Oct 03

The APA is so fucked up.

Why Are Some People Transgender? an APA pamphlet [1] asks.

Their answer?  “Many experts believe that biological factors such as genetic influences and prenatal hormone levels, early experiences, and experiences later in adolescence or adulthood may all contribute to the development of transgender identities.”

Um, no.  People are transgender because they are intelligent and thoughtful enough to realize that gendered behaviours are typically constraining and that feminine behaviours in particular subordinating.  And so, they reject them; they refuse to conform to the gender expectations aligned to their sex.

 

How Does Someone Know They Are Transgender? the pamphlet then asks.

Their answer?  “They may have vague feelings of “not fitting in” with people of their assigned sex or specific wishes to be something other than their assigned sex. Others become aware of their transgender identities or begin to explore and experience gender-nonconforming attitudes and behaviors during adolescence or much later in life.”

Again, no.  I know I’m a writer because when I write, I actually realize that that’s what I’m doing when I do it.  Similarly, when I refuse to wear make-up and high heels, I know I’m doing it.  I’m that aware.  And I know it’s transgressive.  I’m also that aware.  I know what the gender expectations are in our society, so I know when I’m refusing to meet them.  That’s how I know I’m transgender.

One doesn’t “become aware” of one’s gender identity.  One creates it.  One chooses it.  Unlike sex [2], sexual orientation, height, skin colour, eye colour …  gender is not a biological given.  It’s an arbitrary collection of preferences that ‘society’ says should you should adopt: the so-called feminine collection is supposed to be adopted by female people, and the so-called masculine collection is supposed to be adopted by male people.

Do you always do what you’re supposed to do?

_____

1. “What Does It Mean to Be Transgender?” from “Answers to Your Questions About Transgender People, Gender Identity, and Gender Expression” American Psychological Association 2011.http://www.apa.org/topics/lgbt/transgender.pef

2. Which is why it’s particularly disturbing that professional psychologists believe that “Sex is assigned at birth …”  No, sex is recognized at birth (or before, if a conclusive ultrasound is obtained).  Typically by external genitalia.

Sep 28

Some excellent insights about gender identity by Sharon Thrace

“[Gender identity] holds that ‘feeling like a woman’ (whatever that means) is the same as being a woman.  It’s a callous disregard for our lifetime of oppression, the limits placed upon our participation in society, the ever-present threat of rape we face.  It’s an erasure of the quarter of our lives we spend managing bleeding and pain, the constant diligence we must employ to prevent pregnancy.  It’s a gross insensitivity of the staggering percentage of us who are victims of sexual assault, starting in childhood.  We face these realities because we have female bodies and because of how men treat people who inhabit such bodies.  There exists no fashion choice nor inner angst that can bring men closer to this experience.”

“It takes a great deal of male privilege to ‘choose’ your gender, as if gender weren’t a set of obligations and proscriptions designed to keep women physically, emotionally, and financially handicapped.”

“[My transgender husband] likes to complain that I don’t recognize him as a woman, something he sees as a great offense.  But the iron is that he does not recognize me as a woman. … My biology is not irrelevant. My experience cannot be duplicated by trying on my clothes.”

from “Destruction of a Marriage: My Husband’s Descent into Transgenderism,” by Sharon Thrace.  in Female Erasure, edited by Ruth Barrett.

Sep 26

More insights about transgenderism, by Ruth Barrett

“Imagine …

“If the vocal trans majority had not chosen to focus their energy on re-defining women in their image, and instead proudly claimed themselves to be gender non-conforming men …

“If they had not insisted on erasing our biology or their own in order to validate their gender identity, and instead acknowledged themselves as males who simply choose to adopt and express a gender stereotypical feminine appearance.

“If they had not bullied themselves into female spaces and worked to make illegal our private spaces, and instead showed themselves to be true allies of women by respecting and protecting our needs.

“If they allowed themselves to feel even a fraction of empathy that they fully expect from women and girls toward their needs.

“If they had not focused their anger at women for the actual violence they experience at the hands of other males.”

 

Ruth Barrett, in Female Erasure (p.481)

 

EXACTLY.

Sep 20

Algorithms perpetuate sexism …

Check out this interview for a VERY enlightening (and scarey) interview about how algorithms are perpetuating sexism in its many, many, aspects:

Why algorithms aren’t working for women

Sep 19

The Hook-Up (a very short screenplay)

FADE IN:

INT. BAR — NIGHT

Crowded bar scene.  MAN and WOMAN do the standard flirting thing, he buys her a drink, they dance, then exit.  Their dialogue isn’t important — the bar’s too loud for us to hear much anyway.  But it’s clear that both are willing to engage in the sex that follows.

 

INT. APARTMENT — LATER

They enter her apartment and move through it toward the bedroom, happily and heatedly, kissing, touching, and unbuttoning each other on the way.

 

INT. BEDROOM — CONTINUOUS

They are on the bed, then in the bed, which has a nightstand right beside it, then while intercourse is clearly occurring —

WOMAN: So, do you want a girl or a boy?

He stops mid-thrust.

MAN: What?

He pulls out.  Grimaces at his limpness.

WOMAN: Well, you aren’t using any contraception, so it stands to reason you want a child.  I mean, you must know that —

(she gestures vaguely)

MAN: (rolling off her; things are clearly over) Of course I know — No, I don’t want a kid —

He’s up and dressing.

MAN (CONT’D): I assumed you were —

WOMAN: Pretty important thing to just take for granted, isn’t it?

MAN: (his anger increasing) What is this, some sort of trap?

WOMAN: Not at all.  I’m okay with it. I mean, I’ll charge for incubation services, $50,000 is about standard, and then I’ll give you the kid, no strings —

MAN: I don’t want a kid!

WOMAN: Then why —

MAN: Because you’re the one who gets pregnant!

WOMAN: I realize that.  And as I said, I’m okay with it.  If you’re the one not okay with it, if you’re the one who doesn’t want this to be reproductive sex, then you’re the one who should be using contraception.

He says nothing as he continues to dress.

WOMAN (CONT’D): Are you usually this adept at separating cause and effect?  At not looking at the consequences of your actions?

He reaches for his jacket.

WOMAN (CONT’D): I mean, if you and a friend do a B & E together and he’s the only one who gets caught, you’re okay with that?  You’d really not consider yourself equally responsible?

MAN: (quite angry now) I’d consider myself lucky.  Bitch!

He strides out of the bedroom.

WOMAN: (cheerily) I’ll call you!

Sep 15

Men, Noise, and A Simple Request, Really

I finally figured it out — why the men in my neighborhood react with such escalated lack of consideration whenever I ask them, politely, to limit their noise.  I’ve asked snowmobilers who are out racing around the lake and having a good time going VROOM VROOM to please just turn around a few seconds before they get to the very end of the lake, which is where I live; I’ve asked dirt bikers to please ride up and down and up and down on a section of road that doesn’t have a bunch of people living there; I’ve asked men who are building new houses to please put the compressor behind the house (so the building acts as a berm) rather than on the lake side (which means, of course, that the noise not only skids across the lake with wonderful efficiency, but also that it then bounces off the hills, echoing amplified all over the place); I’ve asked men to at least close their lakeside doors and windows when they’re using their power tools inside.  (And I’d like to ask them if they really, seriously, need to use a leafblower — we live in the forest, for godsake.)

And almost every single time, not only has the man not acceded to my request, he’s escalated his noise-making and/or responded with confrontational aggression.

Do I live in a neighborhood with an unrepresentative number of inconsiderate assholes?

No.  Here’s what’s happening.  (As I say, I’ve finally figured it out.)  Partly it’s because I’m a woman asking a man to do something.  Most men do not want to be seen taking orders from a woman; even to accede to a woman’s request is apparently too much for their egos.  My male neighbour has made similar requests and the responses have been along the lines of ‘Sure, no problem.’

And partly, it’s because making noise is perceived to be an integral part of being a man.  I’ve long known ‘My car is my penis’ but I never realized that that was partly because of the noise of the car.  I didn’t know that men routinely modify the mufflers of their dirt bikes in order to make them louder.  And then I happened to catch a Canadian Tire advertisement on television (I seldom watch television) and was absolutely amazed at the blatant association of masculinity with power tools, the promise that ‘You’ll be more of a man when you use this million-horsepower table saw’ or whatever.

So the resistance to my requests is because I’m essentially asking that they castrate themselves.

Sep 12

Football takes precedence over climate refugees

People are fleeing for their lives from North and South Carolina, but there may not be enough rooms in hotels because — football.  Apparently there’s a (male) game scheduled for play and (mostly male) people have come to watch.

Clear evidence of the male obsession with competition having a stranglehold — wait, the hurricane itself is clear evidence of that: a long but incontestable causal chain leads back from the increasing frequency and severity of storms to the desire of (overwhelmingly) male executives and stockholders (of, for example, oil companies) to become rich — i.e., to be #1, to win.

And as is their way, they give the hurricane a female name; as if we’re to blame.

My god, is there no end to their psychopathology??

 

 

Sep 12

“The Adult Market”

What’s adult about forcing someone to do something she doesn’t really want to do?

What’s adult about doing sexual things to children?

What’s adult about humiliating another person?

What’s adult about hurting another person?

 

We should call it what it is.  The psychopathic sociopathic misogynist market.  The sick fucks market.

 

 

(I’d intended to be more specific, but I’m concerned that the psychopathic sociopathic misogynist dudes would like that.  Plus, merely describing these things repulses me.)

 

 

Sep 12

Women Writing Science Fiction as Men — why bother?

I’ve just finished reading Mike Resnick’s collections Women Writing Science Fiction as Men and Men Writing Science Fiction as Women.  There were two rules for submissions to the anthologies: “First, each story had to be told in the first person of a man [woman]; and second, if changing the narrator from Victor to Victoria [or vice versa] didn’t invalidate the story we didn’t want it.”

So what he ended up with was a bunch of stories emphasizing the gender stereotypes we all know and hate so well.  The women wrote about men who were competitive and primarily interested in sex.  The men wrote about women who were nurturing and primarily mothers.  Ho hum.

What would have been far more interesting, and far more challenging (though a challenge sf writers, if anyone, are certainly up to), would have been stories in which changing the narrator from Victor to Victoria (or vice versa) would not have invalidated the story, would have made no difference whatsoever.

Those are the stories I want to read!  That’s a future (a fantasy?) I want to live in!

 

Sep 05

Macho Music for the Mensa Crowd

Music and men has always been an iffy combination.  If it involves banging on things and making a lot of noise, well, that’s definitely male, on both counts, so being a drummer is okay.  And if it involves plugging something in – that ultimate test which separates the men from, well, from the women – that’s good, so playing the guitar, lead or bass, is okay.   Especially since holding your hand at cock level is involved.

But what if your tastes are a little more classical?  What if you’re a little more intellectually-inclined?  Fear no more!  Electronic music is here!

To begin, like all good little boys, electronic composers are obsessed with how.  Their program notes are paeans to process: “The harmonic matrix for this construction was established with a dominant to non-dominant ratio of 7:5 and intra-note relationships determined according to a chance-randomized method…”

And yet, it sounds like shit.  But then they probably just forgot to consider the end product.  Kinda like Oppenheimer and the gang at Los Alamos, so absorbed by the sweet technicalities of the process, it wasn’t until they exploded the thing that they thought ‘Gee, this could hurt a lot of people!’

And what about the why?  Why did you write such a piece of shit?  (And why oh why are you playing it in public?)  Despite their claim to superior logic and rationality, men, macho men, are notoriously inept when it comes to reflective reasoning.  ‘Why?  Whaddya mean “why”?’  It’s not a question they’re used to, apparently.  Their professors (and make no mistake, classical music is music’s ivory tower – you need a Ph.D. to get in – and electronic music is its engineering department) never asked them why they wrote a certain piece.  And they never ask themselves.  And as in all locker rooms, concert hall dressing rooms are filled with competitive claims about equipment and technique, not rationale.  Certainly, reasons are nowhere to be found in program notes.

The notes do reveal, however, a certain attention to complexity.  Failing that, to apparent complexity.  They make what they do sound as complicated as possible.  “Intra-note relationships determined according to a chance-randomized method”?  Heads it’s major, tails it’s minor.  So why bother telling us, I wonder, since communication is so obviously not your purpose.  Ah.  Because you don’t really want us to understand – you want us to applaud: ‘Look at me, I’m so clever, I understand something too difficult to explain.’  Actually, what you’re saying is ‘Look at me, I have no communication skills whatsoever.’

People who think ‘complexity good, simplicity bad’ have obviously never heard of Bach’s Prelude I.  Or the wheel.

Maybe the idea is that if you make it complicated enough, no one will be able to replicate it.  So you’ll be the first and only to have composed such a piece.  But what’s the big deal about being first?  I have never understood that.  In any context.  First to land on the moon, first to discover insulin, first to cross the finish line, first to get on the bus – first to discover where that land mine was.

Truth is the first to do X is often merely the first to be recognized as doing X.  Do you really think that Bannister was the first person to run a mile in under four minutes?  Talk to the descendants of the guy who wasn’t on the cheetah’s lunch menu that day.

And what’s the big deal about being the only?  Why the desire to be unique, singular, with no company, no community.  Ah.  The myth of the unconnected male.  Hm.  Can you spell ‘denial’?  Good thing the first guy to write a piece for the piano didn’t worry about there being others who could do the same thing.  (And good thing the second guy to write a piece for the piano didn’t let not being first stop him.)  Different is not necessarily better.  Ask any black living in Alabama.

It’s a quantity thing, really.  Do you guys see that?  And the first (quantity) is seldom the best (quality).  For example, the first time I walked – well, I can tell you I’m much better at it now.  I almost have it mastered.  What is it with you guys and this obsession with number, with quantity, with size.

Consider the speakers.  Have you seen the size of the speakers at an electronic music concert?  They’re bigger than those commonly found in a single guy’s apartment. They’re even bigger than the deejay’s.  Why so big?  (I’ve heard that there’s a direct relationship between penis size and foot size.  Or is it hand size.  Whatever, I suggest that there’s an inverse relationship between penis size and speaker size.)  And why so many?  I’ve seen eight at one concert, spread out around the room.

I recall someone asking an electronic composer once why all electronic music was so loud, and he said something like “Do you mean apart from the obvious answer that all electronic composers want badly to fill empty spaces with lots of sound?”  Obvious?  But okay, so it’s not just an obsession with size: the obsession with size is connected with the obsession to fill a space, to occupy.  Could this be connected to the irritating habit men have of taking up, occupying, more space than they need – the way they lean on counters, sit in chairs, take over small countries –    Ah.  Now I understand, imagining what my dog would do to those eight speakers spread out around the room.

Then there are the machines.  Have you ever looked at the liner notes of an electronic music recording?  Fairlight CMI, Emulator, Moog 55, Arp 2600, DX7, Prophet V, Obxa, Simmons SDS V, SequencerMax, EMS Vocoder, Boss PRO SE 150, Korg DDM 110.  And that’s just for one piece.  (Writers don’t usually list the equipment they use.)  (Microsoft Word.)  But this is macho music.  Real men play with machines.  They tinker and twiddle and tune –   What is it with men and machines?  I mean, just look at their behaviour with the remote control.

Ah – that’s it.  Remote control.  Real men have control.  And if they don’t, they take it.  I’ve always wondered why electronic composers mix their pieces in public.  I mean, why not get the perfect mix once and for all in the studio and then just press the ‘Play’ button in the concert hall?  I understand that some adjustments need to be made to compensate for the unique acoustics of the hall, but these can be made during the soundcheck, can’t they?  Yes, but then they can’t do the ‘See me control this sound, this console, this computer’ thing.  Really, is anyone impressed anymore to see someone with their fingers all over a bunch of knobs, looking oh so serious?

Now of course all these huge speakers and fancy machines are expensive.  The more expensive, the better.  Another macho thing.  Real men have money.  Too bad they’re really bad at managing it.  Could be part of that unconnected thing.  They incur huge car payments and then, poor boys, can’t afford the child support payments.  (See what happens when you turn your back on the simple things – like addition?)

And speaking about looking oh so serious, why is electronic music considered serious music?  I mean, what’s serious about it?  SOCAN classifies music as Serious and Non-Serious (serious music gets higher royalties), but unless there are words, how do you decide?  If it’s played in concert halls, it’s serious, but if it’s played in sports arenas, it’s not?  If the performers are wearing tuxedos, it’s serious, but if they’re wearing spandex, it’s not?  If a piece lasts for a really long time, it’s serious?  (A hundred bottles of beer on the wall…)  If it uses more than three chords (or, alternatively, if it uses no chords at all), it’s serious?  If it takes more than a day to write, it’s serious?  (There goes most of Mozart.)  Electric violins are serious, but electric guitars are not?  (Because guitars come in red?)

Even if there are words, it’s hard to tell.  I mean, consider the opera Orpheus and Eurydice, a piece of serious music.  Basically the lyrics are “She’s gone, I miss her a lot, so I’m gonna get her back.”  Sounds like your typical country and western ballad to me.

Electronic composers, discoursing at great length about how they created their very complicated pieces, fiddling with the faders on their expensive machines that feed into their huge and many speakers, and being oh so pretentiously serious about it all – it’s macho music for the mensa crowd.

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