When I was pregnant, almost every nurse, doctor or lab technician asked me the same question: so you guys aren’t finding out the gender, huh? To which, I replied the same way to each medical professional: well, there’s no way to know, is there?
Without fail, the person always looked at me like I’d landed from Mars. But I stuck to my guns: until there’s an ultrasound that can detect a teeny-tiny Barbie house or Thomas The Tank Engine inside a woman’s womb, no parent or doctor on earth can determine the gender of any baby (at least, not until he or she is much older, and then, it might still be a pretty difficult assessment).
Many folks make this mistake. They confuse sex (anatomy, which we can detect in the womb) and gender (a social construction, think “masculinity” and “femininity,” which we can not)— especially when it comes to young children.
And many parents will go way out of their way to police the gender boundaries for their own kids and even kids they’ve never met before.
Just ask Mallory May. Yesterday, the Manhattan mother and her three-year-old son, Oscar were photographed by Brandon Stanton, a local blogger who runs Humans of New York, a site that describes itself as a photographic census of the city— and boy did the picture set off a firestorm of Facebook controversy. There was little Oscar, prancing around his neighborhood, proudly dressed in one of his brand new Halloween costumes: a princess.
What the heck has happened to Forbes? I thought they only did rational articles.
Yep.
Old song lyrics: "From Bogart to Bowie, from He-man to She-man..."
America's enemies aren't having any problem raising men and women, though they plan to use some of them even as mobile single-use explosive devices.
Meanwhile we are exploring new ways to fund future therapists..I hate democrats!
German nouns have genders, human beings don’t.
This is very good!!!! It will prepare the little sissies to serve in Obama’s New Military....
JUDITH: I do feel, Reg, that any Anti-Imperialist group like ours must reflect such a divergence of interests within its power-base.
REG: Agreed. Francis?
FRANCIS: Yeah. I think Judith’s point of view is very valid, Reg, provided the Movement never forgets that it is the inalienable right of every man—
STAN: Or woman.
FRANCIS: Or woman... to rid himself—
STAN: Or herself.
FRANCIS: Or herself.
REG: Agreed.
FRANCIS: Thank you, brother.
STAN: Or sister.
FRANCIS: Or sister. Where was I?
REG: I think you’d finished.
FRANCIS: Oh. Right.
REG: Furthermore, it is the birthright of every man—
STAN: Or woman.
REG: Why don’t you shut up about women, Stan. You’re putting us off.
STAN: Women have a perfect right to play a part in our movement, Reg.
FRANCIS: Why are you always on about women, Stan?
STAN: I want to be one.
REG: What?
STAN: I want to be a woman. From now on, I want you all to call me ‘Loretta’.
REG: What?!
LORETTA: It’s my right as a man.
JUDITH: Well, why do you want to be Loretta, Stan?
LORETTA: I want to have babies.
REG: You want to have babies?!
LORETTA: It’s every man’s right to have babies if he wants them.
REG: But... you can’t have babies.
LORETTA: Don’t you oppress me.
REG: I’m not oppressing you, Stan. You haven’t got a womb! Where’s the foetus going to gestate?! You going to keep it in a box?!
LORETTA: crying
JUDITH: Here! I— I’ve got an idea. Suppose you agree that he can’t actually have babies, not having a womb, which is nobody’s fault, not even the Romans’, but that he can have the right to have babies.
FRANCIS: Good idea, Judith. We shall fight the oppressors for your right to have babies, brother. Sister. Sorry.
REG: What’s the point?
FRANCIS: What?
REG: What’s the point of fighting for his right to have babies when he can’t have babies?!
FRANCIS: It is symbolic of our struggle against oppression.
REG: Symbolic of his struggle against reality.
trumpets