On 9/22/2013 8:44 AM, Powers wrote:
I'll leave the rest of your post to the others on
this list, but I can
answer this question:
What is it I am allowed to say about my gender
identity or
anyone elses and what is it I am not allowed to say?
You can say anything you want
about your own gender identity. What you
cannot (politely) do is contradict what someone else says about his or her
own gender identity.
So if someone (anyone, not just a list participant) says "I'm a woman and I
always have been", you should never say "No, you aren't." Nor
"That person
is only pretending to be a woman." Nor "He may feel like a woman but until
he's taken a legal or surgical procedure, he's a man."
It's that simple.
Powers &8^]
Rational people don't really care how others define themselves. What
they have a problem with is people asserting such identities insulting
others, saying things like: "No matter how you were born, or what your
experiences are, I'm a better man/woman than you'll ever be" or "You
don't (wear clothes/useaccountrements/or otherwise appear to conform to
my personal stereotype of what a man/woman is so you aren't really one"
or "You didn't mention my specific variation on gender identity in your
generalized discussion so you are a bigot" or "We're going to close down
your conference/speech/etc. because we don't like your
questions/discussions of gender identity from a perspective that differs
from ours."
I assume they also would be discouraged on this list, per Kevin's
comments. Thanks for clarifying that. Frankly I didn't even understand
john allyn's comments on equality and sameness so couldn't get too
bothered about them one way or the other...
In the real world of course, comment like the above can provoke a
reaction in some people like "I don't accept your identity because you
insult mine or threaten me, etc." Of course, in some cases some people
may provoke that kind of reaction in order to complain about continuing
oppression against them. So keeping discussions cool from every
perspective helps.
I really don't have a lot of energy for this issue or I'd work on the
relevant articles where I see a lot of problems. But BOOM certainly
got my attention :-)
CM