Notes 10 - Week10 PDF

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Transsexualities FROM TRANSGENDER TO TRANS BY JOELLE RUBY RYAN -“Non-binary, gender-queer, gender-fluid and neutrons identities, among others, represent a threat to the presumed tidings of hegemonic categorisations” 127 -What's the problem with the!old! medical model of transsexualism, which helped trans people pass as women or men, according to Joelle Ruby Ryan?! Non-binary identities had to completely dissolve into either a female or male gender, so that if a male wanted to transition into a female gender, they had to turn their life around and erase “people’s trans-ness”. -Define assimilationist politics, and describe how the GLBT community used them, according to Joelle Ruby Ryan. 129 Assimilationism means that non-binary people try to incorporate themselves into what the dominant society considers 'normal' in order to be accepted by them. The GLBT community has used, and keeps using, this tactic by producing a “limited and conservatising image” that is meant to be absorbed into the mainstream as what being non-binary means, which is wrong. This also means that anyone who does not fit this model gets shut down, like Jennicet Gutierrez. -The problem with Caitlyn Jenner is that it is just another form of assimilation; she is white, wealthy, a former Olympic athlete, famous… “The vast majority of trans people in the US are markedly different from Caitlyn Jenner along multiple vectors of difference” 130 -It’s troubling that she passes the ‘woman’ test so easily and that people thing she is pretty, to have been a man in the past of course 131 -“This is not to demonise Caitlyn Jenner of Aydian Dowling or other public transgender people in any way as it is not really about them as individuals. Rather, it is about a social system that values certain bodies and certain identities while systematically devaluing, erasing and marginalising other bodies and identities.” 133 -“our visible queerness and gender nonconformity place us at the most risk for discrimination, economic jeopardy and violence” 134 THE THIRD GENDER VIDEO BY IVAN OLITA This group of people with a gender outside of the binary are the indigenous Zapotec culture of Oaxaca. -How do the muxes describe their gender identity in the video by Ivan Olita? What does the word muxes mean? Some muxes believe that they are between males and females, and others say that it is an entirely different third gender. They take a feminine role and use female pronouns, and some do strive to be women but do not feel like one. Muxe, in Zapotec, means feminine and fear.

-How does the wider society perceive and treat the muxes, according to the film by Ivan Olita? They have come a long way, from a hatred founded on them being dressed like women to being seen as normal, and actually appreciated. It is interesting to know that ancient Zapotec language does not have a distinction between men and women, there were simply people; it only came with the Spanish language from the consquistadores. OVID'S!METAMORPHOSES, BOOK 9. 666-797 ‘Metamorphoses’ is a poem about transformation, of a girl who becomes a boy. -Why is Iphis raised as a boy in the!myth told by Ovid? Iphis’ father only wanted a boy, and if a girl was born, she was supposed to be killed. Thus Iphis mother made sure that only the nurse knew the real gender of the kid to keep them alive. -“Surrounded by water, we’ll die of thirst” two women cannot consume their marriage (apparently) stanza 761 CLASS NOTES Global non-binary gender identities: Hijra (India), Fakaleiti (Tonga), Kathoey (Thailand), Koekchuch (Siberia), Mak nyah (Malaysia), Two-Spirit (First Nations) Language shapes how we think about things, if you grow up in a culture with a distinction of him/her, it is different than growing up in a culture that refers to a human, a plant, an animal, etc…

Veils and hijab -biopower: the practice of modern nation-states of regulating their subjects by regulating their bodies and their sexuality (Focault in History of Sexuality) LLOYD LLEWELLYN-JONES, "APHRODITE'S TORTOISE: VEILING, SOCIAL SEPARATION, AND DOMESTIC SPACE" (2003) -How were the ideologies of female separation and veiling linked in ancient Greece, according to Llewellyn-Jones? The veil is a woman’s shell that becomes an extension of her household, so even outside, she is ‘inside’, at home. This should be done so that her good character stayed intact, as if it was attacked, it means that the men that protect her have failed, and thus their honour is attacked too. A veil separated them from the outside whilst being outside.

-What was the!tegidion, according to Llewellyn-Jones, and how was it used? It derives from ‘tegos’, roof in Greek, and it is a diminutive that stands for the “late classical and hellenistic face-veil” (194). It is interesting because it was designed and made specifically for this purpose, so the regulation of female sexuality was more present than before, although it could also be seen as women trying to be freer and enter the men’s world with some sort of protection; it allowed them to be ‘invisible’ in public. -Give one example of a social rule regulating the visibility of men and women in ancient Greece from Llewellyn-Jones' chapter. Who should be seen and who should not? In what contexts? A woman would not be seen by anyone other than her family if they were wealthy enough so that she did not have to go outside for anything; she did not need to carry out any work and keep to ostentatious seclusion. So a theory about Greek houses is that they were arranged so that the women could easily avoid strangers visiting, which means only the men in the household could be seen by outsiders within the context of the home scene. -“The veil, even when worn by a man, confers on the wearer an invisibility that allows him to function unnoticed, like a woman…honest men should abstain from veiling themselves” “it also confers a loss of identity; this may be all well and good in the case of a woman whose own name was usually submerged beneath that of her male guardian, but for a man to lose his individuality was unthinkable” “the veil takes away any sense of individuality and personality” 204 FEMINISM, ORIENTALISM, ASRA NOMANI, AND THE HIJAB: AN OPEN LETTER BY HODA KATEBI Most Muslim women today make a personal choice whether or not to wear the hijab. Among feminists, however, there is some debate about what the hijab symbolises. Is it a symbol of patriarchal oppression, or is it a symbol of resistance to colonialism and Islamophobia?! Hoda Katebi, a Muslim-Iranian fashion blogger, argues for the latter in this open letter. She is responding to the arguments of another Muslim feminist, Asra Nomani. -How does Hoda Katebi define feminism, and what does feminism have to do with the hijab? Feminism is intersectional, which is that it includes all women at several different levels (race, economic status, sexual orientation…), and that it is meant to uplift women, not trap them into outdated views of the world. -What is Orientalism, according to Hoda Katebi? It’s the practice of viewing the Orient through a Eurocentric/Western lens that aims to have power over the Middle East by restructuring and dominating it; like neocolonialism....