An Unexpected Start
07Jan09

http://thenoiseofthestreet.net/2009/01/07/an-unexpected-start/

After last semester's (second annual) Transgender Day of Remembrance debacle, I was hoping I could ride out the rest of my senior year without being incensed by something the Michigan Daily printed. I guess it helps that I don't read it much anyway, and that this semester I will be on campus only seven or eight hours a week, but the first friend I ran into today at the Union showed me the first issue of The Statement for the new year. The Statement is the Daily's magazine insert, published every Wednesday. I have in the past at least found the contents of The Statement interesting. Today's cover took me by surprise.

The cut-off text on my hasty scan reads "HIS APPLE. HER APPLE. ? APPLE." The byline for the article is "Why singular pronouns aren't as simple as a rule in the grammar book." Already I could feel redness filling my face when my friend showed me this. The implications of the symbolism here are clear. People who don't conform to the gender binary (and quite rigidly too — note the "man" apple's huge stache and the "woman" apple's pouty red lips) are incomplete people: monsterous and frightening.