Full Description
Anthropologists and historians have shown us that 'male' and 'female' are variously defined historically and cross-culturally. The contributions to this volume focus on the voluntary and involuntary, temporary or permanent transformation of gender identity. Overall, this volume provides powerful and compelling illustrations of how, across a wide range of cultures, processes of gender transformation are shaped within, and ultimately constrained by, social and political context. From medical responses to biological ambiguity, legal responses to cases brought by transsexuals, the historical role of the eunuch in Byzantium, the social transformation of gender in Northern Albania and in the Southern Philippines, to North American 'drag' shows, English pantomime and Japanese kabuki theatre, this volume offers revealing insights into the ambiguities and limitations of gender transformation.
Contents
List of illustrations
Preface
Shirley Ardener
Chapter 1. Changing sex and bending gender: an introduction
Alison Shaw
Defining sex and gender
Changing bodily sex
Long-term gender transformations
Women in transformed gender roles
Women disguised as men
Women with 'manly' attributes, and the issue of sexuality
Men in transformed gender roles
Temporary gender transformations
Women playing men on the stage
Men playing women on the stage
Conclusion
Chapter 2. Is it a boy, or a girl? The challenges of genital ambiguity
Alison Shaw
Intersex conditions
Reactions to intersex births
Botched pots, unnatural horrors and supernatural blessings
'Correcting' intersex infants
Lessons from the Dominican Republic
Conclusions and implications
Chapter 3. Why should biological sex be decisive? Transsexualism before the European Court of Human Rights
Marie-Bénédicte Dembour
The Convention
The cases
Typical facts
The Court's reasoning in transsexual cases
Judge Martens' critique of 'Biological Sex is Decisive'
A false positive
The denial of legal fatherhood
A tightening majority
Victory at last
The 'normalisation' of transsexual human rights issues
Conclusion
Chapter 4. Two views on the gender identity of Byzantine eunuchs
Shaun Tougher
Eunuchs
Eunuchs in Byzantium
The Image of eunuchs
The texts: Claudian and Theophylact
The negative view: Claudian's In Eutropium (I and II)
The positive answer: Theophylact's In Defence of Eunuchs
A comparison
Conclusion
Chapter 5. The third sex in Albania: an ethnographic note
Roland Littlewood and Antonia Young
The historical setting
'A woman is a sack made to endure': gender and the customary law
Sworn virgins
Three into two
Chapter 6. Living like men, loving like women: tomboi in the Southern Philippines
Mark Johnson
The locality
Ethnographic encounters with tomboi in the Southern Philippines
Living 'like men'
Loving 'like women'
'Women who do bad things': hegemonic masculinity and compulsory heterogender/sexuality
The question of tomboi likeness and being
Chapter 7. One of the gals who's one of the guys: men, masculinity and drag performance in North America
Fiona Moore
Drag as an expression of masculinity
Dragged up on deck: the setting
More man than you'll ever be: drag as gay male art form
Rocky Horror? Straight men and drag
Passing women: the views of performers
Masculinity, sexuality and liminality: discussion and conclusion
Chapter 8. Male dames and female boys: cross-dressing in the English pantomime
Shirley Ardener
English vulgar comedy
A potted history of pantomime
Story lines
Dames
Dress and make-up
Women, drag and female impersonators
Principal Boys
Commentary
Chapter 9. Cross-dressing on the Japanese stage
Brian Powell
Female actors
Male actors
Two contrasting onnagata
Takarazuka
Emergence of the actress in Japanese theatre culture
Change and changelessness
Notes on contributors
Index
