I who may well be...

Musings from the perspective of a human being who may well be not locatable completely within the usual categories of male or female or gay or straight or transsexual or intersexed or exploiter or exploited or supplier or consumer or performer or spectator.

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Gay allowed on Myspace, androgynous not

We were assured the lack of "gay" as an option in Myspace was a bug that would soon be fixed, and that indeed seems to be the case. However, one still cannot register wihout listing oneself as either "male" or "female", which excludes some intersex folk, some transgender folk in transition, I guess all hermaphrodites, and androgynously identified humans like me. No that there are many like me, but there are other kinds of androgynously identified humans. And plenty more humans who find this kind of compulsory sexual categorisation and disclosure to be unwelcome.

Tell MySpace (and YouTube) to lift their game, and take the sex hurdle out of the registration process, and instead allow people to indicate if they so choose whether they have or like blonde or brunette straight or curls and so on, and likewise if they so choose allow people to keep private whether they have private parts of this or that shape or whatever.

Write to au-mscontact@myspace.com and editor@youtube.com and cc me nmay-wel@bigpond.net.au

Here's my letter to them sent today:

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Time for Gender Inclusion on the Internet

It is time that all people were allowed to participate in human society without sexual discrimination based on their gender, marital status, or breeding state. It is time that MYSPACE and YOUTUBE welcomed all people without sexual discrimination, instead of blocking from registration all those unwilling or unable to identify themselves as one and only one of "male" or "female". It's very simple; remove the category, or make it optional, or allow more choices, including self-nomination.

The current system is excluding a small but vital percentage of the human race. We all count, you know, not just the majority.

norrie mAy-welby

A private citizen representing nothing but what made sense to me at the time
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Thank you to all those who have already written and forwarded this call for gender inclusion on myspace and youtube

Whether your interest extends as far as writing a post, or just as far as reading this post, thank you for your dedication to humanity.

Thursday, May 03, 2007

Murdoch bans gay option on MySpace

The following letter was recieved from a fellow social justice activist in response to my posts about MySpace being gender exclusive
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"Gay option banned on myspace"

It seems that the famously anti-gay ex-Australian Rupert Murdoch (he gave up his Australian citizenship to become an American) is attempting to push his own agenda on the social networking site Myspace that he bought a few years back.

Myspace no longer lets you select “gay” as a sexual preference on the site when you sign up, nor does it allow you to change your sexual preference to “gay”.

Don’t believe us? Try it out for yourself by clicking on “Edit Profile” and then “Background and Lifestyle” if you’re on Rupert’s site.

Murdoch is well known for his anti-gay stance. Speaking to the Independent in the UK last year about gay marriage, he said: “I believe it is wrong. I’m considered homophobic and crazy about these things and old fashioned. But I think that the family – father, mother, children – is fundamental to our civilisation.”

Is is a meaningless bug or a meaningful message? Either way, Rupert better get back to writing some code to fix it. You don’t want to be on the receiving end of a flotilla of fags, trust us.

Repost this.
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Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Gender exclusion on youtube

This letter sent to editor@youtube.com
Feel free to send one too....
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Please allow people to join without having to say they are either male or female. This is rude, and excludes many creative people. Did you know there are actually more people with genetic intersex conditions than there are transgendered folk?

Please do not treat this as frivolous. Excluding people who are not exclusively "male" or exclsuively "female" may not affect the majority, but a significant minority, around 1-5% of the human population. Yes, we are rare, but so too Norwegians are (globally speaking) rare, but that is no reason to exclude them (or us) from world affairs.

Please bring your site up to speed with the 21st Century, and move away from that industrialised crap where if you're not a ruler, the most important than about you is how you can breed the next generation of factory or cannon fodder.

I am fairly well networked with the communities of sex or gender diverse people and those who support them, and will be forwarding your response to them for their interest.

norrie mAy-welby
human being with no Ova or Sperm production or a single stereotypical gender role.