Shifting Sands

Although it's over a year since its release, I came across this amazing publication, and I wanted to give it wider recognition.

The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RANZCOG) is the medical college responsible for setting training standards for doctors specialising in the field of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in Australasia. So it's a very large, prestigious, academic organisation.

As most medical colleges do, it publishes a flagship academic journal; but also a more informal publication, O&G Magazine, which I admit I had never come across until I saw a pile of them lying in my hospital. The top one caught my eye, because it was colourful, and because it looked like Tetris (which is one of my favourite games). When I looked closer, I saw that the theme of this particular issue was "LGBTQIA", so I picked it up to have a read. I was immediately captivated. Best of all, the entire issue is available free online here.

Let's start with the editorial, from incoming RANZCOG President Dr Vijay Roach:

Roach: This issue of O&G Magazine addresses an important aspect of social, cultural and clinical life in Australia and New Zealand. Members of the LGBTI community have experienced a long history of marginalisation and discrimination, often to the detriment of their physical and mental healthcare. While the College acknowledges a diversity of opinion in the community and among our members on many issues, on one thing we are united: RANZCOG believes that every person, independent of their sexual orientation, has the right to high-quality medical care. 

In 2017, the RANZCOG Board issued a statement on same-sex marriage which read, in part '… the Board affirms its support for marriage equality and calls upon the Australian Parliament to ensure equal opportunity for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) Australians in same-sex relationships and their families …' I was proud to be a member of that Board and grateful to then-President Prof Steve Robson for his leadership.

In this issue, the O&G Magazine editors have assembled a diverse series of articles relevant to the care of the LGBTI community. It is compelling reading and relevant to everyone’s practice.

The list of articles is impressive:

Fertility options for gender and sexually diverse people (Bronwyn Devine)
Rainbow IVF (Sarah van der Wal)
Gender dysphoria (Simone Buzwell)
Gender dysphoria: a paediatric perspective (Noel Friesen)
Fertility preservation in the transgender child and adolescent (Tamara Hunter)
Intersex: variations in sex characteristics (Jennifer Beale)
What do intersex people need from doctors? (Morgan Carpenter)
Hormonal treatment of the transgender adult (Rosemary Jones)
Surgery for transgender individuals (Charlotte Elder)
LGBTQIA gynaecological screening (Kimberley Ivory)
Takatāpui (Elizabeth Kerekere)
Tekwabi Giz National LGBTI Health Alliance (Rebecca Johnson)
Glass closets and the hidden curriculum of medical school (Amy Coopes)
Australia's queer history (Robert French)

I read these articles with two sets of eyes. The first were my medical eyes: was this the sort of thing that, as a doctor, would be helpful for me to read? The answer is clearly yes. The second were my transgender eyes: was this the sort of thing that, as a trans person myself, I would want doctors to read and know? The answer is also a clear yes. There is no doubt that transgender people are becoming more and more visible; their care has been, in the main, not that great; most doctors have very little training in care of transgender people, and reliable resources for doctors to draw upon are few.

The various authors all have special expertise and interest in their various fields, which is commendable. But it's the range of subjects which strikes me as particularly noteworthy. I've sometimes felt that the T is kind of tacked on to the end of LGB as an afterthought. But here we are, right in the middle, with articles dealing with not just hormones and surgery but issues like fertility and childhood and emotional wellbeing. Amazing.

I was pleased to note that the tone of all the articles was spot on, from the acceptance of the individuals, to recognition that care matters but is frequently lacking, to pragmatic information and guidance for practitioners.

There are several points which are very much worth making about a publication of this type.

(1) First, it's great that a major medical college is being so overtly inclusive. That alone is magnificent. RANZCOG is setting an example for others to follow. There has been lots of Twitter support for the issue.

(2) Second, most medical colleges publish guidelines for the care of patients with X condition. What strikes me about this one is a subtle but powerful shift in tone: not "this is what these patients are like" but "this is us, and that's OK". As Amy Coopes points out in her article, there is still great stigma in medicine if you are gay or non-binary. So a publication like this is extremely affirming. As a transgender person with a medical degree myself, I immediately wanted to reach out and make contact, so I wrote to RANZCOG and congratulated them on their magazine (and I’m not the only one: there is a very heartfelt response from a gay obstetrician in the following issue here).

(3) I wouldn't have necessarily expected O&G to be the specialty which would deal with the care of transwomen. Post-transition, care could potentially be complex, since O&G specialists are more used to the care of people with a uterus and vagina than a prostate gland. But this issue seems to be saying to its readers: don't panic, you can do it! It's started me discussing these issues with some of my colleagues much more openly than previously.

Whether you are medical or not, it's well worth having a browse through this magazine. If you're aware of any other medical organisations being explicitly rainbow-inclusive, please let me know.

Sex and Gender in Sports - Part Two

In my previous article I considered the distinction between male and female athletes competing in top competitions such as the Olympic games. Right at the nub of the issue is whether women with naturally high levels of testosterone have an unfair advantage against women with lower, or "normal" levels of testosterone.

But what about transgender or transsexual athletes? Those born in an apparently ordinary male body, who legitimately transition to the female sex? What happens to them?

Renee Richards

Renee Richards is the first example I have to offer. Born Richard Raskind, the child of two doctors, Richards was a successful male athlete, and also obtained a medical degree. In 1975 (which puts her age at 41), she pursued a career as a professional woman tennis player. However, in 1976 the US Tennis Association had introduced Barr body testing (a type of genetic testing) that year. Richards refused to take the test, and was therefore banned from top tennis tournaments, the US Open, Wimbledon and the Italian Open that year.

Richards took the US Tennis Association to court, alleging discrimination by gender in violation of her human rights. She won her case, and was allowed to play in the 1977 US Open tournament.

Richards' tennis career was quite short-lived, and she retired from professional tennis in 1981, just 4 years later, and returned to medical practice in ophthalmology.

Richards' case provoked considerable discussion. Official sports governing bodies were very uncomfortable. According to Wikipedia, the US Olympic Committee stated:

IOC: There is competitive advantage for a male who has undergone a sex change surgery as a result of physical training and development as a male.

And indeed, it's hard to argue with that viewpoint. But in addition to official perplexity, Richards faced consternation from the general public too. My correspondent Rhonda wrote "I recall it being said that Renee had an advantage because she competed in a new category, unique to her: 'Mixed Singles'." And even her own fellow athletes were unhappy: when Richards was allowed to play as a woman, 25 of 32 competitors promptly withdrew in protest from the Tennis Week Open.

In this article describing her life and career, written by Emily Bazelon, Richards herself comments on her status as a transsexual athlete. I quote the final paragraph in its entirety:

Bazelon: The science of distinguishing men from women in sports remains unsettled. And Richards has come to believe that her past as a man did provide her advantages over competitors. “Having lived for the past 30 years, I know if I’d had surgery at the age of 22, and then at 24 went on the tour, no genetic woman in the world would have been able to come close to me. And so I’ve reconsidered my opinion.” She adds, “There is one thing that a transsexual woman unfortunately cannot expect to be allowed to do, and that is to play professional sports in her chosen field. She can get married, live as woman, do all of those other things, and no one should ever be allowed to take them away from her. But this limitation—that’s just life. I know because I lived it.”

Michelle Dumaresq

Wikipedia has a list of transgender athletes, both female-to-male and male-to-female. There are, unsurprisingly, few Olympic type events, though there are cyclists, such as Canadian mountain biker Michelle Dumaresq, and fighters, such as American mixed martial artist Fallon Fox. Caitlyn Jenner is of course mentioned.

In 2003, the International Olympic Committee drew up regulations to cover transsexual athletes. To me, at first glance, they seem pretty reasonable:

1. The athlete must have undergone sexual reassignment surgery, including changes to the external genitalia and gonads.
2. The athlete must be legally recognised in their desired sex.
3. The athlete must undergo hormone therapy for at least two years.

These guidelines were modified in 2015, due to recognition that it might not be acceptable to require surgery in otherwise healthy people, and that some countries refuse to grant legal recognition to people who change sex. Therefore, the regulations were changed. The requirement for surgery was dropped, and the only stipulation now requires that the athlete's testosterone level be under 10 nmol/l. (See my previous article for why this might be problematic).

Chris Mosier

As for these games, the UK Daily Mail reported that two unnamed male-to-female athletes were considered for inclusion in Team GB to compete in Rio, but the Internet has been silent about whether they managed it. Meanwhile, Chris Mosier competed as a triathlete for team USA. As a female-to-male, Mosier needs to take testosterone, though a Therapeutic Use Exemption means it's acceptable. The Wikipedia article states that "two closeted transgender athletes competed" at Rio.

The first transgendered sportsperson I recall ever hearing about was Mianne Bagger, a professional golfer from Denmark. According to Wikipedia, Bagger was only the second high-profile transgendered athlete who won recognition from sports' governing bodies to compete in their desired sex, after Renee Richards. A 2004 article from the Guardian newspaper reports that Bagger experienced a slightly warmer welcome from her fellow professionals than Richards did. Subsequently, Lana Lawless sued the Ladies' Professional Golf Association in 2010, which at that time was clinging to a rule that women golfers were required to have been born female. In 2014 another doctor, Bobbi Lancaster, was permitted to play in an LPGA tournament, and this article describes her as the first transgender woman golfer to compete in such a tournament.

So much for the professional athletes. What about those lower down? Una over at TransasCity has produced a couple of relevant articles, and you can read them here and here.

Judit Polgar

I want to close this double article with a shout out to one of my heroes, Judit Polgar. Polgar, 40, is the strongest female chess player in history. The youngest of three sisters, the Polgar girls were intensively coached in chess by their polymath father, Laszlo Polgar, who believed that "geniuses are made, not born".

Everybody "knows" girls aren't as good at chess as boys. Even FIDE, the world chess governing body, awards separate women's titles. The Woman Grandmaster (WGM) title is easier to attain than the Grandmaster (GM) title. But try telling that to the Polgar sisters. They refused to compete in woman-only tournaments, from the beginning, bringing them into some conflict with the Hungarian Chess Federation. However, the Polgars persisted. Laszlo wrote:

Laszlo Polgar: Women are able to achieve results similar, in fields of intellectual activities, to that of men. Chess is a form of intellectual activity, so this applies to chess. Accordingly, we reject any kind of discrimination in this respect.

And his daughters went on to prove him right. Judit achieved an astonishing series of accomplishments: she achieved the rank of full Grandmaster (not WGM) at the age of 15, then the youngest person ever to have done so. She was ranked 55th best player in the world at age 12. She is the first ever (and so far, only) woman to achieve an Elo rating of greater than 2700, and she peaked at number 8 in the world in 2005. Now, of course, FIDE allows players of both sexes to compete in tournaments, but of 1441 GMs in the world, only 31 are currently women, so the women do have some catching up to do. And I bet nobody even bothers about their testosterone levels.

I wonder how much chess is like golf. In most Olympic sports, muscle mass, lung capacity and other physical measures of fitness really matter. In that circumstance, one could say that the extra physical size of someone born male could offer an advantage if they transitioned. However, in golf, this is less obvious, and Mianne Bagger has insisted that she has no physical advantage from being born male.

In chess, of course, physical fitness is irrelevant, provided you can deal with the stress of the games and tournaments. I believe that the low number of female grandmasters is not a reflection of women's ability to play chess, but a reflection of how few women take up chess seriously. I did a quick Google search for transgender chess players, but didn't turn anything up. As always, comments are welcome. Meanwhile, whether it's golf, chess, cycling or whatever, keep doing your thing.

Women with Beards

My recent article on Conchita Wurst (and all of the discussion she has provoked) got me thinking in a more general way about women with beards. In fact there are many variations on this notion, which I hope to explore briefly below, and round up with a discussion at the end.

The History Books

La Mujer Barbuda

There are two bearded women which I am aware of from the history books. First, the semi-legendary Saint Wilgefortis, dating from the 14th century. I've actually written about Wilgefortis before in this blog. According to Wikipedia, no precise details of Wilgefortis' life can be verified. The legend is that, as a beautiful teenager, she was promised in marriage to a cruel nobleman. She prayed to God to deliver her from this fate, and promptly sprouted a beard. This angered her father and he had her crucified, and her traditional depiction is a crucified woman, with a beard (often with one shoe missing).

A more pragmatic (and to me, plausible) explanation is that some statues of the crucified Jesus were created, wearing a robe instead of the expected loincloth, and the legend of a crucified, bearded woman was cooked up to explain this away.

The next figure from history has been immortalised by the artist Jusepe de Ribera, in his 1631 portrait entitled La Mujer Barbuda (The Bearded Woman). Take a look at the painting. To me, it looks exactly like a portrait of a man; there is nothing feminine at all about the face, including the male pattern of hair at the forehead.

My first impression of this portrait was that Ribera had deliberately painted a man, dressed in a gown and suckling an infant. Then I started to read more. It turns out that the story of the figure in the painting is well-known and corroborated. She actually was a bearded woman; the miserable-looking guy in the background is her husband. Her name was Magdalena Ventura from Abruzzi, and at the time of the portrait, she was 52 years old. She bore her husband three sons before growing a beard at the age of 37. Some aspects of her life are recorded in Latin on the stone tablet at the bottom right of the picture.

Annie Jones

Some aspects of the painting are allegorical: at 52, she would be too old to bear a child or breast-feed, but Ribera has included this aspect to deliberately underline the female sex of the subject of the portrait. Ribera also had a reputation for deliberately painting accurate but cruel depictions of people with disfigurements, such as The Club-Footed Boy. What this says to me is that Ribera's depiction was probably reasonably accurate. Did he go out of his way to enhance the apparent masculinity of the image? It's hard to say for sure; I think probably not. It's clear, however, that he didn't make any effort to flatter the subject.

The Circus Freak

The next, and most widely-known, archetype of the bearded woman is the Circus Freak.

Freak shows entered their heyday in the 19th and early 20th centuries, exhibiting malformed, and disfigured humans as objects of scorn, ridicule and sometimes loathing. Dwarves, giants, conjoined twins and other rare anomalies (such as Joseph Merrick, the "Elephant Man") were staples of this form of popular entertainment. In this environment, bearded women were right at home, as this example Annie Jones, shows. I can't imagine what those performers were forced to do, in order to prove that they were actually women (and not simply men in frocks), but I suspect it was degrading and unpleasant in the extreme.

Jennifer Miller

A debate continues to this day over the role of such shows. Some showmen, such as Tom Norman, argued that his shows allowed people who were unable to work normally to provide a living for themselves. (Indeed, some people continue to deliberately exhibit themselves in this manner even today, such as the performer Black Scorpion). Critics argued that the shows were cruel, exploitative and inhuman. Eventually, of course, they were banned, but I see their echoes today in documentaries about conjoined twins, or people with morbid obesity. I think the public appetite for gawping at unfortunate people has not, in general, gone away.

Modern Examples

This brings me on to some modern examples. The first one I came across was Jennifer Miller, whom I saw in a TV documentary. Miller's beard started to slowly grow in in her early twenties. According to this interview, she has had an ambivalent relationship with it ever since.

Miller: I embraced the idea of it right away, and then had on-and-off relationships with it over the years. I basically believed that it was a good idea to keep it, but that it wasn’t always easy. I felt stronger and weaker about wearing it depending on what was happening. If at some point I were just feeling more vulnerable in general, that would make it harder. If I was worried about getting a job, I might feel some doubt about my commitment to keeping it.



Mariam with Harnam Kaur

Miller has worked as a circus performer, but also a writer and a university lecturer.

And then, more recently, a woman identified only as Mariam was interviewed on British television. Born in Germany, Mariam's beard started to grow after the birth of her son, 28 years ago. According to this article, she used to pluck out each hair every day with tweezers, but eventually decided to let it grow out.

Mariam keeps a blog of her own. She is quite open about how difficult it is to live as a woman with a beard. She writes:

Mariam: I remember, that when I was a child, I always wanted to be a boy. Boys had more freedom than girls. Could be more wild and climb on trees and do all these handycraft things that I liked.

In our family it was better to be a male, because then everybody believed in the success and intelligence of this person.

Meanwhile I appreciate myself as a woman and I see what I can do as a woman, and that I am not better or worse than a man. And I must say I am not all the time aware about being a woman. I feel like a being. And I would say some of my abilities you can name male others female. I do not like this labeling with male and female. I would wish we could just be ourselves and not to be fixed on any gender or sex.

Alex Drummond

Mariam describes unpleasant incidents in public places, such as people taking pictures or video of her on their phones, without permission. As a result, she (naturally) avoids very public places.

Genderqueer

Until now, I have considered only genetic women with beards. But I can't help finding an overlap with genderqueer: an expression of gender which is neither male nor female, but both, neither, or any variation you like. Is a woman who deliberately sports a beard genderqueer? Maybe, I guess.

Conchita Wurst has, without perhaps being genderqueer herself, driven that aesthetic into the public eye. But what about people who live that life all the time, and will continue to do so once Conchita's star has faded?

Photographer Alex Drummond is one such person.

Drummond: Being transgender gives me a unique perspective on my work. Born as ‘male’ but having always identified as female I nowadays embrace genderqueer as a way of living authentically as a trans-female.

Some people will live in a full time presentation of their preferred gender, others will live part-time. And a whole new movement is emerging of people who are living between genders, embracing the potentials of gender-queer and gender-fluidity.

Azis

Part of Drummond's website is given over to a blog, but as you could expect from a photographer, it's quite image-heavy. I wonder to myself whether Drummond experiences the same public reaction as Mariam? And is it a problem?

Some people seem to just like the deliberate androgyny, the deliberate mixture of male and female, that you get by combining an essentially feminine aesthetic, with an undeniable statement of masculinity: a beard. One example seems to be Bulgarian singer Azis, pictured here. Azis is apparently another Eurovision alumnus, having co-performed Bulgaria's entry in the 2006 competition, which finished a resounding 17th.

And I guess finally there is farce, the deliberate use of the beard with female costume as an instrument of amusement or comedy. As I have frequently mentioned on this blog, I don't think crossdressing as a vehicle for comedy is funny. Likewise, I find deliberate farce to do with crossdressing to be, at best, in poor taste, and at worst, hurtful.

Richard Branson: seriously?

Nonetheless, it's hard to get too steamed up by Richard Branson's performance. After losing a bet with Air Asia chief executive Tony Fernandez, Branson had himself made over as a Virgin stewardess, complete with uniform, high heels and fishnet stockings, and served drinks on a 6-hour flight from Australia to Kuala Lumpur. I can't say that he looks especially gorgeous, but I admire his courage and his sense of humour in agreeing to honour the bet (and no-one could accuse him of somehow not fulfilling his end of the bargain).

What do I think about all this?

My first thought, on seeing photographs of Jennifer Miller, Mariam and Harnam Kaur, is that they look very strange. Without doubt, the juxtaposition of a beard-- that most masculine characteristic-- on a woman, causes a slight jolt of surprise, which makes you look again. For whatever reasons: hormonal, or genetic or just plain bad luck, it is clear that women can also grow beards.

I am certain that the women who keep the beard represent the tip of the iceberg. (On Mariam's blog, some of the commentators admire her courage, while admitting that they rid themselves of their own heavy facial hair). I think therefore there are probably many hundreds of women out there who deal with the facial hair with wax, or electrolysis, or laborious plucking. I can completely understand this: the societal pressure must be huge.

That makes me think that for those women who embrace their beards, there must be something different that makes them willing to resist that societal pressure. Unlike Annie Jones a century or more ago, women in the 21st century have a choice about whether to have a beard. Having it permanently removed would be reasonably expensive, and reasonably uncomfortable, but certainly doable.

For bearded women, it must come to be their defining characteristic. It reminds me of the old joke about the two men in the pub overlooking the little village in Scotland. One laments to the other that, despite his lifetime of contribution to the life of the village, they still haven't honoured him with a decent nickname. "Do they call me Hamish the boat builder? Or Hamish the roofer? No! But you shag one sheep...!"

The same is true of bearded women. Do we know these women for their other accomplishments or qualities? No. The reason they are here for me to write about is their outlandishness. Is that what they like? The notoriety? Does that make up for the whispers and the stares and the rude picture-taking? Is that why they keep their beards?

And yet, Mariam speaks on her blog of simply wanting to live as herself. Isn't that exactly what I want? What other trans people want? Doesn't it bother us when people focus on why we cross-dress? Isn't it enough that we say that the why doesn't matter?

What Alex Drummond and other genderqueer people do is (from my perspective) a also bit weird-looking and a bit inexplicable. And yet, is what I do not a bit weird-looking and a bit inexplicable from someone else's perspective? How can I plead for sympathy and acceptance while not granting it (automatically!) to someone else?

Comments welcome, whether you are bearded or unbearded. If you are interested in women with big muscles, why not read my article about Female Bodybuilding? You might also be interested in the related, but different topics, Men in Skirts, and Men with Long Nails.

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Addendum 17th July 2014

If you're going to Saaaan Francisco...

A local news website has reported that men with flowers in their beards are "the latest hipster trend".

Apparently "spreading like wildfire" across image-sharing websites, the website gives 10 examples, captioned with more than a hint of mockery.

Though it doesn't especially do it for me, I don't really see what the fuss is about.

Meanwhile, I have been discovering that one of the reasons Harnam Kaur (above) does not remove her beard is that her particular religion, Sikhism, mandates complete acceptance of the body in the way it was born, and forbids the cutting of hair for both men and women. I think that helps to explain her motivation. For some people, that must be a pretty tough commandment to live up to, and I salute Harnam Kaur for her adherence to it.

Female Bodybuilding

I was going to include this topic in my post on Androgyny, but the more I read about it, the more I thought it was worthy of a post by itself.

I am supportive of women's equality with men in every arena. Female police officers, firefighters and soldiers wouldn't provoke the least reaction in me. Likewise, I am supportive of women's equality in the intellectual fields: science, academia and politics. But, I must admit, I find female bodybuilding to be a puzzle.

Something inside so strong?

Let's take men's bodybuilding first, and in a Darwinian sense. If we take mammals as a whole, males demonstrate (and in some cases prove) their reproductive suitability to females by physical prowess: by jousting with other males. Nature tends to have equipped males with more powerful musculature; a stronger frame; bigger teeth, tusks or horns; and with a tendency to aggression which includes a willingness to fight. From a female's point of view, it makes sense to mate with the alpha: his genes will tend to make the offspring stronger and more robust; more able to fight off predators, more able to withstand harsh conditions, and in their turn, more likely to pass on their genes to their own offspring.

Humans are exempted from none of this. Until the last couple of centuries or so, human reproductive success still favoured physical robustness, and our leaders tended to be great big lads who were handy with a sword. Speaking as a physical weakling, I like to think that we are getting to the point where we can recognise other measures of reproductive success, such as intelligence ("Brainy is the new sexy").

So I can understand why men want to compete at trials of physical strength. Rugby, for example, is a ritualised form of warfare, where the sides are deliberately matched, and the blades and cudgels left out, but the aggression, the grappling, and the testosterone persist. Other football variants permit different quantities of physicality, though the basic premise remains. In part, men are driven to compete by their genes; people who cheer from the sidelines are competing vicariously, and their emotional involvement can be dramatic and intense.


 Bodybuilder Debi Laszewski in 2011

We call it "brute strength" because we tend to associate great human physical strength with coarseness, animal behaviour, and a lack of finesse or intelligence (as in the phrase "brute force and ignorance"). None of this is necessarily true, of course.

Bodybuilding is not entirely about strength, but about display; the tanned, waxed, oiled skin; the deliberate poses and choreography; and the delineation of every last fascicle and fibre of the musculature (and what is it with those veins?). There is a clear difference between the physique of the bodybuilder and that of the weight lifter. But for me, bodybuilding is all about masculinity, and the display of physical strength is a very masculine trait. And they are not judged on their strength or athletic prowess, but merely their appearance.

Enter the women. According to the Wikipedia article, female competitive bodybuilding only really got going in the last 30 years, and is on the rise. Female bodybuilding competitions are now routinely staged alongside male bodybuilding competitions, although the prize money is approximately 1/10 as much.

Women: muscling in?

Female bodybuilders may claim that they are attempting to achieve a balance of athleticism, fitness, flexibility and strength, rather than simply to bulk up with beef. Bodybuilder Debi Laszewski comments: I believe I have an incredible amount of mature muscle on my frame and, that said, a balanced physique. I also try to maintain my feminine lines.

Has she managed this?

Afghanistan and Malaysia have banned female bodybuilding outright. And some female bodybuilders use anabolic or androgenic steroids as a way of increasing their muscle mass. Steroids bulk you up all right, but also threaten fertility and can produce masculinising side-effects, including deepening of the voice and male-pattern baldness.

That rigid diet and punishing exercise regime, designed to cut out body fat and replace it all with lean muscle, inevitably causes breasts to shrink and all but disappear. Female bodybuilders either need to accept that, or get breast implants.

In 1992, concerned that female bodybuilders were too muscular, the International Federation of Body Builders attempted to feminise the sport by introducing rules which penalised excessively muscular contestants. Later, in 2005, the IFBB introduced the controversial "20% rule", which was "that female athletes in Bodybuilding, Fitness and Figure decrease the amount of muscularity by a factor of 20%". The memo stated that the request "applies to those female athletes whose physiques require the decrease". It seemed that even bodybuilders thought the women were getting too big.

A picture of vulnerability?

So what do I think about all this? First, back to the men. I can understand the idea of a man wanting to be big and strong, and to look big and strong. On the other hand, for me, it isn't aesthetically pleasing in the least: I think those inflated physiques look unattractive and off-putting. Though I learned today, with a certain weariness, that there is a sexual fetish associated with touching or rubbing the bodies of highly-muscled people, and that some impecunious bodybuilders submit to this as a means of supplementing their income.

For a woman, then, it's hard to think of anything conventionally feminine about bodybuilding at all. I totally understand the pursuit of health, tone, flexibility and fitness, but to me, this path leads to the physique of a rower, rather than a bodybuilder. Women who bodybuild have the distorted physiques of the men, but in addition, they have the lipstick, the heels, and the long hair (and sometimes the obvious breast implants). This juxtaposition of masculine and feminine features sometimes makes these women very strange to look at indeed. It's worth taking a look at this page, in which celebrity photographer Martin Schoeller takes portraits of female bodybuilders (I have borrowed two for this post). Schoeller writes: I am trying to show the vulnerability that I see and feel in the subjects when I am with them, to get to the complex emotions behind a mask of extreme physical expression.

What are those complex emotions? What form does that vulnerability take? What are those women searching for? How do they feel about themselves? I don't have those answers; you will need to find your own.

Strong Arms of the Ma

My final point is this. If women want to compete in bodybuilding, and they want to bulk up their bodies in this way, they should be allowed to do so unfettered. In the statement above from the IFBB, what they were really saying was "some of you are too big and too muscular; you need to cut back by 20%. Who does this apply to? Well, it's obvious, isn't it? You know who you are". I couldn't find the full statement to read, so there may have been explanations, but perhaps their own sport's governing body was telling bodybuilding women not to get too muscular. Not, perhaps, for health and safety reasons, or other understandable, if wearisome, competition regulations. No, just perhaps because even the sport's own governing body thinks female bodybuilding is unladylike.

For a different but related subject, I refer you to my article about Women with Beards.

Addendum: 30th December 2014

Over the last couple of months or so, this post has become one of the most popular on this blog. On the other hand, nobody has left a comment for ages. If this subject interests you, or upsets you, or arouses you, please leave a comment for discussion.

I came across an episode of The Simpsons entitled Strong Arms of the Ma, in which Marge gets mugged. As a result of feeling vulnerable, she takes up bodybuilding to feel stronger and safer. Though she builds a lot of muscle, unfortunately the steroids cause her to become aggressive and mean. The critics' response to the episode was largely negative. When done well, The Simpsons is a powerful and insightful parody, but it doesn't look like they hit the sweet spot with this episode.

Joanna Darrell-- Beaumont Society Vice President

In a previous post, I wrote of my somewhat unsatisfactory relationship with The Beaumont Society, the oldest transgender-support society in the world. Founded in London in 1966, the Society is run as a charity, and caters for "the transgender, transvestite, transsexual and cross-dressing community".

The Vice President of the Beaumont Society is Joanna Darrell, who happened on my blog post and was kind enough to post a short comment on it. I contacted her to ask if she would be willing to answer some questions about the Beaumont Society, and she generously agreed. I have made some explanatory comments in italics, but otherwise these are Joanna's words.

Please tell us a bit of background information about yourself.

Not really so sure what you want to know here really? I'm 44, married and live in Bristol where I work as an engineer.

How long have you been a crossdresser? How did you get started? I assume from your prominent position within the Beaumont Society that you are "out". Do you dress freely in public?

Joanna Darrell

I've been dressing for 16 years (I guess in trans terms, I'm still a teenager). My introduction was unusual in that I was initially introduced to "the scene" by a friend rather than a longing caused by any sense of dysphoria. After going out a few times and meeting some really great people, I came to realise it was something missing from who I was and chose to embrace it rather than second guess it, or judge myself unfavourably because of it. Although I did consider transitioning about 10 years ago, I came to realise through my RLE [Real Life Experience- a period of living full time as a woman] that it wasn't the right thing for me at that time and I was happy as I am.

Within my life I'm lucky to have the support of my wife and some friends which gives me the freedom to express myself as I want to be when I want to be. I'm not sure this is what you mean by being "out" but I regularly go out dressed and shop, for example.

When did your relationship with the Beaumont Society start?

About 1997. The first meetings I went to were organised by Diana Aitchison at the Town and Gown [a pub] in Cambridge. Diana is also still very active with the T community there.

What first got you interested in the Society? How did you get involved?

The Society has always been there as an outlet throughout my life. Although when I was experimenting with finding myself, I wasn't very close to it (apart from the Cambridge meetings) When I returned to England [after some time abroad], I noticed the Central Regional Organiser position had been vacant for a while so I emailed Shirley Keel and asked if I could help. After a chat about what was involved, I took it on for a short while in a probationary capacity, before taking the role officially in late 2010.

How long before you became Vice President? How does that work? Is there some sort of ballot?

Following Bella's decision to stand down last year, all members of the Society were canvassed via the March 2013 magazine and additionally via the website, Facebook and social media feeds . Following nominations from a number of people, I was elected unopposed in June 2013, which will be ratified in our November AGM.

What is the infrastructure of the Society like? (I envisage some plush office lined with velvet drapes and a golden telephone!) Is there a permanent office with an office staff?

It would be great if that was the case !!

I think it's important to realise there are actually three Beaumont organisations, the Society, Trust and WoBs [Women of the Beaumont Society]. Each group has a different focus in the trans community. The Society supports the trans individual, the Trust supports education and training of organisations, while WoBs and the partners group support the partners and families of trans people.

Although the Society and the Trust are registered UK charities, all three organisations are run by the most dedicated team of volunteers you could wish to meet. Although we do have an address in London, we're not able to accept visitors at this location and only respond to postal mail here. Because we receive no funding other than the membership donation and sales of research material, we rely on these volunteers to support all our activities, including the helplines and other support services we offer.

Both the Society and Trust have national organisational teams, which meet twice a year to discuss medium or long term needs and issues as well as reflect on our activities to date. These meetings form the basis of each organisation's submission to the Charity Commission. Short term needs and issues are discussed via group teleconferences as and when needed, with minutes recorded for discussion at the AGM held in November.

I can see that, for a very long time, the Beaumont Society was the only refuge for transgendered people in Britain, and as such it was probably a lifeline for some. However, with the growth of the Internet it has become a lot easier for us to contact one another and find out more about crossdressing. Is the Beaumont Society still relevant today?

I strongly believe all three organisations are very much relevant today. Although the vision of the Society has stayed very consistent over its history, how it acts on this vision tends to be constantly developing in line with the needs and expectations of the community it supports. Currently, there's a tremendous amount of interest and printed material on trans issues, not just because of the Gender Recognition and Marriage Equality Acts, but also through debates on diversity and transphobic hate crime.

While it's certainly true to say that social media, internet forums and in particular outlets like Facebook have made it easier for trans people to find one another and seek confidence by sharing experiences, this only works for people on those social media feeds, which strange as it may seem to some, not everyone is at the moment. Further, if you consider the whole trans journey, this initial contact is only part of the support trans people need. After this contact, some are looking for places to go, support meetings, services they can use etc., as part of their first steps into the big wide world and beyond.

Then there's the families and partners of these people, who will often need support and have questions when introduced to a trans person for the first time. They also need places and people to be understanding and accepting as well as companies to recognise their diversity so they can get meaningful employment.

Lastly, the subject of care for elderly trans people is beginning to attract some attention, which while it may not be trendy, is still an area which requires research and support. I think it's in these wider areas that the Beaumont Organisations (and others like us) can and still do play a significant meaningful part.

My impression of the Society is that most of the members are senior citizens. I expect this is probably unfair. But if the Society doesn't attract new members, it will eventually collapse. It seems that some young people today freely engage in crossdressing activities without recognising the label "transvestite". How can Beaumont reach out to those people? And how will its voice be heard amid "steampunk" and "cosplay" and other activities where crossdressing is condoned?

I'm never really sure what point people are trying to make when they say these types of things. It seems to me that they're trying to infer "we're out of touch" or worse still "we're a bunch of guys with beards and pipes in dresses". Both of these always seem prejudicial and something which, if the situation was reversed, would almost certainly be labelled as ageist, possibly even transphobic. While labels like "transvestite" and "transexual" can be useful for medical diagnoses, beyond that, they tend to become badges which people focus a lot of derision or hatred onto, so I prefer not to use them myself, if you want to label me - "just call me Joanna".

Although we do have our fair share of older members, I've never seen this as the issue . They have tremendous experience, maturity and often a different outlook on life, which can be useful when considering the issues of a younger generation. They've lived and walked that path !!! Some will also be blazing a trail on issues like care of elderly trans people, so they have real valuable lessons to draw on.

Concerning things like Steampunk, Cosplay and even Anime, I think these are great artistic expressions and creative outlets and it's really encouraging to see aspects of trans culture and lifestyles be embodied into these. One of the great things about these outlets is that they can raise issues and discussions in an informal, thought-provoking way which is sometimes impossible through other avenues. For this reason, we're looking at producing some material later in the year to help get the message of trans awareness out there. Social media groups like Facebook and Twitter are other ways we reach out to these people, also via our video log via Skype. Interestingly the demographics of people in touch with us via these is significantly younger than what people who label us as "the blue rinse and pearls brigade" would imagine !!!

Although the mission statement for the Society includes all transgendered people, it's my impression that the overwhelming majority of members are straight men who crossdress. Are there many transsexuals? Are there any female to male members? If so, what can the Society offer them?

We don’t keep personal records of our members, or collect data about their trans status, so there isn't a definitive way of answering this question. I do know of several members who have or are in the process of transitioning, however, who also play significant roles in the organisation.

Would we like more ? Yes, of course, and also we encourage intersex, gender neutral and FTM people to apply and join in too. Our most recent magazine featured a number of articles from a female to male trans perspective and it’s a subject that will return and be explored in future editions.

What role do genetic women play in the Society, if any?

Generally, Genetic Women tend to be members of the WoBs organisation or the Trust. Where the Society is supported by genetic women, it tends to be in the form of service providers who advertise via the website and magazine for things like clothes or make-overs.

As a crossdresser myself, I accept that there is a sexual element to the drive to crossdress. Yet Beaumont seems to insist that crossdressing is (basically) a neutral and harmless hobby, like stamp-collecting or birdwatching. Is that a lie? No sex please, we're British?

I'm not sure how you've formed this opinion, but it's essentially a mis-interpetation of our values and vision of ourselves. To clarify :- "The society is not available for sexual liaisons". This means that at any of our meetings we do not encourage sexual acts, or sell our membership list for adult dating purposes as some groups do for revenue, it's just not what we're about. We're not so naïve as to think that for some, cross-dressing isn't an arousing, sexual act and if that’s the case, good for you, but we won't facilitate this through our organisation and would steer you elsewhere. You are still welcome to be a member, just for the other things about being trans!!! This is something a lot of our members partners are particularly grateful for, as the sexual aspect and their partners faithfulness are among their most common fears when they find out about their partner's trans personality.

Does the Society still consider itself the "official" voice of the crossdressing community in Britain? If so, what form does this voice take?

I don't believe any one organisation can consider itself to be "the voice" of the community and would strongly argue against one trying to present itself as such. Like many organisations, we have a role to play which I've outlined above.

This year alone, we have provided training to the police, NHS, counselling groups, Relate and two private companies. We are also just in the process of engaging with the prison service about trans issues. This is probably one of the most unsung things about all three organisations that often goes un-noticed but which is made possible through the membership fee which we are eternally grateful to our members for.

What relationship, if any, does Beaumont have with similar organisations in other countries?

We enjoy relationships with an organisation in Australia and one in America. These have come about through development of our internet site and social media feeds, which reflect changes in how people find us. We have featured news from the USA in our most recent magazines and Facebook pages, as this is something we occasionally receive emails about.

If there is nothing in New Zealand, why not start something? We'd love to help and play a part.

Can you tell me a little bit about the magazine? What is the editorial policy? Is there a deliberate tone or direction that you aim for?

Traditionally, the editorial policy was set by the magazine editor, who tended to write the whole magazine herself. As times have changed however, this approach has changed drastically and the most recent magazines have been more collaborative. These feature articles from a number of sources which are a cross section of news, views, fashion and issues which are pertinent to the trans community. With this new magazine format, we're trying to make it less of a special interest magazine, presenting it in a more modern way which makes it more mainstream.

Joanna was kind enough to send me an electronic copy of the new magazine format, and she is right: the production values are hugely improved; the quality of the articles is substantially better; the balance between fiction and feature articles is much better; the covergirl is gorgeous. Overall, a spectacular improvement.

How has the Society changed over the last decade? Where do you see the Society going in the future? Is there some sort of ultimate goal?

Kay West

From my personal viewpoint the society has changed massively in the last three years or so, building on the organisation Janett Scott [former President] gave her, Shirley Keel [past President] put more of an organisation in place to move forward with the challenges we were facing and Kay West [current President] has busied herself with getting good people into the organisation and modernising it. We're not finished with this journey yet and have things we can always improve on. Maybe the easiest way to answer that is to invite people who think they knew us to come and take another look, maybe even join in!!

As for our goal, its simply "acceptance".

Will there ever come a time when we have no need of societies like Beaumont, because we will all be able to dress however we like?

I hope so, I really do. Although I think we're moving towards that ideal, these things take time and a sustained effort , both from organisations like ourselves and the people we support. I have no doubt we will get there though!

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My thanks to Joanna for taking the time to answer my questions. I deliberately posed some challenging questions, and she answered these in a very balanced way. I suppose my questions were partly a reflection of my own disappointment with the Beaumont Society's apparent inability to meet my own needs at the time I was a member.

On the other hand, everything Joanna has said (and everything I see on its website) counters my concerns: the Beaumont Society is evolving, it is changing to reflect society, it is trying to keep up with the times and use new forms of communication to its advantage (social media and the Internet), and it is reaching out to younger members. Like any long-lasting organisation, it has to slightly rebrand itself from time to time, while keeping true to its core values. I wish Joanna and the Beaumont Society every success.

If you want to contact the Beaumont Society, their contact page is here.

Women who Crossdress

Here is an interesting topic: women who crossdress into the male role. When I first started this post, I thought I would only have a few things to write; the trouble now is what to leave out!

Women have been crossdressing as men for centuries. I suppose one of the most famous and best-known is Joan of Arc, who dressed as a knight in full armour while pursuing a successful career as a military genius for the French against the English, before being captured and burned at the stake at the age of just 19. Her career didn't end there, and she has managed to do quite well as a saint and martyr, and heroine of the French.

Fast-forward a few centuries, James Barry managed a very successful career as a surgeon and a soldier in the British Army in the early 19th Century. He was revealed to be a woman only at autopsy. In the following century, a certain "Colonel" Victor Barker managed to have a successful life as a man, despite having been born a woman, including a marriage where his wife never suspected. Some aspects of his life were fabricated by him, including his military rank and career. Barker died in 1960.


Manly: Annemarie Schwarzenbach

A series of similar individuals is described in Chapter 3 of Vested Interests, Prof. Marjorie Garber's scholarly study of "cross-dressing and cultural anxiety". This is a weighty and impressive book, beautifully researched, and undoubtedly the subject of a future blog post (I am indebted to Garber's book for drawing my attention to other figures, such as Lord Cornbury, whom I discuss in another blog post). Garber mentions other colourful characters, including the Reverend Joseph Lobdell, and Dr. Eugene C. Perkins, who lived as men and were discovered only upon death to have been anatomically female. Swiss author Annemarie Schwartzenbach (d. 1942) often dressed and acted as a man and was reportedly bisexual.

Most recently, there is the case of jazz musician Billy Tipton. Garber's book describes him in detail, but there is quite a lot also on Wikipedia. Tipton was married to a woman, and adopted three sons. Ostensibly, Tipton adopted a male role to pursue a successful jazz career, but this fails to explain why he felt he had to carry this role into his personal life. Like Barker before him, Tipton told his wife he had been wounded in the abdomen, which explained why he had to wear bandages (to bind his breasts), and why he could not achieve penetration. Tipton died as late as 1989, making him perhaps the most recent and notable among people born anatomically female who have lived as a man, and as a result, his story was widely reported in the media.

I can't go any further without mentioning that most women can crossdress freely. If a woman wears jeans, trainers and a shirt, nobody minds. But if I want to wear (say) a denim skirt and a pair of tights? That's not going to look good at the school parents' evening. I think that may be one reason why female crossdressers appear to be fewer: if there is any sort of excitement to be had by wearing male clothing, it can be achieved very easily and without any societal condemnation.

All The King's Men, a drag king troupe from Boston

In the popular media, Annie Lennox has seemingly pursued a deliberately androgynous appearance throughout her career. And the movie Yentl (1983) features Barba Streisand as a Jewish girl who is prevented from studying scripture until she adopts the name and role of a boy. According to Wikipedia, there is quite a large drag king culture, where performers born female perform as men; and why not? This probably goes back even earlier than Vesta Tilley, a popular male impersonator from the early 20th century.

I think what unites these stories (performers aside) is a sense that each of the individuals was attempting to escape from the fetters imposed by society's expectations of them as women: that they couldn't succeed as women. In the (Western) world we now live in, full of notable female heads of state, celebrities and scientists, you might think that there would be nothing that a talented, accomplished woman couldn't now achieve, but you would still be wrong. A woman I have tremendous admiration for is J.K. Rowling. Why do we know her as J.K. Rowling and not Joanne Rowling? Because her publisher reckoned that mostly boys would read her books, and might be put off if they thought the author was a woman. So they recommended the initials. Rowling has no legal middle name, so she chose Kathleen, the name of her grandmother, for her middle initial. (I can't help recalling George Eliot, who deliberately adopted a male pen name, because she felt she would not be taken seriously as a writer if she used her real name).


Androgynous: Sigourney Weaver

So far, then, each of these individuals has seemed to adopt not just the clothing of men, but the role of men. Each of them seems to have changed role not for personal satisfaction, let alone sexual gratification, but for social reasons, although it's impossible not to wonder if they also derived some personal gratification from what they were doing. In Shakesperean times, women were not allowed on stage, so all the roles were played by men (it's interesting to consider Ophelia, Portia, and even Juliet as being played by men in the first instance!) I can't help thinking that the men who took these roles were doing it for more reasons than just the salary.

But what about the clothes? What about the sensual appeal of freshly-laundered cotton Y-fronts, a pair of polished leather brogues, a crisp white Italian shirt and a silk tie in a double Windsor knot? If this makes you smile at the deliberate absurdity, I hope this gives an inkling of how we crossdressers are perceived by "ordinary" people.

Some scholars (such as Ray Blanchard) have denied the existence of female-to-male crossdressers at all. And I am fairly sure scholars agree that there are fewer of them than there are male-to-female. But they are out there, and I dare say they number in their many thousands too. It's interesting to tease out their motivations: for me at least, crossdressing is only partly about the clothes, and a lot to do with roles, expectations, and emotional expression.

Here is EmTheo, writing on the website Daily Strengths:

EmTheo: Is there a term for us? Is there anyone out there like me? I've been cross dressing for about five years, but have never talked about it with anyone except my h [husband] (and a little bit with my therapist). It seems like my h loves it ("it" being me going out as boy, packing, cross dressing, anal sex on him, etc) as much or more than me. The store where I buy my pack and other items is very lesbian oriented. I feel like a small minority of women who shop there. Basically, I feel like a small minority of women in general... I would love to connect with another woman who is in a committed relationship with a man who does this. Maybe it is more common than I think...?

Aha! I want to say. It didn't take much clicking for me to happen on this website, where Briana asks "what makes a woman who crossdresses as a male feel sexy wearing?" The responses are absolutely fascinating. Areyan writes:

Areyan: i have not progressed to full crossdressing yet (due to circumstances, not desire lol) but i have been wearing items of menswear every day. i am not sure i feel sexy so much as relieved when i put these clothes on. when i think of myself in every sense as the male i feel i am inside i can feel euphoric about it, calm, relaxed and i even feel - beautiful? maybe that's the wrong word, but it's a loving and positive feeling just feeling like myself. i'm not sure the dressing thing would be sexual for me though. good question.
lol, ok... after purchasing my first binder and wearing that with my menswear... yes, do i feel sexy? masculine? handsome? i'm going to have to say yes, having a flat chest does help with that feeling.

And Seamus writes:

Seamus: Okay, firsties, like the other guys defined, sexy in this context means feeling comfortable and attractive in my own skin. Lemme see. . . I remember really enjoying the feeling of underwear when I first started wearing it (still do). Also, I love the way cargo pants hang off my frame. I almost never wear any other kind of pants. Brown leather gloves (in winter, lol). Men's sneakers, particularly anything brown. I don't really like formal wear, but it certainly helps me to pass better. And I have to say, there's nothing that feels quite like a a great cotton or flannel shirt.

This is all a bit like looking in some distorted mirror! The descriptions of how crossdressing makes these people feel is very close to how I would describe it for myself ("relieved", "relaxed", "beautiful?", "comfortable and attractive in my own skin"). On the other hand, the descriptions of clothing given in these and other replies are very interesting. Brown leather gloves? I've never worn a pair! And even if I owned a pair, I would not attribute anything particularly masculine to them: my gloves would say nothing about my sense of myself as a man. It's really fascinating to read. I can't help thinking: these people are just like me!

There may be fewer women who crossdress for pleasure, but the ones who do seem to do it for exactly the same reasons I do. I've never met such a person (to my knowledge!), but I think it would be a very interesting conversation!

So if you are a woman who crossdresses, please post your insights here!

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Addendum 30th October 2012

I came across this interesting blog post about Joan of Arc on the Jesus in Love Blog maintained by lesbian cleric Kittredge Cherry.

Hirsute: St Wilgefortis

From it I also learned about the obscure St. Wilgefortis, also described on Wikipedia, a saint whose iconography depicts her as a crucified, bearded woman, often with one shoe missing. There are several explanations for this unusual figure. Firstly and perhaps most reasonably, she may simply have been an intersex person (see my later post for the relationship between sex and gender to save myself repeating stuff). However, a good competing theory is that some statues of Jesus on the cross were created wearing a robe instead of a loincloth, and the story of a bearded woman saint was cooked up as a means of explaining this away. Actual details of her life are so sketchy that legends have grown to fill the gaps, including the fact that she prayed to God to be delivered from an impending unhappy marriage-- and promptly grew a beard!