QUEERING THE GAME OF LIFE

"For a constructed vagina to be considered acceptable by surgeons specialized in intersexuality, it basically just has to be a hole big enough to fit a typical-sized penis. It is not required to be self-lubricating or even to be at all sensitive, and certainly does not need to change shape the way vaginas often do when women are sexually stimulated. So, for example, in a panel of discussion of surgeons who treat intersexuality, when one was asked, ‘How do you define successful intercourse? How many of these girls actually have an orgasm, for example?’ a member of the panel responded, ‘Adequate intercourse was defined as successful vaginal penetration,’ All that is required is a receptive hole."

 Alice Domurat Dreger (2004) “Ambiguous Sex”—or Ambivalent Medicine? (137-153) In Health, Disease and Illness.  (via pipipiripiripi)

Further proof that society only cares about men’s pleasure, and only thinks of women as holes.

(even though not all women have vaginas/not everyone with a vagina is a woman)

This is why if I *ever* birth a child, I’m doing it with a midwife who is made to understand beforehand that if my child is intersex, they are to be left *intact*. Intersex people do not exist to be “fixed”.

(via zyymurgy)

(Source: kno-ur-onionz, via strugglingtobeheard)

some lies straight people believe about “coming out”

mattachinereview:

all queers know that they are queer, despite the work that heterosexism and cissexism do to alienate them from this fact

the only possible reason for a queer person not to come out is that they’re in a queerphobic environment

alienation from the self as produced by heterosexism does not exist

alienation from the self as produced by cissexism does not exist

if you’re queer and not out, there’s something wrong with you

(via cloudnoise)

stfuhypocrisy:

The Kansas State Board of Healing Arts, the governing body that regulates the practice of medicine in the state, stripped the medical license of a woman who refused to force a mentally-ill 10 year old to give birth.

As Robin Marty reports, Dr. Ann Neuhaus became the target of domestic terror group Operation Rescue after her colleague, Dr. George Tiller, was murdered. Neuhaus assisted Tiller by providing second opinions for mental health exceptions for late-term abortions.

Operation Rescue filed a negligence complaint against Neuhaus alleging that her exams were not thorough enough to support her medical conclusions and her follow-up care was inadequate because she did not recommend counseling or hospitalization after each procedure.

Neuhaus offered a rebuttal of her own. “To even claim that isn’t medically necessary qualifies as gross incompetence,” said Neuhaus.  “Someone’s 10 years old, and they were raped by their uncle and they understand that they’ve got a baby growing in their stomach and they don’t want that. You’re going to send this girl for a brain scan and some blood work and put her in a hospital?”

Like other states Kansas has made recent attempts to stack their medical review board with anti-choice advocates like former Operation Rescue attorney Richard Macias. When hearing the case against Dr. Neuhaus, the board offered up their own expert to determine if any breach of the standard of care occurred. Not surprisingly, the witnessed insisted that in no cases is abortion a treatment that could be seen as beneficial to a patient’s mental health, further clouding the waters as to the kind of care girls and women can expect in the state of Kansas.

Nuehaus will appeal the ruling. If she loses she will have her license permanently revoked.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/kansas-doctor-may-lose-license-for-refusing-to-force-10-year-old-to-birth.html#ixzz22iU5g992

(Source: stfueverything, via darkjez)

azealia being cissexist

fivelettered:

hiphopcheerleader:

sinidentidades:

whitewhinesangria:

fivelettered:

i’m on that marilyn

and she got that adam’s apple

axed about that fashion 

and we passed her with that laughter then

passed her whacker friend 

This is from her track “US” off of the Fantasea mixtape. Either way, she’s policing femininity. How can you do a track invoking ball culture while simultaneously being cissexist?

i am disappoint.

This question.

Let’s not forget that fight she had on Twitter sometime back where she told a woman she quote, “Looks like she has a dick.” 

in this song, she always make homophobic comments. “these niggas really like sista niggas, you know, they sweeter than them spritzer niggas, I know niggas probably kissed a nigga, I know niggas probably dicked a nigga.” IMO, generally implying thats theres something wrong with being gay and/or kissing, “dicking” a nigga. & that because there are men who have relationships and/or sex with other men.. means that they are somehow “sweet” because they are not upholding patriarchal standards of manhood.

and yet she talks about getting other girls to eat her puss…i don’t even begin to get it. :| like, I know most musicians are fucked up, but knowing she’s gonna blatantly be disrespecting my sisters…i can’t.

Yeah I have felt really weird about her since she told that woman on Twitter that, but everyone seems to have forgotten about it, or something…

cassket:

I’m traveling on the east coast right now, which has thrown me back into the kind of queer, mostly female assigned community that exists in the “I date women and trans men” frame (I’m not saying this doesn’t happen on the west coast – but I’ve found alternatives way more easily). This is a big part of what my Girl Talk piece was about, but I want to address this particular issue really directly.

“I date women and trans men” is the definition of cissexism. It’s basing your frame for sexuality on the gender coercively assigned to a person by their doctor at birth, not on that person’s actual identity. In this case, we’re talking about folks who were assigned female. Of course, “women” means cis women – trans women totally drop off the map.

Chart via TransFusion

My critique of this frame isn’t about everyone on the trans masculine spectrum, where there’s a ton of complex gender and sexuality diversity (though there is an important conversation to have about the privileging of masculinity here as well). I’m talking about how this approach to sexuality addresses people who were assigned female at birth but are men.

It’s incredibly undermining to frame sexuality in a way that lumps these men in with all female assigned folks instead of with cis men. It’s a failure, in the realm of sexuality, to recognize thattrans men’s male identities are just as legitimate as cis men’s. If you’re going to base sexuality on gender, better base it on people’s actual genders.

I get why a lot of female assigned folks exist in this frame for reasons that aren’t overtly about undermining trans identities. There’s a ton of gender based trauma out there, and I understand that folks associate this with cis men, and not with trans men. But that’s not a reality-based approach to gender. A lot of that trauma gets easily linked to genitals, but this isn’t about bodies, it’s about patriarchy. I think this sexuality frame is a big part of why so many trans men get away with (and are sometimes even encouraged to practice) unchecked misogyny and male privilege (remember, power is complicated. You can experience both male privilege and cissexist oppression). Real talk: being trans doesn’t prevent you from perpetrating hurt and violence in the realm of sexuality.

My trans brothers deserve better than sex in a frame that undermines their identities. This doesn’t mean queer cis women and gender non-conforming female assigned folks can’t fuck trans men, but then they owe it to these guys to reframe their sexuality in a way that’s not undermining – to recognize that they sleep with men, and to question why they’re OK with sleeping with trans men and not cis men. I just don’t think it’s OK to process your sexual trauma in a delegitimizing way through the bodies of folks who’ve often faced tons of trauma at the intersection of gender and sexuality.

The problem isn’t one sided: trans guys owe it to themselves to not accept a misgendering sexuality frame just because it makes it easier to get laid, but that shit’s complicated in a cissexist world. It’s unfair to place all the responsibility for fixing this problem at the feet of the people who’s identities are being undermined. I want to encourage trans guys to stand up for what they deserve, but a lot of the responsibility for fixing this shit belongs to the people doing the undermining.

I do put a little more responsibility on trans men for letting this frame push their trans sisters out. This approach to sexuality totally erases trans women by excluding us from the group of sexually existing queer women. Yes, it’s also incredibly undermining of trans women’s identities by moving us out of the category “women” when it comes to sexuality. Ultimately, this frame goes back to the gender coercively assigned at birth for trans women as well. It’s a way for transmisogyny to advance unchecked, because trans women totally drop out of the conversation. It’s part of the broader problem of privileging masculinity over femininity, and specifically  of privileging masculinity in female assigned folks and hating on and marginalizing femininity in male assigned folks. The problem goes beyond gender theory about masculinity and femininity – this is about really specific, really real transmisogyny. Even when some femininity is accepted, it’s in female assigned folks. Trans women (even the butch ones) get left out in the cold. (I think it’s time for everybody to re-read Julia Serano’s groundbreaking bookWhipping Girl with their sex brains on.)

There’s a lot of resistance to thinking about the politics of sexuality in this way, which I totally get. Our sexualities are our own, they’re personal, and in such a puritanical world any critique of sexuality can seem messed up. But our desires are absolutely influenced by our cultural context. When you really look at the way patterns of desire map onto what bodies are privileged and what bodies are marginalized, it becomes obvious that our desires are political. I am absolutely not about critiquing the way one person falls for another. The problem is with a community trend. When we leave sexuality trends unexamined, sex becomes a space where privilege and oppression run amuck.

It’s well past time to say enough. If queer community wants to be about a gender and sexuality revolution it’s got to take these questions seriously. Its got to address the ways cissexism overdetermines community approaches to sexuality. This is an ongoing process involving lots of thought, critique, and, well, processing. We’ve got to be able to move from the broad and systemic to seeing how cissexism plays out in our personal lives, including in relation to who and how we fuck.

Violence

tal9000:

autumn-and-eve:

With that Die Cis Scum post where I talked about cis people being the beneficiaries of violence against trans people, people got confused about what violence means, so I think I should clarify:

Violence is more than just assault. Political violence exists in institutional discrimination. People being denied housing, a source of income, medical care, etc, that’s all violence. With that in mind, when trans people are ostracized from adequate employment (and this happens mainly with trans people of color because all of these institutions bud from white supremacist power structures), it creates a space exclusive for cis people, with less competition. In short, you have a better opportunity to get this job because all of the trans people have been barred from a fair chance at getting it, you benefit from that.

Also, this is why the statement that trans women have male privilege is utterly laughable. First, citing supposed microaggressive habits (like ‘splaining) as proof that we have privilege is to fundamentally misunderstand how oppression works. Microaggression does not imply privilege, and it does not reinforce oppression unless there is actually oppression happening.

For trans women to benefit from male privilege, two things would have to be true:

1. Oppressive violence that is done against women would need to exempt trans women, i.e., would need to specifically target cis women. Considering that blending in as cis is necessary for trans women’s safety, and when we are revealed as trans shit like this happens (more to TWoC than to white trans women, but we’re not immune), I think we can say this is ridiculous.
   
   
2. This violence must be done to uplift trans women’s status in society. Immunity from violence, without this, is just passing privilege. For violence against cis women to be done to uplift trans women, the conspiracy theory that the patriarchy seeks to replace cis women with us would have to be true.
   
   Considering that (when we’re outed) patriarchy sees us as inferior knock-offs of womanhood (again, from where a trans woman stands, there’s no daylight between radfems and patriarchy; they think the same thing), we can pretty clearly say that patriarchy isn’t trying to uplift us. That, and the whole thing that we’re targeted by it and you can’t be uplifted by things that are targeted at you.

(via msamberhazard-deactivated201210)

"

Sex is no more an immutable binary than is gender. There are intersex people who are born with non-binary genitalia, as I have already mentioned. There are people with hormonal anomalies. In fact, hormone levels vary wildly within the categories of cis male and cis female. Chromosomes, too, vary. If you thought “XX” and “XY” were the only two possible combinations, you have some serious googling to do. In addition to variations like XXY, XXYY, or X, sometimes cis people find out that they are genetically the “opposite” of what they though they were– that is, a ‘typical’ cis man can be XX, a ‘normal’ cis woman can be XY.

The fact is that the concept of binary sex is based on the fallacious idea that multiple sex characteristics are immutable and must always go together, when in fact many of them can be changed, many erased, and many appear independently in different combinations. “Female” in sex binary terms means having breasts, having a vagina, having a womb, not having a lot of body hair, having a high-pitched voice, having lots of estrogen, having a period, having XX chromosomes. “Male” means having a penis, not having breasts, producing sperm, having body hair, having a deep voice, having lots of testosterone, having XY chromosomes. Yet it is possible to isolate, alter, and remove many of these traits. Many of these traits do not always appear together, and before puberty and after menopause, many of them do not apply.

Asher Bauer (via inherhipstheresrevolutions)

Everyone, read this. The male/female body dichotomy is a myth.

(via dearcissexism)

(Source: lipsredasroses, via bubonickitten)

moarhelenplz:

German courts rule that an eleven year old German transgender girl can legally be institutionalized.

transsuccess:

While normally TS attempts to bring to you positive examples for our community, we also offer you ways to get involved, make a difference and be a role model yourself.  Unfortunately right now we’ve got plenty of work to do for our community.  Please take a moment and stop this atrocity from happening.  This child needs our support.  Click the link above to sign the petition and be part of the difference in this little girl’s life and give hope to each other by demonstrating that none of us are alone.  Please reblog if you can.

transawareness:

Perhaps it’s conspicuous that to date few journals have dwelled on the current ethical drama currently undergoing in Berlin, Germany involving an eleven year old child who was born a boy but whom in their own words wishes to re assert themselves as a female. Something that they have felt since they can remember, according to one report earlier this year.  That though now may be wishful thinking in the face of a recent court decision that in essence seeks to mandate that the child be placed in institutional care and one suspects have their sense of self ‘normalized.’

The above link is a petition to stop this child from being put into an institute until she conforms to gender=sex ideals.  If you want to read more on this article, there are two stories.  Original and Updated [warning for transphobia, cissexism].  This child’s petition only has 10K signatures.  Come on people, lets get involved.  No trans child should have to be snatched from a supportive mother and locked away in a padded cell until they conform.

(via fivelettered)

catamite:

ATTENTION CASTRO:

Gay men are not hated because of how they fuck.

Gay men are hated because they are perceived to be effeminate; no matter how “macho” you are, the mainstream equates being gay with lowering oneself to the inferior status of a woman.

Your misogyny—your hatred of women, trans folks, and femme men—is oppressing your community and yourself.

HOMOPHOBIA=TRANSPHOBIA=SEXISM

(Source: maymay, via sanaa-tamir-is-leaving-deactiva)

"

In order to understand why transphobia and cissexism persist and are continually perpetuated throughout feminist communities, particularly the vegetarian-ecofeminist community, it is important to consider the origins of anti-trans advocacy as a conscious project of prominent, elite White feminists in the 1970s. In the late sixties and early seventies, trans people were very active in the women’s and queer liberation movements. The Compton’s Cafeteria and Stonewall rebellions of the sixties are evidence of that, as are women like Beth Elliot of the Daughters of Bilitis, Sandy Stone of Olivia Records, and Stonewall veteran Silvia Rivera who was a founding member of the Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activist Alliance.

So it’s important to keep in mind that trans women, and trans people more generally, were an integral part of the early women’s liberation movement. But in the mid- to late-seventies, there was a transphobic backlash within feminism to systematically remove and exclude trans people, explicitly transsexual women, from the women’s and queer movements. For example, Rivera was targeted and physically attacked by cissexist women separatists at a gay rights rally. Elliot was targeted by Robin Morgan and separatists at a lesbian women’s conference. Stone was targeted by Janice Raymond and forced out of Olivia Records with threats of a boycott. And Gloria Steinem of Ms. magazine openly attacked trans women.

Over the last couple decades, there has been an increase in organizing and activism by trans people, yet we continue to be the targets of a systematic backlash from elite feminists. So-called ‘women-born women’ policies are still used to exclude transsexual women from participating in our own movement. And while trans women are disproportionately targeted by homelessness, prisons, and sexual and physical violence, an alliance between anti-trans feminists and the state has been used to circumvent human rights laws in order to bar us from many vital women’s facilities and services. Trans women have even been forced out of women’s services organizations they helped create.

Ida Hammer, in an interview with Bitch Magazine

Never forget this.

(via kiriamaya)

(via rentless-mistress)

Queer People Not My People

delisubthefemmecub:

transcreature:

[TW warning: anti-trans bigotry and violence]
The following is a piece I wrote for a zine, QUAC , about the topic of Queer Violence

Queer People Not My People

I expected to lose a lot transitioning from a gay identified boy to a trans woman. I’ve lost family, once-called “best friends”, and the ability to find a man on A4A for some anonymous one night stands. What I didn’t expect was the loss of queer communities as a safe space for me. I once idolized queer spaces, now I always enter them in trepidation, even the ones I’ve helped build and maintain. I write this piece still reeling at how much anger I felt last night, still picking out the tear-dried clumps of mascara from my eyes. It’s the slow realization that I am often the only trans woman in the room, and that queer people love throw around my identity as part of their little acronym, but would rather not hear from me.

Read More

Please, please please please read ALL OF THIS.  This post is so important and so spot on.

(via thisblogisdefunctgoaway-deactiv)

“Both” vs. “All” Genders

bubonickitten:

queerteaching:

Avoid phrases like “the opposite sex” or “both genders.” This goes for any classroom setting, and is a pretty useful rule for speech and writing in general. Constructions like these reinforce a binary understanding of gender by setting external limits on the field of gender (“both” implying that there are no genders beyond these two) and by setting up male and female as irreconcilably different, oppositional entities. Phrases like “all genders” are just as simple to use and incorporate rather than invisibilize genders beyond the binary.

Also: When people say “men, women, and trans* people” and variations thereof. No.

(via 24hoursremain-deactivated201204)

strugglingtobeheard:

reagan-was-a-horrible-president:

Fox “News” being jerks as usual. 

Wow…

I just can’t. Trigger warning for cissexism and misgendering.