Male, Female, Neither Or Both

Hoo-boy. I have a full head of steam today. Let me tell you what. Good Lord. People have gone off the rails when it comes to trying to build their utopia where everything is just perfect for everything and every environment is perfectly welcoming and comfortable. And do you know which topic just makes those self-righteous morons feel really good about themselves? Gender issues and gender roles. (Mmm...gender rolls.) God, they just love those. But I think that Roosevelt Elementary School in San Leandro, California has gone a little too far. No, I take that back. They've gone completely over the edge.

Apparently, there was a letter that was send home with kids at some point. Here is a link to said letter which is entitled "Strategies for Re-Thinking and Discussing Gender Issues". Remember, this was sent home by the school. This is how the school thinks that gender issues should be dealt with. The school, presumably where children are, thinks these steps are a good idea. Keep that in mind because you're going to think that a radical crazy person in need of medication came up with these guidelines. Let's begin...

The first thing on the list is this: Be proactive in your conversations, bring up topics of gender and gender identity; don’t wait for your child to bring it up or for an experience or incident to talk about." Now, I don't know what sort of an "experience" or "incident" they're referring to here. They make it sound absolutely terrible. (And by the way, the word "don't" was bolded in their letter. They are apparently very serious about your not waiting. Boldly serious.) But what I think sounds even more terrible is the idea of just out of blue bringing up gender identity to your, say, six-year old. I think that when I was six, if my parents had started a conversation with me like "You know, you're a girl on the outside, but that doesn't mean that you're a girl on the inside. It's perfectly OK if you want to be a boy." I think I would have been really confused. (I also think I would have thought my parents were lunatics because, at six, girls ARE girls and boys ARE boys and that's just how it is.)

Here's another one: "When someone says something gender-biased (e.g. He is all boy! Look at all the energy he has!), take the opportunity to mention counter examples (e.g. One of the girls he plays with has even more energy than he does!). Seriously, what is the point of all of this? Is someone really afraid that people are going to think that ONLY boys are high energy? For God's sake. If someone ever said something like that to me, I think I'd have to politely ask them to never speak to me again. What are you people so afraid of? Who cares?! The thing is that no one comes away from a conversation which includes "He's all boy! Look at all his energy!" and thinks that only boy can have a lot of energy! NO ONE! No one thinks that, so stop with idiotic guidelines that are clearly only for scared, utopia building softheads.

Moving right along..."Question and explore your own biases. For example, how do you feel about boys wearing long hair? Girls who “dress like boys?” Girls playing football or boys wearing earrings or fingernail polish? What messages are you giving your child(ren) about how they and others express themselves?" Wait a minute. I said WAIT! Are they actually playing the long hair card in the year 2012?! And guys with earrings?! Are they really trying to get us to believe that people are simply befuddled by these developments? Are they saying that children are confused as to whether a guy with long hair is a boy or a girl? I don't think that they are! I really don't. Whose grandfather came up with this one?!

Next up: "Watch TV shows and ads and discuss with your child(ren): 1) How gender roles are portrayed; and 2) what messages are being sent. Is the mom always making cookies or dinner with the daughter and serving the boys? Are only boys playing with the Tonka trucks or Hot Wheels?" See, I just don't understand the premise of this. Are the children in question only watching Leave it to Beaver? Serving the boys?! Are you dry shaving me?!

This one might be my favorite: Mix up gender language when reading stories to your kids – especially with typically male dominated characters. For example, if the story is about a “boy” animal, mix it up and make the lion a girl. Consider adopting this strategy for the people in a story, too." These people do not read a lot of children's books. I know that because there are a lot of pictures in children's books. And male lions look very different from female lions. (Perhaps the lion community could benefit from these little guidelines because I certainly don't see how these are going to help people.) So now you're going to confuse your kid to where he can't identify a male lion. He'll see a lion with a big bushy mane and he'll say "That can be either a boy lion OR a girl lion." And someone will have to tell him, "No. You're an idiot. That's a boy." Do we really want future generations not being able to easily identify large cats in the wild?! Because that's what's going to happen!

But here's my most favorite. Seriously, I laughed out loud at this one: "Consider asking the adults around you what, if any, pronoun they would like you to use. Ask politely; it is not rude, but rather respectful. Try asking that of everyone you know as a way to bring the topic up in conversation. Start with people you would feel comfortable having the conversation with. You might explain that you are working to create a more gender inclusive environment for all people. This is particularly supportive for people who are questioning their gender or in the early stages of transition."

::: blink ::: ::: blink :::

Ummm...what now? Ask adults...what...pronoun (pronoun, right?) I should use? Sooooo...like, "Hey, Bob. Nice to meet you. Listen, Bob....in the future, when I talk to other people about you, would you like me to refer to you as a he or a she or neither or both?" HOW is that "respectful"? It might not be "rude", but do you know what it is? Effing weird, that is correct! And I can only imagine that Bob would answer such an inquiry with, "It doesn't matter. We'll never speak again after a question like that." That's how I would be answering a question like that. And "Start with people you would feel comfortable having the conversation with."?! I don't think I'd EVER be comfortable asking someone what pronoun I should use when I meet them. Sure, I could explain that I am "working to create a more gender inclusive environment for all people", but that would likely lead to them responding that they are working to create a more lunatic excluded environment for all people. Wow.

These people who came up with these "guidelines" seem to be actively looking for something to be wrong when there really isn't a problem. It's like they want to have a world with all of these problems so that they can feel so danged good about themselves for "fixing" them. I got news for these yo-yos. These problems don't exist! They certainly don't exist on a massive, global scale as they would like you to believe. And I swear, I can't be held responsible for my actions if I meet someone and they ask me if I want to be referred to as he, she, it, all of the above or none of the above. We are so doomed.

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The Hermaphroditic Sprinter?

Am I one to judge? Of course I am. But this is a case where there needs to be some sort of judgment. Technically, I suppose I don't need to be the one doing it, but what fun is that really? Not much. Let's begin.

Over there in Berlin at the IAAF World Championships in Athletics competition (it's Track and Field, not to be confused with Field and Stream), there's a bit of controversy. Well, maybe just a question. I don't know if it qualifies as a controversy just yet, but it's ramping up to get there. It makes you stop and think, though. It at least makes you wonder. But whether you stop and think or you just wonder, both can be expressed in this situation with the extremely apt expression "WTF?" That's because in the women's 800m race, the winner...well...see, some folks wonder....it's just because.....and the.....you can't really....oh, for cryin' out loud, here! This is the person who won the race. Behold!

Aaahhh. Now do you see what all the hubbub is about? I'm sure you do. That is a picture of a one Caster Semenya of "....a remote, rural part of Limpopo province in South Africa", according to our friends over there at The Telegraph. Caster is 18 years old and has apparently improved her performance in the 800m race by incredible amounts over just a few months (7-ish, to be more vaguely precise). Usually with such a wide margin of time being shaved off of your previous time there is usually talk of doing so by artificial means, aka 'roiding up. Steroids. And while Semenya is muscle-y, that's not what they're concerned about. They're concerned about whether she's running with the appropriate opponents. That is to say, she might be a man.

Again, who am I to judge? Well, I'm me. And I'm gonna. Judge that is. Upon first glance, all I could hear was the Aerosmith song "Dude Looks Like a Lady" running through my head. Well, that and the thought that she's a guy. Simply put, that's a man. But I looked at some footage of how she ran and I also looked at a whole bunch of pictures and in some of them, I'll totally admit that there was a slight hint of a female. I couldn't say what it was. I could say what it wasn't. It wasn't the unshaven legs. It wasn't the rippling muscles. It wasn't the short hair. But there was something. (Ironically though, if there is "something", that won't bode well.) Maybe it's that there isn't a whole lot of room in that outfit to, um, tuck...if you know what I mean. (And while I don't have one, I'd imagine that if you did have that thing all tucked up there, you'd chafe quite a bit if you were running 800m with it like that. You might even rub it down to a little nub, like the eraser on a pencil, if you had really picked up some speed.)

Some of the things that caused others to question Semenya's gender shortly after her arrival in Berlin were her "...muscular development, her narrow figure, deep voice, a dusting of facial hair and her masculine looks." I'm going to take issue with the deep voice part. There's nothing wrong with chicks with deeper than usual voices. Nothing! They're still chicks. They just sound like dudes...mostly on the phone. And they get called "sir" a lot....again, mostly on the phone....so I've heard. So just because someone has a deep voice, that doesn't mean that you need to be calling them "sir" because they're really a man. Then again, it does help if they don't look like a man as well as have the deep voice. That's all.
But as far as the rest of it goes, the "dusting of facial hair" is definitely cause for concern, if not alarm. Just because you're female and athletic doesn't mean that you have to sport a "dusting of facial hair". You an be a female athlete and still be able to be identified as a female. Look at these two from Jamaica that were also at the World Championships. No one is questioning whether they're female or not. Behold!

So now what's in store is that they're going to do a gender verification test which, according to IAAF spokesman Nick Davies "...is an extremely complex procedure." Wait. What? Extremely complex? How many pairs of pants does she have to drop?

According to a one Dr. Richard Auchus, a specialist in disorders of sexual differentiation, "We can get quite philosophical here -- what does it mean to be male or female?" How non-philosophical do you want to get, Doc? Because it's really pretty basic as to what it means either way. Why must it always be so complicated?

There's going to be a series of tests to determine if Semenya is female. (Rumor has it they will include attempting to parallel park, seeing if she stops and asks for directions, has any interest in football and can work the remote control.) These tests would seem to include "...a physical medical evaluation and reports from a gynecologist, endocrinologist, psychologist, an internal medicine specialist and an expert on gender." That seems like a lot. But apparently, just dropping the ol' pants isn't good enough if someone happens to have been born with ambiguous genitalia (which is not a bad name for a band).

But even without the ol' AG (ambiguous genitalia), it's not like this sort of thing hasn't happened before, where a person of one sex can somewhat pass for a member of the opposite sex and therefore does the most logical thing which is to compete in athletics as a member of that opposite sex. Of course. Take the case of a one Samukeliso Sithole. According to the BBC he "...won seven gold medals in women's competitions in 2004." And then it was discovered that she was a he, a fact that he tried to weasel out of by claiming he was a hermaphrodite. That didn't fly and he "...was charged with impersonation and causing psychological damage to fellow athletes." (Wow. If they had that sort of charge here in the US, half of the sports players out there would be charged.) Once they figured out which prison to send him to (they chose a men's prison) off he went, where he later claimed "...to have periods and feared becoming pregnant. Sithole said the male organs became enlarged after a traditional healer took revenge after not being paid for treatment last year." Nice going, Sithole!

Seriously, what kind of a guy wants to win something so badly that he'll pretend to be a chick and go run against a bunch of women? That's really pathetic, yes? It's also nothing new! This goes back at least to 1932 with the case of a one Stella Walsh, later nicknamed Stella the Fella (you can see where this one is going). According to an article over at The Mirror , she won "...Olympic gold for Poland in the 100 metres at the 1932 Los Angles Games", then in 1936 won a silver in the same event and went on to set "...100 national and world records, including 51 Polish records, 18 world records, and eight European records." That was all fine and good until 1980 when, as a bystander to an armed robbery in Cleveland, Ohio, she was shot dead and her subsequent autopsy revealed that she had male genitalia. Holy canoli! I'm still wrapping my head around this one. Mainly because I've been looking at photos of "Stella" and wondering if there were any questions at the time that this was going on. I look at these photos and I think "You could have at least tried to alter your appearance. Maybe shave or something." She's pretty manly. Behold!

See?! What did I tell ya? But get this! At the Berlin Games in 1936 high jumper Hermann Ratjen "was forced by Hitler and the Nazis in Germany to pretend to be a woman and call himself Dora". I guess that if Hitler is asking/telling you to be a woman, you be a woman. ("Would you like me to put on a sundress, Fuhrer?") They did this because the Nazis "...wanted to ensure that Germany won much more medals than they had done the previous Games." That didn't go over so well when Hermann came in fourth in the women's high jump. And that is why Hermann Ratjen did not go down in history as one of Germany's most famous athletes. He was found out in 1938 when on a train where he was recognized by a couple of women. Even though he was wearing a dress (still going with the Pretend-like-I'm-a-woman-for-Hitler ruse), it was something about his beard stubble that gave him away. Go figure!

But again, I have to ask, was anyone questioning this at the time it was happening? Or, in this case, were folks just going along with it because of the Hitler factor? I'd be OK with that, you know. Not saying anything as to not upset Hitler? Not a problem. Seems reasonable.

The "extensive gender tests" on Semenya are expected to take a while, so we won't know right away whether she's all woman or all man or some sort of hermaphroditic sprinter (another really good name for a band. Hermaphroditic Sprinter.). But until something or someone says otherwise, she's a chick and she won the 800m race and that's how it should be for the time being. While this likely won't be the most pleasant public relations incident that she'll ever be involved in, at least when it's done, it's done and she won't have to go through it again. In the meantime, just a slight touch of femininity can go a long way. Just something to think about.

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Now With Your Choice of Gender!

I think we can all agree that we're pretty much doomed, right? OK, good. It's really just a matter of which country is going to be the trailblazer and lead the rest of humanity right down the crapper with them. And after reading an article from the good folks over at UPI, I'm nominating Australia. Good Lord, Australia. WTF?

For reasons that are still unclear to me, something that the Australian government calls the "Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission" seems to be hell bent on making a slight change to that little box on your passport where you check either 'Male' or 'Female'. Yeah, they want to add another option. Wait. What?

If you're thinking "There are no other options! There are only male and female!" well, you'd be right! But that wouldn't matter because you're not on the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission. They have distributed a paper which is titled: "Sex Files -- The legal recognition of sex:" Then there is a section which contains the "Proposed reform" which would entail "adding "intersex" to the recognized genders of male and female for use on passports and driver's licenses" of those who are transgender or transsexual. Oh, my God. WHAT THE HELL?!

Oh, hold on. It gets better! (Or worse. We're doomed. Doomed, I tell you. Doomed.) The paper reads in part: "Recognition of intersex: Persons who cannot or do not identify as either male or female would be able to choose to be identified on their birth certificate and passport as intersex." Cannot identify? Do not identify? With either male or female?! I'm sorry, when did this became a choice? I didn't get that memo. Is there more? I'd better sit down. And start drinking.

"A person who cannot or chooses not to undergo surgery would not be automatically ineligible to request a change in their legal sex." Huh? Oh, wait. The transgender one. Transgender is simply not identifying with the gender that you were born as, so there's no surgery involved with being a transgendered individual. But the transsexual, that is the one where the individual has undergone the surgical procedure to switch teams. So, just because you haven't had surgery or you don't want to have surgery (it seems like the morons who came up with this are presuming that everyone who doesn't identify with their current gender would like to get the surgery. I don't know if that's true. I haven't heard that, which doesn't make it false, but it seems to be quite an assumption without anything to back it up with.)

I cannot possibly be the only person who sees a problem with this. If you're just allowed to decide what you would like your gender to be, who is to say that it's going to be for the reasons for which this asinine program was intended for? You could just want to change your gender on all of your identifying documents (that mean anything) as a way of concealing your identity. Hey, and can you do this more than once? What if you change your mind again? They won't be able to stop you from changing it again, will they? You think identity theft issues are huge now? Just wait until there's a third freaking option for gender! Hilarity will not ensue.

Why, exactly, would someone who has had their gender surgically altered need (or want) to have a third gender category? I thought the purpose of having the surgery was to change your gender from one to the other. Thus, when you've changed it, you're not creating a brand new gender! You're simply joining the other team. Now you're one of them. So call yourself one of them, dammit! There's no need for a third category!

And guess what? I'd be right about that if you asked the spokeswoman for Sex and Gender Education Australia, a one Tracie O'Keefe. She'd agree with me that you can't have three categories. You need to have four. Wha....? Wait. Wait. Dammit, I said WAIT!!

According to those UPI guys (who should really consider keeping stories like this to themselves in the future. I'm not so sure that I need to be this well informed.) "...some transgender lobby groups said the proposed move would not go far enough (of course they did) and requested a fourth option, "other," be made available (of course they did) for those who would not fall under the "intersex" label because they believe their gender is indefinable or constantly changing. (Uh-huh.)"

Guess what? Just because you "believe" that your gender is "indefinable or constantly changing" that doesn't mean that it really is. It also doesn't mean that everyone else has to appease your belief about your self identification being controlled by the always spinning Wheel O' Gender. I can "believe" I speak French. But if you get me started in a conversation with someone who really can speak French, they will tell you that they don't care what I "believe" and that I cannot speak French (Which I can't. And I don't think I can. It was just an example. To highlight their idiocy. I like highlights. They brighten things.)

Aside from semantics, "other" is a rather broad term, don't you think? Dog? Cat? Rat? Pig? Frog? Horse? Fish? Lizard? Bunny? Yes, I realize all of those are animals, but I didn't have any more human examples once you discarded male and female! That's all there is! There isn't anything else! But some people seem to think there is, so I was just hoping maybe I'd get it if I just kept naming things.

The above mentioned Tracie O'Keefe (who, by the way, was a man, became a woman, married and divorced twice and is now happily living her life as a lesbian. So there.) said, "The AHRC proposal does not go far enough in providing legal status and social spaces by only allowing people to be male, female and intersex." And see, Tracie, this is where you and I are different because I think the AHRC proposal goes a bit too far. Do you not hear how ridiculous that sounds? "By only allowing people to be male, female and intersex." ONLY?!?! I'm a little surprised you're not pushing for a fifth option - None of the above! And why stop there? Go for a sixth option - All of the above!

But all of that aside, no one is "allowing" anyone to be anything! That's because you're not "allowed" to just choose your gender like you would choose what you're going to wear each day! Some things just are the way they are. Look, if you're a male and you surgically switch teams, I am perfectly OK with you calling yourself a woman. You know why? Because at that point, you ARE a woman! I'm not letting you "choose" to call yourself a woman. You ARE a woman! Why would you be advocating to call yourself something else?! I thought it was all about equality! By adding more genders to the mix that is already FULL with the two genders that are in there, you're not being very equal.

Seriously, what is so complicated about this with some of you folks? Why must everything be such an ordeal? Did you ever think that perhaps, just perhaps, you're spending WAY too much time worrying about what other people will call you or identify you as? Labels and names seem to have a much bigger presence in these issues than can possibly be healthy. My opinion? Y'all might want to worry less about how other people see you and instead focus more on how you see you. Once you're comfortable in your own skin (and don't feel like you have anything to prove to the rest of the world) it's a lot easier to relax about stuff.

Doomed. Doomed, I tell you. Wake up, Australia. Don't go there. Do not go there.

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