We’ll be posting the contents of his presentation over the next few weeks, in tasty bite sized morsels, and the full presentation (with all its references intact) will be available to download at the end of the series.

Todays post, is beyond the jump:

Introduction
It’s been very interesting for me to have spent the last two days at a “mens’ health” conference – where I’ve heard lots of discussion and debate about the definition of “health”. But I’ve heard no discussion or debate around the definition of “men”. The reason for this, of course, is that most of us tend to assume that the definition of “man” is completely self evident and unproblematic.

That’s not the only thing we assume. We assume, when we say the word “man” that all people are, categorically, either male or female. We assume that the attributes that make a man a man are clear, definable, biological, fixed, and that they are categorically different from those characteristics that make somebody a woman. We believe these things to be true to such an extent that we assume that every time we meet someone, no matter how briefly, we will instantly “know” whether they are a man or a woman. And having just met a complete stranger and decided that they are a man, we assume that they identify as a man, that they are happy with this identity, that they always have been a man, that they always will be a man. We assume things about the chromosomes in every cell of their body; about the hormones that are inside their body; and about what their very body looks like underneath their clothes.

None of these assumptions are true all of the time, and this is what I’ll be talking about in this series.

Terminology and Prevalence

Intersex people can be defined as people for whom the development of chromosomal, gonadal, or anatomic sex is not aligned with our notions of a sexually binary biology. That is, there are biological physical differences that “can be seen as both male and female at once, not wholly male or female, neither male or female, or other ways of being that are not captured by current sex binary”. Estimates of the number of intersex people commonly vary from 1:100 to 1:2000 depending on the types of conditions included.

Gender identity is an individual’s internal sense of being a man, a woman, or another gender. Trans people can be defined as people whose gender identity is outside or crosses the social norms of ‘man’ or ‘woman’. I use the term “trans” here to explicitly include people identifying as transsexual, transgender, or genderqueer. Accurate estimates of the number of trans people are also difficult to obtain – most research uses a far narrower definition of “trans” and suggests the prevalence as somewhere between 1:4,500 and 1:8,000. A Gender Agenda’s membership in Canberra suggests that even this figure is an underestimate, and that estimates of 1:500 is probably more accurate.

Virtually no data is captured for trans people who do not seek medical treatment for gender affirmation. The growing number of people who identify as gender queer are essentially unacknowledged in any prevalence statistics. Due to the intense level of stigma associated with sex and gender variance, many intersex and trans people are often invisible to the general population and service providers for fear of discrimination and ridicule.

Terminology is hotly contested and culturally variable. For the sake of brevity and clarity I will be using the term “Sex and Gender Diverse”. This term is used with the specific intent of being inclusive not only of intersex and trans people but also of anyone who ‘falls through the gaps” of our binary sex model.

There is a common misconception that sex and gender diverse people can be identified “by the way they look”. This is generally untrue, and paradoxically, much of the inappropriate health care offered to sex and gender diverse people comes about because they are not visibly identifiable.

Some specific examples health services need to be aware of are that:

Someone presenting as male, who you identify as being unquestionably male may:

• have functioning female reproductive capacity
• require regular pap smears and/or be at risk of ovarian cancer
• identify as a woman

Someone presenting as female, who you identify as being unquestionably female may:

• be at risk of prostate cancer
• be at high risk levels for other ‘mens health” issues
• want to be perceived as male

Unfortunately most people who are part of the sex and gender diverse community know only too well what it feels like to have our names and identities be a very bad word, to have our identity thrown at us as if its a grave insult. I’ve had emails get caught up in my spam filter, I’ve had Google Mail step in and refuse to send an email because it was suspected of being offensive. Just because my identity is also a dirty, filthy, spam-trap-triggering keyword.

I think that this is one of the key reasons that identity labels are so hotly contested in the sex and gender diverse community.

The Gender Centre defines Transgender as:

Transgender means anyone who lives, has lived, or wants to live as a member of the opposite gender (sex) to their birth gender.
In the past, the common term for transgender has been transsexual. However, in general, people who are transgender prefer to use the term transgender as this is a more accurate reflection of their identity or behaviour – that is, that they want to live and behave as a member of the opposite gender to their birth gender, not the opposite sexuality, sexual preference or sexual orientation. A transgender, just like anyone else, may be heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual.

However, under the Discrimination Act 1991, a “transsexual” is defined as meaning:

a person of one sex who—
(a) assumes the bodily characteristics of the other sex, whether by means of medical intervention or otherwise; or
(b) identifies himself or herself as a member of the other sex or lives, or seeks to live, as a member of that other sex.

That to me sounds like a very similar definition. Sometimes even when someone is asked what the difference is, its still not clear. FTM Australia says that the difference is quite easy to understand:

“A transgender individual takes hormones to appear as one gender or another; a transsexual person takes hormones and undergoes surgery as rehabilitation for a physical condition.”

I still don’t get it though.

Even the psychiatrists can’t decide who is transsexual, who is transgender, who is a transvestite, and who is just a filthy pervert with a fetish for ladies lingerie. The medical industry also draws lines between ‘primary’ transsexuals and ’secondary’ transsexuals. Harry Benjamin himself had a scale of transsexuals, TRUE transsexuals, and everyone else.

I find the idea of categorising someone elses identity extremely problematic, and it is often used as a way of privileging one identity over another. Doctors like to withhold treatment from those people they suspect aren’t ‘trans*whatever enough’ and because its thrown as us constantly by everyone else, sometimes we end up turning on each other and saying “So and so had surgery, but she’s really a ‘post-operative transvestite’ not a TRUE transsexual/real woman/whatever”. Its just not cool.

You wont see the words transsexual and transgender used as much as would probably be expected by A Gender Agenda. We prefer to cut off the end, and refer to people being ‘trans’ or someone being a ‘trans person’. It helps us stay clear of the debate, and be inclusive, without having to define terms that no one can agree on anyway.

What is most important, is how you define yourself. If you define as a woman, or woman of transsexual history, then you are a woman to us. If you define as third gendered, intersex, or genderqueer? No worries. We’ll respect that too. If you define as a ‘trans identified FTM’, we can respect that. Respect is important, and there is no place for being judgemental about other peoples identities within A Gender Agenda, or at any of our events. We want to be warm and welcoming, you need not worry about not passing, or not being ‘trans enough’ to join. We even welcome woman-identified women, and man-identified men, if they respect our cause, and want to work for change along side us. Its not only people that transgress gender boundaries as radically as those who transition that experience discrimination for expressing their gender differently.

Names are important, they help us communicate. In the end though, its the communication thats important, not the name itself. Labels are only useful when we are free to apply them without judgement, and express ourselves freely no matter what label we have claimed for ourselves.