GENDER IDENTITY - WHY ALL THE CONFUSION?

How would you define gender identity ?

Can you also define the concepts of these other words associated with gender identity?

a) androgynous
b) cisgender
c) gender dysphoria
d) gender fluid
e) misgender
f) non-binary
g) queer
h) transgender
i) transsexual person

Why, in your opinion, this issue has become controversial in our society?

Where do you stand in that discussion?

READING

The following text is an excerpt of an interview with philosopher Judith Butler. It was
originally published on VICEs Broadly magazine on December 16th, 2015. Read the text,
and then answer the questions.

Why Do Men Kill Trans Women? Gender Theorist Judith Butler Explains

There were 23 known killings of transgender women in the United States in 2015. That
number nearly doubled from the 12 reported in 2014. Broadly published an in-depth
feature on these crimes in which we investigate their underlying cause. In addition to
contacting police departments, victims' friends, and family, we interviewed the renowned
queer theorist, Gender Trouble author Judith Butler.

Butler's insight into the lives and deaths of transgender women in 2015 penetrates beyond
the surface details of their deaths. In conjunction with our analysis of the data, her
perspective illustrates a startling reality about the real cause of violence against trans
women, and the fatal importance of an intersectional approach to the liberation of
transgender people.

One of the most disturbing, yet often easily overlooked, aspects of these crimes is the
gender of the killers. Butler maps anti-trans violence back to the source, ultimately
suggesting that trans deaths were caused by men because of men's need to meet
culturally held standards of male power and masculinity.

She also insists that gender cannot be parsed from the other realities of the victims' lives.
Ninety-one percent of the trans murders we investigated were people of color. They were
primarily poor; many engaged in sex work. Law enforcement agencies have widely failed
to classify these murders as hate crimes, maintaining a myopic perspective. By insisting
that these facts be considered together, Butler does what the police have failed to do:
recognize that the context in which these women lived and died is inseparable from their
lives as transgender women of color.
What follows is Broadly's interview with Butler. It has been edited and condensed.

BROADLY: 2015 was a year of contradiction for trans people. Visibility and
representation were at an all-time high (because of Caitlyn Jenner, Transparent,
etc.), and the triumphs of pop culture bled into politics (healthcare reform,
Congress's Transgender Equality Task Force). But at the same time, violence
reported against trans people basically doubled since 2014. Can you speak to these
dual truths and how they may be related to or play off each other?

Judith Butler: It is true that we have seen a clear increase in media attention to trans
people and trans issues, but we have also seen a backlash. It may be that the proliferating
signs of greater acceptance stoke those who are transphobic, so that there is now a kind
of war between the move to acceptance and the move to consolidate violent exclusion or
debasement of trans people. But I think we also have to take note of the limits of media
attention. We have seen, for instance, how the election of the nation's first black president
coincided with a worsening economic situation for black people, so media attention is
hardly enough to secure concrete equality. The situation of trans people of color is more
precarious as a result. It is always possible to be an object of public fascination or a visual
icon of trans life that cisgendered people want to consume visually at the same time that
the legal and economic situation for trans people remains bad, or worsens. There is a long
history of cross-dressers, drag queens, and trans people as visual iconssometimes the
public wants them to stay precisely in that place, on the stage or on the film, "over there,"
but not part of life. In Transparent, the visual imagery of trans draws on older conceits of
trans people as both preposterous and entertaining. Laverne Cox is another storythere
is nothing preposterous about the strength and the beauty.

Retrieved from: < https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/z4jd7y/why-do-men-kill-trans-

women-gender-theorist-judith-butler-explains > Access on November 15, 2017

QUESTIONS:

a) How many trans people were killed in the years of 2014 and 2015 in the USA?

b) What were some of the common characteristics that VICE Magazine was able to
identify in of 91% of the transpeople that were killed in 2015?

c) What is the gender of the murderers? Whats Butlers insights on the possible reasons
behind the crimes?

d) What, according to the text, does Butler do differently from the police?

e) How does Butler explain the fact that despite of hype of transgender people on the
media, the number of crimes against trans people has virtually doubled since 2014?
 LISTENING

Now listen to a lecture by Ashley McGuire from Prager University and then answer True
(T) or False (F) according to what you hear.

( ) Tamikka Brents is a transgender fighter who was sent to hospital by a woman.

( ) Facebook gives its users more than 30 genders to choose from.
( ) Gender-identification as a personal choice is anti-scientific.
( ) Conservative elites run universities, news media and big companies.
( ) Gender identity tents to make males to be judged based on female standards.
( ) Women will pay a higher price if we allow people to choose their gender-identity.
( ) Women are usually physically stronger than men.
( ) Women dont share the same work-life priorities as men.
( ) In the store Toys R Us, the toys are divided into two sections: Boys and Girls Toys.
( ) People who experience gender dysphoria should be respected.
( ) We should celebrate the differences between men and women.

COMPARING THE TEXTS

a) What is the gist (main idea) of each one of the texts?

b) How is the viewpoint presented on the video different from the one presented on the
text?

c) What are the values and concerns behind each one of the texts?

GRAMMAR POINT

In order to forge their arguments both texts used examples of direct reporting and indirect
reporting. Identify those examples and then reflect about the possible reasons why the author
decided to use them in the direct or reported speech.

Now turn to the Grammar Reference - Grammar Dimensions 3 - Unit 25.

 TRANSCRIPT

Its now okay for a man to hit a woman. That, in effect, is what the a mixed martial arts league
decided when it allowed Fallon Fox, a biological male, to fight as a woman simply because he
identifies as one. And the consequence of this decision? Fox sent female fighter Tamikka Brents to
the hospital with a broken skull and a concussion. Brents needed seven surgical staples to bind
her wounds. The battered woman, a trained fighter herself, said of her match with Fox, Ive never
felt so overpowered in my life. Twenty years ago, if a man hit a woman so hard that he sent her to
the hospital, hed be in prison. Now he can get paid for it. Today we are told that male and female
are one and the same. This denial of male-female differences has led to the astonishing belief that
men and women are not born male or female; they are whatever gender they say they are.
Facebook went so far as to offer its users over 50 genders to choose from. Know what a demi-
boy is? Me, neither. The idea that gender-identification is now a personal choice might sound
enlightened to some, but its actually a very anti-scientific view of one of the essential facts of life:
men and women are inherently different. Their brains are different, their hormones are different,
their chromosomes are different, and, of course, their bodies are different. No amount of peer-
reviewed papers from gender studies departments can change this. But that wont stop the
progressive elites who run our universities, news media, many of our biggest companies, and even
our high schools and elementary schools from trying. For their efforts, women will pay an
especially high price. Thats because the men-and-women-are-the-same argument invariably leads
women to be judged against a male standard. Or, to put it another way, to be more of a woman, a
woman has to be more like a man. She has to want to have casual sex like a man; to serve in
combat like a man; to pursue a career with single-minded intensity like a man. Of course, there are
exceptions, but the overwhelming majority of women arent seeking casual sex; dont have the
physical strength of men; and dont share the same work-life priorities as men. Ironically, this quest
for sameness is occurring at a time when science is telling us, more emphatically than ever, that
we are different. So, what your grandmother took for granted men and women are different
science now confirms. But there is no room for science in, say, stores like Target or Toys R Us,
where toys are no longer divided into the boy section and the girl section. Or in a North Carolina
school district, where students can no longer be called boys and girls but only students. Or in
college dorms, where co-ed bathrooms and even co-ed bedrooms are increasingly common. For
the tiny percentage of people who experience gender dysphoria, we should have nothing but
compassion. We should do everything we can to help them and protect their dignity, but we dont
need to overturn biologically defined sex differences to do so. But thats whats happening. Using
the wrong pronoun at the office might get you fired. In Canada, it might land you in court. In mixed
martial arts, as we have seen, it can lead to getting your head bashed in. Apparently, this is a small
price to pay in a world where we must all genuflect to political correctness. Even after being
hospitalized, Tamikka Brents knew she had to toe the PC [political correctness] line. When asked
how she explained why she lost so badly to a man who said he was a woman, she said: I cant
answer whether its because she was born a man or not, because Im not a doctor. Vice
Magazine, writing about the incident, had no sympathy for Brents. Why should they? As they wrote,
biological sex isnt black and white. But in virtually in every instance, it is. The longer we allow
the obvious to go unstated and undefended, the worse it will be for boys and girls, and for men
and women. But especially for women. The sexes are different. Rather than trying to quash this
reality, which can only lead to more needless confusion and suffering, not less, we should step
back and marvel at it. And enjoy it. Male-female differences are among the most wonderful things
in life. Im Ashley McGuire for Prager University.

SOURCE: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAAlFya89aw > Access on November 15th 2017