Response to Middlesex Books 3 and 4, and Christine Jorgenson Documents
“Can transvestites be cured?” asked Time in an article reporting on Christine Jorgensen (Peiss, 375). If the article were about Cal, perhaps the question asked would be: Can hermaphrodites be cured? Within these questions lies the assumption that these things – these genders – need to be cured.
“In some cases of transvestitism, as in severe cases of homosexuality, cures are exceptional at best.” (Peiss, 375). While this sentence also reveals the idea that transvestitism is something that needs to be cured (as well as homosexuality – still a disorder in the 1950s), it also reveals the fact that gender identity and sexual orientation were inextricably linked in the 1950s – and in my opinion, are still linked in most people’s minds in contemporary American society. This link, however, is only feasible because of the perception of both gender and sexual orientation as binary – one is either male or female, one is either attracted to men or to women – a perception that our readings have shown to be false, as there are a significant number of people who lie outside of this binary system (most clearly exemplified in the Kinsey report). This is why Christine went from celebrated to condemned – at first, she was moving from ambiguous gender identity to one within the binary system that was accepted at the time, and then, once the facts of her transformation were properly explained, it turned out she was moving from a gender identity within the binary system to something ambiguous. This is all, of course, biologically speaking, and so we yet again come back to scientia sexualis and the medicalization of sex (side note: Cal essentially chooses ars erotica over scientia sexualis when he chooses not to undergo the procedure prescribed by Dr. Luce). Contrary to the public perception of Christine’s transformation is her own point of view. To Christine, her gender identity before the transformation was the one that was ambiguous – she was biologically male, but mentally female. In this way, Christine actually was attempting to fit into the binary system of gender identity. As Serlin says, she had an “obvious compulsion to…chose a singular life from the enigmatic haze of her formerly ambiguous gender identity,” and is the opposite of Cal, who chose to retain his ambiguous gender identity (Peiss, 391). Perhaps the best example of this difference is their name changes; Calliope is simply shortened to Cal while George becomes Christine (Peiss, 391). However, just as sexual orientation and gender identity are not binary concepts, neither is the “third gender” binary, with Cal and Christine representing the two sides. These two also have similarities. For example, they both attempt to “pass” as a specific gender to the outside world, despite their inner gender identity or biological sex – Christine is attempting to pass as female despite her biological sex being male, and Cal is attempting to pass as male despite his gender identity as inter- or Middlesex. (Peiss, 390 and Eugenides, ___ [I’m still looking for the page number]). But Middlesex and Cal’s identity are more than an attack on the binary system of gender identity – they seem to attack almost all binary systems, for Cal is almost always pointing out that things are not merely one or the other. For example, he resurrects the Weeks vs. Norton essentialist vs. social constructionist argument on page 479, and like many of us did during our class discussion, takes the middle road.
The final question the TIME magazine article asked: “Can a male transvestite possibly lead a relatively happy life as a “woman”?” (Peiss, 376). The Danish doctors’ answer was telling: “If Jorgensen had been able to slide quietly into society and be accepted [emphasis added] as a woman, the prognosis would be much more favorable.” (Peiss, 376). The need for Cal to legitimize his existence that we discuss last class as well as Christine’s “obvious compulsion to explain herself” support this theory that acceptance as the key to happiness (Peiss, 391). What a novel idea.
Tags: acceptance, binary, essentialism, gender roles, happiness, Hermaphrodites, homosexuality, identity, Jeffrey Weeks, scientia sexualis, sexual orientation, social construction, social constructivism, transvestites
