If there was commercial pressure to include scantily clad women on covers in 2007, that same pressure does not necessarily exist in 2014. In other words, given the way our business has changed in the last 7 years, I no longer think this excuse holds water, and you shouldn't either.
Well, I agree, I don't think the excuse holds water... in fact, I am not sure it ever held water. I mean, of course I get it, Paizo is a publishing company, and like any company you must reap a profit for your efforts. Sexualizing women and articulating it through some of the most disturbing (heterosexual, white) male power fantasies makes money, as can be evinced by glancing at other forms of popular media. There might even be some sort of relationship between how misogynistic an image is, and how quickly said images fly off the shelves. Though in retrospect, talking about the justification with weasel words ("If there was commercial pressure...") makes it seem like maybe it isn't the case that the market forces forced Paizo to exploit images of women. If not this, then what?
If that excuse no longer holds water, and things have change for Paizo or the market, then what is the excuse for covers such as this little bibliothèque à trois for Inner Sea Magic? Is it that the male gaze still persists as a governing force in the selecting of images?
A few years ago someone went through and looked at gender on the covers of Dragon Magazine (published by Paizo back in the 3.5 days). The first post of their analysis can be found here. Their analysis came to similar conclusions as you did and I think you may find looking at their posts on the issue interesting. In short, they found that there was an overabundance of sexualized women on the covers of Dragon Magazine, with very little in the way of sexualized men.
In the last post of their analysis, they include a response they got from Erik Mona wherein he explains some marketing factors contributing to the trend. I think his comments shed light on the issue and might help explain why it's still happening today in Pathfinder material (cf. MaizyKissed's comment about "Inner Sea Magic").
Erik Mona wrote:
Here are two facts that shed some light on the issue.
1) According to our not-too-scientific reader surveys, women account for 4-6% of our readership.
2) Issues featuring scantily clad women on the cover, in general, sell better than issues that do not feature scantily clad women.
It should not be a great surprise to anyone that magazine publishing is a business, and one in which we are forced to compete with companies that have budgets orders of magnitude higher than the average non-Wizards of the Coast game company. In fact, magazine publishers like Conde Nast have budgets orders of magnitude higher than even Wizards of the Coast.
In that environment, we've got to do what we've got to do to sell magazines, and sometimes that involves showing some flesh. Since roughly 95% of our audience are men, that scantily clad flesh often belongs to a female.
I was somewhat surprised yesterday when the objection of jargon arose. Despite the claims otherwise, my writing was partially organized around vetting obscure phrases and terms. For example, I deliberately avoid the term "socially constructed" (and its derivatives) because the phrase always trips people up. I broke when Bob_Loblaw elected to use it, so as to share a common term. However, the rapid derailment (and spectacular crash!) of the topic gave me reason to take a step back and think on what happened.
I suppose the most obvious thing to address is the subject of jargon itself. Many people have brought this up, and sadly I am somewhat at a loss of what exactly is the problem. Maybe others mean something different when they say "jargon," but I've always thought of it as a "highly specific term or phrase, with special limits on meaning, that is used exclusively within a particular discipline."
So, I revisited my previous posts, and read them for what I saw as clear instances of jargon. I found five, four of which I only used once (surveillance was used twice), and one that was immediately followed up with an explanation of what it means ("not being a scientific realist"). I think that these words are important, and as such made a list below that I think, taken together, make sense of why they were used and why they matter.
Register:
Used in particular sense, a register is an outline of words (or symbols) and a connected meaning within a specific context. Registers themselves can vary, and as a consequence are subjective to the specific contexts they are embedded in. I tend to talk about registers when I want to reference a specific language for a discipline.
Funnily enough, jargon is a register, where meaning is highly specific and deliberately regulated. And doubly funny is that this list of jargon is an instance where "the register" (this list) is laid out to be plainly seen. Not all registers are obvious, and there are methods that historians, sociologists, and anthropologists can use to "uncover" the registers of particular discourses.
In this thread, I have been working to discuss and to uncover the register of gender/sex in medical discourse, the inherent instability of the gender/sex register that is hidden, and ways in which this instability can be actualized for the benefit of LGBT and queer people.
Disciplined:
This is one of three Foucaultian terms in this register. For Foucault, discipline has a duel meaning. First, disciplined knowledge are particular instances where knowledge becomes invested with power. Disciplined science is the instance where a specific scientific discipline gains power over the object it studies. That is to say, the disciplined science disciplines its object of study, hence the double meaning. Foucault argues that power is in its most potent (powerful?) form when it has been translated into systems of knowledge.
Foucault focuses on the human sciences of biology (biomedicine), psychology, and sociology as particular important instances power has been gained over the human body through the production of knowledge. An important thing to consider here is that the translation of power into scientific knowledge does not make the "truths" produced any less scientific.
I do have a particular distaste for bad science, and am easily drawn into discussions of the empirical and statistical limits of certain scientific projects. My personal history engaged with brilliant scientists and bold science has made me slightly sensitive to instances where people have overstepped the evidence in favor of their own pet theories. But (and this is a big but), my primary concern isn't whether medical practices are scientific supported or not. I am concerned over what forms disciplined knowledge takes over the human body, and what ways that limits life for LGBT and queer folks.
Surveillance:
Another Foucaultian term. Surveillance involves a particular instance where disciplined knowledge acts on human bodies or minds in such a way as to assess their relation to norms. Norms are somewhat caught up inside registers, and the medical register contains a series of gender norms in which bodies and minds are measured against. How norms are constituted within medical practice and biological science is a rather detailed process. You'll forgive me for not exploring its entirety immediately.
Scientific Realism I think I explained this, but this particular phrase has a deep and complex meaning which certainly goes beyond the needs of this register. But because I am sensing some confusion about my particular position regarding science, I didn't place this in spoiler tags.
Suffice it to say, someone (me, specifically) can be a scientific arealist (or some people call "anti-realist") while still holding that science creates useful knowledge. In fact, I am willing to go so far to say that disciplined scientific knowledge has the capacity to generate very good things. I look at my own personal contributions to scientific knowledge proudly. Not being a scientific realist doesn't make me anti-science.
Clinical Gaze:
Let's wrap this up, because as we've cleared out this register, the terms are getting easier. In fact, I am totally willing to let Wikipedia take the bulk of this one:
The French and American revolutions that spawned modernity also created a "meta-narrative" of scientific discourse that held scientists, specifically medical doctors, as sages who would in time abolish sickness and so solve all of humanity's problems. For the nineteenth-century moderns, medical doctors replaced the discredited medieval clergy; physicians save bodies, not souls. This myth was part of the greater discourse of the humanist and Enlightenment schools of thought that believed the human body to be the sum of a person: biological reductionism that became a powerful tool of the new sages: Through thorough examination (gazing) of a body, a doctor deduces symptom, illness, and cause, therefore achieving unparalleled understanding of the patient — hence, the doctor's medical gaze was believed to penetrate surface illusions, in near-mystical discovery of hidden truth.
In so many words, the clinical/medical gaze is the myth that doctors see the human body "pure of all intervention" and in "the language spoken by the things themselves" (Foucault, 1975). That was Foucualt saying, very poetically I might add, that the medical gaze is the idea/myth that medical professionals can determine truth of bodies and their health without being biased by culture or society. This fact is, in part, a consequence that disciplined biomedical knowledge is invested in power that depends on the stability of its register. This "investing of power" occurs through social practices stabilize the always unstable register.
Looking back on these terms, I think it was a good idea to choose them (even though I regret the confusion they may have caused). For each of these, I ended up using them because (as evinced in this register), they encapsulate some very large concepts that seemed too big to explain on their own. I don't really think they can be easily explained on their own, and was afraid they'd "run away with me" from the subject at hand (that is, opening up the possibility for expanding queer life). But many of these ideas required an understanding of the other terms in this register, and so explaining them in sequence (and using Qunnessaa's spoiler trick) I think made it easier.
If these terms are jargon, then maybe it's good that they're jargon. I mean, if medical practice or biological science requires jargon to get their important work done, then I think it follows that the LGBT and queer community requires terms to get our work done.
So some medications, like isotretinoin, can cause serious birth defects....
Sigh... the conflation of being a woman and being (potentially) pregnant all rolled into strict barriers placed on medical access for women. And all for clear skin! sigh what's a girl to do?
This is actually a really good example of a case where saying what we mean, instead of just collapsing everything into sex, would be good. Rather than saying that women should jump through hoops for this specific acne medicine, we should say that it's not appropriate for people who are or may become pregnant. This doesn't cut off the possibility of someone classified as a man being pregnant. It also doesn't equate woman with potentially pregnant person. Focusing on what we mean, rather than collapsing everything to sex, would benefit cis women here. Cis women who don't want and don't intend to get pregnant wouldn't be forced to jump through these hoops due to some paternalistic concern about their reproductive capacity.
This isn't something that's just for the benefit of trans and intersex people. Not collapsing many disparate things into the single category of sex benefits everyone.
It sounds great and might even work on some theoretical level, but not with human beings. We're pattern making creatures and we are going to sort people into categories no matter what anyone tries to do....
...We collapse disparate things into categories because it lets us process the universe. As long as we're open to exceptions and to changing those categories with the evidence, that's not a bad things.
I guess I just don't think that argument is convincing: human beings "[a]re pattern making creatures," therefor the patterned categories (gender) we've settled on are necessary/real/here-to-stay. Relegating Vivinane (and my, if I may be so generous) proposition to an unrealizable "theoretical level" does not necessarily follow from pattern making ability or tendency.
The very fact we can (and do) change these categories (and in very profound and incommensurable ways) shows that not only are these categories unstable, but that our ability to "pattern-make" the world doesn't exhaust the abilities we have to make sense of the world.
I guess I’m most interested in your thoughts on what the ideal solution might be to the cultural muddle of sex and gender, particularly for people who might strongly identify within binaries. That is, if we can decouple gender from sex entirely, what sorts of work can ideas about sex do? Would we want to try to argue whether sex is a matter of gross anatomy, chromosomes, or hormones? I’m thinking in particular of the implications for how we might understand the range of trans* people’s desires, especially those who transition. What does it mean that some people pursue hormone treatment and surgery even though they are not strictly necessary for the experience of being trans or of transition? Is that just the result of the cultural mix-up of sex and gender, or are people onto something when they postulate differences between average neural structures and epigenetic influences? Is there a responsible and meaningful way to acknowledge our embeddedness in discourse when trying to do neuroscience, say, like a more sophisticated version of, “We’re trying to be objective but what we’re looking for and what we can conceive of are limited by the preconceptions we haven’t been able to shake off?”
Perhaps the most concrete example would be how we might think about transgender people who, in MagusJanus’ words, “want to transition to the sex they feel most comfortable as” (emphasis added), or trans people who distinguish more or less sharply between transsexual and transgender.
I guess my first thought is what exactly does it mean to say "identify within binaries." Admittedly, the way psychiatric diagnoses operates is based off a polarization of genders. For example, the DSM-V marks that distress at one's assigned gender is a characteristic of gender dysphoria. In this case, a patient is ushered into medical surveillance for gender dysphoria as a consequence of the insisted binary, not because the binary exists within them.
Now, maybe there are trans and cis people that depend on opposition identity ("I'm not a man") within a binary to assert a claim over their gender identity ("therefor, I am a woman"). If this is the case, I do think it produces a rather significant problem for what I generally supposed as circumstantial solutions (the open-ending of the gender question). If some trans and cis people need the closed question of gender to end with male/female, then two things happen. First, the closed question necessarily forecloses possibility for those who don't identify within the binary, those who don't concretely identify within the binary, and all those unspeakable case that can't be enumerated because of the closed landscape of this binary gender. Second (as a consequence of the first), trans and cis people who need the closed question must necessarily stabilize the binary and it's respective categories. The need for a closed question requires the removal of bodies that upset the social stability of sex/gender binaries.
Now, I am going to go out on a limb here and say that I don't think that either trans or cis people need opposition identity to assert a claim over their gender identity. I think cultivating a gender ought to be a positive process, where we appropriate the elements of our gender and accumulate our identity. I think that our current system places a great deal of emphasis of elements of gender that have been inaugurated into biomedical discourse, and as a consequence creates impossible situations for trans and cis people. The DSM-V outlines that to be diagnosed with gender dysphoria one must experience significant distress or impairment with their assigned sex. It isn't enough that people want or need to be the gender that they are, medical discourse makes gender a negative process, one where suffering is the "critical element of gender dysphoria."
Qunnessaa wrote:
Also, Annabel, could you go into what you meant about being “willing to entertain the materiality of gender articulated through sex” in a bit more detail? I’m feeling a bit dense that I’m not feeling sure that I know what that entails.
Sometimes we need to assert certain rights to treatment or justice through recognizing how sexed bodies are differentially treated. Because sex is articulated through gender, the materiality of sex is caught up in the oppressive, sexist social forces. Sometimes we need to assert rights based on sex (or the configuration of our bodies), and under those circumstances I am interested in entertaining those political projects.
Ann Fausto-Sterling's Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality (2000) and Sex/Gender: Biology in a Social World (2012) are two really good texts to read. Fausto-Sterling is a brilliant biologist and her grasp feminist and queer theory translates into two very elegantly put together texts.
you have a highly convoluted way of making your point, and as such I cannot easily follow it, I am sorry for making a mistake in trying to understand what you are trying to say. So, you think that there is not, in fact, any person who is "Biologically a woman" who has a prostate, if I understand, because you, in fact, think there is no such thing as "biologically a woman" but only used that statement to make a point about its adsurdity?
I suppose because I'm not a scientific realist, I can safely say I don't think "biologically a woman" means anything until an outline of qualifications are made. This process of outlining is a kind of social practice where the characteristics that designate "biologically" a gender are negotiated. These characteristics are open to question, just like any other social practice. Further, the grounds on which we assert certain "true" categories of gender change as the discussion continues: are we talking about chromosomes, prostates, uteri, brains, hormones, or what?
So we can talk about "biologically a woman," but the term "biological" is only serving to obscure whatever material reality that's being articulated as gender.
I think I understand, however, Annabel, your statement,
Annabel wrote:
There are people who are "biologically" women, and look like women, and have prostates.
I feel complicates the discussion unnecessarily. Because what do you mean by, "Biologically" Women? Do you mean they identify as women, or do you mean they have ovaries and/or a uterus? Isn’t the whole discussion about the nuances of what it means to say someone is a “woman” or is a “man”?
Making a statement such as “…are biologically women…” implies there is no ambiguity.
Wait, where are we going with this? The question was about prostate. How did the question of ovaries and/or uteri come into the question about medical practice directed at prostates. It's completely possible for someone to have ovaries and a prostate. I mean, this is exactly what I mean when I say that medicalized sex/gender is unstable.
I am exactly questioning (troubling?) the assertion that the concept of a "biological woman" is without ambiguity.
So, in other words, people who are transgender that want to transition are wrong for wanting to transition to the sex they feel most comfortable as, doctors are wrong for wanting to help them, and the hormone therapies that help people transition are wrong?
I never made this claim. In fact, the structure I laid out with the open-ended question of gender quite obviously opens up the possibility for trans men and women to seek medical care and technologies for the purpose of embodying their gender. Because the "fact" of their bodies isn't prewritten by medical professionals, the opportunity to transition ot the sex they feel most comfortable as isn't foreclosed by a history of (sometimes violent) medically predetermined gender.
MagusJanus wrote:
And this particular field of science, which has always been based on the assumption that sex does not play a part in how drugs are metabolized by the body, is wrong when it finds out that may not necessarily be true and that it adjusts recommendations on some medications (not even the majority by a long shot) to reflect that?
As I said, sex isn't a stable category. If the question is about the presence or characteristic of COX when aspirin is to be used to treat cardiovascular health, then talk about the presence or characteristic of COX. Sex is being used as an unstable proxy for the actual mechanism of ASA that varies between people (sometimes men and women, though not always).
MagusJanus wrote:
So, do you have any evidence to support this stance? Because I think the people who have already transitioned would love to hear it. And I certainly would love to learn how an entire field of science is wrong on this issue. And I mean scientific evidence; not just conjectures and wild accusations. I want studies.
Edit: If anyone is curious, read the part about hormones and the part about biomedically disciplined erasure of bodily difference in Annabel's post again; those are the entire medical basis for gender reassignment surgery.
I am not exactly sure what you're specifically talking about, you clipped a rather large and dense quote of mine. While writing this I had in mind people who are intersexed as experiencing medically prescribed violence, though there are many trans men and women who experience this effect too. Ann Fausto-Sterling (Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality, 2000 and Sex/Gender: Biology in a Social World, 2012) and Suzanne Kessler ("The Medical Construction of Gender" from Lessons from the Intersexed, 1998), are the two researchers that come immediately to mind when I think about these issues, they'd be excellent sources to seek out if you're interested.
I mean, it's worthwhile to note that some trans men and women don't want to undergo all or any forms of medical reassignment. The medical authority that leverages this form bodily desire as the only "legitimate" end goal of transitioning enacts violence against trans people who don't want to seek certain surgical or hormonal treatments.
Yes, there are trans people who seek out medical practices to bring their bodies into closer alignment to their gender, and this is completely fine (and especially fine when they can achieve these goals without disciplining medical surveillance). But the fact that you seem to think this is the only way to embody a particular gender belies a fundamental misunderstanding.
I'm not sure it makes sense in the case presented directly above to place the burden on doctors and pharmacists. This pharmacist was trying to make sure that her patient was not inappropriately prescribed medicine. Mistakes do happen.
It makes more sense that if you know you are biologically a man but look like a woman you tell your pharmacist. The pharmacist is not a mind reader and as has been pointed out sometimes things are not obvious.
There are people who are "biologically" women, and look like women, and have prostates.
Not to put to fine a point on it, but the "biologically/medically" classified categories of gender are unstable, and thus open to challenge. This is made apparent by the fact that there are plenty of people who lay claim to various categories of gender (men and women being two very popular options) while simultaneously not embodying the tidy package of sexed characteristics ascribed as "biological" genders.
According to the FDA, Ambien has different dosages at which it is safe, depending on biological sex.
Actually, the FDA had requested that the drug manufactures to set both men and women's dosages to the same low level. But the drug makers elected to only change women's dosages. All this despite the fact that there were both men and women were found to have residual Zolpidem/Abien in their systems on the mornings following taking the drug. Whatever the justification the FDA had for requesting lower doses for both, but only enforcing it for men, it commutes between the scientific facts and the socially organized constellations of gender.
I entertained Bob_Loblaw claim about the medical necessity of binary gender categories, in part because I wanted to flush out the details of the claim (am always excited to learn about new instances where medical science has laid claim to some "truth" about gender), and in part because it was an entertaining red harring. Vague references to specific drug interactions aren't convincing, and they implicitly rest on a claim of biomedical authority over the materiality of gender. Medicine takes up certain physical characteristics of the body (sexed organs, sexed hormones, etc) and articulates them through gender. It is only after we've convinced ourselves that ovaries, prostates, and hormones "make the wo/man," that medical practice organized around gender can proceed. To put another way, these categories aren't vindicated by biomedical science's ability to deferentially prescribe treatments based on gender. Rather, biomedical science depends on stabilizing these categories---sometimes through violent means---before it can deploy gendered technologies.
And like I said earlier, I totally already understand that modern medical practice is already organized around the patient as an essentially gendered subject. This produces the necessity of the closed question of gender and the insisted binary thereof. In fact, this very organization is what makes doctors believe that violent reconstructive surgeries on perfectly healthy intersexed babies is part of their job: in a social world where gender is rendered biologically essential, we see gender enforced through biomedically disciplined erasure of bodily difference.
I guess that's why I really liked Malachi Silverclaw idea: it destablized gender as a category in medical/scientific practice. If the question is left open, then there is no "easy" way to ascribe a gender to a newborn. The contemporary binary enables violent medical practices, but if there is no obvious binary, who is the doctor to go about measuring up infant gentiles for the purposes of (sometimes violent) gender assignment? An open question can be left to the future, and in the future always be revisited for a rewrite.
I'm no expert in the field of gender jargon, but it seems obvious to me that when filling in a form (or character sheet), 'gender' should not be followed with:
• male/female
nor
• male/female/other
nor
• male/female/(long-and ever growing-list of other terms)
it should simply say:
• Gender:__________
and let you fill in the blank.
That way, anyone who feels that the choice should be limited to male/female (for some reason) can write 'male' or 'female', and this will in no way prevent anyone else from filling in whichever term they prefer.
Would there be any problem with that?
I think this is a great idea. What you've outlined is how the question of gender which closes with an ostensibly exhaustive list of options forecloses possibility. The process which stabilizes gender categories (whether binary or not) depends, in part, on curbing destabilizing alternatives. Requiring people choose girl or boy, female or male, or woman or man insists that these categories constitute an exhausted, essential human disposition.
I have to admit, I always give the gender question a uncomfortable side-glance when filling out forms: as if there *must* be a category in which I can provide a definitive, objective answer. Even at the doctor's office it seems unnecessarily obligatory: as if the health prescriptions my doctor will proved are contingent on me laying claim to maleness or femaleness.
By leaving the question open, the possibility for "new" gender is made and the previous structure of gender is shown to be destabilized. And any attempt to draft up an exhaustive register of genders becomes immediately threatened by the next "boi," "tomboy," "andro," "Θ," etc inscribed into the blank following Gender.
Back up here, because that statement really seems to suggest that you're saying that any scientific attempt to determine the origins of internal gender identity which includes being able to measure and quantify it is somehow cissexist?
Given that it appears to be an emergent property within the brain with a measurable biological origin, whose causes are increasingly subject to scientific inquiry, you might be facing a headlong collision between ideology and biology.
Unless you meant something less horribly broad (such as condemning as cissexist attempts to solely define gender by XX and XY, which clearly isn't the case as science has shown rather definitively).
Because it's absolutely in the body, just not absolutely defined by the chromosomes (though the genes therein, methylation of said genes therein, and the effect of the uterine environment in the presence of that web of complexity do in face play a role).
Even look at the neuroscience and how it has moved forward in its project on gender.
First, neuroscientists imaged the brains of cis men and women. They take these brains, and by interrogating only the differences between the two genders, they established the "true gender*" in the brain. Next, they imaged a sample of trans men and women's brains. Gathering them together, they surveyed these brains for their similarities to the "true gender*" that was established in the bodies of cis men and women.
So, part of the disagreement here is epistimological: nueroscience began its project by constructing "true gender*" as a quality of cis brains. How did they know which brain differences they tabulated were the "cause" of gender? They made reference to the already social identification of gender as a quality of sex. There are constellations of gender which each brain's body comfortably fit in: they have "typically" sexed bodies and they dress, act, speak, and move in ways that are sufficient to admit them into a "matching" gender. Statistical inference is used to identify brain differences which line up along categories that were already socially constituted. Science didn't "discover" gender in the brain: science discovered brain differences that correlated with the constellations of gender.
These facts actually brings into light the inherent cissexism of neuroscientific approaches to constructing gender as inherent to the body: they begin from the assumption that cisgender people physically constitute "true gender*." Thus, neuroscience casts trans men and women as derivations of cisgender people, only matching their gender identity so long as sufficient neurological evidence can be martialed to justify their claim to the status unquestionably afforded to cisgender people.
As mentioned above, science discovers differences that correlated with the constellations of gender. An interesting thing to take away from here is that the science of gender is both socially constituted (dependent on these constellations), and at the same time the science of gender is socially constituting gender. By bringing brains into question, certain brain configurations become taken up into gender, as an element in their constellations. The science of gender is a social practice that helps produce gender, and authoritative scientific discourse helps produce a narrow categories of ligitimized gender. This is what made the questions I posed at the close of this post apropos. Brains are certainly part of what constitutes gender (neuroscientists have seen to that), but authorizing neuroscience (or any biomedical science) as the authority over what constitutes gender (gender essentialization) is very dangerous.
And this brings us to where the disagreement is ontological: when you say "gender is rooted in the body" you seem to have stripped gender of everything except that which can be rendered through biomedical technology. Gender has been reduced to a quality of our nucleotide sequences, gene expression profiles, cellular physiology, or brain morphology. Of course, this kind of reductionism makes images like this unintelligible. What are the genders of the two characters in this image, and in what ways to we come to know their genders? This can even be scientifically investigated, by showing this image to children and adults alike. There will be a significant number of people who will identify the character on the left as a man or male and the character on the right as a woman or female. I am not being glib: there is a significant loss that occurs when rendering gender down to biological facts about the body that make "true gender*" incommensurable with gender.
I swear it was only like 5 years ago we were on the cusp of digit length and clockwise hair whorl research.
But seriously, I am asking about the evidence for a "staged feminization/masculinization" of queer brains that has driven the scientific community into broad consensus. Like, where these stages break down along development (are they different trimesters?). This whole thing just seems like a rather large mass of scientific work would be hard to miss. I'm just not finding it.
It's not hard to find.
But it’s also like asking for an explanation of the evidence regarding drug metabolism and clearance, why some people have reactions to some drugs while others don’t, polymorphisms in p450 enzymes, hepatic transporters, etc and doing that all in a message board post. For the topic at hand I can point out some highlights, but you’ll need to risk those PubMed papercuts if you want to follow the field.
I'd start with the '95 paper by Swaab et al...
Okay, it's seems to be what I already knew: the claim of scientific consensus was overstated. I have no doubt that some people believe that gay men and trans woman have feminized brains, and lesbians and trans men have masculinized brains. Swaab makes no mention of this feminization/masculinization creates sexuality and gender identity.
I think it is also worth noting how within nueroscience (and other speculative fields), the foundations for causal arguments are generally weak. It is the premise of the research that there masculine brains and feminine brains. Only after this "fact" is asserted, do scientists begin parsing differences between these brains and making arguments that these differences produce gender. Gender is "made up" as a biological characteristic of the brain before the brain is investigated for evidence of gender.
But there is another dimension to this problem that I failed to recognize earlier when probing this bit of speculation: some people feel empowered and reassured when biomedical authority lays claim to their identities and bodies. Biomedicince is a powerful mover, and is the gateway to social (and legal) legitimization of a broad range of experience. The debate over the DSM classification of GID centers on problem. To remove it would rob many trans people of access to affordable medical interventions, but to keep it in the DSM patholizes gender deviance and endangers queer lives.
Todd, maybe you might find these kinds of scientific authority reassuring, but there is a distinct difference from saying that these explanations match your experiences, and making authoritative statements about the lives of all gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people. The things you've said about gay men and lesbians are no explanations for my experiences as a queer person (or for that matter, as a cis person). Bridging the gap between speculative neuroscience and the lived experiences of queer people isn't something to do blithely, because it just stinks to hear someone explain my identity as the result of "hormone flux in-utero."
So, where does that leave the queer community: some want to subject themselves to biomedical surveillance as a means to legitimize gender and sexuality, while other don't want to further subject queer life to marginalization at the hands of authoritative, normalizing discourses (which, with all this "feminization/masculinization" talk, this is clearly a normalizing discourse that excludes genderqueer folks). Because, keep in mind that if we relegate gender to the auspices of BSTc volume (or whatever else is the fashionable cause of gender), what happens to the trans women who are informed that their brains don't match the typical neurological profiles for women and thus aren't eligible for medical treatment? Do they suddenly stop being trans because everyone else tells them their brains are "normal" for a man? At what point in time are we going to realize that handing our identities over to the authority of doctors, psychiatrists, and scientists doesn't ensure our protection and welfare?
Annabel, I agree that removing gendered pronouns from language is definitely possible, but I doubt that it would result in a reduction of gender roles.
Japanese, for example, doesn't really have gendered pronouns, but gender roles are still very strong in Japanese culture. Farsi is also grammatically genderless, but gender roles are extremely strong in Iran.
In entertaining the line of conversation about gendered pronouns, I wasn't asserting that gendered pronouns are the fulcrum on which gender and sexuality turn. I was discussing it specifically mostly because it was an easy concept for others here to grasp, so I went with it. I recognize that whatever makes up the broader system of cissexism, heterosexism, and sexism, it is more than just pronouns.
Take for instance biological essentialist views of sexuality: the claim that people are born "attracted to women" or "attracted to men" may work to legitimize the experiences of gay men and lesbians. But it does two things that marginalize other queer people. First, the essentialist view makes bisexuality an impossibility, because their existence would undermine the necessary dichotomy used to legitimize non-heterosexual's non-heterosexual behavior. Second, the essentialization of sexuality rests on an already presupposed essentialization of gender—necessarily marginalizing trans life.
I think we've gone around on this before, but this explanation gives me a better idea where you're coming from.
I can see what you're saying, but I don't think it's the biological essentialism part in itself, but the dualist dichotomy used. Phrasing it as something like "Sexual orientation is innate, but may include exclusive attraction to men, exclusive attraction to women or anywhere on the spectrum between", would easily include bisexuals while leaving the essentialism intact. In fact, that's how I've always understood it.
Including trans concepts in the explanation would complicate it, just because there are more variables, but doesn't change the basic biological essentialist view of sexuality: That both your physical sex (the genitalia, if you will), the gender of your self image and your sexual orientation are biologically determined. It's just that they're not simple binary either/or conditions.
(Apologies if I've used inappropriate terms. No offense is intended.)
This is basically taking the epicycle approach to understanding sex, gender, and sexuality. I have no doubt that biological essentialism can be adapted to capture a broader range of deviancies from the gender and sexuality norms.
Both the situating of the norm, and the construction of deviance are social processes that aren't reducible to scientific knowledge about human biology. These things are "set up" well before the scientific method is applied to test hypotheses. In a sense, you've already determined biological essentialism by seizing on socially assigned and highlighted differences as biological fact. At the end of the day, I see scientific practice as just another form of social practice, and subject to the same kinds of critiques we can subject any social practice.
I think the assumption that gender is inevitable is a sign of a starved imagination.
And I think the need to launch vague, unwarranted and almost random insults is a sign that someone is out of good points to make.
That's fine. I made my post: you were wrong about the inevitability of gender in language, and I was right. There isn't really anywhere else to go from here, so this is a good place to stop.
Now for bonus points ... Show one example, ever, where something like that has been changed intentionally and artificially and it has ever stuck?
The transition from using "stewards/stewardesses" to using the gender neutral "flight attendant."
If your point is to say "no one has ever changed common usage gendered pronouns to gender nutral pronouns, therefor it can't be done," then my response is "that doesn't follow." Just because something hasn't been done, doesn't mean it can't be done.
In 1968, no one had been to the moon. That doesn't mean that it is impossible to go to the moon. In 2014 it may seem impossible to do away gendered pronouns, but that doesn't mean that it is impossible to do away them.
I think the assumption that gender is inevitable is a sign of a starved imagination.
And I think the need to launch vague, unwarranted and almost random insults is a sign that someone is out of good points to make.
That's fine. I made my post: you were wrong about the inevitability of gender in language, and I was right. There isn't really anywhere else to go from here, so this is a good place to stop.
Now for bonus points ... Show one example, ever, where something like that has been changed intentionally and artificially and it has ever stuck?
The transition from using "stewards/stewardesses" to using the gender neutral "flight attendant."
Once in a while, GLBT organizations like GLAAD will do some trans outreach or lobbying for trans protections, but HRC (the people who make the ubiquitous blue and yellow equality stickers) have been horrible to trans people over the past thirty years, so take anything they post about their track record or their take on trans issues with a huge grain of salt.
Yeah, it's weird. There is a lot of misinformation out there and not just among heteronormative cis people but also within the GLBT community. There was a huge fluff up 10 years ago with the Lambda Literary award for instance. They give out awards for outstanding GLBT literature and the book they wanted to give the award to a horrible book that won't bother advertising here; suffice to say that it was a terrible and transphobic book. There were petitions and letters and they were adamant on their stand for awhile. Official letters came in and they were just cruelly dismissive. Eventually they did the right thing but it was disturbing.
It is not that weird, really. Just usual human behaviour.
We would like to think that people who have been victims of discrimination will never commit discrimination themselves. That victims will NEVER become bullies. Basically, that victims are always innocent and will always remain so.
It is an idea so deeply engrained that we keep on believing it, even though the real world gives us many many examples to the contrary, time and again.
I think you might be getting the wrong idea.
First, the author of the text Guillet mentions is not a member (or even a friend, IMHO) of the LGBT community. Essentially, he's a menace to the transgender and bisexual members of the queer community, and that this was an instance where the dominance of gay men and lesbians within the LGBT community becomes salient. The inclusion of a transphobic text just makes it clear that the LGBT community is made of Ls, Gs, Bs, and Ts—of which the Gs, Ls, and Bs can be just as ignorant of the Ts as cisgender heterosexual people.
Second, the defense of the text's inclusion is more complex than "some victims become bullies" (no doubt there were many bullies among the defenders). LGBT folks already face a great deal of social obstacles in living, and it isn't uncommon for individuals and groups to negotiate their inclusion in such a way that marginalizes other members of the LGBT community.
Take for instance biological essentialist views of sexuality: the claim that people are born "attracted to women" or "attracted to men" may work to legitimize the experiences of gay men and lesbians. But it does two things that marginalize other queer people. First, the essentialist view makes bisexuality an impossibility, because their existence would undermine the necessary dichotomy used to legitimize non-heterosexual's non-heterosexual behavior. Second, the essentialization of sexuality rests on an already presupposed essentialization of gender—necessarily marginalizing trans life.
These consequences stem from a particular social configuration which privileges biomedical authority over all others in regards to questions of the body, sexuality, and gender. The heterosexism of a systems that makes reproduction the center of gender and sexual discourse depends on cissexist systems to justify reducing it (body, sexuality, and gender) all down to innate genetic or hormonal characteristics. It is a broader issue than just "bullies," and requires significant (and often radical) consideration on that part of queer people as to how cisgender, heterosexual dominated society organizes our speech and action.
I think the assumption that gender is inevitable is a sign of a starved imagination.
And I think the need to launch vague, unwarranted and almost random insults is a sign that someone is out of good points to make.
That's fine. I made my post: you were wrong about the inevitability of gender in language, and I was right. There isn't really anywhere else to go from here, so this is a good place to stop.
My problem is with constantly moving goalposts of acceptability for every single subgroup or minority. In order to keep up with them, you have to go into fulltime study - and then the one that was ok last year … won't be the next. My general preference is "Don't be a jerk'. And 'Don't presume the other guy is trying to offend you. Most of the time, they aren't"
Even better- don't use labels. People are not the sort of thing you can put a label on anyway.
My point, is- some people object to certain labels, and other use that label in a derogatory manner (and "cis" is certainly commonly used that way). So, at the very least- let's not use those labels, except perhaps when referring to ones self.
Or... we can recognize that the use of the term "labels" is meant to diminish the importance of queer language.
MagusJanus, eh... I think you're getting the exact opposite out of what I've been saying. To put it plainly: I am not bothered by differences, I am bothered by the social structures that place differences in a hierarchy where cisgender heterosexuality is at the apex of social meaning and value. I want to work towards a queer world where differences aren't defined by their deviation from cisgender heterosexuality: where cisgender heterosexuality is no longer privileged over other gender and sexuality configurations.
Because, honestly, I don't want to eat the vanilla normative cake pre-packaged by CisHetCo™: I want to sample the cheese pies, fruit cobbler, crème brûlée from Queer à la carte.
MagusJanus wrote:
....That is the ultimate flaw in what Annabel has said when complaining about the terminology differences; eliminating those terms would do far worse damage than leaving them in place and convincing people to think of them in a positive manner.
But that's not what I argued for at all: I was arguing for an expanding queer language that resists placing heterosexuality as the center of everything, and queer life as a mere deviance from it. When I explained the problems with terms like "gay marriage," the focus was on how "marriage" itself is implicitly heterosexual. Part of the political significance of "gay marriage" is due to the assumption that all queer people ought to aspire to enter an implicitly heterosexual union to gain social recognition. This is part of a broader problem where queer people are only broadly recognized as having legitimate relations so long as it is couched in the values and meaning of cisgender heteroseuxality.
The problem I am pointing to is structural, and is deeply embedded in the dominant language of a cissexist, heterosexist society. Though important for the day-to-day life of queer people, I am still cautious of the promises that gay marriage carries for queer people. It seems to me that even with gay marriage there are still queer people omitted from the legal and social benefits of government sanctioned unions. I recognize the unmarked and unremarked dominance of cisgender heterosexuality as a source of this marginalization. So, that's what I'm "complaining" about.
P.S. @KSF, I think we are both on the same page. We're in sync... so to speak. Thanks! :D
...If we are to the state where we cannot discuss things as they are using language most people can easily understand, then your cause is already lost... simply because most people will not understand what you are saying, and thus you cannot affect the lingual changes you wish for because the lingual shifts will simply be sidelined as too alien to bother with....
...Though, it would have helped if you had asked what I meant by "on the spectrum" instead of assuming a meaning.
Even with your explanation (which seems "far afield" the typical meaning of the word spectrum), it isn't something I think you have grounds to assert an understanding of me. In fact, if other people believe genderqueer suits you, but you don't feel that way, then it calls into question the validity to asserting that other queer people "suit" the terms they are called. It undermines your basic judgment that I am "on the spectrum," or your feeling that you're not "on the spectrum." I am going going to go with the former.
MagusJanus wrote:
For letting it rule over you: Well, aside from the fact I could point out one of the terms you are using ("queer") is actually a term intended to marginalize and isolate those who are outside the norm... All I have to do is point to your own words. You speak of language being such of an issue, of queer folk relying upon it to live... You speak of constant struggles you have just because of language, all the while using language that is part of the social structures that define you as separate. You speak of life as a queer; have you tried life as being, simply, a human who happens to be different? Labels create definition, categorization, and separation; they exist to allow the human mind to stick everything in its own little box, and by using such, especially identifying with a label that was originally applied to keep you as separate, you fall into the trap of identifying yourself within the same social structures that define you as not being the norm. After all, how many heteronormative people do you see talking about life as a heteronormative?
Okay... maybe you're right... you do need to be invited to the queer conversation: Queer Reappropriation.
You speak of language like it is a flimsy thing, like it doesn't really matter. You treat the category of "human" as if it is not already deeply embedded with cissexist, heterosexist social norms, which implicitly marginalize queer people. You speak of your ambivalence of it like it is some sort of strength queer people are lacking. Here is conversation invite number two: Judith Butler, Undoing Gender, Chapter 1: Beside Oneself: On the Limits of Sexual Autonomy.
MagusJanus wrote:
As for those who rely on queer language to live? I've never met one. I've met plenty of people who thought they did, though. And met plenty of people who were queer, but didn't live by the language at all and were just themselves. The second group was always the happier one. The second group also did not lack for social interaction, whether with those similar to them or others.
Well, I've known a few, but they're not really around anymore. Their unhappiness and eventual death wasn't something they inflicted on themselves, and simply "not letting it bother" them wasn't an option.
I can completely understand this feeling. It really irks me something awful when people mistake me for being straight.
Why? It hasn't bothered me when people mistook me for gay. Nor when people assumed I followed a particular religion when I don't. The people who are close to me know the truth, the rest, I'm not concerned with.
Because it marginalize being not-straight. When people take heterosexuality and cisgender to be the "default," it is evidence of the broader heterosexist and cissexist social structures and marginalizes queer people. We lack a shared cultural language to capture being gay (among other things) as a positive: as adding something to life that is greater than the "default." Within the broader social context, being gay is analogue to being straight: gay marriage, gay family, gay kids. We are placed slightly to the left of straight—straight in every way except gay about it. Being mistaken for straight is to feel that tiny thread of freedom being pulled away, as if I slips one step backward towards the default.
It is exhausting being queer, being able to express oneself, and navigating through people's conceptions of the "normal" person. To live my life as if being queer isn't already politicized and marginalized would be a ridiculous task. Even to communicate "the truth" to the people I love is a challenge, because unlike straight cis people, I am not offered a whole repertoire of cultural and historical signs to make myself intelligible. For queer folk, we have to make it up out of whole cloth, or else beholden to a language tailored by heterosexism and cissexism.
Of the trans men and women I know, many of them experience a great deal of stress from the societal pressures that demand them to pass as cis. Finding the language to express themselves without having to reference the seemingly "naturalness" of cis life is difficult, because the larger social context makes anything other than cis or cis passing unlivable.
There are a great many risks queer people take when not conforming, but it can become doubly hard when we do conform because the social structures that produce these risks go unchallenged. Reaching a place where we can assert ourselves without the backdrop of cisgender heterosexual dominance is an important part of queer thought and action.
"A cisgender person is someone who believes their gender identity matches the one they were assigned at birth. They were born like this and did not choose it!"
Maybe you can, but for queer folk, we live in a society which starves us of a language in which to communicate who we are, who we love, and how we love. Some language already exists, for example, the language which makes heterosexual relationship intelligible even in the absence of terms like straight. But queer people have to struggle against heterosexist language limitations in an effort to make who they are intelligible. This is why we are talking about language on Golarion, because our Real World language necessitates queer discourse and language ("labels"), so how does that correspond within Paizo's fantasy?
I think Jessica Price has already answered your question, Annabel.
Well, the answer was "I'm not sure" That's why the conversation persisted (via the Persistent Spell metamagic feat: the second save vs. critique failed).
Here I think is the cusp of what I was trying to say earlier: how can we talk about queer (or homosexual) folk on Golarion if there is no language to capture queerness on Golarion? The language of queerness is irreducibly tied up into the everyday life of queer folk, and for many this language is necessary for a livable life. Some of the terms are imposed on our bodies as means to govern and pathologize us (homosexual and MSM come to mind), but others are necessary parts of making ourselves intelligible in a social world dominated by cisgender heterosexuality. For queer folk, to go unidentified is to undergo erasure. Unidentification is a luxury and privilege of cisgender heterosexuality. It is this dynamic that makes queer life what it is today: whether we live to try to "fit in," or at the margins, or at places which subvert heterosexual cisgender hegemony.
So when speaking of queer folk, it's often mentioned by staff and fans that Paizo portrays gay, lesbian, and bisexual characters. Except now, it is that they don't (or can't, which is what I was suspecting) because Golarion lacks language to accommodate the existence of gay, lesbian, and bisexual characters.
Essentially, portraying gay, lesbian, and bisexual characters before considering what it means to be gay, lesbian, and bisexual on Golarion is putting the cart before the horse.
Or we don't give a damn about labels and accept they are two people in love that do not need to have that relationship or themselves defined and put in a convenient category.....
These things are more than just labels, they're part of a language that makes living possible for queer folk. As Judith Butler said, this language is as necessary as bread and water. There is nothing convenient about it: it's won over through tears sweat and blood.
Why? i can date a woman without being labeled straight, a man without being labeled gay or bi, i can believe in god without picking a religion, i can enjoy games just as much without being a gamer. The words make nothing different save maybe to set up an "us and you" split to make things worse.
Maybe you can, but for queer folk, we live in a society which starves us of a language in which to communicate who we are, who we love, and how we love. Some language already exists, for example, the language which makes heterosexual relationship intelligible even in the absence of terms like straight. But queer people have to struggle against heterosexist language limitations in an effort to make who they are intelligible. This is why we are talking about language on Golarion, because our Real World language necessitates queer discourse and language ("labels"), so how does that correspond within Paizo's fantasy?
Or we don't give a damn about labels and accept they are two people in love that do not need to have that relationship or themselves defined and put in a convenient category.....
These things are more than just labels, they're part of a language that makes living possible for queer folk. As Judith Butler said, this language is as necessary as bread and water. There is nothing convenient about it: it's won over through tears sweat and blood.
the point wasn't that we can't use lesbian to talk about women in Golarion; it's that it's not a word they'd use themselves, as the reference doesn't exist in their world.
Here I think is the cusp of what I was trying to say earlier: how can we talk about queer (or homosexual) folk on Golarion if there is no language to capture queerness on Golarion? The language of queerness is irreducibly tied up into the everyday life of queer folk, and for many this language is necessary for a livable life. Some of the terms are imposed on our bodies as means to govern and pathologize us (homosexual and MSM come to mind), but others are necessary parts of making ourselves intelligible in a social world dominated by cisgender heterosexuality. For queer folk, to go unidentified is to undergo erasure. Unidentification is a luxury and privilege of cisgender heterosexuality. It is this dynamic that makes queer life what it is today: whether we live to try to "fit in," or at the margins, or at places which subvert heterosexual cisgender hegemony.
So when speaking of queer folk, it's often mentioned by staff and fans that Paizo portrays gay, lesbian, and bisexual characters. Except now, it is that they don't (or can't, which is what I was suspecting) because Golarion lacks language to accommodate the existence of gay, lesbian, and bisexual characters.
Essentially, portraying gay, lesbian, and bisexual characters before considering what it means to be gay, lesbian, and bisexual on Golarion is putting the cart before the horse.
...But in the end we are talking about a fantasy creature in an imaginary world.
No one is disputing that we're talking about fantasy, so yeah... I don't know where that came from.
Jeven wrote:
An orc (or an ogre, troll, goblin, harpy) doesn't have to possess a baseline human psychology. As a fantasy creature its mind should be somewhat alien.
If every monster is really nothing more than a human dressed up in some unusual fleshy costume, then the fantasy world becomes rather bland.
What's this presupposition that everything must be referenced to being human: my point was that things are being referenced towards being a person. Maybe at the end of the day we realize that every human is just a monster dressed up in a fleshy costume, and the interesting question is which monsters are people?
Jeven wrote:
The real world nature versus nurture discussion is irrelevant, because in an imaginary world we (that is, each DM individually) can definitively say which applies to an invented monstrous creature.
But the fact is that this discussion, in part, questions whether "biology is destiny" concepts are coherent. I was responding to that rather obvious question.
Since monsters have a default alignment, you can simply say 99.99% of orcs are born-sociopaths. You might rescue the infants, attempt to raise them to be something better, but the effort is ultimately futile.
The one Orc in a thousand who has the potential to be something other than what he was born to be, certainly makes for an interesting character, but turning that into the norm kind of defeats the purpose of having generic evil monster races in the game.
There's a purpose to it?
Sorry, they aren't born evil. Nothing is. That makes no sense. It's culture. They LEARN it, and they can unlearn it, or learn differently. Heck, if you think about it, they can't even be considered evil your way because morality is a choice; if you're 'born evil', you can't make moral choice. You're just a puppet, an automaton.
Everything's culture then? We, and all possible fictional sentients, are born as blank slates?
I'm no expert, but that's not at all my understanding of the current state of the nature vs nurture debate.
The idea that there is a "nature vs nurture debate" has been overthrown by post-structural ideas about social construction. To put it simply, whatever "nature" or "nurture" are, both are made intelligible objects of scientific study through social practices, and thus the debate itself is part of the social construction of scientific knowledge. This means that even knowledge that purports to show innate characteristics (whether biological, learned, or social) are themselves socially constructed.
This is why many people have pointedly asked, "how do you know Orcs are inherently lazy or violent?" and "how do in-universe humans know Orcs are inherently lazy or violent?" It is because knowledge itself is socially constructed and thus is subject to the same kinds of interrogation we can subject anything socially constructed. Much of the theoretical foundation this comes from Thomas Kuhn, the work of Latour and Woolgar, and strong programme scholarship in the sociology of scientific knowledge.
Worrying over whether we are born "blank slates" is immaterial because we are born into a world that has already written onto us vast stores of knowledge. In the months proceeding our birth, much knowledge has already accrued about who we are to be. Things like race are written before hand onto the bodies of our parents and ancestors. Things like gender are written onto our bodies as we are born (alternatively, through technology some months prior). By the time the doctor has issued the birth certificate, who we are has been already rendered through social practices (whether scientific or not).
During the early 90s, a political crisis within the scientific community produced a moral panic that solidified a kind of naive scientific realism in the minds of professional scientists and laypeople alike. This is why people still talk about a "nature vs. nuture" debate: it assumes there is a discussion of conflict over innate vs. learned characteristics. It supposes a hierarchy of "permanentness" where innate biological "fact" is given the maximum weight and learned behavior is its binary opposite. This whole discussion occurs within finely defined rules which produce the very results that scientific realists wish to see: by placing the most intimate knowledge about ourselves within the preview of biomedical science, its methods justify its authority before any empirical evidence has been gathered.
The wider intellectual stage is that of scientific realists standing on one side gazing into the corner at their experiments, and anti-realists discussing the nuances of social life, whether scientific or not.
All I'm gonna say is Blizzard Orcs >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> ;>>> Tolkien Orcs
Not joking: just moments ago my boyfriend and I were discussing how after Blizzard decided to make orcs something more than just "monsters," it required them to retcon in demons and induced blood-lust to make orc history not one of inherent violence.
The same can be seen anytime people do something interesting with Orcs, the need for a narrative about inherent violence and laziness falls away. Orcs suddenly (and rightly, IMHO) just become a variation on the concept of a person, with all the dignity and moral agency allotted to any other sentient race. It ends up being that you just can't portray Orcs as bloodthirsty monsters and interesting people at the same time. The former is lazy narration (ironic!) and the latter requires giving up on the reliance of racist tropes within fantasy. You can't have biological/fantastic determinism and have interesting orcs.
This is the sticking point. As MagusJanus rightly pointed out earlier, when creating fantasy races, we draw inspiration from real-world groups of humans. Let's look at how orcs are described. Orcs are described as inherently violent and aggressive. They are the intellectual inferiors of humans. They've an ingrained laziness. They are uncivilized. They are savage. If this sounds like colonialist era racism, that's because it is. The difference is that instead of attributing these characteristics to a real-world group, orcs are the Other in this case.
NO NO NO NO NO. Orcs are not Africans!...
Vivianne didn't say anything about Africans (which, interestingly enough, is an entire continent worth of peoples, not one racial group). But your post does elegantly demonstrate how race and racism within fantasy is articulated through real world race conceptualizations and racism. You can't evoke the idea that orcs are inherently lazy and violent without drawing on real world racism which maligns certain races as lazy or violent. You recognized this connection and wrote it into your protest against Vivianne.
Ultimately the underlying logic is racist logic, whatever way you look at it. Sometimes it's called racialism, other times scientific racism (i.e. your protest that Orcs are factually lazy and violent). But most people just call it racism, albeit, in this case fantastic racism.
And no, as far as I know (there are two or three of the older APs I haven't read) the APs don't identify anyone as "lesbian" or "gay" or "homosexual." They don't identify orientation at all -- they just identify NPCs' partners, former partners, love interests, etc.
So on Golarion, what is it that people use to identify sexuality, gender, etc?
I'd imagine, in terms of sexuality, the same thing we use to identify people's "types." I'm not sure, in a world with no history of viewing love and/or desire for same-gender partners as wrong or inferior, that there's as much of a need for strict categories. It's not something we've addressed, but my personal opinion is that most people in Golarion simply talk about it in terms of preference: "Oh, she usually falls in love with the tall, dark guys," and "Oh, he tends to go for blonde men," and "I think you're wasting your time there, dear -- none of her lovers have been men."
So, is sexuality something that is just communicated about other people? Or is the terms lesbian, gay, bisexual, etc something that Golarions use to identify themselves to others?
If you want to get technical about it, those terms have heavy real-world cultural histories that aren't part of Golarion. So obviously no woman in Golarion, where there is no Isle of Lesbos, is going to refer to herself as a "lesbian."
As to whether there are terms that people use for self-identification, I'm not sure. I don't personally feel a need to self-identify as anything or even identify my preferences unless I'm explaining to someone that they don't fit them, but I recognize that others may feel differently.
The campaign setting is a world still under construction -- there are many details about it that aren't nailed down. We're not describing a preexisting world here.
A few weeks back I was in a discussion about how little we actually know about how the different...
Acts of self-identification tend to be reserved from groups of people marginalized, and thus the freedom to navigate the world unmolested by "labels" is part of not being oppressed. Queer folks are required to make their identities intelligible for others in a world dominated by heterosexuality. Deviation from heterosexuality requires us to make ourselves known, which in turn subjects us to processes which render us vulnerable to pathologization and marginalization. Heterosexual, cisgender peoples aren't bothered by the forces which bring about self-identification because they are privileged within a systems that takes them as the default, the standard in which all others are measured against.
From this perspective, not needing to identify their sexuality would lead one to believe that sexuality isn't an axis in which inequality manifests on Golarion. Not having a "heavy" language to capture non-heterosexuals would make sense in a world that never needed to capture sexual deviance in the first place.
But it still does seem strange that the other roles that these identities take haven't been cleared up in the material, especially now that we see more queer folks being represented in the material (i.e. women like Anevia Tirabade).
Annabel...your comment above was to long to quote, but I assume the sexuality of characters might not be construed as a big deal in Golarion because in general most cultures in the setting don't treat non-standard sexual orientations as unusual or worthy of persecution.
I think Paizo has tried pretty hard to include same-sex relationships in no different/special a light than heterosexual relationships, and has written them in such a way that you could replace the sex and gender of participants without changing the characterization of the NPC. For an NPC, class, level and race (species), and to a certain degree religion, are considered larger defining aspects of their personality than sexual orientation.
People don't adopt sexual identities in the real world simply because they are "non-standard sexual orientations as unusual or worthy of persecution," if that was the case then all queer folk would have to do to escape these stigmatization would be to simply throw off identifying sexuality altogether.
And if things like "class, level and race (species), and to a certain degree religion," override sexuality in terms of determining NPC characteristics, then there are no queer people on Golarion because sexuality is inextricably tied into queer life. Which raises the larger questions: is there considerable distance between Paizo's claims to inclusivity and queer representation and the material they publish?
I'm straight, so I guess that completely invalidates my opinion.
Well, you are suffering from straight privilege, and that has had detrimental effects on your opinions about queer folks.
Kryzbyn wrote:
So I guess my question in return would be, would you like your sexuality to be a non-big deal like mine, or to further distinguish (seperate but equal!) or define you? Which path leads to the best end result for the minority sexual persuasion society wise?
Your sexuality is a "non-big deal" already because it is the dominant, privileged form of sexuality. Mine can't be a "non-big deal" until heterosexuality stops being part of a systems that marginalizes queer folks. Honestly, to solve this problem takes a radical reconsideration of a lot of things, most of when I think would be difficult to apprehend in this thread.
Suffice it to say, my request for the what "it" is that Golarians use to identify sexuality wasn't flippant: I wanted use the specific language, structure or performances present on Golarion to inform the discussion of "Homosexuality in Golarion." No one on Golarion seems to use the term "homosexuality," the APs material avoids identities like the plague, and all this diverse talk seems to be lost once one actually turns their eyes to the people occupying Golarion. I am kinda in search of "proof" that homosexuality is in fact present on Golarion.
I wanted to know what people on Golarion use to identity sexuality and gender because that would be important within a discussion about sexual identity in Golarion.
Kryzbyn wrote:
I don't have all of the answers, I just figured Kyra would rather be known as the heroine that did X rather than the lesbian who amounted to something after all.
And no, as far as I know (there are two or three of the older APs I haven't read) the APs don't identify anyone as "lesbian" or "gay" or "homosexual." They don't identify orientation at all -- they just identify NPCs' partners, former partners, love interests, etc.
So on Golarion, what is it that people use to identify sexuality, gender, etc?
I'm guessing that part of Golarion's culture hasn't been worked out.
So... in the nearly five and a half years that this thread has been in existence and Paizo has managing to write "lesbian," "gay," "bisexual," and "transgender" characters, no one has bothered to recognize/"make up" any sort of language, social structure, or performances within Golarion that makes the "diversity" of gender and sexuality intelligible?
Taking a step away from the confusion about slavery vs. queer people...
Reviewing some of the thoughts people have had about non-heterosexuals present in published game material, it has struck me how out of date the terms "homosexual" and "homosexuality" are. This is the year 2013 (almost 2014), yet cishets (and maybe non-cishets) are still talking about queer people like they're some sort of strange alien species known only through scientific observations as the elusive Homosexual sapien.
It comes off with the same creepy vibe that I associate to people using the term "female" to describe women. Like, it makes it seem like the speaker has never met a woman, but he will know her when he sees her long mane and distinct glossy nails.
Why do people dodge around the terms people actually use to identify? Why instead are we adopting these pseudo-scientific/objective-sounding terms? It is possible to update our language, and act like we live in the 21st century: part of modern sexuality is the declaration thereof, so let's not avoid the messy business in favor of reductionist heterocentrism.
Basically: What is it that people on Golarion use to identify sexuality, gender, etc?
Do any of the AP's even use the term homosexual/lesbian? It seems that when a same sex relationship is depicted...the participants are just depicted as a couple. We certainly use homosexuality in our discussions on the site, but then it's a general agreed upon term that everyone understands and doesn't have too much stigma attached to it.
I don't really see much an issue with the term female, although to be honest I don't usually use the phrase much with humans, and I don't get a sense it's used more often than woman in discussion. As far as pathfinder is concerned, I would guess they use female/male because it's not human specific, and so you can apply it elves/orcs/dragons/etc without much confusion. Elf man and dragon woman sound weird compared to male elf and female dragon. and dragon...
Rarely do people identify as "homosexual," I might even be willing to go so far to state no one identifies as homosexual. Rather, cishets often label certain people has "homosexual" despite whatever their identity might be (gay, lesbian, bisexual, etc). So it doesn't seem to actually line up with anything intelligible about sexuality. Rather it seems to be a stand in for it.
I totally get that folks here have "generally" agreed to use the term "homosexual," but I don't think that it's something "everyone understands." For example, your use of "homosexual/lesbian" is confusing. Where does this binary come from, and what is the logic that connects these two terms together?
But I am still left wanting for what folks on Golarion use to identify sexuality, gender, etc.
Taking a step away from the confusion about slavery vs. queer people...
Reviewing some of the thoughts people have had about non-heterosexuals present in published game material, it has struck me how out of date the terms "homosexual" and "homosexuality" are. This is the year 2013 (almost 2014), yet cishets (and maybe non-cishets) are still talking about queer people like they're some sort of strange alien species known only through scientific observations as the elusive Homosexual sapien.
It comes off with the same creepy vibe that I associate to people using the term "female" to describe women. Like, it makes it seem like the speaker has never met a woman, but he will know her when he sees her long mane and distinct glossy nails.
Why do people dodge around the terms people actually use to identify? Why instead are we adopting these pseudo-scientific/objective-sounding terms? It is possible to update our language, and act like we live in the 21st century: part of modern sexuality is the declaration thereof, so let's not avoid the messy business in favor of reductionist heterocentrism.
Basically: What is it that people on Golarion use to identify sexuality, gender, etc?
Im gonna chime in be the black sheep and say this is not rape for real.
If the barmaid sleeps with her friends, then its her problem. Charm person makes you look like her friend. If she gets convinced to sleep with you, its because she have no problems with doing so.
Its easy to put morals in front of facts, but it doesnt change the fact the she still have to be okay with sleeping with friends for the spell to do it. Its not rape, its consensual.
She didn't consent to sleep with you. I'm not sure what's unclear about this. YOU DO NOT HAVE HER CONSENT.
Ill have to disagree with this, depending on the situation of said NPC. If she was already okay with sleeping with her friends, then charm person isnt forcing anything on her. She sees you as a friend, and if shes okay with it then its not rape. Charm person isnt a compulsion spell, youre not taking away her free will to choose. If she does it, its consensual. Remember, charm person is a Charm spell, not compulsion one.
I'm bowing out at this point, because I find this reasoning really disturbing.
Yeah, this is quite disturbing.
Even the very fact that it can be called "reasoning" makes salient how the dominant discourse (what bell hooks calls imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy) infiltrates our very language. What part of the faculty of reasoning does the objectification of women arise out of? It must be a very dark place, manifesting in incidences like this thread.
I am not entirely sure what purpose this discussion even has, seeing as the basic premises that women are people and that sex has been taken into institutions of unequal power seems completely lost on some of the rape apologists here. Where does one even being to start a dialogue when these conditions haven't been met?
Im gonna chime in be the black sheep and say this is not rape for real.
If the barmaid sleeps with her friends, then its her problem. Charm person makes you look like her friend. If she gets convinced to sleep with you, its because she have no problems with doing so.
Its easy to put morals in front of facts, but it doesnt change the fact the she still have to be okay with sleeping with friends for the spell to do it. Its not rape, its consensual.
She didn't consent to sleep with you. I'm not sure what's unclear about this. YOU DO NOT HAVE HER CONSENT.
OMG... what is going on in this tread. This isn't even Gender Studies 101 material, it's like Gender 010: Introduction to Being a Decent Human material.
To sum this up: ANYTHING BUT...
A conscious
Sober,
18 years or older,
Uncoerced "Yes"
... IS A NO!
Charm person would clearly not fulfill the last one, and thus wouldn't count as consent.
How nice of you to tell those poor misguided asexuals that the fact they don't want to have sex is a product of the way they were brought up, and if they had lived in a different socitey they'd get the joys of sex. [/SARCASM]
And I'm not really defending him, I'm just saying that while making a joke (and I'd like you to explain to me why it's so offensive to you) may be bad, saying "let's space him!" is certainly no better.
If you don't understand the idea of social construction, don't talk about it. That is the simplest solution.
To say something is socially constituted is not to say that it is learned. To claim that one is "asexual" requires that notions about sexuality and sexual sexual desire be socially constituted in such a way that the utterance "I am asexual" is intelligible. Asexuality, homosexuality, gay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, demisexual, straight and heterosexuality are all socially constituted. The blithe claim that appealing to a biomedical authority of essential asexuality doesn't change the fact that the idea of "asexuality" is socially constituted. Even biomedical knowledge is socially constructed. This is often a difficult pill for folks to swallow, but it has been supported by sociology and philosophy of science for over fifty years.
And you are (and are still) defending him: see your response to Vivianne Laflamme.
And the suggestion to "space him" was actually put forth by the President of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol, under suspicion of "scummery" because the joke (and subsequent deflection) constituted an instance of marginalizing queer folks. I think the important term here is "scum," which clearly references scum-like behavior. There are plenty of decent cis people, many of which I am sure Laura Roslin would be uninterested in putting out the airlock.
BTW: I am still uninterested in respectability politics.
No, I reject the claim that it's biologically determined.
How is it determined, then?
It's socially constituted, obviously.
Amaranthine Witch wrote:
Annabel wrote:
Generally, cisgender heterosexuals have a difficult time recognize their privilege, and in turn do things like make "jokes" at the expense of queer folks.
I know that, but that image does not say "cisgender heterosexual" and gay men and lesbians may be (and most are) cisgendered. And it's still inappropriate.
Yes, and on the occasions that cisgender gay men and lesbians perpetuate the oppression of trans men and women, they are being bad people too. But it's worth noting that the oppression of queer folk isn't a product of a few "bad gays." It arises out of the dominance of cisgender heterosexuals, and the marginalization of all others.
Are you really having a hard time seeing how the "joke" about gender ambiguous dwarves was a dig at non-heterosexual or non-cisgender conforming individuals, which makes up the group of people generally referred to as queer folk? If you don't understand the "humor," don't defend it.
I'm not that interesting in getting into a respectability debate here with you. I'm not going to play into these politics of turning cisgender heterosexuals into the victims of queer villainy. If you don't understand the message, just let it go.
