It will all make perfect sense shortly, part -5.frog, SQUAWK!

(a nod to this other post here, the title)

So, now, pluck'd from its context where i'm sure it makes a fuck of a lot more sense really (yes, same damn thread), we have this explanation of the sex/gender thing, from erm another perspective:

This again is why it’s important to distinguish between “male” and “man.” A man who is subordinated for being not manly enough is not a male woman and we should say so. He’s still a man and still male. He is actually participating in the deconstruction of manhood and masculinity, to the degree that he continues to acknowledge he is part of the category “male.” If he is recognized as a woman, then patriarchy has had its way. It has subordinated the unmasculine and made the unmasculine “women” just as it subordinates female persons and makes us women. For that to change, we have to *be* women/female and man/male and reject gender.

...


I'm going to just allow some space so that those of y'all who can and want to parse that out as is, can. Feel free to share your findings.

...

Okay. but, me, i read that three times and i'm still getting this awful feeling of vertigo. But, I want to engage it; so, I'm just gonna make it a little easier on my eyes.

Thees egeeen is vhy it’s impurtunt tu deestingooish betveee “mele-a” und “mun.” A mun vhu is sooburdeeneted fur beeeng nut munly inuoogh is nut a mele-a vumun und ve-a shuoold sey su. He-a’s steell a mun und steell mele-a. He-a is ectooelly perteecipeting in zee decunstroocshun ooff munhuud und mescooleenity, tu zee degree-a thet he-a cunteenooes tu ecknooledge-a he-a is pert ooff zee cetegury “mele-a.” Iff he-a is recugneezed es a vumun, zeen petreeerchy hes hed its vey. Bork bork bork! It hes sooburdeeneted zee unmescooleene-a und mede-a zee unmescooleene-a “vumee” joost es it sooburdeenetes femele-a persuns und mekes us vumee. Fur thet tu chunge-a, ve-a hefe-a tu *be-a* vumee/femele-a und mun/mele-a und reject gender. Hurty flurty schnipp schnipp!

Ah. That's much better. Still not totally sure I agree, but i can see her point, sort of, especially that last bit.

Quote of the day the second, 6/7/07

from the comments in this thread:

The meaning of the words "man" & "woman" is a matter of lexicography, convention, & it changes. Intersex was unknown until recently. "Woman" had nothing to do with chromosomes until little over 100 years ago; the notion that the concept is self-evidently a matter of genetics is just unhistorical. In the not too distant past, there have been serious arguments - serious in the sense of having been taken seriously by authoritative people - whether homosexual men & women really are "men" & "women" in the sense we now accept. Likewise, transsexuality was unthought of until recently, after the words "man" & "woman" received their currently conventional meaning. Transsexuality, like the emergence of genetics (& biology generally) & changing ideas about homosexuality, will inevitably change usage of the words, notwithstanding the political resistance of a reactionary remnant. The real political & moral arguments over the exclusion of sexual minorities can't be settled by appeal to this or that dictionary, or by stipulation.

--kh

and by the way, a petite factoid from the Institute for Intersex Children and the Law

An estimated one in 2,000 babies is born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn't seem to fit typical definitions of male or female.

One in two thousand. So, rare, yes, rarer than the oft-cited "one in ten" (yes yes we know some of y'all don't believe in that either, for various reasons), but so rare it's not hardly worth mentioning?

There are, what, about six billion people in the world, give or take. So that's, what...about three million people?

That's not the real question, though. The real question is, why do people who supposedly want to do away with...well, enough with the sophistry, most people understood "doing away with gender" in a feminist sense as, y'know,

be whoever or whatever you want to be, biology is not destiny, let us free ourselves from these rigid definitions for once and for all

...why in the world, suddenly, people who supposedly are FOR all that are twisting themselves into knots trying to explain how intersex barely matters, playing around with gender -or- altering the body with the wonders of modern technology is Wrong, -men are men, and women are women, that's how it is and that's how it will always be!-

Since when is this -feminist?- Since when is this -radical?- Since when is this -revolutionary?-

What exactly are you protecting?