Charts! Bullets! I thought I knew all this stuff but I learned some new stuff. Estrogen changes the shape of my pelvis (a little)? One more reason to love it ❤
http://transgenderuniverse.com/2015/12/24/estrogen-and-the-transgender-woman/
Month: December 2015
When my brother calls me prissy for asking him to turn down his fucking stereo blasting Lord of the Rings at 2am on a Wednesday
Yes. Only took me a week of fighting him and I’m starting to give up. Be like, “Well, what if I change my sleep schedule. What if I get earplugs? Could I find another place to sleep…every night of the week?” Some people are so selfish that they can’t imagine how their actions affect other people. Or they do realize how their actions affect other people but it’s more important for them to finish their fucking movie. I’m mad. Fuck Murica.
Also, I’m not crazy or oversensitive or prissy! I have a beard! HOW CAN ANYONE BE PRISSY WITH A BEARD?!!?!?!?
So now I know my brother is misogynizing me. If I were still male and asked him to turn down his music so I could sleep/write/not be watching the movie with him when we’re on separate floors of the house, would he call me prissy for asking? Of course not. He’d call me a jerk or an asshole or something. But because I’m female now, it must clearly be my femininity that’s the problem here. Not the volume of his stereo in the dead of night. Of course. I’m crazy. I’m unreasonable. Because of my gender. Fuck him.
That’s not fair. I mean, it’s not ACTUALLY him saying this to me. It’s the patriarchy. Speaking through him. He didn’t actively try to learn these awful ideas. He’s not trying to be selfish–in fact, he thinks he isn’t being selfish at all. He thinks I’m being selfish. I’ve always wondered if he was a sociopath or something because of shit like this, but now that he’s using my gender against me in these shitty little squabbles, I’m more willing to believe our issues stem from growing up in white suburban Murica, and the ideas that setting taught us to believe about the people around us. Can’t wait to get a job and get out of here. Again.
Anyway, I suppose I’ll shop for cheap noise-cancelling headphones now. Sleep tight ya’ll.
Options
I don’t know who made this, but I like how it suggests gender is/can be more than one thing. Options! Of course, as a writer, I want there to be separate words for all this stuff. Here’s a few:
Right column, descending: the gender binary, biological determinism, sexuality, biological determinism.
Left column, descending: The gender spectrum (as opposed to a binary…I read that as gender is about degrees, not categories), gender expression, this one might be getting at subconscious gender identity, and then visible gender identity.
Remembering Leelah Alcorn
I was so moved when I read Leelah’s suicide note on her blog this time last year, I wrote about her in my thesis. She sparked the best essay I wrote for the two years I was in Oregon. She is the mother of #fixsociety. She took every step she needed to take to try and find support, and she was rejected, isolated, judged, and essentially bullied to death by her own parents. We still have a long way to go. But at least in the community where Leelah lived, there have been changes reflecting her wish of fixing transphobic America.
Canadian Gender Clinic Stopping. Yay!
The equivalent of anti-gay reparative therapy–read: discrimination–getting shut down. WIN.
Jimmy Carter Renounces his Religion to Better Support Equality for Women
I mean, this is a big deal. I’m stoked a western religion now has one less influential leader, and I’m stoked he’s doing this to help women. And I love helping women. When society stops viewing women as inferior to men, it stands to reason there would be less misogyny, less binary-influenced thinking, and less anti-trans discrimination as well, since so much of the ire against trans folks comes from people’s inability to get over the idea that men and women are separate and (in the case of trans women) that femininity is just as good at masculinity. Anyway, one more reason to love Jimmy Carter.
http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/losing-my-religion-for-equality-20090714-dk0v.html?stb=fb
Mapping Superclusters
Kinda off topic, but I found this both fascinating and visually stunning. Scientists have mapped how the galaxies move. Everything looks like an anemone if you ask me.
What It Means when Someone Refuses to Use Your Correct Pronouns
Another from Everyday Feminism.
This excerpt is from Point Six, which nails it.
“It might make you uncomfortable or upset to think about using people’s proper pronouns. You might hate worrying about whether you’ll get it wrong.
But consider what I talked about above: Being misgendered is a much more uncomfortable experience for trans and non-binary people.
If you’re only thinking about your discomfort, it’s a sign of your cis privilege. It means that you think your comfort should be catered to first.
In other words, you think your comfort is more important than trans and non-binary people’s.
This sort of ties in with the previous sections. As a cis person, it’s a privilege for you to think that cis people are the only people who exist. You don’t have to consider how other people’s experiences might be different.
As a cis person, it’s a privilege for you to take your pronouns (and gender identity) for granted, and to have other people constantly validate that.
And if you believe that only people like you exist, and on top of that, are constantly validated in this belief—well, it’s easy to think that trans and non-binary people who insist on using their pronouns are just making things up.
Except, you know, we’re not.
The discomfort and pain that we feel is valid. It doesn’t matter less than your own discomfort. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that it matters more.”
6 Reasons Your Discomfort with They/Them Pronouns Reveals Unchecked Cis Privilege
Allies Take Note: Despair, Safety Privilege, and Socioeconomic Privilege
“Being comfortable all the time, feeling safe all the time is a huge privilege, and a lot of people don’t realize what a privilege it is until it’s pointed out how unsafe other people feel all the time,” said Sara Connell, transgender program liaison for Out Boulder.
That quote hit me when I started reading, but Amber’s story crushed me. #fixsociety
znoted 