Citizenship, rights and gender

2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Surya Monro ◽  
Janneke Van Der Ros

The last decade has seen the expansion of trans* identities that are gender queer, non-binary, androgynous, or multiply-sexed and gendered in Western Europe. These developments mark a shift from a uniformly gender-binaried system to one that encompasses some degree of gender pluralism, as reflected to an extent in policy changes in some European countries. However, gender binarism is still prevalent. This article uses the case of Norway to demonstrate a contrast between the citizenship statuses afforded to transsexual men and women, and the lack of citizenship rights that people with non-binary identities, and other gender-variant people who are not diagnosed as transsexual, face. The article addresses the historical role of the Norwegian state in perpetuating gender binaries, in key areas such as identity recognition. It then explores the ways in which Norwegian social policy is changing towards more trans-sensitive positions.


1970 ◽  
pp. 3-6
Author(s):  
Eugene Sensenig-Dabbous

There are few topics as emotionally charged as the issue of full citizenship rights for women in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Today, in no country in the Arab world do women enjoy the same rights as men with respect to transferring citizenship to their children and spouses. This form of discrimination not only taints the family life of hundreds of thousands of Arab women, it also severely burdens their “alien” children and husbands, blocking their access to education, welfare services, career advancement, social and political integration, and cultural assimilation. Viewed from the perspective of the host society, an Arab woman who marries outside the confines of her respective nation-state transitions from the authority of her father’s house to that of an alien household. She is now ostensibly under the control of the cultural norms and legal codes of her husband’s homeland.


2016 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Travers ◽  
Mary Shearman

In July 2013, the Russian government passed two anti-LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) laws that drew international criticism. Russia’s impending hosting of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games inspired more sustained international attention to these laws than might have otherwise been the case. In this article, we apply the mutually supporting frameworks of queer/trans necropolitics and celebration capitalism to a content analysis of coverage of the Sochi Olympics in the Advocate and Xtra, the leading LGBT publications in the United States and Canada, respectively. We contend that the Advocate and Xtra participated in a homonationalist process of manufacturing consent as the United States, Canada, the West in general, and the Olympic Games were glorified while issues relating to racism and colonialism in Russia, the United States, and Canada were ignored and these geopolitical formations in general were falsely generalized as safe havens for LGBT people. This conclusion is based on two key observations. First, we noted complete silence about racist and ethnic violence in Russia and in the specific site of Sochi in the Advocate and only one (unelaborated) acknowledgment of Sochi as a historical site of ethnic cleansing in Xtra. Second, in spite of the recent expansion of formal citizenship rights for LGBT people, more uniformly in Canada than in the United States, Advocate and Xtra coverage failed to acknowledge the dissonance between American and Canadian governments positioning themselves as LGBT and human rights leaders and the harm these National Security States continue to deliver to racialized, impoverished, and gender and sexual minority populations.


2020 ◽  
pp. 109-136
Author(s):  
Sandra Patton-Imani ◽  
Sandra Patton-Imani

I consider the political context of family-making in the “family values” era of the 1990s. I explore public controversies over the children’s book Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman (1989) in relation to political discourse on race, gender, and family values in the 1990s. I consider parallel discussions of motherhood, fitness, and citizenship in public discussions about same-sex marriage, social welfare benefits, disability, and immigration. I explore changes in adoption policies as a strategy for neoliberal privatization. Considering these public narratives about “illegitimate,” “illegal,” and “unfit” mothers and children together illuminates intersecting axes of power regulating their access to the full range of citizenship rights, including race, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, and gender. Exploring this political moment is crucial to understanding the complex and contradictory ways the same-sex marriage and adoption debates are intimately connected to reproductive politics.


2019 ◽  
pp. 84-112
Author(s):  
Natasha Behl

Chapter 5 uses interview and participant observation data to demonstrate how Sikh women uphold and resist exclusionary inclusion in religious community. Sikh women often struggle to escape contradictory gendered norms that essentialize women as inferior, polluted, and suspect. Yet, for some women, membership in Sukhmani Seva Societies (devotional organizations) is an unexpected resource for active citizenship, where they sometimes reinforce but sometimes also resist socially prescribed gender roles. These women enact their citizenship rights through acts of devotion, which upends long-standing assumptions about religious space as inherently undemocratic. Sikh women envision and enact more egalitarian interpersonal and community relations through their devotional practices, which understand gender equality and minority rights as coexisting and human and divine agency as interdependent. Their experience suggests that religious practices can be understood as a form of active citizenship that can potentially challenge exclusionary inclusion and negotiate between state, community, and gender in new ways.


2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 619-648
Author(s):  
Julie Moreau

AbstractDespite campaign promises to be the most “gay-friendly” Republican president, since assuming office, Donald Trump has been proactive in what many lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) advocates call a “rollback” of gains made during the Barack Obama administration, shocking many observers and bringing sexual and gender politics to the fore. How can we make sense of the contradictions and consequences of Trump's sexual and gender politics? I argue that examining the transnational processes of democratization, political homophobia, and homonationalism illuminates the significance of the administration's actions. A democratization approach reveals how Trump's reversal of Obama-era policies and appointment of conservative judges signifies a greater effort at de-democratization through the contraction of citizenship rights and weakening of the judiciary; political homophobia clarifies how the administration legitimizes its governance through opposition to LGBT people and issues with the appointment of openly homophobic and transphobic individuals to prominent positions; and homonationalism, or the entry of certain queer subjects into the nation at the expense of racialized “others,” aptly characterizes forms of queer inclusion still taking place under Trump. For these reasons, putting Trump's sexual and gender politics in transnational perspective can help us better understand this moment in U.S. politics.


2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 2097-2108
Author(s):  
Robyn L. Croft ◽  
Courtney T. Byrd

Purpose The purpose of this study was to identify levels of self-compassion in adults who do and do not stutter and to determine whether self-compassion predicts the impact of stuttering on quality of life in adults who stutter. Method Participants included 140 adults who do and do not stutter matched for age and gender. All participants completed the Self-Compassion Scale. Adults who stutter also completed the Overall Assessment of the Speaker's Experience of Stuttering. Data were analyzed for self-compassion differences between and within adults who do and do not stutter and to predict self-compassion on quality of life in adults who stutter. Results Adults who do and do not stutter exhibited no significant differences in total self-compassion, regardless of participant gender. A simple linear regression of the total self-compassion score and total Overall Assessment of the Speaker's Experience of Stuttering score showed a significant, negative linear relationship of self-compassion predicting the impact of stuttering on quality of life. Conclusions Data suggest that higher levels of self-kindness, mindfulness, and social connectedness (i.e., self-compassion) are related to reduced negative reactions to stuttering, an increased participation in daily communication situations, and an improved overall quality of life. Future research should replicate current findings and identify moderators of the self-compassion–quality of life relationship.


2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (11) ◽  
pp. 4001-4014
Author(s):  
Melanie Weirich ◽  
Adrian Simpson

Purpose The study sets out to investigate inter- and intraspeaker variation in German infant-directed speech (IDS) and considers the potential impact that the factors gender, parental involvement, and speech material (read vs. spontaneous speech) may have. In addition, we analyze data from 3 time points prior to and after the birth of the child to examine potential changes in the features of IDS and, particularly also, of adult-directed speech (ADS). Here, the gender identity of a speaker is considered as an additional factor. Method IDS and ADS data from 34 participants (15 mothers, 19 fathers) is gathered by means of a reading and a picture description task. For IDS, 2 recordings were made when the baby was approximately 6 and 9 months old, respectively. For ADS, an additional recording was made before the baby was born. Phonetic analyses comprise mean fundamental frequency (f0), variation in f0, the 1st 2 formants measured in /i: ɛ a u:/, and the vowel space size. Moreover, social and behavioral data were gathered regarding parental involvement and gender identity. Results German IDS is characterized by an increase in mean f0, a larger variation in f0, vowel- and formant-specific differences, and a larger acoustic vowel space. No effect of gender or parental involvement was found. Also, the phonetic features of IDS were found in both spontaneous and read speech. Regarding ADS, changes in vowel space size in some of the fathers and in mean f0 in mothers were found. Conclusion Phonetic features of German IDS are robust with respect to the factors gender, parental involvement, speech material (read vs. spontaneous speech), and time. Some phonetic features of ADS changed within the child's first year depending on gender and parental involvement/gender identity. Thus, further research on IDS needs to address also potential changes in ADS.


2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (7) ◽  
pp. 2054-2069
Author(s):  
Brandon Merritt ◽  
Tessa Bent

Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate how speech naturalness relates to masculinity–femininity and gender identification (accuracy and reaction time) for cisgender male and female speakers as well as transmasculine and transfeminine speakers. Method Stimuli included spontaneous speech samples from 20 speakers who are transgender (10 transmasculine and 10 transfeminine) and 20 speakers who are cisgender (10 male and 10 female). Fifty-two listeners completed three tasks: a two-alternative forced-choice gender identification task, a speech naturalness rating task, and a masculinity/femininity rating task. Results Transfeminine and transmasculine speakers were rated as significantly less natural sounding than cisgender speakers. Speakers rated as less natural took longer to identify and were identified less accurately in the gender identification task; furthermore, they were rated as less prototypically masculine/feminine. Conclusions Perceptual speech naturalness for both transfeminine and transmasculine speakers is strongly associated with gender cues in spontaneous speech. Training to align a speaker's voice with their gender identity may concurrently improve perceptual speech naturalness. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12543158


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