Nerd is my Gender
What's yours?
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Anti-Trans Discrimination
What she said:
NCTE and The Task Force released the findings of an extensive survey on the kinds of discrimination faced by trans people in the US. It’s not good news, and anyone who is surprised that it’s not good news hasn’t been paying attention.
Said Mara Keisling, Executive Director of NCTE: “Reading these results is heartbreaking on a personal level—each of these facts and figures represents pain and hardship endured by real people, every single day. This survey is a call to the conscience of every American who believes that everyone has the right to a fair chance to work hard, to have a roof overhead, and to support a family. Equality, not discrimination, is the ideal that Americans believe in, have fought for, and need to apply here.”
You can read the Executive Summary, or the entire survey.
We need a gender-inclusive ENDA.
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Women Subject to Objectifying Gazes Show Decreased Math Ability
Women who are looked at as sexual objects not only react as sexual objects, they also exhibit less proficiency with math, according to a new study published in the March 2011 issue of the journal Psychology of Women Quarterly.
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Trans*-on-Trans* Discrimination
Sigh… When are we going to learn that we’re not each other’s enemies? It’s the people out there who want to force us into a genital-defined social role who hate us, not each other.
transgirljournal makes a list of people she wants to inflict physical violence upon:
- The ones that complain constantly about people giving them male pronouns when they don’t even try to present semi-feme sometimes.
Weird, I know plenty of men who can throw on a cute skirt and still be called by male pronouns. Not to mention men who can avoid femininity as hard as they try and still not hear one male pronoun all day long. Presenting as femme/butch/whatever isn’t the magic button for receiving non-male pronouns, it seems.
- The ones that don’t even try.
How do you know if they’re trying? Are you living their lives? Maybe she’s leapt over 500 obstacles that week already, and she simply doesn’t have the strength for Obstacle #501.
- The ones who complain about transphobia when all their life involves is looking for transphobia.
Have you looked around you? Do you listen to what people say? The only way to avoid the constant transphobia is to plug your ears, cover your eyes, wear gloves (if your read braille), and hide in a closet. Speaking of closet, that’s where you’ll find the only trans* people who don’t complain about transphobia, because it’s too dangerous for them to. They need the rest of us to speak up against hate for them when they can’t.
- The ones who WANT transphobia and people to call them “trannies” just so they can make a scene.
Gasp! Not a scene! WE WOULDN’T WANT THAT! Then bigots who hate and abuse trans* people might get the wrong idea about how we really feel. They might even stop oppressing us, and then we wouldn’t get to make scenes any more, and that would be sad. /sarcasm
In summary: get over yourself.
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Gender Policing in Atheism
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Joe:
Is their some weird thing going on in atheist circles with the word ‘female’? I’ve been reading a couple of blogs and apparently someone on a panel used the word ‘female’ to describe…um…females and ONE WOMAN stands up and protests the use of ‘female’ as dehumanization. And when a man on the panel calls this absurd claim well, absurd, he got accused of being dismissive of ALLLLLLLL Women and a symbol of sexism in the atheist community. I’m sorry; getting bogged down in the use of word ‘female’ should be dismissed. There are unquestionably sexist atheists but I don’t see how that is reflected in the use of a word that the vast majority of people use with no cruel intent.
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Andy (me):
It really depends on the usage. Like, it also bothers me when people use "girls" and "men" together. This is most common in pop music (like "you be my girl and i'll be your man"), but sometimes people do it in real life too. If people are saying "females" for women but "men" for men, then we have a problem. If people are saying "females" and "males" like they do in the military, then it's all even.
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Joe:
Then it's the context, not the word. The complaints appear to be about the word itself and the reaction to the woman who claimed offense.
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Andy:
I haven't heard it. Maybe I'm too out of the loop here.
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Joe:
I wouldn't have brought it up but it has been mentioned on a couple of atheist sites. And let me be clear. That woman has every right to take offense but I also have every right to weigh what she's saying and call it stupid.
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Keith:
As I got older I began to understand what was behind 'womyn' and the dislike for the word 'female'. But also came to view it as going a little far in trying to right perceived social wrongs as opposed to actual social wrongs. Do keep in mind though, that no one has made any effort at explaining to me why using 'woman' or 'female' is wrong. Seems every time I have asked a woman who has issues with either term, all I got in response was "You're a sexist/fascist if you don't know!" I also hate it when someone uses 'girl' to describe and adult woman or 'girls' for a group of women.
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Joe:
It is a little troubling that this post appears to only have dudes responding.
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Asia:
Apparently, you're unaware that Andy isn't a dude....
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Paul:
There are more male head's of state then female heads of state. There are more male CEO's then there are female CEO's. Until that becomes equal then men have no right to claim sexism.
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Amber:
I *heart* Paul.
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Laura:
The conversation must have set off some kind of trigger for her. Sometimes even rational people go rabid when certain buttons are pushed. It really depends on the context, like Andy said. Girl/boy, man/woman, female/male....all equivalent when paired like that but maybe a little offensive when mixed. I have seen so called feminists call grown men boys. Using patronizing speech is really off-putting no matter which gender it's aimed towards.
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Andy:
I'll call my boyfriend "boy" when I'm trying to sound insulting, but only for jokes and stuff, because it really is degrading to call a grown adult by children's terminology.
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Jude:
I'm not offended by the word "female" as long as it's used as a correlate of "male" but I do think part of the problem with "female" might be old connotations from cultural folklore, like "the female of the species (is deadlier than the male)" and other usages that seem more oriented to taxonomy than to human beings.
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Bridget:
I'm still trying to understand why she became upset over the word female.
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Kenneth:
I like females. That's right I said it. I said I like females. Sometimes I want to have sex with them. Sometimes I like very feminine females.If a female don't like that then we don't have to have sex at all. If she wants to get an attitude about it I don't even have to like her at all. I might not even qualify her as being a female.We can fight about it if she wants. but we will have to fight in the nude.
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Andy:
Weird, I could have sworn I just heard someone say something completely irrelevant. Must have been the wind.
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Joe:
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T-Friendly Bathroom Initiative in Chicago
GenderQueer Chicago has launched an initiative to have friendly Chicago businesses identify themselves to trans customers. Talk about turning the bathroom meme on its head. It’s positive, it’s proactive, it puts the lie to the bathroom meme…I think I like this idea! What say you, transfolk?
CHICAGO- In an unprecedented effort to make the city of Chicago safer for transgender individuals, local youth organizers have launched the “T-Friendly Bathroom Initiative,” a grassroots community project that challenges business owners to protect gender identity in their public restrooms.
In 2011, more than 500 businesses and organizations will be asked to sign a pledge that commits them to allowing gender-variant customers to use the bathroom of their choice. Businesses that sign the pledge will be awarded a window decal, so that gender-variant people can easily identify trans-friendly businesses.
“We expect this will dramatically improve the way transgender people experience our city and state” said Kate Sosin, Co-Founder of Genderqueer Chicago and a project organizer. “We want business owners to understand that under the Illinois Human Rights Act, it is not just their right to protect transgender people in bathrooms, it is their duty.”
Gender identity and expression is protected under the Illinois Human Rights Act, but everyday, countless transgender people are harassed in public restrooms for not “passing” as male or female. This policing often results in violence against gender-variant people. It can also mean health complications for those who are not allowed regular access to bathrooms.
“This project is a critical reminder that trans folk can empower themselves to achieve something positive,” said fellow organizer, Christina Kahrl of Equality Illinois. “What we’re getting to do here is change the dynamic, so that we don’t just limit ourselves to protesting against those businesses and organizations who wrong trans folk.”
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Go Chicago! Maybe next we can get St Louis to step up to the plate?
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Watch more at the source: http://www.itlmedia.org/html/watchitl.shtml
In The Life Media, the producers of the fantastic PBS show In the Life, have teamed up with the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force and the National Center for Transgender Equality to produce a video about their groundbreaking study Injustice at Every Turn. The study is a crucial first step towards quantifying the marginalization experienced by trans and gender non-conforming folks in the US, especially the extreme burden experienced by trans women of color. And the video does a great job of humanizing this issue. You should watch it. Seriously.
What I like about this video is that is speaks to the strength of trans and gender non-conforming folks. We are the brave ones, the ones who take the steps to live outside the impossibly small and wrong gender boxes our culture tries to force us into. The ones who refuse to curl up and die even when the gender defenders are out there killing us. We’re fucking beautiful, and it can be easy to lose site of this fact when focused on oppression. Yes, we experience extreme amounts of hate, but the video does a good job of highlighting the resilience of those who stand up when gender’s trying to keep us down.
(Source: feministing.com)
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You didn't need to put that stupid ass description below your submission on genderqueer. If there were any blind people looking at that page, they wouldn't feel left out because they couldn't see a photo of you. Blind people have accepted their blindness, it's people like you who feel the need to get way too politically correct and do dumb unnecessary shit like that.
Asked by Anonymous
If blind people can accept their blindness, you can surely find it within yourself acceptance for my descriptive ways. Unless that’s too difficult for your narrow mind to bend around. In which case, perhaps you should close your eyes to the world around you, then only those who use screen readers will have to put up with my writing. :D
(Link to post referenced above: http://genderqueer.tumblr.com/post/5905657059/submitted-by-andythenerd-nerd-is-my-gender-i)
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Families are videotaped eating dinner at a restaurant, where a waitress (who is acting) takes offense at their “gay lifestyle”. The responses are very touching.
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When you say about a mother that the only reason she came to this country was to “drop an anchor baby,” what you mean is: that woman is an animal and could not possibly love her child the way I love my child.
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Truth Wins Out embraces ableism.
My comment to them:
While I agree that equal access to marriage should be available to all people regardless of gender, this is a shockingly bigoted post. I have come to expect more from Truth Wins Out.
For one, there’s nothing wrong with marrying a cousin, from a scientific perspective: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/12/cousinmarriage/ The rates of birth defects are not significantly different from the rest of the population. In fact, it’s more risky getting pregnant over the age of 40!
Also, “buck-toothed morons”? What, are you 12? Making fun of people with dental issues or developmental disabilities is the opposite of the message we’re trying to spread of love and acceptance. It gets better! Unless it comes to protecting children with disabilities from bullying, then all bets are off, it seems.
(via A Heartfelt Thanks to Our “Pro-Family” Buck-Toothed Overlords for Protecting Marriage)
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It’s not about censorship; it’s about respect.
(via PSA: The R-Word)
You know what else isn’t okay? Helmet jokes. Seriously people, cut that shit out.
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L0031936 Credit: Wellcome Library, London
Intersex Society of North America
www.isna.org PO Box 3070 MI 48106-3070
‘Phall-O-meter’ (Showing in actual scale current
medical standards employed to determine nature of
genital plastic surgery for children born with
mixed sex anatomy)
In copyright ?
Collection: Wellcome ImagesThis isn’t a medical condition found in children, this is a psychological disorder found in adults. Symptoms include the inability to accept grey areas in their thinking and an extreme compulsion to conform to arbitrary gender norms.
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Two hundred years after the founding of this country, why are those of us who don’t fit into some either/or told that our pursuit of happiness doesn’t count? Are we going to continue nit-picking over exactly which happiness is legal and important, and which happiness is illegal and unimportant?
(Source: fuckyeahkatebornstein)
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“If men are naturally attracted to large-breasted women, then why hasn’t natural selection played out?”
Shh… don’t let this get out - men like thinking their sexual tastes are the result of immutable evolutionary psychology! Wouldn’t want to disappoint them with the realization that it’s mostly cultural. Then they might feel uncomfortably obligated with the realization that our culture is f’d up and needs changed, and uncomfortable realizations are uncomfortable.
(via Philosoraptor: Flat-Chested Mutants)
Edit: I KNOW not all men are straight. I’m not straight either. Holy missing-the-satire, batman.
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![Look, it’s the new “some of my best friends are gay”!
fyeahpdp:
[Picture: Background: 6 piece pie style color split with pink and blue alternating. Foreground: White woman wearing a long sleeved blouse and silver bracelet with long blonde hair. Her arms are crossed over her chest and she has a smug expression.Top text: “ [I HAVE A BI BOYFRIEND SO NOW I REALLY KNOW IT DOESN’T BOTHER ME!] ” Bottom text: “ [I’M SO PROUD OF MYSELF FOR BEING A TRUE ALLY! I MEAN, ISN’T THIS GREAT?] ”]
There was a commenter on Jezebel a while back who basically wanted people to pat her on the back for being able to date a bi guy. I get it that there are a lot of people who won’t date bisexuals simply because they are bisexual, but that shouldn’t be the case. And the people who aren’t like that shouldn’t be asking for cookies for actions that, ideally, we should expect of everyone. Plus, it was just generally gross that she was treating her boyfriend like a litmus test of her degree of allyship.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lnn9egWygH1qgy0fio1_250.jpg)
Look, it’s the new “some of my best friends are gay”!
[Picture: Background: 6 piece pie style color split with pink and blue alternating. Foreground: White woman wearing a long sleeved blouse and silver bracelet with long blonde hair. Her arms are crossed over her chest and she has a smug expression.
Top text: “ [I HAVE A BI BOYFRIEND SO NOW I REALLY KNOW IT DOESN’T BOTHER ME!] ” Bottom text: “ [I’M SO PROUD OF MYSELF FOR BEING A TRUE ALLY! I MEAN, ISN’T THIS GREAT?] ”]There was a commenter on Jezebel a while back who basically wanted people to pat her on the back for being able to date a bi guy. I get it that there are a lot of people who won’t date bisexuals simply because they are bisexual, but that shouldn’t be the case. And the people who aren’t like that shouldn’t be asking for cookies for actions that, ideally, we should expect of everyone. Plus, it was just generally gross that she was treating her boyfriend like a litmus test of her degree of allyship.
Genderqueer with a touch of happy humanism.
