What Gender Is

Artivism Project

Gender Grammar

As a writer who's spent many years teaching English, I found this interesting:

From Planet Deafqueer

 

What Motivates Him To Learn?

One thing I have to say for my students is that they have almost uniformly been good to me. My identity is known, and I think I'm no longer a curiosity:  I don't think anyone is taking my classes so they can find out what it's like to have "the tranny prof."  Now I'm just another boring professor--which, I believe is what they expect, and even want.


Anyway, one of my courses includes readings from science and history as well as a memoir.  Of course, the subject of gender has grown prominent in our discussions, especially in light of some of the writing we've read by female historians.   That leads the class, at times, into discussions of the differences between male and female.


One student seems particularly interested.  Other students have taken notice and have even wondered aloud why he's read as much as he has on the topic.  "How can you not be interested in it?," he implores them. 


He is a bit different from the other students.  For one thing, he's older than most of them.  For another, he's lived in a few more countries, and even served in the armed forces of one of them (not the US).  And, he has other experiences most other students don't have--and some that I may never have.


However, I rather doubt he is thinking about a gender transition.  It would even surprise me if he were gay, although I think he might have an issue or two when it comes to relationships.  (He's mentioned two marriages and children.)  Still, he is  better-versed in gender transitions and surgery than most lay people I've met, and seems interested in knowing even more.   


I wonder whether he's found this blog.  Actually, it would surprise me if he hasn't.  After all, if you type my name into a Google search bar, you'll find an entry to at least one entry of this blog on the first page of search results.  If he's curious enough to learn what he's learned, I'd guess that he'd also be curious enough to do a Google search on me--and to check out this blog.


This could be interesting--for me and for the class, as well as for him.  

Gender Studies

OK, now I’m going to offend Floyd “I have a naturally high testosterone level”  Landis  and get myself barred from every gender studies program in the world.  But it will be a lot of fun.  Here goes:

All cyclists are, or should have been born, women because

•        We absolutely must have the right shoes.
•         We absolutely must have the right bag.
•         Not having the right outfit can ruin our day.
•         We accessorize, accessorize, accessorize!
•     We know that titanium is sooo 1996.
•     We spend more to get less.
•      We justify maxing out credit cards and raiding 401 K’s by saying, “I bought it on sale!”
•     We can never be rich or thin enough. (Don’t I know about this one!)
•      No matter what we do, we end up with “helmet hair.” 
•      Our spouses/partners/loved ones simply cannot understand.

Trust me:  I know!

What Cats Know About Gender

Max is climbing all over me again. Earlier, Charlie was doing the same. They've always been very affectionate cats, but ever since I've returned from having my surgery, they can't seem to get enough of me. I thought they'd get used to having me again a few days or a couple of weeks after I came home. But they're just as greedy for me as they were the night I came back from Trinidad.

I'm thinking now about a few nights ago, when Sara and Dee stopped by my place. It was the first time Dee had been to my apartment, and almost as soon as she settled into my couch, Max climbed on her. He clung to her and purred loudly and deeply, as he does for me. Dee--who, as best as I can tell, is a woman only in the sense that she has XX chromosomes, and who has said that she'd make the transition to male if she were younger, had fewer health problems and better finances--worried that Max was attracted to her "as a woman."

I assured her that Max was simply an "aggressively friendly" cat and would climb on anyone who didn't resist him. Well, that statement was a bit of a stretch, as I've only had a few people to my place since I adopted Max. One, Millie, rescued him from the streets, so of course he loves her. And he tried to climb on Nina, but I had to pull him away because she's allergic. Ditto for my old landlady. He also climbed on Tami, who is most definitely female and has a few more cats than I have. Let's see...Who else did Max "conquer?" Well, he used to climb on Dominick whenever he came over. He's lived with cats--and dogs--all of his life and knows how to treat them.

Hey...Now it occurs to me that almost everyone I voluntarily spend time with is female. Anyway, Max tried to sit on all of them. Charlie, once he got to know them a bit, would curl up with them. But now I wonder: Do they really like women better than men? Or are they simply more used to women?

I've heard people say that cats like women because we're similar in sensibility to them. Someone else, I forget who, said that cats know we'll make a fuss over, and speak soothingly to, them. Either theory seems plausible enough. Still, I have to wonder whether cats actually know a human's gender--and if they do, whether it makes any difference to them.

Before I adopted Charlie, I had another cat with the same name and a very similar gray and white coat. He used to rub himself on my hand when I was holding the phone receiver--and talking to a woman. It didn't matter which woman; Charlie liked them all.

The day I met him, he was rolling and curling around the other kittens in his litter. They were born to a cat who lived with a friend of a friend; I had gone to her house with the intention of adopting one of those kittens. But, to my delight, Charlie adopted me: When he looked at me, he and I both knew that he was going home with me. Janette, who was the chaplain at Housing Works during the brief time I worked there, said that it was proof that I am indeed female, even though I was living otherwise. "He knew before you were ready to," she quipped.

What I find interesting is that Caterina and Candice, the two female cats I've lived with, were the same way with me and other women. So were both of Tammy's cats--a female and a male.

Hmm...Now I'm wondering whether cats are a gender unto themselves. One thing I know is that, on the whole, they--whether male or female--are drawn more to females than males of the human species. Does this mean that all cats are lesbians or straight males?

Whatever they are, they probably think we're silly. And that's exactly what they love and use in us. And many humans, like me, are only too happy to indulge them. Given my history with cats, how could I not?

Whatever their motivations, they know how to make us happy.

Where Does It Begin Or End?

Today was the first day of the Spring semester. Funny that they should call it that: It snowed this morning and there's talk of more on the way, followed by plummeting temperatures. And when this semester ends, just before Labor Day, it won't quite be the end of spring.

The boundaries we draw are so arbitrary sometimes. Spring "officially" begins some time around the 21st of March: almost two months from now. And that "official" beginning has little to do with weather, though it usually is a bit warmer by then than it is around this time of the year. Rather, it has to do with the position of the earth to the sun and the resulting equinox. But there have been years when it was colder at that moment than it was on Christmas or New Year's Day.

Plus, when the season "officially" begins, the ground and the water will be even colder than they are now. It will take a few weeks for them to warm up, and a few weeks more than that for the ocean to become swimmable for most people.

So what is it that seperates one season from another? One country or continent from another? I have pondered that whenever I've crossed a national border and when I took the ferry from the European to the Asian side of Istanbul. Why is one side of a narrow strait considered to be part of one continent, while the other side is part of another?

You probably know where this discussion is going. In fact, you probably knew before I did. It's led me to a question that I can ask only now: What is the line between one gender and the other? Of course I have no doubt that I am female; others have shared my certainty througout my transition, and even before it. However, in the eyes of many people--and the laws of most places--I have been female for little more than six months. You might say that, on some level, I see gender identity in the same way. After all, I feel so much more confident and have less need to explain or defend myself in daily situations. And I have noticed that I am seen and treated more as if I'm the woman that I am than I was even a few months ago.

Did my "spring" begin on the 7th of July? Or did I cross some line before or after that? I have had a State ID that identifies me as female since 2003, the year I began living full-time as a woman. Some people identified me as such well before that, even when I was lifting weights and riding 50 miles a day.

Perhaps it's a cliche to say that a boundary is a state of mind, or has to do with one. I felt that I was essentially female even in my macho he-man days. On the other hand, there's almost nothing about today that puts me in a "spring" state of mind, whatever that is.

Oh well. Spring semester it is. They seem to go by even more quickly than the fall semesters. Soon enough, a year will have passed since my operation. A year--now there's another boundary. It's a good one, but like all boundaries, it's a little strange nonetheless.

Well, at least I'm on this side of that boundary. And things are going well, so far. They can call this side or that side, or the boundary itself--or, for that matter, me--whatever they want. At least I know where I stand. I'd better: I'm wearing thin high heels today!

If you drew some kind of line at that last joke, I don't blame you!