April 18 Readings

Of the three reading assignments, I have actually read two of them before. In Professor Morris's class, we were given Pansies on Parade and I'm The Queen of the Bitches. While the reading about Mae West was earlier on in the class, Pansies on Parade was closer to 3/4th through the class, if not further. They were definitely interesting reads. I personally enjoyed the Mae West one more because she fascinated me and the idea that cross dressing and acting gaily was allowed on stage at one point when homosexuality was still extremely shunned. Perhaps if Mae West didn't create the play revealing the underground life and truth that the actors were in fact gay, or transgender, then there would not have been such an uproar to shut down everyone. The past is the past though, and there's not much to do about that. I still think that the majority of the gay community loved her anyway.
In Professor Morris's class, we talked more about it being a "gay community" thing, but I'm thinking now that it was more reflective on the T in LGBT. The actors were more of drag queens and "cross dressers" (or transsexual individuals). Perhaps this bothered the normative community overall more than the possibility of homosexuality. I'm curious if LG or B members felt that they were "stained" or affiliated with transgender. After the newspapers talked about Mae West's play, people probably assumed that every LGBT person was actually transgender, but called it "gay", and failed to recognize a difference- which perhaps may have been for the better.
As for Pansies on Parade, I found certain parts of it to have interesting information. I liked that some LGBT people could go into the streets late at night and be who they wanted to be. I'm sure there were conservative LGBT members who wished that the "other" LGBT people would stop putting on a show and bringing out the underground life. It's sad that LGBT members weren't allowed to play in Broadway or performances anymore, which I'm sure they thank Mae for. However, as much as society seemed to repent them, they also seemed extremely curious. They were constantly in the media and people constantly came to see the "pansy" life, and not all the comments were negative. People tried to capitalize on this interest though, and that led to many books being published. On one of the pages, we see some of the books or plays. Of particular notice is the play " 'Chained' A Forceful Picture of the Third Sex: The Story of a Male Captive". Sounds like it's about a transgender man that wants to be a woman to me.
I also liked learning about the vogue culture. Society has no clue how much they borrow or take from LGBT culture. The poses in the magazines, the dancing, the entire idea of Vogue itself? Not only is it from the gay community, but it's from the African American community. (Insert double gasp!) Your practical rank in society was based on your vogue abilities and depended on what house you were from. I liked that there was a house "mother". I loved that she acted as a mother than most of the others never had, and that she was  such a figurehead. At least they seem to have each other in the dark hours. I don't know if all of the House Mothers went by she, but I would assume.
Now, as for the last reading on "Queer Blues", I liked the mention that African women only had a shot in musical history around when Bessie Smith was alive and then when rap and disco became popular. Nowhere in between did they have recognition or an appearance in media. Also, in the section "Movin' On", I recognized Zora Neale Hurston's name. I've had to read "Their Eyes Were Watching God" twice in high school. I personally didn't like it, especially because it was an assigned reading, and reading black vernacular out loud in a "reading circle" of unenthusiastic potheads was mind numbing, but I can appreciate the author's success. I feel that Literature was the only place that African Americans  could have a chance in the media, but even this was a challenge. Fortunately though, there were enough writers that made it into the media, that they were able to write about and represent various economical classes and lifestyles from different regions. Their work was powerful, too. Blues singers had even more ability to express their emotions. They had fewer word to express their pains and feelings with, but they filled those words with meaning. The meaning could be read multiple ways though and it often included LGBTesque topics or themes. The reading talks about how one references to masochism. At least if would give members of the community something to look into at their time.Perhaps because it was written by African Americans, the lyrics weren't looked into as much. Otherwise, people may have noticed the homosexual innuendos and such. But, instead, people figured that the women were writing as perspectives of or narrators of males.
I feel that in the classes that I have taken, Africa American and Caucasian LGBT members were the only races we looked at in history. Maybe they were the only ones recorded in history at the time, but I remember reading Latino or Chicana LGBT works in a class out of UCLA. At my community college, I had a lesbian professor (and she was the coolest person I've met; I have her on my facebook and she has been my favorite professor) and she had us read something by Anzuldua. I know it exists across the spectrum, but I think we ignore some races and perspectives (such as Asian, Middle Eastern, ect).

April 16th Readings

I really hate the time period this book was set in. I hated how extremely feminine and helpless the women were supposed to be. I hated how emotional they were taught to be, how simple-minded, how manipulated they were, and how they were overall as females. I was practically grinding my teeth when Stephen was sitting in the "tea" party with the two her age. Whimpering lips and crying or screaming because they tea party isn't going your way? Especially when the conversation is not about you at all and there are bigger and more important issues going on? The girl just annoyed e in every possible way. She wanted to grow up an be a "good housewife", which, okay sure, it's nice to be a good wife, but to only want to sit and knit or being valued based on your abilities to do such? I know it's just how things were and that's just what happened at that period. I'm not some extreme, raging, feminist, but it sets me off.
I'm glad that Stephen's character wasn't forced to be as feminine and that her father let her do more of what she wanted. However, when she was asked to leave the family for her father's sake (which in my pinion was really just for the mother's), I was angry. Pride and honor take place over child? Way to be fucked up, society. Yeah, it happens, but it shouldn't. I don't even really understand how that conversation went and why Stephen was so willing. It was manipulative.
When she went into her dad's study and find's "Krafft Ebing's book", I knew it was Psychopathia Sexualis. How Stephen was supposed to be able to read and understand that book at her age only adds to how fictitious this book is. If the author read that book, wouldn't he know that Stephen wasn't strictly a lesbian? I obviously don't know what's in the book exactly, but if Stephen wasn't interested in being female, she probably didn't like them either-or at least the ones around her in a hyper feminized way. I wouldn't say she was a butch either, as she was more of a tomboy. I liked being a tomboy and I still like doing more manly things than female. I'll take hunting over knitting of cooking any day. I'd rather wear pants than a dress. I'd hate to have my hair done. I wouldn't want to go off in war and marry someone to start a family, but maybe as a man I actually would for my pride and self-interest. I don't feel like I would be a good mother, but maybe a better father, but this is all a different topic. I feel like she was officially diagnosed by her father without even getting to know her. Wouldn't someone at the time bring in doctors all the time to help their child? When she started talking about the bible, I kind of just drifted out. I don't know anything about the bible or it's contents, and I asked a Catholic friend to summarize the whole "marked" thing to me, but I still didn't understand it in the context of the reading. She didn't murder or lie to a god, so why was she marked? She could be marked with a curse, but then the religious reference wouldn't be necessary. Any religious references went over my head, so my understanding of the reading is probably much less than those of others.
I found it very important that when Stephen was having her breakdown while reading the books that she asked why nobody told her because she thought she was alone, when in fact, she wasn't. She at least found that there are others like her in some way or another, and that she wasn't the only cursed being in the span of existence. It's important that she's not alone. If she had moved to the city for work with the mindset that she was alone, it would have taken her much longer to figure out that there were those around her with similar experiences and feelings. She might not have ever realized it. She found Mary, and I'm not sure if I understood this right, but she also helped find Valerie by helping her find herself. She said "...you're the coming winter... 'you were Valerie Seymour's lion."
As for the analysis on the book itself, I understood maybe a fourth of it. It was a little unnecessarily over-academic and you had to think about every sentence to process it (but maybe I should stop reading these at midnight so I can actually think). The book is famed for being about a lesbian, which is incorrect, but in fact about an invert. I didn't completely understand what an invert was, even though we talked about it. We'll probably talk about it today though, which will help. There was less reading from the analysis than the book but I think I spent more time reading the analysis and it felt like it was longer. Some of the religious references were kind of explained, but they're still out of my knowledge. I liked that Stephen was given that she would at least be able to write and have some fame from her perspective given "what she was". It gave her at least that something. The analysis says that transsexual individuals weren't talked about until the 40's, but this would probably be a case of such.

April 11th Reading Journal

I did not see anything relevant to transsexual or transgender topics in this reading, or at least, I was not able to discern anything of the like from the text. I understood the intro part about Socrates wanting to brainwash the current and future generations into something he believed. If it weren't for that this is how society generally follows today, I would say that it isn't fair for one man to dictate the entire mindsets and beings of people to their single idea. They might now even be right. Who are they to decide how people interact and function in society? Perhaps a different approach could work. Perhaps this is why society is loosely framed like this though. I wasn't sure if this was a tale or an actual account of how our idea of how communities members rank relates back to this initial point. 

Ranks don't really make members of the community feel all too great when they're placed at the bottom tiers. Nobody really likes to talk about it. In League of Legends, a online video game, members are ranked in tiers from Bronze to Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, ect, and people in Bronze tiers generally don't like to talk about their position to their friends. Although this is about the functionality of running a society and having more access to decisions, I believe that anyone can be meant to have leadership or certain skills and that people shouldn't be told what they are destined to be stuck with for the rest of their lives. I'm generally annoyed by governments or ruling power because it seems reserved for those who pass the tests of being born to the right family, having money, and/or having charisma. I am aware that this section wasn't just talking about the highest tiers of rulers; it does split the lower and higher classes apart. 

Toward the end of the reading, the author talks about biological determinism, which they define as "a theory of limits" that "takes the current status of groups as a measure of where they should and must be". It mentions that there are some individuals, however, that manage to rise from their status through some luck in their biology. Although it isn't explicitly stated, this relates back to the beginning of the reading with Socrates wanting to teach a caste system of ranks upon populations. Perhaps he did a service, but perhaps it was also a possible disservice because people could be "falsely identified as lying within". 

Hermaphrodites (April 8 readings)

To be honest, I found the block of reading on Hermaphrodites to be a bit boring and hard to understand. There were definitely parts that were easier to read, but because the author writes lengthy sentences and sometimes scientific references, it's harder to follow (especially right after eating dinner). My thought toward the end of the reading was primarily that I still didn't really completely understand what a hermaphrodite was, or what their idea of one was.
I thought that hermaphrodites were individuals with both male and female genitalia, where one may be more underdeveloped than the other, or where there would be a functional vagina but the clitoris had become a small penis. After the reading, I realize that there are more classifications for certain types of hermaphrodites, but the line is very lightly drawn. I wasn't quite clear on their final conclusion, as earlier they had said the borders weren't necessarily strictly defined.
I remember when I first really herd the word "hermaphrodite" being used. It was when people believed that Lady Gaga had a penis. I'm not 100% sure what the end result was because in 2009, I never paid attention to media, but going to Youtube just now, I think it was visibly clarified that she did have a penis to some extent. I doubt that most people knew what a hermaphrodite even was/what it meant, but they used it in a derogatory sense and instantly began referring to Lady Gaga as a man. Just because there was a penis doesn't make her a man. She has (or I would assume) that she has a vagina, so wouldn't that just cancel out to make her a woman or hermaphrodite? After that main rush of drama went down, I didn't really hear much about the concept of hermaphrodites again, or at least for a few years.
I stated the idea that I had before reading the article as to what I believed to be a hermaphrodite. I wouldn't say that too much has changed except that I would now add those with unclear genitals to the umbrella term. Generally, though, I  imagine deformed male/female genitals, or underdeveloped genitals. I am curious, however, as to how their mental processes or brain may function similarly or differently. Depending on the ratio of male dominant hormones to female (or if they're the same- I don't know), they might think more masculinity or femininely. Maybe the emotional teen years may be mentally harsher or easier on them (assuming they aren't being given shit in school if others know they have both sexual organs or if they appear "different"). We still don't understand the human brain and we can't know what people think or how they see the world, but I'm sure it would be from some slightly different variation from the set standard. The reading briefly mentioned how, in development, two growing forms may merge to create one growing individual. Listening to Teardrop by Massive Attack reminded me of House and CSI where an episode of two may focus on an individual that this has happened to (or twins), and how they seem uncomfortably "different" or "freaky". They seem off and their mental processes may differ, as well as their actions. Would an individual that was made of a potential sibling in their makeup lead to some un/supernatural difference? (I apologize or going off on a tangent from the reading, but the reading reminded me of this. )
I don't believe that you really hear about hermaphrodite individuals much in society. Homosexuality is much more common and talked about whereas there is such a minute population in comparison that are hermaphrodites. In American society, I would find it hard to believe that certain individuals wouldn't know that they had differently shaped genitals- ESPECIALLY with porn so easily accessible. Both males and females can watch it, or see images on the internet. With media's demands in society to be beautiful or to fit a mold, you would think someone would notice something was "wrong" or "different" (to standards of society).
Additionally, because the population of hermaphrodites in society is so few, I feel that they are an extremely under-represented group, and don't fit into many criteria. They might even, or undoubtedly also find themselves not suiting into the LGBTQ alphabet soup. This, is where I predict some of what we will be talking about will take place.
I didn't really find myself compelled to anything in the 6 page document.

Journal 1: Transgender Warriors

When I first started reading the assignment and the author mentioned that there were cultures that accepted, or even embraced, same sex relationships, I immediately thought of my American Indian Studies class that I took in the fall. Later, when Leslie showed a map and list of places and groups of people that accepted same sex love, I saw some of the Native American tribes and peoples that we covered in the class. Leslie said that it is a highly Western manufactured idea that same-sex marriages/relationships/ect are unacceptable. I've found myself believing the same thing. However, I also believe that it a Christian expanded idea. Some Native Americans worshiped same sex lovers simply because it was still love and love was a sacred feeling. It's sad that we don't really learn about this in school. I took a sociology class, and even there, within our study of cultures, I never learned about non heterosexual cultures. We learned about different sexual orientations and briefly covered the difference between gender and sex, with transgenders a short mention. So, I found it extremely interesting that there were cultures with such early MTF or other transsexual behaviors, especially within their religions.
When mention of mythology and gods/goddesses came up, I remembered back to tenth grade when we learned about Greek and Roman mythology (mostly Greek). When we covered the various gods and their stories, there was no connection made to cross-dressing or how there may have been representations of sex swaps. For example, Athena was just described as being a warrior and dressing more suitably for such. Other gods and goddesses, such as Kainesus and Dionysus, weren't mentioned for being transgender  Dionysus was just "womanish" because he was less masculine in that he was the god of wine, harvest, ecstasy, and non-manly traits (where war, death, ruin, and stronger traits would be more suited). Interpretation various with ignorance or exposure. If I had the knowledge that I have now, after taking Mitchell Morris's class and having an honors contract with him, I may have put some pieces together. History is told in such a one-sided and opinionated manner. Whoever has power or forces power controls how history is written and how things are taught in the future. It's written by winners, and unfortunately, anyone other than heterosexual males of power, aren't winners. Therefore, history is told to focus on straight and powerful men. It has no focus on women or anyone "different", such as LGBTQ members of society. I'm amazed at how my professors have found writings on the subject, especially if they're older than 1969, because I simply didn't think that it existed. I've been very ignorant about LGBT history, and even more so about the T. My transgender friends probably would be amazed as well.
Another group of people that I've learned about much differently were the Amazons. My mother was tall, big, and strong when she was young, and as an insult she would get called an Amazon. My mom's understand of that meant "a huge woman who ran around shirtless" and primitively lived to kill people and were violent, unintelligent people. When I learned bits and pieces from other sources, I formed my own idea as a group or tribe of strong, independent, female warriors that, as Leslie thought, embraced their women identity. As far as Greek ideas of Amazons, I would have believed in the right-breast reduction for archery (if right handed) and never thought about some transgender concept. I may have expected both breasts to be removed because they would have been in the way or a burden in combat. Overall, I thought they hated men and wouldn't strive to be like them as part of their belief, but that only shows how much I know (nothing). (On a separate note, I found her mention of women carrying around giant phalluses to be amusing and something I would like to learn more about for the sake of unique knowledge. )
Unfortunately, many of the references that Leslie makes are to myths, stories, and tales, which makes them her arguments more speculative and about what their culture may have believed, rather than what they actually practiced. This doesn't discredit her ideas in my opinion though. It proves that transgender is not a modern idea or practice. It just shows that most records are in the use of stories rather than history, with the exception of the shamans and priestesses.
Overall, the read was interesting and I was reminded of previous learning experiences about the subject, but that were reviewed in entirely different manners. I also realized that Leslie Feinberg's face looked familiar once I googled hir. I'm currently reading Stone Butch Blues, and ze it the author. What an awesome surprise.