Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2008Talk presented class in

Human Sexuality and its Problems

Olivia Jensen

Transsexual sex and gender

Sex: Legal and Biological?Genders?

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 28, daughter of 26,

both McGill graduates• Divorced: 1989 • “Transition”: 1989 with some following

medical interventions

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

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) -- biology?

A possible biological basis for gender?

What of those of us who 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 any simple bimodality of sex and gender, not all of us will find a coherent place.

... problems?

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 in– Barcelona: 5 of 2406 competitors– Atlanta: 8 of 3387– Sydney and following: no further testing

Intersex Society of NA

Ambiguous births...

The intersexed:

– Proportion of “genitally abnormal” babies born1 in 100

– Number of “surgically normalized” babies:

1 to 2 in 1000and almost always: “feminizing” surgeries

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, obviously, all the others?…

…Sexes

• Other sexes?

– Turner’s (X0)

– Klinefelter’s (XXY, XXXY and variants)

– “super-male” (XYY)

– mosaics (XXY+XX,…)…

... this can be legally problematical?

Chromosomal sex map

# Y chromosomes

# X

ch

rom

osom

es

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?

Genders…• How to define gender?:

– A fundamental sense of self or identity probably already well established in utero.

– Gender reveals, 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 social constructs.

…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 and “expression” of gender.

Gender transposition field?Pillard & Weinrich (1987)

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)

– F-to-M: XX lives with gender role normally appropriated to XY

An incoherent sex-gender accord?An illness? A neuro-atypical disorder?

No! …we simply face a lack of acceptable genders!

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?

… unfortunately, gender and sex do seem to 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...

Some examples…

Corbett vs. CorbettPROBATE, DIVORCE AND ADMIRALTY DIVISION

UK Court – Justice J. Ormrod (1970)

• Arthur Cameron Corbett married April Ashley in Gibralter in 1963.

• Arthur petitioned the courts to annul the marriage in November 1969.

• Justice Ormrod held– Nullity – Declaration: Marriage void; Wife a man!

Justification: Power of court to make bare declaratory order - RSC Ord 15.

– This judgement had been the precedent cornerstone in UK exercise of Common Law until…

Gerbil–Gerbil – The Gender Recognition Act

of the UK Parliament received Royal Assent on July 1, 2004.• Now transsexual people who fulfil certain

conditions are legally regarded as having their chosen gender (still only man or woman) and have all the rights in detail that accrue according to that gender.

• Transsexuals can legally marry someone whose legal gender (sex is immaterial) is opposite to their own.

Gardiner vs. GardinerKansas Supreme Court (2002)

• J'Noel Ball Gardiner's rights to her deceased husband's property challenged by his son Joe (appellate).– Court held marriage was invalid in Kansas because

J'Noel Gardiner had been born male even though her Wisconsin birth certificate had been legally changed to “female”.

– US Supreme Court refused hearing.– Functional/morphological definition of sex.

...what of the infant surgeries?..what of errors?

United States• Legal sex and birth certificates…

– 12 states allow amendments– 21 allow issue of replacement certificates (4 of

those above)– 1 state prohibits change of certificate --

Tennessee

• Anti-discrimination provisions…– 26 municipalities (incl. Boulder, Colorado if one

limits ones gender changes to fewer than 4 times in 18 months!)

Boston, February 5, 2004 The Supreme Court of the

Commonwealth of Massachusetts upholds the lower court decision enabling same-sex marriage.

The court rejected civil unions as a remedy: "Because the proposed law by its express terms forbids same-sex couples entry into civil marriage, it continues to relegate same-sex couples to a different status. ... The history of our nation has demonstrated that separate is seldom, if ever, equal."

Withstood reopening challenge June 14, 2007

CanadaAlberta: not only can the birth certificate be

changed, but… …if the sex of the person is registered

outside Alberta (then the Director shall) transmit to the officer in charge of the registration of births and marriages in the jurisdiction in which the person is registered, a copy of the proof of the change of sex produced to the Director

(Revised Statutes Alberta, 1973 chap 384, s.21.1)

British Columbia

On January 17, 2002, in Nixon v. Vancouver Rape Relief Society, the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal held that a women's shelter had discriminated against a male-to-female transsexual by denying her the opportunity to act as a volunteer counsellor.

The Tribunal affirmed that transgendered people are protected from discrimination by the ground "sex" in human rights legislation.

Note: This judgement was recently overturned…

Quebec:

“CHANGE OF SEX DESIGNATION AND OF GIVEN NAME” is covered under the revised Quebec Civil Code.

…Change of name and of other particulars of civil status, Regulation respecting R.R.Q. C-10,r.1

… and now does it really matter???

The Ontario Court of Appeals decision of June 10, 2003 legalized marriages, generally, between persons – without reference to their gender (in the common sense) or to their sex.

13 consecutive judicial decisions in Canada came to this very conclusion before the Civil Marriage Act was passed by Parliament on June 20, 2005.

An even more comprehensive "same-sex marriage” law was passed by Spain’s Cortes and came into effect on July 3, 2005. The Spanish law allows for no distinguishing difference at all between same-sex and opposite-sex marriage and services of marriage.

Spain beat us to the …

The Netherlands: 2001Belgium: 2003Spain: 2005Canada: 2005 South Africa: 2006 Massachussetts and Connecticutt (2008)Marriages performed in other jurisdictions are

accepted as legal in Israel, Aruba, Netherlands Antilles, New York City, Buenos Aires,...

Progress...

But that’s only “marriage”!• Even though Canada is such an extremely

tolerant society, we still await…– anti-discrimination, anti-hate rulings…– “security of person” rulings…– “freedom of choice” rulings… (i.e. surgical sex-

changing at will or whim…)– Access to status … Perhaps the highest status

(job) transsexual person in Canada, now, is Aaron Devor, Dean, Graduate Studies and Research, University of Victoria … and that’s not so very high!

Surprisingly elsewhere?

• Saudi Arabian court ruling...• Kuwait!• Iran!• China! 400,000 in China!• Turkey!• Israel!

All this introduction… now back to the story and some personal

politics…• Many transgendered people choose to live in the

“other” gender... “another” gender! • Many choose medical, hormonal,

psychotherapeutic and other procedures in establishing comfort in this “other” gender.

• Very few retreat to “former” gender… Pauli’s estimate: 1.6%.

• Many, perhaps most, establish successful post-transition lives… See Lynn Conway’s website.

…but,

• Have we really found 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!

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...