It Takes A Village To Enforce The Gender Binary

An old African proverb states that it takes a village to raise a child.  I've tweaked that proverb to reflect a truism I've observed when it comes to the gender binary.

It takes a village to enforce the gender binary.

That societal village enforcement of the gender binary starts the millisecond you come out of the birth canal.

The doctor does that cursory check of genitalia to decide whether you get an 'M' or 'F' on your birth certificate complete with masculine or feminine name and you are presented to your eager parents wrapped in either a blue or pink blanket.  

Everything from the clothing you wear to how you are socialized by your family and society reinforces that gender binary, and anyone who deviates a millmeter from what society thinks is proper behavior or appearance for a man or woman gets serious pressure from society to be pushed back on either the 'M' or 'F' side of the gender fence.

Think I'm kidding?   Ask Sam Saurs about getting suspended  from school because he wore feminine attire to class.  Little boy sees his mother polishing her nails, asks her to do the same for him, but asks her to take the polish off before he goes to school on Monday morning because he gets misgendered and teased by his peers for that.  

When it comes to sports, ask any boy what he gets called or derisively told if he doesn't measure up to showing an acceptable to his peers level of sports performance.   He plays like a girl.

If a boy prefers playing with Barbies to playing with trucks, likes wearing dresses or is in a print ad having his toenails polished in pink, oh my God it's a full blown societal crisis because he isn't expressing masculinity the way society thinks a masculine child should..    

Don't even get me started on what transpeople have to deal with. 

It's just as hard on women and girls in terms of the ways femininity is expressed and enforced.   Peer pressure kicks in to tease you about your breast size if you're a card carrying member of the IBTC or your puberty kicks in late.  Don't sit with your legs open.   If you're a little more worldly than your peers in the dating game or assertive, out come the gender based slurs to tag you with.

If you have ultra short hair, a slightly muscular build, or don't wear makeup on a regular basis along with dresses or heels you are derided as 'masculine'.   

If you play sports as a girl and exhibit the types of skills that women allegedly aren't supposed to be capable of such as power dunking a basketball, hitting a tennis ball at 130 mph or run eye popping times in races, you get 'that's a man' shade thrown at you too.   Ask Brittney Griner, the Williams sisters, and Caster Semenya about that.

Let's not forget popular culture and how it plays a role in gender policing.  A tagline for a beer commercial is to 'man up' and not be 'unmanly'.   Women tell each other they need to 'get their girl on'. 

Does it take a village to enforce the gender binary?   Sure does.
 

Another Day, Another WWBT Lie Debunked

One of the lies the WWBTs have been loudly and incorrectly trying to pimp is that the transgender umbrella term was forced onto the trans community against our will by crossdressers, or in WWBT speak, the Transgender Borg.


Since I grew up in the 70's I recalled reading the 'transgender' term in many of the articles I'd clipped or read on transsexuality during the 80's, and remembered the debates about the issue in the late 80's-early 90's

I've pointed out that it was transsexuals who advocated that the community use this term because they correctly argued that we shouldn't be defining ourselves and our community, much less be advocating for civil rights coverage using a term created by the medical community to define us.

So I was pleased to read this Ehipassiko post of Cristan's pointing out the 'transgender term had been in use since the mid 1970's and popped up in a 1985 newspaper interview given by none other than the first well known United States transsexual, the late Christine Jorgenson.

Let's take a trip back in time to December 18, 1985 and peruse what Christine Jorgenson had to say about the word 'transsexual'.

The word transsexual irks Jorgenson because the word sex, she believes is only relevant to what one does in bed.. "I am a transgender because gender refers to who you are as a human being."

People who think they wish to switch sexes can go to 'gender identity clinics' where it can determined if they really do want to take the plunge, says Jorgenson.

Daaayum.   The world's most famous trans person identified as transgender, and oh yeah, she's post operative to boot.

After Cristan pimps slaps them with several more newspaper article clippings she summarizes her post with this comment:

So, can we please stop with the whole “crossdressers pushed that identity on us” stuff? The word was obviously used by clinicians in the 1970s, in the mass-media by transsexuals in the early 80s and then used to describe transsexuals by media in the late 1980s. Our culture was obviously using the term to talk about atypical expressions of gender, concepts of having gender neutrality, cross-gender expression and transsexuality since the 1970s. 

Sadly, I don't think the Transsexual Taliban will cease and desist with their increasingly debunked lies. 

Boy Wears Feminine Attire To School, Gets Suspended

I stated in the comment thread of Renee's post that discussed how boys are forced to perform masculinity that it takes a village to enforce the gender binary, and damn if less than 48 hours later the news of this situation in Washington state pops up to verify that.

15 year old Sam Saurs in Port Orchard, WA found that out the hard way.   The Sedgwick Junior High School ninth grader got into a discussion with his mother Ivana which started when she lamented how her heels were killing her feet.

When he stated that wearing high heels wouldn't be that hard, Ivana bet Sam he couldn't last a day in them.   .

Sam accepted the challenged and took it a step further by deciding to wear a dress, wig and makeup with the heels.  Shouldn't be any drama, they're just clothes, right?

Wrong.   .  

When Sam showed up at school on Wednesday in feminine attire, the fun started.   While in homeroom, he was called into dean John Richerson's office, told he was distracting students' and he should go home for the day. Sours responded that he thought the dean was being sexist.

Richerson then suspended Sours from school for the remainder of the school year despite the fact the school dress code policies doesn't prevent male identified students wearing dresses.   Saurs had previously been suspended for wearing makeup and hats to school.


As the controversy built the South Kitsap School Board contacted Sedgwick principal Jay Villars to drop the suspension but he refused.   That meant Saurs was unable to attend the ninth grade school dance or the annual school trip to the Wild Waves Water Park in Federal Way, WA.

The school eventually reversed Sam's suspension to three days, but not in time for him to attend the dance or the Wild Waves trip and he's not happy about it.   Saurs told the local media he's planning to wear feminine attire again, but now in protest of what happened to him.

But it just points out what I repeatedly see being played out in our society.  It takes a village to enforce the gender binary, and it really starts tripping when boys gravitate toward anything in our society considered feminine.


Just ask Cheryl Kilodavis, Renee,  Jenna Lyons or Sam Saurs how accurate that is.