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From: Nancy Silverrod <nsilverrod>
Date: Thu, 22 May 2008 12:36:58 -0700
"Transgender" is often used as an umbrella word for describing a lot of different scenarios, including those that Maia has described. I am referring both to those scenarios, but also, very importantly to the situations in which a young child -- as young as 2 or 3 is not uncommon
-- announces and persists at an early age that they want to be the opposite gender. Children with these feelings are very often transsexual, and they very often don't get the support at home, in school, or from the medical establishment, that they need to grow up with the self-esteem necessary to live happy and healthy lives -- whether or not they end up choosing medical interventions of various kinds to live more comfortably in their gendered bodies.
Many teens and young adults these days find that a gender binary of male/female is too limiting to express who they really are, and they are another group that often fall under the "trans" umbrella because most of us are uncomfortable not being able to label people.
I think Maia and I, and some others of us are lucky to live in communities that accept gender fluidity, but I disagree that that is the norm in this country, or probably anywhere else at this point. Books that challenge gender norms in a variety of ways are very important. We need to see ourselves and our lives reflected in literature, and we need to keep challenging our assumptions. Books need to be there for the panicked mom or dad whose son wants to go to school in dresses and be called Amanda. Somehow, it's a little easier to ignore girls who want to be boys since it's now acceptable for them to wear jeans and t-shirts--we can just say they are tomboys--at least for a while. And we need books for kids whose mom or dad or favorite aunt or uncle has decided to transition.
We need to educate ourselves about these issues rather than saying (or hoping) that they aren't happening in our communities. TransYouth Family Allies http://imatyfa.org/about/ was started by a mom from a small town in the Midwest. Try looking at some of the internet resources I included on my bibliography, and try reaching out to the LGBTQ organizations in your own community.
Nancy Silverrod, Librarian
San Francisco Public Library
100 Larkin St.
San Francisco, CA 94102-4733
415-557-4417
nsilverrod at sfpl.org
Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind. -James Russell Lowell, poet, editor, and diplomat (1819-1891)
A closed mind is like a closed book: just a block of wood. -Chinese Proverb
-----Original Message----- From: ccbc-net-bounces at ccbc.education.wisc.edu
[mailto:ccbc-net-bounces at ccbc.education.wisc.edu] On Behalf Of Maia Cheli-Colando Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2008 11:49 AM To: CCBC Net Subject: [CCBC-Net] transgender
In a conversation like this, I think it's important to define
transgender. My guess is that a majority of North Americans mentally
limit transgender to girls who believe they are boys (or choose to
become such, either surgically or socially), and vice versa.
If transgender is taken to mean a human being with a fluid sense of
gender roles and identity, then a much wider range of literature (and
people) can be included!
Transgender fluidity implies that if a boy wants to be Judy Garland, it
doesn't mean he doesn't want to be a boy, or is gay -- it is society
that locks down our desires to gender, and then designates us as deviant
if our desires break gender rules. It is perfectly natural for any
child to want to be Dorothy... what with the scarecrow and the tin man
and Ozma-Pip (rather transgender herself) for friends, and snazzy shoes
to boot. :)
* Gender fluidity is radical for the gay-lesbian movement as well (less
so for bisexuals, perhaps), because it means that we don't lock anyone
down -- not into sexual preference, and not into gender roles. In order
to carve out space, and then survive, many GL members have continued to
fight on polar lines defined by a heterosexual culture. A healthy
concept of transgender means shucking those polarities, not forcing
ourselves into one or the other side of an on-off switch. *
Consider that if we were to apply the same logic to race as we do to
gender, then we would have to consider it abnormal and variant for a
black child to want to become president of the US (well, at least until
this November <g>)! We would have to suggest that that child longed to
be white, because only whites have been president.
And yet we apply exactly that logic to a boy who wants to wear dresses,
even while knowing that men in many countries wear what would be
considered dresses in the US. We are able to look at a black child who
wants to become president as inspired, and yet see a boy who wants to
wear pink tulle as peculiar.
As the points of gender acceptability shift, then what literature falls
into a "transgender" category will also shift. Ultimately, if we get to
the place where human beings are human beings -- with individual gender,
race, ethnic, cultural, religious, class, and genetic assets -- then
transgender literature will become an irrelevant caption, because
identity will have become as fluid as the individual.
For now, what feels transgender to some will be perfectly normal to
someone else, depending on region, religion and social class. And so
books that I can see as breaking historical social rules simultaneously
don't feel particularly transgender to me, because very few people I
know well ascribe to those rules.
I think it's important for each of us to know where we sit, and where
our communities sit, and where the children in our libraries (and
students in our colleges) sit about gender roles and gender identity --
to figure out what ideas and representations (or misrepresentations)
feel liberating or make us uncomfortable, and to think very actively
about how (and if) we want to make our lives more fluid. If we do, and
if we know where we already are, we'll have a good gut-guide of how to
introduce literature than can let us embrace all the shades of our own
personal rainbows.
Back to literature in specific then, we need books that address those
feelings of being outside the norm of our given locale and situation --
but we also, and just as much, need a majority of our books to keep
stretching the range of the possible, and make that stretch normal,
healthy, and quietly, subtly, celebratory.
Cheers,
Maia
_______________________________________________
CCBC-Net mailing list
CCBC-Net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu
Visit this link to read archives or to unsubscribe...
http://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccbc-net
Received on Thu 22 May 2008 02:36:58 PM CDT
Date: Thu, 22 May 2008 12:36:58 -0700
"Transgender" is often used as an umbrella word for describing a lot of different scenarios, including those that Maia has described. I am referring both to those scenarios, but also, very importantly to the situations in which a young child -- as young as 2 or 3 is not uncommon
-- announces and persists at an early age that they want to be the opposite gender. Children with these feelings are very often transsexual, and they very often don't get the support at home, in school, or from the medical establishment, that they need to grow up with the self-esteem necessary to live happy and healthy lives -- whether or not they end up choosing medical interventions of various kinds to live more comfortably in their gendered bodies.
Many teens and young adults these days find that a gender binary of male/female is too limiting to express who they really are, and they are another group that often fall under the "trans" umbrella because most of us are uncomfortable not being able to label people.
I think Maia and I, and some others of us are lucky to live in communities that accept gender fluidity, but I disagree that that is the norm in this country, or probably anywhere else at this point. Books that challenge gender norms in a variety of ways are very important. We need to see ourselves and our lives reflected in literature, and we need to keep challenging our assumptions. Books need to be there for the panicked mom or dad whose son wants to go to school in dresses and be called Amanda. Somehow, it's a little easier to ignore girls who want to be boys since it's now acceptable for them to wear jeans and t-shirts--we can just say they are tomboys--at least for a while. And we need books for kids whose mom or dad or favorite aunt or uncle has decided to transition.
We need to educate ourselves about these issues rather than saying (or hoping) that they aren't happening in our communities. TransYouth Family Allies http://imatyfa.org/about/ was started by a mom from a small town in the Midwest. Try looking at some of the internet resources I included on my bibliography, and try reaching out to the LGBTQ organizations in your own community.
Nancy Silverrod, Librarian
San Francisco Public Library
100 Larkin St.
San Francisco, CA 94102-4733
415-557-4417
nsilverrod at sfpl.org
Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind. -James Russell Lowell, poet, editor, and diplomat (1819-1891)
A closed mind is like a closed book: just a block of wood. -Chinese Proverb
-----Original Message----- From: ccbc-net-bounces at ccbc.education.wisc.edu
[mailto:ccbc-net-bounces at ccbc.education.wisc.edu] On Behalf Of Maia Cheli-Colando Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2008 11:49 AM To: CCBC Net Subject: [CCBC-Net] transgender
In a conversation like this, I think it's important to define
transgender. My guess is that a majority of North Americans mentally
limit transgender to girls who believe they are boys (or choose to
become such, either surgically or socially), and vice versa.
If transgender is taken to mean a human being with a fluid sense of
gender roles and identity, then a much wider range of literature (and
people) can be included!
Transgender fluidity implies that if a boy wants to be Judy Garland, it
doesn't mean he doesn't want to be a boy, or is gay -- it is society
that locks down our desires to gender, and then designates us as deviant
if our desires break gender rules. It is perfectly natural for any
child to want to be Dorothy... what with the scarecrow and the tin man
and Ozma-Pip (rather transgender herself) for friends, and snazzy shoes
to boot. :)
* Gender fluidity is radical for the gay-lesbian movement as well (less
so for bisexuals, perhaps), because it means that we don't lock anyone
down -- not into sexual preference, and not into gender roles. In order
to carve out space, and then survive, many GL members have continued to
fight on polar lines defined by a heterosexual culture. A healthy
concept of transgender means shucking those polarities, not forcing
ourselves into one or the other side of an on-off switch. *
Consider that if we were to apply the same logic to race as we do to
gender, then we would have to consider it abnormal and variant for a
black child to want to become president of the US (well, at least until
this November <g>)! We would have to suggest that that child longed to
be white, because only whites have been president.
And yet we apply exactly that logic to a boy who wants to wear dresses,
even while knowing that men in many countries wear what would be
considered dresses in the US. We are able to look at a black child who
wants to become president as inspired, and yet see a boy who wants to
wear pink tulle as peculiar.
As the points of gender acceptability shift, then what literature falls
into a "transgender" category will also shift. Ultimately, if we get to
the place where human beings are human beings -- with individual gender,
race, ethnic, cultural, religious, class, and genetic assets -- then
transgender literature will become an irrelevant caption, because
identity will have become as fluid as the individual.
For now, what feels transgender to some will be perfectly normal to
someone else, depending on region, religion and social class. And so
books that I can see as breaking historical social rules simultaneously
don't feel particularly transgender to me, because very few people I
know well ascribe to those rules.
I think it's important for each of us to know where we sit, and where
our communities sit, and where the children in our libraries (and
students in our colleges) sit about gender roles and gender identity --
to figure out what ideas and representations (or misrepresentations)
feel liberating or make us uncomfortable, and to think very actively
about how (and if) we want to make our lives more fluid. If we do, and
if we know where we already are, we'll have a good gut-guide of how to
introduce literature than can let us embrace all the shades of our own
personal rainbows.
Back to literature in specific then, we need books that address those
feelings of being outside the norm of our given locale and situation --
but we also, and just as much, need a majority of our books to keep
stretching the range of the possible, and make that stretch normal,
healthy, and quietly, subtly, celebratory.
Cheers,
Maia
_______________________________________________
CCBC-Net mailing list
CCBC-Net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu
Visit this link to read archives or to unsubscribe...
http://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccbc-net
Received on Thu 22 May 2008 02:36:58 PM CDT
