The gender binary is dead. Now gender has become a continuum
which, like that of sexual attraction, is individually perceived and defined,
so much so that even putting forth the concept of transgender identity as a
unilateral entity comes with inherent problems. The transgender community has
traveled a great distance since the days of Christine Jorgensen when the word “transsexual”
narrowly referred to a man who had specific surgery to invert his penis into a
vagina, took hormones to build breasts and sometimes had surgery to minimize
protruding facial features.
Now, transgenders and intersexuals (the less stigmatized
term for hermaphrodites) of both female and male origin are making decisions
such as whether or not to pass as one discrete gender, how much surgery to
undergo and what level of homones to take. Unlike in days gone by, these
decisions emanate more from an inner voice instead of outward pressure to from
social norms and sanctions.
This is an important distinction. In Iran
the government will pay for transgender surgery. This is not because Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad and his chronies have a high regard for LGBT rights. In fact, Mr A.
went so far as to deny the existence of lesbians and gays in Iran
in a speech he gave at Columbia University.
In his country, surgical gender transformation is granted for the most
reactionary of reasons. Not only are cross-dressing and transgender people
allowed to have reassignment surgery, they are compelled to have it. Once it
has been performed all documentation of that person is changed to the new
gender. For all practical purposes they can now live their lives as
heterosexuals. It totally diffuses the problem by simply eliminating
same-gender couples. However, a person who desires a sex change to pursue
relationships with people of her/his own identity would, obviously, not qualify
for gender reassignment.
The rainbow gender continuum in the United
States has implications that resonate far
beyond the issue of marriage into the very fabric of society. The first thing
everyone is told about us, before birth, is our gender. Baby clothes come in
pink and blue and, it could be argued, that all the colors of life are painted
with this same brush: In our very recent past job opportunities, voting rights,
inheritance rights, the right to serve on a jury, financial rights like the
ability to hold a mortgage or have a credit card, all of these options and more
were denied to women simply because of anatomy. Discrimination against women is
not only a phenomenon of the Middle East and Africa.
It is still alive and well, flourishing in the western world.
Transgender sexuality and indeterminate sexuality of all
kinds, by their very definition crush stereotypes. What are we to think of a
person who comes across as a mélange of gender, not quite male, and not quite
female? Well, after we get past the feelings of discomfort and move beyond
knee-jerk prejudice, what we think will depend solely on our connection, or
lack of it, with any given individual; nothing more and nothing less.
As all shades of gender expression flower, not only is the issue of
one man, one woman marriage made irrelevant. The entirety of sexism itself
loses all viability. It is the transgender population that will help push us
all forward into a future where each person’s individual character traits and
preferences carry more weight the shape of their body parts, a new world that
transcends the narrow limits of gender and could well be the culmination of the
feminist dream.
