If I had a nickel for every time I’ve read or heard that when a CD/TG goes through a “slutty phase” it’s because they’re just going through their female adolescence, like all girls go through – experimenting with styles, wearing too much makeup, etc., I’d be rich woman.
While it may be true that teenaged girls experiement with makeup and clothes, it also occurred to me that I had never gone through a “slutty” phase. So I started asking other women – partners, friends, sisters – and amazingly enough, none of them had.
One woman (a trans-partner as well) pointed out that the “slutty” girls in high school – the ones everyone knew would have sex with nearly anyone – were the only ones who dressed that way. (She also pointed out that in retrospect, those girls were most likely subjected to sexual abuse or violence as children or young adults, which I think is entirely accurate).
Most of us were busy covering up our newly-exploding bodies, dealing with what it felt like to have curves, to be looked at sexually. It wasn’t easy. But the last thing we were doing was dressing like sluts – believe me, it comes as quite a shock to have thighs, get your period, grow breasts – and suddenly find that your male friends look at you differently. A lot of women I know just covered up – in whatever ways possible – until they’d made peace with their new bodies. And for a lot of us, that didn’t happen until college, if then.
So what are trannies really doing when they dress slutty? It’s my feeling that what they’re doing is indulging in a “look” that they – socialized as men – think is powerful. It’s part of the mythology that women are in control, that we use men to suit out purposes – you know, the “cold hearted bitch” myth that even Robin Givens is debunking on Oprah this week.
And that’s not so much what bothers me. What bothers me is how quickly we as partners are to accept this “received wisdom.” This crap wasn’t explained this way by a partner – I’m pretty sure of it. Because it does not compute. Any woman who has been raised as and lived as a woman knows it doesn’t compute, but we tell each other things like this to feel better about the way our partners are objectifying women in their choice of clothes. We fail to inform our partners, too.
The most beautiful women I know are not masters of their realm. They are usually more insecure than other women who don’t play the beauty game, actually. I was friends with a woman who was beautiful who would always make sure people had noticed her when she walked into a room; it helped boost her confidence, because otherwise she felt she had nothing to give. She waited by the phone like every other girl, wondering if he was going to call like he said he would.
So please – let’s drop this little bromide. Every time a partner tells you her partner is going through the “slutty” phase, just ask her: did you have one? My money is on the fact that she didn’t go through a “slutty” phase, and neither did any other woman she knows.
Obvious
This may seem obvious to the rest of you, but I’ve had a major revelation tonight.
I’ve been reading Judith Halberstam’s Female Masculinity – just started it, in fact – and I’ve been looking forward to reading it since I was given it – so much so I hurried through the end of another book (yes, about gender too) I’d been reading.
And then I came to this, on page 28:
Because female masculinity seems to be at its most threatening when coupled with lesbian desire, in this book I concentrate on queer female masculinity almost to the exclusion of heterosexual female masculinity.
My enthusiasm dropped like a lead balloon, then, but I read on:
I have no doubt that heterosexual female masculinity menaces gender conformity in its own way, but all too often it represents an acceptable degree of female masculinity as compared to the excessive masculinity of the dyke.
And there you go: not only is she not talking about masculinity in heterosexual women, but she managed to get a dig in about how “acceptable” my masculinity is. (Tell that to all the boys who wouldn’t date me, and all the kids who called me dyke over the years, Prof. Halberstam!) So not only did I not find validation, but found its opposite.
I’m sure for a lot of you, finding stuff about drag queens (or even crossdresser erotica that ends with the CD being sexual with a man, or the stories about how most MTF transsexuals end up dating/marrying men, etc) had the same effect, the same kind of let-down, the hope of finally reading something about yourself only to find, in fact, the author is precisely not talking about you.
What I realized is that in some ways, this is my connection to crossdressers: of being gender variant in a heterosexual context. In fact, one young TG just came on our boards trying to figure out where to meet girls who might like his gender mix; I spent most of my teens and early 20s trying to find a guy who liked women who weren’t models of prototypical femininity, and let’s just say: I found a lot of friends, and not a lot of dates. (I did get asked out by women an awful lot, though.)
Although I probably knew this at some level before now, the actual experience of opening this book with expectation – that I might learn something about who I am and how I fit in – came to an abrupt and unsatisfying halt: oh cool this is about – well maybe it is – no she doesn’t seem to be – oh, it’s not about me at all… like the judges on The Muppet Show.
After writing damn in the margin, I kept reading, and found out that the clitoris was officially discovered in 1559 when two Italian anatomists . . . gave the organ a name and ascribed it a function (p. 60). So far, aside from the academic writing style (which makes me want to take out a red pen) it’s chock full of goodies like that one, despite the fact that I won’t find any answers to my own questions in it.
In solidarity,
Helen
Pronouns
It was interesting to discover that trans-ness has not been the only reason people might want gender-less pronouns, and that people have been trying to coin them since way before “zie” and “hir” (1978) showed up.
Harvard President Summers
With President Summers’ actual statements still unknown, and while he continues to withhold transcripts of what he actually said, we are all left to guess as to what was controversial enough to make a Harvard graduate and female scientist walk out of his lecture in disgust.
What I think it’s important to keep in mind is that there are trends in science as elsewhere; what might be the hot thing today turns out to be absurd tomorrow.
Biological essentialism has its day every few decades, usually as a result of political/social progress. The anti-black science (a la “The Bell Curve”) that came out a few years ago was well-timed: the black middle class was making real inroads.
Likewise, biological essentialism vis a vis women became all the rage when we were trying to return those newly-liberated WWII female factory workers to their homes. It happened again after the 2nd wave of feminism in the 70s. John Gray didn’t come from nowhere; his bullshit is exactly the answer to so many people’s anxieties about the changes in gender roles.
Aside from that, there’s funding. During this presidency, which has proved itself willing to fund only research that it finds politically expedient, we have to see where the money is coming from.
Most theories can seem rational without proof. Interesting and worthy of research, too. But it doesn’t make them right – and until proven otherwise, I think Summers was talking out of his ass.
As trannies, you all are going to have to keep track of this stuff, too. You can’t be surprised when a sodomy law gets taken down, backlash happens – and it happens in all industries and cultures – even that untouchable behemoth we like to call science. One of the things you start to figure out as a minority is that the hotshots of science hobnob with the same legislators that won’t approve trans-friendly legislation. Everyone has politics, but some hide them behind their impressive degrees.
The one thing transwomen especially have to keep in mind – and which they may have no experience in – is understanding that a strong objection (like Hopkins’) isn’t usually about nothing. Find out who is objecting, and why, instead of dismissing a person’s compaints for being too sensitive, or being “politically correct.” Discrimination is a difficult thing to prove but terrifically oppressive to the people living with it. As transfolks, you know what oppression is, and if you’re not going to be accused of “crying wolf” when someone treats you like crap, learn how to give other kinds of objectors the benefit of the doubt before dismissing them.
Summers may be a scientist, but he’s also a man with a lot of power. Power is deafening to those who have it, and unbearably loud for those who don’t.
Subordinate
Here’s some depressing news from The New York Times:
“A new study by psychology researchers at the University of Michigan, using college undergraduates, suggests that men going for long-term relationships would rather marry women in subordinate jobs than women who are supervisors.”
(The entire article can be found here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/13/opinion/13dowd.html?oref=login&hp)
I doubt this is going to be big news to any women out there, but it’s kind of frightening that it’s actually supported by a survey.
The implications?
Men choose women who are subordinate to them for marriage.
If you look at it one way, the man with an IQ of 150 who makes $100k a year is most likely to marry a woman who has an IQ of less than 150 and earns less than $100k.
Which also means that a woman with an IQ of 150 who makes $100k a year is either going to end up single or marrying a man who has an IQ that is higher than her own and who makes more money – because the men in this study ARE CHOOSING TO MARRY WOMEN WHO ARE SUBORDINATE.
I’m sure plenty of powerful women are dating younger, less powerful hotties. But that’s not the point. The point is that when those hotties choose to get married, they’re going to marry a woman who is subordinate to them, too.
If this trend continues, every single one of my nieces is going to have two choices: to marry a man more powerful than her or to marry a man more powerful than her (or being single, or a lesbian, I suppose).
The study also indicates that it is also unlikely that the guy even pick someone who is an equal in these regards.
To me, it’s like playing any game or sport you’re good at. The guys in this survey are basically saying that they always want to play with someone they’re superior to. The intimation is that they are stacking the odds in their own favor.
One of the researchers, Dr. Stephanie Brown, is quoted as saying: “Men think that women with important jobs are more likely to cheat on them.”
Men are choosing subordinate partners because they are insecure around powerful women. They are concerned that strong, smart, salaried women might not be faithful. Imagine if women did that: no one would ever get married, both sides standing off to the sides waiting to be the more “dominant” partner.
This report is sickening & depressing to me. Deeply. Because I do have ten nieces, and I thought the world had changed a lot more since when I was a kid, but this survey – and the report about it – pretty much shows that girls are in the same shitty position they’ve always been in: either be okay with being subordinate and married, or be single. Or marry a tranny, I guess.
Since the study was done on undergraduates, I can only that eventually men do wise up – maybe once they’re dating more in their 20s and 30s, and maybe they come to appreciate having an equal, challenging partner.
Still in all, depressing news.
Reading Judith Butler on the D Train
I know I’m not the only one excited by a Christmas gift of gender theory – not only, but not common, either. A slim volume, bound in oily paper.
But how is it – despite my excitement – that once I start to read I start to yawn? Radical performativity and challenges to authorship make me want to stretch like my cat on our bed, him in the sun through our back bedroom window, me on the D train, rays streaming in off the white chips of ice in the East River and on the sludge piles on the Brooklyn side. White light/no heat.
Despite theory, on the train I name genders. Shy momma’s boy, effete hipster, resilient Malay matriarch. Aren’t we all different gendered, even while we pass for one or the other? Does the crisis only happen when everyone sees “man” when one feels “woman,” or vice versa? Or do we just assume that everyone only sees two, like some kind of post-apocalyptic god, cleaving some to the left, some to the right? What do most people see? I try to remember back, from when I didn’t think of gender, and what comes to me is a time when I was on a different train, the Long Island Railroad, and I was about 17. An aging conductor was the first to take my monthly ticket, and he punched it M. I know I changed it later, but I also know I’d wondered if I should, or not. Would all the conductors think me male, or had the lights blinked off for a moment for one semi-blind conductor? If I had it changed, and they still read me as M, – what then? (I had it changed, thinking somehow that my combat boots and shaved head and flannel shirts would still, somehow, by some miracle, be read as F.)
No one reads me now as M, but I still know I’m only passing.
The Uses of 'Pretty'
Today, on the MHB message boards, a conversation started about why I don’t like or wear high heels. After a few soul-searching and memory-reliving posts, I intended to drop the subject and quit responding, especially after Betty reminded me of how deeply felt my memories are on this subject. But I didn’t drop it, & the reason I didn’t is because I felt like I needed to explain there are real reasons why some women drop “pretty.” I had to stop caring about pretty, because it sucked for me – I stopped caring about “pretty” for pretty much the same reasons the average trans woman stopped caring about “macho.” What went on in my head was something like: Who gives a fuck? I’m never gonna jump your stupid bar, & – oh, wow, it just occurred to me: & I don’t WANT to, either.
I find it troublesome to think that some might read my posts & think of my reasoning as sour grapes. The irony, I suppose, is that I am pretty. I’ve always liked my face, despite my crap skin. Sometimes, however, it’s as if it’s inconceivable to people for “pretty” not to be important to women. I find that outright sexist to be honest – that you can’t give a woman the benefit of the doubt, that she might have good reasons, and that the main issue is not about her thinking she isn’t pretty, and is basically saying ‘to hell with it.’
To me, “pretty” intersects with attitude & behavior, too. Pretty Is as Pretty Does, as they say. “Pretty” intersects with gender, behavior, and class in ways that are too complicated to sort out here.
In the same way that tranw women grow to love & celebrate their transness, I celebrate my departure from those girly games. I wouldn’t be half so smart, half so direct, or half as well-read as I would be had I had a *chance* at being considered pretty. Would my life have been easier? In some ways, & not in others. Watching my pretty friends try to desperately hold onto their looks as they age is pretty depressing, and not something I’d want to deal with.
But the real issue – you know that old question about “would you take a pill if it would make you not trans?” – is whether I value who I have become because of this stuff. As with most tranw women, I wouldn’t take the pill. It was totally a positive thing in my life to have taken that “left turn at Albuquerque.”
My memories of my teenage years are painful, but my decision to side-step the issue is not. As Betty likes to recall, it’s like that Seinfeld episode where they compete about who can not masturbate… & in about 5 minutes, Kramer barges in and announces “I’m out!” For me, it was liberating to say “I’m out!” of those competitions, or even of thinking about this stuff.
That others will continue to value women who value being pretty isn’t my issue. I just want the space & respect NOT to value it. I hate the idea that anyone would see my rejection/dislike of heels as being some kind of problem, on my part, some “riddle” to tease out.
Psychiatrist: So, Ms. Boyd, when did you develop this dislike for heels?
Me: Dunno.
Psychiatrist: So when did you reject being female?
Me: But I didn’t.
Psychiatrist: Well certainly your rejection of heels indicates some unrest with your female-ness.
Me: Um, no, I don’t think so.
Psychiatrist: But don’t you want to be pretty?
Me: Not especially.
Psychiatrist: Why not?
Me: Dunno. I like being other stuff better.
What I’m saying is that I understand perfectly well why most trans women don’t love hockey jerseys & Coors hats. I’m not the psychiatrist that’s going to ask why you have such sour grapes over not being “real men.” And all I’d like, in return, is the same respect: I don’t like heels and I don’t care about being pretty because I just don’t. It’s not some indication that I perceive myself as a failure as a woman, and it’s not some kind of recompense for not feeling like I don’t measure up. I’ve never really cared if most men find me attractive or not. And how I look doesn’t much enter into how I feel about myself.
All of us who are genderqueer (or who didn’t fit in) in one way or another had teenage years that were trial by fire. Having made the decisions we needed to at whatever age we were is half of what makes us such cool grownups, who have the room to appreciate, understand, and befriend people who made similar but different decisions. Not seeing each other as the freaks and weirdos everyone else thinks we are would give us all a much safer space to be ourselves.
Which I think, in the end, is what it’s all about.
Third Gender (Muxe) in Mexico
http://www.oaxacatimes.com/html/third.html#
The Third Gender
By JULIE PECHEUR
Photo by Julie Pecheur
In the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, on the Pacific coast of Oaxaca, some children are born neither boys nor girls.They are muxe.
Under the still fiery rays of the late afternoon sun, two dozen ox-carts decorated with flowers, palms, and multicolored banners parade down the center of Juchit�n. The convite, the traditional procession announcing a special mass, brings together the whole neighborhood. In one cart, sit erect dignified old men
in white shirts and straw hats; in another, motionless boys in blue shiny costumes with their palms joined in prayer; and in a third one, little made-up girls in regional embroidered dresses throw plastic cups and plates as gifts to the enthusiastic crowd.
As the procession moves forward, standing on the upper part of another cart, two children energetically ward off the branches of the surrounding trees to protect the cart�s adornments. They are about 12 years old, with narrow bodies and loose hair down to their round naked shoulders. One wears a pair of blue jeans and a short white top that reveals a flat belly and no waist. They both look like boys, but they could be mistaken for girls. Here in Juchit�n, on the pacific
coast of the Tehuantepec Isthmus, Mexico�s narrowest land near Guatemala, they are neither girls nor boys. They are muxe (pronounced Mooshey).
In striking opposition to Mexico�s dominant mestizo culture, which is racially mixed and where machismo prevails, the population of Juchit�n is predominantly
Zapotec and does not condemn or reject effeminate male homosexuals. On the contrary. Here muxe (the word comes from the Zapotec adaptation of the Spanish word for woman, mujer) are generally regarded as part and parcel of society, a third element or gender, combining the assets of both the female and male, and sometimes equipped with special intellectual and artistic gifts.
No one knows how many muxe live in this city of 80,000. Around the shaded plaza at the center of town near the market, one often spots them: slightly
effeminate older men, young transvestites (vestidas), and men dressed in shirt and trousers but wearing make-up (pintadas). The majority of the muxe live in
the two popular neighborhoods where most fishermen and peasants reside. Those in the upper classes however, still tend to stay en closet, in the closet.
�In Juchit�n, nearly all families have a great-uncle, a son, or a bother who is a muxe,� says Adolfina Pineda Esteva, a 47 year-old primary school teacher
whose younger brother, now known as Am�rica, is a muxe. �Not all parents accept them, but they are not rejected,� she explains while her husband Andr�s nods in agreement. �They have their space in the society. They teach dance, sew, head beauty salons, make adornments� Muxe are very active and creative.�
�Here one is born a muxe. One does not become one,� says Ulises Toledo Santiago, a thirty-year-old muxe, echoing the general opinion. Ulises, who dresses as a man but whose face expressions and voice are somewhat
effeminate, has a license in law and works for the city family planning agency. In an article published in 1995, anthropologist Beverly Chi�as confirms that: �The idea of choosing gender or of sexual orientation�the two of which are not distinguished by the Isthmus Zapotecs�is as ludicrous as suggesting that one can choose one�s skin color.�
Much to the annoyance of the 16th century Spanish conquerors, male homosexuality was widespread and tolerated in many North American indigenous societies, such as the Isthmus Zapotecs and the Yucatan Mayas. The Spaniards highly valued �manliness� and �assertive� behavior and placed a stigma on
�submissive� attitudes. Their chronicles never failed to mention the Indians� �corrupt� behavior, which they labeled as �sodomy� after the biblical town of Sodom, destroyed by God because of the sinful mores of its inhabitants. While systematically destroying all statues and frescoes representing male-male sexual
encounters, the Spaniards found in the natives� different approach to sexuality yet another theological justification to annihilate their culture and convert them to Catholicism.
The people of the Isthmus however have always fiercely defended their identity against conquering powers, whether Aztec, Spanish, or later French. Nowadays in
the region, contrary to the national mestizo pattern where men prevail in every strata of the society, women have more outlets for social participation and
enjoy the resulting powers. Typically, Juchitecan men work the fields and go fishing, participate in politics, and shape intellectual and artistic life. Women, on the other hand, do the housework, but also organize the fiestas and take part in various important commercial activities. In Juchit�n for instance, they control the vital daily market, reigning over piles of mangos and dried fish, their full-size bodies wrapped in long black skirts and huipiles, the short dark traditional blouses embroidered with large bright flowers.
Juchitecan women thus enjoy unusual financial autonomy and prestige, which has led many observers, chiefly foreigners, to mistakenly define Juchit�n as a
matriarchal society, a designation which overlooks the male equally crucial, and sometimes domineering, roles. Nevertheless, women and female activities are
not considered secondary, which may partly explain why muxe, who assume effeminate manners and participate in both female and male economic activities, are usually not discriminated against.
When a son prefers dolls to pistols, female cousins to male ones, and dresses to trousers, many mothers rejoice, even if the majority of fathers merely resign
themselves. For women, raising a muxe implies that strong arms will take care of their house while they go out to work and that someone will look after them
as they grow older. (Men have a tendency to prefer younger women and leave the household, even in Juchit�n.) �Parents with a muxe know that he will
always take care of them because he will never get married and leave the house,� says Ulises, who lives with his mother. �Our society is very tolerant because the muxe work hard and support their families.�
Traditionally, muxe are expected to cook, clean, look after the children, take care of the elders, and bring home an additional income. In recent years, muxe, like women, have started to gain access to higher education and careers such as lawyers and doctors.
Moreover, they play a key role in preparing the countless fiestas, essential to the identity of the community. This is not a light task: Juchit�n celebrates at least 20 in-town velas, the round of parties in honor of patron saints or particular events. During virtually the entire month of May, for instance, the streets are filled with parades, music, and flowers. Then, there are 20 or so obligatory national holidays, about 30 unmissable velas in neighborhood communities, plus the frequent weddings, birthdays, graduations. For all these celebrations, muxe design, embroider and sew traditional female outfits, make garlands and paper chains, fix hairstyles and make-up, and set family and church altars.
Less visible however, is the sexual role the muxe play in the Juchitecan society. Although classical heterosexual rigid classifications hardly hold when it comes to homosexual preferences, it is generally true that muxe don�t have sexual relations with other muxe. They see themselves as women and want men. And the men they sleep with, called mayate, are not considered homosexuals because they play the �active� part. �Because a woman�s virginity before marriage is still very important in our society, many young boys are initiated by the muxe,� says Yudith L�pez Saynes, the director of Gunaxhii Guendanabani, an association dedicated to AIDS prevention. �It is widely accepted, but with AIDS now, people are more cautious.� Andr�s L�pez, a thirty-year old pintada nurse who heads a medical service, explains laughing, �You go in the street and the boys play tough with their friends, but then they flirt with you.� His friend Felina
Santiago Vadivieso, a 36-year-old fake blond muxe who heads a beauty salon, confirms that younger boys keep on asking her advice on how to please their
girlfriends. She prefers older men however, although she can�t kiss them or hold their hands in the street. �A lot of Juchitecan men marry women from other towns like Puebla. They are very conservative and more homophobic,� she explains, before adding in a laugh: �But their sons get caught in the local movement, and their husbands never leave it!�
For almost thirty years, muxe have had their own velas in Juchit�n. Ulises for instance, organizes his club�s December 28th vela, baile con migo, or Dance With Me. The first muxe vela, the vela de las aut�nticas intrepidas buscadoras del peligro, or the vela of the Authentic Intrepids in Search of Danger, took place in
1976. The organizer, Oscar Cazorla Pineda, a fifty-four-year old muxe, is the owner of a famous dance hall in the center of Juchit�n and the leader of the Intrepidas club. With large features and figure but feminine movements, he is also a successful and respected businessmuxe, who sells the traditional and
ubiquitous gold jewelry, which he himself puts on to party.
Each year in November, after a special catholic mass held in its honor, the Intrepids� vela gathers all the city�s muxe along with fifteen hundred men,
women�grandparents and young adults�and children. The blast, which now gets national attention, requires a full year of preparation and costs around $10,000
dollars. Oscar and the Intrepidas cover some of the expenses, but most are now paid by others, including the town�s elected officials. In fact, the Intrepidas are partisans of the PRI, the political party in power in Juchit�n, and they regularly participate in political meetings and demonstrations. Conversely, during the vela, it is the city officeholder who crowns the Intrepid beauty queen.
Nowadays during fiestas, many muxe wear traditional women�s dresses or drag queen outfits. An increasing number, and virtually the entire new generation, also dress like women in every day life. To Filiberto Cruz, who, at 89 is the oldest Intrepid, this new tendency is rather shocking. In his time, nobody would do it,
although he confesses with a shy smile that he himself would sometimes wear gold buttons and discreet bracelets.
This new transvestite tendency has created dilemma and friction in the society as well. In schools, for instance, some teachers, often from other parts of the
country, do not tolerate the new trend and children, as mischievous as anywhere else, make fun of it. Many Juchitecan women also twitch at the sight of their
traditional dresses on muxe.
�This transvestite process is rather new,� says Amaranta G�mez Regalado, a 26 year-old beautiful muxe who wears traditional huipiles and became famous last
year when she ran for congressional in the Oaxaca state elections. �It started about twenty years ago and I think it has to do with the advent of marketing
and television.� In her low caressing voice, she says she understands the debate about traditional clothing, but states, �It is part of our culture, and I consider
myself a vehicle of that culture too.�
Vicki Santiago Lu�s, a twenty-year-old muxe who was born Jorge and came to Oaxaca because she found Juchit�n intolerant towards gays, decided to wear
women�s clothing when she was 13, against the advise of a muxe her age who thought it could be dangerous. She received the support of her mom, grandfather, and a couple of girlfriends who helped her define her style�western and sexy. But to these days, her grandmother has refused to accept it. Next December nonetheless, Vicki will wear to the vela club baile con migo the regional dress her uncle bought for her to receive the 2004 beauty queen crown. �I am so happy to be the queen,� she confesses with a soft, but rasping voice, her ecstatic eyes twinkling. �I have admired the transvestite muxe since I was a very little boy.�
�The new generation is only interested in dressing up like women and looking beautiful. They don�t think at all about their future,� argues Felina who herself
wears a knee-long blue jeans skirt. �We follow the examples of the older muxe: we work and take care of our parents. My motivation is my parents. I live alone
and it is my duty to help them.�
The new generation’s attitude is not limited to clothing. A few muxe have also started considering using hormones, breast implants or aesthetic surgery to narrow their noses. Only one so far is said to be thinking about getting an operation to remove his genitals.
For Amaranta, who was able to travel around the world as an anti-AIDS activist and is considering furthering her education in social studies, muxe ought to create different roles for themselves within the Juchitecan society. �When I was 13 or 14, it was impossible for a muxe to enter politics, to write articles, to be an
activist, an opinion maker. We had to embroider and create adornments,� she says. �Now the muxe who wants to should be able to open up intellectual spaces for herself.� With her charming ironic smile she adds: �It has not been easy for me. My mom wanted me to learn a traditional muxe job. Between two conferences she would tell me, �at least bake a cake or something.�� When asked if marriage is part of the agenda, the vast majority of muxe seem perplexed, as if they had never thought of it. �People get married, and then they
divorce,� says Felina. �I don�t want that. I want my relationships to last the time they should last and that�s it. And I want to enjoy all the men I want.�
�In Juchit�n marriage is not a necessity,� says Ulises. �It is an issue that you find in other societies, where homosexuals are discriminated against. Here we don�t need a political movement or the creation of special space in society. We already
have it.�
'As Nature Made Him'
Gender change victim dies
WINNIPEG – A man who was born a boy but raised as a girl in a famous nurture-versus-nature experiment has died at age 38.
David Reimer, who shared his story about his botched circumcision in the pages of a book and on the Oprah TV show, took his own life last Tuesday.
His mother, Janet Reimer, said she believes her son would still be here today had it not been for the devastating gender study that led to much emotional hardship. “I think he felt he had no options. It just kept building up and building up.”
After the circumcision accident as a toddler, David became the subject of an experiment dubbed the John/Joan case in the ’60s and ’70s. Janet said she still harbours anger toward a Baltimore doctor who convinced her and her husband, Ron, to give female hormones to their son and raise him as a daughter, Brenda.
Kids were cruel to Brenda growing up in Winnipeg.
This gender transformation was widely reported as a success and proof that children are not by nature feminine or masculine but through nurture are socialized to become girls or boys. David’s identical twin brother, Brian, offered researchers a matched control subject.
But when David discovered the truth about his past during his teenage years, he rebelled and resumed his male identity, marrying and becoming a stepfather to three children.
David recently slumped into a depression after losing his job and separating from his wife. He was also still grieving the death of his twin brother two years earlier, their mother said.
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1084140608992&call_pageid=968332188774&col=968350116467
Continue reading “'As Nature Made Him'”
Good Article on Intersex
Gender blending
by By Will Evans — Sacramento Bee on 28 April 2004
David Cameron feels neither completely male nor female. Born with male genitalia, Cameron began growing breasts during puberty and didn’t sprout chest hair until testosterone treatment kicked in. Instead of the typical male XY chromosomes or the female XX set, Cameron has XXY.
“I feel sort of like a blend,” says Cameron, 56, of San Francisco.
Some researchers say that’s a reasonable conclusion. Humans don’t always clearly divide into male and female categories. Some are born with abnormalities that challenge the very definition of sex. The term for them is intersex. Julia, a schoolteacher from a small town in central California, didn’t want to be identified to protect her daughter. Now 4, the girl has a condition that caused an enlarged clitoris.
Doctors couldn’t tell Julia her baby’s sex until after several days of testing. They first came to her with a box of tissues, announcing, “We have a problem.”
Julia felt hot from head to toe from the shock. She remembers the hospital bracelet that said only “baby” instead of “boy” or “girl.” She cried at the thought of her child’s future challenges. “Oh, what a hard life,” she told her husband.
The concept of intersex that links Cameron and the little girl is too blurry to yield a definition with which everyone agrees. Many people with XXY chromosomes, for example, consider themselves absolutely male and distance themselves from the intersex world.
But prominent academics and activists define intersex as anyone whose sex chromosomes, external genitalia or internal reproductive system is not considered standard for male or female.
Peter Trinkl, a computer specialist in Berkeley, doesn’t really know how he looked at birth. All he has to work with are his genital scars, evidence of surgery. His parents didn’t tell him much. In school, he was beaten up and called an alien.
Trinkl, 51, considers himself a heterosexual male, but dating brings up difficult issues, and he hasn’t tried for 20 years.
“If I’m a man or a woman, I don’t want to get too much into that,” he says.
Only recently did Trinkl summon the courage, he says, to research the intersex community and hunt for his medical records.
Some infants are born with ambiguous genitalia while others clearly look male or female and may not find out they are different until they reach puberty. Still others bear a visible difference in anatomy – an enlarged clitoris or a tiny penis – but otherwise can be determined male or female. And some have the standard chromosomes of one sex and the external appearance of the other.
Intersex activists decry the shame and secrecy caging their condition. They urge doctors to avoid cosmetic genital surgery on intersex infants until the children themselves can decide if they want it. Cameron is helping to organize a public hearing on intersex issues to be held by San Francisco’s Human Rights Commission next month.
Children frequently are born with wide-ranging genetic and physical abnormalities. Intersex conditions just happen to manifest in an area that gets at the very definition of who we are.
What defines a person’s sex – their chromosomes, their appearance or their psyche? What if they don’t match?
How can you assign a sex to a child when you don’t really know? How can you not?
What if you surgically reconstruct a baby to look like one sex and the child grows up to identify as the other? What does gay or straight mean, then?
And when everything from color-coded baby presents on out is sexually segregated, is it possible to grow up as an alternative to male or female?
The mind-boggling, gender-bending conundrum plays out in people’s lives.
Intersex people might make up as much as 2 percent of live births, with between 0.1 percent and 0.2 percent of all infants receiving genital surgery, according to a scientific journal article co-written by Anne Fausto-Sterling, a professor of biology and gender studies at Brown University.
“If you look at this from the bigger philosophical view of, ‘Are there really only two kinds of people in the world – either men or women?’ – then the answer to that clearly is no,” she says.
Human sexuality, instead, can be seen as a spectrum or continuum, she says.
The medical profession has traditionally viewed an intersex birth as a “social emergency,” pushing to assign a child’s sex immediately and perform corrective surgery as soon as possible, says Celia Kaye, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. Doctors want to avoid traumatizing parents and help the child grow up normally, without confusion or ridicule, she says.
Kaye helped create the American Academy of Pediatrics’ policy statement on intersex newborns along these lines in 2000. But the academy might revise its guidelines because of a growing number in the field who question whether surgery and sex assignment should take place so early in life.
A baby with an enlarged clitoris or minuscule penis, depending on one’s perspective, conventionally has been more likely to be determined a female because it’s surgically easier to make that happen, Kaye says. But it’s not clear, she says, whether that child will grow to be a happy, functioning woman. Some activists call it “genital mutilation.”
Sonoma County resident Cheryl Chase, 47, had surgery on her enlarged clitoris, leaving a “big, flat scar.” But she says the biggest harm doctors caused was “the idea that this was shameful,” telling her parents to keep it a secret.
In the early 1990s, Chase, who identifies herself as an intersex lesbian female, confronted doctors, called the press and founded the Intersex Society of North America, creating today’s intersex movement.
Because of pressure from advocates, doctors are now more open with patients and more likely to present parents with options rather than telling them what to do, says Amy Wisniewski, who does intersex research at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Hospital.
Julia, mother of the 4-year-old girl, says one of her daughter’s doctors “bullied” her into making a surgery appointment. Some surgery is necessary when the toddler hits puberty, but decreasing her clitoris is optional and cosmetic.
Because doctors can’t guarantee a post-surgery clitoris will retain the same sexual sensation, Julia worried her consent may deprive her daughter of a vital part of life. Julia cried every day until she finally canceled the surgery.
“We’re going to leave the decision up to her and talk to her and support her when she’s old enough to make that decision,” Julia says over the phone.
How old is that? If you can delay surgery, can you also put off assigning a sex?
The questions build quickly, but most people are stuck at the first one: “What is intersex?” The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Resource Center at the University of California, Davis, held a talk on exactly that as part of its first Intersex Awareness Week earlier this month.
It’s not clear, Wisniewski says, whether rates of homosexuality are higher among intersex people. But because it shares a battle against the closet, the gay community has embraced the intersex populace, with some organizations adding “I” to the alphabet soup of LGBT.
Still, some with sex chromosome variations keep as far away from both communities as possible.
Those with Klinefelter’s syndrome, or XXY, struggle in a world that glorifies a man’s-man masculinity and sexual prowess, mocking androgynous qualities in men as signs of homosexuality. They’re already marked by that extra “female” chromosome and, for some, breast development and smaller genitalia. The last thing many want is to be aligned with the gay community.
Melissa Aylstock of Loomis is clear: Her XXY son is unambiguously male, and most men with Klinefelter’s syndrome don’t consider themselves intersex. Her son’s doctor, Ronald Swerdloff, chief of endocrinology at Harbor UCLA Medical Center, doesn’t consider Klinefelter’s syndrome intersex, either, because it doesn’t produce ambiguous genitalia.
When her son was diagnosed at age 8, Aylstock was “scared to death.” She wrote to Ann Landers, asking that a post-office box address be published for other parents to get in contact. After the letter ran in 1989, Aylstock received 1,000 letters and hundreds of dollars to start an organization. She founded Klinefelter Syndrome and Associates in Roseville.
Testosterone treatment is the norm for Aylstock’s son, now 23. In the school gym, students asked about his patch. He told them it was for nicotine addiction. “Mind you, we’re Mormon,” says his mother. “That just cracks me up. So he handled it.”
The son declined to talk about his condition in the context of the intersex community.
“So many guys are trying to be just normal,” says Robert Grace of Sonora, who found out at 39 he has XXY chromosomes. When he told people, they thought, “Oh, you’re gay,” he says.
When Grace should have been going through puberty, he watched the other boys whistling at girls and thought, “What jerks.” But he wasn’t gay.
His diagnosis popped up during his premarital physical. “I looked at my (fianc�e) and I said, ‘You don’t have to marry me.’ ”
They did marry and have adopted four children, two of whom also have Klinefelter’s syndrome.
“As a general population, we really would like to be accepted,” says Grace, a “stay-at-home Mr. Mom.” “If I sat next to you, you would have no clue that I was XXY, so why do we need another label?”
Cameron, on the other hand, embraces the other label.
Cameron’s birth certificate and driver’s license declare that “he” is male. With a 6-foot-10 build, a balding head, a deep voice and a beard, Cameron could hardly pass for female yet feels more female than male.
When faced with those annoying little boxes designating “M” or “F” on forms and applications, Cameron might check both or write “intersex.” It somehow seems appropriate that Cameron sometimes goes by the nickname “Iris,” after a favorite flower, the bearded iris.
Cameron got the Klinefelter’s diagnosis at 29 and began testosterone therapy. Where before Cameron had a “really nice smooth body,” now everywhere is hair. “I hate it,” Cameron says. “Quite frankly, I would really like the body I had 27 years ago back.”
Cameron has been with the same male partner for 26 years, though before that Cameron had a girlfriend. Earlier this month, the partner dropped to his knees and presented Cameron a diamond ring.
Cameron wants to wed but first is inquiring with civil rights lawyers because of the radical questions the act could provoke.
After all, would it be a standard marriage, a same-sex marriage or something else entirely?
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Misused terms add confusion
The term “intersex,” according to advocates and academics, means anyone with sex chromosomes, external genitalia or an internal reproductive system not considered standard for male or female. Here’s what intersex is not.
Hermaphrodite: The medical definition of a true hermaphrodite is someone with both ovarian and testicular tissue. This is rare and only one of various intersex conditions. Many intersex people consider this term offensive.
Homosexual: Some intersex people are gay, some are not. One doesn’t imply the other.
Transgender: This refers to people who are born one sex but identify as the other. Some choose a sex-change operation.
Eunuch: This refers to a castrated male.
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Genetic roots of intersex conditions
Intersex conditions vary in their genetic roots and physical manifestations. Here are details of a few conditions.
Androgen insensitivity syndrome: Patients have male chromosomes (XY) but don’t respond to androgens (male sex hormones, including testosterone). They have undescended testes, normal female external genitalia and breast development. Those with partial androgen insensitivity syndrome have ambiguous genitalia.
Gonadal dysgenesis: Patients have XY chromosomes, but their gonads don’t produce androgens. They have female external genitalia. Those with partial gonadal dysgenesis have ambiguous genitalia.
5-alpha-reductase deficiency: Patients have XY chromosomes but can’t produce the sex hormone dihydrotestosterone. They have testes, a penis resembling a clitoris and a scrotum resembling outer labia. They undergo some masculinizing changes during puberty.
Congenital adrenal hyperplasia: Patients have female chromosomes (XX) but produce excess androgens. They have ovaries, an enlarged clitoris and fused labia resembling a scrotum.
Klinefelter’s syndrome: Patients have the sex chromosome variation XXY and are sterile. They have male genitalia, sometimes with smaller sex organs, and sometimes develop breasts at puberty.
Turner syndrome: Patients have the chromosome variation of only one X. They have normal female external genitalia but can have other physical abnormalities. Because they don’t have functioning ovaries, puberty doesn’t cause breast development or menstruation.
Source: The Johns Hopkins Children’s Center
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Resources
* Bodies Like Ours support group with online forums: www.bodieslikeours.org, (610) 258-7466.
* Intersex Society of North America: www.isna.org.
* Klinefelter Syndrome and Associates: www.genetic.org, (888) 999-9428.
* The Johns Hopkins Children’s Center guide for patients and parents: www.hopkinsmedicine.org/pediatricendocrinology/intersex.
http://www.sacbee.com/content/lifestyle/story/8971622p-9897782c.html