Graceful Bodies and the Play of Gender

September 15, 2014

DignityUSA

By <a href=https://www.dignityusa.org/content/authors-james-and-evelyn-whitehead>James and Evelyn Whitehead</a> <blockquote> It is you who formed my inmost parts. You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. (Psalm 139) </blockquote> <img alt= src=/sites/default/files/images/Flower5.png style=float:right; height:244px; width:300px />Catholics of an earlier generation were taught that as infants we begin life already marked by original sin. This wound we learned stains the soul and is registered in the body particularly in the lustful urges that may lead to sins of the flesh. We begin life as damaged goods. Many Catholics today turn away from this dire interpretation of the human condition. We recall an earlier scriptural conviction: we are born in grace. As the events of the biblical creation story unfold the Creator’s judgment rings out again and again: “this is good!” Here at the start of creation there is no sin. Sin would follow soon enough but does not share the stage at the very beginning. The biblical account of our origins also records a world enriched by a dazzling diversity. In its first exuberant stirrings “this is good!” applied to all of God’s handiwork. This recognition of both creation’s goodness and its profound variety grounds a reflection on gender diversity. For many of us confronting questions of gender diversity is confusing. Last month a member of the parish whom you have known for years confided that he had begun hormone treatment. Charles described this decision as difficult but life- giving; he is now able to affirm this deepening conviction. At the core of his sense of self his identity Charles knows himself to be a woman. Asking for your support Charles used the term “transgender.” You’re not sure what that actually means but it sounds ominous. The suggestion that you should now call her Clarissa left you speech- less. How shall you respond to this information? How can you best support your friend through the transition ahead? What does the community of faith have to learn from and to contribute to this potentially perilous journey? <h3>The Play of Gender</h3> <img alt= src=/sites/default/files/images/Flower6_0.png style=float:left; height:374px; margin-left:5px; margin-right:5px; width:250px />Our understanding of gender the images and expectations that define being a woman or a man is always shaped by the surrounding culture. Western cultures have long recognized that gender has a certain flexibility even if only in fun. In Shakespeare’s time convention held that all the roles in public dramas were played by men. So the character of Ophelia in Hamlet would be portrayed by a male actor in woman’s clothes; this practice provided an initial cultural statement about gender roles and rules. And in a number of Shakespeare’s plays Twelfth Night for example we meet characters who switch genders for comedic effect. The gender-swaps in these scenarios were playful and without any challenge to larger cultural convention. Yet even in these make-believe plots the malleability of gender is acknowledged. As we are entertained we are invited to loosen our sense of the boundaries that divide the genders. On the stage this is all in fun. But effective drama can be more than make-believe; it can test the leeway in our imagining of the world. However playful the presentation subtle questions are being raised. Can you imagine your life in the other gender? Comedies from Shakespeare to Hollywood regularly turn to gender confusions as exercises in mistaken identity with suggestions of sex adding spice to the scenario. In 1982 American moviegoers were treated to two variations on Shakespeare’s playfulness. Julie Andrews in the film Victor/Victoria and Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie both portrayed gender-switching roles. With well-established celebrities at their core these performances raised no serious questions of gender. These films were experiments in comedic cross-dressing rather than vehicles that raised substantive issues of gender identity. A decade later the actress Tilda Swinton appeared in the film Orlando. In this adaptation of Virginia Wolff’s allegorical novel the central character lives for four hundred years the first half as a man the second half as a woman. Wolff’s central theme is announced as half way through the film Orlando shifts from man to woman. Swinton stands naked and speaks to the camera: “same person; different sex.” Her androgynous physique supports Swinton’s role in embodying both genders. This film then raises the stakes higher suggesting that such a transformation is conceivable. Its provocative mood seems to ask “Want to make something of it?” <img alt= src=/sites/default/files/images/Flower7_0.png style=float:right; height:389px; margin-left:5px; margin-right:5px; width:300px />At the end of the last century a yet more challenging movie appeared. In 1999 Hilary Swank earned an Oscar as best actress in the film Boys Don’t Cry. Here she is cast as a young woman determined to live as a man. Now we are not to be entertained by a comedy but instead confronted with a searing tragic story. For Swank’s character in the film the decision to present herself as a young man was met initially with violence and ultimately with her death. This film acknowledges that the lives of transgender persons are not a laughing matter. The drama here raises disquieting questions of morality less about the propriety of sexual conduct than about the violence so often provoked around questions of gender identity. As the United Methodist document Made in God’s Image observes “The problem is not in being different but in living in a fearful condemning world.” While Americans were going to the movies real life events also raised questions of gender diversity. In 1975 Richard Raskind underwent sex reassignment (now described as gender-confirming) surgery becoming Renee Richards.  As a male Raskind excelled at tennis at the high school level and again at Yale University. Raskind had later served in the Navy and eventually became an eye surgeon. He married and fathered one son. After surgery Renee Richards was denied entry as a woman in the 1976 US Tennis Open Tournament. She sued and in a landmark judgment on transgender rights the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in her favor. More recently Americans observed the publicity surrounding Chaz Bono the transgender son of musical celebrities Sonny and Cher. Known earlier as Chastity Bono he transitioned to living as a transman completing gender- confirming surgery in 2008. These developments along with many similar experiences in both public and private lives have led to an expanded cultural awareness of issues that are significant for transgender persons. There is now a record of individuals who have successfully navigated gender transition and of support groups to assist transgender persons in finding their way to a more integrated and healthy life. This information gives the current generation a distinct advantage in approaching their own life decisions. Resources on the internet connect those who had previously felt isolated and marginalized. The younger generation is also likely to suffer less from the religious condemnation that has haunted so many transgender persons in earlier generations. Our reflection here focuses on the continuing concerns of many trans individuals across the generations who await a more compassionate response from their culture and their religious traditions. Most of us have grown up with a sense that gender divides naturally into “two and only two” categories: male and female. But if we pay attention we notice that the human community displays a considerable variety—in both gender identity and self-presentation. Our society idolizes public figures who so thoroughly embody cultural gender ideals that they resemble caricatures of feminine and masculine. Consider Dolly Parton and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Others in public life or the media live out more nuanced versions of humanity; here the musician Prince comes to mind. In our own communities we are aware of effective male counselors and pastoral ministers whose demeanor empathic nurturing and comfortable with a range of emotions does not fit the cultural stereotype of masculinity. And we meet women leaders whose determined style of decision-making and conflict resolution distinguishes them from stereotypes of femininity. Such variety unsettles us only if we continue to embrace a rigid non-negotiable view of human nature. <h3>Transgender Lives</h3> <blockquote> Gender identity...is our own deeply held conviction and deeply felt inner awareness that we belong to one gender or the other. This awareness is firmly in place by the time we are five years old. Gender identity is private and internal. It is felt not seen. (Mildred Brown and Chloe Ann Rounsley) </blockquote> For the vast majority of individuals inner gender identity and physical embodiment are well matched. For transgender persons that is not the case. Transgender persons “are individuals who strongly feel that they are or ought to be the opposite sex. The body they are born with does not match their own inner conviction and mental image of who they are or want to be. Nor are they comfortable with the gender role society expects them to play based on that body.” The desire to harmonize physical appearance with their inner identity may find expression in adopting clothing styles appropriate to their deeper sense of gender.  <img alt= src=/sites/default/files/images/Flower8_0.png style=float:right; height:167px; margin-left:5px; margin-right:5px; width:250px />Some individuals have from early childhood a strong sense of discomfort with the gender assigned to them at birth. Others may experience a sense of incongruity but are unable to define this until later in life. Whether in their twenties or fifties or even later many transgender persons experience a deepening sense of disconnect between their assigned gender and their interior sense of themselves. Social pressure may have ensured that this realization was suppressed for decades. Often this disconnect is described as gender dysphoria: a person’s “extreme discomfort with and sense of dissonance with the gender assigned at birth. The feeling is often persistent continuing over a long period of time and is not alleviated by other treatments such as counseling.” (Justin Tanis) We are more aware today that gender and anatomy are not the same. And we are more conscious of the fact that gender is a blend of both social norms and inherent core identity. Every human fetus starts out with a similar set of gonads thus with the potential to become either a girl or a boy. Later under the influence of specific hormones the fetus develops a vagina with labia and clitoris or a scrotum with testicles and a penis. The first formation of gender then takes place before we are born under the influence of prenatal hormones that influence the fetal brain. While we are afloat in our mother’s womb our tiny bodies and brains are awash in these hormones. Powerful chemicals prompt the gradual development of male or female genitalia as well as inscribing a sense of gender identity in our tiny brains. A developmental psychologist describes this evolution: “How do we get a boy brain or a girl brain? On the basis of our hormone receptors. It is determined by how we absorb the hormones that come to us as we float around in our mother’s uterus.... Sometime in the first trimester for example the male fetus begins producing sex hormones that bathe his brain in testosterone for the rest of his gestation producing a boy brain.” (Diane Ehrensaft) Most often the baby’s anatomy will match the brain’s sense of gender identity. But not always. Most transgender individuals as early as childhood experience a powerful and enduring dissonance between the gender that their body displays and their interior sense of themselves. For many this search for gender integrity will entail a long and painful struggle. Spiritual health depends on a sorting out of this disconnect and moving toward integrity in their experience of gender identity. Hilary Howes a transgender person describes her own struggle: “Blessed by our Creator with male genitalia and a female brain I struggled to relate to a society that saw me as male until age 40 when I transitioned to live as a woman. It was an authentic and mid-life transition to integrate my mind and body that many who knew me supported and even called courageous inspiring and ethical.” Howes acknowledges the support she received from many who were close to her. She goes on to report the judgmental attitude of many others: “But this uniquely personal act through the eyes of the 99.5 percent of people who are blessed to have their gender and sex match has been seen as a political act a psychological disorder a character flaw a weakness a perversion and a sin.” With or without support many transgender persons begin the process of transition moving toward a more public embrace of the gender that fits the inner sense of self. In the transgender community “transition” is understood as a verb: the courageous effort to integrate one’s inner gender identity with outward gender expression. Psychologist Mildred Brown describes this movement  <img alt= src=/sites/default/files/images/Flower9_0.png style=border-style:solid; border-width:3px; float:left; height:303px; margin-left:5px; margin-right:5px; width:200px />in her clients: “Transitioning – going from living as one gender to living as the other – is incredibly exciting for transsexuals.” Now the person “is free to live in the appropriate gender role and to move toward becoming whole.” The good news is that stories of successful transition from the gender assigned at birth to the gender that fits the person’s abiding sense of identity are becoming more common and more widely available. Hilary Howes describes the fruit of her transition: “Transitioning allows us to share with society the gender personality that we have been from the start. It avoids the false-selves we developed to live as others expected us to based on our external bodies.” This transition may begin as early as childhood with or without the support of family members and helping professionals. Some trans persons begin their transition in young adulthood as they move toward greater independence in lifestyle and work. Perhaps more traumatic is the transition in mid-life for persons deeply imbedded in public commitments of marriage and career. But growing evidence suggests that when no action is taken (due either to personal hesitancies or external threats) serious depression is likely to follow. Melissa described this movement in her own life. “My feelings about myself quickly progressed from frustration to anger to self-hatred to worthlessness to my possibly being a sinner who was doomed to spend eternity in hell. My life wasn’t worth living and I couldn’t stand myself any longer. Thoughts of suicide which I also knew to be morally wrong began to grow.” (Communication to authors) In transition a person takes steps to give more public expression to the inner sense of self. Usually the shift is not an abrupt movement from one social identity to another but a gradual often tentative effort to adopt the behavior patterns that better fit the authentic sense of self. And for some this shift does not demand a rejection of one’s former self. A trans person explains her desire to bring with her the best of her past that was lived as John: “I’m not trying to make John disappear... there’s a lot of useful things in John. He gets the job done and he got me this far but that’s not who I am now.” Resolving such a dilemma becomes for many trans persons a spiritual journey marked by significant passages. For some this becomes also a journey of faith. The Bible introduces us to religious ancestors who escaped slavery in Egypt to find new life only by passing through a harrowing desert. In every life we can expect similar desert journeys: periods of loss times of letting go seasons of absence when we are bereft of our accustomed comfort and confidence. Disorientation and vulnerability are expectable companions on the journey of faith. But a drive deep in human nature more potent than shame or addiction moves many transgender persons to search out an integration long desired the harmony of inner self and outer self-expression. By the grace of God a person begins the liberating journey to heal this deep-seated dissonance.  <img alt= src=/sites/default/files/images/Flower10_0.png style=float:right; height:201px; margin-left:5px; margin-right:5px; width:300px />We believe that life in the Spirit links us with a mysterious surprising extravagant Creator. Fashioned out of dust we are “born in the image of God.” (Gen.1:27) But what does this mean? It cannot be in our maleness or femaleness that we reflect God since the Most High who is revealed to us in Scripture is not gendered. But humans are born with capacities for love and compassion and justice; we possess the potential to be courageous and generous and forgiving. Surely these are the qualities that most reflect the image of God in us. The challenge today is to disengage our lives as reflections of God from the cultural constraints of gender. As we are able to do this our eyes open to the extravagant diversity of creation. In a life of discipleship as we follow the path of Jesus Christ cultural differences and prejudices begin to fall away. We come to see that human nature is not simply a biologically determined essence; we recognize that “the natural is not primarily what we are given but rather what we are called to become.” We become more capable of welcoming those who differ from us even those whom society has rejected. In our support for transgender persons compassion and justice embrace as we glimpse intimations of the coming Reign of God.   <table border=3 cellpadding=1 cellspacing=1> <tbody> <tr> <td> <h3>Resources</h3> Ann Thompson Made in God’s Image. Publication of Dumbarton United Methodist Church Washington D.C. 2003. Brown M. and Rounsley C. A. True Selves: Understanding Transsexualism. San Francisco Jossey- Bass 1996. Diane Ehrensaft’s Gender Born Gender Made New York: The Experiment 2011. Hilary Howes’ reflections appear in her essay “To Be or Not to Be: A Catholic Transsexual Speaks.” Conscience (2010) Vol. XXXI No. 2 42-43. Justin Tanis Transgender: Theology Ministry and Communities of Faith. Cleveland: Pilgrim Press 2003.  </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <a href=https://www.dignityusa.org/content/publications-committee-chair�s-note>Publications Committee Chair’s Note�</a>

Graceful Bodies and the Play of Gender

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