Tuesday March 6th notes!

just gonna jot down notes verbatim. may be a bit unclear, but then what isnt (besides diamonds or a mountain lake)?
here goes:

explored feelings around defining aspects of gender, which is taken for granted without asking what gender is. are you defined by your gender?
talked about some initial defensive feelings regarding trans and intersex list of demands. started to understand why the the article has such a strong tone, and how the need for people to understand these things is important (i.e. difference between sex and gender).
what does it mean for you to identify as a man? if it is important to you to identify as a man, why? are these important or relevant questions? do they enforce the gender binary, is that a bad thing? by identifying as a man, do you inherently make it more difficult for others to exercise their own gender determination? thought about the difference between any gender identity arrived at by examination and self determination as opposed to a default gender identity assigned to you.
ruminated on the paradigm shift that gender is defined from the inside out, not imposed from the outside in. realized how difficult it is to think like that as opposed to socialized thoughts on gender.
talked about gender roles in a relationship. inherently bad? can they be good? thought about gender roles in a relationship in regards to those that were arrived at by examination and determination and those arrived at by default or without thought. whats healthy? how do you trust your motives?

fuck mondays.

Monday March 5th notes

5 People in attendance

Check-in: People are good, bad and in-between

Today we discussed the previous article. Most people had read it, and reaction were overwhelmingly positive. The article did an excellent job of introducing trans and genderqueer issues, while simultaneously touching on issues of class and race. We discussed at length what trans people have to go through in our society to get the hormones they desire or surgery they want. We talked about owning your own gender, and how you can't "steal" someone else's expression of their gender. Examples from the article are expressions of hyper-masculinity or femininity. Made us reflect on our own gender expression, and how in previous meetings people have had a hard time expressing what parts of being male where enjoyable, as f it was all bad, or expressing it was bad. We are going to continue discussing the article next week, with the focus being on what does Patriarchy gain for enforcing the gender binary, and from transphobia.

We look forward to reading what Tuesday talked about.