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Gov. Paterson signs order protecting state employees against gender identity discrimination:

From the Office of Governor Patterson:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
December 16, 2009

GOVERNOR PATERSON SIGNS GENDER IDENTITY AND EXPRESSION EXECUTIVE ORDER

Executive Order Will Protect State Workers from Discrimination Based on Gender Identity

Governor David A. Paterson today signed Executive Order No. 33 that will prohibit New York State agencies from discriminating against any individual on the basis of gender identity and expression in any matter pertaining to employment by the State. Executive Order No. 33 directs the Office of Employee Relations, in consultation with the Executive Director of the Division of Human Rights, to develop and implement clear and consistent guidelines prohibiting gender identity and expression discrimination by all State agencies.

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Currently, 13 states and over 90 municipalities and counties - including the City of New York - prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity and expression by statute, and numerous others have imposed such a ban through executive action or policy.

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Gender-test runner Semenya to keep gold medal, says South Africa: South African runner Caster Semenya will be allowed to keep the gold medal she won in the women's 800-meters at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin, Germany, in August, the country's sports ministry announced Thursday. In a statement on their official Web site the ministry added that Semenya had been found innocent of any wrongdoing but the widely anticipated results of gender tests conducted would not be made public. "We have agreed with the IAAF that whatever scientific tests were conducted legally within the IAAF regulations will be treated as a confidential matter between patient and doctor," the statement read. "As such there will be no public announcement of what the panel of scientists has found. We urge all South Africans and other people to respect this professional ethical and moral way of doing things."

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Now they decide to keep this confidential? Have they not already ruined her career and life in the public eye?

This Is What Happens When You Switch Your Major From Engineering To Linguistics…

I have recently decided to change my major from Biomedical engineering to a double major in Linguistics and Neuroscience. Excited to actually study something that I find enjoyable, I have been spending every minute of my day procrastinating by trying to memorize what Wikipedia has to say about linguistics and neuroscience. Also I have been reading and have finished In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and the Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build A Perfect Language by Arika Okrent. An astoundingly interesting book and a must read for anyone with a slight flair for language. My further meanderings into procrastination led me to attend UNC Chapel Hill’s LGBT student group’s meeting last Thursday where the topic was Trans 101 (I have to express my dearest apologies for I have forgotten the presenters surname, first name is Mandy). After which I felt that using gendered pronouns was now akin to hate crimes.

Yet instead of being inspired to fight for and rally for LGBT equality with civil disobedient vigor, I couldn’t help wondering that explicitly asking if one preferred male or female pronouns was a bit long-winded. Then a small voice inside my head uttered "the neuter case!" (which is common in the other Germanic languages). We would simply need to turn back the clock to old English where there was a plethora of pronouns. So just as we might say the gendered 'he' or 'her' we would say neutered 'hit.' We could even introduce different new and artificial pronouns for gender identity and expression; as well as transitions and intersexes and so on. There by mapping the English language to the current need for equality and representation.

Though ultimately this would not bring about equality though language, like Ludwik Łazarz Zamenhof hoped to do with his Esperanto, but it would make the tool that is language more, in a way, ergonomic. Yet such an overhaul is simply a flight of fancy; I do not expect nor actively entertain the idea that grammarians could be the new LGBT activists though I will certainly be a linguist of the movement. So now I leave you dear reader to write your next rally speech in old English.

Every Duke Gay Should Know #1: 2007 Addition of "Gender Identity" to Duke's Non-Discrimination Policy

In 2005, Duke University's LGBT Task Force formed a committee to research and advocate for the extension of the university's nondiscrimination policy to transgender individuals. The committee examined policies favored by other states, corporation, and peer institutions, such as Yale, Harvard, Stanford, and Princeton. After ten months of research, it issued a report, recommending that the university protect transgender members of the university community from discrimination based on "gender identity or expression." In February 2007, the board of trustees approved an update to Duke's statement of equal opportunity that included the words "gender identity." It also voted to change the wording of the section covering LGBT individuals to refer to "sexual orientation" rather than "sexual orientation or preference," to reflect the evolution in the ways that sexual orientation is understood.

Sounds great on paper, right? Fast forward to August 30, 2007, when a parent's complaints resulted in the eventual relocation of a transgender student from a West Campus dorm to an off campus apartment.

So I ask myself, how far is our university willing to go to protect a transgender student? Is it really just an advocate until the threat of a lawsuit arises? What does the fact that it took three years for the inclusion of "gender identity" to be voted on by trustees say about our university's willingness to pioneer the way for LGBT student rights? What does our administation's response to the transgender student's housing situation only months after the nondiscrimination policy was officially changed say about the weight of this commitment to equal rights?

Two years later, as we look ahead to the construction of a new dorm wing on West Campus, with no administrative mention of active measures being taken to ensure that the new housing options will accomodate transgender students...how much has really changed?

"Oh Hell No! Grrl, hold my earrings."

I wear earrings. Not studs. Not diamonds. Earrings. Big gold hoops, loud peacock feathers, pearls, the stuff you see hanging from the ears of prostitutes and high-fashion models (or at least that’s what I channel when I wear them). They are flashy, gaudy and, in a word, extra. Do I wear them for attention? Maybe. But do I genuinely believe that they are hot and that I look fierce as hell in them? Hell yea. They are how I want to present myself to the world. However, they are not how many in the world believe I should present myself. I get the most glaring of stares from many people on campus.

I never understand this. If, as a society, we are so attached to gender roles why would we cast out the gay individual who identifies with a non-normative gender? In an odd way, that almost completes the circle and normalizes the individual. I am attracted to men. I have a gender expression that is largely feminine. That is fairly normative within the crazy bounds that society is enforcing. While I find this intriguing, I am simply stating an observation and not making an argument for the normalization of non-normative sexualities and gender expressions as long as they still uphold traditional male and female roles. I personally believe that gender and sexuality are not linked in any way and that both are fluid and do not fit into any kind of binary. I sense that the general public is beginning to grasp an understanding of sexuality outside of the binary that we have created and to not believe that one sexuality is more "natural" than others. Yet gender is still seen as a largely biological category. That it is not. Gender is a performance, and I for one am no back-up dancer who is relegated to the standard role.

Everyone on campus knows I’m gay. I am very vocal about it and anyone who’s talked to me knows that my gay identity is central to my personhood. While I do hear disparaging remarks and slurs directed at me on a fairly regular basis, they are usually unoriginal and uninspired and I simply brush them off. However, the attacks I receive about my gender expression are much more extreme. These are difficult to ignore. These are the ones that make me lose sleep at night. These are the ones that make me second guess myself in the mirror every morning, pondering whether or not to “butch” up my image.

When it reaches that point of the day that I have had enough of the stares and the snickers and I am seconds from calling out the person on the C-1 for giving me their stank face, the sorority girl turns to me and goes “cute earrings, where did you get them?” Then I talk to the cashier at Chick-Fil-A who compliments me on my new pair and we have a short conversation about fashion and shopping. At the end of the day many people see me as the raging homosexual who is deviant from the natural laws of the penis that define the boundaries of my masculinity. However, there are also many who see me as a trend-setting genderqueer with a social message to bring to the Duke community. It is these conversations that come out of the most unlikely of situations that reassure that progress is being made and that despite all of the negativity in the world, we can construct communities of positivity and love.