Decidedly Obscure Human Complaints.

Update: GLAAD, MISS UNIVERSE ANNOUNCE POLICY CHANGE TO ALLOW TRANSGENDER WOMEN

Just finished reading this article in the Huffington Post about Jenna Talackova, the 23-year-old Miss Universe Canada finalist who was disqualified. Why? Because she’s a transgender woman. The rules apparently stipulate that contestants must be a “naturally born female.” A statement from Miss Universe Canada stated that Jenna “did not meet the requirements to compete despite having stated otherwise on her entry form.”

Fortunately, Jenna’s now lawyered up and fighting this blatantly transphobic and discriminatory disqualification. What does it matter if the contestants are cisgender or transgender women? And what is the difference between a rule that’s clearly designed to specifically discriminate against transgender women and those which discriminate against individuals based on other characteristics - for example, the color of one’s skin?

Perhaps Miss Universe doesn’t realize that there aren’t just two clearly separated and defined genders. For example, there are women-born-women with no visible male anatomy. These girls often don’t realize they are genetically XY until years later. Is Miss Universe going to start tediously screening for variations like this? Would this also be absurd grounds for disqualification? Why would it be, aside from transphobia?

In any case, I wish Jenna the best and commend her for fighting this,discriminatory boo-shit and pursuing it legally.

Read the article >

This semester has been crazy busy. So busy that I have a whole slew of gobblity gook I can’t wait to blog about. Oooooh has it accumulated. 

At long last, my Spring Break has begun. So am I breaking it up in Portland at a vegan strip club? Am I off in a secluded cabin somewhere? Am I at a beach party trying to escape a prehistoric mutant piranha blood bath?! Well, close… but no cigar. I’m getting school stuff done.

Ugh. See, here’s the problem. My academically warped sense of reality compels me to see this “break” as an opportunity to get stuff done. For example, tomorrow I’ll be working on submitting my summer research idea for IRB approval - which is a board that exists to make sure research involving human participants is ethical or not. What fun. 

My riveting research topic, by the way, is belief in a just world and attitudes toward hate crime based on gender expression. A little while back I came across something called the “just-world hypothesis”, which was developed by a feller named Lerner back in the 1960’s. A bit after Milgram had dabbled in his studies on human obedience to authority figures, Lerner wondered about what other factors contribute to people supporting cruel regimes or social norms that cause suffering. He noticed a tendency for observers to blame victims for their own suffering - like how his students would consistently blame the poor for their own plight, instead of structural factors that contribute to poverty. 

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