Shelfari: Books in the Wild

(Disclaimer: what follows is an assignment consisting of three previous posts held together with duct tape in an ingenious fashion. Really, it's not my fault, they made me do it! For a nifty presentation I made in connection with this topic, conveniently located online, please click here and imagine my sweet voice telling you all about the spiffy screenshots. You may want to read the post below first, however.)

There's an ever-increasing number of tools and services of the web 2.0 type popping up in cyberspace on a daily basis. This has spawned a new type of service itself: sites that help you find new widgets, web 2.0 services, and other tools, all of which promise to facilitate something in your life which you want or need help with. After slogging through the mucky jungles of several find-your-tool sites, I came across Shelfari.com, "The Site for Books and Readers." What a great cyber oasis for a bibliophile like me! I had to go explore it! Here is what I discovered.

Shelfari opened its virtual doors to adventuresome book lovers in October of 2006. Like many other social networking services, it allows users to set up a profile, personalize content, record comments, and share with others. Like so many other nifty little web sites, it was bought up by a corporate giant: Amazon bought Shelfari in August of 2008, which explains where all the book images, links to buy books on Amazon, and Amazon ratings come from. To be fair, Shelfari also has Google Ads on their pages, so there are other book sellers being promoted there, but I'm sure Amazon is reaping some solid benefits from the "recommend," "review," and "discuss" functions on Shelfari as it does on Amazon.com. Word of mouth is a powerful selling tool, why not let the consumers do the work for you? But I digress.

Going off on a tangent is easy to do on Shelfari. Like Amazon.com, Shelfari will recommend books based on what you have on your personal bookshelf or whatever you are looking at, and each book's page has other clickable suggestions handily placed below the item description. If you don't get distracted reading the reviews, checking out who else has the book on their shelf, or exploring the groups who have the book, you can hop from one book to the next, like following a never-ending vine through vast stretches of knowledge and entertainment. If you are like me, you may eventually loose complete track of where you are and where you've been, but if you've been adding books to your wish list or the "plan to read" section of your bookshelf, you will come out of your adventure in bookland with some swell souvenirs.

Your travel options through this cyber jungle include plenty of options for socializing with fellow tourists. As mentioned, there are groups to join, or you can create a new social destination (a.k.a. "group") focused on just about anything remotely related to whatever books you may be navigating. Groups have discussion functions that operate in standard forum style, and discussions for any book can be started or joined by anyone, in or out of a group. These are accessed through the book's own page. If you are interested in a more one-on-one interaction, you can invite, find or make new friends. Shelfari will tell you which users it thinks are most like you based on your book collection, and you can post notes on other people's pages, provided they have set their security options to allow it.

Shelfari offers a cyber playland for book enthusiasts, with endless corners to while the time away in. If you have ever enjoyed losing yourself in a book, whether it be fantasy, horror, the latest popular science piece, or even those text books you bought because you had to, but kept because you wanted to, try out this site. You may discover your own, personal, literary oasis on the web.

For those of you who may not be avid book readers like I am, and who therefore may be wondering if Shelfari is worth a visit or not, trust me, it is. Shelfari has good potential for anyone interested in gender topics, which I must assume you are, or you have really wandered off the beaten path to be perusing this blog!

The importance of social networking and sharing knowledge cannot be underestimated; such networking and sharing is precisely what facilitated the boom in awareness and activism for transexuals and other transgender people in the 1990s. Before the Internet facilitated cross-country networking at the click of a mouse, trans people were often isolated from each other, with little to no information available about being trans. There was little to no information available in much of the country about how to navigate the treacherous waters of trans life. Tasks such as getting appropriate medical care; how to deal with official documents like driver’s licenses; how to looking convincingly enough like one gender or another so as not to get harassed, beaten, or killed; or even how to deal with choosing which public restroom to use had to be reinvented by each new individual trying to carve out a livable life in a world designed to exclude them.

Small groups came and went in large cities, but pulling together national networks was a struggle (for a history of these struggles, see Susan Stryker's Transgender History and Joanne Meyerowitz's How Sex Changed: A History of Transexuality in the United States). Trans people can now find out in minutes, through web resources, what used to take years to learn, and the extreme isolation of yesteryear has greatly decreased thanks to all the social networking groups now available. The emotional and psychological benefits of having a community to belong to are invaluable, to say the least.

Shelfari can direct users to resources on gender topics in seconds through its recommendations. Books for and by the queer community, feminists, and gender outlaws of all types can be found here, as well as other people with similar interests. A trans person alone in a small Midwestern town can meet other trans people online through social networking sites like Shelfari, and can find out what informative books are popular in the trans community at the same time. Believe me, books on trans topics are quite hot in many trans communities. Activists and young trans people especially are reading up storms of empowerment. As the feminist, lesbian, and gay movements have shown, gaining knowledge goes a long way in gaining power, and to effect the change that is needed for the health and safety of gender minorities everywhere, greater power is definitely needed!

Whether you are a trans person yourself, a budding feminist looking for resources to keep on fighting patriarchy and glass ceilings, or just interested in gender in general, Shelfari can help you find out who your peers are and what they are reading. As they like to say at my University, "Networking, networking, networking!" Go find your people today at Shelfari.com, it’s easy to do, and there's just something about Shelfari that inspires random exploration!

Even if you are the type that is put off by chance encounters through site surfing, don't let it stop you from using Shelfari! You aren't obligated to follow link after link through endless pages of books and commentary, you know. You have every opportunity to use this PC Magazine Site of the Week in a fully self-controlled manner, just as the many users of its Facebook application... might, er, well, probably don't do. You are under no obligation to participate in discussions with other users who have the same interests as you, potentially making some great friendships and happily productive networks of like-minded thinkers.

Anyhow, if you don’t wan to take my word for it, let me tell you what other people are saying about Shelfari. The site made the Hindustan Times "Best and Worst of 2007" list, and in the good, happy way, not the embarrassing, “think again” way. True, it's only a short little blurb, but at least it made it on the map! Actually, Shelfari caught the attention of the Wall Street Journal Tech section as well, which quotes Josh Hug, who co-founded the site, as saying the number of users was "six digits." That was back in October of 2007. They likely have seven digits by now - especially since getting bought up by Amazon.com about a year ago (and don't forget that Facebook app). Wow! That looks good!

Of course, there have been a couple of snafus along the path for this social networking site centered on books. Shelfari was accused of astroturfing (generating staged enthusiasm for itself) and a spam-like emailing application for inviting users' friends and acquaintances (every last one of them) to join the site. Shelfari claimed the first was an innocent mistake by a novice intern and the second - well, no word on that, as far as Wikipedia knows.

Overall, though, it is a useful site, as I have heartily declared. Other than having been publicly embarrassed, there are just a couple of notable downsides to Shelfari.com. The first is a problem common on social networking sites: sometimes users aren't all that enthused about the social part. Don't get me wrong, the Harry Potter pages have non-stop traffic; they seem to have their very own Shelfari Express to carry all known Potterphiles to the special wizarding realm on Shelfari. There were 288 groups found in a search for "Harry Potter," with membership ranging from one person to nearly a thousand. Searching in groups for “Hogwarts” pulled up another 41 wizarding associated groups, including one with a membership of 1841 aspiring magical creatures, er, fans. Apparently I'm still a muggle - it wouldn't let me see the group content without joining. Sorry, but I'm just not that into you, Harry Potter!

Most of the groups I was actually interested in joining, though - Queer Theory (featuring a lovely picture of everyone's favorite gender philosopher, Judith Butler), Molecular Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, and Anthropology - the Peopling of the Earth, for example, have been about as active as a penguin in the Sahara (does nine or more months of inactivity qualify as officially dead?).

The second problem irritates me even more, perhaps because it should be entirely within the power (and intelligence) of Shelfari and Amazon to fix, like NOW. You can't properly search tags.* You can tag any book with any tag you want, and clicking on a tag – yours or someone else’s – pulls up every book thus tagged, but the page of top 200 tags doesn't actually have any tags on it. What if I wanted to search a tag that wasn't in the top 200 and that I hadn’t yet used myself? No option for that, not that I could find, anyhow, and believe me, I tried! The one spot that does display some tags (which are clickable, thank goodness) is the "Most Popular" tab on the "Explore Books" page. There were only about 52 tags listed there at the bottom of the page, however, and the "more tags" link simply takes one to the useless top 200 tags page. Grrr! I want to have my gender and search it too, gosh darn it! This site would be much improved, and possibly more popular, were it to fix this glaring problem. Perhaps then more traffic would find my Gender and Anthropology groups, and we could have some actual conversations. After all, that is the official point of Shelfari.com!



*Since this was originally written, Shelfari has plugged tags into its "Top 200 tags" page. Consequently, I have removed the links from this section of my post, since I can't really just delete this section of my assignment. However, problems remain with tags at Shelfari - now the tag section at the bottom of the "Most Popular" tab of the "Explore Books" page is devoid of tags! Perhaps the tech people over at Shelfari are too busy reading books?

To Boldly Go...

As I write this post, a brand new Star Trek movie has just hit the silver screen, reminding me of my roots and inspiring me to dream of a future - a better future, a Roddenberry-esque future. I grew up on a steady diet of Jean M. Auel's Earth's Children's series and Roddenberry's Star Trek. I can only begin to imagine how that has shaped my mind and world-view. Earth's Children takes place in a pre-historic ice age while Star Trek commences in the 24th century. Both emphasize equality across sexes and genders, both rely on adventuresome characters to captivate an audience as they examine humanity under trying circumstances. Truth and justice usually win the day, despite inevitable setbacks along the way.

As I consider my work in Anthropology and Gender Studies, I can see the influence of both narratives in my motives and passion for my work. I long for the ideal past of egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies (not unusual for an Anthropologist, take my word for it); I dream of a possible future of bold equality and intelligent, informed citizens populating the world. My research aims to help take us in the direction of such equality and integrity. My blog is set up to be my Captain's Log, should I choose to accept this mission (yes, I'm aware that's another movie - got a better line?).

What strange, new worlds will we encounter in our journeys? What ancient life-ways will we draw upon as we work to reshape our relationships with each other and our planet? Will I manage to continue posting my adventures in gender as I strive to contribute to the possibility of a better world, one free from discrimination based on sex, gender, sexuality, race, religion, nationality, or even what planet one comes from? A world where difference is celebrated and can thrive, strong and bold, as was Ayla in Earth's Children, as is Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation, is a world worth working hard for, and I hope to contribute my fair share towards this goal. I hope you'll join me in this voyage. Keep learning, keep deconstructing, and don't let the mal-adapted humanoids around you keep you from reaching your full potential. They are full of memories of a worn-out past that will no longer suffice to propel our species forward successfully. Dare to boldly go where no one has gone before, into a bright new future of acceptance and understanding in an age of powerful technology that expands our horizons further every day.

I end this post in the most logical way possible: Live long and prosper. Peace and long life.

Free to Be

When you think of yourself, when people ask you to describe yourself, what do you first think of? Is it gender? Or maybe something else? Have you ever thought about it? If you don't think of gender, is it because it does not matter to you, or because it seems so self-evident that there is no need to explicitly refer to it? Why do we constantly define ourselves in terms of gender? And when you think of gender, does it automatically imply a particular biological sex for you?

Many people do not pause to think about gender because it has been naturalized in our society. It is assumed that the general and right way for things to be is that women has female parts and are feminine. Likewise, men have male parts and are masculine. The whole system is believed to be based on biological sex. Riki Wilchins asks why we define ourselves according to our genitalia. Our genitalia - think about it. Is that who or what you are - a penis or a vagina? Really? Is that how you want to be known? And why is it so important for other people to know immediately what body parts are underneath your clothing? Why? Is your whole existence wrapped up in whether you have a cock or a cunt?

I'm hoping the vulgarity will shock you a bit, honestly, and cause you to seriously consider whether or not your genital formations are really the most important thing about you. I'd like to believe that most people don't conceptualize themselves as reproductive organs. In fact, I think many people may prefer to be known for what they do - a doctor, Broadway star, or an academic - or perhaps for the relationships they hold most dear - parent, spouse, lover. But still, we are compelled to constantly identify ourselves - nay, declare to the world - what is between our legs, be it on paperwork we fill out for any number of things, online profiles, or how we walk, talk, dress, and interact with others. We become walking advertisements for our dicks and clits. Is that what you want to project to the world? "Hello, shaft, I'm a cunt." "Nice to meet you cunt! I'm a first-rate prick, by the way!"

Does your body language speak this way when you meet people? Are you unconsciously or maybe consciously telling people what kind of sexual organs you are - a first-class penis who gets what he wants? An insecure vagina who can probably be manipulated by an aggressive dick? Do you realize how much of our communication is gendered?

I'd like to see more occupations and relationships on display, or maybe core values, without sex accompanying them. What does that look like? Can you imagine? What would it be like if we went through life as beings who didn't define themselves according to sexual functioning? What if we treated people according to their contributions to society? Their consideration of others? Not according to their reproductive potential. Can we do that? Have we evolved to a place where it is possible?

I don't know, be we can certainly try. Try being just an athlete, just an educator, just an administrator. Just for a day or two. Gender is still too volatile, too wrapped up in power schemes, for us to quit it cold turkey. Or even just stop using it as a primary identification. But we can move in that direction. What new worlds are possible? An Anthropology professor once mentioned in class that people are limited most by what they believe to be possible. When you begin to deconstruct hegemonic discourse, you open the way for new ways of thinking and being. The possibilities are vast, if we allow for it.

What kind of world do you want to live in?

Deconstructing Biological Sex*

Let's talk about deconstructing sex. When I read Riki Wilchins' book Queer Theory, Gender Theory this part was the hardest to actually see. Understanding gender and sexuality as social constructs was much easier, as the first is a behavior and the second is desire based upon any number of variables, many of which are constructs themselves. Sex, though, we are taught is biological, and the biological is pure and pristine and cannot be tampered with by the mind. Right? It simply is what it is? Well, the argument for deconstructing sex says no, it isn't. We are still imposing our self-created categories upon unsuspecting phenomena with no consciousness of its own, what to speak of real agency. Bodies just happen in nature, don't they? And nature gave us two distinct types, right?

There are places where the binary of biological sex breaks down, such as with intersex people, who are born with both "male" and "female" reproductive parts or with indeterminate parts. Yes, indeterminate. The boundary between a small penis and a large clitoris on newborn babies has been arbitrarily set in America at three eighths of an inch to a full inch. If you fall just shy of three eighths, you have a clit and are therefore a girl, through and through, so good luck getting through life without facing gender discrimination. If you are lucky enough to have an organ that is one inch long, congratulations, you have a penis and all the accompanying male privilege. Hurrah for you!

But what about those in-between people? Those little babies with organs that are larger than three eighths of an inch, but not quite a full inch? Typically, the doctors will decide to make them girls, but they don't just assign the gender, they cut the "clitoris" right off the baby. Can't have any large clit females walking around can we? No, the border between male and female must be strictly enforced and very clear, even if it means mutilating babies.**

With all this in mind, it is easy to start grasping the constructed nature of biological sex, in theory, anyhow, since the dividing line between male and female is arbitrarily drawn here. There are other problems with biological sex, though, such as people with chromosomal "abnormalities," those with xxyy, xyy, xxy, xxx or even just a single x chromosome. What the heck are they? Science calls the first three "boys" and the other two "girls." This is due to the other, observable indicators of sex present in each case. So chromosomes are not always what we think they are; they are not an either/or, xx/xy binary. We position them in a male/female binary system based on another factor, namely genitalia, which we have seen can be painfully uncertain.

If you've mad it this far and can see the logic behind a deconstruction of biological sex, than kudos to you! Now, however, comes the hard part. Go out in the world and try to see someone, anyone, as something other than male or female. Or even try to convince yourself that the butch lady on the bus is really a male. See how far you get. We are so habituated to seeing only males and females, men and women, that it can be nearly impossible to see anything else. It takes a strong effort for most people to see something else, to see a person, just a person, not a gender and/or a biological sex. Are you up to the task?



*The information on intersex people in this blog post comes from Riki Wilchins' book Queer Theory, Gender Theory, a link to which can be found at the beginning of this post. For more information on intersex issues, click here.

**Wilchins notes that "male" babies never get accused of having penises that are too large, and consequently, they never get theirs trimmed as "females" might. Also significant is that the mutilation of these baby "girls" does significantly impair their sex life later on - many can never achieve orgasm due to the mutilation at the hands of their supposed care-givers, the doctors.

If I haven't convinced you yet...

Okay, this is my last big plug for Shelfari.com.* If I actually had regular readers, perhaps I could charge them an advertising fee, but alas, I think my professor is the only one to ever give my ramblings the time of day! Nevertheless, the blog will go on (it has to, its required). There I go off on a tangent again - there's just something about Shelfari that inspires random exploration! If you are the type that is put off by chance encounters through site surfing, don't let it stop you from using Shelfari! You aren't obligated to follow link after link through endless pages of books and commentary, you know. You have every opportunity to use this PC Magazine Site of the Week... um, site... in a fully self-controlled manner, just as the many users of its Facebook application... might, er, well, probably don't do.

Anyhow, before I say anything else perhaps a bit too revealing about my relationship with books, let me tell you what other people are saying about Shelfari. The site made the Hindustan Times "Best and Worst of 2007" list, and in the good, happy way, not the embarrassing, think again way. True, it's only a short little blurb, but at least it made it on the map! Actually, Shelfari caught the attention of the Wall Street Journal Tech section as well, which quotes Josh Hug, who co-founded the site, as saying the number of users was "six digits." That was back in October of 2007. They could possibly have seven digits by now - especially since getting bought up by Amazon.com about a year ago (and then there's that Facebook app). Wow! That looks good!

Of course, there have been a couple of snafus along the path for this social networking site centered on books. Shelfari was accused of astroturfing (generating staged enthusiasm for itself) and a spam-like emailing application for inviting users' friends and acquaintances (every last one of them) to join the site. Shelfari claimed the first was an innocent mistake by a novice intern and the second - well, no word on that, as far as Wikipedia knows.

Overall, though, it is a useful site, as I have heartily declared before, and before that, too. Other than having been publically embarrassed, there are just a couple of significant downsides to Shelfari.com. The first is a problem common on social networking sites: sometimes users aren't all that enthused. Don't get me wrong, the Harry Potter pages have non-stop traffic; they seem to have their very own Shelfari Express to carry all known Potterphiles to the special wizarding realm on Shelfari. There were 287 groups found in a search for "Harry Potter," with membership ranging from one person to nearly a thousand. A search for Hogwarts in groups pulled up another 41 wizarding associated groups, including one with a membership of 1841 aspiring magical creatures, er, fans. Apparently I'm still a muggle - it wouldn't let me see the group content without joining. Sorry, but I'm just not that into you, Harry Potter!

Most of the groups I was actually interested in joining, though - Queer Theory (featuring a lovely picture of everyone's favorite gender philosopher, Judith Butler), Molecular Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, and Anthropology - the Peopling of the Earth, for example, have been about as active as a penguin in the Sahara (does nine or more months of inactivity qualify as officially dead?).

The second problem irritates me even more, perhaps because it should be entirely within the power (and intelligence) of Shelfari and Amazon to fix, like NOW. You can't properly search tags. You can tag any book with any tag you want, but the page of top 200 tags doesn't actually have any tags on it. And what if I wanted to search one that wasn't in the top 200? No option for that, not that I could find, anyhow, and believe me, I tried! Gender is one of my own personal favorite tags, and it was nowhere to be seen, despite my having used it. The one spot that does display some tags (which are clickable, thank goodness) is the "Most Popular" tab on the "Explore Books" page. There were only about 52 tags listed there, however, and the "more tags" link simply takes one to the useless top 200 tags page. Grrr! I want to have my gender and search it too, gosh darn it! This site would be much improved, and possibly more popular, were it to fix this glaring problem. Perhaps then more traffic would find my Gender and Anthropology groups, and we could have some actual conversations. After all, that is the point of Shelfari.com!


*To see a presentation I put together abut Shelfari, click here. Please excuse the lack of text - I use my visuals to complement my talk, not replace or distract from it.

Yes, but is it for me?

Some of you may be wondering if Shelfari is even worth looking at; you may not be the avid book reader that I am, so the enthusiasm of my last post might not have revved you up much. Even so, Shelfari is worth taking a look at for anyone interested in gender topics, which I must assume you are, or you have really wandered off the beaten path to be perusing this blog!

The importance of social networking and sharing knowledge cannot be under estimated, in fact, such networking and sharing is precisely what facilitated the boom in awareness and activism for transexuals and other transgender people in the 1990s. Before the Internet facilitated cross-country networking at the click of a mouse, trans people were often isolated from each other, not just from the rest of the population. Small groups came and went in large cities, but pulling together national networks was a struggle (for a history of these struggles, see Susan Stryker's Transgender History and Joanne Meyerowitz's How Sex Changed: A History of Transexuality in the United States). Trans people can now find out in minutes, through web resources, what used to take years, if ever, to learn.

Shelfari can direct you to further resources on your favorite gender topics in seconds through its recommendations. Users can also find others with similar interests. A trans person alone in a small Midwestern town can meet other trans people online, perhaps from Shelfari, and can find out what informative books are popular in the trans community through Shelfari. Believe me, books on trans topics are quite hot in many trans communities. Activists and young trans people especially are reading up storms of empowerment. As the feminist, lesbian, and gay movements have shown, gaining knowledge goes a long way in gaining power, and to effect the change that is needed for the health and safety of gender minorities everywhere, greater power is definitely needed!

So whether you are a trans person yourself, a budding feminist looking for resources to keep on fighting patriarchy and glass ceilings, or just interested in gender in general, Shelfari can help you find out who your peers are and what they are reading. As they like to say at my University, "Networking, networking, networking!" Go find your people today at Shelfari.com.

Shelfari: Books in the Wild

There's an ever-increasing number of tools and services of the web 2.0 type popping up in cyberspace on a daily basis. This has spawned a new type of service itself: sites that help you find new widgets, 2.0 services, and other tools, all of which promise to facilitate something in your life which you either want or need help with. After slogging through the mucky jungles of several "find your tool" sites, I came across Shelfari.com, "The Site for Books and Readers." What could sound more like a great cyber hang out spot for an academic type like me than that? Other than UltimateKnowledge.org, where you can locate and download every piece of useful knowledge that ever existed directly to your brain through our new and improved quantum software... but of course, that's not quite on the web yet. Shelfari will keep me occupied for now.

Shelfari opened its virtual doors to adventuresome book lovers in October of 2006. Like many other social web services, it allows users to set up a profile, personalize content, record comments, and share with others. Like so many other nifty little web sites, it was bought up by a corporate giant: Amazon bought Shelfari in August of 2008, which explains where all the book images, links to buy books on Amazon, and Amazon ratings come from. To be fair, Shelfari also has Google Ads on their pages, so there are other book sellers being promoted here, but I'm sure Amazon is hoping to benefit from the "recommend," "review," and "discuss" functions on Shelfari as it does on Amazon.com. Word of mouth is a powerful selling tool, why not let the consumers do the work for you? But once again, I digress.

Going off on a tangent is another thing that's easy to do on Shelfari. Like Amazon.com, Shelfari will recommend books based on what you have on your personal shelf or whatever you are looking at, and each book's page has other clickable suggestions handily placed below the item description. If you don't get distracted reading the reviews, checking out who else has the book on their shelf, or exploring the groups who have the book, you can hop from one book to the next, like following a never-ending vine through vast stretches of knowledge and entertainment terrains. If you are like me, you may eventually loose complete track of where you are and where you've been, but if you've been adding books to your wish list or the "plan to read" section of your bookshelf, you will come out of your adventure in bookland with some swell souvenirs.

Your travel options through this cyber jungle include plenty of options for socializing with fellow tourists. As mentioned, there are groups to join, or you can create a new social destination (a.k.a. "group") focused on just about anything remotely related to whatever books you may be navigating. Groups have discussion functions that operate in standard forum style, but discussions for individual books can also be started or joined by anyone. These are accessed through the book's own page. If you are interested in a more one-on-one interaction, you can invite, find or make new friends. Shelfari will tell you which users it thinks are most like you ased on your book collection, and you can post notes on other people's pages, provided they have set their security options to allow it.

In a nutshell, Shelfari offers a cyber playland for book enthusiasts, with endless corners to while the time away in. If you have ever enjoyed losing yourself in a book, whether it be fantasy, horror, the latest popular science piece, or even those text books you bought because you had to, but kept because you wanted to, try out this site. You may discover your own, personal, literary oasis on the web.

Crafting language, defining self: part 2

Since mid-February I have been laying the ground work for my look at creating new gender terms in queer communities* (here, here, here, and here). Today I will be examining in greater depth what some of the implications of creating oneself through language can be. "Can" is significant here, for I am looking at what may be possible with a conscious attempt of self-creation; much work has already been done on how language shapes people on an unconscious level, I want to take the conversation in a new direction, one which most people may never take. If we consider that language does shape people, particularly words which imply identity, then why not use such words as a tool to purposely shape ourselves?

Similar to positive self-affirmation and choosing positive perceptions of life's events over negative ones, choosing the words we use to identify ourselves has the potential to change our self-perception and self-understanding, hence, how we experience our daily lives. You could theoretically use language to create a happier existence for yourself!

Now, before anyone starts rolling their eyes, accusing me of some crazy, pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo, let me clarify that last paragraph! No, you cannot become a superhero by calling yourself one. But moving from calling oneself "useless" to "valuable employee" or "good student" is a common therapeutic strategy for changing self-perception. A change in focus can help effect a change in self-perception and consequently behavior as well.

This is what lies behind politically correct terminology, for example: retarded became mentally handicapped which became mentally challenged, in each case becoming less demeaning for those referred to. In the queer world, "gay" is not demeaning the way "fag" is. Identifying with more positive words promotes a healthier sense of self, better self-esteem.

It seems likely that this may be one part of the driving force behind the mushrooming of gender terms within queer communities. Terms currently in existence may hold too much negative baggage, or simply not enough positive reinforcement, for those who choose to create these new terms. These individuals are seeking to define themselves and have found existing options unsatisfactory. They are creating new terms to convey to themselves and the world who they feel they are. The potential for self-creation lies within these instances of language creation, whether the creator is aware of it or not. My question is, can we intentionally harness that potential to help shape ourselves in whichever direction we wish to grow?



*For convenience, I use the term "queer communities" to refer to all groups, organizations, and people in general who do not consider themselves strictly heterosexual and/or heteronormative. "Queer," as noted in a previous footnote, is a controversial term, but I have not yet encountered a substitute that could be used to cover all these groups without sounding as clunky and in need of detailed elaboration as "non-hetero-normative," my other option.

Heteronormative

I'm taking a journey to the flip side in this post; since most of my focus has been on non-traditional gender, i.e. not stereotypical notions of male/female, masculine/feminine, I've decided it's time to take a walk on the wild side and explore heteronormativity. Of course, our first stop is Wikipedia for a handy definition of the terrain we'll be exploring. Wikipedia draws the boundaries thus:

Heteronormativity is a term describing the marginalization of non-heterosexual lifestyles and the view that heterosexuality is the normal sexual orientation. Instances of this include the idea that people fall into two distinct and complementary categories (male and female), that sexual and marital relations are normal only when between people of different sexes, and that each sex has certain natural roles in life. The heteronormative view is that physical sex, gender identity, and gender roles should, in any given person, align to either all-male or all-female cultural norms.

To begin with, I'd like to point out the use of the term "non-heterosexual" in the first sentence; there is a reason this word was chosen! Many people conceive of "homosexual" as the opposite to "heterosexual," but this is problematic. Homosexual refers to "same-sex" relations, which of course are not heterosexual, but it says nothing about non-hetero relations that are also not homosexual. Did you do a double-take there? Yes, there are other possibilities beyond the construction of homo-versus-hetero! What about intersex people? What about transexuals? Transgender? These people do not easily fit into a binary construction of male/female, so then how can it be determined where they fit into a binary construction of sexuality that rests on a binary construction of sex? We simply do not have language crafted to convey such types of people and their relationships; our language is based on our binaristic assumptions, despite their inadequacies. This is why "non-heterosexual" is being used here, because there is no other word to describe all the ground not owned by "heterosexual": homosexual is not the opposite of heterosexual because there are no "opposites" when there are more than two options, even if those other options don't have their own names yet.

Next I'd like to look at "normal," also in the first sentence. How is it that we determine "normal?" According to Wikipedia normal

refers to a lack of significant deviation from the average.

In statistics, this would mean anything falling within three standard deviations from the average (the mean), either way, normal is defined by what most people do, and those outliers, the people who don't follow the herd, who go off the beaten path, well, they get labeled "deviant." But what most people do varies drastically from society to society, culture to culture. That being the case, locking down a norm for the species as a whole is highly problematic: "norms" are often culturally-specific constructions, not "natural" occurrences.

But is this the case with gendered or sexual behavior? Is heteronormativity really a social construct? Doesn't biology demand that we recognize the "complementary categories" of male and female, designed for purposes of reproduction? Even if we decide that intersex people are really just unfortunate abnormalities, "nature's mistakes" (a position I do not agree with at all), there is other evidence to contradict this stance. Though reproduction necessarily requires contributions in some form from a male and a female, the function of sex may not be entirely reproductive. Beyond mere enjoyment, sex often functions among primates as a kind of social grease; bonobos, for example, solve most social problems with sexual activity. Even in less sexuallized primates, "same-sex" sexual behavior is common as a means of establishing and enforcing social hierarchy. Perhaps this is why females have orgasms?* Anyhow, I digress. The point here is that assumptions of "normality," sex, and sexuality are just that, assumptions. Though they tend to get equated with what is "natural," our conceptions of what is normal may be more artificial than we think.

This leads to my final critique of "heteronormativity," the idea

that physical sex, gender identity, and gender roles should, in any given person, align to either all-male or all-female cultural norms

is based upon assumptions that do not pan out upon close examination. One culture's notion of proper female behavior does not align with the next culture's, or the next, or the next. The same can be said of male behavior, sexual behavior, and even how many sexes there are!** So with all this variation across cultures, why do we expect that our particular prescription for male:masculine:likes female and female:feminine:likes male, with all the attendant behaviors including speech patterns, dress, occupations, tastes, etc. is actually "natural" and the "way things should be?" In anthropology, this type of view is called "ethnocentric," meaning, one thinks their own culturally prescribed way of living is the one and only correct way, i.e. "natural." Everyone else is just off their rockers, running about in the wilderness without a clue of how to be a proper human being.

This is the problem, then, with heteronormativity: it takes cultural constructs and pretends they are natural, thereby marking all other possibilities as "unnatural," "deviant," "abnormal," none of which have a positive ring to them in the slightest. It is a form of cultural hegemony: it doesn't recognize it's origins in culture, presumes naturalness, leaving no room in it's version of reality for questioning the basic assumptions of what male/female, masculine/feminine, or sex/gender/sexuality are, much less why they should line up as the schema says they should. It leaves no room for the existence of people who don't fit the system, consequently, it renders such lives relatively, if not entirely, unlivable.

For more on deconstructing in relation to sex/sexuality/gender and on livable lives and hegemony, start with Riki Wilchins, then move onto Judith Butler and Michel Foucault. From there, the possibilities are endless, the horizon limitless and full of potential. Go see what you may find.



*There is a debate over the functionality of orgasm in females: it appears to have no direct physical benefit in reproduction. The panel I attended on the topic at the 105th American Anthropological Association did not, to my recollection, give serious consideration to the idea that females who enjoyed orgasms may be more likely to have sex, and thus reproduce more. I can't recall if the role of orgasm in connection with sex as a social lubricant and/or means of creating and enforcing hierarchy was broached. This is another topic I'd like to do research on!

**This is especially so since many cultures do not distinguish between sex and gender. Intersex people, of course, challenge the notion of only two biological sexes. Biology itself recognizes more chromosomal combinations than just xx or xy, though it does like to assign each variation to either "male" or "female," labeling the variations as "syndromes."

Crafting language, defining self

Historically, minority groups like lesbians, gays, and transexuals have been defined by two groups of people, "authorities" and hostile persons. The first group has included doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, lawyers, law-makers, scholars, and more recently, activists. The definitions given to queer people by these groups were often negative, as in "gayness is a mental disorder." Though homosexuality was finally removed from psychiatry's bible, the DSM, transexualism still remain coded in it as "Gender Identity Disorder," and anyone wanting "sex-change" surgery must first submit to psychological examination and be found to have this disorder.

The second group is composed of those hateful individuals who have historically defined queer persons negatively through derogatory labels and abusive language in general. The word "queer" itself was originally an insult hurled at anyone who was seen as deviating from rigid social gender roles. It is only recently that the term has been appropriated by the lgbtq community and its meaning re-crafted to inspire pride instead of shame and fear.*

However, there has been an increasing push in lgbtq communities for self-definition, for the right to establish the parameters of one's own identity according to one's own self-perception, rather than being told who and what one is by those with a less than positive view of queerness. This drive for self-definition encountered some obstacles in language itself: there were no positive terms - and sometimes no words at all - that described the sense of self of many lgbtq people. The obvious solution was to simply create the necessary language, which is precisely what many people did (for a partial list of gender terms I have encountered click here).

On the surface, these are just words, desriptive words, but words none-the-less. However, as any linguist or symbolic anthropologist would tell you, words have the power to shape and define our concepts of the world and of our selves. Each word represents an idea, or often a multitude of ideas, that get applied to whatever or whomever the word gets attached to. This is especially true of gender terms - "man" and "woman" are loaded terms, carrying with them centuries of baggage concerning dress, talk, walk, ability, appropriate activities etc. "Man" does not simply designate an individual, but also a significant part of that individual's place in the social order, even in our current, supposedly enlightened society. "Man" still brings home the bacon - much more of it than "woman," anyhow.

So in considering these new gender terms, we must look beyond the initial definition of biological female who is a man inside," or whatever the particulars of the case, and examine what additional baggage may be coming on board for the ride. This is especially true when you consider that definitions of sex, gender, and sexuality are typically co-dependent. For example, if you define sexuality in terms of which gender one prefers, you have to bring on board your definition of gender. And if your definition of gender is in any way connected to biological sex, either positively or negatively (as in "I got the wrong body" scenarios), then biological sex is along for the ride as well. If you think about it, it should not be hard to see that these connections are there in a good many scenarios, due to the way we have contructed our ideas about sex, gender, and sexuality to begin with.That said, each new word that gets coined to describe a personal experience of sex, gender, or sexuality should have some relation to all three realms, whether intended to or not.

Beyond that, we must consider the power of language to shape our self-conceptions. There is a substantial body of scholarly work on this topic with which I am unfortunately not yet too familiar,other than knowing that it exists. At the moment, I can only speculate on what I will find, but from my own personal experience, I know people tend to grow to fit a label as much as they may try to bend a label to fit their own experience. Start calling yourself a hippy or a playa or any other descriptive term of that type, and see if you don't start emphasizing or even introducing the corresponding viewpoints or behaviors in your life.

As I conduct my research I will be looking for the above phenomena to see how it may be taking place in lgbtq communities as individuals seek self-definition. There are several other concerns I hope to address as well, like how the spread of new terms help to change group membership, define new sub-groups, and simultaneously produce inclusiveness and isolation, but that is for another post.

As you go about your daily lives, stop now and then to consider the effect of the language you use and how it may help shape your own perceptions of reality. Do you like what you find? Or could your vocabulary use some tweeking? Just think of the possibilities.



*Using "queer" is currently hotly debated in some groups, as some feel it can never be appropriate due to its history. It is analogous to the use of the word "nigger" among black Americans.

Gender: A Flaky Pastry? I Wish.

Gender a flaky pastry? Of course it makes no sense! Not yet, anyhow - let me explain. My tech-heavy writing class, for which this blog has been whipped together like a last-minute pasta salad,* has introduced me to the most delightful online buffet I have yet encountered: Pageflakes. This scrumptuous site allows one to assemble at will, in one place, all one's most favorite web offerings; for the over-extended and starved for time, it resembles in no small way a smorgasbord from heaven.

I'd like to show you just what I mean, so I'm going to shamelessly promote this site by giving you a tour of my xploragen pageflakes, a customized complement to this blog, assembled to give a more than adequate dose of what's hot in gender discourse today, from news to blogs to academia. I’ll even throw in some of my own musings on the topic.Let's go see what's cooking!

(Warning, this kitchen is about to get hot with symbolic meaning, like a New York City drag ball!)

The first items for your perusal are the bright, welcoming colors of Hawaiian flowers, artfully arranged across the top of the page with the color scheme continuing throughout the page to neatly tie everything together aesthetically and symbolically. I chose this theme carefully as representative of my own conceptions of gender: yellow and magenta are hardly blue and pink, rather, yellow is often used as gender neutral and magenta comes awfully close to lavender, which has historical ties to the gay and lesbian movements. Flowers, of course, are aesthetically pleasing reproductive units, therefore the historical connection with females and femininity. Academic pursuits, however, especially research, which my blog and pageflakes are ultimately all about, are historically gender-coded as male and masculine. Form, in this case, conveys meaning without involving a single word, much like a Japanese obento arrangement (food arranged artfully, full of meaning).

Next on the menu are the appetizers and a la carte items in a balanced arrangement across the top of the page. Our appetizers feature a universal news search primed to give the latest news on the feminist front and our universal blog search will serve up a selection of blogs written by, for, or about trans people and topics. Again, I have crafted the menu to play on a subtle symbolic level: feminism is supposedly dead, living on only in the frantic, ghostly rants of onry old feminists clinging to an outdated meal-ticket. However, the universal news search manages several times daily to find choice offerings of feminist concerns in media world-wide. The blog search is primed for trans topics because historically trans people were written about, talked about, and decided upon by non-trans people in positions of power. With the advent of the internet, trans people have much greater visibility and opportunity to speak about, for, and to their community: our blog search is designed to tap into the growing number of blogs by trans people rather than confine them to being spoken about by “experts” in the news on our pagecast.

Our a la carte items pay further tribute to the voices of feminists, trans people, gays, lesbians, and genderqueer people of all types. We have a selection of ten fine RSS feeds, from Genderfork (a collection of androgynous photography and thought) to Bilerico Project (a staple of lgbtq blogging) to classic feminist blogs such as Bitch, PhD and Feministing.com; we're sure you'll find something to tempt your tongue.

Just under the appetizers you'll find our academic fare: imnothin's own bibliography tailored for research to be covered in the Adventures in Gender blog. Here we have peer-reviewed articles, academic book reviews, and scholarly books as well. Several items have been garnished with imnothin's own annotations to help the reader determine what their flavor of the day will be. Each source cited is an entree in itself (provided you actually read it, that is).

Finally, top things off with some del.icio.us bookmarks from our dessert section. Our current offerings feature imnothin's own del.icio.us bookmarks and those of The Common Ryan, imnothin's social bookmarking soulmate. Here you'll find an ecclectic assortment of gender related tidbits from around the world, a nice way to top off your gourmet gender meal.

If your stomach isn't yet turning from this heavy sauce of analogy, or perhaps even more so if it is, let me now explain why I'm presenting gender in terms of food. Gender, like food, is a vital part of our existence. However, unlike food, gender is not a biological necessity; it is crafted and imposed upon us by our own respective cultures, it has been made a social necessity. We are made to think that doing gender, performing gender, is as natural as eating, but in reality, each gendered act, each gendered reference, is as cooked as a well-done roast, sometimes to the point of being rather tough to chew and swallow. Still, we are not afforded the ample opportunity to pick and choose in the realm of gender, as we are with our daily food selections. Imagine a gender buffet, where you could take whichever items you thought most tasty, and as much or as little as you liked. Imagine a world where gender preferences were your own concern, and no one else's, where you could be selective, like choosing and enjoying a fine wine, or indulgent, like eating a rich dessert.

Conversely, try to imagine being verbally abused, violently attacked, or even killed, because of the food you happened to be inclined towards. Eating is a biological necessity, and we have all these ways to enjoy it, unlimited ethnic cuisines that are spreading globally to reach everyone's tongue with a new and delightful taste. But we don't biologically have to wear a dress and heels, suit and tie, wear only socially acceptable accessories, act only in social prescribed gendered roles. Why should gendered behavior be so rigidly defined and enforced? Why can't it be like going and eating a flaky pastry if that's what you are feeling like right now? Or perhaps skipping a meal altogether if you choose?


*By which I mean a quick and tasty, yet artful and satisfying dish, not a cold, slimy, cheap substitute for a real meal that leaves you wanting for substance and sustenance! Heaven forbid I post anything in cyberspace that would resemble the latter in the least!

More from the research files

As with my previous post, this entry will be about sources I have found for my research project on new language in lgbtq communities. I have another item from William Leap, this time a book on gay men's language (still academic, though possibly more accessible to the laymen than the anthology), and an absolutely fabulous find: a review of the literature on lesbian and gay language! It's always nice to see that someone else has done half of your work for you!


1)Leap, William. Word's Out: Gay Men's English. Minneapolis, Minn: University of Minnesota Press, 1996.

Using anthropology, social linguistics, and drawing on gender studies, Leap examines actual language practices by gay men in every day contexts: magazines, songs, conversation, books, performances, etc. Jacobs calls it a “linguistic ethnography” (Jacobs 1997). This book may have some useful sections as it looks at cooperatively constructing meanings in a minority sub-culture, which is at the heart of my own research. How language shapes identity should come up, and there is a discussion on the reclamation of the word “queer,” which should also be quite useful. Running through the book seems to be an ongoing consideration of communicating one’s identity through specialized language use. In other words, letting other gay men know one is also gay, perhaps without non-gay people catching on. While this does not seem directly connected with my own work, it should none-the-less provide a good background in linguistic studies of language among gay men, a plus since I have no background in linguistics.


2) Jacobs, Greg. "Lesbian and gay male language use: A critical review of the literature."American Speech. Durham: Spring 1996. Vol. 71, Iss. 1; pg. 49, 4 pgs

This review of the literature was done for an academic journal published by Duke University (American Speech) and covers studies pertaining to lesbian and gay language use with citations dating as far back as 1935, though the bulk of the work is from the 1960s into the 1990s. In 22 pages, Jacobs gives an overview of what has been studied in this field and how, including notes on methodology and theoretical underpinnings. Studies range from controlled, clinical studies to field observation, as in the case of William Leap, whose work I am also referencing. Though the most current research cited here is more than a decade old, this review is still invaluable as it delineates historical developments within this field, an understanding of which should inform any later research, including my own. Reading this review will contextualize more current work and provide a map of what theory has worked, what has not, and what is still under debate, or should be. Jacobs review will essentially function as a sort of instant primer in linguistic thought on language and non-heterosexual social positioning.


Additionally, I have also found a couple of book reviews which I intend to utilize as I evaluate Leap's books and another book, Queerly Phrased: Language, Gender, and Sexuality, by Kira Hall and reviewed by Mary Bucholtz. Readers may remember that Bucholtz and Hall co-authored the article I covered in my last post. The review of Leap's books is done by Greg Jacobs, whose literature review is covered in this post. (yes, academia can be a very small world after all) Here is the bibliographic information for the two scholarly reviews:


1) Jacobs, Greg. "Lavender Linguistics." American Speech. Vol. 72, Iss. 2; pg. 200, 10 pgs


2) Buchholtz, Mary. "Queerly Phrased: Language, Gender, and Sexuality." American Anthropologist. Washington: Dec. 1999 pg. 855, 2 pgs

The research begins!

As mentioned previously, I am beginning some research on the creation, functionality, and meaning of new language in queer communities, drawing on linguistic studies of language & sexuality and language & gender. I have begun gathering potential sources for this project and below are notes on two of the sources I plan to use in my work. The first is an anthology of scholarly work and the second is an article from a peer-reviewed journal. Both are meant for an academic audience and are full of academic jargon and theoretical concepts, so if jargon and theory are not your cup of tea, hold out for something different!


1) Leap, William. Beyond the Lavender Lexicon: Authenticity, Imagination, and Appropriation in Lesbian and Gay Languages. Australia: Gordon and Breach, 1995.

This anthology, edited by William Leap, covers historical, anthropological, and linguistic inquiry into lesbian and gay language. It demonstrates that such languages do indeed exist and looks at how they are cooperatively formed, what effects they have in shaping identity, and discourses about and around lesbian and gay identities. I anticipate some of the selections will be highly relevant, but even those that are less so may give some further insight to how language functions to shape identity, especially in the case of a minority population. Selections such as Martin F. Manalansan IV’s “’Performing’ Filipino Gay Experiences in America: Linguistic Strategies in a Transnational Context,” may be particularly useful as it examines a further subculture within the gay community with its own particular speech, “swardspeak.” I anticipate Leap’s work being cited by other scholars in the field (Bucholtz, Cameron, and Kulick mention him), so having a basic knowledge of it may further understanding of later texts.


2)Bucholtz, Mary and Kira Hall. "Theorizing identity in language and sexuality research." Language in Society. Cambridge: Sep 2004. Vol. 33, Iss. 4; pg. 469, 47 pgs

This article uses queer linguistics, an approach which draws upon "feminist, queer, and sociolinguistic theories," to examine the positions of identity and desire in the field of language and sexuality research. Recent work by Deborah Cameron and Don Kulick, whose work I am also examining, has called for an end to inquiry into identity within language and sexuality research, advocating an investigation of desire instead. Bucholtz and Hall examine these critiques of sexual identity scholarship in linguistics, embracing some views and cautioning against others, arguing for an understanding of intersubjectivity in identity research and giving a framework from which to proceed with semiotic study in language and sexuality. An overview of relevant historical linguistic scholarship is given to back the critique of anti-identity theorists and defend practices of linguistic inquiry into sexual identity.

Mary Bucholtz received her PhD in Linguistics from UC Berkeley and has published in various peer-reviewed journals of anthropology and linguistics. Kira Hall also received a PhD in Linguistics from UC Berkeley, but does not seem to have published as much as Buchholtz. The authors are authoritative and the use of linguistics, semiotics, and intersubjectivity in considering identity and sexuality is a particularly powerful combination for examining the phenomena I am researching.

Stay tuned for more from the research front!

The Common Ryan

The what? Who? I don't know, I don't quite get it either. But what I do know is that The Common Ryan likes to bookmark transgender related topics on Del.icio.us. Or used to, anyhow. From May of 2008 to September 2008, this user created 98 bookmarks, tagging them with 175 different keywords, the most frequent of which were as follows:

• trans33
• transsexual19
• ftm18
• queer17
• politics17
• web2.017
• geek15
• gender15
• transgender14
• feminism13

The Common Ryan also shared a link to his own blog, which is also no longer being updated. Abandoned blogs are not uncommon, and I imagine the same can be said of social bookmarking pages. However, such material is often still available to the public online and can be mined for various purposes. Ryan's bookmarks, for example, provide a nice introduction to both bookmarking and trans and other gender topics. While it is not hard to find currently active del.icio.us users bookmarking the same topics, if you are new to the site, especially if you are new to social bookmarking in general, browsing through a static collection the size of Ryan's may be a better way to start out.

Some users have hundreds or even thousands of bookmarks, and wading through them all, even with the aid of tags to help in sorting, can become overwhelming; cases of information overload can develop, especially if you are like me and get the urge to start reading and bookmarking everything you see, as though it will all disappear into oblivion tomorrow. Ryan's collection is small enough to browse in its entirety in a short time, allowing one to quickly get a sense of overall content and to easily sift through items to pick out only the must-have pages for one's own bookmark collection.

One can also examine how he has tagged items for easy retrieval, evaluating if this kind of organization would be useful for one's own purposes. Learning by example, whether a good or bad example, is a valuable, time-saving approach! With Ryan, we see that he regularly used multiple tags for each item, which I do as well, to increase my chances of quickly finding a specific item later on. I may not remember the one specific tag I gave to something, but if there are five key words, I am more likely to recall at least one of them. He avoided redundancy, meaning you don't see multiple forms of the same word, so his tags are more efficient, and he also included a brief comment on each item explaining what it is for future reference.

Another advantage to browsing a static collection is that it isn't going to change on you in the next few days. A more active user may average three or more bookmarks a day. If you are just starting out with this technology and don't use it for a week, that user whose bookmarks you like could have another 21+ entries the next time you browse their content. That may not be a problem for some, but for others, I can see the confusion brewing already. I know someone who stopped using gmail because it was so different from what he was used to, he just couldn't adjust. And this is person creates web pages! Never underestimate the power of the mind to resist new ways of doing things.

If you are comfortable with navigating social bookmarking sites, and you have actually read this far, del.icio.us users mmilleryoung, solvent, and Queeruption each have in excess of 1000 bookmarks, regularly mark items relevant to gender and related issues, and mark items fairly frequently. They are good resources for your gender-related needs!

Some other blogs I like

In addition to Trans Political and Difference Blog by Dan4th, which I reviewed previously (here and here, respectively), I thought I'd share with you some of my other favorite gender-related blogs. Let's start with Genderfork, an unusual blog focusing on androgyny. Genderfork is primarily visual, as it's main entries are photos of androgyny submitted by users. Photos come with captions and users are encouraged to comment on them. Along the right side is running commentary on photos and other comments. Genderfork has begun regularly profiling users, including a photo (of course) and information such as prefered gender pronouns, what the individual identifies as (male-to-female, bisexual, gay, straight, genderqueer, etc.) and what they would like others to understand (usually something about the non-binary nature of gender or how non-normative people are people too). The site was formerly run by a girl named Sarah, but is now managed by a team of volunteers recruited from users (yes, complete strangers are cooperatively running this cool site!). What I like most about this blog are the photos, since most other blogs I have seen do not use many pictures at all. One gets a more complete sense of how people are conceiving of androgyny through the heavy reliance of photos accompanied by brief commentary on what it means to be androgynous.

Next up is Bitch, Ph.D. The title alone draws your attention, but the image at the top of the home page of two little girls - one flipping you off and the other laughing - grabs you and won't let go. This blog is also a team effort, with a core of five bloggers, one of which I believe is male (but don't quote me on that) who post and Twitter at will. Readers can get multiple posts everyday plus Twitter updates - you'll never run out of Bitch, Ph.D. attitude. Did I say attitude? Roaring attitude is more like it (not that I'm complaining, I rather like it). The bloggers here do not hold back on expressing their emotions, and expletives do fly:

What the flying fuck, people? Can't a fat woman eat a motherfucking salad without incurring comments from all and sundry?

from The Salad Police, or

Sorry to interrupt all the happy randomness but what. the. hell.
Cop beats the crap out of teenager because she's 'lippy' and kicked her shoe off?

Welcome to fucking adolescence, asshat.

(And the video is not pretty. I am getting really sick of this shit.)

from a quick note entitled posted by ding (sorry, no permalink available at this time).

Bitch, Ph.D covers anything of concern to feminists that pops up in the news, in their personal lives, or posts on other blogs, and no matter what the topic, they reserve the right to be themselves and say exactly what is on their minds. They have been online since 2004 and are well established in the online feminist community. Technorati gives them an authority ranking of 667.

The third blog I would like to draw your attention to is One Trans Show, by Riki Wilchins. Wilchins happens to be one of my favorite authors and activists. Wilchins is the founder of Transsexual Menace, an activist group know for protesting at court hearings and holding vigils for murdered transexuals across the country. Wilchins is also the founder of GenderPac, an advocay organization for gender equality - for all genders and all ages. The author of several articles and books, Wilchins is a well known and highly visible persona in the trans world. Though she doesn't post very frequently - less than once a month - having an RSS feed for this blog is a must for those times when she does post. Wilchins work is always sharp, brutally honest and to the point and often humorous as well:

You have to say these weird things to get surgery. You can have a tummy tuck, tooshie lift, face lift, ear bob, eyebrow lift, nose job, boob job, and enough Botox to paralyze the facial muscles of a charging bull elephant but no one says you have to go see three psychiatrists.

But if you tell them you want to have a surgery down there – a “groin job” – suddenly you’re sick with something called “Gender Identity Disorder.”

This is the medical diagnosis you have to get if you’re going to get surgery. Otherwise it’s considered “elective,” like Viagra.

Ooops, sorry, no. That’s always covered because old men getting erections is critical to the foundation of our very social fabric.

Wilchins is also able to take theory from Michel Foucault or Judith Butler and show you how to apply it to your daily life. In fact, she wrote a whole book for that very purpose, Queer Theory, Gender Theory. This is one blog you won't want to miss!

Finally, you should check out The Bilerico Project, a standard in the realm of lgbtq blogging. This is how they describe themselves:

The Bilerico Project is the web's largest LGBTQ group blog with 50 lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and genderqueer contributors. The Project is the coming out and together of LGBTQ activists, politicos, journalists, novelists, advice columnists, and video bloggers.

This blog is necessarily much more than a blog. In addition to several blog posts a day, there is a regular advice columnist and a couple vloggers as well, one of which covers Hollywood, stuck in here and there amongst ample lgbt-focused advertising, featuring several bare-chested men. There are two extensive blog rolls, one featuring Blogads Network bloggers and the other listing the blogs ofBilerico's contributers and supporters and a section of recommended reads. Thechnorati gives them an authority rating of 531, they have a traffic rating by Alexa of 137,331, and Feedburner shows 2580 subscribed readers; I would say they are doing well.

Of all the gender-related blogs I have seen since staring my own blogging project, the six I have profiled are a diverse lot, covering trans, lgbtq, feminism, and androgyny, with a healthy mix of politics, legal concerns, entertainment, science, and personal experience for your reading pleasure and needs. Some are well-established, some are fairly obscure, but each has something unique to offer readers. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

Crafting Language: Transmasculine

One thing that fascinates me (and gives me endless headaches) is the proliferation of gender terms in the queer realm. A search on Wikipedia for one of these outside-the-gender-binary terms will lead you to several others, and there continues to be more are popping up here and there as people try to come up with words that comfortably convey how, or who, they understand themselves to be. New terms are often used by only a small group of people, and even many of the older terms are not known in mainstream America.

How such terms arise and are negotiated in lgbtq communities is worthy of investigation. I am already in the middle of a project that examines social negotiation of the transgender category in an lgbtq community, but I feel prompted to examine new language that arises in queer communities in general as well. I plan on doing some research into this phenomenon in the coming weeks, drawing largely on linguistic studies of language and sexuality and language and gender. I want to examine the functionality of newly crafted terms like transgender and transmasculine among people who use those terms, as the terms are intimately connected to the formation of identity.

Here are some terms I have encountered, in no particular order, boi, grrl, transman, transwoman, womyn, drag king, drag queen, flaming queen, queer, genderqueer, androgyne, third gender, polygender, cisgendered, pansexual, omnisexual, polysexual, multisexual, butch, femme, dyke, diesal dyke, fairy, boy-chick, no-ho tranny boy, faggot-identified dyke, andro, tryke, bio-femme (these last six courtesy of Riki Wilchins's book Queer Theory, Gender Theory), and of course, lesbian, gay and straight, man or woman. What does it all mean? I'll leave it up to you, the reader, to google any terms that leap off the page for whatever reason, captivating your curiosity.

The term that set me off on this post was "transmasculine." I first encountered this term on the Sugarbutch Chronicles and it enticed me with its apparent newness and possible meanings. Sinclair Sexsmith, Sugarbutch's author, is using a definition pulled from TransMasculine Community Network*:

Transmasculine refers to any person who was assigned female at birth but feels this is an incomplete or incorrect description of their gender.

This, of course, is a rather wide-open definition, similar to many I have seen for transgender (here, here, and here, for example). I am inclined to believe that new words are not crafted on a whim, that the people who invent them are usually trying to address a perceived inadequacy in the existing language. What precisely were transmasculine and transgender meant to cover when they were coined? Were they intended to be so inclusive, or has that characteristic arisen in a struggle for meaning that occurred as people began using them?

Ferdinand Saussure notes that language, once used by those other than its creator, is no longer under the control of that creator, and indeed, Susan Stryker, in Transgender History, states that the meaning of transgender “is still under construction.”

For example, under a broad definition, tom boys and sissies can be transgender right alongside postoperative transexuals. However, actual usage of transgender, in my own experience, is not always so generous, tending to invoke someone who exists close to the realm of transexuals or who may take up that label at a later date. Descriptions of transgender I have heard use words like "opposite gender," implying transpeople simply have a body opposite to their gender - the same notion historically used to describe transexuals. Transgender, then, simply expands outward from transexual to include those who have not yet or will never adjust their genitalia and/or hormones to coincide with their gender, but who are nevertheless somehow in the "wrong body."

I find this all rather upsetting. Why would transgender, so open to the "spectrum of gender" definitionally, ever be locked into binary conceptions in application? Why must one be living (or feeling) "opposite" to assigned gender? Could one be "half way" or less to being that "opposite?" And what is that opposite? Whose definition of man or woman is being used when we measure whether or not someone qualifies as trans? The thinkers behind official definitions may have had all this in mind when they decided to be so incredibly inclusive, however, on the street, old conceptions of what gender is to begin with still seem to hold powerful sway. The struggle over meaning continues for transgender. Is that the case for other terms like transmasculine? If not, how is a consensus ever reached? Why was such a term needed in the first place? These questions will be driving my upcoming research. Stay tuned to see if these mysteries can be solved!



*I keep seeing links to this organization that take me to a tech site. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find the correct site on the web. For a post about S. Leigh Thompson, who founded TransMasculine Community Network, click here.

Language Disability

Discussing "non-normative" gender is about as easy as writing good poetry in a language you haven't mastered: you know just what you want to say, but you just don't have the linguistic ability to say it! Lately I have been frustrated in my writing attempts by the feeling that I need to qualify every sentence with a one-page footnote explaining why my word choice is actually problematic. You simply cannot write an academic paper that way, no matter who your professor is! But trying to define concepts whose definitions are all problematized in your field of study, or discuss categories whose boundaries are sites of never-ending, politicized and publicized border wars is like groping for solid ground in a murky, mucky swamp. I have written and re-written sentence after sentence, and constantly aware of how each version is so loaded with preconceived notions that I couldn't possibly submit it for the thoughtful consideration of another human being, I've had to keep scrapping every attempt to say something clear and meaningful.

The only way to say something clear and meaningful is to turn the discussion to how these terms and their concepts are problematic. That discussion has been going on for some time, and some people have become quite good at telling us just how problematic all the words are. My favorite voice in this discussion is Riki Anne Wilchins, who mixes biting commentary with incredible insight and jaw-dropping humor. Riki has her own blog, several books and published articles, and her own organization that focuses on gender activism. She referrences French philosopher Michel Foucault and feminist/queer theorist Judith Butler often enough that I feel like I know their work even though I've yet to make it through a complete book by either of them (they require their own special academic decoder ring, and mine hasn't arrived yet).

As much as I love Riki Wilchins' work, I want to say something else, to take the conversation in a different direction. The problem is that I can no longer discuss gender in conventional ways, nor can I expect that my readers - be they blog readers, professors grading my papers, or friends reading my MySpace or Facebook posts - will know anything about what Wilchins, Foucault, or Butler have said. Worse, they may know just enough to catch me up if I'm not careful enough with each and every word, if I don't explain in a footnote a concept they haven't yet encountered. Am I to rehash all that has gone before every time I open my mouth? Do I, out of convenience, revert to less complex, more widely understood conceptions of sex, gender, sexuality, and gendered behavior? If I simply continue the conversation from the point where I am at, ignoring the possible ignorance of my audience, will I need to start handing out my own specialized decoder rings, or gender-theorist-to-English dictionaries?

Butler and Foucault have a different audience than I do. Their writing is meant for those already well into the field and well-versed in the discussion. My audience is almost never those people. Wilchins has done a great job of translating and expanding the academic discourse on gender for the general populace. Perhaps I should just attach copies of her work to everything I do! Add a warning label: Warning! Do not attempt comprehension of enclosed material without first reading the following books by Riki Anne Wilchins! Somehow, I don't think that will go over well with my professors.

Plan for a future project: creat a short, distilled synopsis of everything I have learned about gender. Make copies. Use it like a literature review, to contextualize whatever it is I have to say.

Blogorama

Notice: the following post is a reworking of three earlier posts for a class assignment. I'm really not on drugs, thinking you won't notice if I re-post old material with a new shine...

What's it all about?

If Anthropology gave me wings, Gender Studies knocked me silly. Coming back to school after a ten-year trip to some place far, far away, I was planning on going into Interior Design. Right. My first Anthropology class reclaimed me for its pursuits in a matter of weeks, considerably less than the six weeks the class lasted, actually. I had quite forgotten my passions of yesteryear for just about anything anthropologically oriented and my relationship with science and academic thought in general had withered from neglect. Anthropology woke me up, nourished me, and had me flying through realms of theory, perception, and really cool cross-cultural data in no time. It was grand, and I was on my way to discover, ponder, and publish. Then I took a Gender Studies course in my third year. The ground did not fall out from under me, so much as collide with me rather unexpectedly.

Gender Studies was just as fascinating as Anthropology, and the two informed each other constantly for me, right into complete confusion. Gender (and lots of other stuff) may seem a clear-cut matter to some, perhaps most, people, but feminist theory and Queer Theory can destroy that illusion quite easily, unless you have barricaded your mind so tightly nothing new will ever get in. I am not one of those people.

Nothing in our conception of reality is quite what it seems; one must always question what is seen, heard, thought, perceived. That is the lesson taught in both Gender Studies and Anthropology, and that is the mind-set I bring to this space, this exploration of the gender terrain beyond the little corner most people have been locked into most of their lives. There is a whole universe out there, and we're going to explore it!

Adventure in Gender is an attempt at autoethnography as I continue with my undergraduate explorations of gender utilizing both anthropological and feminist thought and methods. It is impossible to tell what may be uncovered along this journey through the gender landscape. I am hoping to recover my senses, which I expect will be more finely tuned when I get them back, as well as my wings. Flying always gives such an interesting view of the landscape!

I will be examining concepts of gender, sex, and sexuality, with a special focus on transgender and transgender issues. There will be discussions of academic work, including the indespensible Judith Butler, the writing and activist work of Riki Wilchins and others, trans memoirs, other blogs that cover these issues, and my own random musings on these topics. Ideally, this blog will be a place for discussion of relevant issues and concepts, not just me sitting here typing away into the void. Comments, suggestions, criticisms and large donations (just kidding, save it for the activists) are all welcome, so long as the content is thoughtful and not hurtful.

This blog is not meant to be a voice of authority, at least not entirely so. I may be convinced I know exactly what I’m talking about from time to time. However, when speaking about the experiences of others, experiences I have not gone through, I can never be more than an informed observer, at best. If you are one of those people and think I’ve got it all wrong, or wonder who I think I am, talking about other people’s experiences, I welcome a dialog with you. I ponder everyone’s existence as my fellow human beings. Please don’t take offense.

I do hope to point like-minded people who are also interested in exploring gender in a helpful direction as they navigate the gender terrain. I believe any study of this field necessitates a good hard look at oneself and how these issues are at play in one’s own life. I hope my readers will find the posts thought provoking, if nothing else.

A Trans Blog Profile

I was surveying the blogging terrain, looking for blogs that would be relevant to Xploragen's interests, when I came across a blog entitled Trans Political. Written by Vanessa Edwards Foster, whose "About Me" blurb indicates that she has been heavily involved with transgender and other gender issues for some time, this blog looks at, well, politics, what else? National, local and trans-specific politics are covered from an insider's perspective- how much more relevant can you get without being Judith Butler, gender philosophizer extraordinaire? This seemed like a gem of a blog for me to profile for the benefit of my readers (please read the disclaimer below*).

Activism is huge right now for the trans community, and has been since the early 1990s, when trans activism suddenly mushroomed across the country. Vanessa Edwards Foster knows all the key players and issues well: she's an insider in the political in-fighting of the national trans community and is quite knowledgeable about Federal level politics directly impacting trans people - laws, rulings, political maneuvering, lobbying, etc. regarding trans issues. Though her writing is directed at an already interested population of other trans people, it is easy enough for a newbie to get the flow of things, learn who is who and who's doing what to whom. Part of this ease comes from Foster's personal and familiar tone, part of it from that substantial knowledge she has of the topic at hand.

Trans Political was linked to 173 times in a recent 180 day period by 18 different blogs according to Technorati. Most of the linking was by other trans or gender centered blogs, it seems. En/Gender, in comparison, was linked to by 80 other blogs in the same time period. It, however, is written by Helen Boyd, the author of a few popular books about her husband-turned-woman, Betty. The selections on en/Gender are not necessarily as trans focused as Trans Political, either: cats, NYC, books and writing, and music are some of the top (non-trans) tags for en/Gender listed by Technorati.

Beyond Boyd's popularity as an author, I strongly suspect the difference in numbers between Boyd's and Foster's blogs has something to do with the difference in focus. Politics has never been quite as appealing to the masses as daily life, especially daily life with a twist, i.e. a trans partner. Television shows have demonstrated that quite well; I can’t imagine the popularity of C-span’s coverage of daily congressional proceedings ever approached that of shows like Montel, Oprah, or Jerry Springer. Not without a scandal going on anyhow. I could be wrong, but I doubt it. Thougha few trans blogs like en/Gender may have considerably higher numbers on Technorati, Trans Political is doing well for a blog so heavily political and focused on trans issues.

One thing that Foster does that appeals to a wider audience is peppering her posts with pop culture references familiar to wide segments of the populace. A post entitled "Back to Business as Usual", for example, frequently quotes Michael Douglas’s character in the Hollywood hit Wall Street:

“‘It's a zero sum game, somebody wins, somebody loses. Money itself isn't lost or made, it's simply transferred from one perception to another.’”

This particular post is a critical discussion of Human Rights Campaign** tactics, a frequent topic of Trans Political posts (81 tags so far). In other places, Foster quotes the likes of the oh-so-dark Nine Inch Nails. Such references serve to frame the issues being discussed in easy to understand ways. HRC is equated with ruthless, greedy Wall Street executives; trans activists are as wounded and angry as Trent Reznor.

Overall, Vanessa Edwards Fosters’ blog is an insightful look at the the political landscape from a trans perspective. The reader may not agree with everything she says, but will still walk away well informed about what’s going on, who's who, and what all of it may mean for trans people in America.

*Straight up, this blog is required for a class, though not all the posts will be assignments. If it seems like some of the ideas behind my posts come from out of the wild blue yonder, it's because they kind of did. In so far as they did not originate within my own thought processes, that is. If a post reads like it is fulfilling the requirements of an assignment, it probably is. If you can't tell the difference, I hope it means I'm a better writer than I thought.

**Human Rights Campaign, or HRC, is a lobbying organization, historically working on gay and lesbian issues. They have added "bisexual" and "transgender" to their roster of beneficiaries, but Trans Political tells us the addition is in name only. Furthermore, Foster claims HRC exploits trans people for a gay and lesbian agenda.

"Now they’ve convinced yet another organization to allow them to worm their way in so that they may undermine the trans political leadership once again, with a particular eye toward what opportunity they may reap for themselves and their own on the backs of ours, and availing themselves of the tragedies of the trans community! I have two words to describe them: selfish greed!"

Personally, I'll have to read more before I make any declaration on this issue. I'm just not well enough informed yet.

Difference Blog by Dan4th

Difference Blog: A Daily Feature on the Study of Sex and Gender Differences, by Dan4th, is an interesting little blog. I say “little” because most of the posts are on the short side; the blog itself stretches back into 2006 and is updated daily Monday through Friday. You would not know this blog was written by a theater major from all the gender-based, scientific studies being referenced and discussed. “Dan4th” is a 32 year old male (“ex-female”) pursuing a Masters in Psych while doing something called “research administration” in the financial division of the education field. ?? I have no idea what he does! Other than read and blog about scientific studies of possible gender difference, that is.

Dan4th covers a wide range of topics, from Seasonal Affective Disorder to Groundhog Day (two recent posts), first giving readers a brief overview of one or more studies on the day's particular topic, then writing a short blurb on said issue based on his personal experience. The two sections of each post are separated by a long, unbroken line, which has the effect of dividing them not only physically, but in tone and style as well.

Study overviews are matter-of-fact synopses, formal in tone, largely devoid of personal opinion, as in the following from An untrustworthy face:

Female raters assessed the women's faces for masculinity, while male raters assessed them for trustworthiness and desirability as a long-term mate. Sexual histories were taken by self-report.

This snippet is from a description of a study on women's masculinity, desirability, and sexual history. It states nothing more than how the study was conducted; there are no opinions, projections, or even questions. The blurb that follows (appropriately segregated from the study) is much more subjective.

This study pokes at one of the areas that bothers me about a lot of the women's testosterone studies: there's a lot of jumps in the reasoning. The size of a woman's chin = her testosterone levels = her sexual behavior?

The author, "me," is suddenly present; his feelings are invoked, he is bothered. The study is criticized and questions raised, none of which we see in the first part of the post. This formatting is typical of all Dan4th's posts and the reader has no problem distinguishing "objective science" from "subjective experience" and opinion. Don't forget, the big fat line is there to remind you just where one stops and the other starts!

Difference Blog dutifully cites studies by author and year, linking the review back to the source from whence the information came. Dan4th also links back to his own, previous posts on topics when relevant, often by date, in a systematic way, much like the science he is examining. This sets an academic tone, but it is undermined by the informality of the author's subjective commentary on "science." Phrases such as

Or maybe I'm just cranky and need a nap. That's possible too.

in a post about the latest science on biological differences between the sexes, or

My lack of honk-expression frustrated the hell out of an ex of mine

while discussing a study on gender differences in driver aggression serve to detract from, or perhaps more accurately, deflate, the scientific feel created in the first part of every post through the use of feeling (cranky, frustrated), informality (need a nap, hell) and creative word choice (don't tell me you ever heard of "honk-expression" before). These elements are rigidly kept out of scientific discourse, banned in the name of "objectivity" (whether objectivity really exists is a whole other post in itself). Using them in one's professional writing would mean not getting published in any respected journal.

Dan4th is not playing to the scientific establishment, far from it. He brings science down from its prim and proper pedestal to the level of the everyday, where uncertainty is the rule. Are women and men equally aggressive on the road, or not? Are biological differences between the sexes so clear, natural, or even important? What, if anything, does gender or sex have to do with any of it? What is the relevance of these studies, of accepted science, to how we live our daily lives? These are the questions Dan4th brings to the table for the reader to chew on. If you question the gender regime, you'll find a nice, tasty meal at Difference Blog; if you subscribe to the prevailing binaristic status quo, you may find Dan4th's posts a bit hard to digest sometimes.

This blog hinges on the fact that Dan4th has experienced being male, female, and in between (transitioning). Ever careful to remind readers that you cannot generalize from a sample of one (or from anecdotal evidence, I might add), he nevertheless offers his own opinions of each issue for the reader to consider. Difference Blog is there to get people thinking, questioning, and examining gender and (biological) sex in their own lives. Grab a fork and dig in!