On Language: keeping "gender" specific
Mik Danger
http://coffeeandgender.blogspot.com/2008/07/on-language-keeping-gender-specific.htmlI have written a lot on this blog about the need for clear and concise language when discussing issues relating to the legal, medical, and sociological effects of our identities. This post is specifically about transgender identity and language issues, but I think this need to us accurate language applies across many identities.
A recent article originally published in the Matangi Times and a Huffington Post blog from June outline these issues for me. The Matangi Times article focused on a group of men and transwomen from Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Cook Islands and New Zealand with HIV or AIDS who also have sex with men. The participants, like so many groups in the US, are struggling with the issue of self-identification. Terms such as gay, transgender, and bisexual don't quite speak to their experiences, and years of war and colonization have led to the erasure of any non-Western influenced words. Using words influenced by Western culture ignores the specificity of their experience, but likewise reaching into the past for experience doesn't correctly identify current experiences. The article summarizes this very well:
