Sex, Gender, Becoming - PULP

One / Technology and
transsexuality:
Secret alliances
Amanda du Preez
1. Introduction
In February 2003 transsexuality made headlines in South African
papers and elsewhere when one of the models during the Cricket
World Cup opening ceremony in Cape Town was unmasked as a transsexual.
The presence of Barbara Diop (Cape Town resident and
Senegalese national) in this highly sexualised enshrine of exposed
female flesh caused quite a stir. It seems that the general viewing
public is not prepared to accept transsexuality posed as ‘true’ female
seduction yet. But what is the historical status of transsexuality? How
has it progressed as a newly established sex and gender category?
What is the role played by new technologies in making transsexuality
a remote possibility in the twentieth century?
The focus here is on the crucial, yet strategically obscured and
secretive part played by new technologies in the creation of new sex
and gender categories, of which transsexuality is but one example.
This chapter attempts to unmask the allegiance forged between new
sex and gender categories (such as transsexuality and transgenderism)
and new technologies.
New technologies in most manifestations either discursively or
materially reveal a subtle drive towards disembodiment, that is the
drive to discard the bio-body with its frailties, disease, sexed and
gendered specificities and ultimately death. Is it a mere coincidence
that the bodies most likely disempowered and disenfranchised by the
impact of new technologies are women’s?
Even though it may be argued that several of these new sex and
gender categories push at the limits of traditional boundaries, it
remains a treacherous endeavour if they are uncritically aligned.
Some of the previous sexed and gendered biases may remain intact
and even completely unchallenged if this relation goes unchecked.
Accordingly, it is necessary to explore the relationship between the
discourse of transsexualism and new technologies, as well as a
number of the traditional assumptions about sex and gender
categories that are perpetuated in the creation of transsexualism as
sponsored by new technologies.
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