I’d like to relate a story that I’m not terribly proud of.

As I’ve mentioned in other places on this blog, I went through medical transition a while ago. I started taking hormones sixteen years ago, started to “live full time” a year later, and had surgery a year after that. So, I’ve had a while to live with the personal demons that can plague a person after transition.

Even though I passed as a cis woman with great ease, I still had this ugly little voice in the back of my head that whispered, “You look like a freak. You sound like a freak. You have the past of a freak. You’re ugly, awkward, and far too masculine to be a real woman.” I was my own worst critic and consequently, I endured the weight of self-hatred for many years.

The funny thing is, when I looked upon other trans people—trans women in particular—all of that self-doubt and all of those personal demons were projected upon my peers. I didn’t see other women who were struggling with the same issues I was. Most trans women appeared to be impostors to me. Deep down, in my gut, I saw a bunch of annoying men in dresses and garish makeup, pretending to be women. Not surprisingly, after I transitioned, I started to avoid trans women like the plague. They were little more than over-glorified crossdressers on hormones. Oh yes, did I mention that crossdressers kind of freaked me out? They did.

During these years, whenever I encountered another trans person, I’d paste on a smile, pretend that I wasn’t a prejudiced fool, and quietly walk away. The faster I could put distance between myself and others of my kind, the better. If you have a personal weakness that leads to unhealthy, horrible behaviors, what better way to avoid the issue than to avoid the focus of your dysfunction?

Of course, I knew this was unhealthy thinking.  I knew that on some level, my behavior was problematic.  Even so, I continued to give in to this voice.  Seeing the face of another trans person was like peering into a looking glass.  It was an image I didn’t want to see.  I wanted to run from that image, malignantly glaring back at me.  I wanted to lock it behind steel barriers, forged in isolation from those of my kind.  These could never be my own eyes staring back at me, for I was different.  This distorted visage could never be formed of my own flesh, for I was better than.

In truth, or course, I was always staring into my own eyes.

Denial is the refuge of a fearful mind.

When did this stop? It started to fade only when I learned to distinguish the voice that whispered ugly insults from my own voice.  It started to fade only when I recognized that it was the effect of a childhood, beaten and bruised by the abuse of a gender-prejudiced society. When I learned to listen to my heart and accept myself as the woman I am, this hateful voice was quelled. Not surprisingly, as the voice vanished, the prejudice I felt toward other trans people began to fade.

You can only begin to accept the lives of others when you begin to accept your own. Those words may be trite, but they contain a wealth of truth.

You can take this story for what it’s worth, as I’m just one person. However, it seems to me that it’s not uncommon for the people of any marginalized group to have to contend with the effects of self-hatred within its members. In fact, there’s a name for this phenomenon. It’s called internalized oppression. A person can engage in stunningly negative behaviors toward themselves and their peers when they are plagued by this phenomenon. For those who have an interest, here is a webpage which explores the topic at length.

(I originally related this story on a comment thread at The Bilerico Project. Thanks to Battybattybats for alerting me to the webpage addressing internalized oppression.)

Feminism has had a problematic relationship with trans people for decades.  That problem has existed, at the very least, since the heyday of second wave feminism in the 60s and 70s. Similar problematic relationships have evolved between feminism and people of color, poor people, native people, immigrants, and on, and on. Sadly, feminism has come to represent those who have had a majority representation among women: white women, middle class women, cis (non-transgender) women, able-bodied women, etc.

I once dreamed of a feminism in which all of our voices are heard.  However, in recent years, I’ve had to come to terms with the hard, cold reality of how social dynamics actually play out.  As with so many institutions, organizations, and movements, the majority, by sheer force of numbers and available resources, wind up setting the agenda and trajectory of the social body in question. Sadly, this leaves many women behind.  It creates alienation, anger, and the eventual exodus of those people who are marginalized, ignored and mistreated.

If that’s a little dry and distant, here’s an analogy for you:

Imagine that you’ve just met a new group of friends. At first, they seem nice and share a number of interests in common with you.  They’ve know each other for years, are fairly well connected with the community, and seem to be a fun group of people to spend time around.

Shortly after, your friends invite you to a monthly party that is thrown at one of their houses. Each month, before the party, your friends spend a day decorating the house, cooking the food, and lining up the music to be played. You politely ask if you might help out in some of these tasks and the response you receive is, “Well… OK.” Admittedly, their response is a little lukewarm, but you really like them, so you dismiss the response as a fluke and continue to hang out with them.

After a few months, you begin to notice a distressing pattern. Somehow, the house always manages to be decorated before you arrive to help. The food you prepare always seems to be shoved to the back of the buffet table, behind other dishes, or worse: it gets put into the refrigerator without being served. Whenever you make a suggestion for the music, it is ignored, or someone turns it off after people complain about how terrible it is.

At one party, you accidentally overhear several of your friends laughing at how outlandish your tastes and interests are.  As you walk into the room, a hush settles over it.  Understandably, you’re feeling pretty awful. You explain to your friends that you feel hurt and excluded. Some of your friends tell you that you’re imagining things. Some  leave the room to avoid you and take their conversation into a different space.  A few others, responding in anger, inform you that you are a troublemaker and ask you to pipe down or leave.

Now, the question is this: do you continue to hang out with these people, or do you find new friends who will treat you with respect and who share far more in common with you?

Often times, this is what it feels like to be a trans woman in a feminist space.  More generally, this is what it feels like to be a trans person in a social venue that is largely populated by cis people. Your concerns, perspectives, experiences, ideas, and ways of life are seen as awkward, unimportant, outlandish, or disruptive. On an average day, all of this is swept under the rug and ignored by the majority. If you challenge people on the ways that their treatment alienates you, you are dismissed, ignored, ostracized or called a troublemaker. You are told that you are making a big deal out of nothing. You are told that you are over sensitive. You are told that you don’t belong with the larger group anyway and that you should leave. You are told that it’s your responsibility to accept that the majority sets the rules and you are required to comply. If you can’t comply, then it is only right that you suffer the consequences.

It gets old after a while.

►◊♦◊♦◊♦◊♦◊♦◊♦◊♦◊♦◊♦◊♦◊♦◊♦◊♦◊♦◊♦◊♦◊♦◊♦◊♦◊♦◊♦◊♦◊♦◊♦◊♦◊♦◊♦◊♦◊♦◊◄

I prefer to end on a positive note and I have to admit that what I just wrote was a wee bit negative.  It doesn’t have to be this way, but to make thinks different, it’s going to take a lot of effort.

So, I’d like to extend an invitation to a different party.  This party has a brand of beer that you might not recognize.  The music sounds a little strange, but it still has a beat you can dance to.  The decor is a little unusual, but aren’t you getting a little tired of Martha Stewart, anyway?  There’s a lot of vegetarian cooking at these parties, and yeah, I know that sometimes puts people off, but hey—it’s good for you!  It tastes good too, if you’ll give it half a chance.

This invitation goes out to the cis folk who see the value in being allies to trans people.  There’s a wealth of information out there that you can explore about trans folk.  Learn about us.  Take this knowledge back to the people you call friends and kin.  Share it.  Challenge the people around you.  Make this a better world.

Now, who’s bringing the dip?

PS:  See that sidebar over there?  *enthusiastically points to sidebar* It’s an easy place to start. 

EDIT: I expanded the paragraph beginning with, “Often times, this is what it feels like to be a trans woman…”

Once again, the age old pattern of white privilege intertwining with queer activism rears its pale, ugly head.  Recently, the White House honored LGBT Pride and the 40th anniversary of Stonewall with a reception.  Of the trans people invited to participate, not one person was African American.   In her article, Another Historic Meeting, Another Melanin Free Transgender Contingent, Monica Roberts at TransGriot says:

i went nuclear last year when there was a historic committee hearing on transgender issues and not one African-American transgender person was invited to participate.

There was another historic gathering of importance to GLBT people that took place on Monday. It was in the wake of the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots that took place June 28, 1969.

This time the host was none other than the POTUS, and it took place in the building at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue that my ancestors helped construct with their unpaid labor.

So did the white transgender community learn its lesson from last year and make sure in the twelve transgender people that were selected to be there, there was some African-American representation?

Nope.

Monica adds:

This was supposed to be a commemoration of Stonewall, and Miss Major, one of the few African-American transpeople left who are Stonewall veterans is still alive and well.

Why wasn’t she there? Come to think of it, there were people in the trans community such as Vanessa Edwards Foster and Marti Abernathey who busted their derrieres in swing states like Ohio and Indiana to help get President Obama elected.

Washington DC itself is 61% African-American, which translates to Chocolate City having chocolate flavored transpeople. Where were they?

I also have to ask the question who put the list together this time or had input for it, knowing that you’ll shunt the blame to the Obama White House for the ‘oversight’?

And what pisses me and many African-American transpeople off even more about this dissing is the bitter irony that we weren’t invited to an event that an African-American president we helped to elect called to celebrate an event and a movement we helped jump off.

That about sums it up.  Go read the rest of the post at TransGriot.

Lisa at Questioning Transphobia just posted a great article about the term cis, people’s response to the word, and how privilege interrelates:

Cis is not targeted at gay white men, nor is it targeted at feminist women, nor is it targeted at any one particular demographic. Cis people are everywhere. At the most liberal interpretation we’re aware of, cis people make up ~480-495 out of  every 500 people on Earth.

Cis is not an insult, it’s not a slur. It is, however, as much of an identity as trans is, even if most cis people never stop to think about the fact that they’re cis, that they just assume that being what they are (”I’m just a person, I’m not cis/white/het/able-bodied!”) is the normal way to be.

Being cis doesn’t make anyone a bad person. Having privilege doesn’t make anyone a bad person. When you sit back and you think “that person who’s calling me cis is saying I have privilege and thus I AM A TERRIBLE PERSON” consider that the trans person who says that may be white, heterosexual, middle-class, able-bodied, or otherwise privileged. That trans person who says that may even have come to terms with hir own privileges, and does not take it personally when her privilege is pointed out to her.

And what does this privilege really mean? It means several things. Having privilege means is that it’s something you don’t have to think about. As far as you’re concerned, culture is designed to accommodate you in this particular way, treat you as if you’re normal, the human default with regards to gender identity (if you’re a male and identify yourself as a man, or you’re a female and identify yourself as a woman). You don’t have to think about your gender identity because everyone considers it natural. People may consider how you do gender to be wrong, but they don’t question whether you are a man or a woman. They may think that a man attracted to men or a woman attracted to women is doing gender wrong because you’re not heterosexual, but that is homophobia, and is not the same thing that trans people experience. I say this as a trans woman who is also a lesbian.

Go read the rest of the article.

Edited to add:

While we are on the topic, dglenn at Speaker for the Diodes has a comprehensive post on the language concerns surrounding cis, cissexual and cisgender:

Folks, ‘cisgendered’ (or ‘cisgender’¹) and ‘cisssexual’ really are intended to be neutral terms and will be so until/unless some sort of general stigma gets attached to the concept of living / identifying / presenting as the gender society always expected of you because it was on your birth certificate. I don’t see that ever being likely. (I have a hunch that I’ll be responding to a lot of criticisms of this essay by pointing back to this very pragraph, starting at that “until”.)

It’s important to note that there’s no reclaiming of an old slur involved, nor repurposing of a word with other baggage, because ‘cisgendered’ was coined specifically for this meaning and this purpose, and wasn’t a word before that. Any baggage the word has now has to have accrued entirely over the last decade and a half.

The reason it feels jarring — “naming”? “marking”? — to you, and gets your hackles up is quite simply that y’all are accustomed to being the unmarked class, and giving you any concise name is going to feel like an imposed label that, because you’re not used to having to acknowledge a label at all, some of you start to suspect is somehow insulting or denigrating.

Dglenn also points out that being a member of an unmarked class does not justify one’s opposition to being labeled by the members of the marked class:

An argument I’ve heard is that since we transgendered people get to tell others what labels to use for us and which words are unacceptable, cisgendered people should not have a label forced upon them. But we never got to choose whether to have a label; we only got to argue about which labels we didn’t find insulting. The ‘cis’ debate appears (so far) to be about whether cis-folk should be given a label at all, which is hard to see as anything other than default-class privilege.

You don’t get to hold on to being “just plain [unmarked] men” and “just plain [unmarked] women” and not have a label for your class, because that continues to promote the idea that trans men and trans women aren’t really men and women. I sure hope that you can understand why trying to stop that meme is important enough to risk pissing off some folks we’d been on good speaking terms with before they started insisting on turning back the clock.

Please read the rest of the article at dglenn’s blog.

This is a story of my struggle with feelings of hatred toward religion and Christianity.  I’m not proud of these feelings and I’m doing my best to resolve them.  As with so many stories of prejudice, it starts with childhood…

As I’ve mentioned in other places on this blog, I grew up in a conservative family. I was born in 1968. I grew up in the 70s and 80s. Back then, my family’s conservatism wasn’t the kind of perspective that we now associate with the Republican Party and the Religious Right. There were no conservative think tanks or megachurches guiding people’s philosophies. It was a kind of gut-level conservatism that grew out of the culture of white, blue collar enclaves in Baltimore. It had less to do with politics and religion and more to do with fitting white cultural norms and vociferously denouncing that which didn’t fit. If you were not white, Christian, and heterosexual, my hometown was not a welcoming place to live in. Hate and prejudice were common, everyday features of life.

I was raised as a Christian, a Lutheran to be precise. So far as my childhood memories tell me, the church that I went to never directly confronted the issues of homosexuality or transgender people. Nevertheless, the intolerance of my community toward sexual and gender minorities was plainly evident, even to a child. I was very aware that who I was went against social convention and that the feelings growing deep inside of me were a mortal sin. I lived with the persistent fear of hell and eternal damnation throughout most of elementary school. It was terrible. I became obsessed with death long before I entered puberty. No child should have to endure this kind of torture. To this day, I consider teaching children about hell and damnation to be a form of emotional abuse.

During my adolescence, we started to spend our summers at a family cabin in the Appalachian mountains. Since the cabin was a hundred miles away from our church, my religious education ended. I was relieved. My Sundays were now mine to do as I pleased and I no longer had to endure grueling sessions of religious instruction that bored me to tears. In the following years, I learned to let go of the fear of a wrathful god who punishes the wicked with eternal damnation. My emotions started to heal.

During college, I came to a place in my life where I began to challenge everything in my conservative upbringing. During that process, I became an atheist. I looked upon the self hatred and fear of my childhood, so deeply intertwined with the irrational prejudices of religion, and decided that religion was a hateful superstition intent on controlling society. I turned my back on Christianity, dismissing it as a social cancer that infects people with prejudice and self loathing.

A few years into college, I decided to participate in abortion rights activism. My travels during these years brought me into contact with many Christians on the other side of this issue. During this time, I met some of the most conservative, unsavory religious people I had ever met in my life. I came face to face with the Religious Right. I saw their actions and listened to their rhetoric. They tried to shut down abortion clinics that I helped to defend. They yelled epithets at women entering these clinics. They threatened clinic escorts and doctors with violence. I once infiltrated a gathering of anti-choice activists who were being led by Randall Terry. The mindless, religious fervor I witnessed was deeply unsettling. The experiences I had as an activist left me fearing for the future of the country. In the midst of this mess, I found my feelings toward Christianity crystallizing into a growing hatred.

My college years were also the years in which I came out to my family. Although I was not disowned, I certainly encountered much resistance and skepticism. Of my three siblings, I felt the closest to my sister. When I came out to my sister, she told me that I was going against God and the church. She told me that being transgender was immoral and that I had become an immoral person because our parents had failed to give me a proper religious education. I left the experience angry and alienated. One of the people I loved most in my family had rejected the very core of my being as twisted and sinful. I placed the blame firmly upon Christianity’s shoulders.

After my experiences with my family and political activism, my feelings toward religion darkened considerably. By the time I left college, I came to see religion—Christianity in particular—as a hateful, ignorant anchor around the neck of human civilization. I came to see religion as an intellectual and emotional plague, intent on controlling people’s minds and destroying anyone who dare go against its will. It was the oil that lubricated the machinery of oppression.

Then came the year 2000, the second Bush administration, and the zenith of the Religious Right’s influence. Needless to say, this didn’t help my growing hatred against religion.

In the midst of all of this, there is irony: I am a deeply spiritual person. That’s right—I’m an atheist with a strong sense of spirituality. Although I do not believe in gods, I do feel a deep sense of connection with living things: people, animals, forests, the Earth, etc. This sense of connection is very important to me and when something comes between me and that sense of connection, it causes me great distress. Not surprisingly, hating people goes against that sense of connection. It hurts and diminishes it. Consequently, I don’t like feeling hatred very much. It feels intrinsically wrong.

What to do?

About two years ago, I started to spend time with a very close friend here in the Twin Cities. She’s an atheist, too. Nevertheless, she feels a curiosity toward religion because she was raised as an atheist and consequently, had little contact with religion as a child. My friend sees religion somewhat differently from me for she did not suffer through emotional abuse at the hands of Christianity in a conservative community. To her, religion is a fascinating cultural phenomenon around which communities form and relate. Her curiosity has brought her into contact with several different churches and many of her experiences were quite positive. Seeing religion through her eyes challenged how I saw Christianity.

My friend introduced me to a local LGBT church in Minneapolis. She and I attended the church for several months and got to know some of the people there. It was the first time in my life that I experienced a community of religious people that felt vibrant, healthy, and free of bigotry. The experience changed how I view religion. I spent much of that summer reading about liberal sects of Christianity and their philosophies. I was surprised by what I found and I have grown as a consequence of the experience. I started to let go of the hatred and prejudice that I once felt against Christianity. I now realize that there is much more to religion than the horrors of my childhood, the narrow views of my family, and the scary specter of the Religious Right.

It’s not all sweetness and light for me. There are still countless numbers of people doing terrible things in the name of their respective religions. Religion has played a key role in all kinds of oppression: sexism, homophobia, transphobia, bigotry against other religions, colonial oppression, slavery, and on and on. Wars have been fought and governments have been toppled under the aegis of religion. However, religion—like any other human activity—is not a monolithic endeavor. There are good people and assholes everywhere, regardless of the group in question. When one solely focuses upon the deeds of those with ill intent, it is easy to become swept up in a tribalism that brings humanity to prejudice, hatred, and collective bloodshed. There are plenty of terrible things to focus upon when it comes to most religions. If that is all you focus upon, then surely, that is what you shall see.  I’ve been trying my best to embrace this realization. I accept that organized spirituality doesn’t have to be grounded in hatred and intolerance. It can be so much more… and in many churches and religious organizations, it is.

For those people who are reading this and are looking for something beyond the realm of conservative Christianity, there are many, many LGBT affirming churches in the world. If you are looking for such a church, you can find a list of these churches at gaychurch.org. Do click on the link… It’s well worth your time. I promise.

As for those atheist friends who are reading this blog: don’t worry—I still don’t believe in a god.

The topic of male aggression and violence is of deep interest to me. I’ve mentioned before that I was emotionally and physically abused when I was growing up. The bulk of that abuse came from the boys I went to school with. I was expected to embody the degree of aggression and violence that my peers manifested and that expectation was a constant source of stress for me. I’m not very aggressive. I never have been. I’m not all that prone to violence either. In a confrontation, my emotions are generally of the “run away” variety than the “stand and fight” variety. I’ve had to make a conscious effort in teaching myself to be more assertive. It’s something I struggle with even though I’ve walked the planet for four decades now.

I’m not convinced that men’s emotions are much more biologically predisposed toward violence and aggression than women’s emotions. I used to live with the idealistic misconception that women were angelic beings that stood apart from violence. Now that I’m older and wiser, I realize that this is far from the case. I’ve witnessed women act on aggressive and violent impulses with great regularly. The contrast lies in the tendency of expressing those impulses through different avenues than men. Those impulses tend to be expressed through social interactions. In men, those impulses tend to be expressed through social interactions and physical violence and intimidation. As far as I can tell, the impulses remain the same. The way in which people express those impulses varies across gender.

In spite of these impulses being shared between the sexes, cultural ideology ties together masculinity, aggression and violence. Aggression and violence are not simply things that men do, they are incorporated into the very sense of what it means to be masculine. Put another way, aggression and violence are incorporated into boys’ and mens’ identities.

Now, I know that some people are going to object to that statement, but let’s take a second look at it. Men are expected to serve in the role of protectors, are they not? What does that bring to mind? Among the roles that pop into your head, do these come to mind: police officer, soldier, knight, and action hero? Those roles are generally viewed positively. Bound up in the roll of protector is the notion that it is men’s duty to protect the weak and bring villainous aggressors to justice. Comparatively speaking, how often are women envisioned in these roles? Even though it’s 2009, how often are little girls taught to see themselves in this light? Take a walk through Toys R Us or spend a few hours watching television. The proof is there if you look for it.

In spite of the positive roles associated with some forms of violence and aggression, we live in a world that is saturated with violence. Violence, be it physical or social, undergirds the way in which power flows in the world. Some say that money makes the world go ‘round, but underneath the veneer of monetary exchange, lies the threat of tanks, bombs, guns, and ultimately, nuclear devastation. As a child of the cold war era, this topic inevitably brings me to contemplate the scary forms of weapon research that governments are engaging in across the globe. Our violence and aggression could very well bring about human extinction.

So, what can we do about this? How can we work toward a future where violence is no longer the default response to so many forms of conflict? When I’ve talked to people about this in the past, I inevitably encounter the frustrating assertion that violence and aggression are the biological outcome of male physiology. That assertion brings forth the notion that there is not much we can do, but accept that these phenomena are the inevitable outcome of nature in action.

Well, OK, let’s run with that notion: males are biologically predisposed toward violence and aggression. The thing is, even if that’s true, why does society do so little to discourage this behavior in boys and men? Other kinds of behaviors receive tons of social sanction and it’s just as easy to argue that they arise out of natural human tendencies. Take theft, for instance. It’s easy to argue that theft is a behavior that arises from a desire toward self preservation and survival. That is, people steal resources that help them to survive out of a desire to continue their existence. It’s also quite easy to argue that greed comes from the same origin. The more resources you have, the more likely you are to survive.

In spite of the very real possibility that these tendencies are natural behaviors bound in our neurobiology, theft and greed are strongly discouraged when we raise children. In contrast, violent play and aggressive interactions are often dismissed as normal, masculine behavior in boys. The operative phrase in dismissing this behavior as harmless is “boys will be boys.” In fact, I remember my father encouraging me to solve conflict through violence. Why is this? Presumably, if you ignore a child’s tendency toward greed and theft—or even worse, you encourage it—your child might very well grow up to be a criminal. So, if you ignore a child’s tendency toward violence and aggression, or you even go so far as to encourage such behaviors, would he not be more likely to grow up to be a violent adult?

Now, think of movies and books. How often is greed and theft portrayed in a positive way? How often is violence—particularly violence as a solution to conflict—portrayed in a positive way?

Why are violence and aggression—behaviors that are widely viewed as the province of men—deemed acceptable when other negative behaviors are not? Could it be that those behaviors have traditionally been used as effective tools in amassing and maintaining power, particularly men’s access to power? This brings the conversation full circle to what I wrote in a previous post addressing masculinity and violence.

I know that these ideas are not popular as they are frequently dismissed as misandry. However, I don’t think this is the case as the victims of male violence are so often men themselves. When I was growing up—male identity and male body still intact—I was one of the victims of this violence. This is quite personal and quite real to me. It is my earnest wish that boys and men would stop preying upon each other. In my hear of hearts, I wish we could create a world in which boys no longer have to face the kind of shit I had to endure. I’m not certain how someone could label that motivation as misandry.

In spite of the cynicism that 40 years of living has brought to my psyche, I still retain threads of the idealism that first captured my imagination 23 years ago. A part of me wants very much to believe that human beings can be better than we currently are. To do this however, we must be willing to turn over a lot of ideological rocks and allow ourselves to see the startling creatures that live under them. That’s a painful process, but change is rarely comfortable. At the heart of this process should remain our concern for how we treat our children, for they are the most vulnerable among us.

Sometimes, gender conformity can get people to do strange things.  Some students at Mississippi State University conducted a social psychology experiment in the lobby of a building:

Experiment: Conformity to gender roles. We placed common male and female signs on opposite transparent doors instructing people to walk through the correct entrance.

Here is a video of their experiment:

It’s interesting that you can manipulate people into altering their everyday behaviors through gender conformity.  Gender and its social dictates serve as a powerful, yet subtle source of influence over human behavior.  It guides everything from choices in clothing to how we relate to inanimate objects and animals.

Here’s another experiment: make a list of everyday activities or behaviors that you engage in during the course of a day that are influenced by gender.  Now, what’s on your list?

(via: The Situationist)

Edited to add: “make a list of everyday activities or behaviors“

A few days ago, I related the story of a Swedish family who is raising their young child in a gender neutral way by telling very few people of the child’s sex. Holly at Feministe has a wonderful take on this story.

… all of you people who are thinking about having kids in the future? Think about raising your kids this way. The world would be a better place for it.

This choice isn’t for everyone in every situation. Some places, school districts, neighborhoods, relatives, co-parents, might make this choice a lot more difficult, fraught, or even dangerous. But part of why it’s so difficult, and turns into such a controversial choice, is that there are so few people raising their kids with freedom of gender. It doesn’t have to be a huge deal. There are pockets of society now, communities where it’s no longer outlandishly remarkable that one child hasn’t chosen their gender yet, whereas another child figured out early on that he was a boy (regardless of what’s between his legs) and loves being a boy.

I want those pockets to grow. I want schools to get used to this, so that kids who are growing up with freedom of gender, kids who don’t want to pick one yet, kids who just aren’t ready or who never want to pick one, can all be safe. Especially intersex kids, who more and more are being raised in ways that allow them time to figure out complicated choices about their bodies. There will always be kids like that, some whose families get much less choice in the matter. Won’t you support them by joining in, if you have kids? Schools need to be able to support this. Other families, who are parenting in more conventional ways, need to be able to support this.

Go there and read the rest.

Last weekend, I hauled my lazy self down to La Crosse, Wisconsin to see Namoli Brennet perform.  She’s a folk/folk rock musician from Tucson, Arizona and she’s a trans woman. She’s amazingly talented. She writes, produces, and mixes own her music, plays multiple instruments, and generally kicks ass. Her songs take you out of your own world and place you into the life of another person while telling you a story from that character’s perspective. Soulful, wonderful, stuff. Last, but not least, she’s an Out Music Award winner. I highly recommend her.

Finding her music was a godsend for me. It was during a time in my life when I was working through a lot of internalized transphobia. Seeing an incredibly talented trans person, up on stage, being herself was just what I needed.

Anyway, it was great to see her perform again. It was nice to hang out with her and chat for a bit before the show. The cafe was small and intimate and La Crosse is a really cute town. If you ever find yourself driving along the Mississippi in southern Wisconsin, stop by for a looksee.

Namoli Brennet’s websites:
Main Webpage
Myspace

Go here for the list.

I have a never ending fascination with these kinds of responses to sexism.  For me, the point is not to try to illustrate that women are somehow innately superior to men. I don’t believe that any sex or gender is innately superior or inferior to another. Rather, the point is to illustrate that stereotypes can be manipulated to justify the exclusion of virtually anyone from virtually any activity. It illustrates the arbitrary nature of how kyriarchy assigns and justifies power.

I’ve moved the House Rules to this location.  I also modified the last rule (#8) to say:

While I often assume the role of providing information on transgender issues, ultimately, it is not my job to educate you. If it looks as though you are bogging down the flow of a comment thread with basic “Trans 101″ concerns, I may choose to ban your participation in that thread. You have plenty of options in finding this information via other sources. Read through my old posts. Follow the various links in the sidebar and read the information available on those blogs and webpages. The more you read, the more you will learn. Also, Whipping Girl by Julia Serano is an excellent primer on transgender issues, albeit from a trans woman’s perspective. I don’t agree with everything she says, but reading her book will provide an excellent start. Last but not least, Google is your friend.

OK, that may have sounded a bit snotty, but it’s not meant to.  You see, there’s a small number of trans folk who are openly discussing these issues with the rest of the world, and to put it bluntly, there are many more of you than there are of us.  We are faced with the same common questions, concerns and observations from cis people over and over again.  It gets old after a while, especially when dealing with the more obnoxious comments and tropes that come up in this context.  Please don’t be offended when one of us sighs and says, “I’m finished discussing these issues with you.  Before you return to this thread, you need to educate yourself.”  You may not realize you are being offensive, but chances are, you have said something annoying that has been heard a thousand times before.  The best thing you can do at that point is quietly extract yourself from the conversation and sequester yourself with a bunch of reading material.

In an effort to address people’s information gap, I’ve started a “Trans 101″ section in the links on my sidebar.  I’ll be adding on to it as time progresses.  Also, there is an extensive Trans 101 links section in the sidebar of Questioning Transphobia.  I highly reccomend it.

Here’s an interesting story. Two parents have kept their child’s sex a secret from all but a tiny handful of people.  They are leaving it up to the child as to when s/he decides to reveal hir sex to others.  (Thanks to Rachel and Rebecca for the heads up.)

Pop’s parents, both 24, made a decision when their baby was born to keep Pop’s sex a secret. Aside from a select few – those who have changed the child’s diaper – nobody knows Pop’s gender; if anyone enquires, Pop’s parents simply say they don’t disclose this information.

In an interview with newspaper Svenska Dagbladet in March, the parents were quoted saying their decision was rooted in the feminist philosophy that gender is a social construction.

“We want Pop to grow up more freely and avoid being forced into a specific gender mould from the outset,” Pop’s mother said. “It’s cruel to bring a child into the world with a blue or pink stamp on their forehead.”

The child’s parents said so long as they keep Pop’s gender a secret, he or she will be able to avoid preconceived notions of how people should be treated if male or female.

Pop’s wardrobe includes everything from dresses to trousers and Pop’s hairstyle changes on a regular basis. And Pop usually decides how Pop is going to dress on a given morning.

Although Pop knows that there are physical differences between a boy and a girl, Pop’s parents never use personal pronouns when referring to the child – they just say Pop.

“I believe that the self-confidence and personality that Pop has shaped will remain for a lifetime,” said Pop’s mother.

Given the way adults tend to slather children with stereotypical gender expectations from conception onward, I see this as a refreshing approach to parenting. Not everyone fits into the pink and blue shackles that so many folks take for granted.  I think it would be wonderful to work toward a world in which children can simply grow to take advantage of whatever talents and qualities come naturally to them. Right now, this is clearly not happening. Gender stereotypes and their accompanying social expectations effectively serve to cut off bits and pieces of children’s personas in an effort to fit them into a pink and blue, cookie cutter world.

If you are looking for proof, all you have to do is walk into a Toys R Us, open your eyes, and see how the toys are extremely gender segregated. Every time I visit one of these establishments, I feel like coming back in the dead of night and firebombing the place. I feel like firebombing the entire corporation.  Naturally, that course of action will not solve the problem because business practices such as these can not survive unless parents buy into gender stereotypes en masse.  I place the blame squarely where it belongs: the average adult who has regular contact with children.  Learn to challenge your assumptions, for your actions and your words might be helping to stunt the life of a child you know.

There’s a post up at The Bilerico Project that attempts to respond to five misconceptions about trans people.  One of the five misconceptions is:

Transgender people are just men trying to cross an artificial gender boundary that shouldn’t be there in the first place.

My personal response to that misconception would be simple: binary notions of gender will never effectively incorporate a wide variety of behaviors and ways of being that have been expressed since human beings have walked the planet.  Transgender people are individuals (women, men, and those who define as neither or both) who are trying to survive an inadequate system of categorizing human beings.  They are people who are forced to live under a rigid binary and are doing their best to adjust to a shitty, oppressive system,  just as everyone else is forced to adjust to it. At worst, the binary hurts anyone who is unable to conform to it, and at best, it deeply limits the lives of those who can.  Labels are artificial constructs that rarely—if ever—recognize and acknowledge the diversity of the natural word, including a vast spectrum of human behavior.

Part of the response at The Bilerico Project says:

These people are usually unaware of the internal anguish created by gender dysphoria, and cannot imagine a life where their minds and bodies are in conflict. Furthermore, they’re convinced that there is no difference between men and women, save for the parts and the proportions. This is easily rectified; ask them to name a few things that men do/women do that they simply do not understand. (Everyone has a half-dozen of these, easy.) [Emphasis added.]

This statement bothers me and I’m a trans woman.

I can think of a half-dozen things that men and women do that firmly fit into little pink and blue boxes that *I* don’t quite understand.  Lo and behold, I still identify as a woman.  I’ve certainly known my share of cis and trans people who look at standard gender expectations and think, “How odd.  That’s certainly not me.”

Also, what about genderqueer people?  They look at standard binary modes of gender behavior and find that there is no place for them.  The above comment doesn’t address those experiences.  Quite to the contrary, it ignores those experiences.  I’m not willing to throw genderqueer people under the bus so that my binary-conforming ass gets civil rights and social acceptance before they do.

The core issue that lies at the center of sexism, transphobia and homophobia is the very real problem that a gender binary can never incorporate the wide diversity of ways of being that humans express.  In spite of this, we cling to this system of categories and invest tons of individual and institutional resources forcing ourselves and others to conform.

Any queer person who has run up against that conformity can attest to how the system doesn’t work.  It hurts people.  That’s the raison d’être behind homophobia and transphobia: to hurt those who do not conform.  Loving someone of the same sex/gender violates gender expectations. Consequently, people fear and hate lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals.  Transgender people violate gender expectations by shifting physical form and/or expressing non-conforming gender behaviors.  So, people fear and hate trans people.  That fear and hatred leads to social repercussions that either force people to conform or face social sanctions and violence.

Of course, this perspective doesn’t play well with mainstream folk because they are deeply invested in conforming to the norm.  If you try to tell John and Jane Q America that a rigid gender binary oppresses people, they will look at you as though you are a two headed monster.

In the long run, however, this perspective makes more sense to me.  The system is broken.  There are many, many people whose lives do not fit into this system.  It needs to be fixed.  It’s going to take generations to do this, but the effort is worth it, for as long as human beings cling to rigid notions of male/female/masculine/feminine, there’s always going to be a certain amount of hatred and mistrust of anyone who defies the binary.

Even so, this notion scares people.  It scares many trangender women and men because under a non-binary culture, we might exist as entirely different people.  I’m OK with that.  Under the current system, I’m a woman.  That’s how all the the individual components of my persona interact with this social system.  This is all that I know.  I work with the tools I am given.  What more can any perosn do?  However, if we lived under a system that simply exploded the notions of male and female, feminine and masculine?  I’m not sure who I would be.  Not a single person living on this planet at this point in history can answer that question, either.  That scares the shit out of people and that’s the whole point: change is frightening, even if it is healthy.

I found this little gem in a comment thread about Thomas Beattie at Womanist Musings:

A womb, and the ability to use it are restricted to women. Men do not have wombs. Men do not have ovaries. Men do not produce eggs. Women have wombs, ovaries, eggs, and give birth.

That’s how it works.

Or, if you’d prefer, “female”. Because she’s female.

That said, “transphobia” is disingenuous. There is no “phobia” (fear) of this person.

Science disagrees.

Ovaries. Womb. Things females have. Males don’t have them.

*rolls eyes*

Oh cripes. This again.

Yes, in some species—humans being one of them—some individuals produce sperm and some individuals produce eggs. In those species, a sperm and an egg must come together to reproduce young. That is simply what is. That’s the “scientific” part.

That act of labeling things and assigning an attendant system of beliefs and social relationships is a human invention, however. Labels and their attendant baggage are not necessary for reproduction. Amazingly, most species seem to reproduce quite well without needing labels… or language… or his and hers bath towels.

So, all of those labels—male, female, woman, man, feminine, masculine—they are the inventions of human beings. How those labels are interpreted varies according to culture and personal belief. Those labels, like so many other systems of social categories, deeply limit our understanding of ourselves and others. Ironically, they even limit science, as sexist bias has been found to creep into scientists’ study of gender behavior in non-human animals.

Now, do we go around asking people if they produce sperm or eggs? I don’t know about you, but I usually give someone a quick glance, do a few subconscious mental calculations, and arrive at their sex/gender without much thought. Based upon those split second calculations, gender and all of it’s attendant social baggage then comes into play.

So, this sperm and egg debate? When it comes to the daily social interactions that form the basis of people’s lives, it’s irrelevant.

So what if Thomas Beattie identifies as a man? He hasn’t denied that his body has eggs. I mean, duh, he did just give birth. Hence, there is no denial of what his body is capable of. Quite to the contrary. He does, however, identify with a particular social marker—man/male—that makes him feel comfortable with who he is as a person. It is a matter of who he identifies as, deep in his spirit… and that knowledge informs how he presents himself to the world and how he interacts with the world and the people in it. That has nothing to do with the kind of cells floating around in someone’s gonads. In actuality, it is centered in spirit, personal knowledge, and social presence.

OK, so you don’t like the word transphobia being assigned to you? Let’s try this. The fact that you are incapable of accepting who this man is, and instead, deny his very being… that makes you an insensitive, petty asshole. That’s my label for you. How do you like it?

Here’s a little dose of reality. If a trans guy sat down next to you at a bus stop, most likely, you wouldn’t know the difference. You’d interact with him as you would with any man. And get this—he might actually have a few eggs here and there in his body. You wouldn’t know the difference. Fancy that.

Oh, I forgot. You have super human powers and by employing your X-ray vision, you instantly determine that you have been duped! Eggs? A man with eggs? Oh horror of horrors! There goes the whole bus stop conversation, brought to a halt by some microscopic cells deep within a person’s body. Heavens to Betsy! What shall we do now?

Do you see how ridiculous this is?

So, you insist that trans men aren’t really men and trans women aren’t really women and you insist that this assertion doesn’t make you a bigot.  Gosh, I’m so sorry that you don’t like the label “bigot” being applied to you.  That must really hurt your feelings.  No one likes to be called something that misrepresents who they are, right?

So, how about this instead: you are a ignorant hypocrite who wallows in your privilege to mischaracterize others according to the dictates of your prejudice while viewing critiques of your prejudiced behavior as being unfair misrepresentations of who you are.  Hey, I see what you mean.  That is so much more accurate than calling you a bigot.  I stand corrected.  Thank you.