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homosexuality within transsexuality

2009 February 8
by lparrish

Hausman’s article left my head reeling with questions.  Here are the two which struck me the most.

Why is it that Bernice Hausman’s article made a point of stating that all transsexuals were not homosexual.  I hope I misunderstood or misread this “fact” within the article.  It seems to me that if transsexualism is a state which has nothing to do with one’s sexual desires but is about the way one identifies himself as a certain sex/gender, then whether or not the individual is homosexual or heterosexual is not a mutually exclusive factor.  If one is born with male genitalia but knows oneself to be a woman (a transwoman, if you will) then why does the Hausman article seem to make it an impossibility for her to also be attracted to women?

The other question the article posed for me was this:  If television is an important technology which has played a role in proving transsexualism is “normal” (all questions of ‘normal’ vs ‘natural’ aside), then how can it be that Hausman places the sole importance of the categorization and understanding of transsexualism within the context of the medical community?

One Response
  1. Anne permalink*
    February 8, 2009

    You’re right, of course, that gender identity and sexual preference operate on two different–as you say, not “mutually exclusive”–axes. Amazing, then, how often the two dimensions get conflated. See the story that Simran just uncovered re: transpeople in Iran.

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