which I found rather too academic to be read in one hit.

It's fine to live in one's head, especially if it's firmly stuck up one's arse; the analysis of the analysis of post-modernist deconstructivism while fine for those dwelling in ivory towers or trying to justify their professorial salaries - what effect does it have on real people.

Quite honestly, I object to be considered a rapist because I'm transsexual as Janice Raymond would have it, but then I consider to be completely bonkers and simply trying to justify her own position as an oppressed lesbian. Don't we all when under fire ourselves point to someone more vulnerable in order to distract the attack?

While all of this is interesting in seeing one or two people's attempt to justify themselves, because ultimately this is what it is and many of the papers it features, what does it have to do with the price of bread?

I don't honestly care when I'm trying to live my life as I want it to be, whether I fit into to the theories of any of the learned men or women or whatevers, many of whom have no experience of any of the problems I experienced or the solutions I used to deal with them.

As a woman, and now legally female, I see myself as a feminist because I've experienced oppression or prejudice as both a female and a transsexual, and my own view of feminism is an inclusive one, unlike the lesbian separatists of the 1970s which was exclusive.

In my purview, feminism ultimately is about including everyone as equal and insisting on that right to be equal regardless of any concepts of sex, gender, race, colour or any for of categorisation except one - we are all human beings.

I accept it's simplistic, because I'm a simple soul who would like to get on with everyone, to help everyone and for that to be reciprocated. I believe in cooperation as being the ultimate in human behaviour as opposed to conflict which is the nadir of it.

As an idealist, I'm well aware that it won't happen in my life time if ever because until we stop acting on vested interests, we can never achieve or transcend our animalistic instincts. A recent book by the much respected scientist Edward Wilson suggests that societies are made up of small groups which create loyalties, and that these exist even when contained within larger groups, possibly explaining the phenomenon of how gang members are prepared to do silly things for other gang members. So according to his observations, I'm a hopeless dreamer. So be it, but that's me and as I said I don't give a tuppenny damn as to what some ivory tower dwelling anorak thinks - call me a Luddite, just don't forget to call me for dinner.

...as fraught, which is very predictable when one considers that each of the supposed ‘genders’ under discussion are equally fraught, being bound up in social constructs of long standing, religions (many of them — all with different viewpoints), and few real points of consensus on either, or all three. What is it to be a ‘real man,’ or a ‘real woman,’ or any sort of ‘real’ anything. The Boy Scouts of America have a notion (religiously-inspired — albeit moderately covertly so) that to be a ‘man’ is — first of all — not to be a homosexual, or a bisexual, or indeed almost anything other than budding ‘Promise Keeper,’ living out one's Biblically-ordained role as ‘Head of the Family,’ ‘Head of the Woman,’ and (hopefully) a ‘Good Christian, although ‘hardship waivers’ are grudgingly permitted for those without the foresight to be born in the right sort of family.’

This sort of ‘hothouse’ monoculture makes for a very skewed discourse, so there are many nominal ‘boys’ who don't fit the mould. It also makes for a monoculture society vulnerable to specialist predation. witness the perennial scandals which pop up from time to time involving paedophiles, who naturally congregate where large numbers of predictable prey are readily available at conveniently located watering holes.

Where else are you going to find a paedophile, after all, an old people's home?

Just as in the real world, diversity is good for life as a whole, because burgeoning life has plenty of room for ‘adaptations’ that fail, allowing more room for other life to thrive.

There's a lovely novel called Exit to Reality by Edith Forbes, in which mankind has invented a perfect and immortal monoculture society, a grown-up sort of Matrix before The Matrix was made. The two main characters in the story are two people (it's difficult to say what gender they are, since they spend their time swapping back and forth in many combinations, so everything about them is fluid, dependent upon circumstance— Are they gay? lesbian? bisexual? male? female? radical? conservative? all of the above? Who knows? What they are, is a harbinger of change, of evolution, and that's a good thing to be) and I thought of them when I discovered an article which revealed to me that there are living things miles beneath the surface of the ground, even below the ocean floors, and that these organisms fed off the heat of the Earth itself, and were quite likely to survive even the Red Giant phase of our Sun by millions, perhaps billions, of years or more. In difference lies possibility, and in the very long run every conservative strategy fails.

Radically,

Puddin'

P.S. http://www.fantasybookcafe.com/2012/04/women-in-sff-month-n-k-jemisin/

I accept that we need the academic theorizing providing that this balanced by real life experience, which doesn't always happen. There is much bad science around because of the way funding happens or perhaps because scientists aren't always as objective as they ought to be, but then we're are supposed to be human and humans are by nature subjective.

Ultimately, some of us as humans will be in positions to exert more influence than others. Providing those in those positions are in touch with the grass roots level and include a personal perspective, then I'm happy for them to be the ones to whom the law makers speak, because ultimately, it is the law makers and the subsequent interpreters of those laws who have most impact upon our lives.

Sadly, all of these things can be influenced by political and populist pressures. Despite the best intentions of legislators to ban discrimination, I'm aware that being in a minority means I shall never be acceptable to a large number of people and that goes for other minorities as well. Hence I hide my minority status as best I can and live in stealth. I am also aware that what the law gives it can also take away and at present it chooses to give me the same legal status of cis gendered females, with one exception, a minister of religion can refuse to perform a marriage for me.

With regard to the paper linked in this blog, it is an academic review of the history as seen by the writer for an academic purpose.

On a personal level, I grow less and less interested in all this or indeed research to discover why I or anyone else whould wish to eschew our birth sex, I don't have a problem with their curiosity except as to how they might wish to use any results they find. I've found my solution, to become as much as I can who I want to be, so ideas of cures are irrelevant. I have no desire to live in a society which has half a dozen genders from which to choose, two is fine for me, I know which one I am. Yeah, I'm selfish, I admit it, but I've fought hard to get where I am and as I approach the last period of my life, I simply want to be left in peace to plough my own furrow, because just coping with the financial aspects of life is trying enough, especially with the thought of retirement approaching in the next few years and dealing with a job which becomes increasingly demanding by the day. Life ain't getting any easier.