(no subject)
ACTION ALERT: Lambda Legal is surveying the health care experiences of U.S. GLBT and HIV-positive adults. If you've used health care in the U.S., are 18+, and are GLBT or HIV-positive, please take the five minutes to fill it out. This is an important issue, and to advocate effectively Lambda Legal needs to know how widespread problems are. As an added incentive, participants are entered in a drawing for $50 Amazon gift cards (I guess I hold a grudge longer than they do)...
In happier news, the Indian court decriminalized consensual gay sex. Also, the U.S. government chose not to appeal a federal court ruling that awarded a transgender woman maximum compensation for being discriminated against regarding a federal job.
Rambling a bit about trans. issues, several weeks ago in conversation with [PKG] we wound up having a difference of opinion about a cis woman saying that she would never date a cis man but would be okay with dating a trans man. My argument was that doing so is effectively saying that you don't respect the gender identity of the trans man. Hers was that trans men experiences maleness differently than cis men and specifically can't help but be more aware of male privilege which automatically eliminates a lot of b.s. from the relationship. For women who take on lesbian identity and are attracted to masculinity, so generally are attracted to and date butch cis women, it's not such a stretch to date a trans man. In the end we basically agreed to disagree since it was late* and we were kind of going in circles. But this piece on the difference between masculinity and maleness (specifically responding to the recent "Top Hot Butches" list, which I have to say I enjoyed if for no other reason than that Rachel Maddow is smokin') does a really good job of putting a finger on what was bothering me. Basically, I don't think that being attracted to masculinity is the same as being attracted to maleness.
The difference between masculinity and maleness isn't necessarily visible, and thinking back on it I'm pretty sure I was unknowingly a total jerk about that with some trans men at Smith because there are so many butch cis women there that I assumed all masculine, visibly female-bodied people were identified that way**. That assumption in fact extended so far that I had a really hard time with placing people's gender when I first transferred to William and Mary because all of the (to my mind) androgynously-dressed preppy boys threw me for a loop. Anyway, part of why I'm writing about this is that in the past couple of weeks a couple of trans. friends have posted about their experience at Pride, in different cities, with cis*** queer people assigning them gender despite big glaring signs ( literally) that the assigned gender wasn't applicable. I wanted to give their experiences greater voice but figured that being a raging hypocrite while doing so would be pretty lame, so, yeah, y'all get this rambling (I'm sure you feel so lucky :P).
Anyway, aside from the whole maleness != masculinity issue, I do acknowledge that the idea that ignorance of male privilege is a turn-off (while in this case applied in a way that's disconcertingly cynical about cis men) is one that I'm really not in a position to judge 'cause (laughing at my own shallowness), by the time I get to know a cis man well enough to find out how aware he is, the lack-of-breasts has generally been an issue for me anyway :P. On a more serious note, that argument is also pretty comparable to the response that trans men at Smith gave when asked why, if they don't identify as women, they choose to go to an all-women's college. Smith was created to give those who are most harmed by patriarchal societal structures a chance to get a higher education, and that applies to cis women as well as all flavors of transfolk. Trans men may not identify as women, but they certainly understand and have been hurt by male privilege.
And with that, I'm going to end this entry with some (in both meanings of the word) gay historical cuteness.
* Yes, it was late because this was our pillow talk. I can hear you laughing from here...
** With people I actually knew I of course used their pronouns/names of choice, but I'm talking about just with random interactions. Though unfortunately, that "of course" is probably unjustified...
*** For a hilarious response to people complaining about referring to non-trans people as cis, see here (thanks to [PKG] for the link).
In happier news, the Indian court decriminalized consensual gay sex. Also, the U.S. government chose not to appeal a federal court ruling that awarded a transgender woman maximum compensation for being discriminated against regarding a federal job.
Rambling a bit about trans. issues, several weeks ago in conversation with [PKG] we wound up having a difference of opinion about a cis woman saying that she would never date a cis man but would be okay with dating a trans man. My argument was that doing so is effectively saying that you don't respect the gender identity of the trans man. Hers was that trans men experiences maleness differently than cis men and specifically can't help but be more aware of male privilege which automatically eliminates a lot of b.s. from the relationship. For women who take on lesbian identity and are attracted to masculinity, so generally are attracted to and date butch cis women, it's not such a stretch to date a trans man. In the end we basically agreed to disagree since it was late* and we were kind of going in circles. But this piece on the difference between masculinity and maleness (specifically responding to the recent "Top Hot Butches" list, which I have to say I enjoyed if for no other reason than that Rachel Maddow is smokin') does a really good job of putting a finger on what was bothering me. Basically, I don't think that being attracted to masculinity is the same as being attracted to maleness.
The difference between masculinity and maleness isn't necessarily visible, and thinking back on it I'm pretty sure I was unknowingly a total jerk about that with some trans men at Smith because there are so many butch cis women there that I assumed all masculine, visibly female-bodied people were identified that way**. That assumption in fact extended so far that I had a really hard time with placing people's gender when I first transferred to William and Mary because all of the (to my mind) androgynously-dressed preppy boys threw me for a loop. Anyway, part of why I'm writing about this is that in the past couple of weeks a couple of trans. friends have posted about their experience at Pride, in different cities, with cis*** queer people assigning them gender despite big glaring signs ( literally) that the assigned gender wasn't applicable. I wanted to give their experiences greater voice but figured that being a raging hypocrite while doing so would be pretty lame, so, yeah, y'all get this rambling (I'm sure you feel so lucky :P).
Anyway, aside from the whole maleness != masculinity issue, I do acknowledge that the idea that ignorance of male privilege is a turn-off (while in this case applied in a way that's disconcertingly cynical about cis men) is one that I'm really not in a position to judge 'cause (laughing at my own shallowness), by the time I get to know a cis man well enough to find out how aware he is, the lack-of-breasts has generally been an issue for me anyway :P. On a more serious note, that argument is also pretty comparable to the response that trans men at Smith gave when asked why, if they don't identify as women, they choose to go to an all-women's college. Smith was created to give those who are most harmed by patriarchal societal structures a chance to get a higher education, and that applies to cis women as well as all flavors of transfolk. Trans men may not identify as women, but they certainly understand and have been hurt by male privilege.
And with that, I'm going to end this entry with some (in both meanings of the word) gay historical cuteness.
* Yes, it was late because this was our pillow talk. I can hear you laughing from here...
** With people I actually knew I of course used their pronouns/names of choice, but I'm talking about just with random interactions. Though unfortunately, that "of course" is probably unjustified...
*** For a hilarious response to people complaining about referring to non-trans people as cis, see here (thanks to [PKG] for the link).