Month: August 2012

Being a woman also isn't like being Napoleon

Zinnia Jones, , 36 Comments

For some reason, mainstream news organizations still can’t resist giving a platform to some of the oldest, most worn-out and nonsensical tropes about transgender people. Like this:

In a recent Straight Dope Message Board thread about transsexuality, one commenter offered the following: “People who have gender identity disorders . . . are just dudes dressing up as chicks and/or dudes who have gotten a doctor to mutilate them to have imitation female genitalia (or [the other way around for women], I guess.) . . . GID patients have a mental illness and society should be looking into ways to eradicate that mental illness through some form of treatment that isn’t the equivalent of giving a paranoid schizophrenic who thinks he’s Napoleon a bicorn hat and a saber.” Care to comment? — Startled Lurker

Yes, this line of argument is all too familiar to us by now, yet these people seem to think no one has ever thought of it before. To make being trans seem like nothing more than a delusion, they parallel it to identifying as another species, identifying as imaginary animals such as dragons and unicorns, or identifying as another race (apparently multiracial people do not exist and are not allowed to identify as any of their constituent races). To this list of absurd comparisons, we can now add identifying as Napoleon.

This is one of those times when someone just throws a bunch of words together and expects that an actual substantive argument will spontaneously emerge. It’s made to look like it has some kind of meaning, but when you look closer, there’s nothing there. It seems like they think we’ll fail to notice that a solid half of the human population are women, identify as women, go about their lives as women, and no one has a problem with this. Being a woman is not, you know, rare or anything. Saying you’re a woman is not an outlandish claim to make. Expecting to be treated as a woman is not at all unreasonable. And yet they make it sound like this is the same as saying you’re the one Napoleon, as opposed to every other person in history who isn’t Napoleon. That simply doesn’t map to this.

Among the other ways that the Napoleon scenario fails to track with the realities of sex and gender: Fetal humans do not differentiate into Napoleon and not-Napoleon (or white and black and Asian and Latino and so on, or human and dolphin and cat, or dragon and unicorn); they do differentiate into male and female. The hypothetical Napoleon/not-Napoleon differentiation process does not occasionally result in people being born who are part Napoleon and part not-Napoleon (or partially human and partially dolphin or cat or dragon), yet intersex conditions are recognized to exist in humans. Nowhere do we encounter people whose genetic makeup indicates that they are Napoleon (or a dog or unicorn) while their external features make them appear to be not-Napoleon, or vice versa. There are no cultures with established social roles of Napoleon and not-Napoleon (or dragon), let alone additional roles for those who move between these categories, yet a number of cultures recognize three or more genders, encompassing men, women, and others whose birth sex doesn’t align with their identity.

But suppose we did live in a world where a significant portion of the population lived as Napoleon (or cats or dragons) every day, without issue and without facing any resistance from society. If someone decided, you know what, I think I’d feel more comfortable being a Napoleon, what grounds would you have to deny them that? It’s very telling that to some people, gender is so important, so set in stone, so inseparable from one unchangeable aspect of reality, they expect us to believe it’s just as crucial and relevant and undeniable as the distinction between being Napoleon and being everyone else. In practice, it’s not like that at all. There’s more to it than your insipid pet theory that tells you what you want to hear while failing to account for how the world works.

Being a woman also isn't like being Napoleon
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Being a woman also isn’t like being Napoleon

Zinnia Jones, , 36 Comments

For some reason, mainstream news organizations still can’t resist giving a platform to some of the oldest, most worn-out and nonsensical tropes about transgender people. Like this:

In a recent Straight Dope Message Board thread about transsexuality, one commenter offered the following: “People who have gender identity disorders . . . are just dudes dressing up as chicks and/or dudes who have gotten a doctor to mutilate them to have imitation female genitalia (or [the other way around for women], I guess.) . . . GID patients have a mental illness and society should be looking into ways to eradicate that mental illness through some form of treatment that isn’t the equivalent of giving a paranoid schizophrenic who thinks he’s Napoleon a bicorn hat and a saber.” Care to comment? — Startled Lurker

Yes, this line of argument is all too familiar to us by now, yet these people seem to think no one has ever thought of it before. To make being trans seem like nothing more than a delusion, they parallel it to identifying as another species, identifying as imaginary animals such as dragons and unicorns, or identifying as another race (apparently multiracial people do not exist and are not allowed to identify as any of their constituent races). To this list of absurd comparisons, we can now add identifying as Napoleon.

This is one of those times when someone just throws a bunch of words together and expects that an actual substantive argument will spontaneously emerge. It’s made to look like it has some kind of meaning, but when you look closer, there’s nothing there. It seems like they think we’ll fail to notice that a solid half of the human population are women, identify as women, go about their lives as women, and no one has a problem with this. Being a woman is not, you know, rare or anything. Saying you’re a woman is not an outlandish claim to make. Expecting to be treated as a woman is not at all unreasonable. And yet they make it sound like this is the same as saying you’re the one Napoleon, as opposed to every other person in history who isn’t Napoleon. That simply doesn’t map to this.

Among the other ways that the Napoleon scenario fails to track with the realities of sex and gender: Fetal humans do not differentiate into Napoleon and not-Napoleon (or white and black and Asian and Latino and so on, or human and dolphin and cat, or dragon and unicorn); they do differentiate into male and female. The hypothetical Napoleon/not-Napoleon differentiation process does not occasionally result in people being born who are part Napoleon and part not-Napoleon (or partially human and partially dolphin or cat or dragon), yet intersex conditions are recognized to exist in humans. Nowhere do we encounter people whose genetic makeup indicates that they are Napoleon (or a dog or unicorn) while their external features make them appear to be not-Napoleon, or vice versa. There are no cultures with established social roles of Napoleon and not-Napoleon (or dragon), let alone additional roles for those who move between these categories, yet a number of cultures recognize three or more genders, encompassing men, women, and others whose birth sex doesn’t align with their identity.

But suppose we did live in a world where a significant portion of the population lived as Napoleon (or cats or dragons) every day, without issue and without facing any resistance from society. If someone decided, you know what, I think I’d feel more comfortable being a Napoleon, what grounds would you have to deny them that? It’s very telling that to some people, gender is so important, so set in stone, so inseparable from one unchangeable aspect of reality, they expect us to believe it’s just as crucial and relevant and undeniable as the distinction between being Napoleon and being everyone else. In practice, it’s not like that at all. There’s more to it than your insipid pet theory that tells you what you want to hear while failing to account for how the world works.

Being a woman also isn’t like being Napoleon

Nothing good will come of this

Zinnia Jones, , , 13 Comments

People who walk into random businesses or public places and open fire on innocents usually aren’t disposed to rational discourse or long-term planning, but Floyd Lee Corkins’ shooting of a security guard at the headquarters of the Family Research Council (allegedly accompanied by his declaration of “I don’t like your politics”) will surely do nothing but backfire. This wasn’t just needlessly violent and intolerably destructive – it will also prove to have been actively counterproductive.

The FRC and all other anti-gay right-wing groups that share its goals won’t hesitate to exploit this incident to portray themselves as the real victims in their ongoing fight against liberal values. NOM is already at it, demanding that bigoted, hateful groups no longer be called “bigoted” or “hateful” or “hate groups” because apparently that will cause people to shoot them (raising the question of why exactly it took so long for that to happen even once). I fully expect that they’ll continue bringing this up for the foreseeable future whenever they find it convenient to make supporters of gay rights look like maniacs who want to kill them – which is to say, always.

And every single time they milk this for more sympathy, we’ll be obliged to recite ad nauseam that yes, we unambiguously deplore all violence, no, this is never an acceptable approach to civil debate in the public sphere, yes, this was a terrible tragedy and our hearts go out to the victim, no, this man does not represent what we stand for… and so on. Meanwhile, they’ll continue working to criminalize our relationships, ban our marriages, tear apart our families, exclude us from full participation in our society, depict us as child abusers, and fight tooth and nail against our progress at every step. And now, they’ll be forcing us to apologize along the way.

You wounded more than just one person yesterday, Floyd.

Nothing good will come of this

If you don't like the .gay domain, don't go there

Zinnia Jones, , 22 Comments

Newly proposed top-level domains – the part domain names end in, like .com and .org – are up for consideration by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. And guess what Saudi Arabia has a problem with?

The Saudi Arabian government is objecting to a number of proposed new Internet address endings, including .gay, .bar, .baby and .islam.

The country claims the .gay domain would promote homosexuality and would be offensive to “many societies and cultures.” Saudi Arabia’s Communication and Information Technology Commission (CITC) filed objections to 31 domain extensions, primarily on cultural and religious grounds.

If any theocracy or dictatorship around the world were allowed to veto some part of the internet that goes against their beliefs, it wouldn’t be the internet, now would it? What sense does it make to say we can’t have a .gay domain here, because they don’t like the .gay domain there? There’s already a .xxx TLD, and I bet the Saudi Arabian government isn’t a fan of pornography. While we’re at it, why do the US (.us) and Israel (.il) have their own TLDs? I can think of a few countries who would rather they didn’t exist, either.

If you don't like the .gay domain, don't go there

If you don’t like the .gay domain, don’t go there

Zinnia Jones, , 22 Comments

Newly proposed top-level domains – the part domain names end in, like .com and .org – are up for consideration by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. And guess what Saudi Arabia has a problem with?

The Saudi Arabian government is objecting to a number of proposed new Internet address endings, including .gay, .bar, .baby and .islam.

The country claims the .gay domain would promote homosexuality and would be offensive to “many societies and cultures.” Saudi Arabia’s Communication and Information Technology Commission (CITC) filed objections to 31 domain extensions, primarily on cultural and religious grounds.

If any theocracy or dictatorship around the world were allowed to veto some part of the internet that goes against their beliefs, it wouldn’t be the internet, now would it? What sense does it make to say we can’t have a .gay domain here, because they don’t like the .gay domain there? There’s already a .xxx TLD, and I bet the Saudi Arabian government isn’t a fan of pornography. While we’re at it, why do the US (.us) and Israel (.il) have their own TLDs? I can think of a few countries who would rather they didn’t exist, either.

If you don’t like the .gay domain, don’t go there

Better questions to ask trans people

Zinnia Jones, 32 Comments

During my recent interview on the Godless Business podcast, I was asked whether I was “pre-op” or “post-op” – terms which refer to whether a transgender person has had genital surgery. Since this wasn’t really the focus of our conversation, I just answered the question and moved on. But after we were done, it occurred to me that there’s a lot more to be said about this, such as how relevant the pre-op/post-op distinction actually is in trans people’s lives, what kinds of questions would more accurately reflect our experiences, and when it’s appropriate to ask about these things.

To start with, it’s really important to understand that unless they’ve indicated that they’re willing to talk about this, trans people might not want to answer just any question about being trans. Agreeing to talk about it in the context of an interview is one thing, but in our everyday lives, respect for boundaries is important. Think about it: There’s a difference between “Hi, how are you doing?”, and “Hi, how are your genitals doing?” The latter can be intrusive and presumes a degree of personal familiarity that usually isn’t there.

If you wouldn’t say that to someone who’s not trans, then why would you say it to someone who is? Unless you know them really well and they’re okay with talking about it, don’t just assume that they’ll be fine with this. For a lot of trans people, being trans is something that’s already on their mind a lot, and sometimes, the last thing they want is to talk about it with random people who may not even understand them and are potentially hostile.

Having a body that isn’t fully in step with your identity is a pretty personal thing, and like anyone else, you can’t expect trans people to be completely open about their own private history. Recognize that the usual norms are still in place – about asking people how they have sex, what their genitals look like, the surgeries they’ve had and the medications they’re on – and understand that for trans people, these can be even more sensitive topics. And just because you heard one trans person voluntarily talking about this, don’t make the mistake of thinking that this is therefore a subject of casual conversation that’s suitable for all occasions. Treat it as opt-in, not opt-out.

Of course, that only covers people who you already know to be trans. If you don’t know that someone is trans, then you definitely shouldn’t just ask them about it. If they are trans, and they haven’t told anyone, consider that they simply may not want people to know. Confronting them out of nowhere would be disrespectful, if not extremely unnerving.

But aside from the matter of when it’s improper to ask questions, it’s also worth examining what kinds of questions would be more fruitful when the topic is on the table. Whether someone is pre-op or post-op tends to be one of the most common starting points for those who are trying to understand trans people, but it’s far from the most useful. It’s easy to see why this is the first thing that would come to mind: most of the world still regards gender as being defined by genitals, and this is a quick way to eliminate an unknown and determine where trans people fall within that system.

The problem is that this system is incomplete and inaccurate. What’s in someone’s pants is only one small part of who they are as a person. To trans people, this tends to be obvious, but to others, it may not be. Maybe it’s just something you have to experience firsthand: if your body, identity, and presentation are all in sync, you might think your genitals have something to do with the fact that you’re seen by others as your gender and treated appropriately. But for us, it’s clear that whether we’ve had genital surgery isn’t usually relevant in our day-to-day lives.

When body and identity are no longer linked together and restricted to being all-male or all-female, it becomes obvious that genitals don’t always matter all that much. We don’t go around pulling people’s clothes off to tell what gender they are – we use other clues. The way that someone goes about life as their gender usually hinges on features other than their anatomy, so while it may be personally important to some trans people, modifying our anatomy is far from our only means of exerting control over this.

At times, it can be artificially forced into greater prominence in our lives by laws in some areas that prevent us from receiving identity documents that match our gender until we have surgery – a requirement that’s all the more troublesome when such operations are undesired or out of reach. Yes, not all of us seek that kind of surgery. The dichotomy of “pre-op” and “post-op” depicts it as something that either happened already, or hasn’t happened yet. This ignores that for some of us, it may be something that never happens – there is no “yet”. Some people can’t have it for medical reasons. Many just don’t have the means to afford it. And some of us simply don’t want it – we’ve decided that we’re satisfied with what we have.

So, what sort of things are more relevant to our goal of going about life as our preferred gender? Well, you could ask what made us realize that this was something we wanted for ourselves. You could ask us when and how we came out – we each have our own stories, much as with anything else you have to come out about, and this tends to be one of the first steps in the process of transitioning. Another major milestone is presenting full-time as our intended gender, something with much greater significance to our everyday lives than the state of our genitals. You could ask what sorts of interesting things we’ve noticed as a result of having lived in two different genders. You could ask us about what kind of difficulties we’ve faced as a result of transitioning. And you can ask what you can do to support trans people in a meaningful way.

Just as with anyone else, there’s so much more to our lives than surgery. And when we do have the opportunity to learn from each other, it would be a shame to miss out on the full breadth of human experience.

Better questions to ask trans people

PFOX defends the "parental rights" to force children into ex-gay therapy

Zinnia Jones, , , 43 Comments

PFOX, “Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays”, is up in arms over a California bill that would outlaw sexual orientation “conversion therapy” for minors. In an open letter, they decry this as “fascism”:

Sponsoring legislation endorsed by the gay lobby to ensure that children only receive gay-affirming therapy is an act of childhood endangerment and an unconstitutional attempt to deny parental rights everywhere, but especially for parents in California and those in your Torrance district. Your bill will turn California into a nanny state by usurping the civil rights of parents who support their child’s right to receive therapy for unwanted same-sex attractions, especially when that child has been sexually molested. This smacks of fascism and ex-gay bashing.

Apparently we must respect the “right” of parents to force their LGBT children into ineffective, harmful “therapy” that will teach them their normal inclinations and identities actually make them broken, defective, sinful human beings who must change who they are – an expectation they’ll never be able to meet without compromising their very self. Imposing all of this on a child whose wishes will be disregarded is indeed a matter of freedom, just not in the way they think. The freedom they’re defending is the “freedom” to make one’s own children hate themselves.

Of course, this wouldn’t be complete without a heaping dose of AIDS scaremongering:

Senator Lieu, since you claim your concern is for the safety of children, please read the 2010 CDC AIDS report: 77% of diagnosed HIV infections were attributed to MSM (men who have sex with men). Of those aged 13 to 24 youth, 89% was attributed to MSM. In fact, MSM aged 13 to 24 youth had the greatest increase in diagnosis (44%). Talk about harm to children! Why do you want to prevent youth from receiving counseling for unwanted same-sex attractions when those attractions can kill them?

Love leads to sex! Sex leads to death! Suppress ALL the same-sex attractions!

PFOX defends the "parental rights" to force children into ex-gay therapy

PFOX defends the “parental rights” to force children into ex-gay therapy

Zinnia Jones, , , 43 Comments

PFOX, “Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays”, is up in arms over a California bill that would outlaw sexual orientation “conversion therapy” for minors. In an open letter, they decry this as “fascism”:

Sponsoring legislation endorsed by the gay lobby to ensure that children only receive gay-affirming therapy is an act of childhood endangerment and an unconstitutional attempt to deny parental rights everywhere, but especially for parents in California and those in your Torrance district. Your bill will turn California into a nanny state by usurping the civil rights of parents who support their child’s right to receive therapy for unwanted same-sex attractions, especially when that child has been sexually molested. This smacks of fascism and ex-gay bashing.

Apparently we must respect the “right” of parents to force their LGBT children into ineffective, harmful “therapy” that will teach them their normal inclinations and identities actually make them broken, defective, sinful human beings who must change who they are – an expectation they’ll never be able to meet without compromising their very self. Imposing all of this on a child whose wishes will be disregarded is indeed a matter of freedom, just not in the way they think. The freedom they’re defending is the “freedom” to make one’s own children hate themselves.

Of course, this wouldn’t be complete without a heaping dose of AIDS scaremongering:

Senator Lieu, since you claim your concern is for the safety of children, please read the 2010 CDC AIDS report: 77% of diagnosed HIV infections were attributed to MSM (men who have sex with men). Of those aged 13 to 24 youth, 89% was attributed to MSM. In fact, MSM aged 13 to 24 youth had the greatest increase in diagnosis (44%). Talk about harm to children! Why do you want to prevent youth from receiving counseling for unwanted same-sex attractions when those attractions can kill them?

Love leads to sex! Sex leads to death! Suppress ALL the same-sex attractions!

PFOX defends the “parental rights” to force children into ex-gay therapy

Anti-meth PSAs directed by Darren Aronofsky

Zinnia Jones23 Comments

And no, I don’t mean Requiem for a Dream. I realize anti-drug PSAs are rather played out by now, but I was impressed by the visceral power and realism of these. And if any drug deserves this kind of treatment, it’s meth – which actually makes this more plausible, rather than if they had tried to portray this as the logical endpoint of cannabis use.

Trigger warning for, you know, everything.

Anti-meth PSAs directed by Darren Aronofsky