This is from a pamphlet I found lying around the house (of no pants) and thought was really important and needed to be shared:
Gender is not sane.
It is not sane to call a rainbow black and white.
It is not sane to demand that we fit into one or the other only.
It is not sane that we classify people in order to oppress
them as women or glorify them as men.
Gender is not sane.
Gender is not safe.
If I change my gender, I'm at risk of homicide, suicide or
a life devoid of half my possibilities.
If I'm born with a body that gives mixed gender signals,
I'm at risk of being butchered--fixed, mutilated.
Gender is not safe.
And gender is not consensual.
We are born, a doctor assigns us a gender. It's documented
by the state, enforced by the legal profession, sanctified
by the church, and it's bought and sold in the media.
We have no say in our gender--we're not allowed to
question it, play with it, work it out with our friends,
lovers, or family.
Gender is not consensual.
Safe gender is being who we want to be, when we want to be that, with no threat of censure or violence. Safe gender is going as far in any direction as we wish, with no threat to our health, or to anyone else's. Safe gender is not being pressured into passing, not having to lie. Not having to hide.
There are two trans people living at The House, and I'm pretty sure this pamphlet is left over from their days at Hampshire. The pamphlet was written to address Hampshire's annual Drag Ball and the issues that it brings up. I'm not sure if Jordan and Wendell were involved in creating the pamphlet or not, but either way I would have felt a whole lot better about drag ball this year if something like this was circulating a couple of weeks beforehand. Another excerpt:
Crossing gender boundaries is fun and funny when it's one night of intoxicated revelry. But for those of us who cross those boundaries every day, and who live with the consequences and oppression that accompany that, it isn't quite as fun. In your gender play and performance, please be respectful of transgender students and remember that not everyone has the privilege of stepping back within the safety of those boundaries at the end of the night.
Tonight we question, satire, play, and fuck with gender. This is not a night to glorify the most violent or objectified aspects of strict gender binary.
That about sums it up.
Gender is not sane.
It is not sane to call a rainbow black and white.
It is not sane to demand that we fit into one or the other only.
It is not sane that we classify people in order to oppress
them as women or glorify them as men.
Gender is not sane.
Gender is not safe.
If I change my gender, I'm at risk of homicide, suicide or
a life devoid of half my possibilities.
If I'm born with a body that gives mixed gender signals,
I'm at risk of being butchered--fixed, mutilated.
Gender is not safe.
And gender is not consensual.
We are born, a doctor assigns us a gender. It's documented
by the state, enforced by the legal profession, sanctified
by the church, and it's bought and sold in the media.
We have no say in our gender--we're not allowed to
question it, play with it, work it out with our friends,
lovers, or family.
Gender is not consensual.
Safe gender is being who we want to be, when we want to be that, with no threat of censure or violence. Safe gender is going as far in any direction as we wish, with no threat to our health, or to anyone else's. Safe gender is not being pressured into passing, not having to lie. Not having to hide.
There are two trans people living at The House, and I'm pretty sure this pamphlet is left over from their days at Hampshire. The pamphlet was written to address Hampshire's annual Drag Ball and the issues that it brings up. I'm not sure if Jordan and Wendell were involved in creating the pamphlet or not, but either way I would have felt a whole lot better about drag ball this year if something like this was circulating a couple of weeks beforehand. Another excerpt:
Crossing gender boundaries is fun and funny when it's one night of intoxicated revelry. But for those of us who cross those boundaries every day, and who live with the consequences and oppression that accompany that, it isn't quite as fun. In your gender play and performance, please be respectful of transgender students and remember that not everyone has the privilege of stepping back within the safety of those boundaries at the end of the night.
Tonight we question, satire, play, and fuck with gender. This is not a night to glorify the most violent or objectified aspects of strict gender binary.
That about sums it up.
posted by dan | 8:12 AM
2 Comments:
Good points, especially the first part about safe gender. Although with that part at the end and when discussing the pros and cons of something like a drag ball, its important to remember where the true battles are.
If you look at the history of trans and gender-challenging action in our country (i.e. one of the real reasons we celebrate pride is because of self-identified "drag queens" at stonewall who didn't have the trans-rhetoric at the time to describe themselves) - it is easy to see that an awful lot of the resistance movement started with revelry and performance, intoxicated or not. Drag was a movement. Drag was a highly successful political and social movement and it should be celebrated. Even if the politics seem seperated or people aren't aware of them, the effect never is seperated. Even fun or funny, its still a challenge and sometimes an attack on the very idea of gender. It deconstructs and forces people to ask questions they may not normally ask.
The trans movement today and people who live with those very consequences and oppression are able to challenge them today and have the words and the discourse to do it in because of drag queens, performers, transvestites, cross-dressers and all other manner of gender-challengers that have been dancing, lip-synching and parading around in a comical manner for decades and decades - EVEN if these are and were people who may not have understood or identified as trans-people in their own right.
It always has been, was and always will be subversive and doing much to help the larger spectrum of gender-challenging in our culture.
ALSO - sometimes "glorifying" the objectifyed parts of the gender binary can be satirical - ultra femme drag queens in some way almost always mock ultra-femme plastic made up female identities. This has a place. All performances of all facets of gender - including some of the most oppressive ones can have a purpose.
Of course, not everyone understands this while they are performing their gender or other genders - we can't assume everywhere has the education or awareness - but you can't assume they don't have any or that its a negetive thing for them to be taking part in if they aren't 100% as aware as you.
Gender awareness and safety for trans people is something that is going to have to happen in the public sphere and its only going to happen by turning people's heads and forcing them to ask questions - all the stupid ignorant people in the world are not going to listen or comprehend the kind of rhetoric that happens in an academic setting. All ways of seeing and challenging are going to have to be supported and encouraged instead of harshly questioning the members of society that are flexible enough to at least go to a drag ball, partake in a drag ball or show and ultimately - may stand there and look around at the gender subversion and ask important questions of themselves, society and others.
I'm not saying it is harmful to educate people about trans issues by circulating pamphlets before a drag ball - because of course thats wonderful and vital... but your pamphlet sets up an us v. them dichotomy "while YOU are having fun in there, remember those of us who are suffering"
ultimately - if gender is a fake, arbitrary non-consensual imposition on us ALL, then the degrees to which it is imposed are many... and many non-queer people feel JUST as oppressed by various forms of gender discrimination ALL the time, NOT just those of us who chose to change genders or live between or without gender.
the degree to which everyone does this is about choice and performance.... if you are born biologically female and identify strongly with male-gendered chracteristics, and come out as trans and then choose to transition or live as a man - then you are still choosing to perform male gender - its always a performance if there is nothing inherent or essential about gender, do you know what I mean?
so it doesn't really make any sense, if thats what you know about gender to be true to set up any situation where the people who are crossing those boundries EVERY day and making those choices are the REAL gender warriors and the people who are doing it for one night are what? making fun?
how do you know that one straight boy jock putting on a dress and going to that ball isn't about to do the most subversive and life altering act that he has ever done in his life? one night can change everything and he is as likely to get his ass kicked on the way home to his apartment that night. his right to challenge gender for one night is as important as anyones everyday and maybe even more so for the "movement" if we can get his entire soccer team to do it.
Do you understand what I mean?
I think its a potentially very devisive and dangerous thing to turn that kind of criticism on what fundamentally has a history of being a positive thing and say what it is or is not for. or who it is or is not for.
Just another perspective to think about and discuss.
I had a good friend in college who actually felt oppressed by other transpeople because he wanted to live in between... he wanted to be a boy in a dress somedays and a girl others...sometimes he wanted to just be "oneself" a person with no he or she. He preferred to be called just "emma" not he or she, but was fine with either. Emma didn't want to conform to the dangerous idea that he was "a girl trapped in a man's body" because ultimately that reinforces the idea that gender is an essential concrete thing. and he also believed setting "trans" people apart from other people because they were doing something harder or more dangerous than other queer people was counterproductive. I remember him saying at a conference once "I'm not a victim of oppression because I'm wearing a dress - oppression happens because there are a lot of straight people who see a bit of me in themselves and know that ultimately ALL gender ideals are lies and performances and thats dangerous. There is freedom in oppression, to perform whatever whenever. I choose to show everyone that it is a performance every day. I celebrate that idea."
just some things to think about.
Really awesome points to bring up, Bonnie. I would very much like to discuss this further when I see you this weekend.
I feel like I should mention that the next line in the pamphlet read, in big bold letters:
Gender: FUCK WITH IT!
Because tonight, Hampshire is DRAG!
So, clearly there was a celebratory mood present in the pamphlet, which becomes clear when you read the whole thing.
Particularly, though, with regards to the Hampshire community, this pamphlet seemed really cool to me. Some concerns that my friends had expressed when I enquired about their opinions on drag ball were mainly that because Hampshire drag ball has traditionally been associated with alcohol, drug consumption, and general partying (similar to Hampshire Halloween) they were afraid that the attitude that will be enforced is that fucking with gender is only okay when you're drunk or in a party setting and that it is not an every-day sort of issue.
Also, the trans people I've met through my stay here at The House are all very open and in various stages of transition, and no one has made me feel alienated in any way for not having really questioned my gender or not having been knowledgeable about trans issues. So, I haven't really experienced any of this us vs. them mentality, although I'm sure that it is out there, and should definitely be a concern.
Again, thanks for the amazing points. I'm really excited to be seeing you soon. We shall have to talk more.
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