Lena Horne Research Paper

Lena Waithe Makes Emmy History as First African-American Woman to Win for Best Comedy Writing

Elizabeth Blevins quoted Neil Carpathios in an article saying “’ [Stacey Waite] dares to explore and write about the often complicated terrain of gender, sexuality and societal perceptions of the self, the body and desire.’” Waite is slowly helping everyone break away from the idea that gender is a solid tangible concept. In “The Kind of Man I am at the DMV” written by Stacey Waite, traditional gender roles are being challenged by explaining that transgender people are the same as everyone else and pointing out the ignorance that some have towards less commonly recognized genders.

Becoming a Visible Man was an insightful and intriguing book to read for this course. It first caught my attention with the picture of the author on the cover smiling next to a billboard of a man bursting through water, almost as if he was being reborn. The process of being reborn was then seen as a common theme throughout the autobiography. The concepts of transsexualism caught my attention during class because I was least familiar with this sub population of individuals within the queer community. I strived to know more about the understandings of what it was like to go through changes in gender, its effects on relationships both sexual and non, as well as the emotional struggle that some people faced with themselves through the process

After having run away from the reform institution, Ella wandered the streets of New York’s chaotic Harlem. She searched for opportunities to develop and expose her talent as a dancer. In 1934, Ella entered as a dance act in an amateur contest at the theater, but the second the spotlight hit her she began to sing “The Object of My Affection” in the style of her idol, Connee Braswell. Ella remembers, “three encores later, I had the twenty-five dollar first prize.” She also won one weeks worth of performances at the Opera House. Ella had now become part of the infamous black Harlem entertainment, as everybody in Harlem started to hear about the gawky young girl from Yonkers who could really sing. Ella’s gawky appearance became increasingly irrelevant as people truly cared more for her musical talent, and no woman in the music business had ever achieved such musical

The testimonies of the transsexuals and would-be transsexuals were more than a kid from Wilkes-Barre was used to hearing. What was even more difficult to understand was how the psychiatrists in attendance seemed to be endorsing alternate lifestyles and even treating transsexuality as a normal variant of the human condition.

In this section of chapter 3 Georgian Davis talks about the power the medical field had on the topic of the intersex body. Georgina set up an interview at a pediatric medical center with Dr. I who was a well-known expert of the intersex body. After the publication of the “Consensus Statement of Management of Intersex Disorders” intersex language had been replaced with the terminology DSD (Disorders of Sex Development) in the medical profession. As mentioned in chapter 2 she reiterates critiques that the medical field have undergone based on their inability to diagnose honesty to people with intersex traits. She noted that the medical profession can either do harm or good to the intersex community based on its position in the level of gender structure. In the medical profession, there was not always a form of naming abnormalities. It began with the Greeks and continued into the 18th century until they created a classification of the many medical traits. Sociologist Phil Brown argues that for there to be diagnostics there has two be two parts to complete it. One the diagnosis is technique which includes forming the classification by using various tasks and techniques. While the work diagnosis includes clinical evaluations and task. By using this form of diagnosis, we can better understand intersexuality.

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

Scholars have been critical of the medical establishment’s and state’s involvement in constructing and policing of transgender identity. These kinds of pressing issues have occupied the small existing literature. There is not much information and studying what is being done on transgender in traditional areas, family studies research, such as their dating behavior and formation of intimate relationships in adulthood. There is little research on the issues around being parents, their children’s experiences with having transgendered parents, as well as relationships in the family as a whole, and relationships in work and school.

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).

Most of these individuals feel such intense uncomfortable emotions, who also, sadly, like David, end up committing suicide (Herman, Haas). Colapinto’s book helps us to understand the issues of “intersexuality” or more commonly now known as transgender individuals. It helps us as reader understand the negativity of these conditions and the turmoil these individuals experience. It makes us realize the importance gender has an identity, something we may not realize and take for

With the establishment of these gender identity clinics, and the financial backing of philanthropist Reed Erickson, a transsexual man, the health care needs of transsexual people gained increased attention and support. Despite this new attention, the clinics used Benjamin’s model of “true” transsexuals. This differentiation between “true” transsexuals and other gender variants became a serious and highly important diagnostic decision as gender affirming surgeries were irreversible. This resulted in many transsexual individuals to be denied access to hormones and surgery. Specifically, transsexual men encountered difficulties, as transsexuality was primarily seen as a male-to-female only transition. In fact, during the late 1960s the United States leading UCLA Gender Identity Research Clinic debated whether trans men should be considered transsexuals. Many trans men themselves did not label themselves as transsexuals as they only knew about other transsexual women (Meyerowitz, 2002; Beemyn, 2014).

Topics concerning transgender can be very overwhelming for some. When one thinks of the term transgender, one may think of the process of an individual identifying as the opposite sex. The opposite sex of what he or she was born as. For some, this may involve undergoing surgical procedures or taken hormonal medications to fulfill their desire. However, when thinking of this process, one automatically thinks of transgender adults. This is rarely a topic that one would assume would be racing through the minds of young children, but in fact it is. More children today than ever, are either speaking out about their identity concerns, or displaying it in their lives. In fact, according to Date Line NBC, “The handful of American doctors who specialize

People change a lot of personal things all the time. They dye their hair, diet themselves to near death. They take steroids to build muscle and look “bigger” and get breast implants and nose jobs to fix their imperfections. They change spouses, college majors, nationalities and religions. But ask yourself, why is gender the one unprofane thing we are not supposed to change? Why is this change so shunned upon in society to the point where it interferes with friendships? This process of changing genders is called transgender. In the novel Beauty Queens, Libba Bray, discussed over this semester, one of the main characters in the novel Petra, reviles she is a transgender. This paper will go on to explore friendships with Petra and her journey of transgender in the novel Beauty Queens.

Therefore, a centrality of the biomedical sciences in questions related to transgenderism is observed, which is assimilated from the perspective of the pathological

Transgender students’ rights have significantly improved since the past three decades. According to the University of Massachusetts, American education in the 1970’s dismissed the rising number of transgender individuals as “a rapid [growth][…]of mental illness” (UMass 18). According to an analysis done by Susan Stryker, it was not until the late 1980’s when “The first organized transgender community [was formed]” and even then “transgender individuals and students were officially classified as psychopathic” (Stryker 4). Health and institutions of psychology abroad in America were intent on disavowing transgender individuals and students as mentally ill, and only through small increments was any change proposed.