Kate Bornstein - My New Gender Workbook: A Step-by-Step Guide to Achieving World Peace Through Gender Anarchy and Sex Positivity

my name is _____________________________

and this is

MY new gender workbook

My New Gender Workbook

A Step-by-Step Guide to Achieving World Peace

Through Gender Anarchy and Sex Positivity

Kate Bornstein

Second edition published 2013

by Routledge

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Simultaneously published in the UK

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2013 Taylor & Francis

The right of Kate Bornstein to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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First edition published by Routledge 1998

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Bornstein, Kate, 1948

My new gender workbook: a step-by-step guide to achieving world peace through gender anarchy and sex positivity/

Kate Bornstein.2nd ed.

p. cm.

Rev. ed. of: My gender workbook. 1998.

1. Gender identity. 2. Sex (Psychology) I. Bornstein, Kate, 1948-My gender workbook. II. Title.

HQ1075.B69 2013

ISBN: 978-0-415-53864-0 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-415-53865-7 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-0-203-10903-8 (ebk)

A lot of the ideas in this book were crowdsourced from smart people who asked good questions and made great comments at my lectures and workshops over the last fifteen years. And even more crowdsourcing came from people who follow my words on Twitter. I call all these people my twibe. So this book is dedicated to you, dear twibe. Thank you for calling me out on my shit. And thank you for helping me #stayalive. Auntie Kate loves and respects you very much.

kiss kiss

Use this page for notes or doodles.

Really, its way OK if you write in this book!

Not many writers get do-overs. So, Im grateful to my publisher, Routledge, for giving me the opportunity to update this workbook fifteen years after its first publication in 1997. Back then, the idea of working ones gender was a new concept. Now, there are thousands of people who are living their lives, mindfully working their genders. Ive learned a great deal by becoming friends with many of them.

The first edition of this book focused on gender, pretty much all by itself. This version takes a look at gender as one of fifteen interdependent spheres of cultural regulation, collectively known as kyriarchy. The word was coined by Elisabeth Schssler Fiorenza, and we all owe her thanks for naming the point of convergence of gender, sexuality, race, looks, age disability, class, mental health, religion, family/reproductive status, language, habitat, citizenship, political ideology, and humanity. This edition of the workbook examines gender as part of that system, and offers up suggestions on how to dismantle the whole fucking mess through a politic of desire, and an activism of radical wonder and radical welcomingall stuff Ive been puzzling over for the last fifteen years.

Ive kept many words and elements the same in this edition, like puzzles and games and quizzes and such. Most importantly, Ive kept the voices of literally hundreds of people in addition to my own. The underlying problem with gender is that for centuries theres only been one point of view from which to observe it. With the addition of all these voicessome from the original edition, and many new voicesgender can be examined for what it really is, as so beautifully summed up by @quarridors in their brilliant riff on a famous line from my favorite BBC television show, Doctor Who, here to the left of this text.

@quarridors: You see, people assume that gender is a simple progression of masculine to feminine, but actually from a non-linear, nonnormative viewpoint, its more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly gender-y blendery stuff.

Some New Conventions in This Version of the Workbook

I LOVE comic books and graphic novels, so Im going to rip on them. From time to time, Ill be adding parenthetical, more personal, ideas to the text. This is me, over to the left of the page, doing just that!

But wait, theres more! Part of this book is about learning to mindfully be all the possible identities you want to be. The toon me that you see above is me as good auntie. THIS toon of me, to the right here, is a lil more lets-not-fuck-around me. Sort of like Starbuck in Baffleefar Galactica, only if she was an old lady, like me.

And just one more version of me who will be speaking with you: this is me as Lady Death, from Neil Gaimans Sandman Series. Talking about death is a difficult thing to do. I do it best when Im this me. Dont worry, theres not too much death in this book. I promise.

Now, please meet Lil Blu, whose pronouns of choice are sie and hir. Blu has no genderwell none that sie wants to talk about anyway. In fact Blu doesnt have much to say, but sie has a lot to feel, and a whole lot to think about while sies rambling through this book. Just like you!

Its been a true honorand a whole lot of funto write this book in concert with so many contributors, and its my heartfelt hope that readers will put these ideas and theories to work with the intention of putting an end to the suffering of all sentient beings.

Kate Bornstein

January, 2013

Please use this space for notes, pictures of your true love, or a letter to someone you really admire.

Is your body situated as comfortably as possible? Very well, Ill begin. From the moment we take our first breath-or from the moment our picture first hits the ultrasound screen-the cry Its a boy or Its a girl ushers us into the world.

As we grow into childhood and mature into adulthood, everything about ourselves grows and matureseverything except gender. Were taught that our genders never shift or waiver. Were supposed to believe that our gender stays exactly the same as the day we were born. The genders were assigned at birth lock us onto a course through which well be expected to become whole, well-rounded, creative, loving peoplebut only as men or as women. From where I stand, thats like taking a field of racehorses, hobbling the front legs of half of them and the rear legs of the other half, and expecting them to run a decent race: it doesnt work.