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queering-ecology · 3 months

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This is a summary (and maybe slight critique) of LGBTQ America: A Theme Study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer History—chapter 09. Sexual and Gender Diversity in Native America and the Pacific Islands by Will Roscoe.

This piece is interesting as the theme study was published by the National Park Foundation and the National Park Service. (Connections can be made to the history of parks as places of constructing heteromasculinity and heteronormativity as well as their role in colonialism, but also the historic presence of queerness in rural places. )

This chapter discusses the significant diversity in gender roles, sexualities and identities among the indigenous peoples of ‘the united states’ though in my writing I would refer to the land, at least when discussing the land prior to colonialism, as Turtle Island.

Two Spirits in Native Tradition: Roles, Genders, Identities and Diversity

Roscoe chooses to begin the story from the perspective of a French colonizer whose intentions were to claim land for the French in what is now called Florida. His party is lost and tired and is saved by a Native who was probably from the Timucua people (09-2). This person gave the colonizers water and was described as, “an Indian woman of tall stature, which also was an Hermaphrodite” and later he encountered another ‘hermaphrodite’ serving as an emissary of a Timucuan king.

“The multiplicity of gender and sexuality among native peoples was noted as early as 1540 along the Colorado River by Alarcon, in the 1770s in Hawai’I by Cook’s third expedition and in the same decade by Russian explorers in Alaska” (09-3). By being noticed, these gender diverse people had become targets for colonial violence. Such as when in 1513, “Vasco Nunez de Balboa had forty-two spirits in Panama thrown to his dogs” (09-3). I want to pause and be genuinely horrified and to feel sorrow for these people whose ‘crime’ was being different from what the colonists in their fucked-up worldview, knew.

Hermaphrodite is a term that was used by Europeans and other colonists to describe native people they encountered who appeared to be crossing or mixing genders. For the Europeans from this time, the term hermaphrodite “could indicate intersexuality, androgyny, or homosexuality” (09-4). In reality, “the sheer diversity of Native American and Pacific Island cultures makes the use of any umbrella term problematic” (09-3).

But colonists did often use other terms such as ‘sodomites’ and berdache—the latter of which became a ‘frontier’ term (used between colonists and Natives) to identify a social role among various tribes (09-4). The actual origins of the term linguistically are quite old but are not Native and was largely defined as a “younger or subordinate partner in a male homosexual relationship” (09-4).

#queer history #transphobia #erotophobia #colonialism #Timucua #two-spirits /#gender variation #social construction of gender #heteronormativity #queer theory

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if-you-fan-a-fire · 1 year

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“A DATELESS GIRL,” Vancouver Sun. February 22, 1933. Page 16. ----- Cruel and Inhuman Punishment ---- By Dorothy Dix ---

Dear Miss Dix,

I am one of those dateless girls and am so resigned the situation that I wouldn't bother about it if it wasn't for my family. They have insisted upon my becoming a society debutante at much I am an utter misfit. I hate the social whirl. I don't speak the language of the girls whom I am thrown with and I can't enter into their conversation. I haven t the money to buy their interest by giving splendid entertainments. I wasn't cut cut to be the life of the party, yet I am expected to keep up a gay, witty and entertaining conversation to amuse the man with whom I happen to be. Partners don't ask me to dance with them and when I rebel against all this my family say that I am silly and what a fine wholesome girl I am and, of course, people like me and admire me. What am I to do?

E.T.

Answer: I don't think there Is any more pathetic figure than the girl whose family try to force her into being a butterfly when she has none of the attributes of the butterfly and never feels at home in the rarefied atmosphere in which they thrust her.

Perhaps mother was a belle in her day and she looks forward to living ver her triumphs in poor little plain Mary Ann, who is shy and retiring with never a word to say for herself and who has no more sex appeal than plate of oatmeal. Or perhaps mother is socially ambitious and depends on Mary Ann opening doors that are closed to her.

So she buys Mary Ann all sorts of pretty fluffy clothes that never for an instant disguise her Mary-Ann-ness. And she makes Mary Ann go to every party to which she is invited, where she sits around on the sidelines suffering agonies of embarrassment and mortification because nobody ever dances with her except the unwilling youths whom a hostess drags up to her wearing ! the expressions of lambs being led to the slaughter.

And Mary Ann is a social flop and another reproaches her with it and wonders why the boys never pay her any attention and why she doesn't get married.

It is a cruel and inhuman punishment for any woman to force her daughter to go "out in society," as the phrase goes, unless she wants to. Moreover, it is of no use, because unless the Lord gave a girl dancing feet no man is going to cut in on her, and unless Nature supplied her with IT she can't manufacture it for herself.

Far wiser and kinder to let the girl find her own niche in the world. Let her go with the people who are congenial to her. Let her do the things she wants to do.

My advice to any girl who finds herself a misfit in society is to go to work. Get a job. Interest herself in that, and for her comfort and also for mother's consolation - let her remember that a lot of the biggest fish swim around in business offices and rise to the bait of an intelligent ,quiet girl after they have fought shy of a dazzling, painted, vivacious one.

#dorothy dix #advice column #advice columnist #misfits #dating life #woman in the toils #social life #history of femininities #social construction of gender #great depression in canada #it girl

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a-gay-poptart · 3 months

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I have found the best ally

Straight and cis people will say that they are allies, but you will NEVER measure up to my dentist.

Me: "Hey, is it ok if I can change my name on my info from [DEADNAME] to Aspen?"

Random woman that I wasn't even talking to in the chair next to me: "Honey, if that's the name you had at birth, [DEADNAME] is your only name."

My dentist, very slowly turning her rolley chair towards the woman: "Shush."

Random woman: "Excuse me?"

Destist: *closes privacy curtain while staring bullets at the lady*

Me: *pissing myself laughing*

My dentist while changing my name in my info (reminder that English is not her first language, she immigrated from Russia): "There, Sai, you have pretty boy teeth. Smile and make all girls swoon."

Me not having the heart to tell her I'm not transmasc but I'm Agender, and still pissing myself laughing: "Thank you [DENTIST NAME]."

Edit: Ok, I thought I would quit Tumblr, but the fuckin Pinterest posts brought me back, and this blew up apparently??? Thank you all for the attention lol, stuff has changed, and I go by either Damien or Aspen, either name is ok lol, and I'm genderfluid :] (if you don't know my pronouns just use they/them lol use those any day)

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victusinveritas · 9 months

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#mycology #gender is a social construct #mushrooms

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astralwashboard · 1 year

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autism just keeps winning

it’s because gender is stupid and autistic people aren’t

#gender is a spectrum #gender is fluid #gender identity #gender is a social construct #reposted posts #actually autistic #trans things

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queerism1969 · 20 days

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blazestar345 · 1 year

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#trans #transgender #non bianry #gender is a social construct #gender is a spectrum #gender identity #gender stuff #science supports trans people #gender is pretty dang wierd #genderfluid #genderqueer #trans is beautiful

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lucidmagic · 7 months

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Gender is a performance and we’re all just clowns

#gender #gender is a social construct #gender is a performance #trans #transgender #agender #cisgender #lgbt #lgbtq #lgbtqia #lucidmagic #demigender #queer #queer community #lesbian #gay #homosexual thoughts and fashion

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dustykneed · 3 months

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au where absolutely nothing changes except instead of only drawing old married guys for two months straight i draw old married sapphics. i even drew old married spirk for good measure for all the spirkies out there :]]

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taliabhattwrites · 1 month

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Serena Nanda is an Orientalist lunatic who hates trans women.

The intro to the first edition of her book was written by John Money.

She repeatedly talks about hijras describing themselves as women, and ignoring them to call them castrated males and crossdressers.

Third-Sexing is anthropological transmisogynistic violence on a discipline level.

#transfeminism #gender is a regime #sex is a social construct #feminism #orientalism #transmisogyny #desiblr #desi tumblr #social constructionism #third sexing #materialist feminism #lesbian feminism #anthropology #anthro #academics #dark academia #transphobia #transphobes

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alixlives · 6 months

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Transwomen do not owe you femininity.

Transmen do not owe you masculinity.

Nonbinary people do not owe you androgyny.

Gender is a social construct.

#strangleetomz #transgender #transgender rights #nonbinary #trans men #trans women #lgbtq #lgbtqia #gender is a social construct

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tiredyke · 7 months

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y’all really think cis dudes who dress femininely as a joke for views online are more enlightened and nuanced in gender than literal trans women lol

#transmisogyny #y’all think cis men who fuck with their gender presentation are more capable of understanding the complexity of gender than trans women #because you don’t think trans women or women in general are capable of complex thought. you don’t think they’re capable of thoroughly #understanding social constructs and choosing to engage with them anyway for whatever personal reason #whether necessity or comfort or joy or self expression #because cis dudes have the luxury of retaining their manhood and deconstructing gender as a joke and y’all eat it up #but a lot of trans women have to conform to set gender roles at the risk of being denied healthcare or job opportunities etc

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citricacidprince · 4 months

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I don’t like people who say they instinctively don’t trust anyone who’s AMAB or presents as masc, not even letting that person prove their character and just assuming the worst of them from the moment they see them.

Why don’t you instinctively dodge this upper cut fuck head??? I’m blowing you up with my mind.

#I need AMAB or AMAB passing individuals to know that I will literally kill someone over them #this isn’t a vent btw; I just think about my amab siblings sometimes and how much I care for you; always remember that #gender is a social construct #amab nonbinary #amab enby #amab genderfluid #nonbinary #enby #genderqueer #genderfluid #prince rambles in this chilies tonight

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menlove · 4 months

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half this website really is like

gender is fake! tear down the gender binary! identify as anything you want!! it's a social construct!

........sexuality, on the other hand.... now THAT'S immutable, ancient, and sacred. these definitions are set in stone and real and everyone must follow them exactly or you are being xyz-phobic. what do you mean we're still just enforcing the gender binary. no no THIS time the gender essentialism is true and good and anything else is gross :/

#like babes I think if we admit gender is a social construct we have to admit sexuality is too #which isn't to say individual sexuality is changeable and fluid #but rather that literally everyone is going to have a different sense of their own sexuality as it relates to them as an individual #and labels are helpful in letting us find community #but harmful when you use them as strict rules that must never be broken or interpreted differently #that's just My Take

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enbycrip · 7 months

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It’s like “gender” is *actually* a social construct or some shit.

And not only is what any gender means very specific to a specific culture, regardless of the phenotype current people link it to, but even then not everyone in that given culture expresses it the same way, and some people *always* push what that gender and gender expression means.

Because “gender” is not only a social construct; it is a *continuously evolving* social construct.

Queer historians are good at noting that “although we might call x a trans man/a gay man/a nonbinary person etc etc if they lived today, these ideas did not make sense in the social context they lived in”. Historians in general need to get better at realising and elucidating that our modern Western concepts of “man” and “woman” are very different from, and in many ways may not even be recognisable, in, say, medieval Europe, Ancient Rome, medieval/early modern Incan societies, early modern Madagascar, prehistoric Pacific Islander societies, Heian period Japan etc etc, just because we are broadly applying them to many people with similar biological phenotypes.

#prehistoric history #history #gender #gender in history #queer history #the fucking victorians and their long fucking shadow in history #women’s history #gender is a continuously evolving social construct

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capay9267 · 1 month

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Here's my single original post of the month:

I'm a trans dude. I'm currently in a lot of jewelry and looking really feminine.

However, I feel more masculine than I have in days.

Therefore gender is a social construct and I deserve more piercings.

Thank you for your time.

#trans man #transboy #trans #transgender #lgbtq+#lgbt #lgbtq #lgbtq community #lgbt pride #lgbtqia #gender fuckery #gender shit #gender is a social construct #fuck gender

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