring to this actor one way or the other. You're the one who decided to come into this thread and call this person a she.

re: Elliot Page discussion thread (formerly Ellen Page)
 

If he's dismissing the name Ellen Page as being non existent shouldn't that also erase all her film and TV credits???

re: Elliot Page discussion thread (formerly Ellen Page)
 

I understand your position and I wrestle with some of the same things you're expressing, but there is no universe where referring to someone by their preferred name and pronouns can be considered "bending over backwards". It's incredibly simple to do. Since you've acknowledged that you "just don't get it," I would gently recommend that you do a little bit of reading on the psychological nature and impacts of transgender. Even if you can't wrap your head around it, you might gain some compassion trying to put yourself in the shoes of someone for whom a significant element of their fundamental identity has been psychologically incongruous their entire life. I'm still trying to grow in my own understanding of and attitude toward those who are transgender and would encourage you to have the same openness, rather than just digging firmly into a staunch position.

re: Elliot Page discussion thread (formerly Ellen Page)
 

One point of order, if I can call it that... and I'm posting this under kefrank's point of "grow in my own understanding of and attitude toward those who are transgender and would encourage you to have the same openness, rather than just digging firmly into a staunch position"

The point of using the term transgender is that it's about gender, not sex. That differs from those who historically used transsexual. There's a whole debate about those two terms, and some gate-keeping and conflict and honestly it's not worth getting into here.
For many (most?) the distinction between sex and gender isn't clear, and it's been awhile since I dug into the documentation on it, but as I recall, even the DSM distinguishes between the two. Sex being genetic, and gender being identity. So, it's an extremely subtle distinction between male and man or female and woman, for example. For 99% of us? Those two probably line up, and we've grown up thinking of them as interchangeable. But for the scientsits/doctors who specialize in this stuff, as well as the transgender folks themselves, they either don't, or it's not as clear-cut. And this is less about "girls who play with trucks" or "boys who play with dolls" and more about a deeper feeling of dysphoria to varying degrees. And because of this dysphoria, the self-actualization and/or coming-out timeline varies massively. Take the Wachowski's. They both didn't come out well into their adulthood. Did they "decide" they were trans that late in life, or did they choose not to come out about it until they were comfortable (or, in one of their cases, forced to, due to tabloid pressure) to do so? Anyway, it's tough to pinpoint, and their own privacy on the matter takes priority, IMO. They've spoken slightly more candidly about it more recently, but The Matrix is totally a trans story. This bothers the "red pill" folks out there. But they also knew they couldn't make a big budget sci-fi flick with a trans character, so they made it more of an analogy. Though, some have noted that the minor character of Switch was going to be played by a man in one world and a woman in the other, as a more direct reference to their intent, but then plans changed along the way and that was dropped.

The points made by others about intersex are totally valid, too, though I think there's still some nuance that gets overlooked from time to time. It's not quite the same thing, and the variances aren't always as pronounced. The scientists generally seem to agree that many intersex people still fall within the spectrum of the two major sexes. It's less about checking off all the male boxes vs all the female boxes, and more about (for ALL of us) "how many of these boxes are on one side vs the other" and "how should this person live their life accordingly"

Anyway, I didn't want to derail (ha!) this too much, but I thought it was worth pointing out that the terminology, confusing as it is, has some nuances that were worth mentioning here.

re: Elliot Page discussion thread (formerly Ellen Page)
 

I'm really surprised to read all the back and forth in this thread all week and not see one mention of "ze/hirs" as a set of neo-pronouns, they've been around quite a while.

Gender and sex are not the same thing. They get used interchangeably a bit but they're typically categorized as distinct.

We have a rule at home, work, camp, etc.: It's not your name unless you say it is. This isn't hard.

re: Elliot Page discussion thread (formerly Ellen Page)
 

I don't intend to be dismissive of this, and I have nothing to back this up except observational perspective (which is flawed), but my experience is that these neo-pronouns aren't catching on. Some people are still using them, but it seems like there was a spike of this and then a leveling off where they didn't end up gaining traction among the people who would be candidates for these pronouns. Many seem to have defaulted to the classic he/him or she/her or the singular they/them. I get the grammatist opposition to they/them (Abob's post, which I did not quote, actually reminded me of the distinction between referring to unknown gender vs. a known gender in writing, so I appreciate that)... but I think time will show that they/them will more than likely end up being the most common non-binary (which is not equal to trans) pronoun combo. Yes, sites like FB adopted the option to let people choose a huge variety of pronouns, and I don't know their stats, but as I said, I think many of them aren't gaining much traction. That doesn't necessarily make them invalid, just... far less common.

:up: I mean, except for T-bone over here ;)

re: Elliot Page discussion thread (formerly Ellen Page)
 

That’s kind of what this all boils down to. Whether you are following the gender fluid spectrum or believe that there is only male/female, it comes down to what the person in question wants.

To B5Erik’s point, if my name is Gregory and I hate the name and prefer to be called “Greg” it’s somewhat insulting and completely dismissive for you to come up to me and say, “I’m going to continue calling you Gregory because that’s your given birth name, isn’t it, Gregory? If you are more comfortable with other people calling you Greg, that’s great but your actual name is Gregory and that’s what I’m going to continue calling you. Ok, Gregory? I’ll talk to you later, Gregory.”

Gregory is on the birth certificate and Gregory may be my legal name but it’s a dick move to continue calling me Gregory when I’ve specifically stated that I wish to be called Greg.

The problem with the Elliot Page situation is that there are so many SJW’s out there who push their feelings onto the world FOR Page whether he asks for it or even wants it. Do we know that Elliot Page is demanding that his previous acting credits be altered to “Elliot Page” or is it just a knee jerk reaction from people wanting to do the right thing? I don’t know, I haven’t followed this story enough to know all of Elliot’s wishes on the matter. I would assume most people dealing with this type of change in their lives aren’t maniacal about erasing their past and are more concerned with moving forward with their lives the way they wish. Of course, I’m sure it’s a YMMV situation.

Thanks to social media, people are so afraid to upset anyone that they automatically make decisions on that person’s behalf whether that person is ok with it or not.

re: Elliot Page discussion thread (formerly Ellen Page)
 

And I've said nothing about her name. She can choose whatever name she wants, and that's fine.

I'm talking about calling her, "He," and, "Him." She's not a man. And there's nothing wrong with being a woman who is attracted to women, and who prefers to dress and live like a man. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. If it makes her happy, then that's GREAT!

But people are acting like calling her, "She," and noting that she IS a woman (biologically, anatomically, genetically) is somehow an insult. How is being a woman bad? How is being called a woman (when she is a woman) some kind of insult?

That's the part that makes zero sense to me. Women can live however they want, love who they want, dress how they want, and that's great! But they're still women. And, to me, there is nothing wrong or bad about that. So why is it all of a sudden wrong and bad to call them what they are? What's so wrong with being a woman that calling a woman a, "She," suddenly becomes offensive?

That's what I don't get.

I thought we were supposed to accept people for who and what they are. She IS a woman. And I accept her and respect her regardless of who she loves, how she lives, or how she dresses. For decades that's what we were told was the right thing, and I firmly believe it IS the right thing. I just don't understand how the goal posts have been moved, not just a little bit, but to the other side of the field.

re: Elliot Page discussion thread (formerly Ellen Page)
 

We get that you don't get it. That much is clear.

re: Elliot Page discussion thread (formerly Ellen Page)
 

Pure curiosity on my part but I wonder if he will go through procedures such as mastectomy, uterus removal, testosterone treatments...etc.

re: Elliot Page discussion thread (formerly Ellen Page)
 

The transgender thing is relatively new, but this is an old story with regard to race in sports.

Despite changing their names for religious reasons, Muhammad Ali and Kareem Abdul-Jamar were both dogged by white media/people, who insisted on calling them Clay and Alcindor, in what we can now see clearly was just obstinate racism.
Also the white media was reluctant to stop calling Roberto Clemente by the name Bobby. Again, just racism.

So, while Elliot Page may not be upset if someone calls him Ellen out of habit, the media knows that the precedent has been established for them that not changing is a badge of dishonor.

And someone can check me on this, but wasn't there a thing with FRIENDS where Courtney Cox had to fight with the producers to change her name to Cox-Arquette in the opening credits after she got married?

re: Elliot Page discussion thread (formerly Ellen Page)
 

I don't believe so. In fact, it seemed like they fully embraced it. From wikipedia:

re: Elliot Page discussion thread (formerly Ellen Page)
 

Couldn't he have picked a better name than Elliot though? I guess the first 3 letters stay the same. I was thinking that he probably would still sign autographs the same way since a lot of celebrities only use the first few letters anyway. Looking online for her autograph, most of them are just a weird squiggle that doesn't event look letters.