Other

Whenever I fill out a form for something, there always seems to be an "other" option for many of the categories, such as occupation, education, race, household income. However, this "other" category on forms is never seen for the sex question; according to these forms, you're either male or female, or your form is incomplete.

Leslie Feinberg's essay We Are All Works In Progress was a very compelling and informative piece on the struggles faced by people in the trans community. The most important thing that I learned from this essay is that you have to abandon fear if you want to make any progress. As silly as this may sound, sometimes I regret that I am not a woman of color, or a lesbian, or a transgender person, or someone who otherwise lives in the interstices of categories, because it makes me feel like I have nothing to fight for, and it makes me fear that I’m not “different enough” to discuss differences with people who are perceived as “more different” than me. But Feinberg completely turned that around, when ze stated that "if you do not identify as transgender or transsexual or intersexual, your life is diminished by our oppressions well…Your individual journey to express yourself is shunted into one of two deeply carved ruts, and the social baggage you are handed is already packed" (Feinberg, 6). Ze is totally right. While I currently don't feel particularly oppressed in my life, I still have to stay within the very narrow path of "woman" in order to, according to the world, be successful, happy, and truly fulfilled. And to make progress in this movement, I have to abandon the fear that members of the movement would reject me for not belonging to the trans community. The trans community has to abandon the fear that they will not make progress. As for the rest of the world, I think they have to abandon the fear that different means wrong, and welcome change.

The Shuklenk, et al article discusses genetic research on homosexuality and uncovers yet another way we try to compartmentalize sexuality and what “causes” variations in sex and sexuality. The article said something about biases that really struck me: “…it is unlikely that the sexual orientation research of any scientist (even one who is homosexual) will escape some taint of homophobia” (Shuklenk et al, from IWS, p. 48). This interested me because I had not previously thought of what a homosexual scientist’s reasoning would be for wanting to do genetic research on homosexuality. But after I read both this article and Feinberg’s essay, it occurred to me that a homosexual scientist conducting research on homosexuality seems to be just as compelled to find an “answer” as a heterosexual scientist, which means that the homosexual scientist still believes there’s an explainable reason for his/her/[other!] difference, or that the difference needs to have a reason. I wonder if we will ever reach a stage where we believe differences exist because human existence is an extensive pallet of experiences, not because something went wrong somewhere to cause the difference.

Trying to erase the line between man and woman, and open the eyes of the world to the idea that there are not just two compartments, but many compartments…that's a task that will take a lot of time. But is worth fighting for, for the sake of justice and equality and celebration of humanity.

Great 20/20 story on Transgender Children: read or watch