#riki wilchins

[gatheringbones]

joan nestle, from genderqueer: voices from beyond the gender binary, edited by riki wilchins, 2002

[glittering-snowfall]

read my lips by riki anne wilchins + out of the blue, dir. dennis hopper

[bog-dwelling-butch]

Here's how my huge stack of queer books is going

(trust me this is impressive as a dyslexic person)

Ignore the Edgar Allan Poe book it's just there to be huge n press flowers

Technically Stone Butch Blues is in both the categories (have read this year) and (want to read a 2nd time)

[llyfrenfys]

Y llyfr heddiw yw 'GENDERqUEER' a olygwyd gan Joan Nestle, Clare Howell a Riki Wilchins, a gyhoeddwyd yn 2002.

Mae'r llyfr hwn yn casgliad o draethodau rhyweddgwiar. Defnyddiwyd rhyweddgwiar yn y 1990au a'r 2000au i olygu unrhyw un yn croesi normau rhywedd - cydryweddol neu drawsryweddol, bwtsh neu ffem, wrywaidd neu fenywaidd, deuaidd neu anneuaidd - y ddau ac y naill na'r llall. Yn ddiweddar, mae'r term wedi dod yn olygu dim ond anneuaidd, ond mae'r term mewn gwirionedd yn ymbarél mawr. Mae'r traethodau'n ddisgrifio trawsnewid menyw i ddyn, rhyw lesbiaidd, menywod bwtsh, rhyw hoyw cyntaf, dysfforia rhywedd ac yn y blaen.

Dyma'r llyfr yn bwysig iawn imi - rwy'n ddyn traws ac yn rhyweddgwiar fy hun!

Ydych chi wedi darllen y llyfr hwn?

/

Today's book is 'GENDERqUEER' edited by Joan Nestle, Clare Howell and Riki Wilchins, published in 2002.

This book is a collection of genderqueer essays. Genderqueer was used in the 1990s and 2000s to mean anyone crossing gender norms - cisgender or transgender, butch or femme, male or female, binary or nonbinary - both, or neither. Lately, the term has come to mean just nonbinary, but the term is actually a huge umbrella. The essays describe female-to-male transition, lesbian sex, butch women, first gay sex, gender dysphoria and so on

. This book is very important to me - I'm a trans man and genderqueer myself!

Have you read this book?

[morepeachyogurt]

“For identities like gay or lesbian or transgender to be visible and distinct, how many other complex and unnamed identities have to be silenced and erased? Does the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered movement's noun-list approach really solve any- thing? Or do we add to it each minority the dominant culture names next so it can regulate and stigmatize it?

It is not enough to have pride in our identities, or to be inclusive. It is time for us to start looking upstream and questioning how these identities were produced. How does homosexual iden- tity actually require an antecedent heterosexuality? Does an identity based on sexual or affectional or gendered practice make any rational sense? Does not our willingness to inhabit queer identities legitimize the notion that every body ought to be socially defined by its potential contribution to procreation?

I will defend anyone's wish to call themselves drag, transexual, transgender, gay, bi, tri, or quad. For me, these are not natural iden- tities but simply political categories we are forced to inhabit when we do certain things with our bodies. And it is my larger agenda to fight this cultural machinery which categorizes, stigmatizes, and then marginalizes minorities, rather than to fight for the rights of one particular category over another.”

Read My Lips: Sexual Subversions and the End of Gender by Riki Wilchins

[coochiequeens]

Long article but worth the read.

Some things make less sense the more you study them: the SNP’s finances, Joe Biden’s sentences… and being nonbinary.

Nonbinary is an umbrella term used to describe those people who believe they are outside the gender binary. They believe that they are neither male nor female.

When you ask nonbinaries what they mean by this, the response usually boils down to men saying they feel kinda feminine sometimes, and women saying they kinda don’t. It’s not exactly The Communist Manifesto. When you point out that some men and women have felt this way since time immemorial, without feeling the need to turn it into a political cause, nonbinary males become aggressive and nonbinary females become sulky. All of which suggests that this nonbinary LARP may require some more thought.

If, like me, you prefer to identify as non-lunatic, you might be tempted to dismiss the nonbinary phenomenon as a passing fad, like the Tamagotchi ‘egg’ toys popular among children a couple of decades ago. But there’s a difference between the idea of nonbinary and fads like Tamagotchis, especially among the young. Schools banned Tamagotchis in the 1990s because they were a distraction. This time, our public institutions, from multinational corporations to medical bodies, are actively promoting the idea that you can be neither male nor female.

Advocates themselves seem unclear as to what ‘nonbinary’ means. Some seem unsure where to draw the line between being nonbinary and being trans. The huge American LGBTQ+ charity, the Trevor Project, insists that ‘It’s important to note that not all nonbinary folks identify as trans’. But the UK’s LGBT Foundation argues that nonbinary fits under the so-called trans umbrella. This isn’t much help, however, since the trans umbrella has by now grown so huge it could be used to protect the polar ice caps.

Throughout much of the 20th century, the prefix ‘trans’ tended to be used in relation to transvestites or transsexuals. It implied a transition from one gender or sex to the other. But this started to change in the 1990s. Disappointed by the physical results of transitioning – think big-jawed, deep-voiced ‘transwomen’ and miniature, small-boned ‘transmen’ – the trans lobby started to look for a new vocabulary that might capture what it is to be neither male nor female.

Activist Riki Wilchins played a key role in the development of nonbinary. He originally came to prominence in 1991, when he co-founded Camp Trans, an annual protest against the exclusion of transwomen from the women-only Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival. In the mid-1990s, he sowed the seeds for the idea of being nonbinary by coining a new term to describe himself – namely, ‘genderqueer’.

It was a fortuitous moment for Wilchins. From the late 1990s onwards, with queer theory flourishing in universities in the UK and the US, a slew of new identities and neologisms were being turned out, from agender and bigender to demigender and genderfluid. Nonbinary started to be used by activists and academics to encompass these new identities in the 2000s. Indeed, in 2002, Wilchins co-authored the tellingly titled Genderqueer: Voices From Beyond the Sexual Binary.

It wasn’t really until the latter half of the 2010s that nonbinary moved from the spheres of academia and activism and into mainstream culture – largely because an army of idiot celebrities embraced it.

Singer Sam Smith was one such bandwagon-jumper. In 2019, he declared himself to be ‘nonbinary’ and embraced ‘they / them’ pronouns. Smith was once an attractive young gay man. In his new nonbinary guise, he has come to resemble someone forced to twerk in fishnets as a prank.

See rest of article

[the-blue-fairie]

Riki Wilchins on The Crying Game (1992)

[judgingbooksbycovers]

Bad Ink: How The New York Times Sold Out Transgender Teens

By Riki Wilchins.

[haveyoureadthistransbook]

GenderQueer: Voices From Beyond the Sexual Binary edited by Joan Nestle, Clare Howell and Riki Anne Wilchins

gooodreads

Perhaps more than any other issue, gender identity has galvanized the queer community in recent years. The questions go beyond the nature of male/female to a yet-to-be-traversed region that lies somewhere between and beyond biologically determined gender. In this groundbreaking anthology, three experts in gender studies and politics navigate around rigid, societally imposed concepts of two genders to discover and illuminate the limitless possibilities of identity. Thirty first-person accounts of gender construction, exploration, and questioning provide a groundwork for cultural discussion, political action, and even greater possibilities of autonomous gender choices. Noted scholar Joan Nestle is joined by internationally prominent gender warrior Riki Anne Wilchins and historian Clare Howell to provide a societal, cultural, and political exploration of gender identity.

Mod opinion: I haven't read this book yet, but it sounds like an interesting early trans anthology.

[transastronautistic]

When people stumble over their pronouns, stammer, blush, or apologize in embarrassment, I often think of Riki Anne Wilchins' description of her friend Holly Boswell: "Holly is a delicate Southern belle of long acquaintance ....S/he has tender features, long, wavy blonde hair, a soft Carolina accent, a delicate feminine bosom, and no interest in surgery. Holly lives as an open transgendered mother of two in Asheville, North Carolina. Her comforting advice to confused citizens struggling with whether to use Sir or Madam is, 'Don't give it a second thought. You don't have a pronoun yet for me.’” ... ...[T]o answer the homophobes becomes easy, those folks who want to dehumanize, erase, make invisible the lives of butch dykes and nellie fags. We shrug. We laugh. We tell them: your definitions of woman and man suck. We tell them: your binary stinks. We say: here we are in all our glory — male, female, intersex, trans, butch, nellie, studly, femme, king, androgynous, queen, some of us carving out new ways of being women, others of us new ways of being men, and still others new ways of being something else entirely. You don't have pronouns yet for us.

- Eli Clare in Exile & Pride: Disability, Queerness and Liberation (1999)

[bog-dwelling-butch]

Very excited to read these, ever since finishing Stone Butch Blues I've been just digging for more queer literature especially on the topics of queer history and activism. 😁🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

[sagevalleymusings]

Not to shit all over Canton Winer's extremely small and self-selecting sample of queer asexuals, but

the term agender was coined in 2006

the entire premise of The Second Sex was about how womanhood was defined as what manhood was not

The entire concept of "gender critical" is about how gender doesn't exist and has been integral to separatist feminism for over thirty years

Canton Winer is not the first person to use the term "gender detachment." I searched Google, Google Scholar, and JSTOR, and found a little over 30 results from as early as the mid aughts

Increased rates of non-gender conforming identities in asexual populations is already well established. In order to have non-conforming identities in either you have to have already examined your identity. Canton does admit this latter half with no mention of prior scholarship.

I can't find Canton's Gender Detachment thesis on JSTOR or Google Scholar but no examination of gender and sexuality can draw solid conclusions without discussing age and race, at minimum, since these two things have radical effects on how gender and sexuality are perceived

It's also a well studied phenomenon that cis people do not have a concrete sense of gender identity - much in the same way that white people do not have a concrete sense of racial identity. Their privilege as a cis person means that they do not need to think about their gender. "Gender Detachment" isn't a new concept - it is the default.

I tend to distrust people who say "research on [this topic] is pretty slim" because what it means is that they haven't done their research. Searching for asexuality in JSTOR yields at least 200 results, which is smaller than, for example, women, but the oldest cited source (and again this is just on JSTOR) is from 1973.

At some point Canton says "Almost all of my gender detached respondents were assigned female at birth" which is extremely telling in and of itself because this information is nearly useless without context (because knowing they are afab doesn't tell us if they are cis), and actually useless in context. Given what they've said about their sample here and other places, it looks like only 8 or so of the 77 were men to begin with, which means you actually can't draw any meaningful results about gender detachment among men literally at all. That's too small a sample size by an actual magnitude.

Like yes I do think it's helpful for someone this self-important social media savvy to bring awareness to this concept, but from what I've read so far this sounds... I don't know if there's a better word for it other than mansplaining, which I dislike using on non-binary persons, but this is where we're at. You want to be an allosexual amab *inventing terminology* for asexual afabs then as an asexual afab I get to call that mansplaining.

You run in lesbian circles and you discover immediately that this idea of frustration, apathy, and irresolution towards gender has been explored from a scholarly perspective for decades. Lines like "but that work has been mostly theoretical" and "My findings complicate the (often unstated) assumption that everyone “has” a gender identity" are so unhinged from real experiences of lesbian activists *who have written about this* as to be delusional. This PhD candidate has absolutely no idea what they're talking about.

Since when have we been assuming "everyone" has a gender identity? Has that concretely been established? Or is that something this author is assuming is an assumption? Because it hasn't been my experience. I've had to push at every job I've ever worked at to change their forms from asking about a person's sex to asking about a person's gender in an attempt to be more inclusive to those whose gender doesn't match their sex. Does that imply everyone has a gender? No, of fucking course not. It implies that we still don't have good language for talking about this, and maybe never will. It implies that asking about people's sex is outdated and asking about people's gender only makes that obvious. It implies that patriarchy is so embedded into our systems of hierarchy that attempts to make that hierarchy more inclusive will still, inevitably, institute a hierarchy with their solutions.

And I would sincerely hope, though I am not convinced that this was done, that his research doesn't simply drop this term and peace out. Because "inventing" a gender theory term this close to describing gender critical biological essentialism without talking about how close it is to gender critical biological essentialism is irresponsible scholarship. There is an entire movement of women using their "gender detachment" to oppress trans women. If you're going to talk about this, you need to talk about that.

i feel so seen!!

(twitter thread)

[gatheringbones]

[“Some lesbians I know have gay male sex. I know this is what they do. I don't quite know how they do it because I don't really have a cock---not in any of my bodies. I am all girl. I like being a girl.

I like being a girl fucking girls and a girl fucking boys and a girl fucking boy-girls. I like being a girl fucking butches and a girl fucking femmes. I like being a girl fucked by boys and girls in all kinds of bodies and costumes. I sometimes even feel a little butch, but I don't have a cock of my own. I do have two dildos in my drawer and sometimes I want to fill a womon with my whole hand, but I am always a girl.

Years ago, I thought that since I was such a girly-girl, I couldn't be a lesbian, because lesbians were so much more masculine than I was. but then I figured out there was a name for me, that I was a femme. This was incredibly liberating, and I loved being a femme, and I loved loving butch womyn. What I didn't know was that some of the womyn I was loving were not womyn. Or not "just" womyn, not only womyn. I didn't know womyn could be men. I thought male was a dirty word. I thought wanting men meant I wasn't lesbian anymore. How could I have known how many lesbians were really men?

Indeed, I have been wanting men. I am beginning to understand how a lesbian can really want men. I am beginning to understand how much bodies with breasts and dicks really do turn me on. Is this bisexuality? How do I label my sexual identity?

One friend identifies as a female-bodied butch. He says he is neither a womon nor a lesbian, and he takes only womyn lovers. Another friend says s/he is a lesbian but is also a man. Yet another says s/he is a masculine womon. I know two people who identify as transgendered womyn---one is a biological man and the other a biological womon. The bioman dresses and lives as a woman; the biowoman dresses and lives as a man. Both call themselves lesbian.

I have come to understand that, although there is not yet a name for my desires, I am a womon, a lesbian womon, and a femme, who deeply desires male presence in female bodies. I love men on top of me and inside me. This is my kind of lesbianism.”]

Lionheart, from wanting men, from genderqueer: voices beyond the binary, edited by Riki wilchins, 2002

[floral-ashes]

It is now official—I’m that bitch. 😇😈

[trans-axolotl]

ID: [A 1997 flyer made by Riki Anne Wilchins that reads: Jocelyn Elders supports Intersex Genital Mutilation (IGM). Hermaphrodite; someone whose genitals are not clearly male or female. US Hospitals genitally cut 8 intersexed kids every day just so their genitals will look "normal." Most will lose genital sensation. Many are cut so they won't "become lesbians." Jocelyn Elders supports this practice! Did you know: The vast majority of children diagnosed as intersexed by American doctors and genitally cut are otherwise unremarkable infants who simply have clitorises more than 3/8” long. Many are genitally cut in the mistaken belief that otherwise they may grow up to be masculinized, lesbian women or have difficulty functioning as “normal, heterosexual adults” later in life. Did you know: According to noted Brown University medical researcher Dr. Anne Fausto­ Sterling, 2,000 intersex infants are genitally cut for cosmetic reasons in US hospitals annually: that’s 8 infants from 3 weeks to 3 years old cut every working day. Yet the American Academy of Pediatricians’ own statement on IGM says these infants are genitally cut to minimize “emotional, cognitive, and body image” problems and not for any medical reason. Did you know: Jocelyn Elders on intersexed infants and “correcting” queer genitals: "…just take out everything and make a good vaginal pouch and the child can function very well as a female." "I always told my students, 'I can make a good female, but it's very hard to make a male.'" Ever hear of informed consent? Dr. Elders refuses to even meet with the intersexed community or IGM survivors. Intersex kids need counseling, not cutting! Hey Dr. Elders: Get Your Scalpels Off our Bodies! We're not quiet. We're not well behaved. And we're not going away. Hermaphrodites with attitude.]

Although it can be very upsetting to see the way that interphobia and medical abuse existed in incredibly similar ways 30 years ago, this protest flyer and associated newsletter showcase the incredible history of intersex and trans solidarity between Transexual Menace and Hermaphrodites with attitude. This newsletter includes multiple updates on trans and intersex news, including protests, discrimination, and media representation.

"Herm-Protest Jocelyn Elders at Lesbian Event.

Washington, DC: 20 Sep 97. The activist groups Hermaphrodites with Attitude (HWA) and Transexual Menace today protested Dr. Jocelyn Elders' keynote address to a Mautner Lesbians With Cancer Project fundraiser, held in the Washington Hilton. Dr. Elders, a former US Surgeon General, is an outspoken advocate of Intersex Genital Mutilation (IGM), a cosmetic surgery performed on the genitals of intersexed infants so they will look like "normal" males and females.

Eight demonstrators carried banners saying "Dr. Elders: Keep Your Scalpels OFF Our Bodies" and "Intersex Kids Need Counseling NOT Cutting", and distributed IGM leaflets to attendees as they arrived for the $100-a-plate dinner. Several attendees expressed shock and dismay upon learning of Dr. Elders' position, noting that she is generally considered a supporter of lesbian and feminist causes, and enlightened on most matters of adolescent sexuality. However, the flier noted that on "correcting" queer genitals, Dr. Elders has written: "…just take out everything and make a good vaginal pouch and the child can function very well as a female," and "I always told my students, I can make a good female, but it's very hard to make a male."

"We're not protesting the Mautner Project," explained HWA founder, Cheryl Chase, "we're calling attention to Dr. Elders' support of IGM and her continued refusal to meet with us on an issue that affects our lives. One reason IGM is performed is the fear that girls born with clitorises considered ‘too large’ will grow up to be masculine or lesbian. We want to bring awareness to the Lesbian and Gay community that IGM is a queer issue."

Although intersexuality was once considered rare, according to noted Brown University medical researcher Dr. Anne Fausto-Sterling, about 8 intersex children are genitally cut in US hospitals every working day for cosmetic reasons. Stated Chase, "We will continue to seek a meeting with Dr. Elders, and anticipate that once she takes IGM seriously, she will support out position."

Following the demonstration, HWA and the Menace donated a $100 to the Mautner Project in the name of intersexed infants."

-In Your Face No. 5, Spring 1998.

[gingus-doon]

omfg i always manage to mistakingly think there is nothing left to Know that will shock me and make me reconsider concerning feminist and queer histories but oh my mother fuckin god yall DID YALL KNOW..ALISON BECHDEL SUPPORTED BI LESBIANS

like i just hhn i wouldve had no idea i would not have even known the concept EXISTED and i, here, stand on neither side as i don't know enough about anything to make a firm point (i lean against but hearing ppl say trans women are facing the brunt of anti bi-lesbian sentiment & the strange insistence on Lesbians Cannot Like Men when trans men in lesbian history, right there-- [how can you say this without undermining trans men's manhood? i don't think you can. hence im content to describe lesbian relationships as those without cis men {though not all relationships without cis men are lesbian relationships, for ex trans gay guys or straight trans relationships} & im not one to brush aside the queer history of transmasc lesboys so easily when i know. So many very lesbian tguys] makes me reconsider)

ITS SO FUCKING NUTS TO REMEMBER THAT FEMINIST AND QUEER PPL BEFORE US ALREADY HAD THESE DISCUSSIONS ALREADY SPOKE WHAT NEEDED TO BE SPOKEN IN MANY CASES AND FORGOING THE ADVICE OF OUR FEMALE AND TRANSSEXUAL FOREBEARERS JUST LEADS US TO HAVE THE SAME POINTLESS DISCOURSES ON TUMBLR DOT COM AGAIN AND SEVER COMMUNITY OVER IT AGAIN AND AGAIN OH MY GOD ITS LIKE A CURSE ITS LIKE WE'RE SISYPHUS ALIENATED FROM OUR TEACHERS CONDEMNED TO ROLL THE SAME BOULDER UP THAT HILL

im just going fucking nuts bcauae it's always like this i will cry ahahhh like

LESLIE FEINBERG. HIR PROPHETIC STATEMENT

AND ITS HAPPENINGGGG ITS HAPPENING THERE ARE TERFS AND THE SEX ABOLITIONIST RADICALLY QUEER RADICAL FEMINISM OF OUR FOREMOTHERS HAS BEEN ABANDONED AND NOW NO ONE LOOKS TO THAT ESTEEMED TRADITION BESIDES A FEW BECAUSE EVERYONE HATES TERFS (rightfully so) BUT DONT KNWO THE EXTENT OF RADICAL FEMINISM UGHDHHHG OOHghhuhh OuhchhHHhn SHAKING .

AND I JUST LEARNED ABOUT RIKI WILCHINS AND THEY WERE A TRANSSEXUAL LESBIAN FEMINST!!!!! TRANSSEXUAL LESBIAN FEMINIST A BEAUTIFUL PHRASE AND NOW WERE IN AN AGE WHERE QUEER NON-LESBIANS ARE LESPHOBIC AND DAMN THE ENTIRETY OF LESBIAN FEMINISM WHILE TERFS DAMN THE ENTIRETY OF QUEERNESS AS IF LESBIANISM CAN EXIST WITHOUT IT OR TRANSNESS AND I JUST.........IDK im crying im rocking back and forth i am holding my temples those who do not know their history will be doomed to repeat it truly