Serendip is an independent site partnering with faculty at multiple colleges and universities around the world. Happy exploring!

Reply to comment

rfindlay's picture

Long passage to be read

Long passage to be read fast:

Introductory Data: She had lived as a female all her life. At birth, somatic appearance was of a penis so small as to appear to be a clitoris. The subject’s XY karyotype was not discovered until puberty, when she began to virilize…the girl has always sat to urinate like other girls. Blood tests confirmed an XY chromosomal status. In addition, blood tests revealed that the subject was suffering from 5-alpha-reductace deficiency syndrome…The subject’s facial expression, though somewhat stern at time, is overall pleasant and receptive, with frequent smiling. The subject often casts her eyes downward in a modest or coy manner. She is feminine in her movements and gestures, and the slight gracelessness of her walk is in keeping with females of her generation.  Though due to her height some people may find the subject’s gender at first glance somewhat indeterminate, any prolonged observation would result in a decision that she was indeed a girl. Her voice, in fact, has a soft, breathy quality. She inclines her head to listen when another person speaks and does not hold forth or assert her opinions in a bullying manner characteristic of males. She often makes humorous remarks.

 

Sentences to be read slower:

The woman with the face of an owl.

This is a temple, not a home.

…intersex is nothing to be ashamed of. It’s time to break the silence and drive away from the shame.

Her mustache, I think, would be the envy of all 3 of my brothers.

…be either male or female, and it shall succeed according to the kind of sex which doth prevail.

I felt there was this person deep down dying to come out, and on the outside was this façade that was just waiting to go away…

Biology loves variation but society can’t tolerate it and that’s where the problem is…

It’s just part of me. It’s not all of me…

There’s issues of sex, which is biology—that’s male and female and intersex. Then there’s gender, which is boy and girl, and sometimes people switch that.

Start by taking the time, now and frequently, to explore your own feeling of shame and embarrassment. Try to think about what you are feeling and why you are feeling it.

…disability is a culturally fabricated narrative of the body, a system that produces subjects by differentiating and marking bodies.

…, human language itself, which enables though and knowledge, is representation. …disability and gender are stories we tell about bodies and are our systematic ways of representing bodies.

… within the paradigm of contemporary science we cannot know all that can eventually be uncovered about what is means to be a woman or a man…

…a power that determines, more or less, what we are, what we can be.

…I lack a vocabulary to describe my own gender identity.

…she uses the term “genderfuck” as in “I stood at the podium wearing genderfuck drag.

 The whole wanting to feel hailed and recruited is still on my mind.

If you identify as female, you are not solely female; instead that characteristics makes up only one part of your personal identity.

 

Words to be read even slower:

Guilt, Norms, Unspeakable taboo, Queer, Straight, Other, Self, Monster, Rape, Aggressive, Man-Hater, Bitch, Whiny, Self-hate, Definition, Category, Subject, Object, Personal, Political, Victim, Soft, Passive, Quiet, Soft, Butch, Monster, Biology, Society, Intersex, Dyke, Feminism               

Reply

To prevent automated spam submissions leave this field empty.
5 + 10 =
Solve this simple math problem and enter the result. E.g. for 1+3, enter 4.