Do You Ciswomen Define Yourselves By Your Genitalia Only?

While searching for the latest news about the Andy Moreno saga, stumbled across this borderline transphobic Chick Talk Dallas post on the issue  

Of course I left a comment on it:

Andy has been transitioning since her freshman year and lives full time as such, so yes, she does have the right under DISD's own non discrimination policies to run as homecoming queen.


But my question to you and any other cis woman is this?   Do you define yourself strictly by your genitalia?   If you don't, use a combination of other factors to define your femininity and believe that it's unacceptable for you to be defined by your genitalia, then why do you and other cis women insist on that standard for Andy Moreno and any other transperson on the planet?     

Women are made, not born as the philosopher Simone de Beauvoir once stated.  Femininity is learned and constantly evolving behavior. .

Indeed, one of the tenets of feminism is that 'biology is not destiny'.    However, when it comes to transwomen, not only do radical feminists ignore that simple truth, many ciswomen of all stripes do so as well.

Some of our detractors are quick to throw in our faces the fact that transwomen cannot menstruate or give birth to children.   But there are ciswomen who have the plumbing and cannot give birth as well for various reasons up to and including those who go through menopause, and we don't see you haters to strip them of womanhood.  .    


Don't  even try to bring up the chromosome argument.

You know, the XX= female and XY= male one.   Better pick up a science book before you try to throw that shade.  There are women walking around on this planet who have XY chromosomes, and men with XX.   That's before I even start making your head spin with the 20 plus other combinations such as XXY,  XXYY,  XXXY and other chromosomal combinations such as Klinefelter's Syndrome and Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome

Medical science has discovered in various studies that  transwomen have biological similarities to women; they tended to have fewer somatostatin (growth regulating) neurons than the average man, for example, and the ratio of their index and ring fingers (also known as 2D:4D, a common proxy for androgen exposure in utero) was higher than it usually is in men, closer to the average female ratio, and gender identity is hard wired before birth.

It is increasingly becoming apparent that nature has other ideas that clash with the human crafted binary gender system.    What makes a man or woman in society's eyes is simply not defined by what's between our legs and that's it.   It's a combination of factors that includes socialization into male and female gender roles, personal perceptions, comfort with those gender roles and secondary gender characteristics. 

If that standard is good enough for you ciswomen in other situations, then why is that standard all of a sudden chucked to the side when it comes to us transwomen?

Beyond Male And Female-The Biology Of Who We Are

There was an excellent diary posted on Daily Kos yesterday by Rei that goes into the nuts and bolts of gender identity, the biological makeup of males and females, and how that impacts transmen and transwomen 

Hypermasculinity Is Killing Our Kids

One of the things I've been sickened about lately is kids who are being beaten because they aren't acting 'masculine enough' for the male adults in their lives.

17 month old Roy Jones is dead and 20 year old Pedro Jones has been arrested on manslaughter charges.

Why? Because he 'was trying to make him 'act like a little boy instead of a little girl'.

 

3 year old Ronnie Paris, Jr. died in 2005 and his then 21 year old father is now doing 30 years in a Florida prison because he didn't want his son growing up to be a 'sissy' or 'soft'.

So he forced him to slap box with him daily, smacked him upside the head and pushed him into walls until his child slipped into a coma January 22 and died six days later from swelling on both sides of his brain.

Then there's 2 year old Dre'Ona Blake, who is no longer here because her daddy beat her to death in 2008 because she wasn't progressing at potty training fast enough to his liking.

Dre'Ona's waste of DNA daddy DeAndre Blake killed transwoman Tiffany Berry in 2006 and was walking the streets of Memphis,TN for two and a half years at the time on bond. According to Berry's family, he didn't like the way Tiffany had touched him, so he killed her.

When I was growing up in the 70's and averaging a fight a week in elementary because I was perceived as not masculine enough, the last thing most boys wanted to be called growing up was a 'punk' or 'sissy'. I watched many a fight get started because of it.

But now, in an age where kids manage to get their paws on handguns, those same fistfights I had to deal with in the 70's have escalated into people getting shot and killed simply because they get pissed for you calling them a 'punk' or 'sissy'.

Homophobia and transphobia feeds into these hypermasculine attitudes,and it has got to stop. We need to have some serious ongoing discussions about gender identity and gender roles in communities of color.

We need to slay the hypermasculinity dragon in our community because it's killing our kids.

Fictional Gender Transformation

A staple of fiction is the theme of gender transformations, body morphing and gender swaps. It crosses all forms of media from books to films to television, and the examples are numerous.

I thought it would be interesting to post them on the blog from time to time so here's the first installment of fictional gender transformations.

A 'Fantasy Island' episode



A 'Gilligan's Island' episode



A 'Death Stalker' episode



An episode of a French TV show



A 'Homeboys From Outer Space' Episode

Caster Semenya's Patience Running Out

19 year old South African runner Caster Semenya has patiently waited seven months for her competition status to be sorted out ever since she won the 800m world championship in Berlin last summer.

But it seems that her patience, and the patience of her attorneys is wearing thin.

"I hereby publicly announce my return to athletics competitions," Semenya said in a statement. "I am an athlete first and foremost, and it is vital for my competitiveness, my well-being and my preparations for events during the European summer that I measure my performance against other athletes."

"These processes have dragged on for far too long with no reasonable certainty as to their end."

She wants to return to international competition at a IAAF sanctioned race being contested in Zaragoza, Spain on June 24, the EAA Classic.

The IAAF medical staff has yet to complete the gender verification tests, and the ASA (Athletics South Africa) is uncomfortably caught in the middle along with Semenya until they do. They assert that until those test are completed, she is i9neligible to run either in South Africa or internationally.

Athletics South Africa acting chief Ray Mali asked "for the patience of Semenya and her advisers in the interest of all parties."

But I ask the question, how patient would you be if you were in Semenya's pumps?

She wants to run and get better with the Olympics only two years away and she's being forced to sit on the sidelines until some Monaco based bureaucrats make a decision?

To add to the drama, how patient would you be if your gender identity were subjected to worldwide speculation, attacks and derision while you're waiting for that sporting bureaucratic decision?

And while you're waiting, you sit with the knowledge that your potential competition you destroyed in Berlin are competing and honing their skills against each other.

"Some of the occurrences leading up to and immediately following the Berlin World Championships have infringed on not only my rights as an athlete," she said, "but also my fundamental and human rights, including my rights to dignity and privacy."

It's time for the IAAF medical team to end this, and get off their behinds and complete the medical verification tests as expeditiously as possible.

And after that happens, I'll be rooting for Semenya to kick some butt in every 800m race she runs from now until the Olympic Games in London and beyond.

Sex, Lies, And Gender

If you're looking for a learning opportunity for gender and intersex issues, you may wish to check out Sex, Lies, and Gender on the National Geographic Channel. Read more:

It does not seem like a question that should be asked. You know who you are. Or do you? Each year thousands of people around the world are born with ambiguous gender. They do not fit into our binary system of male or female - and shockingly many of them don't know it. Early surgeries transformed their bodies; families and doctors hid the truth.



Now, their stories are starting to be heard. In this hour, Explorer examines the science of gender...and the gray areas in between. From scientists and medical professionals to individuals whose lives are affected, we search for answers, even looking to the lives of other animals for clues.

The show is being broadcast later today on the NGC at 7 PM EDT.

Caster Semenya Case Opening Old Wounds

I was watching the track and field championships in Berlin last month when Caster Semenya won her 800m gold medal in the fifth fastest time ever run by a woman.

But as I know from my time on planet Earth, if an African descended female athlete excels in spectacular fashion, we get accused of cheating or have ‘that’s a man’ shade hurled at us.

When you combine it with the hypercompetitive world of international sports in which national pride and prestige is on the line, it was inevitable that somebody would try to find a way to knock this talented runner out of international competition, especially with the 2012 London Olympic Games on the horizon.

Gender testing for female athletes exists thanks to the blatant cheating of Nazi Germany in 1936, several former Communist bloc nations sending female athletes into competition with questionable external gender characteristics, and the East Germans feeding their female athletes steroids for more than a decade,

But in 18 year old Caster Semenya’s case, it’s ripping the scab off some old wounds. The ripple effects of this case are reverberating across the African diaspora.

For us African descended people in North America, we see it as the continued centuries old attack on the images of African descended women and our femininity.

It’s even more acute for Black women involved in sports. The Williams sisters have not only dominated the sport of tennis in the 2K’s, but these proud, statuesque ladies are making history off the court as well.

I and many other tennis fans found it quite curious when the 2009 Australian Open website omitted them from their list of the 10 Most Beautiful Women.

It wasn’t surprising that the list was full of Eastern Europeans in addition to fawning commentary about Jelena Jankovich’s ‘Number One body to go with her (then) Number One ranking’.

The old saying is beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Black women have always been seen thanks to racist myths rooted in slavery as ‘unfeminine’ vis a vis the vanilla flavored beauty standard.

If you think I’m off base, here’s a challenge for you.

Go to your favorite bookstore or drug store and head to the magazine rack. See if you can find a beauty magazine aimed at a predominately white female audience that has an African-descended woman on the cover.

And no, Oprah magazine doesn’t count.

Our continental African cousins see this in the context of the European colonial powers seeking to embarrass Africa.

Despite the fact that the current president of the Monaco based IAAF, Lamine Diack is from Senegal, the IAAF leadership since its inception in 1912 has been dominated by Europeans.

Continental Africans still haven’t forgotten how 800m runner and 2000 Olympic champion Maria Mutola of Mozambique was dogged throughout her illustrious decade long career by ‘that’s a man’ accusations despite passing test after test.

The way the Semenya case has been handled by the IAAF has only crystallized that impression on the mother Continent.

It’s probably why officials in South Africa are backing her all the way. Makhenkesi Stofile, South Africa’s sports minister said that Semenya and her family maintain she was gender-tested without her consent and that lawyers were being consulted over possible action.

In addition, Stofile has written to the IAAF demanding an apology and seeking a response to those Australian reports claiming that she’s intersex.

Yes, if he IAAF had questions, they should have quietly done those tests. Somebody leaked the info in Berlin that got this hot mess started. It’s also not a coincidence that another leak in this case results in an Australian newspaper publishing those allegations that Stofile reacted to with “shock and disgust”.

You have to feel for Semenya in this case. It has not only put her personal business out there, but has been done so in the most humiliatingly public way possible

In the meantime, her athletic future rests on the results of the gender test and an IAAF Council meeting set to take place in Monaco November 20-21.

Semenya has also received some advice and support from India’s Santhi Soundajaran, the last woman to be subjected to this type of withering international scrutiny.

“She should not let them take away her medal or allow one test to determine her fate. “She is a woman and that’s it, full stop,” Soundarajan says. “A gender test cannot take away from you who you are.”

Even if the people behind this are determined to take away her 800m world championship.


Crossposted from Feministe

That's A Man*

One of the things that hasn't been talked about yet is the devastating effects of these gender tests on the people that fail them.

Imagine that one day for whatever reason, athletic competitions, et cetera, you take a medical test that you expect will confirm what you know and have deeply felt since birth. You were raised as female, you have no doubts about your gender identity, and your body and your reflection in the mirror confirm that.

Now imagine how you would feel if the results of that gender test aren't quite what you expected.

In 1967 Ewa Klobukowska was preparing to compete in the European Cup Championships being held in Kiev. She was the co-holder of the then women's 100m world record at 11.1 seconds. She'd won a bronze in the 1964 Tokyo Games along with a relay gold medal.

Then her chromosome test came back. Because she had "one chromosome too many," she was a man*.

She was stripped of her world record, her Olympic medal and barred from international competition.

A year later it was Erika Schinegger's turn. In 1966 she'd become the World Cup skiing champion and subsequently a national shero in that skiing mad country.

Schinegger was one of the favorites to win gold at the upcoming 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble, France until her gender test came back with results shocking to her.

Turns out Erika was chromosomally male due to an intersex condition. That condition was missed at birth and she was raised as a girl. After discovering this information, Erika transitioned to become Erik, competed on the men's skiing tour for a few years, married in 1975 and now runs a ski school.

Spanish sprinter Maria Jose Martinez Patino arrived in Kobe, Japan, in 1985 to compete at the World University Games. She'd passed previous genetic sex-determination tests, but in this instance she'd forgotten her Certificate of Femininity and had to retake the test.

She failed it after discovering she had androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS) and was a woman with 46XY chromosomes.

The failed test had devastating and humiliating consequences in Patino's life. Not only was she barred from competing for several years, she lost an athletic scholarship, watched her boyfriends walk out of her life and ultimately, the chance to compete in the 1992 Olympics being hosted in her country.

Patino lost time during her peak athletic competition years fighting to regain her eligibility. It cost her a chance to qualify for the Barcelona Games as she failed to qualify for the Spanish team by hundredths of a second.

Patino retired from athletics, picked up her PhD and is now an university professor.

Santhi Soundarajan was an up and coming runner who held the Indian national record in the 3000m steeplechase and was the 800m silver medalist at the 2005 Asian championships.

Her world as she knew it came to an end after she repeated her silver medal winning performance at the 2006 Asian Games in Doha, Bahrain. She underwent a gender test and failed it.

She went from being a potential medalist at the Beijing Games to being stripped of her Asian Games silver medal. Despondent over the test, she reportedly attempted suicide in September 2007. She regrouped and became a successful running coach in India.

So as South Africa's Caster Semenya and the world awaits the results of the gender test, it is with this backdrop of negative history what her potential fate will be if it comes back with a negative result. At the same time, it also lets her know that there is life after a adverse gender test.

But it points out once again that in humans, there is a extremely fine line hormonally that separates male from female.

It's past time we recognize that.