Educating the Educators

This is a REALLY LONG post, but, it's a fun story. Plus, long posts are okay if you've gone on a months-long hiatus, right?



Today, I tore apart a class of future Student Affairs professionals for silencing people who don’t fit into the gender binary. It was beautiful, but it made me realize how much work we have left to do, even among the people who claim to be on our side. It was a group presentation on how gender roles can affect college students. Some quotes from their handout:


· Sex: “refers to the biological difference between male and female.”
· Gender: “a socially constructed distinction between male and female.”
· “Sex and gender are inseparable; those who are sexual males are normally perceived as gendered men and sexual females are normally perceived as gendered women.”

I am ripping my hair out.

The entire presentation talked about gender using the terms ‘male’ and ‘female,’ and never, even once, acknowledged the possibility of something else. Most of the class was spent getting classmates to talk about times they have been restricted because of their gender. You know, Mommy always made me curl my hair in grade school, that kind of thing. Then, at the end of the presentation, someone mentioned that SOME people ACTUALLY think that gender is fluid, and that genders beyond male and female exist. *GASP* They presented this idea by showing a youtube montage of newscasters freaking out about a couple raising a baby without a gender shoved down its throat, and asked us if we thought this was a bad idea.

I’d had enough, and announced I was going to talk now and had three things to say.

One—even this clip about a baby being raised outside the binary shows how much power the binary has over us. All the clips were ranting about ‘his or her’ parents when the reality is it is THEY who are imposing THEIR politics on this child. Some of you have probably never heard of this, but one in every who-knows-how-many babies are actually born with genitalia that are not distinguishable as male or female, or have characteristics of both—and nine times out of ten, that baby is operated on, without the parents’ knowledge or consent, in order to make them appear more ‘normal.’ Those babies never get a chance; this one does. For all any of us know, this child isn’t even male or female to begin with; sex is NOT a binary.

Two—since sex is not a binary, it stands to reason that gender is not a binary either. Viewing it as a binary silences countless voices you could learn from. I didn’t say anything during our conversation because I haven’t been told I’m not feminine enough; I’ve been told I’m not masculine enough to claim the gender I do. Most of you will look at me and label me as a woman, and that’s your problem, not mine. In reality, I don’t identify as a woman OR a man; I am something called genderqueer, and there are a hundred other words I could throw at you if we had time. Tons of people exist outside the gender binary and are silenced by gender assumptions—like the ones you’ve all presented in this class which is supposed to be ABOUT gender assumptions. I don’t mean to call you out, but no one in your group even MENTIONED transgender or gender variant people in your presentation ABOUT GENDER. Maybe women are less valued than men, but gender variant people are invisible in general society.

Three—sometimes, gender and sex ARE binary concepts, but are not at all related. T—, when you said you had to shovel snow while your sister had to cook breakfast every day, it made me think of my partner. When he was a girl, he had to do things like that too. Yes. I said that. When he transitioned to being a man, his parents taught him how to mow the lawn because that’s what real men do. My partner is accepted as a man by everyone who comes into contact with him because that’s how he presents; we call it “passing” and he is lucky enough to do it consistently. But my partner is female. That’s a binary identity in which sex and gender are not traditionally linked. And that’s only one way gender complicates sexuality. He doesn’t identify with words like queer or straight because all of those words immediately suggest a sex and gender that match for the person using them. Likewise, I don’t identify as a lesbian anymore, because that suggests I am a woman and date women, not a gender-variant person who dates other gender-variant people.

I wanted to share my experiences with you all because, someday, you are going to be working at colleges with gender variant people. You won’t even know they’re in the room sometimes, but we’re everywhere. And, if you all talk the way you talked tonight, you are going to be silencing those students the way that I felt silenced during this class.

This, of course, is a paraphrase; I was more candid and less articulate in class, I’m sure, but I did cover every point mentioned above-- some better than others.

My classroom was dead silent. All eyes were on me, but not in a look-at-the-freak way; in a oh-wow-I-never-thought way.

My professor, who’s pretty fantastic, chided me for not speaking up sooner. I tried to explain that I’d waited on purpose—if I’d just jumped in ranting about feeling oppressed, everyone would’ve been defensive, and the class wouldn’t have had the opportunity to SEE how the silencing works. But she wasn’t satisfied with that and informed me I would be talking more about my experiences next week.

Can’t wait.

Professor Fired For Being Trans-- You Can Help!

The story is that an English professor at Southeastern Oklahoma State University has not only been denied tenure, but has also been fired, for being a transwoman. When I first saw this I was hoping it wasn’t true, but I’ve done some googling and it appears to be legitimate.

According to the available articles (one here, news story here), the VP of Academic Affairs denied a faculty suggestion to grant tenure for the first time, and the University President refused to honor a unanimous decision made by the faculty committee that votes on such affairs. At the time the story was posted, the administration (who has allegedly made transphobic remarks before) had refused to meet with Professor Rachel Tudor in person.

I love English. I love academia. I love the trans community. So I’m like, oh no you didn’t.

* Sign the petition
* Write her a letter of support: rtudor@se.edu
* Write University President Dr. Larry Minks a polite letter urging him to overcome transphobia and give Professor Tudor a fair tenure hearing: lminks@se.edu
* Send that same letter to the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education (try addressing to Chancellor Glen D. John): communicationsdepartment@osrhe.edu

That’s right, readers mine, I creeped on them so you wouldn’t have to. BUT PLEASE WRITE AND SIGN TO SHOW YOUR SUPPORT! If you want, I’ll post my own letters—all you have to do is tweak a sentence or two and sign and send.

Indiana School Apologizes, Offers LGBT Protection

So, in a nutshell—in 2006 (oh man, that’s when I graduated, too), a transgender student in Indiana was not allowed to attend her senior prom because she was wearing a dress but was born male. The refusal was in keeping with a policy about sexually appropriate dress, and was applied to K.K. Logan even though a biologically female student was permitted to attend the dance in a tux. Four years later, the school has awarded Logan an indeterminate sum, agreed to provide LGBT sensitivity training to administration, and adopted policies protecting the rights of LGBT students. The school issued a public apology and promised to “ensure that something like this does not happen again.” I’d say that’s a taste of success, wouldn’t you?

Longer story here!

TDOR 2009

It’s that time of year again. In just a couple days, Transgender Day of Remembrance ceremonies and activities will be taking place everywhere. This is probably the most depressing queer action/activism day ever, but it’s something that many transfolk and their allies view as important and necessary, and consequently, take very seriously.

Transgender Day of Remembrance—TDOR for short—is a day that focuses on transgender people who lost their lives because of prejudice. Every year, an untold number of unique gender-variant lives are lost because of bigotry. Sometimes, people are victims of hate crimes; other times, they take their own lives because they are victims of depression, bullying, harassment, sexual assault, violence, or other forms of hatred. Other times, the death is a long, horrifying story; for example, some transgender people have died due to complications with AIDS after being refused treatment from several medical facilities based on their gender identities and presentations. Being transgender in itself is NOT DANGEROUS; hatred is.

The point of TDOR is to honor the unique lives that were cut short by hatred, and also to protest the fact that we lose human lives for such a ridiculous thing as transphobia in the first place. TDOR events come in many forms, but all of them incorporate a way to remember the people who died unnecessarily in the past year. My college gay-straight alliance is going to hold a “die-in” in our school cafeteria in order to raise awareness of the issue during the day; at night, we are going to hold a Reading of the Names Ceremony. During this Ceremony, participants spend a moment in the shoes of those that have been lost, reading their life—and death—stories in the first person aloud in front of everyone. The experience is very powerful for everyone attending, especially the reader. These are two activities that are widely used in many organizations’ versions of TDOR events.

Chances are, you can find a TDOR event near you using the internet. TDOR is generally held in late November order to honor Rita Hester, a 1998 hate crimes victim, but there are TDOR events on many different days. Look for a way to get involved and for more information—and of course, if you care to share your story, you can do so on this blog!

2009 names list.
TDOR info, courtesy of Connecticut’s Transadvocacy Organization.

College Dresscode: No Cross-Dressing

So. A college is banning cross-dressing. In 2009. College.

Morehouse College (an “all-male” school) has put together an “Appropriate Attire Policy” that includes everything you’d expect a dress code to have: no hats or sunglasses in buildings, no pajamas or sagging pants. Oh, and no wearing feminine clothing.

I’m really wary of any college that feels the need to put out a dress code for its students. I’m extremely wary of something so blatantly transphobic as a dress code that disallows people who have certain sexual organs to dress in ways associated with other sexual organs. My favorite part is that students who break the policy will be denied access to class, and people who do it often enough will be suspended. Frequently, an argument for dress codes is that it allows students to focus on their studies. Are these studies only useful to people who dress the way the President of the College does? I’ve heard higher education be referred to as brainwashing, but damn.

According to one article, the school’s gay-straight alliance is not against the policy.

Granted, gender variance is probably not as expected and accepted in Georgia as it is in New England. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen, though—just that transfolk who are born and raised in areas that are less accepting are even more closeted and, most likely, feel even more isolated. This kind of rule is just one example of the myriad of ways that this isolation, and the feeling of shame that often accompanies being in the closet, is enforced and upheld by society in general. We still have a lot of work to do if we’re ever going to get to a point where freedom of expression is more than just a liberal ideal.

I recently heard on the radio about a similar situation in a high school. I’ll try to look that up ASAP. In the meantime, here is the link to the article. I’d love to hear some response to this!