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The "Realness" of Gender

    Lately I have been thinking about gender, or more specifically the question of whether or not gender is “real”. I think that there are valid points to both sides of the argument, but that there is really no definitive answer. Here are my thoughts on the matter: One argument I have heard against the idea that gender itself is completely a construct is that it kind of invalidates transgender identities. If you argue that gender is only as much as gender norms and gender expression, you are more or less arguing that trans people transition only because of those things, and not an internal feeling of gender. Trans people obviously don’t transition simply to do things or take on appearances associated with a gender other than the one assigned to them at birth. The argument that gender is just social constructs of expression also doesn’t make sense because plenty of people wear clothes and do things associated with a gender other than the one(s) they identify as. It is pret...
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Gender in the Twilight Movies

  About a week ago, I watched all the Twilight movies. Don’t ask what prompted me to do this to myself, because frankly, I have no idea. I’m going to blame it on the fact that I’ve hardly left my house for over seven months. I won’t lie, I enjoyed the films, because they are hilarious and have interesting enough plots that I didn’t get bored. However, I found that there are many things about the Twilight movies and books that are problematic, the most prominent being the way gender plays a role in Bella’s and Edward’s relationship. There are several ways in which Twilight plays into toxic tropes of heterosexual relationships. First, Edward has a lot of power over Bella and her emotions, especially since Bella has such an unhealthy obsession with him. Edward does many inconsiderate things to Bella: he abandons her during the second movie which takes a huge toll on her, but visits her in a weird ghostly apparition (which is never explained) driving her into further emotional t...
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My Creative Project: Trans Mulan Movie Poster

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                    For my creative project, a made a movie poster revisioning Mulan as a transgender man. Mulan is a film that, though does not canonically contain representation of the trans community, has resonated with a lot of trans people. From Mulan’s awkwardness and fear transitioning to male social presentation to the song “Reflection”, several parts of the film depict feelings that a transgender person can relate to. Since the film holds a special place in a lot of trans people’s hearts, on several occasions I have seen a people online say that they think Mulan is trans or wish Mulan was trans. Mulan was one of my favorite movies when I was little, and it is still one of my favorite Disney movies, so I wanted to bring a trans version of Mulan to life.             Another reason I chose to draw a trans version of Mulan is the lack of good trans representation in...
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De-Westernizing Feminism

In Bad Feminist , Roxane Gay writes “let us try to become the feminists we’d like to see moving through the world.” One quality that I would love to see in mainstream feminism is the recognition of the cultural variation of gender identity and expression. Currently mainstream feminism equates to White Feminism, feminism that tends to marginalize the voices of people of color, thereby putting Western ideas of gender identity and expression at the center of Feminism. It goes without saying that a movement advocating for gender equality being largely based around one group of women in one part of the world is problematic. Not only do women of different backgrounds and identities go unheard, but one set of ideas about how to be a feminist, and one set of ideas about gender as a whole, is shared. Gender identity and expression vary between different cultures, and by making Feminism into a more diverse platform, we will be able to push past the current confining ideas about gender that are o...
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