fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2586 ]

[ SECRET POST #2586 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2586 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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04. http://i.imgur.com/e147T3b.jpg
[linked for porny, RL people]

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05. http://i.imgur.com/Dfsphg7.jpg
[Sherilyn Fenn, Twin Peaks; also linked for sort of porny (at OP's request), RL person]

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[ ----- SPOILERY SECRETS AHEAD ----- ]

08. [SPOILERS for Sherlock]

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09. [SPOILERS for Sherlock]

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10. [SPOILERS for Sherlock]

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[ ----- TRIGGERY SECRETS AHEAD ----- ]

11. [WARNING for eating disorders]

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12. [WARNING for eating disorders]

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13. [WARNING for underage]

[Final Fantasy XII]

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14. [WARNING for sexual abuse]

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15. [WARNING for racism]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 000 secrets from Secret Submission Post #369.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Combination of hypothetical situation and something that actually happened, presented entirely as something that happened for the sake of simplicity:

I'm in college, and that means inevitably I have friends who are late to class, lie to a teacher about why, then tell everyone else the lie. In this instance, I had a friend (henceforth: Bob) who (according to what he told us) came to class late, and started going on about how his ride got them lost, starting out with jokes about how "she" kept missing turns and then shutting off her GPS in frustration, only to slip up and then say "he" refused to listen to any other GPS and insisted on finding his own way around.

The teacher caught onto the slip-up, to which Bob immediately facepalmed/forehead-palmed (there was a demonstration here, rather than a description) and quickly said that it was a she who recently started transition and so he slipped up and still called her a he. (According to him, he never actually said "transgendered" or "transsexual", figuring that not specifying would lend credence to the lie). The teacher bought it (or at least accepted the lie as good enough to pretend to buy it). This teacher is apparently one of the much older ones bordering on retirement age.

When Bob later told our social group about this later on, everyone found it funny and a good lie, including the two actual trans people there. And hey, it was a good lie! Or at the very least his telling of it was good, which is the same difference in this kind of context. The conversation slipped into funniest or cleverest lies we've told professors to get out of a bind, and it seemed to end there.

I later told a friend about this (cis-bi), thinking of it as a funny instance/manifestation of trans-awareness, that a student can make the vaguest reference and still be understood by such an old professor. No, it's not a change in the world or some excuse to stop the presses or anything, but hey, it's a funny story, right?

Wrong. She immediately said it sounded like it was appropriating trans issues unduly and that a cis person had no right to do that. She seemed upset that he would make light of the pronoun mix-up so many trans-people contend with on such a serious level in daily life, and said it shouldn't be used as a joke (or a convenient excuse/lie).

I was confused. Mostly because those actual trans people were on Tumblr and this cis person wasn't.

Cis-Bi later brought this up with one of the two trans people, and it devolved into a very broad debate about the nature of awareness, gravitas vs humor, etc. I won't get into the details here. But I did think to see what you people here thought of the matter. So!

Bob's lie - would you consider it just a funny/clever way out of a bind, a funny manifestation of how widespread trans awareness is, or appropriation of trans struggles?

Honestly?

I'm not trans, and I don't really know enough about trans issues to really weigh in on it. It seemed innocuous enough to me, I guess, but someone else might feel differently.

This Cis-Bi person sounds like a twit.

Mostly my take away is that this Bob is immature and needs to grow up. Nothing to do with the trans* topic just that being late and making up exaggerated huge stories/lies to cover your lateness is a pretty dumb kid thing to do.

And believe me, professors know when you're lying. They're not dumb or unobservant.

Bullshit. Humor, casualness, and lightheartedness (that doesn't use "har har trans people are such ridiculous freaks of nature" as he punchline) is one of the best ways of normalizing issues like these.

You know how it's possible to make an idea true by repeatedly acting like it's true? Yeah. Persistently treating trans issues like they're perfectly natural is one of the things that will eventually make it perfectly natural.

(Of course, this doesn't apply to handwaving away discussions of actual acts of cissexism.)

OP, here, and that was my thought on the manner. I thought it was a good, if funny, example of how normalized trans awareness is, and was rather surprised that anyone would have a problem with it.

I think it could be dangerous on the grounds that when people make pronoun mistakes about real trans people, they can accidentally out someone who doesn't want it to be public knowledge that they're trans. Since Bob's friend isn't real she hypothetically could have given him permission to tell people, but explaining "my friend is trans" is something you really shouldn't do when you make a pronoun slip about a real person, unless they have explicitly given you permission.

explaining "my friend is trans" is something you really shouldn't do when you make a pronoun slip about a real person, unless they have explicitly given you permission.

But if you're not using their name, and the person you're talking to doesn't know who you're talking ABOUT, what's the issue? "My friend" doesn't exactly give anything away, unless you only have one friend or something.

Re: Thoughts on this matter?

(Anonymous) - 2014-02-01 05:03 (UTC) - Expand

I'm not trans, but I would consider it neither funny nor appropriating. It's just a lie told to get out of trouble. Clever, maybe.

I don't see how it's appropriating, actually. It's fairly extraneous information to the lie. I mean, if you said, "My friend, Patrick Wong, got lost driving me," then mentioned that Patrick's black (oops, I mean he's half-black; his father is Chinese), I don't think that's appropriating those who are black/Chinese/interracial. It could be dropped entirely without changing the lie one bit.

Does bi-cis think that we can't mention trans people at all, lest we might appropriate? Because I would think representing a (albeit fictitious) trans person as normal would be a good thing.

Unless trans people struggle with GPS's constantly, what the fuck is there to appropriate? Transitioning is a thing that happens, it's not something only trans people can mention in passing.

OP, here, and just about everyone who has grown up driving in this city either refuses to use the GPS or struggles with them. Hell, even people who've been driving here a few years eventually just go "SCREW THIS" and just get a list of directions from Google Maps rather than try and use a live GPS function. :P

What the fuck is this story? What kind of school do you go to where a professor gives a single shit if you're late for class, or even spends the time to get an explanation (and wastes valuable class time) instead of just taking a student number and having the person explain themselves after class?

I mean, I'm a trans person, and this just sounds like a load of bullshit. Also, if I didn't know "Bob" I probably would have verbally fucked him in the ass for being enough of a shitlord to come late to class and waste everyone's time and lie about it. I don't give a fuck about his idiot excuses.

Professors give a shit because it's disruptive and rude.

Re: Thoughts on this matter?

crunchysunrises - 2014-02-01 04:43 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Thoughts on this matter?

(Anonymous) - 2014-02-01 05:17 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Thoughts on this matter?

crunchysunrises - 2014-02-01 14:08 (UTC) - Expand

OP, here. I did mention at the beginning this was actually a series of events and a bit of hypothetical, that I'd boiled down to a single cohesive event for the sake of simplicity. Trying to explain the whole thing as it actually happened would have taken three comments and made the situation much harder to understand/not made it any clearer.

And...what kind of school do you go to where professors don't care that you're late? o.O

Re: Thoughts on this matter?

(Anonymous) - 2014-02-01 05:37 (UTC) - Expand

Well, as a prof, if you teach at a university that has an attendance policy (which many do), attendance affects enrollment in the class and the grade earned in the class. In addition, when students are tardy, it's extremely disruptive. I actually have a "no tardy only absences" policy because without it, I get a string of students coming into class for the first thirty minutes, some of whom make a huge production of doing so. I do not engage students during class time about their tardiness or their absences, but I do give many shits (a whole diarrhea bowl full) if my students are absent or tardy. Another reason I give a shit about absences is that I want to help students who are absent for legitimate reasons stay current in the class and not get behind on their assignments.

Re: Thoughts on this matter?

(Anonymous) - 2014-02-01 12:11 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Thoughts on this matter?

lunabee34 - 2014-02-01 16:05 (UTC) - Expand

Mostly I think it's a stupid waste of the class's time. An apology and an admission that there's no excuse for his lateness would have been better. And usually, the more elaborate a lie is, the more obvious it is.

Maybe I'm missing something, but which part didn't actually happen and why exactly are you pretending like it did?

Pretty much all of it happened, just not as cohesively as presented. Explaining the full story would not have added anything to the central premise/question and would have taken three comments to say it. I just simplified the whole situation to keep it concise for the post here.

95% of the time, I want cis people who go on about what is or isn't offensive to trans people to shut up. This is one of those cases.

Also, 'Bob' seems full of himself. It was a mildly clever lie, but nowhere near as funny as he appears to think.

Re: Thoughts on this matter?

(Anonymous) - 2014-02-01 04:05 (UTC) - Expand

It's just a stupid lie in the first place. Don't make up elaborate lies. What's so hard about saying "sorry, I was running late today"?

As a trans person I find the trans aspect a little :/ but not, like, really offensive or anything. More I just can't stand people who tell pointless lies, tbh.

Re: Thoughts on this matter?

(Anonymous) - 2014-02-01 04:16 (UTC) - Expand

I am supremely unsurprised that she's cis.

As a professor, I would be willing to believe that the teacher was rolling his or her eyes mightily and just didn't want to deal with trying to prove whether the student was lying or not. We generally know when students are making up bullshit. It just depends on how much of our personal time we're willing to give up to prove it and how much we're willing to put ourselves on the line professionally (it can be very dangerous professionally to make waves or accuse students of anything).

Re: Thoughts on this matter?

(Anonymous) - 2014-02-01 05:19 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Thoughts on this matter?

lunabee34 - 2014-02-01 05:21 (UTC) - Expand

My take is that his lie wasn't making fun of trans people, and didn't provide enough information to out anyone, real or imagined; he didn't give any more information than one might by saying, "I have a friend who is trans." I am certainly in no position to be an authority on what trans people should find offensive, but it's not the sort of thing that would prompt me to leap into white-knight mode.

The thing the guy in your story really did wrong was over-explain his lie. The more unnecessary detail you give, the more likely the listener is to realize you're lying. "My ride got lost" would have been completely sufficient.