As part of the last week of LGBT History Month, this week in our GSA meeting, we discussed famous people past and present who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. We compiled a massive list--we found we could come up with nearly fifty names just off the tops of our heads without trying very hard. Some of the names we could come up with include:
- Ellen DeGeneres, comedian and actor
- King James I, king of England
- Harvey Milk, politician and activist
- Truman Capote, writer
- Zachary Quinto, actor (and recently out--within the past two weeks!)
- Rosie O’Donnell, comedian
- Langston Hughes, poet
- RuPaul, TV personality
- Rachel Maddow, news anchor/political commentator
- Kate Bornstein, trans* activist
As you can see, our group was incredibly diverse, with people from all walks of life--actors, politicians, writers, activists. And this list is just a small sampling of the list we came up with of famous people. LGBTQ-identified people exist in all walks of life; they aren’t just all artists or writers or activists. Literally anyone in any walk of life can be gay or lesbian or bisexual or transgender or pansexual or any other non-heterosexual, non-cisgender identity.
You can surely make a list of your own! The list we presented here is only the tip of the iceberg that we could come up with in a thirty minute period. How many people can you think of in that time?
Next week in GSA, in light of the recent blood drive here at WRA, we’re going to talk about blood donation and the Red Cross’s policies relating to gay men. As we’ve discussed before, gay men are not allowed to donate blood if they have had sexual relations with another man since 1977. We’ll talk about why and moves that are being made to change those policies. Happy Halloween and we hope to see you on Thursday!
Friday, October 28
Friday, October 21
10/20: Ally Week Workshop!
This week in GSA, instead of our regular Thursday-activities-period meeting, we held an hour-long workshop in honor of Ally Week. The purpose of the workshop was to learn what an ally is and how to be a better ally to the LGBT community, though the lessons we learned are applicable outside that community.
We began the workshop by asking questions about language people had heard around campus and whether or not we had seen harassment or known someone who was harassed for their perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. Everyone in the room had heard phrases like “that’s so gay” and “no homo”, and everyone knew at least one person who had been harassed. Have you heard or seen these kinds of things? What do you think this means about the current climate at WRA?
Next we took a very difficult quiz about our knowledge of how to be a trans*/intersex ally. The quiz was very difficult, but brings to light how little is often presented for allies about the transgender and intersex communities. Hopefully we all learned something from taking the quiz!
The next activity we did was to quiz those attending about a poll taken by GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network) about harassment in schools. Did you know that:
- 85% of LGBT teens have been verbally harassed at school because of their sexual orientation
- 64 percent of students have been verbally harassed because of their gender expression
- 40% of students have been physically harassed at school because of their sexual orientation
- 27 percent of students have been physically harassed at school because of their gender expression
- 30 % of LGBT students missed an entire day of school because they felt unsafe at school (that’s four times more than their straight, cisgender counterparts)
- 62 percent of students who were assaulted in school did not report the incident to school staff
How do these statistics make you feel? Some people expressed surprise at the high number of kids who reported being physically harassed because of their sexual orientation. How does WRA compare to these statistics? We heard from people who thought that WRA was much better and we heard from people who thought the situation at WRA was just as bad. What do you think?
Next we did an exercise those who attended GSA last year might be familiar with--we discussed ways to call people out on their inappropriate language; phrases like “that test raped me”, “that’s so gay” or “he’s such a faggot”. We’ve discussed calling people out before on the blog, but we’ll reiterate the quick rules for calling people out: if you feel unsafe, don’t risk it. Get a teacher or someone else you know to be an ally. If you do feel okay calling someone out, say things like “Hey can you not use language like that around me? It makes me really uncomfortable.” Make it about you, not them, and you may be more effective. And while it is often awkward to call someone out on inappropriate language, that’s one of the best ways allies can show their support on campus.
Finally we split up into small groups and created definitions for what an ally is. There were several great ideas, and after the evening was over the co-presidents compiled them into the following definition, which was read at Morning Meeting: “An ally is a friend who overtly supports others, who actively advocates for those without a voice, and who works to ensure people have a safe environment in which to live and work.”
We’d like to thank those who came out to the event and made it such a wonderful, productive workshop. The name of the club, after all, is the Gay Straight Alliance, and allies are an integral part of the community. Your roles as allies is key to supporting those who most need it, and we’re glad to see such a diverse community of allies here at WRA.
We began the workshop by asking questions about language people had heard around campus and whether or not we had seen harassment or known someone who was harassed for their perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. Everyone in the room had heard phrases like “that’s so gay” and “no homo”, and everyone knew at least one person who had been harassed. Have you heard or seen these kinds of things? What do you think this means about the current climate at WRA?
Next we took a very difficult quiz about our knowledge of how to be a trans*/intersex ally. The quiz was very difficult, but brings to light how little is often presented for allies about the transgender and intersex communities. Hopefully we all learned something from taking the quiz!
The next activity we did was to quiz those attending about a poll taken by GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network) about harassment in schools. Did you know that:
- 85% of LGBT teens have been verbally harassed at school because of their sexual orientation
- 64 percent of students have been verbally harassed because of their gender expression
- 40% of students have been physically harassed at school because of their sexual orientation
- 27 percent of students have been physically harassed at school because of their gender expression
- 30 % of LGBT students missed an entire day of school because they felt unsafe at school (that’s four times more than their straight, cisgender counterparts)
- 62 percent of students who were assaulted in school did not report the incident to school staff
How do these statistics make you feel? Some people expressed surprise at the high number of kids who reported being physically harassed because of their sexual orientation. How does WRA compare to these statistics? We heard from people who thought that WRA was much better and we heard from people who thought the situation at WRA was just as bad. What do you think?
Next we did an exercise those who attended GSA last year might be familiar with--we discussed ways to call people out on their inappropriate language; phrases like “that test raped me”, “that’s so gay” or “he’s such a faggot”. We’ve discussed calling people out before on the blog, but we’ll reiterate the quick rules for calling people out: if you feel unsafe, don’t risk it. Get a teacher or someone else you know to be an ally. If you do feel okay calling someone out, say things like “Hey can you not use language like that around me? It makes me really uncomfortable.” Make it about you, not them, and you may be more effective. And while it is often awkward to call someone out on inappropriate language, that’s one of the best ways allies can show their support on campus.
Finally we split up into small groups and created definitions for what an ally is. There were several great ideas, and after the evening was over the co-presidents compiled them into the following definition, which was read at Morning Meeting: “An ally is a friend who overtly supports others, who actively advocates for those without a voice, and who works to ensure people have a safe environment in which to live and work.”
We’d like to thank those who came out to the event and made it such a wonderful, productive workshop. The name of the club, after all, is the Gay Straight Alliance, and allies are an integral part of the community. Your roles as allies is key to supporting those who most need it, and we’re glad to see such a diverse community of allies here at WRA.
Sunday, October 16
10/13: Privilege, Power and Identity
Hello everyone! We hope you are having a great break. As part of our ongoing attempts to uphold our mission statement (“to promote awareness about LGBTQ culture and to foster understanding, acceptance, and tolerance through education and activism”), this week we discussed the concept of privilege. Privilege is a difficult topic to wrap one’s head around, so if you have any questions after reading this post, feel free to email us questions at gsa.wra@gmail.com, or ask questions in the comment section below!
Before we begin, we want you to say the following several times: privilege is not personal. Got it? Privilege, in the sense in which we are speaking, is not related to personal accomplishment--you don’t earn the privilege we’re talking about. These types of privilege merely exist in culture.
So what is privilege? Anti-racist activist and academic Peggy McIntosh explains that privilege exists when one group has something of value that is denied to others simply because of the groups they belong to, rather than because of anything they’ve done or failed to do. Privilege affects people differently depending on the intersections of oppression that they experience; oppression is the flip side of privilege, where a group is denied access to something because they do not belong to a certain group. To further explore these ideas of privilege, we put several types of privilege up on the board and asked those that attended the meeting to pick one and we could talk about the ways those privileges interact with us in our every day lives. Below are the ones we discussed on Thursday.
Native English Speaker: As a native English speaker, one is guaranteed to understand all signs posted here in the United States. The Internet is written primarily for English speakers, and a huge amount of literature is either written in English or translated into English. Native English speakers also have the advantage of going to practically any country in the world and being able to find someone able to speak at least rudimentary English in that country--these are all privileges non-native English speakers don’t have in their native languages.
White: White people are less likely to be arrested than people of color, and have access to higher quality goods; ghettos and inner-city spaces are more likely to be considered “food deserts” (low access to nutritious food), for example. White people can choose whether or not to acknowledge the fact that they are white, and they have a much higher amount of representation in different types of media; for example, we could count on one hand the number of people of color in the Harry Potter series. White people are more likely to control conversations, and what is said by a white person is more acceptable--in some cases, a white person could repeat the exact same idea as a person of color, but where the person of color might be ignored, the white person would be paid attention to. This might be because white people have created the dominant culture and virtually erased the histories of other groups in the process. White privilege is a privilege that intersects heavily with other types of privilege, and is one of the privileges we encourage particularly increased awareness of.
Monoracial: People with monoracial privilege--that is, people whose parents are both of the same race--are guaranteed to almost always have their race represented on forms. They never have to worry, if there is no “multiracial/other” option, about which box to tick. Even when there is a “multiracial/other” category, the proximity of “multiracial” to “other” immediately makes those who are multiracial feel like “others” or outsiders.
Male: Men are more likely to dominate a conversation, and have what they say taken seriously. They are less likely to be harassed or sexually assaulted than women; although men are victims of sexual assault, likely in higher numbers than reported, the estimated number is still significantly lower than attacks made on women. They earn much more money than women, and are much more likely to hold positions of power. Their success and achievements are not written as a success for men; this is rarely true for women. If a man fails in some pursuit, his failure will not be chalked up to the fact that he is a man--the same cannot be said for women.
These are just a few examples of privilege. Other types we’ll discuss later include heteroseuxal privilege, cisgender privilege, and Christian privilege. Do you have any of the types of privilege we discussed here? Which ones? How do they impact your daily life? Think about it--examine the ways privilege touches your life and the lives of those around you.
In other news, THIS THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20TH, from 6:30 - 7:45 pm, in Wilson Reading Room, GSA is hosting an ALLY WEEK WORKSHOP. This will be instead of our weekly meeting. We will be playing games, distributing prizes, and there may be sweet treats and something to drink! Please come out, as this is our first big event of the year and it would be a great opportunity to show your support. Bring a friend! We promise it will be a fun and educational experience. You can RSVP to the event here.
We hope the rest of your midfall break is fun and safe, and we look forward to seeing you all Thursday evening!
Before we begin, we want you to say the following several times: privilege is not personal. Got it? Privilege, in the sense in which we are speaking, is not related to personal accomplishment--you don’t earn the privilege we’re talking about. These types of privilege merely exist in culture.
So what is privilege? Anti-racist activist and academic Peggy McIntosh explains that privilege exists when one group has something of value that is denied to others simply because of the groups they belong to, rather than because of anything they’ve done or failed to do. Privilege affects people differently depending on the intersections of oppression that they experience; oppression is the flip side of privilege, where a group is denied access to something because they do not belong to a certain group. To further explore these ideas of privilege, we put several types of privilege up on the board and asked those that attended the meeting to pick one and we could talk about the ways those privileges interact with us in our every day lives. Below are the ones we discussed on Thursday.
Native English Speaker: As a native English speaker, one is guaranteed to understand all signs posted here in the United States. The Internet is written primarily for English speakers, and a huge amount of literature is either written in English or translated into English. Native English speakers also have the advantage of going to practically any country in the world and being able to find someone able to speak at least rudimentary English in that country--these are all privileges non-native English speakers don’t have in their native languages.
White: White people are less likely to be arrested than people of color, and have access to higher quality goods; ghettos and inner-city spaces are more likely to be considered “food deserts” (low access to nutritious food), for example. White people can choose whether or not to acknowledge the fact that they are white, and they have a much higher amount of representation in different types of media; for example, we could count on one hand the number of people of color in the Harry Potter series. White people are more likely to control conversations, and what is said by a white person is more acceptable--in some cases, a white person could repeat the exact same idea as a person of color, but where the person of color might be ignored, the white person would be paid attention to. This might be because white people have created the dominant culture and virtually erased the histories of other groups in the process. White privilege is a privilege that intersects heavily with other types of privilege, and is one of the privileges we encourage particularly increased awareness of.
Monoracial: People with monoracial privilege--that is, people whose parents are both of the same race--are guaranteed to almost always have their race represented on forms. They never have to worry, if there is no “multiracial/other” option, about which box to tick. Even when there is a “multiracial/other” category, the proximity of “multiracial” to “other” immediately makes those who are multiracial feel like “others” or outsiders.
Male: Men are more likely to dominate a conversation, and have what they say taken seriously. They are less likely to be harassed or sexually assaulted than women; although men are victims of sexual assault, likely in higher numbers than reported, the estimated number is still significantly lower than attacks made on women. They earn much more money than women, and are much more likely to hold positions of power. Their success and achievements are not written as a success for men; this is rarely true for women. If a man fails in some pursuit, his failure will not be chalked up to the fact that he is a man--the same cannot be said for women.
These are just a few examples of privilege. Other types we’ll discuss later include heteroseuxal privilege, cisgender privilege, and Christian privilege. Do you have any of the types of privilege we discussed here? Which ones? How do they impact your daily life? Think about it--examine the ways privilege touches your life and the lives of those around you.
In other news, THIS THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20TH, from 6:30 - 7:45 pm, in Wilson Reading Room, GSA is hosting an ALLY WEEK WORKSHOP. This will be instead of our weekly meeting. We will be playing games, distributing prizes, and there may be sweet treats and something to drink! Please come out, as this is our first big event of the year and it would be a great opportunity to show your support. Bring a friend! We promise it will be a fun and educational experience. You can RSVP to the event here.
We hope the rest of your midfall break is fun and safe, and we look forward to seeing you all Thursday evening!
Friday, October 7
10/6: The first gay pride was a riot!
Happy LGBT History Month from WRA’s GSA! In honor of this month, GSA held a meeting about the Stonewall riots that began on June 28, 1969. We have already posted a blog about the oppressions faced by gay people before the riots, so this post will focus instead on the riots themselves.
For most of our information, we watched the documentary Stonewall Uprising, a great resource that explains the situation through interviews with historians and writers, and oral histories from gay people who were at the Stonewall Inn the night of the riots. Click the link if you’d like to check it out--the DVD is also in the Ong Library, if you’d like to watch it on a bigger screen!
The Stonewall Inn was a gay bar located on Christoper Street in New York City, smack in the middle of where the gay community tended to congregate at the time. It attracted people from all walks of gay life--people in business, academia, as well as middle-class people, but it was most popular with the young, homeless crowd and with many drag queens; it was described as a “refuge” by a man in the documentary. Because one homosexual on the premises classified an establishment as “disorderly”, the New York State Liquor Authority would revoke or deny a liquor license to a bar that served gay people. Seeing an opportunity to make money, the Mafia bought up the Stonewall among other bars and sold incredibly cheap, watered-down beer that was often stolen. Although they often paid off police, raids were still frequent, and in fact, the Stonewall Inn had been raided earlier that week.
Due to the upcoming mayoral elections, there was a police crackdown on gay bars, and during peak hours on the evening of June 28, 1969, police arrived with paddy wagons to make their usual arrests of those found to be in violation of any number of laws that discriminated against gay people and the gender-variant. But as they began to handcuff people and take them out to the paddy wagons, a crowd began to gather around the Stonewall, and many of those arrested were not going quietly. People began to throw pennies at the police, calling them coppers. Sensing the tense mood, the police retreated back inside the Stonewall, along with a reporter from The Village Voice, the newspaper that had its offices just up the street. The crowd began to get more and more violent; in some cases, incendiary devices were reported as being thrown, and at least one group of drag queens wrestled a parking meter from the ground and used it as a battering ram while the police frantically tried to call for backup. When that backup finally arrived, the crowd was briefly driven back but soon pushed forward again. Violent behavior increased, but the riots also took a different form: several people recall a group of drag queens singing songs while doing a kick-line in front of the police.
The riots continued for several days afterwards, with people from all sorts of backgrounds joining in; although they had begun with the drag queens and the poor street kids, representatives from almost every walk of life showed up to show their support. Out of this coming-together arose the gay rights movement; a year later, they would reunite to hold the first Pride Parade, which made its way from Christopher Street to Central Park despite bomb threats and other fears of violence. The event was so momentous around the world that in Germany, gay pride events are referred to as Christopher Street Day. For the first time, gay people from all walks of life stood together against the oppression that had kept them quite for so long.
~
Next week we’ll be talking about privilege and how it affects all of our lives! What do you think about the Stonewall uprising? Do you have any suggestions about meeting ideas? Email us at gsa.wra@gmail.com! Also keep your eyes peeled for information about an upcoming workshop we have in honor of Ally Week! Good luck with the week before midfall break!
For most of our information, we watched the documentary Stonewall Uprising, a great resource that explains the situation through interviews with historians and writers, and oral histories from gay people who were at the Stonewall Inn the night of the riots. Click the link if you’d like to check it out--the DVD is also in the Ong Library, if you’d like to watch it on a bigger screen!
The Stonewall Inn was a gay bar located on Christoper Street in New York City, smack in the middle of where the gay community tended to congregate at the time. It attracted people from all walks of gay life--people in business, academia, as well as middle-class people, but it was most popular with the young, homeless crowd and with many drag queens; it was described as a “refuge” by a man in the documentary. Because one homosexual on the premises classified an establishment as “disorderly”, the New York State Liquor Authority would revoke or deny a liquor license to a bar that served gay people. Seeing an opportunity to make money, the Mafia bought up the Stonewall among other bars and sold incredibly cheap, watered-down beer that was often stolen. Although they often paid off police, raids were still frequent, and in fact, the Stonewall Inn had been raided earlier that week.
Due to the upcoming mayoral elections, there was a police crackdown on gay bars, and during peak hours on the evening of June 28, 1969, police arrived with paddy wagons to make their usual arrests of those found to be in violation of any number of laws that discriminated against gay people and the gender-variant. But as they began to handcuff people and take them out to the paddy wagons, a crowd began to gather around the Stonewall, and many of those arrested were not going quietly. People began to throw pennies at the police, calling them coppers. Sensing the tense mood, the police retreated back inside the Stonewall, along with a reporter from The Village Voice, the newspaper that had its offices just up the street. The crowd began to get more and more violent; in some cases, incendiary devices were reported as being thrown, and at least one group of drag queens wrestled a parking meter from the ground and used it as a battering ram while the police frantically tried to call for backup. When that backup finally arrived, the crowd was briefly driven back but soon pushed forward again. Violent behavior increased, but the riots also took a different form: several people recall a group of drag queens singing songs while doing a kick-line in front of the police.
The riots continued for several days afterwards, with people from all sorts of backgrounds joining in; although they had begun with the drag queens and the poor street kids, representatives from almost every walk of life showed up to show their support. Out of this coming-together arose the gay rights movement; a year later, they would reunite to hold the first Pride Parade, which made its way from Christopher Street to Central Park despite bomb threats and other fears of violence. The event was so momentous around the world that in Germany, gay pride events are referred to as Christopher Street Day. For the first time, gay people from all walks of life stood together against the oppression that had kept them quite for so long.
~
Next week we’ll be talking about privilege and how it affects all of our lives! What do you think about the Stonewall uprising? Do you have any suggestions about meeting ideas? Email us at gsa.wra@gmail.com! Also keep your eyes peeled for information about an upcoming workshop we have in honor of Ally Week! Good luck with the week before midfall break!
Saturday, October 1
9/29: Q&A Redux!
This week in GSA, we continued with our questions from last week, and managed to knock three more out in the twenty minutes we have each week. Before we get to the questions, though, we’re proud to announce that after working through six very good applications, the co-presidents have made a decision about club officers! Our financial officer is Irene Li, and our secretary is Alex Fellows! Congrats to them both! We’re excited to have them on board and see how they can contribute to the club from their new positions. And now, onto the questions!
Is it a reasonable aim to eventually eliminate derogatory phrases from my vocabulary and eventually [for] others to do so?
First we identified what phrases we still hear commonly on campus. These phrases and words included “That’s so gay”, “faggot” and “no homo”.
Mr. Davies mentioned that he had noticed that athletes in interviews, understanding that there would be backlash if they used the phrase “no homo”, now say “pause” instead, as in “I thought you looked really good out there today, pause.”
Many members at the meeting expressed that they thought it was pretty impossible to delete derogatory phrases from vocabulary entirely, but others said they think it is entirely possible to delete derogatory phrases from one’s personal vocabulary, and that the next step then is to try to make others aware of how their word and phrase choices might affect those around them. It’s not necessarily easy to make these changes, even within your own personal vocabulary, but we feel it’s very important to try.
When you’re talking to really super intolerant people, how do you stop from being horrible back?
We discussed several strategies for dealing with people who are unwilling to discuss issues in an open-minded or even respectful manner. Obviously, above all, your safety in such discussions is of the utmost importance, and we at GSA encourage you to remove yourself from such a discussion if you feel unsafe at any time. We also stress the point that by allying yourself with GSA, everything you say instantly comes under scrutiny--if you are an ally in GSA, you must be an ally in all areas of your life. This isn’t a universal truth, and it can weigh pretty heavily on a person, but it’s something to keep in mind when you’re having such a discussion; as unfair as it is, you are a representative of the club.
It was suggested in the meeting that having conversations with incredibly intolerant people is in fact a sort of waste of one’s time--that if they are truly not going to listen to you, you should save your energies for people you can convince. This led to an idea of “tolerance of intolerance”. We also talked about dealing with incredibly intolerant strangers in places like restaurants and on airplanes. In many of these cases, removing oneself from the situation might be of the best interest to all parties, particularly if you can get away.
But in the WRA community, Mr. Ong pointed out, we have a responsibility to better each other, and so having these discussions and calling others out on their behavior and language is absolutely something we should do--not just should do, but must do. This is why we do things like calling out workshops--to arm you all with the skills to go out into our community and make a difference. Yes, calling people out is very hard, but if we all step up to the plate more often, we’ll find not only that our peers have curbed their language, but we have other people around us who can step up too.
Can you explain the correct terms that people generally don’t understand or use correctly?
A lot of basic terms can be found at the Terms 101 post including ones like transgender and crossdresser/drag queen, etc. One specific set of terms we were asked to explain further that wasn’t on that list was the difference between the terms “sex” and “gender”.
In the case that’s being talked about here, “sex” refers primarily to physical body parts, both primary and secondary sex characteristics. In GSA, we’ll often use “gender assigned at birth” rather than talking about someone’s “sex”, because it implies that assigned gender is natural, and that to transition from one’s assigned gender is therefore unnatural. Sex, in this case, is often described as being “biological”.
Gender, on the other hand, is far more complicated and complex. A definition for gender that Ai has come up with is “a categorization denoting a performance of traits, often split up as “masculine” or “feminine”; gender is constructed by culture and then performed by people in that culture”. Long story short, gender is many things: self-identification, attribution, cultural roles. Digging through that mess can be very complicated and complex, so complicated that we ran out of time to properly discuss it, though we plan to have an entire meeting dedicated to sex/gender issues at a later date.
~
Do you have any questions? Suggestions for meetings? Comments? Critiques? Email us at gsa.wra@gmail.com! Get ready for next week’s meeting as we dive into the history of the LGBTQ rights movement and discover why the first Pride was a riot!
Is it a reasonable aim to eventually eliminate derogatory phrases from my vocabulary and eventually [for] others to do so?
First we identified what phrases we still hear commonly on campus. These phrases and words included “That’s so gay”, “faggot” and “no homo”.
Mr. Davies mentioned that he had noticed that athletes in interviews, understanding that there would be backlash if they used the phrase “no homo”, now say “pause” instead, as in “I thought you looked really good out there today, pause.”
Many members at the meeting expressed that they thought it was pretty impossible to delete derogatory phrases from vocabulary entirely, but others said they think it is entirely possible to delete derogatory phrases from one’s personal vocabulary, and that the next step then is to try to make others aware of how their word and phrase choices might affect those around them. It’s not necessarily easy to make these changes, even within your own personal vocabulary, but we feel it’s very important to try.
When you’re talking to really super intolerant people, how do you stop from being horrible back?
We discussed several strategies for dealing with people who are unwilling to discuss issues in an open-minded or even respectful manner. Obviously, above all, your safety in such discussions is of the utmost importance, and we at GSA encourage you to remove yourself from such a discussion if you feel unsafe at any time. We also stress the point that by allying yourself with GSA, everything you say instantly comes under scrutiny--if you are an ally in GSA, you must be an ally in all areas of your life. This isn’t a universal truth, and it can weigh pretty heavily on a person, but it’s something to keep in mind when you’re having such a discussion; as unfair as it is, you are a representative of the club.
It was suggested in the meeting that having conversations with incredibly intolerant people is in fact a sort of waste of one’s time--that if they are truly not going to listen to you, you should save your energies for people you can convince. This led to an idea of “tolerance of intolerance”. We also talked about dealing with incredibly intolerant strangers in places like restaurants and on airplanes. In many of these cases, removing oneself from the situation might be of the best interest to all parties, particularly if you can get away.
But in the WRA community, Mr. Ong pointed out, we have a responsibility to better each other, and so having these discussions and calling others out on their behavior and language is absolutely something we should do--not just should do, but must do. This is why we do things like calling out workshops--to arm you all with the skills to go out into our community and make a difference. Yes, calling people out is very hard, but if we all step up to the plate more often, we’ll find not only that our peers have curbed their language, but we have other people around us who can step up too.
Can you explain the correct terms that people generally don’t understand or use correctly?
A lot of basic terms can be found at the Terms 101 post including ones like transgender and crossdresser/drag queen, etc. One specific set of terms we were asked to explain further that wasn’t on that list was the difference between the terms “sex” and “gender”.
In the case that’s being talked about here, “sex” refers primarily to physical body parts, both primary and secondary sex characteristics. In GSA, we’ll often use “gender assigned at birth” rather than talking about someone’s “sex”, because it implies that assigned gender is natural, and that to transition from one’s assigned gender is therefore unnatural. Sex, in this case, is often described as being “biological”.
Gender, on the other hand, is far more complicated and complex. A definition for gender that Ai has come up with is “a categorization denoting a performance of traits, often split up as “masculine” or “feminine”; gender is constructed by culture and then performed by people in that culture”. Long story short, gender is many things: self-identification, attribution, cultural roles. Digging through that mess can be very complicated and complex, so complicated that we ran out of time to properly discuss it, though we plan to have an entire meeting dedicated to sex/gender issues at a later date.
~
Do you have any questions? Suggestions for meetings? Comments? Critiques? Email us at gsa.wra@gmail.com! Get ready for next week’s meeting as we dive into the history of the LGBTQ rights movement and discover why the first Pride was a riot!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)