Category: Transgender

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Gender and sexuality in autism, explained

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Gender, like autism, exists on a spectrum. In the 1990s, as growing numbers of children sought care related to their gender identity, clinicians and researchers began to notice a trend: An unexpected number of these children were autistic or had autism traits. The observation has spurred researchers to work to quantify the association.

The field is beginning to get a clear picture of the extent to which the two spectrums overlap: Gender identity and sexuality are more varied among autistic people than in the general population, and autism is more common among people who do not identify as their assigned sex than it is in the population at large — three to six times as common, according to an August study1. Researchers are also making gains on how best to support autistic people who identify outside conventional genders.

Here we explain what scientists and clinicians know — and don’t know — about gender and sexuality in autistic people.

What is gender identity?
Gender identity is a person’s internal sense of their own gender. People who identify as the sex they were assigned at birth are called ‘cisgender,’ or cis, whereas those who do not may use terms such as transgender, nonbinary or gender fluid. Researchers often use the phrase ‘gender diverse’ as an umbrella term for different gender identities, similar to the way some people use ‘neurodiverse’ to describe variations in cognitive style, including autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

How common is gender diversity among autistic people?
Many studies have examined the prevalence of gender diversity among autistic people. One of the most frequently cited studies found that about 15 percent of autistic adults in the Netherlands identify as trans or nonbinary; the percentage is higher among people assigned female at birth than among people assigned male, a trend seen in other studies2. By contrast, less than 5 percent of adults in the Netherlands’ general population have an identity other than cisgender3. And in a 2018 study in the United States, 6.5 percent of autistic adolescents and 11.4 percent of autistic adults said they wished to be the gender opposite of what they had been assigned at birth, compared with just 3 to 5 percent of the general population4. This study also found that, on two measures of autism traits, higher scores were associated with a higher likelihood of gender diversity. A 2019 study found a similar association in children who are not diagnosed with autism5.

Similarly, autism appears to be more prevalent among gender-diverse people than it is in the general population. A 2018 Australian survey of transgender adolescents and young adults found that 22.5 percent had been diagnosed with autism, compared with 2.5 percent of all Australians. Some experts estimate that 6 to 25.5 percent of gender-diverse people are autistic6.

Sexuality also appears to be more varied among people with autism than among those who do not have the condition. Only 30 percent of autistic people in a 2018 study identified as heterosexual, compared with 70 percent of neurotypical participants7. And although half of 247 autistic women in a 2020 study identified as cisgender, just 8 percent reported being exclusively heterosexual8.

Why is the prevalence of gender diversity higher in autistic people than in the general population?
Social experiences are likely a main component, experts say. Compared with neurotypical people, autistic people may be less influenced by social norms and so may present their internal selves more authentically. “You could then understand the co-occurrence as perhaps a more honest expression of underlying experiences,” says John Strang, director of the Gender and Autism Program at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C.

It’s possible that autistic people may come to conclusions about their sexual identity differently than neurotypical people do, says Jeroen Dewinter, senior researcher at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. Some autistic people have told him they would be likely to identify as bisexual after one same-sex sexual experience, but neurotypical people may be less likely to adopt that terminology based on a single same-sex encounter.

Biological factors may also play a role. Exposure levels to hormones such as testosterone in the womb may be linked to autism, some research shows; increased prenatal testosterone may also lead to more typically ‘male’ behaviors and to less common sexualities and gender identities, although there is some evidence against that link9,10. Regardless, prenatal testosterone does not explain why autistic people assigned male at birth might identify as more feminine, Dewinter says. But the biology of sexuality and gender in the general population is not well understood either.

Experts say it’s likely that a combination of these and other factors contribute to the increased variety of gender identities and sexualities among autistic people.

What does this mean for clinicians and caregivers?
Clinicians who work in gender clinics may want to screen for autism, and those working in autism clinics may want to discuss gender identity and sexual health, researchers say. They should also be sensitive to different information processing styles, Dewinter says. Some autistic people may struggle to express their feelings regarding gender. Even when they do express these feelings, they often face doubts from clinicians because of stereotypes about autistic people, which can block their access to medical care. In a 2019 paper, one autistic and gender-diverse person wrote, “The combination is seen to be too complex for the majority of clinicians, which led to long waiting times for specialized psychiatric care”11.

Screening tools may also need to be updated to better identify autism among gender-diverse children, just as they need to be adjusted to spot the condition among girls. “Clinics are working to understand what autism looks like in girls and women, and we’re going to have to take that same question with the gender-diverse youth,” Strang says. Identifying autistic children who may need support in affirming their identity is particularly important because some may seek medical interventions, such as puberty blockers, that are time-sensitive, he says.

Clinicians should be aware that autistic people may present their gender identity differently than neurotypical people do. Some autistic people who transition from one gender to another are not aware of how they also need to change their social cues, such as how they dress, if they want to clearly communicate their gender identity to others. Clinicians can help autistic people navigate these transitions and ensure they have the same access to gender-affirming medical care that neurotypical people have, says Aron Janssen, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois.

How do autistic people best learn about gender and sexuality?
For years, many parents and caregivers believed that autistic people, particularly those with intellectual disability, shouldn’t be given information about sexuality and are less interested in relationships than neurotypical people are, Dewinter says. That belief is changing as researchers recognize that providing relationship support is important to ensure the overall well-being of neurodiverse people, just as it is for neurotypical people. Belonging to any kind of minority group makes a person more susceptible to mental health problems, because of a phenomenon known as ‘minority stress.’ For a person who is both neuro- and gender-diverse, belonging to several minority groups can intensify those problems12.

More comprehensive and inclusive sex education can help. In ongoing surveys, Eileen Crehan, assistant professor of child study and human development at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, has found that autistic people want information about sexual orientation and gender identity more than typical people do. Research has shown that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer/questioning (LGBTQ+) adolescents who have more inclusive sex education in school have better mental health. But only 19 percent of U.S. sex-education materials are LGBTQ+ inclusive, according to the advocacy group GLSEN, creating an extra barrier for autistic LGBTQ+ people. “You have two hoops to jump through to get the information that you need,” Crehan says.

Where is the research going next?
Early research focused on measuring the prevalence of diverse gender identities in the autism community — and vice versa — but now researchers are increasingly turning to questions about how best to support autistic people who are gender-diverse. To do that, they’re working closely with the autistic community, ensuring autistic people guide research priorities. “I really think it’s incredibly important to lift up the voices in the community themselves, and I’m grateful to see that’s where the field is going,” Janssen says.

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What Does it Mean to Be Cisgender?

Here’s What Experts Say

Plus how to check your cis-privilege and be a transgender ally.

By Leah Groth

We all know the most commonly used gender pronouns: she/her and he/him—they refer to a person assigned either male or female at birth, and who continues to identify that way later in life. But there’s another term that’s used to refer to those who continue to identify with the gender they were assigned at birth: cisgender. Here’s what you need to know about that term, including how it compares to sexual orientation, and when (or if) you should use it.

What does cisgender mean?

Cisgender—technically pronounced “sis-gender”—refers to “individuals whose assigned sex at birth is congruent with their gender identity, Christy L. Olezeski, PhD, director of Yale Medicine’s Gender Program, tells Health. The prefix “cis” is actually Latin for “on this side,” according to Merriam-Webster. “Trans,” on the other hand—as in transgender—technically means “on the other side of.

A person assigned female at birth, for example—meaning doctors saw female sex organs or genitalia—and who still identifies as a woman today, is cisgender. The same goes for a person assigned male at birth who currently identifies as a man.

According to Transgender Studies Quarterly, the term was initially created by transgender activists in the 1990s in order to differentiate between cisgender and transgender individuals, without further adding to the marginalization of trans people. “The terms man and woman, left unmarked, tend to normalize cisness—reinforcing the unstated ‘naturalness’ of being cisgender,” the text says, suggesting rather to use identifications like “cis man or “cis woman” alongside “transman” and transwoman.”

It’s important to know, however, that there is a bit of controversy around the term. “Some folx would argue that we should use the term cis- or trans- any time we are identifying people,” Olezeski says. However, “some folx would argue that we should not identify anyone using these, and should instead just identify folx as men, women or non-binary/gender expansive or agender.”

What’s the difference between cisgender and straight?

It’s important to know that gender identity and sexual orientation are two different things. Plainly speaking, gender identity is how someone identifies, and sexual orientation refers to who someone is attracted to. “As someone once said, gender identity is who you go to bed as, while sexual orientation is who you want to go to bed with,” Olezeski says.

That means those who identify as cisgender can fall anywhere on the sexuality spectrum—gay, straight, bisexual, etc.—just as anyone who is transgender, too, can identify with any sexual orientation.

What is cisgender privilege, and how can you work against it?

In an article published in the Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, Julia R. Johnson, PhD, explains that “cisgender privilege is given to persons whose morphology aligns with socially-sanctioned gender categories.” It has been well established that those who do not identify as cisgender—namely transgender people—experience discrimination on many levels.

Johnson’s article outlines a few different examples of what cisgender privilege can look like: “Some forms of cisgender privilege include: Having a government-issued identification that accurately represents one’s identity; not being ‘‘asked . . . what my genitals look like, or whether or not my breasts are real, what medical procedures I have had’’; not being forced ‘‘to adopt a different gender presentation’’ or denied medical care; or being refused ‘‘access to, and fair treatment within, sex segregated facilities’’ such as bathrooms, homeless shelters, prisons, and domestic violence shelters.”

In order to confront our own cisgender privileges—and therefore become a transgender ally, or cisgender person working to fight for the rights of the transgender community—Johnson argues that we have to examine not only our own interactions and relationships, but also structural dynamics used to continue the oppression of transgender individuals.

It’s also essential to educate yourself regarding issues that those in the transgender community face, to speak up against comments or actions that marginalize trans people, and to always remember to use someone’s appropriate pronouns, since trans people are often either misgendered or deadnamed (if you’re not sure how to do this, the easiest way is to share your own pronouns and ask for theirs).

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Sexual Orientation And Gender Identity Are Not The Same

by Dyuti Gupta

There are a lot of people out there who are confused as to how sexual orientation is different from gender identity, myself having been one of them for the longest time. It’s a common misconception that both are connected when they are really not. In fact, the meanings of these two terms don’t even intersect at any given point. For example, many people automatically assume that if someone is a transgender person, they must also be gay. However, that is not the case. So what exactly is the difference between gender identity and sexual orientation?

What Is Gender Identity?

According to the Human Rights Campaign, gender identity is defined as the “innermost concept of self as male, female, a combination of both or neither–how individuals perceive themselves and accordingly, what they call themselves.” In layman language, gender identity is one’s internal and personal sense of being a female, male or as someone outside of that binary. There are more than a dozen of genders, outside of just man or woman, that people can identify with. One can be gender-neutral, non-binary, agender, pangender, genderqueer, two-spirit, third gender, and all, none or a combination of these. People’s gender identity can mirror what they were assigned at birth, or be entirely different. And accordingly, they might or might not want to be referred to with certain pronouns—it all really depends on what they identify as.

Usually, cisgender is the umbrella term used to describe people whose sense of personal identity and gender corresponds with their chromosomal and phenotypic sex, while transgender is the larger umbrella term used to describe people whose sense of personal identity does not correspond with the sex assigned to them at birth.

What Is Sexual Orientation?

According to the Human Rights Campaign, sexual orientation is defined as the “inherent or immutable enduring emotional, romantic or sexual attraction to other people.” In simpler terms, it’s who one is interested in dating and being intimate with. A person might identify as straight, bisexual, pansexual, queer, asexual or use a host of other words that reflect their capacity to be attracted to more than one sex or gender or to not feel sexual attraction at all. Sexuality is a complex phenomenon and attraction can manifest very differently for different people. This emerging language illuminates a complex world in which simple either/or designations such as gay or straight are inadequate. Categories are commonly used to understand our attractions, but they aren’t always inclusive of the vast variety of expression that makes up human sexuality. Hence, one would notice that the language about sexuality is constantly evolving.

The Difference

Perhaps no one can put the difference between sexual orientation and gender identity in simpler terms than the Youtuber Brendan Jordan who identifies as gender fluid: “[Sexual Orientaion] is who you go to bed with, but gender identity is who you go to bed as.” Sexual orientation really doesn’t have anything to do with gender. Therefore, the next time you meet someone who identifies outside the binary system, don’t ask questions like, “because you don’t identify as a female, does that mean that you’re gay?” “How can you be straight when you identify as a transgender?”

People having different sexual orientations, i.e. who are straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, asexual, etc., are cisgenders if they identify themselves as the birth sex assigned to them. On the other hand, transgender people can be straight, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and so on. For example, a person who has transitioned from the gender identity of a male to a female and is attracted solely to men would typically identify as straight as far as their sexual orientation is concerned. The truth is that both gender and sexual orientation are essential components of who we are, and how we live our lives. But even so, the two, in any scenario, are not the same, and that’s a crucial fact we need to remember.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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‘We are taboo everywhere’

— How LGBTIQ+ people, and their children, become stateless

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No child should be denied her rights because her parents are LGBTIQ+, and no family should have to endure the indignity we did.

These are the words of Roee and Adiel Kiviti, a same-sex married couple who recently won a legal challenge against the US Department of State for refusing to consider their daughter an American citizen.

Both men are US citizens, but their daughter was born in Canada through surrogacy. The State Department considers such children of same-sex couples to be “born out of wedlock”, irrespective of the marital status of the parents. For the Kivitis, this meant their daughter was denied the automatic citizenship normally granted to the children of US citizens.

This isn’t just a singular case. For many children born to same-sex couples through international surrogacy, there is a risk they could become stateless — unable to gain citizenship in the country where they were born, or their parents’ home countries.

Immigration Equality, an LGBTIQ+ immigrant rights organisation in the US, says there is a

new double standard for citizenship: one for the children of gay couples and one for the children of straight couples.

What does statelessness mean?

Statelessness is defined under international law as not being recognised as a citizen by any of the world’s 195 recognised states. According to the UN’s conservative estimate, there are some 12 million stateless people globally.

In practical terms, stateless people face many challenges due to their lack of citizenship. While these differ significantly from one context to the next, common experiences include the inability to access vital services (such as education and health care), move freely, own property and simply prove one’s identity.

Cases like the Kivitis’ daughter have brought high-profile attention to the risk of statelessness associated with LGBTIQ+ parenting situations.

Similar cases have been compiled by campaigners in Europe, where litigation is also underway.

An Irish-Polish lesbian couple, for instance, gave birth to a daughter through IVF in Spain in 2018. The girl, Sofia, is currently stateless because neither woman’s country will recognise her right to citizenship. Her Spanish citizenship is still pending.

And before international commercial surrogacy arrangements were banned in India and Thailand, the children of many same-sex couples born in these countries were at risk of statelessness.

However, statelessness is also a problem that LGBTIQ+ people themselves may face. My recently published research has identified scores of stateless LGBTIQ+ people around the world.

Stateless LGBTIQ+ people face double marginalisation

Why do we hear so little about their experiences? Indeed, this was the question that motivated me to study the links between statelessness and sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics (relating to a person’s physical sexual anatomy).

Having worked on statelessness for the last decade, I have attended many conferences with little consideration given to LGBTIQ+ people. In contrast, much research has been conducted on the experiences of LGBTIQ+ refugees and asylum seekers.

As Eliana Rubashkyn, an intersex person from Colombia who experienced years of statelessness before receiving asylum and citizenship in New Zealand, explained to me:

Nobody talks about our case because we are taboo everywhere. Yet it is a chronic violation of human rights.

My research highlights that stateless LGBTIQ+ people often face a significant double marginalisation. They are discriminated because of their sexuality or gender expression, as well as their lack of documentation.

For example, one stateless queer man in Lebanon described fears of being arrested on grounds of public immorality (a common charge against the LGBTIQ+ community) and lacking the necessary paperwork to establish his identity. While he is not the only stateless person in his family (due to gender discrimination in Lebanese citizenship law), the risks are compounded in his case.

It goes without saying that being stateless can also make any problem I encounter due to my sexual orientation and gender identity much worse. And vice versa.

While no statistics are available, for some LGBTIQ+ people, discrimination is what caused them to become stateless in the first place.

They can lose their citizenship due to complex laws that do not recognise LGBTIQ+ marriages and relationships across countries. There is also a patchwork of different laws recognising sex and gender transitions, which can be especially problematic for trans and intersex individuals.

This was the case for Rubashkyn, who no longer resembled her passport photo following hormone treatment and became stranded in Hong Kong’s airport six years ago.

Desperate to prevent officials from deporting her back to Colombia, where she had suffered persecution, she ultimately renounced her Colombian citizenship, making herself stateless. She was later resettled in New Zealand and gained citizenship in 2018.

Asylum requests are often denied

Within asylum contexts, research shows both statelessness and LGBTIQ+ situations are often missed or misunderstood during the process of assessing claims for protection.

For instance, one transsexual interviewee from my research explained

the various intersecting elements of my narrative seemed to confuse the asylum officials who wanted to understand my experience through a singular lens. I tried to explain but they did not appear convinced.

 

The lack of attention paid to “rainbow statelessness” in the media and policy debates may further lead governments to question the credibility of statements made by stateless LGBTIQ+ asylum seekers.

This is why it’s critical to bring more attention to the links between statelessness and sexual orientation or gender identity.

Better understanding this intersection is necessary to improve laws and policies that discriminate against LGBTIQ+ people, and sometimes render them, or their children, stateless.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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From Graysexual to Heteroflexible

– Here’s A Big List Of Sexualities In 2020

by Stephanie Barnes

When it comes to sexuality, there is no one-size-fits-all approach, which explains why there is already such a long list of terms to describe sexual orientation, with more popping up every day. For someone who is searching for the perfect word to describe their sexual desires, this could take them a step closer to finding sexual liberation. For others, these terms can be a little bit confusing, and that’s OK if you feel that way.

Most people are familiar with the widely recognized acronym LGBTQ+, which stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, plus anyone who doesn’t identify as straight but also doesn’t fit in under the definitions of the other letters either. But the acronym is really just the tip of the rainbow iceberg. Here’s everything you need to know about sexuality, plus a fuller list of some of the most common sexualities in 2020.

Sexuality is an umbrella term describing the parts of your identity that deal with how you present yourself to the world, who you love, and who you find yourself attracted to or not attracted to. According to sexologist Carol Queen, Ph.D., it’s the way a person feels and expresses their relationship to sex, desire, arousal, and eroticism.

“It can include a lot of varying elements (what kind of person you’d want to have sex with, specific preferences, and more), but often we use this term as shorthand for sexual orientation and the number of ways people may express both desire and identity,” she explains. She also points out, “Sexuality can be fluid in a person’s life, so its elements may change.”

How many sexualities are there?

There’s no definitive number of sexualities since new words are constantly being conceived and integrated into popular language as the way we talk about sexual orientation evolves. This isn’t to say that new types of sexuality are being “invented” out of the blue; rather, people are creating new language to describe nuances of sexual attraction and behavior that have always existed. These terms serve as a way for people to feel seen and find communities of like-minded people. They also help with describing one’s identity, communicating with others about what you look for in relationships, and establishing compatibility with potential partners.

While there is no finite number of sexual orientation types, there are a handful of terms that you’re likely to see more than others.

The term allosexual refers to anyone who experiences sexual attraction. Those who identify as allosexual can also identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, or any other orientation, because allosexuality isn’t linked to gender but simply attraction. This is as opposed to asexuality, described below.

Someone who is androsexual will find themselves sexually or emotionally attracted to folks on the more masculine side. For some people, this attraction has very little to do with biology; it’s more about having a masculine identity or gender presentation. Alternatively, some people also use the term androsexual to refer to attraction to any folks with penises, though still with a focus on people with more masculine presentations.

An asexual individual typically doesn’t experience sexual attraction to any gender. However, it is possible for an asexual being to be romantically attracted to people of other genders or the same gender, and some asexual people do have sex in certain circumstances.

Have you ever wished there were two of you so you could have sex with yourself? If you answer yes, then you might be autosexual, aka someone who is sexually attracted to themselves.

Bi-curious refers to someone who is looking to explore or has already begun exploring bisexuality. There’s some disagreement about whether this term has roots in biphobia, however.

Someone who is bisexual will likely find themselves romantically, sexually, or emotionally attracted to more than one gender. It can sometimes overlap with pansexuality, which is the attraction to people regardless of gender. (Here’s more on how to know if you’re pansexual, as opposed to bisexual.)

Closeted, also referred to as “in the closet,” refers to anyone who is a part of the LGBTQIA+ community, but they have yet to publicly acknowledge this truth. These people typically have good reasons to keep their sexual identity to themselves, such as for safety from an intolerant community or to avoid discrimination associated with being “out” of the closet. Some closeted people may or may never “come out.”

Demisexual falls on the asexual spectrum. It describes someone who only experiences sexual attraction to folks they already have established a strong romantic or emotional relationship with.

Some people describe themselves as sexually fluid. A person who is fluid experiences their sexuality or sexual identity as changing over time or in different contexts rather than having one finite way they experience attraction.

The word gay is used to describe someone who is sexually, romantically, or emotionally attracted to people of the same gender. In some cases, women who date other women prefer to use the word lesbian, while others opt to use queer.

Graysexual people are all about the gray area of the sexuality spectrum and tend to experience limited sexual attraction. This means they’ll rarely experience sexual attraction, and when they do, it’s usually not very intense.

Gynesexual people are attracted to women and folks with more feminine gender presentations, as opposed to androsexual people who are interested in the masculine. Alternatively, some people also use the term gynesexual to describe attraction to people with vaginas, breasts, and a more feminine physical presentation.

Heterosexual or straight refers to people who are only attracted, whether sexually, emotionally, or romantically, to people of the “opposite” gender—i.e., men who are attracted to women exclusively, or women who are attracted to men exclusively.

Heteroflexible or homoflexible

A heteroflexible person is mostly straight (heterosexual) though occasionally is attracted to the same gender or other genders. A homoflexible person likewise is mostly gay (homosexual) though occasionally is attracted to the “opposite” gender. For example, a homoflexible man might primarily date and sleep with men but occasionally date or sleep with a woman. Like bi-curiosity, there’s still ongoing debate over whether these terms are rooted in biphobia.

The term homosexual is a bit outdated, but it refers to anyone who is attracted to people of the same or a similar gender.

A lesbian is a woman who is mentally, physically, and emotionally attracted to other women. Some women who date women prefer to be called gay or queer. Some people who don’t identify as women but do have more feminine aspects to their gender—for example, a more feminine-leaning nonbinary person—might also use the term lesbian to describe themselves and their relationships with other feminine people.

Someone who identifies as pansexual experiences attraction to folks regardless of sex or gender identity.

The dictionary defines queer as something “odd, strange, or weird,” but the word has since been reclaimed and redefined. These days, queer is an umbrella term that is sometimes used to describe anyone within the LGBTQ+ community. The term also provides a sense of community for those who may not fit into one of the other categories specifically but also don’t identify as straight or cisgender. 

Someone who falls into the questioning category is someone who is questioning their current sexual identity and curious about exploring different aspects of sexuality or gender. For example, this could apply to someone who has always identified as a lesbian but is now wondering whether they’re also attracted to men.

You might be seeing this word used in social media and dating app bios more often these days. A sapiosexual person is someone whose attraction is based on intelligence rather than sex or gender.

Someone who is sex-repulsed is repulsed or disgusted by sex or sexual behavior. This person falls on the spectrum of asexuality.

Skoliosexual is one of the newer terms on the sexuality scene, and it refers to a person who is attracted to anyone who isn’t cisgender. This means a skoliosexual will usually find themselves drawn to people who are trans or nonbinary.

A spectrasexual is sexually or romantically attracted to a wide range of sexes, genders, and gender identities.

You might’ve heard the saying “Sexuality is a spectrum” before. The sexuality spectrum is the idea that all sexuality exists on a spectrum with binary “absolutes” on each end, explains sexologist Tanya M. Bass, Ph.D. The spectrum most often referenced is the Kinsey scale, which describes sexuality as existing on a spectrum from exclusively heterosexual to exclusively homosexual. Any individual can fall anywhere on this spectrum.

Here’s every stop on the Kinsey scale:

0 – Exclusively heterosexual

1 – Predominantly heterosexual, only incidentally homosexual

2 – Predominantly heterosexual but more than incidentally homosexual

3 – Equally heterosexual and homosexual

4 – Predominantly homosexual but more than incidentally heterosexual

5 – Predominantly homosexual, only incidentally heterosexual

6 – Exclusively homosexual

X – No socio-sexual contacts or reactions

Bass points out that there are other spectrums of identity as well, such as the gender spectrum, which views gender identity as existing on a spectrum from maleness to femaleness. Any individual can fall anywhere on this spectrum. Asexuality is considered another spectrum, where people can experience varying degrees of asexuality or fall somewhere on a spectrum from asexual to allosexual.

“Spectrums describe sexuality as fluid related to gender, orientation, attraction, and expression,” Bass explains. “It can often challenge the binary for both orientation, expression, and identity.”

Sexual orientation versus romantic orientation.

A person’s sexual orientation can sometimes be confused with their romantic orientation, but the two things aren’t quite the same. Your sexual orientation is linked to who you want to have sex (or some sort of erotic experience) with, while your romantic orientation refers to who you want to love or be in a relationship with.

“You can have sex without being in a relationship; you can be in a relationship without sex. So these things explain two elements of sexuality that can be teased apart or are always experienced together—depending on the person. And they don’t even need to match. Plenty of people fall in love with the other gender but like to have sex with people of their own gender, for example. And vice versa,” Queen explains.

The prefixes a-, bi-, pan-, hetero-, and homo- can all be attached to either element. For example, a biromantic asexual person might be someone who’s open to romantic partnerships with more than one gender, but they do not want sex in those relationships. Panromantic, biromantic, and aromantic are examples of other variations of romantic orientation.

When you put sexual and romantic orientation together, you learn more about the specifics of the person embracing the identities.

There’s a lot of nuance when it comes to sexual identity, which can be both exciting and overwhelming. Remember that these words aren’t meant to be prescriptive or frightening: They’re here to make your life simpler by making it easier for you to tell people who you are and what you want from your relationships. If you were searching for your word, we hope you’ll find yourself one step closer.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Exploring the common misconceptions regarding trans and non-binary identities

Eight reasons why anti-trans rants are unscientific.

By Hannah Seo

Last month, a series of anti-trans tweets by author J.K. Rowling incited a maelstrom of anger, pain, and indignation. Specifically, Rowling opposed the phrase “people who menstruate” in an article, commenting on the social media platform, “I’m sure there used to be a word for those people … Wumben?”

In her tweets, Rowling has perpetuated several common misconceptions about trans people, many of which actively hurt and harm the trans community. Here’s a breakdown of some common misconceptions and why they’re harmful.

Gender and sex are not the same thing

Sex is usually determined by a doctor shortly after birth based on the external genitalia you have, and even then it’s not so clean cut. Estimates suggest that 1 to 2 percent of all people in the US are intersex, meaning their bodies don’t fall neatly inside the male/female binary: Their gonads, genitalia, and hormones don’t necessarily match in sex characteristics.

Gender identity is less clinical and more focused on how an individual views themself. Human Rights Campaign defines gender identity as “one’s innermost concept of self as male, female, a blend of both, or neither—how individuals perceive themselves and what they call themselves.”

Gender presentation is how an individual chooses to look and show their identity through their appearance. How a person presents themself is separate to the gender they identify with—and trans individuals do not need to dress hyper-feminene of hyper-masculine to prove their gender identity.

“We still have that binary mindset of what a man and what a woman should look like. Then we have the additional layer of what a trans woman should look like and what a trans man should look like, and there’s often not a lot of space in between,” says Hansel Arroyo, a psychiatrist at Mount Sinai’s Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery. He says being trans does not require adhering to stereotypical experiences: A trans woman dressed in typically ‘masculine’ clothing is still a woman.

Hormones are not sex specific

“Sex hormones” are a myth, says Katie Spencer, an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota who researches human sexuality and co-directs the National Center for Gender Spectrum Health in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Cis men have estrogen and cis women have testosterone, not to mention the wide variability among intersex individuals—”we all have sort of a blend of them in our bodies.”
Naturally variable hormone levels have been the center of controversy in competitive sports. For example, track-and-field star Caster Semenya has been scrutinized throughout her career because of her naturally high testosterone levels. Researcher Joanna Harper recently told Popular Science that we still don’t fully understand how all hormones affect athletic performance.

Spencer adds that there are plenty of trans people who don’t take hormones or have surgery just as there are plenty of cisgendered people who do need supplemental hormones, whether it’s for symptoms related to menopause, mediating sex-drive, or to prevent hair loss. So the perception that trans people taking hormones is evidence of something wrong or unnatural is completely moot, she says. What’s more, safe access to hormones is a public health issue: Hormone therapy can already increase your risk of heart attack, but taking hormones from unreliable black market sources means you’re never really sure how much of a hormone you’re taking, and that can result in serious medical issues, like kidney failure.

Cisgendered women are not the only people who can menstruate and get pregnant

“Lots of bodies menstruate,” says Spencer. There are some trans men and non-binary people who menstruate and get pregnant. On the other hand, there are plenty of cisgendered women who don’t menstruate. Menopause and other conditions like polycystic ovarian syndrome or uterine disorders can prevent regular cycles. To conflate menstruation with womanhood is wrong and offensive, says Spencer. Moreover, she says, it’s medically dangerous. 

Awareness of obstetric and gynecological care for men and non-binary folk is important, because their experiences are still poorly documented and understudied. That “time of the month” can come with a big psychological toll for some. One study of pregnant trans men found that trans men remain highly motivated to get pregnant at the prospect of fatherhood, despite the lack of information and support available to them. Another study shows that some trans men experience extreme isolation and body dysphoria during pregnancy.

Awareness of obstetric and gynecological care for men and non-binary folk is important, because their experiences are still poorly documented and understudied.

Access to the care they need to transition is crucial for trans folk and their mental health, says Arroyo. When they receive appropriate, thoughtful care, trans individuals have better mental health and are more likely to feel safe and satisfied with their care. Interfering with an individual’s ability to live their full life or to prevent them from having dysphoric feelings, he says, is awful.

Trans existence is not new

“Trans people have always existed,” says Jesse Pratt López, a photographer, activist, and proud trans woman who notably started a GoFundMe for homeless Black trans women.

For example, before Europeans reached North America, many Native American tribes had third gender roles. Indigenous groups to this day have many different names for people across the non-binary spectrum.

“Looking at past populations, from historical documents to archaeological artifacts, graves, funerary goods and skeletons, we know that the binary that we think of as gender being male or female didn’t exist in all populations—and we know it still doesn’t exist in all populations today,” says Sabrina Agarwal, a bioarchaeologist and anthropologist at UC Berkeley. “We have evidence of gender and sexuality fluidity across human cultures from even prehistoric times—from ancient Egypt, Mesoamerican, the Inca, Southeast Asia, and even in the earliest Mesopotamaian writing tablets.”

A lot of the archaeological record supports a long history of gender fluidity, Agarwal says. One way to see that is to look at grave sites. By analyzing a skeleton archaeologists can infer a person’s sex, but that sex does not necessarily match up with the gendered artifacts they find at the person’s grave site, she explains. This could be because the individual lived outside of the gender binary.

Suppressing “deviations” from what’s considered normal is an invention of white colonization, says Pratt López, and so framing transness as a new phenomenon is deceptive and wrong. When white colonizers moved in on communities around the world they forcibly brought with them tenets of sex and gender binaries.

Agarwal agrees. She says that “these ideas of a gender binary are a Western-centric perception—the white settler’s idea of how things are divided.” A noted example she has studied are the hijras, a term that includes transgender and intersex individuals, and eunuchs. South Asia has long recognized them, she says, but when British colonialists came in, they targeted and criminalized the hijra. They still face echoes of that stigma today, though India recently gave the hijra legal recognition as a third gender.

When you consider the record of gender fluidity in the world throughout history, Pratt López says, it becomes impossible to separate trans oppression from colonization.

Genitalia is not the only thing that matters in attraction and sexuality

Trans sexuality is a particularly frustrating misconception to talk about, says Pratt López. However, she says it’s difficult to pinpoint what is so hard for folks to understand. She puts forth this hypothetical situation: If a heterosexual man who is only attracted to women sleeps with a trans woman, the common public response to that kind of relationship is usually, “He must be gay” rather than, “She must be a woman.”

Further, sex and gender are not the only reasons people become attracted to one another. “People are attracted to people on multiple levels,” says Katie Spencer. “Bodies are a part of that, and gender is a part of that, but they’re not the whole picture.” You’re not attracted to someone because of their genitals in any relationship, says Spencer, so reducing trans people and trans attraction to genitals makes no sense.

Transitions aren’t the same for everyone

“Transness, like anything, is a spectrum,” says Pratt López. She notes that how a person chooses to transition, and how they want to present themselves during this time, should occur on their terms: “Trans people don’t have to have any surgeries or take hormones in order to be the gender that they are.”

Conversion therapy is dangerous and does not work.

Rowling has also insinuated that queer youth are being “shunted towards hormones and surgery,” calling it “a new kind of conversion therapy for young gay people.” Contrary to what the author claims, helping trans youth understand their identities, and meeting them where they are is pivotal to closing mental and physical health disparities between trans and cis youth.

“There are people who would oppose somebody who is trans from getting appropriate medical services, whether hormone therapy or surgery, and I would encourage them to look at the health outcomes,” says Arroyo. The health disparity between cis and trans communities is frighteningly large, he says, but we see in our patients and in the research that providing support to both youth and adults can help close those gaps.

Conversion therapy, a category of discredited practices that aim to conform a person’s sexuality or gender identity to the societal norm or expectation, on the other hand, is dangerous and does not work. The UN has called it a “‘cure’ for an illness that does not exist.” Comparing transitioning to conversion therapy is a baseless analogy that does not hold up.

We often think of transitioning as going from one stereotypical side of the gender spectrum to the other, Arroyo says, but thinking about transitions as crossing a binary is inaccurate. A transition can mean different things to different individuals: Some trans folk may only want to transition by way of clothing and expression, while others might want to go as far as hormone therapy or surgery. There is no set end goal to a transition, no final destination. “It is not for me to say that one person’s way of expressing their gender is a transition or is not a transition,” says Arroyo. “And I think that’s a good reminder for us as medical providers—that it’s not for us to determine what transitioning is, but it’s for the individual to discover what transition is to them.”

How to be a better ally for trans people 

Trans individuals, and especially trans women of color, are disproportionately victims of violence. As of July 27, 22 transgender or gender non-conforming people have been violently killed in 2020 alone. 16 of them (76 percent) were people of color.

“Here we are, in 2020, still begging and pleading for people to see our humanity,” says Milan Nicole Sherry, a trans activist from New Orleans who organizes the city’s NOLA Trans March of Resilience and created the hashtag #blacktranslivesmatter. She says that instead of complacent allies, they need active accomplices who speak with their actions—those who will not only stand with trans people, but walk with them and protect them, too.

Ask yourself, “how can I show up?” and ask your trans friends, “how can I help you and trans people?”, says Sherry. If you phrase it in a direct way, then you are more likely to get a direct answer.

Being an accomplice, as Sherry puts it, could mean joining them in protest, volunteering at a clinic or youth organization, or even just talking to those around you who are ignorant about trans people—all of it contributes to a movement towards acceptance.

Any and all action is impactful, especially during a time when celebrity authors and government agencies try to invalidate the trans community based on false interpretations of biology.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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How to Be Supportive When a Friend Comes Out to You

Don’t try to set them up with the only other queer person you know, who they have absolutely nothing in common with.

by Rachel Miller

At the end of a Pride month in which a lot of people are newly thinking about how to be a good ally, it’s a great occasion to think about how to be an ally to the queer folks in your life year-round—starting with the moment they tell you they are queer.

First, it’s important to know that there’s no singular “coming out” with regard to sexuality—it’s something that those of us who choose to come out have to do over and over again. As Tom Vellner wrote in a BuzzFeed essay, “It isn’t a one-step process. I don’t have to sit down at my kitchen table with every new person I meet, like I did with my parents—knees weak, palms sweaty, mom’s spaghetti (wait…)—and explain to them that, yes, I’m queer and, no, it won’t change anything between us. But as long as I exist in a heteronormative world, where the presumption is that I must have a girlfriend because I’m a man, I’ll never stop coming out. It happens whenever I meet a new coworker, whenever I see a new doctor, whenever I talk to a friend of a friend at a party.”

Because coming out happens in so many small, often mundane ways, there’s no single response that’ll work for every situation. Tearfully replying, “I just want you to know how much I love you!!!” isn’t going to be appropriate if you’re, say, working the cash register at Bath & Body Works and a customer mentions the candle she’s buying is for her wife. And a peppy “Cool, got it!” probably isn’t the move when your best friend since childhood sits you down to tell you they are queer. Ultimately, you should try to mirror and respond to the specific individual’s emotional intensity, and to let your established relationship guide you.

When it comes to the more emotional, capital-C–capital-O Coming Out situations, aim to affirm and honor your friend.

Here are some tips to consider:

  • Recognize the importance of this moment, and how vulnerable they are being with you by saying something like, “Thank you so much for trusting me with this” or “I feel honored that you chose to share this with me.”
  • Say “I think this is really great!” or something else really affirming that communicates that what they are telling you is fundamentally good. And remember to smile.
  • If you’re close, it’s OK to ask gentle, non-probing questions—e.g., “I have to admit that I actually don’t know what pansexual means; I can look it up, of course, but I’d love to know what it means to you, if you’re up for sharing.” (Just avoid nosy questions about their body and/or sex.)
  • Maybe say, “Is there anything you’d like to do to celebrate?” Recognizing this milestone—whether that’s via drinks, going shopping for a new outfit, getting a tattoo or piercing or haircut, or having a party—lets them know that you are aware of what a big moment this is, and is a way to honor what they’ve just shared.
  • It’s really important to let people share their stories on their own terms, and to not accidentally out a friend, even if it’s an attempt to normalize what they’ve told you. On the other hand, they might actually prefer if you share the information with other people in your circle so they don’t have to have really intense coming out conversations with everyone they’ve ever met. The best way to know what they want is to have a conversation about it. So if they haven’t told you how public this information is, you could say something like, “Just to make sure we’re on the same page, can I ask you if other folks in your life know?”
  • If you’re not sure what to do next, go with “How can I best support you right now?” It’s really OK to not know exactly what to do or say for a friend, and to simply ask them what they need from you in this moment.

In any coming out conversation—whether it’s intense or fairly casual—what you don’t say is just as important as what you do say.

Here are some things to avoid:

  • “I’m not surprised” or “I always knew.” It’s not about you right now!!! Also, it doesn’t feel good to know that other people knew something about you that you didn’t know about yourself, or to learn that the thing you were working so hard to hide was actually obvious to everyone around you. (If the person asks if you knew, you can say something honest but gentle like, “I thought that could maybe be the case, but I wasn’t really sure!”)
  • “It’s no big deal!” This kind of response is often well-meaning, but can trivialize a person’s lived experience, or gloss over the fact that they just shared something that is a big deal to them. (In the newest installment of ¡Hola Papi!, JP Brammer gave advice to a reader who was hurt by their loved ones’ neutral reaction to coming out; it’s a good reminder that your friend might be expecting a little more fanfare, or at least something beyond just tolerance.)
  • “I love you anyway!” Again, well-intentioned, but it inadvertently communicates that you are doing them a favor, and care about them despite their sexuality.
  • “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me!!!” Trust that they had their reasons for telling you when they did. And, again, this isn’t about you.

Be sure to keep showing up for them after that initial conversation, too.

Talking to you is likely just one step in a bigger process; here are some things to keep in mind going forward:

  • Follow their lead. If they call themselves a lesbian, use the term lesbian; if they say gay, go with gay. (And don’t whisper it like it’s something shameful; say it.) If they refer to the person they are dating as their partner instead of their boyfriend, say partner instead of boyfriend. (And don’t call their partner “your buddy” or “your roommate.”)
  • Support their efforts to make more queer friends. Yes, that might mean sometimes you won’t be invited to join a group activity, but try not to take it personally—it’s really, really not.
  • If you’ve said or done anti-LGBTQ things in front of your friend in the past, seriously consider apologizing. Don’t make your guilt a Huge Thing for them to manage—they shouldn’t end up comforting you here—or pressure them to accept your apology, but it’s worth owning up to your shortcomings as a friend in this moment. You might say something like, “I also wanted to say I’m sorry for the comments I made about [_So-and-So bringing a same-sex date to prom/gay marriage/homosexuality being a sin_]. I’m sure that really hurt for you to hear, and made you feel less safe around me. I know it was wrong of me, and I’m so sorry.” If you said things or held beliefs that were particularly harmful, you might also say, “Here’s what I’m doing to educate myself on this topic, so I can be a better [_f__riend/sibling/ally_] going forward.”
  • Continue to be supportive and affirming. A friend of mine just sent her newly-out niece a Pride care package, which I thought was really thoughtful and cute. This could also look like trying to get to know the person they are dating, or joining your school’s PFLAG group… or simply not pretending this conversation never happened (which happens more than you might think).
  • Look out for them. Systemic, pervasive oppression means that LGBTQ people are at higher risk of mental health conditions, suicidality, intimate partner violence, and police violence. Just because you accept your friend doesn’t mean that their family or employer or the world at large does, so keep an eye out for signs that they aren’t doing well.
  • Avoid referring to them as your “gay best friend.” You can just say “best friend.” And know that having a queer friend doesn’t give you license to start making jokes about LGBTQ people, or about your friend.
  • Don’t try to set them up with the only other queer person you know, who they have absolutely nothing in common with.
  • Remember to see your friend’s whole self. Being queer is one facet of a person’s identity, but it’s not their entire personality.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Intersecting racism and transphobia put transgender women at risk

A Western Sydney University study has found that transgender women from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds are more likely to be the victim of sexual harassment and violence than other women in Australia.

2295 women participated in a nation-wide survey, which aimed to explore women’s lived experiences of and harassment, and their responses to violence.

Of the survey respondents, 180 were and 15 percent of these women were from CALD backgrounds. 31 transgender women from CALD backgrounds were also interviewed and provided photographs about their experiences.

Professor Jane Ussher from the Translational Health Research Institute (THRI) at Western Sydney University was the lead researcher on the study, which is being published today by Australia’s National Research Organization for Women’s Safety (ANROWS).

Professor Ussher said an overwhelming majority of the women, across all gender and sexual orientations and backgrounds, indicated that they had experienced .

“Over two-thirds of all the women reported that they had experienced a sexual assault from the age of 16. But what really stood out in the results, is that the transgender women from CALD backgrounds were more likely to report sexual harassment and sexual assault than the other women,” said Professor Ussher.

The results indicate that the CALD transgender women:

  • Reported more frequent sexual harassment than other women: 70% were harassed 10 or more times, compared to 40% of non-CALD transgender women, and 56% of cisgender women (women whose gender identity matches their sex at birth.)
  • Were twice as likely to report having been assaulted 10 or more times: 28% compared to 12% of non-CALD trans women, and 16% of cisgender women.
  • Reported the highest rate of sexual assault by a stranger: 44% compared to 26% of non-CALD trans and cisgender women.
  • Were more likely to report being sexually assaulted outside the home: 41% compared to 16% of other women.
  • Received no support from the police or the legal system following assault.

Professor Ussher said the study highlights a terrifying reality for transgender women in Australia—where sexual assault and violence is part of their everyday, lived experience.

“Many women live with an understanding that they may be at risk of sexual assault or violence—but for transgender women, the threat is all pervasive, it’s an everyday occurrence, and the threat of physical or sexual violence is everywhere,” said Professor Ussher.

Professor Ussher said experiences of sexual harassment and transphobia can increase during the gender transition process. When the woman is also from a culturally diverse background, she said racism can occur concurrently and can often compound or exacerbate the acts of physical and sexual violence.

“During the process of gender affirmation, many of the participants experienced transphobic sexual and , which they had not experienced previously,” said Professor Ussher. “Many of the women described a difficult journey towards social acceptance, experiencing intersecting racism and transphobia in public, as well as within workplaces and the queer community. Being able to ‘pass as a woman’ did result in a level of social acceptance and reduced the risk of transphobic violence. However, some women found it more difficult to pass if they did not meet narrow definitions of Anglo or white hetero-femininity.”

The results of the “Crossing the Line’ study and accompanying exhibition of photographs and women’s stories, are being released this week by ANROWS in the report “Crossing the line: Lived experience of sexual violence among trans women of color from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds in Australia.”

Professor Ussher said the Report highlights some important issues, in relation to transgender women from CALD backgrounds feeling excluded from community support services.

“CALD trans women were more likely to report no support compared to other groups of women,” said Professor Ussher. “Some of the women described negative experiences associated with seeking support from healthcare professionals or the police following sexual violence, with individuals and services being described as transphobic or disrespectful to trans women of color. As a result, many women felt that formal support services, which are typically available to women after sexual assault, were not accessible to them or did not adequately address their concerns and needs.”

ANROWS CEO Dr. Heather Nancarrow said the research demonstrates that the absence of culturally competent information and knowledge about experience, accompanied by misinformation, can lead to stigma, prejudice and discrimination.

“This results in unmet health and justice needs for trans women,” said Dr. Nancarrow. “There is a clear need for community-wide activities that challenge attitudes condoning sexual violence against . This means we must ensure that our words, policies and practice guidelines promote respect for gender, sexuality and cultural diversity. We must demonstrate zero tolerance of sexual against any woman.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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How To Raise Kids To Be LGBTQ+ Allies

When They’re Growing Up In A Heterosexual Home

by Stephanie Kaloi

This month, you will probably be hearing a lot about one very spectacular celebration: June is Pride Month, and communities across the world will be celebrating.

As a parent, you might also be wondering how to navigate the month with your kids, and you might be extra curious about how you can raise your children to be LGBTQ+ allies if they’re growing up in a heterosexual home.

If you’re nodding along, trust: I get it! My son’s dad and I are both straight, and our self-identified genders correspond with the biological sex we were born with. We are huge allies of the LBGTQ+ community and have so many friends we love and cherish who are part of it.

As such, it’s been really important to us that our son is a fierce ally and friend to this community and really to everyone who isn’t bigoted.

If you don’t have friends who identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community, it might feel extra hard to figure out how to have a conversation about being an ally with your child. After all, one of the best ways to foster empathy is to know and love the people you are empathizing with. With that in mind, I thought it would be helpful to put together a list of ideas and resources for heterosexual parents who are hoping to raise LGBTQ+ allies.

1. Have honest conversations about sexuality early.

My first tip is this: Start talking about sexuality, gender identity, and sexual preference early in your child’s life. And I really do mean early: There are totally board books for babies that cover these topics and ideas. The earlier you normalize the many ways people live and love on this planet, the easier it is. Once you get started, I think you’ll be amazed by how little of a big deal this has to be.

For example, a lot of us already have built-in expectations about gender identity and gender performance due to how we have been socialized, so you can start by examining the ideas you already have and believe. Then identify the areas where you need more growth and learning. From there, find the words that you’re comfortable using with your kids.

Tip: Keep in mind that LGBTQ+ is about way more than just being gay or straight. The community encompasses a huge range of sexual expressions and preferences, and it’s important to give all of them equal weight.

2. Recognize that your children might also be LGBTQ+.

While you’re learning and having these conversations, realize that your own children might actually be part of the LBGTQ+ community, or they might not know if they are and be interested in exploring it. You don’t want to talk about all of this as if it’s something that is distant and removed from your own family. It’s normal and healthy for your kids to explore sexual identity and preference, and if they feel safe and supported in their home (and are raised loving this community of people), then they’ll feel like they can talk to you about those explorations and questions.

Plus, they’ll never have to doubt whether or not you love them.

3. Challenge gender and sex-based stereotypes all the time.

If there is one thing I know about myself, it is that I am relentless. A friend recently asked me how often we talk about racism with our 11-year-old son. I told my friend every single day. They were surprised, but when I explained that either someone we love experiences racism every day, or there’s a story in the news, or we watch or read something and racism is present in it, it started to make sense.

We also talk about other -isms every single day, such as sexism and ableism. We talk about bigotry and anti-LGBTQ+ attitudes and beliefs every day. These aren’t always big, scary conversations about subjects and events that are hard. In fact, more often than not, we’re having celebratory chats.

It can be tempting to only bring up these topics when the news “forces” us too, but I found that deliberately making it part of everything that we do in a day eventually made it come quite naturally.

4. Know and love LGBTQ+ people in your life.

I am absolutely not saying you need to run outside and find the first LGBTQ+ person you see and make them your new best friend, because that would be rude and gross. What I am saying is that if the only LGBTQ+ representation your kids get is from a book or TV, then that’s not really good enough. I know some people truly do live in very homogenous towns, but a lot of us live in diverse cities and communities and, either on purpose or without realizing it, self-choose to be distant from others who we don’t immediately identify as like us.

If you really don’t have any friends who are LGBTQ+ and you’re doing the work to learn to be an ally yourself, I suggest volunteering with an organization that supports LGBTQ+ people in your community as a good way to get to know the people you’re pledging your time to learn more about.

5. Celebrate diversity in your home in obvious ways.

And finally: I always remind myself that, as much as I would love for him to, my child does not learn through osmosis. I can’t assume he will be a kind, gentle person who is a friend and ally just because I want him to be one, or because I believe I am raising him to be “a good person.” The idea of “a good person” is so general that it’s hard to even know what I might mean — and I am sure that how I define “a good person” is not the same definition another family uses.

Celebrating diversity in your home isn’t too hard. Go to events, go to rallies. Support communities that need your support. Make sure your kids see all sides of the LBGTQ+ spectrum — don’t only bring up stories of pain and oppression; bring up stories of love and joy, too. Everything from the books you introduce to the media you consume to the people you spend time with will impact your children.

And on that final note: If your family and friends are bigoted and homophobic, your kids will see it. If you’re really the ally you want to be, then you absolutely have to speak up and educate the people you allow your children to be around. Otherwise, you’ll be little more than a walking contradiction, and your kids will respond accordingly. It can be tough to have hard conversations, but if you’re armed with the right mix of knowledge, facts, and empathy, you can do it. Lives are on the line, so really … you have to.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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From Top to Bottom: Heteronormativity & Queer Relationships

By Raymond Matthews

Back in my day as a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed freshman, one fateful night the Universe (and a generous helping of Kirkland Vodka) guided my friends and I to a party on DP which we were assured would “pop off” any minute. We awkwardly stood in a circle, red Solo cups in hand, swaying to “Sicko Mode,” when we noticed a stray bro wandering toward us.

To set the stage, he was five Natty Lites in, and he’d adopted a Scottish accent while wearing a Texas University shirt and American flag shorts (a multicultural icon). After staring at me for a solid minute, off-brand Shrek asked me a question: “Are ye gay mate??”

I laughed it off and said yes, thinking that was that, but no, discount Braveheart wanted me to give him a deep dive into the gay lifestyle, the likes of which I hadn’t seen since my high school musical theater days.

“Are you a top or a bottom? Like, if you’re with another dude are you more like the girl or the guy?” he asked.

This may sound outlandish and I’ll admit I haven’t run into any drunk wannabe Scotsmen before or since, but the “top or bottom/girl or guy” question is one queer people hear quite often. Most queer people (myself included) find this question insulting because when straight people ask it, they’re asking you to validate yourself by mimicking straight romance and sexuality.

I’ll admit that for some, it can be comforting and familiar to understand yourself in terms of an unambiguous masculine/feminine framework, but the beauty of queerness is in its ambiguity. It offers the freedom to explore gender and sexuality without imitating straightness, because by definition queerness is a rejection of straight traditions.

This is to say that queerness is not an oddball parody of heterosexuality, but its own set of gender and sexual identities, making it impossible to “straighten out” in order to emulate heterosexuality.

It’s worth noting that this mindset is not exclusive to straight people; many queer people impose these dynamics on themselves because of pressure to perform gender, sexuality, and romance in palatable, familiar ways.

Many modern depictions of sex and romance are told from straight perspectives, which can cause queer people to internalize implicit messages that the only romantic and sexual experiences worth having must include a sharp masculine and feminine contrast. While there’s nothing wrong with enjoying masculine and feminine dynamics in your relationships, it’s important to remember that there are other — equally fulfilling — ways to enjoy sex and romance.

Feminine people often have feminine partners, masculine people have masculine partners, genderfluid people have genderfluid partners, and so on and so forth. These relationships are just as fulfilling as the more traditional masculine/feminine paradigm, and allowing yourself to choose which dynamic works for you rather than blindly following “normal” gender dynamics will likely make your relationships more authentic and enjoyable.

On the surface, most queer people hate the “top or bottom” question because it’s rude and creepy for someone to ask intimate questions about your sexual preferences out of the blue.

But on a deeper level, this question is insulting because using someone’s gender expression to determine their sexual role (or vice versa) is laughable. There are feminine tops, masculine bottoms, and everything in between. This can even go beyond queer relationships, as it would be laughable to assume that all straight couples act the exact same way in bed together based solely on their gender.

The main issue with all this is that romance and sexuality — whether queer or straight — is not a black-and-white Etch A Sketch. It’s a messy, multi-colored Picasso painting; you can try to make logical sense of it but it’s best to appreciate it for its disjointed, avant-garde beauty.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Female husbands

Far from being a recent or 21st-century phenomenon, people have chosen, courageously, to trans gender throughout history

Abigail Mary Allen and James Allen (The Female Husband); a hand-coloured etching and aquatint by Thomas Howell Jones (c1829).

By Jen Manion

One summer night in 1836, police found George Wilson drunk on the street in the Lower East Side in New York City. An officer took Wilson to the station. The officer believed that Wilson was a sailor, and also suspected that Wilson might not have been a man. Wilson had been legally married to a woman for 15 years, and living and working as a man for even longer. They told the police that their masculine gender expression was a temporary disguise for safety and ease of travel while they pursued the man they loved who had abandoned them.

The best defence against a hostile police force was to emphasise heterosexual romance and minimise the significance of gender nonconformity in one’s life. The truth came to light, however, when Wilson’s wife stormed through the police station to retrieve her husband. In an interview, Elisabeth disclosed that 15 years earlier she was not at all disappointed when she learned of her husband’s sex, and that they were happily married. Like the policemen who detained and harassed George and Elisabeth, the journalists who would later report on the incident were derisive. But George and Elisabeth were released without formal charges.

Female husbands were people assigned female at birth who ‘transed’ gender, lived as men, and entered into legal marriages with women. The phrase ‘female husband’ was first used to describe such a person in 1746 by the British playwright and novelist Henry Fielding. It circulated for nearly 200 years before losing meaning in the early years of the 20th century. It was never a self-declared identity category. No one was known to walk up to someone and say: ‘Hello, my name is George Wilson and I’m a female husband.’ Rather, it was a term used by others – usually male writers, policemen, judges and doctors – in reference to people whose gender expression was different from their assigned sex. Far from being a recent or 21st-century phenomenon, people have chosen to trans gender throughout history. ‘Female husband’ was a label predominantly used to refer to white working-class people.

In 1856, Miss Lewis of Syracuse in New York state fell in love with Albert Guelph, a charming newcomer. After a brief courtship, they wed in an Episcopal church the same year. The bride’s father soon became suspicious of Guelph and called the police. Together, the policeman and the father interrogated and examined Guelph on the suspicion that Guelph was a woman disguised as a man. They arrested and imprisoned Guelph. Justice Durnford sentenced Guelph to 90 days imprisonment in the penitentiary for violating the vagrancy statute – a very vague ‘catch-all’ crime applied mostly to impoverished people for being poor, homeless, begging, drinking or simply existing in public spaces. Vagrancy laws were also invoked for minor social infractions against morals or order.

The Syracuse Daily Standard took great interest in the case and provided regular updates. When the judge asked Guelph directly: ‘Are you a male or female?’ Guelph refused to answer, instead deflecting the question back to the judge, stating ‘your officers can tell you’ or ‘have told you’. Neither Guelph nor their lawyer made any attempt to explain or justify the status of Guelph’s assigned sex or gender expression. Instead, the lawyer noted that there was no New York state law prohibiting ‘a person to dress in the attire of the opposite sex’. This was true. Guelph was soon released.

It was typical in such cases for people like Guelph to offer an explanation or excuse as to why they were presenting as male. As long as the accused spun a convincing tale, assured authorities that they were not threatening, and begged for forgiveness, they might be let go without further punishment or harassment. Those who worked as soldiers and fought in a war were the most sympathetic of such cases, as patriotism was deemed their core motivation. Others who were poor or alone and explained that presenting as male offered them safety while travelling and/or a higher wage than they could earn as women were also treated with a degree of compassion and understanding – provided that they were willing to change their clothes and resume moving through society as women. Guelph was different: they assumed male attire because they wanted to and because they could. They refused to offer any kind of explanation or justification – sympathetic or otherwise.

Female husbands in general were different from other groups who transed gender (such as soldiers or sailors) because they were in longterm committed relationships with women. Usually, these were legally binding marriages. This posed a much more dramatic threat to society, raising two different troubling possibilities: first, that female husbands were able to realise homosexual desire and participate in a same-sex relationship under the guise of a heterosexual one. This was a violation of both religious edicts and civil laws against sodomy. Second, female husbands threatened the notion that only those assigned male at birth could become men and enter into fulfilling sexual and romantic relationships with women. Whether husbands had strong identifications of themselves as people of masculine gender and/or same-sex desire was never clear. But it also didn’t matter because neither was welcome in society.

The judge advised Guelph to present as a woman in both clothing and manner. The newspaper reported that the judge:

expressed the hope that she would resume the habiliments of her sex, and when her term of sentence had expired conduct herself in such a manner as to win back the confidence and respect of community, which she had forfeited by her deception and imposition.

Guelph ignored the judge’s request, continued presenting in male attire, and reunited with their wife.

Early and mid-19th-century American legal authorities knew that gender could easily be changed. Gender was defined largely by one’s outward expression – chiefly indicated by hairstyle, clothing, physical deportment and particular habits. Men and women were easily distinguishable by these cues – which made it rather easy for someone to visibly trans gender. So when authorities found someone assigned female who was living as a man, they didn’t see it as something distinct or pathological. They didn’t think it signalled cross-gender identification to realise same-sex attraction. They believed that it could be ‘undone’ just as easily as it was ‘done’ in the first place.

Wilson gave in to the pressure temporarily by lying to the police. Guelph ignored and defied the authorities

This was something that Wilson, Guelph and others used to their advantage. When ordered to cease living as men and present as women instead, they didn’t argue that they couldn’t comply; nor did they explain why they wouldn’t. They didn’t claim that their gender was an expression of something deeper and innate. They had no language for the idea of gender identity – and there is no reason to believe it would have helped their case anyway. Gender was something one did – it wasn’t someone one was or a thing one had. The fleeting temporality of gender was liberating – and gave those who transed genders a variety of ways to wiggle out of trouble when authorities came calling. When views shifted at the turn of the 20th century to see gender transgression as something more innate and fixed, it had very negative consequences for female husbands.

Different language for talking and thinking about gender didn’t mean that there was no pressure to conform to dominant norms. Wilson gave in to the pressure temporarily by lying to the police. Guelph ignored and defied the authorities. Both resumed the lives they were living – as men with their wives – though perhaps more wary of and cautious around authorities.

Students have a myriad of reactions to this material. At first, they are wholly unimpressed. They have come of age in an era of transgender liberation. They identify as trans or nonbinary in astonishing numbers. Transgender issues, leaders and celebrities make headlines. They have embraced ‘they’ as an inclusive and powerful gender-neutral pronoun. They have no problem remembering and respecting each other’s pronouns while the over-50 crowd continues to stumble and offer excuses. When I share stories of trans figures from the past, they are happy to learn of such accounts but are generally nonplussed. They expect the past to be full of people who lived as they and their friends do now.

However, I am most surprised by the certainty with which they declare who was ‘really’ trans in the past and who merely transed gender for some ‘other’ reason. Female husbands such as Wilson, Guelph and Joseph Lobdell (of whom more later) were ‘really’ trans because we know they lived fully as men for a long portion of their lives. However, when I share news clippings of so-called ‘female soldiers’ or ‘female sailors’, students are quick to say that these people were not ‘really’ trans. When I ask why they think this, students offer two reasons: the soldiers and sailors were motivated by some other need (patriotism and/or poverty) or they didn’t live as men for very long. It is my job, of course, to help students unpack and contextualise these newspaper accounts so that they can read them with greater skepticism and eventually try to see them from a 19th-century perspective rather than through a 21st-century lens. I think one of the most powerful insights is the absence, for the most part, of a concept of ‘gender identity’ in the 19th century. Distinguishing ‘trans’ from ‘not-trans’ is futile and, in many ways, the least interesting route to approach this rich and varied material. What can we – in our ‘cisgender’ and ‘transgender’ 21st century – learn from an era when this distinction was murkier?

In 1854, the person who would later become Joseph Lobdell achieved local celebrity in Westerlo village, just outside Albany in New York state. Lobdell was the featured subject of a traveller’s chance encounter headlined ‘Extraordinary Performances of a Young Lady’, which ran in local papers such as The New York Observer, the Newport Mercury (Rhode Island), the Washington Sentinel (DC) and the Vermont Watchman and State Journal. It ran under other headlines too, such as ‘One of the Gals’ in the Daily True American (Trenton, New Jersey), ‘Good Girl’ in The Pittsfield Sun (Massachusetts) and ‘A Young Lady of Varied Accomplishments’ in Zion’s Advocate (Portland, Maine).

The article chronicled Lobdell’s mastery of all the labour and caretaking tasks expected of both men and women, from cooking, cleaning, entertaining and caring for their ill parents to chopping down wood and hunting. The traveller, a Mr Talmage, asked Lobdell about their shooting skills to which Lobdell reportedly:

smiled, and said she was as good a shot as was in the woods, and to convince me, she took out her hunting knife, and cut a ring four inches in diameter in a tree, with a small spot in the centre. Then stepping back 30 yards, and drawing up one of her pistols, put both balls inside the ring.

In contrast, Mr Talmage described Lobdell back at home later that evening:

After tea, she finished up her usual housework, and then sat down and commenced plying her needle in a very lady-like manner.

This recognition surely emboldened Lobdell’s confidence in their abilities. They were pretty sure they could do ‘men’s work’ and get ‘men’s wages’ and decided ‘to dress in men’s attire to seek labour’, leaving home soon after. Liberated from their family and the constraints of womanhood, for 25 years Lobdell moved in the world as a man, from New York to Pennsylvania to Minnesota and back again. They secured a variety of jobs along the way, and were sometimes driven out of town under suspicion that they were assigned female. This happened once in Pennsylvania when they worked as a singing teacher, and again in Minnesota where they were a jack-of-all-trades.

Relatives and neighbours began citing Lobdell’s gender and marriage to a woman as evidence of insanity

Lobdell wound up in the poor house in Delhi, New York state where they met their love – Marie Louise Perry – in 1860 or 1861, and partnered with her for nearly 20 years. In 1871, Lobdell and Perry’s relationship became national news when an Overseer of the Poor detailed his encounter with them in an article: ‘Joe Lobdell and Wife – Their History, &c’. Other news outlets picked up the story and ran related accounts. In 1871, The New York Times noted Lobdell’s masculinity and attributed it to their hard life, stating ‘the wild life she has led, and the hardships she has endured, have driven every feminine feature from her face’. The press understood Lobdell’s gender as something shaped by external forces – social and economic.

What led a person to this kind of life? Relatives and neighbours began citing Lobdell’s gender and marriage to a woman as evidence of their insanity. One neighbour declared Lobdell was insane because ‘she frequently claims that she is a man and has a wife’. In many cases of female husbands, members of their own community are more understanding and sympathetic towards them. Years, even decades, of being neighbours, friends or coworkers were not instantly undone upon learning about their unconventional gender. The most hostile and mean treatment often appears in the newspaper accounts from hundreds of miles away, written by people who never knew the person or pair. But the Lobdell situation is different. Here we see their neighbours and community members turning on them and describing them in the harshest possible light before a judge who held the power of life (freedom) and death (forced institutionalisation) over them. Whether at the behest of Lobdell’s brother John who really wanted them institutionalised or from their own negative experiences, the neighbours told the judge what he needed to hear to order Lobdell institutionalised against their will.

Accusations of insanity were never made at Wilson or Guelph, who were deemed deceitful, immoral and odd, but also resourceful, bold and even charming. Some of the ambiguity surrounding views of Wilson and Guelph came from the uncertainty of the source of their transgression. Were they motivated by the desire to move easily, from one country to another, as both did? Were they motivated by the desire for more lucrative work denied women? Were they escaping someone and/or chasing another? Were they lonely? Any number of explanations for why people assigned female at birth would trans gender and live as men were possible in the 19th century. Policemen were not overly concerned with questions of sex or sexuality. Though Wilson and Guelph, for example, were both female husbands legally married to women, the marriage itself was viewed as an expected component of manhood.

What distinguished Lobdell’s experience from the others? In 1880, Lobdell was institutionalised at the Willard Asylum for the Chronic Insane in New York state by their brother, and subject to the gaze of a doctor studying sexuality. Though Lobdell’s chief social transgression was one of gender, doctors were obsessed with and wrote extensively about their sexuality. In the eyes of Dr P M Wise, Lobdell’s masculinity was compelled by their sexual attraction to women. Wise wrote:

Her excitement was of an erotic nature and her sexual inclination was perverted. In passing to the ward, she embraced the female attendant in a lewd manner.

Near the turn of the 20th century, sexologists focused intently on examining those who expressed same-sex desire. This entire process would have been torture for Lobdell on every imaginable level. Lobdell was comfortable outdoors, in the woods, experiencing peace and community among plants and animals. Now they were detained inside a single room within a gated institution. After a failed and abusive marriage, they found great love in Marie Louise Perry. But they were cut off from her – forced into isolation. Lobdell lived as a man for upwards of 25 years, and now they were subject to all manner of physical interrogation and emotional inspection – and treated like a woman. In 1900, Lobdell was transferred to the insane asylum at Binghamton, New York state, where they remained until their death in 1912.

The terms by which we understand sexual orientation and gender identity are products of history and culture

Doctors examined thousands of subjects over the years as they developed a theory that homosexuality was innate and marked by gender nonconformity. The key theory for understanding same-sex desire was through the lens of sexual inversion. For a woman or someone assigned female to actualise their desire for a woman, they had to invert their sense of self into that of a man. This logic was anchored in heteronormativity. It was widely circulated and very influential – if deeply flawed. Fundamentally, it didn’t account for the wide range of gender expressions among self-avowed homosexuals. While the theory’s explanatory power for same-sex desire was limited, it had a seriously restrictive and damaging impact on broader views of gender-nonconformity and transing gender. No longer was transing something fleeting that could as easily be ‘undone’ as it was ‘done’ in the first place. Rather, it was a sign of something innately different and pathologising about the person.

These days, some LGBTQ+ people take comfort in the idea that gender identity and sexual orientation are innate; that we couldn’t change them even if we wanted to; that we were ‘born this way’. I don’t know if they are innate. I don’t believe I was ‘born this way’. I do know that how I relate to and understand my sexual orientation and gender identity has changed over time. But I don’t believe that I can change one or the other on a dime just because I might want to – or in response to social pressure. How do I know if my gender identity and/or sexual orientation will remain static for the rest of my life? Maybe they will change as the world and the circumstances of my life change. I don’t know for certain – and I’m not sure why this is important to know.

If researching female husbands has taught me anything, it is how the very terms by which we understand sexual orientation and gender identity are products of history and culture. Even liberal and progressive people and institutions are not necessarily more accurate or ‘progressive’ in their understanding of gender than those who came before us. The philosophy that is now seen as the best defence against homophobic and transphobic efforts to deny us rights (that we were ‘born this way’) was itself born of forced, violent and dehumanising examinations by doctors on those incarcerated or otherwise institutionalised. This view was highly raced, classed and gendered, and essentially defined us as lesser people: abnormal, deviant and requiring institutionalisation.

Thus, this view cannot be our only avenue to LGBTQ+ liberation in the 21st century. Rather, female husbands and their wives remind us of another way. They fought for their gender expression and relationships on the basis of choice and desire. When they were in danger, they told authorities only what the authorities wanted to hear. With no organised movement fighting for their rights and no visible community offering support, female husbands and their wives took bold actions, defended themselves and fought for the right to live their lives in peace. They did that without claiming that they were ‘born this way’ as a defence of lives lived. They challenged laws and norms to live together and love each other without apology or understanding. May we all be so brave.

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The Queer Lingo Dictionary

By Quinn Mathys

While some of the terms used in this edition may be known throughout parts of the queer community, not everyone — not even all queer people — may know their definitions. To help further the conversation, we have created this section so that you may reference it as needed as you read through the pieces. Words have power, and it’s important to understand what they communicate — all of their messages, the emotions with them, as well as their direct definitions.

AGAB — (acronym) stands for “assigned gender at birth,” a term trans* people may use to identify who were born in male (AMAB) or female (AFAB) bodies

Aromantic — (adj.) a person who doesn’t experience romantic attraction but may still experience sexual attraction. To read more about this, check out our piece on the Split Attraction Model (SAM).

Cisgender (sometimes shortened to “cis”) — (adj.) someone who identifies with the gender they were assigned at birth

Cishet — (adj.) a cisgender heterosexual person

Cisexism — (noun) prejudice or discrimination against trans* people

Closeted — (adj.) used to describe someone who is not open about their queer sexuality or non-cis gender identity

Coming out — (verbal phrase) the act of a person revealing their queer sexuality or non-cis gender identity

Cross-dressing — (noun) the act of wearing clothes and presenting as another gender, not to be confused with identifying as that gender

Equal protection — (noun) a clause included in the 14th amendment that keeps any governing body from denying its citizens equal protection

Femme — (adj.) presenting or acting in a way that is traditionally feminine, regardless of the person’s gender identity

Gay — (adj.) a person who is romantically or sexually attracted to others of the same gender, sometimes used as an informal umbrella term to refer to members of the entire LGBTQ+ community

Gender (as opposed to sex) — (noun) a social construct relating to expectations of behavior, characteristics and thoughts; commonly confused with “sex,” which is usually assigned by doctors at birth based on a person’s genitalia or their chromosomes

Gender expression —(noun) the way that a person chooses to present their gender identity

Gender-nonconforming — (adj.) a term used to describe someone who does not follow the traditional gender norms of the gender they were assigned at birth

Heteronormative — (adj.) an action or belief that pushes heterosexuality as the normal or preferred sexual orientation

Heterosexism — (noun) prejudice or discrimination against people who are not heterosexual

Homosexual — (noun) someone who is sexually attracted to people of the same gender; however, this label carries a negative connotation, as it has been used as a clinical term to discriminate against gay people.

Intersectionality — (noun) the different aspects of identity (race, gender, sexual orientation, ability, etc.) as they apply to an individual or a group of people; these social categories overlap in interdependent systems of discrimination

Masc — (adj.) presenting or acting in a way that is traditionally masculine, regardless of the person’s gender identity

Orientation — (noun) the determination of how one person relates to someone else (i.e., romantic orientation or sexual orientation). Gender identity is not an orientation.

Outing — (verb) the act of revealing a closeted person’s queer sexuality or non-cis gender identity, which should only be done with the permission of said person. Outing someone without their permission is a violation of their trust and is highly frowned on.

Phobia (as in homophobia/biphobia/transphobia/aphobia/etc.) — (noun) dislike or prejudice against gay/bisexual/trans*/asexual individuals, more obvious or direct than heterosexism or cissexism

Queer — (adj.) a person who is a part of the LGBTQ+ community

Spectrum — (noun) a range between two opposite points (i.e., the gender spectrum), but it is more commonly used in reference to autism spectrum disorder (ASD)

They/them/their — (pronouns) the most common singular gender neutral pronouns in the English language, which have been used since the 14th century

Trans* — (adj.) people who do not identify with the gender they were assigned at birth. The asterisk acknowledges there are people who may not feel like the term “trans” or “transgender” accurately applies to them, and its placement shows that those other identities are being included in the discussion.

Trans panic — (noun) an excuse that can be used by the accused to get a lighter sentence in a court of law if the accused has murdered a trans* person.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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She Bop’s Experts Talk Gender, Sexuality, and Being a Sex Shop for Every Body

by Blair Stenvick

When Tuck Malloy transitioned into their nonbinary/transmasculine identity, they wanted to use their position as a sales lead and in-house educator at She Bop to help other people experiencing their own gender transitions and explorations.

“There were a lot of things I wanted more insight and community around,” says Malloy, “particularly in relation to the fact that a lot of those [gender-related] realizations for me came from sexual or sensual experiences.”

 

In addition to being a sex toy shop, She Bop also offers classes and workshops on a regular basis. So Malloy crafted a class called “Exploring Gender Identity” that centered on “exploring those questions of gender through our sensual experiences.” They built the class around two questions: “How can we heal in our bodies if bodies that are not cisgender are often places of trauma for people?” And: “How can we move towards our affirmations of gender, rather than just moving away, like ‘That’s not my gender’?”

Malloy’s class is one example of how She Bop lives up to its tagline of being “A sex toy boutique for every body.” While gender and sexuality are two different things, gender identity can play a big role in how one relates to their sexuality, and vice versa—and for people who are trans or fall outside the gender binary, navigating a sex toy shop can be alienating. Gretchen Leigh, She Bop’s education coordinator, says sex toys are often designed and marketed with cisgender people in mind, but She Bop’s staff practices “a lot of creative thinking about how our products can be used.”

Tuck Malloy (left) and Gretchen Leigh (right)

“We really try to stay away from saying, ‘This is a g-spot vibrator, and no one else with any other body parts can use it,’” Leigh adds. “We’re always thinking, ‘Who might be excluded by this packaging and this language? How can I create more room for you for the joyful exploration of your body?’”

In addition to practicing generally inclusive practices—like using gender-neutral pronouns for new customers by default and incorporating customer feedback about language and class topics—She Bop also caters directly to trans and nonbinary people by stocking a gender expression section of its store. The section includes chest binders and packers that create a bulge in the crotch area. Transmasculine people commonly use both these items, but they can be difficult to find in a brick-and-mortar shop.

“I think we’re the only place in town where you can actually try on a binder before you buy it,” Malloy says. “That is a really huge loss, particularly because binders can have a big impact on someone’s physiology.”

Like most sex toy shops, She Bop places an 18-and-older age limit on customers during regular hours. But they allow parents with underage kids to make after-hours appointments for binder fittings. Often, kids who experience gender dysphoria but don’t have access to safe binders will bind their chests in unsafe ways, using ACE bandages and other constrictive materials.

“So many kids come in and have been binding in really unhealthy ways,” Malloy says. “We’re able to offer a safe opportunity for them to try it on. It’s very sweet and very rewarding, and very adorable.”

Youth binder fittings are also an opportunity for She Bop’s staff to educate parents who are confused about gender identity and pronoun use. “We’ll get emails from parents like, ‘My kid wants a binder and I don’t know what’s up with that, but can you help?’” Leigh says. The staff will then point those parents toward books and other resources for parents of kids who are transitioning.

While the gender expression section might be separate from the sex toys, Malloy and Leigh make the point that all the products at She Bop can fulfill multiple overlapping purposes: To help someone feel empowered in their identity and give someone the tools they need to feel sexually confident.

“For a lot of people coming in here for the first time and putting a binder on—whatever their gender is—it can make them feel so good and sexy and empowered,” Malloy says. “Gender is a huge part of people’s sexual lives, and it’s a really important part of a healthy sex life—having a good relationship to one’s gender.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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What Does ‘Cisgender’ Mean?

Sex Vs Gender Explained

By Samantha Maffucci

It’s really not all that complicated … even though it is.

Gender identity, orientation and expression are increasingly common topics of discussion among just about everyone currently living in the U.S.

As we continue to gain have a greater understanding of LGBTQIA+ terminology and the spectrum of human sexual orientation and gender identity, it should be no surprise if the term “cisgender” has popped up in the mix of new words you’ve seen that seemingly lack clear definitions.

What does referring to someone as “cis” or “cisgender” mean?

Cisgender is a word used to describe someone whose gender identity (i.e., woman or man), gender expression (i.e., feminine or masculine) and biological sex (i.e., female or male) all align. “Cis” is simply a shortened, gender neutral version meaning the same thing.

For example, if someone is born a female (biological sex), identifies as a woman when they grow up (gender identity/orientation), and presents as a woman to the outside world, she is a cisgender woman. The same goes for someone who’s born a male, identifies as a man, and presents as a man to the outside world.

A cisgender woman may also be referred to as a cis woman, and if she is both cisgender and heterosexual, she may be be referred to as cishet.

Likewise, a cisgender man may be referred to as a cis man, and if he is both cisgender and heterosexual, he may be referred to as cishet as well.

Think of the word cisgender as an equivalent of the word transgender.

In Latin, the prefix cis- means “on this side of,” where trans- means “on the other side of.”

A transgender woman may be referred to as a transwoman, a transgender man may be referred to as a transman, and as is the case for people of any gender, their sexual orientation may fall into any of the number of identities on spectrum of human sexuality.

While it’s difficult to find a statistically reliable record of how many people in the U.S. are cisgender, transgender, neither or other, it’s been estimated that about 1 in every 250 adults, or almost 1 million Americans (0.39% of the population), identify as transgender. That figure is believed to be underestimated, and is expected to rise in the future.

It should also be noted that the percentage of people who identify as transgender is higher in international studies, nor is it necessarily inclusive of people whose identifies aren’t either cis or transgender — such as genderfluid, gender non-conforming, agender, non-bindary, genderqueer, etc. — or those born intersex, for whom the constructs of biological sex and gender may be even more fraught.

Julia Serano, writer. performer. musician. scientist and author of the book “Whipping Girl.” says the best way to understand the seemingly new nature of these gender orientations is by considering the parallel use of homosexual and heterosexual as terms.

“There was a time when there were homosexual people and everyone else was considered to be the ‘normal’ people,” Serrano explains. “Now, people think of themselves as straight or heterosexual,” but they don’t necessarily think being so makes them any more “normal” than anyone else.

That doesn’t mean cisgender people are “normal” and everyone else isn’t, but it does mean many have thought that way until recently.

And since being transgender isn’t as simple as being either a woman or man living in the body of the opposite biological sex, no discussion of gender is as simple as black and white.

Cisgender has now been added to major dictionaries, and social media forums are continually expanding the options provided for users when selecting their gender identification.

And while some cis people see the label as an insult, it’s not. The thing is, it’s really not about you.

For Mara Keisling, Executive Director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, a better understanding of what it means to be transgender is criticial in the fight against transphobia and the violence too frequently encountered by trans men and women.

“The lack of understanding of our humanity continues to cause us to face disrespect, discrimination, and violence, and is actually killing us,” Keisling says. “And when trans people face that and other issues like racism, ableism, and xenophobia, the disrespect and violence can be so much worse.”

And Serano believes learning about about the spectrum of human sexuality and gender orientation should be a given for us all.

People who are cisgender and have never had to consciously label themselves as such still have a gender identity, Serano says, “it’s just not one that is challenged or questioned.”

“People don’t go around all the time thinking of themselves as a straight woman or a heterosexual man,” she continues, “but it becomes useful when you’re talking about the ways in which people are treated differently in society.”

In the end, of course, we’re all human.

Neither our sexuality nor our gender define the totality of who we are as individuals, and we should treat others as such, no matter how they identify.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Transgender People on What They Wish They Had Learned in Sex Ed

From safer queer sex to less gendered language.

 

By Syd Stephenson

Across the United States, sex education curriculum is severely lacking. Many receive abstinence-only education, which can leave out important things like the emotional aspects of sex, how to use protection, and that it is not only normal to have sex, but normal to seek pleasure from sex.

I grew up in a small town in Oklahoma and my sex education did not prepare me at all. In middle school, I was asked to sign an abstinence pledge. In high school, the only time I heard anything about the LGBTQ community was when we watched a video on HIV/AIDS. I felt alone. I was a closeted queer and trans person who had no idea how to voice what felt good. Because I never heard the term transgender during sex education, I thought that there was something wrong with me for not feeling like a girl.

I am certainly not alone in my experiences as a transgender person feeling like an outsider in discussions surrounding sex. So, I talked to 12 transgender people from across the country about their experience with sex education and how curriculum can improve to be more inclusive of transgender bodies.

Include Education Specific for Transgender People

Most sex education curriculum is geared specifically toward cisgender, straight people. As such, transgender people are not getting information that is necessary for their own bodies and sexual experiences.

Not all transgender people experience gender dysphoria, but for those who do, it can be very difficult to have sex at all. Val Wiestner of Alhambra, California, said that a discussion of gender dysphoria in sex education courses would be helpful for cis- and transgender people alike.

“I think it would be amazing for these classes to include things like gender dysphoria. As a trans man…I have found myself having to explain over and over about my body and why I do not like certain things,” he said. Liam Gillin, a student at Marist College, echoed a similar statement. “Something I wish I had learned in sex education was more about how you can stay safe as someone who was [assigned female at birth] and LGBTQ+, and more about how to alleviate gender dysphoria during sexual activity.”

Genitals Don’t Equal Gender

Often, students are separated into two groups (by gender) for their sex education. This can mean students are not getting holistic or accurate education on body parts and bodily functions. When we separate students by their assumed genitalia for sex education, we are reinforcing the idea that genitals are equal to gender, and that there is no difference between sex and gender. This is a bioessentialist viewpoint, teaching people that gender is biological, rather than a cultural construction.

“My experience with sex education was, being in Oklahoma, abysmal,” Aileen Gibson, a student at the University of Oklahoma, said. “While I was taught about safe sex once, the majority of it was awful. The ‘boys’ learned only about the ‘male’ reproductive system, ‘female’ secondary sex characteristics, and what a ‘male’ orgasm looked like. I didn’t even know what a tampon was until sophomore year of high school, (which I had to look up because I had no clue).”

By educating students in a less binary-centric format, transgender youth could find more validation and acceptance from themselves and their peers.

“One of the easiest ways for sex ed curriculums to be more inclusive is to drop the outdated language of ‘female body parts versus male body parts’ and teach everyone about the human body together while acknowledging the vast array of intersex people whose anatomy may not fit into the simple, standard boxes of male and female,” said University of Michigan student Elijah Haswell. “My uterus is not a ‘female body part.’ It’s just that — a uterus.”

Removing the idea that gender and genitals are one and the same can also work to reduce violence against transgender people.

“As a trans person, specifically an agender individual, I wish I could’ve been taught from an early age that genitalia does not define your own gender identity or realm of existence,” said University of Central Oklahoma student Fernanda Casanova. “Specifically teaching sex ed without trans inclusion or overall intersectionality is an act of violence against trans people. That type of mind-set will continue to marginalize trans individuals. You cannot teach separately either; cis individuals also need to know about trans education. That is how you can start to avoid violence against the trans community.”

Teach Alternatives to Heteronormative Sex

There are many ways to have sex outside of a man putting his penis inside a woman’s vagina. By not informing students of other methods of having sex, many may be left with the idea that there is no way for them to safely and pleasurably have sex — especially if they are transgender or gender nonconforming.

“As a nonbinary and gender-fluid person who is also queer, one thing I wish I learned in sex education is more about safer sex between people of the same sex,” said Christine Miyazato. “My sex education mostly revolved around sex that involved cisgender people and heterosexual relationships, so I never really got to learn about what safer sex could look like between people of the same sex. Most of my knowledge about the matter came from going to LGBTQ-inclusive sex ed workshops on my college campus or by word of mouth and from listening to friends’ personal experiences.”

Offer Medically Accurate Education Beyond Abstinence Only

By now, we know that abstinence-only sex education does not work. This method of sex education is not helpful for any students, but particularly for transgender youth who are trying to figure out their gender or what sex looks like for them.

“My sex ed teacher in high school actively sought to teach an abstinence-first mind-set, and all mentions of anatomy, hormones, biological processes were painfully gendered,” said George Washington University student Aedy Miller.

It is also imperative that transgender students are receiving medically accurate information about sex, though most states don’t require sex education to live up to that standard.

“Because public school education is largely state-controlled, sex education policy and curriculum vary wildly from state to state,” said Sin Guanci, a Ph.D. student at Ohio State University. “Accordingto the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the U.S. (SIECUS) 2018 state profiles, only 31 states and D.C. mandate sex education, seven require culturally appropriate sex ed and HIV/STI instruction, only 12 require that sex education be medically accurate, and only four states mandate that health education affirmatively recognize different sexual orientations and gender identities/expressions (SOGIE) or teach the dignity or worth of all people regardless of SOGIE.”

Guanci said that the lack of policy requiring that sex-education “recognize and affirm” all people based on their sexuality or gender is not the biggest barrier. Unfortunately, seven states prohibit the mention of LGBTQ people in sex ed except for when it comes to portraying them negatively in terms of disease transmission. This inaccurate information can make transgender youth feel like they need to stay in the closet or that there is something wrong with simply being who they are.

Talk About Consent and Healthy Relationships

Setting boundaries and understanding what consent looks like is vital information for all students in sex education. For transgender people in particular, it can make all the difference in the world when it comes to a sexual encounter being safe and affirming or traumatic and dysphoria-inducing.

AC Facci from Oklahoma City said that pleasure and consent should be discussed more meaningfully by sex educators. “I have a vague memory of learning what constituted sexual assault but I never remember being taught anything that affirmed my ability to say no at any point during a sexual encounter, not just before sex began,” they said.

It is also important that sex educators accurately discuss what healthy relationships look like, especially for students who are LGBTQ.

“I wish that asexuality had been covered, and that there had been more open conversations about emotional involvement rather than just sex itself. Knowing how healthy relationship dynamics work could have saved me and a lot of people I know from some awful and just awkward situations,” said James Washburn, a student of Cornish College of the Arts.

Understand That Inclusion of Trans People Can Save Lives

“During sex education, I often felt alone,” said Athena Schwartz. “I felt like I couldn’t talk about myself or my identity. As someone who has been very passionate about health education, I felt trapped in my shell. I felt like I was watching the class behind a wall; like I was an outsider. A lot of what I learned about trans people was outside of my own high school. I had to go out of my way to even learn the term nonbinary. While I loved what I learned outside of high school, I wish that it was taught in school. I think if more people learned about trans people, then more people would be inclusive toward us.”

When we do not include transgender people in sex education, it can cause significant distress to people from those communities who are present. It can be incredibly invalidating to have educators never acknowledge your existence, especially if you are not finding support outside of the classroom. Just having educators that support their needs and validate their experiences can make all the difference in the world for transgender youth.

“Simply having a word for one’s experience can provide a world of comfort and open the door to greater introspection, self-understanding, and a more comfortable orientation toward the world,” said Jamie, who asked that his last name be omitted. “Having a space for these discussions, even just acknowledgement of the existence of these discussions at the bare minimum, is invaluable to young trans lives.”

Another important step that sex educators can take is to let students know that it is okay to be trans — that being transgender does not make you a burden or mentally ill, that your feelings and gender are nothing to be ashamed of.

“I wish I’d been told that the feelings I was having were okay to feel,” said Aedy Miller. “I wish they’d taken a more expansive approach and taught us more about gender identity as opposed to just sex/anatomy, as that might’ve given me the words to describe how I was feeling in a safe environment.”

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