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“Pan” means all; “pansexual” means attraction to all genders. It’s not “I don’t see gender”. For a lot of people, it isn’t even “gender has no impact on how attracted I am to someone”. It’s fine if that’s what it means to someone, but it isn’t an accurate blanket statement.
Gender matters, and gender is important to a lot of people. We cannot ever, ever pretend that gender does not exist or that it is insignificant. It may be insignificant in your choice of partner, but that does not mean that you are blind to gender. Gender-blindness is only one step away from denying the existence of gender. Part of not being blind to gender is accepting that gender is very real, and that everything that comes along with gender -trans* struggles, privilege, dealing with sexism, preferred pronouns, etc.- are actually really important.”
thanks for this. i adore your brain!
Submitted by: Mx Punk
- No problem and thank you :)
From here: http://iamgreaterthanhate.tumblr.com/post/5755421535/i-dont-appreciate-this-pansexual-means-gender-blind
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10 panphobic myths
http://rainbowgenderpunk.wordpress.com/2011/11/12/10-panphobic-myths-debunked/
I don’t really like the -phobic terminology, but there don’t seem to be any specific terms to replace biphobia and panphobia, except bi-hatred and pan-hatred, and I hear people find them too clunky.
But that asides, this is a great article / blog post / thing. Read it.
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Gender Neutral Bathroom Challenge
The challenge: Don’t use any gendered bathrooms or change rooms for the month of April.
What are “gendered bathrooms”? Gendered bathrooms are designated for “men” or “women” by a sign. This challenges includes ALL multi-stall and single-stall washrooms, and the bathrooms at work, schools, libraries, bars/restaurants, and everywhere, really.
There are multiple purposes for this challenge:1) To give people who don’t find going to gendered bathrooms a difficult/unsafe experience a small idea of what it is like for trans and gender variant people to navigate this world. Hopefully, with some real life experience, you will have a broader understanding of how gendered this world really is. But,
DOING THIS DOES NOT GIVE YOU AUTHORITY TO SAY WHAT IT IS LIKE TO BE TRANS OR GENDER VARIANT.
2) To inspire people to fight for more gender neutral bathrooms.Tips:
- Don’t drink a lot of liquid if you are leaving the house for long periods of time
- Try to figure out where some gender neutral bathrooms are in your town/city, and plan your day around using a gender neutral bathroom.
- Remember, you can use gendered bathrooms again in May. Some people can’t.
And, even if you really have to go to the bathroom, try to not see gendered bathrooms as a possible place to go.
If you are interested, feel free to write your experiences down and send them to gnbchallenge@gmail.com. With your permission, they will be included in a zine on the topic of gendered bathrooms.We also recommend fighting for gender neutral bathrooms in one (or more) public space(s). Often the fight for this aspect of bathroom accessibility is only fought for by trans and gender variant people; It would be nice if other people fought for it too.
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PLEASE SPREAD THIS!
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Sexuality feels.
I kinda don’t like it when people refer to pansexuality as being “gender-blind”. It honestly reminds me a bit of people saying that they “don’t see race”. So…you’re just going to not acknowledge a potentially large part of someone’s identity? That’s really not cool.
I mean, I certainly see gender, it just doesn’t matter when I find someone attractive.
I suppose some people who identify as pan use the term “gender-blind”, but it still strikes me as odd and I really wish people wouldn’t lump all pansexuals into that category. Sexuality is a really diverse thing, even within particular labels.
Have to agree:
- The term colourblind basically ignores race, therefore ignoring racial identity and racial oppression. Colourblind is also a thing that exists, so the word is also appropriative of actual colourblindness.
- The term genderblind basically ignores gender, therefore ignoring gender identity and gender-based oppression, including cissexism, transmisogyny, binarism, and sexism/misogyny.
- You can tell they’re the same concept because one word is based on the other.
- People with gender identities that they feel aren’t covered by bisexual aren’t going to want pansexual people to ignore or be blind to their genders. They’re going to want pansexual people to acknowledge and respect their gender identities.
(Source: selflubricatinganus)
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Image: pansexual flag with writing on. “Oh, pansexuality doesn’t exist? TELL THAT TO MY GENDER NEUTRAL PARTNER”
Also relevant to those who would be saying “genderqueer partner”, “non-binary partner”, “genderfluid partner” etc (including specific non-binary genders)
(Source: pansexuallovepride)
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Being “pansexual,” is bullshit, in my opinion. You either like men or women or both. The most you can be is bisexual. The least you can be is asexual.
Sure, there are transgenders, transsexuals, and every other combination imaginable, but in the end every person identifies themselves one way or the other.
Actually, there are people who identify as genderqueer or non-binary. That is to say, there are people who identify as a gender other than “man” or “woman”. I identify as intergender, between ‘woman’ and ‘third gender’.
There are plenty of traditional gender roles other than “man” or “woman”, before you write this off as some silly new age fad.
- A lot of the Native American tribes/peoples have the concept of Two-Spirit, which is, to them, someone who is at the same time BOTH a man AND a woman - they have two spirits, one of each.
- Pakistan and India both have a group of people described a ‘hijra’ which seems to outsiders to be trans women (MTF) but they often describe themselves as “a second kind of woman”.
- Thailand has a traditional gender role which I don’t know the Thai for, but only the English derogative “ladyboy”. They (I believe) see themselves as other than ‘men’ or ‘women’.
- In Biblical times / Ancient Rome etc, eunuchs were seen as a seperate gender, with various documents (including older translations of the Bible) talks about “born Eunuchs” which suggests that it was something the individuals always identified as, rather than a physical state of being a castrated male person.
So, there you have it. There are other genders than ‘man’ and ‘woman’.
AND of course, there are other sex possibilities than cis-male, cis-female, trans-male and trans-female. Intersex is something born (you may know the concept under the now-unused word ‘hermaphrodite’) and I think one in 2000 people are born intersex in one way or another. (Some are born with ambiguous genitals, some seem male or female and don’t find out until they try to have children.) Neutrois is the physical version of agender - people don’t just transition to the ‘opposite’ sex, as some people feel they have no gender and also feel that they would be happier in a body with as few sex characteristics as possible.
Of course, you could just be a bigot and a binarist, and either ignore or reject/dispute this reply, but hopefully you’ll respond positively. I knew none of this information a couple of years ago, so it’s fine to say, “Oh, damn, I had no idea that any of these things existed!”
Reblogging this here to signal boost. Pansexuality is far from bullshit ;)
Also, it would be AWESOME if there were any Native Americans, Indians/Pakistanis or Thai…s? to either fix or confirm my definitions (E.G. what is the correct, non-slur for “ladyboy”? Is there one in English?) for Queertionary! As you can see by my failure to know what the word for people from Thailand is, I am not very good at international knowledge. I also suck at geography, if you must know.
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Read more »
Queertionary 2.4
With thanks to abxc94 and philolexica
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http://presles.tumblr.com/post/4846784258/personal-pansexual-post
OK, in brief, my partner/significant other “came out” as trans (best described as genderfluid). Until this point I was pretty certain I was gay. Like yeah, there’s always *some* guys who are cute, but I’ve never really been with a guy, and never really thought about it. Seen as now I’m with someone who sometimes defines as male, I’ve thought more about guys, looked for guys I find attractive, ogled Ashton Kutcher, that sorta thing. And it’s not all that unpleasant (weird from me I know). I am happy with them as a guy, and not just cause they look like a girl.
So, given the fluidity of their gender, the best word to describe my sexuality is now pansexual. There’s gotta be a joke there…
Any comments would be muchly appreciated.
[Submitted by presles]
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I am pansexual.
I consider myself pansexual. I am attracted to people of all genders. I am not blind to gender - I acknowledge that a person is a man, woman, genderqueer, etc.
I saw someone comment on an image I reblogged from Queer Secrets. It was a pansexual flag, and the text mentioned men and women. The person who commented said that the pansexual flag was not relevant because the person mentioned gender. I understand that some pansexual people “do not see gender”; but others do, and love others because/in spite of their gender.
I’m not sure if I worded this right, I’m in the middle of exams and very stressed out. But I had to get this off my chest.
I think it’s a great point worded well.
I think it’s a bit cissexist of people to say that they don’t see/acknowledge gender. If you don’t see someone as their gender, you don’t see them. If you refuse to refer to someone by the pronouns, you refuse to refer to them. Even if you’re seeing everyone as a non-gendered person, and calling them all ‘they’, it’s erasing. Gender is a part of who someone is. If you can’t see women, you can’t see sexism. If you can’t see trans* and genderqueer people, you can’t see cissexism.
(Source: tentaclecupcakes)
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Day of Silence
This Friday (15th April) is the Day of Silence.
What is that? Well, it’s an LGBTQ day, and participants spend the entire day in silence (communicating via notepad or mini drywipe board) to represent all those who are silenced, whose voices are never heard, because they are LGBTQ.
Add a banner to your facebook profile picture
Things you can do as well as not talk:
- Put a sticky plaster (band aid) or a sticky label over your mouth (you can write Day of Silence on the label, for extra visibility)
- Wear rainbow/genderqueer flag/flag of your choice clothing
- Make business-card style cards with info on them to hand out
- Make a poster for your school/college/uni/workplace
- Download stickers and/or posters from the website to use
- Buy a t shirt or wristband from the website
- Post nothing on twitter, facebook, tumblr, blogspot or any other similar website
- Text no one. Send no emails.
- Come out?
There will be no posts on Friday, but after that we’ll post any DoS-related submissions, so send in any stories you have about this year’s, or previous years’ Day of Silence, any pictures of you being proud/silent, and hell, anything DoS related!
There will be no posts on Friday, but after that we’ll post any DoS-related submissions, so send in any stories you have about this year’s, or previous years’ Day of Silence, any pictures of you being proud/silent, and hell, anything DoS related!
