January 23, 2020

"I am in one way 'becoming' a man. But in another way, I have always been one, and I’m trying out all the ways..."

"... to live as one, some good, some bad. One night I was in a Lyft talking to a guy who was a dental technician trying to join the Navy. He told me he was doing it 'for his woman.' 'I think she’s the one,' he said tentatively. 'They only want your money, and I’ve told her I haven’t got any, but I’m making her sign a prenup anyway.' I heard myself say, 'Yeah, man, I feel you — all that bullshit about women’s rights.' He laughed and said, 'Yeah, you know, my man, you know what I’m saying.' I tipped him $10 and gave him five stars for letting me indulge my inner sexist jerk. My friend Lee tells me it’s my job to correct this behavior, and sometimes I do, but sometimes I dive right in, trying to grasp at some false sense of power that I know has been used against me a thousand times in another life. It feels good to blow off steam with another man for just a moment."

From "Becoming a Man/What I learned about masculinity from my father, my father-in-law and my own transition" by P. Carl (NYT).

133 comments:

Kevin said...

The 21st Century isn't turning out like I had hoped, to coin a phrase.

Lucid-Ideas said...

Not. A. Man.

Acting like something does not the thing make.

Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken.

And to top it all off, the "I would usually dive right in [on correcting this person]" comment...as a ftm...to an actual dude about how he's 'doing it wrong'.

These people are really genuinely f*cked in the head.

rehajm said...

‘He’ has a very large...non sequitur.

rcocean said...

Only a woman would become a man in order to "Correct" their sexist language. I'm sure Bruce Jenner didn't become a woman so he could "dish dirt with the girls".

rcocean said...

Thank God for the transgernders. We never would've won WW 2 without them.

Jersey Fled said...

According to likely overstated statistics, 0.6% of the population is transgender, yet it seems every third article in the NYT is about transgender issues.

Why does anyone read that rag anyway?

tim in vermont said...

I have never heard a man talk about “bullshit about women’s rights.” The brief men have against feminism is its selfish focus on women’s privileges. We mostly all recognize that women have the same rights as men, even though many may secretly doubt that most women have the intellectual wherewithal to make full use of them.

wendybar said...

Dressing and acting like a man, when you DNA says otherwise, means you are a Science denier. Right???

Roger Sweeny said...

"I think men are jerks, so now that I'm living as a man, I'll be a jerk."

That's a terrible way to live.

tim in vermont said...

She’s simply not a man. There should be the equivalent of a Turing test. Men conduct it for trans men, and women conduct it for trans women. I have yet to see one of these writers claiming to be a “man” who would pass it. What they are trying to do is redefine masculinity so that they can fit in.

CJinPA said...

That was a very convenient interaction for a woman trying to speak like feminists think men speak.

I simply can't put much stock in first-person accounts that are critical to the writer getting a pay check. The incentive to distort is too great.

Ralph L said...

Last night, we watched a 1998 episode of "Cold Squad" in which the rape/murder victim was a hermaphrodite who lived on both sides of the street. Now that's real pronoun trouble, and it took the detectives most of the show to realize it was one person. Of course, 2 of the perps were successful, upstanding citizens.

Sebastian said...

"My friend Lee tells me it’s my job to correct this behavior, and sometimes I do"

Becoming a man, but still nagging.

RigelDog said...

I'm a woman and as far as I know, always have been, so maybe I'm too far out of the loop on today's guy-talk to know for sure---but do men today really casually chat each other up by offering opinions on "bullshit women's rights?" Really?? And don't you get the feeling that this transman is attracted to the idea of becoming a man because she will finally be a member of the Secret Men's Club and will get to see and exercise the levers of power she's always known somehow were there? Now that's some bullshit!

Shouting Thomas said...

Bullshit discussions about sexual identity are boring as hell, having been relentlessly blabbered for 60 years.

Anybody got anything new to say?

Lucid-Ideas said...

I've always been fascinated by mortuary archeology. Tombs. Mummies. Etc.

The way these people think, some scientist or alien is going to exhume them in 2000 years, see the tell-tale morphology of a women or a dude, and conclude that 'Adam' was a guy just because it was written on the grave-marker.

"Blort, something's not right here...

We know Adam is a male's name but this specimen is quite clearly female. How should we classify? We'll put her down as Specimen #443 - (Adam, confused female)."

traditionalguy said...

Taking her at her word, she was a good husband to her wife but when her mid life crisis hit she wanted to run away from her marriage by trying out living like a twenty something man.

That's all OK. But why spend 80% of the article explaining why a bad father is to blame for her insane life style. She alone has made all her choices.And making all of her male acquaintances into unrepentant gay bashing racists makes the entire tear jerker story read like bad fiction.

jaydub said...

How many legs does a dog have if you call his tail a leg? Four, because calling a tale a leg doesn't make it so.

How many Y chromosomes does a woman have? Zero, and acting like one has a Y doesn't make it so.

CJinPA said...

Bullshit discussions about sexual identity are boring as hell, having been relentlessly blabbered for 60 years. Anybody got anything new to say?

"Wild swimming."

tim maguire said...

So she's sexist against women, but only feels comfortable expressing it as a man?

Or claiming such in the NYT, because I don't believe the interaction actually happened for reasons Aunty Trump covers sufficiently.

Roughcoat said...

Oh for fuck's sake.

Amadeus 48 said...

These are confused people, by definition.

The essence of your identity is the nature and quality of your thoughts. These folks are putting the cart way in front of the horse; they are confusing the important with the unimportant. Identikit personality construction is doomed to failure. If you are unhappy, I doubt gender confusion is the answer to becoming happy.

We live in an age in which quackery has been elevated to wisdom and insight...but it is still quackery.

rightguy said...

A tranny-male recently started working at the convenience store around the corner. Very off-putting to interact with a six foot 'woman' with a deep voice and elaborately painted finger-nails. On the way out, I said "have a good day, sir".

Just some rando on the interwebz said...

Reddit has a good sub for this story; r/thathappened. It is exclusively for made up tripe like this.

gilbar said...

protip:
if you're a LYFT driver, and your fare is a girl that's pretending to me a man;
talk all macho with her, and let her pretend to be a sexist asshole
YOU'LL GET A BIG TIP from the loony

Wince said...

Reminds me of the episode of Get A Life when Chris Elliot tries to join the secret society of "construction workers" remodeling his parent's kitchen.

"I knew now that something drastic had to be done. If I were to truly become one of them, I knew I would first have to look like them and eventually, god willing, smell like them...

The first thing my heroes taught me was an important and essential lesson. How to act crude and obnoxious to the various women who passed through my yard for no apparent reason.
"

Fernandinande said...

I am in one way 'fascinated' by myself. So I’m trying out all the ways to talk about myself, all the fascinating ways to talk about my fascinating self and all the fascinating things I've learned about my fascinating self.

SeanF said...

Aunty Trump: She’s simply not a man. There should be the equivalent of a Turing test. Men conduct it for trans men, and women conduct it for trans women. I have yet to see one of these writers claiming to be a “man” who would pass it. What they are trying to do is redefine masculinity so that they can fit in.

I read - or started to read - an unintentionally funny article a couple years ago. It started out describing a small group of men sitting in a restaurant, talking about one's upcoming wedding to his girlfriend. Specifically, they were all gushing over the picture he showed them of the ring he bought her, as he described the wedding he had always dreamed about having.

Of course, they were all F-to-M transgenders - but I stopped reading when the author said, "But you wouldn't know it unless someone told you."

Unknown said...

Please make it stop....

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

"but do men today really casually chat each other up by offering opinions on "bullshit women's rights?" Really??"

Not in those words but, yes, they do.

Enlightened lad that I am, I realized long ago that people who make negative generalizations about the other sex are actually complaining about their own poor choices.

And I throw that grenade into a roomful of women every chance I get.

MadisonMan said...

My friend Lee tells me it’s my job to correct this behavior
It's exhausting, I'm thinking, to have to correct other people all the time. Sheesh. I did this with my kids when they were growing up. I'm done. People: Behave! But don't expect admonishment from me if you don't.

tim in vermont said...

"I realized long ago that people who make negative generalizations about the other sex are actually complaining about their own poor choices.”

Viz the song “You’re so Vain”

Charlie said...

Lot of references to skin color in this piece. I guess that's normal now?

Charlie said...

The comments from NYT readers are actually more disturbing than the actual piece itself.

CJinPA said...

Wince said...
Reminds me of the episode of Get A Life when Chris Elliot tries to join the secret society of "construction workers" remodeling his parent's kitchen.

--

A "Get A Life" reference? Here? The joy...

"This pipe's got more plastic in it than a showgirl's butt."

"I do so love jokes pertaining to Las Vegas."

RK said...

SNL could resurrect an old Eddie Murphy sketch, but this time some woman dresses as a man and boards a bus containing only men. "No feminist bitches -- break out the bubbly!" Yep, that's how it really is.

gilbar said...

Jersey Fled said...
According to likely overstated statistics, 0.6% of the population is transgender


Can We ALL Agree?
That the PURPOSE of the 99%, that is: The Rest of Us.
That OUR REASON FOR BEING ON THIS PLANET, is to Aid and Assist the 1% that are Transgender?

I mean, didn't We; as a NATION, not too long ago have an entire 'Occupy' movement? That was ALL ABOUT how the 1% are SUPPOSED to be the deciders of right and wrong?
Maybe i'm remembering it wrong? There was some 1% outcry.... i'm pretty sure

Fernandinande said...

Reminds me of the episode of Get A Life when Chris Elliot tries to join the secret society of "construction workers" remodeling his parent's kitchen.

That guy who knocks off the dummy's head isn't a construction worker, he's a mechanic, and he ripped off Clark Griswold in Clark's hour of need and endangered Clark's whole family and he probably caused Aunt Edna's death. I hate him so much!

CStanley said...

I work with a transitioning person (F to M). When she first developed enough facial hair to feel she passed for a man, she went on and on about casual encounters with men and how differently she was being treated. In her anecdotes, supposedly she was being welcomed into the boys club as men were being friendly to her as they never had before.

I’m a 50+ yr old woman who has experienced encounters with men both as an attractive young woman and now as a middle aged, less attractive woman and nothing she said was out of the ordinary in my own interactions with men. I can’t help but feel that this person, and probably others like her, have been conditioned by feminist ideology to reduce social interactions into gender based power trips. In reality, every encounter between two individuals an have some elements of that including potential sexual attraction, infinite degrees of openness to friendship or just neutral exchange of pleasant banter. I think there is something very disordered and virulent about the hyperfocus on power dynamics as the feminist misconception of patriarchy.

JAORE said...

Are trans F>M stunned when they get in a heated argument with a man and get punched in the mouth?

But Y? Y not?

Of course one suspects most of their Y friends are on the "soy please" side of the masculine spectrum, so....

CJinPA said...

In reality, every encounter between two individuals an have some elements of that including potential sexual attraction, infinite degrees of openness to friendship or just neutral exchange of pleasant banter. I think there is something very disordered and virulent about the hyperfocus on power dynamics as the feminist misconception of patriarchy.

Well put. Reducing the infinite factors at play in human interaction to broad group dynamics is the purpose of Identity Politics. Yes, it's destructive.

Lucid-Ideas said...

@CStanley

"Gender based power trips"

Nope. These are just regular power trips. Garden variety. You know, the ones where people work to get you to accept a lie. Those ones.

Todd said...

My friend Lee tells me it’s my job to correct this behavior, and sometimes I do, but sometimes I dive right in, trying to grasp at some false sense of power that I know has been used against me a thousand times in another life.

Yep, all that sweet, sweet male power! Two guys blowing off steam discussing the completely false and no way EVER true premise of women generally wanting to marry men with money.

Whenever men talk like this a female fair DIES in a flash of incandescent heat from all that male power!

On a completely unrelated note, anyone else read the recent articles about how the revived economy is allowing all these newly college graduated women to find better paying jobs but with men still lagging behind some, all these women are having trouble finding men they want to marry cause they don't make enough (i.e. more than the women).

Krumhorn said...

She’s simply not a man. There should be the equivalent of a Turing test

Actually, you’re closer to the point of the exercise than you thought. In his paper, Turing posed the question about testing the intelligence of a machine in the same manner as testing for the sex of the participants in the ‘imitation game’. Turing was brilliant, even if he was a homo. But at least he died with his pecker intact.

It’s all very pervy.

- Krumhorn

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Only women can really understand men.
Deep.

I mean, for horseshit, it's deep.

Anyway here's a classic hilarious SNL skit:

SNL - White Like Me

Iman said...

“ Why does anyone read that rag anyway?”

Question for the Ages...

eric said...

Talk about your mom sequitur.

"All women want is my money!" Complains the dude.

"Yeah, screw women's rights!"

This is apparently how women think. Because she ain't no dude.

AZ Bob said...

The subject of this story expresses satisfaction at having a male bonding experience with a man. The bonding was more important than expressing true feelings. Ironically, the desire to bond emotionally is a feminine trait.

PM said...

No wonder astrology is on the rise. We're in the era of Whatever You Believe Is True.

Krumhorn said...

Mistake: Turing wasn’t posing a question about the intelligence of a machine, but rather devising a test if it could think. Which is interesting since he modeled his proposition on a test that would determine the sex of a participant.

Sorry. I didn’t mean to sock puppet rhhardin there.

- Krumhorn

Iman said...

OT, but has anyone else noticed how Pete Buttigieg laughs like Krusty the Clown?

Kevin said...

My friend Lee tells me it’s my job to correct this behavior

Some believe in the moral requirement to correct the behavior of others.

They're the first to call others "authoritarian".

Xmas said...

I've read this story already...what was the name of that book...

"Self-Made Man" by Norah Vincent. That's the book.

Lucid-Ideas said...

I present for your reading pleasure a firm example of the difference between men and women. The following are real-world examples of actual bathroom stall writing from a male and female restroom as seen at Boston University years ago.

Female Restroom:

I loved this guy who left me and now I'm writing about heartbreak on the bathroom wall. YOLO YMMV

Male Restroom:

In the days of old
When nights were cold
And toilets weren’t invented
We laid our load
In holes in the road
And walked away contented


No woman born could write what was on the Men's wall, and no dude who wasn't gay could think to put that whine in print.

One is filled with anger, jealousy, angst, and nihilism. The other is filled with mirth, creativity, satisfaction and appreciation for modern plumbing facilities and a quality bowel movement.

Such statements would - in a better world - be more public if men didn't think they'd be further nagged for expression such jobs well done.

n.n said...

Trans- state or process. Trans/neo, is she trans/homo? Perhaps sexual orientation is not enough to complete the illusion. Simulating preferred attributes would be contribute to its progress.

tim in vermont said...

I remember a whine men used to write:

Here I sit
Broken hearted
Paid my dime
and only farted.

Bay Area Guy said...

Girls will be boys, and boys will be girls
It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world
Except for Lola. Lo lo lo lo Lola. Lo lo lo lo Lola
Lola, lo lo lo lo Lola, lo lo lo lo Lola


"Lola," The Kinks (1970).

Iman said...

A few months before I retired, one afternoon I watched some online training that consisted of an overview on a new technology in my field that was being conducted in a small auditorium (with approximately forty employees in attendance) in one of the corporate locations. The two instructors would break every 15 minutes or so to field questions. At one point, a question was asked by a fairly unattractive female with a voice that didn’t appear to match the person... a very deep voice. I must admit I found “her” fascinating and very amusing, and I rewound/replayed this segment of the video several times, looking for reactions from people in attendance. I did see a few people who appeared to be struggling to suppress their reactions.

All I’ll add is that it was late in the day and it lent a lighthearted note and capped an otherwise hectic, but productive, day.

Doug said...

Ah, for the good old days when these fruitcakes would just STFU and stay in the closet.

Amy said...

Woke lesbian transitioning in the big city = check
Racist parents and extended family members in the midwest = check
Ooh they're homophobic too = bonus points
And hate Obama = Trifecta!
Heartfelt ending where love (sort of) conquers all = check
These NYT (and similar) articles are so formulaic as to be totally predictable.

Yancey Ward said...

I will take fake stories for $2000, Alex.

Scott M said...

Bullshit discussions about sexual identity are boring as hell, having been relentlessly blabbered for 60 years.

Anybody got anything new to say?


I dunno...I thought the transwoman on Youtube telling us that it's transphobic not to want to date a woman with a penis was new. Maybe that's just me.

Frankly, I've gotten used to each week bringing along another head-sploder like that one.

Freeman Hunt said...

Men barely talk about women when they're together. Fifteen years in a house where men gathered each week to hang out in a basement where there was a vent connected to the master bathroom revealed that. Someone has to get married or divorced for the subject to come up at all.

Howard said...

Your inventing the anger, Lucid. Girl sounds like she's getting on with her life with a little Murphy's law throwed in. Plenty of fish and all. Nothing beats the lucidity of a perfect dump. Francisco D recommended lots of fiber, work's for me.

Lewis Wetzel said...

You can't be a man without having been a boy, any more than you can be a women without having been a girl.
A man would have immediately felt sympathy with the Lyft operator because he would have, throughout his life, heard the stories of men who had had their greater earning power taken advantage of by women, and been expected to have a sympathetic ear.

Lewis Wetzel said...

"Blogger Freeman Hunt said...

Men barely talk about women when they're together."

True. The other day I was chatting with a a guy I've known for forty years. Every year or so we reconnect. He's been married for about twenty-five years to the same woman. The only time he mentioned her was in the context of remodeling his house's bathroom, and we quickly moved on to talking about his plans to buy a new boat.

Krumhorn said...

One is filled with anger, jealousy, angst, and nihilism. The other is filled with mirth, creativity, satisfaction and appreciation for modern plumbing facilities and a quality bowel movement

Excellent post! I laughed raucously...and woke my lovely wife next to me.

- Krumhorn

John henry said...

Women, including this woman, not only laxk the Y chromosone, they also lack the "why" chromosone.

It's been my experience that women in general are more incurious than guys. Not all, certainly, and in a group like this maybe not even most.

But an awful lot of women seem to accept anything the are told. Like this one who has been told she can be /is a "man".

I think the driver had her spotted and was stringing her along with "guy talk". Not actual guy talk but reinforcing her incurious notions of how guys actually talk.

Someone said 0.6 percent of people are trans I call bullshit on that number. I think it is made up. I suspect that we will find it is a fraction of that.

Remember when we were told that 10 percent of men were gay? Remember when we found out that kinsey had just pulled that number out of his ass? Turns out to be about a third of that.

John Henry

California Snow said...

This is a real life version of the SNL sketch where Eddie Murphy becomes white for a day to see how white people live. It was supposed to be comedy. We weren't supposed to take it seriously.

Gospace said...

If you click the subject headline at the top of the post, you go to the top of the post. If you clink on comments, you go to the bottom.

John henry said...

Jennifer Pr1tzker (formerly James Nicholas pr1tzker) earned their billions the old fashioned way, they inherited them.

They seems to be the driving force behind the trans epidemic.

The governor of Illinois is also a pritzker

DavidUW said...

I believe there is a whole meme series of the couple lying in bed and the woman speculating on all the thoughts the man is having about her, while the man is thinking about: motorcycles, oil changes, etc.

So true.

and as for this statement
"I realized long ago that people who make negative generalizations about the other sex are actually complaining about their own poor choices.”

Yep. Which is why I just say, stop dating american women.

Paddy O said...

As seen on Twitter:
"Men only conversations"

What women imagine they are:
"Then I tied her hands behind her back and forced her face-down..."

What they actually are:
"Dude, Yamato had bigger guns & thicker armor, it would obviously beat the Iowa."
"Iowa had superior fire control & damage control!"

HoodlumDoodlum said...

AZ Bob said... Ironically, the desire to bond emotionally is a feminine trait.

I disagree--men and women "bond" with members of their own gender in very different ways, but bonding as such isn't feminine. The way most women talk about and/or understand bonding is feminine, but that's not all there is to bonding.

Most women fundamentally misunderstand the nature of close male friendships. They don't have any experience with, nor concept of, strong male bonds. Men don't get female bonding either, of course, but the big difference, once again is: men don't think they understand women, while women (like this author) are CERTAIN they understand men.

It's why the women-led humanities/literature departments keep insisting that this or that historical figure or character is definitely gay. Close male friends, deep bond, caring about and/or sacrificing for another man? Boom--must be gay! It's an absurd misunderstanding that's all the worse because the women INSIST that their interpretation is correct.

If I, as a man, said I understood what some situation was like "for a woman" (to experience, etc) I'd be disbelieved and probably condemned. How can you know, how can you hope to understand!! But if--and when!--a woman does exactly that she's not only praised but the rest of us have to accept her interpretation, her take on OUR experience, as definitive and superior to our own.

Men and women are the same, you see, and equal, except for those times when women are better. Women have a better understanding of what it's like to be a man than men do.
Equality!

Paddy O said...

Men insult each other too. A real guy would have made fun of the Uber driver, not agreed with him. Everyone laughs. A lot of women really don't get the good-natured ribbing that happens between guys. That's why on social media, a woman posts her pic and all her friends tell her how beautiful she is. A guy posts a pic, and guys will make jokes about the picture.

What men talk about.

Bill Peschel said...

"They seems to be the driving force behind the trans epidemic."

I learned that when my stepson decided to transition, and was able to start treatments immediately.

I mean, no evaluation, no counseling, no discussion. Just "want some drugs? Here you go."

Paid for, so far as I can tell, by the state.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

You see how insensitive and regressive men are? Even a woman pretending to be a man makes horrible, bigoted, sexist comments!

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Gunner said...

The Patriarchy's devious plan is working! My turning lesbians into "transmen", we are stealthily turning their lesbian partners into "straight" women!

Earnest Prole said...

Without imaginary cab drivers the New York Times' op-ed page couldn't even exist.

Lewis Wetzel said...

HoodlumDoodlum wrote:
. . .
It's why the women-led humanities/literature departments keep insisting that this or that historical figure or character is definitely gay.
. . .

And they should know better. The opportunities for male-female bonding, before WWI, were limited to family & marriage. Men were more likely to emotionally bond to other men of similar social class & background than they were to women. Their imaginations contained no space for "female friend." In the middle class, women, including married women, were bound to the home & family. It was the men who had public lives & dealt with "the world." When men turned to relationships outside the family, they naturally built that aspect of their social life around other men, not women.

Rosalyn C. said...

What struck me was the total lack of reporting about the wife's perspective. Zero, zip. That would have been more interesting than hearing about the father's medical condition. Oh well.

Freeman Hunt said...

"Men insult each other too."

I think it makes up half of their conversation.

For years I was included on an email thread with my husband and his friends. There were many jokes at home about the difference between that thread and my threads with my friends.

Then one of the men, the husband of one of my closest friends, started a new thread because he was sending something from a share link. He left me off because he is not an idiot. ("Honey, I added his wife and not you because she's always been on it.") My husband noticed and was going to add me back, but I declined.

Freeman Hunt said...

Hong Kong movies have much better depictions of male friendship than American movies.

Freeman Hunt said...

"It's why the women-led humanities/literature departments keep insisting that this or that historical figure or character is definitely gay. Close male friends, deep bond, caring about and/or sacrificing for another man? Boom--must be gay! It's an absurd misunderstanding that's all the worse because the women INSIST that their interpretation is correct."

Yes! A thousand times this.

Tomcc said...

It seems to me that that publication should change it's name to "Enlightened Times" already.

Seeing Red said...


Blogger Wince said...
Reminds me of the episode of Get A Life when Chris Elliot tries to join the secret society of "construction workers" remodeling his parent's kitchen.

"I knew now that something drastic had to be done. If I were to truly become one of them, I knew I would first have to look like them and eventually, god willing, smell like them...

The first thing my heroes taught me was an important and essential lesson. How to act crude and obnoxious to the various women who passed through my yard for no apparent reason."


Dan Akroyd and Lily Tomlin SNL skit was better.

LA_Bob said...

Kind of amazing that a tiny percentage of people with nothing special to offer collect an outlandish share of attention.

tcrosse said...

For a woman, becoming a man is unbecoming.

effinayright said...

Gospace said...
If you click the subject headline at the top of the post, you go to the top of the post. If you clink on comments, you go to the bottom.

*****************

I thought, "Why, that's so CRAZY, it just might WORK!"

And it did.

Thank you.

effinayright said...

Iman said...
OT, but has anyone else noticed how Pete Buttigieg laughs like Krusty the Clown?
*********

It wouldn't surprise me if he has three nipples as well.

SGT Ted said...

Women simply refuse to acknowledge their own shitty behavior, especially in regards to an entitlement mentality about using men as financial assets.

ALP said...

I am hoping to read about a transsexual that just went for it by choosing the name Tiresias.

Jim Gust said...

The 21st century is really not turning out the way I had hoped it would.

ALP said...

Rigeldog: And don't you get the feeling that this transman is attracted to the idea of becoming a man because she will finally be a member of the Secret Men's Club and will get to see and exercise the levers of power she's always known somehow were there? Now that's some bullshit!
**********
1970-ish era jokes about transitioning from F to M always featured the "I did it to make more money" motivation.

MadTownGuy said...

"I tipped him $10 and gave him five stars for letting me indulge my inner sexist jerk."

Spoken like someone who never came up on the short end of a bad prenup.

WK said...

ALP said: 1970-ish era jokes about transitioning from F to M always featured the "I did it to make more money" motivation.

As I recall, Ralph Monroe (of the Monroe brothers on Green Acres) had to dress as a man in order to get work as a handyman. We have come a long way since that concept was first introduced.

tim in vermont said...

I remember when “Lesbian trapped in a man’s body” was a joke, until Bruce Jenner showed us otherwise.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

"I learned that when my stepson decided to transition, and was able to start treatments immediately.

I mean, no evaluation, no counseling, no discussion. Just "want some drugs? Here you go."

Which is going to be the rationale for some multi-billion dollar class-action lawsuits in, oh, 5 or 10 years. Some smart law firm is already laying the groundwork, I would happily bet.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

"Men barely talk about women when they're together. Fifteen years in a house where men gathered each week to hang out in a basement where there was a vent connected to the master bathroom revealed that. Someone has to get married or divorced for the subject to come up at all."

Well, they don't talk about them with a respectable woman in the house. Some of the conversations I've heard would turn your hair white.

Derve Swanson said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ALP said...

There is a Reddit subreddit called TwoXChromosomes. Female focused discussion for women. From time to time a new M to F will post something along the lines of: "OMG I never knew the kind of attraction women got from men until now!" This is followed by a long list of experiences from being gazed at from across the room, followed, cat called, etc.

Now without seeing a photo it is tough to know *why* a particular M2F gets male attention. It could have been her unusual 6' 7" height in heels, crappy makeup, who knows. Or they could be legitimately attractive. Regardless of the reason they do seem to have nailed the whole "look at me, don't look at me" thing women do. The lust for being the center of attention is hard to miss.

Derve Swanson said...
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gilbar said...

"Men only conversations"
What they actually are:
"Dude, Yamato had bigger guns & thicker armor, it would obviously beat the Iowa."


This is SUCH BULLSHIT! No man (not just No True Man, but NO MAN) EVER had a conversation that included statements like this.

The Yamato had a TOP speed of 27 knots. The Iowa's had a top speed of OVER 32 knots.
That's about SEVEN MPH difference! The Iowa could cruise 30 miles away (out of Gun range), and there would be NOTHING the Yamato could do about it. It couldn't attack, it couldn't run away.

Then; WHENEVER the Iowa wanted to, it could pop in, to within gun range `20 nmiles for each; use its Radar to fire shells, until the Yamato's visually directed rounds Started to close in.
Then book away out of range, and come in again.

Actually; ALL the Iowa would have to do, is stay out of range until dark, then close to 15 miles, and Kill
(and, there would be THREE OTHER Iowa Class ships at it as the same time)

The idea that Any MAN would waste his time on crap like this is as ludicrous as the idea that MEN would spend their time talking about which was better; 428 Cobra jets
or 427 SOHC Cammers.... I mean, some things just are NOT up for discussion

jeremyabrams said...

The only sexist in that conversation was the writer. The other guy responded to his sexism by politely agreeing, which is what one does with a toxic personality.

tim in vermont said...

https://twitter.com/TitaniaMcGrath/status/1220162790226186240

Do yourself a favor and turn on the sound.

tim in vermont said...

"Well, they don't talk about them with a respectable woman in the house. Some of the conversations I've heard would turn your hair white.”

Where, in what context?

Martin said...

The author is one screwed-up individual, writing for other screwed-up individuals.

Bay Area Guy said...

@Aunty Trump

Re Titiana McGrath video

OMFG! It's like a coven of crazy witches!

The sad reality is that 4 or 5 of them probably could be good lookin' if they put on some make-up and nice clothes, and dropped out of this leftist trance.

effinayright said...

Anyone remember Sigmund Freud, and his idea of "neurosis"?

The individual with emotional conflicts and sexual issues got them through trauma, physical abuse, bad parenting, and the like.

Psychotherapy was the means to free themselves from their neuroses, at least to the point where they could live in "garden-variety" unhappiness.

Thousands of magazine articles, and books promoted and analyzed Freud's ideas. Incessantly. All the way into the 1980's.

Today, Freud is utterly forgotten.

Today the formerly FUBAR neurotics are now entitled, claiming that their sexual confusion and unhappiness are caused by the Patriarchy, Capitalism and (especially) Religion.

Freud would have said they need to change themselves.

Today the FUBAR today demand that Society changes itself. For them.

IOW it's Society that's effed up --- not them.

Ain't gonna happen.

Iman said...

And it stoned me to my soul
Stoned me jus' like jelly roll

Just sayin'...

The Vault Dweller said...

This little exert from the article kinda shows that lots of women don't get how men communicate. Society looks down upon weak men. Opening up to a random stranger about the insecurities you feel in your relationship over a 15 minute ride, is a good way to get seen as a weak man. In order to talk about stuff like that it has to be couched in terms of, "Man, women... am I right?" That way it is brought up as a shared burden that all men, all men who are strong enough that is, can understand and withstand.

I also can't understand the idea of correcting the guy. At worst he is letting off some steam. But admonishing the guy for having a sexist view of women over this is the kind of preachy nonsense that caused the Gillette ad kerfuffle. If the rider wanted to correct the person it should have been in a way that was supportive of the driver something like, "Hey man I think what you are doing to improve yourself and earn more money is a good thing. But you can't go into your relationship thinking she only wants you because you are a paycheck. Keeping that mindset would be destructive. Life is full of ups and downs and you need to be able to go to your woman when you are in one of those down times. That is one of those things that good women are for. And based on the other stuff you said about her, she sounds like a good woman. Just like how I know you are a good guy, because you feel the responsibility to improve yourself so you can better take care of her."

Narr said...

whole', Freudism, Marxism, and all sorts of equally bad ideas have long since trickled down to the masses-- lumpen-sophisticates can spout that stuff endlessly, and some get paid for it . . .

FWIW Freudism probably explains Marxism better than the opposite.


Hand me down my walking cane, hand me down my hat.
Hurry now and don't be late, 'cause we ain't got time to chat!

You and me are going out, to catch the latest sound,
Guaranteed to blow your mind so high it won't come down!

Narr
So much rhythm, grace, and debonair for one man?

Paddy O said...

"If the rider wanted to correct the person it should have been in a way that was supportive of the driver something like, "Hey man..."

But if it were a real conversation between friends it'd be more like "Hey man, you're the one driving for Lyft, sounds like she's the one who needs the prenup..."

Jim at said...

but do men today really casually chat each other up by offering opinions on "bullshit women's rights?" Really??

No. In all my years of hanging out with guys doing guy things, the mere thought that we would waste our time discussing women's rights - be they bullshit or not - is ridiculous.

madAsHell said...

Self-Absorbed Theater!!

Mark said...

"I am in one way 'becoming' a man. But in another way, I have always been one, and I’m trying out all the ways..."

You are "in one way" becoming "a man." OK. But in another way -- the true, real and non-fantasy way -- you will never be and can never be a man. Ever.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

Lewis Wetzel said...
"Blogger Freeman Hunt said...

Men barely talk about women when they're together."

That reminded me of an Internet joke that was making the rounds a few years back. A woman is writing in her diary about how cold and distant her husband was at dinnertime, how he didn't even notice her new hair style and didn't talk at all while they were watching TV. They made love later but then he turned away from her and went to sleep. She is anguished and goes on at length about how sure she is that he's having an affair and is going to leave her.

Then there is the entry from the man's diary: "Terrible golf game this afternoon. Damn, I wish I was better at putting. Well, at least I got laid today."

Lucid-Ideas said...

Mad Men

Pining times
With fleeting rhymes
For an era that made sense
With 3 hour lunches
Or open-bar brunches
And sex was much less tense

You could really 'do' you
Without others' abuse
Simple talk about the weather
And Women could gossip
Just not as toxic
While the men would chat together

Sometimes games, seldom dames
Sometimes cars foreign and exotic
Long lost names, career aims
Carefully avoiding the erotic
I yearn for those days
Missing those anecdotes
Days when men could be men
And the women took notes

Automatic_Wing said...

I am filing this under Things That Never Happened. Just like most of "talking to a cabbie" stories in the newspaper.

GingerBeer said...

If she were really a man she'd have sloughed that crap off in an instant.

effinayright said...

Ewww...ick..... the fashion ads in the sidebar are showing pics of that grotesque fat Canadian tranny!

Phil 314 said...

Ruined the word "transition"

Tommy Duncan said...

I remember the naive era of my youth when "becoming a man" was one of your goals when you joined the Boy Scouts.

Some of us actually saw value is attempting to be trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. From where I stand it appears that being "woke" is a much easier and less valuable objective.

wildswan said...

Can you imagine spending even one minute of your life trying to deceive a Lyft driver into thinking you are a jerk?

Rabel said...

If any of that was true then that was a gross invasion of the father's privacy at the end.

Disgusting, really. Fuck this guy/gal.

Anonymous said...

I'm late on this thread so somebody's probably already commented that this piece reads like the SNL bit Eddie Murphy did where he dressed up as a white man and found out it was a whole different world than the one he knew as a black man.

I actually liked the article. It was well written and Carl's pain came through loud and clear. The part I didn't like was when he found all these supposed flaws in his father-in-law after telling us what a wonderful and kind person he was. It made it clear that Carl goes looking for racism everywhere he goes. If you search for it hard enough you are sure enough going t find it.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

I would never talk to my nephew that way, and never did when he was my niece.

Leo said...

My favorite graffiti in the men's room of the old Rathskeller in Boston:

They'll NEVER be giants.

Off topic, but I've been chuckling at it for 30 years.

Bruce Hayden said...

“I'm a woman and as far as I know, always have been, so maybe I'm too far out of the loop on today's guy-talk to know for sure---but do men today really casually chat each other up by offering opinions on "bullshit women's rights?" Really?? And don't you get the feeling that this transman is attracted to the idea of becoming a man because she will finally be a member of the Secret Men's Club and will get to see and exercise the levers of power she's always known somehow were there? Now that's some bullshit!”

No, most guys don’t talk about bullshit women’s rights very UCD, nor, with middle class men, about sex at all. You want to bond over talking about sex, either be a straight heterosexual cis female, a gay guy, or some weird combination of all those. It’s different in high school, when many, if not most guys aren’t getting any. Then, the guys getting laid have something that the others want, so it is advantageous to talk about having sex.

But there is one way that men talking about women, and that is talking about their wives. The default state of older people seems to either be married, or formerly married. That means one universal most men have is a wife. So you can bond over the silly things that the little lady has you doing. But if you are married to her, the comments have to include a bit of fondness for her. You can complain though if she filed for divorce. Guys know that they get screwed in divorces, so stories about getting screwed in divorce are bonding.

Tina Trent said...

Oh those horrible whites, especially the men. Not breaking down in tears in a motel breakfast room over those poor black Starbucks victims on the tv. The friendly old guy who covers up concern for his wife choking with a benign joke - - surely he must beat her. I hope he finds this jerk and sues him for slander.

In another NYT profile this week, Illiana Regan, a sickening hag who was a chef in Chicago, decorated the road to her new rural B&B with a sign reading "Ted Bundy was a Republican," which the NYTimes described in order to claim her neighbors "distrusted her."

This is deeply sick. Illiana Regan uses the bodies of dead women tortured and murdered by Ted Bundy to sneeringly indict people who don't vote like her. The Times turns it into an example of how small-minded her neighbors are. Sick, sick, sick. The drumbeat of these stories is socially powerful, socially sanctioned biological racism that would make a Klansman blush.

mtp said...

^Bruce Hayden has it exactly right. This guy was just saying "Wives, am I right?", as an innocuous way to pass the time, and the "man" who wrote the article interpreted it through female world view. People who transition from female to male don't become men. They become what women think men are. The converse is also true.

Matt said...

P. Carl isn't listening. The Lyft driver is joining the Navy for its benefits - insurance, retirement, etc. He's talking about having a pre-nup so, if his wife divorces him, she can't get her hands on his Navy pension or health insurance.

Maybe P. Carl doesn't get this because she's a woman, but men's jobs with retirement and health insurance are getting more and more rare. You're either one of the lucky few who get a job with benefits in the private sector (not dental technician), you somehow slip through the cracks (maybe no women applied?) and get a government job, or you join the military.