Bullying

The subject of bullying is a sensitive one that can raise a lot of emotions in people. Some people have felt the pain of bullying and others believe it's time to toughen up. I think it's time to get more involved, adults need to help these kids who suffer from bullying. It's not enough to just tell kids to stop, we need to buckle down and start punishing the bullies with much more severe punishments than the ones usually dealt out. Instead of slaps on the wrist, I think schools need to start dealing out suspensions for kids caught bullying. One thing we really need to fix is all the victim blaming, because that is so dangerous. For a kid to be bullied and then told to stick up for themselves and to suck it up is so bad for them. That's like kicking a dog and then yelling at it. Yes, we need to teach children to defend themselves, but most importantly they need to know not to bully/hurt people. Also to people who are upset that kids are sensitive to these topics because "back in their day people just toughened up". Culture changes, people evolve over time. 40 or 50 years ago, people weren't as open about emotional topics, and today we're much more in tune as a society to our own and others' emotions. And that's really great! Because now we think things through more, and we care more and get passionate!!!!

Outside Reading response 3

This book is prettyyyyyyyy cool. It's so interesting to read all about these different experiences from queer people about their lives. Every one of these chapters is a different story from a different person. One of the ones I just read was written a lot more playfully than most of the stories. It was about a person and how much they love gender-neutral bathrooms, specifically one in Austin, TX. The person talks about how hard it is to travel, to even go out in public, where there are not gender neutral bathrooms. When there aren't gender neutral bathrooms, it forces them to pick a gender if they go to the bathroom. I feel like this topic has become more and more prevalent in the news over the past year or so. Our own school has even added gender neutral bathrooms (this wasn't a huge announcement but was really only told to students who asked for them to be made including myself and a few other individuals). The best part about the addition of gender neutral bathrooms, is that you don't have to pick when you go to the bathroom. I've been worried at times myself if what I was wearing would cause alarm in the women's bathroom. I was so glad to hear about the experience of someone else who wanted/needed gender neutral bathrooms.

Outside Reading Response 2

So far, my book has mainly focused on FtM (Female to Male) Trans people. Which is very interesting because it talks about how one man has used his former experience as a woman to help with communication with males and females. I found that so interesting, because he was able to notice that there are very big differences in the ways men and women communicate in the work place and then use that knowledge to help him. He was able to earn promotions from his good work and his recognition with both the male and female halves of the workplace. I think that's cool because it's a totally different way of thinking from what someone who is cisgendered would think.

Online vs. Real Life

I watched this very?? Strange documentary on Netflix recently. It was about a website/virtual world called Second Life. The documentary itself focused mostly on several different users of the program and how it affected their lives. It made me think about some of my own friends who I only keep in touch with online, whether or not I've met them. I wanted to write this post to clarify that there is no difference between the friends you know and see mostly in real life, and the ones you only talk to through the computer, other than physical things and being honest. I've never had problems personally with online friends lying to me so I don't know too much about that. Most of my online friends I met first in real life. However, the fact that I can talk to them more often and about things we all have in common is incredibly important to me. Having someone to talk to is great, and if that person is online it doesn't make them less of a person to talk to. It makes them a different kind of person to talk to. I feel like it's easier to be open with people online, you don't have to worry about seeing them, or seeing their true physical reactions. It can be really reassuring. However, it can of course also cause a lot of different problems with not knowing how someone feels about something, as well as being an opening to an opening to online bullying. All in all, I think what I want anyone to take away from this, is to know that people with online friends, aren't really weird, they just have a different way of making friends.

Outside Reading Response

After reading the introduction to my book, Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation, I've gotten a short introduction into the lives of older transgender people. My personal experiences with trans people has always been only with people under 25, and I thought this was very interesting to read. Trans people have a higher rate of murder than average Americans, and higher rates than other gender sexuality minorities. People on average have a harder time being accepting people who are transgender than they are people who are gay or bisexual. However, that isn't to say that the acceptance of transgender people hasn't improved over the past decade or so. One of my favorite examples of this is a segment on What Would You Do? with one of my favorite trans celebrities, Carmen Carrera. (Watch the video, it's pretty good).