March 17, 2004
Genitals Do Not Equal A Brain
I know my perspective on this is probably different than most people's, since I have a close friend my age who is a passable transsexual woman. I'll probably get some slack from the uninformed if this post catches on, but someone's got to say it.
If we can agree that gender affects behavior, emotions, and so forth, it would stand to reason that gender is a function of the brain, not the genitals. Yet, especially in America and Great Britian, the general reaction to MTF (male-to-female) transsexuals is that if they've had the surgery, they can be treated like a woman. If they have not had the surgery, they are really a "man" after all. In the UK, they actually house post-ops with the sex they were born into if they ever wind up in jail. That is just not what a fair society would do, and the US is not much better. You could be a pre-operative transsexual working as a female model in the fashion industry, but guess what? If you get sent to jail, you go straight into the general population with Bubba and his pals. This is really sick. This is not what thinking, feeling human beings do to fellow human beings. I mean look at this photo of Miriam from the controversial Reality TV show, There's Something About Miriam currently playing in the UK:
Do I have to walk you through how men are not only attracted to women because of their genitalia? Yet, the conventional wisdom tells us once you learn that Miriam in the picture above is a pre-operative transsexual, you're gay if you're attracted to her. This could not be further from the truth. In fact, gay men are not attracted to her, because she looks and thinks like a woman. So where does that leave her? Again, conventional wisdom tells us she can "have the surgery" then it is okay and any guys who are attracted to her are no longer gay. Confused yet? More about this later, but it seems pretty obvious to me: Genitals are not brains, and there is a lot more to attraction and gender than one set of genitalia or the other.
Posted by Mike at March 17, 2004 11:37 AM | TrackBack