the relevance of gender
The topic of gender is relevant to everyone. It is also a topic that evokes a strong emotional response. Gender is a social construct and few of us are aware of the system of rewards and punishments that have shaped our gender identity. For others who this system did not 'succeed' are often more aware of the process that shape identity as they have had to confront and defy. It is worthwhile to spend some time thinking about how your fear manifests itself, and how your fear of stepping outside the boundaries of 'appropriate' gender behavior limits your life. It starts many of us asking a slew of questions such as what was done to us in the name of Manhood and Womanhood, why? Why dose this process exist in the first place? Whose interest dose it serve? These questions are important to understanding our gender and us as a whole. Sex Changes: The politics of Transgenderism by Pat Califia addresses such questions. The following is a summary of the general description of t!he book and it's main points, which I have broken down chapter by chapter.The first chapter examines three autobiographical testimonies about the benefits of medically mediated sex reassignment. These works may be seen as the first generation of transsex
The way to challenge these biases is to challenge the way we think about ourselves. Califia attempts to be sensitive to this and to not treat transsexuals as patients or troubled clients of therapists. I felt guilty for imaging these things as if I somehow committed some thought crime. Califia also stresses there should be an effort to ". The author evaluates what changes have taken place since that time. Califia writes in such bold, explicit, and honest ways that provoke both a reaction of discomfort and titillated. Chapter five takes a look at autobiographies of transsexuals and transgender activists several years after the early autobiographies. The doctors focused on conformity not tolerance or acceptance. Pat Califia is a sex revolutionary and a feminist. In including both audiences there is little distance put between the speaker and the subject and avoids relegating transsexuals to outside mainstream society. It is important that a the speaker overtly lays out their point of view and biases rather them cloak them in a false sense of objectivity. Califia asserts that "(T)he claim that anyone that is objective about transgenderism should be met with profound skepticism". Also there was backlash from feminists who argue from a biological determinate difference between men and woman in order to affect social change. Homosexuals are often viewed as men and woman who do not conform to the more traditional forms of sex-role stereotypes, which is a very similar view of transsexuals. I suspect that for any sweeping changes that Califia writes about are to happen it will require that people actively purse these ideas with conviction.
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Acceptance Essays
