(no subject)

[sebastienne]

You know how there's no real consensus on the proportion of gay people in the world, and people regularly quote figures anywhere between 2% and 10%?

Well, I've been looking at statistics solidly for the last two weeks.

And, as far as I can tell - they're all right. It just depends on definition. There -is- a reliable trend emerging from the data, if you look at it in the right way.

Yes, ok, only 2-3% of all people identify as gay.

But 10% of all people identify as not heterosexual.

Ten percent. One in ten. That's the same proportion as left-handers! And I can only imagine that the figure will increase, with more and more bisexuals feeling able to express both parts of their nature, instead of funnelling themselves into heteronormativity...

Also, isn't the gender recognition panel just the coolest thing in the world ever?

My response really should be, "about bloody time, it's a basic human right"... but, I guess, when human rights are being eroded everywhere I look, I have a right to be bouncy about the few crumbs that they drop back to us.

Next step - abolishing gender binaries! Abolishing marriage as a legal contract (leaving "marraige" as a term which refers only to religious concerns) and establishing equal civil partenrships for everyone!

Comments

[glamwhorebunni.livejournal.com]

Civil partnerships for all and no gender sounds right. There shouldn't be a need for a gender recognition panel...

[glamwhorebunni.livejournal.com]

Until we get there, this is however a step in the right direction.

[liminereid.livejournal.com]

see, I could just be being dense/ devil's advocate/ stunningly-close-minded-and-heteronormative here but....what exactly is meant by abolishing gender binaries?
Linguistically I'm right with you. The idea of identifying something as feminine or masculine carries a whole range of connotations, usually somewhat reductive and demeaning in the case of things identified as feminine - ie sewing is such a feminine activity, childcare is such feminine work translates to get back to the kitchen and know your place.
Certainly also gender, in terms of how it's expressed by behaviour and clothing should be far more flexible. "She's a tomboy" Well, not really, she just likes trousers and climbing trees, doesn't mean that she does or should perceive herself as male and even if she does, it's up to her (for the sake of grammatical sense I'm sticking with the same pronoun)

But.....somethings have to be gender binary in someways. There are gaps in medical needs between men and women and there are biological differences and even if you overcome them with a sex change, the change and process is a medical switching from one to the other surely?
I'm going to stop now for fear people yell at me and that, having only just got up, I'm making no sense.

Though, on a trival note...what about public toilets if you got rid of gender binaries? Would you just have cubicles for all or what? Not that that would be a big deal but think of the queues....

[sebastienne.livejournal.com]

I'm not talking about any attempt to ignore biological differences... I am aware that there are biological differences between men and women, as between people of different races.

What I am talking about is the abolition of any ideas of what a man or a woman "should" do or wear or say or be, or even that a person should have to identify themselves as "man" or "woman". In effect, I agree with what you're saying above. My ideal is simply that people be treated as "people", in all their glorious diversity... not that we become some homogenised mass without distinction between us.

And if all toilets were unisex? There would still be the same number of toilets in the world, and the queues would be reduced for those who currently use the ladies'. Cubicles for all? Perhaps. But in a gender-blurred future, why does it matter if someone who happens to have an "innie" should see someone else's "outtie"? there'd be no difference between an "innie" seeing an "outtie" and an "outtie" seeing an "outtie".

[sebastienne.livejournal.com]

exactly. it's not utopia, but it's a step closer.

[liminereid.livejournal.com]

Though inevitably there are situations in which some amount of homogenity is necessary. Though I'd have thought the dividing line for those would have to be drawn more carefully, taking in class, race, age etc etc. For the functioning of a state, under the current system, people have to be considered in mass groups sometimes. But I can see your point that for individual world view such generalisations are unnecessary.

Unisex toilets would be fin the issue I think would come from shyness as much as anythign else. Even if you can educate a world to think every one is an individual with slight differences in certain areas, I'd imagine there are still people who would have issues with, say, walking past a urinal to get to a cubicle, at least initially. I would have thought it was a privacy thing? But then again. that could just be me being and girl and uptight, cos presumably urinals are no issue for blokes and they don't get self conscious.

[sebastienne.livejournal.com]

If you'd been brought up in a world with girl-urinals in, and had learnt that this was "the way you do things", do you think you'd have the same shyness?

I'm not talking about making a switchover to a genderless society tomorrow; this is simply my upotian future vision. I imagine it will come on slowly, incrementally, if it comes on at all.

And, yes, homogeneity is useful for statistics and generalisations. Which are useful on a governmental, policy-making level... but, as you say, not on an interpersonal level. The more we can treat each other as human beings, and not examples of types, the better. I think. I could be the one being naive here, you know.

[liriselei.livejournal.com]

cos presumably urinals are no issue for blokes and they don't get self conscious

<falls over laughing>
there is a whole world of male urinal-etiquette and self-consciousness issues...

[foreverdirt.livejournal.com]

Are these publically available stats? I'd be interested in seeing the data.

[sebastienne.livejournal.com]

it's more, i've read loads and loads and loads of papers on the topic over the last couple of weeks, and the average that seems to come out again and again is approx. the above.

[sushi-radical.livejournal.com]

The gay clubs I've been in tend to have unisex toilets, and it doesn't seem to cause any negative issues there...

[sebastiality.livejournal.com]

Where did these statistics come from? I never signed anything that confirms my sexuality as gay. How do they know? Do they monitor google image search? There's probably some shockingly obvious explanation.