Girls not boys and definitely not in between or beyond (another opinion)

Posted on 23/06/2010 | 0 Comments

The G(irls) 20 Summit delegates, Globe and Mail article, resonates with me. There is no doubt that the equality of women should be a joyous and wonderful thing celebrated by all women everywhere! But what is this meeting of delegates missing? Focusing entirely on women fails to address women’s equality and health. What? That’s crazy! Women and girls are facing inequality resulting in health disparities—shouldn’t we then focus on women? No, actually we shouldn’t.

Focusing exclusively on women is bad for the health of men and women. It fails to provide the necessary variety of perspectives about how gender interactions are contributing to inequality and how this could be addressed in a comprehensive manner.

There are negative consequences of societal gender expectations on all members of society. This includes the people, too often forgotten (at least in North America) who don’t fall into this fabricated gender binary. What about people who are not male or female? What does that mean? You know, people who identify as something other than male or female, including (but not limited to) gender queer people, transmales, transfemales, and intersex people. These groups of people are often ignored completely and face oppression to an exponential degree in comparison to women.

Imagine this. You’re suffering with mental illness and searching for your identity in a society that doesn’t represent you on the washroom label. You’re unsure of your gender identity because examples of others like you are lacking and your existence is denied in innumerable ways. How do you then go about treating your mental health issues (in a society poorly structured to deal with mental illness in the first place) or for that matter any of your other health issues that largely fly under the radar of most mainstream doctors?

Many trans people face a complex web of health issues (mental, sexual and physical health). This is further complicated by the lack of research pertaining to trans people and plausible solutions to the issues they face. A potential starting point for society to tackle this challenge is by backing trans-supportive organizations to take the lead on an international initiative with money and resources. Taking trans initiatives international has potential to provide insights about how other cultures treat trans people and how to improve our society.

But most importantly, we should be tackling the problematic gender expectations and we should be doing it in an all-encompassing/collaborative manner. That is, if we want to address inequalities and related health disparities successfully. Or we could continue attempting to separate inseparable social issues (gender inequality vis à vis males) and members of society (female, male, or gender queer) to create an illusionary solution for the illusionary “separate” issue.

--Holly Huntley

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