Words that might be considered less nice and could maybe be put differently

[Riley 13,064]

Im really sorry if this is in the wrong section but I didn't really know where to put this. Also this is just a suggestion, I don't want to come off as forcing or trying to shame anyone into submission but I also wanted to kind of share something if people maybe didn't know. 

I have seen the word Shemale show up on the forum several times as a word for a transgender woman and I just wanted people to know that names such as Shemale or Trap or slurs for Transgender woman. A generally respectful way to to refer to a transgender woman would be well, transgender woman, or if you want to be more casual, trans girl, or something along those lines, though at the end of the day, they are as much of a woman as anyone else and most of the time should be in the same category. 

I just felt obligated to post this because I know very few trans people who would still join this website after seeing the word shemale in the recent posts section. 

Thank you for listening to my ted talk😂

I hope everyone has an amazing rest of their day!

[steve25805 126,023]

On 4/9/2020 at 6:05 AM, Riley said:

I just felt obligated to post this because I know very few trans people who would still join this website after seeing the word shemale in the recent posts section. 

Thanks for pointing this out. It is not something most of us would have thought of.

Problem is, shemale - like milf - has become a sexually descriptive word. We all know what we are going to get if we click on it. In that sense it serves a functional purpose that other terms would not so much.

If I see the term "shemale pissing pic" I know exactly what I am going to get - a pic ofsomeone with a wholly female body but also a dick pissing someplace.

I think the terminology has become entrenched as a descriptive term in porn and we are never going to change that.

[gldenwetgoose 21,488]

On 4/9/2020 at 6:05 AM, Riley said:

Im really sorry if this is in the wrong section but I didn't really know where to put this. Also this is just a suggestion, I don't want to come off as forcing or trying to shame anyone into submission but I also wanted to kind of share something if people maybe didn't know. 

I have seen the word Shemale show up on the forum several times as a word for a transgender woman and I just wanted people to know that names such as Shemale or Trap or slurs for Transgender woman. A generally respectful way to to refer to a transgender woman would be well, transgender woman, or if you want to be more casual, trans girl, or something along those lines, though at the end of the day, they are as much of a woman as anyone else and most of the time should be in the same category. 

I just felt obligated to post this because I know very few trans people who would still join this website after seeing the word shemale in the recent posts section. 

Thank you for listening to my ted talk😂

I hope everyone has an amazing rest of their day!

Sorry it's taken a while - but I've just done a purge across the site of post titles  - changing shemale to instead read Trans Feminine,  merging threads together and generally moving things about.

Hence there are now no posts remaining with that word in their title.  There are some references using the word within posts, although some which were used in a derogatory way have also been removed.  Hopefully that is a step forward...  and apologies again for the delay.

[Carb0nBased 647]

While avoiding derogatory-sounding terminology whenever possible is a good idea, it seems this ties in with a tricky issue that is unlikely to go away. Namely, the difference between physical bodies as objects of attraction/lust and the self-identities of people.

When looking at pictures of random strangers, like people peeing at a festival or in the woods or something, for an image that turns you on, it's not possible to know someone's gender identity, unless the person is doing/wearing something in the picture that makes it clear. What you notice is the appearance and body parts, and maybe some more visual aspects of personality (like a smile, giggling, etc.). What people care about is generally the body that someone has--so someone attracted to female bodies is likely to see a cisgendered woman in the same way as a pre-op transman in this context, not even being able to tell the difference at times, despite the opposite gender identities. So organizing by gender identity here is both rather irrelevant as well as practically impossible. The main division here is male-bodied vs. female bodied, with the caveats that 1) people may have a part male and part female body, like the "shemales" being discussed here, and 2) not everyone attracted to naturally born male (or female) bodies will be attracted to male (or female) bodies created by surgery, when it's possible to tell the difference.

Then in a very different context, you have the situation of describing people who you actually interact with, either in real life or on this forum. There it matters what the person identifies as, which you have a way of knowing. Opposite to the situation of looking at erotic pictures, you may well have never seen the person's naked body to know for sure what parts they have. I would never think of calling a friend or acquaintance who is partway through a gender transition a "shemale", and I'm guessing even most people who would use it to describe pictures wouldn't either. Even using "trannie" would be weird in this context. It's similar for other "porn categories", like I doubt many people would refer to "my BBW friend" or "the BBW who sits across from me at work" even if her BMI is well noticed.

So yes, what makes this situation complicated is that on a forum like this that deals with sex, we come across people in two contexts, as people we are directing posts at and reading posts from, and objects of attraction. So "tough" realities like someone having a body type that certain others don't find attractive and that they are sensitive about will continue to present themselves. It doesn't mean we should throw around derogatory terms though when there's a more neutral alternative.

Edited October 14, 2021 by Carb0nBased