I love this.
Because honestly, didn’t we all grow up with Crayola? So when is it that boys are taught not to care about the finer differences in color?
Missing Girls
News from that radical feminist magazine The Economist states that Indian females seem to be missing:
NEW data from the 2011 Indian census show that there are now 914 girls aged 0-6 years old for every 1,000 boys of the same age, or 75.8m girls and 82.9m boys. A cultural preference for sons and the increasing availability of prenatal screening to determine a baby’s sex have helped contribute to a worsening in the ratio (from 927 in the previous census in 2001), which has been deteriorating rapidly even as the ratio for the population as a whole has improved. A decline was recorded in 28 of the country’s 35 states and territories, among which there is wide variation; from 830 in the northern state of Haryana to 973 Meghalaya in the east.
The articles goes on to point out that the Chinese are facing a similar problem.
& Here, my dear trans readers, is the problem with being born with a vagina: too often, it means you don’t get to be born at all. Granted, if transness were viewable in the womb, most trans people wouldn’t get to be born, either.
More Gendered Toy Ads
A word cloud created from the language used in commercials for toys aimed at boys:
On the other hand, the ones for girls:
Is anyone surprised?
Read the full article for the details as to how the words were chosen.
“Gay” Caveman Wasn’t Gay…
…. she was trans. After one researcher comments that “he was a man with a different sexual orientation, homosexual or transvestite. What we see here does not add up to traditional Corded Ware cultural norms” because of the position she was buried in and because of the implements she was buried with.
Why must otherwise intelligent, educated people conflate sexual orientation and corss-gender identity? At least one of the other researchers seems to know what’s what:
Another member of the archaeological team, Katerina Semradova, said that colleagues had uncovered an earlier case dating from the Mesolithic period where a female warrior was buried as a man.
She added that Siberian shamans, or witch doctors, were also buried in this way but with richer funeral accessories appropriate to their elevated position in society.
‘This later discovery was neither of those. We believe this is one of the earliest cases of what could be described as a transvestite or third-gender grave in the Czech Republic.’
That said, we don’t know that she wasn’t gay, either: maybe some of the things she was buried with were given to her by her wife.
All kidding aside: ze could have also been part of a third gender tradition, male-identified but fulfilled a woman’ role.
Or ze might have been trans in a period before people used hormones, identity documents and surgeries to transition. That is, we seem to know a little something about this person’s own gender role, but not necessarily about hir gender identity, and we absolutely don’t know who this person desired, partnered with, had sex with, or loved, while ze was alive. Therefore: we really don’t know anything about hir sexual orientation whatsoever (or rather, no indicators of such were mentioned in the article).
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1374060/Gay-caveman-5-000-year-old-male-skeleton-outed-way-buried.html#ixzz1InnbGDRT
Gendered Toy Ads
You can mix and match two ads for toys: one aimed at girls, one at boys. Entertaining, but interesting especially to parents, I’d think.
Girl:Exploded
Canada’s ENDA
January 22nd…
… was the 38th anniversary of Roe V. Wade. This article, about how anti-choice groups targeted black women with both race and gender baiting, is harrowing but essential reading.
Keep it safe and keep it legal.
Just Norrie
I know Norrie (formerly Norrie May Welby) drives a lot of traditional transsexual people batshit, but still, I think she’s pretty groovy. I definitely like “spansexual” instead of “transsexual” to describe him, too.
As long as people understand this is a very different trans experience than the “usual” transition narrative, and that transitioned people can still get the gender marker of their choice, I’m glad she gets to be who she wants legally and otherwise.
More genders, no gender, please. “NS” for “not specified” seems like a good third gender/no gender option for ID.
New Expedia Ad: Genderbent
The actor who plays the cool goth chick on NCIS is the new spokesperson for Expedia, and in the new commercial she does for them, she is showing various hotel rooms which are empty – or supposed to be empty – until she shows one where a man who has just taken a shower is walking across his room with a towel wrapped around his waist. He realizes in a split second that he can be seen, shrieks, and then — cups his breasts. I can’t describe it any other way because that’s exactly what he does: doesn’t cover his chest, doesn’t cross his arms — he cups his breasts. And shrieks.
There is nothing otherwise interesting about the ad, but that was especially unusual, and I have no idea if the gender variance is what’s being played for laughs or if the idea that she accidentally choosing the wrong room – she says “oops” or something similar – is what’s supposed to be funny.