Wednesday, 19 October 2005

Talk presented to the

Women’s Health Club

Olivia Jensen

Transsexual Models:Sex and gender

Legal Sex?Biological Sex?

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

• Married: 1975 – son of 25, daughter of 23, both still in University at McGill and UQAM

• 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?

• Colloquially, 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)

A possible biological basis for gender?

What of those who don’t fit?

• The four possible bimodal attachments of sex to gender lead to conflicting placements.

• If we hold to any simple bimodality of sex and gender, not everybody can fit to a coherent place.

AIS

• Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (perhaps as many as 1 in 4000 “apparently female” births)

– XY chromosomes – chromosomally “male”

– morphologically “female”!

– procreatively “neither”

• Olympic “sex testing” found in– Barcelona: 5 of 2406 competitors– Atlanta: 8 of 3387– Sydney and following: no further testing

Intersex Society of NA

Sexes• How to define sex:

– a differentiating biological condition. – 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, 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,…)…

Genders

• How to define gender?:

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

– Gender relates especially to the mode chosen for social interactions but it does not follow that ones gender is simply a social construct.

– Mode or style is chosen as a best fit 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.

Transgender…

• Those who don’t/can’t conform to the gender that commonly accords with their sex…transvestites, transsexuals, etc.– 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

– Perhaps, better, neither XY nor XX chooses a “gender” role that is normally attributed to their “sex”…

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 society?

• If there is only a choice between man and woman, which should one choose?

• Might each of us find or 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!

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 gender (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.

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

– Court held to “chromosomal sex”

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.

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."

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…

Ontario

By a series of policy guidelines, the Ontario Human Rights Commission has affirmed that it considers transgendered people protected from discrimination on the ground "sex".

A transsexual woman, Michelle Josef, has launched an action against the Ontario Government to challenge its decision to cut funding for sex reassignment surgery.

Aside: Dee Palmer of the ’70s Jethro Tull Band.

• 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 matter???

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

13 consecutive judicial decisions in Canada come to this same conclusion

The Parliament of Canada finally passes the Civil Marriage Act (allowing for same-sex marriages); the Act received Royal Assent on July 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.

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 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 court rules in favour of transsexual!

• Kuwait!• Iran!• China! 400,000 in China!

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

politics…• Many transgendered people choose to live

in the “other” gender. • Many choose medical, hormonal,

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

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

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

…but,

• Have we really found our place?

– I don’t think that other of two genders is our place…

– I suggest that our gender is somewhere else…, distinct from that of man or woman…

– I call myself a transsexual woman… the adjective is 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 one transsexual woman’s opinion...