Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Thoughts on Gender

G has been working occasionally on a friend's movie about a female to male trans-sexual so I've been mulling over my thoughts on the topic for the past few months.

I can get behind the idea that an individual feels that their gender was somehow miss-assigned at birth. Since we live in a society that defines so much of a person's being based solely on their gender I can see how someone would feel that this miss-assignment needed to be rectified. I'm completely ok with someone deciding to live life as the opposite gender but when the issues of hormone replacement and surgery enter the picture I start feeling a little less sure of what's "ok".

I can't get behind cosmetic surgery when it comes to bigger boobs or thinner thighs. If a friend were to tell me that they were born with the wrong nose and wanted to correct this error by having a much cuter nose surgically installed I would advise them to learn to love the nose they were given and, perhaps more importantly, to reevaluate how important a cute nose is to their sense of self. In general I think that we should be happy with who we are and try to avoid surgery or chemically altering our bodies if they're not broken. I guess, ultimately, I'm not sure if i consider a miss-assigned gender a broken body. I'm a girl, inside and out so it's hard for me to relate to wanting to change my gender but I can't imagine cutting apart a body that has supported me my whole life.

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