If you wrote stories, biographies I'd guess, about their lives, all three would like to be identified by their current gender. Not as trans-whatever, not as unsure, not as anything else. They would fit into the original categories. I know, I checked with them all before I posted.
I know that's a far from universal view, even in the community of those who have transitioned. Many have a strong identity as "someone who has transitioned" rather than anything else, and would like to be identified as trans-female or trans-male.
There isn't a right answer for everyone but this isn't a clearly wrong solution, especially when it's not an issue for the books in question to date. It will need to be addressed when more books are added, yes, but it's an issue for when some of the other issues have been worked out.
]]>http://www.buzzfeed.com/awesomer/fantasy-forever#.pkrAY9rQN
I appreciate BuzzFeed isn't a major critical award. It's not books from the last year. It's not even (37 men, 14 women I think, unless I've missed a woman publishing with a man's name - 15 actually, one book has 2 women), but nearly 28% isn't too shabby!
]]>However, there will be (and not in the too near future) a fundamental readjustment to all this binary nonsense once people start grasping the real nature of biochemistry / genetics (c.f. chimeric expression in cells, X/Y co-ords and what you really look like. For 50% of the population, they're striped like Tigers - it's going to be amazing when radicals start gene-hacking it with UV light expressing stuff. But anyhow).
The nod to Kinsey wasn't an accident - 70 years and 'society' is still struggling with basic concepts such as "sexuality is a spectrum". Ever raised cows?
And, to make sure we're not thumping the wrong drums, often those niche groups are as exclusionary and hateful as the majority they've been persecuted by. (c.f. Bisexual sexuality expression in minority groups, exclusion and reactionary labeling).
right now I'm thinking we need 4 categories: female, male, non-binary, and other (for animals, aliens, supernatural entities, inanimate objects...) but this is definitely a work in progress...
You probably need a few more.
Instead of a Pie Chart, try a chromatic spectrum where each author is gradiated on an artificial colour spectrum showing bias towards one pole or another.
If you're any good, you'll make it at least have 4 axes.
Pie Charts are outdated and mostly useless.
This is not something that happens often. In fact I've not seen it happen before.
Yes, sorry.
There was a specific thing in there that was not cool, and could have made a lot of people unsafe, so. Better to play the Joker and burn it to the ground.
~
On a totally unrelated note, HUGO awards this weekend.
]]>Catina @ 236 No, they wont, unfortunately - they will refuse to believe it & SHOUT LOUDER - much like the Climate denialists. Depressing, isn't it?
On a totally unrelated note, HUGO awards this weekend. No - on a wholly related note, actually. Which is why I don't think I'll comment on Linda Nagata's next thread. We will have to wait & see what the outcome of the puppies is, won't we?
]]>https://chaoshorizon.wordpress.com/2015/08/23/2015-hugo-stats-initial-analysis/
]]>I find it amusing the the Sad/Rabid supporters (I like puppies too much to call them that) keep claiming that the results support their views. Umm, No They Don't. It shows that the S/Rs don't have the influence that they and their flunkies imagine they do. Twitter conversations seem to go something like: flunky: It shows the awards are controlled by the Elites! "Elite": Did you vote for what you wanted? f: Err, no. "E": Then please STFU.
I'd be tempted to say: You keep using these Words; I do not think they mean what you think they mean.
*And if I had a dollar for every white guy I've met who claimed to be part Native American... I usually hear it as "I'm a quarter Cherokee". The only one I've taken seriously was a former boss who was half Cherokee, I met her father so yeah that was true.
]]>Hoooookayyyy.
]]>Someone I know once made the comment that Kinsey's sexuality spectrum is often used to invalidate bisexuality. That in response to telling people she is bisexual, she is often met with the response that 'we're all a little bit bisexual' or 'sexuality is fluid' – which ultimately turns into pressure for her to identify as either straight or lesbian. She also complained that talking about sexuality as a spectrum treats bisexuality as being 'half-way' between being straight and gay, rather than as a sexuality which has something of an independent identity.
You admitted that there are problems with Kinsey's methodology. I think perhaps one of the reasons his conceptualisation of sexuality as a spectrum hasn't been thoroughly adopted is because we still don't have a very good picture of sexuality, and that its acceptance presents problems for people whose sexualities are not a good fit for his spectrum.
More to the point, I'm not sure how your argument applies to the gender of characters and authors. In the current state of literature, characters tend to be cis unless the author is making a point of a character being non-cis, let alone specifically non-binary. While for placing authors on a 2D spectrum by their gender and sexuality? At best that reads to me as being fairly invasive. At worst it demands a completely unethical level of disclosure on the part of authors. Can't we just take authors at their face value, and go by their preferred pronouns in the absence of any definitive statement as to their gender?
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