Burning down the house
Apr. 18th, 2011 11:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daemonelixBecause I am, apparently, on a role with posting about fire alarms, more news. Today, my brother's girlfriend happened to walk by a room that happened to smell an awful lot like pot. Given the importance of pot in all of our lives over the last few days, she called campus security. The only problem? The room from which pot smell was coming was our RA's.
Yes. Clearly there is a big problem there. This might explain why he did nothing last term to assist or other RA, who lives in TH. Oh well ... I guess he is highly unlikely to remain an RA next year. (Though, apparently, when campus security arrived he had "opened his window" to clear the room of pot stench "coming from the hallway.")
On an unrelated note, TH is having its semi-formal next Saturday. The girl living next to me will be hosting a pre-semi-formal "make-up" party to prepare. She is only inviting biological girls (who live in TH, which is understandable as the dance is only for TH members and their significant others—and maybe friends, I don't know). The problem is that she does not want anyone who is not "female-sexed," as she put it, because she suspects that some of the attendees to her make-up party might not be fully clothed for the duration, and she is uncomfortable with someone who is "male-sexed" being present at such a time.
This would seem more or less reasonable to me if there were no one in TH who was at the boundary between "male" and "female." (Which presupposition is, of course, problematic for its own reasons.) However, there are several of us who do not fit into a "female-sexed" vs. "male-sexed" dichotomy. I know of one person who is biologically male but often dresses as a female. There are several others in house who at least sometimes identify as genderless; is she going to let them come?
Personally, although I do currently identify as female, I feel extremely uncomfortable whenever someone invites me to do something because I identify as female. This is probably in part because I don't particularly enjoy doing many stereotypically "female-y" things, so the expectation that I should want to do such things because I identify as female makes me very uncomfortable. What I find especially strange is that she would consider inviting me (for whom spending an hour or two putting on make-up would be excruciating) but not others (who might actually enjoy such activities) simply because I am biologically female and they are not.
This got a bit off-topic, but the basic point is this: if she is uncomfortable having biologically male individuals at her make-up party, she ought to either 1) invite only her friends, and thus be assured of only having people attend who she is comfortable with, or 2) invite all of TH regardless of biological gender, and make sure she's fully clothed so she doesn't feel uncomfortable. It isn't fair to exclude people who might want to go simply because they are not biologically female, and yet invite someone like me who would be absolutely miserable at such a party.
This might be a bit of an extreme reaction to what she said, but on the other hand, tonight we elected our male-who-often-dresses-as-female as the official Pokemon Trainer. This is, actually, related. Originally, there was only one Pokemon Trainer. Then, one year (a few years ago), two individuals—one male and one female—had the same number of votes for the position. It was thus divided into a Female Pokemon Trainer and a Male Pokemon Trainer. (The labels are essentially arbitrary; last year's Female Pokemon Trainer identifies as male, and in the past we have had females fulfill the role of Male Pokemon Trainer.) This year, however, because the TH member who sometimes dresses as a female won both Female Pokemon Trainer and Male Pokemon Trainer, we decided to return the two positions to single, genderless positionhood.
Anyway, in general TH is quite open to people who identify outside the bounds of a male-female dichotomy. This bugged me, though.
And it is now extremely late and I ought to go to bed. Pre-registration tomorrow! Yay! :P (Why do we pre-register in APRIL for classes that will be starting in SEPTEMBER? What is the actual likelihood that I will still be interested in anything I currently want to take in four and a half months? Very small, given the three month rule.)
Yes. Clearly there is a big problem there. This might explain why he did nothing last term to assist or other RA, who lives in TH. Oh well ... I guess he is highly unlikely to remain an RA next year. (Though, apparently, when campus security arrived he had "opened his window" to clear the room of pot stench "coming from the hallway.")
On an unrelated note, TH is having its semi-formal next Saturday. The girl living next to me will be hosting a pre-semi-formal "make-up" party to prepare. She is only inviting biological girls (who live in TH, which is understandable as the dance is only for TH members and their significant others—and maybe friends, I don't know). The problem is that she does not want anyone who is not "female-sexed," as she put it, because she suspects that some of the attendees to her make-up party might not be fully clothed for the duration, and she is uncomfortable with someone who is "male-sexed" being present at such a time.
This would seem more or less reasonable to me if there were no one in TH who was at the boundary between "male" and "female." (Which presupposition is, of course, problematic for its own reasons.) However, there are several of us who do not fit into a "female-sexed" vs. "male-sexed" dichotomy. I know of one person who is biologically male but often dresses as a female. There are several others in house who at least sometimes identify as genderless; is she going to let them come?
Personally, although I do currently identify as female, I feel extremely uncomfortable whenever someone invites me to do something because I identify as female. This is probably in part because I don't particularly enjoy doing many stereotypically "female-y" things, so the expectation that I should want to do such things because I identify as female makes me very uncomfortable. What I find especially strange is that she would consider inviting me (for whom spending an hour or two putting on make-up would be excruciating) but not others (who might actually enjoy such activities) simply because I am biologically female and they are not.
This got a bit off-topic, but the basic point is this: if she is uncomfortable having biologically male individuals at her make-up party, she ought to either 1) invite only her friends, and thus be assured of only having people attend who she is comfortable with, or 2) invite all of TH regardless of biological gender, and make sure she's fully clothed so she doesn't feel uncomfortable. It isn't fair to exclude people who might want to go simply because they are not biologically female, and yet invite someone like me who would be absolutely miserable at such a party.
This might be a bit of an extreme reaction to what she said, but on the other hand, tonight we elected our male-who-often-dresses-as-female as the official Pokemon Trainer. This is, actually, related. Originally, there was only one Pokemon Trainer. Then, one year (a few years ago), two individuals—one male and one female—had the same number of votes for the position. It was thus divided into a Female Pokemon Trainer and a Male Pokemon Trainer. (The labels are essentially arbitrary; last year's Female Pokemon Trainer identifies as male, and in the past we have had females fulfill the role of Male Pokemon Trainer.) This year, however, because the TH member who sometimes dresses as a female won both Female Pokemon Trainer and Male Pokemon Trainer, we decided to return the two positions to single, genderless positionhood.
Anyway, in general TH is quite open to people who identify outside the bounds of a male-female dichotomy. This bugged me, though.
And it is now extremely late and I ought to go to bed. Pre-registration tomorrow! Yay! :P (Why do we pre-register in APRIL for classes that will be starting in SEPTEMBER? What is the actual likelihood that I will still be interested in anything I currently want to take in four and a half months? Very small, given the three month rule.)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-04-19 11:18 am (UTC)Yeah, that ... really doesn't make sense. I mean, for starters, I don't understand why putting make-up on means also taking off clothes - although, granted, I don't know anything about make-up, and also it's not like people shouldn't be able to be less than stringent about dress requirements at their own make-up party. And then also there's no way to guarantee that the sexual attraction issues that come to mind when people who are physically male and cis are around partly-dressed physically female people won't arise anyway - some cis physically female people are lesbians or bi, and some cis physically male people are gay. So (in addition to her gender performativity assumptions) in a sense I think she's choosing to wrongly conflate "physically male" with "people who might find less-than-fully dressed women attractive".
... That got a little tl;dr. Anyway, I don't mean that she needs to not try to make herself comfortable at her own party - if having physically male people around would bother her because of past bad experience or just plain irrational discomfort, I can't really call that morally wrong. But, like you said, there are at least two options that would ensure her comfort and mean she wasn't excluding based on flawed reasoning/subconscious transphobia/whatever. :P