Practice English Speaking&Listening with: Why Representation Matters (Re: Dan Brown Part 2) | Milo Stewart

Hello, lovely people! This video is a continuation of a conversation happening on Dan Brown's

channel, so if you want this video to make sense, I would recommend watching a series

of videos. There's a lot you have to watch. I'm sorry. Dan: I'm not about to apologize

for beginning this conversation from a cis perspective. I've gotta say, I'm a little

put off by the intensity of this gatekeeping. Here I am, enthusiastically seeking understanding

of something that's admittedly a little bit foreign to me only to be bombarded with premature

judgements of who I am. Me: No, Dan, trans people asking you to include trans people

in every level of a discussion about trans people is not gatekeeping, so let's have a

discussion about representation for a moment, shall we? By all means, you can start a conversation

about trans people and include your own perspective. The issue with starting a conversation about

trans people without including a trans person is that it comes off as very one-sided and

aggressive towards the trans community and not very welcoming of positive responses.

Every minority has this expectation put upon them that they have to educate ignorant people

who are not of that minority. This sounds like it could be a good way to spread awareness

and knowledge, but it can actually be really exhausting for the person who has to do all

of the educating. Watching your original video did not make me feel like I was joining in

on a conversation. It made me feel like I had this chore of educating you, and it felt

like I had to defend myself and other trans people. The original video was not at all

welcoming to trans people. It felt like a part that cis people could come to to talk

about all the weird things that trans people do. Dan: Is it like weird when trans people

begin any sort of interaction by saying "he/him pronouns," by specifying their pronouns?"

Me: It's really off-putting to me that it sounds like you're asking for pity because

trans people called you out on your rough beginning to a conversation about trans people.

You have to realize how much importance your one discussion about trans people on YouTube

has because trans people are not represented in the biggest YouTubers. They just aren't.

There aren't that many big trans YouTubers. Because of this, most of the conversations

about trans people that happen on YouTube are facilitated by cisgender people so heck

yeah, we're going to be concerned if you're not representing us well in your conversation.

Dan: Uh, the whole pronoun thing, I think stems from the horrendously sexist, ignorant,

notion that somehow being transgender isn't legitimate, right, it's just a plea for attention

and needling people about nick-picking grammar is just one more way to make sure that you're

always the center of attention. Me: Yes! Amen to that! One of the best things you've said

so far this conversation! Dan: Is it transphobic to entirely rule out dating a pre-op trans

person? Me: My initial reaction is to say that "genital preferences"are not ignorantly

transphobic or that they don't inherently make that person who holds that preference

to be transphobic, and I do think that we need to evaluate why people have genital preferences.

Could they be based in the fact that most people are taught to think that attraction

to women means attraction to vaginas and boobs? Probably, and that is a transphobic idea.

Also, are genital preferences just sometimes a way of saying "I'll date trans people but

so long as I can't tell they're trans" because that's transphobic. Also, could it lazy or

transphobic to hold someone's genitals at a higher importance than like their personality

or their face, especially for people who have only met a handful of trans people? I think

that all of these could potentially be true, and they're definitely something that we need

to evaluate more. This conversation is definitely not even close to being over. Dan: So sex

is a biological construct and therefore is relatively rigid where gender is a social

construct and is relatively fluid? Is it correct to say that many trans people, then, have

a sex that is different from their gender? Me: I won't get too in-depth into this because

I did a video with Ashley Mardell in which I went into pretty lengthy discussion about

this, but sex and gender are both social constructs. Obviously, your biology is what it is. It's

not a social construct. You have your set chromosomes and your genitals. That is fact.

What is a social construct is how we talk about sex. Sex is socially constructed in

that we use words that describe gender - "male" and "female" - to talk about bodies when in

fact bodies have nothing to do with gender. I'm not comfortable with saying that I'm "biologically

female but identify as non-binary" because no part of me is female. I have boobies and

a vajayjay, but I"m not female. That is not a term that resonates with me, and I don't

want anyone to put that onto me. Call me by something else. Create another word to describe

my sex, plz, because I'm not female. And that's about, folks, so thank you, Dan, for bringing

up this topic even though it got sort of heated. I think it's probably going to end on a good

note. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Ok.