#there are real and understandable reasons to segregate sports by gender

[askshivanulegacy]

Generally speaking, the gender separation makes sense for all the reasons stated above, because it's a common denominator that commonly delineates these types of major body differences that provide different advantages which are "unfair" to people without those advantages.

It's when you have uncommon outliers that now you're suddenly unable to categorize them by the gender system, which results in intrusive measurements (testosterone levels would be one of them, actually).

Frankly, any time you're trying to determine a quality of a person's physical body in order to categorize them somehow, this is an invasion of privacy, and people should be asking why this has to be done at all. Why are you making it about someone's body, and not about their performance?

If the world decides that gender isn't good enough to provide the right "fairness" to the most amount of people, then banish all categorization for sports. Sports are competitive. People who play them should succeed or fail based on their own merit, and stacked up against everyone else, regardless of physical traits.

The end goal is to determine the best of the best. It is ultimately a judgment of the highest skill levels and the most applicable physical attributes. Lump everyone into the same pool and have them go at it, and who ever rises to the top is the true winner. Everyone else can be ranked accordingly. Stop giving participation prizes just because you can't compete in more demanding categories. If you're number 163 in the world because your weight and skill placed you there, then so be it. Success in sports will ultimately run up against very real physical and genetics barriers, and that's just the way it is.

Why do we segregate sports by sex?

Disclaimer: this video was intended as a fun look at the inconsistent logic of gender segregation in sports, but as a short-form video, it naturally does not go into much nuance. One thing I want to make clear is that I do believe we should be making sports more inclusive to trans and intersex athletes, and it seems to me that a great starting point would be to stop gender segregating sports that really don’t need it. Like archery!

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Colin Wright

Published: Mar 20, 2023

Current debates over the fundamental nature of biological sex are not merely esoteric academic musings. They have direct implications for policy related to sex-based legal protections and medicine. It truly matters whether sex categories in humans are empirically real, immutable, and binary, or are instead outdated and oppressive “social constructs” that should be abandoned.

The claim that biological sex is not binary is often used to justify the inclusion of males in female sports, prisons, and other spaces that have historically been segregated by sex for reasons of fairness and safety. For instance, ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio frequently claims that the binary concept of biological sex is a recent invention being used “exclusively for the purposes of excluding trans people from legal protections.” Last December, Scottish politician Maggie Chapman stated that false notions about the “binary and immutable” nature of sex were her primary motivation for pursuing “comprehensive gender recognition for non-binary people in Scotland.”

Those opposed to the abolition of sex categories often argue for the binary and immutable nature of sex, as well as for the importance of recognizing fundamental sex differences to protect women and girls. But while proponents of this binary and immutable notion of sex are more in line with biological reality, considerable confusion still exists about the true meaning of the “sex binary.”

Because those on both sides of this issue claim that biological facts justify their policy proposals, accurate descriptions of biology—unmarred by politics—matter now more than ever. So let’s clarify the meaning of the “sex binary” and why it’s important; explain why we should distinguish between intersex conditions (or differences/disorders of sex development) and transgenderism to avoid the “intersex trap”; and outline effective approaches to drafting legislation and policy relating to the biology of sex to preserve the integrity of female-only spaces.

When biologists claim that “sex is binary,” they mean something straightforward: there are only two sexes. This statement is true because an individual’s sex is defined by the type of gamete (sperm or ova) their primary reproductive organs (i.e., gonads) are organized, through development, to produce. Males have primary reproductive organs organized around the production of sperm; females, ova. Because there is no third gamete type, there are only two sexes that a person can be. Sex is therefore binary.

It is important to note here that the binary nature of sex is compatible with sex ambiguity because ambiguity with respect to sex is not itself a third sex. However, many gender activists falsely assert that the “sex binary” must mean something like “every human who has ever existed and will ever exist can be unambiguously categorized as either male or female.” Given this, they contend that providing examples of people with ambiguous sexual anatomy (i.e., “intersex” conditions) not only disproves the sex binary but also demonstrates that biological sex is a meaningless and even oppressive categorization scheme. (We will leave aside for now the fact that many of these same activists do recognize an alternative version of “biological sex” in the form of gender-identity bio-essentialism, or the theory that a person’s subjective self-conception of male or female is rooted in the brain itself.)

The chain of reasoning goes something like this. Sex is not binary because intersex people exist. Their existence demonstrates that biological sex is a spectrum. Since sex is a spectrum, that means no line can be perfectly drawn separating males from females. If no single line can be drawn, then anywhere someone chooses to draw one is totally arbitrary and subjective. If it’s totally arbitrary and subjective, then that means the categories male and female are also arbitrary and subjective “social constructs” with no firm root in biological reality. If that’s the case, why are we categorizing people in law according to these arbitrary labels instead of letting people simply label themselves? To do otherwise is to oppress people based on a biological falsehood.

This is just how the argument is made, and it is made with stunning success. Children in K-12 are regularly taught these days that sex and gender exist on a spectrum. Parts of the scientific establishment and the medical profession have also embraced this idea.

Perhaps nobody is more well-known for relying on the existence of intersex conditions to supposedly disprove the sex binary than the historian of science Alice Dreger. In her book, Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex, Dreger refers to intersex individuals as “hermaphrodites,” and says: “Hermaphroditism causes a great deal of confusion, more than one might at first appreciate, because—as we will see again and again—the discovery of a ‘hermaphroditic’ body raises doubts not just about the particular body in question, but about all bodies. The questioned body forces us to ask what exactly it is—if anything—that makes the rest of us unquestionable.”

Those without a firm background in biological science may read such passages and feel something akin to having an epiphany, but Dreger is peddling pseudoscience. This desire to extrapolate a small blur at a boundary to the entire picture is rooted in the postmodern impulse to “queer,” and thereby eliminate, natural categories. In the queer-theory worldview, categories are themselves oppressive, and human liberation requires the “troubling” of categories (to borrow Judith Butler’s term), including those of sex. Yet Dreger’s account does not accurately describe biological reality. The existence of “questionable” cases with respect to sex classification does not automatically cast a degree of doubt onto everyone’s sex. For most people, their sex is obvious.

Besides, our society is not currently experiencing a sudden dramatic surge in people stricken with ambiguous genitalia; we are experiencing a surge in people who are unambiguously one sex claiming to “identify” as the opposite sex, or neither sex.

Another false depiction of the sex binary is that it refers to sex chromosomes, with males always being XY and females always XX. Activists purport to debunk this misrepresentation of the sex binary by pointing to sex-chromosome aneuploidies—instances where an individual may have missing or extra X or Y chromosomes, such as in those with Klinefelter (XXY) and Turner (X0) syndrome, among others. How could sex be binary and based on sex chromosomes, they argue, if there are more combinations beyond XX and XY? They may also highlight examples of XX males and females with Y chromosomes as proof that chromosomes do not determine an individual’s sex.

There are several major issues with this line of reasoning. The first is that the vast majority of people with sex-chromosome aneuploidies are not intersex; their primary sex organs and anatomy are unquestionably either male or female. Other compositions than the typical XX and XY arrangement do not represent additional sexes beyond male and female, but instead represent chromosomal variation within each of the two sexes. A person with Klinefelter syndrome (XXY), for example, isn’t a new sex in the same way that a person with Down syndrome (who has three instead of two copies of chromosome 21) isn’t a new species.

Second, the notion that XX males and females with a Y chromosome debunk the claim that sex is determined by chromosomes erroneously conflates how sex is determined with how sex is defined for an individual. “Sex determination” is a technical term in developmental biology referring to the process by which certain genes trigger and regulate sex development. Mammals, which include humans, have evolved what’s called “chromosomal sex determination,” meaning that certain genes residing on chromosomes guide the development of males and females in utero. The Y chromosome is considered “sex determining” because it usually harbors a gene called SRY that triggers male development, and in its absence a female typically develops. But in very rare instances an SRY gene can find its way onto an X chromosome, resulting in a male with XX chromosomes.

This process stands in contrast to sex-determining mechanisms in other organisms that do not rely on chromosomes, such as “temperature-dependent sex determination” that occurs in many reptiles, where the temperature at which an egg is incubated triggers male and female development. In the alligator A. mississippiensis, for instance, higher incubation temperatures (>34°C) produce males, while lower temperatures (<30°C) produce females.

In both chromosomal and temperature-dependent sex determination systems, though an individual’s sex is mechanistically determined in different ways, it is always defined the same way—by the type of gamete his or her primary reproductive organs is organized around producing. This should be obvious, as it would have been impossible ever to have discovered these different sex-determining mechanisms without first knowing what males and females are apart from sex chromosomes and incubation temperatures.

These efforts by activists serve a single purpose—to portray sex as so incomprehensibly complex and multivariable that our traditional practice of classifying people as simply either male or female is grossly outdated and should be completely abandoned in favor of “gender identity.” This entails that males would not be barred from female sports, prisons, or any other space previously segregated according to our supposedly antiquated notions of “biological sex,” so long as they “identify” as female, whatever that means.

But while sex development is a complex process, it does not follow that the outcomes are equally complex. Dreger’s claim that the existence of edge cases “raises doubts not just about the particular body in question, but about all bodies” is not true. A person’s sex is almost always completely unambiguous and recorded correctly at birth.

While it may be necessary to outline reasonable policies and laws for hard cases, we need not pretend we’re all hard cases. Failing to reject Dreger’s rhetorical sleight-of-hand prevents us from calling a spade a spade.

The terms intersex and transgender are entirely distinct and should not be conflated. Intersex people have rare (approximately 0.018 percent of all births) developmental conditions that result in apparent sex ambiguity. Transgender people, on the other hand, need not be sexually ambiguous at all; indeed, current progressive orthodoxy insists that it is enough for one merely to “identify” as the opposite or neither sex.

You may have noticed, though, that activists frequently steer discussions about whether trans women (i.e., males who identify as female) should be allowed to compete in female sports toward a debate about various intersex conditions and prominent athletes with differences of sexual development (DSD) like South African runner Caster Semenya. Why is this?

The answer is simple: so long as they’ve got you on your heels and in the weeds making judgment calls on a slew of complex intersex conditions, they’ve succeeded in drawing your attention away from making easy calls on unquestionably male athletes like 2022 NCAA Division I Women’s Swimming and Diving champion Lia Thomas. In other words, they shift the focus to intersex to distract from transgender. Lia Thomas is not sexually ambiguous; Thomas is male in every respect save for his subjective self-perception of sex, which does not, scientifically speaking, have any bearing on a person’s literal sex.

I occasionally hear from women’s organizations and sporting bodies seeking guidance on wording their policies to exclude male athletes from female sports, prisons, and other female-only spaces. Many are unaware, however, that they’ve adopted the activists’ strawman of the sex binary as “every human is unambiguously either male or female.” While adopting such a framing may appear tempting as a means of unequivocally protecting female-only spaces, it should be avoided because it is incorrect and unnecessary—and a trap set by activists. It is incorrect for all the reasons outlined in the previous section. It is unnecessary because the most important issues currently concern males, not intersex people, in female spaces. And it is a trap because it allows activists to turn what should be an easy and winnable conversation about keeping males out of female spaces into a much more difficult and irrelevant conversation about complicated intersex conditions.

Admitting the existence of rare hard cases doesn’t weaken the position or arguments against allowing males in female sports, prisons, and other female-only spaces. In fact, it’s a much stronger approach because it separates two distinct issues—intersex versus transgender policies—that the activists would much rather keep fused together. For instance, it’s much easier for them to make the case for including biological males with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (CAIS) in female sports, given their body’s overall female appearance and unresponsiveness to testosterone, than it is to make the case for including Lia Thomas, a fully intact male in every regard who enjoys the performance-enhancing benefits of having gone through male puberty. Keeping intersex and transgender issues separate and distinct prevents activists from pretending that arguing for inclusion of the former (CAIS male) is simultaneously to argue for inclusion of the latter (Lia Thomas).

Indeed, if gender identity determines who counts as female for purposes of female sports, then any restriction on participation by female-identified people is arbitrary and unjust. Thus, for instance, it would be wrong to require some women to suppress their hormones simply because they happen to be transgender or to have gone through “male” puberty. In other words, if the gender identity doctrine is taken seriously, there should be no restrictions at all on participation by female-identified biological males in female sports. It is telling that gender activists almost never take this position, and in some cases—including in federal lawsuits over “exclusionary” sports policies—they have explicitly rejected it.

As previously mentioned, any effective policy proposal requires addressing intersex and transgender issues separately.

Crafting policy to exclude males who identify as women (i.e., trans women) from female sports, prisons, or other female-only spaces is not complicated. This is because trans women are unambiguously male, so the chances that a doctor incorrectly recorded their sex at birth is practically zero. This means that any “transgender policy” designed to protect female spaces need only specify that participants must have been recorded (or “assigned”) female at birth. This alone would put an end to males competing in female sports.

Of course, this also requires that laws forbid the alteration of birth certificates. This has become a real problem, as currently every state in the United States apart from Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Montana allows citizens to amend the sex marker on their birth certificates. Further, at least 15 states will issue new birth certificates, meaning that it will not show any indication that a change has been made. All records linked to the original birth certificate are placed under seal that can only be accessed via court order.

Activists have also pushed to move sex designations on birth certificates “below the line of demarcation.” Information above the line, such as name, sex, and date of birth, generally appears on certified copies of birth certificates and carries legal significance, whereas information below the line is private and consists of legally and medically irrelevant demographic information for purposes of compiling aggregated population statistics. Indeed, an article published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine argues that “sex designations on birth certificates offer no clinical utility, and they can be harmful for intersex and transgender people.” They justify this claim by (you guessed it!) rejecting the sex binary: “male or female on birth certificates suggests that sex is simple and binary when, biologically, it is not.” The authors go on to say that, even if this binary classification system were to be preserved, it should be based “on self-identification at an older age, rather than on a medical evaluation at birth.”

Achieving sound policy for single-sex spaces and activities requires that these laws be either overturned or amended so that an individual’s sex that was observed and recorded at birth, even if later amended, can always be accessed. For now, circumventing the birth-certificate issue can be done by using sex chromosomes as a reliable proxy for sex when sufficient doubt exists. While this would not be fully reliable in every conceivable instance, we must not let the perfect be the enemy of the near-perfect.

Crafting effective intersex policies is somewhat more complicated, but the problem of intersex individuals or people with DSDs in female sports is less pressing than that of males in female sports, and there seem to be no current concerns arising from intersex people using female spaces. It should be up to individual organizations to decide which criteria or cut-offs should be used to keep female spaces safe and, in the context of sports, safe and fair. It is imperative, however, that such policies be rooted in properties of bodies over identity. Identity alone is irrelevant to issues of fairness and safety.

The “sex binary” refers to the biological reality that there are only two sexes—male and female—and that these categories refer to individuals whose primary sex organs are organized around the production of either sperm (male) or ova (female). The “sex binary” does not entail that every human is unambiguously either male or female, even though the vast majority are.

This is an important distinction, because adopting the second framing is inaccurate and plays into the hands of activists who seek to debunk the existence of only two sexes by calling attention to the existence of rare edge cases (i.e., “intersex” conditions). But the first framing (“there are only two sexes”) is both biologically accurate and ensures that two distinct concepts—transgenderism and intersex—remain distinct. It also puts to rest the false notion that the existence of rare edge cases necessarily entails that sex is a “spectrum” and that we are all therefore intersex to some degree.

Crafting effective policy therefore requires treating transgenderism and intersex as the distinct concepts that they are. It also requires not falling into activists’ trap of conflating intersex with transgender. An effective policy to prevent males in female spaces would be simply to require that “female” refer to one’s birth sex; sex chromosomes can be used as a backup when there is doubt. Intersex or DSD policies should prioritize safety and fairness, with specifics left to the individual organizations to decide.

While activists are insistent in presenting the biology of sex as being so complex as to defy all categorization, and categorization itself as a social evil, we should resist the urge to counter them by adopting their overly simplistic misrepresentations of the sex binary. We must not make the biology of sex more (or less) complex than it is.

[ Via: https://archive.md/lERfh ]

[xrprainmaker]

The Significance of Being Insignificant

What is the value of one life? Do you know? Is it measured in how many people's lives we affect while we're alive, is it quantified by how much money we leave to our loved ones when we eventually all at one point or another die? Is it merely the number of loved ones we know or who knows us? Is it measured by how many likes and retweets and shares we get accumulatively on all social media platforms and when we get to the pearly gates of heaven or in some cases the rusted gates of hell going to be just yet another algorithm of the universe held over our head as either a badge of honor or Scarlett letter of failure in which even in the afterlife we will still be either praised or shunned for all the things we've either done wrong or right.. and God or the Devil Themselves will take turns choosing teams in purgatory & just like in middle school we'll either be chosen first with the "cool kids" or be picked last like the outcasts some of us already feel & we'll spend another eternity pondering the effects and affects of our decisions and thoughts and actions until we literally just become dust underneath their nails? These are the questions I ask myself in a world where killing has now become an open sport and done by people that swore an oath to protect our lives and the lives of the ones we love & the ones we don't. But for George Floyd he's life was no more meaningful for those cops that day, than the ants they probably crushed under their boots on the way to go put their knees in his throat and his head. The watched and continued draining the life from his body like a smartphone addict who just watches his or her phone drain to zero battery but is too lazy to get up and plug it into the wall. Did that police officer think he was playing a level in Grand Theft Auto? Did the surrounding policers officers who also complacently just "followed" orders and also held down & pinned him by the legs and arms and allowed this act to be committed without thought or hesitation did they also think they were "doing a good job " or were they just not thinking at all. You see you might be confused right now why I'm talking so much about the "Evil Cops" and why I'm not raving about "defund the police " or talking in a way that I have lost compassion for the cops, instead of just shooting from the hips and calling them Murderers ( which don't worry, I do believe all of them are and should go to jail, as I believe all of them are 100% guilty) . Because let's be clear - to watch and do nothing for 8 minutes straight while somebody begs and pleas " I can't breath", " I can't breath" " I can't breath" and is not putting up a fight or intoxicated or belligerent or on drugs but is just one human being begging for another human being to take notice & show compassion & acknowledge that that person is seen and heard and valued and to watch that for eight whole minutes is almost an eternity of time for those cops to have done the right thing or as Spike Lee would've said in Public Enemy " Dooo Thaaa Right Thang" and they failed, they failed with flying colors. I don't know what they got on their test scores to get into the Police Academy but to get out of it, they went out with a Bang of F's that's for sure. But I digress, the real reason I'm so interested in why NOBODY did ANYTHING even though they were in the middle of the street, broad daylight and with hundreds if not thousands of people walking by and NOT ONE, NOT A SINGLE ONE except One girl who filmed the whole thing and put it up on Youtube - tried to save this man's life or question the cops that were so nonchalantly breaking the law in plain sight, right in front of everyone's nose and the reason why it happened It's because the value of someone's life in Real life - not the after school special you watched growing up or on the multiple motivational videos you can binge-watch on Youtube or "feel good" movies on Netflix where you watch a movie with 1 black actor in it in a cast of 500 white people and pat yourself on the back because you're not a racist. Or because you don't actually call black people the N-word to their face but lowkey wonder what it would feel like if you did. Like would it be laughs and high fives like on the "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" or would you get knocked the FUD out like if you were in the ring with Mike Tyson and he's biting off your ear. You see racism never went away or stopped, it just got brushed underneath the rug or the fabric of humanity we like to refer to as the "Human Existence". People like to use the word " I didn't Know" a lot in society - ever notice that - it's like the fewer fuds you give about life or the people around you the more accepted you are. Our world or simulation, whichever way you want to spin it, is built on the combined premise that showing emotion or compassion or crying is something that only "Weak" people do or a sign of weakness. But I call BS, I think that if that's the type of world you want to live in - then DO NOT, I REPEAT DO NOT, be walking in marches, with your fists up in the air, pretending that you have any type of allegiance with those who have lost their lives from racism or police brutality or any type of abuse for that matter where one party was "Stronger" and abused of the situation on somebody they deemed to be weak either because of gender or skin color or because they grew up on the wrong side of the tracks - Do not think that your 1 white fist in the air publically can magically erase the millions and millions and millions and millions and millions of other unknown fists that took that same symbol but in private and in the horizontal position & punched through the walls of the heads or the walls of the ribs of so many other innocent and unsuspecting lives of both young and old, white & black. That so many don't even know about and that, we'll most likely never know about because they did not have the money in their wallets or the special contacts in their phone or special certifications on their walls saying that they were somebody to be respected and thus the fight for their lives and struggle to share the truth will be buried among so many others that " lead quiet lives of desperation" as Thoreau's once said. You see what I'm getting at here is until we stop shaking our hands in frustration and anger and hatred and hostility at this police officer who did this, we will never truly understand what drives a man or men to this point of no return. Where their souls have left their bodies long before they'll ever be declared dead and how they were allowed to not just roam the streets but to rule the streets with a clad iron fist and destroy anything and everything they touched because they themselves, can no longer feel. You see this to me is the even scarier part. I'm not happy that George Floyd is dead or that he had to die this way, but in reality, if those cops hadn't killed him, how they did George Floyd would just be another African American Man that led a quiet life of mediocrity instead and now his face and his name is known all over the world and his legacy that he will leave to his family in some un-ironic, ironic way because of all of this will be of nobility and peace even though he was caught trying to buy things with fake money and that's what led the cops there, to begin with. To me, this just goes to highlight every relevant rule of life of Yin and Yang and that even in the best people there is bad and even in the badest people there is good. To me is this right or is this wrong to say, that's not up to me to decide, but it's the truth and the truth is hard to digest for many because it's not like a placebo, laced in sugar and will slowly rot your teeth and your brain. It's like a shot of Tequila either your system can handle it or it can't but either way, you'll only find out once you try. Try to see things from different angles, try to listen to a different perspective and try to understand, that no one is born 100% evil, I believe that evilness is learned and that even though the absolute last human beings on the face of the earth that you or many others would deem worthy or deserving of compassion right now or a voice or somebody to listen to them, I would say, it's that cop/cops that killed him. Why? Because as heinous as it is what they did, is that I also envision those same cops as young kids, running and playing and laughing and waiting for the weekend to play "Cops and Robbers" and how do you go from that level of innocence to this? Was it a gradual chipping away at their souls like water drop Chinese societal torture device, or did something cataclysmic in their youth or adult years happen like their father or uncle showed them how to hunt a deer when they were just 8 or or or... You see to me " an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" or in this case and many, many, many other unsolved cases- it's worth a literal pound of flesh and until we as humans and society start truly asking these hard questions, of ourselves and all other people who make up this world, we're just fooling ourselves into believing change is happening or that #BlackLivesMatter - because black lives won't matter until #ALLLivesMatter - including the lives of these horrible - soulless police. Rest In Power Mr. George Floyd

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/G_GyEL-R_Q8" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe> N.B - I've never met you but I can tell you your life even after you're gone has and will continue sending Ripples throughout the world. Martin Luther King Stood Up To Fight Bigotry - Rosa Parks sat down to fight against segregation and I'm sorry you had to roll over and die to fight against racism 15 - 20 years later - You deserved better and so does this world & hopefully one day in the future it will be considered "cool" to have & heart and show compassion - but the now jaded adult inside of me says " don't hold your breath"

[alexsimon03]

Lacks 2 Secondary 2

 In chapter 1, the author talked about the Johns Hopkins Hospital. While referring to Henrietta Lacks, the author said, "She, like most black patients, only went to Hopkins when she thought she had no choice." She said this because, in the Jim Crow laws mandate, there was still segregation in public places, meaning she had to go to the "colored" section of the hospital. In this section of the hospital, patients were receiving substandard treatment. This makes me very mad because there is still inequality going on in medical facilities. Especially in nursing homes, I hear about a lot of incidents regarding elderly abuse. Even though I'm grateful that we live in a time where I and my family have access to quality medical care, there is still inequality regarding race and gender in the world. I can't even imagine what Henrietta Lacks and all non-white patients who went to John Hopkins Hospital felt like. To potentially put their life in these doctor's hands and were given in return substandard treatment and care. 

When I read this section, I thought of the movie "42". This movie is a portrayal of Jackie Robinson becoming the first African-American to play in Major League Baseball. This passage and the movie "42" have a thematic connection. In the movie, there was a scene where Jackie Robinson came up to bat and the other team's coach was blatantly calling him racist names and trying to anger him. He eventually went on to hit a single, then steal to third, and eventually scored for his team while ignoring the other coach. This reminded me of the passage because of the bravery both of them showed. With Henrietta Lacks, she went to a known racist hospital for care because she knew her life depended on it, even though other African-Americans didn't go for that reason and were scared. Now because of her bravery, we have a better understanding of the prejudice and racism that was shown to African-Americans in these types of hospitals, and how we can avoid them today. Just like Henrietta Lacks, the portrayed Jackie Robinson in the movie and real-life, joined the league when others were scared and thought it was impossible. Due to his and other's sacrifices, in many sports today, teams are more diverse. Because of these brave people, anyone can say to their child, “You can be whatever you dream of, as long as you put in hard work”, and not face the same prejudice and hate these people went through because of the sacrifices they made no matter your race or ethnicity.    

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkKK49vrd6Q -  This is a rated R film and they use derogatory terms, so take precaution before watching. I do not condone the actions or words by the racist coach in this clip. 

Also https://prospect.org/civil-rights/jackie-robinson-legacy-activism/ - Article about Jackie Robinson

[hina-akatsuki]

PINK for girls BLUE for boys

During our childhood, I am sure most of us had heard this statement," pink is for girls and blue is for boys". Obviously, it did not make sense in our young minds then, so most of us complied without giving it much thought. I was no exception. It was much later that I came to realize that this idea is one of the many stereotypes that segregates the sexes.

It is curious how something as impartial as color became a distinguishing factor between the sexes. But why only pink and blue from the vast color spectrum? Is there some biological theory behind it or is it a norm structured by culture and society?

Digging into history, this color-gender norm came into being only during the 20th century, probably becoming more prominent after World War 2. In fact, girls and boys were dressed in white and that too dresses till the previous century. With the emergence of pastels(pink and blue were widely used), children were adorned in colors other than white. The earliest reference to this color scheme appeared in a June 1918 edition of the Trade publication Earnshaw's Infant's Department:

" The generally accepted rule is pink for boys and blue for girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy while blue which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl."

The idea stuck around for a couple of years, with some contemporary publications also emphasizing that colors should not be decided based on the baby's gender, but based on eye and hair color.

Pretty smart!

However, over time the clothing manufacturers sought to reject this statement and promoted the idea "pink for girls, blue for boys". The practice escalated after World war 2, as corporate marketers promoted color-based distinction between boys' and girls' clothing. The motivation? It prevents parents from handing down clothes between siblings of different sexes, hence increasing the profits for designers and manufacturers. As an explanation of this divide, manufacturers simply stated that girls liked pink while boys liked blue.

A turning point in the history of gender-color norms came during the Women's liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s which emphasized gender neutral clothing. In an upsurge of feminism, the fashion industry went through dramatic changes- from bloomers to bobbed hair to unisex wear to gender-neutral color.

But as we rolled into the 1980s, making money ruled over all existing perspectives at the time and marketing teams managed to flip the paradigm yet again.

Moving into the 21st Century, color preferences take an interesting turn. The youth of the present day provides us with a mixed opinion when asked about their favorite color. A recent study indicates vast majority prefer blue to pink and that pink is actually one of adult world's least favorite color.

So how did this shift in the spectrum occur? As it turns out, defining gender-specific colors has been a tug of war over the years with the end result being more or less a tie. Both colors( pink and blue) along with their hues are equally favored, regardless of gender.

However, we still tend to associate the color pink with femininity and blue with masculinity in some aspect or the other. Especially, while deciding clothing and types of toys for little ones.

The pink-blue color divide may seem like a trivial distinction between the sexes, but in reality, it paves way for other gender biases and forms the root of gender discrimination. Deciding on what a child should wear or what he or she should play with in order to conform to the so-called societal norms restricts it from exploring and having a mind of its own. Surveys show that children are not born into choosing a gender-specific color or toy, rather they are groomed into making such specific choices.

Be it wearing corsets in the Victorian era or being at home, women are groomed to look the part of what is considered as “feminine”. And it starts from a young, impressionable age when a child is getting to know its surroundings. The quote holds true," One is not born a woman. One becomes a woman".

But we shall not exclude the male party from this issue of gender discrimination for they are affected equally. The need to "be a man" as defined by our society puts pressure on the individual. Boys are told to be aggressive, that they cannot shed tears, that they need to indulge themselves into sports that involve physical strength. Basically don't do anything that is considered to be "girly"( for example- play with dolls, learn dance, etc). Any male indulging themselves in activities that are "girly" are often looked down upon or labeled as "gay".

Boys placing themselves on the pink side of the spectrum are assumed to be hinting at their homosexuality with the well-known logic of " boys who like boys are basically girls." Nazi concentration camp badges included a pink triangle for gay men, while lesbians were lumped into an ‘asocial elements’ group with a black triangle.

However, in the late 60s, with the rise of the LGBT movement, the balance shifted from the color of shame to that of pride. This brought in a new mindset-" Pink and Blue make purple". Purple covers everything between red (pink) and blue, and challenges fixed and extreme gender roles. Instead of just two labels-male and female, we have many, as portrayed by the LGBT rainbow flag.

In the end, we shouldn't associate our sexuality or behavior with the colors we choose. We are free to choose between pink and blue, unguided by society. And this openness comes from a young age, with good parenting. It is crucial for a parent to understand that a child can be whatever it chooses to be. We live in a time where traditional roles are questioned more often than before. A girl can like shades of blue and can love playing with cars and a boy can indulge in cooking and like hues of red or pink. Who knows, that girl grows up to be an F1 racer and that boy becomes a Michelin star chef in the future.

So, choose any color you like, irrespective of gender, society or culture. For, choice of color doesn’t define who we are, it’s our thoughts and actions that do.

Links for reference:

https://www.thelist.com/32342/real-reasons-behind-blue-boys-pink-girls/

https://munsell.com/color-blog/why-that-color-gender/

http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2014/10/pink-used-common-color-boys-blue-girls/

NOTE- I wanted to write on this topic for a very long time and I realized that there is a lot to talk about.. so I decided to provide some links which I referred to for this piece. Opinions would be appreciated on this discussion! Thanks!

[tianipeters97]

Reconciling positionality in the life of a young modern therapist

Is it too much to want to be humanized first?

The reason why we are required to check a small box in any application form that identifies us as female or male, south African or not, black, white, Indian or other, homosexual or heterosexual, employed or unemployed is a question many of us never ask ourselves and if we do, we rarely give it much thought. I imagine a world where being human is just enough. A world in which hatred, marginalization and social exclusion of a particular group of people was not embedded in our societies and political contexts. since we live in the real world where our social and political contexts form our identities. I hereby state my positionality as a black woman from a middle-class, religious family living in post-apartheid South Africa, and how this identity influenced the way I had always believed that as a woman I was obligated to a higher moral ground than men, acceptance of homosexual individuals, thinking that people living in abject poverty were just lazy, and stigma surrounding foreigners. Some of these prejudices changed as a result of a shift in positionality that is still gradually occurring.

During apartheid, religious propaganda was used to further divide people while also having a strong influence on masculinity to maintain men's superiority over women. This influence is still present in society today (Meyer, 2022). As a young black woman raised in a religious family, I had very little opportunity to express myself and explore my own understanding of whatever my family didn't believe in, in contrast to my brother, who was permitted to make his own decisions because he was a man. With this limited expression I formed a world view that was both limiting and perpetuated segregation among people of different belief systems. I had countless biases including seeing homosexuality as evil as at that time I couldn’t question what I didn’t resonate with in the bible less it be seen as acts of disrespect or blasphemy. As a result, I ascribed to gender roles where a woman’s value is based on chastity, her ability in household chores and her ability to be meek allowing a man to be the provider and the head of the household (Eisend, 2019). The importance of considering my positionality with regards to the influence of religion and my patriarchal family is that when assessing and working with communities It's critical to comprehend why some women share this belief system and why others don't. not to further divide the community, not to blame women who still have such identities, but to present an alternative way of thought to liberate and empower women in this society, to assist them examine why independence isn't granted to them and how this restricts their freedom and growth. Also, to push for equal work opportunities and occupational choices.

 The reality of living in a so called “post-apartheid, post-colonial south Africa” I say this in inverted comas due to the country currently still experiencing segregation and south African policies being of the neoliberal agenda, according to Chiweshe (2016), “south Africa has remained in late apartheid condition marked by a white strong grip on land and productive assets”. this south African context of institutional racial segregation and class have greatly influenced my view of what is regarded more of white occupations such as competing in swimming sports because for me majority of Caucasian people have access to swimming pools in their homes, so why bother right? furthermore my understanding of how to behave around Caucasian people to make them feel more comfortable or make them view black people as less barbaric and worthy of being equal in this democratic country stems from the history of apartheid. going to a mixed-race high school I was confronted with the reality of institutional racism with regards to the school policy of seeing black natural hair (Afro) as untidy and not being allowed at school. As a result, when my hair wasn’t braided, I had to use chemical relaxers or be forced to shave my hair off. Till date this experience formed an understanding of what good hair needs to look like. with this awareness of how apartheid and colonialism has shaped my identity, I got to explore the community practice with a view of how in some ways most of us are within the marginalized and socially excluded, some less than others. The realization of my positionality brings about power, the power of not only sympathizing but to assert my shifting positionality through actions in community practice.

As a construct of apartheid and colonialism being from a Middle-class family pursuing a tertiary education imbedded in a neoliberal agenda as a young black woman in opposition with inequality, patriarchy, racism, homophobia and xenophobia through Exposure to communities with foreigners and south African people living in abject poverty, one thing is clear to me. As liberated as I thought and imagined myself to be from all those factors that had previously formed a narrow narrative of the people living in south Africa some biases still held true. Yes, I have been a victim of racism, patriarchy and inequality but I have never lived through food insecurity or subjected to violence due to my nationality neither have I been subjected to poor sanitary conditions. as selfish as this was, I thought I cared for people experiencing hardship with identities that did not resonate with mine, such as being sympathetic with foreigners being burnt alive during the xenophobic attacks or with gay or lesbian people not being hired in jobs, kicked out of churches and violated due to their sexuality but in truth I only spoke up on what affected me directly.

The importance of being able to realize my positionality as a therapist in the community is to not only get rid of the stigma surrounding the marginalized but to be aware of my privileges, such as never encountering food insecurity, being able bodied or being educated. but also, to ensure that programs that are meant to empower people in a community challenge the mindset or positionality of  marginalized groups to build self esteem through programs that empower foreigners and south Africans living in poverty to fight for their independence against male superiority, financial dependence and to cultivate the essence of “ubuntu” an Isizulu term meaning humanity. To cultivate a stronger united community of people that view themselves worthy of good living conditions and respect, to advocate for humanization of this community, to acquire social justice for them.

With this stated, I acknowledge that I am a product of my social and political environment, but I refuse to remain ignorant to injustices any more. As a result, I show myself in visual form:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EJfYk5KElz2rUZvgtmb9uyysqUQ_3P_Z/view?usp=sharing

References

Meyer, J. (2022). Investigating the nature of and relation between masculinity and religiosity and/or spirituality in a postcolonial and post-apartheid South Africa. Retrieved 25 March 2022,

chisweshe, m. (2016). Social Positionality and Xenophobia: The Case of Rugby Player Tendai Mtawarira. Africology: The Journal of Pan African Studies, vol.9, no.7,.

Eisend, M. (2019). Gender Roles. Journal of Advertising, 48:1, 72-80,   DOI: 10.1080/00913367.2019.1566103

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/21/82/6a/21826a3b08c366ccaa8e8ebe30979bee.jpg

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fm.facebook.com%2Fnotinourtown%2Fphotos%2Fa.96509304578%2F10157165128254579%2F%3Ftype%3D3&psig=AOvVaw025Nb5G4RTJFKITb2o1eOB&ust=1648313387202000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAsQjRxqFwoTCNCf-K7G4vYCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD

[thatfeyboy]

Ok I've got some things to unpack here. Firstly for the sake of argument I do not agree with the trinary the queer community seems to accept. Not my thing, and I think seeing "unaligned" as a third separate category is inaccurate. I also cannot abide by masc/fem being glued to their respective associated gender as essentially a way to make them those genders. It's abhorrent.

That being said I don't think gender being described as a construct helps with this problem. In fact I think in a way it's the root of the problem. Sex/gender based segregation of course exists outside of what I'm about to talk about for different reasons but right now I'm talking about people more in the know about the queer community/gender equality.

When we just don't assign consistent meaning to words, people inevitably end up with the least common denominator definition. Unfortunately this leads to gender being taken very much at face value. Do they look visibly "female"? Are they trying to be fem? Probably a girl. Opposite? Boy. Cannot tell/obviously GNC/mixed? They/them baby. That's what is most simple, and because of our collective social environment the most intuitive. If you are progressive about gender, or to the left of hunting the homeless for sport, this is probably how you think about gender in strangers.

This isn't really malicious or anything. I think it comes from a pretty basic respect for trans people/gender self identification. If someone seems to be trying to follow fem or masc stereotypes, they might be using that as a way to express their gender even if they wouldn't otherwise "pass". If they seem mixed, then it's better to assume nothing/neutrality to avoid harm, or so the thought goes. But you'll note none of this is viewing gender as a true construct, unless the goal is to enforce said construction.

Now I get that aspects of gender as we use it are determined by societies current expectations for said gender, thereby creating a gender role. I think we can all agree that this is mostly pointless and removing those restraints and expectations is the goal. Because of this association between masc/fem and male/female, or even the concept of masc and fem are counter intuitive. They put that stereotype right back on peoples genders. This is a problem though, because people are using those markers for non verbal gender expression or for gender affirmation. This ends up putting gender as a concept into question.

We can't have gender mean all these extremely contradictory things and expect it to be understandable. Gender cannot be a a set type of expression per gender, while also having no expression associated with said gender, while also also being used as a way to describe someone's gender role assigned at birth based on sex traits, and also also also a description of the rough sex traits a person would like to possess/identifies with. This also applies to pronouns. Words are not just sounds people do or don't prefer.

I get the desire to want to say fuck it gender is whatever I say it is. When it comes to an individual telling you their gender that gender should not be up for debate no matter what. But right now this hot mess does not work.

Because it's so confusing, and the most common response to asking for clarification is that gender isn't real, people fall back on what they know. Overall, this results in the current usage of these terms as we see today.

Basically what I'm getting at is that gender is being used as an umbrella in and of itself for related but distinct phenomena. More over, it results in extreme dissonance between individuals on what gender is, let alone what people should ID as or what pronouns they should use. This is not good, as gendered terms are expressly there to indicate something about the individual. He/him cannot mean masc person, butch lesbian, man IDed person, person who likes he/him, and DMAB guy who is ok with said designation. This renders the term ineffective at expressing anything for every person involved and only results in fighting.

I'm not sure the best course of action, though I may add more later, but this problem at least needs to be recognized.

Really hate that the queer community's response to the creation of a gender trinary (girl, boy, and nonbinary) was to... reinvent the binary. We just started grouping all genders into "masc/male-aligned" and "fem/female-aligned" and it's so fucking stupid. Even with the occasional allowance of "neutral/unaligned" it still maintains the binary as the standard. And then they don't let you use certain labels if you don't have the "right" gender alignment. The fuck.

[conscientiously]

A LINE BY LINE RESPONSE TO:

Original post here, if you’re so inclined to read without my annotations. 

Let’s jump right in, shall we?

A Line by Line Analysis of “I Am A Female And I Am So Over Feminists” by Gina Davis

“I believe that I am a strong woman, but I also believe in a strong man.”

A strong man? Just one? Also, what does believing that strong men (excuse me, a strong man) exist have to do with anything?  Are you arguing that feminists don’t believe in strong men?  I don’t feel that the existence of men who are “strong” by whatever convoluted definition of that word you’re implying is a particularly debatable point, not to mention its irrelevancy.

“Beliefs are beliefs, and everyone is entitled to their opinion.”  

This is true enough in context, but you’ve already demonstrated that you confuse belief with irrefutably true fact.  Being “entitled” to hold an opinion that defies or ignores a proven statement is called ignorance, and it’s one of the biggest problems in the world today.

“I’m all about girl power, but…” 

Are you aware of the definition of feminism?

“… in today’s world, it’s getting shoved down our throats.” 

As we all know, the most unpalatable, troublesome public figures we hear about day after day after day in media coverage are all feminists working to further the cause of gender equality (looking at you, Donald Trump).  

“Relax feminists, we’re OK.”

Who exactly is the we you’re referring to here? Does it include women who are being brutally tortured, publicly shamed and killed around the globe because of their gender?  Does it include girls who are denied education because of their gender?  Does it include transgender women?  I could go on and on.  You are grossly generalizing.  Congratulations on being happy with your life—just don’t assume all women have your privilege.

“My inspiration actually came from a man (God forbid, a man has ideas these days).”  

God forbid, a woman writes an article bashing feminism without confusing women’s rights and male oppression these days.

“One afternoon my boyfriend was telling me about a discussion his class had regarding female sports and how TV stations air less female competitions than that of males.” 

At this point, you may notice my respect of your writing skills falling equal to my respect of your opinion on feminism.

“In a room where he and his other male classmate were completely outnumbered, he didn’t have much say in the discussion.” 

As an obvious expert on gender studies and sports media, I’m sure his insights on that topic would have been absolutely invaluable.

“Apparently, it was getting pretty heated in the room, and the women in the class were going on and on about how society is unfair to women in this aspect and that respect for the female population is diminishing quickly.” 

I’m not sure what your point is with this story.  The coverage of women’s sports on television is far from a top priority of any feminists I know.  It’s also not representative of the issue of global women’s rights.  It’s an irrelevant personal connection to a problem much larger than you, your boyfriend’s class, or even (God forbid) the WNBA.

“If we’re being frank here, it’s a load of bull. First of all, this is the 21st century.” 

Here, in fact, we are agreed.  It is the 21st century.  And focusing on this sub-sect of inequality that is undeniably superficial compared to the real problems real women face worldwide is a load of bull.

“Women have never been more respected. Women have more rights in the United States than anywhere else in the world.”  

Yes. This is exactly the problem that many, if not most, self-proclaimed feminists work to solve.  How much more chauvinistic can you get than to claim that since women in America have “rights,” feminism doesn’t matter anywhere?  I am not just an American woman, I am a woman of the world.  I want to show solidarity with Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani who was shot in the head on her way to school because of her gender.  I want women who have fewer opportunities than I do to know I care about them and am working to make their lives better.  Please, lift your nose out of your privilege and see the serious problems women face in our global community.

“As far as sports go, TV stations are going to air the sports that get the most ratings. On a realistic level, how many women are turning on Sports Center in the middle of the day? Not enough for TV stations to make money. It’s a business, not a boycott against female athletics.”  

I can’t believe we’re still talking about equal ESPN coverage.  And I can’t believe how sweeping your gender-based generalizations have become.  Oh wait, they’ve been this bad all along.

“Whatever happened to chivalry? Why is it so “old fashioned” to allow a man to do the dirty work or pay for meals?”  

Number of times I’ve asked myself if the author of this article knows the definition of feminism: approaching double digits.  Feminism is not about refusing to let men play historically male roles. Feminism is not about policing your personal relationship choices. In fact, it’s the opposite.  It’s letting you, as a woman and ultimately as a human being, take the role you want in your relationships and your community and your world.  And letting all other women do the same.

“Feminists claim that this is a sign of disrespect, yet when a man offers to pick up the check or help fix a flat tire (aka being a gentleman), they become offended. It seems like a bit of a double standard to me.”  

First of all, logical fallacy: almost everyone becomes offended when they are shown a sign of disrespect.  That’s not unique to feminists, and it’s not a double standard.  Also, the part that is disrespectful is when people (not always men) offer something without first asking whether another person wants it.  A culture where we don’t pay attention to what others want is a culture of normalizing and excusing rape, abuse, theft, dishonesty, and ultimately, collective egocentrism.  

“There is a distinct divide between both the mental and physical makeup of a male and female body. There is a reason for this. We are not equals.” 

There is a very simple explanation for this physical phenomena: reproduction.  You are substituting anatomical truths for sociological ones.  No feminist I’ve ever heard of is out to create a uni-gender human race. But every feminist I’ve ever heard of is out to change the ignorant beliefs that because men and women are different, we’re not equal.  

“The male is made of more muscle mass, and the woman has a more efficient brain (I mean, I think that’s pretty freaking awesome).” 

Now I see what you were saying about believing in a strong man.  You refuse to acknowledge the manhood of any men who have less muscle mass than you.  You are doing such a great job generalizing the sexes and blatantly ignoring anyone who doesn’t conform to to the two dominant categories!  I mean, I think that’s pretty freaking awesome.

“The male body is meant to endure more physically while the female is more delicate. So, quite frankly, at a certain point in life, there needs to be restrictions on integrating the two.” 

I'm sorry, are you actually arguing in favor of gender segregation? After all, that is the opposite of integration, which you say you want to restrict.  Men, you get the northern hemisphere.  We women will all live in the southern.

“For example, during that same class discussion that I mentioned before, one of the young ladies in the room complained about how the NFL does not allow female athletes. I mean, really? Can you imagine being tackled by a 220-pound linebacker? Of course not.” 

Actually, I can absolutely imagine that situation, because you can’t police my thoughts. And many women worldwide can do more than imagine it, because something similar has happened to them in their experiences with rape, abuse, or torture.  Also, how is this is still about sports?

“Our bodies are different. It’s not “inequality,” it’s just science.” 

The bodies [phenotypes] of a white man and a black man are different.  The body of a pregnant woman is different than that of a menopausal woman.  The body of a sedentary, obese person is different than that of an olympic runner.   Are there inherent inequalities in these differences, too?  Does every physical difference between people contribute to a hierarchy of superiority? Groups like the Nazis and the KKK answered yes to these questions.  And while we’re on the subject of science, does science have an answer for the pay gap that pervades its own very field of study? Can science explain religions that deny women leadership roles in them? Physical differences are not the end-all-be-all of gender inequality.

“And while I can understand the concern in regard to money and women making statistically less than men do, let’s consider some historical facts. If we think about it, women branching out into the workforce is still relatively new in terms of history.” 

Only because of millennia of patriarchal oppression.  But please, go on.

“Up until about the '80s or so, many women didn’t work as much as they do now (no disrespect to the women that did work to provide for themselves and their families—you go ladies!). We are still climbing the charts in 2016.” 

Okay, we were planning to talk about historical facts.  These seem to be historical (and present) stereotypes you didn’t bother to research.  Or perhaps they’re alternative facts.  But please, go on.

“Though there is still considered to be a glass ceiling for the working female, it’s being shattered by the perseverance and strong mentality of women everywhere.” 

Wowzers!! I had never thought of it this way before!! You mean women can take a stand against the pay gap and demand equal salaries to make their workplaces fairer for everyone?? We should come up with a term for that movement!! What do you think would be a good word to indicate a strong and persevering woman who shatters inequalities and advocates equal rights for her gender??

“So, let’s stop blaming men and society about how we continue to “struggle” and praise the female gender for working hard to make a mark on today’s workforce. We’re doing a kick-ass job, let’s stop the complaining.”  

This is like heading to the bar to celebrate the end of finals week…on Tuesday night. Disastrous. Yes, women are working hard to fix problems and they should be celebrated.  But the work is not done and the struggle (which is not imaginary nor ironic and will not be put in subliminal quotation marks here) is not over. In some places in the world, it is even getting worse. So we agree: let’s stop the complaining, Miss “I’m so over feminism,” look around us at the problems women face and get back to work.

“I consider myself to be a very strong and independent female.”

 Whoa, me too!!  And I know a lot of other women who would say the same thing!! We should, like, call ourselves something!!

“But that doesn’t mean that I feel the need to put down the opposite gender for every problem I endure. Not everything is a man’s fault.” 

You’re right; not everything is a man’s fault (the one man again though? The strong one, right?).  Who do you blame though, for the pay gap, which you’ve at least acknowledged as being real?  Or is it just no one’s fault?  When systemic sexism evolves from centuries of being entrenched in a patriarchal worldview, that’s just not worth assigning blame for?  God forbid we offend any men reading this article!  No, screw it: if you are a male, and you’re reading this, your gender is responsible for thousands of years of oppressed, forgotten, enslaved, uneducated women who could have contributed to today’s society and made the world we currently live in a brighter place.  I am not going to blame you for everything (though I could go on), but for that, I see no other instigator.  

“Let’s be realistic ladies, just as much as they are boneheads from time to time, we have the tendency to be a real pain in the tush.”  

Careful, you almost sound like you believe there is a shared characteristic between men and women!

“It’s a lot of give and take. We don’t have to pretend we don’t need our men every once in a while.”  

The infamous royal we.  You, madam, do not have to pretend you don’t need your men (I notice you shift to the plural here. Interesting choice.) every once in a while.  But I don’t have to conform to your generalizations of a female as needy, vulnerable and dependent on men.  Neither do women who choose to be single, women who choose to depend on other women, or women who don’t have the option to make these choices, who have no one, male or female, to depend on because they are isolated, imprisoned, abused, or abandoned.  

“It’s OK to be vulnerable.” 

If you met a woman who spent her childhood physically and verbally abused, forced into prostitution, and who was risking her life by asking you for advice on getting out of her current life situation, would you pat her shoulder comfortingly and say, “It’s OK to be vulnerable”?

“Men and women are meant to complement one another—not to be equal or to over-power. The genders are meant to balance each other out. There’s nothing wrong with it.” 

Your reasoning here has tied knots in my brain by its paradoxes.  If the genders are meant to complement, balance, and not overpower each other, then how can they not be equal?  In what logical reality does that make sense?  Regardless, the world we live in is not one where one gender doesn’t try to overpower the other.  Men have spent all of human history overpowering women, and they are not letting up now.  There most definitely is something wrong with that.

“I am all about being a proud woman and having confidence in what I say and do.  I believe in myself as a powerful female and human being.” 

No but really, have you even looked up feminism in the dictionary?

“However, I don’t believe that being a female entitles me to put down men and claim to be the “dominant” gender.” 

Neither do I, although I think out of fairness the men of the world should perhaps allow us to spend the next few thousand years in control and see if we end up better off than we have with them in charge.

“There is no “dominant” gender.” 

Right.  Really.  All sarcasm aside, I agree with you 100%.  That is why I identify as a feminist.  I see men around the world claiming to be the “dominant” gender every single day, and I want to set it right for my daughters and their daughters until modern gender inequality is as archaic as Adam and Eve are to us.

“There’s just men and women.  Women and men.” 

No, no, no. You were doing so good for a sentence or two there, Gina.  This article gets an A+ in perpetuating the binary gender paradigm. Whether or not you personally believe being transgender is a natural gender identification, you can’t simply will away the existence of people who identify outside “just men and women” by ignoring them.  If you want to be relevant to the feminist conversation, you need to address everyone it includes, not least among them transgender females, who are much more likely to face gender discrimination than cisgender females.

“We coincide with each other, that’s that. Time to embrace it.”  

What a specific, attainable, and empowering call to action to end this illuminating article!!  I am going to go embrace a man now and thank him for all he’s done for me and my fellow women!!  I am going to go hug my female professors and thank them for teaching me for a lower salary than their male colleagues!!  I am going to send a thank you note to my boss for allowing me to “build character” by living on lower wages than my male coworkers!!  And don’t forget about the gender segregation act taking effect next month. I’ll see all y’all men at the equator, which will be the only place we’re allowed to “coincide” from now on!!

A personal message to Gina Davis: Please, educate yourself on what the majority of feminists are fighting for.  You will find it not so different from your own views, if you think about the problems your fellow women face across the globe.  You are privileged to be a white American female, in a loving relationship with a stable income, internet access, and constitutional rights.  You are legally free to write articles that help perpetuate laws that deny other women the same exact right.  But by the same token, you could use your rights, your freedom, and your education to help further the cause of those women who lack them.

[galaxygoddess]

Transgender Sports

I’ll start off by saying that this is less of a rant and more of a thought process. It has taken me an embarrassing amount of time to come to this conclusion/realization, and people that I’m talking about will probably snack their foreheads and say “Duh!”. Forgive me if I sound stupid or ignorant at moments, it is a process to work through.

TL;DR: Banning transgender people from sports is just perpetuating the stereotype that boys are inherently stronger than girls, and girls are inherently weaker than boys.

Follow along with my ADHD brain, and you’ll see what I mean.

It started some time ago when I first saw an article about transgender kids in sports. I posted said article on my Facebook page, hoping that my transgender friend would want to comment and discuss it with me. Instead, she blocked me, and we never spoke again. That’s not really a way for me to learn anything, now, is it? I digress. So, I started thinking on the subject at random times when it would cross my mind. What IS a way to handle the whole “argument”?

Now, I preface this with two main comments: I don’t understand sports. Not in the least little bit. I never have. I don’t understand why people want to compete against other people for any real reason. Money? I guess? And second, I don’t understand the transgender experience, since I am a female who has always been female.

Those comments being said, I do think both are valid. If you want to play a sport, play a sport. If you are happier being someone new, be whomever you want to be.

Continuing along with my merry little brain pattern, I thought to myself, why not just give them their own team? Let them compete against each other and be damned what anyone else has to say. You get a team, and you get a team, everybody gets a team!

But wait, that won’t work either. It would be just as viable as my “put fences around all the state parks, so the deer won’t run into the roads” scheme. In fact, it would probably invalidate the whole point. Again, I know nothing of sports or the transgender experience…

Recently, I’ve been following these heinous laws banning transgender students from sports, and the way they want to peep in on kid’s genitals to “make sure” they are who they say they are. First of all, I may not “get” sports, but I think everyone should have a right to play what they want to play. Second, this is just a disgusting attempt at pedophilia, and no one can change my mind on that.

Once again, I returned to thinking how to “fix” this insanity, and then it hit me.

It’s not about “fixing” anything. It’s about perpetuating the stereotype that boys are inherently better than girls.

Follow along with my tiny, slow brain here. A transgender person is automatically invalid to these twatburgers who think that all people should stay the gender they’re born with. I wasn’t going to use insults, but in this case, I’ll let it slide. So, to them, you are what you are born with, and those born with both set of genitals are some sort of abomination that must be corrected right away. A transgender male is actually a female in pants and a transgender female is a boy in a dress. You know the drill.

To them, transgenders shouldn’t be allowed in sports, especially not with the team they want to play with, because a male is inherently better than a female in all things, and a girl “playing” as a male is just challenging their precious stereotypes. They don’t like that. Oh no, they do not like that at all. There is a REASON there is male teams and female teams. Everybody needs to be SEPARATE! What’s next, girls in football???  Oh wait, we already did that and proved we were good at it. HOW DARE WE?! I say that as if I play sports. I digress again.

The point being, they, the twatburgers, don’t like to be challenged. They forced women to start their own sports teams, they forced segregation in various forms. Because they do not like challenges to their perfect worlds of men being top dog. That being said, there are probably plenty of women who prefer to have their own team for various reasons, but even in my limited knowledge of sports, everything I can find shows me that women tried to join male teams, and when they couldn’t, said screw you, I’ll make my own team.

It’s all so damned simple, really. I mean, these are the same “geniuses” who thought that if a woman ran in a marathon her uterus would fall out. Not that all women even need the damned thing anyway. This whole thing just goes along with my other rant about why do people think all women should be breeders. A woman is not her reproductive cycle, mmk?

Back on topic. So, by saying that a transgender woman cannot compete with other women, that person is saying that birth men are superior to birth women in every way. If they aren’t allowing transgender men to compete with other men, they are saying that not only is a birth woman inferior to birth men, but if she does some how win, all of those men are some how worth less, and we just cannot let that happen now can we?

The more I think about it, the more my brain sighs and the more annoyed I get. Like I said in the beginning of this post, most of you will read this and go “Wow, you ARE slow.” But I take that as it is. Somethings I get immediately, others I do not. I learn. Eventually.

 If you read this whole thing, thank you. Why did I write it? Because it was on my mind and if I didn’t just get it out there, then I would just repeat it in my mind until I started to slap myself. Now it is out there for the internet to read and laugh at my slowness to something they probably already knew.

 Happy Pride month, y’all.

[helshades]

'Right-wing bigotry'

How can one otherwise so clever and rational be so blind to reason, good sense, and the crudest evidence!?

American liberals spend so much of their online time attempting to determine the 'privileges' of such or such social subgroups and yet, when facing actual issues of privilege in real life, they elect not to see them out of uncritical faith for what has become akin to religious dogma at this point.

Mediocre male athletes—when will you understand that this says nothing of their gender or chosen pronouns; male is what they are, no matter the amount of hormones they took or the surgeries they underwear, they remained biological males, with a particular muscle mass, bone density and organ size—are now properly stealing sportive recompenses from biological females—women in the old-fashioned sense of the term—with ease, met with culpable complacency far too often in the name of 'trans rights'—but what rights are we talking about, here?

The reason why sports have remained largely segregated by sex to this day is not reactionary, patriarchal sexism: it is basic logic and concern for the safety of female athletes, as well as the fairness of the sports in question, since males breaking records in female disciplines holds very little significance indeed where record-breaking is concerned.

To purport to defend the rights of transgender people by pushing transwomen into women's sports as a pure political move is dangerous. It is dangerous to transgender people. It paints the cause—the good case of their deserving to live a safe, free life as equals to the rest of society—as entirely disingenuous, a political whim detached from material reality, effectively creating more distrust from the general population.

You all are treating the issue as if it 'transness' were some sort of skin colour; but the reality is that sportive performance is relative to sexual dimorphism, which is a lot more binary in mammals than our human fluctuations around what we call gender.

You are doing your best to cover your eyes and ears whilst chanting, louder and louder, the popular mantras that 'progressive people' are meant to repeat if they want to be identified by other progressists; in the U.S., as 'liberals', since American leftists rarely get the irony of that word. As if everything but this should be questioned, because if you question this, you are magically detected as a rotten apple in the barrel, a wrong-thinker—you must stop thinking anything which you were not told to. Do you realise the insurmountable stupidity of the mechanism? Do you not see how you, you alone open the door to human rights abuse in every field?!

Brianna January at MMFA:

YouTube is helping right-wing propaganda network PragerU fundraise off of a November 16 video that attacks and misgenders trans athletes. The video has raised over $19,000 for PragerU using the YouTube Giving program – which says that nonprofits must follow YouTube’s Community Guidelines that supposedly protect trans people – and has earned over 175,000 views in just one day on YouTube.

The five-minute video, titled “The End of Women’s Sports,” on PragerU’s YouTube channel features extreme anti-LGBTQ group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) client Selina Soule, who repeatedly misgenders trans athletes, calling them “biological boys who said they were transgender girls” and suggesting that they are not “actual girls.”

Notably, ADF has sponsored the video. Earlier this year, ADF sued the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference on behalf of Soule and two other high school athletes in an attempt to ban trans athletes from competing on teams that match their gender identity.

YouTube’s hate speech policies prohibit discrimination based on gender identity

In its FAQ, YouTube Giving says that in order to be eligible for the program, nonprofits must “follow YouTube’s monetization policies both on and off of YouTube. This includes following YouTube’s Community Guidelines.” Those guidelines include a hate speech policy that states that the platform will “remove content promoting violence or hatred against individuals or groups” based on attributes including sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex or gender, as well as race, ethnicity, and immigration status.

The guideline cites examples of content that violates the policy, including videos that “allege the superiority of a group over those with any of the attributes noted above to justify violence, discrimination, segregation, or exclusion,” and videos that “allege the superiority of a group over those with any of the attributes noted above to justify violence, discrimination, segregation, or exclusion.”

PragerU’s page is filled with videos that do just this, including one that said that European countries taking in refugees from the Middle East and North Africa was a form of “suicide, the self-annihilation of a culture,” and another that features racist depictions of indigenous people. In fact, the video about trans athletes says that “YouTube restricts over 200 PragerU videos” next to the “Donate” button, as does a petition on PragerU’s site.

YouTube has flagged PragerU videos as “inappropriate” before for violating its community standards, and in February, the group lost a lawsuit against YouTube for doing so. These videos reportedly included those with titles such as “Are 1 in 5 Women Raped at College?“ and “Why Isn’t Communism as Hated as Nazism?”

Notably, YouTube has removed videos from other channels that suggest being trans is a mental illness. At least two videos currently on PragerU’s YouTube channel make this claim.

Despite the November 16 video’s anti-trans rhetoric and PragerU’s history of running afoul of community guidelines, YouTube is allowing PragerU to fundraise off of the anti-trans video.

Throughout the video, Soule misgendered trans athletes, calling them “biological boys,” and “males competing against females.” Misgendering is the act of referring to someone “as a gender other than one that a person identifies with,” and is a form of harassment that unduly stigmatizes trans people and goes against journalistic standards.

Soule also said that trans athletes are taking awards, scholarships, and opportunities from girls. She said, “Right now, biological boys are being allowed to set records on the girls’ team, deleting girls’ records, erasing the achievements of actual girls, and setting a standard probably no girl can meet no matter how much she trains or how hard she tries.” While right-wing media focus on a handful of cases of trans athletes winning, such as those who competed against Soule, they ignore the majority of trans athletes who compete and do not win.

Earlier this year, Facebook removed several political ads for making similar claims that trans athletes would “destroy girls sports,” which PolitiFact said was “missing context and could mislead people.”

In yet another sign YouTube is helping enable right-wing bigotry, the company’s giving division is helping PragerU fundraise off of transphobic attacks against trans athletes and the community at large.

[transwrongs]

i wrote a dumb essay for my english class

It isn’t about becoming a different person. Trans people already know who they are. They have and always will be the same person as they’ve always been. This is about one’s willingness to see who they've always been.

Trans voices have increasingly become more prominent in mainstream discussions about gender and sexuality. It’s time people start listening. It’s time society recognizes trans people’s right to exist as themselves. An important aspect of such recognition is the ability to exist as a standard, not an abnormality. A revolution from cisnormativity to gender neutrality is crucial to alleviating the pain of existing in a transphobic, cisnormative world.

One must understand how cisnormativity does harm. Cisnormativity is the societal assumption that everyone is cisgender until stated otherwise. First, it is biologically false that gender is split into a distinct binary. Sixth grade biology is simplified for younger audiences just as everything is simplified in grade school. But as time goes on one must eventually learn that they were not told the whole truth by their elders. Human biology is a blurry, fascinating mess of complexities. It should be widely considered ridiculous to imply with such certainty something so simple and explicit as a gender binary. Gender and sexuality are a spectrum. But the world has created a culture that removes this fact from the general public. This culture breeds the circumstances that cause trans suicide/homicide rates to be disproportionately higher than cisgender suicide/homicide rates. A culture that assumes one’s assigned gender at birth(if you do not fit into one of two categories at birth you will be corrected against your will) being the default is what cultivates the rapes and murders of trans people and women specifically. Cisnormativity undoubtedly comes with a miseducation, or lack thereof, of trans existence and experiences. The general cispublic being uneducated about the existence of trans people causes confusion and ultimately harm. Harm that manifests in bullying, sexual and/or verbal harassment, assault, rape, and murder. Those manifestations lead to the unnervingly high rates of suicide and mental health issues in the trans community.

Education is a major factor in this cultural shift as thrusting trans people into uneducated cis society is extremely dangerous. Hence why some trans people choose to live in the metaphorical closet or, if they’re lucky enough, become what is known as “stealth” which is the practice of passing as one’s identity without being “out” as a trans person. However, stealth is neither healthy nor possible for many trans people. A comprehensive sex health education is crucial. Teaching cis people about the unique and varied experiences of trans people will help more than just the trans people who pass and/or have fully transitioned. Creating a culture that encourages an exploration into gender identity helps more trans people feel safe even beginning such a journey. Acknowledging trans existence throughout history is also crucial. Showing people that trans people have been here for centuries, in every culture. Teaching people that cis is not the default, the same way fair skin and/or heterosexuality is not the default.

Society needs to become comfortable with the idea of trans people existing as equals.  Something as simple as using gender neutral language will eliminate the problems that misgendering(intentional or not) causes trans people. Eliminating the use of such bulky phrasing such as “he/she” and “him/her” because that’s not all there is. Or utilizing gender neutral bathrooms on campuses and in workplaces and restaurants will help trans people feel a little safer and more comfortable. The pain of choosing between safety and gender affirmation can be painful for binary trans people and near impossible for nonbinary people. 

The intersection of race in the discourse about gender identity is something that cannot be ignored. It’s important to acknowledge the role racism and white supremacy plays in upholding gender roles, stereotypes, and standards. The social construct of race itself is not inherently racist but it had soon been weaponized to oppress people of color. Similarly, the idea of gender is not inherently transphobic but it too has been weaponized to oppress gender ‘non-conforming’ people of color. The standards western society has for gender expression work in tandem with racist, eurocentric beauty standards to alienate and dehumanize. Caster Semenya is a cis black woman who’s won multiple Olympic medals, but she has higher testosterone levels than her competitors so, naturally, she must take hormone blockers in order for it to be ‘fair’, right? No Specifically, in areas online where the harassment of trans women is most common, it is first and foremost women of color(sometimes even cis women) who are targeted. Demonized, dehumanized, and mocked for not checking the boxes ‘real’ women are supposed to check. Deliberately antagonizing overanalyzations of people's bodies, facial structure, posture, hand size, voice pitch, and more when in reality none of those things are perfectly separated by gender. Again, gender, and how one expresses it, is a spectrum; it is immensely diverse in its manifestations.

Some might say, however, that it’s dangerous to allow trans people to live normal human lives. To be completely fair though, cis people are more dangerous to trans people than trans people are to cis people. “But now men can dress up as women and assault women in the bathrooms.” Someone says. Considering the idea that men don’t have to dress up as women to get away with assault, because they do that fine on their own with the help of a judicial system and law enforcement that does not care about rape victims, it is already wrong and immoral to assault people. This isn’t a trans issue; it is another issue among the many that this patriarchal, sexist, rape culture exhibits. Men are not inherently violent creatures. Society is teaching men that they are dominant, violent creatures. Regardless of gender though there needs to be a change with how people navigate and utilize spaces. Namely, not keeping bathrooms tucked away in a secluded corner of a room and creating comforting powder-room-like spaces makes it safer for everyone. “But what about men competing in women’s sports?” No man has ever competed in women’s categories. If they did, what about them? Why are sports separated by gender? Why not by age, weight, height, shoe size, or perhaps some other arbitrary metric? So women athletes can continue to be paid less? So women can forever be regarded as weaker and incapable? The concept of ‘fairness’ is even more reason to abolish gender segregation all together. People feel threatened by women succeeding. They only allow women to compete against each other, because when a woman beats a man at something it’ll send the superiority complex tumbling down. 

Living in this world isn’t easy and every social class tacked on to one’s person only hinders them more and more. So, is it worth it? Are trans people worth all the trouble? Should society as a whole aim to dismantle cisnormativity? Well, yes, nothing of good value is lost from eliminating cisnormativity. Gender neutrality should be the standard. It allows trans people and cis people alike to experience this world under equal opportunity, accomplish great things, and reach their full potential. It must be noted that trans people will be heard and remembered whether people want them to be or not.

[news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog]

How the Olympics can embrace non-binary athletes for the future

It's hard to remember a time before the Olympics had very open, very gay athletes like we do now, but the first openly gay Olympian didn't appear until 1988 in Seoul.

Thirty years later, there's still residual public outcry. Even Vice President Mike Pence had a low-key Twitter meltdown about openly gay ice skater Adam Rippon. So it won't be long before athletes on other parts of the LGBTQ spectrum come to the Olympics to compete and cause similar waves of gratuitous handwringing.

Of particular concern are non-binary and genderqueer athletes, or people who don't identify as either male or female and otherwise fall outside the traditional gender binary. Sports are rigidly sex-segregated, and the Olympics are no exception. It's part of the reason why non-binary athletes and activists are pushing for change at more local levels (high schools, colleges), hoping their advocacy can find a way to trickle out, downward, and up.

Whether the Olympics will be prepared for them is a whole other story — and it's something advocates behind the scenes are working hard to change.

SEE ALSO: Laverne Cox makes history as the first trans woman on the cover of Cosmo

Lauren Lubin is a non-binary athlete, advocate, and founder of the "We Exist" campaign for non-binary inclusion in sports. Lubin —who uses they, them, and their pronouns —  made headlines when they became the first non-binary athlete to compete in the New York City Marathon in 2016. 

For Lubin, the first step in helping the Olympics to embrace non-binary athletes is simple recognition. Many people, the athlete contends, aren't aware this community exists at all. Genderqueer and non-binary athletes often don't make their presence known out of fear of rejection.

"Recognition is the most fundamental step — and our first major obstacle," Lubin says. "You can't have hopes, dreams, and aspirations if you're not recognized ... And sports, systematically, is the most entrenched [institution] in gender norms."

Lubin is working to elevate the community by focusing on basic education. Their upcoming film, We Exist: Beyond the Binary, centers stories from non-binary, genderfluid, and genderqueer people. Once some kind of baseline recognition is achieved, Lubin hopes, it'll be easier for non-binary athletes to make waves in the Olympics and elsewhere — easier, not easy, being the operative word. 

Trailer - We Exist: Beyond the Binary from We Exist: Beyond the Binary on Vimeo.

The obstacles facing gender and non-binary athletes differ from other athletes on the LGBTQ spectrum. An athlete's sexual orientation doesn't challenge the gender binary in sports — gay men and lesbian women can still compete in their separate, sex-segregated divisions. Trans athletes cause more moral panic than cisgender gay athletes, but trans women and trans men still fall into our culture's gender binary system, even as they challenge its violently cruel rigidity.

Chris Mosier understands this dilemma well. As a triathlete, Mosier became the first openly trans athlete to compete on a U.S. National Team when he joined Team USA's sprint duathlon men's team for the 2016 World Championship. Through his work at Transathlete, Mosier fights for trans* inclusion at all levels of sports, identifying key disparities along the way.

Chris Mosier speaks onstage during the Beyond Sport United conference at BRIC House in July 2017.

Image: dia dipasupil/Getty Images

"We are trying to get transgender athletes full inclusion in sports. Depending on the sport and league, policies [for trans athletes] are all over the place," Mosier says. "We haven't even begun to discuss the inclusion of non-binary and genderqueer athletes in sports. Most people are just not ready for it yet. Even leagues that are trans-inclusive struggle to understand where genderqueer athletes fit or ... where they would play ... There's a lack of understanding of what that means." 

The struggle is real and painfully slow. Genderqueer and non-binary athletes on the ground, even on college levels, are nonetheless trying to fill that gap. 

Twenty-two-year-old G Ryan is a genderqueer swimmer who competes for the University of Michigan. Though the Olympics are a long way off for Ryan (who uses they, them, and their pronouns), they have identified concrete, tangible steps every college can take to better serve non-binary and genderqueer athletes — guidelines that more prestigious leagues and competitions like the Olympics could stand to learn from.

"I have helped to install gender-inclusive restrooms ... We have a gender-inclusive intramural recreation building," Ryan says. "It's really hard when you're non-binary and really challenging to manage dysphoria in gendered spaces." 

Those experiencing gender dysphoria can feel discomfort, dissatisfaction, or conflict with the sex or gender label assigned to them at birth. Non-binary athletes like Ryan are particularly vulnerable to these kinds of challenges, especially when they're asked to navigate sex-segregated spaces.

"One of the great ways to combat that is language and establishing linguistic choices that are inclusive," Ryan says.

Though Ryan participates as part of a women's team, the group avoids the gendered label in practice, and instead informally refers to itself as "Team 43." It's the team's way of embracing all of its members' gender identities, even if it's just conversationally. Ryan views "Team 43" as an imperfect model, even as they identify multiple ways forward for non-binary and genderqueer inclusion in sports. 

For sports leagues that want to continue to have men's and women's teams, Ryan argues, non-binary athletes should be able to choose which team they participate in. Teams should use more trans- and non-binary-inclusive language. Leagues should have more relaxed uniform requirements, which are challenging for anyone who doesn't fit conventional gender norms. Bathrooms and locker rooms should be gender-inclusive. 

These are minor adjustments that Ryan believes could have a systemic impact on every level of sport, including both collegiate and Olympic.

Don't angrily tell me "this is the women's room", Apologize "I thought you were a man...sorry" then say to your friend while I can hear you "Oh my God, that was so embarrassing. How was I supposed to know? I thought it was a guy!" I'm not an 'it'.

— G Ryan (@G_RRyan) January 21, 2018

It's also possible to have sports leagues that don't have segregated men's and women's leagues, Ryan explains. 

"It's all about giving people the additional choice," they say.

There are plenty of reasons to be hopeful. In January 2016, the International Olympic Committee wrote new guidelines making it easier for trans athletes to participate in the Olympics. Trans men can now compete against other men without restriction. Trans women now no longer need gender re-assignment surgery to compete. (However, the IOC still requires trans women to undergo at least one year of hormone replacement therapy in order to participate.)

And trans athletes have their sights set on 2020. New Zealand weightlifter and trans woman Laurel Hubbard, as well as American volleyball player and trans athlete Tia Thompson, are both fighting to compete in Tokyo.

IOC guidelines currently don't say anything about non-binary athletes. Lubin is confident the Olympics will soon having non-binary athletes competing, whether they're conscious of it or not.

"We have amnesia about our own history," Lubin says. "It's silly to think there won't be any [non-binary] athletes. We exist."

Title IX, which mandated inclusion for women in sports, was passed only 46 years ago, Lubin reminds us. Think of how many female athletes we've seen rise to international fame since then.

"My hope in the years to come — the easiest, most basic step any committee can take — is recognizing internally that there are and will be non-binary athletes. That's the beginning," Lubin says. "And that alone communicates so much more to the entire world of sports."

WATCH: The history of Pride

[inside-sport]

IAAF: Sensitive question but are you even a woman?

The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) introduced the one of many sex tests back in 1966, with the aim of ending suspicions concerning the sex of particular female athletes (Bohuon and Rodriquez, 2016). The aim of the humiliating and replaceable process was to identify which athletes are “real women” and who are not acceptable to the IAAF’s ideology and deemed as too masculine for women’s sport (Bohuon and Rodriquez, 2016).  

After several revised and decreed visions of the test, in 2011 and 2012 the IAAF and International Olympic Committee (IOC) both created controversial policies that measure the amount of natural testosterone in professional female athletes (Karkazis and Jordan-Young, 2015). Basically, if a female competitor has more natural testosterone (T) than what is classified as the “normal” level for women or show male characteristics, two outrageous options are available (Karkazis and Jordan-Young, 2015 and Newbould, 2015). First women must lower their testosterone level through surgery or antiandrogens alternatively stop competing (Karkazis and Jordan-Young, 2015 and Newbould, 2015).

On the other hand, the reasoning for the tests being so debateable is that measuring testosterone can be a real problem due to the fact that testosterone is a liquid meaning that the amount of T within the body can change. For example, intense resistance training and short duration exercise are associated with increased T levels (Karkazis and Jordan-Young, 2015).

With this, athletes could argue the reasoning for the naturally high T result is just a bioproduct of their demanding training timetable, or even a benefit of their training, as athletes train to improve and give themselves the highest possible change of winning. In addition, could we question the timing of the tests, as women with high levels of natural T are usually made aware through a doping test which are performed after competition.

Moving on, sex testing is not just a scientific issue but also a taboo topic around social and ethic concern (Dworkin, and Cookey, 2012). As Vertinsky, et al (2013) argues that female athletes who have “failed” sex tests become a target for public scrutiny and ridicule, sporting achievements removed, loss of sponsorship, scholarships and breakdowns of relationships and social support networks.

In the case of Caster Semenya the statement above is completely accurate, as Elisa Cusma Piccione an Italian runner who finished 6th in the 800-meter final of the Berlin World Athletic Championships in 2009 (Caster Sementya finished 1st), stated that “these kind of people should not run with us. For me, she is not a woman. She’s a man” (Camporesi and Maugeri, 2016:47). Piccione, clearly demonstrates an uneducated negative view, the wording of the statement “these kinds of people” indicates that she feels Sementya is no longer worthy of a title and does not warrant a place within society.

Undoubtedly, the public mockery and exclusion did not stop there, but fuelled by the media no sensitivity was applied to the situation. Headlines consisted of “women, man or little bit of both” and her sex up for public debate for the world to give opinions who have little knowledge of the case. Understandably, this caused Semenya great stress as Leonard Chuene, the head of South African athletics said “she is trembling about the media. She cannot understand why she is being treated like this” (Smith, 2009).

Finally, does fair sport competition require athletes to be equal in very factor of their performance, as no regards for natural talents have been applied here and how can something which is natural to classified as ‘inequality’ (Vertinsky, et al 2013).

N0635930

Reference List

Bohuon, A. and Rodriquez, E. (2016). Gender verification vs. anti-doping policies. In: S. Montanola and A. Olivesi, ed., Gender Testing in Sport: Ethics cases and controversies, 1st ed. Oxon: Routledge.

Camporesi, S. and Maugeri, P. (2016) Unfair advantage and the myth of the level playing field in IAAF and IOC policies on hyperandrogenism. . In: S. Montanola and A. Olivesi, ed., Gender Testing in Sport: Ethics cases and controversies, 1st ed. Oxon: Routledge.

Dworkin, S. and Cookey, C.(2012). Sport, Sex Segregation and Sex Testing: Critical Reflections on This Unjust Marriage. The American Journal of Bioethics, 12(7)  pp.21-23.

 Farquhar, G. (2017). Semenya's sex test explained. [Blog] BBC Sport Gordon Farquhar's Blog. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/gordonfarquhar/2009/08/this_must_be_an_awful.html [Accessed 10 Nov. 2017].

Karkazis, K. and Jordan-Young, R. (2015). Debating a testosterone sex gap. Insights, 348(6237), pp.858-860.

Newbould, M. (2015). What do we do about women athletes with tests? J Med Ethics. 42 pp.256-259.

Smith, D. (2017). Caster Semenya row: 'Who are white people to question the makeup of an African girl? It is racism'. The Guardian. [online] Available at:https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2009/aug/23/caster-semenya-athletics-gender [Accessed 9 Nov. 2017].

Vertinsky, P. Wells, S., & Van Veen, S. (2013). Fairness as a Floating Signifier: Seeking Gender Justice in Elite Sport. In M. Vaczi (ed). Playing Fields: Power, Practice, and Passion in Sport. (pp. 37-60). Reno, NV: Centre for Basque Studies.

[gdcmolly]

Case Study 2: The Guerilla Girls

This movement began during the 1980’s where means of communication were far different to the early 20th century mentioned previously. People were now able to spread their ideas and opinions more widely due to mass communications and media. The sense of identity had now changed immensely due to a number of factors. One being the fact that the fashion industry had become massively successful and more accepting of sexuality and androgynous fashion with the likes of David Bowie and Boy George becoming extremely successful and sporting more feminine styles of fashion such as nail varnish, makeup and even skirts. The American civil rights movement of the 1950’s and 60’s saw the banning of discrimination against race, gender, religion and ethnicity as well as the banning of racial segregation in public spaces. The many events that took place during this movement had hugely impacted the world and there was now a new sense of freedom and equality, especially in the United States. Whilst equality seemed to be moving forward in the world, in the United States women in the art industry were still enraged by the unfair and sexist treatment that they were receiving.

Similarly to the Suffragettes, the Guerrilla Girls decided to create a very recognisable identity for themselves but this time through the use of costume. The Guerrilla Girls formed in New York in 1985, they were an anonymous women’s political group that were fighting against the sexism that they were being exposed to in the art industry. “Art in the western world has been and largely remains a male bastion, with women constantly seeking to scale the fortress walls, and it is only to be expected that recognition in the art world would be a goal for many art-school-trained women seeking enfranchisement” (Leventon M:2005 p.25) The Guerrilla Girls amongst many other women in the industry were dissatisfied with the fact that they were working in an industry with significantly lower prospects for success for women. As well as this there was a great deal of gender stereotyping and sexual harassment towards women in the world of art. They felt like women were being treated as second class citizens that did not belong in the art industry and often received advice to quit their passion and pursue more traditional roles in the household. They were often even told to become an art teacher but only with their husbands’ permission. This understandably became extremely frustrating to these female artists as they were not being taken seriously in their industry and field of passion even with their equal education, expertise and professionalism.

Whilst this inequality was an ongoing concern for women in the industry, the major turning point was the 1984 exhibition titled ‘An International Survey of Recent Painting and Sculpture’ in the Museum of Modern Art where 165 artists from 17 different countries displayed their artwork. Only 12 of these artists were women. It was at this point that the Guerrilla Girls formed. The Guerrilla Girls’ main motive was to expose the level of gender and racial inequality that the fine art industry had imposed on women to the media and greater community. The group originally planned on wearing ski masks but a spelling mistake of ‘Guerilla’ as ‘Gorilla’ gave them the idea of wearing gorilla masks in order to remain anonymous. As well as using the masks to remain anonymous, each member chose to name themselves after a famous female artist and addressed each other with these names when in the media. For example Frida Kahlo and Aphra Behn. Whilst these disguises successfully hid their identity, they also served as a way of assuming new identities as political activists.

As well as using costume to gain attention, the Guerrilla Girls created humorous and bold posters showcasing and reinforcing their beliefs that were shown across the city and in mass media. With all the attention that they were receiving, the Guerrilla Girls started to become feminist icons. Whilst these posters and campaigns were often black, white and typographic, the inclusion of images and collages of the Guerrilla Girls themselves added humour. Humour was crucial when it came to the Guerrilla Girl’s identities and campaigns as it assisted in defeating the stereotype of the overly serious feminist. They wanted to lighten the public’s overall idea of strong minded feminist women and the gorilla masks help them stray away from these stereotypes as they were now seen as a group of activists as opposed to the then assumed stereotype of argumentative and hate fuelled women. Their print campaigns were exceptionally clear and presented the world with accurate statistics showing the racism, sexism and general unfair treatment of women in the fine art industry. The posters and campaigns were extremely successful at commercialising their own ideas, which helped them widen their audience and gain supporters.

Their new anonymous identities and the fact that they were fighting toward a political cause referenced the idea of a masked vigilante, similar to popular fictional characters like Catwoman or Zorro. This was one of the reasons that the Guerrilla Girls gained so much popularity, it was a real life group of masked vigilantes fighting for a very non-fictional and important cause. This gave a more entertaining approach to protest and it fuelled interest and attention to not only the Guerrilla Girls but also the cause that they were fighting toward. The fact that the masks hid their true identities meant that the public was focusing solely on their ideas and outlook, and people were now associating their costume with the importance of moving forward in women’s rights. Through their use of costume, they had found a way to successfully be viewed solely as their cause.

By choosing to hide their true identities, the Guerrilla Girls were able to successfully obtain a new social and political identity as feminist activists. Without the masks, their campaign would not be nearly as successful. This is due to the fact that it is human nature to be curious, if the true identities of each of the Guerrilla Girls was somehow exposed it would attract attention to their personal lives and their own artistic style and practice especially at this moment in time when mass communication and news media was very popular. By choosing to abolish the current acceptable means of fashion and representation at the time, they were strengthening their campaign. As mentioned previously, the idea of a masked vigilante appealed to many as it was not something that anyone had seen outside of comic books or on television. It created attention, intrigue and helped them gain attention and supporters.

Knowing that their united look was one of the strengths in their fight towards equality, they were able to create a successful branding approach to their campaigns in order to commercialise their protest ideas. These campaigns were of course executed with the inclusion of their gorilla masks as strong imagery in order to entertain and appeal to a wider audience. Though their practice and execution was very different to that of the Suffragettes. Both groups were able to abolish feminist stereotypes that were common at the time of their campaigning. Rather than following the approach that the Suffragettes took that involved enforcing fashion etiquette in order to create a united political identity and be taken seriously, the Guerrilla Girls chose to remove themselves from the feminist stereotype by using humour to break fashion etiquette and the common understanding of style. By using humour and costume in their personas and campaigns they were able to become recognised by the general public and media. It is important to consider the fact that the Guerrilla Girls were able to gain a lot of media attention and expose a problem in a very niche community that the majority of the public were not able to personally relate to. The fact that they were able to do this shows the levels of their success. Though the art industry today is still largely run by men, the gap is decreasing and there is definitely more acceptance of women artists today than in the 1980’s when the Guerrilla Girls formed. The Guerrilla Girls exposed the issue of inequality to many people across the globe and without a doubt made a huge impact on the art industry. Due to this the Guerrilla Girls are another very successful example of how fashion etiquette can greatly affect political identity. The Guerrilla Girls are still activists today and continue to fight against inequality in the art world but now have broadened their protest to fight towards more equality in politics, film and pop culture as well as the art industry.

[keepyourgoodheart]

If men are from Mars and women are from Venus, it may explain at     least one of their shared beliefs: Men and women can't be real friends.    Blame the sexual tension that almost inevitably exists between any     red-blooded, heterosexual man and woman. Point to the jealousy that     plagues many rational people when a significant other befriends someone     of the opposite sex. Boil it down to the inherent differences between the     sexes. It just can't be done. Right?

Wrong, relationship experts have said. "The belief that men and women     can't be friends comes from another era in which women were at home and     men were in the workplace, and the only way they could get together was     for romance," explained Linda Sapadin, a psychologist in Valley Stream, New York. "Now they work together and share     sports interests and socialize together." This cultural shift has     encouraged psychologists, sociologists and communications experts to put     forth a new message: Though it may be tricky, men and women can     successfully become close friends. What's more, there are good reasons for them to do so.

Society has long singled out romance as the prototypical     male-female relationship because it spawns babies and keeps the life     cycle going; cross-sex friendship, as researchers call it, has been     either ignored or trivialized. We have rules for how to act in romantic     relationships (flirt, date, get married, have kids) and even same-sex     friendships (boys relate by doing activities together, girls by talking     and sharing). But there are so few platonic male-female friendships on     display that we're at a loss to even define these     relationships.

Part of this confusion stems from the media. A certain classic film     starring Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal convinced a nation of moviegoers that     sex always comes between men and women, making true friendship    impossible. "When Harry Met Sally set the potential for male-female     friendship back about 25 years," said Michael Monsour, assistant     professor of communications at the University of Colorado at Denver and     author of Women and Men as Friends. Television hasn't helped     either. "Almost every time you see a male-female friendship, it winds up     turning into romance," Monsour noted. Think Sam and Diane or Chandler and     Monica. These cultural images are hard to overcome, he said. It's no     wonder we expect that men and women are always on the road to     romance.

But that's only one of the major barriers. Don O'Meara,     Ph.D., at the University of Cincinnati-Raymond     Walters College, published a landmark study in the journal Sex Roles on     the top impediments to cross-sex friendship. "I started my research     because one of my best friends is a woman," said O'Meara. "She said, 'Do     you think anyone else has the incredible friendship we do?'" He decided     to find out, and after reviewing the scant existing research, O'Meara identified the following challenges to     male-female friendship: defining it, dealing with sexual attraction,     seeing each other as equals, facing people's responses to the     relationship and meeting in the first place.

CHALLENGE #1

Defining the Relationship: Friends or Lovers?

Platonic love does exist, O'Meara asserted, and a study of 20 pairs     of friends published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships lends credence to the notion. In it, Heidi Reeder, at Boise State University, confirmed that "friendship     attraction" or a connection devoid of lust, is a bona fide type of bond     that people experience. Distinguishing between romantic, sexual and     friendly feelings, however, can be exceedingly difficult.

"People don't know what feelings are appropriate toward the     opposite sex, unless they're what our culture defines as appropriate,"     said O'Meara. "You know you love someone and enjoy them as a person, but     not enough to date or marry them. What does this mean?"

CHALLENGE #2

Overcoming Attraction: Let's Talk About Sex

The reality that sexual attraction could suddenly enter the     equation of a cross-sex friendship uninvited is always lurking in the    background. A simple, platonic hug could instantaneously take on a more     amorous meaning. "You're trying to do a friend-friend thing," said     O'Meara, "but the male-female parts of you get in the way." Unwelcome or     not, the attraction is difficult to ignore.

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In a study published in the Journal of Social and     Personal Relationships, Sapadin asked more than 150 professional men and     women what they liked and disliked about their cross-sex friendships.     Topping women's list of dislikes: sexual tension. Men, on the other hand,     more frequently replied that sexual attraction was a prime reason for    initiating a friendship, and that it could even deepen a friendship.     Either way, 62 percent of all subjects reported that sexual tension was     present in their cross-sex friendships.

CHALLENGE #3

Establishing Equality: The Power Play

Friendship should be a pairing of equals. But, O'Meara said, "in a    culture where men have always been more equal than women, male dominance,     prestige and power is baggage that both men and women are likely to bring     to a relationship." Women are at risk of subconsciously adopting a more     submissive role in cross-sex friendships, he said, although that is     slowly changing as society begins to treat both genders more     equally.

CHALLENGE #4

The Public Eye: Dealing with Doubters

Society may not be entirely ready for friendships between men and     women that have no sexual subtext. People with close friends of the     opposite sex are often barraged with nudging, winking and skepticism:     "Are you really just friends?" This is especially true, said O'Meara, of     older adults, who grew up when men and women were off-limits to each     other until marriage.

CHALLENGE #5

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The Meeting Place: Finding Friends

As the workplace and other social arenas become increasingly open     to women, the sexes are mingling more and more. Still, men and women    continue to have surprisingly few opportunities to interact.

"Boys and girls form their own gender groups in elementary school,"     explained Monsour. "They learn their own ways of relating to each other.     So when they do get together, inspired by puberty, they see each other as     dating partners because they've never really known each other as     friends." A surprisingly major factor in this phenomenon is the kids' own     innate interest in children who act like they do. Called "voluntary     gender segregation," it continues into adulthood. "You see it at cocktail     parties," said Monsour. "Men go off to one corner, and women go to     another."

These obstacles may seem numerous and formidable, but male-female     friendship is becoming not only a possibility but also a necessity. If    men and women are to work, play and coexist in modern society,     researchers believe men and women must learn to understand and     communicate with each other. To that end, social scientists like Sapadin,     Monsour and O'Meara have studied how to do just that. The field of     research is still in its infancy, but they are now beginning to     understand some basic truths about male-female friendship:

TRUTH #1

Friendship Is Not Equal Opportunity

Not until high school does puberty really draw boys and girls     together, which then continues into college. But as people develop     serious romantic relationships or get married, making and maintaining     cross-sex friendships becomes harder. "Even the most secure people in a     strong marriage probably don't want a spouse to be establishing a new     friendship, especially with someone who's very attractive," said     Monsour.

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The number of cross-sex friendships continues to decline with     age—not surprising, because most older adults grew up in an age where    consorting with the opposite sex outside of wedlock was taboo. According     to Rosemary Blieszner, at Virginia Tech and author of Adult Friendship, elderly people rarely form new friendships with members of the opposite sex. Her research shows that only about 2 percent of the friendships elderly women have are with men.

TRUTH #2

Men Benefit More from Cross-Sex Friendship

There are proven—and apparent—distinct differences between female     friendship and male friendship. Women spend the majority of their time    together discussing their thoughts and feelings, while men tend to be far     more group-oriented. Males gather to play sports or travel or talk stock     quotes; rarely do they share feelings or personal reflections. This may     explain why they seem to get far more out of cross-sex friendship than     their female counterparts.

In Sapadin's study, men rated cross-sex friendships as being much     higher in overall quality, enjoyment and nurturance than their same-sex     friendships. What they reported liking most was talking and relating to     women—something they can't do with their buddies. Meanwhile, women rated     their same-sex friendships higher on all these counts. They expect more     emotional rewards from friendship than men do, explained Sapadin, so     they're easily disappointed when they don't receive them. "Women confide     in women," noted Blieszner. "Men confide in women."

TRUTH #3

...But Women Benefit, Too

All that sharing and discussing in female-female friendship can     become exhausting, as any woman who's stayed up all night comforting a     brokenhearted girlfriend can attest. With men, women can joke and banter     without any emotional baggage. "Friendships with men are lighter, more     fun," said Sapadin. "Men aren't so sensitive about things." Some women in     her study also liked the protective, familial and casual warmth they got     from men, viewing them as surrogate big brothers. What they liked most of     all, however, was getting some insight into what guys really     think.

TRUTH #4

Cross-Sex Friendships Are Emotionally Rewarding

Although women dig men's lighthearted attitude, most male-female     friendships resemble women's emotionally involving friendships more than     they do men's activity-oriented relationships, according to Kathy     Werking, at Eastern Kentucky University and author of We're Just Good Friends. Her work has shown that the number one thing male and female friends do together is talk one-on-one. Other activities they prefer—like dining     out and going for drives—simply facilitate that communication. In fact,     Werking found, close male-female friends are extremely emotionally     supportive if they continuously examine their feelings, opinions and     ideas. "Males appreciate this because it tends not to be a part of their     same-sex friendships," she said. "Females appreciate garnering the male     perspective."

TRUTH #5

It's Not All About Sex

"In reality, sex isn't always on the agenda," said Werking. "That     could be due to sexual orientation, lack of physical attraction or     involvement in another romantic relationship." After all, even friends     who are attracted to each other may also recognize that qualities they     tolerate in a friendship wouldn't necessarily work in a serious romantic     relationship. And after years of considering someone as a friend, it     often becomes difficult to see a cross-sex pal as a romantic     possibility.

Of pairs that do face the question of lust, those that decide early     on to bypass an uncertain romantic relationship are more likely to have     an enduring friendship, says Werking. One study by Walid Afifi, of Penn State University, showed that of more than 300 college students surveyed, 67     percent reported having had sex with a friend. Interestingly, 56 percent     of those subjects did not transition the friendship into a romantic     relationship, suggesting that they preferred friendship over sex.

TRUTH #6

Male-Female Friendships Are Political

Men and women have increasingly similar rights, opportunities and     interests, which can make cross-sex friendship very political, noted    Werking. "It upsets the agreed-upon social order," she explains. "Women     and men engage in an equal relationship, or they aren't friends." For one     thing, new generations of kids grow up believing that boys can play with     dolls and girls can take kickboxing, and they're crossing paths more     frequently as a result.

Men and women are also becoming more androgynous as their societal    roles become more similar. "Men are more willing to have feminine     characteristics, and women are a lot more willing to admit to     traditionally masculine characteristics, like assertiveness," said     Monsour. His dissertation showed that women and men categorized as     androgynous had twice the number of cross-sex friends.

Whatever the challenges of male-female friendship, researchers     agree that to succeed as friends, both genders have to openly and     honestly negotiate exactly what their relationship will mean—whether     sexual attraction is a factor and how they'll deal with it—and establish     boundaries. In Afifi's and Reeder's studies, the friendships that     survived—and even thrived—after sex or attraction came into play were     those in which the friends extensively discussed the meaning of the     sexual activity and felt confident and positive about each other's     feelings. Once they got past that, they were home free.

"If sex is part of the dynamic, addressing it explicitly is the     best strategy" for making sure the friendship survives, said Werking.    "The issue will fester if friends try to ignore it." So in the end,    male-female friendship does have something in common with romantic     relationships: To work, communication is key.

Researchers tell us that men and women can be friends. But do we     really believe them? A survey of more than 1,450 members of the Match.com     dating site revealed that we're an optimistic bunch:

Do you believe men and women can be platonic friends?

Have you had a platonic friendship that crossed the line and     became romantic or sexual?

Who is more likely to misinterpret the intimacy of friendship     for sexual desire?

Is it possible to fall in love with someone who first enters     your life as a friend?

Do you hope that when you do fall in love, your partner will     have started out as your friend?

Who is better at keeping sex out of a platonic     relationship?

Yes: 83%

No: 11%

Unsure: 6%

Yes: 62%

No: 36%

Unsure: 2%

Men: 64%

Women: 25%

Unsure: 11%

Yes: 94%

No: 4%

Unsure: 2%

Yes: 71%

No: 9%

Unsure: 20%

Men: 13%

Women: 67%

Unsure: 20%