Gender Subjectivity

So I read the article “Vested Interests” by Marjorie Garber and I had a few things come to mind that I wanted to discuss and pick apart.

Gender subjectivity.  What is it?

Subjectivity: “refers to a subject’s perspective or opinion, particularly feelings, beliefs, and desires. It is often used casually to refer to unjustified personal opinions, in contrast to knowledge and justified belief. In philosophy, the term is often contrasted with objectivity.” (Source: Wikipedia)

So gender subjectivity, based on that definition and the article is what outside forces shape the definition of what exactly is gender.  For example: what does society see when defining a certain gender?  Females wearing make-up, dresses, long hair, etc.  Gender subjectivity is any social stigma attached to either being male or female and has nothing to do with genetics in my mind.

On that note I bring up gender identity, which is the self-affiliation a person makes with being of a certain gender.  It is what a person feels they fit into as far as gender and again as nothing to do with genetics.  They may be genetically male but feel they should be female or vise versa.

As far as Myra goes, she switches…  I know Vidal does this to explore the roles of both genders and change the way the sexes work in the traditional sense.  I thought it was interesting how the article talked about Renee Richards and how she switched from being a man, to a woman, to a man and finally ended with being a woman again.  I wish the article talked a little bit more about Myra.  It refers to the film but only briefly and I felt the author would have been better suited talking about the book and the Myra/Myron gender flip flop.

The bit in the article about gender reassignment surgery was interesting since it provided some insight from people who have actually had such surgery take place.  It’s a strange topic that most would stay away from but I found it an interesting oddity (mostly because I know someone who I used to go to school with who actually had a sex change).  It led me to do some digging.  I found an interesting page on the surgery with a video about gender identity. http://health.howstuffworks.com/gender-reassignment.htm

The next link gives definitions about the types of surgery and also near the bottom images.  We’re all adults here but I gave a fair warning on what lurks on this page.
http://plasticsurgeryphotos.blogspot.com/2007/11/sexual-reassignment-surgery-sex-change.html

So yeah, I enjoyed the article for the most part.  I just expected there to be more about Myra.

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