Transsexuality: Yes, It Exist!

For me it is very interesting to see how our definitions of gender become very limited by our language. If we see gender only as male/female or men/women we are almost taking a stance similar to that of colorblindness. As colorblindness rejects the notion of racism is society, not recognizing transgender is also being racist to a part of society.

The issue of dividing society into categories takes place from the birth of a child. As soon as a child is born either a pink or blue cap is put onto its head so that it can be distinguished. Likewise, clothes for newborns are divided into color categories. My question becomes, why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we not have more gender neutral ways and allow the child to choose a gender that best suits them?

As we learn from Darryl Hill in his essay, “Categories of Sex and Gender: Either/Or, Both/And, and Neither/Nor”, we learn that historically society has always seen division between the sexes. He even mentions that transsexualism was “recognized as a legitimate psychiatric disorder in the 1980 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual” (25). The effort of getting this put into the manual was the working of Harry Benjamin. Why did he feel that it must be considered as a “psychiatric disorder”? To explore this I am going to look at the culture of power (See Blog: Culture of Power: Either you are in or you are out).

In almost any modern nation the male gender is the dominate sexual orientation. Therefore it would be advantageous for that group to express its dominate throughout society in order to stay dominate. If gender was separated into male or female group and subsequently having certain roles for each than they would adhere to these roles for years to come. In America in the 1950’s women we suppose to stay home while the men went into the workforce. If women did not work than they did not have a means to provide resources for themselves therefore they in a way became a slave to their husband. Therefore men could stay dominate over women.

If transsexualism was recognized as a legitimate gender that would be going against the culture of power. For conservative groups this would seem threatening and any effort to abolish it would be taken, hence the efforts of Benjamin.  In a way, his efforts put a negative connotation to the word transgender and negated its legitimacy as a gender.

As a future teacher, in order to take down the barriers of categorizing and recognized persons of all genders I need to use language that is not separated into men and women categories. Hill in his essay conducts interviews with persons that would recognize themselves as transgendered. Many of them recognized themselves as being a both male or female, or being a division of male or female. What struck me as interesting are those who did not recognize themselves as either male nor female. Hill describes this as a thirdness, this is looked at as, “a possible way to surpass gender dichotomization” (29).

In conclusion, as a future teacher I need to recognize that this space of multiple genders exist and that I don’t categorize gender. At the same time I feel that it is important to talk to students about these different issues so that they also realize that everyone is not simply male or female. This in turn will create a society that recognizes greater diversity.

I included this video at the end because I want to show that transgender feelings can occur in children, therefore it should be discussed in schools.