Philosophy and Gender: Bri Blake

 After reading Judith Butler's "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution" piece, I have thought a lot about gender and the meaning of gender overall. One of the questions that seem to be brought up in the piece is about gender and if it is something that we have, as a society, created rather than it being something to do with our bodies. Butler goes a little bit into the difference between gender and sex, but I want to discuss what she says about gender. She feels that gender is something we create on our own. That "the body becomes its gender through a series of acts which are renewed, revised, and consolidated through time" (523). Rather than gender being something that we associate with sex, it is something that we create through different clothes, acts, etc. related to society. Simone de Beauvoir says that gender is a "historical situation rather than a natural fact" (520). Gender is not inherent nor is it dependent on the body that a person is bo...

     Reading the fact that in the 2016-2017 Siena Climate student survey that 100% of transgender students said they faced some sort of harassmnet and/or discrimination on campus disgusted me. We are always talking about how great our school is, how accepting it is of all people. A student who goes to Siena is called a "Saint." To treat someone with disrespect because they are transgender is not what a Saint would do. We are meant to treat all people with kindness and respect. To go out of our way to help others and lift them up, not to bring them down. It makes me so angry knowing that our transgender brothers and sisters faced any sort of bias/discrimination/harassment on campus. I just see no reason why a person should be treated differently because they are transgender. In what way does a student/peer being transgender have any effect on you? Why would it warrant such a hateful response? I understand that the world is not perfect and college campuses are not Utopias. ...