The ambigous use of 'gender' for the purpose of upholding sex segregation/apartheid is the real culprit behind many suicides and destroyed lives.
Klevius drawing from 1979 (background photo by Klevius 2012): Human Rights rather than religion
A legal definition of sex as "a biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth" is proposed in US. What could possibly be clearer than that? And why hasn't it been there all the time?!
This definition says nothing about cultural gender restrictions. And the fact that it's also supported by in sanely religious "communities" shouldn't stain it.
The insidious "socially constructed roles and behaviors typically (sic) ascribed to men and women" is like the Spanish inquisition.
However, when it comes to gender the American medical community currently recognizes a distinction between sex -- a classification based on bodily characteristics, internal and external -- and gender, the socially constructed roles and behaviors typically ascribed to men and women.
It also recognizes that no single aspect of sex or gender defines a person's gender identity -- their internal sense of gender, which may not match the sex assigned to them at birth.
So "behaviors typically ascribed to one sex" aren't allowed but demand hormonal, surgical etc. change of biology instead of human society stopping the sexist "typically ascribed roles and behaviors" of "mainstream" culture.
Under the 1948 Universal Human Rights declaration there's no room whatsoever to command rights and behavior in accordance to sex - no matter how "typical" such sexism is.
And when you have digested this, then take a new reading of what Klevius has tried to teach you throughout his adult life, namely understanding heterosexual attraction.
Klevius hates* the concept "sexual identity" but if he's necessitated to use it it would mean that his only "sexual isentity" is heterosexual attraction and that women's only possible "sexual identity" is as possible receivers of "the male gaze". Every other form of sexuality can be performed or imagined by any person no matter of sex.
* The concept of "sexual identity" is an oxymoron introduced via sociology and theoretical feminism for the sole purpose of keeping up old fashioned sex segregation. As Klevius wrote in Warning for Feminism (1998): When sex segregation in real life vanishes, cultural sex segregation is reinforced by those who seek political etc. power out of it - well knowing that women in most areas have been in a backward position due to classical sex segregation due to child rearing etc., and that many women have felt embarrassed about lacking competence in many "male activities" and therefore an easy target for the proposal of not admitting it but rather call it "feminine behavior".
Klevius wrote:
Bruce Jenner says he becomes a cultural woman - but is still sexually attracted to biological women
He changes his body with hormone therapy and he continues calling himself he. Why? Klevius has the answer further down.
Will Toril Moi accept Bruce as a "woman"?
Bruce Jenner can never have a make up
that makes him a biological woman. Not even if he manages to get rid of
his heterosexual attraction capacity. Is this masquerade (for whom?)
intended to culturally over compensate a biological lack? Why? Who
denies Bruce Jenner the right to be as he is unless he masquerade
himself into a mirage of "a woman" that simultaneously contributes to
the restraints put on young girls via rigid cultural sex segregation?
Sometimes ago in Sweden many (most?) persons wearing a dress on a Monday were not biological women.
Toril Moi: I'm not a cultural woman writer but I write like a biological man can not.
Klevius explains: Toril wants to free her writings from the category of
women writers ("not to conform to some stereotypical norm for
feminine writing") while simultaneously make sure that she can write in a
way a man can not. In other words, like all other true feminists she is
a fanatic defender of sex segregation. And like Luce Irigaray, she is
probably just a sex politician waiving the affirmative sword - in a way
that continuously hurts young girls, for the sake of defending own or
women's in general backwardness - which is due to hers and Moi's
continuing of historical sex segregation/apartheid.
Sex change is biologically impossible and "gender" or, more properly, sex segregation isn't biological but cultural
Klevius "gender" and sex tutorial
"Sexual Orientation" and "Gender Identity" defined from the perspective of Heterosexual Attraction
Forcing
people into a rigid (yet simultaneously completely arbitrary) sex
segregation through the creation of "gender identity" categories is a
violation against the 1948 Human Rights declaration according to which
sex shouldn't matter. How people look and behave changes all the time
and varies between communities as well as between individuals. Sex
segregation is therefore pure intolerance, i.e. a form of racism. And
no, you idiots who think de-sex segregation means giving dresses and
dolls to boys, you're very wrong. De-sex segregation means stopping
mounting girls with dresses and dolls to an extent that robs them of
their possibilities compared to boys.
Dear reader, as you already know, due to a
complete lack of competition Klevius is the world's formost expert on
sex and sex segregation (sad isn't it). This fact makes it
understandably sometimes confusing for you because of the corresponding
complete lack of "peer reviewers" who could boost your confidence in
what Klevius is saying. However, as you already know, even if there were
supporting "peer reviewers" Klevius would never trust them (i.e. in accordance with his scientific methodology which rests on
a relentless pursuit of self criticism). So here's
some logic instead:
Sexual orientation - why does it matter outside sexuality? It doesn't!
There exists
only one meaningful "sexual orientation" and that is heterosexual
attraction, i.e. what makes males sexually interested in females. The
means for heterosexual attraction vary from bees transporting male
pollen, to male fishes getting horny at the sight/smell of eggs left by
female fishes, all the way to human males getting excited by female
curvature. A male's physical attraction to
the opposite sex (not "gender"). "Women" "gay" and "lesbian" are terms
indicating
lack of this heterosexual attraction in their sexual activities (which
fact of course doesn't exclude that male "gays" can have heterosexual
attraction activities outside their "gay" activities).
Sexual activities which lack the element of heterosexual attraction
simply have nothing to do with sex dichotomy. A so called heterosexual
couple may well perform sexual acts without heterosexual attraction
whereas a man may well be heterosexually attracted to a transvestite etc
because he thought it was a biological woman - until he finds out.
Gender identity is a hoax term made up for the purpose of guarding sex segregation.
Gayatri Spivak's strategic essentialism (i.e. sex segregation) was meant
to signal that while huge intragroup differences may exist, it is
important to strategically bring forward a simplified ‘essentialised’
group identity. "I saw the insane division between Hindus and muslims.
This is what makes the idea of including religion in politics and
faith-based activism so inconceivable for me." Klevius agrees about this
latter part. However, the insane division between Women and Men locks
half the population in rigid yet unpredictable cultural fashion groups
while islam, on top of this, locks all of us in a similar sharia
muslims/Human Rights infidels dichotomy.
Were Bruce Jenner's wives lesbian?
Chrystie Scott, Bruce Jenner's first wife: "It's so hard to wrap your
head around it, particularly because he was such a manly man. He never
indicated anything feminine in his demeanor. However, it didn't threaten
our relationship. It wasn't really a problem,"
Klevius: Indeed, why would it! Who made it a problem? And if you thought
of him as "such a manly man" while he actually was a "feminine woman",
doesn't it confirm that you didn't know him at all and that you indeed
were a lesbian in your love relation to Bruce? He said he has the "soul
of a female" even though he was born with male body parts.
Linda Thompson, Bruce Jenner's second wife: "He can finally realize his
need to be who he authentically is, who he was born to be. I have
respectfully kept his secrets private and would have taken his
confidences to my grave had he not spoken out. He can finally realize
his need to be who he authentically is, who he was born to be."
However, Linda Thompson also wrote that she would not have married
Jenner if she had known about his "gender issue" when they first met.
But she's glad she didn't know because she would have missed the chance
to share a life with him.
Looking back, I'm so grateful to God, the universe, and Bruce that I
didn't know, and that Bruce played the role in my life that he did."
Klevius: Would you believe it! He was the perfect guy for her yet when
he put dissonating words (or clothes etc) on it she got scared.
The two met in 1979 at the Playboy Mansion (a house built on a
foundation of heterosexual attraction and some silicon), and married on
January 5, 1981, and moved to Hawaii.
"The Bruce I knew back then was an easygoing, down-to-earth, casual,
romantic, good and loving man. I was extremely happy to have found such a
remarkable partner with whom to share my life. I found him to be
honorable and, well, just too good to be true. Just too good to be true
indeed. The Bruce I knew back then was unstudied, affable, and seemingly
very comfortable in his own skin. So it seemed."
Klevius: The big questions are: 1 Why did he do anything? and 2 Why did
his sex segregated masquerade affect you so much back then when you
applaud it today?
Jenner told her in 1985 that "he identified as a woman" and hoped to
move forward with the process of becoming a woman." Confused and
desperate, Thompson suggested therapy to overcome or fix it."
They separated after the failed six months therapy and Jenner began
taking female hormones and removing face and body hair. He then started
developing breasts.
She hopes people will remember him as "world's greatest athlete, who
became trailblazer for the civil rights of the transgender community."
Klevius: He is a trailblazer for the Human Right not to be restricted by
one's sex. However, his method is over ambitious and he might lose some
of his heterosexual attraction instinct.
How to differentiate between the "soul of a female" and the "soul of a man"?
Toril Moi: I try to answer two questions: Why did the question of the
woman writer disappear from the feminist theoretical agenda around 1990?
Why do we need to reconsider it now? I then begin to develop a new
analysis of the question of the woman writer by turning to the statement
‘I am not a woman writer’. By treating it as a speech act and analysing
it in the light of Simone de Beauvoir’s
understanding of sexism, I show that it is a response to a particular kind
of provocation, namely an attempt to force the woman writer to conform
to some norm for femininity. I also show that Beauvoir’s theory
illuminates Virginia Woolf’s strategies in A Room of One’s Own before,
finally, asking why we, today, still should want women to write.
If there is a difficulty with Woolf’s view, it is that she argues as if it were
always wrong to write as if one were a woman. In the end, the danger of
identifying with the despised category, namely femininity, is more terrify-
ing to her than the danger of having to pretend to be entirely genderless.
That she feels this way, is surely Professor von X’s fault.
However, here's Klevius' Virginia Woolf (extracted from his PhD thesis):
Virginia Woolf on heterosexual attraction
Virginia Woolf: "Why are women... so much more
interesting to men than men are to women?"
According
to Virginia Woolf ‘all this pitting of sex against sex, of quality
against quality; all this claiming of superiority and imputing of
inferiority belongs to the private-school stage of human existence…’
(1928: 21).
Woolf’s androgyny and Bloomsbury’s sexual liberalism can be traced
to nineteenth and early twentieth century science and individuals such
as Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Edward Carpenter, Havelock Ellis, Otto
Weininger, and Sigmund Freud, who all maintained the theory of a third
sex in which masculine and feminine characteristics (drawn of course
along the lines of biological essentialist binary thought) unified in a
single body (Wright 2002: 1-4).
Woolf’s androgyny has been
interpreted in a variety of ways. However, ‘Woolf distilled a purer
essence from the concept than contemporary critics tend to do.
Androgyny, for Virginia Woolf, was a theory that aimed to offer men and
women the chance to write without consciousness of their sex – the
result of which would ideally result in uninhibited creativity’ (Wright
2007: 1 & 4). The function of Woolf’s androgyny would ideally be to
provide ‘a third term that neutralises the gendered way in which the
subject is constructed.’ Woolf’s androgyny was assigned to sex instead
of settling down into the sexual polarisation it is designed to avoid.
We may then read androgyny as either liberation for women, as a
bisexuality to which women are closer than men, or the result of the
split that continually takes place in female consciousness due to sex
segregation (Wright 2007: 4).
Ultimately, according to Wright, Woolf’s androgyny implied a way of
thinking that would enable women and men to write as themselves, ‘still
in a sexed body, but without the attendant prejudices and
discriminations that are connected to the body by society’ (Wright 2007:
8), i.e. what here is termed sex segregation. In Wright’s words:
‘For Woolf, the enemy of androgynous thinking was summed up in the
Victorian age which forced writers into a consciousness of their sex and
led to the production of abortive works deformed by sexual
self-awareness…. How do women avoid writing as women constructed by
patriarchy, or avoid writing like men in the service of patriarchy?’
(Wright 2007: 9-10)
For Woolf, ‘androgyny is the capacity of a
single person of either sex to embody the full range of human character
traits, despite cultural attempts to render some exclusively feminine
and some exclusively masculine.’ The ability to access this ‘full range
of character traits’ and subject positions so that we read and write as
‘fully human men and women’ is the ideal that Woolf is chasing (Wright
2007: 16). This is an answer to the question whether women understand
heterosexual attraction. They do not, if we are to rely on Virginia
Woolf and this author’s interpretation of her writings. But why should
they indeed? For Woolf the answer is given in the form of an androgynous
fully human being.
In my view, says Toril Moi, if a woman’s vision of the world is strongly
marked by her gender, that is surely as potentially interesting as if
it is not. The whole point, after all, is to avoid laying down
requirements for what a woman’s writing must be like. Every writer will
have to find her own voice, and her own vision. Inevitably, a woman
writer writes as a woman, not as a generic woman, but as the (highly
specific and idiosyncratic) woman she is.
Gayatri Spivak suggests that whilst such labels as false, we need to continue to use them as an operational necessity.
It can be just as frustrating for a woman writer to feel that she has to
write as a generic human being, since this opens up an alienating split
between her gender and her humanity.
Klevius: And that "alienating split" is in fact the gate to real emancipation.
Klevius wrote:
Klevius sex and gender tutorial
Klevius quest of the day: What's the difference between the Pope and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg?
Klevius hint: It's all about 'not sameness' and Human Rights! Human Rights IS 'sameness' stupid!
When God was created he was made like Adam.
When the basic idea of Universal Human Rights was created it was made like Adam AND Eve.
And for you who think heterosexual attraction, i.e. that women are
sexier than men, could be (exc)used as a reason for depriving women of
legal sameness. Please, do think again!And read Klevius Sex and Gender
Tutorial below - if you can!
The Plan of God
A Cardinal, a Pope and a Justice "from medieval times"
Keith O'Brien has reiterated the Catholic Church's continued
opposition to civil partnerships and suggested that there should be no
laws that "facilitate" same-sex relationships, which he claimed were
"harmful", arguing that “The empirical evidence is clear, same-sex
relationships are demonstrably harmful to the medical, emotional and
spiritual wellbeing of those involved, no compassionate society should
ever enact legislation to facilitate or promote such relationships, we
have failed those who struggle with same-sex attraction and wider
society by our actions.”
Four male members of the Scottish Catholic clergy allegedly claim that
Keith O'Brien had abused his position as a member of the church
hierarchy by making unwanted homosexual advances towards them in the
1980s.
Keith O'Brien criticized the concept of same-sex marriage saying it
would shame the United Kingdom and that promoting such things would
degenerate society further.
Pope Francis, aka Jorge Bergoglio: Same-sex is a destructive
pretension against the plan of God. We are not talking about a mere
bill, but rather a machination of the Father of Lies that seeks to
confuse and deceive the children of God." He has also insisted that
adoption by gay and lesbian people is a form of discrimination against
children. This position received a rebuke from Argentine president
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who said the church's tone was
reminiscent of "medieval times and the Inquisition".
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: 'Sex' is a dirty word, so let's use 'gender' instead!
Klevius: Let's not!
As previously and repeatedly pointed out by Klevius, the treacherous use
of 'gender' instead of 'sex' is not only confusing but deliberately so.
So when Jewish Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg proposed gender' as a
synonyme for 'sex' (meaning biological sex) she also helped to shut the
door for many a young girl's/woman's possibilities to climb outside the
gender cage.
The Universal Human Rights declaration clearly states that your
biological sex should not be referred to as an excuse for limiting your
rights.
Islam (now represented by OIC and its Sharia declaration) is the
worst and most dangerous form of sex segregation - no matter in how
modern clothing it's presented!
Klevius Sex and Gender Tutorial
What is 'gender' anyway?
(text randomly extracted from some scientific writings by Klevius)
It might be argued that it is the developing girl, not the grown up
woman, who is the most receptive to new experience, but yet is also the
most vulnerable. Therefore we need to address the analysis of the
tyranny of gender before the point at where it's already too late. I
prefer to use the term ‘female’ instead of ‘woman’ so to include girls,
when appropriate in this discussion. I also prefer not to define women
in relation to men, i.e. in line with the word 'universal' in the Human
Rights Declaration. In short, I propose 'gender blindness' equally as,
for example, 'color blindness'. And keep in mind, this has nothing to do
with biological differences.
According to Connell (2003:184), it is an old and disreputable habit to
define women mainly on the basis of their relation to men. Moreover,
this approach may also constitute a possible cause of confusion when
compared to a definition of ‘gender’ which emphasizes social relations
on the basis of ‘reproductive differences’.
To really grasp the absurdity of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's and
others habit of confusing 'gender' with 'sex' one may consider that
“normal” girls/women live in the same gender trap tyranny as do
transsexuals.
The definition of ‘acquired gender’ is described in a guidance for/about transsexuals as:
Transsexual people have the deep conviction that the gender to which
they were assigned at birth on the basis of their physical anatomy
(referred to as their “birth gender”) is incorrect. That conviction will
often lead them to take steps to present themselves to the world in the
opposite gender. Often, transsexual people will undergo hormonal or
surgical treatment to bring their physical identity into line with their
preferred gender identity.
This evokes the extinction of the feminine or women as directly
dependent on the existence of the masculine or men. Whereas the feminine
cannot be defined without the masculine, the same applies to women who
cannot be defined - only described - without men.
Female footballers, for example - as opposed to feminine footballers,
both male and female - are, just like the target group of feminism, by
definition distinguished by sex. Although this classification is a
physical segregation – most often based on a delivery room assessment
made official and not at all taking into account physical size,
strength, skills etc. - other aspects of sex difference, now usually
called ‘gender’, seem to be layered on top of this dichotomy. This
review departs from the understanding that there are two main categories
that distinguish females, i.e. the physical sex belonging, for example,
that only biological women may participate in a certain competition,
and the cultural sex determination, for example that some sports or
sporters are less ‘feminine’ than others.
‘Gender’ is synonymous with sex segregation, given that the example of
participation on the ground of one’s biological sex is simply a rule for
a certain agreed activity and hence not sex segregation in the form of
stipulated or assumed separatism. Such sex segregation is still common
even in societies which have prescribed to notions of general human
freedom regardless of sex and in accordance with Human Rights. This is
because of a common consensus that sex segregation is ‘good’ although,
as it is seen here, its effects are bad in the long run.
In Durkheim’s (1984: 142) view ‘organized despotism’ is where the
individual and the collective consciousness are almost the same. Then
sui generis, a new life may be added on to that of the main body. As a
consequence, this freer and more independent state progresses and
consolidates itself (Durkheim 1984: 284).
However, consensus may also rest on an imbalance that is upheld and may
even strengthen precisely as an effect of the initial imbalance. In such
a case ‘organized despotism’ becomes the means for conservation. As a
consequence, the only alternative would be to ease restrictions, which
is something fundamentally different from proposing how people should
live their lives. ‘Organized despotism’ in this meaning may apply to
gender and to sex segregation as well.
According to Connell (2003) whose confused view may be closer to that of
Justice Ginsburg, gender is neither biology, nor a fixed dichotomy, but
it has a special relation to the human body mirrored in a ‘general
perception’. Cultural patterns do not only mirror bodily differences.
Gender is ‘a structure’ of social relations/practices concentrated to
‘the reproductive arena’, and a series of due practices in social
processes. That is, gender describes how society relates to the human
body, and has due consequences for our private life and for the future
of wo/mankind (Connell 2003:21-22). However, the main problem here
involves how to talk without gender.
Sex should properly refer to the biological aspects of male and female
existence. Sex differences should therefore only be used to refer to
physiology, anatomy, genetics, hormones and so forth. Gender should
properly be used to refer to all the non‑biological aspects of
differences between males and females ‑ clothes, interests, attitudes,
behaviors and aptitudes, for example ‑ which separate 'masculine' from
'feminine' life styles (Delamont 1980: 5 in Hargreaves 1994:146).
It seems that 'masculine' and 'feminine’ in this definition of gender is
confusingly close to the ‘mystique about their being predetermined by
biology’ when compared to the ‘reproductive arena’ and ‘reproductive
differences’ in Connell’s definition of gender. However, although
gender, according to Connell (2003: 96), may also be ‘removed’ the
crucial issue is whether those who are segregated really want to de-sex
segregate? As long as the benefits of a breakout are not clearly
assessable, the possible negative effects may undermine such
efforts.Hesitating to run out through an opened door to the unknown
doesn't necessarily mean that you don't want to. Nor does it mean that
you have to.
According to Connell (2003:20) the very key to the understanding of
gender is not to focus on differences, but, instead, to focus on
relations. In fact, this distinction is crucial here because relations,
contrary to differences, are mutually dependent. Whatever difference
existing between the sexes is meaningless unless it is connected via a
relation. On the one hand, big male muscles can hardly be of relational
use other than in cases of domestic violence, and on the other hand,
wage gaps cannot be identified without a comparative relation to the
other sex.
Biological determinism is influential in the general discourse of sports
academia (Hargreaves 1994:8). However, what remains to analyze is
whether ‘gender’ is really a successful concept for dealing with
biological determinism?
‘To explain the cultural at the level of the biological encourages the
exaggeration and approval of analyses based on distinctions between men
and women, and masks the complex relationship between the biological and
the cultural’ (Hargreaves 1994:8).
With another example: to explain the cultural (driver) at the level of
the technical (type of car) encourages the exaggeration and approval of
analyses based on distinctions between cars, and masks the complex
relationship between the car and the driver. However, also the contrary
seems to hold true;. that the cultural (driver/gender) gets tied to the
technical/biological. The ‘complex relationship’ between the car and the
driver is easily avoided by using similar1 cars, hence making the
driver more visible. In a sex/gender setting the ‘complex relationship’
between sex and gender is easily avoided by distinguishing between sex
and culture2, hence making culture more visible. The term ‘culture’,
unlike the term ‘gender’ clearly tries to avoid the ‘complex
relationship’ between biology and gender. The ‘complex relationship’
makes it, in fact, impossible to distinguish between them. On top of
this comes the ‘gender relation’ confusion, which determines people to
have ‘gender relations’, i.e. to be opposite or separate.
This kind of gender view is popular, perhaps because it may serve as a
convenient way out from directly confronting the biology/culture
distinction, and seems to be the prevalent trend, to the extent that
‘gender’ has conceptually replaced ‘sex’, leading to the consequence
that the latter has become more or less self-evident and thus almost
beyond scrutiny. In other words, by using ‘gender’ as a sign for ‘the
complex relationship between the biological and the cultural’,
biological determinism becomes more difficult to access analytically.
The distinction between sex and gender implied in these quotations,
however, does not seem to resolve the issue, precisely because it fails
to offer a tool for discriminating biological aspects of differences
from non-biological ones, i.e. those that are cultural. This is also
reflected in everyday life. ‘Folk’ categories of sex and gender often
appear to be used as if they were the same thing. Although 'masculine'
and 'feminine' are social realities, there is a mystique about their
being predetermined by biology. Furthermore the very relational meaning
of ‘gender’ seems to constitute a too obvious hiding place for a brand
of essentialism based on sex. Apart from being ‘structure’, as noted
above, gender is, according to Connell (2003:20), all about relations.
However, if there are none - or if the relations are excluding - the
concept of sex segregation may be even more useful.
In Connell’s analysis, gender may be removed (Connell 2003:96). In this
respect and as a consequence, gender equals sex segregation. In fact it
seems that the 'masculine' and 'feminine’, in the definition of gender
above, are confusingly close to the ‘mystique about their being
predetermined by biology’ when compared to the ‘reproductive arena’ and
‘reproductive differences’ in Connell’s (2003:21) definition of gender.
The elusiveness of gender seems to reveal a point of focus rather than a
thorough-going conceptualization. So, for example, in traditional
Engels/Marx thinking the family’s mediating formation between class and
state excludes the politics of gender (Haraway 1991: 131).
What's a Woman?
In What is a Woman? Moi (1999) attacks the concept of gender while still
emphasizing the importance of the concept of the feminine and a strong
self-conscious (female) subject that combines the personal and the
theoretical within it. Moi (1999: 76), hence, seems to propose a loose
sex/gender axis resting on a rigid womanhood based on women’s context
bound, lived experience outside the realm of men’s experience.
Although I share Moi’s suggestion for abandoning the category of gender,
her analysis seems to contribute to a certain confusion and to an
almost incalculable theoretical abstraction in the sex/gender
distinction because it keeps maintaining sex segregation without
offering a convincing defence for it. Although gender, for example, is
seen as a nature-culture distinction, something that essentializes
non-essential differences between women and men, the same may be said
about Moi’s approach if we understand her ‘woman’ as, mainly, the
mainstream biological one usually classified (prematurely) in the
delivery room. If the sexes live in separate spheres, as Moi’s analysis
seems to imply, the lived, contextual experience of women appears as
less suitable for pioneering on men’s territory.
This raises the question about whether the opening up of new frontiers
for females may demand the lessening or even the absence of femininity
(and masculinity). In fact, it is believed here that the ‘liminal state’
where social progression might best occur, is precisely that. Gender as
an educated ‘facticity’ then, from this point of view, will inevitably
enter into a state of world view that adds itself onto the ‘lived body’
as a constraint.
It is assumed here that we commonly conflate constructs of sex, gender,
and sexuality. When sex is defined as the ‘biological’ aspects of male
and female, then this conceptualization is here understood as purely
descriptive. When gender is said to include social practices organized
in relation to biological sex (Connell 1987), and when gender refers to
context/time-specific and changeable socially constructed relationships
of social attributes and opportunities learned through socialization
processes, between women and men, this is also here understood as
descriptive. However, when description of gender transforms into active
construction of gender, e.g. through secrets about its analytical gain,
it subsequently transforms into a compulsory necessity. Gendering hence
may blindfold gender-blind opportunities.
In conclusion, if gender is here understood as a social construct, then
it is not coupled to sex but to context, and dependent on time. Also it
is here understood that every person may possess not only one but a
variety of genders. Even if we consider gender to be locked together
with the life history of a single individual the above conceptualization
makes a single, personal gender impossible, longitudinally as well as
contemporaneously. Whereas gender is constructive and deterministic, sex
is descriptive and non-deterministic. In this sense, gender as an
analytical tool leaves little room for the Tomboy.
The Tomboy - a threat to "femininity"
Noncompliance with what is assumed ‘feminine’ threatens established or
presumed sex segregation. What is perceived as ‘masculinity’ or
‘maleness’ in women, as a consequence, may only in second place, target
homosexuality. In accordance with this line of thought, the Tomboy
embodies both the threat and the possibilities for gendered respectively
gender-blind opportunity structures.
The Tomboy is the loophole out of gender relations. Desires revealed
through sport may have been with females under the guise of a different
identity, such as that of the Tomboy (Kotarba & Held 2007: 163).
Girls throw balls ‘like girls’ and do not tackle like boys because of a
female perception of their bodies as objects of action (Young 2000:150
cited in Kotarba & Held 2007: 155).
However, when women lacking experience of how to act in an effective
manner in sport are taught about how to do, they have no problem
performing, quite contrary to explaining shortcomings as due to innate
causes (Kotarba & Held 2007: 157). This is also opposite to the
experiences of male-to-female transsexuals who through thorough exercise
learn how to feminize their movements (Schrock & Boyd 2006:53-55).
Although, according to Hargreaves (1994), most separatist sports
philosophies have been a reaction to dominant ideas about the biological
and psychological predispositions of men and women, supposedly
rendering men 'naturally suited to sports, and women, by comparison,
essentially less suited (Hargreaves 1994:29-30), the opposite may also
hold true. Separatism per definition needs to separate and this
separation is often based on biological differences, be it skin colour,
sex or something else.
From this perspective, the Tomboy would constitute a theoretical anomaly
in a feminine separatist setting. Although her physical body would
possibly qualify as feminine, what makes her a Tomboy would not.
The observation that in mixed playgrounds, and in other areas of the
school environment, boys monopolize the physical space (Hargreaves
1994:151) may lack the additional notion that certain boys dominate and
certain boys do not. Sports feminists have 'politicized' these kinds of
experience by drawing connections between ideas and practice (Hargreaves
1994:3) but because of a separatist approach may exclude similar
experience among parts of the boys. Moreover, a separatist approach is
never waterproof and may hence leak Tomboy girls without a notion.
Femininity and feminism
Feminism and psychoanalysis as oppressors
According to Collier and Yanagisako (1987), Henrietta Moore (1994) and
other feminist anthropologists, patriarchal dominance is an inseparable
socially inherited part of the conventional family system. This implicit
suggestion of radical surgery does not, however, count on unwanted
secondary effects neither on the problem with segregated or
non-segregated sex-worlds. If, in other words, oppression is related to
gender segregation rather than patriarchy, or perhaps that patriarchy is
a product of sex segregation, then there seems to be a serious problem
of intellectual survival facing feminists themselves (Klevius in
Angels of Antichrist 1996).
If feminism1 is to be understood as an approach and/or analytical tool
for separatism2, those feminists and others who propose not only
analytical segregation but also practical segregation, face the problem
of possible oppression inherent in this very segregation (Klevius 1994,
1996). In this sense oppression is related to sex segregation in two
ways:
1. As a means for naming it (feminism) for an analytical purpose.
2. As a social consequence or political strategy (e.g. negative bias
against, for example, female football or a separatist strategy for
female football).
It is notable that the psychoanalytic movement has not only been
contemporary with feminism, but it has also followed (or led) the same
pattern of concern and proposed warnings and corrections that has marked
the history of ‘feminism’ in the 20th century. According to S. Freud,
the essence of the analytic profession is feminine and the psychoanalyst
‘a woman in love’ (L. Appignanesi & J. Forrester 1992:189). But
psychoanalytically speaking, formalized sex and sex segregation also
seem to have been troublesome components in the lives of female
psychoanalysts struggling under a variety of assumed, but irreconcilable
femininities and professional expectations.
In studying the history of feminism one inevitable encounters what is
called ‘the women’s movement’. While there is a variety of different
feminisms, and because the borders between them, as well as to what is
interpreted as the women’s rights movement, some historians, incl.
Klevius, question the distinction and/or methods in use for this
distinction.
However, it could also be argued that whereas the women’s rights
movement may be distinguished by its lack of active separatism within
the proposed objectives of the movement, feminism ought to be
distinguished as a multifaceted separatist movement based on what is
considered feminine values, i.e. what is implied by the very word
‘feminism’3. From this perspective the use of the term ‘feminism’ before
the last decades of the 19th century has to be re-evaluated, as has
every such usage that does not take into account the separatist nature
underpinning all feminisms worth carrying the name. Here it is
understood that the concept ‘feminism’, and its derivatives, in every
usage implies a distinction based on separating the sexes - e.g.
addressing inequality or inequity - between male and female (see
discussion above). So although ’feminism’ and ‘feminisms’ would be
meaningless without such a separation, the ‘women’s rights movement’,
seen as based on a distinct aim for equality with men in certain legal
respects, e.g. the right to vote, could be described as the opposite,
i.e. de-sex segregation, ‘gender blindness’ etc.
As a consequence the use of the word feminism in a context where it
seems inappropriate is here excepted when the authors referred to have
decided to do so. The feminist movement went back to Mary Wollstonecraft
and to some French revolutionaries of the end of the eighteenth
century, but it had developed slowly. In the period 1880 to 1900,
however, the struggle was taken up again with renewed vigour, even
though most contemporaries viewed it as idealistic and hopeless.
Nevertheless, it resulted in ideological discussions about the natural
equality or non-equality of the sexes, and the psychology of women.
(Ellenberger 1970: 291-292).
Not only feminist gynocentrists, but also anti-feminist misogynists
contributed with their own pronouncements on the woman issue. In 1901,
for example, the German psychiatrist Moebius published a treatise, On
the Physiological Imbecility of Woman, according to which, woman is
physically and mentally intermediate between the child and man (see
Ellenberger 1970:292). However, according to the underlying presumption
of this thesis, i.e. that the borders between gynocentrism and misogyny
are not well understood, these two approaches are seen as more or less
synonymous. Such a view also confirms with a multitude of points in
common between psychoanalysis and feminism. As was argued earlier, the
main quality of separatism and ‘complementarism’ is an insurmountable
border, sometimes contained under the titles: love, desire etc.
Which one is weirder, Klevius (the main world critic of sex segregation/apartheid*) or sex apartheid?
* Admittedly Klevius seems also still to be the only one addressing
the core issue of this monumental world problem. However, this fact is no more surprising
than the fact that we live in a world where every girl has to assign
herself to long hair, make up, "feminine" clothing etc cultural
"femininity". And if she doesn't then she has to excuse herself by
labeling herself a lesbian, a transexual etc or be labeled by others as
"suffering" from the invented mental pathology of "gender dysphoria".
What is sex segregation - and what is it not?
According to soft brained Wikipedia: Sex segregation is the
physical, legal, and cultural separation of people according to their
biological sex. This is distinct from gender segregation, which is the
separation of people according to social constructions of what it means
to be male versus female.
According to hard brained Klevius: Sex segregation is the
physical, legal (e.g. Sharia), and cultural separation of girls/women
from boys/men according to social
constructions of what it means to be male versus female.
Gender
segregation is an impossible term in this context because the separation of people according to social
constructions of what it means to be male versus female resides inside the brain not outside the body and can therefore not be
called segregation. Segregation is the action or state of setting
someone apart from other people or being set apart. In other words,
segregation can only be imposed on you from outside with or without your
consent. You cannot segregate yourself. Moreover, segregation implies a collective, not individual, action.
According to Carmen Hamilton (apparently a soft brained lawyer): We’re born as either male or female and,
generally, are raised to look and act
as our society expects men and women to look and act (sic).
If a radical (sic) approach to eliminate gender segregation were
adopted, we would see the complete eradication of gender segregation in
all aspects of life. There would no longer be men’s and women’s
washrooms, sports, or communal change rooms.
Still, a move to eradicate systemic gender segregation, would inevitably
have fallout that would need to be addressed. There are legitimate
safety concerns behind some gender segregation. Physical and sexual
violence suffered by women at the hands of men continues to be a sad
reality. It is difficult to see how women prisoners will be adequately
protected if sex segregation is eliminated in prisons.
It also begs the question about whether we can eliminate sex segregation
when we have not yet achieved gender equality (sic). Would such a
movement nullify the gains fought for by feminists over the last
century? There was a time when it was seen as a huge win for women in
trades when employers were required to provide separate washrooms for
women. Further, we cannot ignore the physiological differences between
men and women that put women at a disadvantage in many sports. We would
likely see far fewer female Olympians.
Klevius comment: 'We are
generally raised to look and act
as our society expects
men and women to look and act' is a meaningless tautology because
'generally' and 'our society' both have the same meaning. Moreover,
Carmen Hamilton seems to be deeply confused when she uses sex
segregation and gender segregation as synonyms. What do your invisible
gender thoughts in your brain have to do with physical threats from men?
Isn't it your biological sex (or your signaling of a female body) that
is visible, not your gender.
And why a 'radical elimination of segregation'? What's that anyway?!
What would radical Human Rights mean? Would it mean that there exist
some moderate Human Rights according to which just a little torture is
ok?!
And why can't we have female prisons, washing rooms etc? It has nothing
to do with sex segregation/apartheid. We have parking spots for
disabled people but not for women. And why can't women continue running
100 m separate from men? We don't call other effects of physical sex
differences sex segregation either. Carmen Hamilton seems to seriously
mix apples and pears on this topic. She represents a dangerous view that
blurs women's right to full Human Rights equality.
Carmen Hamilton also asks 'whether we can eliminate sex segregation when
we have not yet achieved gender equality'. What a non sense! 'Gender
equality' is an oxymoron in many sense but here mainly because sex
segregation is the opposite to "gender equality"! In other words a catch
22.
LGBT people have "gender rights" but 11-year old football girls have none (see below).
Klevius' sex tutorial: The problem with main stream* feminism is its "equal but different" separatism
* Folks, there are two main types of 'feminism' out there: One that is
academic and based on segregation/separatism/apartheid (e.g. muslim
feminism), and one that could be described as folk "feminism", i.e. the
erroneous belief that feminism stands for equal rights when it in fact
stands for separatism.
'Heterosexual attraction' is the only analytical concept you need - yet no one seems to use it as such except Klevius
The feminist fallacy of the double failure not to recognize
heterosexual attraction while simultaneously keeping up sex segregation
Heterosexual attraction is the evolutionary logarithm that underpins heterosexual reproduction.
The
only heterosexual human is a heterosexual man. If you don't
understand/recognize this simple fact then you, just like feminists,
have no say at all in discussions about Human Rights and the adverse effect of sex
segregation.
Heterosexual attraction in humans resides in the male brain as the
female body. Not the other way round. As a consequence only men can have
heterosexual sex.
All men and women are different but equal
according to Human Rights. However, according to feminists, only men and
women are different from a rights perspective. So when Moi uses some
500 pages to tell us that only women, not men, can have women's
experience, we can waive her next deep thought namely that women are
different from other women.
Ever thought about why Mideast happened
to be the birthplace of the most disgusting of cumber stones on
humanity's road to Universal Human Rights (including women)? In
Demand for Resources Klevius established the root origin of "general"
sex segregation as connected to the transition from hunting/gathering to
investment a la the neolithic revolution.
However, pure
institutionalized sexism, i.e. sex segregation as apartheid, was born
out of particular secondary circumstances and effects of sex segregation
in the commerce between the new forms of production. The main
birthplace for true sexism was Mideast due to its geographical location.You don't have sex religions in China, Japan etc.
When men traded and therefore travelled around, women became
even more segregated than they were in the farming society where they at
least had a daily contact over the sex barrier. Combine this
development with slavery and defense against slavery and you end up with
"the chosen people" whose survival was the institutionalized Vagina
gate and whose (im)morality was sanctioned by "God".
Slowing down the process of de-sex segregation at an 'all deliberate
speed' while treating sex segregation symptoms with hormones and surgery
'All deliberate speed' was a phrase used in the
Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which declared
the system of legal segregation unconstitutional. However, the Court
ordered only that the states end segregation with ‘all deliberate
speed', i.e. to weigh something in the balance.
Grace
Kelly Bermudez is the plaintiff in a suit, which alleges Colombia’s
military service requirement is discriminatory insofar as it only
considers assigned sex — typically determined at birth by the presence
of absence of external sex organs — and not gender identity – a 'lived
internal and individual experience'.
While the military
service requirement only applies to men, there is currently no statute
governing cases of transsexuals who were assigned a restricting sex at
birth and due to sex segregation weren't allowed to lead their lives as
they wished.
Gender, as opposed to sex, is a “lived
internal and individual experience,” according to an amicus brief filed
on Bermudez’s behalf.
Trans persons’ ability to
'construct their gender in a determining fashion' is an implicit part of
their “individual autonomy as human beings', an interpretation the
Constitutional Court agreed with, argues the brief, when it ruled that
all Colombians have the right to 'freely' define their 'association with
any particular gender, as well as romantic orientation toward others.'
As
a consequence it is argued that the current military exemption practice
violates Bermudez’s 'right to gender identity and all related rights by
denying her construction of identity, leading to the violation of her
privacy, personhood, and right to live free of humiliations', reads the
brief.
Klevius comment: So wrong! It is sex
segregation that denies the construction of an identity that partly or
fully falls outside this segregation, leading to the violation of
privacy, personhood, and right to live free of humiliations etc. And sex
segregation is already dismissed in the 1948 Human Rights declaration.
Why not simply stick to Human Rights rather than upholding a ridiculous
sex apartheid.
Jeff and Hillary Whittington presented a video showing little Ryland's female-to-male transition
Klevius comment: You can't possibly be born with a 'gender'. The
popularity of LGBT rhetorics is largely due to the defense of sex
segregation/apartheid. So ironically, LGBT people's fight for the
freedom to lead their lives as they wish simultaneously restricts the
playroom for non-LGBT girls and women. Again, Klevius simple answer is
to empower girls'/women's Human Right to lead their lives without
restrictions because of their sex. And if people don't stop bullying
them then why not criminalize such bullying as a hate crime. That would
in no time make people equally cautious as they are now about saying
anything about muslims, wouldn't it.
John D. Inazu, associate professor of law at Washington University
School of Law, an expert on the First Amendment freedoms of speech,
assembly, and religion: In less than three decades, the Supreme
Court has moved from upholding the criminalizing of gay conduct to
affirming gay marriage. The tone of the debates has also shifted. Views
on gender and sexual conduct have flip-flopped. Thirty years ago, many
people were concerned about gender equality, but few had LGBTQ equality
on their radar. Today, if you ask your average 20-year-old whether it is
worse for a fraternity to exclude women or for a Christian group to ask
gay and lesbian members to refrain from sexual conduct, the responses
would be overwhelmingly in one direction.
Luke Brinker (in Bill O'Reilly's Dangerous Parenting Advice For
Transgender Kids): O'Reilly has also encouraged parents to actively
force their transgender children to conform to gender stereotypes.
Klevius: So it's not a 'gender stereotype' when 'activities and clothing
more commonly associated with boys' is enough to deem a girl on a path
toward physiological manipulation of her body rather than give her the
right to perform these activities without sex apartheid.
Jack Drescher, a member of the APA subcommittee working on the revision
of DSM: 'All psychiatric diagnoses occur within a cultural context.
Klevius comment: So when DSM 15 is out, can the male to female trans get their penis back, please?
Homosexuality was diagnosed in the DSM as an illness until 1973, and
conditions pertaining to homosexuality were not entirely removed until
1987.
The new term 'gender dysphoria' implies a temporary mental state rather
than an all-encompassing disorder, a change that blurs the picture even
more.
Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian
Rights: 'Having a diagnosis is extremely useful in legal advocacy. We
rely on it even in employment discrimination cases to explain to courts
that a person is not just making some superficial choice ... that this
is a very deep-seated condition recognized by the medical community.'
Klevius comment: The only deep-seated condition in this appalling symptom of sex segregation is the medical community and money.
Mental health professionals who work with trans clients are also pushing
for a revised list of symptoms, so that a diagnosis will not apply to
people whose distress comes from external prejudice, adults who have
transitioned, or children who simply do not meet gender stereotypes.
Why is the sex segregated bullying of girls like Moa Thambert supported
when it should, in fact, be classified as a hate crime?!
Parents used to shout 'boy' at me, says now 16-year old Moa Thambert.
Moa Thambert, 16, has always had short hair cut and been tough on the football pitch.
Moa Thambert, 16: It took me hard to be called a boy. Is still in the
back of my head. As a child I didn't understand why they wanted to
segregate me. But now I understand that it was because I dare to take my
place and that I have a certain appearance. It makes me really sad.
When Moa was six she begun playing football and immediately got comments
about her "inappropriate" sex appearance. 'It's so sick because there
is no difference in how kids look like. One should really be careful not
to do so. It strikes very hard.It shouldn't need to be like that.
Pia Sundhage (Sweden's football lady number one and former US coach):
It's appalling. In the 1960s I had to pretend to be a boy to be allowed
playing in a football team.
Pia Sundhage refers to a recent Swedish football tournament
(Fotbollsfesten) for kids where 11-year old girls in Glumslövs FF/Lunds
BK were accused of being boys by leaders and parents from Åhus IF.
Åhus IF coaches were so aggressive and got the whole team with them, says
Jens Lindblom, father of 11-year old Agnes.
The girls cried while the sex abuse continued.
Klevius concluding comment: I've even written a PhD thesis about
exactly this (including in depth interviews with Pia Sundhage and other
important female football personalities from the 1940s and on).
However. now I want to publish my findings for the general public but
hesitate to do so due to the slim interest (or is it just deep
ignorance) in this the biggest of global questions. Football/soccer is
the sport that seems to best reveal the medieval thinking about sex
segregation.
Any hints on how to make the book more popular than this blogging?
And why isn't the whole world reading Klevius?
Anyone?
Some previous reflexions on the topic:
The shameful contamination of British universities with religious fanatism
Guardian: The University of Leicester has launched an
investigation into gender segregation (sic) at a public lecture held by
its student Islamic society.
The talk, entitled Does God
Exist?, featured a guest speaker Hamza Tzortzis as part of an Islamic
Awareness week. Seating at the event was segregated, with different
entrances into the lecture theatre for men and women. . .
In
Leicester, more than 100 students attended the segregated event, which
took place last month. A photograph passed to the Guardian shows signs
put up in a university building, directing the segregation.
A
message on the group’s website says: “In all our events, [the society]
operate a strict policy of segregated seating between males and
females.” The statement was removed after the Guardian contacted the
society.
Klevius comment: Again this confused and irrational oxymoron
'gender segregation'. The sign on the wall of Leicester University
clearly states 'males' and 'females'. It means biological sex, not
cultural gender!
Rupert Sutton, from the campus watchdog Student Rights:
There is a consistent use of segregation by student of islamic societies
across the country. While this may be portrayed as voluntary by those
who enforce it, the pressure put on female students to conform and obey
these rules that encourage subjugation should not be underestimated.
Klevius: Although islam is by far the worst culprit when it comes
to sex apartheid, there is also a consistent low level general use of
sex segregation "light"
across the world. While this may be portrayed as voluntary by those
who enforce it, the pressure put on females (not the least by other
females) to conform and obey
to sex segregation that encourages subjugation should not be
underestimated.
Leicester University is one of the world's most sexist (i.e. islamized)
universities. You
may not believe me but the truth is (an other professor witnessed it)
that a female professor, Barbara Misztal (an East European immigrant? as
BBC uses to put it), when presented with criticism against
islam's rejection of women's full Human Rights via Sharia, said "Why
don't you want to let women lead their lives as they wish". Yes, you got
it right.
She saw Sharia restrictions of women's rights as a right!
Why hasn't anyone taught her that impositions are not rights, and that
Human Rights don't hinder muslim women from choosing to live under these
impositions whereas Sharia denies them the choice to freedom.
Moreover, she also blamed the messenger for not allowing women to NOT
HAVE THEIR FULL RIGHTS!
Barbara Misztal's
female students need to know this, and as usual, it seems that
Klevius is the only one daring to really address this ultimate and extremely disastrous and even dangerous sexism.
Sharia sex segregation or Human Rights for girls/women?
Klevius drawing from 1979 (background photo by Klevius 2012): Human Rights rather than religion
In every possible form of Sharia girls/women are forced to lead their
lives in sex apartheid of varying degrees. And that includes OIC's all
muslims covering Sharia law via UN. But according to Human Rights
every girl/woman has the right to decide herself what kind of life she
wants to lead - incl. a sex segregated life if she so wishes. So to live
in a society where Sharia rules doesn't really give any fair options.
In islam women and non-muslims are all "infidels", and the only thing
that really distinguishes a woman as muslim is her "duty" towards islam
to reproduce (physically and/or culturally) as many new muslims as
possible - and of course to have the Sharia duty to serve as a sex slave for her muslim husband.
Isn't that funny, muslims need a law to get sex while for me such compulsory sex equals rape!
Judie Foster! Hello there! You don't have "to come out". You've been out all the time according to Human Rights!
Article 2 of the Universal Human Rights Declaration
- Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth
in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race,
colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national
or social origin, property, birth or other status.
Klevius' explanation to those who can't read properly: In the
non-islamic free world you can marry/cohabit or have friendship ties
with anyone without having hetero-sex or sex at all! It's completely up
to you as an individual.
Dear Jodie, for example, we don't expect hetero-couples "to come out" telling us they have never had sex, do we?!
Read more on
What's sex segregation?
"The
essence of her being ("the Woman") is sex, that she is a born prostitute, and that,
on becoming older, she schemes to make young women follow the same path" (Otto Weininger some 100 years ago).
Klevius help for stupid readers: By "Woman" Weininger means the cultural
construction, not the individual. Also remember that when Wittgenstein
was criticized for having Weininger as one of his few idols he just
pointed out that one could negate everything Weininger had written and
still profit on him. And if you still feel confused please do ask for
more help via comments.
