Gilda

Because, to use your word again, for a woman, male genitals are superfluous. As in, "serving no useful purpose, having no reason for being" [dictionary.com]. Something that is superfluous is something that can be easily disposed of without harm.

I can say this because genitals determine one's physical sex, but do not always indicate whether a person's gender itentity is male or female. They didn't in Gwen's case; they were, to use your word (which I love, by the way, as it describes the situation perfectly) superfluous.

Also, the interactions were primarily social, and Gwen was socially female. The sexual interactions didn't involve her genitals, so for those interactions, her genitals were irrelevant.

Agreed.

Correct.

I'm not interested in dating men, no, nor overtly masculine women. I'm primarily attracted to feminine women. I'd have no problem dating a woman like Gwen.

Grace is by far the more dominant partner in our relationship, is quite a bit more assertive than I am in other contexts, and works in a predominantly male profession, but she's also overtly feminine in dress and presentation. So, no, I don't see any gender-bending qualities in her, though I do see some ways in which she is more masculine than I am in a way that is complimentary to my personality.

I don't think I have been inconsistent.

Perhaps the seeming inconsistency that you percieve comes from my not being entirely clear.

You seem to be using gender and sex as if they were interchangable. I don't think they are, and don't use them that way.

Physical sex, gender identity, gender expression, and orientation are separate qualities. There are other things that are a part of our sexuality, and gender expression can sometimes be split into dress and presentation. None of these are strictly binary, though physical sex comes closest.

It is often assumed that there is one way in which these are related or supposed to be related, which is physical sex, gender identity, and gender expression are or should be the same, while orientation should be to the opposite of one's physical sex.

This isn't how it works in reality.

My physical sex and gender identity are female, gender expression feminine both in dress and presentation, and my orientation is to other feminine females, though I prefer my partner to be dominant. I differ from the expected correlation only in my orientation.

Gwen's physical sex was male, but her gender identity female, gender expression feminine, and orientation was to males, apparently to masculine males. Sexually, she was, as is typical with younger MTF transsexuals, a bottom. From all reports, she wasn't just feminine, she was hyper-feminine, another quality somewhat common to younger MTF transsexuals.

In other words, in every way except for her genitals and breasts, Gwen fit the expected profile of a normal female. Because she was underage, medical and surgical treatments would have been generally unavailable to her.

Genitals are an indicator of a person's sexuality, not the only indicator.

So would I. Understanding why a person commits a violent act does not, however, excuse the violence.

Understandable, maybe. Natural, no. Male homosexuality was considered as "natural" in Greek and Roman society as it is considered "unnatural" by many in our culture. Hatred for and violence against, or tolerance of those who are different from us is a learned response.

I'm not an absolute pacifist. I believe that violence is justified in defense of one's physical being, but not in response to having been offended or insulted, or in this case, in response to having one's sexuality questioned, particularly when the only one questioning their sexuality was the killers themselves.

Only if you assume that one's gender identity is determined by one's physical sex. It isn't. I know that's hard to grasp, because the correlation between being male and having a penis is so high, because our culture uses that as its primary method of identifying a person's sex, because it just seems right intuitively to say "I'm male because I have a penis and testicles".

It's sorta the same question as what is it that makes you you. Is it your body, or your brain, or your spirit, or some combination of those things? I tend to come down on the it's a combination side of the argument.

Gwen's physical sex was male, but her gender identity and mode of expression were female.

Agreed, though there's a shorter way of saying MTF transsexual: girl.

But they stopped and thought about it before the acted. It wasn't a sponteous reaction, they stopped, and discussed, and made plans to find out, then discussed it some more after they confirmed their suspicions. They put a lot of thought into it, and missed what seems to me to be some pretty blatantly obvious stuff.

When they had sex with her, kissed her, they believed she was a woman. This confirms their heterosexual status.

This was a person who was attracted to overtly masculine, straight guys, as evidenced by who she chose to hang out with and have sex with. That fact that she was attracted to them, that she wanted and chose to be with them was confirmation of their being straight and masculine.

I get that they didn't read it that way, that their interpretation was something along the lines of penis=male, sex with another male makes you gay, I don't want to be gay. I understand that in much the way I understand racism, in that I understand that that kind of thinking exists, but I'll never be able to connect to it emotionally, and what's more, it doesn't even make sense that one's sexuality is in some way determined by another person's body parts.

In any case, at no point was any violence justified. She was no physical threat to them, and harming her didn't change anything about what had happened. If having sex with her made them gay, then they'd still be gay after she was dead, or after they slapped her or beat her up. Nothing they did at this point would have changed any part of that equation that led them to question their sexuality.

Strike that. Telling her that they weren't interested in her any more would actually have solved the problem, because then they'd have been rejecting her for having male parts, thus confirming that they were straight.

Bad analogy. Gwen wasn't a stranger to her killers at the time they had sex with her; the sex was consensual for all parties involved.

In any case, that they felt violated does not justify group violence against a helpless victim.

Gilda

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