September Online Gender Workshop: Gender Attributions in Practice

After a long hiatus, I am attempting to rejuvenate the online gender workshop just in time for the US/Canadian school year.

In the past, we’ve focused on questions and reports back. Last time, we looked at some definitions. The initial exercises needed to be done in a state of gender naiveté. But more in depth exploration can only be done in the context of a common language and common intent. These are never naively assumed; they must be consciously adopted.

Now that we have these, let’s look at some aspects of gender in particular. Most educational focus is on gender identity and gender identification. But I find it more helpful to start with gender attribution. All of us attribute gender to others very frequently, but the process of attributing gender to ourselves is typically limited to childhood. Long before adulthood, cis* folks’ genders are assumptions living in the background of cis* lives. So let’s start by examining an activity with which we all have more practice and more familiarity: telling other people what there genders are. [Un/]Fortunately for you, I have a piece of creative writing that contains a number of good examples of gender attribution: how it happens, when it happens, and what it looks like. As a bonus which will help us segue into future discussions, it also touches on what it feels like when we are conscious of others’ efforts to attribute gender to us. This piece is called Stares. [Read more…]

Every time I’m sure they’ve sunk as low as they can get, they start drilling deeper

So some celebrities had their phones hacked and very personal and private photos stolen, which certain less savory and much more piggish individuals have been happily disseminating on the internet. There is the issue of the hypocrisy of people concerned about privacy celebrating this.

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I don’t agree with everything this guy says, either

Way too many clips of Thunderf00t mugging for the camera, and the conclusion staggers home with a feeble “I’m not that kind of feminist” disclaimer, but otherwise, it’s nice to see the Phil Mason School of Logical Fallacies exposed so well.

It seems strange to see people defending a game called “Hit Man”, though. You aren’t required to murder those strippers doesn’t exactly sound like an accolade — it’s still a game where you pretend to be a professional murderer.

Homosexuality and evolution

I made the mistake of reading some of the comments on those last youtube videos. There were some good ones, but they were also laced with the usual grunting assholes complaining about gays and “trannies” and quoting the Bible and making racist remarks about Africans. Let us pass over those contemptible arguments; there’s no dealing with them rationally. Spit and move on.

But there’s another flavor of argument that annoys me to no end: people who cite science and evolution to support their ignorant misconceptions about human nature. I want to address two, one anti-gay and the other pro-gay, both wrong.

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America did it!

John Oliver continues to impress. Here’s a discussion of the wretched anti-gay policies being implemented in Uganda, and the US’s role in propagating them.

I don’t understand why Scott Lively isn’t in jail — we have no laws against criminal ventures in foreign countries? Nothing about fostering foreign corruption? Can we, at the very least, take his passport away?

Oliver continues his interview with Pepe Julian Onziema, who is also very impressive. It’s kind of Uganda to send us an ambassador from the Land of Decent Human Beings.