Alon LischinskyI'm having an extraordinary time listening to brilliant work on #language #genderStudies and #sexualityStudies at the #BAAL #LGaS14 meeting, and I struggle to toot about it because no one so far seems to have a #Fediverse handle 🙃
Right now it's Frazer Heritage (http://nitter.nl/Noun_Fraze) talking about the language that characters in #VideoGames use to talk about #trans characters and identities #LGaS14 — starting with the difficulties in even telling whether a character is trans or cis
Heritage: not only are #trans characters rare, they're rarely explicitly identified as such
It can make sense in terms of the game's narrative to rely on indirect cues (but these can be very stereotyped, such as mention of surgery) or talk from other characters (but that raises the problem of why it would be appropriate for them to disclose someone's trans status) #LGaS14
Nadir Junco summarises the evidence about #singularThey in English before comparing British and American varieties
An experiment asking participants to fill in pronouns for a variety of antecedents found that people find it the most difficult to use 'they' following a proper name reference — especially those who don't personally know anyone who uses they/them pronouns #LGaS14
It seems clearly a function of exposure, because it disappears in people who use they/them themselves — though it's interesting to see that exposure predicts naturalness ratings a lot better than it does active production #LGaS14
Now Aimee Bailey (http://nitter.nl/AimeeFBailey) and Jai Mackenzie (http://nitter.nl/JaiMackenzie) looking at representations of #Mermaids in the UK press #LGas14
~450 articles 2015–2022, with a truly massive spike in the last year, and dominated by the Times (25% of total published)
Keyword analysis shows a generally sympathetic if stereotyped representation up to 2018, shifting since then to fearmongering, centering transphobic groups and questioning claims of discrimination
Bailey & Mackenzie #LGaS14: description of Mermaids shifts from "supporting children" to "transgender lobby group" — possibly reflecting that an organisation provides an easy target for criticism even for those who might shy from overtly attacking trans people themselves
(Not that many transphobes have that many scruples ofc)
There's been a flurry of brilliant 3-minute presentations at #LGaS14 but they were just too fast to toot about — might try to recall some main points afterwards
Now Rowan Douglas (the Judith Baxter award winner) on #transmasculine folks' experience of negotiating #gender identity in interaction #LGaS14
(Transmasc broadly defined: anyone AFAB who identifies with some masculine role)
Based on phenomenological interviews seeking to understand participants' fraught life world
(Funny how I seem to be coming across #InterpretativePhenomenologicalAnalysis all over the place these days)
Douglas #LGaS14: #transmasc folk have sophisticated understandings (and fears) associated with being perceived as male: of taking up space, becoming toxic, betraying confidences they received because of their AGAB
Needless to say, for many of them it feels like *a lot*
Now Daniel Edmonton (http://nitter.nl/homotextuality) on the ideologies underlying anti-queer #slurs (in terms of morphology, semantics and metaphor) #LGaS14
(Slurs defined narrowly: insults that punch down on the basis of group membership)
(Edmonton talks glancingly about "tranny", about which @mixosaurus and I found very little research)
Edmonton: based on a purposive survey looking at how people recognised and evaluated slurs #LGaS14
Over 160 slurs identified in the data - over 1/4 referring to sexual acts, 1/5 to non normative gender expression, 1/10 to abnormality
(1/9 were trans-specific)
Most slurs are of the form NOUN-VERBER or DYSPHEMISM-NOUN, and a stunning 70% concerns anal sex
Strangest thing is, most are about topping, not bottoming
Edmonton #LGaS14: strangest because #bottomStigma is a thing, so we would expect a queerphobic #slur to focus on that
Edmonton offers several explanations for this, mostly suggesting that this is because agency suggests greater responsibility for the deviant act — and therefore greater deviance
In the end, it matters more that queer sex is taboo than what role exactly you take in it
#LGaS14: Now Paige Johnson (http://nitter.nl/_paige_j) on the politicisation of online talk about gender: how do people describe and position themselves vis-à-vis #inclusiveLanguage
Key themes in talk rejecting inclusive language include "erasure of women" and "political correctness gone mad"
