Let’s clear 1 thing up. It’s not a sexual PR thing, transsexual women (and for that matter non-medical transgendered women) are women. Not men. The problem with descriptions like “men with boobs” (whether boobs are present or not) isn’t that it puts anyone off, it’s that it brazenly misgenders us, perhaps even moreso than “shemale” or “ladyboy”. Likewise, trans men (ie, people who were assigned female at birth but identify as male) are men, not women. Just in case you didn’t realise trans men existed…

“and I had seen it used mainly by an advertisement for for a group I am thinking maybe Thai or Asian or Philippines or something?”
The Ladyboys of Bangkok? That’s a fair point, I’d forgotten about them. They’re a drag act (drag = cross-dressing as performance). Now that you mention it I suppose “ladyboy” and “shemale” aren’t necessarily offensive to cross-dressers. Those words still shouldn’t be used in the context of the room name though because they’re usually used to refer to trans women as well.

“groups of lesbian women are less tolerant or friendly to those women who still enjoy penis”
Not my experience, as a woman who enjoys both. But then, I tend to mix mostly with queer liberation activists so I dunno how representative my experience is of the lesbian community as a whole

“many of these really do not want to see or hear anything about guy on guy stuff”
Again, that’s not my impression lol http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaoi

“If we were trying to sell dvds to the general mainstream (mostly ignorant) population, then we would probably stick with those more generally understood (and perhaps generally misunderstood terms).”
Hmm. Porn is one of the biggest culprits in perpetuating transphobia. But since you’re *not* selling DVDs I guess it’s not an issue lol

Mikey

I still think the chat room needs to be light enough to be able to make a wisecrack or two. I haven’t carried on nor do i support carrying on a joke till it becomes offensive.

I made the comment about people asking lady her gender just as an example of a situation. Getting too serious about rules makes it seem too much like a classroom.

My thinking is that since this site is geared towards the sexual side of things (Even though so much of the chat community itself is actually more focused on non-sexual interactions – lol), that some people are looking for or expecting the sexualized descriptions of things to point them in the directions they would be looking for or looking to avoid. Certainly taking out the shemale and or ladyboy would not go against these things, so I certainly do not mind doing that. When it comes to selling sex to the majority of public, I think the terms shemale and ladyboy actually encourage people to check it out. For whatever reasons, I think a lot of males especially are more comfortable looking into subjects that have some sort of she, or lady, or terms like chicks with dicks, make them feel more comfortable looking at pictures, videos or discussions, that have those terms in them, as opposed to having terms or phrases without – like say “men with boob jobs” or “men with boobs” – and similar terms could all be used to describe similar things. It’s funny how you could be describing the exact same thing, but just having she or lady in the title would make some guys more comfortable in dabbling in it. I know there is much more to the lifestyle than this, so please do not take my simplistic examples of minimizing all the other aspects – I’m just trying to hone in one one or a few aspects here.

I know it’s not a perfect world, and I am guessing that if I had never heard of ladyboy or shemale being a slut, then a majority of other people are not aware of this as well, and so those who are searching for these terms are most likely not looking to degrade or put down or anything. I can see where you point out the part about deception and how that relates, that makes sense, so I am more inclined to change things with that in mind for sure. It is certainly not our intent to slur any group of people in any way. The term ladyboy was something relatively new to me a few years ago, and I had seen it used mainly by an advertisement for for a group I am thinking maybe Thai or Asian or Philippines or something? So I had assumed that this group advertising itself this way was using it as a positive adjective and something that would be more universally understand, and not as a slur, although possibly as a slang term.

The bisexual guys mention in the gay / bi room and lack of bi mention in the lesbian room is a whole ‘nother issue. It’s really kind of weird how some things are when it comes to these groups and some of the individuals in and around them. I do think that we should have a bisexual room, and perhaps having a room for bisexual guys and another room for bisexual girls and couples who are bi friendly or whatever. It has always been kind of funny to men (well not that funny sometimes, but I guess weird or odd or something), how you can have a group of lesbians who are open to girls who like girls, but can’t stand girls who also like guys. It’s also been odd to me how some groups of lesbians openly chastise lipstick lesbians as well – but anyway, it has been my general experience (albeit admittedly my experiences may be more than most, but are however limited) – that groups of lesbian women are less tolerant or friendly to those women who still enjoy penis. However groups of gay men seem to be more tolerant of guys who go both ways. Certainly this is not an all statement by any means, it’s just been some of my personal observations here and there. Certainly there are plenty of gay guys who totally put down or are less than friendly about anything and everything female, but overall I have noticed more of the above situations in general.

The most likely need for a bisexual girls and separate bisexual guys rooms split is that I have also seen that as to where many bisexual girls are all about being open about people’s lifestyle choices whether they are bi, straight, or gay – many of these really do not want to see or hear anything about guy on guy stuff. In a perfect world everyone would just accept everyone else and not be grossed out by hearing about other people’s lifestyle or sexual preferences, and in a perfect world all of our users would know how to and use the block / iggy button often. This doesn’t even get into the whole couple’s thing and how a couple looks for or tries to look away from things as a couple or as the individuals within.

Anyhow, I think we will add a couple of rooms and perhaps forum sections as well. I am totally cool with changing those room descriptions, as the intent there is to be open and friendly with the ts/tg group and those who love them or want to learn more about. If we were trying to sell dvds to the general mainstream (mostly ignorant) population, then we would probably stick with those more generally understood (and perhaps generally misunderstood terms).

Writing these random thoughts in a hurry, and with interruptions (grr!) so sorry if it is choppy, or not well laid out – I feel like we could write and discuss this for many pages, and maybe we should on it’s own page. I think it’s a great discussion, and it is not my intent to come off as mean or judgmental or anything, just not able to make complete paragraphs and pages on this comment thread at this time, so please, and bi or les or anyone don’t take offense to incomplete thoughts here or anything – certainly I’d love to go into further details and clarify things better at another time on a differnt page perhaps.

There’s already separate rooms for girls who like girls and guys who like guys, the latter even has “bisexual” in the name (I did notice a bit of inconsistency in there being no mention of bi people in “Lesbian Action”). Having another room for bisexual people (and pan/omnisexual people, but for simplicity’s sake may as well just call it bisexual) of all genders and sexes just gives people more choices.