Kate Bornstein - Gender outlaw (1994)

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They believe (foolishly I think) that the power they have and exert over others is a good thing and they want to hang on to it, they're terrified of losing this stuff. What I'm talking about is what's been called 'male privilege.'

Kate Bornstein
The first question we usually ask new parents is : Is it a boy or a girl ?. There is a great answer to that one going around : We don't know ; it hasn't told us yet. Personally, I think no question containing either/or deserves a serious answer, and that includes the question of gender.

Kate Bornstein
I love the idea of being without an identity, it gives me a lot of room to play around; but it makes me dizzy, having nowhere to hang my hat.

Kate Bornstein
I know I'm not a man-about that much I'm very clear, and I've come to the conclusion that I'm probably not a woman either, at least not according to a lot of people's rules on this sort of thing. The trouble is, we're living in a world that insists we be one or the other-a world that doesn't bother to tell us exactly what one or the other is.

Kate Bornstein
It doesn't really matter what a person decides to do, or how radically a person plays with gender. What matters, I think, is how aware a person is of the options. How sad for a person to be missing out on some expression of identity, just for not knowing there are options

Kate Bornstein
It's easy to fictionalize an issue when you're not aware of the many ways in which you are privileged by it.

Kate Bornstein
I see fashion as a proclamation or manifestation of identity, so, as long as identities are important, fashion will continue to be important. The link between fashion and identity begins to get real interesting, however, in the case of people who don't fall clearly into a culturally-recognized identity.

Kate Bornstein
I tell people that I've never been hurt by an honest question, and that's true: it's a cruel opinion that hurts, not a question.

Kate Bornstein
The choice between two of something is not a choice at all, but rather the opportunity to subscribe to the value system which holds the two presented choices as mutually exclusive alternatives.

Kate Bornstein
There are only people who are fluidly-gendered, and … the norm is that most of these people continually struggle to maintain the illusion that they are one gender or another.

Kate Bornstein
Any power-over position forwards a culture that oppresses the transgendered. We should look for positions that allow us to bring out the power we have within us, and to acknowledge the power of others.

Kate Bornstein
I was a lonely, frightened little fat kid who felt there was something deeply wrong with me because I didn't feel like I was the gender I'd been assigned. I felt there was something wrong with me, something sick and twisted inside me, something very very bad about me. And everything I read backed that up.

Kate Bornstein
Standing with freaks never hurt anyone - it's when we agree that we deserve the oppression and the ridicule that accompanies the freak's position in the culture - that's when the wound is mortal.

Kate Bornstein
Definitions have their uses in much the same way that road signs make it easy to travel: they point out the directions. But you don't get where you're going when you just stand underneath some sign, waiting for it to tell you what to do.

Kate Bornstein
This Western culture of ours tends to sacrifice the full range of experience to a lower common denominator that's acceptable to more people; we end up with McDonald's instead of real food, Holiday Inns instead of homes, and USA Today instead of news and cultural analysis. And we do that with the rest of our lives.

Kate Bornstein