Stumbling Over Gender, and an Apology

[jimhines]

My awareness and understanding of gender issues is … well, let’s just say there’s an ongoing and deliberate evolution.

As a kid, I got the basic Kindergarten Cop lesson: Boys have a penis and girls have a vagina.

By the time I got to college, I was starting to recognize more layers. I distinguished between sex (a biological binary) and gender, the

Comments

[fadethecat]

I'm still working on this one myself. Somehow it's perfectly easy to go "Oh, gender is fluid and complex and heavily influenced by culture and cultural variants," and yet I have a hard time digging out the You Are Born Boy Or Girl, That's It messages I grew up in.

Aren't none of us perfect here. It does me good to see people I respect apologize for their mistakes; I can use that as a reminder and model the next time someone points out something I've done wrong, when my automatic response is "But I meant well!"

[serialbabbler]

I run into trouble every time somebody adds a new word to the lexicon so "cis" and "cis gendered" are still difficult for me... but I think what I'm usually stumbling over is the language itself rather than the ideas. (Which might mean that I can't even get as far as the ideas because I'm so hung up on the words. Aaargh! ;) )

((Also, I'm now wondering how somebody can spell gynandromorph correctly on an image macro while leaving the "r" out of "disapproves".))

[jimhines]

((Also, I'm now wondering how somebody can spell gynandromorph correctly on an image macro while leaving the "r" out of "disapproves".))

Dang it!!!

Okay, I think it's fixed now. Thank you.

[beccastareyes]

I had an edge up; in chemistry I'd already used 'cis' and 'trans' to describe the way atoms/groups of atoms attach to a backbone of carbon atoms. So the first time I heard cis-gendered/cis-sexual, I'd assumed it was a geek play on words. (Since cis and trans were opposing states in chemistry, someone who is not transgendered must be cisgendered.)

[tylik]

Yeah, I'd been a computational biochemist for a bit before I ran into the terms, so I cackled with delight and adopted them. Which makes it easy.

But... I figure it's kind of the way that it's relatively easy for me to hear the tones in tonal languages, whereas other people really struggle with that. I mean, I think there are ways people can approach these things that make them easier and more difficult. But I also realize that my peculiarities are neither portable nor infectious.*

* Well, okay, except for to my students, who must adapt or be driven insane.

[tylik]

So I'm kind of thinking with my keyboard here, but the issues described here strike me as kind of non-trivial

[reedrover]

I appreciate that you not only own your mistakes but are willing to use them as teaching moments. I learned something here.

And thank you for including the photo credit. That was an interesting blog article.

[serialbabbler]

As for the penis jokes, I suppose it might also be worth noting that even if you ignore gender identity, not all biologically male, genetically XY individuals have a penis any more than all biologically female, genetically XX individuals have a uterus. It may be a disservice to your sex to limit your view of them to that single feature.

Dick jokes are pretty funny, though. Much funnier than poop jokes. *grin*