Feminism

The Unkindest Cut

~ Cheryl ~ 6 Comments

While I was out and about it Bath yesterday much outrage was being vented on Twitter about female genital mutilation being performed at Cornell University. Given the people who originally raised the issue, I thought this was probably something to do with cultural issues and the bizarre tradition of “female circumcision”. However, having looked into the story myself I discovered that this wasn’t anything to do with stopping women having orgasms. Indeed, the surgeon concerned, insensitive and stupid though he may be, was at least worrying about whether his patients victims would still have sensation in their mutilated organs.

So what was going on here? The surgeon, Dix Poppas, was cutting bits off little girls’ clitorises because they had been identified as “too large”. Not, of course, too large to be able to perform their function, or too large and thereby posing a risk to their owners’ health, but simply too large for the comfort of people who have arbitrarily determined how big a clitoris ought to be.

PZ Myers is amongst those who expressed outrage yesterday. His comments include this:

It is a non-issue; five year old girls will not be judged on the size of their clitorises, and even adult women should not…

Well no, they shouldn’t be, but they most certainly are. Indeed, I’m pretty certain that the whole nonsense surrounding Lady Gaga’s possible intersex status resulted in a huge flood of desperate parents contacting Dr. Poppas and begging for his help. Indeed, that might have been exactly the thing that caused people to notice his shoddy little operation.

I’m sure that Poppas had a nice little earner going anyway because there will always be idiots who think that a larger-than-average clitoris will “cause a girl to grow up lesbian”. That, however, is unproven speculation. Most parents are not daft enough to fall for that sort of thing. What really terrifies otherwise loving and caring parents is that their little princess might have to go through life bearing the stigma of being “really a man”. And yes, Dr. Myers, even girls as young as five will be judged in that way.

So yes, what Poppas is doing is appalling, but the people he is preying on are not just dupes who have swallowed nonsense about preventing kids growing up gay, they are responding to a very real threat to their daughters. And as long as we, as a society, continue to hold that making fun of trans people (of all types, not just intersex, with the usual apologies to intersex people who hate being included in the trans umbrella) then parents will continue to panic about issues such as this. I am talking to you, Press Complaints Commission; I am talking to you, BBC; I am talking to you, Stephen Fry. It is your willingness to continue to use trans people as an acceptable target for vicious and demeaning “jokes” that is causing these little girls to be treated so appallingly.

Gender Science Breakthrough

~ Cheryl

Via the National Institute of Medical Research I have learned of a major breakthrough in the understanding of how mammals (at least, but remember that other types of animals have very different sex systems to ours) develop major sex characteristics. We have known for a long time that physical sex is much more complex than simply having XX or XY chromosomes. According to this article we know understand the exact mechanism by which a body will develop either testes or ovaries. Of particular importance is the fact that this mechanism involves a gene that is not on either the X or Y chromosome, and is active for only a very short period in the embryo’s development. There are therefore definite possibilities for things to go wrong in an embryo with perfectly normal X, and Y if it exists, chromosomes.

Even more startlingly (and potentially annoying for feminist separatists) is the following:

The research challenges several long held assumptions, such that female development happens by default, or that once formed, mature tissues are immutable or fixed.

Really we shouldn’t need this sort of discovery to put an end to the nonsense that human beings exist in only two, mutually exclusive, genders, and I don’t suppose the religious fundamentalists will believe it anyway, but hopefully it will help convince courts and governments.

Medical science being what it is, much of the talk around the discovery is about how it may help us “cure disorders”, but equally it opens up some fairly radical possibilities for gender medicine. My position, as ever, is that brains are much more complicated than bodies, and we should apply whatever treatments help the patients be happier as themselves rather than try to enforce social norms and expect the patients to adjust mentally.

(Hat tip to Sarah Graham and Christine Burns via Twitter).

Linkage, Etc.

~ Cheryl ~ 5 Comments

Herewith, a bunch of things that I have been meaning to post about.

– If you are in the UK, and have the bandwidth, please download Paul Cornell’s Pulse from the BBC iPlayer. The BBC will be counting downloads when deciding whether to commission a series.

– If I’d been more alert yesterday I would have posted about this and got there before The Guardian, but I’m glad they picked up the story. A woman in New York is suing Citibank because, she alleges, they fired her for being too attractive. Apparently her male colleagues were unable to concentrate on their work with her around. For the benefit of those straight male and lesbian readers who would like to check out Ms. Debrahlee Lorenzana’s alleged hotness, here’s The Village Voice with some photos.

– Subterranean is offering a free story, “Elegy for a Young Elk”, by Hannu Rajaniemi. (Yes, he’s one of my Finnish friends. He’s also very good. Just ask Charlie Stross.)

– The New Yorker has published a list of 20 hot new writers under the age of 40. It includes Karen Russell, who featured prominently in the article I bought for last month’s Clarkesworld. Some of the other writers listed have written weird stuff as well. Two of them have been in Best American Fantasy. Of course this didn’t stop people around the blogosphere complaining that the list didn’t include any SF&F writers. Matt Cheney is suitably scathing.

– Meanwhile in The Guardian top Spanish writer, Carlos Ruiz Zafón, has been picking his favorite Gothic novels. The man has excellent taste. Now I’m annoyed with myself for missing his appearance on Sky’s The Book Show.

– Talking of The Book Show, also at Hay this week there was discussion amongst historians about the propriety of fictionalizing historical characters. The Guardian summarizes. I mention this for the benefit for Guy Gavriel Kay, who trots out this argument regularly when asked why he writes fantasy rather than (presumably more acceptable) historical novels.

– My congratulations to everyone at SpaceX for the successful launch of Falcon 9.

– And finally, an amateur astronomer in Australia has shot film of a bright flash on Jupiter. The prevailing theory is that the planet was struck by a large meteor, and the flash was the result of it burning up in Jupiter’s atmosphere. However, we remember how dismissive Ogilvy the astronomer was when he first saw those flashes on the surface of Mars. Who knows what might be coming.

Attention Oxford

~ Cheryl

If you live in or near Oxford you may be interested in an event on Monday night (June 7th). It is called Trans-Script Oxford, and it is part of the 2010 Oxford Pride festival. The event promises “A night of poetry, stand-up comedy, Monologues and drinks!” In particular my good friend Roz Kaveney will be performing. If you want to know more, there is a Facebook Event.

I Haz Government

~ Cheryl ~ 4 Comments

There’s been a lot of talk of late in my corner of the blogosphere about how the Tory – LibDem coalition will just lead to the same old Tory policies we would have got with a Tory majority. In some cases, of course, that may well be proved true. But not, apparently, in every case.

There is an International Congress on Gender Identity and Human Rights taking place in Barcelona this week. People are gathering there from all over the world (including my friend Masen Davis from the Transgender Law Center in San Francisco). I’m not sure who is attending from the UK, but our government, in the person of Equalities Minster Lynne Featherstone (LibDem, Hornsey & Wood Green) has sent them a message. This is what she wrote:

The UK Government is totally committed to creating a society that is fair for everyone. We are committed to tackling prejudice and discrimination against transgender people at home and around the world.

The Government wishes the International Congress on Gender Identity and Human Rights every success when considering how to improve the rights of transgender individuals around the world and in tackling transphobia.

We need concerted government action to tear down barriers and help to build a fairer society for transgender people.

That such a message could be sent with a Conservative Prime Minister in No. 10 is quite miraculous. It might not have any practical effect, but it is worth it if only for the fury that it will cause amongst certain parts of the Tory party.

Elemental, My Dear Sandra

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

Last night on Twitter various people starting linking to a “periodic table” of women in SF (PDF). Apparently it had been circulated at WisCon. That seemed a nice thing to do, but being on the iPhone I thought no more of it. Then I discovered I was on it! (Thanks Susan!) Let me put that in context.

Firstly I am on a list of just over 100 people that also includes Ursula K. Le Guin, Angela Carter and Octavia Butler. I am staggered, and deeply honored.

Also, I am on it, while people like Liz Williams, Storm Constantine, Pamela Zoline, Kelley Eskridge, Helen Merrick and Timmi Duchamp (to name but a few) are not. Obviously Sandra had to make some choices, so I’m not complaining about people being left off. Also she did provide a few blank spaces for people to add their own favorites, which was a great idea. But that I got on and those I named above didn’t??? Wow.

(Having said that, this does highlight what I believe to be a particular blind spot that WisCon people have when it comes to Liz Williams. She has written some really good feminist SF and y’all ought to go and read it.)

I think, also, that I am the only person on the list who is there for what was basically fan activity. Everyone else on the list is a professional of some sort.

Those of us with chemistry degrees immediately started wondering which element we had been assigned. Last night I thought I had been given Lead, which I found amusing. However, on closer inspection on a full screen I see that Sandra’s table does not have the same number of columns as the periodic table of elements, so direct comparisons are difficult. Numerically I am #71, and the element with that number is Lutetium. That’s a rare earth element named after the Roman city of Lutetia, now Paris. As with many such things, there was some dispute over naming rights to begin with, and Wikipedia says that in Germany it was originally called Cassiopium, which is rather cool.

I note also that I have been positioned directly between Ellen Klages and Nicola Griffith. This could be interesting. 🙂

But by far the best thing about this is the awesome video that Sandra made to showcase the project. Watch, it is lovely.

And Sandra, THANK YOU!!!

Family Feuds

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

Jed Hartman has an interesting post up titled “Privilege and allies” in which he links to a number of useful articles about how to be a good ally to marginalized and oppressed groups. This is good stuff. There’s a depressing tendency of people on the left to claim to support all sorts of oppressed groups, but to not actually think much about what that support means, and how they might have to change their behavior and thinking to make it real.

On the other hand, it is also possible to go over the top with the ally thing. As I have said before, and will probably have to say again, an “ally” is not someone who defers to you in all things. An ally is someone who joins with you to pursue a mutual goal, because you both have an interest in achieving that goal. The theory is that by working together you will have a better chance of reaching the goal.

The reason I am reminded of this is yet another blow-up about mis-representation of trans people in the media. Via Monica Roberts I am led to this open letter by a trans activist group to TV producer Ryan Murphy. I should note here that I have never seen an episode of Nip/Tuck, or indeed anything else that Mr. Murphy has produced, so I am not competent to judge the substance of the complaint. What stopped me short was this sentence:

We expect this from people who are ignorant of our community, but Ryan, as a gay man who purports to be an ally of everyone in the LGBT community, (and I would hope that includes transsexual women as well, not just gay men of privilege), you are held to a higher standard of behavior.

My emphasis.

Now obviously it is disappointing when someone that you thought was an ally does something that offends you. But should you hold such people to a higher standard of behavior than people who you recognize as enemies?

The LGBT community is a rainbow alliance of groups with very different interests. Gay men and lesbians are potentially two warring communities on opposite sides of the gender war. LGB people are primarily about sexual orientation and T people about gender identity, which are two very different things. Even within the trans community people have dramatically different views of what it means to be trans. Of course there is common ground as well, but it is not surprising that parts of this alliance do not always pull in the same direction, and sometimes come into conflict. In addition, people screw up, often because they don’t have a good understanding of the concerns of their supposed allies. How you deal with that is important.

Let’s think about this in military terms for a minute. When the enemy fires at you you shrug and say, “oh, it is them again”, and return fire in kind. But if someone in the allied army camped next to you fires on you, even if it was only by mistake, because you hold them to a higher standard of behavior you immediately order an all out attack. Meanwhile your enemies sit back and smirk.

So let’s be smart about this, people. Sure, allies sometime do stupid things. When they do, talk to them about it, and explain why you thought it was stupid. Be prepared also to be told that, for that ally, it was an important thing to do. You expect your allies to respect your needs, and you should respect theirs too. That’s especially true in a coalition of oppressed minorities. Because if you don’t do this, if you insist on holding your allies to a higher standard of behavior and attack them far more viciously than you attack the enemy, you’ll soon end up with no allies at all.

You Should Be Listening

~ Cheryl

Seriously, if you have any interest at all in writing, or writing about, science fiction and fantasy literature, you should listen to the podcast conversations between Gary K. Wolfe and Jonathan Strahan. The latest one, which includes discussion of feminist science fiction and China Miéville, can be found here. Jonathan says they are planning to make it a regular event. This is a very good thing.

Some Gender Linkage

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Here’s some gender material I have been saving up.

– A while back I linked to an interesting set of questions about trans people in the New York Times. That was just Part I of a series. Here’s the whole thing: Part I, Part II, Part III.

– Pauline Park give some interesting information about LGBT traditions amongst Asian and Pacific Islander people.

– Encouraged by their success with “Intelligent Design”, religious fundamentalists have set up a fake academic society of pediatricians to promote fake anti-LGBT “science” to schools. Mercedes Allen has details.

– If you are in the UK, there’s a new organization that needs your support: Trans Media Watch.

– Based on a simplistic view of mammal biology, people often claim that sex is intrinsic to all animals: your chromosomes determine whether you are male or female, they say, and you can’t alter that. Of course we now know that not all mammals, indeed not all humans, have such simple biology. Chromosome mix-ups are surprisingly common, and chromosomes don’t necessarily correlate with gender identity. But the system we use is not common to all animals. Insects have a different system, and birds are different again (Wikipedia has a brief and non-technical overview). And recent research has discovered that in fruit flies most cells in the body are identical, regardless of sex.

Going Geek

~ Cheryl

Last night I attended a Girl Geek Dinner in Bristol. It was a lot of fun. The speaker was Dr. Julie Greensmith of Nottingham University. Julie’s main academic interest is in analysing large quantities of data, and she gave me a very interesting lead for my energy economics work, but her talk last night was about something much more fun – roller coasters.

One of the more interesting areas of modern scientific research is bio-feedback systems. Basically the idea is to monitor people’s bodily functions, and modify some experience on the basis of that. As you can imagine, it has a whole lot of science fictional application, all the way from the armour worn by the military in Starship Troopers to sex toys. You can expect to see it turning up in video games fairly soon. But the work Julie was doing was aimed at allowing theme park owners to better tailor their rides to the needs and desires of their customers. As academic research projects go, that’s pretty neat.

The work is being carried out in collaboration with an organization called Thrill Laboratory, who seem to be a lot of fun.

Some Quick Linkage

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

Because I have been too busy staring at airline web sites trying to minimize the cost of the Worldcon trip to do serious blogging.

– Damien G. Walter makes the case for serious fantasy on the Guardian book blog.

– Our right wing loonies in the UK generally don’t have bombs, guns and pretty white uniforms, but they do stand for Parliament.

– Joe Hill’s magnificent collection, 20th Century Ghosts, is currently on sale for 99c to Kindle customers.

– People of Canada, your trans community needs you.

Thank You, Mr. President

~ Cheryl ~ 6 Comments

Given that last year I wrote about the inhuman treatment meted out to Janice Langbehn and Lisa Pond by a Miami hospital, it is most definitely appropriate that I also note that President Obama has taken steps to try to ensure that this sort of thing never happens again.

Of course he can’t eliminate prejudice overnight, but this should at least make hospitals think twice before discriminating against LGBT patients, and also provide for legal redress if they do.

I note also that the WaPo article includes the following clause:

respect patients’ choices about who may make critical health-care decisions for them

This is key for trans people, because it means that they should be able to object to “concerned” family members ordering hospital staff to cut off their medication or even reverse their transitions. Sadly trans people are often at much more risk from close family than anyone else, and allowing them to choose who has the right to make health care decisions for them is absolutely crucial to their well-being.

Immigration in Europe

~ Cheryl ~ 5 Comments

On of the depressing things about my recent troubles with US immigration has been the number of people who have assumed that this is a uniquely American phenomenon, and that every other country in the world treats travelers and prospective immigrants fairly. This, I’m sorry to say, is rubbish. Indeed, one of the reasons why I and other white, middle-class people are suddenly having trouble with the US is that the Americans have stopped giving privileged treatment to white, middle-class people and now treat them almost as badly as they treat everyone else.

As to Europe, if you want to know how we treat prospective economic migrants, try this BBC story from last year, or this Guardian story from today.

Mainly, however, I want you to read this, because one of the most shameful aspects of UK immigration policy is their persistent habit of turning away LGBT people who are likely to be executed if they are returned to their “home” countries. This is not just a case of preventing me from attending science fiction conventions, it is all about saving a young woman from at least a savage beating, and quite possibly saving her life. If you want to get mad about what immigration authorities do, sign this petition to help Kiana Firouz now.

Also, if you are in the UK, do not vote Conservative in the coming election. (I’d add don’t vote BNP or UKIP either, but I somehow doubt that anyone planning to do so would read this blog.)

You Don’t Have To Be Crazy…

~ Cheryl ~ 11 Comments

It being election time here in the UK, the TV is full of party-political broadcasts. The latest fashion is for celebrity endorsements. David Cameron has apparently being hitting the campaign trail with a pop star in tow (or possibly the other way around). Meanwhile Labour has put out a broadcast staring Eddie Izzard.

Why, out of all the other things going on in the election, do I find this worthy of mention? Well, because Mr. Izzard is a well-known transvestite. It is quite remarkable that Labour should choose him as a front man. But in America, if the American Psychiatric Association gets its way, Eddie would be of much less use to politicians, because he’d be certifiably crazy. That’s because the APA wants to stigmatize every man who occasionally wears what they deem to be gender-inappropriate clothing as a lunatic. It doesn’t matter how otherwise sane and stable the man is, the mere fact that he sometimes wears “women’s clothes” is, in the APA’s eyes, enough to mark him out as suffering from a mental illness that will require treatment.

The idiocy of the proposal becomes even more obvious when you note that the reverse does not apply. According to the APA, a man who tries to look like a woman is mad, but a woman who tries to look like a man is perfectly sane. This tells you everything you need to know about the motivation behind the new “diagnosis”.

So, US readers, pop over here, read a bit more, and then sign the petition. You don’t have to be crazy to do so.

Orwell Prizes

~ Cheryl

Nope, this isn’t a science fiction award. The Orwell Prizes are given for political writing in the fields of non-fiction books, mainstream journalism and blogging. I’m writing about them because this year’s short lists have recently been announced and one of the finalists in the blogging category is Laurie Penny. I don’t always agree with Laurie’s politics, but she’s a great writer and is generally very good on feminist issues. I am keeping my fingers crossed for her.

The Power of Fear

~ Cheryl

Oliver Morton’s Twitter feed today contained a link to a new article on the Nature web site. It reports on a study of children with a rare neurological condition called Williams Syndrome that causes them to never develop a fear of strangers. The study concludes that such children also do not develop racial stereotypes. It is the clearest connection yet between racism and fear of “the other”.

Obviously such studies are highly controversial and I recommend that you read the Nature article before making “yes, but” comments. The authors of the study do seem to have tried hard to control for external factors. They do not draw any conclusions about whether genetic factors are involved in developing stereotypes. Because the syndrome is rare, the numbers involved in the study are inevitably small.

Another interesting result of the study is that the Williams Syndrome kids appear to have developed exactly the same gender stereotypes as kids without the condition. It isn’t clear whether there is a different mechanism involved here, or if the result is simply a consequence of gender stereotypes being developed at an earlier age.

Europe Takes A Stand

~ Cheryl

There are many reasons why the likes of UKIP and the BNP dislike the European Union. One of them is that Europe has always been ahead of the UK when it comes to LGBT rights. One March 31st the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe adopted a wide-ranging policy statement on those issues. You can read the whole thing here. I particularly liked this bit:

Bearing in mind the principle that neither cultural, traditional nor religious values, nor the rules of a “dominant culture” can be invoked to justify hate speech or any other form of discrimination, including on grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity;

Oh look, there’s an election on in the UK at the moment. Guess which party that has allied itself to right-wing extremists in Europe is managing to alienate the LGBT community.

TDoV Linkage

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

As I suspected might be the case, very few people did posts for the Transgender Day of Visibility. It does seem a bit like painting a target on your forehead. But there’s a good post over at Feministing that makes the same sort of points I did, only rather better.

Also as I suspected, I also spotted one high-profile trans activist trying to use the day to guilt frightened trans people into coming out. I’m not going to link to that, but I will link to Donna Rose patiently explaining why everyone’s situation is different.

Transgender Day of Visibility

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

What’s that? Another campaign day? I’m afraid so, but this one has its uses.

The Transgender Day of Remembrance has been going for 11 years now, and shows no sign of being any less needed that it was when it started. Trans people are still at great risk of murder than almost any segment of the population. But TDoR is a very sad event, and no community should be remembered only for sadness, so someone came up with the idea of having a Transgender Day of Visibility [Facebook], something that celebrated the lives of trans people rather than commemorated their deaths.

That, of course, is not an easy thing to organize. Heck, even now, even in British universities, even gay people are frightened to be open. Here’s a quote from an article in yesterday’s Guardian Education:

While more than 90% of LGBT students are out to their university friends, almost two-thirds chose not to reveal their sexual orientation to academic staff for fear of discrimination; 15% of students feared losing the financial support – which the government assumes will be forthcoming – of their parents if they came out; LGBT students also reported significant negative treatment on the grounds of their sexual orientation from 50% of their fellow students and from 10% of academic staff.

The article talks exclusively about homophobia and sexual orientation. It doesn’t touch on trans people at all save for tacking a T on the end of LGB, so I have no idea whether those figures include trans people or not. However, trans people are generally much more frightened of being open about their identity than LGB people.

Today’s most visible trans person is Amanda Gonzalez-Andujar, because she’s today’s murder statistic. And sure enough at least one newspaper has chosen to deliberately insult her memory by describing her as a “man”.

Yesterday the spotlight was on Caster Semenya once again, because the IAAF are refusing the release the results of her “gender tests”, refusing to talk to her lawyers, and refusing to allow her to compete in her sport.

Much of the hatred and distrust of trans people arises from ignorance and fear. People still cling to the idea that all creatures come in two basic forms: male and female; and that anything that takes us outside that simple binary is somehow unnatural. Yes science journals are full of articles about the rich variety of gender in the natural world. There were two yesterday: one about flies, the other about olive trees. It would be rather odd if human biology was so simple when nothing else is, and of course it isn’t. We are, after all, rather complex animals.

The trouble is that if trans people are afraid to go public about their identity, how are people going to learn not to be ignorant and frightened? Indeed, how are they to understand at all? That’s a question that gay philosopher, John Corvino, tackles today at 365 Gay.

That makes this pretty much a Catch 22 situation. No one should try to force trans people to be more open, especially if it puts them at risk. Equally society as a whole needs to talk more about trans people, and it needs to get it right when it does so. Which is why I go on about it so much here.

I’m not going to point at anyone today, even if they are open. I’ll wait until tomorrow and see what posts I can find around the blogosphere to point you at. In addition, those of you who are going to be at Eastercon (and can drag yourselves away from the excitement of the UK 2014 Worldcon Bid Launch) might like to attend this:

Alternative Sexualities in SF Literature and Media. 9pm-10pm. Connaught. How are alternative sexualities and lifestyles represented in SF literature? How have these approaches changed over time? How accurate a picture do writers give of poly/gay/bi/trans people? Did SF help pave the way for wider acceptance of sexual minorities? No children without a responsible adult. Lilian Edwards, Persephone Hazard, Ian Jackson (mod), Roz Kaveney and Farah Mendlesohn.

Note that it too talks mainly about sexuality, so whoever put the panel together probably thinks that being trans is a “sexual orientation”. I’m sure the panel will take issue with that. Also at least one of the panelists has read my undelivered ICFA paper.