This is a free sample essay on Transsexualism:
In 1952, few Americans were familiar with the concept of transsexualism. It was difficult to understand or acknowledge that “gender” was not synonymous with “sex;” that is, most people believed that the anatomy with which a child was born would indisputably influence his or her behavior, disposition, career choices, tastes and sexual preferences in one of two ways: male, or female. It was in that year that Christine Jorgensen was born.
Christine Jorgensen was in fact a pseudonym for a 26 year old ex-GI from the Bronx named George. Since childhood Jorgensen had been haunted by his place in the sexual binary system, pulled like a magnet to a female identity despite his male genitals. He had finally decided to seek sex-reassignment surgery, an operation that was not available in America but was crudely performed by some doctors in Denmark (Brown et. al). Eventually details of Jorgensen’s surgery were leaked to reporters and the Daily News screamed “EX-GI BECOMES BLONDE BOMBSHELL” one quiet morning in December, propelling America into a frenzy of shock, outrage, and curiosity. Some people even saw the fact and publicity of such an event as an important landmark in the destruction of all moral and societal “good.” What most Americans and other Western citizens didn’t know was that a rich history of transsexualism, transgenderism and/or gender variation had been alive and celebrated in many Non-Western societies for innumerable years. The Two-Spirited people of the various American Indian tribes and pre-contact south- and central-Americans are arguably the most interesting example of unique transgenderal customs, beliefs, and societal significance. (more…)