I know I've spoken before on how what the lgbt are asking for is not quite equal rights. I finally found a model that explains it better than I can.
You have three kids at a baseball game, and three crates. One kid is tall enough to see with no problem. One is almost tall enough to see. One is way too short to see.
Equality is when each kid gets a crate to stand on. Justice is when the shortest kid gets two crates and the medium kid gets one, and they can all see the game.
http://slowrobot.com/i/43945
On the theme of explaining lgbt life to those outside it, Ellen Degeneres is quoted as having the best counter-argument to 'who's the guy and who's the girl in your relationship' that I've ever seen.
Which chopstick is the fork?
http://iwastesomuchtime.com/on/?i=69584
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
More on gender.
Some boys like to wear girl clothes. But they don't want to be girls. The New York Times published a lovely article on the 'middle space' between traditionally feminine and traditionally masculine, one in which girls live with no trouble, but into which boys have to fight for entrance.
One of the blogs I follow is about one such boy, called C.J., and written by his mother. You should read it.
Also check out Twirl and his brother Tornado and sister Firecracker.
In other news, I got into that art show! You should go and check me out! April 1-7, GMU.
One of the blogs I follow is about one such boy, called C.J., and written by his mother. You should read it.
Also check out Twirl and his brother Tornado and sister Firecracker.
In other news, I got into that art show! You should go and check me out! April 1-7, GMU.
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Gender
The New York Times posted a very good article on transgender people and pronouns. People tend to think of the pronoun change as happening at the same time as a sex change, but that just isn't true. Gender is gender, regardless of sex.
I do believe that male and female souls are inherently different, and that the soul is what I, at least, and others, are attracted to. Not just female body parts, female souls. It is the only explanation I can think of for several phenomena.
As a junior in high school, I read a very interesting book called Both Sides Now: One Man's Journey Through Womanhood. The author, Dhillon Khosla, was born with the body of a woman and took sexual partners from both sexes before being with women exclusively, and finally discovering the concept of transgender and making a full transition. Even when presenting as a woman, Khosla found that several, if not many, of his female partners were not already in the 'lesbian pool', but had never been attracted to a 'woman' before. They thought of the experience as a change to their sexuality, rather than seeing Khosla as a man. One time in a grocery store, Khosla found himself being stared at by a very young child. The mother apologized and said that 'he usually only stares like that at men.'
This all seems to point to the idea that these people are reacting to something about Khosla that their subconscious recognizes, without him ever having told them about being transgender. I read somewhere that transgender people are found to have brains structured more like the gender they identify with than that of their biological sex. So, you might say, it's their minds that create this attraction.
I find transgender women attractive, and not transgender men, without even knowing them. This baby could not have known what Khosla's mind is like. I once, correctly, identified someone in a serving line as transgender without speaking to them. I can also easily see the duality in a genderqueer person I know. It's like the person gives off gendered 'vibes' that I can sense, and I think other people can, too. They're just far more likely to ignore that and base their ideas of the person's gender off what they can see.
With that in mind, I'd like to encourage everyone in the Northern Virginia area to participate in a Queer Art Show that George Mason University is putting on.
I do believe that male and female souls are inherently different, and that the soul is what I, at least, and others, are attracted to. Not just female body parts, female souls. It is the only explanation I can think of for several phenomena.
As a junior in high school, I read a very interesting book called Both Sides Now: One Man's Journey Through Womanhood. The author, Dhillon Khosla, was born with the body of a woman and took sexual partners from both sexes before being with women exclusively, and finally discovering the concept of transgender and making a full transition. Even when presenting as a woman, Khosla found that several, if not many, of his female partners were not already in the 'lesbian pool', but had never been attracted to a 'woman' before. They thought of the experience as a change to their sexuality, rather than seeing Khosla as a man. One time in a grocery store, Khosla found himself being stared at by a very young child. The mother apologized and said that 'he usually only stares like that at men.'
This all seems to point to the idea that these people are reacting to something about Khosla that their subconscious recognizes, without him ever having told them about being transgender. I read somewhere that transgender people are found to have brains structured more like the gender they identify with than that of their biological sex. So, you might say, it's their minds that create this attraction.
I find transgender women attractive, and not transgender men, without even knowing them. This baby could not have known what Khosla's mind is like. I once, correctly, identified someone in a serving line as transgender without speaking to them. I can also easily see the duality in a genderqueer person I know. It's like the person gives off gendered 'vibes' that I can sense, and I think other people can, too. They're just far more likely to ignore that and base their ideas of the person's gender off what they can see.
With that in mind, I'd like to encourage everyone in the Northern Virginia area to participate in a Queer Art Show that George Mason University is putting on.
Deadline:
March 18th
George Mason University’s TQ Mason, in association with
LGBTQ Resources, is looking for LGBTQ* Artists to contribute to an art show.
The show will be held from April
1st-7th, with the possibility of some pieces being up more permanently.
This
show is exploring the theme of gender, but it is a theme in the broadest
sense, and not intended to be limiting.
We are aware that parts of the LGBTQ* alphabet get left
out, and this show is aiming to avoid that. We especially want to showcase
artists who are part of the ignored and lesser-known letters.
A photo of the submission should be sent electronically
to our contact email, or burnt onto a CD and dropped off at the LGBTQ Resource
Office. Required information includes: preferred name, contact email and phone
number. We will contact everyone before the show about who has been accepted.
Accepted submissions have to be transportable to George Mason University in
time for the show. It does not cost anything to submit or participate.
Please send submissions, questions, and comments to:
tqartshow@gmail.com
TQ Mason is GMU's trans* and queer inclusive
support/action group open to people of all genders, identities, expressions,
and sexualities.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Boy Scouts Reconsider
Boy Scouts is considering lifting the ban on gay members! The nationwide ban will be removed, allowing individual units to choose their own policy. I'm so excited for my BSA friends!
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/us/boy-scouts-consider-lifting-ban-on-gay-leaders.html?pagewanted=1&tntemail1=y&_r=0&emc=tnt
This is even more exciting because Boy Scouts has to make this decision on their own--the Supreme Court ruled that they had the right to ban gay members. It's the same law that makes it possible for private schools to be all-male or all-female--and considering how many women felt empowered by attending an all-female college, I feel duty-bound to uphold the law allowing private organizations to make discriminative calls. That means the only thing to do is persuade leaders to change their minds in cases like this one, where the discrimination does more harm than good. After all, I've never met a boy (there may be some) who really, really wanted to attend a college that happened to be all-female.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/us/boy-scouts-consider-lifting-ban-on-gay-leaders.html?pagewanted=1&tntemail1=y&_r=0&emc=tnt
This is even more exciting because Boy Scouts has to make this decision on their own--the Supreme Court ruled that they had the right to ban gay members. It's the same law that makes it possible for private schools to be all-male or all-female--and considering how many women felt empowered by attending an all-female college, I feel duty-bound to uphold the law allowing private organizations to make discriminative calls. That means the only thing to do is persuade leaders to change their minds in cases like this one, where the discrimination does more harm than good. After all, I've never met a boy (there may be some) who really, really wanted to attend a college that happened to be all-female.
Thursday, January 10, 2013
LGBTQIA
Today I read a New York Times article that explores the term LGBT and whether it accurately reflects how teens are identifying today. There are so many words now, when it used to be just LG and later B and still later T. As the article says, "We have our lesbians, our gays...bisexual, transsexual, queer, homosexual, asexual...[p]ansexual. Omnisexual. Trisexual. Agender.
Bi-gender. Third gender. Transgender. Transvestite. Intersexual.
Two-spirit. Hijra. Polyamorous...Undecided. Questioning. Other. Human."
Genderqueer. Panromantic. Aromantic. Crossdresser. A couple I may have made up, since I've never seen them used: homoromantic, biromantic, heteroromantic. Combinations. Asexual and panromantic. Aromantic and pansexual. There are different ways of being asexual--having sex for the sake of one's partner but not taking pleasure in it, being in a romantic relationship without sex, or simply not being in a relationship--"A all the way," as I put it during a conversation on the topic.
All describe a slightly different facet of the quickly becoming vastly complex issue of gender identity/sexual orientation.
A teacher mentioned in the article tells her students not to use LGBTQ and suggests the word queer instead, simply because the acronym is so unwieldy. Her students complain she doesn't know what she is talking about, but I think she has a point, especially considering how many people don't make it into the acronym (so you can hardly complain about it being too narrow), and how hard it would be to make them fit--does A stand for asexual, aromantic, or ally? Does Q stand for queer or questioning? Do the various gender-related words fit under transgender or not? One college I looked at has a listserv called EndlessAcronym, so as to embrace all the letters without becoming unspellable.
Queer has its promise as an umbrella word, and if it's not acceptable to the community, we need a single word. After all, when I wrote a paper on the topic, the umbrella definition I found myself having to use was "any deviation from a heterosexual gender binary". Now that I understand the topic slightly better, I may have to update it to "any deviation from a heterosexual cisgender binary" or something similar. And I don't even like that. Deviation has a negative connotation, even though its definition is simple--something other. If you breed a long line of white cats and get a black one fourteen generations down, you have a deviation. If you're doing a physics experiment and all your results fall on the same line on a graph but one, you have a deviation. Somehow that became a bad thing, but I think it's not past reclamation. There's a website called DeviantArt, for goodness' sake. In a society where we're no longer settling for second-best self-descriptors, I think we're capable of embracing our deviancy. What we're apparently having trouble with is accepting that we're all the same, too.
Genderqueer. Panromantic. Aromantic. Crossdresser. A couple I may have made up, since I've never seen them used: homoromantic, biromantic, heteroromantic. Combinations. Asexual and panromantic. Aromantic and pansexual. There are different ways of being asexual--having sex for the sake of one's partner but not taking pleasure in it, being in a romantic relationship without sex, or simply not being in a relationship--"A all the way," as I put it during a conversation on the topic.
All describe a slightly different facet of the quickly becoming vastly complex issue of gender identity/sexual orientation.
A teacher mentioned in the article tells her students not to use LGBTQ and suggests the word queer instead, simply because the acronym is so unwieldy. Her students complain she doesn't know what she is talking about, but I think she has a point, especially considering how many people don't make it into the acronym (so you can hardly complain about it being too narrow), and how hard it would be to make them fit--does A stand for asexual, aromantic, or ally? Does Q stand for queer or questioning? Do the various gender-related words fit under transgender or not? One college I looked at has a listserv called EndlessAcronym, so as to embrace all the letters without becoming unspellable.
Queer has its promise as an umbrella word, and if it's not acceptable to the community, we need a single word. After all, when I wrote a paper on the topic, the umbrella definition I found myself having to use was "any deviation from a heterosexual gender binary". Now that I understand the topic slightly better, I may have to update it to "any deviation from a heterosexual cisgender binary" or something similar. And I don't even like that. Deviation has a negative connotation, even though its definition is simple--something other. If you breed a long line of white cats and get a black one fourteen generations down, you have a deviation. If you're doing a physics experiment and all your results fall on the same line on a graph but one, you have a deviation. Somehow that became a bad thing, but I think it's not past reclamation. There's a website called DeviantArt, for goodness' sake. In a society where we're no longer settling for second-best self-descriptors, I think we're capable of embracing our deviancy. What we're apparently having trouble with is accepting that we're all the same, too.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)