“Lesbians don’t get periods” and even more great insights into the enigma that is woman from the NotHowGirlsWork subreddit

Full Metal:

I dunno if this will work in Tumbler, but right-click on the image, then see if you get a drop-down menu with “open image in new tab” then go to the new tab and copy the address. If it’s still “… Tumbler…” it may not work. I have only limited success with ANY of this technology, and I rarely understand why it works/doesn’t work 🙁

Any geeks on line who might be able to help the Ox???

CW domestic abuse

Alice Cooper 1975

@ Ox, V.Parasol:

sigh… I tried to paste a video, didn’t work right, but V.P. has pasted one in a comment up the page so it’s at least possible.

I used to have a great deal of anxiety over not being able to master this technology. Then one day, a high-end geek coworker of miner told me The Sacred Truth.

This s**t really doesn’t work very well, and the solution is the same as it was on the 1960’s black’n’white television I had when I was a child:

“Jus’ Keep Wiggling The Rabbit Ears Until It Does What You Want!!!”

@Alan

This is what I’ve got so far (only up through pg 330 — page 331 is where the format and information changes significantly so this seemed like a good stopping point to allow me to post what I have so far…)

Obviously such things as the Bench Book are compromises between many involved parties. I’ll happily comment on the BB, but I am not saying that I’m correct about what should be in it (even when I feel I’m correct on a fact) for several reasons: 
1) you need buy in from all involved parties. That means the BB needs to be written in a language the audience can hear. I don’t know any UK judges, so I am not at all the best authority on how to couch the language of the BB so that it will be heard appropriately by them. 
2) the social context of western USA & Canada is different from that of the UK and what I think is true based on what I know from my local experience or even from my reading about the UK experience isn’t necessarily true in the UK. Language in particular changes not merely with time, but also with geography. 

That said, you asked for me comments, and so I’ll just lay down random thoughts as I go, then if I have larger observations, I’ll try to add them in later. 

pg. 327 “transgendered”
The sentence “Trans, transgender or transgendered are umbrella terms often used to describe many different people who cross the conventional boundaries of gender.” is true as far as it goes. However “transgendered” – despite being commonly heard, is discouraged as less respectful everywhere I’m familiar with use. The “ed” ending suggests that “transgender” is a verb instead of an adjective. There are several problems with that, not least that someone has to take a certain action or actions before one qualifies as truly transgender(ed). Trans folk have had decades of being judged by others, and often struggle with deciding for themselves whether they are “trans enough” to come out as trans. Also, anti-trans person tend to use the form “transgendered” and to use “transgender” as a verb to describe an imagined process where adults corrupt young persons into coming out, in other words that this is a wrong done to them rather than something they discover about themselves. 

The words are close enough that you’ll here the “ed” form pretty regularly from the general public, and it should not be assumed to be malicious in intent (or even unintentionally hurtful). The form is even used in trans communities either as a slip of the tongue or by people who grew up where that form was more common. Nonetheless, its association with judgement, forced hoop-jumping, and anti-trans rhetoric is enough to make it a word to be disfavored save when a person explains that they use that term for themselves. 

pg 327: 
the whole section on “Who are trans people?” should really start out with the note that the respectful thing to do is to echo back the language used by the person the court is addressing. If they call themselves “non-binary” do not assume “trans” is appropriate. If they call themselves “transgender” do not assume you know the appropriate pronouns. Courts should simply be encouraged to ask the simple and inoffensive question: “The court would like to address you with respect. When asked to describe your gender or use pronouns to refer to you, which terms would be most respectful to you? The court will choose to use those whenever possible.” (The court may, of course, need to record the offensive language of others when quoting hate speech, etc., thus the “whenever possible” caveat… or maybe the better caveat is “whenever it speaks for itself”.)

pg 327: 
“The Equality Act 2010 refers to a protected characteristic of ‘gender reassignment’ and uses the term ‘transsexual’, which is now widely considered to be out-of-date and stigmatising.”
This quote simply needs a small drop in, like so: 
“The Equality Act 2010 refers to a protected characteristic of ‘gender reassignment’ and uses the term ‘transsexual’, which is now widely but not universally considered to be out-of-date and stigmatising. The only time to use the term transsexual to refer to someone before the court is when that person chooses freely to use the word for themselves.” 

pg 327: 
“Transitioning
Where a person has decided to live permanently in an acquired gender, the process of gender reassignment is usually called ‘transitioning’”

The word “permanently” rubs me wrong here. On the one hand this is an educational book and probably gets things close enough, but on the other hand “permanently” isn’t actually correct. Social transition can, for some people, be a “test run”. To say this doesn’t mean that they aren’t trans, but some folks might transition from one standard gender to another, realize that doesn’t resolve dysphoria, and choose instead to come out **again**, this time as non-binary. Others might choose the opposite process, being so burned by their experience with gender that it seems non-binary is going to be the most comfortable home, but having some experience with it realizing that the comfort of being referred to as a woman (e.g.) is more than worth the shit one takes for defying the gender stereotypes of women, and that on the whole transitioning to the gender “woman” is more psychologically healthy. Finally, some “test runs” involve, say, coming out to one’s family but not at work. Here there isn’t (yet) a permanent gender change, and in the hypothetical the decision to make a permanent gender change hasn’t happened. Nonetheless a gender transition with the family is a gender transition. 

Although there’s no need to broadcast it, there are also a few detransitioning folks (hard to know how many, but almost certainly less than 3% and probably less than 1%). It’s not as if they didn’t transition just because they later detransition. 

On the whole, these complicated issues don’t need to be put to judges, I don’t think. THAT SAID, I think we should not MISeducate judges. Thus I would rephrase the sentence only mildly and add no more information about these issues here. Swapping the word “permanently” for “significantly” (or just deleting permanently with no replacement) is enough to make the sentence accurate. If judges need more information about the process of transition, then I would have expected more to be presented with this paragraph. Since there wasn’t anything about the process originally, I wouldn’t include my comments above. I am solely concerned here about judges believing that they can consider some effort “not really a transition” because of a small amount of unintentional misinformation. 

pg 328: 
“Research shows that levels of self-harm and suicide ideation among young trans people and trans adults are much higher than for other people. “

I think it’s vital to mention here that research ALSO shows that self-harm and suicidal ideation is drastically reduced where transition is available and an individual is supported. It is in significant part for this reason that we ask courts to use respectful language in the first place. Judges should know that they have the power to prevent (or encourage) such negative outcomes. Going to court is stressful for most. The court cannot by itself prevent that stress, but it can prevent a differential and disproportionate effect on trans and other GNC folk. Including this information will provide motivation to judges who aren’t particularly motivated and will serve as reassurance to judges already making an effort that those efforts are worthwhile. 

Pg 327-328: 
This section on Discrimination, Harassment & Violence has a glaring hole. Maybe it’s just me, because all my early work was about domestic violence rather than stranger violence, but everything in this section contributes to the idea that domestic & family harassment & violence are not issues for trans people, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth. Of all my comments so far, if I could prioritize any one, I would prioritize changing this section to include mention of risks within the home environment. Even publicly supportive partners or parents can shame or harass trans persons in private. The mechanisms and tactics are as complicated as any other case of domestic violence, but the important thing to realize is that where a trans person lives is not automatically a safe refuge. 

If you need more, I can add to this, but the point is not to change the character of the section. The point, rather, is to make sure that this problem is not deemphasized. Where domestic violence or harassment occurs, it is typically more harmful than workplace harassment, yet workplace harassment gets a specific mention while DV does not. A sentence or two emphasizing risks of DV is all that is required to make sure that the safe refuge assumption is disrupted. 

PG 328-329
Trans people as victims of crime:
This section mentions “transphobic hate crime” but again, DV is more likely. It should be mentioned. Such cases may require particular sensitivity since being out in all aspects of one’s life is more common these days, but the court will still encounter cases where one is known to be trans at home by one’s abuser, but not elsewhere. This can provide a strong disincentive to reporting a crime since testifying about the crime might be impossible without discussing motivations, specific insults, etc. which would reveal trans history or status. 

Pg 330
“Acceptable terminology” 
This refers back to earlier writing in the Bench Book for acceptable terminology rather than encouraging (or reinforcing earlier encouragement if added as I suggest) that the court simply inquire politely what terms and pronouns will be most respectful to the person before the court. The current framing puts pressure on courts to be the experts in how trans someone is and even what sort of trans person someone is. That’s not good for the persons thrust into that decision making role nor is it good for the persons that they will be judging as in/sufficiently trans. Just fucking ask. It’s not that hard. 

I’m not ready to give commentary on the more elaborated writing since I have something else to do just now, but I did glance ahead and see that they suggest just asking about terminology.

This is, as you say, a good thing and addresses what I was saying, though I still wish the executive summary made clear:

You are not the expert here, and we’re not asking you to be, the simple solution is simply to ask respectful questions as necessary.

Hell, that could even be its own section, sort of a disclaimer at the top, and it doesn’t have to be any longer than what I’ve just written (though i’m not saying that what I’ve written should be the final language – rephrase the basic message as necessary to fit the style of the Bench Book).

More later.

Speaking of image embedding, I need to test how link embedding works here.

Plain url pasted:

James Webb Space Telescope – Wikipedia

HTML tags:

<a href=”James Webb Space Telescope – Wikipedia“>Link to Wikipedia</a>

Markup:

[Link to Wikipedia](James Webb Space Telescope – Wikipedia)

haha I haven’t visited your blog in quite a while, I have some fond memories back when it had a different name and the early days after it became We hunted the mammoth.

I somehow landed here today after I came across a really, really odd twitter account (I’m fairly new to twitter) and my google search for aimee terese took me on a ride then stopped here. Couldn’t resist checking out a few of the most recent gems posted, such as this one. Makes you really wonder how these poor schmucks even manage to tie their shoes in the morning. Hard to imagine living while so dumb.

Well, I’ve had a good laugh and I’m going to bookmark this blog so I can visit for comedic relief when my research or ‘discussions’ with SWERF’s/TERF’s nutjobs gets me too frustrated. God, there are dumb people on the internet. IRL too but at least they’re much easier to avoid.

I’m just getting my ducks in order before I kick off a blog about some of the stupid shit these people argue but in the meantime I’m entertaining myself with screenshots of the stuff they post on reddit/twitter/tumblr and comment section cesspool on some of their popular online blogs (Meghan Murphy’s feminist current has the best comments, I swear)

I’ll definitely be back!