Thursday, April 21, 2011
A Genderqueer Take on the J. Crew Toenail Controversy
http://genderqueerchicago.blogspot.com/2011/04/genderqueer-take-on-j-crew-toenail.htmlAs visibly transgender people, it seemed that all last week we couldn't go to work, check Facebook, call a friend, buy a cup of coffee, or even get a haircut without hearing about the J. Crew ad featuring a company executive's young son wearing pink toenail polish.
As a masculine-presenting genderqueer person who happened to be wearing pink nail polish at the time, Scott was approached by dozens of cisgender people who sought to engage hir in shared recreational outrage about how ridiculous the Fox News coverage was – imagine! Setting aside money for the kid's future therapy fund! - and thus to reify their status as good liberal allies. In class, on the day when discussion was supposed to turn toward an interrogation of the violence of the gender binary from a transgender point of view, Hyacinth's students spoke glowingly of Jon Stewart's "Toemagedon" segment on the Daily Show, evidently expecting to have their androgyne teaching assistant validate their credentials as enlightened and free-thinking trans allies.
