The 5 Sexes: Why Male and Female are Not Enough August 31, 2009
Posted by FCM in gender roles, health.Tags: ann fausto sterling, athletics, caster semenya, eudy simelane, sports
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the problem of gender binary, where we think of sex and gender in terms of either “male” or “female” is occasionally brought to the forefront by the world of competitive sports.
occasionally, an athlete who has been competing as either a male or female is suspected of or exposed as possessing physical, psychological, or genetic aspects of the “opposite” sex. stark, raving insanity usually ensues, illustrating how emotionally-charged and intellectually fraught are our notions of sex, and gender. so much for the notion that sex and gender are one in the same.
global comment reports on recent examples, first where a south african lesbian soccer player was gang raped and murdered:
Eudy Simelane now lays buried beneath the soil: she was brutally gang-raped and stabbed exactly twenty-five times before dying. For Eudy, the issue was not just that she was a lesbian but that her appearance and gender expression were commonly understood to be butch.
and regarding the long-distance runner who was recently suspected of being genetically male, her credibility and credentials as a female long-distance runner being called into serious question:
Caster Semenya, a long distance runner who is also from South Africa, was recently forced to undergo genetic testing by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IIAF) because her appearance does not conform to what is popularly understood as “classically” feminine. Her musculature and facial hair have been hotly debated, while in her defence, Semenya states that she was born as, and lives as, a woman.
but the reality is that there are actually 5 sexes, and we try to force people representing all 5 into 2 gender-identities. as ann fausto-sterling explains in her excellent article “the 5 sexes,” the 5 sexes are male; female; true hermaphrodite; and 2 kinds of pseudo-hermaphrodites. a true hermaphrodite has one male gonad and one female gonad. pseudo-herms have either male or female gonads (not both) with ambiguous or inconsistent genitalia.
clearly, the very notion of gender binary becomes problematic in the world of competitive sports which require male/female divisions. its also problematic in everyday life where the same divisions are required. the intellectual dishonesty of it all is frightening. people have always known that there are more than 2 sexes, because hermaphrodism has always existed. but why, in so many cultures (but not all) do they have only 2 options for gender identity…and then inexplicably assert that sex and gender are immutable and “naturally” instead of socially constructed?
background and analysis of the caster semenya controversy is available at “the science of sport.”
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femonade 
There are a lot of wrong “facts” spouted at the Science of Sport, mostly a result of the author being shouted down (and forced to ammend the article to the liking of others) by a concerted political effort. That effort isn’t in the best interest of feminism although most feminists seem to find it appealing.
Personally, I do believe that gender and sex are socially constructed. However, the fact that globally, some 75% of females give birth (a lifechanging empirical reality that undergirds patriarchy), makes worrying too much about the construction of sex — as opposed to the construction of gender, which is what we think about sex and what roles it should play in society — kind of a whiny white-person game for cool college kids.
There’s also the fact that many people with completely typical bodies but a desire to change gender often lie outright about being intersex or at least try to co-opt intersex legal and social struggles for their own aims. On that topic, try
http://kallmannssyndrome.wordpress.com/
thank you for that. what was the “concerted political effort” that caused the author (doctor) to change his views? i wasnt aware of the politics behind science of sport, but now my interest is piqued.
if i am reading (and reading into) your post correctly, you are talking about the cis- and non-cis- gender distinctions, and the fact that this issue is addressed (and embraced) on womanist musings and so forth? can you elaborate on your own views?
for anyone unfamiliar with this topic, there are those who believe that they were “born into the wrong body” and while they are typically-sexed (read: completely “normal” either male or female bodies) they “feel” as if they are the opposite gender. some feminists and others embrace this community and view its issues as similar to a gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender (GLBT) issue. others have a problem with it, because it reinforces the notion that “normal” people will have emotions, desires and the like that conform stereotypically to their sex. like, i always wanted to wear dresses and play with dolls, but i was born male. therefore, there is something wrong with me.
for many feminists, there is nothing wrong with a person like that. its a problem with our culture that forces people into rigid gender stereotypes, in the first place.
Alright, so I am transgender and done alot of thought on subjects like this. To clarify, I was born as a perfectly healthy, normal boy, physically. Emotionally/mentally, I’ve long strugled with depression, and, you know all that other junk that I’m not going to get into right now. Point is, I managed to figure out what’s wrong, and it’s that I’m a female in mind, but my body and the way society treats me doesn’t fit, and that hurts.
Now, on to the issue. Many people will say “the construct of gender is too strict” and almost every time I’ve seen that said, it’s been in reference to transgender children (or adults, sometimes). Yes, the current gender roles do suck for people who don’t fit the traditional binary. My life would have been so much better if I would have been told as a child “it’s ok to cry” and “you can grow your hair out”. But, for the vast majority of people, the current gender roles work. Little boys and girls grow up to be big boys and girls just fine. Now, I will say that the structure could stand to be a little less strict and more forgiving, but I don’t think it should be abolished. I’m in the minority here, being transgender, and I don’t want to see society turned upside down because things aren’t easy for me. Now, turning it sideways sounds like a good compromise, so hopefully you kinda understand what I’m saying.
whenever someone relays their own experience, its difficult to argue with it. if you someone “feels” that they were born in the wrong body, i am sure that they are accurately describing their own experience.
theres a discussion going on now over at punkassblog about this very thing. one of the ‘punkass’es said that he didnt understand why feminists embraced this movement, and relayed his own experience of being born in the “correct” body. he didnt feel particularly male or female, and wasnt strictly held to a gender identity as a child etc. he just felt like a “human” or as close as any of us can come to that. a reader commented and told the punkass that he was coming from a position of privilege that he needed to examine, because you dont even know how lucky you are to be born in the “correct” body if you were so born, just like whites dont see their own white privilege, men cant see male privilege etc. heres the link.
http://punkassblog.com/2009/08/28/transgender/
Seeded this to the ‘Vine. Attached a little attack on the ‘Vine sexists and racists, as well as a couple of digs on Tyler for fucking up.
Can’t believe you got a week, when that fucking douchebag only got a day.
as bartles and jaymes used to say, “we thank you for your support.” but seriously, the problem of sexist, racist, classist and homophobic “liberals” is a huge one. the ones that are mouth-foamingly misogynist, and lob sexual slurs and gendered insults at women, as well as the ones that support and enable them. articles like the ones i cite to in this “5 sexes” article should get as much exposure as possible, because they call into serious question our most basic assumptions about gender and sex. and its those assumptions that feed misogynist hate, and behaviors, even from those who dont know they are doing it.
Ooooooh
But feminists don’t think gender roles work. We think that gender roles are what keep women enslaved to men. No one “fits” into the gender binary; we’re all forced into it in one way or another.
And having long hair has nothing to do with being a woman; in plenty of other times in Western history and in plenty of societies today, men customarily have long hair. Wanting to be able to cry/have long hair/wear dresses/whatever has nothing to do with being a woman.
this is where liberal fems and rad fems part ways. i am learning this more and more as i read the feminist blogs. most of the “cool” and fashionable feminist blogs are liberal fems, and they embrace the gender binary in ways that rad fems have long ago rejected. its kind of confusing actually, for example mary daly is a noted radfem from early in the movement (i think the 60/70s) and she tended to think that men were “naturally warlike” and women were “naturally maternal” if i remember correctly. but now i wonder. i think that if you replace “naturally” with “actually” you get a more accurate result, and its consistent with radical feminism. but thats not what the liberal fems want to hear. they want to give trans and non-cis gendered people the respect they deserve, of course, but in “respecting” their feelings they are reinforcing the gender binary (that theres anything “natural” about our emotions, desires and tendencies, and that they “normally” match our gonads).
i tend toward rad fem thinking in that respect. for example, i think that its unlikely that people are born into the “wrong” body…at least the concept is deeply rooted in biological determinism and the gender binary itself, therefore i think its highly suspect, and deterimental to women as a class. the bigfem blogs would take issue with that, and i have actually been censored and shamed for my views by other feminists, and feminist sympathizers. lib fems want to believe that rad fems are all old and crusty, and not at all “fun” (fun being sex-pos and pro-porn i guess). but “fun” isnt really the point, is it? (i noticed that you feel the same way).
Thanks for such an intelligent reply. I felt kind of bad bringing the trans controversy to your blog, but at the same time I didn’t like having the opinion that most women are happy with gender roles go unchallenged.
I’ve spent a lot of time in the past few months thinking and reading about trans issues, torn between wanting to support sexual minorities and seeing the problems with the transgender movement.
One big problem I have with the word cisgender is summed up pretty well on this pro-trans blog: http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2009/07/cisgender-isnt-insult.html
“[Cisgender] It means that from the time you were born until this point today in your lives, you were not only comfortable in your gender identity-body matchup, you are comfortable with the societal gender role you perform based on that body to the point that you hardly ever think about it.”
Which is of course the opposite of what an feminist (especially a radfem) would say about the societal gender role in which women are forced into!
I was actually wondering if you identified more with the liberal or radical feminists, since you link to both on your blogroll?
well, let me start out by saying that i dont carry water for anyone, whether its the rads or the libs or the dems. i always understood the rad fems to be essentialists, as in “men are naturally warlike and this cant be changed.” and the libs seemed to not advocate the gender binary, in fact quite the opposite: they seemed to agree that gender is largely socially constructed. but frankly in the last 10 years or so, it seems as if the trans issues have overtaken what was once an anti-binary agenda of the liberal feminist movement (or at least what i had thought was their agenda). and i absolutely do not agree that that position is helpful. i dont think that anyone should be harassed, intimidated, silenced, raped or killed due to their gender identity of course. but therein lies the rub. men are the ones doing most of the raping, harassing and killing, and as long as there is a binary, that will continue to be the case. the female gender will be the lesser gender.
its notable too that the people who think they were born into a male body incorrectly, and want to be treated like “women” dont seem to also want the crap that comes with that. i dont know WTF they are thinking. you want to willingly give up your male privilege, so that you can be treated like a whore/slave/second class citizen? you want to make less money and be afraid to walk to your car at night? really? because thats how women are treated within the gender binary. but if they were honest, they would say no, i dont want to be treated like crap, i want to be treated like a princess! well guess what? it doesnt work that way. and i am sorry, but drag queens really piss me off, for exactly that reason. they want all the pampering and attention that they associate with being female (a very sexist view of it BTW) but then they get to take it all off and walk to their cars as men at the end of the night. you know, because they really dont want to be treated like *women* they want to be treated better than women: they want to keep their male privilege and still get to play dress up. well guess what? it aint “playing” if you are born a woman. you HAVE TO dress up if you want the job, the man, the respect. you have to wear makeup or people think you are a dyke. but not too much: too much eyeshadow and now you are a whore. its not a fucking game, its real. there are very real consequences for women, but drag queens see it as a fun little game. its not. drag queens get to choose. so do non-cis gendered people. and choice is always a position of privilege. women dont get to choose. see how that works?
anyway, its this kind of thing that the lib fems hate, and i always wonder what the backlash will be (if any) to saying these things on a feminist blog, even my own. the bigfem blogs will blacklist you, or take you off their blogrolls if you say the wrong thing. but i cant really care about that. bigfem are largely political, and they are carrying water for the democratic party as much as anyone. and there are huge problems with racism and sexism in the democratic party. in short, i find these bigfem blogs to be dishonest, and anti-feminist in some ways. if they dont like me, tough shit, because i dont really respect them a whole lot either.
That’s interesting that you view radfems as gender essentialists and liberal fems as believers in social construction. I see the sex-positive/fun fems (which of course are the most popular blogs) as being the most essentialist — they seem to think that not only is gender biologically determined, but so is sexual orientation, and so is every aspect of sexuality, from sadomasochism to monogamy vs. polyamory to men preferring young, thin women.
Most of the radfem reading I’ve done posits gender as socially constructed, and may seem essentialist by drawing clear boundaries between men and women, but usually that’s based on the inescapability (or near-inescapability) of lifelong gender socialization. Now, I know Mary Daly was an essentialist, and a radfem, but Andrea Dworkin is very anti-essentialism and also a radfem favorite. I’m not sure about other radical feminist authors.
i honestly think i mayve misread the radfem agenda back when i was first learning about it. but if you are familiar with mary dalys work and you agree that she was an essentialist, then maybe thats where the problem was. perhaps not unimportantly, i first learned about this stuff in an undergraduate womens studies program, that was my major and i got out of there with a 3.9 GPA. so i kind of wonder if that wasnt a mistake my instructors were making and i was repeating, or at least some sort of calcluated attempt on their part to make radfem seem like something it wasnt. the program was cutting edge at the time, and literally had just gotten the go-ahead to be taken from an undergrad minor to a full-blown major (and now they offer a Ph.D program). the name was also changed from womens studies to gender studies when the program was expanded. i dont think any of that was coincidental. maybe they thought it would be more palateable (and they wouldve been right) to take sides with the newer, “funner” feminism. of course, if thats what they did, its extremely disappointing.
another possibility is that there have been some fundamental changes in the lib fem movement over the last 10 years, and they have morphed into this gender-binary acceptance (inadvertently?) when they were trying to be accepting and respectful of everyone (read: liberal progressives). its also another possibility that these lib fems on these bigfem blogs never studied the subject academically, and in reality they dont even know the history of their own movement. many of them seem to be very anti-feminist, even as they seem to be drowning in their own contradictions. they *kind of* want to see gender as a social construct…but that doesnt jive with the trans issues but its not PC to discuss the problems there. i mean really discuss it. for that reason, i think its intellectually dishonest. its literally painful to read, and its painful for me to spend too much time in those contradictory spaces.
Oh dear lord, Gender Studies. My university recently changed its Women’s Studies program to Gender Studies too. If you email me, I will send you a link to my school’s Gender Studies curriculum, if you want a good laugh (I don’t want to say what school I go to in a public place).
If you haven’t read “Radically Speaking: Feminism Reclaimed,” I highly recommend it. I actually just got the book recently and haven’t fully read it yet, but it has a great essay on how men are stealing Women’s Studies out from under feminists. It also has a whole section on various ways radical feminism is misrepresented and attacked by various groups.
thanks. i emailed you, and i would be happy to review your syllabus.
Well, it’s hard to say what the liberal feminist philosophy is, other than using legislation to give women equal rights (unlike the radical feminist philosophy, which advocates separatism and/or revolution and doesn’t think legislative change is enough). I’m not sure how we’d go about revolution, considering how few radical feminists are active today, but I also don’t see legislation as being a very good route to progress either — did making “date rape” illegal cut down on the number of women being raped by men they knew? Sometimes I think we’re fucked no matter what.
The liberal feminist agenda, as manifest today, seems to be completely overtaken with gay male rights, trans rights, and support of pornography, prostitution, and sadomasochism, along with worship of the Democrats, a little nod toward race issues, and a reframing of feminist issues into gender issues with this “Patriarchy hurts men toooooooo” bullshit. But I don’t know if that represents most liberal feminists, or just the most outspoken and popular ones?
mary daly was *not* an essentialist. that accusation typically comes from people who’ve never read her work, though i guess some who have read it didn’t understand it…
yeah roz, i am learning more and more that radfems arent essentialists, although md was one that stuck out as if she were one. when i think about radfems more generally, even when their work seems essentialist and harping on the “differences” between women and men, i substitute “actual” difference for “biological” difference and their points are made clear, without having to resort to essentialist thinking. if more people did that with my work there wouldnt be so many comments here accusing *me* of being an essentialist. but i suspect that their motivations for doing so are less than pure, anyway. thanks for posting.
Interesting. The distinction between ‘natural’ and ‘actual’ is small, but it changes the implications immensely. Whenever I’ve come across feminists saying things like “males are war-like” I have generally interpreted it to mean that males are war-like under this particular social system. Not that it means males are naturally war-like due to biology or whatever (though I guess we can’t really rule that out, without another social system from which we can draw a comparison).
The accusations of essentialism bother me. Like the way transactivists accuse radfems of being essentialist, because rads don’t welcome males into our female-only clubhouse. What they are conveniently ignoring though, is that it was patriarchy that divided the sexes into two political classes and handed out privilege to one, and oppression to the other. Patriarchy is the essentialist, and in order to dismantle it and analyze it, feminism has to reflect this essentialism to some degree.
exactly right miska. its patriarchy that is essentialist, and to accuse feminists of the same when we are in direct opposition to patriarchal, essentialist thinking just smacks of intellectual dishonesty (or idiocy, sometimes they appear similar). of course, its the fun-fems and transactivists who are the real essentialists inside the feminist movement, with their “born in the wrong body!” bullshit, and unapologetic essentialism in regards to gender identity and gender roles. i cant even believe the feminists have fallen for that, but they have. its time to get our movement back, and remind ourselves of our own point: the only scientifically-demonstrable biologically-based differences between women and men are ejaculation, menstruation, gestation, and lactation. everything else is a construct.
that’s an important distinction to make. in “quintessence” daly speaks of a gynocentric future when men (and women) who insisted on clinging to old patriarchal beliefs simply died off, implying that there was a choice involved.
Tee hee hee I just got accused of being essentialist! But the idea that there is a part of your consciousness which makes you a ‘woman’ and that such a state of mind means you should have a female body is the most essentialist shit out!
The point, as FCM has said before is that in a patriarchy, FABs and MABs are POLITICALLY different, because they’re treated differently . It’s not a question of what biological sex you ARE, because intersex people can be either FAB or MAB. So it’s not essentialist. It’s being honest about the effects of a patriarchy.
If males want to stop pulling this raping killing shit, then fine. But until then I reserve the right to regard ALL males as under suspicion.
What you have to realise about the accusations of essentialism Miska is that they depend on you accepting gender as real.
So the typical one will be ‘you say only females can be women, so you are essentialist’.
And the answer to this is:
1)in a patriarchy only FABs have the experience of being brought up and socialised as girls/women.Therefore even if a trans woman ‘passes’ as FAB, she will still have experienced male privilege
And
2) (my current argument) sex IS important to lesbians because they are only sexually attracted to females – a sex, not a gender. So if you say I should regard males as ‘women’ you just redefined my sexual orientation for me.
So in a patriarchy trans women can never be fully women, because they started life in political class ‘boy/men’. So in a women only group, NO MATTER HOW THAT GROUP IS COMPOSED, they will always lack commonality of experience with FABs of an identical race, class, etc. They usually try to muddy the waters here by saying that all FABs don’t have commonality of experience anyway. Which is true, but they all have experience of being FAB which trans women don’t.
But moreover, since most of the trans arguments seem to be about trans womens ‘right’ to access lesbian spaces because they are WOMEN, is saying that FAB lesbians have to accept males into their spaces and is eradicating FAB lesbians as a group effectively (which you already said on mine of course Miska, but it bears repeating endlessly).
So I’m not saying trans women can’t call themselves she, wear whatever they want, call themselves a woman if they want. I am saying that MY definition of woman, for my purposes is adult FAB.
Most people who willy nilly call Mary Daly an essentialist, simply don’t know her work. I’m amazed to read comments from people who never heard of her, never read her, and then freak out at the writing that doesn’t represent her ideas.
She called “gender studies” “blender studies” by the way, just another tactic to take the word “woman” out of the equation and hand the department right back to the boys. And believe me, men are in major feminist co-opt mode at universities right now. Daly’s death kind of stirrs things up a bit, because they had almost had her killed off and buried and erased. Now she has been resurrected and out come the trans-attackers right on schedule, out come the straight women who say, “hey dykes you mean transphobics, let those MtFs in your spaces, so they can sexually go after lesbians…” It’s fine for straight women to say this, because they don’t date women, but they sure as heck want to let in pre-op penis people into a lesbian event?
It is imaterial whether men are born rapists and war mongers or whether they are raised to be this. The fact is, war among nation states is controlled and orchestrated by men. Women and children suffer the most in civil wars worldwide, are the most likely to be displaced and most likely to have to relocate to escape male attrocities in wartime. Women get raped by the hundreds of thousands by MEN. This is so completely obvious, that one wonders why people bother to argue “nature’ vs. “nuture” at all.
The fact is, men are doing the killing and raping, and they need to be stopped.
That is what feminists are trying to do, they are trying to liberate women, and radical feminism says women are central.
When the sex class status was handed out, men conveniently scarffed up the whole pie… the good jobs, the fancy educations. It wasn’t long ago that women weren’t even allowed into elite universities in many countries. Men created the constitutions, the courts, the religious orders. And they fight like mad to maintain this power.
Liberal feminism believes in reform and that’s ok, but men and patriarchy are very clever at undermining any progress women achieve. They are very good at handing out little token cookies to keep women in line– Sarah Palin, Condoleeza Rice etc., both democratic and republican groups do this.
As for gender, I don’t necessarily believe women have to be “ultra femme” to get anywhere, and so what if some brave straight woman doesn’t wear make-up and is mistaken for being a lesbian. So what? Get mistaken for one, but if you’re good at your job it really won’t matter at all. As a very obvious dyke, I do just about anything I want. Men actually don’t care, femmy straight women get a bit nervous, but then calm down.
The truth is, when women boycotted the Miss America pageant in 1968, patriarchy was truly running very scared. They could have lost entire fashion industries, make-up industries, frilly clothes industries, they fought hard to get women to think they had to dress in a certain way to have a life.
What is it? Straight women still fear being thought a Dyke? Hey, it’s a complement to be a Dyke in my world!
And I do get annoyed at drag queens thinking female is about dress up, and trasnwomen thinking that too, when it is about gender code enforcement, which I never go along with. If all women just said, we won’t buy make-up anymore, that alone would free up untold millions of dollars for liberation.
Anytime you hear someone calling a radical feminist an essentialist, really look into that insult. We radfems are simply describing social reality as we see it. We see the male hate porn, we see the war, we see the rape, we point to who is always causing the trouble worldwide. We call it as we see it. Men, don’t want to be lumped in with all the bad guys, then change the bad guys into good guys. But you won’t because you like things the way they are “naturally constructed” by YOU!
sorry, i missed something here. what does FAB stand for?
Female At Birth I believe is what this means 🙂
Took me awhile too and ain’t I a feminist 🙂
hmm, seems unnecessary to me, since it’s impossible to change one’s sex. once female, always female. you can make cosmetic changes, but you can’t change your biology.
May I correct you Sheila. It stands for female assigned at birth. Because it includes intersex people who are treated/regarded by society as female, who are therefore subject to the same discrimination/misogyny as other FAB people are.
thanks for that polly. i didnt think to add that FAB includes intersex but thats the whole point of making a distinction between “female” and FAB. its all about politics and misogyny, not essentialism, afterall. no matter that the transactivists want our attentions elsewhere.
Thanks FCM and Polly, these distinctions are important. Language is key to this, and we want to make it very clear as to what is in the best interest of Females assigned at birth.
The point is really that there is a huge number of ‘sexes’. Probably only those who are capable of, or would be/have at some point been capable of, sexual reproduction by intercourse should be included in ‘male’ or ‘female’. But in a a binary gender system you can only be ‘man’ or ‘woman’. Hence politically which sex class you’re assigned at birth affects your life chances, even if it’s not accurate in biological terms.
well biologically speaking, i think all bases are covered with male; female; true hermaphrodite; and the 2 kinds of psuedo-herms. a true hermaphrodite has one of each gonad (one ovary and one teste) and probably has masculinized genitals due to the testosterone. the psuedo-herms are any intersex other than true herms; that is, anything other than one ovary and one teste. i imagine most with ambiguous genitalia are FAAB because, you know, females are merely castrated males and all. but the second one of them is a lesbian, or butch, or hates her body, we are willing to say that she was “actually” a he. in what universe, is the only appropriate response.
It is interesting that those who are always complaining about gender essentialism and heteronormativity then also support the idea that sexual orientiation is ‘hardwired’, and a lesbian MUST be a pseudo male (like the delightful folks on the Bilerico project). Surely some mistake? If they are not gender essentialist then why does a butch woman who’s sexually attracted to women have to have her breasts cut off and take testosterone? You couldn’t get more gender essentialist and heteronormative if you tried….