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Transsexual Empires and Transgender Warriors: A Critique
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Analyzes chapter titled Transsexual Empires and Transgender Warriors from Nikki Sullivan's book A Critical ...... More...
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Paper Abstract:
Analyzes chapter titled Transsexual Empires and Transgender Warriors from Nikki Sullivan's book, A Critical Introduction to Queer Theory.

Paper Introduction:
Sullivan on Transsexual Empires and Transgender Warriors Nikki Sullivan points out that while the terms transsexual andtransgender have been coined only relatively recently a variety of formsof gender ambiguity can be found throughout history and in a huge range ofcultural contexts The notion of inversion in the view of this feministand queer theorist refers in this context to gender inversion but mayhave relatively little or even nothing to do with homosexuality Sullivan draws upon Krafft-Ebing to identify four degrees of inversion rangingfrom

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There is a question among some feminists as towhether or not male to female transsexuals should be granted access to suchspaces, but Sullivan (111) suggests that this may be a somewhat speciousside issue in the debates over transsexualism and its relationship to themedical profession and to radical politics. This does not necessarily mean thatthese individuals are gendered transgendered although many manly women andfeminine men may as Sullivan (1 1) indicates be drawn towards transgenderor transsexual existence and determined to adopt not only the outwardappearance of the "opposite sex" but to modify their bodies in such a waythat they replicate those of the "opposite sex." An excellent example ofthis given by Sullivan (1 2) is the case of Christine Jorgensen althoughthe author points out that Jorgenson was by no means the firsttransgendered or transsexual person to have gone under the knife to acquirethe physiological characteristics of the gender that he/she perceivedhim/herself to be. Sullivan(1 ) draws upon Krafft-Ebing to identify four degrees of inversion rangingfrom the simple reversal of sexual feeling to the masculinization offeminization of psyche and attraction to only members of the same sex, to astage of transition to change of sex delusion and ultimately to atransformation or inversion of sex. Many who have undergone sexual reassignment either through surgery orthrough hormonal therapy "do not necessarily conceive of themselves aspassive victims of an evil order who have unwittingly become tools of thatorder." A central point that Sullivan (1 7-1 8) is making is that male tofemale lesbians are not eunuchs and have gained access to women's spacesclosed to other men. Sullivan (112) says that "in asense, the term transgender provides an identity category and a sense ofbelonging to all those who have been excluded from gender identity programsand denied access to surgery, and to all those who have felt marginalizedby heteronormative values and institutions more generally." Thiscollective sense of what it is to be transgendered directly challenges thebinary gender system which suggests that there are only two real orlegitimate genders. This is invariably a direct challenge to patriarchyand a patriarchal approach to gender and gender politics. What matters, according to Sullivan (1 4), is that there is anincreasing body of literature supporting the contention that there are somemen and women who are born with what we can call the wrong genitalia orsuperficial gender characteristics. "Transsexual Empires and Transgender Warriors." In Nikki Sullivan, A Critical Introduction to Queer Theory. Transgendered people and the organizations that represent themchallenge the status quo, call for new ways of understanding embodiment,and according to Sullivan (115), demand the right to name themselves asthey feel appropriate. The necessity of resistingcategories imposed by others that are detrimental to the self is, inSullivan's (114) view, an important project. Sullivan (112) also differentiates as do many other feminist theoristsbetween transsexuals who have undergone sex reassignment of some type andtransgendered individuals who may or may not modify their bodies and whosee themselves as belonging to a third sex. Overall, as Sullivan's (115)discussion demonstrates, the men and women who have chosen to adjust theirbodies or their affective presentation of self to more accurately representwho they know themselves to be are warriors. As significantly, there are those transsexuals or transgenderedindividuals who find common cause with the gay, lesbian, and bisexualcommunity and others who "demonstrate the extraordinary power ofheterosexuality as a political system and are involved in the constantreproduction of its basic dynamic, masculinity/femininity" (Sullivan, 1 6). Any number of other transsexual or transgenderedindividuals, said Sullivan (1 4), have elected to undergo sex changeoperations or to undergo non-surgical transsexualization. Sullivan on "Transsexual Empires and Transgender Warriors" Nikki Sullivan (99) points out that while the terms "transsexual andtransgender have been coined only relatively recently, a variety of formsof gender ambiguity can be found throughout history and in a huge range ofcultural contexts." The notion of inversion in the view of this feministand "queer" theorist refers in this context to gender inversion but mayhave relatively little or even nothing to do with homosexuality. Theheteronormative models, said Sullivan (116), are limited at best and quitesimply do not apply to all individuals. New York: New York University Press, 2 3, pp. As Sullivan(114) points out, many of the men and women who have chosen to becometransgendered have been met with violence or antipathy. There are women, for example, who are extremely hirsute andmen who have womanly mammary tissue. What Sullivan (1 ) suggests is that there are sexual intermediariesconsisting of men and women whose physiological characteristics are notnecessarily those commonly associated with the gender in which they arepositioned. Many transsexuals feel that they areliterally trapped in the wrong body (Sullivan, 1 5). Work CitedSullivan, Nikki. From a feministperspective, it is almost as if the challenge posed to patriarchy and itsinsistence on binary genders is too frightening to tolerate. They are fighting for therights of all individuals to define themselves with out the necessity ofobeying or recognizing very strict gender parameters. 99-118. Sullivan (1 6) suggests that there is clearly a subversive potentialinherent in transgender or transsexualism but for many individuals whochoose this strategy of dealing with their attitude toward their bodieswhat matters is "passing" successfully as the desired gender.

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