Saturday, September 10, 2011

Jack Becomes Jackie

When you are born the doctor looks at your plumbing and checks a box on the birth certificate, M/F, and that's what you are. Most of the time that's fine, boys have penises, girls have vulvas. Our society is ordered along gender lines, roles are determined by the gender of an individual, boys do this, girls do that, men do this, women do that. It matters, in other words, what box the doctor checks, it has a lot to do with who you are. But sometimes they get it wrong, there is not a hundred percent correspondence between gender and genitalia.

Unfortunately the little person is not in a position to say, Hey, doc, you put your checkmark in the wrong place. Gender roles are learned, as you grow up you are taught, directly or by implication, how you are supposed to behave, what you are supposed to like, how you are supposed to look -- there is a lot of supposing going on! But it turns out there is more to it than social learning, people have a real innate sense of who they are, we know personally whether we are boys or girls, and it does not always align with that pediatrician's first guess or with our visible physical apparatus.

This ABC News video follows a little girl in rural Ohio, originally thought to be a boy. The family has early video, and the news team spent, they say, months videotaping the family. This is an exceptionally good piece of video.

video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player

( Originally on ABCNews.com. )

I find it easy to identify with that old hippie grandfather, who thinks it might be a little crazy for a kid to make such a decision, but the parents make even more sense. The dad was thinking they'd go fishing, play catch, well girls fish and play catch but it's not going to be like he thought. He seems like he can handle it, though. In fact, it looks like the whole town can handle it. Take twelve minutes, watch this, it will help you understand some things better.

11 Comments:

Blogger Priya Lynn said...

That was encouraging. I was particularly impressed that Jackie's classmates were accepting of who she is.

September 10, 2011 11:54 AM  
Anonymous svelte_brunette said...

There may be hope yet. This video posted by a young Jewish transman includes words from his family's rabbi that brought me to tears:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHSYFb9vVig&feature=related

Peace,

Cynthia

September 10, 2011 12:54 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

shrewdly targeting the evangelical vote, Barack Obama this morning read Psalm 46 at Ground Zero

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/44475601#44475601

amen, brother!

September 11, 2011 2:01 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Anonymous"
You just find it impossible to stick to the topic of the post, don't you? Are you slow-sitted, or what?

Or maybe you just have a distorted ego problem where you attempt to take control of the discussion so that you will feel better about your own inadequacies?

You might escape the watchful eyes of the moderater but not the eyes of daily readers of this blog.

Please spare us your schizoid rants and raves.

Create your own personal Blog site!!

September 11, 2011 3:05 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Right, good anonymous. This is why I stopped commenting here in the first place. I have no interest in commenting on a blog that's owned by bad anonymous.

September 11, 2011 3:52 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"This is why I stopped commenting here in the first place."

and why, in second place, did you come back?

September 11, 2011 8:02 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Because Jim said I had a point about your off-topic blathering and that you need to watch yourself.

September 11, 2011 8:33 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

how could that happen unless you'd already come back?

do we have a chicken-egg problem here?

doesn't effect follow cause in your universe or are you redefining logic too?

September 12, 2011 12:30 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"I have no interest in commenting on a blog that's owned by bad anonymous."

sounds like you have more problem reading things you don't agree with

or, at least, acknowledging you've read them

ignoring the world doesn't change anything

September 12, 2011 9:16 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

I made a comment to see if there was going to be a change. If there wasn't I wouldn't have stayed, seeing as there was a committement to prevent you from hijacking every thread I decided to stay.

All this wailing about me coming back makes it pretty clear you're not as happy to see me back as you lead us to believe.


You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometime you might find
You get what you need.

September 12, 2011 11:42 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Anyway, this is offtopic as well - talk to yourself.

September 12, 2011 11:45 AM  

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