Subject: Re: gender: topics
From: Jane Park (janepark@mail.utexas.edu)
Date: Tue Sep 14 1999 - 23:58:02 CDT
lindsey,
i think you make a really interesting point. one of the arguments i notice
people bringing up in conversations about transgender and transsexualism is
that people who undergo sex change operations or take hormones or otherwise
change their sex identities biologically are reproducing (and sometimes
reinforcing) gender binaries. it usually runs something like this: if you
believe identity to be a fluid continuum, then why do you have to change
your body to demonstrate this fluidity? how do people feel about this
argument? del might respond, i think, by saying that the body itself is an
instable entity...also, do you remember how he mentioned that it was more
difficult for him to deal with being in public when he was a woman with
facial hair than when he'd undergone the t treatments and could pass for
male...?
i had some trouble digesting that bit about women being manipulative, too,
but like you, i felt uncomfortable bringing it up, mostly because i know
del, at one point, was and identified herself as a pretty radical lesbian. i
figured, she'd run the gender/sex identity gamut, so how could i argue with
her as a boring straight woman who has queer friends and 'experimented' a
little in college? it was more a credibility issue than anything else. now
i'm wondering who has the authority to make value judgments about a gender
group? why do we give certain people authority in certain contexts? for
example, i wonder how some of del's comments would have been received if he
had been a white alpha male. maybe that's the point--that the identity or
community you represent really affects the things you say and how others
respond to them. what do people think?
----- Original Message -----
From: lindsey <lindsey@mail.utexas.edu>
To: <gender@actlab.us>
Sent: Tuesday, September 14, 1999 5:12 PM
Subject: gender: topics
>
> yay! I like everyone's intros so far. I thought it might be time for an
> actual topic tho. Did anyone notice the other day in class when Del said
> that he/she (does anyone else see the need for a gender inspecific
> prounoun?) didnt like talking to women because they made conversations so
> covert? Basically what I heard is that we women manipulate others thru
> conversation. Hmmm... I found myself thinking that if he/she (insert
> appropriate pronoun here) were of a gender we could easily define, then
> most of the females in the class would have been all over that arguing the
> counterpoint. I found myself suddenly (and uncharacteristically)
> unconfrontational due to the nature of the subject. It was a minor thing,
> but i noticed it. Did anyone else?
>
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