Wednesday, February 17, 2010
More than Two Sexes
We discussed in our last class meeting the difference between the term sex and the word gender. We claimed that sex was biological and gender was a facet constructed by society. However, in today's world the terms seem to overlap and have become almost completely synonymous. Fausto-Sterling claims that in America's initial years, transgender was entirely an issue of human rights. "If the state and legal system has an interest in maintaining only two sexes, our collective biological bodies do not." It is unfortunate that know, transgender, though rare, is no longer an issue of voting rights but basic acceptance into society. So much of modern society is built around gender stereotypes and falling in line with expected gender roles. This obviously becomes frustrating and cloudy to transgender people in the United States, but I cannot even imagine what it means for transgender people in countries in the Middle East where gender roles are practically law and potentially stepping outside of them can be a matter of life and death.
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As Fausto-Sterling says in the first few pages of the first chapter, the English language does not even have a word for an inter sex individual. We only have the words he and she. This encapsulates inter sex people's troubles integrating into our culture today, as their very genitalia carry with them such a highly negative stigma. In American culture gender roles are highly enforced and developed, resulting in many social and physical complications for inter sex peoples. Yet the fact that there are people who are biologically both man and woman should show us that our own definitions of man and woman, and the social expectations that arise from that distinction, are inherently flawed.
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