Some little while back I got 'UN-FRIENDED' by a Jozi trans-gender activist. I
consider myself a humanist, with all the flaws this implies. I was accused of
being an old-fashioned (1970's) feminist that did not understand the travails
of those folk who do not neatly fit into society's ideas of gender stereotyping.
The plaint of the trans-gender community is that no-one understands their
plight & that they are a put-upon minority with no rights. When it was pointed
out that we, in South Africa, enjoy, through our Constitution, Universal HUMAN
Rights, that this protected us all, I was roundly shot down by said activist's
followers.
I had the sad experience, in that bygone era of the 1970's of meeting S.A.'s first
trans-gender person. It was at a party in Pretoria & this attractive young 'woman'
was doing a strip. The men stood around her essentially leering + jeering. She
was a curiosity, a side-show. I chatted to her, felt empathetic but confused as to
why anyone would put themselves through such operations.
In those days PERHAPS the sex re-assignment procedures where more
primitive, but are they that much less brutal now? Maybe for the lucky few who
can afford top class surgery. Hormone therapy, too, is an inexact + fraught
experience - too much, too little.........
The issue is far deeper than painful procedures - it is at heart how humans are
perceived in the continuum of our sexual being. In NATURE we are each some-
where on the line from the ultimate female to the ultimate male. In NURTURE it
is even more complex. Gender stereotyping dogs us all. I, as a girl who was "the
only female who knows her left from her right" according to my Dad, could think
like a man! Engineering or something similar lay in my future. I did however love
'female' pursuits; fashion, ballet, baking, decorating............As I hit adolescence I
had no gender confusion but I wanted a career & possibly one in a male
purview. I became more + more feminist.
Now trans-genderism is NOT mere sexual confusion it is real. The question is do
people need to go through gender re-assignment? Are we in Western society
NOT sophisticated enough to accept that some 'females' want to do + be 'male'
& visa-versa.
I, a longtime admirer of Germaine Greer, agree with her, no amount of surgery +
steroids is going to make you what you are not. It is cruel to think it can. As
Greer is at pains to point out she does NOT deny anyone that option but to
what end?
No comments:
Post a Comment