Helen Boyd Kramer's journal on gender and stuff
Entrepreneur Shaz Riley has started a clothing company catering to butch women. It’s about time: menswear made for women which de-emphasizes bust line and doesn’t make room for package.
What I find amazing is that on Joe.My.God’s post about it, there are people who don’t seem to understand that butch women are women.
Sometimes the cluelessness in the LGBTQ community about gender identities and expressions blows my mind.
No, really: why do so many cool people watch World Cup? There isn’t one woman on a team anywhere, & if any other industry were so blatant in its discrimination, so many people wouldn’t watch, & might actually be out protesting.
Not having women on World Cup teams isn’t discrimination, you say? How, exactly? Are the try-outs open to women? As far as I know (& I’m willing to stand corrected), there is no “separate but equal” league, or set of teams, that gets the same kind of attention, that represents their home countries on the world stage.
I will confess that it’s no skin off my nose not to watch because I don’t really like sports (and I’ve certainly got no truck with a field full of athletic men in shorts).
I’m not for quotas or lowering standards – though I’d ask my liberal friends to consider how full of shit that argument is when you apply it to any other category of human competition – just for opening the try-outs to women.
Alice Dreger, recently disliked by those in the trans (for defending Michael Bailey) and intersex communities (for being for the “DSD” diagnosis), has at least said, in print, in both Psychology Today and The Hastings Center Report, that maybe using a vibrator on a young girl’s clitoris is completely unacceptable.
Here more specifically is, apparently, what is happening: At annual visits after the surgery, while a parent watches, Poppas touches the daughter’s surgically shortened clitoris with a cotton-tip applicator and/or with a “vibratory device,” and the girl is asked to report to Poppas how strongly she feels him touching her clitoris. Using the vibrator, he also touches her on her inner thigh, her labia minora, and the introitus of her vagina, asking her to report, on a scale of 0 (no sensation) to 5 (maximum), how strongly she feels the touch. Yang, Felsen, and Poppas also report a “capillary perfusion testing,” which means a physician or nurse pushes a finger nail on the girl’s clitoris to see if the blood goes away and comes back, a sign of healthy tissue. Poppas has indicated in this article and elsewhere that ideally he seeks to conduct annual exams with these girls. He intends to chart the development of their sexual sensation over time.
If this were requested reconstructive surgery, or absolutely necessary surgery that treated a dire medical condition, maybe this wouldnt’ seem to fucked up. But these are surgeries conducted on girls whose clitorises are viewed as “too big.” That’s all. Just “too big.” They worry that girls with big clitorises will somehow – I don’t know, that they’ll be socially traumatized, but all I can think is: it’s probably just more likely that they’ll have orgasms, & we certainly can’t have that
One time I asked a surgeon who does these surgeries if he had any idea how women actually reach orgasm. What did he actually know, scientifically, about the functional physiology of the adult clitoris? He looked at me blankly, and then said, “But we’re working on children.” As if they were never going to grow up.
Or, as Courtney on the MHB forums put it, maybe this article should be called When Ken Zucker calls you out for being a sicko, you’ve know you’re screwed.
A little more than a week ago, John Tierney published an article in the NYT “daring” to question whether or not girls just aren’t good at math.
Maggie Koerth-Baker over at BoingBoing actually interviewed some female scientists on the topic. One of them, a Dr. Isis, had some great things to say:
John Tierney titles his article “Daring to Discuss Women’s Potential in Science,” as though he is bravely daring to out the dirty little secret that we all supposedly know deep in our hearts. Girls suck at math and science. The truth is, they really don’t. It’s just that John Tierney sucks at googling.
I love the idea of John Tierney publishing pie recipes instead:
Yet, he clearly has ignored the fact that this phenomenon is unique to the United States. Indeed, in countries with more gender equal cultural norms, the divide disappears. In Iceland, girls out perform boys in math and science. Japanese girls out perform American boys. Maybe in his next column Tierney will argue some type of evolutionary difference between the boys and girls in these other countries and American boys and girls. Personally, I would find it much more interesting if he would start posting recipes for pies we could make with all the cherries he’s picking.
and then:
Can we all agree that Tierny pulled this completely out of his ass? Someone who scores in the top 99.9% of an aptitude test is more likely to get tenure than someone who scores in the top 99.1% in the seventh grade? Really?
Honestly, the NYT had no business publishing a poorly-researched and obviously biased article. Let’s all keep in mind that Tierney has already written in defense of Summers, which indicates some pre-existing bias — other than the obvious sexist one, of course.
These guys tire me.
This just in from NCTE:
Last night the US Department of State announced new guidelines for issuing passports to transgender people. Beginning today, applicants for a gender marker change on their passports will need to submit certification from a physician that they have received “appropriate clinical treatment” for gender transition. Most importantly, gender reassignment surgery is not required under the new policy.
The new rules will also apply to changing a Consular Report of Birth Abroad (CRBA) for US citizens who were born outside of the United States. CRBA’s are the equivalent of a birth certificate.
For years, NCTE has been advocating with the State Department to change their rules about gender markers on passports and CRBA’s. Previously they had required proof of irreversible sex reassignment surgery before the gender marker could be changed, although there were exceptions for temporary, provisional passports to allow someone to travel for surgery.
NCTE and other advocates have stressed with the State Department that this policy unnecessarily called attention to transgender travelers whose appearance and gender marker were at odds. In some destinations, this had the potential to create an extremely dangerous situation when a traveler is outed as transgender in an unwelcoming environment or in the presence of prejudiced security personnel.
Fortunately, the new rules represent a significant advance in providing safe, humane and dignified treatment of transgender people. There are details in the guidelines about what information a physician must provide and we will communicate those to you as soon as possible. However, the State Department notes that applicants will not need to supply any additional medical documentation and that there is no SRS requirement.
“We want to extend our thanks to the Obama Administration, and particularly to Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, for understanding the need for this change and then responding to make travel safer for transgender people,” commented Mara Keisling, Executive Director of NCTE. “This shows how changes in government policy directly impact people’s lives, in this case, for the better.”
In the next few days, NCTE will be issuing a definitive resource that fully explains the new guidelines and outlines the ways in which transgender people can make changes to their passports and CRBAs.
Many people-from elected officials to LGBT advocates-have worked for years to change these policies and deserve credit and thanks. Particularly important work was done by Rep. Barney Frank as well as Rep. Steve Israel in the House of Representatives; Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies (GLIFAA), which represents LGBT employees and their families working in foreign affairs offices for the US government; all of our allied LGBT organizations who have been committed to this work, including the Center for Global Equality, The Task Force, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Campaign; and those working on medical policies, including the American Medical Association and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH).
A nice take on labels by a Jessica Who:
(For the record, almost no one would consider permanent facial hair removal a medical, transsexual-oriented procedure, unless, of course, it’s the first of other procedures. Crossdressers might do the same in order to make passing easier while crossdressed.)
Senator Lanza apparently takes his marching orders from Senator Diaz. Tell him how you feel about him retracting his yes vote at the last minute, ask Tom Duane why the hell he wasn’t there.
Vote: 12 ayes, 11 nays, 0 abstentions
Sen. Diaz: (unintelligible)
(Senator Lanza retracts his yes vote.)
New tally: 11 ayes, 12 nayes, 0 abstentions.
Speaker 8: Where is the sponsor, Senator Tom Duane? I thought the idea of the new committee rules was to make this a better process. If the sponsor isn’t here to hear our thought process, how can this bill be made better?
It’s just sad all around.
GENDA is moving in the Senate – call your Senator NOW!
The Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) is on the Senate Judiciary Committee’s agenda for tomorrow morning. This vital civil rights bill will make it illegal to discriminate against transgender New Yorkers in areas like employment, housing and public accommodations, and expand hate crimes protections to explicitly include gender identity and expression. Your Senator is a member of the Judiciary Committee and has the power to pass GENDA out of the committee and onto the Senate floor for a full vote.
We need you to get on the phone and call your Senator at their Albany office RIGHT NOW and tell them that you want them to pass GENDA in the Judiciary Committee. It is vital that they hear from you TODAY.
Here’s how to make your call:
1. Enter your address to find your State Senator’s Albany phone number here.
2. Tell your Senator: “I support the GENDA bill (S.2406). Please pass GENDA from the Judiciary Committee onto the floor for a full Senate vote.”
Your voice is crucial! Make your call now!
I’ve just read the new Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation
She-males and drag queens and bois, oh my.
Bornstein & Bergman found not just the outlaws but the outliers, the people who have deconstructed, reconstructed and reimagined their genders, for whom gender is not just an identity or expression but the last tool in the toolbox. Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation is a good way to get up to speed on the shifting, new, and created identities of Genderland.
Vive la Revolution.
A festival that happens in Kerala, India, in which male-bodied people dress to honor the goddess Devi. Some of the people who participate are hjira, the MTF spectrum “third sex” recognized in India.
(If anyone can get me a translation, I’d really appreciate it.)