Andrea

“Gender is just one of many systems of oppression. The ultimate goal is to see how all systems are tied in a knot with the others and untie, unravel the knots of oppression. It's a spiritual journey more than a governmental one. It's about asking ourselves, 'Is this culture stopping me or anyone else from the free expression of sex and gender?' and if so, we have to act.”
― Kate Bornstein, Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us

“I may feel that without some recognizability I cannot live. But I may also feel that the terms by which I am recognized make life unlivable. This is the juncture from which critique emerges, where critique is understood as an interrogation of the terms by which life is constrained in order to open up the possibility of different modes of living; in other words, not to celebrate difference as such but to establish more inclusive conditions for sheltering and maintaining life that resists models of assimilation.”
― Judith Butler, Undoing Gender

“Breaking apart the forced unity of sex and gender, while increasing the scope of liveable lives, needs to be a central goal of feminism and other forms of social justice activism. This is important for everybody, especially, but not exclusively, for trans people.”
― Susan Stryker, Transgender History: The Roots of Today's Revolution

“The suffering of anyone else is the suffering of ourselves. And to understand that as an idea is one thing, but to develop the ability to feel it and believe it is another - and it is dangerous, and it is risky, because that is a lot of suffering to take in. It is a lot of pain to feel. Most of us, including myself, are probably not capable of feeling one tiny fraction of 1% of the world’s suffering. But we must try to go there.”
― Andrew W.K.