not too long ago, i posted a story discussing gender issues relating to a male cross dresser, who had not had any gender reassignment surgery but still used the women's restroom.
today, on boing boing, i saw this
"The New York Times ran a story this week about New York City's plan to permit people to change the gender on their birth certificates even if they haven’t had sex reassignment surgery. The move comes after much advocacy by transgender groups who believe that gender has to do with much more than anatomy. For many transgendered people, in fact, anatomy is itself a mixed bag. This new move allows individuals to decide for themselves whether they are male or female."
here's the link to the story
i really find this to be quite interesting. it's not genetics, it's not science, it's not surgery that define gender.
from the article, "Transgender advocates consider the New York proposal an overdue bulwark against discrimination that recognizes an emerging shift away from viewing gender as simply the sum of one’s physical parts. But some psychiatrists and doctors are skeptical of the move, saying sexual self-definition should stop at rewriting medical history."
so, really what is gender then? it's not roles decided by society, it's not the sum of your physical parts, it's not your genetics. is gender solely defined by the individual now?
but, i do disagree with this statement, "Joann Prinzivalli, 52, a lawyer for the New York Transgender Rights Organization, a man who has lived as a woman since 2000, without surgery, said the changes amount to progress, a move away from American culture’s misguided fixation on genitals as the basis for one’s gender identity."
it's not just here. as evidenced by my previous post about italy, there's some doubt about what defines gender there as well. and, i'd venture that most of latin america, and africa might be even more "misguided".
4 comments:
This is one of those issues we talk about in our gender course because we use gender interchangeably. First, we use it to describe both male and female. Second, we use it as a synonym for marginalized such as "In anthropology, children are rarely researched thus they are gendered."
I do agree that gender is more than just anatomy - that's what helps to define maleness and femaleness. Gender is a human invention that helps to organize our behavior and thought. There are male and female behaviors and thoughts. And I think this is the direction the transgendered tend to move. If my anatomy is male yet my behavior and thought are female, then I have to option of changing what physically makes me male or female since that's easier to change than behavior and thought.
Of course I'm simplifying gender when in fact gender is much more dynamic and can't be viewed in isolation.
"There are male and female behaviors and thoughts."
are there? i'm not asking to pick a fight, just trying to think it all throw. are these stereotypes, or are there treally male/female thoughts?
I think in many regards there are male and female behaviors and thoughts that are both biological, cultural, and sterotypical. I couldn't tell which behaviors and thoughts are which. I think for the transgendered, it's when these biological behaviors and thoughts are mismatched with cultural and sterotypical norms is when they begin the question gender.
i think you're bringing out some very good points. this is such a cloudy issue. and, it doesn't seem like there are easy answers.
but, i still have trouble saying that yes, your gender should be defined by what you, as an individual, feel. you (not you, but some other, hypothetical person) feel like a woman. but, your genes say that you're a man. the pieces you were born with say you're a man. what does it mean to "feel" like a woman?
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