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Reading Sandy Stone I have been reading Sandy Stone's The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto. This manifesto launched the transgender politics of the nineties by breaking with the Classical Transsexual worldview. When it was published in 1991 it signaled an era of fresh thinking about transgender. Remember that Judith Butler's Gender Trouble was also published in 1991. With Butler's deconstruction of Sex and Gender we had new tools to understand ourselves. Stone could ask herself what it meant to be Transsexual if the Gender Binary were a construct. In the following quote Stone talks about the Classical Transsexual idea of being born in the "wrong" body neither the investigators nor the transsexuals have taken the step of problematizing "wrong body" as an adequate descriptive category. In fact "wrong body" has come, virtually by default, to define the syndrome. and it still does in much of mainstream trans discourse. Under the binary phallocratic founding myth by which Western bodies and subjects are authorized, only one body per gendered subject is "right". All other bodies are wrong. This idea of "wrong body" pathologizes gender variance as a birth defect which is "fixed" by body modification. Questioning "variance as pathology" has even become "politically incorrect" in some circles because it is the foundational block of so many people's identities. However, it is based on a poor understanding of biology. Recent brain science has confirmed that biology mixes behavioral sex and somatic sex all of the time. There is nothing "wrong" with my somatically male body being combined with a female behavioral sex. The pathology is a society which enforces extreme taboos against femininity among somatic males. The strength of this policing forces me to change my body, or even go stealth in order to have my woman-ness recognized. My woman-ness is just as real and just as biological as the woman-ness of both trans-women and cisgendered women. Do I need to modify my body in order to be a "real" woman? Can body modification make you a "real" woman, or is body modification a social act which attempts to end the dissonance between behavioral sex ? Subconscious Sex Serano's idea of subconscious sex even tries to biologize the "wrong" body model. In her model if you have female "Subconscious Sex" and a somatically male body you feel body dysphoria and are compelled to transition. Body dysphoria becomes the biological marker of the "real" transsexual. If I do not transition that means that I have the male subconscious sex gene. That makes transitioners and non-transitioners biologically different. She attempts to make transsexual and no-ho transgender into a biological division. As I have reported in my Feminism and Brain Sex video series, Serano's subconscious sex has no basis in empirical biology. What we are calling brain sex is actually innate behavioral sex. We are not born with gender identities, we are born with sexed behavioral patterns. A transitioner has the same brain biology as a no hormone transgender.
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Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Thursday, December 09, 2010
Heterosexuality = Hijras
Can I suggest that politics is also highly gendered. Just like things fall in the category of masculine and feminine, political ideology also has its types. Considering my own bias for the feminine, I would argue that there are forces, which support the democratic process, and hence can be rated as feminine. Those that favor authoritarian-military rule fall in the category of masculine. In Pakistan’s case there is yet another category of political heterosexuals. These are individuals or forces that might pretend to be feminine but are actually the other, or they tend to swing both ways. Therefore, politics has increasingly become the game played by political hijras (eunuchs) or heterosexuals.
To give an example a few weeks ago Farahnaz Isphani’s company organized a show at the Pakistan National Council of Arts, Islamabad where the chief guest were the PM, Yusuf Raza Gillani and the now ‘extended’ army chief Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani. For those, who are not familiar with the lady, she is a PPPP parliamentarian and wife of Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington, Hussain Haqqani. She was formerly a booker for CNN before getting a job with VoA which she had to leave because of the company’s internal politics and her poor management. Anyway, the news is that this event happened exactly after her husband shook hands with the army chief.
This country and its politics seems to be a great example of political heterosexuality – everyone ready to bugger the other and offering their own service to the more powerful. Farahnaz’s case is not new. The government’s foreign minister falls in the same category. He seems pretty keen to become ‘His Master’s Voice’. Shah Mehmood Qureshi’s recent letter to the UN in which he objected to the fingers raised by the international organization on the military and its intelligence agencies during investigation of Benazir Bhutto’s murder is one of the many examples. Why should it surprise anyone at all? Its nothing new that the great sajjada nasheen has done. I remember a dinner party at the US ambassador Wendy Chamberlain’s house in Islamabad. She had invited a few people for dinner including JI’s Liaquat Baluch, the NRB fame Lt. General (retd) Tanveer Naqvi, Shah Mehmood Qureshi and a few others. I can’t forget how pir sahib was singing praises of the devolution of democracy plan carved out by the general and making all efforts to make the general happy. “Oh it is a great program and we are making tremendous progress in strengthening of democracy” was the pir’s refrain. He was then commanding the local government in Multan. It didn’t matter that his party chief BB, who was then alive, did not agree with the devolution formula. In any case, the pir from Multan has this toothpaste or a traitor smile.
The other examples being Zia-ul-Haq and the present head of the state. You don’t know what are they hiding inside. But who cares? Shah Mehmood Qureshi wanted to save his little fiefdom in Multan. This puts him in the category of political eunuchs which means that they are not what we think they look like.
The pir sahib’s political heterosexuality is, unfortunately, a manufacturing defect. He was born with it. He seems to have taken after his father Makhdoom Sajjad Qureshi. While Sajjad Qureshi was the governor of Punjab General Zia, who was both the President and army chief then, happened to visit Lahore data darbar. As the dictator got out of the mausoleum Makhdoom Sajjad Qureshi, who was also then the sajjada nasheen of a great shrine in Multan, put Zia’s shoes in front of him with his own hands. This is called saving ones backside or knowing which side the bread is buttered, and then really applying lots of it on the toast . But its this over-obsession with saving the backside which turns a lot of politicians towards political heterosexuality. While they pretend to be for the democratic forces, there heart lies elsewhere.
Moreover, this is not limited to the PPPP. Look at PML-N where the younger brother has been in bed with the military for a long time assisted by other political heterosexual like one particular chaudhry who actually looks like one in reality as well. Not to forget the PML-Q which is defined by its political heterosexuality. Deep-center, look at the great pir sahib of Pagara sharif who has played second fiddle to the GHQ. Interestingly, the pir sahib was quite powerful during Zia’s regime and is held responsible for thwarting the procurement of newer Type-23 British frigates and supported the case for the old Type-21s. The pir sahib is related with pir Yusuf Raza Gillani, Makhdoom Ahmed Mehmood (PML-Q), Tasneem Nawaz Gardezi and other political stalwarts. Marriage was a great tool to connect European courts during the days of monarchical and feudal Europe. Dig a bit deeper and you will find familiar names – people involved in getting the Bhutto government of the 1970s in trouble by leaking secrets of dalai camp to the press, or the legal community working closely with the military. Some would like to say “is hamam mein sab nangey hein” (all in this bath are naked). This is not about nudity but about political sexual preference.Nothing odd in this behavior except that the elites tend to service their interests first. Shah Mehmood Qureshi or other pirs like him represent a certain vested interest. Given Pakistan’s patronage based political system, an individual politician’s capability is gauged on his power to extract resources (all kinds) from the state. This formula does not produce democrats but hijras. 64 years after independence the patronage based political system has turned the tide in a way that civil-military relations must be carefully re-evaluated. There is now an abundance of political hijras and military hijras (these are military personnel pretending to be pro-democracy while they just use the concept to further their own political objectives. Most just want to remain in circulation through the media and the conference circuit and not die away like frogs).(continued)
Source: Dr. Ayesha Siddiqa blog
To give an example a few weeks ago Farahnaz Isphani’s company organized a show at the Pakistan National Council of Arts, Islamabad where the chief guest were the PM, Yusuf Raza Gillani and the now ‘extended’ army chief Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani. For those, who are not familiar with the lady, she is a PPPP parliamentarian and wife of Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington, Hussain Haqqani. She was formerly a booker for CNN before getting a job with VoA which she had to leave because of the company’s internal politics and her poor management. Anyway, the news is that this event happened exactly after her husband shook hands with the army chief.
This country and its politics seems to be a great example of political heterosexuality – everyone ready to bugger the other and offering their own service to the more powerful. Farahnaz’s case is not new. The government’s foreign minister falls in the same category. He seems pretty keen to become ‘His Master’s Voice’. Shah Mehmood Qureshi’s recent letter to the UN in which he objected to the fingers raised by the international organization on the military and its intelligence agencies during investigation of Benazir Bhutto’s murder is one of the many examples. Why should it surprise anyone at all? Its nothing new that the great sajjada nasheen has done. I remember a dinner party at the US ambassador Wendy Chamberlain’s house in Islamabad. She had invited a few people for dinner including JI’s Liaquat Baluch, the NRB fame Lt. General (retd) Tanveer Naqvi, Shah Mehmood Qureshi and a few others. I can’t forget how pir sahib was singing praises of the devolution of democracy plan carved out by the general and making all efforts to make the general happy. “Oh it is a great program and we are making tremendous progress in strengthening of democracy” was the pir’s refrain. He was then commanding the local government in Multan. It didn’t matter that his party chief BB, who was then alive, did not agree with the devolution formula. In any case, the pir from Multan has this toothpaste or a traitor smile.
The other examples being Zia-ul-Haq and the present head of the state. You don’t know what are they hiding inside. But who cares? Shah Mehmood Qureshi wanted to save his little fiefdom in Multan. This puts him in the category of political eunuchs which means that they are not what we think they look like.
The pir sahib’s political heterosexuality is, unfortunately, a manufacturing defect. He was born with it. He seems to have taken after his father Makhdoom Sajjad Qureshi. While Sajjad Qureshi was the governor of Punjab General Zia, who was both the President and army chief then, happened to visit Lahore data darbar. As the dictator got out of the mausoleum Makhdoom Sajjad Qureshi, who was also then the sajjada nasheen of a great shrine in Multan, put Zia’s shoes in front of him with his own hands. This is called saving ones backside or knowing which side the bread is buttered, and then really applying lots of it on the toast . But its this over-obsession with saving the backside which turns a lot of politicians towards political heterosexuality. While they pretend to be for the democratic forces, there heart lies elsewhere.
Moreover, this is not limited to the PPPP. Look at PML-N where the younger brother has been in bed with the military for a long time assisted by other political heterosexual like one particular chaudhry who actually looks like one in reality as well. Not to forget the PML-Q which is defined by its political heterosexuality. Deep-center, look at the great pir sahib of Pagara sharif who has played second fiddle to the GHQ. Interestingly, the pir sahib was quite powerful during Zia’s regime and is held responsible for thwarting the procurement of newer Type-23 British frigates and supported the case for the old Type-21s. The pir sahib is related with pir Yusuf Raza Gillani, Makhdoom Ahmed Mehmood (PML-Q), Tasneem Nawaz Gardezi and other political stalwarts. Marriage was a great tool to connect European courts during the days of monarchical and feudal Europe. Dig a bit deeper and you will find familiar names – people involved in getting the Bhutto government of the 1970s in trouble by leaking secrets of dalai camp to the press, or the legal community working closely with the military. Some would like to say “is hamam mein sab nangey hein” (all in this bath are naked). This is not about nudity but about political sexual preference.Nothing odd in this behavior except that the elites tend to service their interests first. Shah Mehmood Qureshi or other pirs like him represent a certain vested interest. Given Pakistan’s patronage based political system, an individual politician’s capability is gauged on his power to extract resources (all kinds) from the state. This formula does not produce democrats but hijras. 64 years after independence the patronage based political system has turned the tide in a way that civil-military relations must be carefully re-evaluated. There is now an abundance of political hijras and military hijras (these are military personnel pretending to be pro-democracy while they just use the concept to further their own political objectives. Most just want to remain in circulation through the media and the conference circuit and not die away like frogs).(continued)
Source: Dr. Ayesha Siddiqa blog
Wednesday, September 08, 2010
Heterosexuality is Queer and so is heterosexual brand of manhood
Michael Chabon - Modern Manhood, An Amateur's Guide
NPR looks at Chabon's Modern Manhood, An Amateur's Guide.
Modern Manhood, An Amateur's Guide
by Heller McAlpin
In a controversial New York Times "Modern Love" column, Michael Chabon's wife, Ayelet Waldman, confessed that she'd have a harder time losing her husband than one of their children. After reading Chabon's Manhood for Amateurs, you'll understand why.
He emerges from these 39 beautifully written personal essays as a prince among men. Not only does he produce dazzling novels that have given genre fiction literary cachet — including The Yiddish Policemen's Union (2007) and his Pulitzer Prize-winning Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2001) — he also cooks, cleans, markets and gets his children to their appointments — and counts himself fortunate to be in a position to do so.
Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father and Son
By Michael Chabon
Hardcover, 320 pages
Harper
List price: $25.99
Read An Excerpt
There have been no shortage of books on motherhood, but daddy diaries are a growing phenomenon. Chabon raises the bar with his often poignant meditations on manhood, fatherhood and aspects of his own childhood. Most of these loosely connected essays, which add up to an episodic autobiography of sorts, first appeared in Details magazine. In addition to the gorgeous prose for which he is celebrated, several lovely qualities shine through.
For starters, Chabon clearly adores and respects his mother. After his parents divorced when he was 12, his mother got her law degree and a federal job in D.C. Chabon took over dinner preparations. Instead of feeling put-upon, he expresses gratitude at having grown up "during a time of dissolving boundaries," when it was all right for a boy to want to emulate his mother.
Michael Chabon Reads 'The Hand On My Shoulder'
[15 min 46 sec]
Add to Playlist
As for his wife, in an essay titled "Looking for Trouble," Chabon offers a tribute to "quick, mercurial, intemperate" Waldman. In marrying her, he says he "answered the call of adventure," and he's thankful he did. In another nod to Waldman, he notes the disparity between expectations for fathers and mothers: "The handy thing about being a father is that the historic standard is so pitifully low."
More than marriage or writing, these essays focus on the wonders of childhood and parenting. Chabon loves the intimacy of domesticity — though he is circumspect with private details. He writes movingly that in his four children he has found "a band of companions" with whom to share various enthusiasms, something he pointedly missed when his pediatrician father moved away after his parents' divorce.
Enlarge Vince Bucci/Getty Images
Michael Chabon told the Weekly Reader that he knew he wanted to be a writer when his first short story, a class assignment, about Sherlock Holmes got an A. "I thought to myself, 'That's it. That's what I want to do. I can do this.' And I never had any second thoughts or doubts."
Chabon takes his kids to junky movies and erects elaborate Lego constructions with them, but he is concerned that today's kids, deprived of the open-ended play, unsupervised landscapes and vast stretches of free time that characterized his own childhood, have too little room for imagination. He worries that he is bringing up "free-range children" who, like chickens raised to near-maturity in a controlled environment, don't actually "range" much even when the doors of freedom are thrown open.
Although Chabon's subjects range from sex at 15 with a divorced friend of his mother's to pocketbooks for men, the thread that ties Manhood for Amateurs together isn't a purse string, but the idea that fandom — being an amateur "driven by passion and obsession" to "explore the imaginary world" — is what connects him not only to his children, but to his writing.
Excerpt: 'Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son'
by Michael Chabon
Michael Chabon Reads "The Hand On My Shoulder"
[15 min 46 sec]
Add to Playlist
Transcript
Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son
By Michael Chabon
Paperback, 320 pages
Harper
List price: $25.99
The Hand on My Shoulder
I didn't play golf, and he had never smoked marijuana. I was a nail chewer, inclined to brood, and dubious of the motives of other people. He was big and placid, uniformly kind to strangers and friends, and never went anywhere without whistling a little song. I minored in philosophy. He fell asleep watching television. He fell asleep in movie theaters, too, and occasionally, I suspected, while driving. He had been in the navy during World War II, which taught him, he said, to sleep whenever he could. I, still troubled no doubt by perplexing questions of ontology and epistemology raised during my brief flirtation with logical positivism ten years earlier, was an insomniac. I was also a Jew, of a sort; he was, when required, an Episcopalian.
He was not a big man, but his voice boomed, and his hands were meaty, and in repose there was something august about his heavy midwestern features: pale blue eyes that, in the absence of hopefulness, might have looked severe; prominent, straight nose and heavy jowls that, in the absence of mirth, might have seemed imperious and disapproving. Mirth and hopefulness, however, were never absent from his face. Some people, one imagines, may be naturally dauntless and buoyant of heart, but with him, good spirits always seemed, far more admirably, to be the product of a strict program of self-improvement in his youth — he believed, like most truly modest men, in the absolute virtue of self-improvement — which had wrought deep, essential changes in a nature inclined by birth to the darker view and gloominess that cropped up elsewhere in the family tree. He didn't seem to be happy out of some secret knowledge of the essential goodness of the world, or from having fought his way through grief and adversity to a hard-won sense of his place in it; they were simple qualities, his good humor and his optimism, unexamined, automatic, stubborn. I never failed to take comfort in his presence.
The meaning of divorce will elude us as long as we are blind to the meaning of marriage, as I think at the start we must all be. Marriage seems — at least it seemed to an absurdly young man in the summer of 1987, standing on the sun-drenched patio of an elegant house on Lake Washington — to be an activity, like chess or tennis or a rumba contest, that we embark upon in tandem while everyone who loves us stands around and hopes for the best. We have no inkling of the fervor of their hope, nor of the ways in which our marriage, that collective endeavor, will be constructed from and burdened with their love.
When I look back — always an unreliable procedure, I know — it seems to have been a case of love at first sight. I met him, his wife, and their yellow beach house all on the same day. It was a square-pillared bungalow, clapboard and shake, the color of yellow gingham, with a steep pitched roof and a porch that looked out over a frigid but tranquil bay of brackish water. His wife, like him in the last years of a vigorous middle age, had been coming to this stretch of beach since early in her girlhood, and for both her and her daughter, whom I was shortly to marry, it was more heavily and richly layered with memories, associations, artifacts, and stories than any place any member of my own family had lived since we had left Europe seventy years before. Everything about this family was like that. My future mother-in-law lived in the house in Seattle where she had been born. My father-in-law had grown up down the road in Portland. They had met at the University of Washington. Everyone they knew, they had known for longer than I'd been alive. All the restaurants they favored had been in business for years, they were charter members of their country club, and in some cases they did business with the sons of tradesmen they had dealt with in the early days of their marriage. A journey through the drawers, closets, and cabinets of their house in town yielded a virtual commercial and social history of Seattle, in the form of old matchboxes, rulers, pens, memo pads, napkins, shot glasses, candy tins, golf tees, coat hangers; years and years' worth of lagniappes, giveaways, souvenirs, and mementos bearing the names, in typefaces of four decades, of plumbing supply companies, fuel oil dealers, newlyweds, dry cleaners, men and women celebrating birthdays and anniversaries.
God, it was a seductive thing to a deracinated, assimilated, uncertain, wandering young Jew whose own parents had not been married for years and no longer lived anywhere near the house in Maryland where, for want of a truer candidate, he had more or less grown up. They were in many ways classic WASPs, to be sure, golfing, khaki-wearing, gin-drinking WASPs. The appeal of such people and their kind of world to a young man such as I was has been well-documented in film and literature; perhaps enough to seem by now a bit outdated. But it wasn't, finally, a matter of class or style, though they had both. I fell in love with their rootedness, with the visible and palpable continuity of their history as a family in Seattle, with their ability to bring a box of photographs taken thirty summers earlier and show me the room I was sitting in before it was painted white, the madrone trees that screened the porch before two fell over, the woman I was going to marry digging for geoduck clams on the beach where she had just lain sunbathing.
Of course, they were more than a kind of attractive gift wrap for their photographs, houses, and the historical contents of their drawers. They were ordinary, problematical people, my in-laws, forty years into a complicated marriage, and over the course of my own brief marriage to their daughter, I came to love and appreciate them both as individuals, on their merits and, as my marriage began so quickly to sour, for the endurance of their partnership. They had that blind, towering doggedness of the World War II generation. I suppose it's possible that with two daughters, they'd always wanted a son, my father-in-law especially; I do know for certain that I have never been one to refuse the opportunity to add another father to my collection.
He offered himself completely, without reservation, though in his own particular, not to say limited, way (it is this inherent limited quality of fathers and their love that motivates collectors like me to try to amass a complete set). He took me down to Nordstrom, the original store in downtown Seattle, and introduced me to the man who sold him his suits. I bought myself a few good square-cut, sober-colored numbers in a style that would not have drawn a second glance on Yesler Way in 1954. He introduced me to the woman from whom he bought jewelry for his wife, to the man who took care of his car, to all of the golf buddies and cronies whose sons he had been admiring from afar for the last thirty years. He was a bit barrel chested anyway, but whenever we went anywhere together and, as was all but inevitable, ran into someone he knew, his breast, introducing me, seemed to grow an inch broader, the hand on my shoulder would administer a little fighttrainer massage, and I would feel him — as first the wedding and, later, the putative grandchildren drew nearer — placing, for that moment, all his hopes in me. He took me to football games, basketball games, baseball games. He let me drive his Cadillac; naturally, he never drove anything else. Most of all, however — most important to both of us — he let me hang out in his den.
As the child of divorced parents, myself divorced, and a writer trained by five hundred years of European and American literary history always to search out the worm in the bud, I have, of necessity, become a close observer of other people's marriages. I have noticed that in nearly all the longest-lived ones, if there is space enough in the house, each partner will have a room to flee to. If, however, there is only one room to spare, it will always be the husband's. My in-laws had plenty of room, but while she had her office just off the bedroom (where I would sometimes see her sitting at a Chinese desk, writing a letter or searching for an article clipped from Town & Country about flavoring ice creams with edible flowers), my mother-in-law's appeared to serve a largely ceremonial function.
My father-in-law, on the other hand, sometimes seemed to live down in the basement. His office, like him, was mostly about golf. The carpet was Bermuda-grass green, the walls were hung with maps of St. Andrews and framed New Yorker covers of duffers, and the various hats, ashtrays, hassocks, cigarette lighters, plaques, novelty telephones, and trophies around the room were shaped like golf balls, tees, mashies, mulligans, and I don't know what. In the midst of all this sat an enormous black Robber Baron desk with matching black Captain Nemo chair; an old, vaguely Japanese-looking coffee table on its last tour of duty in the house; a cyclopean television; and a reclining armchair and sofa, both covered in wool patterned with the tartan of some unknown but no doubt staunch, whiskey-drinking, golf-wild highland clan.
It is for just such circumstances, in which two men with little in common may find themselves thrown together with no other recourse than to make friends, that sports were invented. When my wife and I visited I went downstairs, flopped on the sofa, and watched a game with my father-in-law. He made himself a C.C. and soda, and sometimes, to complete the picture, I let him mix one for me. Like many men of my generation, I found solace when unhappy in placing quotation marks around myself and everything I did. There was I, an "unhappy husband," drinking a "cocktail" and "watching the game." This was the only room in the house where I was permitted to smoke — I have long since quit — and I made the most of it (a man's den often serves the same desublimating function in the household as Mardi Gras or Las Vegas in the world; a different law obtains there). We spent hours together, cheering on Art Monk and Carlton Fisk and other men whose names, when by chance they arise now, can summon up that entire era of whiskey and football and the smell of new Coupe de Ville, when the biggest mistake I ever made came home to roost, and I briefly had one of the best fathers I've ever found.
My ex-wife and I — I won't go into the details — had good times and bad times, fought and were silent, tried and gave up and tried some more before finally throwing in the towel, focused, with the special self-absorption of the miserable, on our minute drama and its reverberations in our own chests. All the while, the people who loved us were not sitting there whispering behind their hands like spectators at a chess match. They were putting our photographs in frames on their walls. They were uniting our names over and over on the outsides of envelopes that bore anniversary wishes and recipes clipped from newspapers. They were putting our birthdays in their address books, knitting us socks, studying the fluctuating fortunes of our own favorite hitters every morning in the box scores. They were working us into the fabric of their lives. When at last we broke all those promises that we thought we had made only to each other, in an act of faithlessness whose mutuality appeared somehow to make it all right, we tore that fabric, not irrecoverably but deeply. We had no idea how quickly two families can work to weave themselves together. When I saw him sometime later at his mother's funeral in Portland, my father-in-law told me that the day my divorce from his daughter came through was the saddest one in his life. Maybe that was when I started to understand what had happened.
What was I now to him? How can it have felt to have been divorced by someone he treated like a son? These are not considerations that comfort me or make me especially proud. I try to remind myself that in the long course of his life, I occupied only a tiny span of years toward the end, when everything gleams with an unconvincing luster, moving too quickly to be real. And I try to forget that for a short while I formed a layer, however thin, in the deep stratigraphy of his family, so that some later explorer, rummaging through the drawers of his big old desk, might brush aside a scorecard from the 1967 PGA Pacific Northwest Open signed by Arnold Palmer, or an old pencil-style typewriter eraser with a stiff brush on one end, stamped queen city ribbon co., and turn up a faded photograph of me, in my sober blue suit, flower in my lapel, looking as if I knew what I was doing.
From Manhood For Amateurs by Michael Chabon. Copyright 2009 by Michael Chabon. Published by Harper. Used by permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.
Posted by WH at 8:05 AM
Labels: culture, fiction, masculinity
NPR looks at Chabon's Modern Manhood, An Amateur's Guide.
Modern Manhood, An Amateur's Guide
by Heller McAlpin
In a controversial New York Times "Modern Love" column, Michael Chabon's wife, Ayelet Waldman, confessed that she'd have a harder time losing her husband than one of their children. After reading Chabon's Manhood for Amateurs, you'll understand why.
He emerges from these 39 beautifully written personal essays as a prince among men. Not only does he produce dazzling novels that have given genre fiction literary cachet — including The Yiddish Policemen's Union (2007) and his Pulitzer Prize-winning Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2001) — he also cooks, cleans, markets and gets his children to their appointments — and counts himself fortunate to be in a position to do so.
Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father and Son
By Michael Chabon
Hardcover, 320 pages
Harper
List price: $25.99
Read An Excerpt
There have been no shortage of books on motherhood, but daddy diaries are a growing phenomenon. Chabon raises the bar with his often poignant meditations on manhood, fatherhood and aspects of his own childhood. Most of these loosely connected essays, which add up to an episodic autobiography of sorts, first appeared in Details magazine. In addition to the gorgeous prose for which he is celebrated, several lovely qualities shine through.
For starters, Chabon clearly adores and respects his mother. After his parents divorced when he was 12, his mother got her law degree and a federal job in D.C. Chabon took over dinner preparations. Instead of feeling put-upon, he expresses gratitude at having grown up "during a time of dissolving boundaries," when it was all right for a boy to want to emulate his mother.
Michael Chabon Reads 'The Hand On My Shoulder'
[15 min 46 sec]
Add to Playlist
As for his wife, in an essay titled "Looking for Trouble," Chabon offers a tribute to "quick, mercurial, intemperate" Waldman. In marrying her, he says he "answered the call of adventure," and he's thankful he did. In another nod to Waldman, he notes the disparity between expectations for fathers and mothers: "The handy thing about being a father is that the historic standard is so pitifully low."
More than marriage or writing, these essays focus on the wonders of childhood and parenting. Chabon loves the intimacy of domesticity — though he is circumspect with private details. He writes movingly that in his four children he has found "a band of companions" with whom to share various enthusiasms, something he pointedly missed when his pediatrician father moved away after his parents' divorce.
Enlarge Vince Bucci/Getty Images
Michael Chabon told the Weekly Reader that he knew he wanted to be a writer when his first short story, a class assignment, about Sherlock Holmes got an A. "I thought to myself, 'That's it. That's what I want to do. I can do this.' And I never had any second thoughts or doubts."
Chabon takes his kids to junky movies and erects elaborate Lego constructions with them, but he is concerned that today's kids, deprived of the open-ended play, unsupervised landscapes and vast stretches of free time that characterized his own childhood, have too little room for imagination. He worries that he is bringing up "free-range children" who, like chickens raised to near-maturity in a controlled environment, don't actually "range" much even when the doors of freedom are thrown open.
Although Chabon's subjects range from sex at 15 with a divorced friend of his mother's to pocketbooks for men, the thread that ties Manhood for Amateurs together isn't a purse string, but the idea that fandom — being an amateur "driven by passion and obsession" to "explore the imaginary world" — is what connects him not only to his children, but to his writing.
Excerpt: 'Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son'
by Michael Chabon
Michael Chabon Reads "The Hand On My Shoulder"
[15 min 46 sec]
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Transcript
Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son
By Michael Chabon
Paperback, 320 pages
Harper
List price: $25.99
The Hand on My Shoulder
I didn't play golf, and he had never smoked marijuana. I was a nail chewer, inclined to brood, and dubious of the motives of other people. He was big and placid, uniformly kind to strangers and friends, and never went anywhere without whistling a little song. I minored in philosophy. He fell asleep watching television. He fell asleep in movie theaters, too, and occasionally, I suspected, while driving. He had been in the navy during World War II, which taught him, he said, to sleep whenever he could. I, still troubled no doubt by perplexing questions of ontology and epistemology raised during my brief flirtation with logical positivism ten years earlier, was an insomniac. I was also a Jew, of a sort; he was, when required, an Episcopalian.
He was not a big man, but his voice boomed, and his hands were meaty, and in repose there was something august about his heavy midwestern features: pale blue eyes that, in the absence of hopefulness, might have looked severe; prominent, straight nose and heavy jowls that, in the absence of mirth, might have seemed imperious and disapproving. Mirth and hopefulness, however, were never absent from his face. Some people, one imagines, may be naturally dauntless and buoyant of heart, but with him, good spirits always seemed, far more admirably, to be the product of a strict program of self-improvement in his youth — he believed, like most truly modest men, in the absolute virtue of self-improvement — which had wrought deep, essential changes in a nature inclined by birth to the darker view and gloominess that cropped up elsewhere in the family tree. He didn't seem to be happy out of some secret knowledge of the essential goodness of the world, or from having fought his way through grief and adversity to a hard-won sense of his place in it; they were simple qualities, his good humor and his optimism, unexamined, automatic, stubborn. I never failed to take comfort in his presence.
The meaning of divorce will elude us as long as we are blind to the meaning of marriage, as I think at the start we must all be. Marriage seems — at least it seemed to an absurdly young man in the summer of 1987, standing on the sun-drenched patio of an elegant house on Lake Washington — to be an activity, like chess or tennis or a rumba contest, that we embark upon in tandem while everyone who loves us stands around and hopes for the best. We have no inkling of the fervor of their hope, nor of the ways in which our marriage, that collective endeavor, will be constructed from and burdened with their love.
When I look back — always an unreliable procedure, I know — it seems to have been a case of love at first sight. I met him, his wife, and their yellow beach house all on the same day. It was a square-pillared bungalow, clapboard and shake, the color of yellow gingham, with a steep pitched roof and a porch that looked out over a frigid but tranquil bay of brackish water. His wife, like him in the last years of a vigorous middle age, had been coming to this stretch of beach since early in her girlhood, and for both her and her daughter, whom I was shortly to marry, it was more heavily and richly layered with memories, associations, artifacts, and stories than any place any member of my own family had lived since we had left Europe seventy years before. Everything about this family was like that. My future mother-in-law lived in the house in Seattle where she had been born. My father-in-law had grown up down the road in Portland. They had met at the University of Washington. Everyone they knew, they had known for longer than I'd been alive. All the restaurants they favored had been in business for years, they were charter members of their country club, and in some cases they did business with the sons of tradesmen they had dealt with in the early days of their marriage. A journey through the drawers, closets, and cabinets of their house in town yielded a virtual commercial and social history of Seattle, in the form of old matchboxes, rulers, pens, memo pads, napkins, shot glasses, candy tins, golf tees, coat hangers; years and years' worth of lagniappes, giveaways, souvenirs, and mementos bearing the names, in typefaces of four decades, of plumbing supply companies, fuel oil dealers, newlyweds, dry cleaners, men and women celebrating birthdays and anniversaries.
God, it was a seductive thing to a deracinated, assimilated, uncertain, wandering young Jew whose own parents had not been married for years and no longer lived anywhere near the house in Maryland where, for want of a truer candidate, he had more or less grown up. They were in many ways classic WASPs, to be sure, golfing, khaki-wearing, gin-drinking WASPs. The appeal of such people and their kind of world to a young man such as I was has been well-documented in film and literature; perhaps enough to seem by now a bit outdated. But it wasn't, finally, a matter of class or style, though they had both. I fell in love with their rootedness, with the visible and palpable continuity of their history as a family in Seattle, with their ability to bring a box of photographs taken thirty summers earlier and show me the room I was sitting in before it was painted white, the madrone trees that screened the porch before two fell over, the woman I was going to marry digging for geoduck clams on the beach where she had just lain sunbathing.
Of course, they were more than a kind of attractive gift wrap for their photographs, houses, and the historical contents of their drawers. They were ordinary, problematical people, my in-laws, forty years into a complicated marriage, and over the course of my own brief marriage to their daughter, I came to love and appreciate them both as individuals, on their merits and, as my marriage began so quickly to sour, for the endurance of their partnership. They had that blind, towering doggedness of the World War II generation. I suppose it's possible that with two daughters, they'd always wanted a son, my father-in-law especially; I do know for certain that I have never been one to refuse the opportunity to add another father to my collection.
He offered himself completely, without reservation, though in his own particular, not to say limited, way (it is this inherent limited quality of fathers and their love that motivates collectors like me to try to amass a complete set). He took me down to Nordstrom, the original store in downtown Seattle, and introduced me to the man who sold him his suits. I bought myself a few good square-cut, sober-colored numbers in a style that would not have drawn a second glance on Yesler Way in 1954. He introduced me to the woman from whom he bought jewelry for his wife, to the man who took care of his car, to all of the golf buddies and cronies whose sons he had been admiring from afar for the last thirty years. He was a bit barrel chested anyway, but whenever we went anywhere together and, as was all but inevitable, ran into someone he knew, his breast, introducing me, seemed to grow an inch broader, the hand on my shoulder would administer a little fighttrainer massage, and I would feel him — as first the wedding and, later, the putative grandchildren drew nearer — placing, for that moment, all his hopes in me. He took me to football games, basketball games, baseball games. He let me drive his Cadillac; naturally, he never drove anything else. Most of all, however — most important to both of us — he let me hang out in his den.
As the child of divorced parents, myself divorced, and a writer trained by five hundred years of European and American literary history always to search out the worm in the bud, I have, of necessity, become a close observer of other people's marriages. I have noticed that in nearly all the longest-lived ones, if there is space enough in the house, each partner will have a room to flee to. If, however, there is only one room to spare, it will always be the husband's. My in-laws had plenty of room, but while she had her office just off the bedroom (where I would sometimes see her sitting at a Chinese desk, writing a letter or searching for an article clipped from Town & Country about flavoring ice creams with edible flowers), my mother-in-law's appeared to serve a largely ceremonial function.
My father-in-law, on the other hand, sometimes seemed to live down in the basement. His office, like him, was mostly about golf. The carpet was Bermuda-grass green, the walls were hung with maps of St. Andrews and framed New Yorker covers of duffers, and the various hats, ashtrays, hassocks, cigarette lighters, plaques, novelty telephones, and trophies around the room were shaped like golf balls, tees, mashies, mulligans, and I don't know what. In the midst of all this sat an enormous black Robber Baron desk with matching black Captain Nemo chair; an old, vaguely Japanese-looking coffee table on its last tour of duty in the house; a cyclopean television; and a reclining armchair and sofa, both covered in wool patterned with the tartan of some unknown but no doubt staunch, whiskey-drinking, golf-wild highland clan.
It is for just such circumstances, in which two men with little in common may find themselves thrown together with no other recourse than to make friends, that sports were invented. When my wife and I visited I went downstairs, flopped on the sofa, and watched a game with my father-in-law. He made himself a C.C. and soda, and sometimes, to complete the picture, I let him mix one for me. Like many men of my generation, I found solace when unhappy in placing quotation marks around myself and everything I did. There was I, an "unhappy husband," drinking a "cocktail" and "watching the game." This was the only room in the house where I was permitted to smoke — I have long since quit — and I made the most of it (a man's den often serves the same desublimating function in the household as Mardi Gras or Las Vegas in the world; a different law obtains there). We spent hours together, cheering on Art Monk and Carlton Fisk and other men whose names, when by chance they arise now, can summon up that entire era of whiskey and football and the smell of new Coupe de Ville, when the biggest mistake I ever made came home to roost, and I briefly had one of the best fathers I've ever found.
My ex-wife and I — I won't go into the details — had good times and bad times, fought and were silent, tried and gave up and tried some more before finally throwing in the towel, focused, with the special self-absorption of the miserable, on our minute drama and its reverberations in our own chests. All the while, the people who loved us were not sitting there whispering behind their hands like spectators at a chess match. They were putting our photographs in frames on their walls. They were uniting our names over and over on the outsides of envelopes that bore anniversary wishes and recipes clipped from newspapers. They were putting our birthdays in their address books, knitting us socks, studying the fluctuating fortunes of our own favorite hitters every morning in the box scores. They were working us into the fabric of their lives. When at last we broke all those promises that we thought we had made only to each other, in an act of faithlessness whose mutuality appeared somehow to make it all right, we tore that fabric, not irrecoverably but deeply. We had no idea how quickly two families can work to weave themselves together. When I saw him sometime later at his mother's funeral in Portland, my father-in-law told me that the day my divorce from his daughter came through was the saddest one in his life. Maybe that was when I started to understand what had happened.
What was I now to him? How can it have felt to have been divorced by someone he treated like a son? These are not considerations that comfort me or make me especially proud. I try to remind myself that in the long course of his life, I occupied only a tiny span of years toward the end, when everything gleams with an unconvincing luster, moving too quickly to be real. And I try to forget that for a short while I formed a layer, however thin, in the deep stratigraphy of his family, so that some later explorer, rummaging through the drawers of his big old desk, might brush aside a scorecard from the 1967 PGA Pacific Northwest Open signed by Arnold Palmer, or an old pencil-style typewriter eraser with a stiff brush on one end, stamped queen city ribbon co., and turn up a faded photograph of me, in my sober blue suit, flower in my lapel, looking as if I knew what I was doing.
From Manhood For Amateurs by Michael Chabon. Copyright 2009 by Michael Chabon. Published by Harper. Used by permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.
Posted by WH at 8:05 AM
Labels: culture, fiction, masculinity
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Gays have Feminine brain
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Gay Men Have Feminine Brains
June 5th 2009 04:07
A new study conducted by the National Academy of Sciences suggests that brain function has a strong link with sexual orientation. It showed that brain function of homosexual women slightly resembled heterosexual men and a stronger link between homosexual men with heterosexual women.Read the whole study here.
Posted By: Steve Gann - Category: No Category
Comments
2 Comments. [ Add A Comment ]
Comment by The wonderful Peter Yang
June 5th 2009 10:14
Most professional believe that there is a strong psychological component in homosexuality. It is believe that woman in general are more queer then man, this is because for woman love and relationship is more on a social basis where for man on the other hand it is on the level of reproduction bases. Most professionals believe there is no such thing as really gay or straight, if you go to prison we can usually see what it meant, e.g. big shot sex offender raping other male prisoner, despite been straight not gay. Proving straight and gay acutally doesn't exist.What cause the construction of gay and straight people on a social level is predominatley psychology because human is a very stucturlized animal, causing our subcontious to restrain ourself, to a certain functionality. (Some guys even find hugging another guy to be queer, some others are ok.)
Comment by Mau-Medellin
June 5th 2009 13:24
Mau-Medellin
Hi Steve, I guess the problem with this sort of study, is that the numbers are not significante enough to represent a true cross section of the community.The study in which you have written about compared only 90 individuals (50 heterosexuals and 40 homosexuals). Those numbers simply aren't great enough to provide a conclusive result. When studys such as this are conducted it can be quite easy for the results to be skewed to support ones own personal agenda. And surely, you would have to agree that in the gay community, there are as many variations in ones traits, mannerisms, interests, etc as there are in heterosexual men... Mau-Medellin
Copyright © 2006 2007 2008 On Topic Media PTY LTD. All Rights Reserved. Design by Vimu.com.
On Topic Media ZPages: Sydney Melbourne Brisbane London Birmingham Leeds [ Advertise ] [ Contact Us ] [ Privacy Policy ]
follow this blog
28 followers
159 daily readers
rank of 129
Gay Men Have Feminine Brains
June 5th 2009 04:07
A new study conducted by the National Academy of Sciences suggests that brain function has a strong link with sexual orientation. It showed that brain function of homosexual women slightly resembled heterosexual men and a stronger link between homosexual men with heterosexual women.Read the whole study here.
Posted By: Steve Gann - Category: No Category
Comments
2 Comments. [ Add A Comment ]
Comment by The wonderful Peter Yang
June 5th 2009 10:14
Most professional believe that there is a strong psychological component in homosexuality. It is believe that woman in general are more queer then man, this is because for woman love and relationship is more on a social basis where for man on the other hand it is on the level of reproduction bases. Most professionals believe there is no such thing as really gay or straight, if you go to prison we can usually see what it meant, e.g. big shot sex offender raping other male prisoner, despite been straight not gay. Proving straight and gay acutally doesn't exist.What cause the construction of gay and straight people on a social level is predominatley psychology because human is a very stucturlized animal, causing our subcontious to restrain ourself, to a certain functionality. (Some guys even find hugging another guy to be queer, some others are ok.)
Comment by Mau-Medellin
June 5th 2009 13:24
Mau-Medellin
Hi Steve, I guess the problem with this sort of study, is that the numbers are not significante enough to represent a true cross section of the community.The study in which you have written about compared only 90 individuals (50 heterosexuals and 40 homosexuals). Those numbers simply aren't great enough to provide a conclusive result. When studys such as this are conducted it can be quite easy for the results to be skewed to support ones own personal agenda. And surely, you would have to agree that in the gay community, there are as many variations in ones traits, mannerisms, interests, etc as there are in heterosexual men... Mau-Medellin
Copyright © 2006 2007 2008 On Topic Media PTY LTD. All Rights Reserved. Design by Vimu.com.
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Tuesday, June 08, 2010
feminine guys dating straight males
Seeking "straight": as many gay men know, "straight" men can be had. But straight-chasers warn that novelty isn't likely to lead to a stable relationship.
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Seeking+%22straight%22%3A+as+many+gay+men+know,+%22straight%22+men+can+be+had....-a0150864845">Seeking "straight": as many gay men know, "straight" men can be had. But straight-chasers warn that novelty isn't likely to lead to a stable relationship.
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Seeking+%22straight%22%3A+as+many+gay+men+know,+%22straight%22+men+can+be+had....-a0150864845">Seeking "straight": as many gay men know, "straight" men can be had. But straight-chasers warn that novelty isn't likely to lead to a stable relationship.
Language musings: “gay” vs “homosexual”
( 14 comments — Leave a comment )
snakey
2010-02-13 02:20 pm (UTC)
The stupidity of people never ceased to amaze me.
The point where I start groping for a word is referring to, say, my own feelings for/attraction to another man. Is it gay? Because that word tends to be used to mean "exclusively homosexual", and I'm not..but it would be ridiculous to call it a "bisexual" relationship/attraction or similar.... How do we refer to relationships between people of the same sex who aren't gay? Or do we just say "a same-sex relationship"?
Gahh, English r hard. *has been asleep for the last couple of hours and may not be making sense*
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sparkindarkness
2010-02-13 03:21 pm (UTC)
I would assume bisexual - someone who is attracted to both men and women. If you say you're attracted to another man because you are bisexual, I'd say that works quite well. It's certainly a bisexual attraction methinks.
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snakey
2010-02-13 04:10 pm (UTC)
To me, identifying a relationship by the sexuality rather than the sex of the participants is fraught with problems. What if my partner is gay? Doesn't calling the relationship bisexual erase his identity/render if invisible? I'm queer and my fiancee is straight - to call it a queer relationship risks misgendering me and misidentifying her, as well as appropriating the term to apply to a heterosexual relationship.
Which leads on to another problem: for those of us with a history of being coercively misgendered, it's often very important that our lovers affirm our sex in the way they identify our relationship with them. If I was in a romantic or sexual relationship with a man and he insisted on saying, "This isn't a homosexual/gay relationship," I would instantly be *very* suspicious of his belief in my maleness - baggage that a cis queer/bi/pan man wouldn't have. Likewise, it's crucial to my trans woman friends that their relationships with other women are identified as lesbian relationships, whether they're exclusively lesbian-identified themselves or not, because the reality that this is a relationship between two women has been systematically denied. Or for trans male friends in relationships with women to have it acknowledged that that is a heterosexual/straight relationship and is heterosexual/straight sex, even if they or their partner identify as something other than straight/heterosexual.
There's also the problem of how to refer to former relationships for those of us who have previously lived (through choice or coercion) as a different sex or gender. For example, when my previous partner and I were first together, we were both dyke/lesbian-identified. But to say that it was therefore a dyke or lesbian relationship is to undergender me.
So it makes more sense to me, and is more affirming of trans identities, to identify the relationship between people by the sexes/genders of the participants, rather than by the sexual orientation....
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(Anonymous)
2010-02-13 05:26 pm (UTC)
I agree with that. I also really love this essay about bisexuality/gender/sexual identity
http://www.makezine.enoughenough.org/events.html
because it goes beyond a kind of "non-labeling" (I get really frustrated, personally, with the "why do we need labels!" mentality) rhetoric into an understanding of how there are label systems that are policing and label systems that breed fluid and layered ways of thinking about sex and gender that are accomodating rather than policing.
-Leah
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sparkindarkness
2010-02-13 05:56 pm (UTC)
In general I don't use the term "queer" anyway, except to refer to people who self-reference as "queer."
Actually, I'm turning over in my mind on whether it's necessary to define a relationship in any terms - and to me? I don't - I've never really felt the need to define a relationship so much as I have felt the need to define the PEOPLE within said relationship. So if talking about couple I wouldn't think to say "they're in a gay relationship".
However, I can see how it is vital Ultimately I think it comes down to the people in question and what they feel the need to define.
I, as a cisgendered gay man, feel my relationship needs no further definition than relationship because any qualifiers are redundant to me. I can say I'm married without feeling the need to say "I am gay married" because it would be odd. I do feel the need to define myself as gay because it's an identity and an important one
But I can see where trans people may wish to adopt a greater definition on the relationship to emphasise the nature of the relationship - and to debunk any erroneous assumptions there may be of said relationship
Ultimately, we need to accept the tools and words people use within their own frame of reference for their own self-reference and self-definition because they include the terms they consider important or unimportant
So it makes more sense to me, and is more affirming of trans identities, to identify the relationship between people by the sexes/genders of the participants, rather than by the sexual orientation....
Very much to me - because it feels false anyway. It feels false to refer to a a gay relationship or lesbian relationship. It's a relationship. There is nothing unqiuely gay about a relationship that sets it apart from a straight relationship, imo - the defining factor is the people within it, not the relationship itself
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onebrightroad
2010-02-15 02:34 am (UTC)
I see your point, but I disagree with your preferences in this matter. I avoid referring to relationships as gay, straight, or bisexual, or in any other terms that identify sexuality. I'm a bi trans man (I also identify as queer) currently in a committed relationship with a bi cis woman. When our relationship is labeled as straight because of our gender identities, our sexuality is erased. I would be offended if someone described our relationship or the sex we have together as straight. I'm not straight just because my partner is female, nor would I be gay if I had a male lover. Nor do I wish to be forced to choose to erase either my gender identity or my sexuality by accepting a limiting descriptor for my relationships. It makes me happy when my partner refers to me as her boyfriend because it affirms both our relationship and my gender identity. In my opinion, labeling our relationship beyond that is both unnecessary and risks erasing important parts of the relationship and our individual identities.
I have been coercively misgendered often over the course of my life. My sexuality is also often erased or mis-identified by others. Both my gender identity and my sexual identity are more complicated than they appear from the outside, and both have changed more than once over the course of my life. While I understand the reasoning behind your language choices and resonate with it to some degree, I prefer to use different language to describe my relationships. I wish we all had more and better words to describe our realities and complexities.
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virginia_fell
2010-02-13 02:44 pm (UTC)
The difference between "gay" and "homosexual" as far as a term for LGBT people is one that I don't fully grok. However, because I'm in a hetero relationship, I guess it's not really important whether I get it.
Thanks for letting me know that a lot of people prefer the words gay or lesbian, and that for some reason straight people seem to respond better to them as well. I'll try and use those more just... y'know. To be safe.
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sparkindarkness
2010-02-13 03:22 pm (UTC)
I think it's the origin of the word. Homosexual was once a DIAGNOSIS. Of mental illness. And, of course, it contains the word "sex" which instantly sets many of the radars off and it emphasises sex over identity.
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virginia_fell
2010-02-13 09:27 pm (UTC)
Right. I mean, I can see the reasoning. To me, it's not hugely compelling on its own, but the fact that there are people who strongly prefer it is really enough reason on its own for hetero folk to adjust.
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(Anonymous)
2010-02-13 05:12 pm (UTC)
Leah from WomanistMusings here -
Re: the term "men who have sex with men." It's been years since I've worked in the field and too long since I've read up on recent trends, so what I'm saying now could be antiquated, but I used to work in harm reduction/hiv prevention and "men who have sex with men" was the preferred and, in my post, insisted upon term. (This threw me off guard because when I got into the field I had the same objections - it over-emphasized sex, etc. - I was quite the marriage activist back then!). Especially when working with lower income communities in harm reduction - where the goal is actually to reduce harm instead of moralistically impose values, even liberal middle class"progressive" values - "men who have sex with men" was a way to acknowledge that not all people who fit this description identified as "gay" and, in fact, some were very turned off by this identity descriptor. Is it the case that this distancing from the identity marker resulted from homophobia? Yes and no.
As for "homosexual," weirdly enough I too type that rarely and say it even more rarely.
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sparkindarkness
2010-02-13 06:00 pm (UTC)
Every now and then "msm" comes up - I think part of the reason it raises my hackles is because the times I've heard it most are from men saying "oh no, I'm not gay! I don't mince or aren't effeiminate or anything" and it makes me cringe because that's a descriptor of some people who are gear, not an inherent part of being gay. It tells of a lot of absorbed and deeply held stereotpes that stifles our diversity and encourages disconnect
Of course the other branch is the wonderful denial - loves sex with men. But is totally straight. Honest.
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suryaofvulcan
2010-02-13 06:07 pm (UTC)
I haven't seen all the arguments, but to me it just feels wrong to refer to someone as 'homosexual' (nor would I refer to myself as 'heterosexual'). I think this is partly because I don't hear it used much within the gay community (or the small number of gay couples I have regular contact with), partly because when I do hear it, it's most often in a clinical or perjorative sense, and partly because it seems to reduce people to the type of sex they have (or are having in their current relationship(s)).
I'd be more inclinded to describe a particualar sexual act as 'homosexual' (as in taking place between 2 people of the same sex, regardless of the orientation of the people involved). But using it to describe a person, or even a relationship seems to force them into a binary state - they must be either homo- or heterosexual, and nothing in between - whereas the reality is that a person's orientation might be gay, straight, bi, or outside that continuum altogether.
Please forgive me if I'm being a clueless straight person. I'm still trying to read and learn about these issues.
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sparkindarkness
2010-02-14 02:18 am (UTC)
I don't think most people do use it. Even at best it's a clunky FORMAL word - very medical. The only group, as one blogger pointed out most accurately - who DO use it commonly are homophobes. Which is revealing really.
The problem with homosexual as an adjective for an act is it makes assumptions of the people involved. It's awkward, really.
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Sexual Orientation is an invalid concept
youth-masculinity.blogspot.com
2010-06-08 09:10 am (UTC)
The entire concept of 'homosexuality' and 'homosexual' (as well as that of heterosexuality, bisexuality and of 'sexual orientation' itself) is flawed, and invalid, for a number of reasons.
For starters, the entire thing was invented by a people who were not 'men' but were the 'intermediate sex,' i.e., they were males with a female 'soul', or gender in more scholarly term. They were actually the queer gendered people who sought to speak for every male who liked men. But they never really represented men. Men (i.e. males with a male identity, as opposed to third genders), hated, and will always hate the idea of a separate category for those who like men. The intermediate sex likes the idea because, what it is actually seeking is a separate category for their "gender orientation" which they keep confusing with their 'sexual orientation.'
The concept of homosexuality and homosexual is invalid because it is based on the negation of human gender (of inner male or female identity), and sees humans only in the limited context of reproduction -- reproduction which has been a major obsession of the western society, including of Christianity and of modern science. As far as reproduction is concerned, you only need to be a male or female. However, life is not only about reproduction, and gender is much more complex than the sexual organ we're born with. Our inner sense of being a male or female, irrespective of whether we're outwardly male or female is an important ingredient of our gender identity. Our gender identity is actually a combination of both our 'outer sex' and our 'inner sex.'
That is why there has never been a concept of 'sexual orientation' or 'homosexuals' or 'heterosexuals' ever in the past, nor do they exist in contemporary non-West. Instead, all these societies have a strong system of categories based on gender orientation, and there are basically three genders, "Men,' 'women,' and the 'third genders,' the third genders include various categories of people who are both males and females at the sametime, for different reasons. It includes hermaprhodites, but it also includes feminine gendered males, and masculine gendered females.
There is NO concept of 'sexual orientation' or of 'homosexuality' or 'heterosexuality' in the non-Western world, I think the west should learn from us.
snakey
2010-02-13 02:20 pm (UTC)
The stupidity of people never ceased to amaze me.
The point where I start groping for a word is referring to, say, my own feelings for/attraction to another man. Is it gay? Because that word tends to be used to mean "exclusively homosexual", and I'm not..but it would be ridiculous to call it a "bisexual" relationship/attraction or similar.... How do we refer to relationships between people of the same sex who aren't gay? Or do we just say "a same-sex relationship"?
Gahh, English r hard. *has been asleep for the last couple of hours and may not be making sense*
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sparkindarkness
2010-02-13 03:21 pm (UTC)
I would assume bisexual - someone who is attracted to both men and women. If you say you're attracted to another man because you are bisexual, I'd say that works quite well. It's certainly a bisexual attraction methinks.
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snakey
2010-02-13 04:10 pm (UTC)
To me, identifying a relationship by the sexuality rather than the sex of the participants is fraught with problems. What if my partner is gay? Doesn't calling the relationship bisexual erase his identity/render if invisible? I'm queer and my fiancee is straight - to call it a queer relationship risks misgendering me and misidentifying her, as well as appropriating the term to apply to a heterosexual relationship.
Which leads on to another problem: for those of us with a history of being coercively misgendered, it's often very important that our lovers affirm our sex in the way they identify our relationship with them. If I was in a romantic or sexual relationship with a man and he insisted on saying, "This isn't a homosexual/gay relationship," I would instantly be *very* suspicious of his belief in my maleness - baggage that a cis queer/bi/pan man wouldn't have. Likewise, it's crucial to my trans woman friends that their relationships with other women are identified as lesbian relationships, whether they're exclusively lesbian-identified themselves or not, because the reality that this is a relationship between two women has been systematically denied. Or for trans male friends in relationships with women to have it acknowledged that that is a heterosexual/straight relationship and is heterosexual/straight sex, even if they or their partner identify as something other than straight/heterosexual.
There's also the problem of how to refer to former relationships for those of us who have previously lived (through choice or coercion) as a different sex or gender. For example, when my previous partner and I were first together, we were both dyke/lesbian-identified. But to say that it was therefore a dyke or lesbian relationship is to undergender me.
So it makes more sense to me, and is more affirming of trans identities, to identify the relationship between people by the sexes/genders of the participants, rather than by the sexual orientation....
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(Anonymous)
2010-02-13 05:26 pm (UTC)
I agree with that. I also really love this essay about bisexuality/gender/sexual identity
http://www.makezine.enoughenough.org/events.html
because it goes beyond a kind of "non-labeling" (I get really frustrated, personally, with the "why do we need labels!" mentality) rhetoric into an understanding of how there are label systems that are policing and label systems that breed fluid and layered ways of thinking about sex and gender that are accomodating rather than policing.
-Leah
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sparkindarkness
2010-02-13 05:56 pm (UTC)
In general I don't use the term "queer" anyway, except to refer to people who self-reference as "queer."
Actually, I'm turning over in my mind on whether it's necessary to define a relationship in any terms - and to me? I don't - I've never really felt the need to define a relationship so much as I have felt the need to define the PEOPLE within said relationship. So if talking about couple I wouldn't think to say "they're in a gay relationship".
However, I can see how it is vital Ultimately I think it comes down to the people in question and what they feel the need to define.
I, as a cisgendered gay man, feel my relationship needs no further definition than relationship because any qualifiers are redundant to me. I can say I'm married without feeling the need to say "I am gay married" because it would be odd. I do feel the need to define myself as gay because it's an identity and an important one
But I can see where trans people may wish to adopt a greater definition on the relationship to emphasise the nature of the relationship - and to debunk any erroneous assumptions there may be of said relationship
Ultimately, we need to accept the tools and words people use within their own frame of reference for their own self-reference and self-definition because they include the terms they consider important or unimportant
So it makes more sense to me, and is more affirming of trans identities, to identify the relationship between people by the sexes/genders of the participants, rather than by the sexual orientation....
Very much to me - because it feels false anyway. It feels false to refer to a a gay relationship or lesbian relationship. It's a relationship. There is nothing unqiuely gay about a relationship that sets it apart from a straight relationship, imo - the defining factor is the people within it, not the relationship itself
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onebrightroad
2010-02-15 02:34 am (UTC)
I see your point, but I disagree with your preferences in this matter. I avoid referring to relationships as gay, straight, or bisexual, or in any other terms that identify sexuality. I'm a bi trans man (I also identify as queer) currently in a committed relationship with a bi cis woman. When our relationship is labeled as straight because of our gender identities, our sexuality is erased. I would be offended if someone described our relationship or the sex we have together as straight. I'm not straight just because my partner is female, nor would I be gay if I had a male lover. Nor do I wish to be forced to choose to erase either my gender identity or my sexuality by accepting a limiting descriptor for my relationships. It makes me happy when my partner refers to me as her boyfriend because it affirms both our relationship and my gender identity. In my opinion, labeling our relationship beyond that is both unnecessary and risks erasing important parts of the relationship and our individual identities.
I have been coercively misgendered often over the course of my life. My sexuality is also often erased or mis-identified by others. Both my gender identity and my sexual identity are more complicated than they appear from the outside, and both have changed more than once over the course of my life. While I understand the reasoning behind your language choices and resonate with it to some degree, I prefer to use different language to describe my relationships. I wish we all had more and better words to describe our realities and complexities.
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virginia_fell
2010-02-13 02:44 pm (UTC)
The difference between "gay" and "homosexual" as far as a term for LGBT people is one that I don't fully grok. However, because I'm in a hetero relationship, I guess it's not really important whether I get it.
Thanks for letting me know that a lot of people prefer the words gay or lesbian, and that for some reason straight people seem to respond better to them as well. I'll try and use those more just... y'know. To be safe.
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sparkindarkness
2010-02-13 03:22 pm (UTC)
I think it's the origin of the word. Homosexual was once a DIAGNOSIS. Of mental illness. And, of course, it contains the word "sex" which instantly sets many of the radars off and it emphasises sex over identity.
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virginia_fell
2010-02-13 09:27 pm (UTC)
Right. I mean, I can see the reasoning. To me, it's not hugely compelling on its own, but the fact that there are people who strongly prefer it is really enough reason on its own for hetero folk to adjust.
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(Anonymous)
2010-02-13 05:12 pm (UTC)
Leah from WomanistMusings here -
Re: the term "men who have sex with men." It's been years since I've worked in the field and too long since I've read up on recent trends, so what I'm saying now could be antiquated, but I used to work in harm reduction/hiv prevention and "men who have sex with men" was the preferred and, in my post, insisted upon term. (This threw me off guard because when I got into the field I had the same objections - it over-emphasized sex, etc. - I was quite the marriage activist back then!). Especially when working with lower income communities in harm reduction - where the goal is actually to reduce harm instead of moralistically impose values, even liberal middle class"progressive" values - "men who have sex with men" was a way to acknowledge that not all people who fit this description identified as "gay" and, in fact, some were very turned off by this identity descriptor. Is it the case that this distancing from the identity marker resulted from homophobia? Yes and no.
As for "homosexual," weirdly enough I too type that rarely and say it even more rarely.
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sparkindarkness
2010-02-13 06:00 pm (UTC)
Every now and then "msm" comes up - I think part of the reason it raises my hackles is because the times I've heard it most are from men saying "oh no, I'm not gay! I don't mince or aren't effeiminate or anything" and it makes me cringe because that's a descriptor of some people who are gear, not an inherent part of being gay. It tells of a lot of absorbed and deeply held stereotpes that stifles our diversity and encourages disconnect
Of course the other branch is the wonderful denial - loves sex with men. But is totally straight. Honest.
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suryaofvulcan
2010-02-13 06:07 pm (UTC)
I haven't seen all the arguments, but to me it just feels wrong to refer to someone as 'homosexual' (nor would I refer to myself as 'heterosexual'). I think this is partly because I don't hear it used much within the gay community (or the small number of gay couples I have regular contact with), partly because when I do hear it, it's most often in a clinical or perjorative sense, and partly because it seems to reduce people to the type of sex they have (or are having in their current relationship(s)).
I'd be more inclinded to describe a particualar sexual act as 'homosexual' (as in taking place between 2 people of the same sex, regardless of the orientation of the people involved). But using it to describe a person, or even a relationship seems to force them into a binary state - they must be either homo- or heterosexual, and nothing in between - whereas the reality is that a person's orientation might be gay, straight, bi, or outside that continuum altogether.
Please forgive me if I'm being a clueless straight person. I'm still trying to read and learn about these issues.
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sparkindarkness
2010-02-14 02:18 am (UTC)
I don't think most people do use it. Even at best it's a clunky FORMAL word - very medical. The only group, as one blogger pointed out most accurately - who DO use it commonly are homophobes. Which is revealing really.
The problem with homosexual as an adjective for an act is it makes assumptions of the people involved. It's awkward, really.
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Sexual Orientation is an invalid concept
youth-masculinity.blogspot.com
2010-06-08 09:10 am (UTC)
The entire concept of 'homosexuality' and 'homosexual' (as well as that of heterosexuality, bisexuality and of 'sexual orientation' itself) is flawed, and invalid, for a number of reasons.
For starters, the entire thing was invented by a people who were not 'men' but were the 'intermediate sex,' i.e., they were males with a female 'soul', or gender in more scholarly term. They were actually the queer gendered people who sought to speak for every male who liked men. But they never really represented men. Men (i.e. males with a male identity, as opposed to third genders), hated, and will always hate the idea of a separate category for those who like men. The intermediate sex likes the idea because, what it is actually seeking is a separate category for their "gender orientation" which they keep confusing with their 'sexual orientation.'
The concept of homosexuality and homosexual is invalid because it is based on the negation of human gender (of inner male or female identity), and sees humans only in the limited context of reproduction -- reproduction which has been a major obsession of the western society, including of Christianity and of modern science. As far as reproduction is concerned, you only need to be a male or female. However, life is not only about reproduction, and gender is much more complex than the sexual organ we're born with. Our inner sense of being a male or female, irrespective of whether we're outwardly male or female is an important ingredient of our gender identity. Our gender identity is actually a combination of both our 'outer sex' and our 'inner sex.'
That is why there has never been a concept of 'sexual orientation' or 'homosexuals' or 'heterosexuals' ever in the past, nor do they exist in contemporary non-West. Instead, all these societies have a strong system of categories based on gender orientation, and there are basically three genders, "Men,' 'women,' and the 'third genders,' the third genders include various categories of people who are both males and females at the sametime, for different reasons. It includes hermaprhodites, but it also includes feminine gendered males, and masculine gendered females.
There is NO concept of 'sexual orientation' or of 'homosexuality' or 'heterosexuality' in the non-Western world, I think the west should learn from us.
Friday, February 05, 2010
Why Can’t You Just Butch Up? Gay Men, Effeminacy, and Our War with Ourselves
by Brent Hartinger
June 11, 2009
Photo credit: Dp Clark/Getty Images
“I call it the pink elephant in the room,” says Tim Bergling, author of the book Sissyphobia. “Why do some gay men behave effeminately and some do not?”
“No one really knows,” says Robert-Jay Green, PhD, Executive Director of the Rockway Institute, an LGBT psychology research center. But, he says, there’s some research to suggest that effeminacy in men may result when a fetus is somehow exposed to fewer androgen hormones – testosterone is one androgen – in the third trimester of pregnancy. Since the compound is responsible for “male” characteristics, this might cause some sort of “feminization” of the child, affecting the way he thinks and acts.
Which isn’t to say effeminacy is some sort of deficiency or flaw. It’s merely part of the natural variation of human males, like eye color, or the way some people like vanilla ice cream and some people prefer chocolate.
But it’s also not an affectation, and it’s definitely not a “choice.” Just as it’s offensive to suggest that people are gay in order to rebel or shock other people, it’s offensive to suggest that most effeminate men are that way for any reason other than that’s genuinely how they feel most comfortable presenting themselves.
Are all effeminate men gay or bisexual? Green refers to a 1986 study of one group of “extremely effeminate” young boys – basically, guys who put the “fab” in fabulous – and how, by adulthood, 75% of them identified as gay or bisexual.
“I’m sure there are thousands, if not millions of effeminate straight guys,” Bergling says. “But I couldn’t find any. When I talked to some, it quickly became clear they were gay, but in denial.”
Sissyphobia author Tim Bergling
In other words, most effeminate guys really are gay – that lack of androgens in the third trimester may even be one of the ways that guys end up gay, Green says.
But how many gay guys are effeminate? Well, here’s where it gets a little complicated.
Obviously, plenty of gay and bisexual men are as “manly” as the day is long. But one 1982 study found that 42 percent of a sample of gay men were considered “sissies” as children, compared to only 11 percent of heterosexual men. A different 1981 study found that half of gay men displayed some “gender atypical” behavior as children, but only a quarter of straight men did.
That doesn’t mean this many gay men are outwardly effeminate – they’re not – but it does mean that there’s some truth to the stereotype that gay men are more likely than straight men to be, um, “artistic,” or at least androgynous. Let’s admit it: isn’t that part of what “gaydar” is all about?
“Some days I walk around, and I’m just a normal dude,” says Ed Kennedy, a 37-year-old gay man living in West Virginia. “And some days I have more of a swish in my step.”
In short, most gay men aren’t “like women.” But we really do tend to be a little different from the “typical” straight guy.
Still, these are all just tendencies. Plenty of gay and bisexual men don’t ever swish, nor do they want to.
An online poster in a U.K. student forum put it like this: “There are two gay genes: one makes a person gay, and another makes them camp. If they have got both, then they are gay and camp. If they just have the gay gene, then they won't be as easy to spot. If they just have the camp gene then they will be normal, as the camp gene needs the gay gene to activate it.”
“I just made most of that up,” the poster added, “but it could be true.”
June 11, 2009
Photo credit: Dp Clark/Getty Images
“I call it the pink elephant in the room,” says Tim Bergling, author of the book Sissyphobia. “Why do some gay men behave effeminately and some do not?”
“No one really knows,” says Robert-Jay Green, PhD, Executive Director of the Rockway Institute, an LGBT psychology research center. But, he says, there’s some research to suggest that effeminacy in men may result when a fetus is somehow exposed to fewer androgen hormones – testosterone is one androgen – in the third trimester of pregnancy. Since the compound is responsible for “male” characteristics, this might cause some sort of “feminization” of the child, affecting the way he thinks and acts.
Which isn’t to say effeminacy is some sort of deficiency or flaw. It’s merely part of the natural variation of human males, like eye color, or the way some people like vanilla ice cream and some people prefer chocolate.
But it’s also not an affectation, and it’s definitely not a “choice.” Just as it’s offensive to suggest that people are gay in order to rebel or shock other people, it’s offensive to suggest that most effeminate men are that way for any reason other than that’s genuinely how they feel most comfortable presenting themselves.
Are all effeminate men gay or bisexual? Green refers to a 1986 study of one group of “extremely effeminate” young boys – basically, guys who put the “fab” in fabulous – and how, by adulthood, 75% of them identified as gay or bisexual.
“I’m sure there are thousands, if not millions of effeminate straight guys,” Bergling says. “But I couldn’t find any. When I talked to some, it quickly became clear they were gay, but in denial.”
Sissyphobia author Tim Bergling
In other words, most effeminate guys really are gay – that lack of androgens in the third trimester may even be one of the ways that guys end up gay, Green says.
But how many gay guys are effeminate? Well, here’s where it gets a little complicated.
Obviously, plenty of gay and bisexual men are as “manly” as the day is long. But one 1982 study found that 42 percent of a sample of gay men were considered “sissies” as children, compared to only 11 percent of heterosexual men. A different 1981 study found that half of gay men displayed some “gender atypical” behavior as children, but only a quarter of straight men did.
That doesn’t mean this many gay men are outwardly effeminate – they’re not – but it does mean that there’s some truth to the stereotype that gay men are more likely than straight men to be, um, “artistic,” or at least androgynous. Let’s admit it: isn’t that part of what “gaydar” is all about?
“Some days I walk around, and I’m just a normal dude,” says Ed Kennedy, a 37-year-old gay man living in West Virginia. “And some days I have more of a swish in my step.”
In short, most gay men aren’t “like women.” But we really do tend to be a little different from the “typical” straight guy.
Still, these are all just tendencies. Plenty of gay and bisexual men don’t ever swish, nor do they want to.
An online poster in a U.K. student forum put it like this: “There are two gay genes: one makes a person gay, and another makes them camp. If they have got both, then they are gay and camp. If they just have the gay gene, then they won't be as easy to spot. If they just have the camp gene then they will be normal, as the camp gene needs the gay gene to activate it.”
“I just made most of that up,” the poster added, “but it could be true.”
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Interview with Nepal’s first gay MP
Posted by savie karnel in Uncategorized. Tagged: Nepal, Gay rights, third gender, homosexual, Member of Parliament, Sunil Panth, Transgender, Blue Diamond Society, Communist Party of Nepal, discrimination. Leave a Comment
Though backward in economy, Nepal is much ahead when it comes to the rights of the third gender. Nepal’s first MP Sunil Panth who has openly declared his gay status, and got them equal rights for the third gender is in Bangalore to support the cause.
“I am surprised at what is happening in Bangalore. Police are evicting transgenders from their houses. This kind of oppression used to happen in Nepal in 2001 to 2005 during the King’s rule. Now we are a democratic country and enjoy equal rights. Indian is the largest democracy and it is surprising that such a thing is happening here,” said 35-year old Sunil Panth.
Nepal has recognized the third gender as a separate gender. “In most countries transgender are known by their post-operative sex. In Nepal official documents like passport and national identification card have third gender mentioned. The Maoist party and the Nepali Congress have included the needs of the thrid gender in their manifestoes too,” he said.
Panth’s Blue Diamond, Society, a network of 20 organisations has one of the petitioners in the Nepalese Supreme Court, demanding equal rights for LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender, intersex). The Supreme Court held that members of sexual minorities were “natural persons” deserving of protection from discrimination. It ordered the government to come up with legislation guaranteeing civil rights for homosexuals and to establish a committee to study legalizing same-sex marriages. The Court said that official documents such as national identification cards and passports had to offer a third option besides “male” and “female” for a person’s gender. More recently the Nepalese Government, in its budget announced special provisions for LGBTI people.
While Nepal’s new constitution is being drafted, Panth is working to get recognition for the third gender. “Our preamble will have the mention of a third category. It will also say that there should be no discrimination on sexual orientation, just like the way there should be no discrimination on the basis of caste or creed. There will be a separate section for sexual minorities so that they get equal opportunities,” he said.
The government is also undertaking schemes to provide employment for LGBTI. “We are training members of third gender to run hair salons, bakeries, drive tuk-tuk, work as sherpas, tour guides and to also make their houses into guest homes,” he said.
Panth also feels that the politicians too could cash on the huge vote bank which LGBTI has. “I was nominated by the Communist Party of Nepal (United). I garnered the complete support of LGBTI and also of others and won the elections. The other parties too have realised the huge vote bank they can get from us,” he said.
Panth’s journey
Sunil Panth was brought in Nepal’s countryside in the Gorkha district. “I finished school and came to Katmandu. There was no discussion or debate and I thought everyone was like me. In school boys and girl did not mingle. I went to Belarus for higher studies. There during medical counseling I saw a board stating, “Beware of homosexuals,” he said.
After completing my degree in Computer Science I went to Japan for three months for voluntary work. During this time I met a group of gays and lesbians in the heart of Tokyo city. This is when I discovered my true self. I made friends and studies about the third gender in who were held in high respect not only in Greek history but also in Hinduism. Hindus also have third gender deities. It was a new birth for me,” he said.
On returning to Nepal, Panth started the Blue Diamond Society and worked for the rights of LGBTI. “During the popular movement for democracy we too came on the streets. This is when many people noticed us a strong force,” he said.
Panth’s calls his mother his inspiration. “In 2003 a reporter asked if about my sexual orientation and I agreed that I was gay. My sister showed the article to my mother and she was devastated for a week. She then accepted me and stood by me. I stay with my parents,” he said.
He has himself not faced any discrimination. “May be it was because of me belonging to the so-called high caste. But I have personally not faced any threats or discrimination any where,” he said.
Though backward in economy, Nepal is much ahead when it comes to the rights of the third gender. Nepal’s first MP Sunil Panth who has openly declared his gay status, and got them equal rights for the third gender is in Bangalore to support the cause.
“I am surprised at what is happening in Bangalore. Police are evicting transgenders from their houses. This kind of oppression used to happen in Nepal in 2001 to 2005 during the King’s rule. Now we are a democratic country and enjoy equal rights. Indian is the largest democracy and it is surprising that such a thing is happening here,” said 35-year old Sunil Panth.
Nepal has recognized the third gender as a separate gender. “In most countries transgender are known by their post-operative sex. In Nepal official documents like passport and national identification card have third gender mentioned. The Maoist party and the Nepali Congress have included the needs of the thrid gender in their manifestoes too,” he said.
Panth’s Blue Diamond, Society, a network of 20 organisations has one of the petitioners in the Nepalese Supreme Court, demanding equal rights for LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender, intersex). The Supreme Court held that members of sexual minorities were “natural persons” deserving of protection from discrimination. It ordered the government to come up with legislation guaranteeing civil rights for homosexuals and to establish a committee to study legalizing same-sex marriages. The Court said that official documents such as national identification cards and passports had to offer a third option besides “male” and “female” for a person’s gender. More recently the Nepalese Government, in its budget announced special provisions for LGBTI people.
While Nepal’s new constitution is being drafted, Panth is working to get recognition for the third gender. “Our preamble will have the mention of a third category. It will also say that there should be no discrimination on sexual orientation, just like the way there should be no discrimination on the basis of caste or creed. There will be a separate section for sexual minorities so that they get equal opportunities,” he said.
The government is also undertaking schemes to provide employment for LGBTI. “We are training members of third gender to run hair salons, bakeries, drive tuk-tuk, work as sherpas, tour guides and to also make their houses into guest homes,” he said.
Panth also feels that the politicians too could cash on the huge vote bank which LGBTI has. “I was nominated by the Communist Party of Nepal (United). I garnered the complete support of LGBTI and also of others and won the elections. The other parties too have realised the huge vote bank they can get from us,” he said.
Panth’s journey
Sunil Panth was brought in Nepal’s countryside in the Gorkha district. “I finished school and came to Katmandu. There was no discussion or debate and I thought everyone was like me. In school boys and girl did not mingle. I went to Belarus for higher studies. There during medical counseling I saw a board stating, “Beware of homosexuals,” he said.
After completing my degree in Computer Science I went to Japan for three months for voluntary work. During this time I met a group of gays and lesbians in the heart of Tokyo city. This is when I discovered my true self. I made friends and studies about the third gender in who were held in high respect not only in Greek history but also in Hinduism. Hindus also have third gender deities. It was a new birth for me,” he said.
On returning to Nepal, Panth started the Blue Diamond Society and worked for the rights of LGBTI. “During the popular movement for democracy we too came on the streets. This is when many people noticed us a strong force,” he said.
Panth’s calls his mother his inspiration. “In 2003 a reporter asked if about my sexual orientation and I agreed that I was gay. My sister showed the article to my mother and she was devastated for a week. She then accepted me and stood by me. I stay with my parents,” he said.
He has himself not faced any discrimination. “May be it was because of me belonging to the so-called high caste. But I have personally not faced any threats or discrimination any where,” he said.
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