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The IQLA called me a TERF. Here’s why that matters.
I’m writing this post after the American 2024 presidential election. You all know how this went, and no, we don’t need to talk about it–we’re all exhausted. What we do need to talk about is that not only has it always been important, but it is more important now than ever to support Queer research.
Even if that research suggests something you may not like, or perhaps suggests something you’re afraid of.
I want to emphasize my use of the word suggests. Scientific research is NEVER, all-caps NEVER conclusive; we are always learning new things, even when we think we’re done.
Before we get too far into this: if you don’t already know me, hi, I’m Teddy, a transgender lesbian researcher specializing in transgender linguistics, and markedly not a TERF. But I shouldn’t have to out myself for my research to be deemed admissible (looking at you, IQLA).
So, anyway, enter: Project MapLemon. We all know her, we all love her. And I mean that: many people in the Queer community have been outspoken about liking my project! And that includes liking my project when I had to use Queer Theory to explain why, in the most recent iteration, the results after analysis suggest that binary transgender people write most similarly to their assigned sex at birth. All of the rest of the conclusions, including that there may exist a transgender accent, remain the same. I have not encountered any pushback from Queer people about this work, and have spoken at several events about these results since their publication in my thesis.
(I’m gonna start being a little mean now, because I’m rightfully angry and this is my own blog.)
Queer Theory literally exists to explain exactly this kind of thing. Online, people call others TERFs as easily as most blow their noses. Many of the Queer denizens of the internet have never read popular Queer Theory–much of which discusses gender presentation, expression, and its relation to your sex assigned at birth–either. I have never in my life encountered this kind of behavior from a Queer person in the physical world, because when you go outside, you find the Queer community is a lot more focused on keeping actual real fucking TERFs out of our bars and fight clubs and pottery classes.
That said, I was frankly shocked when my paper–final reviews and edits done, publication-ready, nearly a year after having began work on it–was then rejected by the International Quantitative Linguistics Association with one of the most offensive emails I have ever received, the concluding paragraph below:
“Given these issues, the conclusions, that trans people pattern linguistically like writers who identify with their sex assigned at birth, and not their current gender identity, seems far too strong, and indeed downright unethical. They play right into trans marginalization and trans-exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs), but based on extremely problematic experiment design and data analysis. These conclusions also seem to draw on arguments of linguistic determinism which are also problematic. Publishing this paper will further marginalize an already marginalized group. It’s wrong to say that trans people will out themselves with their writing, but that’s essentially what this paper says.”
Fuck getting into the journal, I want a damn apology. I said as much in my email back to them, and what I was given instead was a bunch of waffle about how the publisher appointed their own reviewers and we couldn’t do anything blah blah blah.
Take some goddamn accountability.
I’m sorry my name passes as a cis man’s, or whatever makes you feel like you can call my work is TERF rhetoric, but even if a cis man produced these results it wouldn’t matter, because it’s well-cited and grounded in Queer Theory. I’ve said it before, but researchers really don’t (and shouldn’t) care if you’re from Mars if your work is good. But hey, maybe a single cursory Google of the named author and you’d find out they’re a damn tranny? Sorry, I forgot this editor was clearly too busy getting mad at me for “assuming people’s genders”, so they forgot to not assume mine.
I don’t care if you think my experiment design is bad; I know it’s not from being published in several other peer-reviewed journals and presenting at over ten conferences internationally before I’d even earned a Master’s degree (including an IQLA conference, I might add). What really hurts most is the assumption that the work that I’m doing comes from a place of hatred. This work comes from a place of love for my community, and that is why no matter how much academia beats me down, I refuse to stop. What hurts second-worst is that this decision completely ignores the HUGE discoveries I made with non-binary people that I talked about in the same paper! Non-binary people (without getting too much into the specifics; they’re in my previously linked thesis) were basically uncategorizable–they could not be grouped with binary trans people or with their sexes assigned at birth; non-binary people stand alone as their own stylometric category.
But I dunno, sounds kinda TERF-y to me.
My PI (Patrick Juola, for any newbies reading this) saw this email, and sent them a reply with one of the best demonstrations of allyship I may have ever seen. He made two points that really stuck with me:
- This is what’s known as white knighting, a form of performative allyship in which someone tries to “protect the princess,” ignoring the desires of the community (the princess) and ultimately ends up suppressing the community further. In this case, rejecting a “TERF-y “paper written by a trans person under the guise of “protecting the Queer community.”
(Personal note, and not the expressed opinion of my PI: you know why I think they rejected it? To cover their asses, because this is a grand show of cowardice.) - “Downright unethical”? IRB approval aside, how can in-progress science, or hell, even a conclusion be unethical? That just doesn’t make sense; you can’t call a statement of fact good or evil. Sure, the motivations can be good or evil–
(Personal note:) Ahh, I see, they’re calling my motivations corrupt. Cool!
Anyway, we were literally just giving a tentative answer to a posed question in existing literature “does a trans accent exist?” I liked what Patrick said: “How can it be unethical to read a question in the scholarly literature and to provide an answer in other scholarly literature?”
Obviously, this sucks, and I won’t be working with the IQLA in any capacity anymore unless I receive a sincere apology with no excuses for behavior.
I hope that this trend of white knighting isn’t something we see more of in the coming four years. That’s why this matters. (It also matters because I’m sad I got called a mean name on the internet and it’s not even true and I did a lot of work just to get called that! 1. Say it to my face, 2. Criticize my paper during reviews, not when the paper is already done, so I can fucking fix it, 3. At least call me something true, like a dyke or something. Yeah just call me a slur, man, that would’ve been better.)
Queer people won’t stop doing our work, even if we have to go back to the time-honored tradition of publishing our own stuff in our own journals that straight people don’t look at. We’re too messy, our literature unread, our research too difficult for straight people to understand–and so we make progress silently, and on our own. The difference this time is we might also need to hide from Liberals who use us as their “look at me I’m a good person” disguise; they will kill us slowly, with lack of critical thinking and fear, rather than the Right, which will kill us with guns and healthcare legislation.
Queer joy prevails: my friends and I had a fireside dramatic reading of the email chain, and laughed our asses off, pausing between sentences to yell at the men who could not hear us through the screen about how wrong they were.
I still want that damn apology.
Interspeech 2024
Realized I never announced the panel I would be speaking on, but I wanted to give a quick thank you to the folks organizing Interspeech 2024 for having me as a panelist on Speech Science, Speech Technology, & Gender. It was a shame most of us had to be remote, but for those of you still on Kos Island enjoying the gorgeous weather, cheers!
Graduated!
Hey folks! I have officially graduated from the CUNY Graduate Center with an MA in Digital Humanities. Thank you so much to my thesis supervisor, Dr. Matt Gold! My thesis can be read here: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/5795/
Frankly, I have been through the ringer the last academic year, and thank you so much to everyone who has been here for me through both social/emotional stress and academic stress.
So what’s next? Well, I’m trying to fund a PhD at University of Manchester. I’m accepted, but am waiting on yet another funding option after rejection from two separate funding boards. One more left. Cross your fingers.
What if not that? I’ll defer. I’m doing this PhD thing no matter what, no matter how long it takes for me to get the money to do this. And I’ll do it my way. But in the meantime, I’m looking for work, preferably in academia, though I’d also take editing, archival work–that kind of stuff. If you, dear reader, know of anything, shoot me an email: [email protected]
Cheers, and cross your fingers.
Keynote Talk Video – CU Boulder Love Data Week
On Valentine’s Day I had the honor of giving a keynote talk at CU Boulder for Love Data Week- Project MapLemon: Representing Diverse Identities in Data. Here is the link, with captioning and transcript available: https://vimeo.com/user134045997/review/917656688/43b2cddef7
Thank you to all those who made this possible, and CU Boulder for inviting and having me!
Abstract: “MapLemon is a naturally elicited digital writing corpus most well known for its inclusion of transgender and nonbinary identities in data collection, resulting in groundbreaking discoveries about the possibility of a transgender accent, and furthermore suggesting that transgender and nonbinary people write most similarly to their gender as opposed to their sex assigned at birth. MapLemon was created with demographic diversity in mind—not just with gender, but also with respect to race, ethnicity, homeland, etcetera. Join Theodore (Teddy) Manning (pronouns: hän/hänet/hänen) to discuss how we can, as researchers, create surveys like MapLemon’s which result in these important discoveries, representing diverse identities in data, and ultimately forwarding inclusivity in data.”
I’m a “Keynote Speaker for What God Calls Abominable,” & I’d Never Want Anything Different.
I had the unfortunate experience this week that many Queer people often experience: my grandparents decided they don’t want a relationship with me because I’m gay.
Everyone hopes that their research will help people, or at least that they will have some kind of impact on the world. Hell, it’s nearly an expectation that you’ll say you want to “change the world” on university applications. I never found myself able to say that. Every time I tried, it felt hollow. What does that even mean, “change the world”?
I grew up primarily in Kentucky. Most people don’t really know what that means other than “oh I’m so sorry”, which… yeah. I’m not even from somewhere particularly rural–I’m from Louisville, but being from Kentucky as a Queer person should definitely elicit some oh nos. My family was on the radical left: my mom held CPUSA meetings in our apartment, and my dad rathered he write “Make America a Monarchy Again” on his ballot than vote for Clinton or Trump. (Of course, I have opinions about both of these things.) But in this same family, I was told to not ruffle the feathers of people with money or power, or family. Now, I’d say this is in part a side effect of being poor and Southern. My family wanted three things for me: money, a career, and alive. I was, almost as a result, a loud and opinionated child. But I was raised to not bother the opinions of people who could give me money for school, or recommendation letters, or who would make sure I didn’t make it home that night. For a long time, I obeyed those rules as much as I thought they benefited me. And that was, for the most part, how I went through undergrad–at least, until the lockdown happened.
I’m lucky to live in an age where much of fashion is androgynous, and short hair is allowed for women, but regardless of those things when I finally started visibly transitioning in 2020 after being out for over half a decade, I understood it clearly: I could no longer hide my opinions behind my mouth. I am a walking opinion. I am somebody’s political piece, someone’s OP-ED, a news headline, a Senate hearing, a bathroom bill.
When I started doing research during undergrad under Dr. Patrick Juola–whose praises I have sung loudly and often–I realized that I don’t need recommendation letters or money or jobs or anything from people who think that I shouldn’t exist. Patrick has taught me lots of things: “don’t say ‘no’ for other people”, “pass it on” in that one day I will have graduate students as he does and I will pay for their meals and help them shake hands and write them recommendation letters as he has for me, and many other invaluable lessons. But one lesson Patrick made clear without saying: I have a place in academia, and I do not have to associate with people who disagree with the fundamental fact that I exist. It would not be without the EVL Lab and Patrick that I would’ve stopped pretending to be something I’m not (even when I was pretending very badly); at least, it would’ve taken me much longer to stop pretending than it did because of that influence.
Patrick dispelled all my fears about academics being pretentious conservative white men. Two of those things he is, yes, but two of those are out of his control. In the time I’ve known Patrick I’ve changed pronouns several times (and genders twice or three times depending on who’s counting), and every time his reaction was something along the lines of “aye aye captain,” rather than the billion questions I had come to expect from others. Patrick makes sure to tell me the climate around Queer people and Jews wherever I’m traveling, and lets me know about specific people I may want to avoid; he does a good job of protecting minorities, or in the least showing us that he cares. And when Patrick and I tromped across Europe together and he came to know about my relationships with women and those adjacent across the continent, there were no questions, no weird statements for or against my “behavior”- Patrick simply let it be, let me be unless I decided to share (which he did not push for), and what do Queer people want more than just to be left the hell alone?
Back in time, when I was creating the survey for Project MapLemon and insisted on including trans people in my survey, Patrick was wholeheartedly supportive. Patrick made it clear to me that my success did not, and does not, hinge on the successes of anyone with regressive views. My success hinges on me, and the company I keep, and why the hell would I want to keep company who I have to lie to? Furthermore, Patrick made me realize that there are people in academia who are supportive of me and the work that I do. He introduced me to entire groups of researchers who liked my work and did not treat me differently because of the way I present. He sent my way conferences on Language, Gender, and Sex (yes, Helsinki, but many others of her kind as well). He showed me the work of other transgender researchers who are out there changing the landscape of linguistics as I have. I finally understand that what I do and what I am has a place in science, because what is science if not innovation? What is science if not uncovering the lost or undiscovered? What is science if not a way forward into the light from the darkness? In these groups of people, I am not questioned about my name, pronouns, or gender; I am taken as I am–as a researcher, and then as a human (because what do academics care if you’re from Mars if your research is good?).
I had the honor of presenting a keynote for University of Colorado Boulder’s Love Data Week on Valentine’s Day this year. I hadn’t posted about it yet since there should be a video recording out soon and wanted to wait to share that. But during this keynote I talked about Representing Diverse Identities in Data, data collected from that inclusive demographic survey previously mentioned, which was the primary topic I was discussing during this talk. I excitedly told my grandparents that I would be giving this talk, and when they asked the topic all I had to say was “diverse identities” for them to decide that the only diverse identity is transgender, completely excluding all the multi-ethnic, multi-racial, and Indigenous people that this talk involved. I understood in that moment that they had already made their minds up about me.
When my grandmother decided yesterday morning that she wanted nothing to do with me, she called me “a keynote speaker for what God calls abominable.” I felt a lot of things in that moment. Upset that I’m losing family to a “religious group” that demands its members cut off family who are gay, those who do not follow the gospel (not my judgement, but words from my grandmother). I felt angry that when I asked to not be constantly berated for being gay, I was met with the sentiment that my family would rather not have me around at all than have me be gay. And proud. Yes, proud. Proud to be here. Proud to set boundaries in the face of trans and homophobia. Proud that my unapologetic existence is enough to make people angry because I’m made of something more divine than they will ever understand. And proud of my work.
It was when my grandmother sent that damning message that I understood what it means to change the world. I am aware of how important the results of Project MapLemon are, but I have now seen firsthand the reactions that people have when faced with data that challenges their belief system. In their anger, I can see that I have done the right thing. If my work makes people angry, in this instance, it is because it holds truth that they cannot understand.
I can now confidently say: I am here for the people that the oppressors have methodically worked to remove from the narrative of life and the world wholesale. I am here for those of us that leaders around the world have chosen to make their target. I am here for those of us who do not have families to go home to, for those of us who cannot go home, and for those of us who have had to redefine home entirely. I am here for 12 year old me crying in the school counselor’s office because of homophobia, and I am here for 24 year old me breaking beer bottles in the name of transphobia. I will be here for as long as this mortal vessel can go on, and I will spend that time proudly gay. And to anyone gay or trans, anyone sitting on society’s margins who wants to be in academia: You have a place here. And as much as it fucking sucks, your existence is a radical act. We need you here. Please stay.
LanGeSex: The Conference We All Needed
I presented Project MapLemon at Language, Gender, & Sexuality at the University of Helsinki this October and was immersed in the most accepting academic environment I have ever set foot in. Amazing research, amazing people, and I truly hope there will be another LanGeSex in the future.
I want to thank everyone there for this wonderful opportunity, it was truly a conference for the ages! See you next year…!?
Conference Trail Postmortem & Updates – FEAT. A Bonus Announcement!
Hello, world! The MapLemon team had a wonderful month gallivanting across the world to showcase our corpus. Our first stop was Keystone DH in Baltimore, MD, USA; then QUALICO in Lausanne, CH; and Corpus Linguistics in Lancaster, UK.
We also touched on the successes of the EViL Lab through the lens of MapLemon during the workshop sessions before Digital Humanities ’23 in Graz, Austria.
FURTHERMORE (yes, even more!), hello to everyone from the Stylometry Retreat in Vienna!
It was truly an honor to present MapLemon at all of these conferences. We got some great feedback as well as potential collaborators and future projects using MapLemon.
MapLemon currently has one journal article in pre-publication with Digital Studies/Le Champ Numérique, and an article from Digital Humanities will also be published.
We are currently collecting data from transwomen, as well as beginning work on localizing MapLemon into… Dutch! Yes, MapLemon is going international! But first- IRB approval.
As usual… if anyone out there is reading this and knows of funding sources, be it for travel or otherwise, please send them my way! You all (whoever that is) have my email: [email protected]. Don’t be shy! If you have any ideas or collaborators, potential journals to submit to, or even just want to send fanmail (we should all do this more!!)- hit me up.
FINALLY… MAPLEMON IS GOING TO LANGUAGE, GENDER, AND SEX IN HELSINKI, FINLAND!!! See you in October, and thank you SO MUCH to the organizers for this wonderful opportunity.
Peace outtie!
-Teddy (as if anyone else writes on this blog, I kinda just felt like signing off heheh)
See you in Lancaster, and MORE!
I’m so excited to announce that Map Lemon will be presented at Corpus Linguistics ’23 at the University of Lancaster, UK!
Furthermore, Map Lemon has been accepted for its FIRST FULL JOURNAL ARTICLE in Digital Studies/Le Champ Numérique!
Finally… we got a grant!!! The next iterations of Map Lemon data collection will be funded by the CUNY Graduate Center’s Provost Digital Innovation Grant, with a white paper forthcoming, as well as a presentation at the Graduate Center Digital Showcase this May.
Thank you so much to all those at the EViL Lab, and the editors and reviewers, and faculty who have made this project’s recent strides possible.
Swiss-bound, baby!
I am so pleased to announce the Project Map Lemon will be seeing you at the QUALICO ’23 conference in Switzerland! I am so thrilled to have been accepted for a talk there, and hope to get lots of feedback from the larger community while I’m there. I’ll be joined by other members from the EVL Lab at Duquesne University, some of which I’ll be meeting for the first time in person since the world ended, which is just crazy! I am so honored, and many many more adjectives.
Ahh, money.
Short update: currently working on securing funding via grant proposals for the next round of Map Lemon respondents; this round will be another focused on Queer people to really elaborate on the data that already exists and reaffirm our suspicions.
After that, depending on the results from analysis we may want to look more into nonbinary people (currently researching methods to analyze their data while avoiding binarism, btw!), we may want to look more into ethnicity, sexuality, etc.
I’ve also fantasized about being able to do research on the effect being neurodivergent vs neurotypical would have on these results, especially since Queerness tends to overlap with neurodivergence, but I think the IRB approval on that would be tricky–we’ll see for the future.
