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I don't want to make only one post on my blog over the course of an entire year, so here it is: My second blog post of 2014!

Today I'll be discussing something completely unrelated to the rest of my blog, but I feel like it's kind of an important issue. This post is about sexuality, specifically about my thoughts regarding things relating to transgenderism.

Why am I writing about this and posting it here? Because I just started a discussion (not an argument) with someone on the matter, and their biggest point is that it all comes down to a matter of perspective. At that point, I realized, "I have a blog titled Decent Perspective that I made with the original intention of sharing my perspectives and opinions in the hopes that they are overall decent." So here we go.


So let me clear the air by stating my background on the subject. I am a white male who identifies as straight-asexual. I have one friend who currently identifies as transgender, and I knew two folks who identified as transgendered, but one was kind of eccentric and eventually communications between us stopped, and the other was kind of crazy and has popped up every now and then online trying to use people we both know to harass me for something I did. It's a long story, it's entirely unrelated to the rest of this post, and I ultimately don't know how I wronged them.

The point is, I am a person that this issue does not directly affect, but I do have experience with the issue and the people it does affect. Also, Tumblr is a place I visit occasionally and hear about on a regular basis, so that's a factor.

Quick disclaimer: I'm going to be mostly using the "Man identifies as female" scenario so that I don't double the length of this post by including the "vice versa" scenario for every single example.

It is my observation that your decisions regarding lifestyle, personality, and self-view are the key factors when determining your sexuality. I have also noticed that people seem to gravitate towards identifying themselves as something. They need a label that they can stick with. I plead a little bit guilty to this as well, since I am not strictly asexual, but that's what I most often tell people when asked about my sexuality. Why? Because it can be summarized relatively easy, is close-enough to how I actually feel, and because it gives me more confidence to say "asexual" than "straight-asexual-ish." The issue I have with the transgender community is that it feels like a bit of a trick for people who aren't entirely aware of themselves. People, especially teenagers, can become very easily confused when learning about something new or if they start asking broad questions about who they are. "Do I like girls? Do I like guys? Do I wish I could wear female clothes? Do I want breasts and/or a vagina?" etc. These questions rarely have straight answers, because the answers are based on feelings, and those are never straight-forward. As a result, people may end up searching for answers. When they find out about how large the transgender community is online, they may start thinking that they should start identifying as such, despite not necessarily being what I consider "transgender." If you are male and like men, you are a homosexual, if you like girls, you are heterosexual, if you like wearing female clothes, you are a crossdresser. If you like doing "girly" things, you are a man doing what our culture deems to be "girly" things, but none of that means you are identified as the opposite gender.
If that's the case, then according to my definition of "transgender," how does one identify as transgender? Simple. You are transgender if you truly want to be the opposite gender for more reasons than wanting to act like the opposite gender. If you feel like you are incomplete without breasts or other female organs. This goes along the train of thought that if you want to just be a better version of yourself. Not necessarily to impress anybody, but just because you want to be able to like you. Here's a video regarding this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijG6Tc431hQ
The other reason I see for desiring to be female is for sexual reasons. You genuinely want to experience sex as the opposite gender.
The concept that rubs me the wrong way is the acronym, "DMAB" (Designated Male At Birth). This makes the whole thing sound like the doctor deemed you to live your life as a male as part of some conspiracy to prevent you from living your life the way you want. That's not the case. You were "designated male" because you had a penis, and you are free to live your life any way you want as a male, even if that includes doing "girly" things. You are only transgender when one or more of things you want to do require you to be a female.

That's about all of my opinion on the matter. Just keep in mind that some person on the internet just stated their opinion in a detailed manner. I took my time, I've taken what I've learned from past conversations regarding the topic, and I've applied them to my view of the matter. Also remember that if you find my words to be incredibly offensive or demeaning in some way, you can either correct me, question me, or move on. Two of which may allow me to correct myself, clarify myself, or cause some other kind of change in which ideas are shared and mixed. Another belief of mine is that anyone is free to do anything so long as it does not harm or interfere with another person, and this belief is backed up by the Bill of Rights as the freedom for the pursuit of happiness. So despite any of my opinions, I will not be trying to undermine the transgender community or anything ridiculous like that. Besides, there needs to be a community for people to organize and communicate so that they can keep each other going and form friendships.

That's all for now :3