He/She/They ~ How We Talk About Gender and Why It Matters~ Book Tour with Schuyler Bailar & special guest Dylan Mulvaney

 

He/She/They ~ How We Talk About Gender and Why It Matters~

 Book Tour with Schuyler Bailar & special guest Dylan Mulvaney

On November 8th, I attended Schuyler Bailar’s book tour with the special guest Dylan Mulvaney. It was such a valuable experience that I will never forget and I would like to share my experience and thoughts. 

Schuyler Bailar is an author, educator, and activist advocating for LGBTQ+ rights. During his swim career at Harvard, he became the first openly trans man to compete in the NCAA Division I for any sport. He is continuing to educate others about LGBTQ+ issues, doing four research studies at Harvard, and released a book called He/She/They in 2023. 

Dylan Mulvaney is a famous tik toker who has been sharing her transition since October 2022. She has visited the White House to talk about transgender issues and won Woman of the Year from LGBTQ+ magazine Attitude in 2023. 

Here are some topics and things that Bailar and Mulvaney touched on in bullet point notes( because they did not allow recording, I tried my best to jot down everything):

• A lot of our common sense is another form of bias

• Ex: “Girls are not as good at sports as boys → times, the qualifying time for girls' events are faster than boys

• Breaking down our “common senses” can open our minds

• Transphobia = white supremacy

• White settlers killed queer people

• Intersecting systems of oppression

• Understanding history and why we stand with minority groups → That is what collective liberation is all about

• How to find kindness with people who don’t understand you

• Education

• Therapy

• Not forgetting the privileges you have (educational background, exposure, etc)

• Think about how you always don’t have an answer to things → be patient

• Believing that people can change

• Ask them questions and try to get their opinions heard. Oftentimes, people don’t think critically. Massive amount of censorship is also important to remember

• Make them question, make them reflect their beliefs

• Add perspectives not change perspectives

• Connections with others are the step to humanity

• How they can see the human in every person

• How parents make you cautious vs. teach fear & the importance of making home comfortable/a space they know they can rely on

• Bailar emphasized that even if society doesn’t accept your child home should always be a safe space for the child. 

• We’ve all experienced gender and that means we’ve been restricted, meaning transphobia is harmful to everyone

• We are all not the same, acknowledging our differences is key

• The same systems/oppressions are fueling many different problems = collective oppression

• By labeling people the same, we are disregarding people’s pain

It was such a valuable time and I truly still cannot believe I was able to hear both of their stories in person. 

The reason why I was not only eager to hear their stories in person but also to talk to Bailar was because of our similarities as swimmers, connections with Boston, queer, and people of color, and our deep relationship with our grandmothers. The same year that Bailar became the first openly trans athlete to compete in the NCAA Division 1 category, was the same year that I moved to Boston from Japan. It was quite a big deal in our town since Harvard is so close to our town. I was never really exposed to queerness since back in Japan, especially in 2015, there were barely talks about IGBTQ+ people (even though there is a big issue with anti-IGBTQ+, homophobia, and transphobia) and I did not know any trans athletes. As a swimmer, I did more research on Bailar and we had so much in common. He practiced at the same pool that I went to summer swim camps for, he was always around Harvard as a student and my family and I were always around that area, he came to talk at my high school when I was a middle schooler which I was so sad to find out I missed it and lastly he spoke at Oxy two years ago. I felt that I kept missing opportunities where I could show my appreciation for him. Every person who has heard him talk in person has told me that he is such a good talker so one of my life goals is to meet him in person and tell him everything I’ve been wanting to tell him since 2015. 

I knew I was queer but I never thought of coming out to my parents and family because of the cultural difference (I “officially came out” when I moved to LA for Oxy). Bailar also understood the cultural gaps that many queer POC experience. I would watch his YouTube videos and one of the videos that stood out to me was his coming out story to his Korean grandmother. He even talks about it at the end of every show (and still in shock again, that I was able to hear this in person and not over a computer screen) and he has a quote by his grandmother tattooed below his scars from his top surgery. I have a very strong connection with my grandmother and she is my favorite person in the whole world. I never felt the need to come out to my grandmother because I didn’t want to “confuse her” more and I was already content with how open we were with each other. But after hearing Bailar talk about it again, it felt wrong that my grandmother didn’t know about my bisexuality because she has helped me with so much throughout my life and I thought since she accepted me for who I am now, it would be unfair for her to not know that side of me. After the show ended, I had the opportunity to talk to Bailar and I told him how much I appreciate him as a queer POC athlete trying to navigate the world. I also told him how much I relate to him with his deep connections with his grandmother and I was able to express that he has pushed me to tell my grandmother (which I’m hoping to tell her in person when I see her next). I was tearing up with joy, excitement, and emotions I could not explain. 

Bailar was the first queer POC figure I was exposed to and relate to. It is truly amazing to see not only queer but the intersectionality between queer and race people/educators you can look up to. This represents exactly why representation is important, especially for young audiences who are still trying to figure things out in a society that is a complex and hateful place.

SCOTUS To Consider Transgender Bathroom Ban (& More!)

 Openly gay legal reporter Chris Geidner is reporting that the Supreme Court of the United States will be considering a number of important cases for trans equality in the 2023-2024 term.

Here are some of the issues which the highest Court in the land will be deliberating on in the not too-distant future regarding transgender rights:

Bathroom bans

In addition to the Idaho case at the Ninth Circuit, however, a case out of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit could actually make bigger headlines. The Martinsville school district in Indiana, in a petition filed by Paul Clement, has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the matter in a case challenging the district’s ban.

Gender-affirming care bans

In short, whether it comes quickly or slightly less quickly, state bans on gender-affirming medical care for minors will be headed to the Supreme Court within the coming year. (Note also that Florida’s ban — and litigation — also includes restrictions on adult care, as detailed in the recent class certification in a challenge to the ban there.)

Sports bans

The final major area of transgender-related litigation making its way through the courts are sports bans. And, on Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held oral arguments over West Virginia’s law banning trans girls and women from girls and women’s school sports teams.

Anti-drag laws

In short, while anti-drag laws are unlikely to make their way to the Supreme Court’s docket this term, there will be a ruling on the scope of Florida’s injunction pending appeal sometime in November. Depending on how that’s resolved, moreover, it could tell us some information about how the court is looking at these efforts.

This is just another example of the ongoing nature of the fight for LGBT equality occurring in the courts, even in the post-Obergefell era.

The night to his day

  In The Social Construction of Gender by Judith Lorber, one part that stood out to me is the idea of "Doing Gender." 

This idea that we are "Doing Gender" is a funny saying to something that I have found my subconscious doing regularly. After reading this passage, I noticed myself trying to categorize people. I am not sure if I do it because I am trying to make myself feel like I fit in or if the notion on gender categorization is so engraved into my subconscious because of how I grew up. Do you think there is a way to change our subconscious thoughts? What if these subconscious thoughts cannot change/ do they need to be changed?

Sex and Gender as Social Constructs: Some Very Scattered Thoughts

The class discussion we had following our reading on sex as a social construct brought up a lot of thoughts for me.  It left me sort of questioning everything I know, which I guess is usually a good thing.  When I think of sex, I think of the way we classify a person's biological, anatomical, or chromosol configuration.  And I understand there are many different ways these traits can intersect or differ depending on how you interpret them.  That being said, I think the problem is that sex is assigned by a doctor upon a child's birth and many doctor's are not trained on how to deal with people who are intersex, and even with cisgender newborns, they immediately project their binary way of thinking onto children.

There is no room for fluidity or ambiguity, it has to be one way or another.  Male or Female.  And with the emergence of these terms for intersex people (hermaphrodites, fermaphrodites, and mermaphrodites), there's more room for self discovery and less rigidity than under a binary structure.  Funnily enough, we were talking about sex in my Critical Theories of Sexuality class on the same day as in this class.  We watched a documentary about the harm of experiments like John Moneys' on David Rimer and how not giving intersex people agency over their own bodies when it comes to their physical traits attributed to their sex is incredibly dehumanizing and destructive.  The documentary just confirmed what I already thought: that binary systems and categories and detrimental to everyone involved, as the human experience is never linear.  People shouldn't have to be forced into a box in any sense of the phrase, and forcing binary's onto people will only ever yield negative results.

But I think a part the reason why it's so hard for me to wrap my mind around this idea of sex is because it's so ingrained within the fabric of modern Western society, where you can change your gender identity but sex is biological, it's literally how you were born.  So deconstructing that idea is difficult for me.  

Also, another thing (unrelated to sex), I found it really interesting that during our discussion and readings about gender as a social construct, there was no mention of nonbinary.  Even in our class, a binary (this one of man and woman) was being centered in discussion, leaving out a large group of people and enforcing the idea of "there can only be two."