Sexual Health Alliance<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\nShe described gender as \u201cthe next step in our culture war.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a wedge issue politically that is being further scrutinized and put in the public spotlight in order to get people to argue with each other,\u201d said Cray, who uses the pronouns she and they. \u201cMost of the agenda is coming from people who are really scared of this stuff and in some cases want to ban transgender people entirely. But what they say about it tends to be pretty uninformed; it has little to do with the actualities of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gender identity, Cray explained, \u201cis a deeply felt existential sense of how one relates to themselves, other persons and the world around them in terms of gender.\u201d Usually formed between ages 2 and 5, gender identity is comparable to left- or right-handedness, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe live in a right-handed world,\u201d Cray said. \u201cMy right-handed friends don\u2019t notice this. They just call it \u2018the world.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
She described gender identity as an internal \u201ccognitive map of social actions, of things we might do in the world. And this map assigns values of compliance or transgression to these actions. But there\u2019s a difference between having a map and not following it versus just having a different map.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cray defined gender expression as \u201cthe language-like system of norms \u2026 through which people within a culture externally communicate their gender identity to other persons.\u201d Languages evolve over time, she said, and speakers don\u2019t always conform to formal rules and standards.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a mark of fluency in a language that you don\u2019t speak it perfectly,\u201d she said. \u201cYou speak in metaphors, analogy and similes. You speak sarcastically. You speak in dialect. You might innovate in slang. You might even become a poet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gender expression is no different, Cray said. \u201cThere are some who feel they have to speak it perfectly in accordance with the grammar, but the more comfortable you are, the more you can lean into the slang, the sarcasm, the poetry of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Having studied transphobia philosophically while experiencing it viscerally \u2013 \u201cI moved out of Texas because I was scared for my life,\u201d she said \u2013 Cray understands that \u201cwe are threatening because we break the system of gender.\u201d<\/p>\n
Using the language of gender expression in a way that goes against cultural expectations \u2013 whether it\u2019s Harry Styles wearing a dress or a transgender person simply existing \u2013 can push against transphobia by mere exposure, ultimately making those expressions non-threatening.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe louder we are, the sooner the transphobes will get bored with it,\u201d Cray said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ley David Elliette Cray discussed transitions, transphobia and the importance of being loud in the midst of a culture war with more than 100 CLP attendees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":23514,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[70,36,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diversity-equity-and-inclusion","category-philosophy","category-top-stories"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}