Cressida Heyy Summary

People with gender Identity crises do not feel their genitalia reflects who they are inside. They may feel a powerful drive to have their genitalia match their self-image opting for sex reassignment surgery. Gender expression is far more relaxed than it has been throughout our history in America, but it still poses a problems for some on a daily basis. Gender expression is one area where women have a social advantage over men. It is far more socially acceptable for a woman to dress masculine than for a man to dress feminine; although neither are without predigests.

Transsexual Phenomenon, and within months Johns Hopkins University opened the first gender identity clinic in the United States to diagnose and treat transsexual individuals and to conduct research related to sexuality. Within ten years, more than forty university affiliated gender clinics existed throughout the United States including programs at the

In “Intro-How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States,” Joanne Meyerowitz writes about the beginnings of transsexuality. She beings the article by defining cross-gender identification, as “the sense of being the other sex, and the desire to live as the other sex” (Meyerowitz 432), while transsexuality, “being the quest to transform the bodily characteristics of sex via hormones and surgery” (Meyerowitz 432). According to Meyerowitz, transsexuality began in the early 20th century. Experiments on changing sex, began in europe on animals. Then in 1920, on humans. Joanne Meyerowitz writes that “the debate on the visibility and mutability of sex” began after Christine Jorgensen, an american who went to Denmark to get a sex change in 1950, became a media sensation in America. While professionals were figuring this out, people “who identified as transsexuals, transvestites, lesbians, and gay men” (Meyerowitz 433) were having the conversation and creating the language within themselves. This conversation on sex change, occurred alongside the sexual revolution in the 60’s, opening “the movement of the organizing of programs, clinics, conferences, and associations to promote study of and treatment for transsexuals” (Meyerowitz 434).

American society today is not any different from the past, except today people are apt to discuss everything publicly on various social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram just to name a few. Transgender persons happen to be one of those subjects that have become the

2. Historical Development Discussion of issues related to non-normative sexual and gender identities as related to mental health began in the 19th century (Drescher, 2010). Initially medical and psychiatric providers viewed issues related to gender identity as resulting from delusional thought processes (Drescher, 2010). As a result the concept of surgery as a solution to gender identity differences was viewed as unnecessary and ultimately an incorrect form of treatment (Drescher, 2010). In 1952 the first gender reassignment surgery was performed in Denmark on an American citizen (Drescher, 2010). The publicity in the American media that followed this surgery brought the concept of gender identity to the public eye. During the 1960s research about gender identity started to develop and it was the work of Money, Stoller, Benjamin, and Green that ultimately change professional and public concept of Gender Identity (Drescher, 2010). These four individuals were among the first to conduct clinical and academic research on gender identity and gender roles (Drescher, 2010). As a result of their research beliefs about non-normative gender identity shifted from a problem of the mind to a biological disorder that was fixed and should be treated with

The most obvious example is the differentiation of “transsexual” and “transgender.” In the article, “transsexual” is used to refer to someone who has specifically had treatment to physically change their body to match their gender identity; “transgender” is someone whose gender identity does not match the gender they were assigned at birth, regardless of whether they have made physical gender-related changes to their body (155). Today, the term “transsexual” is almost obsolete. Interestingly, however, Halberstam briefly presents conflict between “transsexuals” and “transgenders” that is mirrored somewhat today in informal conflicts between “truscum” and “transtrenders/tucutes” (154-155). In today’s transgender communities, people called “truscum” (generally by other people) feel that people they call “transtrenders” or “tucutes” are not truly transgender; they feel these people are merely pretending to be transgender for the sake of attention. On the other hand, those called “transtrenders” or “tucutes” (generally by other people) feel attacked and policed by “truscum” and insist that they are transgender regardless of whether they meet the standards set by truscum. Halberstam cites some identity politics (154-155) that are reminiscent of this, which suggests that even as terms change, identity policing remains a consistent issue in transgender

These studies were published in response to the growing visibility of individuals who cross dressed, gender disguised, or to use the twenty-first century umbrella term, transgender. As a result of these studies, professionals concluded that such individuals suffer from mental disorders. Reports like these were published into the twentieth century. While these studies were conducted and written by doctors who were not and did not identify as gender nonconformists. One of the first known transgender persons to publish during this time was the British doctor, Michael Dillon. His 1946 work, “Self: A Study in Ethics and Endocrinology,” defends transgender people identify as a gender that is different from the one assigned to them by doctors. Dillon has undergone female-to-male sex change surgery. He also argues against doctor’s claims that transgender people suffer from mental disorders. This book failed to reach a broad audience and as a consequence, the 1950s and 1960s also brought numerous studies about transgender individuals by doctors who continued the tradition of claiming transgender people are

A key facet of Butler’s argument is the role that sex plays in the formation of natural or coherent gender and sexual identities. Butler explicitly challenges biological accounts of binary sex, and in doing so re-imagines the body as culturally constructed by regulative discourse. The production of sex as natural and as a biological fast is a testament to how deeply entrenched in the discourse it is concealed.

Stories involving transgender people have been in newspapers, magazines, and tabloids for over fifty five years. These stories have captivated and intrigued American culture from the start, but not always in the most positive light. It began in 1955 when Christine Jorgensen, born George, publicly announced her gender confirming surgery and began life as a legally recognized woman. There was a media frenzy with headlines such as “Bronx GI Becomes a Woman!” and “Bronx ‘Boy’ Is Now A Girl”. But instead of “withdraw[ing] from public attention [Christine] turned the notoriety to her advantage with a series of lucrative tours on the lecture and nightclub circuit” (McQuiston 1989). “By cultivating the demeanor of a lady and refusing to call herself

The ultimate goal of every transsexual surgery was to pass as an accepted member of the gender of choice. For many people, this concept was met with hostility especially by the feminist community. Feminist theoreticians like Janice Raymond believed these "she-males" to be a threat to women's power and identity(340). She argued that, " all transsexuals rape women's bodies by reducing the female form to an artifact, appropriating this body for themselves" (340). All transsexuals wanted to be accepted by their newfound community which they so desperately wanted to be apart of. They wanted to be free of the stereotypes associated with their prior selves and be welcomed into the male or female community as a card-carrying member. But in order to do so, objectivity must come into play. For transsexuals, the most important thing is to "pass". "Passing means to live successfully in the gender of choice, to be accepted as a 'natural' member of that gender" (352). To be objective is to let go of one's prior gender role and accept the individual for what gender they embody currently. A person would need to forego a transsexual's prior history as male or female and decide to focus and embrace who they are now.

Now, that is a lot of power. We often entrust a doctor’s judgement wholeheartedly because they just want the “best” for us, and in the cases of interesexed individuals, the physician simply wants to rid them of all the adjustment horrors that comes with such configuration, but seldom do they question the inadequacies of our role system, nor have they considered the possibility of such individuals developing into a perfectly happy and capable human beings without reassignment. Perhaps this is due to their inability to associate normalcy with anything outside of the binary. Inevitably, problems began to emerge from these reassignments. Some reassigned individuals felt aligned with their prescribed gender, but most did not. Some of these cases are extremely unfortunate, because their genitals had already been mutilated at birth. Such outcomes had prompted physicians to take more precaution when dealing with intersex babies. Sterling’s noble effort in assimilating intersex individuals through further categorization will help them find a classification system where there is a place that they can fall under, but it does not change the views of the masses, nor does it make it much easier for them to appreciate themselves as who they are, although it is a

2. b) Analyze the continuing pathologization of trans persons gender identity and the role of such pathologization in the evolution of legal regulations. (By pathologization we mean the categorization of trans persons’ gender identity as a mental disorder, i. e. gender dysphoria or gender identity disorder.

Stereotypes come and go, people's mindsets change, and what is considered to be “socially acceptable” often changes just as quickly. Due to such a constant stir, opposing opinions rise to the surface frequently so that all opinions can be expressed. As the type of mindset or people's idea of what is “acceptable” becomes more influential and widespread, people's opinions become stronger and more inflated. Most recently, the controversy surrounding transgender related arguments is likely to be front and center on many well known news reports or TV broadcasts. More specifically, it has been argued whether or not it should be deemed necessary to provide proper medical care for those wishing to have a trans gender operation. Although in my personal

When you view the world in black and white, you exclude an entire spectrum of colors between that; similarly when you say male or female you exclude an entire spectrum of people. Susan Mann’s (2012) transgender theory states that a gender binary is the idea that humans exist only as two separate opposite genders, in a biologically determined form of male or female (p. 249). Anne Fausto-Sterling (2011/2000) argues against the gender binary the and proposes that the two sex system rooted in our society is not sufficient to embody the full spectrum of human sexuality.

Today’s widespread liberty has brought a life to every individual which was inconceivable in the ages of conservatism. Although the alteration in our life commonly accepted heading in a direction of the better, there are some fields in this better life where people tend to have abusive, violent and endless debates. The most controversial topic connected straight to the LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex) people. While growing amount of sex change surgeries are performed, its public judgement reached extremity due to the disagreement between those, who think it shouldn’t be regulated by the state and advertising these operation doesn’t violate the individual’s liberty and the others, who state its opposite.