Fugitivus Discussion Forum

Wow, I struggled with that so much in my gender question in the demographics of my survey that I did for my research fellowship. Non-binary! What a great option.

So, the differentiation of sex organs happens by the end of the 9th week of pregnancy. My 'Human Development in the Educational Context' lecturer seems to think that 'it's at this point that the parents can see the gender of the embryo on an ultrasound.'

So, you can get to be an associate lecturer in psychology without ever checking out the difference between sex & gender? Oh, ok...

Ugh. Seriously, I know more university level instructors/professors/etc who are deeply and weirdly uncomfortable saying the word "sex" in any context. Sometimes this leads to weirdly hilarious gesticulations as they try to come up with a euphemism for fornication in a lit class, but usually it just leads to a tendency to hastily conflate genitalia with gender and scurry onward before anyone asks where babies come from.

On the other hand, I think I may have inadvertently dropped the f-bomb twice during lecture today, so I'm not sure how much room I have to mock my colleagues. But the conflating genitalia and gender has got to go. Is the lecturer a decent enough sort that you could approach them during office hours and tell them about your concerns/discomfort with your their language? I know that's not always an option, given the amount of power uni instructors have relative to students (especially grad students, who may have to work very closely with them for years), but if it is, it might make you feel better about having sat through that, and encourage them not to do it again.

Edited to fix pronoun

Yeah, I'm gonna bring it up (politely) in this week's general discussion space - I'm actually doing all of my courses online (yay for circumventing that whole social anxiety - school avoidance thing!), and she's only delivering lecture content for the course, so even if she attaches the comment to my name, it won't really have any affect on grading and such.

You can apparently also talk about what you can see on an ultrasound without knowing what you're talking about. Um, no you can't. They're too small. You can't really see the genitalia until around 18 weeks.

You can get the chromosomal pattern, including the sex chromosomes, with chorionic villi sampling around then. But, chromosomal patterns do not necessarily match genitalia at birth, which does not necessarily match gender.

So, a friend of mine posted a link to the MWMF, saying she really wanted to make it this year. I replied to the effect of "I'd love to go, but I'm not allowed because they ban trans women".

I then had two people explain to me why it's ok, because if they let in trans women, then they have to let in everyone. And it's trans people's fault why the rest of the queer community hates us. It's ok to be exclusive, and slippery slope and... argh.

I'd post the photo I took of it, but it's too big for the forum :\

So, those friends have posted more to the debate. I have it now available to you completely.

Note long image file below spoiler.


These are people I lived with for almost a year. I can't believe they say these things.

Sigh. That is some awful, cis-centrist crap. The last person, who identifies as lesbian, shorter: I'm not uppity, why are you?

And, how about being ableist while she's at it? Spaz? Really? She thinks people who disagree with her are, um, equivalent to someone with cerebral palsy, which is somehow bad, and that makes them also fascists?

Learn to logic, not insult.

PAY NO MIND TO THE FALLACIOUS SLIPPERY SLOPE BEHIND THE CURTAIN.

Augh augh augh why are people so awful sometimes.

Although there is exactly one part of that argument that interests me: Genderqueer people whose identity has a female component in addition to other components. Appropriate for women-only spaces, or no? Does "women-only" mean "no one who is not a woman" or "no one who is anything other than a woman"? Binarism is more complicated than it looks!

Both of those definitions, of course, include trans women. Because... you're women. The fact that this is so difficult for people to understand makes me sad.