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In this episode, Vanisha R. Dailey discusses her personal experiences and insights on gender identity, societal norms, and the complexities surrounding pronouns. She reflects on her journey with she/her vs. she/they pronouns, the influence of societal expectations, and the implications of Halloween costumes in gender norms. The conversation also touches on recent controversies in gender spaces and the importance of navigating these discussions with empathy and understanding.
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Episode Transcript
You are now tuned in to Vanisha R.
Dailey.
Please say the Dailey.
(00:37):
I am your host, Vanisha R.
Daile y, and this is episode13.
How are you all feeling outthere?
Are you still getting adjustedto the time change?
I've been sleeping so muchbetter.
I don't know if it's because ofthat, but hey, I'll take it.
You know they've been talkingabout completely eliminating the
(00:57):
time change.
I have to admit, I would loveto keep the hours consistent
with spring just because I lovehaving longer days to enjoy the
sunlight.
Okay, quick update.
I officially finished my veryfirst audiobook as a narrator.
And that's probably why it'staken me so long to get back on
(01:18):
here to record, becausehonestly, I've been burnt out.
And I quickly realized that Ibit off more than I could chew
with that job.
I am thankful that I had theopportunity, but I am even more
so grateful that it is done.
Whew.
Also, if you have not heardyet, I am now on Substack.
(01:38):
When I created this podcast, Idid not put my podcast on
YouTube because I'm not doingthe video component, nor did I
open up an Instagram accountspecifically for my podcast,
like most people typically do.
I'm so tired of having torecreate myself a million times
through different Instagramaccounts, depending on which
hobby I'm choosing to share withpeople.
(02:00):
As someone that is amulti-hyphenate artistic person,
I am tired, okay?
One of you big time socialmedia influencers, please put me
on to the key solution to thisissue.
But anyway, because I veryintentionally chose not to
create any of those accounts formy podcast, I also eliminated
(02:21):
the main spaces for you all tointeract with my content.
So with that being said, Icreated a Substack account where
I can publish my articles,ramblings, and also integrate my
podcast there as well.
This allows me to buildcommunity and have a space for
you all to share your commentsand even open chat threads to
(02:44):
communicate with others thatfollow the podcast.
So if you would like to jointhe community and converse with
other like-minded individualsthat also listen to my podcast,
head on over toVini.substack.com.
You'll find that link in thedescription box below, my
Instagram, threads, bio, andeverywhere else.
(03:05):
Click subscribe, then you'll bereceiving my updates directly
to your email.
You hear it first.
Thanks, y'all.
Now let's get into it.
Years ago, back when I lived inOregon, I had taken a sociology
(03:41):
class from this professor whojust so happened to be my mentor
as well.
During the first day of class,she always wanted us to
introduce ourselves and includeour pronouns, just so that we
knew how to properly addresseveryone according to name
preference and their pronouns.
The first time that I had takenthis professor's class, I said
that my pronouns were she, her,mostly because that's all that I
(04:05):
knew.
But later down the line, when Itook a different class from
her, I introduced myself withshe, they pronouns.
And I remember the professorbeing slightly surprised about
this.
She said, Oh really?
I didn't know that about you,Vanetia.
And I shrugged nonchalantly andsaid, Yeah, I go back and forth
(04:26):
with it.
In my mind, the pronoun they isvery natural and neutral.
It does not override myexistence or identity as a
woman.
When I think about pronouns,it's very simple for myself.
When someone talks about me orto me, I would not be bothered
by them referring to me as she,her.
(04:48):
That's how I was raised.
It's the default for myself.
Furthermore, if someone weretalking about me to someone else
and they referred to me asthey, them, that wouldn't bother
me either, because they justaren't making my gender a part
of the conversation.
It's not relevant for whateverreason, and that's okay.
(05:09):
But what I realized is thatpeople have started to assume
that if you go by they, thempronouns, you are automatically
a non-binary person in somecapacity.
Non-binary people do not adhereto any traditional gender
norms.
And what a lot of people don'tknow is that this also falls
(05:30):
under the category of transnessas well, because these are
people who have transitioned,hence the word, away from the
original gender marker that theywere assigned at birth.
They no longer align.
And while some people arenon-binary or even gender queer,
this doesn't apply to everyonethat is okay with they-them
(05:53):
pronouns in reference tothemselves.
Is it just me or does thiscontinue to add even more
complexities around genderidentity?
I mean, I love the flexibilityof it all, but I feel like it's
counterproductive if we continueto implement these hard rules
of structure around newterminology, when that's exactly
(06:15):
what we've been working to getrid of within the traditional
binary.
Let's not continue the trend.
This is why gender identity issuch a challenging topic within
society, because we've createdthis social construct that for
many seems to be set in stone,and it technically isn't.
(06:36):
Storytime.
So Halloween just passed alittle over a week ago.
Did you all dress up?
One thing that I always thinkabout during this time is how
gender is performed throughHalloween costumes.
One of my friends mentionedthat she likes how I talk about
things that I learned in highereducation.
(06:57):
And one of those things earlieron in my academic career was
when I took a class entitled TheSociology of Gender.
Everything that I'm talkingabout in this episode relates to
that class.
And one thing that the teacherspent an entire week discussing
was Halloween costumes and howthey are heavily geared toward
(07:19):
very specific groups.
Let me tell you, I never lookedat Halloween costumes the same
ever again.
In short, this professor showedus countless examples of how
silly costumes orhyper-masculine costumes are
predominantly geared toward men.
Little boys' costumes areusually characters in roles that
(07:40):
are usually male-dominated orhyper-masculine, like muscular
superheroes, firemen, and policeofficers.
Little girls are usuallyprincesses and little cutesy
hyper-feminine characters withfrills.
And they will always add a tututo just about everything, just
to make it girly.
(08:01):
Why does a ladybug need a tutu?
Then for women, the dominantcategory is always sexy.
Now look, I love to display sexappeal, but they definitely
overdo it sometimes.
I saw a comment on threads thatsaid, why are women's costumes
(08:22):
always super sexy?
Why is Pikachu's booty out?
And as funny as this is, theyare right though.
I would have loved to dress upas Kitana or Chung Li, but we'll
have to save that for a moreappropriate moment when I'm not
walking next to my child.
Speaking of, my daughter, whois five years old, she is
(08:49):
infatuated with Spider-Man andwanted to be him for Halloween.
I asked her multiple times inadvance just to make sure that
she was absolutely sure about itso that I didn't end up
purchasing the wrong costume.
Well, about a month ago, therewas a maintenance guy that
stopped by our place to look atour water heater.
(09:09):
He was making small talk andbrought up the topic of
Halloween to my daughter byasking what she wanted to dress
up as.
With excitement, she said,Spider-Man.
And he laughed and said, Whatabout Spider Girl?
She got quiet and I chimed inand said, She wants to be
Spider-Man.
(09:29):
And that was the end of theconversation.
That same week, she waswatching her Spider-Man show and
said, Guess who I want to befor Halloween?
I said, Spider-Man, of course.
And she said, I want to beGhost Spider instead.
I will be Spider-Man for nextyear.
To my understanding, GhostSpider in this kid series that
(09:52):
she watches is just a girlversion of Spider-Man in a
sense.
Spidey senses, you get it?
Did you catch that?
Anyway, in that moment, I couldnot help but think that the
maintenance guy's comment hadswayed her desire to be
Spider-Man.
I instantly had a conversationwith her about not allowing
(10:14):
other people to influence herdecision about the things that
she wants to do or be in lifebecause she deserves to be able
to do what she wants.
Period.
Jesse and I often laugh aboutthese big conversations that we
have with Onawa because she'sonly five.
But we know that our daughteris a smart cookie.
(10:34):
And even if she doesn'tunderstand all of what we are
saying, it will eventually clickand hopefully stick.
When she's an adult, I hopethat she will remember some of
these moments, and thesemessages will give her the
encouragement to live the lifethat she wants to live without
the opinions of others changingthat.
(10:55):
Sure enough, a few days afterthat conversation, she went back
to saying that she wanted to beSpider-Man, and that's exactly
who she was for Halloween.
She was so cute in her costume.
My point in mentioning thatstory is to show how society,
along with traditional gendernorms, continue to influence how
(11:17):
we exist through the lens ofgender identity.
The comment that themaintenance guy made was small,
but that doesn't change the factthat small comments still have
the ability to show that thereare assumptions and even
expectations around how otherswant us to take up space or even
expect us to present ourselves.
(11:39):
These messages are coming at usfull throttle all the time, in
small ways like that, and evenovert ways.
Before we are even born, peopleare setting the stage for how
they want us to do gender.
If you caught my Instagramstory a couple of weeks ago, I
(12:01):
mentioned that I am starting togather participants for the
research that I plan to includein my thesis.
It's about sexuality, in short.
I interviewed one person thattalked about how they recently
realized that they shield theirson from participating in
anything that isn'ttraditionally accepted for
(12:23):
little boys.
They talked about how their sonloves dresses and that they
would often dissuade their sonfrom the dresses by saying that
dresses aren't for boys, despiteknowing that clothing is just
clothing and not gender.
Their reason for doing this?
They carry a lot of fear abouttheir son one day being someone
(12:47):
that identifies with the LGBTQcommunity.
And this, my friends, goes toshow just how much societal
norms really control how many ofus choose to live our lives.
It pressures us to fall inline.
And if children are in theequation, how we go about
instilling restrictive societalnorms onto our children.
(13:11):
We understand early on thatthere are repercussions for not
adhering to gender norms, evenif we don't necessarily agree
with them.
I had to go up in the deep endjust to get it right.
(13:31):
I had to go around the cornerjust to get my hair right.
Did you all catch that videoabout the black woman who got
banned from Gold's gym?
Well, if you haven't, this is avery popular story right now
amongst the LGBTQ community,especially.
It was recently featured on TMZas well, which makes me
(13:52):
question what kind of motives dothey have behind adding fuel to
the fire between twomarginalized groups of people,
the trans community and thelesbian community, especially
during such politically strainedtimes.
Okay, so the woman's name isTish Hyman.
(14:12):
She's apparently asinger-songwriter.
She said that she had justfinished working out, she took a
shower, and just as she wasabout to start getting dressed,
she's in the nude at this point,she just so happened to look up
at a person that appeared to bea man.
This person was also peeringback at her.
(14:33):
Tish wondered if she hadoverlooked the sign, and maybe
one of the men that worked atthe gym were cleaning the
restrooms.
So she asked, What are youdoing in here?
But she quickly realized thatwasn't the case when the person
lashed out at her, stating, Sheis a woman and that she is
allowed to be in there.
(14:54):
Tish said that she felt veryuncomfortable in that position,
stating that she had previouslybeen a victim of sexual violence
when she was a child, so shefelt extremely triggered.
This is what she said on herTikTok account, by the way.
Tish went on to say in thevideo, How are you calling
(15:16):
yourself a woman?
while panning this person'sbody up and down with her
camera.
She said that this person has apenis.
How does she know this?
Well, allegedly this person hasbeen naked in the locker room
on multiple occasions with otherwomen also complaining to staff
members about it.
(15:36):
I saw another video about thissituation from another trans
woman that attends the same gym.
This was from a black transwoman who said that they also
saw the same person in thelocker room, saw their penis,
and knew that this would be asituation that will blow up in
the near future.
And boy were they right.
(15:58):
Now, this particular transwoman said that they've never
been naked in the locker room,and that the cis-gendered women
have always been very invitingto them in that space.
So it's evident that some ofthese gym goers do have the
ability to share space withcertain trans individuals, as
(16:18):
long as they interact with thespace in a particular manner.
The first trans woman that Imentioned obviously conducted
themselves in a way thatdisrupted the safety of women in
that space.
And this brings other questionsto the forefront.
Like whether full nudity in theopen area of locker rooms
(16:41):
should continue to be acceptedor not?
Or should there really be athird space for trans
individuals?
And even if there were a thirdspace for those people, how
would that work when some transpeople are non-binary, some
identify as men, and someidentify as women?
The last two things that Ireally want to remind people of
(17:06):
when discussing topics likethese, your fear is absolutely
valid, but that does not evergive anyone a pass to be hateful
to the identity of others inmoments of unease.
That is transphobia.
And when we have it in ourminds that a person has to
present themselves a certain wayfor us to validate their
(17:28):
transness, that is alsotransphobia.
I know that this stuff can bevery touchy and confusing for a
lot of people, and that is doneby design.
We actually don't know whatanyone has underneath their
clothes unless we see themnaked, like in this case.
But we definitely don't knowwhat people have going on in
(17:50):
their bodies, biologicallyspeaking.
Don't forget that there arepeople out there that we share
space with that also go againstwhat we have been taught is
supposed to be the standard ofgender.
Trans men do not owe anyonemasculinity.
Trans women do not owe anyonefemininity.
(18:12):
Non-binary people do not oweanyone androgyny.
And they definitely don't oweit for the sake of anyone's
comfort.
Ah, so where do we go fromhere?
(18:38):
I asked this rhetoricallybecause I actually don't think
there is a clean-cut answer thateveryone will be pleased with.
Because let's be honest, we'renot stepping away from the
social construct of gender.
The foundation has already beenset, and through each
generation, we continue toadhere to these traditional ways
(19:00):
of gender.
The only good thing about thisday and age pertaining to this
topic is that people arebecoming more unapologetic in
ways that are forcing people tosee that not all of us just go
with the flow.
Because we simply don't haveto, and that is in our right.
So as I wrap things up in thisepisode, I would love to hear
(19:24):
your thoughts and personalstories around how you navigate
the world in consideration toyour gender identity.
Is this something that you'veever thought about before?
Do you ever find yourselfstruggling to fit in with
mainstream society because youknow that you're expected to
present yourself in veryspecific ways according to your
gender?
(19:45):
Also, leave me a comment ifthis is your first time knowing
that trans identity does notalways mean that you're
transitioning into the oppositegender.
Go ahead and hop on over toSubstack so that we can have a
conversation about this.
Once again, that isVanishaRDailey.substack.com.
Thanks for tuning in, y'all.
(20:08):
Until next time, I'm gonna goahead and get a lot of money.
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