reflection on my blog postings

Reflection

Looking back through the thirteen postings I have written during the entirety of this semester for this class, I whole-heartedly feel that my thoughts, along with myself, have expanded and developed in terms of the knowledge of the gender in America as well as my understanding of the diversity of individuals in terms of gender and sexuality. It seems so evident and obvious, from the early postings such as the one titled ‘A Whole New Experience’, that I had been newly exposed to such deep and not very widespread ideas and perspectives of the ‘non-normative’ genders that I now believe to naturally exist in society. At first, I must admit, I had been almost astounded and awe-struck by such strange (for me) ‘queer’ genders that I had never experienced or thought of before. Even though I had heard about gay and lesbian communities, I did not have any more than the rudimentary idea of them, not to mention transgender, intersex and other ‘queer’ individuals and what kind of disadvantages and troubles that they would have been and still go through in this current society where the binary gender system is deeply embedded and dominant.

I personally believe that reading the article ‘Claiming an Education’ written by Adrienne Rich in the beginning of the semester helped tremendously in my attitude toward this class. Instead of just passively taking in information from lectures or readings I have had to do, the article actually encouraged me to actively think about a lot of gender issues included in what I have read for class. Furthermore, I was eager to look up on internet and talk with my friends about extra information that I was curious about regarding various topics we have learned and talked about in lecture, but I did not fully comprehend or wanted to know more about.

Posting after posting, I see that I have gained and learned so much in this class and broadened my horizon when looking at the issue of gender. Understanding, analyzing and interpreting the various issues that ‘queer’ individuals faced was a rather difficult job for me due to my limited knowledge that did not help me much to relate to these people. However, organizing my thoughts and the array of ideas in front of me in order to write postings week after week personally helped me better understand the current situation and the transforming general atmosphere of gender in America.

 I recall that one of the earliest discussions and postings was about breaking down our notion of gender through the lens of the binary gender system that strictly categorizes all individuals into two distinct groups – male and female. Reading and writing about Patricia Hill Collins’s article about how the dichotomy of gender creates oppression and certain power dynamics among individuals opened my eyes to the whole new world of gender where there are no categories established such as male or female and every individual with distinct personality and characteristics. The fact that much discrimination and oppression arise due to our notion of stereotypes and ideas toward certain categories of people was as fresh as view as the vegetables in an In-and-Out burger. This idea further develops in my posting about ‘intersectionality’, an idea introduced by Kimberle Crenshaw in her book, ‘Mapping the Margins’. From the article, I learned that individuals’ circumstances could worsen not only due to their ‘queer’ gender but also by other aspects of their identity such as race, class, and many more.

A little peak into the pre-contact Native American views and treatment of gender was personally extremely intriguing and novel. Their nonchalant acceptance of individuals who are considered ‘transvestite’ or ‘transgender’ in our community is rather surprising and something that I could learn from. In addition to these conventional ideas and the existence of various types of gender, I also enjoyed learning and writing about the history of struggle of ‘queer’ individuals in the past such as the Stonewall riots and those demonstrated in Nayan Shah’s book, ‘Stranger Intimacy’. I have realized that closely perusing the past struggle and activism as well as their effectiveness in bringing about positive results could be a good way to learn and lead our society forward in not only issues regarding gender, but also class, race, and other categories that contribute in creating unjust inequalities between individuals.

I am utterly glad that independently giving my own thoughts to such issues and writing about them not only broadened my knowledge and opened up my perspectives toward such matters, but also developed my critical and logical thinking skills and improved my writing skills. Being a non-native speaker of English from Korea, I must admit that I had much difficulty expressing myself the way I wanted. However, long hours of reading, sitting in front of a computer and thinking about complex issues I had to comprehend and writing out what I had understood have significantly and almost discernibly made me more skillful in numerous aspects. The freedom given to me in writing my postings has been the ultimate motivation for me to work and think in my own unique way. 

Power and the Truth of Bodies

A Certain Kind of Freedom: Power and the Truth of Bodies by Riki Wilchins

In this particular chapter of her book, Genderqueer, Riki Whilchins points out the inherent flaws in the conventional binary system of gender and demonstrates to us how our knowledge will be expanded and ‘truths’ discovered with the abolished of the system. This chapter consists of four small essays in which Wilchins discusses different aspects of transgenderism as well as queer individuals.

It’s your gender, stupid! & Queer Bodies

Wilchins begins with the introduction of Judith Butler and her idea that in our society, gender is not decided by who we are but what we are seen to be. In other words, society decides individuals’ gender based on their expression of gender. Wilchins carries on with this idea that she eventually proves wrong and assailable. She argues that if our ‘looks’ or physical expressions are what determine our gender, then they could be disrupted by changing our looks and therefore, this type of reasoning is unstable. However, universally, this isn’t the case.

Then, Wilchins claims that gender is a set of “meanings and symbols – and the rules, privileges, and punishments pertaining to their use”. She further explains that every bahvior, action and things around us are either judged as ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’ such as ships, clothing, sexual positions, pens, bowls, hand positions, etc. Because of what Wilchins refers to as ‘microexchanges’, individuals are psychologically and behaviorally coerced to behave in certain ways that are conforming to the expected ways of behavior and expression when interacting with other people. Individuals that fail to conform to the norms are coined as ‘queer’. After analyzing the pervading social conventions and expectations, Wilchins questions whether if one can, in the most fundamental sense, really be feminine or masculine considering the diverse innate characteristics and tendencies of each and every individual.

Wilchins brings out the general societal belief that “biological sex is considered to be the most basic and natural product of bodies”. She further points out that if biological sex and natural shapes of our bodies are considered acceptable, it is contradictory that humans have created the two gender groups and try to categorize people into one of the two groups. What can’t we just accept the differences and move on? The widespread medical practice on intersex individuals demonstrates the flaw in our way of thinking – enforcement of binary system of gender.

Wilchins emphasizes the human creation of distinct groups with fixed number of characteristics and strict enforcement of these groups. This leads to uniformity and threatens diversity – an essential element in finding the ‘Truth’ that we humans are so eager to explore and discover.

Changing the Subject

Wilchins begins by questioning what “identity” truly means in this short essay, ‘Changing the Subject’. She explores and asserts that “identity” is a social construction of an ideal state of any category that we have established such as ‘being a woman’ or ‘being a man’ and that no one is perfectly a woman or a man but an approximation of this ideal identity. She further declares that identity is not a natural fact of bodies but a history of human social construction of the ideals and a complex set of responses to social and cultural needs. Recently, we have witnessed the emergence of another distinct gender group, “transgenders” who have taken charge and actively participated in having their voices heard in the world where the conventional gender binary system forced each and every individual in either ‘man’ or ‘woman’ category.

As Wilchins enters the main discussion of gender and various social movements regarding transgender, she asks two major questions:

1.       1. Is this really a big change in people’s thinking?

2.       2. If so, how are such powerful effects achieved?

Wilchins makes it clear that with the advent of the emergence of transgenderism  and as people identified themselves as transgenders, she also obtained the sense of pride in her gender and body. According to her, she began to understand herself as transgendered and not a ‘man-woman’ anymore. This phenomenon also made her seek explanations outside the confines and boundaries of the language and various attachments and norms that come with it. No matter how much effect the movement of transgender individuals have affected the ways that people think of it, Wilchins accurately points out that “the attachment of meaning is a powerful took for making us experience ourselves in the world in very specific ways.” In answering the second question, Wilchins brings up the idea of “from the bottom up” power system which means that our notions and behaviors, therefore, identities, are shaped by our daily interactions with people around us and not by government regulations or other institutional power.

Wilchins ends the essay with crucial thought-provocative questions that would help us solve the problems that transgender individuals go through as well as issues regarding gender in general - "Do we want to fight as genderqueers?.... Or do we want to attack the notion of normative genders itself?"

Rise of the Intersex Activism

Fixing Sex by Katrina Karkazis

Chapter 8: Intersex, Medical Authority, and Lived Experience

Katrina Karkazis dedicates this particular chapter of her book, Fixing Sex, to illustrating the clashes between the conventional medical authority and practice and intersexual individuals. She also vividly portrays the hardships that intersexual people go through and how activism arisen from it brings about a transformation in the medical field concerning intersex bodies and psychology.

Karkazis says that the social and medical development of the idea and treatment of intersex individuals arose from the broader social movement of and changes in the attitudes toward gender and sexuality. The successful emergence of intersex to public attention partially owes to other diverse movements such as “the feminist and women’s health movements, gay and transgender movements, and patient health movements” which according to Karkazis, “influenced the development of challenges to the traditional treatment paradigm for intersexuality.” In fact, gay rights and transgender movements, such as those that can be seen in incidents like the Stonewall riot as well as the riot at Compton’s Cafeteria, sought to broaden the understanding and acceptance of non-normative gender roles and sexual desire. The Stonewall riot was exceptionally a significant movement as it advocated for “legal and social reforms such as stopping police harassment, ending the criminalization of homosexuality, and protecting the civil rights of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender individuals.” These numerous social and legal movements were further supported by scholarly works especially in the feminist theory which provided an analytical and theoretical basis for the critique of the traditional treatment paradigm for intersexuality. These works across various disciplines raised questions and challenges to the existing conventional scientific and medical knowledge for gender bias and destroyed the ‘cultural presuppositions’ about gender. Eventually, the authority of the medical personnel deteriorated and the power over medical decisions shifted to those of the individuals concerned.

As the intersex movement sprung with the help of other similar preceding movements, intersex support groups began to emerge with the help of the Internet. These support groups that varied from official organizations and foundations to small personal groups were not created for any radical or dramatic social change for intersexuality but to help intersexual individuals to alleviate their pain and live more peacefully, sharing their experience and mutually supporting each other. For example, ks&a, (Klinefelter Syndrome and Associates) described itself as an organization “to educate, encourage research, and foster treatment and cures for symptoms of sex chromosome variations”, focused on and dedicated to addressing one condition as many other organizations are structured. Even though these groups helped a considerable number of intersex people to alleviate their daily pain and live their life as a minority, some individuals have found them inadequate for addressing questions and problems related to their conditions/diagnoses. These are the individuals that sought to actively protest and oppose the conventional medical knowledge and practice.

The intersex activism started off by aiming to address the conventional medical model of intersexuality and treatment. In a way, they were fundamentally rooted in antimedicalization movement. The conventional medical system viewed the intersex body as an abnormality and something that has to be corrected through surgery in early childhood to conform to one of the binary sex categories, male or female. It was this fundamentally flawed idea that the intersex groups and activists tried to address and rectify by claiming that individualized physical rectification does not eradicate an intersex individual’s discomfort and “illness experience”. However, it is the change in the fundamental idea that intersexuality and intersex bodies are absolutely normal, as normal as heterosexual bodies. 

The End.

Rethinking Transphobia and Power

Normal Life Ch.3 – Rethinking Transphobia and Power – Beyond a Rights Framework

In chapter 3 of his book, Normal Life, titled ‘Rethinking Transphobia and Power’ Spade gives us a detailed observations of how power and control operate in different ways at various levels. Spade begins by critiquing the current reform strategies adopted in order to remedy the problems faced by trans people saying that they misinterpret and misunderstand the nature of ‘power and control’ and the law in both. He asserts that reshaping our ideas about these problems faced by trans people and re-conceptualizing the sources of these problems are necessary in coming up with viable solutions that can actually work and improve the lives of trans people in society.

The first operation of power and control Spade introduces is the ‘Perpetrator/Victim Power’. According to him, this is an ‘intentional, individualized negative action, discrimination, exclusion and violence – it takes place at an individual level and there are always a perpetrator and a victim. For example, this type of power usage can be seen when an employer bases his or her decision to recruit an employee on the employee’s race, skin color, gender, and many more categories. Spade states that many of the law reform strategies established to defend the rights and lives of the marginalized, including trans people, address the problems that arise due to this ‘Perpetrator/Victim Power’. However, Spade argues that this is a mere superficial method of protection of the marginalized since there are still people that suffer under the protection by the law.

The second type of operation of power is called the ‘Disciplinary power’. Through disciplinary power are strictly established norms plus the coercion by society on people to conform to the norms. In a society, there are certain sets of rules and categories that every individual is encouraged to follow and fall under; for instance, maleness, femaleness, heterosexuality and homosexuality. When a person does not fit into a distinct category but deviates and displays erratic non-conforming behavior, he/she is immediately ostracized. Therefore, these categories formed by the social norms and the societal coercion are what constitute the disciplinary power. Spade believes that once people get used to conforming to the societal norms, the process becomes internalized in them and eventually, the categories become significantly powerful tools to control the population. An example of the use of disciplinary power is – “When activists form consciousness-raising groups that encourage people to question standards about how they see their own bodies and identities and replace those norms with other ideas they consider better, they are engaging with the disciplinary mode of power.” According to Spade, disciplinary control is inadequately addressed in today’s society because the law tends to apply on individualized perpetrator – victim mode of power, it challenges the disciplinary mode of power.

The last type of power that Spade raises is the ‘Population Management Power’ in which national campaigns, programs and laws that affect the entire population. Examples of the population management power include taxation, military conscription, welfare programs, and many more. As this type of power is influential nation-wide, it is much more significant than the individual level types of power such as the Perpetrator-Victim Operation of Power. Spade points out that the influential power of this type of power operation did not only equally distribute the ‘life chances’ to all citizens in the United States, but it also further increased the divide in racial wealth. For example, the expansion of the criminal punishment system in the U.S was promoted by racialized-gendered narratives. The underlying intention and the subsequent result of the program increased policing in poor neighborhoods while providing law enforcement with more tools for surveilling, arresting, and caging poor people and people of color. Dean Spade emphasizes the importance of looking at the problems through the lenses of Disciplinary Power and Population Management Power principles. 

Normal Life Ch.1

Text: Normal Life Ch.1

Neoliberalism and emphasis on ‘redistribution of chances’

Dean Spade, author of the book ‘Normal Life’, dedicates this particular chapter to laying down the groundwork for further development of his ideas. In this chapter, he presents to us how the discussions and social movements regarding gay and lesbian rights came into light. Moreover, he briefly discusses, toward the end of the chapter, the ways in which trans people can attain their own rights as well as equality.

Spade starts off by introducing the idea of neoliberalism, an economic and political theory that pervades throughout our society, especially in the United States. The idea of neoliberalism, on the surface, is something that anyone would advocate. Neoliberalism promotes ‘freedom’ and ‘choice’ at all levels of class and more widely, on the international level, advocates free trade, privatization and deregulation. On the contrary to its spurious external goodness, it has been observed that neoliberalism, through its ideals, increases the gap between the rich and the poor, takes away the social welfare schemes and basic healthcare services and deprives the low-class people of many more basic necessities without federal support. In addition, people who worked for private businesses were stripped of their job security and power as a part of the labor union. The effect of the implementation of neo-liberalism in the United States did not only negatively influence the people in the country but also families and individuals in other developing countries. Through treaties and agreements like NAFTA and FTAA, the United States exploited the relatively inexpensive human and natural resources of the less powerful countries such as China, India and many Latin American countries. As a result, people in these countries grew more destitute and desperate and started to migrate to developed countries, most notably to the United States, in pursuit of greater monetary compensation. The sudden surge in the number of poor immigrants in the United States and growing number of poor families within the country led to a greater enforcement of laws and regulations in the country. Various immigration laws and criminalization of petty crimes put the poor communities under much chaos and policing.

As most people’s social and economic life fell apart, public sector organizations began to emerge that were led by rich educated white lawyers to fill in the gaps left by the government such as providing basic social and legal services. These organizations did not attempt to instigate the ‘transformative social movement’ which would change the entire paradigm of the society, but aimed to include and incorporate the underprivileged and the minority (including gay and lesbian) through legal reform projects and many more diverse agendas. Amidst this fresh uprising, the sexuality/gender-focused resistance was institutionalized in the 1980s into non-profit organizations led by people of class and educational advantages. As mentioned before, the method of achieving equality for gay and lesbians was to try to assimilate them into society harmoniously.

Dean Spade argues that despite the successful achievements of gay and lesbian activists in earning their rights and convincing the public that their eccentricities as normal and natural, the path to formally recognizing and assimilating the trans people into society is entirely different from the path that gay and lesbian activists took. He identifies numerous obstacles and states ‘a crucial trans politics imagines and demands an end to prisons, homelessness, landlords, bosses, immigration enforcement, poverty, and wealth.’ Furthermore, he asserts that unless there are absolutely ‘equal opportunities’ and ‘redistribution of chances’ within the nation, trans people will not be able to attain their own voice and rights.

The Current Wave - Susan Stryker

Transgender History Chapter 5, The Current Wave, by Susan Stryker

In chapter 5 of her novel, The Current Wave, Susan Stryker demonstrates the emergence of transgender communities from the very beginning. The transgender communities and the public attention given to them, according to Stryker, began as early as 1960s. Despite its gradual growth in recognition by the public and their solid place in society, the trans community emerges as an important part of the larger society in the 1990s due to various contributing factors such as the spread of AIDS and the rise of feminism.

Starting in the 1960s, small organizations started to spring in order to promote and protect their identity as a transgender. Although the growth of these organizations seemed to be staggering, this didn’t stop them from carrying out their jobs through the bleakest times for transgender activism in the 1970s and 1980s. For instance, a transgender community based in Boston brought forth the International Foundation for Gender Education (IFGE) in 1987. Its major focus was on the needs and interests on MTF cross-dressers, but it also aimed at increasing the general transgender constituency. In addition, small scale, self-financed, homegrown resources such as the J2PC foundation (established by Jude Patton and Joanna Clark in California) awoke as a result of various historical factors such as the end of the Cold War, rise of feminism and development of internet. These organizations, more than anything else, worked on enhancing social justice for trans people and communities.

Among the prominent activists were female writers who would redefine and reshape the public perspective toward trans people such as Leslie Feinberg and Sandy Stone. Leslie Feinberg, who had been transitioning from female to male in the 1980s, attempted to define and occupy the space between the two conventional genders. By doing so, and using other kinds of means, she also instigated the social and political gender-specific oppressions. Another influential female activist promoting transgender communities was Sandy Stone who through her popular novel, The Empire Strikes Back, gave the nascent transgender movement intellectual and political dimensions and agenda.

In the midst of the active participation of various organizations and trans community activists, feminism was on the rise. The discussion regarding feminism and power of women also opened rooms for the expansion of transgender feminism in the 1990s through which (although discussions on trans communities were limited) the idea and philosophy behind trans-gender communities grew dramatically along with others. For instance, Judith Butler suggests the idea of ‘gender performativity’ through her book, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. This feminist assertion can be related to the rather radical idea of gender identity which states that gender should not be defined by two distinct groups but based on the different kinds of acts that people ‘perform’. Since no two people act identically, expressing identity gender-related characteristics, every individual is different in terms of his/her gender identity and therefore, trans people are as natural as heterosexual and cissexual individual. This iconoclastic idea of indistinct and undefinable gender roles that sprang from feminism had an unexpected influential impact on the growth of trans-related ideas and communities as well.

Feminism was not the only factor that grabbed the public’s attention in the 1990s. The wide spread of AIDS epidemic also played a crucial role in sparkling  major discussions about trans people and their communities that were vulnerable to the disease. If not acted upon, these people would act as carriers of the disease to the entire population. First of all and most importantly, trans people, compared to the rest of the population, specially lacked access to healthcare system and suffered social stigma, survival prostitution and were given fewer educational resources due to discrimination. Recognizing the devastating effects that these factors would bring to the larger, more ‘normal’ world, AIDS funding entities directed money and various forms of financial resources to the trans communities as a prevention and harm-reduction strategy. This attention and resources given to the trans communities aided them in creating new kinds of alliance politics which disregarded the discriminations against ‘race and gender, class and nationality and citizenship and sexual orientation. ‘

It is tremendously intriguing and rather impressive to see different social uprisings and ideas are inter-connected and further aid each other in amassing attention and expanding each group’s interests hand in hand. Despite such a struggle that trans communities have been through and the paramount efforts of innumerable activists, I personally feel, based on my present life, that they have not justly been recognized and caught the public’s attention. The idea that each and every individual is different, regardless of what their socially labeled gender is, in their fundamental gender identity is something that everyone should realize by reflecting deeply on themselves.

Overcoming Obstacles As an African-American Transgender Woman – Anonymous

This article written by an African American woman reveals the story of her painful journey as a transgender. Her life before transition, she says, was a very unhappy one. She would always be in pursuit of her real identity, what her subconscious told her she was. She was perceived to be gay (because everyone thought she was a boy and she liked guys) and on the inside, she felt extremely uncomfortable and out of her natural place/body therefore, miserable. She indicates that she felt as if she was living a lie and that she wanted to find out who she really was.

She claims that deciding to be a transgender was something more fearful than coming out as gay or lesbian because society has rarely seen a transgender come out. It seems that her race, skin-color, economic status and family’s religious beliefs complicated, if not prevented, her decision to transition.  According to the author, in an African American Christian community which she was born and brought up in, changing one’s gender (being a transgender) was something completely illogical and defying what God had naturally provided. This fact, as the author speculates with definite certainty, would have resulted in vehement disapproval from her entire family. As a result, the author has no one to turn to and no one to understand her situation. The author proves to be a strong female individual even though she has ‘no hiding place’ and eventually does go through the transition despite all the disadvantages and ruinous consequences that it would bring. In the end, she admits that the transition, against all down-sides, was worth it and that she was finally happy.

I think that this piece of writing gives a perfect insight into life of transsexuals and how difficult it is to live as one, especially an African American transgender. I learned that one does not suffer just because he/she is a transgender, but also because of other aspects of his/her identity such as being an African American and a Christian in this case. I think that the last heart-felt statement of the author is very true – ‘Transgender people, live free and be true to yourselves, and always remember that education is the key, because knowledge is power.’ I believe that she means that through learning, people are empowered and they grow strong enough to take confident steps in life and do what’s right.

The strength that the author exhibits is admirable and the candid personal account and the advice of the author, invaluable. 

Whipping Girl by Julia Serano

Whipping Girl, Introduction & Chapter 5

The novel Whipping Girl, is an extremely personal account of the author’s (Julia Serano) views on how the transsexuals are viewed by the general public mixed with the initiatives and pondering that she suggests that the ‘cissexuals’ take in order to understand transsexuals in a more positive and accepting light.

In the introduction, she tells us that her novel is not going to be a reaffirmation of the current general ideas of sexuality and gender or like any other novels on trans-sexualism by non-transsexual authors, but something that takes a new path. Furthermore, she proposes to fill in the ‘gaps’ created by our lack of knowledge on gender issues related to transsexuals by coming up with new terms and suggesting more intimate ideas that we are not yet familiar with or never heard of. She goes on to elaborate that under the title ‘transsexuals’ that we have made and accepted so far, there are a variety of different forms of gender. It seems as though she tries to completely break away from the binary gender system that we adopt now and encourage the readers to think of each individual a special and different case. By doing this, she demonstrates how she will be able to eradicate the pre-conceived notions and prejudices that ultimately result in discrimination against transsexual people.

Serano gives us a glimpse of the general prejudices of the public that she plans to attack and rectify such as the idea and importance of disparity between femininity and masculinity in our society which plays a huge role in people’s minds and decisions. She asserts that the general notion that females who are ‘feminine’ are inferior to men who are ‘masculine’ inhibits people’s understanding of transsexuals and their lifestyles and life decisions. Her candid confessions and real-life examples of meeting numerous people and asking them about their views on feministic qualities and transsexuals make this novel an exciting and novel one.

In Chapter 5 of her book titled ‘Blind Spots: On Subconscious Sex and Gender Entitlements’, her main objective seems to be to encourage people to understand their own sexuality before they try to understand transsexuals. And when they do, it becomes easier and an obvious thing to understand them. The Chapter begins with her early years when she realized that she was trapped in the wrong body (in a conventional sense) of a boy while her brain told her to be more feminine than most boys. She introduces the idea of the conscious sex and subconscious sex which differ in a way that conscious sex is what we recognize us to be and subconscious sex is what our brain and the subconscious tells us what we are. For most people, these two criteria match (bodily and psychological gender). However, a lot of transsexuals find themselves at crossroads when the view their conscious and subconscious sex. For instance, Julia Serano herself was physically a male but her brain told her, from her early ages, that she had more feminine qualities. She defines the mismatch of these two characteristics to be a ‘gender dissonance’ which, if plagued by it for years, could result in depression and extreme mental and psychological stress which, in turn, arise from insecurity from the society’s dictating eyes.

She asserts that if we all understood the meaning of subconscious sex and come in terms with our ‘blind spots’ (refers to the ideas and notions regarding our sexual orientation that we take for granted), we will be looking at transsexuals and any other queer gender-oriented people as equal and same human beings. The idea that ‘normal’ people should identify themselves as not ‘normal’, but heterosexuals, a member of a large group of gender orientations (according to Serano), is literally convention-shattering and extremely novel. Getting rid of our blind spot and recognizing that each person’s sexuality and gender identity are different when it comes to the fundamentals, according to Serano, will improve our understanding of the transsexual community.

Stranger Intimacy Ch 1 & 2

Text: Stranger Intimacy by Nayan Shah

Chapters: 1, 2

The rather incomprehensible and intriguingly enigmatic title, at first glance, proves to be the crux of the book, Stranger Intimacy, written by Nayan Shah.  In the text, Shah portrays the real and vivid picture of the consequences of having South Asian and Chinese immigrants in the Western North America (Vancouver, California, Seattle, etc) during the late nineteenth and in the early twentieth century. In order to enforce the validity of his observations and analyses, he presents a plenty of anecdotal evidence and interesting arguments.

According to Shah, the immigrants mainly from India and China – the so called “transient people”, mostly men, moved to Western North America to find temporary jobs and worked in ranches, lumber yards, etc. The coming of the immigrants proved to be rather intrusive to the “homosocial” communities of the predominantly white population who had already settled in these parts. The assimilation of the immigrants into the societies was made extremely difficult, if not impossible by the hatred and disgust that the white individuals and families had due to their physical and cultural differences (racial differences).  Overwhelmed by the increased population of foreign immigrants and their sense of responsibility for their own people, adult white men started to grow overprotective and accused innumerable foreigners of acts of indecency. Moreover, the increased competition for jobs further fueled this white hatred of foreign immigrants. For instance, in Fair Oaks, California in 1911, “three young white men” instigated a raid on Hindu immigrants working as lumberjacks for sexually harassing and assaulting white men in the community.  Even though “South Asian men”, Indians, escaped any kind of torture and physical assault, they were warned that they would be “killed” if they came back to the place again.

As the immigrants failed to assimilate into the existing white societies, as their number grew, they formed their own communities, hanging out in bars and sharing their experiences together. Despite of this positive atmosphere created, these communities also had their dark sides. Perhaps out of despair and loneliness (immigrants were mostly men who lived alone with their families back in their homes), much public drunkenness, violence and prostitution were rampant. Two of the quintessential examples of these communities that were geographically separated from the middle class white families and were formed by the immigrants were Chinatown and Gastown in Canada, the so-called Borderlands. Due to the proliferation of these acts of indecency, policing in these communities were tightened and a large number of foreigners were incarcerated or had to pay fines. As these immigrants or ‘strangers’ went through hardships and lived together in confined spaces, although they came from completely different backgrounds, they grew more and more intimate, understanding each other’s positions and circumstances. This fact attributes to the title of the text, Stranger Intimacy.

Personally, it is painful to see these “strangers”, who are literally strangers in the region, are discriminated and treated as inferiors in white dominant societies just because their different color and race. Although they indulge in things that are considered disgusting and indecent, I believe that their circumstances required them or almost forced them to engage in such acts.

Sexing the Body, page 1 - 16

Article: Sexing the Body

In this particular part of the text, ‘Sexing the Body’, the author, Anne Fausto-Sterling, discusses the ambiguous and indecisive line between male and female and the past attempts to separate human beings into the two conventional gender groups. By introducing to us the case of Maria Patino, a female Spanish athlete who was disqualified for being tested a male.  Sterling asserts that our social idea of gender (male or female) is crucial because it shapes the ‘politics of science’ concerning gender-related issues. In other words, the distinctions that we make as social beings affect the scientists’ research regarding the issue.

When further discussing whether gender is socially constructed or inherent to humans, Sterling suggests views from three different groups of people all of which she is a part of. Firstly, explaining the phenomenon from the perspective of the biologists using the scientific method and looking at the cells. Secondly, as a member of a group of diverse people sharing the common interest in gender identity, she re-enforces the biological explanations. Lastly, she views the issue from the feminist perspective who, by and large, believe that the atmosphere and the environment play a significant role in shaping their gender roles. They believe that “culture molds and effectively creates the body”. On the issue of the gender being a societal construction or an inborn quality, I agree with the view of Boswell who is quoted in the text and asserts that sexuality is “real” meaning an inborn biological characteristic. Sterling states “Boswell implies we are quite possibly born with particular sexual inclinations wired into our bodies. Growth, development, and the acquisition of culture show us how to express our inborn desires, he argues, but do not wholly create them.” I believe that no matter what the societal norms or more extremely speaking, taboos are, individuals are bound to express their inborn sexuality. Relating this to the earlier articles about how parents should react to their child’s gender, I believe that the right way for parents to help their child develop his or her is to be open-minded and provide a liberal environment in which he/she can exercise his/her innate gender identity freely. 

Just a little side note for my own clarification: 

According to Anne Fausto-Sterling, the author of ‘Sexing the Body’:

Sex: Sex refers to physical attributes and is anatomically and physiologically determined.

Gender: Gender is a physiological transformation of the self – the internal conviction that one is either male or female (gender identity) and the behavioral expressions of that conviction.

Gender Diversity in Native Indian Cultures

Articles:
1. Doubleweaving Two-Spirit Critiques
2. Gender Diversity - Cross-cultural Variations

It was a pleasant surprise to find out that even in Native Indian communities, which I have never thought of (probably due to lack of awareness), there were various "non-normatively" gender-ed people. It is a pity that with the onset of the European domination of Indian tribes in the New World, Native Indians were forced to restrict their gender roles into a binary system – male or female.

In the first chapter of her text ‘Gender Diversity Cross-cultural Variations’, Serena Nanda portrays peaceful Indian communities which accepted and allowed the expression of various gender characteristics no matter what the Indians’ inborn biological sex was. It was as if it didn’t matter to them at all. For instance, men with female characteristics would wear women’s clothes in daily lives and when they were to fight in wars, they would change their clothes into those of men. Even in the professions/occupations of the gender-variant Indians, they were able to pursue a chore of their choice under the absolute flexibility of the society. Female gender variants would hunt along with men and male gender variants would take care of the household successfully. This positively leads to the fact that gender variant Indians formed the central part of the gender-discussion instead of playing a marginal role as they do in today’s world.

However, as the Europeans invaded their land as well as culture ever since the contact, Native Indians asserts that they have been under their ‘colonization’. As one of the means for ‘decolonization’ of the Native tribes that still exist in North America, they are raising issues such as abnormal gender roles present in Indian communities and conflicts that they face due to their race, class and gender. In the writing ‘Doubleweaving Two-Spirit Critiques’, a Cherokee author Qwo-Li Driskill shows how the Europeans’ colonization of the Native Indian tribes constricted the gender variation into just two roles – male and female, with the addition of an unofficial and still disputed title, ‘two-spirited’ people (which the Europeans decided to call people with queer gender identities). The Native Indians are not just expressing their discontent about the general European rule laid upon them regarding gender roles. This seems to mean something more significant to them. In fact, through protesting against and exterminating the European cultural remnants, they intend to overthrow the still existent European control over them.

Another thing I found interesting was how the issue of gender roles is further complicated by the race, class and gender identity. The expression used, ‘doubleweaving’ which was a technique taken from the traditional way of making baskets of a Native Indian tribe, the Cherokees, denotes how sophisticated and complex the problem of solving gender roles is.

It seems to be a general contention that the present binary gender system should be abolished in order to eliminate the discrimination of the minority. I believe that the present two gender roles can be dissolved and we can eventually come up with terms that would each signify each and every gender present. Furthermore, in order to succeed in dissolving the binary gender system, I think that getting rid of our prejudices and pre-conceptions and social norms toward specific genders is an essential step. It is my firm belief that greater gender diversity will bring out a more enriched and interactive society. 

Dismantling The Existing Inequality Based On Race, Class and Gender

Article: Race, Class, and Gender as Categories of Analysis and Connection by Patricia Hill Collins

Patricia Hill Collins’ article, ‘Race, Class and Gender as Categories of Analysis and Connection’, takes off by conceptualizing the idea of the race, class and gender categories and their analyses. She does this by stating that we must avoid and move our discourse away from additive analysis and the two key premises that we are so habituated to making when faced with issues in our daily lives. First premise, according to Collins, is dichotomous thinking – classifying things/people that we see into two distinct opposite groups. The second premise is the ranking of these dichotomous differences. A good example would be ‘women are inferior to men.’ Through these suggestions, Collins argues that these characteristics, in real life, interlock with each other, producing a complex set of identities that cannot be taken independently in each and every person.

Following the ‘ re-conceptualization’ of the categories and analyses, Collins delves deeply into the cases of race, class and gender discrimination in three different ways or the so-called ‘dimensions’. The first idea, ‘Institutional Dimension of Oppression’, refers to the structures of domination and subordination exacted by the social institutions such as schools, hospitals and government facilities. Secondly, the author presents the idea of the ‘Symbolic Dimension of Oppression’ by which human beings are differentiated and categorized according to the prejudices and stereotypes against them. Lastly presented is the ‘Individual Dimension of Oppression’ which arises due to the influence of the other two ‘dimensions’ in each individual in the formation of his or her preconceived notions toward certain social and ethnic groups.

Collins then proposes three methods to ‘transcend these barriers’ and ‘build the types of coalitions essential for social change’. After all, it has been observed by him that even though we passionately talk about equal opportunities and equal rights, there exist in abundance, marginalized people who are unjustly discriminated due to their gender, race, color and other inborn characteristics.  The author begins by claiming that the different circumstances that people are born under shape their privileges differently and therefore, view the world from different and often contrasting perspectives. These power and privileges are easy to go unnoticed and unappreciated. This links to the third solution that the author talks about – the power of empathy. Empathy is, according to Collins, having interest in other people’s lives. In my personal interpretation, empathy, in today’s small world in which people mix easily, does not seem to be a choice, but a necessity to resolve any issues regarding unequal treatment of people based on their ethnicity, gender and color of the skin. Lastly, the author suggests that a common enemy would encourage these different peoples and groups to bond and interact harmoniously. However, she stresses that this seems to happen based on the necessity and therefore, asserts that “we must support each other’s efforts, realizing that they are all part of the larger enterprise of bringing about social change".

Thank you! :)

Some Thoughts On 'Claiming An Education' by Adrienne Rich

This speech by Adrienne Rich which I read in the form of an article has been a great inspiration and motivation for me. Even though she was addressing the female students at that time, her assertion that students need to claim and not receive education touched me the most. Additionally, I concur with her idea that students must take responsibility for their education which means formulating their own original thoughts and actively taking up hard work and facing challenges.

Taking an idea from the other article, ‘White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Backpack’, by Peggy McIntosh, I tried to put myself in the shoes of women back in the old days when they were not permitted to receive or rather, ‘claim’ education.  As a student with insatiable curiosity and desire for knowledge, I believe that I would not have endured the restricting conditions that were put onto me just because of my gender. I probably would have ended up reading and solving math problems secretly hiding under my blankets or in a deserted clandestine location. As a result of this self-exercise, I learned to appreciate the opportunities that I was provided with and to not take anything for granted.

Another point that I thought critical was that the world around us (“great issues” and “major texts”), the Western civilization, is all built up by white male. This seems only natural since education was a luxury that only white men could afford to receive. As a result, all prominent positions in government and important businesses are owned by white men in the absence of women. History proves to us that most of the foundational works in philosophy, math and the sciences were developed almost exclusively by privileged white men. There is wonder that the present world view is recorded and perceived from the perspective of these white men.

In light of this fact, I believe and agree with the author’s view that students (not only female students) should challenge the pre-existing views and attempt to look at the world from their own distinct personal perspective, producing diversity of thoughts and ideas. In order for this is happen, it is, as a matter of fact, crucial to give equal opportunities to everyone and put a stop to baseless discriminations. However, the equality of gender seems to be a difficult goal to be achieved considering the fact that men hesitate and sometimes, do not acknowledge the fact that they are advantaged. According to the other article, ‘White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Backpack’, men are portrayed as hypocrites because they acknowledge the disadvantage the women have in numerous ways and yet, deny their advantage over them. Moreover, in most cases, they do not take any actions against this inequality.

To put my broad and lengthy view of education in a nutshell, I believe that education is the basic right that every human being has the right to claim no matter what the person’s gender identity or sexual orientation might be. It is a right that cannot be denied and the right that is extremely crucial to the development of the human society and the preservation of peace and agreements. It is through education that people become more intelligent, inquisitive and social. As Adrienne Rich asserts, female students as well as male students should strive to claim knowledge, erasing the barriers that make the play unfair to certain groups. 

I appreciate you bearing with me! 

A Whole New Experience

*FYI: This is kind of like a personal journal entry... Hope you enjoy it! 

Reading articles about ‘L.G.B.T.Q.I.A’ communities, especially the ‘Generation LGBTQIA’ written by Michael Schulman, from the New York Times couldn’t have had a greater impact on me. Having lived my entire life in two countries, Korea and India, where the ‘L.G.B.T.Q.I.A’ communities are practically non-existent, topics on the ‘abnormal’ sexual orientations and gender identities open up a whole new world to me. In spite of its novelty, I believe that the environment that the United States creates where ‘non-straight’ people can express their inconveniences and personal stories openly to the public is conducive to the well-being of its entire people.

High degrees of courage and boldness that people like Stephen Ira, who posted a video on ‘We Happy Trans’ display, astounds and surprises me as a foreigner who is still trying to grasp the culture here in the United States. Furthermore, the fact that a considerable number of higher education institutions such as the University of Pennsylvania and the school I currently attend, University of California at Berkeley actively support and encourage these communities is something I have never experienced before neither in Korea nor in India. Furthermore, people are nonchalant and even proud to be a part of the ‘L.G.B.T.Q.I.A’ communities. For instance, Santiago Cortes, a student at the University of Pennsylvania claims “I wrote about an experience I had with a drag queen as my application essay for all the Ivy Leagues I applied to.”

More appalling to me, so to speak, were the reactions of the public to these communities and people and how widespread and accepted they were in the United States. Obama’s second inaugural speech which talked about gay rights, circulation of articles regarding the issues of the ‘nonconforming’ gender identities and the support provided by a lot of the educational institutions seem to be signs of acceptance or at least attempts to understand the minority groups. However, there is no denial that people still have to work on fully understanding and accepting people of the nonconforming sexual orientations and gender identities as can be seen in Sadie’s recent letter to the President Obama.

In contrast to the type of environment that the United States creates, the atmosphere in my home country, Korea, is that of secrecy and absolute contempt from the public once one declares to be not straight. In 2000, a television figure and a comedian, Hong Suk Chun, came out of the closet, declaring to be gay. General public’s response to this coming out was extremely vile and rejecting. Undoubtedly, Mr.Hong disappeared from the television channels and went into seclusion. Most of his friends had left him and watched from distance. Moreover, he was to be between jobs and barely get by for the next three years.

I feel like I am slowly learning more and more about the people of nonconforming gender identities. I hope that at the end, I will be able to understand them as much as possible and further help them get across their messages all around the world, making the world more equal and human.

Thank you so much for reading :)

Is Gender THAT Important?

“If you really want to get to know someone, you don’t ask what’s between their legs” – Kathy Witterick

The quote above seems to be the crux of the article, ‘Boy or Girl? 4-Month-Old Being Raised Genderless’. The story in the article presents a married couple who keeps the gender of their four-month old baby a secret. The couple announces that they wouldn’t want their child, Storm, to be restricted in many ways due to his or her gender. Furthermore, they seem to be hoping that Storm’s innate originality comes up, intact and protected from the social prejudices and cultural norms. By and large to the public, this is an outright protest against the social norms regarding gender. The couple wishes to keep the gender a secret until Storm finds out later in life. In response to this unprecedented idea, experts in the field of psychology have made numerous remarks of which were mostly negative and condemning.  Dr.Ken Zucker confesses, “While I love the concept, I don’t think the benefit outweighs the negative repercussions, at this point and time in the world.”

In addition to the remarks from experts, the article has seen a large number of comments from the public. In fact, most of the comments criticized the couple’s idea. Their arguments range widely from “the child will find out sooner or later and won’t be able to deal with it” to “the social norms are hard to depart from and we must succumb to them.” On the brighter side, there are people who show support saying “I think it takes a lot of courage to raise a child this way. These parents appear to be doing a terrific job with all of their children.” In the midst of these intense arguments about the idea of keeping the child’s gender secret, I would like to weigh in and present my point of view…

Since my first year at the elementary school, I mostly hung out with girls around me playing the games that they played and watching romantic/comedy movies that not a lot of boys liked. Because I had been spending a lot of time with girls, I grew more comfortable hanging out with them more than my male friends. Later, I would grow to like the pink color which is almost considered the symbol for female sex. Although this inborn interest of mine in the so-called ‘girly stuff’ didn’t inhibit me from getting along with my guy friends, it did throw me off my comfort zone a few times in my life. India, where I went to high school, was a rather conservative place to be in. One day, I wore a pink shirt with jeans and walked into the school weekly assembly. All eyes were turned around toward me and some of my friends told me that I looked ‘gay’. Well, because I was expecting this kind of response (knowing what the social norms stated about guys wearing pink clothing) I wasn’t that hurt or offended. However, it got me to think about things that have been set by our society that restrict, not by law but by peer pressure and in many other ways, our freedom to expression and presentation.

Instead of not revealing his gender, I think that the parents should plant in Storm the ability to later question and dispute the social norms that we take for granted, thereby letting him exercise his freedom of expression when he becomes an adult. This way, he will be able to avoid the paramount psychological and the cultural shock that a lot of psychologists suggest would take and argue/explain his way through difficult situations he might face.

A little poem ;) 

“I Hear It Was Charged Against Me” by Walt Whitman

I hear it was charged against me that I sought to destroy
institutions;
But really I am neither for nor against institutions;
(What indeed have I in common with them?– Or what with the
destruction of them?)
Only I will establish in the Mannahatta, and in every city of These
States, inland and seaboard,
And in the fields and woods, and above every keel, little or large,
that dents the water,
Without edifices, or rules, or trustees, or any argument,
The institution of the dear love of comrades.

Thank you so much for reading J