In support of karen<redacted>uk
Wednesday, January 01, 2003
By <redacted>@hotmail.com
Having read Christiboy's original article and both Karen's responses, I have to agree with Karen that it is Christiboy who is confused.
Christiboy's take on the matter mirrors that of many in that it seeks to resolve/categorise/pigeon-hole everyone into stereotypical roles. Gay, straight or bi, male or female. However, the reality is that on matters of gender or sexuality, the truth, like so many things in life, is made up of many shades of grey.
Karen makes reference to the incidence of intersex births, and this is very relevant to the debate as it is a subject that, in the past at least, has polarised doctors and psychologists. At first the medical profession was convinced that our gender was defined by our genes, and then in the 50's, John Money at Johns Hopkin's, Baltimore controversially asserted that we were all born with no sense of gender (irrespective of visible sex organs) and that it was our upbringing (nurture over nature) that defined this. Science, rather like Christiboy, was seeking to resolve the debate one way or the other, with no in-between. His theories have since been widely discredited following the appalling case of a Canadian boy who, having lost his penis in a botched circumcision, was raised as a girl on Money's advice. Although appearing successful initially, the experiment went badly wrong post puberty when, despite hormone treatment, it became clear that the subject was undeniably a boy. He has since had reverse hormone treatment/surgery and is living a normal, albeit traumatised, life. The West's obsession with the 'scientific method' means we always try to find the black and white answer to problems, when often they simply don't exist. This case merely serves to illustrate that viewing things in stark black and white terms, or dogmatically following the accepted scientific wisdom of the day, doesn't always serve the needs of the individual.
And that is the point ... we are all individuals, shades of grey. Because someone may be attracted to transgendered people of the same sex (in the conventional sense of the word) does not necessarily make them gay. Christiboy's article refers to "gay (or bisexual, but you get my drift)". It is not clear from this whether or not he is equating being gay with being bisexual or if he acknowledges bisexuality as a preference in it's own right. Assuming the latter, would he not accept that there are degrees of bisexuality. In order to qualify as a bisexual, must someone like men and women in equal proportion? If they don't, must they then fall into either the homo or heterosexual category? Can he not accept there may be degrees of bisexuality?
In Karen's second response, she takes issue with the use of the term typical. Often the term normal is also used in this context. She is quite right to do so because many people use the term in a way that implies that there is only one alternative to normal. But the reality is that there will be a huge variety of behaviours distributed on both sides of the norm (if we use the term in it's literal, statistical sense), again supporting the fact that things aren't always black and white.
And finally, with respect to Christiboy's assertion that ALL men are simply attracted to MtF transsexuals because of their something "extra", this is also ludicrous. This presupposes that someone's interest in or attraction towards another can only be sexually driven. Whatever happened to platonic relationships?
I don't know if Karen will feel that any of the above contributes anything to her argument, but I do know that Christiboy's rush to describe all men interested in MtF transsexuals as gay is misguided.
Shelf
Glasgow, UK