Jesse Daniel Ames Blog

I, like many of my peers, felt the need to assign gender to Matt and Eli upon first meeting them. I felt Eli was pretty easy to label both because he looked male and because he used the pronoun “he” to identify himself in the program. Matt on the other hand, seemed more difficult to label ze did not use any gendered pronouns to describe hierself, but instead only used hier name “Matt”. Additionally, ze looked both feminine and masculine to me. Hier voice and speaking pattern did not help clear things up for me either as I felt ze sounded feminine in tone and sound quality, but that hier word choice and abrasiveness in speech paralleled more masculine constructs. By the time the program started and Dr. Johnson began to read an excerpt from Eli’s essay “Neither Stone nor Wing” I was reminded that gender is not as simple as genitals, chromosomes, and dresses versus pants.

Another factor I found particularly interesting was that Eli explained his gender journey/transformation. He explained that he was born “a girl”, then identified as a lesbian, and eventually as a transgender person. Matt on the other hand, did not really mention any specifics of hier personal experience with gender and gender transformation.

Disability was a second important factor discussed during the lecture. I expected (because of the reading we had been assigned) that Eli would show signs of a disability. However, I could not identify evidence of Eli’s disability until he began to speak. I found this experience of particular interest because I have often encountered transgender persons whom I (and others) tend to have certain expectations of until they speak and these expectations are then altered. I have typically seen this occur in MTF transgender persons who look very much like women and are treated as such and are treated as such until they speak and because they may not sound like typical women (and may, perhaps even sound like a typical man) they are then treated poorly, often even like “freaks”. I suspect that this dynamic is not so different from Eli being treated differently after he speaks and his disability becomes apparent.

I was additionally intrigued by Matt’s comments on disability and navigating disability as a member of other minorities (such as ethnic/racial minorities, gender minorities, and sexual minorities). Ze gave a specific example of a little boy who was killed by one of his classmates, presumably for adopting feminine behavior. However, Matt also pointed out that this individual was part of a racial minority, was at a socioeconomic disadvantage and appeared to display evidence of learning disabilities. Matt then explained that all of these other factors had been ignored, while many GBLT advocacy groups had emphasized the child’s non gender-normative behavior in order to draw attention to their causes. Matt made it clear that this was not an appropriate response and that while a person may not be the sum of his/her parts, all of these parts must at least be accounted for to truly begin to represent a person. Matt also made further allusions to invisible disabilities, which greatly touched me as a person who has had much experience with such disabilities, and because I find that invisible disabilities are often seen as secondary to visible disabilities.

This particular story (about the child who was killed) and the idea of advocacy groups picking and choosing part of people to represent reminded me of the conflict which has occurred between the transgender/gender-queer and the HRC (human rights campaign)*. In fact I believe Matt made a side comment alluding to this volatile relationship during the lecture.


*FOOTNOTE: The HRC began with the intention of and promise to include and work for transgender/gender-queer individuals along with GLB individual (in fact they still claim this goal). However, the agency did not keep this promise once the began their work because they found it was easier to get support for GLB issues if they excluded the transgender/gender-queer community (i.e. legislatures were more friendly to “gay people” than to the often more marginalized “transgender people” because they are seen as so far from “normal”. This conflict has grown so much that the HRC (or at minimum it’s prominent members) has recently been known to try to actively exclude the transgender/gender-queer community (as opposed to simply ignoring them) for their work for equality. This reminds me of Matt’s comments about picking and choosing parts of people to advocate for because within the transgender/gender-queer community there are some individuals who identify as GLB and others who identify as “straight”. Therefore, if the HRC refuses to do nothing else for the transgender/gender-queer community, they should at least be willing to advocate for GLB persons whether transgender or not, rather than letting one’s gender status take precedence over his or her sexual orientation.