epublishing store: Intro

Sexual Health eBook Volume4
Chapter 8

Gender Variability. Transsexuals, Crossdressers, and Others, Dallas Denny, Jamison Green, & Sandra Cole

In the Western world, gender variance has long been associated and confused with sexual orientation. Gender variance occurs in human beings when a malebodied individual expresses or displays, consciously or unconsciously, a preponderance of characteristics that are typically associated with femaleness or femininity, and the reverse for a female-bodied individual. Feminine-appearing men have long been thought to be homosexual, and it has been a common misperception that masculine women are “trying” or generally “wanting” to be men so they might legitimately demonstrate their erotic attraction to women. These stereotypes have long plagued homosexual, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual and transgendered people.

Gender identity is a person’s concept of herself as masculine or feminine; gender expression is the gender-based characteristics that a person displays as part of his outward social interactions. There is no direct correlation between gender identity and sexual orientation. There are gay men who are very masculine, lesbians who are very feminine, bisexual people who are not confused about who they are or to whom they are attracted, and transgendered people who are heterosexual (and bisexual, and homosexual).

The classic notion of a transsexual is “a man in a dress,” and there seems to be a general sense that transgender is the new, politically correct word for transsexual. This is a narrow, oversimplified view. There is so much more to gender variance. If we are to understand gender variance and how it differs from and compliments human sexuality, we must clarify what transgender means, and particularly what it means to be transsexual or transgendered in the modern world.

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