GenderBendy

One more email to the Plain Dealer about Cemia Dove

Dear Ted [Diadiun, Cleveland Plain Dealer Reader Representative],

One more thought with regard to the PD's coverage of Cemia Dove. At least one other news service is getting right:

Connor Kiesel's report

I refer to the short printed article, not the accompanying video.

OK, I've said my piece, and will pester you no further. I hope I've helped you see trans people not as freaks, jokes, crazies, or villains, but as people simply trying to live authentic lives after having been dealt a tough genetic hand at birth. It's hard having a body out of synch with who you know yourself to be, even before you encounter the world's prejudice, ignorance, and fear.

Regards,

~Lisa~

The Plain Dealer just can't get it right about Cemia Dove

I have been following the The Cleveland Plain Dealer's coverage of the murder of trans girl Cemia Dove with increasing dismay. The transadvocate has a good in-depth analysis of the original coverage here. A PD article yesterday, reporting an arrest in the case, which continues to mis-gender Ms. Dove and deny her any name but her birth name is here (update - as of 4p ET on 5/5/13, this article has apparently been taken off the PD website). And a column today by PD reader representative Ted Diadiun is here.

Here is the e-mail I have just sent to Mr. Diadiun:

Dear Mr. Diadiun,

I have just read both Mark Holan's 5/4 article on an arrest in the Cemia Dove case and your column today about the PD's coverage of Ms. Dove's murder. I am sorry that some of the response the paper got to its coverage was vitriolic - there's never any call for that. On the other hand, I feel compelled to suggest, in a most respectful way, that everyone at the PD involved in this coverage still just doesn't get it. 

I am once again appalled, as I was when I saw the original and edited versions of the articles about the discovery of Ms. Dove's body, that the paper continues to use only her male birth name. True, it is probably still her legal name - I doubt she had enough privilege or support in her life to change it - but it only took me a couple of minutes of internet searching, based on the information in the first versions of the story in your paper, to find a couple of other names she clearly preferred. Even if you felt compelled to mention her birth name, you could have mentioned her female name(s) too - in the great majority of the article, ideally.

I am also deeply saddened that you re-used the same awful photos from the original coverage. Again, a few minutes on the internet would have led your reporter to Ms. Dove's facebook presence or to her youtube channel, where you would have found plenty of kinder pictures. The pictures you persist in using rob her of her dignity, or worse - they make her a laughingstock.

And, although you even say in your column how the pronoun issue could be resolved in future by setting up the use of "she" with an explanatory note, you don't do this yourself. Avoiding pronouns altogether, as you do in your column, ducks the issue and is not an adequate response to the problems in your coverage.

The simple truth of the transgender experience is that people are the gender they say they are, period. Until your coverage, and your coverage of your coverage, of the murder of Cemia Dove acknowledges the truth that she was a female person, you continue to tacitly condone and perpetuate the prejudice which led to this horrific crime against a disenfranchised and helpless girl.

Please, dig deeper. Do some more research. Question your prejudices. Try harder to understand. Because, so far, up to and including your column, The PD's coverage of this tragic story is truly shameful. 

Respectfully,

~Lisa~

p.s., send the same evening:

Hello again. Upon reflection, and having calmed down a bit, I'd like to tone down a few words and phrases in my last few paragraphs:

Until your coverage, and your coverage of your coverage, of the murder of Cemia Dove acknowledges the truth that she was a female person, you continue to tacitly condone and perpetuate the same sorts of prejudice which no doubt contributed to this horrific crime.

Please, dig deeper. Do some more research. Question your assumptions. Try harder to understand. I have already asked the same of your reporter and editors. Ms. Dove was evidently murdered simply for trying to be who she was. The least you can do in your coverage is afford her some of the basic dignity and respect in death that she was denied in life. 

~L~

 

Before the lecture

At 7pm this evening there is going to be a lecture here on the USM Portland campus by Dr. John Broida, chair of the psychology department. It seems to have two titles: "How do you know if you are a girl or a boy?" and "The differences between the sexes: are they the cause of differences between the genders?" I plan to attend, and I thought I'd write a quick post before I go so that my reporting of my state of mind going in is not tainted by the event itself. I'll report after too.

There are two things on my mind heading to this talk. The first is a hope that I will learn something about the latest science around gender. According to my (somewhat desultory) research, there is no consensus yet among scientists about exactly where gender comes from. (To be clear, by  "gender" here I mean a person's sense of self as masculine, feminine, or some combination or negation of the two.) Is gender innate, or a learned social construct, or some combination of the two? How closely is it tied to biology, specifically, to the sex of the body you are born with? Different answers to these questions can lead to sharply different explanations of what it is to be trans - a birth defect, a psychiatric disorder, the next step of evolution - which in turn can lead to real consequences in the lives of millions of trans people. So, these are politically and socially loaded issues.

The other element of my state of mind is a readiness to defend my gender should Dr. Broida answer his own question with a determinism which implies that I don't exist or am deluded. I Googled him, and there was an incident a decade ago in which a student complained that he had made racist and homophobic remarks. The case ended with a settlement to Dr. Broida from the University, apparently after a U. official mishandled the institution's response. On the other hand, I gather Dr. Broida includes in his lecturing toolkit a willingness to provoke for the sake of instruction, which seems commendable, and I also hear that there are LGBT students who have spoken highly of him. Still, he gets mixed reviews on ratemyprofessors.com. One recent review remarks, "Likes to use intimidation and reverse psychology on students."

In short, he's a straight white man in a position of power, and he sounds like he might be a bit of a bully.

Well, it's just about time to get myself over to the planetarium. I  haven't dressed out of my ordinary for the occasion, but I did give a thought to a solidly femme presentation this morning, and I've done the second-shave-of-the-day I do on days when I'm going to be face to face with people in the evening. Will Dr. B, do you suppose, let me live?

Gender-neutral pronouns: a new proposal

As a trans word geek I fervently agree that we need gender-neutral pronouns in English. I'm concerned, though, that the ones I’m hearing used, ze and hir, don’t get far enough away from the old pronouns, and that this leads to problems.

For example, the only way to separate hir and her is to stress the vowel sound, but object pronouns are often unstressed, so the two words end up sounding the same. Likewise, in certain elisions, ze and he sound alike: “She says ze did it.” And ze and hir have another problem too: they share no letters, and so look and sound unrelated. A new pronoun set ought to be as cohesive and intuitive as possible, or it won’t catch on.

What we need to fix these issues is new sounds, and the same starting letter for every word in the set. My choice for this letter is distinctive, gender-neutral, and previously unused for pronouns in English, and I love the symbolism in its shape of two becoming one. I propose a new pronoun set based on the letter V.

I am not the first to use this letter; the set ve/ver/vis/vis/verself was put forward by New Zealand writer Keri Hulme in the 1980’s. The reason I’m not just championing Keri’s pronouns is because I think she fell in the same trap the inventor(s) of ze and hir did: she used endings from the existing pronouns. There's only one letter of difference between ver and her, vis and his, ve and he, so consonant-dropping and elision are both going to lead to trouble, e.g., "I believe ve did."

It’s too bad, because otherwise ve would work fine for a subject pronoun. It’s short, as a subject pronoun should be, and it features a solid long vowel sound which, depending on the speaker’s need, can either be punched for emphasis or more or less dropped for rapid speech. 

So, what we need is a new long vowel sound with the same properties, and among the remaining possibilities one stands out. It’s otherwise absent from English personal pronouns, and of all the choices it leads to the most inuitive spelling: the lovely long O sound. For our new subject pronoun I therefore propose vo.

Object pronouns are often unstressed and/or appear in the middle of sentences, so for maximum clarity and flow of speech we need a short vowel sound and an easily elided final consonant, both new. For our new object pronoun I propose ven. Note how this word remains distinctive when, in unstressed positions, the initial consonant is dropped: “Give it to ‘en.”

For the two forms of possessive (determiner and pronoun, if you're a grammar geek), simplest is to combine our unique new constant and vowel sounds with the established final hard Z sound (preserving the convention of spelling it with an S): ves. And finally, for the reflexive, the same straightforward approach gives us veself.

And, one bonus idea: Since it would certainly often be pronounced as such, vo could alternatively be spelled v’.

So, the whole new proposed pronoun set is vo(v')/ven/ves/ves/veself.

None of these words is already a word or a homonym of a word (except for the Venn of Venn Diagrams - an opportunity for a clever visual pun, but otherwise harmless). All of them are previously ungendered. As a set they combine strong unity with crucial new sounds. They work at all levels of emphasis and formality. They are elegant in their simplicity, and fun to say. The new letters might make them a little hard to get used to at first, but I believe this is a pronoun set people might actually learn and use.

I showed these words to my friend Alex, and vo says v'loves them, veself. In ves opinion, they’re just what we need, so I said they were a gift from me to ven. I told ven they are ves to keep.

If you like these new pronouns, please feel free to start using them, and by all means please forward, repost, reblog and retweet everywhere...help spread the pronoun reVOlution! :-)

Yours for a brigher future,

Lisa Bunker
www.genderbendy.com

Editorial note (5/28/12): I've rewritten this post a couple of times, trying to get the pronoun set just right. Having done some field-testing, I've settled on vo(v')/ven/ves/ves/veself as my final proposal.

Maine's Transgender Revolution video

I'm turning 50 next Tuesday. If I figure out what that means, you can be sure I'll post about it. ;-)

In the meantime, video is now available online of a panel discussion I recently helped put together about the past, present, and future of the trans experience in Maine. The panel was presented by the Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity in Maine on March 21st, 2012, on the USM Portland campus, and it went really well. My fellow panelists - Margaret Cook, Jamie-Lynn Emma Kane, and Alex Roan - were all excellent, sharing personal stories and general insights in a wide-ranging conversation which was variously funny, touching, profound, and inspirational. We also had some wonderful input from the audience.

Links:  Part One  Part Two

Brief personal viewing notes: I hate my voice still. I have *got* to do something about that. But, I thought I rocked the dress pretty well...panel day turned out to be the first really warm day of spring I anticipated in this post.

Anyway, if you decide to check any of the video out, happy viewing! :-)

Inmate Sex Change Prevention Act struck down in Wisconsin

Victory in a fight it's a shame had to be fought. From aclu.org:

"At trial, Wisconsin made the disturbing argument that this law was really for the good of the transgender prisoners, since denying them hormone therapy prevented or reduced the feminizing affects of that medication thereby reducing the risk of their assault by the male prisoners with whom they were housed."

To which the court responded in part, "Refusing to provide effective treatment for a serious medical condition serves no valid penological purpose and amounts to torture."

Complete story here.

The Trans Explosion

The article I wrote recently for Out in Maine, the LGBT quarterly supplement to the Portland Phoenix, has been posted on line. In the article I assert that trans really seems to be *happening* right now in crucial ways, and, using local examples in Maine, explore how personal trans narratives are driving this change and vice versa. If I have piqued your interest, you can check it out here...

Out of a flame war, pandemic love

Last night my 19-year old daughter Madeleine posted on facebook some whimsical wordplay based on terms she is trying out to describe her sexuality. She has already claimed “pansexual,” (which I also am coming to prefer for myself), meaning attracted to people based on who they are as people, regardless of biological sex or gender; and she’s trying out the word “demisexual”, meaning not tending to feel sexual attraction except to a person with whom one has first become emotionally intimate (which I also like for myself...I hope you don’t mind, dearest, that I’m co-opting your words). “Demisexual” is a new-minted word, courtesy of the asexuality movement, for an old-fashioned idea: sex as an adjunct to, an extension and expression of, love. So Mad’s line was that she’s a “pandemic romantic,” which, I don’t know about you, but I think that’s funny.

A few of her friends posted light-hearted comments, and then one particular friend, whom I will call X, posted this: “‘Pansexual’ is an orientation. ‘Demisexual’ is not. Neither is ‘romantic’. Just sayin'.”

An escalation ensued. Points got misunderstood, feelings got hurt, and what could have been a substantive conversation about the complexities of identity quickly turned personal. An hour and 40-some posts later, several people had posted things they are probably regretting today (if they’re done fuming), my daughter had defriended X, and various friends both in cyber and real space were giving her hugs in commiseration for having been the unwitting trigger of, and scorched figure at the center of, a doozy of a flame war.

This incident has helped me crystallize some thoughts about sex, gender, and queer identity. First of all, I respectfully disagree with X. Demisexuality and being a romantic *are* both orientations. In fact, in a way, they are more radical orientations than the L, G, and B of LGBT, because, just as pansexuality challenges the unquestioned assumption behind these letters that gender matters, they challenge the unquestioned assumption that sex matters. They are a “none of the above” option. They say: “If I, whoever I turn out to be, should happen to want to go to bed with my sweetie, whoever my sweetie turns out to be, it will be because I love my sweetie and my sweetie loves me. Love is different from sex and knows no gender, and love is what matters most to me.”

I am *not* saying that LGB folk don’t understand or care about love. Completely not. But queer culture does seem to me to be as obsessed with sex as our culture as a whole is. I don’t really have a problem with that, though as a person who cares less about sex than love it makes me feel marginalized at both cultural levels. And I could hardly blame people fighting for equality for their sexual identities if they felt threatened by the idea that sex doesn’t matter. I do have a problem, though, when it becomes politically incorrect to speak of non-sexual or only-incidentally-sexual love.

And, I *am* saying that the emphasis on traditional concepts of gender inherent in the definitions of L, G, and B sometimes feels inimical to the interests of us T folk. My dear LGB friends: I thank you most fervently for the enormous amount of help and support you have given me in my gender work, both individually and, by fighting a version of the same fight first, on a global scale. I have learned and benefited from your struggle. I stand shoulder to shoulder with you against the forces of prejudice and hate which so seldom distinguish between us. And, I enjoy your company, feel at ease with you, and am so grateful to have been welcomed in under the big LGBT umbrella. But, alas, all that said, I do also sometimes see you as part of the gender hegemony against which, all my life, I have struggled. I will never self-identify as gay, lesbian, bi, hetero or homo, because all of this terminology fails to challenge and continues to perpetrate the bad old binary concept of gender. Until I come up with something I like better, I am a pandemisexual romantic trans woman.

May I invite you to join me and Mad in seeking new ways of talking about ourselves and each other which celebrate the diversity, complexity, and subtlety of gender as thoroughly as we have celebrated the diversity, complexity, and subtlety of sexuality? And could we all, please, get at least part of the way back to the charming old-fashioned notion of speaking reverently of love?

Denied existence

Recently I had the novel and unpleasant experience of having someone who was angry with me purposefully revert in an e-mail to my old name and male pronouns.

Julia Serano, in her book "Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity," calls this trans-exclusion, which she defines as, among other things, dismissing a person’s identified gender.  She writes, “it is difficult to view trans-exclusion...as anything other than an arrogant attempt to belittle and humiliate trans people.”

Julia is right: X’s e-mail did make me feel belittled and humiliated. The message I got was: you say you are a woman, but you are not. Your identified gender is not real. You don’t exist.

In Julia’s terminology, trans-exclusion is an expression of cissexual privilege, which she defines as “the double standard that promotes the idea that transsexual genders are distinct from, and less legitimate, than cissexual genders.” (Cissexual refers to people whose identified gender matches their biological sex at birth. If you are not trans, you are cis.) X’s e-mail would appear to be an expression of cissexual privilege, based as it is on an unspoken assumption that X is in a position to deny my identified gender.

We also see cissexual privilege expressed by supporters of LD 1046, the bill which would roll back civil rights protections for trans people in Maine, when they evoke the virulent false image of the trans woman as sexual predator. That image’s hold on the public imagination is clearly based on the persistent underlying notion that, whatever they say, trans women are still really men.

Distressingly, I also sometimes sense cissexual privilege behind the words and actions of allies. For example, I have had a sympathetic person say to me, referring to possible future sexual reassignment surgery, “So, when you become a woman...”

How can I say this plainer? I am a woman. It is not an act. It is not provisional. My sense of self is all one gender, and that gender is female!

It’s the penis, isn’t it? You people saying and doing these things, you just don’t seem to be able to get past the fact that I still have a penis. For heaven’s sake! If my very identity was not at risk, I would roll my eyes at you and burst out laughing. Gah! It makes me so mad! WHY MUST YOU INSIST THAT GENITALS DEFINE GENDER?

Shh, shh...breathe, girl, breathe.

The Hearing and the Beating

On April 12th I attended a Judiciary Committee hearing in Augusta on a bill (LD 1046) which would make an exception for trans people in Maine’s Human Rights Act, so that forcing a trans person to use the bathroom or locker room matching her/his physical sex at birth would not count as discrimination. I went to add my voice to the chorus of “against” voices; and I came away with puzzles to figure out about prejudice. Please forgive the long post, but I’ve travelled down a long chain of thought and feeling since the hearing, and I want to try to get it all down.

The hearing went well for us opponents, I think. Equality Maine did a great job of organizing, so we had all been briefed on how to be courteous to the Committee, how to field questions from reporters, and when it would be our turn to have our three-minute say; and the supporters soon ran out of speakers, so then it was just a long string of trans-positive testimony. Many non-trans allies spoke, which was lovely; the most moving for me was the father of a young trans girl who wept talking about the ordeals his family has endured trying to find safe schooling for his daughter. And the trans among us accomplished as much, I think, by showing ourselves to the Committee as by speaking. Look at me, each of us said, just by standing there: I am trans, and I am intelligent and well-spoken, and I dress in ordinary clothes and act in ordinary ways, and I clearly have feelings just like everyone, and, in short, I am an ordinary human being, just like you.

This was a crucial point to make...because behind the testimony of the supporters of the bill lurked the pernicious and utterly false phantom image of the trans person, especially the trans woman, as sexual predator and pedophile.