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Aaron and I did something similar with balloons.
I wish I had a gif of Tulio with a sword… -
Only one of these mooks is on actual drugs… XD
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LOOOOOOOOOL
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“Same’s true of the Black Widow. Scarlett Johanssen looked great in that outfit, but she seemed to be there only as eye candy. The shot in the middle...”
Okay, well first off, let’s think of your working definition this way: it basically says that the identities of trans* people aren’t valid unless they experience dysphoria and/or eventually transition to a binary sex. Which is crap, because plenty of trans* people (including those with binary identities) don’t plan on transitioning. I can’t really speak for binary folks because that’s totally not my experience of gender, but many have said that even in a world where all genders were on equal societal footing and they weren’t arbitrarily assigned a gender at birth, they would still have an innate sense of their gender. (Feminism as a mainstream movement has not historically been super trans*-friendly, so, just something to keep in mind…)
But for me, gender isn’t that way. My identity is difficult for me to define, which is why I use a bigger umbrella term (“genderqueer”). When I examine my gender, I don’t feel any innate sense of maleness or femaleness. I’m still trying to decide if what remains is nothing or something else entirely.
Also, let me make it absolutely clear to you that although dysphoria is not a requirement for trans*ness (some people do not get dysphoric), non-binary people absolutely can and do feel dysphoria. And if it’s all the same to you, I’m not going to go into that because talking about my dysphoria unsurprisingly makes me feel dysphoric.
To be frank, I identify this way because I feel this way. Because I discovered that a non-binary identity was an option and I decided that it was the best fit for me. People keep asking me what it feels like to “have no gender” but I can’t explain it to them well because I don’t have any basis for comparison because this is how I’ve always felt. My gender is nebulous and nonspecific and vast and I’m okay with that.
Reblogging because that’s a fantastic answer.
Sec 5.2(1)(c) of the ID screening regs of Aeronautics Act: “An air carrier shall not transport a passenger if the passenger does not appear to be of the gender indicated on the identification he or she presents.”
Canada, you’re disappointing me. Additionally, I think it is of note that this has way more to do with passing privilege than pre/non-op (though for some people that does make passing as cis more frequent), though another example of this going poorly I can think of is someone on hormones who doesn’t have their identification changed. I don’t know why it can’t just be, if you in general look like your picture on your ID (or have some paperwork explaining why you don’t).
I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.
Not even just trans people, but anyone who doesn’t present their sex convincingly, whether by design or by nature.
Heck, it might be politically incorrect to point out, but some insulated people have difficulty determining sexes across racial lines.
Then there are people who fall in an ambiguous place on the sex line anyway. They might be legally defined as one sex or the other, depending on various biological aspects, but those may or may not include their secondary characteristics.
In many people, advanced age makes sex more visually ambiguous.
Some people have hormonal disorders that prevent the absorption of hormones during puberty, leading to the stunted or completely halted development of adult characteristics that we use to judge “sex”.
Some people just say “screw it” to the traditional gender presentation of their culture, and when you take a lot of those arbitrary things away, the line between a masculine and feminine appearance grows very thin indeed for a slew of people.
Trans, genderqueer, just-not-that-obvious, intersexed, very old, very young—whatever the reason that you are not obviously the gender listed on your ID, you should be horrified at this law. It doesn’t just discriminate against an obvious few: it forces all of us to live in and strive to accommodate a binary world. That is not only Not Okay, it’s frankly depressing.
The fact that we list sex on people’s IDs is disturbing, Orwellian, and misguided to begin with. Honestly, it’s a bit sick. We should be taking a step forward to have this archaic practice removed, not backwards to laws like this.
My day starts when a guest looks at me and says:
“Girl, you look sad. I know why. You need a man. You need a man, girl. You know what? I’m available. I got sixteen-hundred girlfriends, n’ they all well taken care of.”
I walked around for the next half hour, wondering if my response was going to get me fired. I almost wanted it to.
Later in the day, after work, I stop by my brother’s business to chill out, look at new pictures of the baby, and generally enjoy a social “safe space” after my hellish day at work. My brother’s store is a fairly heartwarming place to be in certain respects, because even though the crowd is pretty hardcore about its machismo, they all kind of get that I’m not a “girl” in the sense that they’re used to, and they just go with it. It doesn’t bother them that they can’t define me, or that they don’t have a word for me, or that I’m participating in their “bro”dom. These are guys who have never taken a gender studies class in their lives, never read an online article, and never raised a question more potent than, “Do girls read comic books, too?” Yet they take in this undefined element without an ounce of ado, because they really don’t give a shit about all that. They care about how I act, and if I walk in acting like a bro, then I’m a bro. Bros don’t really overthink that too much. It’s basically the sort of space that you hope will exist one day if everyone just takes enough gender studies classes.
So, I’m there, chilling with my brother and my friend Sol, when this new guy steps up and joins our conversation. We’re all casually chatting, when the new guy lets the word “shit” slip into his sentence—and immediately motions to me with the words, “I’m sorry.” He then continues his sentence as normal, while I stand there and stare at him.
It’s just such an abrupt… shattering of the space I’m in.
“What do you mean, you’re sorry?” I ask.
“I’m just traditional,” he says, almost as if it’s a compliment to himself, and then goes on with the previous conversation.
I let it go, but I fume over it privately.
Until he pours himself some scotch.
And offers me some.
I just… stare at him, like I can’t believe he’s offering me a drink. Sharing alcohol is like shaking hands in bro-speak, but this is the guy who, two minutes earlier, had singled me out with his genderizing comments. It’s pretty much an insult for him to be offering me alcohol right now.
“No,” I say, after a long moment of staring. Then- “Okay- How is being ‘traditional’ in this context any different than being ‘sexist’?”
“Oh I do it to children too.”
“…”
“I apologize when I swear in front of kids too,” he clarifies, then smiles and takes a sip, and acts like that was the end of the conversation.
W- Seriously? The stone-age approach that women are to be treated with the same social delicacy as children?! Possibly one of the most blatantly sexist approaches you can possibly have to social interaction, and this guy doesn’t even see it. I can feel the heat in my face.
“You should apologize when you cuss in front of children. Why the fuck are you apologizing to me?”
“Like I said, I’m just traditional.”
“Like I asked, how is that different from being sexist.”
My brother interjects, “An argument could be made for not wanting to curse in front of strangers you don’t know.” He laughs—that charismatic laugh that can bring pretty much any social interaction back to lukewarm, no matter where it’s coming from.
The other guy grins and toasts his glass toward my brother. “Yeah, that’s it. I don’t want to cuss in front of people I might offend.”
“Yeah, but you apologized to me specifically. Because you’re ‘traditional.’”
“You’re playing the gender card,” he says, smirkily.
I almost fall over with anger.
“What?” I barely manage to whisper the question.
“You’re playing the gender card!” he laughs.
My anger suddenly breeches some sort of membrane and I’m seeing red so hard that I can no longer form coherent sentences.
“The fuck? The gender card? There’s no fucking card! I’m just trying to be! Is it a card when you play it? Fuck.” It suddenly (finally) hits me that there is absolutely no reason to pay an ounce of attention to this douche, and I turn back to my brother, communicating with my entire body language that I’m done having any sort of conversation with him.
After a pause, he says, “Do you want me to respond to that?”
I look back at him and answer honestly. “If you have even an ounce of genuine interest in becoming a little more fucking enlightened, then yeah. If not, then no, just don’t talk to me.”
He laughs.
The fucker laughs. At me.
You know what really got me about this whole interaction?
I was not presenting as femme-gendered in ANY way.
In fact, I was not presenting as masculine-gendered. I just wasn’t fucking presenting. My hair, my clothes, my face: there were zero genderized choices in any of them. I was sending zero fucking signals to anybody. Now- even if I had been presenting as femme, that doesn’t mean I’m interested in playing a “traditional” gender game, but that’s not the point this time. The point is that I wasn’t presenting, and HE CHOSE FOR ME.
He chose. He chose to cast me into a gender role, without a FUCK of input from me.
You can’t tell what someone’s gender or sex is on the inside, just by looking at them. Not unless they have blatantly put on a particular gender costume. You just can’t.
You can’t.
And so to just choose on someone’s behalf? That’s fucking shitty.
Especially when they immediately let you know that it’s not cool.
To just continue?
To continue to impose a gender role on them, against their will?
That’s the definition of a sexist piece of shit.
…and the fellow behind the counter calls me “sir.” He immediately realizes his “mistake” and sputters, blushes, and falls all over himself, trying to apologize.
While I sputter, blush, and fall all over myself trying to explain that he made my day and doesn’t have to apologize.
Mostly, we just made farting noises at each other until I walked away.
To the dozen or so more people who have messaged me about this now:
Intentionally misrepresenting a group by its majority is a well-known comedic device that in no way insults or excludes those minorities that were not brought into the stereotype. When telling a joke about a group, it is often spoken of as a single entity, and that entity is based on a stereotype befitting to the joke that’s being told.
For example:
If I am telling an insulting joke about Americans, in the context of obesity, I might say, “Those flabby Americans.” (Not saying fat-shaming jokes are cool, here, just picking a common example.) I am referring to Americans, as a group, as obese, because the joke I am telling in some way relates to obesity.
On another night, I might be telling an insulting joke about how Americans are under-educated. I would then employ the same comedic grouping device by saying, “Those uneducated ‘mericans!” I am referring to Americans, as a group, as uneducated, because the joke I am telling relates to stupidity.
When I am telling those jokes, does anyone except me to pause and say, “Now, when I say ‘those fat Americans’, of course I don’t mean to imply that all Americans are fat, I’m just stereotyping based on the perceived majority for the sake of the joke, and I certainly hope that no thin people feel excluded.” Of course not. That would be absurd.
Just like it would be absurd for me to stop in the middle of a comedy piece, which is what The Physics of Fan-Fic Sex was, to say, “Now, when I say that the entire fandom is composed of straight cisgendered women, I don’t actually think that every single person in the fandom is a woman; I’m stereotyping based on the majority to illuminate the humorous implications of the fandom’s predominant demographic.”
Guys? I’m a feminist. And a queer. And I am constantly on the look-out for language that unintentionally excludes, misrepresents, or insults. Believe me, I am no fun at Christmas parties, because my heteronormative family and friends insist I have no sense of humor. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve upset a friend by pointing out how their humor relies on the oppression of a given group, to which I’ve always received the response, “Jesus, it was just a joke.”
So yeah. It is important to look out for those things? But it’s also important to understand comedic structure and to identify when something is simply ironic, or employing a comedic tool that alters the way language is normally used, versus when something is genuinely relying on a harmful stereotype to tell a joke.
My comment about the demographic nature of the fandom was not harmful, it was not exclusive, and it was not anti-queer/anti-male. I was referring to the overall group by one of its most predominant identities so that I could could make the joke that straight cisgendered women would rather read gay male erotica written by other straight cisgendered women, rather than erotica written by actual gay men. It was a friendly insult toward straight, female, cisgendered readers.
This is the last I am going to say about this. I am done messaging individual people. I am genuinely, genuinely sorry that you felt hurt by my statements, but I am 100% of the opinion that your hurt originated in your misunderstanding, and that I made absolutely no mistake here. This is coming from someone who is herself queer, who is literally majoring in linguistics precisely because of these queer/feminist issues in language, who actively seeks out these conversations and has learned the hard lesson of when to listen up and change your words (because we often don’t realize how we unintentionally oppress others with our word choices), and in this one rare case, my bottom line remains: you misunderstood. Yes, we often misunderstand because some of our radars are on a feather-light trigger—especially after years of immersion in language enlightenment. Take a step back on this one and read it again.
-Mallamun
