Exploring Transgender Troubles - Essay Example

Introduction Gender and Sexual Studies To understand and explore transgender troubles, we must first have a brief look of gender and sexual studies, the term gender in many instances is used to refer to male or female, however different writers have different meanings of gender with some arguing that; someone is described by his behavior, you are thus not born a man but one becomes one. It is therefore apparent that gender and sexual studies goes beyond just the study of one’s sex. To get an in-depth of transgender troubles we must as well understand the biological conditions of being a male or a female. Exploring Transgender Troubles Understanding transgender will help anyone to not only understand and describe himself to him but to others as well. Over the years many people have thought and associated transgender to gays or lesbianism. Being a gay would therefore mean that one is transgendered, deep study has however proved otherwise. Since the formal definition of lesbianism and gay, reports have claimed both contemporary and historical transgendered people as gay and lesbians. It is worth noting that transgender people have for long been unclaimed or unrecognized as homosexual. Since time immemorial, transgender troubles has been a topic of discussion with many arguing that, even homosexuality was not personhood until the late nineteenth century. Although transgender is a good term, not everyone talks good about transgender people, different societies, cultures and institutions have continually viewed it as an immoral and non acceptable. There is therefore, a lot of criticisms and hatred to individuals who exhibit transgender traits. How then can we define transgender people? Through many writers, a comprehensive understanding of the term has been made and thus transgender people are individuals who in one way or the other may fail to develop their gender identity that keep up a correspondence to identity as to whether male or female. In these people, it is not a surprise to find a male who exhibits a female characteristic and vice versa. These people may not as well respond to their gender roles appropriately as imposed by the society in which they come from. This aspect has thus lead to transgender troubles with many societies considering transgender behavior as a serious crime which ought to have a capital punishment, a good example is a country like Saudi Arabia. Transgender troubles are also apparent in its contents. It is unclear about what is contained in transgender. According to the general understanding of transgender, it is basically gender variance. Therefore, the question remains, what are factors considered in gender variance. The answer remains unclear and contradictory. It is therefore not easy to establish who is to be included in the transgender bracket and who is to be left out. Transgender behavior has sparked troubles in many countries, take for example, European and in North America, there are certain forms of violent behavior against these group. Many people have even gone ahead and considered this behavior as one of the major psychiatric illness is so serious that even justifies institutionalization. In trying to avoid all these discrimination and transgender troubles, communities with these restrictions have forced victims with transgender behavior to conform to their birth sex norm to avoid stigma and social violence surrounding them (Meyerowitz and Meyerowitz 24). Their attempt to achieve a new sex reassignment will not be allowed or supported. For authorities which only accept heterosexual marriages, official transgender changes can result to serious implications related to privileges and rights like inheritance, medical decision-making or even child custody. Another transgender trouble appears during classification. It becomes very difficult to classify these individuals because generally many countries or organizations only recognize two classes of people: male or a female. Doctors, transsexuals and journalists however argue that no one can be a hundred percent female or male. How to put this into practice remains the question and every time there is classification, they tend to put away their arguments and buy the idea of two types of classification. This makes transgender classification difficult. Comparison of the topics According to Judith Halberstam, transgenderism is explored in one of the popular cultures. She portrays transgender as being depicted and dictated by the demands of the modern world and the evolutions that take charge; it is therefore ‘survival for the fittest’ because of this, it is normal for people to exhibit characters and roles which were not initially theirs. A close study has revealed that, evolution has continually affected individual’s cooperative behavior, and the way each person struggles. With the evolution theory, human beings have also adapted and switched sex roles, although this is limited, culture continues to produce plenty of this kind of people who continually evolve and exhibit transgender characters. The role placed to individuals in the contemporary society will thus shape his role and thus behavior. It is therefore very common to see a woman who exhibits male characteristics or behavior. With the increase in single parenthood and the roles that come with such, overprotecting parenthood has now become a means of transgender. A husband who lives alone with his kids will at times change from being a man to being a woman, this is so as to safeguard and give maximum protection that would have been provided by the mother who is not around. Comparing Judith Halberstam’s view of transgender to that of the Hijra of the Hindus, there is a big difference. According to Judith, one is born with a unique character of sexuality and that, the roles only change as a result of evolution or adaptations to the environment in which the individuals live. This is not in the case of the Hijras. In this community right from birth, men wear female clothing and this is not as a result of any form of evolution. One would thus easily mistake a male for a female. This does not mean that these people possess transgender traits, their cultures dictates the situation. David Valentine, “Imagining Transgender’’ recognizes transgender as one of the new forms of gender identities, this is contrary to the other writers who do not give importance to transgender. It is rather viewed as an immoral act that is unacceptable. For the first time, David Valentine discusses clearly transgender and the position it has in the society as per now. It points out how people have in the recent past understood themselves through transsexual medical categories and thus organized themselves through networks and social activities. According to him, it is one of the latest life issues which we must live with. In United States, during cultural celebrations, transexuality is celebrated and contested in many popular medical, scholarly contexts and culture. This shows the importance given to this practice. The other writers though, do not totally view this as moral and culture is depicted by the other writers portraying this act as immoral. This shows the contrast between David’s arguments and that of the others. Joanne further elaborated on how sex change has been in the increase and subsequently this has led to the increase in transgender movement. People began experimenting sex change in animals and once it proved successful in the early 1990s, the idea was transferred to human beings. Over the years it has thus been a practice that goes on which has also contributed to the redefinition of the term sex. The topic ‘how sex changed’ takes us through a series of activities which makes us understand and get a deeper meaning of transgender. This has sparked questions on biological sex which was earlier understood as unchangeable. According to this practice, the hierarchy or class of individuals can no longer be viewed on sex basis, what a man could do is nowadays done by women. It paints a totally different picture from the other topics. Here sex is viewed in a broader perspective than just male or female. Sex is thus perceived contrary to the earlier definitions by other topics, as unchangeable, to be the summation of total traits and constituent parts which claim the gender of a person. Scholars therefore argue that, one cannot be a hundred percent male or female. This implies that in one way or another, we all possess transgender traits. How the Topics Relate In both the topics, transgender individuals symbolically signify some aspects of disorder which has been created through disruptions of the family systems. A strong culture is thus associated with gender stability and the stability of the nuclear family. Both topics points out the sense of being as being determined by an individual’s gender. This will help in categorizing everyone in the world as either male or female. It is also evident that no one can be a male while at the same time a female. There has to be a dominating factor that will make him or her be classified as male or female. It is important to know that; even transgender can be classified although their case is a unique one and may not be a one-off. An individual’s sexual identity is normally assumed by his or her roles in the society and the physical attributes exhibited in a person. For example, people with extremely long hair are more likely to be the females. Individual differences are thus not only dictated by sexual differences. In the recent past, there has been a decline in cultural practices and subsequently transgender behaviors have been seen to be on the increase. Femaleness is naturalized as having very reproductive capacity and different males have assumed this responsibility. Women on the other hand have been classified into great major groups that is, homosexuals and heterosexual identities. Gender system is divided into biological aspect and behavioral aspect. There is a norm in any society which dictates how a male is supposed to act and how a female should act, there are also different roles which are played by the female and which are believed to be completely theirs. Therefore, anyone with these roles will be classified as a woman. The biological aspect reflects sex through aspects like the sexual organs, by way of reproduction and the general traits that are portrayed by a male and that of a female. A good example is that of voice. Male people have deep voice, so this acts as one of the major point of classification. It does not mean that females do not have this trait, but with them this is an exception and it is usually portrayed in few individuals. Not many people believe in the existence of the third sex, many religions, communities and cultures including the Hijra culture, does not welcome the idea of the third sex and it is normally viewed as immoral. There is a close relationship between the topics when it comes to definition of sex, the scope of individual’s rights, self, society and medical ethics. It seems that both the religious, cultural and social groups do not have a comprehensive understanding and a definite definition that cuts across all the aspects of the factors listed above. Different people have their own way and perceptions regarding all these. Definition of sex still remains under grabs with different scholars openly disagreeing with one another. However one thing that they hold in common is that, body sex does not constitute one’s identity, individual characteristics can be altered by doctors to make people adapt to new traits that are not actually of their sex. Transgender is thus what appears outside the gender identities and traits. It is however mostly shown through individual’s behavior. Work Cited Meyerowitz, Joanne and Meyerowitz. How Sex changed: a history of Transexuality in the United States. Harvard: Harvard University Press. Kindle Edition. Amazon. Com, 29 Aug. 2011. Web. 25 Nov. 2011. Read More