Gender is Only Partly Cultural

I run up against this a lot, and it bugs me: In researching my paper on Cherokee women, I found a work that is really comprehensive on a crucial period of the history that, in its introduction, asserts that gender is a cultural construct. This runs counter to both my beliefs and my personal experience. I also have read medical research and case histories that suggest that some aspects of gender -- identity for example -- are not of cultural origin.

I do not discount the cultural components of gender, but I do posit that there is more to gender than what is learned. Gender permeates us as physical as well as spiritual beings, from the molecular level to the most general physical aspects of our bodies, including brain structure.

We are genderized by culture, and culture can have effects on our physicalities, absolutely, but baldly stating that gender is a cultural construct only puts the cart before the horse -- we had gender and gender differences long before we had culture.

I feel a sense of mission about this. As much as it bugs me that certain branches of our academic world dismiss the importance of gender to our beings, I think that is the degree to which I feel passion to understand better what gender is and to communicate my understanding.

I don't know for sure how that passion will play into my current research. I have a lot of thinking to do and a lot more research.

Vlog for 11/27/11

Here's a little update about my life as of... ummm...

I mean to post in this blog more. I have not forgotten you! I'm really struggling with my relationship to Facebook right now, and I think I need to rely on it a little less for connections to people. I'm just going to start referring people here from there & doing most of my posting here for a while and see how I feel about that.

Vlog for 10/16/11

It's been awhile since I posted a vlog. This is a general update. It's not a complete update, but it's a little sump'n to show what's been happening w/me until the next time I post.

I won't promise, but I want to do a live performance of a new song sometime soon. That might be my next video.

1. "If I don't like something, just don't play it around me!" 2. "Not that you play much music anyway." That's 2 consecutive statements that are bouncing around in my head. I wonder why the originator of these statements can't hear the way they bounce off of each other.

Thoughts on Being Clocked and on My Voice

Learned a New Term I Wish I Didn't Know

Today I learned a new gay slur from supposed gay-positive punk rocker and part-time lefty radio pundit Johnny Angel Wendell, who, in asserting that Michele Bachmann may be a lesbian on facebook, used the term "daggery." A trip to urbanurbandictionary.com provides a lot of scatological associations that I really could have done without.

Now, I know the standard defense of this behavior, which runs something like this: "It's not actually homophobia, it's meant to be a calling-out of that particular homophobe's hypocrisy, by using their own homophobia against them."

That argument would make a lot more sense to me if I hadn't just been schooled in a new homophobic term by someone who is supposedly anti-homophobe. I singled out Wendell, because he's the latest repugnant example, but this behavior is rampant across the lefty bloggoshpere. If you suspect someone on the right of being a self-loathing gay, poke him or her with sarcastic mock-homophobia.

In my opinion, this does nothing to break down homophobia. It doesn't encourage the supposedly closeted person to open the door, it just sends more hate their way. You are not making an ally, you are not helping that person in any way. Ancillary to that, you put anyone who doesn't know you're being ironic or sarcastic on the defensive as well. There is no positive value in making slurs against any TLGB person, out or closeted, that I can divine. All it does is drive the wedge of hatred and division in deeper.

A Trick For Opening a New CD

I posted this at youtube a couple of weeks ago, and it has already become one of my most popular videos. It's not that it's so special, it's just that it namechecks Gillian Welch. Still, it's kind of a neat trick, if you find a new, shrinkwrapped CD a pain to break into.

Response to someone's question about favorite TV shows and most disappointing movies

On youtube there's a collaborative channel I follow called Trannystar Galactica where someone will ask a question, usually on a topic related to the trans experience directly but not always, and this week's question for the group was on something that I like to opine about. So I posted a video response. We could maybe call it my latest vlog entry, but we don't have to!

A random statement

I am a Buddhist and an atheist (or possibly a pantheist). I believe in the big bang as the original creative force and that things and people and places and ideas have divine aspects but that things evolve along both mundane and mystical paths. My relationship with God was soured by being raised among Southern Baptists, who distrusted joy and feared and hated difference. I was sure different! For me the thought of an old white guy in the sky who built, owns, and controls everything is odious, especially when, in my understanding, humans created God.

Seeing Myself

Yesterday, I was surfing the net (I facebook a lot, and as you might infer if you look at my blog, I spend a lot of time at Youtube as well) and compudie was getting a little sticky-slow, so I decided I should reboot. While I was waiting, I got up and stretched my legs for a minute. I have a mirror on my wall situated so that if I'm standing close to it, you can't see all of me in it, but you can see maybe 2/3 of my width. I was looking at my silhouette and noticing the shape of my hips and breasts. The lines there are clearly feminine! I sat down on the edge of my bed and started crying. "I'm a girl now" I thought, and I may have even said it out loud. It was quite a moment. One instant, I felt the enormity of that, and the next moment I felt total acceptance of it. It's the fulfillment of a lifetime of hopeless dreams. I began to feel awed by it all.

My computer picked that exact moment to restart. I was having this cosmic moment of realization, and the universe threw the mac booting chime at me. It was just too funny.

My experience as a transgender woman has often been that I will have epiphanies and realize that I am a girl, and then at some later point, something else will prompt that same realization again. On the surface, this experience may seem like just another one of those, but it's qualitatively different in at least one way: I had not realized how much my body had changed. My female identity is not just what's in my head, it's what my body says now, too.

I can't tell you how happy that makes me.

VLog for 5/24/11 Bands

Cost

48,000 American dead and wounded, 650,000 dead in Iraq, uncounted more the world over, all to supposedly get 1 guy who is *allegedly* responsible for 3,000 deaths. Remember that proof of Osama bin Laden's responsibility for those attacks was promised, but has never been provided.

Vlog for 5/1/11 check-in and update

Just a little update...

Vlog for 4/4/11 Meta and Name Stuff

Vlog for 3:19:11 talking about music

Vlog for 3/12/11 Thoreau on Spring

Yep, I'm way late posting this, sorry. I actually recorded it in plenty of time to put it up on schedule, got busy, and also went through a little spate of disliking this vid. A week later it's not making me cringe too much, so I decided to post it after all. Enjoy, the next one should come along in better time.

Valentino's Pret-a-Porter line for Fall 2011

It's been a while since I posted anything on fashion. This is the new fall ready-to-wear line from house of Valentino. I like the subdued reds and the simple but very feminine lines. I have a goal of being able to wear stuff that is more like this by Fall '11. We shall see!

vlog for 3/5/11

Vlog for 2/26/11 my paper on lgbt & antebellum slavery

Vlog for 2:20:11 Waiting for Spring

Witch hazel!

vlog for 2/12/11 pt.1 Transition Update

What's inside

There's a point about halfway through this poem where I just lift off the ground and hover in the air for about 30 seconds.

Who could look at a kid this age and think that such language could come out of his mouth? He didn't write it, and may not understand it fully, but it speaks to him strongly enough that he can say it and mean something by it. I hope what you get out of this is what I get out of it: The human spirit contains much that can't be explained by outward appearances.

Important Cultural Information

The spork, according to someone who would know such things, is the sacred symbol of my people.

Survey Says...

Here's an article discussing a survey released just in the past week regarding the level of discrimination faced by transpeople in the US.

Seriously, who could think it was a joke or a lark to live this kind of life? Having seen first hand the consequences for many of my sisters and brothers, I find myself wanting to do every bit of educating I can on what it means to be trans. I have been extremely fortunate. I think that a good part of why is because those who have come before me have done the work of informing the people in their lives as to what it means to go through life this way.

I need to remind myself to pass along that good work. I am trying.

vlog for 2/5/11 talking about why

Blonde Redhead - Top Ranking - Mike Mills

My brother posted this at facebook. I remember Blonde Red Head doing a show at the Middle East over a decade ago, and thinking they were a very interesting band, but a little too Sonic Youth influenced. Wow have they progressed! I love the song, and the vocal is so beautiful and full.

The video itself is by Mike Mills, who is not the bass player in R. E. M., contrary to what I had believed before checking just now. It starts out interesting but abstract, but subtly pulls you into its world.

vlog for 1:29:11 Magic, Murder, and the Weather

Vlog for 1/22/11 my First Event 2011 experience

A little note here: I mention in this video that I'm doing it "on the fly." I'm guessing that that refers to my hair. 1.) I hate winter weather! 2.) Must, must remember never to hook my bangs behind my ears, it always looks like crap. 3.) Time to visit my favorite hair maven again.

Yes, it's all about the hair!

Vlog for 1/15/11

I sang a song by Portland, Maine band Bullyclub called "I Know I'm On Fire" as an attempt to keep warm :)

vlog for 1/8/11 about youtube.

Randomizer One

A bit of obtuseness created because I started a couple of different vlogs that didn't turn out. The music is a piece from my macidol collection called "Blasphemy #333." It features my girlfriend Karen, my friend Chris and I.