For the second blog post, I chose to elaborate on a very briefly
covered topic found in chapter 11; Transgender. The book defines transgender as
“those who live as a gender different from that to which they were assigned at
birth.”(pg.254, ) Other than the definition, there is a short paragraph
describing the struggles arising among transgender individual regarding their identity. Our society is based off labeling things and putting them into categories. A coworker explained how she sometimes still had trouble classifying her son, who identified as a girl until the age of 18. I wanted to learn more about transgender because I find it interesting and because it isn't brought up often.
As an article that explains concepts and theories on
transgenderism, I found the “Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender” to be most
relevant. The encyclopedia itself has many sections, including a 15 page
chapter on transgender and transexuality. Because transgender is classified in
the DSM as Gender Identity Disorder, the chapter starts out by discussing the biological
and environmental etiology of transgenderism. There was not much information
given about those matters because there has been no indication of a causation of
transgenderism. Many are currently in works of trying to remove it from the DSM
because they do not believe it should be considered a disorder. The encyclopedia
also gives useful information on hormonal therapy.
The image I found is of two “Lady Boys”, as termed in
Thailand.
This video clip really shows the conflicting body challenges
a transgender child deals with. The parents are very accepting and willing to
do anything how their child.
By working at the campus’s Women’s Center, I have been
exposed to more of the LGBTQA community than I had originally been exposed to. In
the office, we are a safe zone, an ally, but not everyone is as accepting. I
picked the “The 2003 National School Climate Survey” article because, by use of
statistics from the survey, it shows how unsafe and even dangerous the schools
can be for transsexual and transgender individuals.
The second informative article was called “Transgender
and Gender Non-Conforming Youth Recommendations for Schools”. This article also
is about how schools are an unsafe place. “Transgender students face severe
discrimination and harassment in schools. 89.5% of transgender students report
feeling unsafe in schools. Transgender students are at higher risk of dropping
out of school and of suicide.” But the majority of the article is about the
ways to make schools and public places a safe zone. They cover the overall recommendations,
how to avoid disrespectful pronouns, toilet accessibility (lack of neutral
restrooms) and other.
“People changed
lots of other personal things all the time. They dyed their hair and dieted
themselves to near death. They took steroids to build muscles and got breast
implants and nose jobs so they'd resemble their favorite movie stars. They
changed names and majors and jobs and husbands and wives. They changed
religions and political parties. They moved across the country or the world --
even changed nationalities. Why was gender the one sacred thing we weren’t
supposed to change? Who made that rule?”
― Ellen Wittlinger, Parrotfish
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