Why it's Offensive / Is it Offensive

[Nat]

I have a question I feel is probably a stupid question I should already know the answer to regarding how and why something is perceived as offensive.

Anyway, rather than start a thread regarding just my question, I thought this might be a good place - the "Thinking Harder" place - to ask questions one feels stupid even asking.

What this thread is not:

A place to intentionally upset or offend people.
A place to ask questions with verifiable, factual, indisputible, objective answers available via google.

[bright_arrow]

What is your question?

[Nat]

From the Advocate.com:

Trans Activists Say Anderson Cooper Destroyed His Reputation With Interview

Trans equality activists are disappointed with Anderson Cooper for featuring what they call a sensational story on his daytime talk show.

Cooper interviewed a guest named Mandi, who identifies as transgender but claims a drug made her that way. Cooper repeatedly challenged Mandi on whether she questioned her identity before taking Propecia, which in part uses hormones to fight male baldness.

"I've done a lot of interviews with transgender people, and I have friends who are transgendered, and they say these are feelings that don't come out of a bottle," Cooper told Mandi. "It doesn't come out of a prescription bottle, it's something that you've had for a long time. Did you have questions about your gender before?"

Mandi answered by saying she'd had a "life and death struggle" and never wore women's clothing before taking the drug. She also said she'd questioned her sexuality only while a young boy. To which, Cooper pointed out, "But gender and sexuality are two very different things. So I just find it hard to understand or believe that all of a sudden you would start to feel that you were meant to be a woman."

Before the show aired, National Center for Transgender Equality Executive Director Mara Keisling issued a statement condemning the episode. And the center remains disappointed even after the full episode aired.

"Anderson Cooper knows better than this," Keisling said. She noted the host, who recently came out, had "earned a great deal of respect from trans people" for previous coverage. But Kiesling said this interview would "throw all of that away."

"All of us here at the National Center for Transgender Equality are surprised, saddened and disappointed that a respected show like Anderson Live would give credence to this type of sensationalism and misinformation," Kiesling said in the statement. "This segment is just another case of sensationalizing an already marginalized population plain and simple."

She added, "Worst of all, they seem set on misinforming the public about the causality of trans identity.”

My basic question:

How does this interview destroy Anderson Cooper's reputation among transpeople?

Underlying questions:

Is it offensive to suggest a drug could cause somebody to change gender identity?

Is it offensive to suggest a person's gender identity can change and/or is completely unchanging and imbedded from birth?

Is it offensive to interview a person whose reported experience is different than anybody else's reported experience?

Is it offensive for a non-trans person to challenge a trans person's experience of how they experience being trans or how it started?

Is it offensive that Anderson Cooper said he has friends who are transgendered as part of his challenge to this person's experience?

How is this interview giving "credence to this type of sensationalism and misinformation?"

Is interviewing a person with an extremely unique story about how she thinks she became transgendered in itself offensive?

Is this offensive because the transwoman being interviewed is felt not to represent transwomen well? Is she expected to represent a more common experience?

Is it really "misinforming the public about the causality of trans identity" to interview this one person with this one unique story?

Is he really sensationalizing the story?

I know I'm probably asking annoyingly stupid questions here, but I'm trying to pick apart how this is offensive.

Here are the clips I could find on youtube of the interview:

[Corkey]

Put in Butch or Femme in any of the questions, or Woman or Intersexed, now how would it feel for you to have this assumption made?

[Nat]

Originally Posted by Corkey

Put in Butch or Femme in any of the questions, or Woman or Intersexed, now how would it feel for you to have this assumption made?

Which assumption?

If a person said she became a femme after taking a drug, I don't think that would offend me.

(I've been trying to equate this to an experience I more directly experience, and I'm afraid my gender privilege is making me unable to understand something here.)

[Corkey]

Originally Posted by Nat

Which assumption?

If a person said she became a femme after taking a drug, I don't think that would offend me.

All of them. What is offensive to you may not be offensive to another, and visa versa. If someone tells me it's offensive, I tend to believe them, because I don't presume to know what offense is going trigger someone.

[Nat]

Originally Posted by Corkey

All of them. What is offensive to you may not be offensive to another, and visa versa. If someone tells me it's offensive, I tend to believe them, because I don't presume to know what offense is going trigger someone.

That makes sense. I guess what I don't understand is which bit(s) to understand as offensive and which bits are not. It seems very unclear to me.

I hate feeling stupid. :/

[aishah]

try this:

Is it offensive for a non-femme person to challenge a femme person's experience of how they experience being femme or how it started?

Is it offensive that Anderson Cooper said he has friends who are femme as part of his challenge to this person's experience?

Is interviewing a person with an extremely unique story about how she thinks she became femme in itself offensive?

Is this offensive because the femme being interviewed is felt not to represent femmes well? Is she expected to represent a more common experience?

Is it really "misinforming the public about the causality of femme identity" to interview this one person with this one unique story?

those questions don't make you feel anything, as a femme? because they make me feel upset.

i'm not trans but i think it's offensive to question or imply people's experiences and identities aren't real. someone doesn't "think they're trans," imho...they are or they aren't. if someone says they are trans (or femme or butch) i take them at their word. there is more than one way to come to identify as trans (or femme or butch). and yes, it's invalidating and offensive to me that he apparently pulled the "i have trans friends and they don't see it this way" card.

[aishah]

Originally Posted by Corkey

All of them. What is offensive to you may not be offensive to another, and visa versa. If someone tells me it's offensive, I tend to believe them, because I don't presume to know what offense is going trigger someone.

all of this, too...different people are going to be offended by different things. i think it's important to not use language that upholds or perpetuates oppression generally speaking, but different people will have different reactions to different kinds of language. like, i think it's inappropriate to use the word "slut" casually because i believe it perpetuates oppression against women but one woman may not be offended by that while another one might be. just because one woman doesn't get offended by it doesn't invalidate another woman's offense or the fact that it's been used to oppress people. if that makes any sense. (that's just general feelings i have on the issue of what is and isn't offensive.)

[Corkey]

Originally Posted by Nat

That makes sense. I guess what I don't understand is which bit(s) to understand as offensive and which bits are not. It seems very unclear to me.

I hate feeling stupid. :/

Ok, Nat, you aren't stupid, and there is nothing wrong in asking questions.
I tend to agree with what aishah said.

I don't think Anderson was out to be offensive, but his speaking for other people is, you guessed it, offensive.

[aishah]

blah, i'm talking a lot, sorry. i'm trying to pick apart exactly what makes me feel icky about this, too.

i don't think it's necessarily bad to represent a multiplicity of ways of embodying an identity. i do think with this there is definitely an element of invalidation - that he's saying this person's experience isn't real. i mean, cooper even brought in a doctor to weigh in (wtf). and that - combined with the apparent "look at this bizarre person!" factor - is what's sensationalist and upsetting.

i don't necessarily think cooper set out to be offensive (he succeeded either way), but he wasn't doing this with totally altruistic motives in mind either.

[Nat]

Originally Posted by aishah

try this:

Is it offensive for a non-femme person to challenge a femme person's experience of how they experience being femme or how it started?

Sometimes I find it offensive, sometimes annoying and sometimes neither. If I were claiming a drug made me into a femme - a drug not known for doing such a thing - and I were interested in giving an interview about it because I felt a drug changed my entire life experience, I don't *think* I would find it offensive.

Originally Posted by aishah

Is it offensive that Anderson Cooper said he has friends who are femme as part of his challenge to this person's experience?

I definitely recognize this as something offensive white people do regarding race, and do find it annoying when people try to tell me things about my gender experience based on what they know of other people's gender experience. This was actually one of the things I could see as actually possibly offensive here.

However, one difference I do think I see here is that this person's experience appears to differ entirely from the entire known (to me) arch of trans experience, whereas when white people talk about having a friend or friends of a specific race as a way to challenge what a person of the same race claims, it does seem to be more often a tool used to justify some racist view rather than to explore a very specific and unusual experience of one person.

God knows I am probably talking out of my ass on that one - it's probably never right or inoffensive to cite having friends of a specific group in order to challenge a person's experience.

Originally Posted by aishah

Is interviewing a person with an extremely unique story about how she thinks she became femme in itself offensive?

I'd love to see/listen to/participate in those types of interviews, but maybe femme invisibility is so frustrating to me that it keeps me from seeing this clearly. To me, hearing a variety of experiences of how people came to their femmeness brings me joy.

Originally Posted by aishah

Is this offensive because the femme being interviewed is felt not to represent femmes well? Is she expected to represent a more common experience?

If every femme interviewed on mainstream television (has this happened?) about their femmeness were entirely atypical or entirely stereotypical in their experience of femme, I guess I would be happy to see more femmes represented but disappointed to see so few representations of the variations within the femme identity

Originally Posted by aishah

Is it really "misinforming the public about the causality of femme identity" to interview this one person with this one unique story?

Not in my opinion would any one interview with any one individual be misrepresentative of an entire gender experience or offensive.

Originally Posted by aishah

those questions don't make you feel anything, as a femme? because they make me feel some kinda way.

I'm not sure I'd feel like condemning Anderson Cooper, but I'd probably have some kind of feelings. Most likely mixed feelings.

Originally Posted by aishah

i'm not trans but i think it's offensive to question or imply people's experiences and identities aren't real. someone doesn't "think they're trans," imho...they are or they aren't. if someone says they are trans (or femme or butch) i take them at their word. there is more than one way to come to identify as trans (or femme or butch). and yes, it's invalidating and offensive to me that he apparently pulled the "i have trans friends and they don't see it this way" card.

I think questioning whether a person's gender experience is real - which I've been through pretty hard for sharing openly that I consider myself bigender - is really tough to take. Do you feel that this is what Anderson Cooper was doing by asking all these questions? Because - and I'm well-aware that I must be missing something here - it seemed to me like he was questioning whether the drug did it because the drug is not known for changing people's gender identities. And if there were a pill out there that would change my gender identity - or shit - the size of my pinky toe - I would want to know what that medication was. When one person on the whole planet claims a pill changed her gender identity from man to woman and she's willing to be interviewed about it on national television, should relevant questions regarding the person's gender experience prior to taking the medication be avoided entirely?

I think the things I can see - from your and Corkey's responses as well as other experiences and stuff I've (slowly) come to understand about the way white people act toward people of color - is that it's offensive that he brought up his transgender friends' experiences in order to challenge her report of her own experience. And also, the interview with the doctor - who as far as i know is not transgender - who pretty much stated there's a single experience of being transgender - those two things I can see as offensive.

What I don't understand is the statement by Ms. Kiesling of the National Center for Transgender Equality that, "All of us here at the National Center for Transgender Equality are surprised, saddened and disappointed tghat a respected show like "Anderson Live" would give credence to this type of sensationalism and misinformation. this segment is just another case of sensationalizing an already marginalized population plain and simple."

And the reason I don't understand this statement is because it was an interview with a real actual individual who states she has experienced this - and I'm not sure if they are attacking her statements as misinformation or what Anderson Cooper or the doctor stated. To me it sounds almost as though they are attacking Anderson Cooper for what this woman said. It didn't seem that sensational to me either. Maybe I'm missing my sensational-radar?

[Nat]

Originally Posted by Corkey

I don't think Anderson was out to be offensive, but his speaking for other people is, you guessed it, offensive.

Okay - this I can see at least. Thanks Corkey.

(And thanks Aishah too)

[Corkey]

I think Anderson had a chance to take it a different direction, but chose to make it sensational. It happens in TV land, it's what pays the bills. I think the bigger picture is that again Trans people are under the gender microscope, and instead of understanding the experiences of one person, people are going to generalize ALL transgendered people. Did a pill make me who I am? No, but I'm not in the position to judge what her life experience is, or is not.

[Nat]

Originally Posted by aishah

blah, i'm talking a lot, sorry. i'm trying to pick apart exactly what makes me feel icky about this, too.

i don't think it's necessarily bad to represent a multiplicity of ways of embodying an identity. i do think with this there is definitely an element of invalidation - that he's saying this person's experience isn't real. i mean, cooper even brought in a doctor to weigh in (wtf). and that - combined with the apparent "look at this bizarre person!" factor - is what's sensationalist and upsetting.

i don't necessarily think cooper set out to be offensive (he succeeded either way), but he wasn't doing this with totally altruistic motives in mind either.

Okay - the "look at this bizarre person' thing didn't exactly occur to me, but if that was the intent or effect then that isn't at all respectful. I didn't pick up on that element.

[Martina]

Am I wrong, or are they upset that he interviewed her at all? The point was that he allowed this bogus theory air time, right?

[Corkey]

Originally Posted by Martina

Am I wrong, or are they upset that he interviewed her at all? The point was that he allowed this bogus theory air time, right?

Personally the whole thing is a cluster f* but I'm still not going to judge her gender.

[Nat]

Originally Posted by Martina

Am I wrong, or are they upset that he interviewed her at all? The point was that he allowed this bogus theory air time, right?

Maybe that's it?

[Dude]

I know I'm veering from the thread intentions here and
thought to myself only transpeople should likely come in
here to answer.
Then I watched the clips and I think this person plans
on suing the drug manufacturer.
I would be very interested in hearing opinions from Mtfs.
I think Mandi is trying to build a case or be different?

Notice how she says there is no cure , no treatments , she has researched
the company , suffered a divorce , panic attacks , detrimental side effects , etc.etc.
Key lawsuit words and lots of them.
I feel suspicion instead of compassion.
That's not normal for me >ever< when listening to a transpersons story.
Maybe Anderson felt the same thing.

I apologize ahead of time if my gut feelings are wrong
or if voicing my doubts about her motives offends anyone.
My benefit of the doubt thought is that maybe she feels better somehow about transitioning if she can somehow blame it on a drug?
That would then take away her having any choice in the matter?
Did she find a way to be unique just to get her 15 minutes of fame?
She did not seem very concerned about it happening to others or
did I miss that part?

I watched both clips ten times.
I keep getting the same feeling.
Something just feels odd and I think her reference to the
big happy ending of transpeople was weird and dismissive.
You come out and poof, it's all suddenly over with or something?
I also apologize for not having better words to explain myself.
Maybe she was on anti anxiety meds and that made the interview
weird?
I really want to know who else interviewed her and how those went.

[Linus]

If anything, I personally, am not offended and actually impressed with Anderson's response. He's right in that trans individuals aren't something that comes out of a bottle or the result of a bottle. I'd be more worried that Mandi would make the average person think that it's strictly taking drugs (over the counter or otherwise) that makes a person want to transition -- and that's wrong.

Is it possible it may have heighten her awareness of her own femininity or perhaps because of the side-effects may have made her question herself more than she had previously? Perhaps. I suspect that perhaps the depression that Mandi experienced may have had her question a whole variety of things so it's not the drug per say but rather the depression restarted a thought process that had be left behind.

I sometimes think we overly knee-jerk sensitivities and believe that when people question something that there is a malicious or evil intent behind it when, in fact, it's an honest attempt to understand and clarify. The one thing that Anderson did well is that he said things like "From what I understand..". He used *I* rather than a generalization so that identifies things from his experience, which may or may not be wide.

But that's my thinking...