Is Bruce Jenner a Lesbian, and Am I?

So I haven't seen the Bruce Jenner interview yet, but trans folks are certainly talking plenty about it. Some opinionated overview, in case you haven't been following the case. Yes Jenner is trans and has been transitioning for about the last year and a half, (and thus is a little “ahead” of me). Bruce has not provided the world with a female name yet, and said to use male pronouns for the interview. Whether we are intended to use them after the interview is less clear, but I will try to continue using male pronouns until I'm convinced that that's not the most respectful way to talk about Jenner (and I sympathize a lot with the tensions here personally). Despite this Jenner says "for all intents and purposes I am a woman."  The media as a whole has handled the whole damn thing pretty shamefully, and quite unlike the cases of Lana Wachowski, Laura Jane Grace, or Chaz Bono. In particular fuck TMZ, but ABC and Diane Sawyer handled things well if not quite pitch perfectly. Also, of course, it bares repeating that the experiences of white multi-millionaire transwomen have important dis-similarities from the experiences of the rest of us and can serve as a distraction if we aren't careful.

This morning's discussion (well last weeks, I'm behind on my posting) is that Jenner claims to be attracted to women and to be a woman, but not to be gay. I have trans friends who want to stake out this position as well, and defend Jenner for claiming it, but I also have trans friends who want to insist that if you are a woman who is attracted to other women, then you are a gay woman whether you admit it or not. And I definitely feel pulled both ways myself here, so I want to explore the question a little.

Most immediately there is a tension between gayness as a pattern of attraction and gayness as a matter of identity, culture and/or community. The American Psychological Association recently defined sexual orientation as “an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions to men, women, or both sexes. Sexual orientation also refers to a person’s sense of identity based on those attractions, related behaviors, and membership in a community of others who share those attractions.” Each side of this definition can be problematized (When do isolated incidents become a “pattern?” What if romantic and sexual attractions conflict? What if someone identifies one way but has community membership in another way? Etc.) But more saliently, the two halves of this definition can easily be in conflict, and in several ways. Consider the classic “closet case,” a man who has an enduring pattern of attraction to other men, but nonetheless self-identifies as straight and tries to have minimal or adversarial interactions with the broader community of gay males. Are we to say they are gay despite their opposition to gayness, because of the first part of the definition, or that they aren't gay because of the second part? Usually I think we lean to saying they are gay despite themselves in this case. But shift it just a little, imagine a black guy, who occasionally has sex with other men, but wants to keep it on the “down low” and doesn't feel comfortable using the terms and markers of white gay male culture, and uses terms like MSM instead of gay or bi. Do we still want to say that they are gay despite their own self-understanding? What if the person we are thinking about has a pattern of attraction to males, but only actually has sex with other men for money, or only while in prison, or other border cases?

Or to switch over to Jenner, and I and many other transwomen. I have an enduring pattern of attraction to mostly women, no doubt. But am I women enough myself to count as a lesbian or a gay woman? I'm women enough already to call myself trans, and to correct people when they use male pronouns for me, but I still accept neutral pronouns more often than I ask for female ones. And I certainly don't feel I can demand female pronouns yet. Maybe someday.  There isn't really a good word for a gender-neutral person attracted primarily to women.*  Gynophile is an old word, but has been used in a bunch of different ways by Freud, Chodorow, Money, and especially Blanchard, who I dislike intensely.  Yuck, I'll pass.  Jenner doesn't even ask for neutral pronouns yet. And lesbians are not just any old set of women, they are a community that has become tight-knit over the years, often in response to rejection from biological families and repression from the culture at large. Lesbian culture definitely has gateways for women who have recently come out to themselves to enter and learn the culture. Ciswomen undergo a process of shifting from a mere pattern of lesbian attractions, to identity and community membership as lesbians too.  But these entryways function so-so or worse for transwomen in transition. Often we are simply not welcome in lesbian spaces and at lesbian events. And even when we are, the processes of learning the culture and coming to feel like a member of the community don't work the same for transwomen as they do for ciswomen.  My case is even trickier, because the dating scene is one of the main gateways into community, and as a married person I've never been part of the lesbian dating scene.

This exchange was clearly intended as sarcasm, but this IS how it works in the case of trans folk. I have an actual letter from my therapist, and I celebrated when I got it.  I haven't done the paperwork with the state yet, and it's expensive and I may not get around to it for a while (especially since all 50 states still only allow M or F as genders, rather than the broader palates allowed by Facebook, or countries like New Zealand, Australia and India.) Some transfolk never get the gender marker on their driver's licence changed, some never get a letter from their therapists (either because they find an informed consent clinic, or don't wind up getting HRT). But, yeah, I did some of the paperwork, and not other bits. Have I done enough paperwork to count as gay?  I feel ambivalent about it myself, and whether I am accepted as a lesbian by other LGBT folks varies greatly.  It is entirely possible to interpret the LGBT acronym as implying that I am not an L, because I am a T instead... sigh ... that's one of the many problems of mixing categories of different types in parallel.

My current running joke is that I am Chian.   When I get the blank look, I explain that Chios is the island right next to Lesbos in the Aegean Sea.  So I'm not exactly a lesbian yet, but I'm definitely in the vicinity.  Even the term "lesbian" is an odd one.  Its an old Victorian understanding of same sex attraction, parallel to terms like Sapphist, Uranian, or invert.  It's a metaphorical reference to Sappho of Lesbos one of the great poets of antiquity, who wrote about attraction to women.  Thus it was an oblique code phrase for the learned to pass information to each other without necessarily scandalizing others.  My older very Christian friend Jim Stilwell read an anonymous Hoosier poem from the turn of the last century, about a guy getting up the courage to kiss a lady, at our open mike poetry in April.  And he totally missed the ending where writer promises never to bother the lady again now that she has revealed to him that she is a follower of Sappho.  That was how the term worked a century ago.  (BTW, there is plenty of reason to suspect that the historical Sappho was what we would now call bisexual, despite how the Victorians and Edwardians used her partial memory.)  So it always seems odd to me to claim that some is a lesbian without admitting it to themselves.  The term has roots in metaphor, being metaphorically like Sappho of Lesbos, so taking it really literally seems counter-intuitive to me.  Am I metaphorically like Sappho of Lesbos who lived over 2,500 years ago?  Er ... kinda?  Is Bruce Jenner?  Sorta, I guess.

But is there space for a trans woman to be primarily attracted to other women without being a gay woman?  It's surely normal for cis and trans folks to go through a questioning phase where they aren't certain yet.  And it can take a while to get comfortable using terms and self-describing in ways that are unfamiliar, even if you agree they "technically" fit you.  But those aren't the real problem.  The real problem is that attraction, identity and community are all separate things, and we all sorta know it, but we lack good terms for distinguishing them.  You can have the attractions, but not the identity or community membership.  Jenner has sought out other high profile transwomen to ask advice and is trying to find ways to be a genuine part of the trans community and culture.  Has Jenner worked to become part of the lesbian community yet? I have no idea.  There is a person I talk to sometimes, who once identified as trans, but got sorta exiled from her local trans community, and is now leery about calling herself "trans."  She experiences the same tension, admitting that she "technically" counts as trans, but feeling uncomfortable calling herself trans any more.  The terms, taken as labels or definitions, seem broadly inclusive, the actual experience of using the terms rarely lives up to the inclusiveness of the definitions.  Prescriptively we intend the labels to include folk who "count" whether they self-identify or not, descriptively we are often leery of applying the terms to border cases (except when we are accusing people of being in denial).  Indeed, for gender terms, there is a pretty clear ethos in the trans community of take people's self-descriptions and designations seriously. But when it comes to orientation, we seem far more cavalier about applying our understanding of someone's patterns of behavior to them, regardless of their opinion in the matter.  And this can lead to bi-erasure, false outing, and all kinds of other problems.  Indeed, even if we are thinking of patterns of attraction, how we categorize the possible answers can be as tricky as which question we are trying to ask, when we ask about sexual orientation.  Asexuals seem like a legitimate sexual orientation to me, but they tended to get erased in a lot of understandings of sexual orientation, probably because they are only beginning to organize as a community or culture.  Or consider terms like "sapiosexual" or "submissive"  those sure seem like they are describing enduring patterns of emotional, romantic, and sexual attraction, even if they aren't using gender as their main way of categorizing, (and both do have identities and communities that sometimes go with the terms).  Is "submissive" a sexual orientation? Suppose we call someone a bisexual because they seem to date both men and women, and they reply no, I'm a submissive, I'm attracted to people who will dominate me, and whether they are male or female is less important to me.  Do we claim that we were still technically correct, or admit that their self-understanding is probably more salient than our external view?  If Jenner wants to insist that he is a woman, and attracted to other women, but is not a gay woman, well I might be curious as to why he thinks that, but I think it's possible for those three claims to be all true together, and I don't think it's my job to second guess other people's claims about their orientation. 

On the flip side, I had a cis friend who identified as a lesbian for decades and was clearly in the community and fit the attraction pattern.  Then she started dating a trans guy.  And she had to admit that she no longer fit the strict definition, and started using words like bi and queer instead.  But she still had deep roots in the lesbian community, and still had the identity in her own head and heart.  It was HARD for her to accept that she no longer got to self-describe as lesbian.  She did it out of respect for her boyfriend, and I'm proud she did, but no one should pretend it wasn't hard for her.  My wife likes the term heteroflexible now that my transness calls her own heterosexuality into question, but the parallel homoflexible doesn't seem to get nearly as much use (and sounds clunky and often gets interpreted as betrayal ... sigh) ...  An Indianapolis group I know uses the phrase "past, present, and future women" and unpack that by saying "In other words, if you were assigned female at birth, or currently identify as a woman, or are actively working toward that, you are welcome at xxxxx." Bruce and I can fit there.  But we can't assume that everyone who uses the terms lesbian or gay women intend to include us in their communities, or identities, regardless of what formal definitions they would give if asked.

I think it's very disingenuous to imagine that sexual orientation is matter purely of attraction pattern, without any reference to self-identity, culture or community.  Of course, one of the reasons we continue to talk this way is because of ongoing fights on politics and religion, especially on the topic of choice.  You don't choose your pattern of attraction, you do choose some elements of your self-identity, behavior and community membership.  The truth that sexual orientation is both not a choice, and also partially a choice, can look like it is unnecessarily giving ground to anti-LGBT ideologies that want to portray LGBT identities as pure choices (and morally wrong ones at that). But my gender is a complex mix of things I didn't get to choose (including my body, and my brain, and the dysphoria I experience, what it says on some documents about me), and things I DO get to choose (including how I present myself publicly and interact with others, and what it says on other documents about me.)  I fear that sexual orientation is like that too, a complex mix of chosen and unchosen elements interlaced tightly together

I am slowly learning lesbian culture, and I do feel genuinely closer to being a lesbian than I was a year ago.  I also pass as female better, and get more acceptance from other lesbians.  But it's all a work in progress ...

P.S.  Everyday Feminism just ran a little article about this comic by from the strip Robot Hugs. Notice that even though the artist K, is non-binary, genderqueer, and careful to only talk about their sexuality with the term "queer" the editors of Everyday Feminism describe it and title their version of it in terms of "lesbian" sexuality.  I have many things I want to say about this comic, including how it is bittersweet for me, and I recognize myself in all 3 of the main characters, but they keep coming out wrong, so for today let me simply note that I guess the term for a non-binary person who is attracted to mostly women IS lesbian, according to the editors of Everyday Feminism.  At least for some non-binary genderqueers. ... sigh

Some Folk From The Trans 100 2015 Class That Have Touched Me

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Zhuangzi and my Gender Identity

I often turn to ancient Chinese philosophy to try to make sense of things. It's odd for a white, Midwesterner who doesn't speak Chinese, I know, but it is true. (In fairness, I use Greeks, and Frenchmen, and old professors too).  Here's a classic example of me turning to the Ancient Chinese thinkers. So yesterday, I was thinking about Zhuangzi's most famous parable (he's an ancient Daoist I like, whose writing style involved lots of bizarre parables). In his “butterfly dream,” Zhuangzi dreams he is a butterfly, and on waking is uncertain whether he “really is” Zhuangzi who dreamed he was a butterfly, or “really is” a butterfly, who is currently dreaming that he is Zhuangzi. So let's switch things up a bit, but still basically plagiarize Zhuangzi ...

“On many occasions, I, Dr. Morton, dreamt I was a woman, living my life as a woman. I was conscious only of my happiness as a woman, unaware that I was male. And soon I awaked, and there I was, male. Then later, I realized that I did not know whether I was a man dreaming I was a woman, or a woman dreaming I was a man. Between male self and female self there was such a distinction. This is called the transformation of things.”

Now first note, at the level of ontology, this is not all all how we usually use the notion of transformation. No physical thing has changed here, rather we have an uncertainty of perspectives. We are shifting between two different interpretations of self, and in a sense between two whole worlds, rather than watching a change within one perspective or interpretation or world. It is that one's assumptions have come unmoored, and things that previously seemed impossible, or not even thinkable enough to bother rejecting as impossible, suddenly seem possible. I have an old argument about free will somewhere that works just like this. But my early bits gender transition fit this picture well too. I “knew” that I was male (albeit barely so), but there were all these opposing bits of data that I just wouldn't or couldn't take seriously, or frame into an opposing account. And then, I framed the account, and the “knowing” dropped away, and suddenly things had been transformed, because I stood between two accounts, that seemed so distinct, and yet could not both be so. Maybe I was a man who routinely dreamed of being a woman, or maybe I was not a man, but routinely worked to convince myself that I was. How would one go about deciding an issue like that, once it has become plausible enough to be entertained? How do you know you aren't a butterfly dreaming that you are a human? Well, obviously, most people prevent this worry by never really allowing it as a possibility worth serious consideration in the first place. But once you do allow it, what then? Similarly, for me, for so long, I just refused to entertain the possibility, but once I had, I had no further defenses … And once the two possibilities, I'm a man who dreams regularly of being a woman vs I'm a non-man regularly working to pretend to myself that I'm a man – stood together epistemically roughly equal, I quickly knew which I wanted to be true ...

But that is not really the main thrust of Zhaungzi's thought on the matter, even in that chapter, book 2 of Zhuangzi, entitled “The Evening Out Of All Things.” He makes a lot of points about epistemology, and logic, and mysticism there. But one reflects where I wound up on the gender stuff with a couple more years of work and reflection. This is a passage I've come back to, many times over the years. I've recently re-read at least 10 different translations of it, here is my own translation (heavily dependent on Sarah Snyder's translation, and careful word by word 'trot' and analysis, in "Science of Myself", but also many other translations and my own opinions and understandings.)

“There is no being that is not 'that.' There is no being that is not 'this.' From 'that' standpoint we cannot see, but from the standpoint of knowing oneself, one can know. Therefore it is said 'that' comes from 'this,' and 'this' comes from 'that' – which means 'that' and 'this' gives birth to one another. And so with life then death, and death then life. And so with possible then impossible, and impossible then possible. 'This' causes what is uncaused, and what is uncaused causes 'this.' Thus, by means of the sage shedding the light of heaven, 'this' is not the cause, and also is the cause. 'This' is also 'that,' and 'that' is also 'this.' 'That' is also one that 'this' is not, 'this' is also one that 'that' is not. Is the result that 'that' and 'this' are in the same place? Really? Is the result that 'that' and 'this” are not in the same place? Really? When 'this' and 'that' are not incautiously taken as opposites, this is called the pivot of the Dao. At the pivot of the Dao, only then do we attain the center of the ring, where one is not impoverished by what must be so. 'This' also does not exhaust the whole, 'not' also does not exhaust the whole. Consequently, we do not use a limited perspective when we seek to shed light on a topic."

There is an epistemic/mystical place, where traditional opposites no longer stand in opposition. And this is different from the moment of transformation in opposition (as in the first passage), or from an opposition where the tension is being held and used for some useful purpose (as in Heraclitus' notion of opposing coherence). Rather yes and no, no longer “stand against each other,” they seem complementary, or aspects of a whole. It's also not that 'this' and 'that' merge, or lose all distinction, or disappear into a mystical Monism. Rather the distinction between 'this' and 'that' ceases to be a source of “exhaustion” or “impoverishment,”- the situation is “rich” enough to allow different and distinct accounts to have space to be. In gender, my male-self and female-self do not merge fully, or stand in some transcendent unity - but rather both stand together as different and distinct as they are united or blurred - but as elements of a vaster richness, elements in a coincidentia oppositorum. Nor am I holding the two under tension to use the power of the frission, the two stand distinct/non-distinct as they are testifying to the case, rather than working as an engine of becoming.

So I say genderqueer and androgyne and non-binary, rather than male or female. And I don't mean epicene as in unisex, and I don't mean not-any-of-either-male-or-female, and I don't mean actively alternating, or paradoxically-fused, or a simple unity of the two, or transcending the categories of male and female entirely. I mean sitting in a wide lavish ring of wealthy selfness, where Brian and Patricia are present, and no one account is vast enough to account for both together, but I say “BP” as a symbol of this being-together-within-myself.  I mean Anekantavada in Daoist drag, dancing to some crazy Heideggerian euro-pop or something.

And so I remain, as I long have been, a connoisseur of many extremely fine grades of beyond-binaryness.

Reading Ellen Feder's “Making Sense of Intersex” Part 1

So I picked this book up at the new non-fiction section of my local public library a week or two ago, not really knowing what it was. If I'd have noticed the subtitle “Changing Ethical Perspectives in Biomedicine” maybe I'd have clued that it is a difficult work of professional academic philosophy, Nietzsche, Foucault, Judith Butler, that sort of thing, citing everything from Dialogues in Pediatric Urology to the Journal of Clinical Ethics to Social Semiotics. But hey, I'm an ex-professional philosopher, and a non-binary person myself, let's tackle it.

Setting the Scene

First observation, this book assumes you already know a lot of specifics of the issues in 20^th and 21^st century American treatment of Intersex children, (which I kinda do), or if you don't that you are willing to read a lot of other things that have been written about it first. This is not entirely unfair. A lot has already been written, and it is a scandal that professional ethicists and gender theorists really ought to know about by now. But assuming you, my humble blog reader, don't, here is my opinionated overview. The treatment of intersex kids from 1955 to 2006 (and in many ways before and after) is the biggest failure in American medical ethics, at least since the Tuskegee Syphilis experiments of 1932-72, and the ethicists jumped all over that as soon as the whistle was blown, even if they weren't able to prevent it. For the last half of the twentieth century, the official “Standards of Care” for intersex kids, called for things like removing the penis of a infant boy whose penis was deemed too small, performing an infant vaginaplasty, using hormones, and pressuring the parents to raise the child as a girl, and never ever tell the child, or anyone in the family that there had ever been hints of masculinity. Or if a girl's clitoris was deemed too large, it was to be mostly surgically removed, regardless of how that might effect her later sexual experience. What mattered most was normal-shaped infants. Or if an older girl was found to have undescended testes rather than ovaries (usually along with being genetically XY, but insensitive to androgens), her testes were to be removed, she was to be told they were ovaries but damaged, and no hint was ever to be given to her than she might be genetically male, or that the real health risk was that undescended testes are a little more likely to become cancerous eventually. Or the kids who had their genitals examined by scores of doctors and med students in turn, often with poking and prodding, at a teaching hospital each year while they grew up. The horror stories go on. Sometimes even the parents were lied to, usually they were pressured, and often they were urged to bear the weight to their decisions in silence. Basic medical ethical guidelines like informed consent, or trying to avoid paternalism, were routinely violated. Many hard decisions were made on the basis of confident claims from doctors for which there was no evidence, and no attempt to gather evidence for the future. And unlike most of the other big medical ethics scandals, many people knew about this and signed off on it for decades. Somehow gender ambiguities seem to have created this huge moral blind spot in otherwise thoughtful and caring Americans. Eventually, many of the grown children who had been subjected to these “standards of care” began learning the truth, and speaking out publicly against them. Journalists, and academics, and philosophers, and doctors with doubts got involved. By 2006 the medical consensus had definitely shifted on some of these issues, but the process was very clearly led by Intersex activists rather than by ethicists, or doctors, or parents of intersex kids. And in many ways, the current standards of care, aren't much better than before, continuing to encourage “normalizing” genital surgery for infants, for instance.

Participants of the 3 International Intersex Forum, Malta 2013

My personal baggage

Now obviously this is going to resonate with me in all kinds of complicated and personal ways. The lines between trans and intersex are intricate and unclear. Transgender people fought our own battle against overly paternalistic “gatekeepery” standards of care, and the stigmatizing of trans as a disorder, among doctors and mental health professionals over roughly the same time period. Indeed, the thought and philosophy of doctor and gender theorist John Money turns out to be a key part of the paternalist side of the debate for both trans and intersex.

One of the first doctors to argue publicly against the old standards of care, summarized the thinking of doctors who supported the old standards of care like this: “intersexed individuals could not possibly live normal lives as intersexed individuals and … the only chance they had for happiness and psychological well-being was the establishment of a secure male or female gender identity. Second, there simply was no precedent for [such individuals] living as normal in our society. [Darbuul 2000].” That is to say the impossibility of a non-binary person like ME PERSONALLY ever being normal, or happy, or having psychological well-being, or having any precedent in our society, was the main reason these terrible things were done to these kids. For decades. At least in the minds of the doctors. Intersex or trans, it is NON-BINARYNESS that is really the main issue here, in many cases.

So I want to be a good ally to my intersex siblings and friends (an old friend came out privately to me as intersex, when I came out publicly as trans). And that surely means not projecting too much of my own stuff onto their situation. And, in fairness, part of the issue is that intersex is a big umbrella term, and the issues around say Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia, are not the same as the issues around Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, or for that matter 5-alpha Reductase Deficiency. There are a lot of cases, and some have a lot more similarities with the situation of trans-people than others, and some have more in common with non-binary folk than others. But at the very least, enforcing the gender binary is very much at the heart of much of the reasoning that went into the intersex standards of care, doctor's treatment recommendations, parental decisions, and children's self-understandings.

Next, I have a lot of complicated baggage with John Money. In college I idolized the guy, and read a bunch of his stuff, even though it was quite difficult. I admired the way he combined hard medicine, thoughtful gender theory, and practical application in a variety of contexts. Of course, his theories of gender identity development have proven over time to be plausible but tragically, horribly wrong. And his own amazing arrogance seems to have been a big part of the problem. It is tempting to demonize John Money, and make the decades of mistreatment look like his fault. But it is an oversimplification. As Feder points out, several of his key ideas were not as original as they are sometimes made out to be, but rather were codifications of existing practices. Similarly, lots and lots of other doctors read his stuff and bought his arguments. Heck in a lot of ways, John Money's thought screwed me personally, more deeply than I can really comprehend. I went through a phase in college where I serious questioned if I was trans. And I read what I could find in my little college library on it. Which was largely Money and people influenced by him. And his thought convinced me that a) I wasn't a MtF transsexual by current medical standards b) there were no other kinds of trans-people besides transsexuals, or if there were they wouldn't ever be given hormones or surgery and c) non-binary in particular was not a thing, and not a viable way to try to live. It was almost two decades later, before I seriously tried again to figure out what I was gender-wise. What might my life have been like if I hadn't read John Money, and had figured out I was trans in college? On the other hand, John Money's picture of the nature of biological sex seems to be dead on. I used it myself in an earlier blog post here. The Intersex Society of North America (one of Money's biggest opponents) uses his understanding of biological sex in their definition of what intersex is. Sigh. For better or worse, this guy has influenced me in a wide variety of ways.

Commentary/Book Review

Well, this commentary/book review is going to have to be just a part 1, because I'm not through it, and my comments are already probably too long for most readers, so there is always a chance that some of my issues will be addressed later on. Chapter 5 might or might not address one of my big concerns, for example, I can't tell from the introduction.

So, first, as I said earlier, Feder doesn't seem to have enough introduction and background material for many potential readers, which seems like an eminently correctable problem, although I certainly sympathize with the worry that in this case intro and background could bog down into taking over half the book if you weren't careful.

Second I've been really struck by the lack of hardly any mention of transgender people or issues. Feder clearly envisions that her book will be read by, and of interest to: doctors, parents of intersex folks, intersex folks, medical ethicists, professional philosophers, and gender theory/women's studies/professional Feminist folks.  But she doesn't seem to envision trans folk, or non-binary folks who aren't intersex, as one of the audiences that might be interested in her work. There were three solid pages on how the history of thinking about and treatment of homosexuality is similar and different to the intersex case, and several other briefer discussions. There is a discussion of similarities and differences with closed adoption (which is a neat point I'd never seen before). It would be very easy to devote a few pages to compare/contrast work between trans and intersex. Similarly, several of the people discussed in more detail in the text actually transition their gender of public presentation as kids or adults. This is analysed in terms of Merleau-Ponty's theories, but never put into the context of the many other people who make such transitions or how or why or how it impacts their discussions of sense of self.

Most glaringly, I think society as a whole, and trans people in specific, need to be addressed as stakeholders in the ethical deliberations here. Feder is really good about being careful to think about things from the doctors' angle, from the parents', from the kids', even siblings. What were the doctors thinking as they made their recommendations? What motivated them? How were they harmed by what happened? What were the parents thinking? How were they harmed? How were the kids harmed? How were they benefited? What went right despite much going wrong? Feder excels at teasing out questions that aren't just lying on the surface (more on that in a bit). But to my mind, she missed a bunch about society and transfolk. How was society harmed, by having all examples of ambiguous gender people in it systematically altered and hidden, to present the appearance that gender and sex are more binary than they actually are? I think that Jane Schmoo in Kokomo, with no direct connection to intersex people, was harmed, in her own understanding of her own femininity, by being misled into thinking the lines between male and female are vastly less blurry than they actually are. Or consider Marilyn Roxie, a young genderqueer I mentioned the other day who designed the genderqueer flag, and takes they/them.  Imagine them growing up queer in a society with a much steeper gender binary than it should have. Trying to figure out how to make sense of themselves in a country where “he” and “she” are the only options, and any ambiguity must be surgically removed whenever discovered. Could they have used some non-binary role models? Maybe some of the “ambiguous” kids born in the 50s or 60s would have grown into people who embraced their androgyny by the time Marilyn was a teen trying to make sense of their own androgyny. (Indeed, notice that one of the few kids whose parents refused the surgery, DID grow up to be one of the non-binary hero/ines I mentioned last week, Hida Viloria). Maybe society would have been more tolerant of ambiguities in gender, if these hadn't been systematically effaced and hidden for decades. Maybe it would have been easier on Marilyn, growing up, coming out to themself, coming out to others, carving a space to be non-binary and genderqueer in daily life, if people understood, that yes this is a thing that happens, sometimes at birth and sometimes later. And selfish as it is, maybe it would have been easier for me. It's easy to see on the surface of things, that the intersex kids have been harmed, that their parents have been put into terrible positions, that the doctors themselves are not unscathed. But the problem is not JUST a personal matter of many individual cases. Part of the issue, that needs to be addressed is the systematic, programmatic nature of what was done for decades to thousands. These kids were robbed of their genital integrity, that is true and obvious, but we were ALL robbed of their witness to the wholeness of themselves, of the possibility of seeing how non-binaryness can play out in a normal life. As the Senate of Australia said when it looked into the intersex medical recommendations in 2013 “Normalising appearance goes hand in hand with the stigmatisation of difference.” We have ALL been wounded by this stigmatisation, even cis-binary folks, but especially the intersex folks and their families, and trans folks like Marilyn and I, who are trying to live non-binary lives.

Which brings to a related point, I want to emphasize. Every gender theorist needs to think long and hard about the intersex standards of care debacle, via Ellen Feder's book, or in some other way. If we make John Money into too cartoonish of a villain we can miss one of the points that is key for me. John Money's theory of the psychological development of gender identities was not stupid or thoughtless, and it reflected a kind of zeitgeist that was going around at the time. But his theory wasn't questioned hard enough. It wasn't criticized enough. People didn't think about it deeply and carefully enough. And in his and others arrogance, it was often applied as if it was simply fact, despite having remarkably little evidential basis. People wanted to believe it was so, it fit the mood and the cases on hand pretty well, so people didn't poke it too much. And the result was disastrous when it turned out to nonetheless be false. No, people's gender identity cannot be re-written by fiat if we catch them early enough. Gender is not simply in our social treatment of them, or the shape of their genitals, or their hormone structure, or their early childhood development. Take a boy, reshape his genitals, give him female hormones, raise him as a girl and hide his past from him, and do it all while he's an infant. Sometimes you'll get a well-adjusted adult woman - maybe. But, all too often, it turns out, you'll get someone who feels like a boy/man trapped in a girl/woman's body. (How does that not make you want to think about comparisons and contrasts with trans cases, sigh) Who will struggle his whole life with it. Who will feel deeply, unspeakably betrayed when he finds out what was done to him in the name of a theory of gender that had little evidence but that everyone sorta kinda wanted to believe. And that, or something like it, might wind up being the ultimate result of Judith Butler's theory of gender, or Kate Bornstein's, or Julia Serano's, or my own. This story is among other things a warning about what happens when plausible gender theories go badly wrong. It is not enough to be plausible, smart and thoughtful. We have to critique our theories of gender thoroughly, and we have to be humble about our results and the best guesses we wind up making at the end of the day.

OK third a compliment. What Ellen Feder does best is look at questions that you might not have thought to ask at first. She says at one point that she thinks philosophy is more about asking good questions, than it is about giving good answers. A great line, and also clearly her own strong suit. She actually has so many of them that I'm going to look at several chapter by chapter in a bit. But more generally, this is what I've really liked in the book so far. Also, Feder has done an impressive job to striving to keep her own baggage out of the mix, to try hard to look the situation in the face honestly, to gather information and perspectives without pre-deciding the outcomes. She wound up engaging in social research, trying to find people to interview and interveiwing them to get a better feel for their experience of and spin on events. She is not trying to simply make the doctors or John Money into cardboard villains, but to bring some nuance and charity to their perspective. She doesn't want to “let them off the hook” or “defend” them either, she wants to savor the complexities. Similarly with the parents. Years ago, she clearly couldn't tell if the parents were villains for making horrible choices, or tragic figures for being bullied into terrible choices, or victims themselves, or what, and wanted to reach out and hear the parents own understandings. She eventually advances a story in which none of our initial stabs at characterizing the parent's role in the affairs is exactly right, and that's very characteristic of her book.

Fourth, Ellen Feder really wants philosophy to be able to help make sense of what happened. She wants to help after the fact. So she throws a whole bunch of philosophers and philosophical ideas at the many interesting questions, to see what sticks. And the results are pretty hit and miss. But some of it sticks. This gives the text a difficult and academic style - let's apply some Foucault; how does Bordieu's idea of habitus help us here?; notice what happens if we look at this through the lens of Kittay's understanding of dependency work; fourth-order discussions of Butler's take on Merleau-Ponty's take on Malebranch, etc. This isn't going to be the first or last book written on this topic, and I really don't think Feder has the issues sewn up, or thoroughly sussed out yet. It is far better at questions than answers, but even on the answers front, there are lots of these little unsystematic advances and hints and leads and suggestions. She's ON to things, even if she's not really done, and I don't always agree with her. Her approach is still quite piecemeal. It's a credible, decent book, that later folks working on the topic (or Feder herself later on), need to read and think about, and follow up on. I have optimism that eventually a more synthetic, whole-topic way of understanding what happened will emerge, and when it does Feder will be cited a lot, and will seem like one of the steps along the way towards understanding the situation.

Ok, let's look a little more carefully at the first few chapters. The key question that emerges early in the book is “how did the bio-ethicists not catch this long before they did?” And the tentative answer that emerges is - that is just not at all how professional bio-ethics functioned in the US. Feder tells the story of Noam Chomsky (a linguist, by background), speaking at the Western meeting of the American Philosophical Association in 1969. “After giving a stinging attack on the American government for its pursuit of war and for its imperialism, and on the general dominance of a power elite wielding technological mastery that it proclaimed to be 'value-free,' Chomsky challenged the audience of philosophers: 'these are the typical questions of philosophy … philosophers must take the lead in these efforts.' Jonsen [the historian recounting this episode] rightly observes 'only a non-philosopher could believe that such issues had been 'typical questions of philosophy,' at least during its recent history.” Or perhaps, better, during its recent American history. The idea that social critique was one of the jobs of philosophers, and part of being a serious philosopher, was pretty normal in Europe all through the 20^th century, and Feder's many Continental thinkers referenced help to reinforce the point. But in the US, its hard to find influential professional philosophers engaged in real social critique after Dewey. It's no accident that, for example, Judith Butler has been in the “Critical Theory” program at the Department of Rhetoric and Comparative Literature, since 1993, rather than being housed in a philosophy department. Professional philosophers are expected to specialize more narrowly, and to publish extensively in specifically philosophical venues, and more general social criticism in the US is largely left to folks in literature or the media, or even to non-professional intellectuals and activists, such as bloggers like me, I suppose. Feder recounts the story of Hannah Arendt being scorned by an APA accreditation committee in the late 70s, as another historian recounts, she was considered “an unproductive drone because her works are not cited in important journals such as the Journal of Philosophy and Philosophical Review. Of course, she published regularly in the New York Review of Books (no obscure venue), had been on the cover of Time magazine, and was one of the most famous political thinkers in the world."  Hannah Arendt (!) was just not up to APA standards.  American professional philosophers just didn't see themselves as being involved in criticizing existing policies or practices, but rather as “assist[ing] in the formation of sound public policy by distinguishing appropriately different kinds of ethical theories and kinds of moral and political obligation” as one of the APA philosopher's replied to Chomsky's 1969 challenge for philosophers to be more engaged in social critique. And this spirit certainly extended into American reflection on professional philosophical bioethics as it emerged from the 60s to the 00s.

The second big, under-examined question, and the bulk of chapter 2, is roughly “Why did the parents choose something for their infants, that they would not have chosen for themselves?” Suzanne Kessler, one of the first humanities scholars to look hard at intersex issues in the 90s, actually did some experiments with college students to gauge people's reactions and opinions. In one study, women were asked to imagine that they had been born with extra-large clitorises, and men to imagine that they had been born with extra-small penises, and asked a bunch of survey questions about how they thought this would effect their lives, and whether they would have wanted their parents to approve of surgery to correct this at birth (or in the men's case reassign them as female at birth and perform infant vaginaplasty). Both men and women, responded that they didn't think having these genitals would have impacted their life much, and that they would not have wanted surgical alteration, especially if there was a risk such surgery would interfere with sexual pleasure as adults. 93-99% agreement, by the way. In a separate experiment, college students were asked to imagine instead that they had a baby who was born with an unusually large clitoris or small penis, and were presented with clitoral reduction, or reassignment as female and vaginaplasty as options. These students strongly, but not overwhelmingly opted for the surgical operations. Their reflections on why, focused on wanting their kids to be normal, and feeling that early surgery would be less traumatic than later surgery. They did not reflect at all on the risk of lost of erotic sensitivity. Lots of evidence show that actual parents of intersex children reflected similarly. Issues of normalcy and minimizing trauma weighed heavily in their minds when deciding at birth.  But issues of erotic sensitivity, identity, and being comfortable with one's own body regardless of variations from the norm, weighed heavily on them when they reflected on their relationship with their grown intersex children, or what they would have wanted, later on. So why the disconnect? It doesn't seem to be ill-will, or selfishness. The parents TRIED to reflect about what would be best for their kids. They just seem to have had this odd disconnect between what they would have wanted for themselves, and what they thought was best for their kids. Feder interviews a bunch of parents, and gathers some info, but doesn't really come to a conclusion. It isn't malice, or selfishness, or straight-forward lack of thought, we can say that. Similarly, the doctors certainly gave the parents partial information, and left out some of the key bits that might have impacted their decision, but that doesn't seem to be the heart of it either. Feder tries to apply Kittay's theory of dependency work, and argues that the dependency worker (in this case the parent), just isn't as “transparent” as we might hope. Our sense of what we “ought” to do, or our need to “do right by” the person who is dependent on us, just partially overwhelms our ability to empathize with them, identify with them, and imagine “what they would want” as contrasted with what feels dutiful for us.

The third big question is why do the doctors seem to care so much about genital shape and size? Especially given that college student respondents claim not to. Especially when some of the doctor's responses seem to indicate “disgust” or “revulsion” for abnormal genitals as part of the story. Here Feder, dives into Nietzsche, and argues that the doctors feel ressentiment, and thus in an odd way envy, for the infant's ambiguous genitalia. Grown cis, white, well off, male surgeons envying micropenises? Erk? Well, Feder takes a while to develop this line, and goes through some pretty dodgy bits of Freud, and interpretations of Nietzsche that I'm not necessarily completely in-line with, but the ultimate upshot guess is not as crazy as it sounds at first. The idea is that everyone – male or female, cis or trans, has to as a child learn to constrain themselves into a social gender role that is never going to be completely comfortable, or fit entirely correctly. Everyone experiences this as a loss to some degree or another. Once you take on the role of your gender as a part of your identity, it is not just a loss, but a sacrifice, a part of yourself that you have done your best to excise to be who you are socially, to fit into the required gendered molds. As Feder puts it “it is not simply that their bodies [the infants with ambiguous genitalia] point to a truth about what gender 'really' is, but also that those with such anatomies cannot do this thing that the rest of us must [fit into the gender binary] and for which we must sacrifice. That is why they are enviable. And that is why their “enjoyment” of ambiguity must be spoiled.” In a sense, it is like hazing. I had to do these things to fit into the gender binary, why should I let you get away with not doing the same or something parallel? I'm not sure I buy it, but I certainly suspect it's onto something. Somehow or another, I suspect the gender binary is both an important cause of this situation, and importantly reinforced by it.

Feder's fourth big question is “is there some form of subtle damage to the self, that intersex infants who are surgically altered suffer from that isn't captured by harms that have been explored so far – trauma, pain, discomfort, sensation loss, the psychosocial harms of secrecy, shame, resentment of parents, etc.” And yes she thinks there is. And she tries to apply Merleau-Ponty's theories of self (and more specifically Judith Butler's take on them), as well as the details of the life of an intersex fellow named Jim, to illustrate them. Again, I'm pretty unimpressed by the applicability of Merleau-Ponty, it's not wrong exactly, but I'm not sure it helps much. And I've read a bunch of different accounts of a pretty similar phenomena among trans people trying to understand or come to terms with who they are. Maybe I just trust regular folks reflecting on their own personal narratives, more than the psychoanalytic approaches of Continentialists trying to “apply” theories to the accounts of others. Jim describes his experience eloquently enough, without needing to bring a Frenchman into the mix to expertsplain him with.  But, again, Feder is definitely onto something here, the harms done at the level of self and self-understanding are deeper and subtler than a lot of the medical research is equipped to detect or make sense of.

Another great question Feder pursues in chapter 4, is how does the treatment of an intersex child impact siblings of the child? The question of impacts on the siblings of a child with disabilities, or chronic medical problems, were actually explored quite a bit in the 90s, and to good effect. But no one seems to have even asked the question with regards to intersex, not even the doctors or parents reflecting on making hard choices. On the other hand, it wasn't hard for Feder to find examples of siblings who had clearly been impacted. Again this is clearly a cool lead for further research and thinking.

OK, that's more than enough for now, I'll try to give a part two in a few weeks

Clavicula Mortonis – Being an Alphabetickal Compendium of Arcane Gender Lore

Agender – a person who feels neither male nor female, because neither masculinity nor femininity seem to apply to them. Especially if “none” seems closer than “a mix of both” or “in-between.” Seems fairly synonymous with nongendered, genderless, and null-gendered. Close to neutrois, but see it for more.  check here for more

Androgyne – an old Greek term for someone who combines male and female within themselves, that has been used for centuries. Sounds old fashioned these days, but still in use. It's my preferred label, although I like lots of others too. Androgynos was also one of the six gender categories in Jewish law.

Arenotelicon - A creature that alternates between male and female. This word is so obscure it is not even in the O.E.D.; as far as I know it occurs only in the Physiologus, an anonymous book of the early Renaissance. The Physiologus uses it to describe hyenas, which were commonly believed to change their sex every year. These days we'd probably say bigender or genderfluid.

'Aylonit – one of the six gender categories in Jewish law, for people who seem female at birth, but later seem pretty non-female. Literally means barren, but often used as a far more specific and extreme case of non-femaleness than what we would call barrenness in English.  For a modern trans rabbi's perspective check here, for more detail check here, or if you can access academic papers here, 

Baeddel – see scrat, also some folks on tumblr seem to be reviving this very old term, and I can't follow the 21st century issues well enough to comment.

Bigender – a gender identity where one has both a “male-mode” and a “female-mode” and shifts between them, and typically self-identifies as male in male-mode and female in female-mode. A crossdresser might behave similarly, but think of themselves as the same gender whether presenting male or female, a bigender person typically feels their identity switching as well. I was one for a while, but I'm pretty androgyne-all-the-time these days. Bigender is pretty close to genderfluid, but you tend to have two fairly discrete states, like a switch, rather than a whole flowing spectrum. Brin Convenient is a good example. I've seen the term trigender, but never met someone who described themselves to me that way.  For more info or community check bigender.net

Bisexual - when Charles Gilbert Chaddock translated Kraft-Ebbing's German book Psychopathia Sexualis into English in 1892 he picked the word "bisexual" to mean something like "sexually attracted to both genders."  The term has evolved since then, and you can find plenty of other discussions of it.  But BEFORE 1892ish it was a common English term meaning something like androgyne or hermaphrodite or having characteristics of each sex.  So you'll find it applied to people that don't fit nicely into the gender binary regardless of their attractions in lots of pre-20th century contexts.

Chaser, Admirer, or Transfan – slang terms for someone who is particularly attracted to trans people. Sometimes they are ppejorative terms, sometimes they aren't. It can be hard to tell if they're being used affectionately or insultingly.

Chian - Chios is the island in the Aegean right next to the island of Lesbos, which lesbians are named after (by analogy to the famous Greek Poet Sappho of Lesbos, who was probably bi, but oh well).  So a chian would be someone who isn't exactly a lesbian, but definitely in the vicinity ...

Cisgender, often shortened Cis – someone who thinks the gender assigned to them at birth fits them relatively well. It is never a slur or insult when I or most trans people say it. My lovely wife is cis, and I won't hear cisfolk badmouthed, OK?

Clavis – a fancy old word for a “glossary,” literally a “key.” I think it gives an elegant occultist feel to the standard old run down of terms that every discussion of non-standard gender or sexuality issues seems to be required to have, kinda like the Clavicula Salomonis. See also Gender Occultist.

The Clue Fairy – a well meaning spirit that repeatedly attempts to hit trans people living in denial over the head with a giant hammer, representing the repressed truth about themselves, until they finally start getting some of the clues through their thick skulls and coming out to themselves. Why do you take the extra time to peeing sitting down? Wham! Why do you insist on calling yourself a housewife? Wham! Is that gender dysphoria you feel when you look in a mirror? Wham! Why do you always pick female characters when playing video games? Wham! Your examples may vary.

Crossdreamer – Someone who regularly dreams or fantasizes about being another gender, or dressing, presenting or living as someone of another gender, but doesn't actually do much of any of that in real life. Yet.

Crossdressing – dressing in the clothes associated with the opposite gender regardless of motives. Very old practice, done in many cultures for many reasons.

Crossdresser / Transvestite – May mean someone who crossdresses even briefly for whatever reason, but may also mean someone who has regularly crossdressing as a part of their self-identity. In some cases we call someone a “crossdresser” because we don't know much about how they thought about themselves, we only know about their behaviour. Consider Marina the Monk (d. 508) or Ulrika Eleanore Stalhammar (1688-1733) who lived successful male lives for many years. In other cases, people self-identify as crossdressers or transvestites because it seems to fit their gender identity better than other terms, such as Eddie Izzard, who self-describes as a transvestite. The word transvestite is no longer polite in the US, where it was used for psychiatric conditions for so long that it now implies that you think someone's crossdressing is a psychological disorder, rather than a healthy lifestyle, but the word transvestite doesn't usually have these implications in British or Australian English. Someone who regularly crossdresses as part of a public performance will often identify and be called a Drag King/Queen instead, especially if they take an exaggerated gender role while performing. There are a lot of cultural differences between Drag folk and other crossdressers. The term “drag” dates to the 1870s, “transvestite” was coined in 1910, and the word crossdresser seems to appear in English first as a translation of the German transvestit in 1911.

Drag – see crossdresser

Epicene - partaking of the characteristics of both sexes; or common to both sexes; worn or inhabited by both sexes. Unisex. It's an old word that has been used for gender-non-conforming folks for centuries. Ben Jonson used it to mean something like 'effeminate'. Its Greek root means 'common,' and it shows up in descriptions of garments that either sex can wear, or places both sexes dwell ('Epicene...Convents, wherein Monks and Nuns lived together.' -- Fuller, c.1661). It's a good term for folks that think of themselves less as a combination of male and female, than as the greatest common denominator of male and female. I'll take this although I'm more mixed than common denominators only.

Eunuch – a term that either means a castrated servant in a royal household; or any servant, castrated or not, that you can trust your women with; or any castrated person; or any infertile male; or any impotent male; or any male who is impotent with women; or any male who has chosen to live celibately; or anyone of regardless of gender who has chosen to live celibately; or anyone born with ambiguous genitalia; or anyone assigned male at birth who then feminizes to the point of no longer being entirely male; or some combination of these categories depending on the century and culture it's being used in, and often the background of the speaker. The term has been in use for thousands of years, and I may or may not be one.  see my blog post, or wikipedia, or if you have access, dozens of scholarly articles ...

Furries - I'm not really qualified to speak here, but the furries I've known have been decent folk, and furries get made fun of, shit on, or have their conventions bombed a lot more than they should, so I feel obligated to say something.  My understanding is that there is a spectrum of identification from just being a fan of anthropomorphic animal art of various kinds (furry fandom), all the way up to feeling that one's "fursona" is a more authentic expression of themselves than their (what's the opposite furlessona?).  My understanding is that as with gender issues, there are analogs of crossdreamer, crossdresser, and transgender here (furdreamer, furdresser, and otherkin), with someone who regularly dresses in a fursuit often being called a furry lifestyler.  Sometimes there is a sexual component to furry fandom, often called yiff, (and things like pony play and puppy play are both historically older than furry fandom within alt-sex communities), but often there is only a minor sexual component, or none at all.  So it isn't necessarily about sex, or gender, but the analogs to the not-feeling-right-in-your-apparent-gender experience are strong enough that I've always felt furries were siblings to transfolk in an odd way.  

Galli – a priest/ess of the religion of the Cybele and Attis in the ancient world. They originated in Phyrigia, but were common throughout the Roman world for centuries. They castrated themselves and adopted many feminine mannerisms and dress habits publicly, and were commonly take to be a middle gender or third gender by their contemporaries, (medium genum, tertium sexus, etc.) although we don't have any self-descriptions of being a gallus/galla that I know of.

Gender Dysphoria – Dysphoria is an unpleasant feeling sorta between pain and sadness, kinda like discomfort but more or less intense. It can be as mild as a barely detectable niggling, or so intense you lay in a fetal position in your bed all day. If it's gender dysphoria, it will be tied to gender experience, presentation, and treatment in various ways. You might find that wearing a particular kind of clothing makes it worse, or alleviates it, or being called ma'am, or using particular mannerisms, or changing your appearance. Not all trans folks have it, and it isn't part of the definition or anything, but it is extremely common, and often a major clue that you are trans, and noticing carefully what seems to make it worse and better can be a big clue as to what kind of trans person you are.  It is also the APA's term for a new mental health diagnostic category, (here's the APA's official blurb on it). Here's a blog post about indirect ways it may manifest, 

Gender Identity Disorder – a US mental health diagnosis discontinued in 2013 on the grounds that having a gender identity other than what your birth certificate says you should have isn't a fucking disorder. Compare with homosexuality, which the US mental health system decided wasn't really a disorder in 1973, or habitual crossdressing AKA -Transvestic Fetish Disorder which was also discontinued in 2013.

Gender Occultist – One who is knowledgeable about the occult, hidden, secret, clandestine world of gender identities beyond the binary model of standard male and standard female, that we keep trying to tell anyone who will listen about so it won't seem so damn arcane and daunting to folks.

Gender Oracle - a person whom others approach to ask about another person's sex. It is well if the oracle can be persuaded to relish their role as an ongoing joke; more often, they dread it as a sticky social situation, and may transfer this discomfort to their client of not-entirely-obvious sex. In such cases the client is well advised to commiserate, pointing out that it is poor manners are on the part of the querant, to ask an oracle instead of the person themselves.  Coined by Raphael Carter, 1996

Gender Refusenik - a term for people denied SRS, whether due to lack of funds or psychological paternalism. All gender refuseniks are non-ops, but not all non-ops are refuseniks. Also 'gender otkaznik' for the Slav-savvy. Coined byRaphael Carter 1996, on the model of the Soviets who were “refused” permission of emigrate during the cold war (it didn't originally mean people who refuse to do something, but people who are refused permission to do something critical).

Genderfluid – someone whose feeling of their own gender shifts over time fluidly. They may feel quite male one day, and quite female the next, and may experience plenty of in-between (as opposed to bigender folk who tend to experience fairly discrete states of gender). Its not unusual for their preferred pronouns to shift along with their state. Genderfluid folks are genderqueer and transgender. Ruby Rose is a famous example.

Genderqueer - a catch-all category for gender identities other than man and woman, thus outside of the gender binary and cisnormativity. Non-offensive. A close synonym of non-binary. The word queer was associated with a certain political style in the late 80s and 90s, and aimed at reclaiming what had previously been an insulting term, so sometimes the term genderqueer inherits these political associations or sounds too close to an old insult. I identify as queer and genderqueer, but I'm actually pretty moderate on a lot of gender and sexuality issues, so I like the term non-binary a little better.

Hermaphrodite /Hermaphroditus – an old Greek term for a combination of male and female, that has come to mean many different things over the centuries. Sometime a child of Hermes and Aphrodite. Sometimes linked to statues of Aphrodite with male genitalia in the shape of a herm (pictured to the side). In some centuries it's a common term for what we'd now call non-binary or intersex people. Sometimes a technical medical term for conditions that very few humans fit, involving have both kinds of gonadal tissue. The term is still used in non-human biology a lot, (it's common in plants and snails, for instance), but it's usually avoided when talking about humans these days because it is taken to be loaded with specious or stigmatizing associations from various past uses.

Hijra – a category of third gender persons common in India. Often now called "transgenders" in Indian English (which is non-offensive in Indian English, although "transgender people" is more correct in US or British English).  See wikipedia, or say this article on recent legal victories for hijras

Homovestite - A person who obsessively, compulsively and neurotically wears the clothing of their own sex. Coined by Raphael Carter 1996

Intersex – I have yet to see a definition of this that really works. Roughly though, if your biology has a mix of male and female traits, other than just in your brain/identity, and the doctors notice it, and they don't think you are trans instead, they will label you as intersex. Only now it is often called DSD (Disorders of Sexual Development). Because you know, being a mix of male and female can't possibly be a healthy state, it has to always be medicalized as a disorder, and if it happens in the “body” it is a totally different thing that if it happens in the “brain.” Sigh. Many people with intersex biology are binary and cisgender in their own self-identity. And many people (like me) fit some of the formal definitions of intersex, but are not considered intersex because we are trans instead. Maybe this is it – if YOU decide your sex assigned at birth is wrong or oversimplified then you are trans, regardless of what the doctors think - if A DOCTOR decides that your sex assigned at birth is wrong or oversimplified or is “ambiguous” already at birth, then you are intersex, regardless of what you think about it. There are a lot of different kinds of intersex conditions and some of them really do have serious medical complications, like Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia, so it's inevitable and even desirable to medicalize gender biology issues in some cases. But 20th century America proved to be very bad at being ethical about when and how to medicalize unusual biologies of gender.  (OK I've got whole books on this, but I'm having trouble finding a good overview, I guess this news report is a start). Intersex people have very much been given a raw deal over the last several decades, so I hope I don't sound dismissive and my venom is not for them. Being trans, intersex, or coming from a culture that assigns people non-binary genders at birth are the three ways to wind up non-binary, although plenty of intersex or trans people are binary too.

M. - the goal of a gender neutral honorific substitute for Mr. /Ms./ Mrs./Miss, is a natural one. Some use Mx. (pronounced mix or mux), but I think M. is an elegant solution too, maybe it will even catch on some day.

Macaroni – an 18^th century British identity, where a male wore over-the-top fashions. Often they were ridiculed and accused of androgyny. Indeed, some seemed to aim for as much androgyny as they could get away with. Descendant of 15th-18^th century terms like fop, beau, gallant, popinjay, coxcomb, fribble, fashion-monger, and ninny. Precursors of the 18th-20^th century Dandies.

Mahu – a native Hawaiian non-binary gender category, a “third gender.” Often associated with hula dancing, or in general keeping old ways alive. Also sometimes other kinds of trans folk are called mahu now in Hawaiian slang by extension.

Molly – an 18^th century British identity that doesn't exactly map to modern notions of homosexuality, crossdressing or transgender, but is partly all three. Mollies congregated together in molly houses, which were usually also taverns and/or houses of prostitution. Mollies had a ritual called “lying-in” or “mock birth” in which they ritually imitated giving birth.

Neutrois – a person who identifies as neither male nor female. Especially if metaphors like “neutral” or “null” or “none” are closer than “both” or “mixed” or “none of the above.” It falls under the umbrellas of trans and non-binary and genderqueer. Many neutrois are happy to identify as agender too, others say they have a gender but it is somehow neutral, or neutered. Appears to have been coined in 1995 by H. A. Burnham.  See more here.

Non-Binary – not fitting into a two-fold system. In logics, it usually means you have more that 2 truth values. In gender, it means someone who identifies as something other than male or female. Genderqueers, Genderfluid folk, tumtums, third-gender folk, androgynes, neutrois, many two-spirits, and many more are examples. Transmen and transwomen are NOT non-binary though, and typically resent it if you treat them as not-a-real-man, or not-a-real-woman, or somewhere-in-between. Similarly some intersex people self-identify as non-binary, but many do not.

Otherkin - Folks who believe that they are non-human in identity, even if they are human in body. Sometimes they identify as elves or faeries.  Sometimes as animals, or anthropomorphic animals, in which case they may also be furries.  I've known a person or two who thought of themselves as dragons-in-human-form.  Angels, demons, shapeshifters, werewolves, vampires, aliens, cartoon characters, there are a lot of possibilities.  It may sound like a mental health problem, and it probably is sometimes, but I've known folks that were pretty non-delusional, and far closer to something like a religious or spiritual or self-discovery understanding of the sense in which this is true.  Oh and someone's non-human self-identity is likely to interact with their gender and sexual identities.

Pansexual – Some one who is attracted to people of “all” genders. A bisexual person who wishes to emphasize that gender identities other than male and female are attractive to them too.  Older dictionary definitions of bisexual often assume there are only two genders, but more recent definitions by self-identified bisexuals often allow attraction to many gender-identities and try not to assume there are only “two” genders, so usually if someone says pansexual instead of bisexual they are trying to emphasize non-binary possibilities.

Pronouns – It is polite to ask someone's preferred pronouns, and rude not to try your best to use them once you know them. They used in the singular is correct grammar, and the next most polite option if you don't know someone's preferred pronouns. Many non-binary people prefer he/him/his or she/her/hers or they/them/theirs. Some people prefer it, and if, so it is correct to use it. However, it is always inappropriate to call a person it, unless you are confident that it is its preferred pronoun. Non-binary folk often use ze/hir/hirs, and odder pronouns like zir, co, ey, xe, etc. are sometimes preferred. Do your best. Except zie, that's just wrong, see the entry on zie.

Radar -v. the stuttering of pronouns or honorifics owing to gender confusion. Named for Radar O'Reilly's invariable "sir, ma'am, sir" when addressing Major Hoolihan in the TV show M*A*S*H. Also suggests the scanning motion of the eyes that often accompanies the stutter. Coined by Raphael Carter 1996

Saris – one of the six gender categories in Jewish law, for people who seem male at birth, but later seem seriously non-male. Used largely for eunuchs in the Old Testament, but comes to seem closer to our modern notion of a transwoman later on.

Sib – a informal affectionate term for a non-binary person. Shortened form of sibling. Use it the way you would use bro, sis, dude, lady, mate, buddy, girl (for an adult), honey, sugar, etc. Homie and comrade are also gender neutral if either fit your style.  I wrote more here.

Scrat - Old English term for 'hermaphrodite' - “Hermafroditus, waepenwifestre, uel scratta, uel baeddel.” --AElfric, c.1000 (Waepenwifestre and baeddel have meanings similar to scrat, but seem not to have made it into Modern English in any recognizable form.) “Somtyme one of mankynde is both man & woman & suche..in englyssh is called a scrette.”--Caxton, Trevisa's Higden (1482) - The origins of the word 'scrat' are murky, but they seem to be somehow bound up with the Old Norse skratte, meaning wizard, goblin, monster. 'Old Scratch,' a nickname for the devil, is an alteration of 'scrat.'

Shemale – a terribly impolite term. From the mid 19^th to mid 20^th century it was used to refer to women who were considered too masculine in a pejorative way. By the 1970s it started shifting to being used to make fun of effeminate males and trans-folk. These days it is usually a rude term or a porn term for pre-operative MtF transsexuals, often fetishizing them for others' gratification. If you are tempted to use this term in psychology or reptile biology (as some people do), then don't.

They – a pronoun that has been used in the singular regularly since frickin' Chaucer. It fell out of favor in the 19^th century because prudes and chauvanists argued that using he for everybody regardless of gender was preferrable. They singular is a common pronoun of choice for non-binary folks, and it is not a new or edgy or incorrect use of this very old word, so get over that worry. I like ze though.

Third Gender – a phrase used to describe specific kinds of non-binary people who think of themselves as something other than male or female, like hijras, or fa'afafine, or the sworn virgins of the Balkans. A lot of times it's not necessarily how the people with the supposed third gender identity see themselves (like with the Kathoey), and a lot of times the local gender schema have more than three gender categories available (as in many Native American cases). There is a big danger of projecting our anthropological categories onto other people. Still, often it is an OK way to think about non-binary people. Richard O'Brien describes himself as being in a third gender between male and female. I'm happy to be called third gender, that seems like a decent way to cash out my in-between or mixed gender state.

Tranny – This was actually a polite term once. Long ago.  There are queerfolk who have been around a while that still use it affectionately.  But most transfolk in my experience find it offensive and impolite, here's a careful argument. Unless you are TRYING to degrade someone or sell degrading porn, or provoke a fight within the trans* community, don't use it. Oh and don't try to do any of those things either.

Transgender – 1) someone who thinks the gender assigned to them at birth doesn't fit very well how they think of themselves.

2) a broad term for many many kinds of “transgressive” gender identities.

Trans or Trans* - like transgender, but especially emphasizing inclusiveness and the second definition, and definitely trying to include trans-vestites, and crossdressers, and drag queens/kings, and intersex people, who might not feel they fall under the first definition of transgender above.

Transsexual – every definition I've seen of this is either identical to def#1 of transgender or has medical BS I don't like in it. I think it tends to be used especially for people striving to live and be accepted as the “opposite” sex of their sex-assigned-at-birth, and thus for binary trans-folk - transmen, transboys, transwomen and transgirls. It also tends to be used more for folk that use medical interventions like hormone or surgery. My sense has always been that as a non-binary person I don't count.

Transvestite – see crossdresser

Tumtum or timtum – a Hebrew category of gender from the Mishnas on (first few centuries CE). A person whose gender is not readily apparent, but might wind up being either male or female. Sometimes used as a slur against feminine males, or masculine females, but also used as a neutral category of Jewish legal thought, or even as a self-description. A baby can be tumtum. One who is questioning their own gender identity can be tumtum even to themselves. Someone who is trying to live with a gender presentation that leaves their biological sex in doubt to others might self-identify as tumtum.  Here's the awesome article.

Two-Spirit – a term for grouping a bunch of different Native American identities together (winjke, nadleehe, etc). Often they involve gender variance of some kind, but the lines between bisexuality, homosexuality, transgender, crossdressing, “third gender” and gender-non-conforming can get tricky and vary from tribe to tribe and be not natural concepts in the original languages. Instead of a gender binary for instance it is pretty common for Native American cultures to divide people into 4 types – masculine men, masculine women, feminine men, and feminine women. There is also a lot of evidence that contemporary two-spirit communities and self-understanding differ quite a bit from pre-contact or early-contact two-spirit communities and self-understandings. Its not unusual for a two-spirit person to think of themselves as non-binary in gender even if they seem fairly binary in gender to others.

Waepenwifestre – see scrat

Ze / hir / hirs – Another common pronoun set for genderqueer folk, especially in the Internet age. Hir is pronounced like “hear” or “here” not like “her.” Actually, the vowel in “hir” is just a little different than “here,” but like pin/pen or tin/ten, or bin/Ben, I can't hear the difference with my Midwestern ear and accent. I take this.

Zie / hir / hirs– the WRONG pronoun set, for all right thinking non-binary people. Those who use zie with an i, will be roasted over the flaming remains of their own genitalia of undisclosed shape, for all eternity in the afterlife. Don't let this tragic fate befall you, return to the path of righteousness and use ze without the i.

maybe I should include terms like demisexual, hyposexual, asexual, aromantic, panromantic, MSM, etc. etc. but my inclination is not to include sexuality identities that don't really have a gender component on my list.  Look terms like that up elsewhere.  Also, I've tried and failed to find a decent term for my own sexuality so I don't relish trying to explain the nuances of others.  Currently I joke, say I'm chian, and them give them the definition above when I get the blank look..