Blogging against heteronormativity!

From Wikipedia:

Heteronormativity is a term used in the discussion of sexual behavior, gender, and society, primarily within the fields of queer theory and gender theory. It is used to describe (and frequently to criticize) the manner in which many social institutions and social policies are seen to reinforce certain beliefs.

These include the belief that human beings fall into two distinct and complementary categories, male and female; that sexual and marital relations are normal only when between two people of different genders; and that each gender has certain natural roles in life. Thus, physical sex, gender identity, and gender roles should in any given person align to either all-male or all-female norms, and heterosexuality is considered to be the only normal sexual orientation. The norms this term describes or criticizes might be overt, covert, or implied. Those who identify and criticize heteronormativity say that it distorts discourse by stigmatizing alternative concepts of both sexuality and gender and makes certain types of self-expression more difficult.

I have an anecdote to share: my ten-year-old brother, sweet, perceptive child that he is, one day remarked as we were watching commercials on TV, “Why do they only show straight couples?” (Sort of like the time he asked why human beings are called “man” and “mankind” since we’re not just made of men — yes, my siblings are pretty awesome.)

“That’s called heterocentrism,” I replied. “Being straight is all you see because it’s what everyone is assumed to be.”

“That’s stupid,” he said.

I agree.

Another anecdote: in my fiction, several of my central characters in my ongoing projects are queer. I don’t know how many times I’ve had parents/older authority figures/whoever ask me why “all my stories are gay”.

My stories aren’t all gay. Some of my stories don’t have any queer characters at all, some only have a few. The ones in which queer characters are the main ones are of course going to have a greater emphasis on and representation of queers — because we tend to like to make friends with at least some others who share our concerns and experiences. I think I overall have a 50-50 split in my representation of straight vs. gay characters. Perhaps not even that; my trans characters in my novel are technically straight girls, GLBT or not.

People ask me why I’m into slash and why I “choose to write gay love stories”.

Why do straight people choose to write about straight characters?

Everything I read is about straight people. I have been known to be subject to the occasional bout of heterosexual attraction; I think male/female couples are perfectly good writing material. (Even better than straight ones, though, are queer male/female couples. Just because you’re in a “straight” partnership doesn’t mean the individuals participating aren’t queer. Bi and pansexuals do exist. Sometimes, pretty fucking rarely unless they’re in the closet, homosexuals date people of the opposite sex, even — though I think lesbians seem to be more flexible on this point. Heteronormative assumptions strike again!)

Science fiction isn’t queer enough. It’s probably more queer than a lot of other genres barring stuff specifically aimed at a queer market. Speculative fiction that isn’t just science-based tends to be slightly more fabulous…but, still…

I write what I want to read. No one else is going to, so I should, right?

But it’s not “normal”. It’s not the “default”. Writing a book about a gay man suddenly makes me “weird”.

Why?

I am one of those people with the ability to read gay subtext into absolutely anything. (If queer media were prevalent enough, to be fair, I’d probably read straight subtext into that, too.) Half the movies I watch end up with me proclaiming how I think a character is gay or has a thing for another character of the same sex. I’ve read whole books secretly hoping a same-sex couple hooks up in the end, conveniently trying to ignore or downplay any heterosexual entanglements of which I am not fond. I played Kingdom Hearts and its sequel because of my desperate belief that Sora and Riku were meant to be with each other even though the love triangle actually involves their mutual crushes on the girl character, whom I despise (or, well, I did until the end of KH2, but that’s another story) and try to pretend doesn’t exist.

If the possibility isn’t explicitly precluded by the plot, or if I don’t like the male/female couples in a story, I’ll read gay subtext into everything I see. No one except maybe my sister and my friend Megan can really spot the covert homosexuality in just about anything the way that I can.

People think I’m nuts.

Perhaps, perhaps not, but I’ll tell you what this means, what it says about me — it’s a coping strategy. It’s my way of coping with the fact that most of the mainstream movies I watch don’t include people like me or my friends, except as a sexless footnote or a freakish joke. I do watch a lot of queer film and read a lot of queer lit, but not always, not exclusively — how could I, and why? It’s just so frustrating to know that, in most mainstream media, I’m either an abnormal anomaly or my existence isn’t even considered as a possibility. I think that has been getting better, but it’s still pretty bad.

The media’s probably the place where I feel most represented, as a matter of fact, because there are movies that at least acknowledge that gay people exist (in however clumsy or offensive a fashion). It’s the day to day experience of life that exasperates me. Unless I’m in the company of other queers, most people seem to be utterly ignorant about even the possibility of homosexuality, and if they think it exists, they just have to tell me their bizarre, totally offensive, and utterly flawed theories about it. They don’t even acknowledge people who aren’t monosexual.

And these theories on why people become gay? They are flawed because they conform to heteronormative theories of personality because, of course, most straight people can’t think outside of that box — which is understandable (hell, I don’t understand straight people, I can’t think in the heteronormative box), but annoying as all hell. For example:

Lesbians become what they are because they either have been abused by men or can’t find a man who wants them or are in some other way embittered. They just need to find the right one.

Weird oedipal shit about men being raised by women so they identify with the feminine gender role, not having proper masculine role models, or vice versa with queer women, blah blah blah, I’m sure you all know it.

Or, one that I’ve heard which is especially offensive because it acknowledges the validity of the trans and intersex experiences at the expense of the rest of us: that homosexuals are really just physically or mentally the opposite gender they think they are and once they realize that they can become perfectly happy heterosexual members of society. (The woman my dad is seeing explained this theory to him, which she believes, along with the conviction that bisexuality isn’t real; he told her never to say anything like that in my presence, ever, and then tried to explain to her why that’s totally wrong. Sigh. But at least my family members are cool.)

So I guess all I’m trying to say is, I’m not abnormal or unnatural, I’m just me, and I do exist. I kind of like to construct a world around me which reflects that, through my writing, my art, and through my interpretations or critiques of what other people have to say. Apparently, many straight people in my life can’t understand why I do this.

It’s their loss, I suppose. They’re the ones limited by that worldview, and unless I buy into it or let them upset me (too much), it doesn’t have to affect me.

But — ARGH! It’s so frustrating to be treated like a freak or have my experiences invalidated. How many guys hit on a girl even more after learning she identifies as lesbian because to them that means she’s into hot bisexual threesomes? How totally offensive is that?

And why does it matter? If I don’t allow people to safely assume I’m straight, and neither to put me in a narrow box of whatever they believe the alternative is, THEY. FLIP. OUT.

It’s terrifying to them. It’s a personal affront!

Whatever.

I’d rather be queer.

“Privilege” is a word much bandied-about in the online feminist and pro-feminist community. What it means varies depending on the context in which it’s used: white privilege, male privilege, class privilege, hetero privilege. Sometimes these various forms of privilege intersect, and sometimes people are privileged in some ways but oppressed in others.

What does it mean, in the most basic sense, to be a recipient of social privilege, in any or all of these areas? What, exactly, are these privileges that the privileged party receives?

First and foremost, I think, is the privilege to self-define and to define others. Oppressed people do not have the power to insist that they be labeled and perceived as they are by society at large; instead they are stereotyped. Individuality is a privilege that powerful groups can claim. Privilege is invisible to those who have it; therefore being privileged, that group is seen as the default: white, male, heterosexual, gender-normative, middle class. Anyone who varies from this mold is “Other”. They are marked as Different. Different people are defined by what they are not: the so-called “normal”, the “average”. Being defined by what they are not, rather than what they are, the Other is defined in narrow and confining terms.

This can be seen in representation in the media. A white man in a movie is just a man. He could be anybody. He is the Everyman. A black man in a movie can’t just be anybody, no, he’s the Black Man; he cannot be made the universal protagonist because he is something Different, with Different concerns and Different history and Different thoughts than what is the “average” white experience. (Nevermind that any actual differences in life experience between a white man and a black man are mostly due to the fact that a white man benefits from privilege — this is why it is invisible. It’s not that the black man is inherently different as a human being, it’s that the average white man is utterly oblivious as to how or why his life is easier; it’s not the black man’s fault if the white man can’t relate to him.)

A woman can’t be just anybody. She is defined in relation to her heterosexual interactions with men, real or hypothetical. Women are defined as the mothers of men’s children, or an objects with the purpose of men’s aesthetic, romantic, or sexual appreciation. She is somebody’s mother or somebody’s love interest, and if she is neither she is considered remarkable only in that she rejects these stereotypes. A man can be a father or a love interest, and he can be neither, but he is still a man. A female character who does not fit the traditional roles is usually referred to by her similarity to men — because if she does not fit the role of the Other, the things which men are not (or not supposed to be), then she must be aspiring to the Default. She must be trying to be like a man.

One queer character in a story makes the story “gay”. It is assumed that all characters are straight, and any representation at all is cause for outrage and alarm among some conservatives. Even acknowledging the existence of people who are not heterosexual threatens their viewpoint that homosexuality is an immoral aberration. Anyone who defies the heteronormative conception of gender has their gender taken from them: gay men are characterized as inherently effeminate and lesbians as inherently masculine, or even as non-women, non-men, asexual creatures without identity.

It must be said that, by defining the oppressed as what the privileged are not, the privileged are certainly hurt, too. These narrow categories of “normal” and “deviant” limit the self-expression of everyone — but, though it certainly hurts, this is another privilege in and of itself: the privileged person has a chance to fall from grace. Certainly, yes, being subject to cruelty for failing to live up to what one “should” be is terrible, but what is at the root of this?

At the root of it is the fact that the privileged party is now being treated like the Other, and ze is not reacting well to that indignity. A man enraged at being treated like a woman is still drawing from a misogynistic attitude — otherwise, what should be the problem? If women were not perceived to be weaker or less then men, why should it be so upsetting to bear the same burden they do? Being perceived to not be what one “should” is essentially a problem of Othered groups being stereotyped as exactly what the privileged are not.

This is why racism is everybody’s problem, why sexism is men’s problem too, why homophobia should also be a heterosexual concern. This leads to my next point:

Ignorance is a privilege. Being able to ignore the oppression of others is a privilege. It is a privilege to be unaware of or unconcerned with one’s own privileged status. It is a privilege not to experience the same things as other groups, and so, be able to discount others’ specific concerns. Simply because one does not personally experience or see the same things others do does not mean that those things do not exist.

It is a privilege to be able to believe that others’ subjective accounts of their own experience are not valid: women aren’t subject to sexism, instead, they’re “overreacting” or being “emotional”; queers are “flaunting their sexuality”; people of color are “playing the race card”; the poor are “lazy” and simply need to “work harder”; fat people “have no self-control”; everyone is “asking for it” by daring to defend their rights and dignity, or simply by virtue of being who they are.

This is why a white gay man can be racist, people of color can be homophobic, the feminist movement has historically been both of these things, and none of these groups tend to recognize the concerns of those who are not able-bodied. (And there I go, defining a group by what is it not. “Disabled” and “handicapped” seem like a ruder way of saying the same thing; does anybody who knows more about this than me know a better word?) A person privileged in some areas and disadvantaged in others is still capable of ignoring the existence or effects of hir own privilege, even when ze ought to know better. If oppression does not effect someone personally, most people tend to ignore it, believe it doesn’t exist, or think that the oppressed are lying about the extent of their oppression.

Marginalized people do not have the luxury of believing that their own experiences are not real, are imagined, are a simple misunderstanding or a fluke. It is a privilege to be free of these experiences and so able to dismiss them as legitimate or valid or logical.

Because ignorance of others’ oppression is a benefit of privilege, privilege is ignorant and in denial of its own existence.

This is, at the root, at the most basic level, what is means to have privilege: it is a sense of entitlement, a sense of superiority, and it is the sense that one’s own life experience is the most accurate measure of the state of the world. It is the idea that one’s own problems are the only and most pressing problems. It is the idea that one’s life and attitudes are the norm and all variations are simple errors that ought to be corrected. It is the idea that other people must be what you think they ought to be, tailored to your preferences and needs to be complimentary to you, what you need, what you want, what you are not, and that those who do not fulfill this purpose are doing you real harm by being themselves rather than your fantasy of them. It is massively egocentric and dismissive of others as only privilege allows.

In reality it becomes more complicated. The way that this is expressed in the real world is reinforced by racist, classist, sexist institutions which give very real benefits to the privileged at the expense of the oppressed. Because the white heterosexual middle-class man is “normal”, therefore “good”, everyone else has to work extra hard in order to be the same, or to conform to his expectations — however, becoming what one is not is impossible, and so women, people of color, etc., etc., will never be quite “good” enough. At most they are pretenders. They are still Other. At best they are seen as imitating the Default, at worst they are seen as dangerous and revolutionary and out of their place.

That is what I mean when I use this word.

Let me first begin by saying that I do not consider myself to be “politically correct“. The term is laughable; it’s a pejorative term coined by conservatives to argue against the concept itself, and so I think it’s unfortunate that there are liberals who accept the usage of the phrase without considering where it comes from or why it originated. In using the term at all, we are allowing our opponents to frame the debate and to define it. This is not in any way an effective political strategy (and, on a small US political tangent, exactly the reason why I dislike the Democratic party so intensely).
It has the connotation that people are somehow being “forced” (either by law or social disapproval) to curb their freedom of speech in order to avoid offending others, which is ridiculous and a lie. The oppressed people and the small minority of privileged allies aware of their status who insist on use of respectful language within their own circle do not have the power to “force” anyone to agree with them. We do not have the numbers to “force” anything legally in a democratic society, and forgive me for being skeptical about the claim that society at large has any concern for the feelings of the oppressed.

Beyond the connotations and history of the term which disincline me to make use of it, I do not see why it should be a bad thing to consciously attempt to use language with which marginalized people are more comfortable. There is no defensible or noble reason for purposely using offensive language in an effort to offend. The reason usually given is one of convenience — it is more trouble to be at least a little polite and respectful to others than it is to be a complete asshole. It is too much effort for those in a position of social and hierarchical privilege to acknowledge the feelings of others. At best, this excuse is simply rude, and at worst, inexcusably cruel.

This is the only real reason I can see for opposing the concept of using the language others prefer to describe themselves. It is because people want to avoid looking at their own privilege. It is because people are cruel, and sexist, and racist, and otherwise hold every other type of prejudice imaginable. (Too many to list.) I think that the majority of people are ignorant and also unfortunately fond of loudly expressing themselves, so that they see any attempt to gently inform them of the effects their words have as an attempt to force them to abdicate their freedoms. And I think that there exist those, thankfully fewer in number, with more malevolent reasons, people who sincerely understand what they are doing and continue to want to hurt others despite it.

When you say “I’m sick of being PC”, what you’re saying is “I’m sick of treating others as equals”. When you say “It’s so much trouble to make sure I’m not offending someone” what you’re saying is “It’s too much trouble to be kind”. (And when you say “I hate that everyone’s trying so hard to be ‘fair’ to every group out there”, you’re not only being totally horrible, but obviously living in a delusional alternate universe, but that’s neither here nor there.)

No no expects anyone to always know the answers. I admit that I may not be aware of certain aspects of my use of language, so if I unintentionally use discriminatory or offensive language, I expect to be called on it. This is how we learn. It’s a process of trial and error, and I understand better than anyone that it is embarrassing to realize that you are wrong, or to be called on a self-righteous manifestation of privilege, and that this is often expressed in the form of an indignant “Well you didn’t have to jump all over me!”

At the same time, it’s nobody’s responsibility to educate me. I will work hard to try and understand these issues, because I am interested in being a more-or-less compassionate and fair human being. The rights and dignity of others are far more important than my own self-conscious desire to appear all-knowing and infallible.

This is in no way an effort to force others to agree with me or conform with my worldview; in all honesty, some of the people I insist on showing respect to would not return the favor. I am not attempting to tell others what they can and cannot say; it would be nice if other people agreed with my priorities and sympathized with my opinions. I believe in absolute freedom of speech, but also that decent people should have a few limits on what they will allow themselves to say. And freedom of speech is not freedom from critical analysis, freedom from criticism, freedom from opposition.

Freedom of speech is also a responsibility. Since I have the power to say whatever I like, I also have the responsibility to say things that I think are well-reasoned and respectful. This does not mean that I will not argue, will not disagree, will not pass judgment. This does not mean that I will not express ideas which many people probably find offensive, radical, or objectionable. It simply means I will try to express these ideas while avoiding any unnecessary use of terms purposely designed to marginalize or misrepresent already oppressed people.

Anyone who is remotely interested in justice and human rights needs to adopt the same attitude. And those who claim not to care at least need to understand the horrific gravity of what they are saying.

I’ve already talked a little about the word queer and how I identify with it. I love being queer. It can mean anything, so long as it’s out of the ordinary, not what’s expected, not what’s supposedly “normal”. It’s open enough that it doesn’t have to put me in a box according to whom I might or might not find attractive (straight? hell no! lesbian? not entirely. bisexual? binary systems = evil. pansexual? no one knows what the hell it means) — instead I can just be me.

But the other word I love is “dyke”.

Dyke is not about what box other people can put you in. It’s not a convenient label to allow other people to tell you who you are or should be. Dyke is an attitude. Dykeness is a state of mind, a way of life, a woman who likes women and won’t take shit about it from anyone.

A dyke is a woman who knows she doesn’t need a man to be complete. A dyke is a woman who, confronted with the idea that she needs to dress, talk, act a certain way in order to land Mr. Perfect, Prince Charming, just laughs out loud and walks away. A dyke knows she doesn’t have to do anything to impress anyone, but certainly not guys. She dresses how she wants because she wants to, not because it’s supposed to make men want her. She’ll wear what makes her comfortable, whether that’s high heels and a skirt or lumberjack plaid and tennis shoes. She’ll act without restraint, sometimes in situations where such behavior might not be appropriate, because she doesn’t care if people think she’s ladylike, demure enough, good enough to find a man to marry her. She is who she is because that’s who she is, not because a man made her that way.

This isn’t to say straight women let men dictate their lives, but when they don’t necessarily need to be in the picture, it’s so much easier to laugh off their attempts at control. Why worry what any man thinks? You don’t need him. Who wants most straight men, anyway? There’s so much more to life than pleasing them. A dyke doesn’t need to make men like her, because a dyke is a woman who loves women.

That’s the other thing — a dyke loves women. Really loves. The way some straight men say they do, but they don’t mean it, they don’t understand what it’s really like to love a woman because they aren’t one. It’s not the same at all. There a very few men who can truly adore a woman the way another woman can, really understanding, really appreciating her, really taking her in, because a woman knows. A woman knows what other women’s lives are like, what we are when you tear the patriarchy down, when you take away the social conditioning and the expectations and all the other bullshit. Only a woman is capable of really beginning to know what another woman is really like, beneath it all. Oh, men can try, and it’s admirable of them really, but I don’t know if it’s really possible for them to truly empathize, no matter how supportive they are.

And that’s what “dyke” means to me. That’s why I like to call myself a dyke, even if I’m not technically just a lesbian, because I’m a woman who loves women and knows I don’t need a man and, hell, doesn’t much care about landing one. I’m queer. I’m a dyke. Everyone else can just get the hell used to it.

Or, you know, you can. If you’re a masochist. As I apparently am.

First, via Daily Dose of Queer, a young man who is surprisingly insecure about other people’s gender identity. Apparently, allowing people to check “male”, “female” or write in an “other” as their gender on a college application is the end of the world. Or, at the very least, marks the other as “psychotic”. But what I really love about this editorial is that parts of it are right on the mark. The author knows what he’s talking about. It’s pretty entertaining when it’s not so stupid it’s infuriating.

For example:

There are, to be sure, rare individuals who are born intersexed (possessing attributes of both sexes), but in the Western world corrective surgery assigns a distinct sex soon after birth. [Note: Yeah, and I consider that “corrective surgery” to be mutilation, but that’s neither here nor there.] …

The push for recognizing “gender variance” has little to do with genuine biological aberrance. Its goal is not to treat those burdened with physical forms that are imperfectly realized more charitably, but to abolish sex by destroying the normative standard.

Well, speaking for myself? Yes. And? I’ve run across so many articles which talk about the feminist agenda of demolishing gender roles, establishing gender and sex as a continuum, etc, etc, and, without fail, these articles simply cite that as if it’s some self-evident flaw in feminist reasoning. They have never explained to me exactly why this is a bad thing. I assume this is because there’s no argument against the idea other than stubborn adherence to principle.

But I can explain why seeing gender, and even physical sex, as a false duality, as a continuum, is a good thing. With gender, recognizing however people define themselves is only polite and respectful. With physical sex, the differences are not as clearly-cut as most people would like to believe. Why construct these broad categories which often don’t apply? Obviously, there is benefit to constructing categories which fit most people, but the problem is that usually this ends up forcing everyone else into one or the other, which is marginalizing and often physically or psychologically damaging. This is a problem in the case of, say, the discrimination that transgendered and non-gender-normative folks face. This is a problem when intersex children are mutilated before they’re old enough to understand their own gender identity and express it, in operations which often compromise future reproductive or sexual function, which often lead to trauma when a child who identifies as one gender is raised as the other and/or that child learns what was done to them. (Though “trauma” seems an inadequate word if one means crippling depression and eventual suicide.)

But wait! It gets better:

If I approached the director of the student government’s Queer Affairs Task Force and I claimed to be an eggplant trapped in a man’s body, she would smile, nod politely (she is a nice person), and then call for friendly people in white coats to haul me off to a padded cell. But if I claimed to be a woman trapped in a man’s body, she would force others to act as if my view were correct. In short, psychosis is considered quite alright, provided it obliterates sexual norms, traditions, and taboos.

Do I even have to say anything about this quote? Really? Yeah, I think it speaks for itself. This isn’t even good or logical writing.

And, of course, the obligatory strawfeminist:

Believing in the modern liberal view of sex must require at least an hour of practice each day. How else can they believe, for example, that masculinity and femininity are social constructs with no relation to the biological differences between the sexes, while also holding that homosexuality is inherent? Or that gender is unimportant, except when someone insists that he or she is stuck in a body of the wrong gender?

The problem here, I think, is that someone a) doesn’t understand the terminology being used and b) doesn’t care. Masculinity and femininity are gender roles. Anyone can act in a way society deems “masculine” or “feminine” regardless of being male or female, man or woman, intersex or genderqueer. Gender is an internal identity, a state of mind. Sex is an inherent physical characteristic which can be medically altered to a certain extent. These are not interchangeable. That is how I can believe all these things at once; because they are not synonymous. And believing that gender should be unimportant so far as social or legal issues go, that everyone should be treated equally, is not opposed to the idea that people’s right to self-define is important.

The rest of the editorial kind of veers off into a bunch of pseudo-philosophical crap that I admit I got bored and stopped really reading closely. (I skimmed!) But apparently “Our culture has become so oversexed that it is abolishing sex.” I have no idea what this is supposed to mean, since it’s confusing the two totally different definitions of the word sex: namely, that which is related to reproduction and all its happy perks, and…innate physical characteristics that don’t necessarily have anything to do with definition number one. As I said before: logic? Decent writing skills? Anywhere to be found?

And then there’s this awful thing someone linked to in the feminist LJ community. I can’t even begin to articulate how much this article pisses me off. Whatever one thinks about Ariel Levy (Personally? I think she has some good points to make, but I don’t think she’s a very good writer from articles I’ve read. I haven’t read the book, just excerpts and articles she’s written about the book which make me disinclined to read it. I expect I’ll get around to it sometime.), I hope we can all agree that whoever wrote this thing is living in a different universe. Observe:

We’re not trying to be empowered. The twentysomething women I know don’t care about old-style feminism. Partly this is because they already see themselves as equal to men: they can work, they can vote, they can bonk on the first date.

Putting aside the myth that women have never been allowed to work outside the home (as women of color and poor women and just about any woman who wasn’t rich and well-off have always been forced to work rather than having the luxury of staying home with the kids); men and women are hardly on an equal playing field. Things are better in many ways, but it’s not equal. This remains true of all civil rights struggles. And sure, women can bonk on the first date, it just means everyone will call her a “slut”. Being called degrading names! Empowering!

Oh, but it GETS BETTER. By which I mean, much, much worse:

Another reason for the rise of raunch is that women are rediscovering the joy of being loved for their bodies, not just their minds. … Instead of desperately longing for the right to be seen as human beings, today’s girls are playing with the old-fashioned notion of being seen as sex objects.

I defy anyone to seriously argue that women are now valued for their minds at the expense of their physical characteristics. Or that women’s minds are valued. Or that women are valued. I don’t know about you, but this twentysomething girl is still at that desperately-longing-to-be-seen-as-a-human-being stage.

And you can read the rest if you really want, because there are so many gems in there I didn’t want to bother quoting. I’ll just close with this explanation on why sexual harassment in the workplace is the greatest thing ever:

If a thong makes you feel fabulous, wear it. For one thing, men in the office waste whole afternoons staring at your bottom, placing bets on whether you’re wearing underwear. Let them. Use that time to take over the company.

I would, personally, prefer if no one except possibly a sexual partner spent any time thinking about my undergarments. If they can’t help themselves, there’s no need to speak about this thought aloud. I can’t be the only one who finds this quote extremely nasty.

Every activist has hir pet issues. Feminists, especially. Mine are gender and sexuality.

It’s not that I don’t care about abortion rights; I do. It’s not that I don’t care about the wage gap. It’s not that my range of concerns isn’t far-reaching and wide. It’s not that I don’t care about racism, or poverty, or war, because these are all things I feel very strongly about. It’s not that I’m not keeping track of the news and not as if I don’t talk about it with friends and family, but why post about it here when there are plenty of other blogs which already do so and so much better than I possibly could?

What I mostly find myself concerned with writing about are the politics of gender and sex and sexuality. The concepts and constructs. Thus, even though I am not trans (not exactly cisgendered, either — genderqueer? maybe) I find myself talking about trans issues all the time, as an example, or reading up on intersex conditions, etc. I’ve been trying to pinpoint exactly why this is. Why should I have such a profound interest in areas which have only very little to do with me?

I suppose it’s because I’m radical. Radical feminism is critical analysis, it’s seeing the whole picture, examining the entire framework, and finding the roots. Dismantling all the false assumptions on which the entire system thrives; because patterns of thought and behavior, especially those which are deeply embedded in the larger cultural psyche, are like weeds. Ideas are a living, growing, dynamic process. You can try to cut them down by hacking away at the growth, at the visible, conscious manifestations and their results and, in fact, this is necessary in order to allow a clear view of anything. However, until you take out the roots from which these ideas issue, the growth will always spring back, again and again. This is why feminist theory is just as important as feminist action and feminist organizing.

And all flawed systems, it seems, from sexism to racism to organized religion, any hierarchy you can imagine, depend on artificial constructions arising from the idea of duality. The construction of false dichotomies. The framework of diametrically opposed points, when, in fact, everything is a spectrum: male and female, masculine and feminine, good and evil, mental and physical, spiritual and material. It’s not that none of these things exist, it’s that they’re not a simple binary as so many people suppose.

So perhaps my pet causes aren’t always visible in the real world, not totally apparent to the untrained eye, perhaps too abstract and theoretical for everyone to readily grasp all the time — that doesn’t mean they’re not important. That doesn’t mean that they have nothing to do with me, or only a narrow application to certain small groups of people. Theoretical constructions affect everyone and have a huge impact on how we view the world. And so the basic assumptions which make a sexist social hierarchy possible to begin with — our current narrow concepts of sex and gender — need to be challenged. It’s only when these assumptions are dissected that the corrupt system issuing from them can be effectively dismantled.

There are very few things which I think are requirements for someone to be considered “feminist”. People can believe, for the most part, whatever the hell they want. I don’t have to agree with everything every other feminist says or does. They don’t have to agree with me. We don’t have to have the same ideas on politics, economics, class, education, literature, movies, clothing, cosmetics, shaving.

I won’t say, for example, that wearing high heels and makeup makes someone a “bad” feminist. Although you’re never going to convince me that, at this moment in time, a woman who chooses to adorn herself in this fashion is truly making a choice free of cultural influence and social conditioning — it’s still a personal decision and it’s not mine to make. Things like this, the small things, the trivial things, are still feminist issues, and they’re big ones because they’re so insidious and pervasive, but they pale in comparison to the truly horrific problems that women face in this world. I don’t care how you like to dress or what kind of sex you like to have; when we live in a world with rape, domestic violence, and female genital mutilation, I’ll take any ally who agrees on the basic concept of human rights. If the only issue we disagree on is lipstick or even BDSM, we have more in common than not.

I won’t even put stipulations on most of the bigger issues. I’m a big, huge, idealistic anarchocommunist — but I won’t say that anyone else has to be. I think there’s lots of room to work with on most issues. Different people have different opinions and experiences, and I’m glad for that diversity of thought. (On that note, the people who think that feminism is one cohesive delusional body which feeds its own beliefs through a loop of unquestioning positive feedback have obviously never actually seen a group of feminists trying — and failing — to have a rational discussion on a topic like, say, sex work.)

But there are a very few stipulations which I consider essential for someone to be a “good” feminist, and if these criteria are not met, well, that person can consider themselves a feminist all they want, but that doesn’t mean I’ll respect their opinions.
One the things I think is unacceptable in a “real” feminist is transphobia.

A feminist should never reject the experience or identity of a transwoman as being invalid, of being lesser than cisgendered women, of not being “real” — in general, or until she takes hormones, or until she undergoes SRS, or whatever predefined criteria said feminist happens to have. A feminist should never insist that transwomen are actually men and thus, that they have no place in feminism and no protection under it (or that transmen are women who are “betraying the cause” in order to “gain” male privilege, as the case may be). I understand that this attitude casts a number of prominent and influential feminist thinkers of the past and present as “bad” feminists, and that’s unfortunate but, I think, also necessary. Transphobia should never be tolerated from a self-proclaimed feminist.

Let me explain why. It’s not merely an issue of respect for marginalized people, and it’s not merely because those who hold this attitude are dismissing the perfectly valid experiences of different kinds of women (as mainstream feminism has famously done not only with transwomen, but also lesbians, poor women, women of color, and so on). These side-effects are horrible and inexcusable, but the real issue is that, at the root of transphobia are all the beliefs that feminism is supposed to be fighting.

The insistence that transwomen are not “real” women, is, at its heart, fueled by the idea that biology equals destiny: the idea that one’s body parts define that person completely, that there is no individual room for change or variation, that a woman is only as good as her ability to give birth (therefore, as good as her uterus), or to serve as a sex object (therefore, as good as her vagina, as good as her breasts), or as a caretaker, a mother, a housewife, a passive decoration (therefore, as good as her ability to conform to “acceptable” gender roles).

And that, no matter how you disguise it or dress it up, no matter what excuses you might give about male privilege or socialization or experience in a transwoman’s history, is not feminism.

This is why transphobia is so deeply harmful to feminism as a whole. It hurts not only the statistically small minority of transgendered people within the movement, but also anyone else who believes in the idea that a woman is more than her vagina, more than her womb, more than her own victimization and oppression. Transphobia reduces everyone to a collection of parts, to be examined and scrutinized in order to see if they stand up to the test of being “good” or “real” enough — to see if they “deserve” rights and recognition.

Anyone can call themselves a feminist. Anyone can say they are whatever they want to say they are. But if they espouse ideals and opinions which run directly contrary to the ideology they claim to support and represent, they are no ally of mine.

Dealing With Straight People:

If I fit a stereotype too well, straight people will tell me I’m being “too” queer. Similarly, if I bring up queer issues or rights or challenge heteronormative assumptions, I am, again, being “too” queer. The implication here is that I somehow need to try to assimilate into straight culture and be more straight. This is often not because there is anything wrong with being queer, but simply because bringing up these issues or being myself (if myself happens to fit a particular stereotype) makes others uncomfortable because it is different. Therefore, I need to alter my behavior, interests, appearance, and/or activism in order to make the dominant party more comfortable so that they either a) don’t have to treat me like a human being or b) don’t have to bear the fight for queer rights on their conscience.

If I love myself for who I am and am not apologetic, if I love who I love for who they are and still don’t feel the need to apologize, and if I feel like talking about it openly or contributing to a conversation among straight people concerning everyone’s partners, I am “flaunting my sexuality”. They are allowed to talk about their opposite-sex partners at length, but if I talk about a girlfriend, even in a non-explicit manner perfectly appropriate for casual conversation, I am giving them “too much information” which some of them will inform me they “really don’t want to hear”. I don’t mind hearing about your opposite-sex attractions, and I’m generally more reserved about my own personal preferences, tastes, and partners than most people are about theirs, so I don’t really understand why this is so horrible for me to mention that, yes, I happen to like girls, in passing.

(And, truthfully, here I exaggerate. Many queer people I know have complained about being treated this way, but, thankfully, all the straight people I associate with don’t suck. At least not in this way. I try not to be friends with people who show me no respect — it took far too long for this to occur to me, however.)

Also: bisexuals don’t exist. I’m not “really” queer. Bi men are simply homosexual and in the closet and it’s only a matter of time before they come out. I, as a woman who is not strictly homo or hetero, am apparently attracted to women solely so that I can get the attention of men. One day, it is assumed I will find the right man and settle down with him and pop out straight babies; if I actually do find a man I would want to spend my life with, the people who think this will assume that they were correct to begin with, but they are not, though there will be nothing I can do to convince them otherwise.

Dealing With Queer People:

If I don’t fit a stereotype, queer people will tell me I’m not queer “enough”. I will hear queer friends talk about the stereotypes that all queer people are supposed to fit, even when I am in the room and I clearly don’t fit them, and the person in question doing the stereotyping does not, either. (Unfortunately, this generalization is far more based in my own reality and experience than most of the dealing with straight people ones.)

Not only by being a femme queer woman does the queer community itself exclude and marginalize me as a member, giving off the illusion that we don’t exist, that we’re faking, that we aren’t good enough, but since I am not strictly a lesbian I am, again, assumed to be fictional, and for the same reasons that straight people assume that I am lying or do not exist.

If I do not enjoy participating in pride events because of my claustrophobia in large crowds and distaste for the atmosphere, I not being a “good” queer. If I don’t enjoy being part of a group of people with whom I have nothing in common other than my queerness (despite personality conflicts, no common interests, or facing totally opposing viewpoints), I’m not a good queer. If I do not enjoy wearing rainbow paraphernalia I am not being a good queer either.

Dealing With Everyone:

If I, as a pansexual woman, decide to date a man, people (regardless of their own orientation) will assume that I am now straight, as if by acting on one aspect of my attraction I have somehow forgotten about the rest. I saw a good post on this subject on the LJ queer_rage community, challenging the assumption by some homosexuals that bi/pan people benefit from an implicit privilege in our heteronormative society. Yes, if I date a man I will benefit from people’s misplaced assumption that I am straight, and perhaps will be free from some of the more blatant homophobia which might confront me if my date were a woman (which is unfair and truly unfortunate), but is being assumed to be something that you are not really a privilege? Is a huge portion of your person being ignored or treated as if it does not exist really a benefit? Does my existence being made invisible mean that I really have the privilege of appearing straight when I am not? I suppose the same “assumed straight” privilege can be extended to queers in the closet, but does anyone truly believe that’s a comfortable place to be?

(Mind you, I understand the resentment from the queer side of the argument, but that doesn’t mean I have to agree with it. Being treated as straight when I’m not is just as hurtful to me as it is to any other queer, whether it means prejudiced people are less likely to give me a hard time or not. It’s simply expressed in different and often more subtle, extremely damaging ways.)

Heteronormitivity is everyone’s enemy.

Also: I can’t stand people who feel the need to know my orientation. Are you gay or straight? Are you a lesbian? Are you bi? But I thought you were — but you look — but you act — but you said…

Look, if I’m attracted to you in a remotely meaningful way, you’ll know. I’ll tell you or flirt with you or make it obvious in some other way. (Or, the more likely and more common scenario — I will definitely let you know if I’m not interested in you, just so there is no confusion. If you really need to know if I feel that way about you or some other particular person…ask?) If I’m not? Can’t see why it should matter to you. Do you really need to put me in a box? If we’re not romantically or sexually involved, is it relevant? Are you so insecure that you must always know exactly what label everyone fits so that you feel in control? So that you don’t feel confused? I’m perfectly allowed to be ambiguous about it if my sexuality has nothing to do with my relationship to you. If you are my friend or someone I really care about, I may try to explain myself to you. Or I may not. If it’s not your sex life, why do you actually care?

Dealing With Me:

I like the word “queer” as a descriptor. I pride myself on the original definition of the word, the perceived insult of not being normal, not being like everyone else. Of course, if a homophobe uses it as an insult I will still be offended, not because of the choice of word — anything can be hurtful if the person behind it thinks it is something that should be.

“Queer” is an open-ended word, inclusive of the entire GLBTQXYZ umbrella. It can mean just about anything that is not the default assumption. I can be anything if I’m queer, so long as I’m me. I don’t have to be a lesbian, I don’t have to be bi, I don’t have to define myself in any stricter terms because I am me.

That’s all I want to be.

Obviously, this will not come as new information to everybody, but I feel it is important enough to warrant repeating again and again, especially where issues of gender and sex are going to come up more than once. I believe that in the few comments I’ve already received this requires clarification.

Listen carefully:

There are not two genders. There are not even two sexes.

This is fundamental to understanding my point of view and any feminist or queer discourse. Without realizing that this is the underlying assumption within my arguments, misunderstandings are certain to arise. Even those who know what I am talking about without an explanation could stand to keep it in mind, because the people who do not fit into these narrow categories of male and female, masculine and feminine, are too often forgotten and marginalized within the greater context of feminist debate, which is entirely unfortunate. I know I do this too on occasion, in order to simplify my explanations, however, I hope that everyone will realize that I do carefully consider every gender when I form my opinions, not simply a narrow binary of male and female, and that I try to carefully craft my language to be as inclusive as possible, even if it goes unappreciated by those unfamiliar with the idea of gender and sex as a spectrum.

Sex:

A person’s sex is dependent on genitalia. A penis is a male sexual organ, the vulva, female. Sex is physical a combination of medical, biological, and genetic characteristics. Not everyone’s sex is purely male or female — there is a wide range of variation. Intersex people are born with a medical condition where they possess ambiguous or mixed physical sexual characteristics. Usually, in the past, these people were called “hermaphrodites” (now an antiquated term which can be considered offensive). Advances in medicine also allow for sex-reassignment surgery and hormonal treatments which may leave a transsexual patient “in between” sexes, so to speak, and therefore sex is a continuum between male and female features.

For this reason, rather than discussing “male” and “female” medical issues, I will always refer to “people with testicles” if I am discussing testicular cancer for example, “people with uteruses” if discussing women’s reproductive issues, “people with vaginas” if discussing the vagina, et cetera. This is also more inclusive and acknowledges the existence of women who have had hysterectomies and men who have had their testicles removed, as well; thus, no one’s gender identity is contingent, in my writing, on the presence or absence of a certain set of narrowly defined physical characteristics.

The idea that a woman is not defined by a vagina, by a vulva, by a womb, is one of the basic ideals of any truly meaningful and inclusive form of feminism. Any feminist who defines a woman based on her genitalia is fundamentally no better than the systems of oppression that we try to fight. I am a radical feminist, meaning I believe in the deconstruction of every assumption and framework used to define and oppress women and other marginalized genders, but I am willing to accept almost anyone under the feminist umbrella who has the basic ideals of male and female equality, even if we have wildly divergent ideas about what this means or what is important. However, any so-called “feminist” who defines women based on their bodies will not be considered truly feminist by me, because that is the same attitude utilized by the patriarchy to strip women of their identities.

No one would say a cisgender woman without a womb was no longer a woman if she’d had uterine cancer and had it removed. I don’t see why this is any less true for a transwoman born without one — any argument that these issues are not the same is nothing more than hypocrisy and transphobia. The problem is, a transwoman may need specialized medical care based on the body parts she does have, and this is why the recognition of those organs is still important despite the wide range of variation in physical sex.

Because sex is changeable and sometimes is not clear due to birth defects, genetic abnormalities or whatever other reason, I think sex as a category is a useful tool of categorization for the vast majority of the population but from a real standpoint, essentially a meaningless concept with no real definition. I rarely speak of physical sex for this reason. It may be based in statistically relevant biological human trends, but that does not make it a reasonable indicator of very many things beyond the chromosomal level — and, sometimes, not even then. It is good for sweeping generalizations and nothing else.

This is, incidentally, also why I think any claims of inherent biological differences between the sexes are bunk. We can’t even clearly define what sex is, at least not from a two-sexes perspective, because it’s entirely too complex. A binary division of sex is totally arbitrary and ignores the reality of many individuals who do not fit within either category. They are only a very, very small percentage of the population, but that makes it all the more important to recognize their existence because otherwise they will not receive the specialized medical care that they need. They are effectively rendered invisible by the assumption of an absolute binary system.

The problems with gender and sexual identity raised here are easily solved through simple, conscious re-structuring of language. Hence, I refer to people with certain body parts when I mean to talk about certain body parts, rather than relying on sex as an indicator. This is more precise and accurate language anyway. I do not see why this would be an issue of contention, though I know some people are very defensive about having their dualities challenged and will rail loudly in favor of their right to free speech even when it hurts, dismisses, and denies even the existence of certain groups of other people. These people are being cruel, dismissive of others’ unique experiences and issues, and enforcing their own views of what other people are onto people who do not themselves subscribe to that identity. This is Wrong. I am not willing to say that many things are absolute moral wrongs, but the absolute sense of entitlement over another person’s very being is one of them.

This is not up for debate in this forum: the entire premise this blog is based on is the basic human right of every individual to self-identify, and that another person questioning the existence or validity of another’s identity is a violation of that right. If you do not agree with this idea, even in the abstract idealism of a perfect world, you need to stop reading and leave now, or otherwise realize that I will never engage you in a debate on this topic and will not allow you to post comments questioning this subject. This is not censorship; you’re free to disagree elsewhere and I’m free to judge you and believe this to be not only unspeakably rude behavior, but a fundamental moral flaw. You’re free to call me a bitch, and I’m free to ignore you and continue a blissful life which does not involve rude people derailing, invalidating, and clogging up my blog.

Gender:

Gender, at least in the modern academic sense, as used in feminist and queer theory and thus in my writing, is a function of personality. It is not in any way necessarily connected to physical sex. It is an identity, a label one gives oneself. (It goes without saying that the paragraph above applies to this definition of gender, too. Debate elsewhere.) That is the point of self-definition. Gender is a characteristic integral to one’s identity which is defined only by oneself to define oneself. No one else can tell an individual what hir gender is. Ze can only decide for hirself. (Note: confused? Ze and hir.)

Most people are cisgendered. They identify strongly with their physical sex as male or female. For them, this issue is simple and the words “gender” and “sex” seem synonymous and interchangeable. However, they are not. I will never replace one for the other because I use them with extremely specific definitions. I try to refer to “wo/men” in terms of gender identity, “fe/males” in terms of sex. There is evidence that gender is a product of brain structure, which does not always correlate to physical sex, however, I’m inclined to say that the reason is a fascinating scientific inquiry but largely irrelevant. People ID as they ID. The reason why has no bearing on their identity, and identity can be fluid.

Some people ID as the “opposite” gender from the sex they were born into. They are transgender. Often, the traditional social role of gender is confused with gender identity. It is assumed that certain behaviors are part of gender identity, when, in fact, there can be many reasons for a person to behave as they do and form the preferences they have which have absolutely nothing to do with either gender identity or biology. (As some who believe either in brain structure differences or the correlation between sex and gender would have us believe.) This is a huge issue with trans people who are attempting to medically transition — the medical establishment is usually discriminatory and assumes that a person who does not act the part of a certain gender role cannot possibly really be the gender they ID as. This is a very real and extremely harmful effect of people’s personal identities not being taken seriously, and is exactly why the right to self-definition is not up for debate. There are too many real victims in this and many other cases for me to give any ground on the pretense of being friendly or approachable. The search for radical change in the name of justice and human rights is not going to be soft and fluffy and accessible to those who oppose this goal.

Cisgender people are given a greater range of expression within the confines of the social gender role, although when they step outside of that box, their sexual orientation or, to a lesser extent, gender identity is often questioned. This is often more lenient for women than it is for men — which may be counted as a blessing but not a feminist victory. The fact that women can act in a “masculine” way, but men who act in a “feminine” way are often mocked, derided, and sometimes even targets for physical violence is unfair and horrible for the man who does not fit the masculine gender role. However the patriarchy hurts these men, it is a side effect of the real problem; they are still not the real victims, because the idea that being feminine is inherently “bad” or “lesser” is evidence of the deep misogyny of society. Women’s relative freedom in this regard compared to men may seem to be the oppression of men at the hands of the patriarchy, but it is merely an incidental effect of the oppression of women. This is not to say that this is not horrible for everyone involved or that it should be accepted, but that the continued fight for feminism is the solution to this problem as well.

Not everyone’s gender identity fits into one of these categories, and most people’s fall somewhere between gender roles. Genderqueer is a blanket term used by anyone who IDs somewhere outside the binary and wishes to describe hirself this way.

Sexuality:

Because of the complexity of the gender and sex spectrums, sexuality is an increasingly difficult subject. I find most existing terms to be problematic because they equate sex with gender and operate based on binary assumptions. In general, heterosexual people identify strongly as one gender and are attracted to people who either have the “opposite” sex, gender identity, or gender role. It can be a combination of these. Homosexuality is the compliment. What it means to that individual is up to them to decide. What attracts people to certain partners is a deeply individual thing which may have more to do with appearance than sex, sex than gender, gender identity than sex or appearance, or, well…you get the idea. And it can be none of these things.

Bisexuality, strictly speaking, by operating on the assumptions of the binary, excludes genderqueer, trans, and intersex people. Many people who ID as bisexual do not actually feel this way (some do), but I still see the binary assumption to be an issue. For this reason, I ID as pansexual, meaning that I have the capacity to be potentially attracted to members of any sex or gender, although I will not lie and say there are not certain physical or aesthetic characteristics which appeal to me more physically, and that there are not certain self-identified characteristics which I find more attractive. However, I, personally, fall into the “primarily attracted for none of the above reasons” camp and am mostly only physically attracted to people with attractive personalities.

So there is pansexual and the synonym, omnisexual. There is pomosexual, or Post Modern Sexuality, which rejects gender as a social construct and not an actual meaningful descriptor, which is, again, problematic, because while I believe gender roles are a social construct, and think that in many cases gender identity is similar — I do not have the right to question that identity, an artificial social construct in my mind or not. All that matters is that others ID that way, and by labelling that identity a “construct” I would be implying it is false. I don’t have the right to do that. I think that pomosexuality is well-intentioned and, at heart, mostly a good idea, but it skirts shady ethical territory for me.

In Conclusion:

Well, there really is no conclusion, except to say that gender, sexuality, and even physical sex have no real boundaries, and work together but don’t necessarily have anything to do with one another. All of them exist on a wide and diverse spectrum upon which the individual in question has the right to place hirself, however ze likes, wherever ze likes, whenever ze likes, and for whatever reason, without needing to explain, justify, or prove hirself to anyone else. This is the one basic underlying principle upon which all of my philosophy is based.