Mx-ing it up

Posted by Ganymede


A version of this post originally appeared in May 2012 at http://deconstruction-site.blogspot.com.

Mx (title, pronounced /məks/, by analogy with "Ms", or /mɪks/, as in "mix"): a handy alternative to those peskily gendered and status-specific titles "Mr", "Mrs", "Ms", "Miss". Variant form: Misc (from "miscellaneous").

I'm due to give blood again soon. So, like a good person, I went to blood.co.uk and tried to book myself an appointment via the webform. Then I remembered what the webform looks like:

Note that mandatory field right there. If you want to cut down on faff (both for you and for the blood service) when you give blood, you have to - have to - be comfortable being addressed by one of Mr, Mrs, Ms, Miss or Dr.

I think I'll just drop in and hope they've got a bed free. And so, I expect, will any Professors, Reverends, Sisters or Imams who turn up.

This might sound petty or facetious. After all, not many people feel distressed to the point of self-exclusion by being forced to identify themselves as either Mr, Mrs, Ms or Miss (not even the ones who would prefer to be acknowledged as Dr). But I, as it happens, am one of them. We're a minority, but there's quite a lot of us. We even have our own national campaign.

Here's a fun fact: in the UK, your title has no basis in law. If you're male-assigned, you're not legally obliged to call yourself "Mr [Surname]"; similarly, female-assigned people can adopt the title "Mrs" even if they're not married, or use "Miss" or "Ms" even if they are. Therefore, all these thousands of organisations who have mandatory title fields on their webforms are gaining essentially zero information by it. I strongly suspect that it's only requested (or rather, demanded) so that they can painlessly auto-fill the greeting "Dear [Title] [Surname] on their automated email replies. (This can lead to hilarity when an organisation tries to be inclusive but doesn't quite think about it hard enough, and sends out messages beginning "Dear Other [Surname]"...)

Mr, Miss, Mrs, Ms (etc.) are known as "courtesy titles"; that is, by saying "Dear Mrs Exampleface" instead of "Oi, Vera", correspondents (even automated ones) are supposed to be being courteous. But for many trans* people, it ends up being the other way round: we have to do the organisations the courtesy of selecting one of their woefully inadequate options. And while this is a minor annoyance on a webform, when individual correspondents know someone's trans*, the "courtesy" title can become a vicious, disgusting weapon for making their prejudices clear.

The gender-neutral title "Mx" (or "Misc") won't solve all of these problems. But the more widespread and well-known it becomes, the more it can help English-speaking society to become more inclusive. Simply including it on a webform will help gender-variant people, or cis people who are uncomfortable with being asked for unnecessary personal information, to feel more accepted. Meanwhile, those people who are blithely ignorant of gender issues are more likely to learn about them, and become more sensitive towards them, if they regularly encounter this strange new option on the drop-down menu and it piques their curiosity.

And, importantly, "Mx" doesn't have to be - shouldn't be - a title reserved only for non-binary-gendered people. It would actually be an incredibly useful resource at times when you're corresponding with a stranger and you're not sure whether ey's Mr or Ms. We've all had someone take a punt and address us as "Miss" when we're actually "Ms", or as "Mrs" when we're actually "Dr", and we smile, correct em and move on. If everyone who was unsure defaulted to "Mx" on first contact, it would work exactly the same way, but with a lower embarrassment/faff factor.

What's more, the receptionist at the medical institution who loudly calls out "Mr [Patient]?", when ey knows full well that the patient is, or might be, a trans woman, would no longer be able to innocently declare that ey "wasn't sure" or that the patient's first name "sounded like a man's name". Because in that case, ey bloody well could have, and should have, defaulted to Mx. Out of courtesy. And everyone in the waiting room, and at the institution, and who responds to formal complaints against receptionists, would know that.

But this will only happen if the gender-neutral, status-neutral, assumption-neutral title "Mx", or its variant "Misc", or both, becomes more widespread. And as a linguistics graduate, I can assure you that the way to make a new word widespread is to use it. Numerous organisations including the HMRC, the DWP and the UK Deed Poll Service have already started accepting it. The more examples we can give of it being used in official documents, like bank statements or council tax bills (I treasure mine proudly), the more leverage we have when trying to convince other organisations to include it in their databases.

I'm slowly beginning the long and irritating process of trying to get my title changed in all my records to Mx (and complaining when I can't). It's the teaspoon effect - it's a tiny action, and it's a drop in the ocean of the status quo, but every drop has ripples. If you're a binary-identified ally reading this, what are your teaspoon options? Well, since you're not legally obliged to use a title which reflects your gender, or your marital status, or anything else, you could always consider doing the same as me.

Think about it. Think hard, and fully explore the vague, irrational discomfort you feel when you imagine calling yourself Mx [Surname], and getting letters addressed to it, and and having it called out in doctors' wating rooms. Now reconsider whether I'm really being so petty.

Star Trek & Representation

 Posted by Astra

I don't remember when I saw my first Star Trek episode. I've loved it as long as I can remember thanks to being raised by parents who loved it first. I watched reruns of previous seasons of the different shows every day after school, and whichever season was currently airing had my whole family on the edge of our seats every week. Somewhere in an old family album there's a picture of me, aged 10, dressed up as Jadzia Dax, spots and all. One time I was the star letter in Star Trek Monthly and it was one of the proudest achievements of my young life.

I'm a pretty big Star Trek fan, is what I'm saying. And you know what, I loved the 2009 reboot film. It was huge amount of fun, it had a great cast, and seeing the Enterprise soar across the big screen was a huge hit of fannish glee. Similarly, I can't wait for this summer's offering of Star Trek: Into Darkness. I look forward to the characters, old and new (though never mind Cumberbatch, it's Noel Clarke's casting that had me fangirling), and the chances of me seeing it multiple times in the cinema are pretty high.

And yet. They're fun films, and have reinvigorated enthusiasm for the universe in a way that's really gratifying, but in a lot of ways the tone feels like Star Trek Lite - naturally I write this without having seen Into Darkness, but given the way it's being marketed as an action film, I'm not expecting a vast departure from the first film with the exception of the added Darker Tone TM that seems requisite for sequels these days.

Star Trek isn't just phasers and transporters and warp drives and starships. That's what Star Trek needs. What Star Trek is, is a vision. Unembarrassed, unbridled hope for the future, a dream of a perfect world, in which all people are equal.

In the world of Star Trek, the Earth of the future is a place with no wars, no poverty, no inequality, and no hardship. There's no concept of currency -- resources are essentially infinite, and people work to better themselves and their society. Gene Roddenberry's utopian vision frequently lacks a certain critical engagement, and it has its problems, but the wholehearted earnestness that drives that vision has a real charm to it.

And a key part of the vision of Star Trek, right from the start, has been equality and respect for all people regardless of race or gender  -- or species, for Star Trek is a show fond of tackling equality issues via metaphorical alien races, bless its heart.

[the cast of the original series of Star Trek] 

 The casting of the original run of the show in 1966 comes with kinds of stories. There are a lot of famous anecdotes surrounding Nichelle Nichols' role as Lieutenant Uhura, communications officer and breakout role for an African-American woman on US TV at the time. The stories range from Martin Luther King himself urging Nichols to stay on despite her concerns due to the impact her role was having on US popular culture, to Whoopi Goldberg seeing Uhura on TV and being overwhelmed by the site of a black woman who "ain't no maid" (Goldberg would herself later appear on Star Trek: The Next Generation as the mysterious Guinan, wearer of the greatest hats in the galaxy), to Shatner and Nichols' efforts to keep a scene where they kissed in an episode despite network protests -- they succeeded, and it became the first interracial kiss on US TV.

In addition to Nichols, there were George Takei and Walter Koenig as Sulu and Chekov, Japanese-American and Russian characters piloting the Enterprise side by side in the 1960s, during the Cold War and with Japanese internment camps on US soil still in living memory -- Takei himself having been sent to one such camp with his family during WW2.

Many episodes dealt with issues of racism and sexism, frequently in ways that were heavy-handed or missed the point altogether. There are a lot of things about the original run of the show that sit uncomfortably with a modern audience. But it cared about diversity and representation, and it really did try, and it really did make a difference.

When Star Trek came back with twenty years later, The Next Generation followed by Deep Space Nine and Voyager, that philosophy remained. (I admit that I haven't watched enough of Enterprise to be able to comment -- sorry, ENT fans!) There were absolutely problems -- none of the main casts ever achieved gender parity, Jewish actors were cast to play an alien species that embodied anti-Semitic stereotypes, disability was frequently portrayed as a 'flaw to be fixed', and much else besides.

And still the overall feeling that I'm left with is a show that cared and a show that tried.

 [the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation]

  There was Geordi La Forge, the black, blind Chief Engineer from TNG, and Tasha Yar and Deanna Troi and Beverley Crusher creating a trio that showed there was no wrong way to be a woman. Worf, who started out as the gruff Klingon Security Officer and grew over time to gain complex multi-season stories over both TNG and DS9, eventually appearing in more episodes than any other Star Trek character. 

[the cast of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]

  On DS9, there was Jadzia Dax, the Science Officer whose understanding of gender and sexuality was decidedly queer and decidedly wonderful. Ben Sisko became the first (and still only) non-white lead of a Star Trek show. DS9 is particularly notable for having not a single white North American character amongst its main ensemble cast. There was Julian Bashir, played by Sudanese-British actor Alexander Siddig, as the gung-ho wet behind the ears adventurer who spent a lot of his spare time roleplaying as James Bond and other dashing, traditionally white heroes, and Kira Nerys, world-weary freedom fighter who wanted nothing better than to tell her well-meaning Federation colonial interferers where to shove it. There’s also the acclaimed episode ‘Far Beyond The Stars’, a metafictional story set in the 1950s, about a struggling black writer dreaming of being able to publish a sci-fi story with someone like himself as a hero.

 [the cast of Star Trek: Voyager]

  On Voyager, it was women who drove the show, passing the Bechdel test on a regular basis. The dauntless Captain Janeway surrounded herself with strong women like the adventurous and compassionate Kes, the fiercely logical Seven of Nine, and the cynical and brilliant engineer B’Elanna Torres, not to mention their archnemesis the Borg Queen -- the major conflicts and plots of the show usually originated from the conflicts and cooperation between those characters, who demonstrated the many different ways that there were of being a woman in space. Torres’ plots also tackled issues of biracial -- by which I mean bispecies, because it's Star Trek -- identity. Here, Tom Paris is the only white male human character, the other white male actors of the lead ensemble playing an alien and a hologram respectively.

By virtue of the nature of long-running ensemble shows, each character got rich and rewarding storylines over time. And that matters. The women of Star Trek were hugely influential to my growing up, because I constantly watched them achieve anything they set their minds to, often without any reference to their gender. And the central message of the show was brought to bear over and over again, perhaps best summarised by Roddenberry himself in a lecture he gave in 1973:

“The whole show was an attempt to say that humanity will reach maturity and wisdom on the day that it begins not just to tolerate, but to take a special delight in differences in ideas and differences in life forms. We tried to say that the worst possible thing that can happen to all of us is for the future to somehow press us into a common mold, where we begin to act and talk and look and think alike. If we cannot learn to actually enjoy those small differences, take a positive delight in those small differences between our own kind, here on this planet, then we do not deserve to go out into space and meet the diversity that is almost certainly out there. And I think that this is what people responded to.”

With all of that in mind, a reboot of the original series seems to rather miss the point. For all that the 2009 film was fun, and this year's outing looks set to be just as entertaining, it is missing that key component. It's great watching personal favourite actors of mine like Zoe Saldana and John Cho take on the iconic roles of Uhura and Sulu, and with Uhura in particular it is gratifying to see her role in these films become so central, an issue discussed wonderfully by rawles in her essay examining the simple yet crucial truth that Nyota Uhura is not a white girl.

And yet. And yet. This Enterprise crew no longer has the same impact it did back in the 60s -- and that's a good thing! But by looking to the past, Abrams has failed to embrace Star Trek's key vision of pushing boundaries and expanding our understanding of ourselves and of others. There's nothing wrong with a nostalgia trip but I want more from my Trek than a loving homage.

I want a vision of the future that looks forward again, that tackles our foremost modern day prejudices. I want more racial diversity, more gender diversity, more nuanced representations of disability, more queer visibility, maybe even trans or genderqueer characters who are, gasp, human and not othered aliens. I want a Star Trek that challenges the mainstream, one that overshoots and falls flat sometimes and then picks itself up, dusts itself off and tries again, fails better.

I want a Star Trek that reaches out to those of us who don't see ourselves elsewhere in pop culture, who are erased from the mainstream narrative of what heroes should be. I want a Star Trek that tells us that all of us have a place in the future, just as we are.

There's really nothing all that bold about going where we've all gone before. 

Reactions to the same-sex marriage bill

Posted by Lashings of Ginger Beer Time





As I’m sure many of you are aware: A bill has been approved in Parliament which will legally recognise same sex marriages in England and Wales. I’ve been asking other Lashers to share their views on this issue. In this post I’ve collected their critical responses. As you might see, it is far from unanimous praise.

At this point I thought I might bring up a point of information: one issue that came about from a discussion among Lashers was the issue that this legislation applies to England and Wales and not for the whole of the United Kingdom. Scottish parliament is currently drafting similar bill with the view to holding a vote on the issue in the near future. There seems to be no plans to vote on a same sex marriage bill in Northern Ireland.

I give a personal thank you to kabarett, Isadora, Ganymede and Sasha Rocket for sharing their views. 


kabarett: I’m disappointed

I’m going to say this upfront: I’m disappointed.

I’m going to set aside the issue of whether marriage should exist as a legal institution, and focus instead on the principle that “separate but equal” isn’t, and disenfranchising (especially vulnerable) populations is a deeply unpleasant thing for any government to do.

So: way back when, a public consultation on “equal marriage” was begun. Between its name and Lynne Featherstone’s involvement, I was actually hopeful: I thought we might get marriage equality, or something approximating it, in which the only requirement was “consenting adults”.

Hahahahaha no. Trans* people are shafted, in more ways than I can briefly list: luckily, other people have been pretty comprehensive. Poly people have, naturally, been ignored. There’s not even the slightest glimmering of a hint of the existence of genderqueer people. Religious groups haven’t been given the freedom to make up their own minds. Different-sex* couples don’t get to have civil partnerships, even if they want to avoid the cultural and religious baggage associated with “marriage”.

So here’s what I think the outcome is: the general public will likely assume that “equal marriage” has been achieved, when it hasn’t. Any efforts to increase the scope of this bill once it’s passed through the Lords will face much harder struggles than they would have done if the initial draft had been passed. Cis gay people of the general Stonewall flavour, having been enfranchised, will have absolutely no incentive to campaign with anti-assimilationist queers for our equality.

I am bitterly, bitterly disappointed that as a trans* genderqueer queermo, passage of this bill is likely to make my life harder rather than easier.

So my next step? Well. Letter-writing, probably, and picking my metaphorical banner back up off the floor and heading back out onto the metaphorical streets. Be the change you wish to see, and so on, because - what else can I do?

* I use “different-sex” and “same-sex” as descriptors because (a) oppositional sexism is rubbish and (b) binarism.

Isadora: That the C of E will not be allowed to perform same-sex marriages is deeply upsetting.

This is the beginning of something I’ve wanted for a very long time, and my overriding reaction is positive and optimistic. I do however, think there are some problems with the bill as it stands. For different-sex couples to not be able to have civil partnerships makes no sense. I define as bisexual, and on a personal level I feel that there is something ludicrous about a union with any partner I might have being defined differently, as a marriage or a civil partnership, depending on that person’s sex. Whilst all my relationships have been slightly different, I don’t think the sex or gender of my partner plays a big part in that. To make marriage available to same-sex couples, but not make civil -partnership available to different-sex ones seems illogical, in addition to the implication that a civil partnership is “lesser.”

That the Church of England will not be allowed, in secular law, to perform same-sex marriages is deeply upsetting. It’s a major barrier to those of us working within the C of E to try and change attitudes and eventually, hopefully, canon law. It was already going to be a long process, but this has not only put a very solid practical barrier in place, it will also make it harder to argue the case from a “what people believe/want” perspective. I think this will increase the invisibility of the large number of Anglicans (in particular, but also other religious groups) who support either same-sex marriage or equal marriage. Those both inside and outside the Church will be less likely to listen to us, because of the impression “well, that’s not what the Church/Christians thinks/want.”

My teenage self would have wanted a church wedding, but would probably still be overjoyed at this bill. I want to briefly allow her that moment of joy that she waited so long for. Probably my younger self was quite traditional about relationships, even though it didn’t always feel like that at the time. I wanted the fairytale marriage, but with another person most likely of the same gender. My current self has bits of that. I do view both the vote and the bill as a highly significant positive step and it did give me heart-surging butterflies. But there is still more work to do.

Ganymede: do we still need to have our “legal sex” recorded at all?

I’m cautiously positive about the bill - I think it’s a great step forward, although I share kaberett’s disappointment that there are so many areas where it falls down. But I’m particularly interested by the implications it might raise for the future. Marriage is, I believe, one of the few areas where your “legal sex” actually impacts materially on your legal rights - and the passing of this bill is undermining the usefulness of the distinction between “legally female” and “legally male” still further.

It was pointed out to me recently that in centuries past, “legal sex” used to hold a lot more legislative weight. Whether you were legally classified as “female” or “male” impacted on your rights in numerous ways, mostly boiling down to whether you had the right to property, or you were property. But with every step towards gender equality, more of these legal distinctions have been eroded. And to me, the question this begs is: do we still need to have our “legal sex” recorded at all?

Imagine if every person - regardless of chromosomes, genitals, secondary sexual characteristics, sense of identity, or Gender Recognition Certificate - had an equal right to marry any other person ey chose (or become civilly partnered to em!). This bill hasn’t got us there yet, but I really hope it’s the direction we’re headed in. At that point, I’m not sure there would be any great legal distinction any more between “female” and “male”. The concepts of “female” and “male” would still have a function as social genders, and as ill-defined biological descriptors. But beyond that, surely it would only be a matter of time before their usage in law was done away with as unnecessary and outdated. No need to pick M or F for the birth certificate on the basis of a cursory glance at the genitals. No need to jump through hoops getting one’s true gender identity officially recognised. No more legal conundrums where non-binary or intersex people are concerned. And I find that thought quite exciting.

Sasha Rocket: The law’s job isn’t to change the culture, it’s to reflect it

I think the fact that same-sex couples can now get married is really awesome. Although the legal differences between a marriage and civil partnerships are tiny, I think the social statement the bill makes is a massive one, that we’ve been fighting for, for a very long time; it says that, as a society, we believe same-sex relationships are just as valid as heterosexual ones, and I think that can only be a good thing. It also says that the notion of ‘separate but equal’ isn’t equal at all. When you remember that, just 10 years ago, Section 28 was still in force, this is a remarkable step-forward. Although the bill undoubtedly has flaws and particularly lets down trans people, I hope we don’t lose sight of the massive progress we’ve made in such a short space of time.

The fact that civil partnerships aren’t being extended to all couples, as well as the fact that religious groups are not legally allowed to perform same-sex marriages, is somewhat disappointing. I think the real failing of the bill, however, is the fact that it fails to accommodate trans people, in ways that have already been explained by other Lashers. There’s still plenty of scrutiny to go though, before the bill becomes law, from both Houses, and particularly LGBTQ groups so, with enough political action, some of the failings may be remedied. I’ll wait until the whole legislative process is over before I get too hopeful but, for now, I’m cautiously optimistic.

As some other Lashers have said, a wider debate about the nature of relationships would be awesome, but I don’t think we need (or even should) be looking to parliament for that debate, particularly not currently. The law’s job isn’t to change the culture, it’s to reflect it; it’s up to us to change that culture. I think we’re slightly in danger of losing sight of the fact that lots of people have now had their relationships recognised as legitimate, and I hope that the radical change there’s been in the last decade acts to motivate us to keep at it and reminds us that we are getting somewhere.

The Beauty Debt

Posted by Galatea

Horrible joke I remember from high school: 

Q: Why do women wear perfume and make-up?

A: Because they stink and they're ugly. 

Why don't men wear perfume and make-up?

A: Because they stink and they're ugly and they don't care. 

I've been noodling around this idea in my head for quite some time now – in fact, this is a version of a post I wrote lo these many years ago, about the time of the Great Fuss Over Susan Boyle Being On National TV in 2009. It’s about a concept that I think I want to call ‘the beauty debt'.

Essentially, what I’m thinking of when I say ‘beauty debt’ is the idea floating around in modern culture that women owe a certain standard of attractiveness to those who 'have' to look at them, and that if a woman's 'natural' beauty is not sufficient (and it very rarely is), she must perform a certain amount of beauty work in order to rectify the problem, to 'pay the debt' as it were. This work might involve shaving, waxing, dyeing, surgery, food restriction, exercise, straightening, lightening, tanning, all according to individual situation, sub/culture, race, class etc. It almost always involves paying money, and quite often involves physical discomfort or pain. I probably don't need to list here what happens if she fails to perform this work or fails to perform it to a sufficient standard, but what's interesting is that often the undercurrent is we don't want to see that!; she's hurting my eyes!, how dare she make us HAVE to see that!

How Visual Kei taught me to Be a Man

Posted by Zim

Hello all! It's me, Zim!

(HI ZIM!)

Hello mystery parenthesis person who I almost certainly didn't make up! Now, you may be thinking, "oh gee, it sure has been a while since Zim posted anything. I wonder what they have to talk about today?"

(No, I really wasn--)

Don't sass me, you.

As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, I'm here to talk about my feelings and whatnot. You see, I'm a dysfunctional human being who only seems to be able to talk about their feelings when putting them on display on the internet for millions to see as if somehow this were a remotely private affair, and I've been thinking a lot lately (read: since my last post,) about the labels I use to describe myself and how I feel about them. Recently I've come especially to think about a term I previously shied away from: Transmasculine.

I previously came across this term and avoided reading anything about it because - for a number of reasons - I don't think I could bring myself to ever medically transition. I won't go into my reasons here, but let's all just accept that that is a thing that will never happen and move on. It'll be better for all of us.

BUT. Having read up a bit on it recently, I realised it's pretty much a perfect term. It's - as I understand it - all about identifying with 'masculine' traits and expressions without fully identifying as male! It's perfect. It's exactly how I've always felt, but...

Let's put a cut here and then you can do that clicky thing if you want to read more and if not then you can just move along and get on with your day.

Trans identities and essentialism

Posted by Orlando

“Gender is socially constructed.”

“Trans identities are real and valid.”

So. I’m a feminist and a trans person, and I believe both of the above statements. These two positions are sometimes held to be in opposition, whether by feminists who believe trans people are buying into patriarchal gender roles or trans people who denounce non-binary trans identities as ‘transtrenders’ (have a look at the ‘transtrender’ tag on Tumblr if you want to see examples - I’m not linking because some of the stuff on there is really hateful). In this post, I’d like to show how an understanding of gender as socially constructed and a recognition of trans identities are not mutually exclusive, starting with some analogies.

Genderqueer, dress codes, and the world beyond the bubble

Posted by Orlando

It's ten minutes before the taxi leaves. My guest room is a mess of unfamiliarity. A figure-hugging red dress with a plunging neckline. Leather high heels I've never worn before. Accessories I don't know how to use - gel inserts for my shoes, 'tit tape' to keep my dress straight. My face, tear-streaked and puffy in the mirror, bare of make-up with bushy eyebrows that haven't seen tweezers in years - and even less acceptable, the pelt of dark hair on my legs and under my arms. "I can't do this," I sob down the phone at a friend. "They'll know I'm a fake."

"So you're a fake? Be a drag queen. Femme fatale from a film noir. Femininity as artifice. Calculated masquerade. Ice queen." My friend rattles off the words she knows help make sense of this.

I am heading out to a very formal party, and I am learning - once again - that gendered dress codes are really fucking difficult.

Kitty Softpaws, Hollywood Gender Win, and Five Reasons Why Galatea's Hypothetical Children Will Be Allowed to Watch 'Puss in Boots'

Posted by Galatea

Following on the heels of Annalytica's post on the messages that we take in, consciously and unconsciously, from popular culture... I'm pleased to report a minor episode of mainstream Hollywood film gender-win, just in time for anyone who feels like taking in a film over the holidays!


I went to see the new 'Puss in Boots' film expecting not-a-great-deal in the way of positive political messages. As a pop culture and folklore/fairytale geek, I usually find films from the Shrek franchise juuuust clever and entertaining enough for me to put up with their fail -- but the fail is definitely there. The exploitation of stereotypes in the Shrek world is occasionally playful and parodic, but I find that it often steers too close to uncritical parroting of sexist, racist and fatphobic traits for me to be entirely comfortable with it (and I'll deliver my full critique of the politics of Shrek another day, boys and girls and everyone else).

The trailer, which focuses heavily on the figure of Puss himself and the action scenes, can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55gmAtakjJ4 -- and again, it doesn't promise much in the way of departure from what we've seen in previous Shrek outings. So while I like Puss, and enjoy listening to Antonio Banderas go 'Meow!' as much as the next gentleman-fancying person, I really wasn't expecting great things from this film. But what I got was...

Kitty Softpaws. Leaving aside the rather icky name (gratuitous pun on equally ickily-named James Bond character for the lose), what we have here is a mainstream Hollywood heroine who does the ass-kicking-female bit we've all seen from a hundred tedious action films... but takes it a bit further in some quite pleasing and interesting ways.

[SPOILERS BELOW THE JUMP]

Academic round up

Posted by Lashings of Ginger Beer

Some conferences which may be of interest to academics and students in the fields of gender and sexuality.

Academic roundup

Posted by Lashings of Ginger Beer

Information for students and academics in the fields of gender and sexuality.




Lecture: Hard, Bold, and Wicked: Masculinity and Liminality in Lewis and Tolkien.
7 November, 5:15
Seminar Room A of the English Faculty Building, Oxford University (directions)
Dr Anna Caughey, College Lecturer in Old and Middle English, Keble College

"In Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia and Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, the boundaries between adult and child identities are at once blurred and reinforced. Childhood, and boyhood in particular, is presented as a state that can be both transcended and retreated to when necessary, while full physical/social adulthood is generally marginalised. Using Peter Hollindale’s theory of ‘childness’ as a base, this paper examines the ways in which both texts use their fantasy settings to provide younger readers with access to material that emphasises the capability and autonomy of child/child-substitute protagonists while privileging the state of childhood." 

Conference and call for papers: Lesbian Lives
Friday 17 – Saturday 18 February 2012
University College Dublin (UCD), Ireland

"The Lesbian Lives Conference is not just the world’s only annual academic conference in Lesbian Studies, it is now a large international event that draws speakers and participants from all continents and hosts the best-known as well as emerging scholars in the field. The conference gathers together academics, activists, performers and writers who do not otherwise have the opportunity to address such large audiences or to network across international and professional boundaries. It is also a forum for political organisation on the levels of both community activism and established international NGOs."

Symposium and call for papers: Going Underground? Gender and Subcultures
7th September 2012
University of Northumbria

"Research of girls and women’s subcultural productions and engagements from queer, feminist and transgender scholars (e.g. Jack Halberstam, Doreen Piano, Susan Driver, Elizabeth K Keenan, Mary Celeste Kearney and Kath Browne) carve out a new territory for understanding the ‘subcultural’. Given this reevaluation, it is timely to re-engage with how ‘subcultural’ genders (both femininities and masculinities) are represented in alternative society and discuss how far this can be politically subversive. For instance, the revival, nostalgia and popularity of rockabilly style, burlesque, roller derby, Slutwalks, Ladyfests, fanzine/blogging networks, Suicide Girls, Guerrilla Girls, riot grrrl and the participation of girls in underground music cultures all point to the need for an academic engagement with strategies of cultural resistance to dominant identities and norms."

On feminism and submission [sexual assault triggers, possibly NSFW]

Posted by Goblin

I’m a feminist. Which is to say, I believe passionately in equality regardless of pretty much anything, and am frequently and uncomfortably outspoken about the numerous instances of misogyny, oppression, and sheer bloody impoliteness contemporary society all too often throws at us. Occasionally I have hour-long arguments with anyone from friends to virtual strangers because they tossed some casually gender-essentialist remark over their shoulders.
(Admittedly, I also have precisely no smalltalk, so almost any conversation with anyone is likely to head into more-or-less sociopolitical territory fairly early on, but I remain unconvinced this is entirely a bad thing.) I would fight for any human being’s right to opportunity, expression, ambition and fulfilment regardless of gender, race, sexuality, religious affiliation, or geographical situation (yes, this does get exhausting) and tend to find the deliberate abuse – or even exercise – of power in everyday life, particularly when this interacts negatively with various axes of privilege, pretty repellent, actually. Before I start enumerating my sexual proclivities in unwelcome detail, for ideological reasons which will hopefully become apparent, it's worth pointing out that I tend to fancy geeks, of any gender – people who have enough intelligence and individuality to question or bypass socially determined templates for success. FTR, in particular, anybody projecting the trappings of aggressive macho-linity leaves me completely cold.

CN Lester

Posted by Annalytica

One of the great things about performing with Lashings is getting to see all the other acts at the events we perform at. I'll admit, I'm not very proactive about seeking out gigs I might enjoy as an audience member, but when I get invited to an event as a performer, I get the bonus of having someone with similar tastes to mine having set up the event and chosen the acts.

Lashings have been fortunate enough to twice perform at the same event as the spectacularly talented CN Lester. CN is a singer, songwriter and pianist whose performances span an impressive range of musical genres, including opera, covers of artists such as Nina Simone and Leonard Cohen, and their own alternative music. They co-founded  En Travesti, a classical ensemble which explores gender representation, identity and ambiguity in opera, song and oratorio. They also write the blog "A Gentleman and a Scholar", which contains some really insightful writing on trans issues, amongst other things. Lashings loves CN Lester quite a lot.

I'm telling you about CN now because they have both a live performance and an album coming up very soon. En Travesti are presenting a mixed program of music from Monteverdi and Schütz on 29th September. All the details you need are here.

CN Lester's album Ashes is due to be released at the end of October. Based on their live performances, it promises to be heart-wrenchingly beautiful. By coincidence, it will also be my birthday in mid-November. Just saying.

Edited to add: Video! This is a montage of songs from CN's previous EP, available at http://itunes.apple.com/gb/artist/cn-lester/id340929388

My Gender Identity

Posted by Sally Outen

“I totally accept that very young children can feel constrained in terms of their gender roles, and feel that the way they are expected to behave (dependent on being male or female) does not match how they would prefer to be. I felt like that growing up. I hated the idea that I was supposed to be feminine.”

Guess the writer? Yes, it's self-identified radical feminist Julie Bindel, whose views on trans issues don't seem to have moved on very much since her first article on the subject was published, in 2003. This is a fresh quote, from the Guardian's online Comment is Free section a week ago; the article itself was a discussion concerning the parents who have decided not to announce the sex of their newborn baby – and hey, personally I agree with a lot of what Bindel had to say there. Sadly, in the comments (yes, I know... Rule 1: Never Read The Comments), she was led to repeat her standard transsexualism-is-just-a-cultural-construction theory. (If you'd like the full context, the quote I've chosen was in direct response to a question about how she'd explain gender dysphoria in very young children.)

Now, the thing I find so impressive about this particular quote is that it's so nearly an example of the But That Happens To Me Too! method of derailing. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that it only fails to qualify for the reason that, for me at least, it spectacularly misinterprets what I actually feel in experiencing myself as trans.

In my first contribution to this blog, I made a case for why any one person's sexual or gender identity shouldn't be taken as an invalidation of any other person's sexual or gender identity. In this post, I'd like to talk about what my gender identity actually means to me, and why that doesn't have to stand in direct opposition to the aspiration that Bindel and many other radical feminists refer to as the abolition of gender.