Gender Blending

Gender Blending

Bonnie Bullough, Ph.D., R.N., Vern L. Bullough, Ph.D., R.N., James Elias, Ph.D.

1997, Prometheus Books

504 Pages


From the Cover

A new trend in human sexuality has arisen in the recent past and phenomena ranging from cross-dressing to altering one's sex by undergoing everything from hormone therapy to radical surgery are becoming increasingly popular. In an effort to understand and assist in this revolution, studies are now being devoted to this fascinating area of life-style research.

Gender blending has a strong historical past - current concepts of cross-dressing and cross-gender behavior have their origins in the nineteenth century - but ignorance of what has gone before by both professionals and the general public has led to considerable misunderstanding. In fact, it wasn't until the Christine Jorgensen case in 1952 that the issue received widespread attention.

Transgenderism is a complex topic, and professionals can give no easy answers regarding motivation or anything else. Even those who call themselves transgenderists have different solutions to what they see as their own gender problem. In response to this confusing state of affairs, Bonnie Bullough, Vern Bullough, and James Elias have put together this collection of papers as an up-to-date account of the compelling trend that is rapidly altering the frontiers of human sexuality. Gender Blending represents a unique dialogue between those in the gender community and those who do research on or offer therapy to the members of that community. It is one of the few interdisciplinary works on the topic, and it could spell the beginning of a sexual renaissance.

The questions surrounding sexuality and gender are many and diverse. Some hints about solutions are offered in the various articles included here, but no final answers are yet available. This book, however, can help lead the way to determining what those answers might be.


Table of Contents

1. The Emergence of the Transgender Phenomenon

Transforming Transvestism and Transsexualism: Polarity, Politics, and Gender - Anne Bolin

Transgender: Some Historical, Cross-Cultural, and Contemporary Models and Methods of Coping and Treatment - Dallas Denny

Transgender Coming Out: Implications for the Clinical Management of Gender Dysphoria - Walter O. Bockting

The Transgender Paradigm Shift toward Free Expression - Holly Boswell

Beyond Appearances: Gendered Rationality and the Transgendered - Michael A. Gilbert

2. Transsexual Research and Comment

Narrating Ourselves: Duped or Duplicitous - Karen Nakamura

More Than Manly Women: How Female-to_Male Transsexuals Reject Lesbian Identities - Holly Devor

Self-Testing: A Check on Sexual Identity and Other Levels of Sexuality - Milton Diamond

Multiple Personality Order: A Response to Trauma and the Development of the Cross-Gender Experience - William A. Henkin

Dissociation as a Defense against Ego-Dystonic Transsexualism - David Seil

Feminist and Lesbian Opinions about Transsexuals - Monica Kendel, Holly Devor, and Nancy Strapko

3. Men Who Cross-Dress

Development of the Cross-Gender Lifestyle: Comparisons of Cross-Gendered Men with Heterosexual Controls - Mary Hogan-Finlay, Nicholas P. Spanos, and Bill Jones

Men Who Cross-Dress: A Survey - Bonnie Bullough and Vern Bullough

Culturally Universal Aspects of Male Homosexual Transvestites and Transsexuals - Frederick L. Whitam

The Transvestite's Lover: Identity and Behavior - Jacobo Schifter and Johnny Madrigal

4. Insights from History and Anthropology

The Gender Heresy of Akhenaten - Winnie Brant

The Gynemimetic Shaman: Evolutionary Origins of Male Sexual Inversion and Associated Talent - William Dragoin

The Balkan Sworn Virgin: A Traditional European Transperson - Mildren Dickemann

Wagner's "Letters to a Seamstress": Cross-Dressing, Egoism, and Polymorphous Perversity - Michael Saffle

A Historical Perspective of Christine Jorgensen and the Development of an Identity - Linda Heidenreich

5. Literary Treatment of the Phenomenon of Cross-Dressing

Saving Their Own Selves; Female-to-Male Cross-Dressing as a Means of Survival for Married Women in Two English plays - Keith Dorwick

"This Strange Way of Meeting": Theatricality and the New Woman in Hardy's The Return of the Native - Lisa Nakamura

The Boys Don't Count: Or Why Won't Shakespeare Put His Men in Dresses? - Lynn M. Thompson

"Just Man Enough to Play the Boy": Theatrical Cross-Dressing in Mid-Victorian England - Ellen Bayuk Rosenbaum

6. The Changing Face of the Transgender Community - Mariette Pathy Allen

7. Standards of Care

Results of a Questionnaire on the Standards of care of the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association - Dallas Denny and Jan Roberts

Revision of the Harry Benjamin Standards of Care in Progress - Friedemann Pfafflin

SRS Tomorrow: The Physical Continuum - Nancy Reynolds Nangeroni

Sex Reassignment Surgery in Male-to-Female Transsexuals: Client Satisfaction in Relation to Selection Criteria - Janis R. Walworth

8. Counseling and Treatment

Current State of Transsexual Surgery: A Brief Overview - Stanley H. Biber

Transsexualism in China in 1995 - Xia Zhaoji and Wang Chuanmin, Reported by Vern Bullough

Patterns in and Treatments for Gender Dysphoria - Gretchen Finke and Roger Northway

The Hotline Call, or "How to Do a Year's Psychotherapy in Thirty Minutes or less" - Yvonne Cook-Riley

Religion and Cross-Gender Behavior: Wellspring of Hope or Swamp of Despair? - Kathryn J. Helms

The Use of Dance/Movement in the Adjustment to a New Gender Role - Jayne Thomas and Annette Cardona

Gender Attitude Reassessment Program (GARP) - Ariadne Kane

9. Law and Legal Issues

Law and Transsexualism - Louis H. Swartz

Legislating for Transsexual Rights: A Prescriptive Form - Stephen Whittle

Cross-Dressing in the United Kingdom: The Law - Richard Green

Insurance and the Reimbursement of Transgender Health Care - Lisa Middleton

10. Personal Observations

Seventy Years in the Trenches of the Gender Wars - Virginia Prince

Fighting the Battles - Michele Kammerer

Metamorphosis: Man in the Making (A Personal and Political Perspective) - Rupert Raj

The Inner Dimensions of Gender Transformation - Lee Etscovitz

Transsexuality and Religion: A Personal Journey - Karen F. Kroll

A Legal path of Androgyny - Lynn Edward Harris

What is a Transgenderist? - Kymberleigh Richards

Appendix: Standards of Care