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Kate Bornstein

Kate Bornstein Quotes

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Famous Kate Bornstein Quotes

“And then I found out that gender can have fluidity , which is quite different from ambiguity. If ambiguity is a refusal to fall within a prescribed gender code, then fluidity is the refusal to remain one gender or another. Gender fluidity is the ability to freely and knowingly become one or many of a limitless number of genders, for any length of time, at any rate of change. Gender fluidity recognizes no borders or rules of gender.”

GenderGender Fluidity
Book:Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us
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“Gender is just one of many systems of oppression. The ultimate goal is to see how all systems are tied in a knot with the others and untie, unravel the knots of oppression. It's a spiritual journey more than a governmental one. It's about asking ourselves, 'Is this culture stopping me or anyone else from the free expression of sex and gender?' and if so, we have to act.”

FeminismGenderActivism
Book:Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us
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“Growing up we were secular Jews, but what I got out of Judaism at that time in my life was questions. Everything was a question. "Dad, is there a heaven? Is there a hell?" You never could get an answer. That informed a lot of my reasons for getting into Scientology, because they had all the answers. They said I was not my body, not my mind. I don't have a soul; I am an immortal soul. I've lived many lives and I'll live endlessly into the future, and as an immortal soul I have no gender.”

MindSaidSoulReasonBodyHeavenAnswersHellGrowing UpGrowingDadJewGenderImmortalSecularThey SaidJudaismScientologyImmortal Soul
Author:Kate Bornstein
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“The transgender movement even divides itself up by gender, as many folks stick with their same trans-genders (female-to-male or male-to-female). Additionally, the movement gets strangely subdivided among, for example, male cross-dressers, sissy boys, butch women, femme dykes, drag kings, drag queens, transvestites, intersexed, transsexuals (post-op, pre-op, and non-op).”

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Author:Kate Bornstein
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“Just across the ocean in, say Kenya or Tanzania, a two-gender system is vital for the survival of most of the folks who live there. Men do men's work, women do women's work, and so it all gets done and the jackals can't get into the hut and eat grandpa. So, the future of the transgender movement is like the future of all human rights movements: whatever the state of things in your area now, with some work it all gets a little bit better all the time, even if it is sometimes three steps ahead and two steps back.”

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Author:Kate Bornstein
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“My own take on the word "transgender" is that it's an umbrella term for anyone who breaks any rules, laws, guidelines or protocol of gender. So, to really be an ally, it's important that you recognize and embrace your own transgender nature. Really, I haven't met a single person who doesn't break some rule of gender. In other words, we will assimilate you. Resistance is futile.”

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Author:Kate Bornstein
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“Both bisexuality and transgender are fluid notions of identity, while lesbian and gay are fixed identities. Some people believe that means there should be two movements: LG and BT. But then what're ya gonna do about SM players? And intersexed folks who want their own I in the alphabet soup of sex and gender related politics?”

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Author:Kate Bornstein
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“The first question we usually ask new parents is : “Is it a boy or a girl ?”. There is a great answer to that one going around : “We don’t know ; it hasn’t told us yet.” Personally, I think no question containing “either/or” deserves a serious answer, and that includes the question of gender.”

ThinkingKnowsFirstsGirlAsksParentAnswersBoysSeriousDeserveGenderSexualityHomosexualityContainingEither OrNew Parents
Book:Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us
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“Drag queen is a gender like no other, and with practice I'd learned to rise to it.”

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Book:A Queer and Pleasant Danger: The true story of a nice Jewish boy who joins the Church of Scientology, and leaves twelve years later to become the lovely lady she is today
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“It doesn't really matter what a person decides to do, or how radically a person plays with gender. What matters, I think, is how aware a person is of the options. How sad for a person to be missing out on some expression of identity, just for not knowing there are options”

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Book:Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us
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“I was a lonely, frightened little fat kid who felt there was something deeply wrong with me because I didn't feel like I was the gender I'd been assigned. I felt there was something wrong with me, something sick and twisted inside me, something very very bad about me. And everything I read backed that up.”

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Book:Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us
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