Nico

Just saw a blog say that cissexism in the pro choice movement is a ‘necessary evil’.

firstrisingvibes:

You wanna know why so many of us don’t ID as feminists, cis people? Shit like this. Shit like this, where I’m expected to sit down and shut up every time I’m misgendered because it’s easier to type ‘women’ than ‘people with uteruses’ in case pro-lifers get confused. Shit like this, where I have to put up with being thrown under the bus for the betterment of cis women. Shit like this, where my very real experiences with abortion that were directly connected to my transness are reblogged by pro-choice sites all over the place because I said useful things, but my gender ID completely ignored when it’s convenient.

I’m done with this shit. You want me to be vocal about pro-choice stuff? You want me to talk about my experience? You want me to fight the fight openly? You want me to be a feminist? Stop being cissexist assholes, stop being bigotry apologists, stop explaining it all away for ‘the greater good’. Fuck your ‘greater good’. If it screws over me and all of my trans siblings, it ain’t that good.

(Source: campdracula5eva)

From Occupy Pittsburgh:

Quinn Elliott 11:18am Nov 14

hey I’m looking to set up a memorial area or altar for Transgender Day of Remembrance (Sunday 11/20) somewhere at the occupation site. I think I’ll also have a moment of silence/ceremony around noon that day.

If you’d like to help or have resources, contact me and I’ll forward them to Quinn. (If you are already a part of Occupy Pittsburgh’s Marginalized Communities and Allies workgroup, Quinn has their cell number up there for workgroup members.)

Quinn is expecting to have a flyer available by the end of the day, but I wanted to get this out there first. 

So! I’m writing a big letter to the researcher behind that sexuality study.

eateroftrees:

astormofsquids:

eateroftrees:

codeman38:

nicocoer:

And CCing the big long list of ethics officers.

I’ve had time to calm down enough to structure arguments and do research, but I’m still angry. Angry about the survey itself, angry that I unintentionally enabled my friends to be hurt by it, angry that the ethics committee that reviewed this didn’t catch how vastly problematic it was. Angry about the binarism and about how the gender identity questions were sterotypical and full of things where they asked if my identity as a woman or man was important to me in a way that negated the possibility of being gender variant, gender fluid, or agender.

I am including resources ranging from professional associations, to gender studies, to general information from trans and gender variant individuals. I am indeed looking for suggestions.

If you are intersex, then I’m mega curious as to any preferred resources discussing or representing being intersex, as well as opinions about this survey, particularly the conflation of penis and vulva with male and female. I have few contacts within the intersex community, and none that I feel comfortable approaching directly.

Additionally, if you have any stories about your experience with this survey, you can leave a disqus comment, reblog, email me at nicocoer(at)gmail.com, or send me an ask. This goes for anyone who took it.

While I do recognize that the non-consensual sexuality questions may have been an issue, those I doubt the ethics people will be interested in because the consent form explicitly states- even in the shorter version- that questions about non-consensual sexual contact will be asked. I just fear that the ethics people will look at that and throw out that argument. 

The sexuality survey in question (along with a description and huge warnings). Note that while it is on the topic of Gender and Sexuality in Autistics, the survey is not restricted to Autistics so if you would like to and are able to look it over as someone who is knowledgeable in gender and sexuality, research methodologies, or simply in your own experience as someone who is trans, gender variant, or of a non-normative sexuality be it asexuality, kink, lgb, or other types of non-normative sexuality.

Please share this, be it reblogging or other means. 

Someone needs to take this survey and either PDF or copy-paste all of the questions as a permanent record.

I remember there being a number of problematic questions aside from the Autism Quotient and the best friend vs. partner question that I described previously, but I can’t remember what they were now— and I’m not going to go through that thing page-by-page again right now, especially because some of those questions squicked me out like whoa. (That, and I don’t want to accidentally submit it and double up my results…)

One thing I’m personally worried about is how they’ll be handling questions that were left blank. In many of these questions, a null answer is actually statistically significant, and shouldn’t be thrown out. If these nulls are ignored, the results will be skewed greatly in the direction of sexuals while ignoring asexuals.

I would gladly document their questions but I spent about half an hour trying to calm down and fighting off self-harm compulsions after I tried taking it the first time, soooooo I’m not going back in there.

(And on the asexual side, I accidentally clicked a button on a question that didn’t apply to me, and it then meant I was completely unable to unselect anything, which does suggest they’re regarding skipped questions as not statistically significant, since it’s not actually an option you can select.  Which um.)

But yeah massive binaryism and cissexism.  Like any data this study produces is going to be suspect because wow.

I’m looking through it right now for curiosity’s sake.  I can copy/paste all of the questions into a Word doc (or a Google doc) so there’s a permanent record of its current state, and I’m trans so I can at least isolate problematic shit about gender to some extent.

Please do if you make it through the survey; I can probably safely look over the survey after someone else has collected the data and point out all the creepy cissexism and binaryism and mononormativity and sexualism like gah.

So! I’m writing a big letter to the researcher behind that sexuality study.

And CCing the big long list of ethics officers.

I’ve had time to calm down enough to structure arguments and do research, but I’m still angry. Angry about the survey itself, angry that I unintentionally enabled my friends to be hurt by it, angry that the ethics committee that reviewed this didn’t catch how vastly problematic it was. Angry about the binarism and about how the gender identity questions were sterotypical and full of things where they asked if my identity as a woman or man was important to me in a way that negated the possibility of being gender variant, gender fluid, or agender.

I am including resources ranging from professional associations, to gender studies, to general information from trans and gender variant individuals. I am indeed looking for suggestions.

If you are intersex, then I’m mega curious as to any preferred resources discussing or representing being intersex, as well as opinions about this survey, particularly the conflation of penis and vulva with male and female. I have few contacts within the intersex community, and none that I feel comfortable approaching directly.

Additionally, if you have any stories about your experience with this survey, you can leave a disqus comment, reblog, email me at nicocoer(at)gmail.com, or send me an ask. This goes for anyone who took it.

While I do recognize that the non-consensual sexuality questions may have been an issue, those I doubt the ethics people will be interested in because the consent form explicitly states- even in the shorter version- that questions about non-consensual sexual contact will be asked. I just fear that the ethics people will look at that and throw out that argument. 

The sexuality survey in question (along with a description and huge warnings). Note that while it is on the topic of Gender and Sexuality in Autistics, the survey is not restricted to Autistics so if you would like to and are able to look it over as someone who is knowledgeable in gender and sexuality, research methodologies, or simply in your own experience as someone who is trans, gender variant, or of a non-normative sexuality be it asexuality, kink, lgb, or other types of non-normative sexuality.

Please share this, be it reblogging or other means. 

I’ll of course assume he’s completely ignoring the presence of autistic trans women

draggle:

eateroftrees:

Because if autistic women are inconvenient for his theories about extreme male brains, autistic women who have absurd levels of distress over coercive masculinization are like… Yeah.

Brains: You can’t just arbitrarily stick genders on them.

(This is the guy who’s tests show that most women have male brains and who doesn’t think this is a problem SO I MEAN REALLY.)

Hell yes.  My best friend is an autistic transwoman and so very “stereotypically feminine”.  SBC’s tripe always reminds me of her, how very opposite his tripe she is.

Say, when is the Autism Women’s Network interviewing Simon Baron-Cohen on radio again?  Someone should ask him about transwomen.  I’m sure people must have asked him ‘bout ‘em before, but whatever drivel he replies with ought to be recorded.   

Anyone want to volunteer to be the call in question asker? (Prefer if it’s a trans autistic btw…)  

I DO know that he is/was supposed to be coming on the Autism Women’s Network Radio Show again SOON, if he hasn’t backed out. Unfortunately, it seems like he still hasn’t been scheduled in? I’ll have to talk to my executive director….

(Source: thenameoftheworms)

Has anyone else had like…?

eateroftrees:

…serious anxiety problems develop after going on hormones? (er, specifically thinking estrogens obviously)

Because I’m pretty sure that’s what’s going on with my moods right now (esp. given my last blood test came back with too high estrogen levels)

And I’m curious if other people have had experiences like that, because this is getting a bit frustrating and I’d like to know more what other people have had in this regard.

If you have experience with it, let her know? I know I’ve heard from people saying this was the case for them But I don’t remember specifics. 

AKA signal boost.

Response to the post about the CAFAB->Men and Autism article

allies-person:

nicocoer:

BILL 55 minutes ago

I agree with your thoughts on a flawed study. Baron-Cohen’s own orginzation, The Autism Research Centre (ARC) states “it is recognized that at best the AQ is a screening instrument - it is not itself diagnostic.”

The article from Cambridge First omitted the important last paragraph from the original press release full News Release here 

Emma Martin, a co-author, is a transwoman and psychotherapist. She gives the only real caution in the article: “This new research reminds us that gender incongruence is incredibly complex. Every possibility should be discussed with new clients, but should not delay what can be a painfully slow process for those affected.”

Bill then provided a link which didn’t work to another press release, and I couldn’t retrace it either. 

I would like to see this, as well as hear what people know of Emma Martin and her professional history.

This godawful paper has a co-author who is a transwoman?  I…don’t know what to think of this, and would also be interested in learning more about Emma Martin.  Google is no help.

I’m trying to find a copy of the paper in full and can’t.  It’s not in the most recently available issue of Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, though I am looking at an article about an abridged version of the AQ.  SBC is a third author.  (Notice that we still do not have a validation of the AQ as an evaluative measure from any non-SBC-affiliated source.)

Has anyone else been able to find the article?

As a sidenote, here’s a depressing game: How many articles in the JADD actually have the potential to help autistic people?  Seems like way too few to me.

Response to the post about the CAFAB->Men and Autism article

BILL 55 minutes ago

I agree with your thoughts on a flawed study. Baron-Cohen’s own orginzation, The Autism Research Centre (ARC) states “it is recognized that at best the AQ is a screening instrument - it is not itself diagnostic.”

The article from Cambridge First omitted the important last paragraph from the original press release full News Release here 

Emma Martin, a co-author, is a transwoman and psychotherapist. She gives the only real caution in the article: “This new research reminds us that gender incongruence is incredibly complex. Every possibility should be discussed with new clients, but should not delay what can be a painfully slow process for those affected.”

Bill then provided a link which didn’t work to another press release, and I couldn’t retrace it either. 

I would like to see this, as well as hear what people know of Emma Martin and her professional history.