Discouragement

I'll never understand this kind of comment: "Not every man/woman issue is necessarily about the persecution of women. If you rant about every potential man/woman dynamic, more mainstream peeps will assume you're a wacko, which will detract from the message of the very important overall cause for which you're fighting."

The person who said this to me is the husband of one my favorite people. He and I have had less than a half a dozen conversations. The very first conversation we had almost destroyed my relationship with my best friend. He was an ass from the first moment we met and I couldn't understand how my friend would be with a guy who was so belligerent. And almost six years later, he pulls this garbage. If you want to challenge the legitimacy of an idea, let's do it. Although you better come with facts and be willing to accept mine. But that's not what this comment is about. This comment doesn't care if every single issue is based in fact, this comment embodies the idea that even thinking or speaking about injustice should be silenced. This comment is one white man's privilege not wanting to accept and believe that heterosexism is pretty much everywhere.

Here's the thing people like him, with their pretend helpful advice, damage the soul. It makes you think twice when caring about the important things. And really that's the purpose of that kind of comment.

You see the issue that he decided to share his unsolicited and unwanted advice about, was about an 18 year old female athlete whose gender is being challenged because people are questioning whether she's too good of an athlete to be female. And the thing is, it's not like they are trying to figure out if she is male. They're just trying to do invasive testing to figure out if she might have too many "male" characteristics to be considered female for the purposes of continuing to compete. This patneralistic protectionism of women from other women, isn't about protecting women from other women. But it pretends enough that it can be sold as a spin story.

Here are some real stories:
(1) When women are strong, their femaleness is questioned. The belief that women are weak and inferior is so pervasive that to ensure that we hold on to that myth, we will create all sorts of tests and hoops to weed out who the real women are. The injustice of the testing that is done on female athletes is even more blatantly sexist when one realizes, only female athletes are tested. No one thinks that a strong male athlete might have any potentially female characteristics, where if this were somehow about gender purity, every endurance athlete should be tested for potential female genetic markers. Science has shown that women's bodies are more suited to endurance sports. So maybe the reason Lance Armstrong is so incredible, maybe he really is a little bit female.
(2) It also exposes that the gender binary that we exist in. There really is no medical doubt that there gender goes beyond male and female. There are a broad range of intersex individuals. There is more to gender than male and female. It's hard to wrap our minds around. We have so much invested in this binary, but it doesn't change the reality. It makes things complicated. There are gendered differences between males and females (and the spectrum). The ability for girls and women to have real opportunities to compete is incredibly important. The self-esteem and real physical benefits are vast.
Another concern is what kind hierarchy will we create if we start defining a multitude of genders? As a female this concerns me, because we are always seen as the weaker sex and I wonder what will happen with an array of sexes. I also have a hard time wrapping around how societies will adjust. Will we do some sort of range of genetic/biological testing at birth so we can appropriately categorize people? Can you do them conclusively at birth or will the tests have to be done again at puberty?
I don't know many things. I know that the questions are difficult and despite the hubby of my good friend's suggestion, the answers are not going to come by silencing ourselves.