Sexing the Body

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           The film Boys Don't Cry follows the story of a transgender man in the United States. The film provides a look into the conflict that is often caused by people who challenge the typical rules our society has created about sex and gender. In the United States we have established, as argued by the text, “Sexing the Body” by Anne Fausto-Sterling, two distinct sexes and genders. So, when people deviate away from these categories, others often begin to feel threatened, they begin to feel that it is their place to intervene in the individual's life.

          The trailer for this film begins by quoting a statistic, “in 1993 7,587 hate crimes were committed in America”. A hate crime is one, usually of violent nature, that is based on some sort of prejudice. Through the weight of this statistic, viewers are taught that abnormality is something that is very clearly frowned upon in our culture. People that vary too much from American ideologies are likely to experience some form of discrimination and may even be the victim of a hate crime. As the clip progresses, the scenes become more violent, and people begin confronting Brandon yelling, “are you or are you not [a woman]”? This montage of violence and anger is driven by the confusion of other characters as they discover Brandon is legally defined as a female by sex. They make claims that he is “weird” and a “liar” for having presented himself as a man. The characters' use of these terms demonstrates their own understandings about what is “normal”, and how much they value normalcy. The trailer is concluded with the narrator claiming the story is one about “the courage it takes to be yourself”. Through this statement, the narrator is finalizing the argument that being too different in our society is viewed as a negative thing, and if one wishes to truly be themselves and express their uniqueness they need to be prepared with a lot of inner strength.

          This concept, as mentioned earlier, is one that was discussed in Fausto-Sterling's article. In the text, the author provides many examples of hermaphroditic individuals who are operated on without consent. This is driven by the imposition of others who believe it is their right to make a hermaphrodite “normal”. As one person stated, after being operated on against her will, “I was born uniquely hermaphroditic – and from the bottom of my heart I wish I'd been allowed to stay that way” (84). Then, later in the article, a woman makes the argument that, “Sex categories should be removed from all basic identification papers...the right of each person to define their own sex is so basic...why are physical genitals necessary for identification?”(111). This concept of self-identification is expressed in Boys Don't Cry as the characters refuse to accept Brandon's own definition of himself, and instead yank his pants down to see what genitals he has. Much like the people in the article, the characters felt it was their right to define another individual's sex on their own terms.

          People feel threatened by difference because it challenges their own understanding of themselves. It is through cultural norms and ideologies that people are able to pinpoint and define exactly who they are. Therefore, people that are outside of this system tend to make others feel uncomfortable because they are forced to confront their current understanding of themselves and the world.  For this reason, it is difficult for people to adopt a different understanding of sex and gender, and it becomes an issue that is very difficult to address within society.  The understanding of sex and gender is so fundamental that a suggestion to change (as the Fausto-Sterling suggests) is not easy.  For everyone to feel truly comfortable with each other's variations, they must be able to define themselves without the reliance upon others for comparison.

Reading:
Fausto-Sterling, Anne 2000. Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality. New York: Basic Books. Pp. 78-114.