YOU KNOW YOU ARE A GENDER STUDIES STUDENT WHEN....

Left in a recent comment, thought it deserved its own post! Brilliant!

1. You say the word "heteronormative" at least 8 times a day.
2. You breathe Judith Butler whether you like her or not.
3. You know how to pronounce 'Foucault' correctly.
4. You think Judith Jack Halberstam is 'hot' and join her/his Facebook page.
5. You know more about queer theory than you do about pop culture...
6. You know the difference between post-structuralist, postmodern, psychoanalytic...or at least you think you do.
7. You understand the meaning and appropriate application of the word “cis”.
8. You believe nothing valid or important happened before Postmodernism or the year 1990.
9. By 8:30am you have discussed buying a great strap-on and suggest great pro-feminist porn.
10. You can say that you watched trans and gay porn for credit...
11. People ask you what you actually study in gender studies...
12. People ask you what will you do with your degree.
13. You believe Lady GaGa is an important feminist voice and icon.
14. You introduce yourself with all of your identities; "I'm a postmodern pro-porn, post-feminist, post-patriarchy, queer theorist, anti-establishment ally, queer-straight, gender-free".
15. When you find yourself drunk, at the uni bar, you're STILL talking theory!
16. You say "discourse" at least twice a day.
17. You go to the bar/club and all you see is 'gender performativity' and 'gender variance' everywhere you look.
18. You do arts and crafts and interpretive dance in class for credit.
19. You plan activist projects as part of your tutorial participation.
20. You sit down at a pub making event notices and apply for jobs as a foot fetish model.
21. You debate the politics of the chest-binding while waiting for Idol to start on TV.
22. You post YouTube videos to mark your gender discovery.
23. You broadcast your political ideas and posturings on Twitter, MySpace, Facebook and YouTube under your internet profiles featuring your avatar as your profile photo.
24. Getting your tits out in class is all part of 'de-constructing notions of the pre-inscribed gendered body as a site and vessel for sex and gender normative labeling'.
25. You think that anyone that doesn't subscribe to your new world view is a homophobic/transphobic/nazi/oldschool/outdated/uneducated/HATER!
26. Your friends are either fed up with listening to you or just as self indulgent, middle class and boring as you.

Dirt's Comment Open Day

As promised, Friday is open comments day. I ask again please, no spam.



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The dirt from Dirt now on FaceBook

I've started a dirt from Dirt group on Facebook which can be joined by clicking this link. The group has an open membership but will remove members/content that spam. With the new group changes added by FB, members can use group chat to participate in discussions real-time if they/we so choose. The FB group will be used to discuss some posts from here (this blog) but primarily used to discuss a broader range of topics since members will be able to start topics.

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FTM Transmen and Drag Kings

I've had a handful of questions in the form of comments which recently asked my position on transmen as drag kings. If you aren't familiar, drag kings are the equivalent of the drag queens we all know, only instead of males performing "woman", drag kings are females campishly performing "male". I place both "woman" and "male" in quotations because what is being performed by the natural bio male/female drag is an exaggerated caricature of "woman" and "man" based on stereotypical notions of woman/man.

That out of the way, I place any transman  who has had any kind of masculinizing cosmetic surgery and has/is injecting testosterone i.e. is no longer naturally female bodied by choice, in the same place as I place those same transmen who gate crash women's spaces. Simply put, transmen should be excluded as drag king performers and excluded from drag king contests. The fact that many transmen do get involved in drag kinging after chemical/cosmetic surgical help, that many insist they be allowed to perform as drag kings utilizing their female biology when it suits them, is an incredible insult and a slap in the face to the art of performance and to every woman on the planet.

It is one thing to make a mockery of yourself as a woman, it is another altogether to use that mockery as both a battering ram and an edge to gain entrance into our women specific spaces and over women specific contests/shows/performances.

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More "Who is Transitioning"

 
 With the ever growing numbers of female youths jumping aboard the trans trend bandwagon, I'm going to start regularly posting a general look at just who is succumbing to this trans trend by putting a face on the young girls/women who are doing so. All the boys girls here are on testosterone and most have had their breast butchered off, none from the info available, appear to have had hysterectomies. Which means the longer they continue injecting large doses of synthetic testosterone, the greater their chances of developing PCOS/Cancer,  a hormonal syndrome caused from hormonal changes, in the case of transmen deliberate hormonal changes due to injecting synthetic testosterone.

Some facts about PCOC:

Characterized by multiple abnormal ovarian cysts, PCOS symptoms include high levels of insulin which stimulate the ovaries to produce large amounts of the male hormone testosterone. 

Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome causes disruptions to the normal menstrual cycle - irregular menstrual periods and the absence of ovulation cause women to produce estrogen, but not progesterone. Without progesterone, which causes the endometrium (the lining of the uterus) to shed each month as a menstrual period, the endometrium may grow too much and undergo atypical cell changes. This is a pre-cancerous condition called endometrial hyperplasia. If the thickened endometrium is not treated, over a long period of time (this time period is dramatically shortened in transmen) it can develop into endometrial cancer.

Studies have shown that women who have never been pregnant have up to three times the risk of developing endometrial cancer.

Another troubling statistic is that women who are 21 to 50 pounds overweight run 3 times the risk of endometrial cancer, while women who are more than 50 pounds overweight have a ten-fold higher risk. Obesity is often an underlying symptom of Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome.
 
Any doctor playing fast and loose with their patients health by providing (trans) females synthetic testosterone while they have not had a full hysto should have their license revoked!

All photos can be found publicly on Youtube.

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