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Download these PowerPoint Slides. Sex, gender, transsex, transgender. Talk presented at the Symposium on Global Health April 6-7, 2013 University of Montreal Montreal, Quebec. Olivia Jensen April 7, 2013. about Olivia….

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  1. Download these PowerPoint Slides

  2. Sex, gender, transsex, transgender Talk presented at the Symposium on Global Health April 6-7, 2013 University of Montreal Montreal, Quebec Olivia Jensen April 7, 2013

  3. about Olivia… • Born… in the deep winter of 1943 in a farmhouse in Springbank, Alberta • Educated… in the public schools of Calgary, Vancouver and at the University of BC • Joined McGill’s Faculty of Engineering in 1973 and then Faculty of Science in 1984 • Married: 1975 – son of 33, daughter of 30, both McGill graduates; grandson 4, granddaughter 2 • Divorced: 1989 • “Transition”: 1989 with some following medical interventions

  4. The Atlantic -- online

  5. Sun News Network

  6. The Verge -- online

  7. Huffington Post: 2012-01-04

  8. The Parent Dish: 2013-03-13

  9. The Internationall Business Times (Daily Mail)

  10. * The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders

  11. Some terminology (OED)... trans- (prefix) across, but also beyond gender†kind, sort; (gram.) any of the three ‘kinds’, masculine, feminine, and neuter, of nouns, adjectives, and pronouns. XIV . — OF. gendre (mod. genre ) — Rom. * genero , f. L. gener- GENUS . sexmales or females collectively XIV (rare before XVI ); condition in respect of being male or female XVI . — (O)F. sexe or L. sexus m., rel. to synon. secus n. man pl. men human being; adult male OE.; vassal, manservant XII ; (dial.) husband XIII . OE. man(n) , mon(n) , pl. menn (:- * manniz ), also manna , monna , corr. to OS., OHG. man (Du. man ; G. mann ), ON. mar (g. manns , pl. menn ), Goth. manna (g. Mans ... woman OE. wfman(n) m., later fem., f. wf woman + man(n) MAN ; a formation peculiar to Eng. (not in the oldest OE. records). Assim. of -fm- to -mm- is evident in late OE. sp., and rounding of wim- to wum-, wom- in XIII .

  12. ... a confusion of definitions Words, words, words ... Female Turner's Pansexual Drag Queen Sexualities Woman Girl Bisexual Gender Identity Cisgender Heterosexual Lesbian Transvestite Sex Transgender Boy Transsexual Homosexual Klienfelter's Transman Man Drag King Super male Asexual Male

  13. Confusing sex with gender • Until ~1700s: gender  sex • derivative of Greek humours (genders) • Biological definitions: sex  gender • reproductive possibility • morphology (penis or not?) • chromosomal (XX or XY or ????) • Cultural definitions: • Why such simple bimodality in western culture? How recent is this enforced bimodality? • Colloquially now, sex  gender ...but No! Sex is not gender!

  14. The world begins to agree... I first started selling this political story in the late 1980s. Then, it was iconoclastic but now the world is coming onside...

  15. The man who would be Queen? • I have not read the book, probably won't bother to... but not because I don't expect to agree with Bailey's model. I just don't bother to read much “gender” theory anymore. I have my theory of me and us and it satisfies me and many of us. A lot of it makes perfect sense to me! A precis of Bailey's model?

  16. More careful definitions? • Technical/psychological definitions: • Sex:male or female among several common sexes... (of the physical) -- based in biology… • Gender: man or woman among several common genders... (of the spirit) – source in biology? A possiblebiological basis for gender?

  17. Some of us just don't fit! The common bimodal attachment of each sex to one of but two genders leads to identity conflict. • If we hold to this simplistic bimodality of sex and gender, not all of us will find a coherent place. • Apparent sex: which gender? • Apparent gender: which sex? ... problems? 

  18. AIS • Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome(perhaps as many as 1 in 13000 “apparently female” births) • XY chromosomes – chromosomally “male” • morphologically “female” • procreatively “neither” • Olympic “sex testing” found XY women in • Barcelona: 5 of 2406 competitors • Atlanta: 8 of 3387 • Sydney and following: no further testing; a formal policy for transsexual/XY-AIS athletes since 2004 Intersex Society of NA and now Accord Alliance

  19. Ambiguous births... The intersexed: • Proportion of “genitally abnormal” babies born: 1 in 100 • Number of “surgically normalized” babies: 1 to 2 in 1000 ...and almost always: “feminizing” surgeries

  20. Sexes • How to define sex: • Sex is evermore (in legal and bio-medical domains) determined by the sex chromosomes. • If so, one cannot possibly change sex! • If sex is determined by chromosomes, then, what are the common sexes? … • male (XY) • female (XX) • and many others?… Some of the others...

  21. …Sexes • Other sexes? • Turner’s (X0) • Klinefelter’s (XXY, XXXY and variants) • “super-male” (XYY) • mosaics (XXY+XX,…)… ... this can be legally problematical?

  22. Littleton vs. PrangeTexas 4th Court of Appeals • Christie Lee Littleton's wrongful death – malpractice suit; defendant Dr. Mark Prange • Littleton's husband died in surgery due to apparent malpractice • Court held Littleton's suit invalid as her marriage was invalid in Texas because she was legally male (XY chromosomes!) • Court held to “chromosomal sex” ...then, what of AIS?

  23. Chromosomal sex map # X chromosomes (1096 genes/X) # Y chromosomes (98 genes/Y)

  24. Gender 101... • Julianne Imperato-McGinley discovers that gender is “inherent” Her study of male pseudo-hermaphrodites in the Dominican Republic showed that the strength of the “nature of gender” overwhelms a “nurtured gender”. The 1974 article in Science

  25. Genders… • How to define gender?: • A fundamental sense of self or identity probably already well established in utero. • Gender is expressed, especially, in the mode chosen for social interaction but it does not follow that ones gender is simply a social construct. • Mode or style is chosen to fit, best, in adaptation to ones essential sense of gender. Modes and styles are the social constructs.

  26. …Genders • Common genders? • Man (boy) • Woman (girl) • …The plains Indians of North America describe as many as 7 possible and distinct genders. That we live, now, in a simplistically bimodal society much complicates ones choice of mode for “expression” of ones gender.

  27. Gender transposition field? Pillard & Weinrich (1987)

  28. Gender transposition field? Pillard & Weinrich (1987)

  29. Gender transposition field? Pillard & Weinrich (1987)

  30. Transgender… • Those who don’t/can’t conform to the gender that commonly accords with their sex…transvestites, two-spirited, perhaps drag queens and kings, and transsexuals. • M-to-F transsexual: an XY person (male) chooses to live with a social role more commonly appropriated to an XX person (female), with strong desire to be female • F-to-M: XX lives with gender role normally appropriated to XY, with desire to be male Our problem? An incoherent sex-gender accord? An illness? A neuro-atypical disorder? No! …we simply face a lack of acceptable “social gender roles”!

  31. What gender models do we have? • Here is the major problem facing a transgendered individual and, perhaps, many intersexed as well. • How does one define ones place in and mode of interaction with the rest of a normalizing society? • If one only has a choice between man and woman, which should one choose? • Might each of us find or seek to create another more appropriate model for ourselves?

  32. … unfortunately, gender and sex matter... • Gender and sex and the confusion of gender with sex pervades our legal systems and our social organization... • We are only, now, unravelling the legalistic and social mess that has accumulated in the past few centuries... Normally, here, I would introduce a series of exemplary problems faced by transgendered people... let's skip these detailed stories. If you download the PowerPoint slide set, you can turn on these stories.

  33. All this introduction… now back to the story and some personal politics… • Many transgendered people choose to live in the “other” gender... “another” gender! They “transition”! • Many choose or desire medical, hormonal, psychotherapeutic and other procedures in establishing comfort in this “other” gender. • Very few of those who “medicalize” retreat to “former” gender… Pauli’s estimate: 1.6%. • Many, perhaps most, establish successful post-transition lives… SeeLynn Conway’s website.

  34. …but, • Can we really find our place? • I don’t think that either of “the two genders” is our place… • I suggest that our gender is somewhere else…, distinct from that of ordinary man or woman… • I call myself a transsexual woman… and the adjective is absolutely important... at least to me!

  35. Discussion? • I am open to answering almost any question that you might have concerning transsexuality and gender… • You should know, though, that what I offer as answer might be better received as just one transsexual woman’s opinion...

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