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Changing Sex: Transsexualism, Technology, and the Idea of Gender, by Bernice L. Hausman
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Changing Sex takes a bold new approach to the study of transsexualism in the twentieth century. By addressing the significance of medical technology to the phenomenon of transsexualism, Bernice L. Hausman transforms current conceptions of transsexuality as a disorder of gender identity by showing how developments in medical knowledge and technology make possible the emergence of new subjectivities.
Hausman’s inquiry into the development of endocrinology and plastic surgery shows how advances in medical knowledge were central to the establishment of the material and discursive conditions necessary to produce the demand for sex change—that is, to both "make" and "think" the transsexual. She also retraces the hidden history of the concept of gender, demonstrating that the semantic distinction between "natural" sex and "social" gender has its roots in the development of medical treatment practices for intersexuality—the condition of having physical characteristics of both sexes— in the 1950s. Her research reveals the medical institution’s desire to make heterosexual subjects out of intersexuals and indicates how gender operates semiotically to maintain heterosexuality as the norm of the human body. In critically examining medical discourses, popularizations of medical theories, and transsexual autobiographies, Hausman details the elaboration of "gender narratives" that not only support the emergence of transsexualism, but also regulate the lives of all contemporary Western subjects. Changing Sex will change the ways we think about the relation between sex and gender, the body and sexual identity, and medical technology and the idea of the human.
- Sales Rank: #622488 in Books
- Brand: Hausman, Bernice L.
- Published on: 1995-11-06
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.50" h x 6.25" w x .75" l, .97 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 264 pages
Review
"Changing Sex makes a landmark contribution to gender studies and the understanding of transsexualism. It is thorough and accessible in its combination of medical analysis, social criticism, and application of critical theory. It is original and provocative, and will be controversial in the best sense."—Julia Epstein, Haverford College
"Building upon earlier critiques of the medical management of gender, Hausman provides a rich analysis of the significance of technology on this century’s shift from looking for the "true" sex to the "best" one. Having tracked down valuable and fascinating sources, she gives a previously neglected historical perspective on transsexualism and intersexuality. Gender scholars from every discipline will find this book important."—Suzanne Kessler, Purchase College, State University of New York
From the Back Cover
"Building upon earlier critiques of the medical management of gender, Hausman provides a rich analysis of the significance of technology on this century's shift from looking for the "true" sex to the "best" one. Having tracked down valuable and fascinating sources, she gives a previously neglected historical perspective on transsexualism and intersexuality. Gender scholars from every discipline will find this book important."--Suzanne Kessler, Purchase College, State University of New York
About the Author
Bernice L. Hausman is Assistant Professor of English at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia.
Most helpful customer reviews
55 of 58 people found the following review helpful.
A book that will delight those who detest transsexual people
By A Customer
It has always bothered me when someone writes a book which attacks the being of people with a different outlook on existence. It frustrates
me a whole lot more when the person writing the text does so in the name of philosophy, cultural anthropology or sociology. When that person espouses her opinions without having all the facts, it makes me sad. But when the author doesn't have all the facts because she has failed to do her homework, it makes me angry.
Ms. Hausman has indeed done some homework in writing this tome. Anyone needing to know about the history of gender in the first two thirds of this century will find it quite useful, provided that they can get past the way she has chosen to emphasize certain aspects of the discourse. The problem is that she uses this "history" as she
has constructed it to vilify a group of people. Her goal, as near as I can tell, is to contribute to the deconstruction of gender. What is sad is that she truly seems to believe that the way to do this is to destruct the being of transsexual people.
The best thing about this text, from my admittedly biased position as a transsexual woman, is that it is such a difficult read that very few people are going to struggle through it. Ms. Hausman never uses a small word where a big one will do. And none but the heartiest gender theorist is likely to comprehend her chain of logic (or illogic, as the case may be). Unfortunately, that is still too many people in my opinion.
The author's point, I gather, is that if it weren't for the existence of transsexual people and intersexual people (which I will identify
as a group by the term "gender variant") and the medical and psychological professionals who studied them in the earlier in this century, the modern concept of gender would not exist. And
eradication of the concept of gender and gender stereotypes is considered a Good Thing in Ms. Hausman's view.
Ms. Hausman seems to view transsexualism as some sort of monolithic evil because of the way it reinforces gender stereotypes. The fatal flaw in her vigorous attack, however, lies in her unadulterated stereotyping of transsexual folk. The use of stereotyping to counter the existence of stereotypes hardly seems to be a rational approach. It strikes me rather as an academic way of saying "So's your mama!" Time and again, the author misses the point since she has already
decided what her conclusion is going to be and refuses to let anything (such as fairness or facts) stand in her way. I can only hope that other readers find the text as truly distasteful as I did.
I am truly amazed that the author could spend as much time and effort studying the phenomenon of gender variance as she obviously did in producing this work and yet could gain so little insight into actual gender variant people. But the reason why this happened is clear. Ms. Hausman studied gender variance by reading the works of non-gender-variant people which described the phenomenon (she did also attend a conference of the International Foundation for Gender Education and found the tenor to be quite homophobic, but apparently failed to notice that IFGE is primarily an organization by and for transvestites). This is rather like studying the inhabitants of colonized areas by restricting oneself to reading the works of the colonizers.
To be sure, Ms. Hausman did read some autobiographies by transsexual people, but none of these were published more recently than 1979,
though she did acknowledge in an epilogue reading Kate Bornstein's book, "Gender Outlaw: on men women and the rest of us." Unfortunately, she did not apparently notice how this last text might
have opened the door to a new line of study which might have invalidated some of her major points and allowed the book to be published anyway, including only a weak and defensive argument in the epilog.
The stereotype about transsexual people that the author finds most irresistible is the notion that they change sex to be heterosexual (while at the same time she describes them as primarily asexual ...she never seems to quite get a handle on this paradox). She claims that gender variant folk claiming an identity separate from that of homosexuals is nothing short of homophobic. Her perception of this heterosexism of transsexual people is central to her theory. It was indeed disheartening to discover that the author had spent so much of her time burying herself in theory written by non-transsexual people that she apparently failed to discover the one glaring fault in her logic, a fault that she would surely have discovered had she conversed or corresponded (or wished to know, for this knowledge would certainly have ruined her project) with any actual transfolk: while we don't have any actual figures, it is probable that more than half of transsexual men and women identify post-transition as lesbian, gay or bisexual (indeed the author must have known this from reading Bornstein's book, but she fails to mention it even in the
epilogue). This fact is definitely not available from reading the works on her reading list. It was the people who wrote these works that were in large part homophobic. Gender variant people knew
it then and know it now. It is the reason that they preferred not to discuss their sex lives and were hence labelled as being asexual by these researchers (which explains the paradox addressed above). After all, a male-to-female transsexual person who identified as a lesbian and a female-to-male transsexual person who identified as gay *would not* be accepted as a patient by these folks. Thankfully, times have changed. Unfortunately, Ms. Hausman's research did not
reveal this change.
The author does in truth point out some disturbing trends among transsexual people. It is indeed true that we read whatever we can find about our condition in order to learn about ourselves and all too often we rely on the the conclusions drawn in those writings to describe our own existence, rather than speaking our individual truths. Largely this is because we must develop the vocabularity to discover our commonality, but we sometimes do tend to go overboard. We do not have to all be the same anymore, as was once the case. And some of us are addicted to surgical intervention to change more than our genital morphology. And some of us claim unknown, perhaps even unknowable, biological sources for our condition instead of just accepting that we are the way we are because that is how we feel (which, to my way of thinking, is not a bad thing...since when are feelings and convictions inherently evil?). And some of us, to our shame, *are* probably even homophobic. We are just people, perhaps not like everyone else, but people nonetheless. We have our faults and we have our virtues. It would have be nice if Ms. Hausman had
spent some time examining some of those virtues.
We did not construct gender roles. They existed long before we began upsetting the binary gender apple cart. Nor do we monolithically reinforce them. There is no such thing as the typical transperson. While it is true that all too often we are willing to be stereotyped, willing to phrase our truths in the terms that doctors and therapists need to hear in order to get the type of treatment we desire, our lives do not end when we have surgery. To target the period of our
lives spent pursuing our dreams against an often unfriendly society is equivalent to blaming us for any maltreatment we may receive. Too often we have seen feminists jump on this bandwagon and Ms. Hausman has seen fit to join in with this transbashing.
That Ms. Hausman does so while purporting to be a truly enlightened academic is truly unfortunate.
Robyn Elaine Serven, Ph. D.
University of Central Arkansas
14 of 16 people found the following review helpful.
A Failed Attempt to Explain Transsexualisum
By Dani Richard
When I first picked up "Changing Sex" I was looking forward to scholarly read on the interaction between transsexualism and intersexuality. I was astounded that author decided that all history of these conditions before 20th Century was irrelevant and not reviewed. With no such history, she creates a beautifully crafted case that that condition transsexualism is a result of the 20th Century technology used to treat intersexed conditions. Her conclusion is people want sex change because they can get one. Therefor, she concludes that sex change surgery for transsexuals is inappropriate.
The history of transsexualism dates to antiquity and recurrences in written history in all cultures. It is not limited to the 20th Century. It is does not require the existence of an enabling technology. The desire to change sex exist even when there is no hope of a sex change procedure.
If you enjoy reading a well crafted book with closed, circular logic with a conclusion that leads nowhere, this is the book for you.
16 of 19 people found the following review helpful.
No Book is Completely Useless but Some Come Close
By Sarah Knight
This is one of the first books I read on Transsexualism and, fortunately, I did find other books which were far more useful.
It does provide a good historical narrative and bibliography of what early TS story and theory were. But it's basically a treatise that fails in its goal, unless its goal is very anti-trans.
See all 6 customer reviews...
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