Genderbitch Lite: Now With More Rambling!

Just another Etherist, BDSMing, queer trans chick with disabilities.

1 note

Anonymous asked: is the straight-up-and-down figure without breasts indicative of a trans woman? Or would you be looking specifically to see a woman with a penis?

While that can be indicative of a trans woman, with the level of erasure in cis dominated society, it would probably be smarter to go with a woman with a penis.

And really, one of the operative problems is that trans women come in a lot of shapes and sizes too. So the androgynous look isn’t always present. I look more like the woman on the bottom left, with the large bushy pubes, mid size breasts and a tummy that sticks out, with larger hips. And I’m trans.

69 notes

Germany: Trans Girl To Be Institutionalised

alexorue:

Pink News UK reports:

News that an 11 year old trans girl in Berlin, Germany, is about to be committed to a mental institution by local authorities – following intervention by her absent father – has prompted grave concern by the International LGBTQ Youth and Student Organisation (IGLYO).

A petition has also been started on change.org.

According to a statement released by IGLYO yesterday, the girl, elsewhere identified only as “Alex” (Alexandra) lives with her mother, who supports her gender expression. However, the girl’s father, divorced and separated from her mother, strongly rejects this view of his daughter’s gender identity and wants to force her to grow up as a boy.

If all else fails, there is a real and present possibility that pressure from her father, supported by the Youth Welfare Office in Berlin, means that Alex will shortly be confined in a closed ward of a psychiatric institution to ensure that “he” returns to “normality”.

This is despite the fact that Alex claims, in an interview published earlier this month in online lifestyle magazine taz.de, that she has identified as female for as long as she can remember. She is accepted as female at school, and has been registered as such from her earliest days there.

This led to conflict with her father, who insisted on calling her “Alexander” and forcing her to wear boy’s clothes. When Alex reacted negatively, he accused her of being badly behaved. Her parents split over the matter of Alex’s gender.

Now, with puberty fast approaching – and Alex claiming she would rather die than go through the changes it is likely to bring about – her father has besieged the Youth Office with written submissions.

His motives are unclear: what is clear is that the child has not been examined by independent experts – but a new member of staff in the Berlin Youth Office believes him and claims that the correct response to Alex’s suicide threats if she does not receive treatment for gender dysphoria is for her to be committed to a mental institution.

Alex should be encouraged to identify with male role models and to follow male pursuits: female preferences would be discouraged. Thereafter, according to a proposal that has shocked Professor Udo Rauchfleisch, a recognized expert in the care and treatment of transsexuality with the University of Basel, she should be separated from her mother and placed with foster parents.

There are clear similarities between this and approaches adopted by John Money in respect of David Reimer and David Rekers with Kirk Murphy: both cases ended badly with the subsequent suicide of the individuals – Reimer and Murphy – who were the target of this reparative therapy.

This is echoed by a statement from IGLYO. They write: “The board of IGLYO strongly advocates the rights of transgender youth and are concerned with the institutionalization of this happy and healthy child. We would like to highlight the endangerment of forced “therapy” to make children fit into the gender roles the society thinks are right for them. IGLYO follows the wealth of research that shows that reparative therapy regarding sexual orientation or gender identity can be seriously harmful to the child.

“The Board of IGLYO declares our solidarity with the girl and her mother. Moreover, we ask the authorities of Berlin to intervene with the actions of the Youth Welfare Office and stop the removal of the child from her mother. We find it extremely irresponsible and unacceptable to remove any child from a loving and supportive home without thorough research and consultation with experts.

“In line with international human rights standards, IGLYO advocates for the best interests of the child. The institutionalization of this child violates many human rights instruments, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the European Convention on Human Rights.”

The case is now being referred upward to Germany’s supreme court.

This is fucking vile. That father is a disgusting human being.

(via tuuli)

4,487 notes

livingtoloveeveryday:

Is anyone thinking that whoever made this, at the time wasn’t even aware of trans people? and even so, couldn’t it be possible that they would have wanted to include them, but didn’t know how, so they just did a basic and general range of body types to give something of an example? 

I mean, I could decide that I should be feeling left out as my body type isn’t included here, but I’m not, because it couldn’t be. They’re simply trying to bring an awareness of the different body types while still keeping it simple enough for people to understand.

We as a people really need to grow thicker skin and accept simplicity where it is born, I think


You messed up your quotes. If they didn’t know about us and didn’t know how to make our shapes then the very first thing I said, “I guess no one grows up into trans women shapes” would’ve given them the knowledge that trans women were excluded and an internet search would’ve done the rest.

As for thicker skin, shut the fuck up. No seriously, shut up, sit the fuck down and stop being an apologist asshole. It isn’t about thin skin. Or offense. It’s about very real fucking damage. Excluding us is a big part of how people use social stuff as an excuse to force us out of women’s shelters, to not let us use bathrooms we’re safer and more comfortable in, to deny us medical care. Excluding us says we’re not women and that’s what society uses to fuck us over more than cisgender women.

You’re part of the problem. Fuck your “simplicity”. Women’s lives are more important than fucking simplicity.

(via livingtoloveeveryday)

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whencylonsdream replied to your post: There’s really no excuse for it. If you wanna talk about how barbies fuck up body image, you need to include trans women.
What annoys me is that even when cis people seem to get that trans people are being excluded they ‘still’ try to come up with any excuse as to why that’s okay in that ‘one particular instance’.

Cissupremacy is one powerful motherfucking thing. I wonder if cognitive dissonance gives people headaches.

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Anonymous asked: a friend of mine was homeless a year ago and i felt like it was awkward when she mentioned it because it felt like she was kind of skirting around asking for a place to stay, which i knew i couldnt give her (my place was too small, and my mother's anyway) so i just felt bad that i couldn't offer the help she seemed clearly to be asking for. of course, the people you're dealing with could just be dicks, but i thought i'd offer some kind of reason.

I dunno about your friend but if I needed a place to stay, I’d just ask.

I also think it’s important to remember that when people talk about stuff that sucks in their lives, it rarely is about you. She may have just wanted to vent about it and have people listen, not get you to directly help her. It’s a common mistake for a lot of people, thinking that their friends and loved ones are asking for their help instead of just a sympathetic ear.

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People seem to get really awkward in general when I bring up being homeless, both in the past and my current less severe homelessness (what with a server closet to crash in)

Don’t like hearing about poor people, huh? Suddenly feeling guilty about complaining about having to go to work, huh? Or how small your apartment is?

Maybe you could try not to project that shit on me and just listen, cuz not having a home is a part of my life right now and I ain’t gonna hide shit like that just cuz it makes people less comfy.

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Reverse Racism is a myth created by racist white people

ethiopienne:

brazenbitch:

Who believe that sporadic, interpersonal acts of hostility from people of color is equivalent or relevant to the struggle of people of color from oppression.

Even if a person of color is hateful against white people, it has nothing to do with the thought of whites being inferior to people of color, but rather backlash from the harm whiteness has caused non whites, and non white cultures. 

We are enraged that our land has been stolen and occupied 

We are furious that our people are treated as second citizens, IF citizens at all 

We are infuriated that we are forced to assimilate, apologize, and dismiss racism in our lives for the sake of solidarity, to get jobs, to be successful, to be heard. 

So excuse us if we are belligerent, if we are militant in our speech and actions. We can’t afford to be otherwise. 

Bolding for emphasis mine. 

(via telegantmess)

4,487 notes

fortheloveofsquiddles:

genderbitch:

fortheloveofsquiddles:

genderbitch:

fortheloveofsquiddles:

Forgive me if I’m awfully mistaken here, but I think this particular page not covering trans women isn’t erasure by anyone’s standards. If there were a second one covering a range of MAAB bodies, and there was no representation there, then there’d be an erasure problem.

Facts are, FAAB kids aren’t massively likely to grow up into trans women. This picture is showing a range of FAAB bodies, not female bodies. You are finding issue with entirely the wrong thing, if you ask me. This picture is a damn good thing.

(I’m obviously working under the assumption that the third-on-the-bottom-row person’s androgyny isn’t without reason.)

I forgive you for being awfully mistaken here. There are plenty of women, including trans women who are androgynous and I sincerely doubt this person was trying to include trans guys in this with the whole barbie spiel up at the top.

It’s erasure cuz this is pretty clearly about women (body image issues based on a doll marketed exclusively to girls) and trans women, regardless of being MAAB (and some aren’t, there are unassigned folks too), are still WOMEN.

And ergo, something about women should include all women.

Personally, I can’t see how the Barbie spiel discounts the possibility of trans guys being included. You’d really have to ask the person behind this picture before you can jump to the assumption that anyone is or is not being erased.

If there were a second page, much like this one, with a little boy and an Action Man, and there was a feminine/androgynous person in the second picture who one could assume might possibly be trans, would that then fix it?

You’re obviously right about the whole body image thing, but in the end it says ‘people’, not ‘women’ (if it did, I’d have fewer qualms). FAAB kids, as I said, don’t tend to grow up into trans women - with a few exceptions, of course.

We’re both working under a tonne of assumptions, of course, but I just think it’s not right to go on about how this picture is wrong without it being in any real context or without wholly knowing what its creator intended of it.

Even if we are operating under the assumption of people, trans women are still excluded since the body image stuff of barbies does still affect CAMAB individuals who have bodily dissonance or gender dysphoria aligned towards womanhood or female associated structure. This is not a CAFAB only thing and any claim of such is just as erasing as this picture.

The simple fact that a child is asking if their body would be like the barbie requires that trans women be included since those same pressures affect many, if not the majority of us. 

So either way, there’s erasure of trans women and bullshit here. 

I’m far more inclined to believe that the maker of this didn’t take trans people into account at all though, since that’s the common result.

Oh, I’d never claim that the whole body image stuff is a FAAB-only thing. Hell no. I’m just taking this picture from a fairly literal perspective, along the ‘no, kiddo, you could grow up to look like any of these people down here and that’s perfectly okay’ line of thought.

‘Cos…yeah. That’s what I saw when I looked at this picture.

That was certainly the line of thought. Although you can’t really take this literally cuz how many white children grow up to be black? Which opens up another nasty can of worms with the everychild version up top being white.

Anyways, none of this changes the fact that this erased trans women, many of whom are subject to all the same pressures related to that doll.

In fact, if this is just about people in general facing body image pressures from barbies, that makes the erasure of trans women even more vile because then the person really ought to have known since they expanded it to a far larger zone.

4,487 notes

fortheloveofsquiddles:

genderbitch:

fortheloveofsquiddles:

Forgive me if I’m awfully mistaken here, but I think this particular page not covering trans women isn’t erasure by anyone’s standards. If there were a second one covering a range of MAAB bodies, and there was no representation there, then there’d be an erasure problem.

Facts are, FAAB kids aren’t massively likely to grow up into trans women. This picture is showing a range of FAAB bodies, not female bodies. You are finding issue with entirely the wrong thing, if you ask me. This picture is a damn good thing.

(I’m obviously working under the assumption that the third-on-the-bottom-row person’s androgyny isn’t without reason.)

I forgive you for being awfully mistaken here. There are plenty of women, including trans women who are androgynous and I sincerely doubt this person was trying to include trans guys in this with the whole barbie spiel up at the top.

It’s erasure cuz this is pretty clearly about women (body image issues based on a doll marketed exclusively to girls) and trans women, regardless of being MAAB (and some aren’t, there are unassigned folks too), are still WOMEN.

And ergo, something about women should include all women.

Personally, I can’t see how the Barbie spiel discounts the possibility of trans guys being included. You’d really have to ask the person behind this picture before you can jump to the assumption that anyone is or is not being erased.

If there were a second page, much like this one, with a little boy and an Action Man, and there was a feminine/androgynous person in the second picture who one could assume might possibly be trans, would that then fix it?

You’re obviously right about the whole body image thing, but in the end it says ‘people’, not ‘women’ (if it did, I’d have fewer qualms). FAAB kids, as I said, don’t tend to grow up into trans women - with a few exceptions, of course.

We’re both working under a tonne of assumptions, of course, but I just think it’s not right to go on about how this picture is wrong without it being in any real context or without wholly knowing what its creator intended of it.

Even if we are operating under the assumption of people, trans women are still excluded since the body image stuff of barbies does still affect CAMAB individuals who have bodily dissonance or gender dysphoria aligned towards womanhood or female associated structure. This is not a CAFAB only thing and any claim of such is just as erasing as this picture.

The simple fact that a child is asking if their body would be like the barbie requires that trans women be included since those same pressures affect many, if not the majority of us. 

So either way, there’s erasure of trans women and bullshit here. 

I’m far more inclined to believe that the maker of this didn’t take trans people into account at all though, since that’s the common result.