and shallow moonlight.
My Onion horoscope:
Fears of dying alone will soon be allayed when more than 2,000 fire ants keep you company during those last terrifying minutes.
OH FUCK YOU, ONION.
Last night I went to a couple of lectures at Harbour Centre--one was by Susan Stryker, about the true necessity for transsexual surgery and "sex change" procedures, and feminist frameworks for the requirement of trans body modification, and all kinds of other interesting things.
One of the concepts she talked about was the body as a word--that gender is a kind of language, and we use our bodies to communicate our genders to others. So for a trans person, sometimes it's like we're trying to say something, and just can't say the right words to get our point across. Most people can't understand what we're trying to say.
If you look at a person, you're interacting with their gender in a visual way; you're picking up the visual cues that communicate male/female. You might then use this information to interact with their gender verbally--by addressing them as "sir" or "ma'am" or "he" or "she."
The problem for trans people is that these visual cues don't work right with our factory model communication tools. The only way many of us can communicate our gender is verbally--we can't use a lot of the subconscious (and conscious) cues. We have to say what pronouns and nouns we need. We have to bring the social communication of gender out into the spoken world, and that freaks people out, because we're taught from birth that you only have to look at someone to know "what" they are.
So, you know, for me, living in the world in a female body which has not been permanently (or, a lot of the time, even temporarily) modified in an attempt to communicate my self as "male" is really difficult. It feels like I've got a disability--gender aphasia!
Which, you know, opens up whole new roads to getting transsexual surgeries covered by insurance/the government. "It's a neurological condition, not a psychopathological one! I'm not mentally ill, society's just caused me a shitload of brain damage!"
---
Before the lecture, estrellada and I had dinner and I looked at SFU's Continuing Education calendar for next year.
I'm pretty enthusiastic about their certificate in editing, and Professor Stryker said something that sparked something that rang in my brain.
She talked about how the idea of "cutting" one's body is generally considered anathema. It's taboo. It's wrong. It's unnatural--but it really depends on your concept of "cutting." In some processes, it's necessary. Stryker put it in the context of cutting movie film to create a narrative.
When she said that, estrellada leaned over and whispered to me: "Editing."
---
Also, please come to Metro Vancouver Kink's Vancouver Dungeon event this Saturday. It is at 1965 Main Street in Vancouver (Video In Studios). Doors at 7:00PM, workshop at 7:30PM (Topping Without Tools, presented by River Light), party from 9:00PM to 1:00AM. I shall be working the doors before and during the workshop, so please have correct change ($10/workshop, $20/party, $25/both). There is NO Red Light Room at the event, due to lack of space at the venue (so go have sex in the bathroom).
They have gender neutral bathrooms, guys! I am so pleased by this!
The end!
Bye.
PS: Oh SPN fandom, never change. The only good wank is secret wank that half of fandom never knows about, right?
Fears of dying alone will soon be allayed when more than 2,000 fire ants keep you company during those last terrifying minutes.
OH FUCK YOU, ONION.
Last night I went to a couple of lectures at Harbour Centre--one was by Susan Stryker, about the true necessity for transsexual surgery and "sex change" procedures, and feminist frameworks for the requirement of trans body modification, and all kinds of other interesting things.
One of the concepts she talked about was the body as a word--that gender is a kind of language, and we use our bodies to communicate our genders to others. So for a trans person, sometimes it's like we're trying to say something, and just can't say the right words to get our point across. Most people can't understand what we're trying to say.
If you look at a person, you're interacting with their gender in a visual way; you're picking up the visual cues that communicate male/female. You might then use this information to interact with their gender verbally--by addressing them as "sir" or "ma'am" or "he" or "she."
The problem for trans people is that these visual cues don't work right with our factory model communication tools. The only way many of us can communicate our gender is verbally--we can't use a lot of the subconscious (and conscious) cues. We have to say what pronouns and nouns we need. We have to bring the social communication of gender out into the spoken world, and that freaks people out, because we're taught from birth that you only have to look at someone to know "what" they are.
So, you know, for me, living in the world in a female body which has not been permanently (or, a lot of the time, even temporarily) modified in an attempt to communicate my self as "male" is really difficult. It feels like I've got a disability--gender aphasia!
Which, you know, opens up whole new roads to getting transsexual surgeries covered by insurance/the government. "It's a neurological condition, not a psychopathological one! I'm not mentally ill, society's just caused me a shitload of brain damage!"
---
Before the lecture, estrellada and I had dinner and I looked at SFU's Continuing Education calendar for next year.
I'm pretty enthusiastic about their certificate in editing, and Professor Stryker said something that sparked something that rang in my brain.
She talked about how the idea of "cutting" one's body is generally considered anathema. It's taboo. It's wrong. It's unnatural--but it really depends on your concept of "cutting." In some processes, it's necessary. Stryker put it in the context of cutting movie film to create a narrative.
When she said that, estrellada leaned over and whispered to me: "Editing."
---
Also, please come to Metro Vancouver Kink's Vancouver Dungeon event this Saturday. It is at 1965 Main Street in Vancouver (Video In Studios). Doors at 7:00PM, workshop at 7:30PM (Topping Without Tools, presented by River Light), party from 9:00PM to 1:00AM. I shall be working the doors before and during the workshop, so please have correct change ($10/workshop, $20/party, $25/both). There is NO Red Light Room at the event, due to lack of space at the venue (so go have sex in the bathroom).
They have gender neutral bathrooms, guys! I am so pleased by this!
The end!
Bye.
PS: Oh SPN fandom, never change. The only good wank is secret wank that half of fandom never knows about, right?