I’m mourning the loss of more than 10,000 of my tweets on @Twitter. About two weeks ago, they vanished from my archives. That’s a lot of street cred. Now I am down to just under 400.

I remember the good old days of Twitter, way back in January 2007 just after it was launched, when only us truly hip types and early adopters of innovative Web services and applications issued tweets.

Be gone, all ye social Web bandwagon jumpers. You and your swelling numbers have diverted Twitter’s attention away from my recent support requests inquiring about my stolen status updates. Damn you. #twitterfail #missingtweets #lame

Via BUST magazine:

The San Francisco-based National Sexuality Resource Center has launched a petition, demanding the IAFF (International Association of Athletics Federation) ‘’stay out of Caster Semenya’s pants.’’ The organization said the IAFF’s efforts are shameful, unnecessary, and humiliating.

The resource center’s petition is here, and the group also put up a blog post titled Caster Semenya – An Intersex Perspective.

In the same vein as my Aug. 2 post (People boil down to body parts in the eyes of gender-binary elitists), as well as my Aug. 21 post (Runner undergoes sexist gender verification test), blogger Penny Red issued some great commentary of her own on Friday regarding what defines a woman. More specifically, the post deals with the recent targeting of runner Caster Semenya, along with a totally warranted whupping of a columnist (Germaine Greer) whose obsolete/ignorant drivel is stirring waves of outrage across astute corners of the social Web and blogosphere.

From Penny Red:

Greer believes that my ‘womanhood’ is defined by my tits, my bleeding cunt and my XX chromosome. She also believes that ‘woman’ should be my primary identity: before I think of myself as a writer, a journalist, a sister, a daughter, a lover, a friend, a consumer of trashy vampire novels, I should consider myself “a woman, first”. In other words: my cunt and tits are what make me, me. Well, gonads to that.

Another excerpt:

In fact, ‘womanhood’ is not a holy, immutable quality. ‘Womanhood’ encompasses a complex spectrum of biological facts just as ‘femininity’ encompasses a huge range of social and cultural factors. ‘Woman’ is not a binary fact, set irretrievably and forever against ‘Man’. The reason that radical feminists and social conservatives alike find transpeople so terribly threatening is that they know this better than anyone else.

Thank you, Penny!

More well-deserved Greer-thrashing

• the f word: Greer shows her transphobic colours
• Feministe: Germaine Greer Paints a Portrait of Transphobic Feminism
• Kate Bornstein’s Blog for Teens, Freaks and Other Outlaws: Has Germaine Greer Become a Ghastly Parody?
• The Bilerico Project: The Gender Police Strike Again

Links about the Semenya story in general

• New York Times: Where’s the Rulebook for Sex Verification?
• ABC News: Gender Debate Raises Questions About the Scientific Line Between Men and Women
• Discover Magazine: On Caster Semenya
• The Bilerico Project: How Legitimate is the “Gender Complaint” Against Caster Semenya?

This is a story that raises interesting questions about fairness toward female athletes, as well as women in general, not to mention gender-variant individuals.

South African runner Caster Semenya is being asked to prove that she is indeed a woman after twice clocking the fastest time this year — the latest of which came in the 800-meter final at the International Association of Athletics Federation’s World Championships in Berlin.

To me, the test implies a sexist attitude that women cannot perform athletically at such an elite level. It’s also upsetting that Semenya’s gender presentation probably helped spark suspicion among athletics officials, as well.

– Via The Advocate. More at New Zimbabwe.

I bought all of these at ridiculously low prices on Sunday at Jo-Ann, a store I could never resist. There was a sale, too. I bought the vase separately then added the baby’s breath. All the flowers are artificial, but they look very nice nonetheless. On the next rare occasion when I have money to spare for home decor, I’m getting some artwork for my walls.

For nearly a year now, I’ve known deep down inside that I want it. But the thought of it was so overwhelming and intimidating that I was unable to state it openly — even to myself. A few things were holding me back: fear of the operation itself; parting permanently with a body part that played a role in who I was in the world (whether I liked it or not); and last but not least, the monumental cost. It’s so pricey that my heart breaks knowing I don’t have that kind of money currently.

I’ve now begun the task of exploring possible solutions (eg. a loan), as well as looking into who I might want as a surgeon, what the procedure will entail, what’s involved in the post-operative care and routine hygiene once I recover. Then there’s the ins and outs of vaginal sex (pun intended). Seriously. For instance, last night I was reading about how vaginal depth can vary after sexual reassignment surgery, and that it’s important to evaluate the girth and length of a guy’s penis before intercourse.

Anyway, there’s just way too much stuff going on in my brain right now to put everything into a single post. Heck, there are so many thoughts swimming around up there that I can’t sort them well enough at the moment to write longer than three paragraphs. I just consider this the first post of many to follow dealing with the surgery. In the next one, I will talk about some of the reasons why I believe the operation makes total sense in the context of who I am sexually and gender identity-wise, and just who I am, period.

It’s a homophobic term. Have you uttered it lately?

Thought this was interesting: the author of Dude, You’re a Fag (C.J. Pascoe) mentioned that her field research at a high school revealed that the word “fag” was the most feared epithet to be hurled among boys, which I already knew because I experienced it firsthand way back when. What was interesting was that the most stigmatizing label to be used among girls was “slut,” the author wrote. I would love to explore that more in other books that focus on it in depth.

Also, the book points out that the word “fag” not only referred to sexual orientation, but failed “masculinity,” which I also knew (my own mom called me a fag once due to the way I was dressed), but Pascoe explains it eloquently:

… becoming a fag has as much to do with failing at the masculine tasks of competence, heterosexual prowess, and strength or in any way revealing weakness or femininity as it does with a sexual identity. This fluidity of the fag identity is what makes the specter of the fag such a powerful disciplinary mechanism. It is fluid enough that boys police their behaviors out of fear of having the fag identity permanently adhere and definitive enough so that boys recognize a fag behavior and strive to avoid it.

This sort of culture was a huge culprit behind the repression and silent suffering I experienced — but finally overcame.

If you browse the Web for the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA) or other legislation or laws mirroring it, it doesn’t take long at all to discover that politically and socially conservative opponents have come to regard pretty much any such measure — from local to state to federal — as a “bathroom bill, ” due to the protections offered for those who are socially victimized because of their gender identity and the leeway they would be granted in using bathrooms that don’t match their birth sex.

Hence, the fodder for opponents’ leading argument, which states such laws would pose a danger because they allow “men” access to women’s restrooms and other such gender-designated spaces. As a side note that anyone with half a brain surely already realizes, the word “men” in this instance is used very loosely, disrespectfully and inaccurately by opponents, because to them, it applies to male-to-female trans individuals as much as it does to biological males who in fact identify as their birth sex.

Either way, I can’t help but notice how flawed their position is: it seems to be largely based on the idea that the law would present an open invitation to sexual predators. But given that such an argument hinges on predators’ presumed sexual attraction to women, doesn’t that call into question lesbians’ use of women’s restrooms, locker rooms, and other such spaces, as well?

Lesbian women are attracted to other women. No? So who’s to say for a fact that they also won’t take advantage of their access at any given point? Should lesbians be made to use men’s restrooms instead because of their sexual orientation? Because that’s what the principle behind the predator argument is proffering.

Some may argue that many men can physically overpower women, thereby posing more of a threat. But the problem with that is that it disregards the reality that some lesbian women also can potentially physically overpower their “prey.” Or is that so impossible and unthinkable? Also, there are many male-to-female trans individuals who are not attracted to women. So how would they be sexual predators?

Lastly, if a guy goes into a women’s restroom and harasses or otherwise victimizes someone, what judge in her or his right mind would rule in favor of the perpetrator just because his legal defense argued on the grounds of a law offering anti-discrimination protection based on gender identity? I don’t understand it.

I’m sure I missed other flaws. Feel free to point ‘em out.