My interest was caught up by the topic on day one. At first, I was thinking the class would cover topics on female rights. However, apart from reading about non-white female discrimination, being exposed thoroughly to the gender non-normaltive world, it reminded me to rethink this topic in a more detailed and rational way. I am never a fan of unfairness, so for me, people in LGBTQ groups are just the same as ourselves and they deserve the same rights as we do. Yet, it is one thing to say and another thing to make it happen. In the past, people such as myself are more exposed to homosexuals and talk more about rights of different sexual orientations. It is good news that Rhode Island just passed the law admitting gay marriage in the state, but what the society covers is far more than merely sexual orientation. It is a great starter for changes but we have to remember it is not everything. In this course, we are more focused on sex non-normaltive individuals themselves, and then after that is the rights the groups of these individuals deserve. That is to say, in order to help them position themselves rightly in the society, we started from the identity of the individuals. I can see from the first few blogs of mine as well as the first few readings about raising children etc. that individual positioning is a significant topic since we have so many kinds of sexes and sexual orientations. If these people can find a spot in the spectrum they will feel secure and find a route to go. Yet, positioning is not the same as labeling and categorizing since labeling is judging by others but positioning is finding who oneself is.
Talking about one's identity, it is important to think of whether or not this identity should be revealed. That is why we watched the film of Two Spirits about hate crime, the documentary of three F-to-M transgenders who face difficulties on a daily bases because of the inconsistency of their look and behavior. Since there might be misunderstanding for some other people what gender this person is, it can cause some potential disrespect or offense. If revealed, the process of revealing can cause discrimination and people might think it unnecessary. Yet, if not revealed, the reaction by not knowing might also offend the person of gender non-normaltivity. So which one is essentially better? And further more, is gender really important information that we need to know?
As we discussed in most cases, gender is what we "do." They are human-invented social conventions. What we should be like are ruled before hands, yet it actually doesn't really matter because except for restrooms and change rooms, it doesn't affect any a thing. I think I still need more research on the topic why sex/gender is so important that we care so much about each other.
For individuals who successfully find their best way of living, they are always happy to share their experience with other people who face the same struggles and give them some suggestions. I wrote about some example figures in the blog who struggled through the process and made it to help others, whom I found very inspiring because they always have their own ideas that can make their own gender work in nowadays society. Individual inspiration is particularly important for me since they are the cases we can refer to as to guide LGBTQ groups how they can find their own way of living. However, it is also important to see things critically since everyone has a different case. For example, Julia Serano and Hida Viloria are definitely not the same since one of them is trans and the other bisexual. They both have a choice of whom to be as we said gender is what we do, but how to do that gender to make oneself feel right is another story and individual cases should refer to the role models separately, and we might need more brave people who stand out and offer their thoughts, like Julia Serano herself and people/scholars like Dean Spade.
Though individuals in gender non-normaltivity study are important, and they are everything we are working for, it is inevitable to look at how we react with these people, where they are segregated and their rights violated. Gender non-normaltivity has been more and more accepted honestly. To take the example of myself, I haven't heard of this new term until middle school, and first had the conscious that it is something totally OK. After several years, I took this class and finally got to see deeply how this certain group of people suffer and really urges more support and help, rather than thinking that since they are nothing different, why paying more attention and offer more so-called help. I got my answer because we haven't reached that stage yet, where we can say like that little girl in China who was told gays and lesbians are normal and we shouldn't discriminate them: "so why treat them differently?" The stage of 100% treating them as the same is so hard to reach that female population haven't achieve that either. That is why people who realize the significance of helping gender non-normalitive people should step up and act. It is going to be a long process before LGBTQ groups are accepted like "women" in the society for ordinary individuals, but it is worth the time and effort, and we have to be prepared that the true equality lies way farther than that which means more time and effort are needed.
The last but not the least is the reviewing of what we are doing to help gender non-normaltive people. Like what we read in Stranger Intimacy about gender policing and what discussed in Dean Spade's Normal Life about problematic non-profit organizations and prisons in Captive Genders, the LGBTQ groups always faces more violations and threats no matter in the process of normal day-to-day life or in special cases even when they are trying to receive help. What's more, the media play a significant role in describing these people and the image can be good and bad solely depending on how the media choose to present it. It is just like women in the photographs and woman, especially non-white women who run up against a stone wall when they want desperate help, gender non-normaltive people not only face the prejudice and mock through day to day by how they act, they also face hurdles and difficulties built up by authorities and those are the things really affecting and damaging them to live a normal life in the community. As long as you are not famous and rich, the LGBTQ group faces way more troubles and awkward enough, the situation turns upside down if the person is famous, rich, even good-looking. That is exactly what we want to eliminate and offer a justified society for everyone.
I did see much of my own growing in terms of what I can do to get myself involved and offer real help, rather than sitting in front of a computer and retweet something on Twitter. It is important to find a balance that will not offend the gender non-normaltive people as well as helping them and there are a lot more we can do to accelerate the "normalization" of these people. Hopefully in a few decades, we will abandon the use of gender "non-normaltivity" and only keep "non of the above" in the gender box to check apart from male and female.
