When people have somewhat unusual methods of ... doing anything, really, there are often authority figures who will try to stop it with the excuse that it won't fly in some other context, so it needs to be stopped in this one, too.
It's bullshit.
First, different contexts are different. A K-12 classroom is not a university classroom is not a construction site is not a factory floor is not an online chatroom is not a floor full of cubicles is not a ballroom. Just because I shouldn't waltz on a construction site, that doesn't mean you should tell me not to waltz in a ballroom because it wouldn't fly on a construction site. Just because some people will (incorrectly) assume my iso headphones (noise reduction, but not cancelling or music) mean I'm not paying attention, that doesn't mean I shouldn't wear them on a factory floor or at a construction site. It doesn't actually mean I should skip them at school or in an office, either. It's an assistive tool for sensory processing issues, and willful continued misinterpretations once I explain that to you once are not my problem.
Second, the context you cite may well consider the unusual method a non-issue. Some people like to tell me that being nonbinary might sound cool on the internet, but at work no one would tolerate that. They're just wrong. I use "they/them" pronouns and either "Mx." or no honorific at all as a teacher. I do the same as a graduate student. I get asked about it on occasion, but it's a non-issue. Your statement that it won't fly in [insert other context here] may well just be wrong. Others would like to tell me that sitting on the floor or under tables won't be tolerated later, so kids with disabilities need to be table-ready as a first priority, ahead of things like getting communication supports. I sit under an actual literal table when I have to go into the lab in graduate school. No one cares.
Third, even if the people in this other context have an issue, have you considered the possibility that they're wrong to do so? The administrators at a university where I studied abroad were of the opinion that I shouldn't come, because "people like that shouldn't be in college." (People like that meant autistic people, in this case.) I feel OK assuming just about any specific autistic trait they took issue with was a cover for them not wanting autistic students at all. Or a rock climbing instructor takes an issue with flapping (without letting go of the person on the wall!) and being left-handed. They're just wrong. Why are you backing up their wrong-ness?
Different environments have different expectations for actual reasons, they might not have the expectations you'd think they have, and other people are just as capable of having bullshit expectations as we are. "That wouldn't fly at work, so I'm not letting it fly in my classroom" is not a good argument.
Showing posts with label Queer Stuff. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Queer Stuff. Show all posts
Saturday, November 10, 2018
Friday, November 2, 2018
In defense of "microlabels"
This is about being an online math teacher, or a graduate teaching assistant, or a physics lab assistant, and it's about being a panromantic asexual nonbinary (or just queer.)
I'm a teacher. When people ask me what I do, I can say I teach. Sometimes they'll want more details, sometimes they won't.
I'm queer. Sometimes people want more detail than that, and sometimes they won't. Sometimes I'll give it to them, and sometimes I won't.
I can tell you that I teach mathematics. I can tell you I'm pan, or that I'm bi. (I consider both statements to be true of me.)
I can tell you that I teach online. I can tell you that I'm ace.
Or maybe I can tell you that I teach online math classes. I'm panromantic and asexual.
I taught in a lab. I'm transgender.
More specifically, I was an assistant in that lab. More specifically, I'm nonbinary.
I've been a lab assistant at 天津师范大学 (Tianjin Normal University), and at the University of Rhode Island. My autism does affect how I do gender, so gendervague is a word I sometimes use to describe exactly how I'm nonbinary.
Obviously, teaching experiences, gender, and sexuality aren't identical. However, when you specifically don't need to know that I did one of my lab assistant jobs in Chinese, you probably aren't going to tell me that it's divisive for me to specify that much, or that I'm just a special snowflake, or anything in that area. People do say that when I come up with words like gendervague.
Not every detail of who I am is going to matter to every person. That's fine. You might not care that I assisted a physics lab in China, using Mandarin. My supervisor in the electrical engineering lab does, because she speaks Mandarin too, and it's useful for her to know I understand the language. You might not care that I'm gendervague. Another reader, themselves autistic, questioning their gender, and wondering if they just might not "get" gender, could find the existence of the word useful. My issue comes up when sharing those details in a mixed audience, where some people will find those extra details to be of interest, is met with outright hostility from the people who don't need them.
Just because it's not information you need, that doesn't mean it's a useless word.
I'm a teacher. When people ask me what I do, I can say I teach. Sometimes they'll want more details, sometimes they won't.
I'm queer. Sometimes people want more detail than that, and sometimes they won't. Sometimes I'll give it to them, and sometimes I won't.
I can tell you that I teach mathematics. I can tell you I'm pan, or that I'm bi. (I consider both statements to be true of me.)
I can tell you that I teach online. I can tell you that I'm ace.
Or maybe I can tell you that I teach online math classes. I'm panromantic and asexual.
I taught in a lab. I'm transgender.
More specifically, I was an assistant in that lab. More specifically, I'm nonbinary.
I've been a lab assistant at 天津师范大学 (Tianjin Normal University), and at the University of Rhode Island. My autism does affect how I do gender, so gendervague is a word I sometimes use to describe exactly how I'm nonbinary.
Obviously, teaching experiences, gender, and sexuality aren't identical. However, when you specifically don't need to know that I did one of my lab assistant jobs in Chinese, you probably aren't going to tell me that it's divisive for me to specify that much, or that I'm just a special snowflake, or anything in that area. People do say that when I come up with words like gendervague.
Not every detail of who I am is going to matter to every person. That's fine. You might not care that I assisted a physics lab in China, using Mandarin. My supervisor in the electrical engineering lab does, because she speaks Mandarin too, and it's useful for her to know I understand the language. You might not care that I'm gendervague. Another reader, themselves autistic, questioning their gender, and wondering if they just might not "get" gender, could find the existence of the word useful. My issue comes up when sharing those details in a mixed audience, where some people will find those extra details to be of interest, is met with outright hostility from the people who don't need them.
Just because it's not information you need, that doesn't mean it's a useless word.
Saturday, July 29, 2017
Language choices and history
Yeah, yeah, I know, I've talked about this before. Assuming
I caught all my prior posts, this is the sixteenth time I've talked about
language choices for autism, though this one isn't quite the same as the
others. It’s coming as the result of a good discussion that helped me clarify
thoughts I'd been having rather than the result of someone insisting my
language choice is wrong because they were taught so.
So: I hate being called “differently abled.” It feels euphemistic to me, like we can’t admit to the fact that I’m disabled. I also hate being called a “person with autism.” Even being called “on the spectrum” rankles, and not just because I think the idea of autism as a spectrum gets used to reduce everything into a spectrum of “less autistic” to “more autistic” and also “higher functioning” to “lower functioning,” with these two incoherent concepts also being considered to be the same[i]. It’s also the way the term has been used. It’s a sort of (very recent) usage history that makes me extra wary of “on the spectrum.”
And history is the key to my current thoughts. Every way I can think of to identify myself as Autistic or as Queer has history. Usually as a slur, in the case of Queer identity - Queer itself is an example of this. “Autistic” as noun? It’s part of the dehumanizing nonsense that got person-first language started in the first place.
Person-first language, or “person with autism”? Yeah, it started in a good place, where people with disabilities, mostly intellectual or developmental disabilities, decided that they wanted that language to emphasize their personhood. Professionals were (frankly often still are) forgetting that we’re people. Said professionals picked up the language. They didn’t pick up the intent: remember that we’re people. At least in the case of autism, and probably for other disabilities, they picked up a completely different idea: that the autism or other disability is somehow separable from the person, and there’s a “normal” person underneath. That’s a history I want nothing to do with – don’t call me a person with autism. Also, if you need a language construction to remember that I’m human I don’t want you anywhere near me. I don’t. I’m not sorry.
“Differently abled”? Technically true, I guess. It’s another one where there may have been good intentions originally – recognizing that we have abilities that typical people may not have access to, and that this can be a direct result of our disabilities. (Or, or different abilities?) It gets used as as a way to ignore the realities of disability, of access barriers, and sometimes of the reality that there are things we just can’t do.
“On the spectrum”? It’s been touted as a compromise solution to this language debate. Mostly by professionals who think “person on the spectrum” is less euphemistic than “person with autism” and by people “on the spectrum” who are willing to be tokenized, as far as I can tell. It’s not only unclear (there are many spectrums), but also still a person-first construction. That’s not a compromise! But folks insist it is one.
“Aspergers” or any variation thereof? 1) False. Literally does not apply. 2) When it was a diagnosis in the DSM, it was frequently applied to mean “high functioning” or to avoid scaring people with the “autism” label. It ties in with aspie supremacy, and that can kill. No way. That’s not just a history I don’t like. That’s a present I find morally reprehensible.
Now, I need to find a way to talk about who I am, what my experiences are as an Autistic person. I need to use language that will be understood. Making up new words is a valid option. It’s where new language comes from. I use plenty of words that were created in my community. But take a look at the history behind some of the words I said I have issues with. Some of them started in my community, or communities like mine. Then they got picked up by folks who want to pretend that the difference isn't quite real, isn't important, or can somehow be separated from the person (maybe needs to be in order for the person to count as a Real Person.) Even language that could be good has this happen. Then there’s the reclaimed slurs. (A lot of the language around Queerness is of the reclaimed slur type.) Just about all the language has problems of this sort. At this point, reasonable people can reach different preferences based on which bad history, which bad associations, which ones are we going to tolerate or reclaim for the sake of being understood?
Now, I am of the "queer as in fuck you" school of thought for most of my divergences[ii]. Disability is a word that scares people. “Good intentions” behind folks saying they don't see me as autistic, or as disabled are an indicator of how much disability is seen as a Bad Thing. Making people face the scary concept is actually an argument for using capitalized, identity first Disabled and Autistic in my case. Folks can sit with that particular discomfort, and if they tell me they don't see me that way or I shouldn't call myself that, they're getting asked 1) why they think their idea of me trumps my own, and 2) why they think they know better than I do what I should be called. If my identity is so uncomfortable for them that this is taken as attacking, we’ve got a big problem.
So: I hate being called “differently abled.” It feels euphemistic to me, like we can’t admit to the fact that I’m disabled. I also hate being called a “person with autism.” Even being called “on the spectrum” rankles, and not just because I think the idea of autism as a spectrum gets used to reduce everything into a spectrum of “less autistic” to “more autistic” and also “higher functioning” to “lower functioning,” with these two incoherent concepts also being considered to be the same[i]. It’s also the way the term has been used. It’s a sort of (very recent) usage history that makes me extra wary of “on the spectrum.”
And history is the key to my current thoughts. Every way I can think of to identify myself as Autistic or as Queer has history. Usually as a slur, in the case of Queer identity - Queer itself is an example of this. “Autistic” as noun? It’s part of the dehumanizing nonsense that got person-first language started in the first place.
Person-first language, or “person with autism”? Yeah, it started in a good place, where people with disabilities, mostly intellectual or developmental disabilities, decided that they wanted that language to emphasize their personhood. Professionals were (frankly often still are) forgetting that we’re people. Said professionals picked up the language. They didn’t pick up the intent: remember that we’re people. At least in the case of autism, and probably for other disabilities, they picked up a completely different idea: that the autism or other disability is somehow separable from the person, and there’s a “normal” person underneath. That’s a history I want nothing to do with – don’t call me a person with autism. Also, if you need a language construction to remember that I’m human I don’t want you anywhere near me. I don’t. I’m not sorry.
“Differently abled”? Technically true, I guess. It’s another one where there may have been good intentions originally – recognizing that we have abilities that typical people may not have access to, and that this can be a direct result of our disabilities. (Or, or different abilities?) It gets used as as a way to ignore the realities of disability, of access barriers, and sometimes of the reality that there are things we just can’t do.
“On the spectrum”? It’s been touted as a compromise solution to this language debate. Mostly by professionals who think “person on the spectrum” is less euphemistic than “person with autism” and by people “on the spectrum” who are willing to be tokenized, as far as I can tell. It’s not only unclear (there are many spectrums), but also still a person-first construction. That’s not a compromise! But folks insist it is one.
“Aspergers” or any variation thereof? 1) False. Literally does not apply. 2) When it was a diagnosis in the DSM, it was frequently applied to mean “high functioning” or to avoid scaring people with the “autism” label. It ties in with aspie supremacy, and that can kill. No way. That’s not just a history I don’t like. That’s a present I find morally reprehensible.
Now, I need to find a way to talk about who I am, what my experiences are as an Autistic person. I need to use language that will be understood. Making up new words is a valid option. It’s where new language comes from. I use plenty of words that were created in my community. But take a look at the history behind some of the words I said I have issues with. Some of them started in my community, or communities like mine. Then they got picked up by folks who want to pretend that the difference isn't quite real, isn't important, or can somehow be separated from the person (maybe needs to be in order for the person to count as a Real Person.) Even language that could be good has this happen. Then there’s the reclaimed slurs. (A lot of the language around Queerness is of the reclaimed slur type.) Just about all the language has problems of this sort. At this point, reasonable people can reach different preferences based on which bad history, which bad associations, which ones are we going to tolerate or reclaim for the sake of being understood?
Now, I am of the "queer as in fuck you" school of thought for most of my divergences[ii]. Disability is a word that scares people. “Good intentions” behind folks saying they don't see me as autistic, or as disabled are an indicator of how much disability is seen as a Bad Thing. Making people face the scary concept is actually an argument for using capitalized, identity first Disabled and Autistic in my case. Folks can sit with that particular discomfort, and if they tell me they don't see me that way or I shouldn't call myself that, they're getting asked 1) why they think their idea of me trumps my own, and 2) why they think they know better than I do what I should be called. If my identity is so uncomfortable for them that this is taken as attacking, we’ve got a big problem.
Thursday, May 18, 2017
Alyssa Reads Critical Studies of the Sexed Brain
This is another one I read for neuroethics. I was considering using this article for my presentation on a neuroethics related topics, but that didn't happen because someone else split off my too-large group and it wasn't too big anymore. We actually wound up talking about a medication used to treat addiction ... that can itself be addictive. Fun times. So, here's some of my thoughts from reading Critical studies of the sexed brain.
“They suggest that we work and talk
across disciplines as if neuroscientists were from Mars and social
scientists were from Venus, assigning the latter to the traditional
feminine role of assuaging conflict” (247). sigh I am not
surprised that some scientists think of social sciences that way.
Brain plasticity+ identity formation in
intersex people, brains vs. genitals. That's going to be interesting. By which I mean, I have concerns. I have friends who are intersex. I know people who do intersex activism. And I know intersex people who concluded that intersex and/or nonbinary is their
gender identity rather than picking one of the two binary genders.
Hope the author isn't assuming a gender identity must be one of
man/woman. Heck, mine isn't that and as far as I know, I'm not intersex.
Oi
at calling autism a disease. It is a neurodevelopmental
disability [or a neurotype, that's a good word and also let's remember what I'm saying when I say disability - the social model of disability is a thing.] Also I know the
author found neurodiversity stuff because the article comes up when I
search the journal for neurodiversity, what the heck? I don't expect
to hear it called a neurotype
in anything done by neurotypical(-passing) academics but really?
Disease?
Ok,
gender in the brain as a result of plasticity, that's going to be
interesting – “reflect gendered behavior as learned and
incorporated in a social context” is a thing, but please, please
don't let this turn into “male socialization” for trans women or
“female socialization” for trans men, or either of the above for
nonbinary folks. The socialization of “consistently mistaken for X
while actually Y” is not the same as the socialization of “X.”
Ok, individual differences are a thing. That's good. “Plasticity
arguments are extremely interesting as they wage war against both
biological and social
determinism, reductionism, essentialism, and other -isms.” Phew
that's
not the socialization argument I was worried about, I don't think.
Does
she mean “cishet” by “normal people”? (Cishet=cisgender,
heterosexual.) I appreciate the quotation marks around “normal
people” but there probably is
another word for what she means and using it would be nice.
Now we have one of
my rage buttons. All caps time!
OH MY GOD STOP
CALLING NEURODIVERSITY AN ASPERGERS THING. THE ANI PEOPLE WERE
CLASSIC EVEN IF THEY TALK NOW, AND ALSO DIAGNOSED BEFORE ASPERGERS
WAS IN THE DSM. MEL BAGGS IS NONSPEAKING. AMY SEQUENZIA IS
NONSPEAKING. I'M CLASSIC EVEN THOUGH I USUALLY TALK. STOP. STOP.
SERIOUSLY THE ROOTS ARE OLD ENOUGH THAT ASPERGERS WASN'T A DIAGNOSIS
YET WHEN A LOT OF OUR FOLKS WERE DIAGNOSED, WHICH MEANS THEY WEREN'T
DIAGNOSED ASPERGERS. THEY ARE NOT ASPERGERS, WHICH IS ALSO NOT A
DIAGNOSIS ANYMORE. (maybe was when written?)
Intersex activist
history! I knew about unwanted surgery, gender role training, and
folks wanting their own intersex bodies back. I also know someone who was
put on unwanted hormones. What are the results of Diamond getting so
lauded while speaking in terms of brain sex, though? It's still the
language coming from the people who try to enforce the man/woman
dichotomy. What are the results of using the "sexed brain" discourse
while not necessarily fitting in the binary?
1 Walker,
N. (September 27, 2014). Neurodiversity: Some basic terms and
definitions. Neurocosmopolitanism: Nick Walker's notes on
neurodiversity, autism, and cognitive liberty.
[blog post] Retrieved from
http://neurocosmopolitanism.com/neurodiversity-some-basic-terms-definitions/
is a good explanation of the neurodiversity related vocabulary I
tend to use when thinking about neuro stuff.
Friday, March 17, 2017
Dear Well-Meaning Autism Mom Looking For A Surrogate Mom For Your Son, Please Don't Assume The Person You Approached Is A Girl Or Straight
Guest post by Elizabeth Rosenzweig.
So I run an autism meetup. Parents of post-pubescent autistics are not invited. There’s a number of reasons why but one of them in particular has been making the blog rounds: well-meaning but misguided parents who, out of concern for their son’s (and it is always a son, isn’t it?) inability to fend for himself, look to set up a trust fund for him in the shape of a kindly woman savior who will cook and clean and pay his bills for him, forever and ever, amen. The guys themselves can be the problem, too; a person who should be a grown-ass man asks you out and is then shocked, SHOCKED, to discover that you’re just as shit at getting A Job, remembering to pay bills on time, and feeding/picking up after yourself as he is, if not worse. (I, uh, may or may not have very personal experience with that one.)
But I’ve already had two very smart friends I admire address that aspect in plenty of depth, so, well-meaning but misguided parent, let me address another one that you may not have considered.
That long-haired, girl-shaped, pretty, kind person you met, the one you think would look so cute on the arm of your precious manchild (or your precious self), might not actually be a girl. Or straight.
That long-haired, girl-shaped, pretty, kind person you met, the one you think would look so cute on the arm of your precious manchild (or your precious self), might not actually be a girl. Or straight.
They could be asexual or aromantic - content and whole within themselves. They might be allosexual but gay. They might use she/her pronouns but feel utterly alienated from femininity as a concept. They might be a genderless android. They might be a trans man. You just don’t know!
It’s almost like that long-haired, girl-shaped, pretty, kind person is… hear me out for a second… a person. Not your personal insurance policy, or your uncompensated PCA, or your romantic-comedy-prize, or your glorified German Shepherd, but an entire human being unto themselves, with weaknesses and feelings and ambitions beyond saddling themselves to some cisgendered guy who wants things done just like his mom did them. *They* might be the one needing a PCA! They might maybe sometimes need someone to hold them while they cry hysterically because they foolishly expended all their energy for the day on folding three-quarters of the laundry. (I, uh, may or may not have very personal experience with that one too.)
How do I even address the sexual side of things with you? You, hypothetical mom, have almost certainly had experience with shutting up and taking it while a male partner got his rocks off inside you. Is that how you want your son treating his life companion? Is that how you would want to be treated? I’m certainly sick of it, or worse, being treated as deranged for exploding in frustration after having my own needs go unacknowledged and unmet for years at a time. I got so sick of it that I quit men and went monogamous with an assigned-female-at-birth genderless android. So far, so good. But how would you know that from looking, unless you saw me and my wife together?
The point is, you don’t consider those things. You think about your own fears, which are visceral and immediate. What will become of my child after I’m gone? When will I have a chance to feel like a person and not a 24/7 PCA - won’t anyone please help me? And those questions resonate so loudly inside your own head that you don’t stop to ask yourself the ones I’ve posed here. That’s not my problem, though, nor is it the problem of any long-haired, girl-shaped, pretty, kind autistic. It’s not fair of you to put your anxieties on us, when we have so many of our own to contend with.
One of the side benefits of running an autism meetup is that you have the opportunity to meet a lot of people of all ages and genders and walks of life. I have quite a few lovely gentlemen who are regular attendees. Let me reassure you, dear, hypothetical mom, that almost all of them have turned out just fine, with the support of agents and agencies who are meant to do the work that you are looking for from that nice autistic at the meetup. It’s actually the ones whose parents have done the most coddling and interfering who are struggling the most.
One of the side benefits of running an autism meetup is that you have the opportunity to meet a lot of people of all ages and genders and walks of life. I have quite a few lovely gentlemen who are regular attendees. Let me reassure you, dear, hypothetical mom, that almost all of them have turned out just fine, with the support of agents and agencies who are meant to do the work that you are looking for from that nice autistic at the meetup. It’s actually the ones whose parents have done the most coddling and interfering who are struggling the most.
So please. Stop putting your cissexist, heteronormative expectations on people you barely know, in the name of providing for your own offspring. You’ll start working on real solutions much faster once you do.
Monday, January 30, 2017
RPG/Nonbinary
Heads up that gender binary stuff is going to be discussed, largely in terms of my reactions to it playing Runescape, an online role playing game. So is dysphoria, both with my actual body and with a digital avatar for the game.
I've played Runescape for quite a while. Long enough that I've watched the graphics change quite a bit. Some of these changes are nice (Priffinidas looks pretty cool. Also, I gave my avatar purple hair and purple wings.) Some are ... not great for me. (The female avatar's chest is quite a bit more noticable than it used to be. Also, armor designs look different based on male vs. female avatars in a way the graphics didn't used to be good enough to support properly.)
In the ideal world, there would be an androgynous option. I don't live in that world. There's male avatars and female avatars. If you use a male avatar, you have shorter hair options (darn), a flat chest (yay), armor graphics that would actually protect your torso (yay), usually facial hair (whatever), and he pronouns (whatever.) If you use a female avatar, you have both short and long hair options (yay), a chest that is definitely not flat (dysphoric), armor graphics that show off said chest (dysphoric), only the new "pirate" beards from a recent event as facial hair options (whatever), and she pronouns (whatever.) "They" pronouns aren't an option, no matter what avatar you're using (darn.)
When I first made my account (and I do still use my original account from middle school), I didn't know I was nonbinary yet. So, of course, I used my assigned gender and made a female avatar. Over time, I started having issues with this. (Hi, dysphoria is a thing.) My original avatar looked a bit like I physically do -- long brown hair, skin that's on the dark side for a white person but still a white person, and a tendency to wear purple. It even had a long braid for a while. As graphics advanced and I became more aware that my problems with the avatar were dysphoria, I made my avatar look less like me. Purple hair not in a braid, purple skin, wings.
But I was still having trouble. Some of the armor options I liked were dysphoric to look at on my character. (Thank blob for cosmetic overrides. I used those heavily, and still do, so the "look" of my character doesn't change when I change the armor I'm wearing. This got me around that problem, at least.) It took me a while to think of "switch the avatar gender" because I'm nonbinary, and that means that a male avatar is still incorrect. However, in terms of the characteristics that show up in Runescape, it's closer. Flat chest for the win. (That's my primary dysphoria issue in meatspace, and it remains so with digital representations.) The pronouns are a question of the usual wrong answer (she) vs. the unusual wrong answer (he) and it's easier for me to be amused by the unusual wrong answer. (They/them/their is a right answer.) And with actual items + keepsake keys, I retain the ability to put my avatar in a skirt. This works so much better.
I've played Runescape for quite a while. Long enough that I've watched the graphics change quite a bit. Some of these changes are nice (Priffinidas looks pretty cool. Also, I gave my avatar purple hair and purple wings.) Some are ... not great for me. (The female avatar's chest is quite a bit more noticable than it used to be. Also, armor designs look different based on male vs. female avatars in a way the graphics didn't used to be good enough to support properly.)
In the ideal world, there would be an androgynous option. I don't live in that world. There's male avatars and female avatars. If you use a male avatar, you have shorter hair options (darn), a flat chest (yay), armor graphics that would actually protect your torso (yay), usually facial hair (whatever), and he pronouns (whatever.) If you use a female avatar, you have both short and long hair options (yay), a chest that is definitely not flat (dysphoric), armor graphics that show off said chest (dysphoric), only the new "pirate" beards from a recent event as facial hair options (whatever), and she pronouns (whatever.) "They" pronouns aren't an option, no matter what avatar you're using (darn.)
When I first made my account (and I do still use my original account from middle school), I didn't know I was nonbinary yet. So, of course, I used my assigned gender and made a female avatar. Over time, I started having issues with this. (Hi, dysphoria is a thing.) My original avatar looked a bit like I physically do -- long brown hair, skin that's on the dark side for a white person but still a white person, and a tendency to wear purple. It even had a long braid for a while. As graphics advanced and I became more aware that my problems with the avatar were dysphoria, I made my avatar look less like me. Purple hair not in a braid, purple skin, wings.
But I was still having trouble. Some of the armor options I liked were dysphoric to look at on my character. (Thank blob for cosmetic overrides. I used those heavily, and still do, so the "look" of my character doesn't change when I change the armor I'm wearing. This got me around that problem, at least.) It took me a while to think of "switch the avatar gender" because I'm nonbinary, and that means that a male avatar is still incorrect. However, in terms of the characteristics that show up in Runescape, it's closer. Flat chest for the win. (That's my primary dysphoria issue in meatspace, and it remains so with digital representations.) The pronouns are a question of the usual wrong answer (she) vs. the unusual wrong answer (he) and it's easier for me to be amused by the unusual wrong answer. (They/them/their is a right answer.) And with actual items + keepsake keys, I retain the ability to put my avatar in a skirt. This works so much better.
Saturday, October 15, 2016
Alyssa Reads The Myth of Gender: Create Your Own Identity
Full disclosure -- I'm reading this book as part of a Simbi deal, in which I got the book in exchange for reviewing it on a site where it's sold. I'm still going to review honestly, because 1) ethics and 2) I am terrible at claiming to like things I dislike, have you read my reactions to Uniquely Human? I wanted to like that book. I did not like that book. Also this review isn't the required one anyways, and mostly consists of my notes for writing that review.
So, here I go. You can get The Myth of Gender: Create Your Own Identity by S. G. Mune on Amazon, in paperback or for Kindle. They also seem to be providing it through Simbi, and may still be game for reviewers? My copy is a pdf for reviewing. I have mixed feelings about the book, by the way.
The first things I noticed, because I checked the book out on Amazon before agreeing to notice, are the reviews already there (positive except for a therapist who seemed very bothered by how the contents of the book aren't in line with clinical guidelines, which Mune didn't claim to be aiming for, and which actually makes me want to read the book more. After all, evidence based "best practices" and similar are always geared towards giving the most possible people the best outcome, with best defined by the folks in charge. There are always people who don't fit, and there are always people who disagree with the definition of "best" that's being used. Pay attention to their stories.) I also noticed the author bio, which is really interesting but does have one slur I doubt is really theirs to reclaim. Appropriation of things that aren't theirs to claim is a thing -- there's one slur in their bio and another near the end of the book, of which I'm fairly sure neither is actually theirs to reclaim. I'm not sure what culture Agobi is from, but that's likely appropriated too.
I enjoyed the personal stories. They're fun, they're individual, they're funny, and they have meanings behind them. Some of them resonate. (I didn't want to play the "girl" roles at school either, usually. The one time I went for it, it was playing the queen in the kindergarten play, in which I had the queen save the knight too so it wouldn't be one-sided.) I was very amused by the use of giraffes as an example, thanks to the Autistic Party Giraffe.
A good bit of the advice reminds me of things I learned when studying Mandarin, because of course the Tao Te Ching came up, or when we read parts of the Bhagavad Gita in my senior year, or even Siddhartha, though I don't remember which year of high school that was. There are unexpected comparisons, there's the idea that it's OK not to know things, and there's an explicit statement that we only know someone else's identity by what they tell us it is. (Familiarity is not a bad thing. Having seen something before, but in a different form, means that it is easier for me to make connections.)
I have big issues with the idea of language as the catalyst for human identity. As someone who spoke in infancy but doesn't have much in the way of episodic memory from ... ever, really, but I certainly don't remember much of anything from before I was eight even though I'd been speaking for seven years by then, I have to disagree strongly with language as being the catalyst. The ability to describe things more broadly, I might buy (not sure, but maybe), but language is not the only descriptive tool we have available to us. So that's my not buying it. I also have an ethical issue because people who either never use language or for whom language is not natural exist and are humans with identities. Not in the sense that they describe that identity in language, but in the sense that they can know what does and doesn't fit with who they are and what they want.
I loved the statement about children wanting "everyone's dream to come true, not just the normal boring ones" (emphasis in the original.) Kids really do tend to be so much better about accepting people than adults are, until the adults teach them otherwise. And empathy for yourself, asking yourself what you would do if your friend had the problem you're having now, is so important.
I also seriously love the impishness in some of their life and expressions and art. Someone concludes you are everything they fear? Prove them right. [I am your optimal outcome, in every way but one. Thud. I rejected your ideal of indistinguishability from one's peers. Thud. I have thrown myself conspicuously and defiantly into a wall at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Thud.]
Taking issue (and repeated issue) with the idea of being forced into boxes is great. And taking issue with "unity through extinguishing difference" is also great. (Hi, neurodiversity paradigm, I think you fit well here.) Their take on gendered clothing and colors, and how ridiculous these can be, is great. I'm not fully on board with their definition of "orientation" but I definitely like calling out the part where we almost always realize attraction before actually knowing what's in someone's pants, and I definitely like the mention for the idea that you can have a preference re: a partner's gender without it being an all-important trait that must match your preference.
The idea that all our internal pressures and similar are thing we've placed there ourselves runs victim-blaming when abuse enters the picture, when compliance based therapies enter the picture. I don't trust that. And this isn't the only time their statements run victim-blaming, either. Watch out for it, sometimes on a systematic level. Really, really watch for the victim-blaming and not quite -- I don't want to say not getting, because they talk about the transgender day of remembrance and murder and people being killed for who they are -- but sometimes badly overlooking the extent to which we have to pay attention to the people who hate us and fight back for our lives and freedom, or hide for our lives and the hope of later freedom. Overlooking the extent to which trauma is real, and that yes, we can be hurt without our consent.
The statement that no one has ever died from being fired is similarly ... just not true. People do starve to death because they don't have an income anymore, people do freeze to death because they don't have homes anymore, people do sometimes die as a result of having been fired. Losing things that you could afford to lose and maybe even needed to lose is one thing, but no you should not tell people to be glad for things that could literally kill them. Similarly, appearing mystical or mad to those around us is no concern of ours... until it is. Sometimes those perceptions get people involuntarily, and sometimes they get people killed. Both of those are actual concerns.
On the whole, I enjoyed the collection of stories and essays that is this book, though I cringed at points. Generalizing their experiences to broader theories didn't work out quite so well (though I am approximately 100% sure that the points I think it didn't work are not the same as the ones the therapist thought didn't work.) There are apparent contradictions, but whose life doesn't have those? If I contradict myself, then I contradict myself. I am vast; I contain multitudes. (And language is only ever an approximation, if a useful one.) A big theme I liked was the idea that you can change, and that things that don't work for you can be discarded and replaced. That's not always possible, but knowing when it's possible and taking advantage of the possibility is so useful. There were definitely bits where I'll be applying that theme to the book itself (use the parts I find useful, discard what I don't) but it was worth the read, for me.
Appreciate my writing? Support me on Patreon! (This post was free, btw, because book review I was already compensated for.)
So, here I go. You can get The Myth of Gender: Create Your Own Identity by S. G. Mune on Amazon, in paperback or for Kindle. They also seem to be providing it through Simbi, and may still be game for reviewers? My copy is a pdf for reviewing. I have mixed feelings about the book, by the way.
The first things I noticed, because I checked the book out on Amazon before agreeing to notice, are the reviews already there (positive except for a therapist who seemed very bothered by how the contents of the book aren't in line with clinical guidelines, which Mune didn't claim to be aiming for, and which actually makes me want to read the book more. After all, evidence based "best practices" and similar are always geared towards giving the most possible people the best outcome, with best defined by the folks in charge. There are always people who don't fit, and there are always people who disagree with the definition of "best" that's being used. Pay attention to their stories.) I also noticed the author bio, which is really interesting but does have one slur I doubt is really theirs to reclaim. Appropriation of things that aren't theirs to claim is a thing -- there's one slur in their bio and another near the end of the book, of which I'm fairly sure neither is actually theirs to reclaim. I'm not sure what culture Agobi is from, but that's likely appropriated too.
I enjoyed the personal stories. They're fun, they're individual, they're funny, and they have meanings behind them. Some of them resonate. (I didn't want to play the "girl" roles at school either, usually. The one time I went for it, it was playing the queen in the kindergarten play, in which I had the queen save the knight too so it wouldn't be one-sided.) I was very amused by the use of giraffes as an example, thanks to the Autistic Party Giraffe.
A good bit of the advice reminds me of things I learned when studying Mandarin, because of course the Tao Te Ching came up, or when we read parts of the Bhagavad Gita in my senior year, or even Siddhartha, though I don't remember which year of high school that was. There are unexpected comparisons, there's the idea that it's OK not to know things, and there's an explicit statement that we only know someone else's identity by what they tell us it is. (Familiarity is not a bad thing. Having seen something before, but in a different form, means that it is easier for me to make connections.)
I have big issues with the idea of language as the catalyst for human identity. As someone who spoke in infancy but doesn't have much in the way of episodic memory from ... ever, really, but I certainly don't remember much of anything from before I was eight even though I'd been speaking for seven years by then, I have to disagree strongly with language as being the catalyst. The ability to describe things more broadly, I might buy (not sure, but maybe), but language is not the only descriptive tool we have available to us. So that's my not buying it. I also have an ethical issue because people who either never use language or for whom language is not natural exist and are humans with identities. Not in the sense that they describe that identity in language, but in the sense that they can know what does and doesn't fit with who they are and what they want.
I loved the statement about children wanting "everyone's dream to come true, not just the normal boring ones" (emphasis in the original.) Kids really do tend to be so much better about accepting people than adults are, until the adults teach them otherwise. And empathy for yourself, asking yourself what you would do if your friend had the problem you're having now, is so important.
I also seriously love the impishness in some of their life and expressions and art. Someone concludes you are everything they fear? Prove them right. [I am your optimal outcome, in every way but one. Thud. I rejected your ideal of indistinguishability from one's peers. Thud. I have thrown myself conspicuously and defiantly into a wall at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Thud.]
Taking issue (and repeated issue) with the idea of being forced into boxes is great. And taking issue with "unity through extinguishing difference" is also great. (Hi, neurodiversity paradigm, I think you fit well here.) Their take on gendered clothing and colors, and how ridiculous these can be, is great. I'm not fully on board with their definition of "orientation" but I definitely like calling out the part where we almost always realize attraction before actually knowing what's in someone's pants, and I definitely like the mention for the idea that you can have a preference re: a partner's gender without it being an all-important trait that must match your preference.
The idea that all our internal pressures and similar are thing we've placed there ourselves runs victim-blaming when abuse enters the picture, when compliance based therapies enter the picture. I don't trust that. And this isn't the only time their statements run victim-blaming, either. Watch out for it, sometimes on a systematic level. Really, really watch for the victim-blaming and not quite -- I don't want to say not getting, because they talk about the transgender day of remembrance and murder and people being killed for who they are -- but sometimes badly overlooking the extent to which we have to pay attention to the people who hate us and fight back for our lives and freedom, or hide for our lives and the hope of later freedom. Overlooking the extent to which trauma is real, and that yes, we can be hurt without our consent.
The statement that no one has ever died from being fired is similarly ... just not true. People do starve to death because they don't have an income anymore, people do freeze to death because they don't have homes anymore, people do sometimes die as a result of having been fired. Losing things that you could afford to lose and maybe even needed to lose is one thing, but no you should not tell people to be glad for things that could literally kill them. Similarly, appearing mystical or mad to those around us is no concern of ours... until it is. Sometimes those perceptions get people involuntarily, and sometimes they get people killed. Both of those are actual concerns.
On the whole, I enjoyed the collection of stories and essays that is this book, though I cringed at points. Generalizing their experiences to broader theories didn't work out quite so well (though I am approximately 100% sure that the points I think it didn't work are not the same as the ones the therapist thought didn't work.) There are apparent contradictions, but whose life doesn't have those? If I contradict myself, then I contradict myself. I am vast; I contain multitudes. (And language is only ever an approximation, if a useful one.) A big theme I liked was the idea that you can change, and that things that don't work for you can be discarded and replaced. That's not always possible, but knowing when it's possible and taking advantage of the possibility is so useful. There were definitely bits where I'll be applying that theme to the book itself (use the parts I find useful, discard what I don't) but it was worth the read, for me.
Appreciate my writing? Support me on Patreon! (This post was free, btw, because book review I was already compensated for.)
Tuesday, October 11, 2016
National Coming Out Day
I live in the USA, so it's national coming out day for me, today.
The short version: I'm queer.
Slightly longer version: I'm nonbinary, genderfluid, gendervague, bi/panromantic, and repulsed asexual.
Longest version (thus far): If you ask me whether I'm a man or a woman, my answer is "no." The genders I vary around are agender, androgyne, and "no, really, autism is my gender." That means that my neurodivergence is pretty thoroughly intertwined with how I (often don't) do gender. Since I am not a man or a woman and clothing tends to be marketed to one of those two genders, either everything is drag for me or nothing is. I go with everything. There are a few different pronoun sets I'm good with. Describing myself, I'll use they/them/theirs or sie/sier/siers. In text I go either way, in speech it's they because sie sounds too much like she for my taste. Xe, ze, and other sets created to be gender-neutral are all fine with me too. I will be amused by he/him/his because that's not the assumption people usually make. I tolerate she/her/hers from people I'm not out to. I do not tolerate "it."
When I do crushes or romantic attraction, the gender of the person is something I am aware of, but it's not particularly relevant. I have liked nonbinary people. There are too many different ways of defining biromantic and panromantic, and too many often conflicting explanations of the difference, for me to tell you with any certainty that I am one and not the other. I'm fine being described by either. I don't do sexual attraction, at all. Or libido, for that matter. Disabled people as a whole cover the full range of human sexuality, and I sit at the "no thanks" part of that range.
You can trace my journey, or pieces of it, along with more academic musings that relate to queerness, on my Queer Stuff tag, generally from less firm on my queerness (mostly I don't want to have sex) to stronger blatant statements (I'm repulsed asexual.)
Now, I'm fairly safe being out. (And there's not much in this post that you couldn't pick up on from having read other stuff on my blog anyways.) And I have a policy of being pretty out when it's safe for me to do so, to hopefully make it safer for others to be out in the future. Which wouldn't be necessary if I thought it was currently safe for everyone. It's not. I know it's not. Shout out to everyone who can't be out, who weighs the costs and benefits of being out and decides the closet is safer. You matter. Protecting yourself matters.
Like my writing? Support me on Patreon!
The short version: I'm queer.
Slightly longer version: I'm nonbinary, genderfluid, gendervague, bi/panromantic, and repulsed asexual.
Longest version (thus far): If you ask me whether I'm a man or a woman, my answer is "no." The genders I vary around are agender, androgyne, and "no, really, autism is my gender." That means that my neurodivergence is pretty thoroughly intertwined with how I (often don't) do gender. Since I am not a man or a woman and clothing tends to be marketed to one of those two genders, either everything is drag for me or nothing is. I go with everything. There are a few different pronoun sets I'm good with. Describing myself, I'll use they/them/theirs or sie/sier/siers. In text I go either way, in speech it's they because sie sounds too much like she for my taste. Xe, ze, and other sets created to be gender-neutral are all fine with me too. I will be amused by he/him/his because that's not the assumption people usually make. I tolerate she/her/hers from people I'm not out to. I do not tolerate "it."
When I do crushes or romantic attraction, the gender of the person is something I am aware of, but it's not particularly relevant. I have liked nonbinary people. There are too many different ways of defining biromantic and panromantic, and too many often conflicting explanations of the difference, for me to tell you with any certainty that I am one and not the other. I'm fine being described by either. I don't do sexual attraction, at all. Or libido, for that matter. Disabled people as a whole cover the full range of human sexuality, and I sit at the "no thanks" part of that range.
You can trace my journey, or pieces of it, along with more academic musings that relate to queerness, on my Queer Stuff tag, generally from less firm on my queerness (mostly I don't want to have sex) to stronger blatant statements (I'm repulsed asexual.)
Now, I'm fairly safe being out. (And there's not much in this post that you couldn't pick up on from having read other stuff on my blog anyways.) And I have a policy of being pretty out when it's safe for me to do so, to hopefully make it safer for others to be out in the future. Which wouldn't be necessary if I thought it was currently safe for everyone. It's not. I know it's not. Shout out to everyone who can't be out, who weighs the costs and benefits of being out and decides the closet is safer. You matter. Protecting yourself matters.
Like my writing? Support me on Patreon!
Thursday, March 31, 2016
Transgender day of visibility
Apparently today is transgender day of visibility. I have a few thoughts.
- Visibility, much like "awareness" is never enough and not necessarily positive depending on how we do it. Knowing a group exists and hating/stigmatizing that group isn't strictly better than being unaware, and you could argue that it's worse.
- For people who can SAFELY be visible (or who CHOOSE any risks for themselves), being known/out can help with acceptance type stuff. Don't out people though, it's very much not your call if someone else can safely be out or if any risks are worth it for them.
- That said, I'm nonbinary (not a lady!) and so either everything is drag or nothing is. I'm going with everything. Thanks to a random and slightly silly conversation with a classmate for this one.
And yes, 1) and 2) apply just as well to the upcoming Autism Hullabaloo month.
Sunday, April 26, 2015
Doing What Works- Academia Edition
Making notecards for research papers seems like a pretty accepted thing. When they taught us how to do research papers in high school, they made us do them (and handwritten, too!) When my friend, a history major, was writing papers for college, he made them. His were handwritten. Quite a few of my friends make them too.
As soon as I wasn't required to anymore, I stopped making physical note cards. It's not because I don't think they're a good idea. I think having note cards is great. The problem is making them. My handwriting is messy enough that handwritten note cards don't actually do me much good, and writing starts to hurt fairly quickly so I'm not inclined to make cards, especially when they won't help much due to the messy handwriting issue.
Instead, I've been typing my notes. This is useful because it's hard to lose a digital copy of my notes. It's also useful because I can read things I typed later. It's easier than handwriting, because typing doesn't make my hands start to hurt. It lets me post my notes publicly, which I do in the hopes that they are useful to someone else. (I've got friends who do academic stuff, and if my notes about a source help them decide if reading it is worth it or not, or if having my notes lets them spend less time going through the source once they have it, this is great! I like it when academics post things publicly and it makes other people's lives easier.)
Because technology exists and can do cool stuff, and because I know printed note card size flash cards exist, I recently looked around for ways to print directly onto index cards. Lo and behold, it can be done! Apparently, as long as you make your paper size right in your document and in the print step, most printers can print to index cards, either 3"x5" or 4"x6".
Now I can get the benefits of both digital notes and legible notecards! It's a bit of a process, but way faster than trying to read my handwriting.
As soon as I wasn't required to anymore, I stopped making physical note cards. It's not because I don't think they're a good idea. I think having note cards is great. The problem is making them. My handwriting is messy enough that handwritten note cards don't actually do me much good, and writing starts to hurt fairly quickly so I'm not inclined to make cards, especially when they won't help much due to the messy handwriting issue.
Instead, I've been typing my notes. This is useful because it's hard to lose a digital copy of my notes. It's also useful because I can read things I typed later. It's easier than handwriting, because typing doesn't make my hands start to hurt. It lets me post my notes publicly, which I do in the hopes that they are useful to someone else. (I've got friends who do academic stuff, and if my notes about a source help them decide if reading it is worth it or not, or if having my notes lets them spend less time going through the source once they have it, this is great! I like it when academics post things publicly and it makes other people's lives easier.)
Because technology exists and can do cool stuff, and because I know printed note card size flash cards exist, I recently looked around for ways to print directly onto index cards. Lo and behold, it can be done! Apparently, as long as you make your paper size right in your document and in the print step, most printers can print to index cards, either 3"x5" or 4"x6".
Now I can get the benefits of both digital notes and legible notecards! It's a bit of a process, but way faster than trying to read my handwriting.
- Take notes on my laptop, typed, regular letter paper sized document.
- Save as "Notes" for the source.
- Save again, as "Note cards" for the source.
- Change the page size to 4"x6" (big index cards) and the margins to 0.5"
- Copy the citation for the source to my clipboard.
- After each note that I want a note card for, paste the citation and then insert a page break. On my copy of Open Office, ctrl+enter does a page break. (I don't need a physical card for "Also read this source the author cited")
- Load up the index cards in the printer and print!
- Sort the cards by project they relate to. If a card relates to multiple projects, I can print multiple copies of that page so that a card for it goes in every project it relates to.
Image description: Project titles in boxes connected by lines representing shared note cards between the projects. The listen projects, left to right and then top to bottom, are
- "Neurodivergent Philosophy of Science,"
- "Rethinking Engineering Design and Disability,"
- "Cognitive Interpreting Application,"
- "Theory of Mind Inside Out,"
- "Disability Studies for Engineers Course Creation,"
- "Cognitively Accessible Language (Write so the folks you write about can understand)",
- "Erasure of Queer Autistic People,"
- "Queer Because Neurodivergent is STILL QUEER."
1 and 2, 1 and 4, 1 and 5, 2 and 3, 2 and 5, 3 and 6, 4 and 6, 4 and 7, 4 and 8, 5 and 6, 7 and 8.
Friday, December 19, 2014
Some Gender(ed) Experiences
Last post I mentioned that yes, I use sie/sier/siers pronouns talking about myself in third person. Depending on how familiar people are with queer stuff, you might have wondered if I'm nonbinary. The answer is yes.
Some folks might ask if autism is making me confused about my gender... that answer is also yes, in a sense- I'm pretty sure "I'm Autistic" occupies about the same area that "I am whatever gender" occupies in most people's minds, and I'm not sure if that means I don't have a gender or if that means autism is my gender or what. It definitely means "not binary." Since autism isn't detachable, autism leaving me a bit confused about the specifics of my gender doesn't change the fact that I'm nonbinary!
(Also, it might be neuronormativity confusing me- if autism taking up the gender slot were a possibility more people talked about as a real and legit thing rather than it being part of "failure to conform to gender expectations" and therefore something needing to be fixed, I might have an answer as to what gender that means I have or don't have, and then I wouldn't be confused!)
But this post isn't meant to be about exactly what kind of nonbinary I am. It's about how this has affected my experience with gendered stuff.
I've been told that when I was very little, preschool age approximately, I quit my ballet class because it was a girls only class. I definitely didn't have the words to explain it at the time, and I don't have the memory to tell you now, but my guess is that my discomfort with women-only spaces due to not actually being a woman goes back that far.
You see, I'm nonbinary. I am not a woman, and I am not a man. I am Autistic. (See also: autism as gender.) And this was really confusing before I knew I was autistic, because how the heck am I supposed to explain why "You're not really a girl" isn't a dire insult if I don't know what I actually am?
In middle school, I was the only not-boy at my lunch table. Many of the tables were all boys or all girls, and I've generally been more comfortable as the only person in a group to be read as a woman than in a group where everyone is read as a woman. It took a while to figure out why this was, but I do think I have a handle on it now.
When everyone in a group, including me, is being read as women, the assumption is that I am the same gender as everyone else in the group. This is false! This is really, really false! I am not a woman. When everyone in the group except for me is being read as a man, the assumption is that I am the only person of my gender in the group. This is usually true! There could be nonbinary folk being assumed men in the group, but since as far as I know, I've yet to meet anyone of my particular flavor of nonbinary in person, I think it's always been true to date.
Because when I am in a group that is all men except for me, including doing so in direct defiance of prerequisites (so the course catalog at my old high school still says tenor bass choir male members of chorus in good standing, and I am not a man,) everyone realizes that I'm not the same gender as the others in the space. Not so when everyone's presumed to be a woman.
This isn't actually the same thing as "not like other girls," by the way. Not like other girls implies that I am one too, and, well, I'm not. I get mistaken for one a lot, which is different from actually being one.
It's also not the same as not liking to be around women. Women are great! I'm just not one of them.
(Oh, and to Dan's parents: This is why I was totally fine with Dan saying I wasn't really a girl. It's because he was right.)
Some folks might ask if autism is making me confused about my gender... that answer is also yes, in a sense- I'm pretty sure "I'm Autistic" occupies about the same area that "I am whatever gender" occupies in most people's minds, and I'm not sure if that means I don't have a gender or if that means autism is my gender or what. It definitely means "not binary." Since autism isn't detachable, autism leaving me a bit confused about the specifics of my gender doesn't change the fact that I'm nonbinary!
(Also, it might be neuronormativity confusing me- if autism taking up the gender slot were a possibility more people talked about as a real and legit thing rather than it being part of "failure to conform to gender expectations" and therefore something needing to be fixed, I might have an answer as to what gender that means I have or don't have, and then I wouldn't be confused!)
But this post isn't meant to be about exactly what kind of nonbinary I am. It's about how this has affected my experience with gendered stuff.
I've been told that when I was very little, preschool age approximately, I quit my ballet class because it was a girls only class. I definitely didn't have the words to explain it at the time, and I don't have the memory to tell you now, but my guess is that my discomfort with women-only spaces due to not actually being a woman goes back that far.
You see, I'm nonbinary. I am not a woman, and I am not a man. I am Autistic. (See also: autism as gender.) And this was really confusing before I knew I was autistic, because how the heck am I supposed to explain why "You're not really a girl" isn't a dire insult if I don't know what I actually am?
In middle school, I was the only not-boy at my lunch table. Many of the tables were all boys or all girls, and I've generally been more comfortable as the only person in a group to be read as a woman than in a group where everyone is read as a woman. It took a while to figure out why this was, but I do think I have a handle on it now.
When everyone in a group, including me, is being read as women, the assumption is that I am the same gender as everyone else in the group. This is false! This is really, really false! I am not a woman. When everyone in the group except for me is being read as a man, the assumption is that I am the only person of my gender in the group. This is usually true! There could be nonbinary folk being assumed men in the group, but since as far as I know, I've yet to meet anyone of my particular flavor of nonbinary in person, I think it's always been true to date.
Because when I am in a group that is all men except for me, including doing so in direct defiance of prerequisites (so the course catalog at my old high school still says tenor bass choir male members of chorus in good standing, and I am not a man,) everyone realizes that I'm not the same gender as the others in the space. Not so when everyone's presumed to be a woman.
This isn't actually the same thing as "not like other girls," by the way. Not like other girls implies that I am one too, and, well, I'm not. I get mistaken for one a lot, which is different from actually being one.
It's also not the same as not liking to be around women. Women are great! I'm just not one of them.
(Oh, and to Dan's parents: This is why I was totally fine with Dan saying I wasn't really a girl. It's because he was right.)
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Bisexuality Day
Around the internet I've seen a few different terms: Bisexuality Awareness Day, Bisexuality Visibility Day, Celebrate Bisexuality Day, and probably more that I didn't notice because I am not everywhere.
Whichever. Bisexuality and Today. Also Twitter. There's a hashtag, #MyBisexualityIs, that I'm fairly sure was created by @FeministaJones, and that's embedded below.
And as for me. I am bi. There's enough different, overlapping, sometimes contradictory definitions of being bi or pan that I'm not 100% sure which fits me "better" but I can make a case for either or both. The fact that I am also asexual does not change this.
There's also the whole bit where even if we are confused about gender, if that confusion did somehow cause bisexuality, it would... still be bisexuality? (not going to lie, gender stuff does kind of confuse me: not in a "don't understand other people's genders" way or a "don't understand which genders I should be attracted to" way (all of them, clearly), but in a "um there is nothing in my head that looks like gender to me????" kind of way.) Bi because not entirely sure how gender works is still bi, even if it's not how my bisexuality is.
Not so much explained on Twitter because 1) 140 characters isn't much, and 2) My bi(romantic a)sexuality is not a sign of autism making me confused about gender, and the hashtag is MyBisexualityIs.
Whichever. Bisexuality and Today. Also Twitter. There's a hashtag, #MyBisexualityIs, that I'm fairly sure was created by @FeministaJones, and that's embedded below.
It's Celebrate Bisexuality Day!!! I'm hoping people can share their thoughts, feelings, experiences being bi/pan using #MyBisexualityIs
— #NotAllBlkFeminists (@FeministaJones) September 23, 2014
I tweeted a couple things to the hashtag too, which I'm embedding and writing more about. Twitter/Blogger combo is great for that, because I say something short on Twitter, then bring it over here to be more lengthly and get to say more things about the things and get kind of meta.
#MyBisexualityIs actually biromantic asexuality.
I'm still Bi.
— Alyssa (@yes_thattoo) September 23, 2014
This was my first post to the tag of the day. It's about inclusiveness for those of us who are also asexual. I've written a bit before about the fact that I'm asexual, it's a thing. Sometimes, people think asexual=straight, and therefore not queer. That's... not necessarily the case. There's a lot of different kinds of attraction, sexual is only one of them. It's one that I don't experience, meaning I'm asexual, but any of the other kinds? Not inherently covered by asexuality. Gender identity? Not part of asexuality either.And as for me. I am bi. There's enough different, overlapping, sometimes contradictory definitions of being bi or pan that I'm not 100% sure which fits me "better" but I can make a case for either or both. The fact that I am also asexual does not change this.
#MyBisexualityIs not a sign of autism making me confused about gender.
— Alyssa (@yes_thattoo) September 23, 2014
And here is my other tweet. No, no one has ever said that to me when I told them I was bi. It has, however, been said to other autistic people when they state their bisexuality. It's essentially a combination of the idea that bisexuals are "just confused" (false, FYI) and the idea that autistic people are somehow impaired in our understanding of our likes and dislikes (also false), so far as I can tell. We do tend to have some relationship difficulties because any kind of mismatch within any kind of relationship can cause those, but this is a different statement from inherent confusion about gender.There's also the whole bit where even if we are confused about gender, if that confusion did somehow cause bisexuality, it would... still be bisexuality? (not going to lie, gender stuff does kind of confuse me: not in a "don't understand other people's genders" way or a "don't understand which genders I should be attracted to" way (all of them, clearly), but in a "um there is nothing in my head that looks like gender to me????" kind of way.) Bi because not entirely sure how gender works is still bi, even if it's not how my bisexuality is.
Not so much explained on Twitter because 1) 140 characters isn't much, and 2) My bi(romantic a)sexuality is not a sign of autism making me confused about gender, and the hashtag is MyBisexualityIs.
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