Gender Schmender--Refusing to play by their margins, choosing to define my own (if any).
http://groups.myspace.com/genderschmender
ISAH--Refusing the stigma, choosing to recognize the differences between, and the validity of, every single body. http://groups.myspace.com/intersexes
Ground Rules & Recognitions
As expressed by the members of this community:
1) While posting in GS all persons and beings should treat each other with respect, kindness, and consideration.
2) There should be no name-calling, belittingling, or mean spirited joking.
3) GS will always strive to remain a safe place. Therefore, there will be no use of intimidation, or threats of violence of any kind, verbal, physical, or other.
4) GS will not tolerate advertisements posted as threads, except by special permission from a GS moderator. Advertisements shall be posted as bulletins only.
5) We recognize that social systems exist in whatever forms with whatever dynamics they are constructed with. How these systems are constructed depends on the permission (actions and inactions) of the systems' members. Each member of GS is a member of a social system; therefore, each member determines how safe GS will remain based upon their individual actions and inactions, and how those create ripple effects throughout the community.
Are you being harrassed at work for your lack of gender conformity?: You might be protected under sexual harrassment laws. Try this link for the US http://www.de2.psu.edu/harassment/legal/state.html (from another country, have a link? Message me.
Suicide Hotline for the US (I've called this line myself, they might put you on hold but its worth the wait..) 1-800-TALK (1-800-8255)
Gabriel's Live Journal Archive for Queer & Gender Theory
http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=fallen2gabriel
"Any space that is not safe for one group is not safe for any group, as at this point we all become part of a suspect population. "--Amiko-Gabriel
"It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin barefoot irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known, but to question it." (Jacob Bronowski)
"To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting."
--E.E. cummings (1894-1962)
"Normative genders = colonized consciousness." --Amiko-Gabriel Stocking
"It is the people who fail to fit the pattern whose legitimacy is questioned rather than [the legitimacy] of the pattern itself." From, Women & Men in World Cultures, Laura F. Klein, 2004
"It is not my body itself which throws society into disorder, it is those that would throw themselves into disorder because of how they think about my body..." (By Amiko-Gabriel Stocking)
"Stereotypes are an attempt to have the power & control of knowledge on a particular person or group." --Christine Garrett
"I wanted to work out how a norm actually materializes a body, how we might understand the materiality of the body to be not only invested with a norm, but in some sense animated by a norm, or contoured by a norm." --Judith Bulter
“Only a society that harbors inequality will generate the idea of equality; others do not need to.--Article 21, p.147 in Contexts: A Sociology Reader 2008”
"In a world of black and white, I am chartrues. Color over me all you want, I am still chartrues."--Jessie Combies (aka Wolf)
"Normal bodies are a figment of the politically motivated imagination." Amiko-Gabriel (fallen2gabriel)
This is an educational community. "Gender shmender" says it all. "Our docrine is that 'right is of no sex [or gender]'" (Frederick Douglass).
"There are as many sexes as there are people. " from Reconstructing Gender. Estelle Disch. 2003
John Stoltenberg: “How Men Have (A) Sex”
Welcome to GS! ^_^ whether you plan to just lurk threads and read with anonymity that's fine, or if you'd like to respond to threads or post a few of your own GS related threads, you are more than welcome to. ^_^
GS has been evolving with some specific goals in mind:
Teaching one another to break the habbit of binary-gender & sex tunnel vision, as there are more than two genders in this world, as well as non-genders, and there are certainly more than two sexes.
Teaching one another to reach beyond the chains of social pressure when it comes to building our own identities.
Teaching one another to critically analyze the messages and social patterns of identity construction happening in parts of the world today, and questioning everything.
Bringing one another awareness of invisable sex and gender minority groups that have been silenced or hidden by not only mainstreem culture, but also by some members of the queer community as well.
GS also has the goal to help people realize that language really is the heart of culture, and culture builds the frame work that constructs much of a society's concept of reality. Language also affects our consciousness of possibilities. Because of this, attention to terminology is heavily emphasized, in the hopes that people will learn to begin deconstructing social categories rooting out oppression, and in effect, change the world, one person at a time.
The Foundations of Gender Schmender:
1) Exploring cultural constructions of genders and bodies
2) Learning about multiple body ideologies beyond male and female, including, but not limited to, 'Intersexes' (see Jon Stoltenberg quote)
3) Discussing perspectives of Genders and bodies as the same, different, existing, and not existing.
4) GID (Gender Identity Disorder) is a label used by Psychology and medical fields in order to declare gender deviance an illness. While some people might agree with this, others may feel that gender deviance is not an illness, it is as natural an expression as any gender expression could be. It is for some, an expression of realizing, or feeling in someway, contradictions within the social institution of gender. It could be a social revolution, a movement for human equality, to abolish gendered oppression. Gender deviation from cultural norms can be a lot of things, to a lot of different people.
4) Using bodies and genders interchangeably can perpetuate inequality and discrimination, when the mention leaves no room for them to be considered separate and not interdependent, or even other ways of looking at them.
"...If they say "it [an identity] deviates" I ask "Deviates from what?" Because the underlying assumtion will be "The natural" and yet, the 'what' which is supposed to be 'the natural' is still just another socially constructed category."--fallen2gabriel
We've now got a new Gender Schmender Website Or, for our partner community ISAH, follow below URL
Intersexes Are Human http://groups.myspace.com/intersexes |
Aaron_FTM