WEBVTT 00:00:00.589 --> 00:00:06.570 In recent years, we’ve seen struggles around gender and sexuality come to the forefront of national opinion. 00:00:07.943 --> 00:00:11.943 Despite 21st century wins for marriage equality and banning “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in the military, 00:00:13.620 --> 00:00:18.620 the topic of gender and sexuality remains a hot button issue for many. 00:00:19.195 --> 00:00:28.190 In fact, 2023 saw a record number of 510 anti-LGBTQIA+ bills introduced in state legislatures across the country. 00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:32.629 And it doesn’t seem to be getting any better. 00:00:32.669 --> 00:00:34.607 Welcome to course six. 00:00:34.647 --> 00:00:39.640 In this course we’ll explore where some of our core ideas about gender and sexuality come from 00:00:40.578 --> 00:00:43.207 and what this all means for public health. 00:00:43.247 --> 00:00:46.149 To start with, let’s define gender. 00:00:46.189 --> 00:00:52.180 Gender refers to the specific characteristics, roles and attributes we assign to people in society. 00:00:52.879 --> 00:00:56.879 Usually, when we think about gender, we think about men and women. 00:00:57.500 --> 00:01:01.221 And when we think about what makes a man versus what makes a woman, 00:01:01.261 --> 00:01:05.261 we have very specific ideas of what that is, too. 00:01:05.300 --> 00:01:07.683 But this puts gender into a binary, 00:01:07.723 --> 00:01:14.720 which assumes that there are only two distinct, fixed, and opposite categories that all people fall into. 00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:19.028 It erases the idea that there could be folks who fall outside of the binary. 00:01:19.209 --> 00:01:23.209 It also assumes that we can only fulfill the roles assigned to our gender. 00:01:23.491 --> 00:01:25.737 But, says who? 00:01:25.777 --> 00:01:28.290 Recent dialogue about gender in the public sphere 00:01:28.330 --> 00:01:32.330 has begun to expand our understanding of gender and sexuality. 00:01:32.355 --> 00:01:37.000 Across film, television, and in our own communities, we’ve started to learn 00:01:37.195 --> 00:01:41.195 that there’s a little bit more to being who we are than binary gender reveals. 00:01:42.400 --> 00:01:48.480 For example, people can be cisgender, transgender, or non-binary. 00:01:48.925 --> 00:01:52.925 Cisgender means you identify with the gender you were assigned at birth, 00:01:53.656 --> 00:01:57.656 while transgender means you identify with a gender different from what you were assigned at birth. 00:02:00.671 --> 00:02:07.670 If you identify as nonbinary, your gender identity doesn’t adhere to the typical gender binary. 00:02:08.088 --> 00:02:16.080 Nonbinary includes a range of identities like gender fluid, gender non-conforming, and agender. 00:02:16.710 --> 00:02:19.571 Gender and sex are two different things. 00:02:19.611 --> 00:02:25.610 Like gender, we assume that people are only born with male or female sex characteristics. 00:02:25.750 --> 00:02:29.573 But an estimated 1.7 percent of people are born intersex, 00:02:29.613 --> 00:02:33.613 which means they have sex characteristics that don’t squarely fit into what we would consider male or female. 00:02:35.936 --> 00:02:39.936 Parents and doctors often subject intersex youth to surgeries 00:02:40.450 --> 00:02:46.830 to match a chosen gender based on social norms, sometimes with harmful results. 00:02:47.149 --> 00:02:51.000 People born intersex can identify with a range of genders, 00:02:51.200 --> 00:02:55.189 just like people assigned male or female at birth. 00:02:55.229 --> 00:02:57.271 But none of this is new. 00:02:57.311 --> 00:03:00.120 All over the world and throughout history, 00:03:00.160 --> 00:03:05.160 different countries have displayed understandings of gender that fall outside of the gender binary. 00:03:05.486 --> 00:03:10.480 For example, many countries have historically included a third gender. 00:03:10.950 --> 00:03:16.950 In Italy, the femminiello refers to a third gender of people assigned male at birth 00:03:17.096 --> 00:03:21.096 who present as feminine and fulfill female gender roles. 00:03:21.383 --> 00:03:25.098 This was a privileged status up through the 19th century. 00:03:25.138 --> 00:03:30.130 In India, the hijras are people of a third gender who were assigned male at birth. 00:03:31.182 --> 00:03:37.180 And, in Hawai’i, the māhū embrace the feminine and masculine traits to be found in all of us. 00:03:37.378 --> 00:03:41.200 In many instances, these groups were respected 00:03:41.300 --> 00:03:46.930 and served as spiritual teachers, healers, and holders of sacred and ancestral knowledge. 00:03:47.306 --> 00:03:53.300 But, today, many of these groups are now criminalized and ostracized. 00:03:53.550 --> 00:03:57.287 With time many of these countries would come into contact with western influence 00:03:57.327 --> 00:04:01.327 through colonization, imperialism and, later, globalization. 00:04:02.107 --> 00:04:06.107 In the scramble to expand and acquire new resources and territories, 00:04:06.747 --> 00:04:10.376 reproductive labor was a key resource to control. 00:04:10.416 --> 00:04:14.416 It ensured a new generation to inherit and accumulate wealth 00:04:14.500 --> 00:04:17.022 and a new generation of people to exploit. 00:04:17.062 --> 00:04:22.060 A fixed, binary gender kept reproduction under the control primarily of men 00:04:22.846 --> 00:04:26.100 and also made sure that domestic life could be maintained 00:04:26.140 --> 00:04:29.975 while wealth was being accumulated outside the home. 00:04:30.015 --> 00:04:34.015 Let’s go back to the anti-LGBTQIA+ bills. 00:04:34.334 --> 00:04:37.570 What exactly are these bills targeting? 00:04:37.610 --> 00:04:42.610 Legislatures have seen bills introduced targeting everything from drag performances and youth athletics 00:04:43.295 --> 00:04:49.290 all the way to LGBTQIA+ related content in our schools and access to gender affirming care. 00:04:50.835 --> 00:04:56.830 Bills like these actually target the right of transgender and gender expansive people to exist. 00:04:57.072 --> 00:05:00.226 This affects public health by leading to health inequities. 00:05:00.266 --> 00:05:04.520 Public health, like all of our social systems, is built on the assumption 00:05:04.600 --> 00:05:08.360 there are only 2 fixed and binary genders everyone falls into. 00:05:08.450 --> 00:05:10.450 We know now this is not the case, 00:05:10.910 --> 00:05:14.744 but our systems haven’t exactly gotten the message. 00:05:14.784 --> 00:05:20.780 A whole host of medical services, like vaccines, medical screenings and risk factors 00:05:20.988 --> 00:05:26.980 are assumed to be determined by whether or not someone is a cisgender male or a cisgender female. 00:05:27.659 --> 00:05:32.640 For folks who fall outside of those categories, or for whom it's just not that simple, 00:05:33.054 --> 00:05:37.054 they can miss out on important preventative and even life-saving care. 00:05:38.026 --> 00:05:42.026 Not to mention the discrimination that some LGBTQIA+ people 00:05:42.400 --> 00:05:46.506 experience within public health and healthcare institutions. 00:05:46.845 --> 00:05:49.091 We as a field are making progress, 00:05:49.131 --> 00:05:54.130 but we still have a long way to go for gender equity across the communities we serve. 00:05:54.709 --> 00:05:59.700 Anti-LGBTQIA+ bills make our work that much more difficult. 00:06:00.488 --> 00:06:04.307 There are actions we can take as a field and in collaboration with 00:06:04.347 --> 00:06:08.347 researchers, practitioners and advocates to counter these bills. 00:06:09.385 --> 00:06:13.385 We’ll talk about it more in course six. Take a look.