Sex, Gender, Becoming - PULP

Technology and transexuality: Secret alliances 3
author of The transsexual phenomenon 4 and medical godfather of
transsexuality, describes transsexuality as follows: 5
The transsexual (TS) male or female is deeply unhappy as a member of
the sex (or gender) to which he or she was assigned by the anatomical
structure of the body, particularly the genitals [...]. For [transsexuals],
their sex organs, [...] are disgusting deformities that must be changed by
the surgeon’s knife.
The erroneous sex is treated as virtual, therefore, variable and
random, and should be aligned with the ‘real’ or ‘true’ gender of the
person. Accordingly, ‘nature’s’ apparent mistake should be rectified
by making use of ‘culture’s’ medical technologies. It should be noted
that although transsexuals want to rid themselves of incorrectly sexed
bodies, the cause of transsexuality is – not surprisingly – still
attributed to the biology of the mother’s womb due to a faulty
‘hormonal shower’ 6 and to the psychological dominance of the
mother during the person’s developmental years. 7 These bodily and
psychological ‘defects’ require technological and ‘therapeutic
fathers’ 8 to remedy ‘mother nature’s’ apparent mistakes. The
Renaissance Transgender Association also describes transsexuality,
perhaps unknowingly, in precisely such gendered terms as ‘a mind
that is literally, physically, trapped in a body of the opposite sex’. 9
Hence, in the case of transsexuality, the sexed body, significantly
referred to as a ‘costume’ (traditionally associated with women) is
constructed as an entrapment, not real, fraudulent and therefore
virtual; whereas gender is seen as the true and authentic measure of
the person’s identity. In a true Cartesian manner, it is the mind of the
transsexual that rules over and decides about the mistakenly sexed
body. As the ‘therapeutic father’ of transsexuality, Harry Benjamin,
decided in the 1960s, if the mind cannot be changed to correspond to
the body, then the body should be changed to match the mind. 10 For
this reason, sex is constructed in most traditional transsexual
discourses as virtual and gender as real. The fact that sex
reassignment has been substituted by the use of the term ‘gender
reassignment surgery’ in recent years, further indicates the emphasis
placed on gender as an authentic standard and sex as a secondary and
malleable component during the reassignment procedure.
4 H Benjamin The transsexual phenomenon: a scientific report on transsexualism
and sex conversion in the human male and female (1966, 1999) http://
www.symposion.com/ijt/benjamin/ (accessed 14 February 2002).
5 Benjamin (n 4 above).
6 The Renaissance Transgender Association ‘Understanding transsexualism’ (1990)
http://www.ren.org/rbp07.html (accessed 17 February 2002).
7 Raymond (n 2 above) 69.
8 Raymond (n 2 above) 69.
9
The Renaissance Transgender Association (n 6 above), emphasis added.
10 The Renaissance Transgender Association (n 6 above).