Nerd is my Gender

6
May 1

what is cissexual privilege? do nonbinaries have it?

1) Here’s a handy cis privilege checklist.

2) No.

-Sam

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Privilege Denying - You're Doing it Wrong!

Massive trigger warning on this, folks - unfounded, poisonous hatred needs it.

To you I submit this LOVELY twitter account! Privilege Denying Trans located at @trannyprivilege on twitter! Completely with pictures that are transphobic [Mod; maybe not best word, transhatred is better.] and vast assumptions about what trans women think! Binarism, assumptions, and overall gender fail at it’s finest! Because it’s totally okay to mock trans* people and gender variant people and their identities if they represent a privileged mindset!

You’ll have to click the link for the rest, because it’s rather disgusting.

Maybe people have forgotten what the word “privilege” means, so I’m going to offer a refresher course.

Innocence: The person is not looked to as the cause of problems in society.
Worthiness: The person is presumed worthy of society’s trust and wealth.
Competence: The person is expected to be skillful, successful, and autonomous.

Nice, huh? I took it from here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominant_privilege :D<

So, do trans women have privilege*? Let’s check the items off the list.

Innocence: The trans women is looked to as the cause of problems in society.
Worthiness: The trans woman is not presumed worthy of society’s trust and wealth.
Competence: The trans woman can sometimes be expected to be skillful, successful, and autonomous.

Out of three possible points of privilege, only one can apply some of the time to some trans women, if you consider becoming objects of stereotypically female grace and beauty to be “success”. I personally would straight-up give trans women zero out of three privilege points.

Thus, when people complain about trans women having supposed “trans privilege” and attempt to set them up as the oppressors in society, not only is this showing complete lack of understanding, it’s actually a form of anti-trans propaganda. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/propaganda Especially when we turn that list around on cis people (commonly mis-referred to as “normal” people) to see where the real privilege lies:

Innocence: The cis person is not looked to as the cause of problems in society.
Worthiness: The cis person is presumed worthy of society’s trust and wealth.
Competence: The cis person is expected to be skillful, successful, and autonomous.

‘Nuff said.

*This isn’t to say that a white trans woman can’t have white privilege, but that’s not the topic of this post.

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14
May 26

Genderfree Parenting and Class Privilege

Cross-posted from No Lords, No Masters.

I’ve you’ve been on the internets lately, you’ve probably heard about the parents who are raising their child Storm without an assigned gender. As a member of various online transgender communities, I’ve been overhearing a lot of “everyone should do this!” under the assumption that everyone can do this. First of all, what is “this”? In the words of Arwyn of Raising My Boychick:

To start with, let’s get it clear that what Witterick and Stocker are doing isn’t “hiding Storm’s gender” or “keeping the baby’s gender a secret”: someone’s gender, like their sexuality, is something which only that person can reveal for themselves. What it seems, from the stories I’ve read (and that’s a big caveat, given how distorted a person’s life can become through the filters of media), that this family is doing is declining to assign their third child a gender of “boy” or “girl”. And while others are free, should they see Storm’s diaper being changed while out and about, to peer at the baby’s genitals and make their own assignment based on Storm’s apparent sex, they’re not revealing the baby’s phenotypical sex, either, because in this culture, in which vagina = girl and penis = boy, to do so would be to assign the child a typical binary gender.

It became obvious to me rather quickly that they either have the ability to hide the child’s diaper-changings from others, or else they have the ability to influence those who do see to say nothing. This implies that they either are wealthy enough to only need one income, thus enabling one of the parents to stay with the child at all time; or else they have the privilege of being surrounded by people who are willing to “play ball” with them, as it were, and go along with their wishes to the letter. Now, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I don’t have either of these privileges. My child is frequently with grandparents and daycare workers, and I don’t even have custody anymore. Also, most people he’s surrounded by are rather conservative and wouldn’t go along with this even if I made my most convincing argument. They’d “sneek a peek” and then go with the penis-suggestive pronoun, and call me weird for protesting.

But a funny thing happens when I try to point out these simple facts, even among the transgender community: nobody seems to care. In fact, Arwyn is the only one who has even mentioned something similar:

I know that this is a path made easier by the fact that in most other respects, Storm accords with hir culture’s idea of the “default person” and hir family with the “default family”: apparently white, not visibly disabled, apparently middle class, the parents married and apparently cisgender, the children not adopted. While sexism and cissexism are hardly only middle class white people’s concerns, having privilege in these areas means this family are not being questioned about race and class and sexuality and dis/ability the way a more marginalized family would likely be, which frees up time and mental energy to approach gender and sexism, and to attempt to protect their child(ren) from the worst effects thereof, in this particular, culturally disapproved, way.

Thank you, Arwyn! And you know what? I’m tired of the pressure put on parents by others to be perfect. I’ve tried explaining to person after person “no, not everyone can raise their child this way, especially if they’re financially dependent on others to help raise the child, others who have different ideas about parenting”. But the reaction is always the same “don’t you realize the damage caused by raising children with a gender!” as if classism doesn’t come into this at all. I even had one woman tell me, in response to me pointing out that not everyone can afford to have a stay-at-home parent in the family, “that’s what welfare is for, so you can stay at home”. WTF?

I don’t need the guilt people try to lay on me about how I’m such a bad parent for binary gendering my child even though I’m genderqueer myself. No parent needs that.

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Why genderqueer appropriation sucks.

When I first read the original post, I was too tired (and hungry) to deal with it on any level other than to register deep emotional pain. The responses below are basically spot-on and help give voice to my feelings.

ciscentrismsucks:

Hoo boy, here we go.

scornandritz:

I identify as a female. I was born with a vagina. When I hit puberty, I got my period. In all outwards terms, I am a cisgendered, completely un-trans* human being and outwardly dress that way. I love skirts. I love dresses. I wear high heels more than flats, normally. I’m slowly changing my wardrobe to be more and more 40’s, pin-up oriented.

So you are FAAB, identify as female, and present in a way that is socially constructed as feminine. Noted.

So where the fuck do I get off on being called genderqueer, then?

Good question. Do you experience any sort of dissonance with your assigned gender? Anything?

I’m sometimes ashamed to put this name on myself because it’s often times hard for me to explain to other people.

I have known several people who are bigendered, transgendered, transsexual. I have held my best friend while he was still coming to terms with not being a ‘she’. I have listened to the dysphoria time and time again at his inability to be a ‘true man’ without having to spend half of his life’s savings.

bigender, transgender*

So… if you know that trans* people have dissonance with their assigned genders, and you don’t feel dissonance…

I don’t have that struggle. I am content in my body (well, for the most part— I’m content with my genitalia and boobs, let’s put it that way) and I don’t have to correct people when they say a third-person pronoun because. Well, I identify as a ‘she’.

So let me get this straight… you are completely, 100% comfortable identifying as female? Is that what you’re trying to say?

So why am I genderqueer?

I really hope you’ll provide me with an answer to this question. I’m beginning to think you won’t.

In a perfect world, there wouldn’t be gender. I know that gender dysphoria is a very real and very prominent thing, but sometimes I think…

Sometimes I think the concept of a ‘him’ and a ‘her’ is something that doesn’t exist. What makes me a girl? I like pretty things? That’s somehow more ‘feminine’ than, I don’t know, hunting?

What makes you a girl is that you identify as a girl. You don’t have to fit society’s construction of what girls are “supposed” to do to be a girl, and just because you do fit that construction doesn’t necessarily make you a girl, if you don’t feel like you are one.

I’ve heard all the bullshit arguments against my theories. “Traditionally, males hunted and women gathered”. Mmm. I’m sure you’ve looked hard into those species where the females actually do all the work where the men stay at home— no? Oh, we’re going on humanity alone, then, because the biological spectrum doesn’t collude at any point? Okay, then I’m sure you’re well-versed in matriarchal societies and those that break outside of your societal ‘tradition’.

Ok, good job breaking down an argument that no one made.

Yes, in most of the tribes of old you hear of, men hunted and women gathered but not because they were ‘girls’ and ‘boys’. Women stayed at home because do you know how fucking hard it is to hunt when you’re pregnant? Often times we are not told of the women who were sterile or who were not married who chose to hunt as well, but they existed just as well as the men who gathered did.

Not sure what relevance this has.

That’s because gender is a fairly new phenomena. Christ alive, people. Most species of birds have it backwards— male birds are often times the ones with the more prominent colours because they have to attract females, whose feathers are often duller. Does this make the male birds feminine? No. It’s a fucking biological adaptation to promote mating. Simply put— you’re not a pretty male? You’re probably not going to pass on the family line.

What does this have to do with… anything. Um male birds don’t conform to human society’s notions of masculinity? Good for them?

When I say ‘new’, I don’t mean in the human spectrum. I mean in the spectrum of time, period. Gender is a societal fallacy, a great hoax that will continue to haunt us all. Yes, I know this sounds ‘conspiracy theory’-esque, but think about it. How many times in your life have you heard the term “tomboy” or “girly girl”? How many times have you seen those posts that say “most girls wear dresses but I wear jeans and hoodies so I’m special”? How many times have you heard gay men described as “effeminate”?

These are great points to make towards eliminating constructions of what society views as male/female and for ending girl-on-girl hate, but none of it proves that gender doesn’t exist. Gender is very very real for some of us thankyouverymuch. Even if gender is absolutely 100% socially constructed and never ever something inherent in a person’s mind (something of which I am not and probably never will be convinced), socially constructed is still not the same as nonexistent.

When a man is a jerk, he is a “dick”. When a woman is truthful or unabashed, she is a “bitch” or even the c-word. When we were little, we used to sing “boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider, girls go to Mars to get more candy bars”. Women are from Venus and men are from Mars. The list goes on. There’s this separation of genders that exists because society put it there.

What you’re pointing out here is that society thinks a lot of things that are not true about the difference between men and women (and other genders, but society thinks they don’t exist). I’ll let you in on a little secret. The real difference between men and women and a person of non-binary gender:

A man is someone who identifies as a man.

A woman is someone who identifies as a woman.

A genderqueer person is someone who identifies as genderqueer.

And so on. Amazing how that works, isn’t it!

Imagine the world without these stereotypes. Would you know what a “girl” was supposed to be simply by her genitals? I have the ability to get pregnant and ovaries and a vagina. Big fucking deal. That doesn’t shape my personality (except on the PMS-y occasions). Just because I have a vagina doesn’t mean I have this innate sensibility to “sit at home and raise a family”. Just because I wear dresses and high heels doesn’t mean I am a ‘girl’.

No, none of that means you’re a girl.

What makes you a girl is that you identify as a girl.

Girls don’t exist. Boys don’t exist. People exist.

Uh. I do exist, actually, thanks.

People are vast and complex and weird and do things that are outside of the norm of what society thinks despite their genitalia and guess what? Sometimes women dress like women are supposed to and sometimes men dress like men are supposed to and sometimes they do the exact fucking opposite of that.

Yep. And none of that disproves that gender exists.

You know why? Because sex is a biological function, not a determinant of personality.

You’re right! Sex is not the same as gender! Hooray! But gender. Does. Exist. I can attest to that. I’ve had to fight tooth and nail to be recognized as the gender I am. By proposing that gender doesn’t exist, you are telling me that I am wrong about my identity and that I fought for so long for nothing. What the fuck made you think that was okay?

So yeah. Okay. Call me “her”, because I am one. Call me a girly girl, because according to the stereotype, I fit into it. I’m cisgendered. Big fucking deal.

You’re not a girl because you fit the stereotype of what girls are. You are a girl if you identify as a girl. Just like with every other fucking gender.

I’m genderqueer because I don’t see the fucking point of gender.

Excuse you? You don’t see the point of gender, fine. But guess what. It exists, whether you see the “point” of it or not. I have a gender. Loads of other people have genders. Some people have more than one gender. Some people have no gender at all, and maybe you’re one of those people. But having no gender yourself doesn’t mean you get to come in here and tell us that all our identities are false. That’s not how it works.

And I can’t even deal with how appropriative your use of the word “genderqueer” is. You do know that queer is a very real gender for some people, right? Genderqueer people fucking exist, and it’s not because “gender doesn’t exist.” It’s because their gender is something other than male or female. You are twisting that word to mean something else, for your own purposes as a cis person, and that is not in any way cool. Stop it.

This is appropriative and it sucks. I am genderqueer, a real live actual gender. I don’t like seeing someone else take that word and hurt other people with it. Gender is an identity, not a weapon.

(Source: tstarked)

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The Adult Privilege Checklist

avry:

kissingunderspiderwebs:

I will never understand why so often I come across undeniable, child-hatred within the socially progressive, activist and feminist community. Ever. And I see it- a lot.

Please. Read. This.

An excellent list. Keep in mind that the list isn’t titled “Things which must be changed tomorrow to please our new child overlords”. But it is a list of subtle ways we convince ourselves things are completely fair, when they’re not. Children are different than adults in important ways (or else they would be adults), but they’re still human and still deserve to be treated like full citizens with dignity. One change I’ve been trying to make is that whenever I address a child, I squat down to eye level with them. It helps level the playing field, somewhat.

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6
Jun 2

The proper attitude to be taken toward the perpetuation of poor types is that which has been attributed to Huxley. “We are sorry for you,” he is reported to have said; “we will do our best for you (and in so doing we elevate ourselves, since mercy blesses him that gives and him that takes), but we deny you the right to parentage. You may live, but you must not propagate.

The Early Days of Eugenics: A Scientific American editorial from 1911 praising the new science of eugenics also hints at the darker side of this philosophy.

This article may have been written 100 years ago, but make no mistake - there are still people today who would apply such a horrid philosophy to the poor, queers, autistics, trans peeps, people with disabilities, etc.

Pro-choice means the ability to choose parenthood, even when it is looked down upon.

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3
Jun 5

After watching this happen again and again, something occurred to me: Why don’t the white men who are asked to engage in this nonsense simply stop doing it? The boycott is a protest with a long history of success. If white, male elites started saying, “I will not participate in your panel, event, or article if it is all about white men,” chances are these panels and articles would quickly dry up—or become more diverse.

Why White Men Should Refuse to Be on Panels of All White Men

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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?

Pansexual Pride

(Source: fuckyeahkatebornstein)

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fyeahpdp:

[Picture: Background: 6 piece pie style color split with pink and blue alternating. Foreground: White woman wearing a plain white t-shirt with long brown hair. Her arms are folded over her chest and she has an incredulous expression.
Top text: “You choose not to eat dairy and wheat,” Bottom text: “so you can’t complain that my choice of restaurant leaves you out.”]

My mother said this to me, after I tried to explain how frustrating it is that I really can’t eat out with them, which is usually the only time I get the chance to see her. I’m sensitive to lactose and gluten; it’s not a bloody choice! If I eat either I get psoriasis and eventually arthritis. Both of these conditions will get worse the more I eat lactose and/or dairy over my lifetime, so it’s crucial that I eat little or none of them.

But because my mother doesn’t have to live with the effects of food sensitivity (that she’s aware of), she tells me it’s my choice. Yes, I choose to be left out, and to make restaurant choices a pain for her! [Sarcasm.] I’d love to be able to go out to a restaurant every week and eat whatever I want.

It shouldn’t matter even if it is a choice. If you wish to connect with someone on a personal level, you simply must be sensitive to their food choices to make them more comfortable. Otherwise, what’s the point of going out to eat together? If you’re doing it for the enjoyment of the food alone, go out by yourself.

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fyeahpdp:

[Picture: Background: 8 piece pie style color split with red and teal alternating. Foreground: White guy with glasses and light shadow wearing a sweat shirt over a button down and short black hair. Has a smug, arrogant facial expression and crossed arms.
Top text: “I totally understand where you’re coming from about not having enough money.” Bottom text: “I mean, I don’t even have cable!”]

Said to my mom by a Sierra Club ~~telemarketer~~ phonebanker. Listen, asshole, when she says she doesn’t have enough money, she means “I do not have the money to join your elitist hipster club, because I am going into debt by buying my groceries, even though we’re on food stamps”. She does NOT mean “I won’t have the money to pay the cable bill if I join”. And when she says “I can’t afford it”, LET IT GO. Say “Okay, have a nice day!” and hang up. DON’T ask her 3 more times.

It’s not cool when people don’t understand poverty. However, a lot of these phone workers are being monitored and have to follow certain procedures in order to keep their jobs. They may be in a situation where it’s either work making calls or don’t have money for food. (Seriously, would you want to be a phone worker?) If you’re not the type who is willing to simply hang up on them, I’ve found that stating “I’m not interested” 3 times in a row will do the trick. They don’t want to waste time with someone who isn’t interested, since they probably have a quota to fill as well.

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As if any possible girl could always be better/worse than any possible guy.

oyoyoyoyoyo:

both. at the same time. every single night. because that’s simply how i roll.

fyeahpdp:

[Picture: Background: 8 piece pie style color split with red and teal alternating. Foreground: White guy with glasses and light shadow wearing a sweat shirt over a button down and short black hair. Has a smug, arrogant facial expression and crossed arms.
Top text: “So, you’re bisexual” Bottom text: “Would you rather bring home a girl or a guy?”]

Because you have to CHOOSE!!!//sarcasm. I mean, I personally prefer women over men, but that statement does sound a little sexuality-erasing to me :/

(Source: )

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Atheism isn’t the result of a misunderstanding of Christian principles. True story.

fyeahpdp:

[Picture: Background: 8 piece pie style color split with red and teal alternating. Foreground: White guy with glasses and light shadow wearing a sweat shirt over a button down and short black hair. Has a smug, arrogant facial expression and crossed arms.
Top text: I know you were a practicing Christian for nearly twenty years” Bottom text: “But you’re an atheist now; you have no right to talk about what is and isn’t Christianity”]

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fyeahpdp:

[Picture: Background: 8 piece pie style color split with red and teal alternating. Foreground: White guy with glasses and light shadow wearing a sweat shirt over a button down and short black hair. Has a smug, arrogant facial expression and crossed arms.
Top text: “Defining racism as racial privilege plus racial prejudice” Bottom text: “will lead to people making blanket statements like ‘White people are bigots’ and ‘White people are oppressors.’ ”]

Fifth of six PDD submissions meant to represent an email I received from a white-privilege-denying dude recently.

But white people are the only ones with the racial privilege to be able to be racially oppressive. It’s not oppressive toward white people to say to a white person, “You are being racially oppressive: please stop.”

The word “racism” has been used that way by sociologists and antiracist activists for decades. Oppression is privilege plus prejudice. Racial oppression is racial privilege plus racial prejudice. Using “racism” only to mean “racial oppression” is the only thing that makes sense in anti-racist activism. The disproportionately vast majority of legislators, government officials, and others in power in the U.S. are white. No racial prejudice against white people in the U.S. has oppressive power. Racial prejudice against white people is nowhere near as socially harmful as racial prejudice against people of color.

I actually had a white guy call me racist for “seeing race”, when I pointed out how rude it is for him to assume that someone with a “foreign”-sounding name can’t speak English. He makes the prejudiced assumption. I tell him it’s rude. He calls me racist. I just…

facepalm

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13
Jun 25

Those who defend color-blindness, or gender-blindness, or orientation-blindness, or ability-blindness, claim to do so in the name of equality. The general principle here seems to be that if we want people to be equal, we all have to be the same. Only then can we isolate what we really can and can’t do or have or have not achieved.

Except – not really. At best, it’s a lazy way to go about it. At worst, the notion that people have to be made to be all the same in order to be equal is a repugnant one. By blinding your yourself to aspects of an individual’s identity that are problematic or complicated within a larger context, you are not meeting the standards of equality. You are deliberately reshaping different individuals into an existing mold that conforms to a single, traditional standard of worth, which exists primarily because it is traditional and standard. You are taking apart individuals to rebuild into your own ideal, informed only by your own tradition and standard, and that means, in reality, you are part of the same damn problem.

Jen @ Skepchick: Why Blindness Is Not Equality

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This actually happened to me.

fyeahpdp:

[Picture: Background: 8 piece pie style color split with red and teal alternating. Foreground: White guy with light shadow and short light hair wearing a suit jacket over a button down shirt and red bow tie. Has a big-toothed smile and is talking with his hands.

Top text: “Times are bad, so we’ll have to start firing people.” Bottom text: “I’m just kidding!”]

My boss made this joke to a client while standing right in front of me. He is very wealthy, but I live paycheck-to-paycheck as I’m working my way through school.

Joking about how casually you can ruin my life isn’t cool, and it just makes me not trust you. Not very healthy for a workplace environment, methinks.

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Nerd is my Gender

What's yours?

what is cissexual privilege? do nonbinaries have it?

Privilege Denying - You're Doing it Wrong!

Genderfree Parenting and Class Privilege

Why genderqueer appropriation sucks.

The Adult Privilege Checklist

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