Gender

  • Transgender Day of Remembrance

    In the past, I might've written something more. I most likely would have written a long eulogy trying to hammer home the importance of such an event, such a memory.

    But I'm too tired. Undoubtedly life taking a toll on me as well but also tired of so much death. Which, really, is less of a response and effort than They deserve.

    In the first nine months of 2011, 116 transgender people have been killed around the world; 221 since Novermber 20th, last year. There have been at least 681 murders in 50 countries since 2008.

    In your own way, do something to remember these dead. Do something outside of the expected gender roll you ascribe to (or are forced to inhabit), if you don't already do so. Say a prayer. Or just reflect: http://www.rememberingourdead.org/index.html#.

    But let no one forget.

     

    Réquiem ætérnam dona eis Dómine; et lux perpétua lúceat eis. Requiéscant in pace…

  • When You Say "Slut" or "Whore", I Don't Know What You Mean

     

    I've hinted somewhat here and there on this Xanga that I find those who deem it necessary to judge other people's sex life perplexing, slightly hypocritical, but – above all – naïve.

    Of course, when I refer to the term whore in the above title, I mean when it is used in the same sense as the word slut, rather than the profession (though I could have a good rant about prostitution, really).

    And the largest reason why is simply that what you apparently think a slut is probably is entirely different from what someone else thinks it is. Let me first point out that I do not mean someone who sleeps around with other people's significant others or any other revenge fantasy that you may have. This is often a conflation with the larger, constantly there in every incarnation, factor of a person who has a lot of sex. And that is what I want to address.

    With what do I have an issue? Am I apparently an advocate of do-whatever-you-please life aims? Rather, I want to ask, have you ever had sex? Once? Was it just petting, even? Was it after years with a significant other to whom you felt terribly close? Was it one night at a late party?

    Regardless of your answer, according to my mother, you are a slut. Why? Because opening your legs once means you have no morals. Not that my mother would tell you this to your face, despite having had premarital sex herself.

    You see, when terms like slut or whore are used, I don't understand what a person means. For some, it's sex just one time. For others, it's sex for pleasure. For others, it's casual sex. For others, it's the amount of sex, regardless of whether its meaningful to the person or with committed boyfriends or girlfriends at the time.

    And, if you've had sex (regardless of whether it was saving it for that special someone you never married, even if you plan to eventually do so), you've been allowed to make a privileged choice that – at one point in time – would have casted you entirely undesirable on any level by every facet of society.

     

    Many fought for your right to decide what sex should mean for you – including whether it might not be the right decision for you. That's your personal choice for yourself, not to cast on others.

     

  • You know, I'd appreciate not being continually told that asserting myself or dominating others is what makes me a man. My masculinity exists for my personal comfort and adjustment, not your gauge of acceptability nor verification of my genitals.

  • I posted as a pulse but I post again: http://hellogiggles.com/princess-zach

    http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/la-naw-0625-ny-gay-marriage-20110625,0,1496953.story

    http://www.givesmehope.com/view/Cute%20kids/9035967


    (btw, they're from Chicago; just sayin')

     

     

    SHFJSNJTJUHJDHFJGF

    I barely have words.

    I've been involved in just general Queer things since as far back as I can remember and even I'm shocked by the progress we've made.

    A mainstream, well-known music group dedicating a whole music video directly to Queer kids? Where were you during my childhood! Finally New York (of all places; Stonewall, anyone?) gets marriage. And (while, admittedly, not on a large scale) sensible social change towards gender‽

    Dear God, I love it.

  • Points if you can get what message the picture is highlighting.

  • Fundamentally, I'm not an anarchist; if any part of me every were to be labeled such, you might call me a social anarchist. I tend to enjoy disrupting traditions, reconstructing our seeming institutions. Yet, once again, I'm not against dressing up, wearing a suit, what have you (so long as the females, males, and everyone in-between in the group get an equal choice between suit or dress); I like tradition well enough - in a purely historical and constantly analyzed frame of mind.

    But I'm not a governmental anarchist. I'm a big government socialist. Not a communist; my ideal government is a Socialist Republic. So, through and through, I cannot endorse http://lightyear2000.tumblr.com/. But I picked up some pretty awesome pictures from it:


    A boy is not a boy is a girl is not a girl.

    Aaaaaand, just for fun:
     

  • The next person I hear who has pre-marital sex and calls someone a slut, I'm going to snap back, "And what exactly do you think some people think you are?"

    Stupid hypocrites.

  • I've said multiple times before on here that a majority of my friends tend to be girls. Given that, it shouldn't be surprising to learn that most (if probably not all, considering that's a small number anyway) of my closest friends are girls. Add to that that some (*cough*Vikki*cough*) and I have no concept of personal space/information, I've grown used to not having to deal with the irritating phenomenon of being treated as "the male in the room" for several years now.

    Maybe it was the slightly absurd notion of having to talk in code about what are day-to-day concepts and topics or the rediculous general-feeling about actually dismissing something as girl talk - or, perhaps, I've just become so used to not encountering such treatment for so long that I suddenly feel like I'm back in Sophomore year of high school when it occurs these days. Or maybe it's just my age-old dislike at feeling like I'm shoved to the outside circle of, well, anything, let alone a friend or someone I have affinity for.

    I need to get home, to normalcy, to enviroments I'm thoroughly used to. This week is going to be one of the longest of my life.

  • I've been seeing a trend lately (and lately is meant entirely in my poor perception of time) of, when insulting Twilight (and, more recently, the Bieb), harping precisely on what is recognized as femininity.

    I suppose it's one of those thing I should've recognized and just don't, but, to me, the reason to mock Edward sparkling is just that, in the context of the vampire legend, it makes no sense. Or it breaks from the legend, whatever.

    Alright, fine, even if we want to take the sparkling-isn't-aggressive route, I could buy it to an extend. While there are ways to be powerful while being passive, or not being traditionally aggressive, the fact is that more (traditionally) feminine traits aren't aggressive. I mean, I'm viewing femininity and masculinity here in terms of traits, divided along the lines of passiveness vs. aggressiveness (to speak utterly generally) - and, very importantly, completely divorced of sex. A woman can be masculine and a man can be feminine.

    Now, if you want to argue that vampires have usually been traditionally masculine (not really, but, you know...part of the reason I don't believe in inherent gender roles), then yes you could say sparkling isn't so and, thus, not acceptable for a vampire.

    I'm willing to buy that.

    The implication that one or the other is tied to a biological sex is problematic. Because they're making the extended argument that the femininity implied in sparkling isn't a problem because Edward is a vampire - but because he is male. God, are we so damn archaic…?

    Ignoring the restricting gender roles this creates for males, even, let's consider what this means. While not as readily apparent in the above two images, what's implicitly assumed is that the opposite of masculinity is bad. Vampires are supposed to be strong - femininity is not. Not that the legend is simply traditionally that vampires are aggressive but that Edward is weak and ineffective because he is feminine.

    Fear Dexter. You don't have to face Edward. He's ineffectual; he's effeminate.

    So, of course, since the root of the apparent problem here is that Eddie's problem is that he's male and effeminate, what comes bundled in this ingenious argument is that WOMAN IS WEAK. Woman in ineffectual. Female = bad.

    ("Eww, period; and Edward HAS one! Hahahaha" How fucking old are you??)

    What tends to get associated with this is the idea of that Cullen is gay (because apparently the concept of gay men wanting to become women still can't die in some minds). And, invariably, the F word gets tossed around quite easily. Which, again, is a severely disturbing phenomenon. Let me put it this way - if you wouldn't say the word nigger without worrying about everyone in the room beating the shit out of you, I don't want to hear faggot breathed from your lips (so this excludes you 4chan...). I don't understand how we seem to find that an acceptable term to just be tossed around - ever. If you wouldn't say the racial epitaph (including all the historical hate and struggle that includes), I don't understand why you'd utter the other one.

    Of course, I like inappropriate humor well enough. Anyone who knows me tends to know that's the humor I tend to ship. The below picture?

    Hilarious. And maybe it's partially because child molestation is one of those that everyone understands that you're an abject monster if you ever found that acceptable, the joke can never enter that ambiguous zone. Obviously it's not serious. Hence we can laugh at it and enjoy the inappropriate humor.

    That's not quite the same with sexualism and (mind-blowingly to me) sexism.

    I went through a tumbler account by some random girl where nearly every other post was an anti-Twilight image. And nearly every single one was about Edward sparkling. And nearly every single one about Edward sparkling was something about how he's gay or effeminate. And, of course, nearly every single one attacking his femininity was, by dualism, insulting femininity and, by extension, implying that women were weak with traits no one should ever want.

    I'm sure the feminists who fought for you to simply represent yourself would be proud.

    Of course, no one wins, really. Part of what's implied, too, is the old paradigm of "I want a real man".

    While you work on that, excuse me while I go write poetry. After all, I'm just a faggy English major, right?