Author Archives: robyn begg

The Politics of Clothing

The idea of fashion as a political entity is not new, and it is known that the clothes we wear have the potential to make statements, whether or not they are intended. Attached is a video made by the social media profile Buzzfeed LGBT that has been posted on both Facebook and YouTube, with over 400,000 views on the latter. It is a quirky, queer-positive interview-style look at how queer or non-binary folks choose to dress themselves. The video normalizes those who identify as trans or non binary, as we too often see them portrayed as the mystical ‘other’ that is heard from but not seen. This clip is following in suit of many other social and political campaigns that is reiterating the important statement that identifying as non-binary or trans are valid identities that deserve respect. I would like to offer a critique of the policing of dress that is apparent in the Medicine Hat court case, and I will link this by using Maria Lugones’ idea of the colonial nature of the gender system, and the idea of heterosexuality as a dominating force in our society, (Lugones, 187).

This video was posted one month before Judge Gordon Krinke’s ruling emerged where he ruled that the child must have access to clothing for both genders, and then they can make their decision from there, (CBC, 2016). As ridiculous and formal as this is, it is much more manageable than the original ruling, which involved forbidding the child from wearing primarily female clothing outside of the home completely, (CBC, 2016). My question then is, how different is it for a child to decide what they wear than an adult? As long as the the clothing is age-appropriate for the child in question, how can a child wearing what their peer of the opposite sex would wear be an issue?
There is an assumption within the legal system that laws exist to serve a greater societal good and to protect those who are vulnerable. However, recent rulings such as blah and blah have us questioning whether this is truly the case. In Colleen Underwood’s article on the Medicine Hat court case, she quotes the mother saying,”Our eyes locked and it was maybe the millionth time they told me they were a girl … and I promised I was going to do whatever I could to validate and support them and to be that one person they could go to.”, (CBC, 2016), and follows it up by saying how “…the outbursts and the tantrums were replaced with a happy, confident child.”, (CBC, 2016). If allowing the child to dress as they please solved their anxiety around their identity, then why would the court rule in such a way?
Lugones’ states in reference to the dichotomous gender system that, “It accommodates rather than disrupt the narrowing of gender domination.”, (Lugones, 198), and we can see this being reflected in the legal system’s choice to uphold the legitimacy of the binary in a case where that may have not been the choice that protects the vulnerable population in question. There is an assumed statement being made through the choice of clothing by the child, that has alarmed our legal system enough to elicit an arguably unconstitutional ruling.

References:

Lugones, Maria. (2007). Heterosexualism and the colonial/modern gender system. Hypatia, 22(1): 186-209.

Puar, Jasbir. (2006). Mapping US homonormativities. Gender, Place and Culture, 13(1): 67-88.

Underwood, Colleen. “Medicine Hat Judges Ordered 4-year-old Not to Wear Girls’ Clothes in Public.” CBCnews. 2016. Accessed December 07, 2016.

The Importance of Pronouns

Our society has a serious issue with improper representation, as a result of our colonial beginnings. Our world, including the media and advertising, is filled with examples of white, cisgendered sexism that affects how people understand what is normal and important. With the trans population being a majorly underrepresented category in mainstream media, they are often gravely misunderstood and disrespected due to their deviance from these ‘normal’ societal projections. Pronouns embody gender identities that intersect with race and sexuality, which then in turn result in successful or failed gender expression, as Puar discusses in his paper Mapping US Homonormativities, (Puar, 71). The topic of pronouns has been met with ignorant and dismissive commentary from those who benefit most from society, which happen to be whose opinions the general public considers ‘valuable’. Cisgendered people have been responding from a place of privilege when transgendered and binary folks have requested to be addressed by the pronouns of their choosing. Responses such as, “I don’t recognise another person’s right to decide what words I’m going to use, especially when the words they want me to use, first of all, are non-standard elements of the English language and they are constructs of a small coterie of ideologically motivated people. They might have a point but I’m not going to say their words for them.”, (CBC, 2016) which was a statement made by Jordan Peterson, a University of Toronto professor who also happens to be a while male, reveals the bigoted and defensive attitudes that have come out of this push for inclusive language. This blog post will be linking language from the CBC’s article about the Medicine Hat case to the greater societal attitudes surrounding the use of pronouns. It is important to note that we are not assuming that the child involved in the Medicine Hat court case is transgender, we are instead commenting on how using the correct pronouns towards those who are not cisgender is a sign of respect that is not always acknowledged.

When we had originally read the CBC article written by Colleen Underwood, there was no mention of pronouns at all. It was revised on October 31st and we noticed that the sentence, “Smith refers to her child as “they” rather than the less gender-neutral pronouns of “him” or “her.””, (Underwood, 2016), had been added to the body of the text. While this may appear to some as mere clarification from the reporter, it symbolizes something much bigger and more problematic than just revised journalism. The initial exclusion of this sentence reiterates the idea that mainstream media does not see the importance that the accurate use of pronouns has to trans or non binary folks. Please take a look at this Buzzfeed video that serves as a testimony to the importance of pronouns to the trans & non binary community:

This becomes even clearer later on in the article, where Underwood uses language such as, “introducing herself as a girl to others”, (Underwood, 2o16), or “…her child woke up in the middle of the night to tell Smith she was going to cut off her penis.”, (Underwood, 2016), after just reporting on how the child’s mother prefers to use ‘they’ pronouns. The author’s use of gendered language is in opposition to the language that is used by the mother within her quotes, where she makes a firm point of using the term ‘them’ when discussing her child. This is an example of our society’s obsession with putting people into seemingly tangible categories, and our inability to accept the wishes of others who identify differently than us. I would hypothesise that cis-gendered folks are not as sensitive to the use of pronouns because they are not at risk of being misgendered, so language like this does not appear to be hurtful or troublesome to them. 

 

References:

“‘I’m Not a Bigot’ Meet the U of T Prof Who Refuses to Use Genderless Pronouns – Home | As It Happens | CBC Radio.” CBC news. 2016. Accessed December 07, 2016. http://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-friday-edition-1.3786140/i-m-not-a-bigot-meet-the-u-of-t-pof-who-refuses-to-use-genderless-pronouns-1.3786144.
Underwood, Colleen. “Medicine Hat Judges Ordered 4-year-old Not to Wear Girls’ Clothes in Public.” CBCnews. 2016. Accessed December 07, 2016. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/medicine-hat-judges-ordered-4-year-old-not-to-wear-girls-clothes-in-public-1.3816829.