because someone questioned the security of my gender/sexuality at my school
and i promptly filled out a butthurt report form
Showing posts with label trans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trans. Show all posts
Sunday, October 11, 2009
ick, thanks my school
because someone questioned the security of my gender/sexuality at my school
and i promptly filled out a butthurt report form
Monday, June 29, 2009
Re: Cis as an Inflammatory Term
I really do not understand the resistance to the word/prefix 'cis.' However, as it showed up in my post about cis as an academic term as well as current leveling at Pam's House Blend, apparently lots of (cis) people think it is a big deal.
Here is the argument I see most often leveled against it, with my corresponding this-is-why-your-logic-doesn't-work responses:
"I didn't choose to be called cis. I don't like it. You don't like 'tranny,' and I don't call you that, so don't call me cis."
Yeah, you probably didn't pick cis. And here's why: cis is an unmarked category. As my women's studies professor explained it--there's the NBA and then there's the WNBA. It's not the MNBA because "man" is an unmarked category.
Same goes with cis and trans--to be cis is no big deal, to go unnoticed. To be trans is to be marked, to have your gender noticed. Of course that last sentence is a gloss but you get my drift.
As per the third sentence in this statement, cis is not an inflammatory term. "Tranny" is. Calling someone a tranny is an act of violence. Calling someone cis is not.
God, cis doesn't even have that derogatory ring on the end of it, the -y or -ie of infantilization, you know?
Here is the argument I see most often leveled against it, with my corresponding this-is-why-your-logic-doesn't-work responses:
"I didn't choose to be called cis. I don't like it. You don't like 'tranny,' and I don't call you that, so don't call me cis."
Yeah, you probably didn't pick cis. And here's why: cis is an unmarked category. As my women's studies professor explained it--there's the NBA and then there's the WNBA. It's not the MNBA because "man" is an unmarked category.
Same goes with cis and trans--to be cis is no big deal, to go unnoticed. To be trans is to be marked, to have your gender noticed. Of course that last sentence is a gloss but you get my drift.
As per the third sentence in this statement, cis is not an inflammatory term. "Tranny" is. Calling someone a tranny is an act of violence. Calling someone cis is not.
God, cis doesn't even have that derogatory ring on the end of it, the -y or -ie of infantilization, you know?
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Theory Thursday--Really Long Apology Addition
Folks, I'm sorry that I didn't post a Theory Thursday last week, and also for not, well, really posting at all. I've been at work an awful lot, and preparing for testy stuff, as well as trying to some more personal writing.
To make up for it, today's Theory Thursday will be super long.
News of the Fucked Up
Resist Racism wrote about the terrible fucked-up way we do health care for American Indians (as well as everything else). The news article cites this statistic:
Weird Texas News
Want an example of male privilege endorsed by the state? Recently in Travis County (that's where Austin, TX is), a police officer tasered a 72-year-old woman because she was "belligerent." Bilerico blogs it here. Here's the video (note: it's really graphic.)
Baby Armadillo, via Cute Overload. Because, you know, armadillos are in Texas. Seriously, there are so many armadillo references in Austin. My water bottle from my local bike shop has an armadillo on it.
To make up for it, today's Theory Thursday will be super long.
News of the Fucked Up
Resist Racism wrote about the terrible fucked-up way we do health care for American Indians (as well as everything else). The news article cites this statistic:
"The U.S. has an obligation, based on a 1787 agreement between tribes and the government, to provide American Indians with free health care on reservations. But that promise has not been kept. About one-third more is spent per capita on health care for felons in federal prison, according to 2005 data from the health service...American Indians have an infant death rate that is 40 percent higher than the rate for whites. They are twice as likely to die from diabetes, 60 percent more likely to have a stroke, 30 percent more likely to have high blood pressure and 20 percent more likely to have heart disease.
American Indians have disproportionately high death rates from unintentional injuries and suicide, and a high prevalence of risk factors for obesity, substance abuse, sudden infant death syndrome, teenage pregnancy, liver disease and hepatitis.
While campaigning on Indian reservations, presidential candidate Barack Obama cited this statistic: After Haiti, men on the impoverished Pine Ridge and Rosebud Reservations in South Dakota have the lowest life expectancy in the Western Hemisphere."
American Indians have disproportionately high death rates from unintentional injuries and suicide, and a high prevalence of risk factors for obesity, substance abuse, sudden infant death syndrome, teenage pregnancy, liver disease and hepatitis.
While campaigning on Indian reservations, presidential candidate Barack Obama cited this statistic: After Haiti, men on the impoverished Pine Ridge and Rosebud Reservations in South Dakota have the lowest life expectancy in the Western Hemisphere."
Weird Texas News
Want an example of male privilege endorsed by the state? Recently in Travis County (that's where Austin, TX is), a police officer tasered a 72-year-old woman because she was "belligerent." Bilerico blogs it here. Here's the video (note: it's really graphic.)
Baby Armadillo, via Cute Overload. Because, you know, armadillos are in Texas. Seriously, there are so many armadillo references in Austin. My water bottle from my local bike shop has an armadillo on it.
Trans, Queer, and Gender Stuff
Feministe is rounding up their semi-regular Feministe's Next Top Troll. All the comments are pretty hilariously ridiculous, and are very indicative of Foucault's ideas of pre-modern punishment--flagrantly display the punished for all to laugh at and consume.
This connects to my last comments about fucking up, and what it means, and also what it means to just not understand trans issues. sexgenderbody wrote a post about how Trans ignorance isn't trans phobia, and Queen Emily over at Questioning Transphobia responsed that ignorance is pretty much the core of trans phobia. She notes:
There's going to be a Stonewall Anniversary Weekend in Atlanta, and Caitlin Childs will be at a reading for Femmethology in celebration. Here's more info:
queerradical raises the important question: Should you sleep with people who don't share your politics? Sounds like a young adult novel worth writing.
Feministe is rounding up their semi-regular Feministe's Next Top Troll. All the comments are pretty hilariously ridiculous, and are very indicative of Foucault's ideas of pre-modern punishment--flagrantly display the punished for all to laugh at and consume.
This connects to my last comments about fucking up, and what it means, and also what it means to just not understand trans issues. sexgenderbody wrote a post about how Trans ignorance isn't trans phobia, and Queen Emily over at Questioning Transphobia responsed that ignorance is pretty much the core of trans phobia. She notes:
"The one thing ignorance is not is innocent,
it is about having the power not to know and not to care..
and we simply can’t afford to be naive
enough to think otherwise."
Check both posts out, and more on this later.it is about having the power not to know and not to care..
and we simply can’t afford to be naive
enough to think otherwise."
There's going to be a Stonewall Anniversary Weekend in Atlanta, and Caitlin Childs will be at a reading for Femmethology in celebration. Here's more info:
queerradical raises the important question: Should you sleep with people who don't share your politics? Sounds like a young adult novel worth writing.
Thursday Theory Recipes
OMG Cheese Straws. This is Deb's photo.
My friend Jackie has a Sick Bake Friday and blogs about it, usually, as well as her cat. You should check it out. She made these granola bars (and took the picture for them). They're vegan.
Words and Letters
Do you know the word for "to loathe to the point of nausea"? (Oft applicable for many issues). The word is wlate.
Whenever you go to the New York Times website, you can look up a word by highlighting it. Here are the 50 most looked up words, via Word Journal.
France has chocolate scented stamps. That is seriously a good idea.
All right, y'all. Have a good week.
Do you know the word for "to loathe to the point of nausea"? (Oft applicable for many issues). The word is wlate.
Whenever you go to the New York Times website, you can look up a word by highlighting it. Here are the 50 most looked up words, via Word Journal.
France has chocolate scented stamps. That is seriously a good idea.
All right, y'all. Have a good week.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Theory Thursday Links and Pictures
Oh, y'all, I promise that sometime soon I will write an actual blog post. I'm a few dozen pages into The History of Sexuality Vol I so you'll get some deconstruction of that soon. I've just been working a lot and reading a lot; summer is harder than I thought.
Harvard endowed a chair for "gay studies" (emphasis on that it's called gay studies, for crying out loud--that's so 1992). Harvard is saying it's the first school to endow such a chair, but whatever Harvard--the University of Louisville has had the Audre Lorde endowed chair in Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality for four years now. I guess that if it's not about white gay men then it doesn't count as the "first" endowed chair about sexuality.
This doesn't have much to do with theory, but the World Beard Championship was about two weeks ago, and there were some awesome beards.
The photo is from Kempt.
Both cripchick and Wheelchair Dancer (in response to Brown Femi Power's post about What is Butch?) took on the butch/femme dichotomy a few days ago and discussed how disability interacts with gender. Well, not just interacts with gender, but completely reshapes it, and also how ideas about gender and gender theory are rather whitewashed and portrayed as able-bodied.
I've been thinking a lot about fucking up lately--what exactly does it mean to "fuck up," particularly in the context of being someone with a privileged identity fucking up and being oppressive around folks with marginalized identities. It's really complicated, and I think that for me, being a trans person that people don't think is trans, fucking up around me is super complicated. I'm thinking particularly of the time (there are of course, countless other times) I met someone's new boyfriend, who in all other respects was a great guy, really funny, and extremely respectful of my friend. But at one point in the night, "tranny heels" passed from his lips in regards to someone's particularly high shoes. I didn't say anything to him, and I always regret it, because I think standing up for not just myself but other trans people would have been really good. But what does it boil down to to call people out? And why do we fear being called out when we say something stupid or wrong or oppressive?
This is a really interesting juncture of theory and praxis, I believe--here are these instances, these missteps, that remind us of oppression when we've forgotten about it for a moment, and then we have our own instances and missteps where we choose to say things or not say things. I'm being rambly, but that's because I'm thinking through it. Part of what I want to write more about this summer is when theory fucks up--for instance, when Judith Butler uses women of color to prove her point that "woman" as the subject of feminism is too universal, but then just drops any other analysis of race after she's used the theories and bodies of women of color to prove her fucking point. That's some theory fucking up. So it is too when Foucault sort of forgets about women in his whole History of Sexuality and all. How do we address fucked up theory? How do we interact with it, still use it, write about it, and not be fucked up ourselves? Is there any way around it?
Anyways, BFP wrote a post contextualizing fucking up. Talking about a clinic where some terrible stuff happened, BFP wrote:
for women of color centering the lives of women in the worst part of the city–this is what happens when they “fuck up.” the women that need the most help are brutally murdered, and twenty years later, the guilt, the violence, the regret, the horror is still with those who were trying to help. this is learning the hard way what works and what doesn’t. this is learning the hard way what “movement” really means. this is courage, massive huge radical fucking courage: because that clinic didn’t fold under the guilt, the violence, the regret, the horror. Twenty years later, it is still centering women, fighting for women, believing in women with every fiber it has. A whole lot wiser–after a whole fucking world of mistakes.
doesn’t being called “a racist” or being told “that is racist” (or any other thing out there), seem a lot less horrifying now?
Harvard endowed a chair for "gay studies" (emphasis on that it's called gay studies, for crying out loud--that's so 1992). Harvard is saying it's the first school to endow such a chair, but whatever Harvard--the University of Louisville has had the Audre Lorde endowed chair in Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality for four years now. I guess that if it's not about white gay men then it doesn't count as the "first" endowed chair about sexuality.
This doesn't have much to do with theory, but the World Beard Championship was about two weeks ago, and there were some awesome beards.
The photo is from Kempt.
Both cripchick and Wheelchair Dancer (in response to Brown Femi Power's post about What is Butch?) took on the butch/femme dichotomy a few days ago and discussed how disability interacts with gender. Well, not just interacts with gender, but completely reshapes it, and also how ideas about gender and gender theory are rather whitewashed and portrayed as able-bodied.
I've been thinking a lot about fucking up lately--what exactly does it mean to "fuck up," particularly in the context of being someone with a privileged identity fucking up and being oppressive around folks with marginalized identities. It's really complicated, and I think that for me, being a trans person that people don't think is trans, fucking up around me is super complicated. I'm thinking particularly of the time (there are of course, countless other times) I met someone's new boyfriend, who in all other respects was a great guy, really funny, and extremely respectful of my friend. But at one point in the night, "tranny heels" passed from his lips in regards to someone's particularly high shoes. I didn't say anything to him, and I always regret it, because I think standing up for not just myself but other trans people would have been really good. But what does it boil down to to call people out? And why do we fear being called out when we say something stupid or wrong or oppressive?
This is a really interesting juncture of theory and praxis, I believe--here are these instances, these missteps, that remind us of oppression when we've forgotten about it for a moment, and then we have our own instances and missteps where we choose to say things or not say things. I'm being rambly, but that's because I'm thinking through it. Part of what I want to write more about this summer is when theory fucks up--for instance, when Judith Butler uses women of color to prove her point that "woman" as the subject of feminism is too universal, but then just drops any other analysis of race after she's used the theories and bodies of women of color to prove her fucking point. That's some theory fucking up. So it is too when Foucault sort of forgets about women in his whole History of Sexuality and all. How do we address fucked up theory? How do we interact with it, still use it, write about it, and not be fucked up ourselves? Is there any way around it?
Anyways, BFP wrote a post contextualizing fucking up. Talking about a clinic where some terrible stuff happened, BFP wrote:
for women of color centering the lives of women in the worst part of the city–this is what happens when they “fuck up.” the women that need the most help are brutally murdered, and twenty years later, the guilt, the violence, the regret, the horror is still with those who were trying to help. this is learning the hard way what works and what doesn’t. this is learning the hard way what “movement” really means. this is courage, massive huge radical fucking courage: because that clinic didn’t fold under the guilt, the violence, the regret, the horror. Twenty years later, it is still centering women, fighting for women, believing in women with every fiber it has. A whole lot wiser–after a whole fucking world of mistakes.
doesn’t being called “a racist” or being told “that is racist” (or any other thing out there), seem a lot less horrifying now?
See you soon, y'all. I don't think I can say much more after that.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Thursday Theory Links and Pictures
Mik over at Coffee and Gender wrote about Kate Bornstein's new TransMentors program. Basically, it's a place where trans folks can turn to other trans folks for support, advice, and mentoring. Mik sums it up pretty well, saying
Too many transpeople rely on the advice of cisgender specialists to guide them - therapists, doctors, psychiatrists all operating from various different interpretations of a transphobic text. Assisting each other to transition keeps our communities more united - and ensures at least the majority of advice is correct.
So yeah. It's great! I'm currently grappling, theoretically and personally, with what it means to be trans, and how trans people work the system of cisgender medicalization and still make it out okay at the end of the day. Dean Spade has a great essay about grappling with how cisgender folks are gatekeepers for trans bodies called "Mutilating Gender". Check it out here.
Second, over at Pam's House Blend, Autumn brings to light something quite political, personal, and physical about the sex/gender divide that many folks (including Judith Butler) define. Specifically, as she highlights from a Homeland Security update:
The second phase of Secure Flight begins August 15, 2009, when passengers will be required to enter their date of birth and gender when booking airline flights. TSA said the additional data will help prevent the misidentification of passengers who have similar names to individuals on the watch list, and better identify individuals that may pose a known or suspected threat.
That sucks a lot for trans people, many of whom have different names and different sexes on different goverment documents. So yeah, sex is socially constructed, if you didn't know, and it's not a clear cut divide, and it's often used as a tool to fuck trans folks over.
Third, over at queerradical.com, 7 Dirty Tidbits about Louis Althusser. Are you
a hipster Marxist?
Finally, (this one is old) The Guardian determines that the
ultimate postmodern novel is actually a film.
Too many transpeople rely on the advice of cisgender specialists to guide them - therapists, doctors, psychiatrists all operating from various different interpretations of a transphobic text. Assisting each other to transition keeps our communities more united - and ensures at least the majority of advice is correct.
So yeah. It's great! I'm currently grappling, theoretically and personally, with what it means to be trans, and how trans people work the system of cisgender medicalization and still make it out okay at the end of the day. Dean Spade has a great essay about grappling with how cisgender folks are gatekeepers for trans bodies called "Mutilating Gender". Check it out here.
Second, over at Pam's House Blend, Autumn brings to light something quite political, personal, and physical about the sex/gender divide that many folks (including Judith Butler) define. Specifically, as she highlights from a Homeland Security update:
The second phase of Secure Flight begins August 15, 2009, when passengers will be required to enter their date of birth and gender when booking airline flights. TSA said the additional data will help prevent the misidentification of passengers who have similar names to individuals on the watch list, and better identify individuals that may pose a known or suspected threat.
That sucks a lot for trans people, many of whom have different names and different sexes on different goverment documents. So yeah, sex is socially constructed, if you didn't know, and it's not a clear cut divide, and it's often used as a tool to fuck trans folks over.
Third, over at queerradical.com, 7 Dirty Tidbits about Louis Althusser. Are you
a hipster Marxist?
Finally, (this one is old) The Guardian determines that the
ultimate postmodern novel is actually a film.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
cis as an academic term
A central question that I have as I delve into theory is the concept of “academic language.” As I mentioned in my previous two posts, academic language is divisive and convoluted. But I think there is another piece of the puzzle into which I really want to dig deeper—what does it mean to write a theorist, a branch of theory, or a whole community off as being too academic?
A few weeks ago, queenemily over at Questioning Transphobia wrote two great posts about how “cisgender” is dismissed as an academic term, rendering the calling out of cisgender privilege easily deflectable. queenemily noted that “cis” comes from internet listservs and discussion boards from the 90s. The folks in my community who I talked about it with have said that it comes out of a chemistry term, cis-trans isomerism which I can’t verify but is a neat connection. Here’s the wikipedia article on cisgender as well.
I think it’s important to note that cisgender didn’t necessarily come straight from the academy, or from the pages of Judith Butler. I don’t think that doesn’t mean there isn’t some sort of academic connection to it, though—internet access in the 90s was still scarce, so the folks who may have been actively creating cis might have been academics after all, or at least folks privileged enough to have consistent enough internet access to create online communities. I wish there was a clear citation or link back or path to the origins of cisgender!
queenemily also brings up probably the most important point to me that seems to be forgotten particularly in feminist discussions of trans issues—words that start with cis may seem esoteric, but how many times are words like “sexism” and “heterosexism” thrown back at groups who work to end oppression as too academic? queenemily puts it as the following:
What does it mean to have a theoretical body? I think it means a lot of different things. Speaking from my experience, I see my body as theoretical, my sex as well as my gender, because I am intimately aware, as many people are, of how power that is not usually mine constructs my body, and how that construction doesn’t match what I think of my body to be.
What does it mean to be academic? Does that mean theoretical? Or does it mean esoteric? Hard to understand? If words that start with cis are hard to understand, what is it that makes them that way? It could be that not many folks use words that start with cis. Or it could be that by saying something is hard to understand, you can ignore what is being said.
Sara Shalil, as I talked about earlier, says that’s the argument often leveled at Judith Butler’s work—it’s too hard to understand, so I’m not going to read it or try to understand it. Are trans people’s lives, experiences, critiques, bodies, and needs expendable because cis people think they are theories too hard to comprehend?
A few weeks ago, queenemily over at Questioning Transphobia wrote two great posts about how “cisgender” is dismissed as an academic term, rendering the calling out of cisgender privilege easily deflectable. queenemily noted that “cis” comes from internet listservs and discussion boards from the 90s. The folks in my community who I talked about it with have said that it comes out of a chemistry term, cis-trans isomerism which I can’t verify but is a neat connection. Here’s the wikipedia article on cisgender as well.
I think it’s important to note that cisgender didn’t necessarily come straight from the academy, or from the pages of Judith Butler. I don’t think that doesn’t mean there isn’t some sort of academic connection to it, though—internet access in the 90s was still scarce, so the folks who may have been actively creating cis might have been academics after all, or at least folks privileged enough to have consistent enough internet access to create online communities. I wish there was a clear citation or link back or path to the origins of cisgender!
queenemily also brings up probably the most important point to me that seems to be forgotten particularly in feminist discussions of trans issues—words that start with cis may seem esoteric, but how many times are words like “sexism” and “heterosexism” thrown back at groups who work to end oppression as too academic? queenemily puts it as the following:
Now obviously, cissexual isn’t a common, everyday term. But neither are other terms commonly used in feminist discussions online, like essentialism and heteronormativity. None of these are very difficult to make sense of, to read around, or to just fucking google it.queenemily defines this up as the power/privilege to be ignorant about an issue. I agree wholeheartedly. I also feel like there is something about calling something “academic” that makes it seem like it is less true, less everyday, less important, more theoretical. What does it mean for something to be theoretical? What does it mean to say something isn’t real because it’s theoretical? Reading over at Womanist Musing’s comment thread at her post about Radical Feminism, one commenter repeatedly discussed how trans people are not able to change their sex, though they can change their gender all they want, and by not being able to change their sex many radical feminists won’t respect both their gender and their sex. What the commenter seemed to be getting at was that sex is NOT socially constructed and gender is, and because it’s socially constructed—read THEORETICAL—it is not what the conversation is truly about.
What does it mean to have a theoretical body? I think it means a lot of different things. Speaking from my experience, I see my body as theoretical, my sex as well as my gender, because I am intimately aware, as many people are, of how power that is not usually mine constructs my body, and how that construction doesn’t match what I think of my body to be.
What does it mean to be academic? Does that mean theoretical? Or does it mean esoteric? Hard to understand? If words that start with cis are hard to understand, what is it that makes them that way? It could be that not many folks use words that start with cis. Or it could be that by saying something is hard to understand, you can ignore what is being said.
Sara Shalil, as I talked about earlier, says that’s the argument often leveled at Judith Butler’s work—it’s too hard to understand, so I’m not going to read it or try to understand it. Are trans people’s lives, experiences, critiques, bodies, and needs expendable because cis people think they are theories too hard to comprehend?
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