Oh gawd there’s so much silliness in this NY Times think piece on How Do We Count the Trans Children?

How many students needing inclusive restrooms are we talking about? the Times asks plaintively.

No one knows for sure. Researchers have not figured out how to obtain consistent, reliable answers from teenagers, much less younger children.

Ah now why might that be, do you think? Could it be because the concept is ridiculously fuzzy, and constantly expanding and shifting, bulging here and collapsing inward there? Could it be because people aren’t even talking about the same thing half the time? (Half?! What am I saying? How about 99% of the time?) Could it be because the whole idea is quite new but nevertheless fenced around with unbelievably harsh taboos and punishments and ostracisms?

The best estimate, Jan Hoffman says, is that it’s under 1% of the population.

There are no national surveys.

Pediatricians generally do not ask patients about their gender identity, and if they do, they do not usually report findings in national health registries.

Again – why would they? When “gender identity” is such a tendentious and hotly politicized concept, why would pediatricians ask patients about theirs? If you think “gender identity” is more akin to souls and auras than it is to the kidney or the lungs, you don’t see a whole lot of point in putting it on medical questionnaires.

In 2006, the Boston Youth Survey asked 1,032 public high school students, “Are you transgender?” The responses were 1.6 percent yes, 86.3 percent no, and 6.3 percent “don’t know.” An additional 5.7 percent skipped the question.

Some believe that these estimates are low, “because trans identity has become more salient and acceptance has increased,” said Jody L. Herman, a scholar of public policy at the U.C.L.A. School of Law’s Williams Institute. “But we don’t have any way of knowing that.”

You could put it that way, or you could put it another way. Yes in a sense trans identity has become more “salient” – in the sense that a lot of people won’t shut up about it. But in other senses it hasn’t become more salient so much as it’s become more trendy. How do experts tell the difference? What even are “experts” on this subject, and how do we know?

Interestingly, in surveys, a higher proportion of teenagers than adults tend to identify themselves as transgender.

Of course they fucking do. See above – it’s trendy. Also, teenagers are teenagers, and they don’t  know everything yet, and they’ve been told a lot of horseshit about what it means to “identify oneself as transgender” – so naturally more of them are buying into the dogma than adults are. Of course it could be that they’ve seen a new truth or possibility that the more habituated adults can’t see because of the habituation…but it could also just be that they’re believing what they’re told about a new and evolving concept while the more habituated adults are more skeptical.

Children are even more of a black box, surprise surprise. (Of course they are – they’re children.)

Almost no research has been done on child gender identity. One challenge is that much of the information would have to come from parents. Dr. Conron, who has worked with parents of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youths, said, “Parents often do not know that a child’s gender identity is different from their assigned sex at birth until their child, or another person, often in adolescence, tells them so.”

That expresses it as if there’s a definite fact of the matter, that a child has a gender identity that is different from their assigned sex at birth, and that that fact is knowable, but perhaps not until adolescence. But what if there is no such definite fact of the matter, and we’re just talking about fuzzy variable elusive indefinite feelings as opposed to facts? What if that’s the case and it’s actually not all that helpful to reify “gender identity” as if it were something you can have the way you can have Tay-Sachs disease or sickle-cell anemia? What if it would actually be better to talk about this as a matter of feelings rather than a Thing? What if that would reduce all the anxiety there is around this subject?

Some developmental psychologists say that children as young as 2 or 3 can express a gender identity that is at odds with the one defined by their genitalia.

Bullshit. What that always boils down to, when people describe it, is children wanting to wear skirts or play with dolls, liking blue and hating pink, being noisy and physical or quiet and cuddly. In short, it boils down to the most fatuous stereotypes. Not fitting a small and stupid collection of stereotypes is not necessarily a matter of “identifying” as the other sex, for the simple reason that the stereotypes are stupid. A girl “as young as 2 or 3” who likes to wear shorts and get muddy is not expressing a gender identity that is at odds with the one defined by her genitalia, she is just being a kid, with the normal range of variations in taste and behavior and personality. There is no need to label that as a “gender identity.”

Younger children whose behavior and preferences may not be solidly masculine or feminine are increasingly called “gender-creative” or “gender-fluid” by educators, psychologists and parents.

There is no “solidly masculine or feminine” – there is only stereotyping. Where have all these people been for the last 50 years? We talked about this, I know we did!

Pour the Kool-Aid down the drain, and then run.

This story is from 2010 but worth noting anyway, especially given the fact that nothing has changed. How people in Saudi Arabia treat foreign domestic servants:

Doctors have removed 13 nails and five needles from a Sri Lankan housemaid who said her employer in Saudi Arabia hammered them into her body.

LP Ariyawathie, 49, told staff at Kamburupitiya Hospital her employer inflicted the injuries as a punishment.

X-rays showed that there were 24 nails and needles in her body.

The nails were up to two inches (5 centimeters) long.

Ms Ariyawathie travelled to Saudi Arabia in March to become a housemaid.

Last week, she flew back to Sri Lanka and was admitted to hospital in the south of the island, where she told doctors she had undergone abuse for more than a month.

The doctors found 24 metal pieces in her legs and hands.

Behold the X-ray:

You think that might hurt a little??

She could not sit down or walk properly, doctors said.

Yet Saudi Arabia is one of the most god-ridden countries on earth. Religion is supposed to make people more compassionate and generous. It doesn’t.

Well all right – finally there’s a move to make the RFRA not quite such a poisonously theocratic intrusive law. The CFI press release:

The Center for Inquiry (CFI) applauds and supports the introduction of the “Do No Harm Act,” an amendment to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) that would prevent its use in situations that involve third-party harm, helping to end the law’s sanctioning of religious discrimination and imposition.

The measure, introduced this morning by Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) and Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-MA), would amend RFRA by adding language stating that RFRA should not be interpreted to allow the imposition of one’s religious views or practices upon another, to authorize discrimination against others because of one’s religious views, or to sanction any kind of meaningful harm through a legal exemption. In addition, the amendment guarantees that RFRA cannot be used to deny goods or services to beneficiaries served by government contracts and grants.

“Freedom of religion is a fundamental right that protects all Americans, but this freedom does not include the right to restrict or control the behavior of others,” said Nicholas Little, Vice-President and General Counsel for the Center for Inquiry. “At its inception, CFI was one of very few voices cautioning that RFRA would permit religiously motivated discrimination, whether against religious minorities, the non-religious, women, or LGBTQ Americans. Sadly, we were right. But this fix would help ensure that the law could no longer be used as a weapon to impose one person’s religious beliefs on other unwilling parties.”

“We thank Reps. Scott and Kennedy for taking a bold and important step today to protect the religious freedom and equal rights of all Americans,” said Michael De Dora CFI’s director of public policy. “Members of Congress should put aside their partisan differences and approve this fair-minded amendment. We look forward to working with our partners on Capitol Hill, including religious, non-religious, church-state, and civil rights groups, to move this important measure forward.”

One of the things Michael does as director of public policy is lobby Congress. I suspect this bold and important step is not unrelated to that sort of lobbying, also done by Amanda Knief at AA and the people at FFRF and maybe the Humanists and who knows what-all.

The Guardian has an excerpt from Ensaf Haidar’s new book. It’s about the day Raif called to tell her he was going to be flogged the next day, and the immediate aftermath of that for her and for their children.

A friend told her there was a video.

It wasn’t hard to find. By now some of my Facebook friends were referring to it. It also appeared immediately on YouTube when you searched for “Raif Badawi” and “lashes”. It was as if I was being operated by remote control. With trembling hands I clicked on the video to set it in motion. I saw Raif’s delicate frame from behind, in the middle of a big crowd of people. He was wearing a white shirt and dark trousers, and his hair hung down to his shoulders. He looked thin. His hands were cuffed in front of his body. I couldn’t see his face. The men around him were wearing the usual white gowns and shouting “Allahu Akbar”.

A big crowd of men, surrounding a thin man in handcuffs who was about to be whipped, shouting “God is Great.” The hell it is. That god is a god of bullies – and that god is a bully. That god hides itself from human beings, but expects those human beings to torture to death anyone who doesn’t bow down to that hidden god. What a loathsome trick.

The man himself could not be made out in the video. But I saw clearly that he was striking Raif with all his might. Raif’s head was bowed. In very quick succession he took the blows all over the back of his body: he was lashed from shoulders to calves, while the men around him clapped and uttered pious phrases. It was too much for me. It’s indescribable, watching something like that being done to the person you love. I felt the pain they were inflicting on Raif as if it was my own.

The men I had seen in the video might as well have put me in a square and flogged me. But worst of all was the feeling of helplessness. I sat on my sofa, wrapped my arms around my legs and wept. I don’t know how long I sat there for. The phone rang several times, but I didn’t answer. How was Raif now, I wondered. How severe were the wounds that he had suffered from this brutal abuse? Had they broken his bones? The violence of the blows almost made me suspect as much. Did he get medical treatment for his wounds? If only I could have done something for him!

If only human beings would walk away from the Bully God.

Originally a comment by Freemage on #WhereAreWomen.

Disney actually triggered a fairly major ‘feminist consciousness’ moment for me, back in the day.

My then-girlfriend and I had just gone to see Mulan in the theaters, and loved it. So we left the movie humming the songs and talking about the film and then, as we were walking through the mall, decided to check out the Disney store. Since Mulan had just come out, of course, there were shelves and shelves of toys set out. And guess what the ONLY Mulan figurine was?

Bridal Fucking Mulan.

The white-faced, gown-wearing version of her that exists for just a few minutes in the film solely to be rejected by her before the end of that scene.

Of course, there were lots of armor and swords available for boys who wanted to be Shang. But nothing for little girls who wanted to be the STAR OF THE GODDAMNED MOVIE. (I think there was also one figurine of “Secret Messenger Mulan” or somesuch, which might’ve been moderately okay if she had ever taken on a spy/courier role in the movie.)

Ahem. Sorry. It’s still a bit of a sore spot for me. It was also the first time I ever ranted in public. I think I went on for a good fifteen minutes griping about how completely absurd it was.

Oh fuck this shit. I am so sick of it. Fuck it. Women exist, god damn it. We’re not some afterthought, some nonentity, some bit of decor, some piece of sweater fluff it’s fine to brush off. We are people too.

Shane Black, the director and co-writer of Iron Man 3, has said he was forced to change the gender of the film’s villain from female to male after pressure from the production company Marvel, which feared toy merchandise would not sell as well.

In an interview with Uproxx, Black said the original Iron Man 3 script featured a female version of Aldrich Killian, eventually played by Guy Pearce. “We had finished the script and we were given a no holds barred memo saying that cannot stand and we’ve changed our minds because, after consulting, we’ve decided that toy won’t sell as well if it’s a female.”

No women. No women no women no women, none at all, ever, in any entertainment, because women are a drag and nobody will pay any money to watch or play or read anything that has even one women in it, ever. Except porn. You need them in porn, obviously, but that’s absolutely it. Women are garbage.

It is the second time this year Disney has been embroiled in controversy over their superhero merchandise strategy. In January a Star Wars-themed Monopoly game was released by Hasbro without a figurine of Rey, the lead character of the latest chapter of the film franchise. It followed complaints she was also under-represented in figurine packs, with fans rallying under the hashtag #WheresRey on social media.

Disney was contacted but declined to comment.

Too busy erasing women.

Via Maryam:

Isfahan Friday prayers leader says women cycling makes society unsafe. It’s the regime that makes it unsafe for women and everyone.
اين رژيم است كه جامعه را نا امن ميكند …

The Hebden Bridge Handmade Parade is June 26th.

This is from last year’s:

Sarah Ditum has a long, brilliant piece in The New Statesman, What is gender, anyway? What is it indeed. It’s a vexed subject at the moment, she said with a polite cough.

The conversation about trans gender has moved, Ditum points out, from physical transition to more ethereal kinds of “transition” like identifying as or expression. On the other hand there is the essentialist view of for instance Simon Baron-Cohen,

Professor of Developmental Psychopathology at the University of Cambridge, who has written extensively on what he calls “the essential difference”, claiming that the male brain is inherently systematising and the female brain inherently empathising, leading to a natural division of roles on the basis of a physical difference. (Baron-Cohen does allow that “not all men have the male brain, and not all women have the female brain”, but the fact that “systematising” roles occupied by men tend to be well-paid and prestigious, while “empathising” ones performed by women are less valuable or even entirely unpaid, is regarded as an unfortunate coincidence.)

Haha. That’s a bitter joke.

Feminist analysis has vigorously challenged that view. In The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir famously wrote that “one is not born, but rather one becomes, a woman”, stressing that gender (one’s social role as a woman or man) is something that must be learned – and that this learning process is enforced on the basis of sex.

And feminism could be described as the endless, difficult, frustrating work of trying to change that Thing that must be learned. Feminists want everyone to have bigger, looser, more swappable (aka fungible)  social roles as a woman or man. The reason there is this ongoing tension (another polite cough) between feminism and the narrower versions of trans activism is that we (feminists) want to erode the boundaries of gender while the narrower versions of trans activism want to build taller walls around them.

Ditum goes into the details of this with brilliant clarity, then considers the difficulties.

It is impossible to talk about gender without talking within it. All of us have a position within its class hierarchy, and that position is dictated not by a subjective feeling, but by the way other people respond to us over a lifetime, educating us in the part we are supposed to play. And yet the theory of innate gender requires us to believe that gender is both natural and good, while its application to women’s politics and women’s spaces replicates ancient misogynistic habits of denying women their own limits. As this goes on, the needs of gender-nonconforming individuals who might not be best served by gender identity theory are disregarded to an alarming degree…

Meanwhile, we are building a political and legal edifice on foundations which are, to say the least, scientifically shaky. There is no doubt our society can be unkind and even violent to those who do not conform to gender norms. But is accepting a theory of innate gender identity, with all its associated costs for those born female, really the best way to stamp out that prejudice?

I don’t think we’ve given the other way of doing it – making gender nonconformity the property of everyone, and routine, and no big deal, and not a reason to bully or censure or mock people – a good enough try. Not even close.

Brazil’s coup has restored power to its natural owners, white men.

Most Brazilians backed Rousseff’s impeachment but in one of the world’s biggest racial and cultural melting pots, where more than half the 200 million people identify themselves as black or mixed, the makeup of Temer’s government raised alarm.

Leftists, minorities and many lower-income Brazilians fear that a deep economic recession, and the spending cuts that the new government says are essential to spur a recovery, could mean rolling back progressive policies.

“The rallying cry right now is the economy and that can become an excuse to scrap anything related to matters of inclusion, equality or culture,” says Esther Solano, a sociologist at the Federal University of São Paulo.

She points to one of the first decisions by Temer: to fold a ministry of women, racial equality and human rights into the far-bigger ministry of justice, led by a man.

That sounds familiar – never mind women’s rights, we want human rights. All lives matter. I don’t see color.

Aides say the new Cabinet was selected quickly from the ranks of parties who would support the new government. “We tried to look for women,” said Eliseu Padilha, Temer’s new chief of staff, “but it wasn’t possible.”

That’s what they all say.

The Guardian asked readers to share their experiences of sex discrimination in film making.

Conscious and unconscious bias is alive and well in our business. And much is to do with how “talent” is evaluated. Because of the belief in the auteur, a conceptthat has infected the film space but particularly public funding, women have been at a disadvantage – auteurs are generally men and if you can’t see it, not only can’t you be it, but no one will let you be it either. The way women’s work is assessed and their talent rated doesn’t cut it, because they’re being measured against a male paradigm.
Mia Bays, film producer, 44

Of course – because only men are complicated and interesting enough to be auteurs. Only men are clever enough and thoughtful enough and original enough. Only men contain multitudes. Women are simple, one-dimensional, conformist, dull creatures – nurturing, friendly, but not auteur-like.

There are lots of talented women out there who simply aren’t being given the chance to make work and become role models – and the UK industry as a whole rarely seems to get excited about women who do break through. I have had people walk away from me mid conversation at film events when I told them I, a woman, was making a feature length film and even though my film has been successful I can’t even get on the next rung of the ladder. I have many female friends who left for the US, and are making films with US money and backing as they never had any interest here, which shouldn’t have to happen.
Amy Mathieson, director/producer, 30

And then there’s the boys’ club mentality.

Sadly, the results of the recent study are not surprising, and the problem of gender-bias does not exist only in our industry. It is a part of a larger problem – a systemic, ingrained and institutionalized one. I am not able to explain the lack of female writer and directors concisely, but will offer that the continued comfort level and ‘boys club’ mentality is one that is rewarded time and again by executives, audiences and finance entities – so what is the motivation to change? When one can point to a successful outing by a female writer or director, it is largely ignored.
Jenna Ricker, writer and director, 40

Is it unconscious bias, or indifference?

My charitable explanation for this epidemic is that an unconscious bias may be taking place with those in power. My less charitable explanation is that those in power are fully aware of the sexism, but don’t feel like addressing it because they’re having a nice day and their male buddies are landing jobs – so ‘who cares?’
Caitlin McCarthy, screenwriter

There’s more.

Another entry for the “to the surprise of no one” file – very few British films are written or directed by women.

A report commissioned by Directors UK found that between 2005 and 2014 just 13.6% of British films were directed by women and only 14.6% of those had a female screenwriter, as a result of “unconscious, systemic bias”.

The damning report concluded that the problem of gender inequality had remained almost unchanged in those 10 years, revealing that in 2005, 11.5% of UK films had a female director, which only increased to 11.9% in 2014.

We know. How do we know? We see the movies, and the advertising for the movies, and the reviews of the movies.

Beryl Richards, the chair of Directors UK, emphasised how the “problematic” lack of progress – and in some areas even a regression – meant that a radical move was needed to force the industry to become more less inherently sexist.

Richards believes introducing a 50-50 gender parity target for films funded by bodies such as the BFI, Creative England, Creative Scotland, Northern Ireland Screen, Ffilm Cymru Wales and Film London – which collectively finance a fifth of British films – is a “the only way we will break the vicious cycle, where public money is going to a narrow, privileged few”.

Public funding of movies isn’t a thing in the US. We belong – voluntarily or not – to the Church of The Market Is Never Wrong, so we let the market decide whether or not the bosses think men will pay money to see movies written and directed by women. The market has decided that the bosses think men will never ever do that, and that there’s no need to count women because they go to the movies as the guest of a man so they don’t get to pick what to see.

The report, titled Cut Out of the Picture, illustrated that despite an equal split of men and women studying film, and subsequently entering the film industry, women dropped off at every level, particularly as budgets got higher.

The data reveals that 27% of short films – a starting point for most film-makers – were directed by women, but as budgets rose nearer £500,000, this fell to 16%, and when they rose to between £1m and £10m, just 12% had women at the helm. When it came to blockbusters with £30m-plus budgets, only 3.3% had been directed by women since 2005.

But wait. That’s not because the bosses refuse to hire them, is it? Surely it’s because they’re not good enough, or because they want to have many babies instead? Isn’t it?

Sarah Gavron, director of Suffragette and Brick Lane, said she had been waiting for things to change since she left film school in 2000, but in vain. “It was only when I started seeing films directed by women that I felt I could dare to try to direct,” said Gavron. “Role models are key to developing and encouraging the next generation of film makers.

“Film of course influences our culture which is why it is vital to have diversity and more gender equality both in front of and behind the camera. We need to work to shift this imbalance, and it seems the only way to do this is to be radical, rather than waiting for something to change.”

We’ve been waiting for several generations now, and still film continues to influence our culture in such a way that most people seem to think women are a tiny insignificant minority who can be safely ignored. If life is like the movies, then women just aren’t around, so why pay attention to them?

The report revealed how the “systemic” difficulty in climbing the directorial ladder also meant female directors direct fewer films in their career and are less likely to receive a second, third or fourth directing job.

“Collectively, these findings paint a picture of an industry where female directors are limited in their ability to become directors and their career progression once they do. They are limited in the number of films they can direct as well as the budget and genre of the films they do,” concluded the report.

It’s self-perpetuating. They can’t direct a first film, so then they don’t have a track record so they go on being unable to direct a first film. Career over.

News from Saudi Arabia: women there face flogging and imprisonment if they check their husband’s phone without his permission.

The offence would be prosecuted as a violation of privacy because it is not covered in the country’s Islamic laws, senior lawyer Mohammad al-Temyat has said.

Well it wouldn’t be, would it. There weren’t phones to check when Mo wrote the Koran – which is reason number 4 billion whatever whatever for why we shouldn’t take a very old book as something we’re not allowed to change or dispute or throw away. Mo didn’t know everything, including phones and secularism and feminism and human rights, so he shouldn’t be set up as an infallible authority on all things.

Speaking to The Independent, Mr Al-Temyat said he worked with the government only on a voluntary basis, providing legal advice.

He described the law on checking someone’s phone as Ta’zir offence, coming under judicial discretion because it has no definition or prescribed punishment under Islam.

He said: “I would like to clarify that this subject involves the husband and the wife and it is a Ta’zir offence so it is possible that there is a flogging, a fine, imprisonment, just signing a pledge or even nothing.”

Right. When in doubt, suggest a flogging, especially when it’s a woman doing something a man doesn’t like.

Tavaana on Twitter:

Tavaana توانا ‏ @Tavaana May 13
Persepolis women’s #volleyball team, 1970. #Iran: a country where pictures from the past look like the future!