History of Transgender

Gender can be defined as “sex roles” which are conditions that one considers to be for men or women. People tends to mistake it with sex or thinks that they are both the same. We discussed about the patterns of gender which how the authors of The Kaleidoscope of Gender describes it as “regularized, prepackaged ways of thinking, feeling, and acting” (Spade and Valentino,2017). It becomes an identity for us. We believe that there is and can only be two genders, being masculine for men and feminine for women. These roles has been forced onto us since birth: blue for boys, and pink for girls. You can see the roles being push onto a person throughout one’s life, but we don’t notice it since it’s “normal” to us.

In Octavia Butler’s Dawn the idea of gender is deconstructed and reformed from the typical human’s definition. Often people do not consider the role of gender in society today. Usually the first thing one notices when meeting someone new is their gender or their presumed gender. However, there becomes a problem when the person whose gender we perceived identifies as a different gender. Butler forces the reader to examine how they judge and perceive gender. While the ooloi are actually “its” their personalities seem to imply a certain gender. The transgender community often brings up this issue because these assumptions of gender based on our judgments of what defines a male and what defines a female can skew how a transgender person is treated and addressed. In Chapter One of Gender Through the Prism of Difference by Anne Fausto-Sterling, the idea of expanding the number of genders based on one’s biological differences is examined through the five sexes theory. By now the concept of gender being defined solely by one’s biology has mostly been left in the past but the question remains of how do we truly define gender? How does being outside of the social norms that Michael Warner talks about cause us to feel shame when discussing our gender and our perceptions of gender? In this essay, I will argue that preconceived notions of gender create shame when a person’s own perception of their gender does not fit the social norms. This stigma around the limited and strict definitions

Through my experiences with people of many backgrounds, as well as my education, I have learned to separate the idea of sex and gender. I still maintain certain traditional views regarding gender, however I’ve come to the realization that the social constructs of men and women are not, and should not, be as rigid. In my opinion, I have acknowledged that there are differences between ‘men’ and ‘women’, however these differences should be used to uplift one another, rather than to tear the other gender apart. For example, a family unit in which the man decides to take on the responsibilities of the

This semester, I am taking Intro to Sociology and we have been looking at different perspectives of our society. One thing we are studying is how from at such a young age, we are taught to assign gender roles. In Patricia J. Williams’ magazine article, “Are We Worried about Storm’s Identity- or Our Own”, an essay taken out of the Nation magazine (June 2011), she tells a story about Storm, whose parents choose not to reveal the sex of their baby. She is a legal scholar and examines issues related to law and culture. Williams focuses on all the stereotypes that we associate with gender, how we as a society find social order in assigning gender roles, and the need to have the proper pronouns so that we know how/what to label a person. The author’s use of ethos and logos really brings the point home that we need to be more open about all the possibilities associated with gender and pronouns.

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).

Before discussing any of the above topics it is important to understand the following vocabulary, since they will be used throughout the paper and misunderstanding of such terms can originate confusion or inadequate conclusions and ideas towards the material discussed in this paper. The term definitions for this paper are obtained from Susan Stryker 's book, Transgender History (Stryker, 2008). The reason

Everyone is given a gender the moment they are born. At birth they are either one of two genders: masculine or feminine. This gender everyone is assigned affects many of our day to day actions and our looks. However some people may evolve differently as they grow up and may not fit the rigid boundaries set for the sex they were assigned at birth. In recent years there has been a boom in a third considered gender: the transgender population. However with the boom comes the argument of to what extent should transgender people be protected by the government. Throughout the existence of transgender people, the rights of transgenders have been

Judith Butler (Gender Trouble, 1990) argues that rather than sex determining gender-gender determines sex. Sex is shaped by gender discourses which give us scripts to perform according to whether we are biologically classed as male or female. The continual performance of these scripts on a daily basis is what makes us male or female. The classic example of this is the third sex, yes, the third sex and that is the transgender( born male in a female’s body or

A person’s sex is determined on the basis of three fundamental human physiognomies, chromosomes (XX for a female and XY for a male), gonads (ovaries for females and testes for males) and the obvious being genitals (vagina for a females and a penis for males). However socially, gender identity is formulated on the grounds of stereotypical roles from both

In their article, Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnell-Ginet describe some of the variances between a boy and a girl and how they are treated which is essentially the idea of being “gendered” is all about. Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnell-Ginet make some incredibly well supported arguments to illustrate that our gender is a very important trait and it’s development is a lifelong process. Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnell-Ginet talk about how adults act towards boys and girls in which they

The body once established as “natural” and binary sex an unquestioned “fact,” is the alibi for constructions of gender and sexuality, which can purport to be the just-as-natural expressions or consequences of a more fundamental sex. It is on the foundation of the construction of this natural binary sex that the binaries of gender and heterosexuality are likewise constructed as innate. This narrative “gives a false sense of legitimacy and universality to a culturally specific and, in some cases, culturally oppressive version of gender identity” (Butler 329). Without a critique of sex as produced by discourse, Butler claims, the distinction of sex and gender used to contest the constructions of binary gender and enforced heterosexuality would be wholly ineffective.

The history of the world is a complex arrangement of happenings and occurrences that have shaped the current state of civilization. At a fundamental level, history is the driving force behind every element of society that exists today. Within history, there are several factors that have and continue to determine the way in which our society functions. One of the most significant of these factors is gender. Today, conceptions, viewpoints and ideas surrounding gender are always changing. It is this fluidity of thought that ultimately allows society to progress forward and create change. However, gender has not always been as openly discussed. Tracing back through history, gender has consistently been a point of identity among humans.

In the article, it examines heteronormativity and transgender as well as how society has constructed them through culture, legal polices and education. It also mentions what steps need to be implemented to change the outlook on the patriarchal system in societies. The problems the authors have address and brought awareness to is that society often times ignores the fact that other genders may feel the need to change their identity without being prosecuted by society and should have the right to as human beings (Carrera, M., DePalma, R., & Lameiras, M., 2012). Many people have different concepts of what gender, and sexuality means to them. In the article the authors discus that facts such as gender and sexuality are social constructed in schools, legal systems and other sub systems (Carrera et al., 2012). Within the article it presents empirical evidence that supports some of their arguments. The

Argued in Eckert and McConnell-Ginet (2003:15), living up to our gender is learning through a life-long process of socialization. Further supported in Kulick and Schieffelin (2006:352), one’s gender emerges over a lifetime through interactive process in which one accepts, rejects, or modifies the cultural and gender norms they are socialized in. These two arguments supported the idea of this essay’s research question in which cultural and social factors do contribute to gendering an individual, and in turn implicating the creation of a boundary that exclude transgenders from the society.

The term ‘gender’ was coined by John Money in 1955: “Gender is used to signify all those things that a person says or does to disclose himself/herself as having the status of a boy or man, girl or woman, respectively” (Coleman and Money, 1991, 13). In