Beyond "man" and "woman"

Progressive, The, Dec, 2002 by Amanda Laughtland

How Sex Changed by Joanne Meyerowitz Harvard University Press, 2002. 363 pages. $29.95.

Normal by Amy Bloom Random House, 2002. 140 pages. $23.95.

Christine Jorgensen is no longer a household name, but fifty years ago, her likeness was more apt to appear in a photo spread than Lauren Bacall's. With her internationally publicized transition from "ex-G.I." George to "blonde beauty" Christine, Jorgensen introduced mainstream America to the existence of transgender individuals.

Today, increasing numbers of people are reassessing the categories of "man" and "woman." They challenge us to consider whether these categories can sufficiently contain the complexities of biology and gender that appear in human beings.

Two new books--one by history professor Joanne Meyerowitz, the other by psychotherapist and fiction writer Amy Bloom--offer illumination on the changing definitions of men and women. The authors document the stories of individuals whose affirmations of transgender identities have pushed against, and ultimately blurred, the man-or-woman boundaries. Newcomers to transgender studies should find both books to be accessible and informative.

In her history of transsexuality in America, How Sex Changed, Meyerowitz details the advancement of medical treatments for transsexuals along with accompanying changes in the scientific as well as the popular lexicon. Doctors still can't identify what causes transsexuality, a term that, as Meyerowitz explains, refers "to conditions in which people hope to change the bodily characteristics of sex" through hormone use and surgery. She adds that transsexuals can be considered a subset of transgender people, "an umbrella term used for those with various forms and degrees of cross-gender practices and identifications." A butch lesbian or a heterosexual male cross-dresser, for example, might each identify as transgender yet have no interest in pursuing transsexual surgery.

Though doctors have published a number of medical texts on transsexuality, and several transsexuals have published their autobiographies, Meyerowitz's book stands out as a comprehensive, scholarly volume that incorporates research from a wide range of sources, including the perspectives of many transgender people themselves. While she consistently maintains a user-friendly approach for readers with limited knowledge of transsexuality, her work is thorough enough to interest those well-versed in transgender studies.

In her introduction, she offers clear definitions of relevant terminology and explains how, by the end of the twentieth century, the understanding of sex focused on "three categories of inquiry and analysis": biological sex (the physical sex a person has at birth), gender (a person's sense of himself or herself as a man or woman--or both or neither), and sexuality (a person's identity as straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, etc.). Previously, gender identity and sexual preference were "seen as outgrowths of a primary sex division," but further study led to the conclusion that "`gender' and `sexuality' no longer seemed to spring directly from the biological categories of female and male." She takes care to point out the shared concerns of people with different identities, as well as the ways that varied identities overlap within the same person.

The role of Jorgensen, whose male-to-female transition "made sex change a household term," receives particular emphasis. Generally speaking, the structure of How Sex Changed is pre-Jorgensen and post-Jorgensen. The book's first chapter outlines the European origins of medical treatments for transsexuality, and by the end of the second chapter, which borrows its title, "Ex-G.I. Becomes Blonde Beauty," from a news headline about Jorgensen, the book reaches the climax of its story. The following chapters explore the emergence of an American medical and scientific literature on transsexuality, and subsequent chapters have much to say regarding the everyday lives of transgender people--from their courtroom struggles to change their birth certificates and marry to their individual efforts toward acceptance in their homes and workplaces.

Though Meyerowitz doesn't mention it directly, one of the central images in her book is that of a mailbox. Some people who read newspaper accounts about Jorgensen sent letters to her and to her doctors, asking how they might change their own sex. Others sent similar letters to the editor of Sexology magazine. Writers were often directed to other correspondents, or sympathetic doctors, and sometimes transsexuals who had similar concerns. Meyerowitz quotes a range of these letters and allows the diverse voices to speak for themselves, to great effect. As one correspondent wrote, "A psychiatrist that I went to wanted to rid me of the feelings, but they are so strong and intense that I have no desire to change them. I can't imagine just why I feel the way I do, but the feelings are real and not put on."

One frequent correspondent was Louise Lawrence, a biological male who "began to live full-time as a woman in 1944 but never underwent surgery." Lawrence regularly worked to help educate doctors and researchers, and she corresponded with, and personally met, numerous transgendered people: "The trail of correspondence now at the Kinsey Institute archives shows that by the mid-1950s, Lawrence had befriended at least seventeen people who sought or had surgery." Meyerowitz describes Lawrence as "a one-woman social hub," who "placed herself at the center of, and to some extent created, a transsexual social network." Lawrence emerges as a friendly and dedicated individual, always willing to utilize her connections to introduce like-minded people to one another.