Have you ever read “why fish don’t exist”? It was pretty eye opening in terms of the origins of modern American taxonomy with David Starr at the helm.
Be warned, if you know more than I did when I started reading about David Starr (which was absolutely nothing) the first part might be a harder read to swallow.
no i havent! but i'll be on the lookout for it. i do know how bad david starr jordan was. he was the first president of stanford. he had a building named after him and the university recently removed his name from it very quietly ;;;
also fwiw i was talking with a friend about this post today and he made the connection to the movie "arrival" in terms of how language can influence perceptions of ourselves!
this makes me think of magnus hirschfeld, the early 1900s german sexologist, who was *really* into coming up with categories for everything. wikipedia says he invented the terms transvestite and transsexual, but like... that's part of the problem >_<.
notably, him and his institute for sexual sciences issued a number of "transvestite passes" to trans people in order to prevent them from being harassed by the police, which is so real but also wtf???
yes exactly! and like by creating those passes, there emerges an artificial distinction about who has access to those passes and therefore (potential) protection from police harassment. which implicitly extends to who is an "acceptable" transvestite. its largely a distraction from the actual problem
Have you ever read “why fish don’t exist”? It was pretty eye opening in terms of the origins of modern American taxonomy with David Starr at the helm.
Be warned, if you know more than I did when I started reading about David Starr (which was absolutely nothing) the first part might be a harder read to swallow.
no i havent! but i'll be on the lookout for it. i do know how bad david starr jordan was. he was the first president of stanford. he had a building named after him and the university recently removed his name from it very quietly ;;;
also fwiw i was talking with a friend about this post today and he made the connection to the movie "arrival" in terms of how language can influence perceptions of ourselves!
this makes me think of magnus hirschfeld, the early 1900s german sexologist, who was *really* into coming up with categories for everything. wikipedia says he invented the terms transvestite and transsexual, but like... that's part of the problem >_<.
notably, him and his institute for sexual sciences issued a number of "transvestite passes" to trans people in order to prevent them from being harassed by the police, which is so real but also wtf???
yes exactly! and like by creating those passes, there emerges an artificial distinction about who has access to those passes and therefore (potential) protection from police harassment. which implicitly extends to who is an "acceptable" transvestite. its largely a distraction from the actual problem
This is really really interesting, thank you for writing about it