13 Responses to “It’s A Thing- s02e04 – Reject the binary embrace the yolk”

  1. In this episode Molly talks about a book that Tom should read. It sounded to me like she said it was “Boo Town” but I can’t find that on Amazon. Between my ears and her mic I’m not sure if I should donate to her mic fund or my hearing aid fund.

    • hi ryan, molly mentioned clubw.com – I checked out the site and it looks really promising!
      also, re: tom’s tepurpedic mattress. I’ve owned one and replaced it with a novaform from Costco. I honestly can’t tell the difference.

      re: molly’s audio – maybe she is being skyped in?

  2. I loved the story about “self identifying” the gender your want to be. And I thought, that’s great…but why should it be limited to gender, we should all be able to “self identify”, so I decided today I was going to “self identify” as an African American…so I went to a friend of mine who happens to be black….and I walked up and said “Hey, Ni*&*$*, what’s up?”. He got all offended. I didn’t understand and I explained to him that I was “self identifying as ‘’black’ today and can’t we call each other that?

    He just looked at me and said “but you’re not black.” I said I am today…tomorrow, I’m gonna be Irish…it’s called self identifying and it’s the latest thing. He then said…BUT YOU’RE NOT BLACK!. I explained that today I am. Now he’s mad at me …. How narrow minded?

    How do I handle this self identifitying thing? I was thinking about being female tomorrow and going to the female restroom/showers tomorrow at the gym, but now I’m afraid someone might have a problem with my penis? Should I be concerned?

    • Comparing gender and race is not completely wrong, but your argument is flawed. A general comparison between gender and race holds insofar as one’s self-identification for either need not be discrete (discrete being the opposite of continuous), but gender-identity is not bound by lineage, geography or nationality.
      As to your second argument, you conflate gender with sex. Gender, sex, and sexuality are three distinct categories. Restrooms, showers and other such facilities are generally segregated by sex. You have no way of knowing how anybody in a sex-segregated facility identifies in terms of gender by their appearance alone.

  3. Interesting point about “self-identifying” race vs gender.

    However:

    1. Can one get hormone therapy and a “race change” operation?
    2. Part of the issue of transgendered individuals is that they’ve always internally felt to be of a different gender from their external, physical gender. It’s not simply a matter of simply changing one’s mind one day, and then changing it back the next.
    3. Legal gender changes are accompanied by therapy and psychological diagnosis. There’s a legal framework set up for it.
    4. No one’s stopping you from checking off boxes on forms for a race that’s not your own. Only certain kinds of things require proof or verification.
    5. There certainly are people who feel more comfortable associating in racial groups other than their own. They could take it to an extreme with cosmetics and/or cosmetic surgery, and then it becomes a matter of acceptance.
    6. Hollywood has a long history of actors/actresses/etc. changing their names, and in some cases using cosmetics, to try to be presented or present themselves as of a different race. So this is actually nothing new.

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