Unmarked-Marked

In her 2023 talk at the conference "Moving Trans History Forward," at the timestamp 47:53, Julia Serano speaks about the stages of acceptance and explains what fully stigmatized looks like compared to what fully accepted looks like. Where do you think the trans community is right now on this scale? Is this a problem? What does activism for each of these stages look like?

Julia Serano is clear that in order to speak about one form of marginalization, we need to speak about the non-marginalized in order to compare. What are some effective approaches to doing this?

In 2023, while describing this Markedness theory Serano also defined the differences between indirect and direct marginalization. She defines direct marginalization as the continued oppression of marked groups, and indirect marginalization as the reversing of markedness, in other words when a marked group begins using invalidations against the unmarked group. What are some consequences of this indirect marginalization and how can we avoid them?

What are some productive ways to talk about the difference between indirect and direct marginalization? What are some conversation starters that could lead us towards a decline in marking people at all?

Julia Serano's book Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive explains in a chapter called "Balancing Acts" that the Markedness theory is only one part of the picture, but that it's been a neglected part that we need to bring into conversations about marginalization.

What do you think a good balance of teaching 'isms' and Markedness looks like? What helped you understand the Markedness theory, or is there something that is missing that could explain the subject better?

Join the discussion about the Markedness theory proposed by Julia Serano. Let's explore the impact of societal norms on marginalized groups and discuss the nuances to identifying marginalization.