This blog is part of a series I'm writing while I'm undating the fifteen year old "My Gender Workbook" for Routledge Press. I'm asking for your voice to be included in the spiffy new version, because you are so much more than the first version of the book could have predicted. Every couple of days, I'll be posting a new question for you to ponder. If the question tickles your fancy, by all means please speak to it. Be sure you've read the submission guidelines before you write your answer. Thanks for your help.
Dauntless Gendernauts, Fearless Freaks, Intrepid Inverts et al,
Thanks for the great feedback so far. My editors at Routledge and I are thrilled with the range and depth of your observations!
So, here's the next in the series of questions I'd like your response to.
How does your age impact your gender?
I'm of the opinion that boy, man, girl, and woman are four distinct genders. Hey, I also call myself a 64 year old man and a 26 year old young woman, because that's a true statement from so many angles. But even if you disagree with me, you've got to acknowledge that systemic ageism is overwhelming each and every one of us with its rules about gender and gender expression. Men don't wear dresses. Women don't have moustaches. Boys will be boys. Girls just want to be Disney princesses. — that's just a few of them. Age is built-in to our perception and performance of gender. That said…
What effect, if any, does your age have on your gender or gender expression?
What part does gender play in the limits, freedoms, and boundaries imposed upon or empowered by your age?
Do (did) you get treated as a different kind of male or female or genderqueer or trans* or tranny or whatever because of your age?
Looking back on your life, how has your gender changed as you've grown?
Are you living more than one age the same time because of your gender?
What have you learned about age from the gender you are?
What have you learned about gender from the age you are?
What's your burning age-and-gender issue that I haven't even touched on here?
So many questions!
So please… from your perspective, your experience, or your observations, what's your take on gender and age?
Thank you and love,
Auntie Kate
Reminder: Twitter is the very best way to answer. Response length is maximum 280 characters, two tweels. Your tweets do NOT have to be addressed to me, but DO remember to put the hashtag #MNGW on ALL your tweets about this or any other gender-y thing that might pop into your adorable li'l head.
I’m thrilled to write that I’ve been asked by Routledge Publishing to update my fifteen year old book, My Gender Workbook. We struck a deal, I’ve got the green light, and I’ve begun writing My New Gender Workbook. I’m so excited!
WHY AN UPDATE?
I’ve been in touch via Twitter, my blog, and YouTube with a lot of people who regularly read and use My Gender Workbook both in class and daily in their lives. It turns out that people really like the principles of the book—but that many of the cultural references and contexts—even the way some quiz questions are phrased—are out of date, and this sometimes gets in the way of grasping the important stuff. So, an update would involve a page by page combing out of outdated references. For example…
There’s much more awareness of intersections of oppression and marginalization.
There’s a much more sophisticated understanding of & experience with the Internet.
The geopolitical world has grown vastly more polarized since the book came out.
In a few places in the world, reat strides have been made in sex-and-gender freedoms.
At the same time, many ghastly practices of policing sex and gender have been uncovered.
Sex-and-gender activism has become globalized, and shuffled into the deck of social activism.
Young Female-to-Male has replaced Middle-Aged Male-to-Female as the face of transgender in the world.
Sex and Gender activism & awareness has become increasingly polarized along lines of class, race, and age.
WHERE DO YOU COME IN?
As in the original book, I’ll be looking for a great many voices other than my own. In the original, there were hundreds of voices other than mine, appearing in lists, text boxes and call-outs. In the new version, I’m aiming to include even more voices. My idea is to maintain a running commentary of multiple voices all through the book.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
All submissions for the workbook should be in the form of tweets, or at most double tweets—that is to say, all submission should be no longer than 140 to 280 characters, including the mandatory hashtag: #MNGW (My New Gender Workbook). Why so short? The very best voices in the original workbook were short, articulate, and right to the point.
SO—WHAT DO YOU WRITE ABOUT?
Any gender-related topic you damned please.
However, over the course of the next 4-6 weeks, I’ll be asking specific questions on this blog and on Twitter. There’s going to be a new question every couple of days. But you don't have to wait for the questions. If you’ve got anything to say in 140-280 characters, I WANT TO READ IT, and I promise I will.
HOW DO YOU SEND IN YOUR SUBMISSION?
The best way is to use Twitter. Remember, two tweets maximum. All submission tweets must include the hashtag #MNGW or they very likely will slip through the cracks and we most certainly do not want that!
You can also post your answer on this blog. If you do, make sure you give us a way to reach you if we need to.
Or, you can email your submission to: mynewgenderworkbook at gmail dot com.
Please note that we will use no one’s words without their express permission.
Finally, there's no promise that your name will appear next to your words, or that your words will be used. Everyone whose words are used will be credited with the name of your choosing in the acknowledgements.
There’s only one more rule for submissions: don’t be mean.
ENOUGH ALREADY—HERE’S THE FIRST QUESTION
What’s your gender?
____
I cannot WAIT to see your kickass smart answers to this simple li'l question.
Please do retweet and repost and link to this blog to as many places as you can—even the surprising places.
Thank you in advance for all your help and support.
I put the question out on twitter: how do you spot a bully? what is it that bullies do that makes them instantly recognizable as bullies. I'll be using these answers in a new book I'm working on, but I think the way articulate feedback I got is important enough to share right now, along with the twitter names of the folks who wrote them. Some folks, including yours truly, came up with several ways to spot them.
So… watch for these signs:
@katebornstein: They hurt/pick on/target ppl who aren't in a position to fight back. Like #BofA charging $5 a month to use yr debit card.
@katebornstein: They ask you either/or questions, eg my way or the highway.
@katebornstein: They shout you down, don't let you speak your ideas or opinions.
@mary_menville: They believe that the only way to meet their needs is at the expense of yours
@msmanitobain: stare at you; mutter derogatory names at you as they pass by
@UrbanRoguery: They make 'you' statements bc its easier to attack than reflect and hear. They fight to 'win' not solve.
@fgg23: they think laughter is a weapon in itself, and sometimes it works
@fgg23: They are always SO SURE that they will get away with everything.
@fgg23: They use ignorance to their benefit. "I don't understand you" = "You're wrong"
@blurabbit147: they laugh at the suffering of others, not from a place of relating, from a place of cruelty.
@sbearbergman make themselves feel big by making you feel small
@AHaefner: ad homenim attacks (eg: They attack your words instead of responding to your point)
@SaraEileen: They belittle your emotions / opinions / sense-of-self by insisting you can't understand them, or yourself.
@Siniful They spread misinformation, for either their own gain or to put down others. They thrive by ignorance.
@LauraVogel They put forth their views in a way that make you feel dumb for disagreeing. "I'm right, you're stupid."
@supermattachine They insist they know you better than you know yourself.
@AliceSinAerie: they use you to make themselves look/feel more important
@AliceSinAerie: they intentionally embarrass you in front of others
@heavenscalyx They hurt you (physically, emotionally) then claim it was a "joke". Or maybe that's #howtospotanabuser
@BigDaddyKeltik: they'll test you, see how you respond, if you show weakness, you become a target. They'll test with little attacks, comments, questions, and it'll build from there. Whatever your weakness is, thats what they exploit
I was invited to Toronto this year to speak at Trans Pride. I don't often get invited to speak at Pride events, so not too many people have heard or read what I think about LGBTetc Pride, and more specifically Trans Pride.
A lot of what I said at Toronto Trans Pride is part of a book I'm working on for Seven Stories Press, called No Votes For Bullies: Democracy For The Rest of Us. If all goes according to plan, the book should be out in September, 2012—a couple of months after my memoir, A Queer and Pleasant Danger, comes out from Beacon Press in June, 2012.
So, here are the talking points I used for my talk on Trans Pride, delivered to some hundreds of lovely gender anarchists and sex positive, sex inclusive outlaws at the post-march Gender Revolution stage in Toronto on July 1st, 2011.
Last night, I wrote a blog in which I apologized for using the word tranny. I said I'd try my best not to use it in public any more. Well, I did try my best and it made me feel miserable. I cried myself to sleep, and I woke up crying. I woke up feeling weaker than I've felt in a long time.
I like the word tranny. It makes me feel strong and happy when I do use the word tranny. I like other people who use the word tranny affectionately with one another. I don't want to stop using the word. Of course I don't want to be mean to people who are hurt by the word, but the fact is I have never used the word tranny with the intention of being mean to people.
I've been on an extremely rigorous tour schedule for the past few months, and I'm exhausted. I made the decision to post last night more out of fear and overwhelm than out of strength of conviction. So, I've reconsidered what I said and why I said it, and I've taken down that post.
People have been asking what I mean by mean, meaning what does mean mean.
I’m sorry. I couldn’t resist writing that sentence. OK, it's out of my system. So, really… what does mean mean? What does it mean to say Don't Be Mean?
I’ve been telling people for nearly four years that the only rule in life they need to follow is don’t be mean. It's not even a rule. “Don’t be mean” is a value, meaning it's something you can apply to every choice you’ll ever make for the rest of your life. If one rule can cover that much ground, I think that the rule deserves to be called a value.
So, we’ve got a value of don’t be mean.
So what, because what does mean mean?
And what did I mean when I wrote the damned thing in the book?
And why didn't I simply write, be kind. I almost did.
But people have ruined that word by calling for a kinder, gentler nation and then effecting a nation that's very close to the opposite. Another example: someone could consider truthfully that they're being kind to you when they stop you from being a homosexual… because then you won’t go to hell. It's become too easy for people to convince themselves that they’re not being mean when they simply call themselves kind. Nope, the word kind can be stretched way out of shape. So, be kind couldn’t be the rule.
But… don’t be mean? Aw man, I thought I’d nailed it. I thought everyone knows what mean is, right? Mean old man, mean girls, and hey… you’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch. But those are all pop culture constructs, not real meanings. And that brings us to the dictionary. You’d think the dictionary would provide some definitive clarity. Nonsense. Go ahead, look up mean in the dictionary.Mean can mean so many mean things, it’ll make you mean dizzy.
Failing to come up with a simple, satisfactory answer to the question, what does mean mean, I did what I always do when I don't know something… I asked my twibe on Twitter.
RT @katebornstein: Twibe: re "Don't b mean," peeps hv bn asking what mean means. Thoughts? Must it include intent to harm/steal/enslave? Hashtag #mean pse.
Pondering many points of view on the word mean helped me realize that mean is undeniably subjective. Nonetheless, we know what it feels like when someone is mean to us. Mean is a word we all learned as kids. It’s a word that holds a great deal of emotional power and history.
So, I don’t think it matters what mean really means in order to embrace the value, don’t be mean. I’m thinking now that it's enough that we care enough to ask the question, what does mean mean. I don't know for sure, but I'm willing to bet that mean is something we spend our entire life learning what it is… if for no other reason than to stop ourselves from being mean.So, until it runs out of juice, I’m going to stick with using the word mean. And I'll say it once again:
Please… do whatever it takes to make your life more worth living. Anything. Anything, my darling. Only one rule to follow—only one value you need to embrace—to make that blanket permission work: Don’t be mean.
Yep that works just fine for me. And it'll work for you. I promise. There's no need to fry your brains, trying to figure out mean. It's enough if we all just try not to be mean. Eventually we’ll all get a better handle on it. And I think that’s about as much as anyone can ask for.
It's been a terrible couple of weeks. Stories of LGBTQetc youth killing themselves have been hitting the web, it seems, every couple of days. It's been so intense that many, many people have begun talking about queer youth suicide. People have been railing about it, howling about it. Well bless everyone who's been doing that. And bless Dan Savage for starting up the It Gets Better Project on YouTube. This is my contribution to that project.
NOTE: THE FIRST 10 SECONDS OF THE VIDEO ARE GREY-ED OUT. I DON'T KNOW WHY!
BUT… IT GETS BETTER. OK. NOW YOU CAN WATCH IT.
In my video, I promise folks that they can come to this blog and get yourself a Get Out of Hell Free card. Well, click here to get your card. You can print it out and carry it around with you. Heck, you can even make copies and hand 'em out to your friends.
Here's how it works: you do whatever it takes to make your life more worth living. Anything. Anything at all. It can be immoral, unethical, or illegal (can't help you if you get caught on the illegal stuff). It can even be self-destructive. I often do self-destructive things because it seems to me—when I'm really down in the depths—that only the self-destructive stuff is gonna make life more worth living.
So… you do anything it takes—anything at all—to make your life more worth living. There's only one rule that makes that sort of blanket permission work: Don't be mean. That's the only rule you ever need to follow to make sure that your life is gonna get better.
If you're not mean, you can do anything it takes to make your life more worth living. And if you get sent to Hell for doing something that wasn't mean to someone? Hang on to the card. Give it to Satan. I'll do your time for you. Yep. I told Satan I'd do that, and Satan agreed that'd be a fun thing to do for all of us.
It takes true courage to follow your outlaw identities and desires in the world. Doing that nearly always ends you up with less worldly power. But I promise: you can always do something to make your life better every single day of your freaky geeky life.
I'm going out on tour, and I'm not leaving the comfort of my writing chair. You can come along too!
The reviews are coming in on Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation: one a day for the next nine days. Seal Press is the publisher of the new anthology. Their slogan is Groundbreaking Books, By Women, For Women. Well, they're stretching that slogan all out of shape. They came up with the fun idea to arrange for a tour of reviews from nine different corners of the feminist/trans/trans-friendly/and genderqueer blogosphere.
I've already had a chance to read the first posted review today. It's by Everett Maroon, and it's up on I Fry Mine in Butter. No puff journalism, this. It's a wonderful essay. I've posted a comment to the blog, and I hope to read and comment on each of the reviews as they're posted.
(Oh! I'm enjoying this almost as much as I enjoyed working with S. Bear Bergman and Seal Press to put this anthology together in the first place!)
So, here's the rest of the schedule. Enjoy the perspectives!
Friday, 10/8 – Mr. Sinclair Sexsmith posting on SugarButch!
I'll be tweeting each stop on the tour as it goes up. So… enjoy the next couple of weeks of binary-blowing gendernalysis. And please do join in the conversation along your way with comments on each of the reviews, and right here if you like. I am SO all aquiver!
I've just returned home to New York City from this year's Femme Conference in Oakland, California. The theme was "No Restrictions." My head is still dizzy and swirling. I met wonderful people, connected with many dear friends, and found myself a whole new set of dangerous dreams and damned desires to consider.
I didn't finish writing the address until the night before I delivered it to over 500 beautiful femmes, and those who love and celebrate us. I was scribbling notes on my notes until half an hour before I stood up. I told my twibe on Twitter that I'd make a copy of the text available for download, so I've integrated all the versions, and here it is in PDF format: Download KB_keynote_Femme2010.
Okay, it's late, Mercury is in retrograde, I'm exhausted and exhilarated and I'm missing my femme family. I hope you enjoy the keynote address and that it helps make life more worth living for ya.
To the leaders, membership, and supporters of The Human Rights Campaign, The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and state-wide groups supporting marriage equality as your primary goal,
Hello. I'm Kate Bornstein, and I've got a great deal to say to you, so you deserve to know more about me: I write books about postmodern gender theory and alternatives to suicide for teens, freaks and other outlaws. I'm a feminist, a Taoist, a sadomasochist, a femme, a nerd, a transperson, a Jew, and a tattooed lady. I'm a certified Post Traumatic Stress Disorder survivor. I'm a chronic over-eater who's been diagnosed with anorexia. I'm sober, but I'm not always clean. I've got piercings in body parts I wasn't born with. I'm also an elder in the community you claim to represent, and it is with great sorrow that I must write: you have not been representing us.
.
Let's talk about a love that unites more people than have ever before been united by love. Let's defend some real equality.
The other day, New York State's lesbian and gay bid for marriage equality went down in flames, enough flames to make people cry. Thousands of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgender people and their allies spent a lot of money and heart-filled hours of work to legalize marriage equality, with little to show for it. That sucks, and I think the reason it didn't work is it's because marriage equality is an incorrect priority for the LGBTQetc communities.
Marriage equality—as it's being pushed for now—is wasting resources that would be better deployed to save some lives. There are several major flaws with marriage equality as a priority for our people:
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Marriage as it's practiced in the USA is unconstitutional… if you listen to Thomas Jerfferson's interpretation of separation of church and state. The way it stands now, if you're an ordained leader in a recognized religion, the US government gives you a package of 1500-1700 civil rights that only you can hand out to people. And you get to bestow or withhold these civil rights from any American citizen you choose, regardless of that citizen's constitutionally-granted rights. The government has no constitutional right to hand that judgment call over to a religious body.
Marriage equality—as it's being fought for now by lesbian and gay leaders who claim they're speaking for some majority of LGBTQetc people—will wind up being more marriage inequality. Single parents, many of whom are women of color, will not get the 1500-1700 rights they need to better and more easily raise their children. Nor will many other households made up of any combination of people who love each other and their children.
When lesbian and gay community leaders whip up the community to fight for the right to marry, it's a further expression of America's institutionalized greed in that it benefits only its demographic constituency. There's no reaching out beyond sexuality and gender expression to benefit people who aren't just like us, and honestly… that is so 20th Century identity politics.
Marriage is a privileging institution. It has privileged, and continues to privilege people along lines of not only religion, sexuality and gender, but also along the oppressive vectors of race, class, age, looks, ability, citizenship, family status, and language. Seeking to grab oneself a piece of the marriage-rights pie does little if anything at all for the oppression caused by the institution of marriage itself to many more people than sex and gender outlaws.
The fight for "marriage equality" is simply not the highest priority for a movement based in sexuality and gender. By simple triage, the most widespread criminality against people whose identities are based in sex and gender is violence against women. Women still make up the single-most oppressed identity in the world, followed closely by kids who are determined to be freaky for any reason whatsoever.
Lesbian and gay leaders must cease being self-obssessed and take into account the very real damage that's perpetrated on people who are more than simply lesbian women and/or gay men, more than bisexual or transgender even. Assuming a good-hearted but misplaced motivation for all the work done on behalf of fighting for marriage equality, it's time to stop fighting on that front as a first priority of the LGBTQetc movement. It's time to do some triage and base our priorities on a) who needs the most help and b) what battlefront will bring us the most allies.
I'm asking that you to fight on behalf of change for someone besides yourself. Please. I promise the rewards of doing that will revisit you threefold. Who needs the most help is easy: women. To lesbian and gay leaders, I ask you to ally yourselves with the centuries-old feminist movements and their current incarnations. You want to get a bill passed through Congress? Take another run at the Equal Rights Amendment. Unlike gay marriage, the ERA stands a better chance of making it into law, given the Obama Administration and our loosely Democratic majority in congress.
Stopping the violence against women and freaky children, and backing another run at the ERA have got the good chance of creating national front, lots of allies. On the home front of sex and gender, there's plenty of room for change that doesn't require millions of dollars and thousands of hours.
Looking into the community of people who base their lives on sexuality and gender, there's a lot of door-opening to do. Beyond L, G, B and T, there's also Q for queer and Q for questioning. There's an S for sadomasochists, an I for intersex, an F for feminists, and another F for furries. Our community is additionally composed of sex educators, sex workers, adult entertainers, pornographers, men who have sex with men, women who have sex with women, and asexuals who have sex in whatever manner they define their asexuality. You want to create some real change? Make room for genderqueers, polyamorists, radical faeries, butches, femmes, drag queens, drag king, and other dragfuck royalty too fabulous to describe in this short letter.
There are more and more people to add to this ever-growing list of communities whom you must own as family and represent in your activism. You cannot afford—politically, economically, or morally—to leave out a single person who bases a large part of their identity on being sex positive or in any way a proponent of gender anarchy.
That's what I have to say to you. That and thank you for the good hearts you've clearly demonstrated in your activism. I'm asking you to open your hearts further is all.
You're welcome to leave comments on this blog, but the best way to engage me in a conversation or recruit me to help is to contact me through Twitter. I look forward to talking with you, and I hope we can work together on the terms I've outlined above.
