Ken Wickham's Blog

The author’s opinion and short writings concerning recent issues concerning androgyny, androgynous, and gender non-conformity. This issue topics include the first recognized USA non-binary person, 2015 Word of the Year – singular ‘they’, a tribute to David Bowie and Prince, recognition of two screwed up states and a one finger salute to one especially, a theoretical question is posed “Do you believe that there is an androgynous voice?”, and Part 3 of Introduction to Androgynous Appearance, and another website is evaluated.

The next in the series is available 99 cents.

Synopsis

The author’s opinion and short writings concerning recent issues concerning androgyny, androgynous, and gender non-conformity. This edition topics include Zoolander No 2 mocking gender ambiguity, True Life: I am Genderqueer, Part 2 of Introduction to Androgynous Appearance, Theory – Mocking: Social Comparison Theory, and a review of Genderfork.com.

Sphere: Androgyny #2

In the next Zoolander, Benedict Cumberbatch play’s the androgynous model, All (1). This character is supposed to represent neither a male or female, but All genders. Sarah Rose (2) created a boycott petition which has garnered almost 19,000 signatures as of today (3).

At one point one of the main character makes an inference of questionable genitals, in that character.

Additionally, Cumberbatch’s character is clearly portrayed as an over-the-top, cartoonish mockery of androgyne/trans/non-binary individuals. This is the modern equivalent of using blackface to represent a minority.

I don’t think that the Stiller is wishing to present non-binary gender to help spread the awareness. To me, it seems him and the producers, which is the company ran by himself Red Hour Films, are just attacking a minority that many people know about, because they think that they can get away with doing so. Writer Justin Theroux, who wrote the screenplay to Tropic Thunder, is listed as the writer of the film.

Reading the responses on the YouTube video trailer clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CL4LNWHegk with 14.5 million views so far, and reading the comments posted below so far reveals there are many supporters as well as the idiotic hatred of those who don’t want to treat gender non-conformity, non-binary, transgender, transsexuals, and and even gay/lesbian/bisexual/queer with dignity.

True, they have the right to speak out and make crap like this in their movies.

Others have the right to speak out against the crap, and call it crap when it is indeed crap.

[ 1 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/zoolander-2-benedict-cumberbatchs-cartoonish-transgender-character-prompts-call-for-film-boycott-a6743891.html ]

[ 2 https://twitter.com/maybesarahrose ]

[ 3 http://www.thepetitionsite.com/549/222/494/boycott-zoolander-2-for-its-offensive-representation-of-non-binary-individuals/ ]

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I published a 99 cent writing that I called Sphere: Androgyny named after the early non-binary website Sphere and the first paper from Sandra Bem on Androgyny.

Putting it in the transgender section is something I decided against since it also includes some other topic information. I plan on beginning another one for winter if I can.

The author’s opinion and short writings concerning recent issues concerning androgyny, androgynous, and gender non-conformity. This edition topics include Pansexual: Miley Cyrus, Young people don’t believe gender is binary, T and LGB petition to remove, Part 1 of Introduction to Androgynous Appearance, Missing History of ToG, National Transgender Discrimination Survey 2015 (NTDS), Art: Divine Androgyne, and Review: Nonbinary.Org.

For NaNoWriMo 2015, I wrote a collection of short stories, which are prequels to the story I wrote last year.

Miley Cyrus recently revealed more about her relationships and view of her sexuality in Elle UK’s October 2015 edition. While this may be the first many have heard of Pansexuality, the term has been used for at least the last 100 years.

“I’m very open about it – I’m pansexual. But I’m not in a relationship. I’m 22, I’m going on dates, but I change my style every two weeks, let alone who I’m with.”(1)

How does this fit in with Androgyny you might ask. Gender wise, almost half of non-binary people sexual orientation or romantic attraction can be described as bisexual, pansexual, or queer. This article is for that non-binary half. Pansexual, although more prevalent now days, has been around many years.

Pansexual was a term many times used with Freud’s Psychoanalysis doctrine and dogma in the early 1900s (2), explaining the domination of the subconscious mind by sexuality – in which people are ‘gratified with any sex-object with any maneuver.(3)

In the early 60s, it was used in a study to describe a group of rats that chose mates that were male, female, and juvenile.(4) They were described as male rats behaving in feminine manner, rarely contenting against the other dominate rats. The article doesn’t say how many times that they actually did content with dominant status rats, which can only be assumed was a few times. Interesting to note, this study also found homosexual, asexual, and transgender behaving rats. Interesting enough, the article calls asexual rats ‘somnabulists’, and likens them to healthy & attractive zombies. And the study found violent rats, which it calls probers. They would stay in the middle, be very active, hypersexual, violent, and canabalistic.

It was also used in the mid 60s sexual revolution movement.(5)

In the 70s, one writing explained that human’s are inherently a pansexual creature, capable of responding to a variety of sexual stimuli…every sexually responsive person could respond to every other sexually responsive individual if it weren’t for aversion reactions’ and that shifts occur throughout the lifetime of individuals.(6)

One article that sticks out for me is from April 1, 1974 edition of the New Yorker by Judy Klemesrud entitled ‘The Bisexuals” which was written during a period of time when sexuality was ‘in’ or becoming popular. In that article, they list several popular celebrities and historical people that were reportedly open to more than one sex or gender.

Reading that article, I wondered if Miley Cyrus’ article spawned any similar response – a desire to list celebrities that are pansexual. The need to know who else is this way. Or is Miley the only one.

Most pansexuals will never be known outside of their inner circles.

Even in this old study, behavior similar to human behavior. The violent and sexual in the middle chasing, fighting, and sexually pursuing the others until even up to death.

Ken Wickham

References

(1) [ http://www.elleuk.com/now-trending/miley-cyrus-interview-october-2015%5D

(2) [ https://www.google.com/search?q=%22pansexual%22&tbs=bks:1,cdr:1,cd_min:1800,cd_max:1945&lr=lang_en&gws_rd=ssl%5D

(3) [ https://books.google.com/books?id=yLC2AAAAIAAJ&q=%22pansexual%22&dq=%22pansexual%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAzgUahUKEwie2un1rqbIAhXQr4AKHQ3rDHw%5D

(4) [ Calhoun, J. (1964). Over Crowding in Rat Colonies. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. https://books.google.com/books?id=_wcAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA4&dq=%22pansexual%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDwQ6AEwBzgUahUKEwie2un1rqbIAhXQr4AKHQ3rDHw#v=onepage&q=%22pansexual%22&f=false%5D

(5) [ https://books.google.com/books?id=XVYEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA89&dq=%22pansexual%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CD8Q6AEwBzgKahUKEwjyjdamuqbIAhWShA0KHfVQBvE#v=onepage&q=%22pansexual%22&f=false%5D

(6) [ Freedman, M. (1971). Homosexuality and Psychological Functioning.

https://books.google.com/books?id=9B0bAAAAYAAJ&q=%22pansexual%22&dq=%22pansexual%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CC8Q6AEwBDgKahUKEwjyjdamuqbIAhWShA0KHfVQBvE%5D

A forum topic – which was a collection of non-binary links that I began back in 2006 – was the seed of what has become The Other Genders book. That information lead to what became a PDF file. The PDF file lead to the first printing of the book four years ago.

This year, I have finally updated the book, focusing on certain sections.

I am very happy with the theory chapter. That chapter answered so many questions missing from the first book, and has become more important than the statistics that made up the first book. The statistics I condensed to a more understandable handful – without all of the analysis and number crunching.

As my motivation to continue sways and halted for working on the ebook, now I am preparing to take what is there and put it into a print edition. I am working on the keyword index now.

I don’t know when I will finish. Hopefully October will be the month.

Ken

Social Cognitive Theory

One bridge from the internal cognitive identity world to the external social world is social cognitive theory. It is a departure from behavioral reinforcement theory. Social cognitive theory is the theory that people learn gender through observation and imitation. Bandura said that people pay attention to (observe) certain people (models) that they find interesting (recognizing and differentiating features), and they record into memory (encode) their model’s behavior. Later, they may retrieve that recorded and retained memory by reproducing a copy (imitate) of that behavior themself, based on the degree of similarity between their self-description (identification) and the model. Behavior may be rehearsed or practiced. Thus, a person goes through processes of acquisition and then performance of matching behavior (Bandura, 1969). This theory states that behavior is internalized through identification, reinforcement, self-evaluations called ‘degree of similarity’ – similar to Rodger’s self-concepts of current-ideal-ought-real-true self judgements. A person’s self-description is very similar if not identical to Kohberg’s self-concept, identification, and schema.

Universal Theory

Later theorists examine gender creation from both a cisgender and transgender point of view, to try finding the similarities, rather than differences, for how all people develop gender.

One recent theory (Tate, Youssef, & Bettergarcia, 2014) based on personality theory, says that all people self-categorize at a very early age. It says also that there are two myths concerning gender in modern society. One being that self-categorization is binary, and the other being that gender identity is an active process only for the transgender community.

The idea that all people self-categorize at a very early age has been known since, at a minimum, 1966 (Kohlberg) – nearly fifty years ago – as explained earlier in this chapter. Bem, as mentioned earlier provided evidence for a non-binary gender.

The article also presents a ‘bundle of constructs’ model for gender which includes a) assignment, b) current gender identity, c) gender roles and expectations, d) presentation, and e) gender evaluation. I have already discussed b through c and e earlier in this chapter. The others, a and d i will discuss in the next chapter, as well as type of non-binary and aspects of gender chapters.

21.) Your guy friends don’t believe you when tell them that even though you look and act feminine, that you are not gay.

I hear this one sometimes. I have seen it for female born non-binaries as well when talking about looking or acting masculine. I sorta common for both when and is a fear that many times prevents one from trying any behavior, even if they might want to express something.

One study several years ago states that many people have a negative prejudice towards gender non-conforming people and link perceived femininity or masculinity in people as indicators of orientation, meaning gay and lesbian. (Reese, Doyle, & Miesch, 2006) Lxvii

How do you describe someone?

You can use nouns to describe who they are? He’s a _____, and she’s a ____. Nouns used for people, only classify them into groups.

For a non-binary person, one might say, “Zie is an androgyne,” or something like that, using a gender neutral noun.

Many nouns have gender qualities.

Jerk, asshole, dick, bitch, cunt, bastard, jerk, bimbo

Zie – used in the sentence above – is one of the gender-neutral human pronouns.

Beyond the use of gender neutral nouns and pronouns, is possible gender neutral adjectives.

Based on: Lix, LX

Binary gender have some adjectives such as beautiful, pretty, vivacious, cute, handsome, manly, feminine, and masculine.

Many non-binary adjectives can be used despite the existence of binary adjectives.

For example: You look good (great, awesome, fantastic, wonderful, good-looking, sexy, hot)!

Some people try to de-gender binary adjectives. My concern is this. In attempting to de-gender a binary adjective, one may inadvertently misgender someone else, if a mutual understanding is not present.

Sometimes attributes that fall into the non-binary become targets with vulgar, insulting, and disrespectful comments and insults.

LX Feisty, bitchy, fake, whiny, asshole, slutty, cocky

Adjectives sometimes have qualities of gender. Pejorative use of insults can be used by sexists and genderists.

Having looked at non-binary words used in language, we will now look at a historical timeline of modern non-binary history beginning with Sandra Bem in 1974.

19 How Non-Binary Gender can help the world.

19.1 Military Members in need of psychological help.

In a recent article by Danforth and Wester (2014), the authors explain the conflict that those in the military face in and after servicing in the Armed Forces. Masculinity is defined in terms of “emphasizes honor, integrity, selfless service, duty, and courage in the face of adversity”. When soldiers develop psychological issues, due to their service, combat, and life during and after service, the culture breeds hostility towards seeking help. Those that seek help can be seen weak, rely on others, and a failure, in a culture that places greatest value on success and strength.

In a non-binary world, seeking help for psychological trauma due to military conflicts would not be seen as weak and a failure. Rather it would be seen as a way to strengthen, face fear, and insure success in future endeavors both in and out of the military service.

The culture tries to ensure that you will not let down your fellow soldiers by being weak. Denying the ability to receive adequate help increases the likelihood of suicide.

The social norm in the military is violence and aggression. Harm the opposition in order to win the conflict. Celebration reinforces the harming of opposition. Discipline deters those who do not harm the opposition.

The culture of collectivism also deters troubled members from seeking individual help, rather than considering the goals of the group.

The military creates a climate where seeking psychological help has not been conducive towards an ideal battle force. Social stigma hangs on those not tough enough to control their psyche. A fear of being unfit for duty or questionable military record history reinforce the social stigma.

In a more non-binary world, even the most successful war hero can receive the needed psychological help needed to cope in day-to-day society during and after military service. One where masculinity is not in question if help is sought.

Ken Wickham – The Other Genders

Source: Lindsey Danforth and Stephen Wester (2014), Gender-Sensitive Therapy With Male Servicemen: An Integration of Recent Research and Theory Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, © 2014 American Psychological Association, Vol. 45, No. 6, 443–451

Recent Updates:

For three times since chapter one, I have circled back to the neurobiological evidence of transsexuals, after which saying there is no studies on non-binary gender people. I did so intentionally.

I am not a neuroscience expert. I am not even a medical student. My interpretation is limited to my understanding as a reader. I am only using what evidence was presented in the journals. I do so, because in my view, the evidence points to androgynous gender existing. And there is in fact a spectrum of masculine and feminine gender that overlaps. You decide for yourself. They do not claim this in the article and probably were not looking for such claims.

BSTc again

If the size of the BSTc creates gender, then what did the studies reveal? I mentioned the results earlier. Here is a link from endocrine.org  to one of the pictures shown in the study. In the picture is four different BSTc neuron pathways: a) is male, b) is female, c) is homosexual, d) is one male-to-female transsexual. B and D are near the same number of neurons and  is what the article is primarily claiming. This is evidence of a binary gender system? Or is it?

http://press.endocrine.org/na101/home/literatum/publisher/endo/journals/content/jcem/2000/jcem.2000.85.issue-5/jcem.85.5.6564/production/images/medium/eg0406564002.jpeg

There is more information provided. Lets look at the other diagram, recording the number of neurons of the sampled. This diagram, I never looked at when I read the study the first few times, and maybe others haven’t as well.

M is Male Hetero, HM is male homosexual, F is Female, and TM is Transsexual Male-to-female.

http://press.endocrine.org/na101/home/literatum/publisher/endo/journals/content/jcem/2000/jcem.2000.85.issue-5/jcem.85.5.6564/production/images/medium/eg0406564001.jpeg

Yes, the MTF transsexuals are in the female range. but look at something else.

Around 30×103 neurons, all of the genders overlap. The horizontal lines in the diagram are the averages for each group, which is what they were referring to in the study. The average female size – around 20×103 neurons is nearly identical to the average transsexual woman size, and not similar to the male – which is at 40×103 neurons.

When I look at the data diagram, I see a gender spectrum rather than a binary gender. Is the area around 30×103 neurons in the BSTc the area of non-binary gender?

INAH3 again

What about this study? http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/brain/131/12/3132/F7.large.jpg

Yes, the averages are different, as the study claims, however look at the overlap.

Another overlap at around 30,000 cells/mm3.

AR CAG repeater again

Look at the CAG repeater evidence. Notice the control (males) 12 to 15 repeats and the transsexual 28 to 36 repeats in the AR.

Then what is the 16 to 27 that has both control (males) and transsexual.

https://kenwickham.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/31696-numberofcagrepeatsinarcropped.jpg

Non-Binary Biological evidence 

Here is a visual representation of what the evidence is saying simplified. The diagram is very abstract, and I am not trying to replicate exactness. See the links if you want to see realistic representations.

When I read the summary and conclusion of the reports I thought two different sized or number of features. In my mind I expected gender to closely separate around these two separate points.

[image error]

Then, when I saw the evidence I thought it was like A at first glance. I wondered what happened at the circle. The more I looked the more I saw B, with gender mixing at certain points.

Bem said that around 30 percent of people are androgynous. This looks like a visual evidence of such claims, that is if the two parts of the brain and the DNA link are found to be true indicators of gender, even without experimenting on non-binary people.

My inexpert claim is, what happens at the BSTc 30×103 somatostatin neuron number,  INAH3 30×103 cells/mm3, and AR CAG repeats of 16 to 27 shows evidence for androgynous gender existing across all sexes, in the brain and DNA, if the transsexual brain cause theories prove to be true.

This might mean that binary people must be binary, and androgynous must be androgynous.

The evidence even shows some transsexuals are included in this range. In the next chapter, we will find that there are people that obtain sexual reassignment surgery that still identify as non-binary. Also, another survey shows evidence of transsexuals identifying androgynous in the spectrum XLX.

Again I add, there have been no neurobiological studies on non-binary gender people. If done, and if they deviate from my own inexpert claim, that would be interesting in itself, if studied over the long-term.

In the author’s opinion, it would be more interesting if non-binary gender wasn’t limited to this area of the brain. If non-binary gender can spread without limits, is more exiting then if its just a specific brain condition.

Much has been said about the origin and use of the word “transgender” for the entire community.

Most articles site Megan Davidson’s article debating the inclusion or exclusion within the word transgender. The main argument is over the current inclusion of gender dysphoria as a necessary medical condition, or breaking the binary and making it optional. Insurance coverage linked to a necessary condition and procedure, or optional and less likely to be covered, seems to be a main issue of contention. Also, the binary gender system can be source of contention, with transgenderists and non-binary wanting to break it, and a portion of transsexuals wanting to affirm it. Some see non-transsexuals as the “new people” thwarting to take over the movement and progress, because cisgender people can’t readily understand them (2007).

After Davidson and other wrote about transgender, the DSM in 2012 changed Gender Identity Disorder to Gender Dysphoria, in order to allow Non-Binary and Transgender individuals, who fit in-between, access to hormones and surgeries.

Ross summarizes later, after the re-categorization of the DSM, the major writings covering the umbrella term contention from multiple perspectives. And explains how some transsexuals feel that non-binary and transgender people undermine and threaten their credibility and ability to be taken seriously. The most serious threat coming from those desiring hormones or surgery, yet not transitioning fully to the opposite sex (Academia.edu).

The best information concerning the history of the word transgender that I have seen, rooted in historical documents, coupled with heated replies, is Cristan William’s guest blog The Rise of “Transgender” at The Bilerico Project (Williams, 2011). Evidence is presented for Tran-person communities trying to join together during the 70s and 80s, and beginning to establish by the 90s. Reading the reader comments supplements the blog entry with further evidence, heated debate, and expanded dialogue with readers.

Sources: x, xi, NTDS

Next, one can analyze the non-binary state of being of ‘out’ or coming out to others.  The NTDS reports that gender non-conforming transgender persons are the least of the transgender sub-population to be out to family members at 35% versus the average of 57%. The report attributes this large percentage to the vast amount of college age non-binary gender persons. They haven’t had enough time to come out to parents, and are more likely to be single. Of these, a third will be rejected by their parents because of their gender identity, most likely conservative parents.

For this reason, I believe coming out may be less important to younger non-binary gender persons than cross-dressers and transsexuals, since they do not have as many established families, work relations, community neighbors, and social groups to have to explain themselves. They are more likely to be developing friendships around their emerging or established gender identity.

About 20% up to 30% have not told anyone. Of those that have not told anyone, half have just realized that they are non-binary.

Non-binaries are having a rough time telling family members and other community members. In other words, their coming out to their best friends and partners okay, but not to their family. Some are even talking to therapists and medical providers.

Most non-binary people – about 50% to  60% – are out of the closet with 3 or more people, most likely best friends and partner.  Many have only told closest friend. Again this shows the focus of non-binary coming out is best friends and partners.

Rarity and lack of local community structures could be one cause of such isolation, when compared to more “out” communities.

I think interesting that despite this lack of “coming out”, expressive non-binary genders have the potential to be “out” by not “passing”. Passing for most in the community is not a goal nor desired.

Certainly those that blur gender expression are always out.

Only a third seem to be out to everyone important.

From this list, I categorized the main aspects as Psychological or Cerebral, Social Cultural Behavioral, Communicative, Biological, and Dressing and Appearance.

The first one, Psychological or Cerebral aspects are based on thinking, plus a little bit of gender roles, gender behavior, gender identity, character, and values & virtues factors. It seemed as though psychological aspects are most important to non-binary people.

Next, Social Cultural Behavioral aspects comes from gender roles,  gender behavior, gender identity, socially, and intimate relationship factors. These are closely together with psychological factors.

Then, Communicative aspects comes from socially, communicative, gender identity, gender roles, gender behavior, intimate relationship, and pronouns & gender references. See and Pronouns are discussed in later chapters.

Then, Biological aspects come from biology, gender identity, and gender behavior. It also comes from the hormone and surgery data from Changing Bodies section of chapter 3.

Finally, Dressing and Appearance aspects come from dressing, gender identity, gender biology, gender roles, and a gender behavior. Although I placed it last, it is probably ranked higher, probably third. The aspect also is derived from the Presentation data in chapter 3.

I placed gender identity in all five categories, since it would be the most likely common thread that would attach to all aspects of gender. Gender identity was described in chapter 2 in relationship to the self and self schema.

Gender roles and behavior then would be the next most common aspects which i placed in four out of the five aspects of gender. Much the influence of roles and behavior relate to socially constructed gender norms versus self-identity, definitions, and construction.