| Middle Sexes: Redefining He and She | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Antony Thomas |
| Narrated by | Gore Vidal |
| Theme music composer | Dimitri Tchamouroff |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| Production | |
| Producers |
|
| Cinematography | Jonathan Partridge |
| Editor | McDonald Brown |
| Running time | 75 minutes |
| Original release | |
| Release | 2005 |
Middle Sexes: Redefining He and She is a 2005 American television documentary film by Antony Thomas.
The documentary explores the issue of gender and sex, beginning with transgender women dancing at a nightclub. The murder of Gwen Araujo, a teenage trans woman, is described in detail by the narrator. Several acquaintances had killed her after finding out that Araujo was born male because two of them had had sexual relations with her.
Two trans women, Calpernia Addams and Andrea James, speak about the members of their community being brutally murdered for being transgender. Addams then tells the audience about her boyfriend, Barry Winchell, who was harassed and eventually murdered by a fellow soldier for dating a transgender woman. James talks about her life as a lesbian transgender woman.
How sex is developed in the womb is explained by the narrator and James Pfaus, a professor at Concordia University. More about how sex develops is discussed between each of the stories.
Max Beck, an Intersex person, tells the story of how he was born with ambiguous genitalia and then assigned female at birth. He was raised with many operations for which he did not know the reason until he found out that he was classified as a male pseudohermaphrodite at birth. He eventually transitioned to using the name Max and male pronouns, but still identifies as more an intersex person then a man. Max now is married with a daughter.
The next story told is about the intersex condition of Maria José Martínez-Patiño, a former Olympic hurdler, who was banned from competition after a test showed her to have XY (male) chromosomes. She eventually won her medals back and was allowed to compete as a woman after a long legal battle. There are no more chromosome tests in the Olympic Games; however, gender verification in sports remains contentious.
Next, eight-year-old Noah is introduced. Noah is biologically male and living as boy, but prefers things that are typically for girls. His father, mother, and step-father all share their concerns for Noah's future in their small Midwestern town.
In a Dutch institute of brain research, scientists are trying to learn about the differences between sex and gender. They found differences in the brains of transgender people from cisgender people of their birth sex.
The documentary then looks at different treatment of gender-variant and people of different sexualities across cultures and history.
In India, older teenage boys dance at weddings in a way that might get them labelled as homosexuals, and sometimes have sex, at other times. An Indian man, Vijay, and his wife are introduced. The fact that Vijay lives a double life with a male partner of twelve years is revealed. Vijay's wife doesn't know about this, and he feels guilty because he was forced into an arranged marriage. But in the Hindu religion, it was once considered natural to have a different sexuality until British colonization. India still have hijras, a group of people who are a type of third gender. They go through a now-illegal operation to remove their male-assigned genitalia.
In Bangkok, Thailand the audience meets a transgender model who will be getting married soon. In Buddhism, it is believed everyone will be a transgender person at one point because they believe in reincarnation. More Thai transgender women, called Kathoey, are introduced. One is in a relationship with a Texan man who was married and had children. The woman in her early twenties must support her mother and grandmother because her father has died.
A story is told of heterosexual college men who were shown gay pornography. Their physical response was measured. Men who were considered homophobic were more aroused, but claimed they had no reaction. This then goes back to Gwen Araujo, who was killed by two men who were insecure about their sexualities because they had sexual relations with her. All of this supports the theory that people are more likely to get angry at sex, gender, and sexuality differences because they are insecure about their own sexuality or gender identity.
The film was nominated for a 2006 GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Documentary.
When airing in Sweden TV3, the title was given as Straight.
The word cisgender describes a person whose gender identity corresponds to their sex assigned at birth, i.e., someone who is not transgender. The prefix cis- is Latin and means on this side of. The term cisgender was coined in 1994 as an antonym to transgender, and entered into dictionaries starting in 2015 as a result of changes in social discourse about gender. The term has been and continues to be controversial and subject to critique.
John William Money was a New Zealand American psychologist, sexologist and professor at Johns Hopkins University known for his research on human sexual behavior and gender. Believing that gender identity was malleable within the first two years of life, Money advocated for the surgical "normalization" of the genitalia of intersex infants.
In the Indian subcontinent, hijra are eunuchs, intersex people, or transgender people who live in communities that follow a kinship system known as guru-chela system. They are also known as aravani, aruvani, and jogappa. The term is used in Pakistan as khawaja sira, the equivalent of transgender in the Urdu language.
Calpernia Sarah Addams is an American actress, musician, spokesperson and activist for transgender rights and issues.
John Michael Bailey is an American psychologist, behavioral geneticist, and professor at Northwestern University best known for his work on the etiology of sexual orientation and paraphilia. He maintains that male sexual orientation is most likely established in utero.
The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism is a 2003 book by the American psychologist J. Michael Bailey, published by Joseph Henry Press.
Transamerican Love Story is an American reality dating show in which suitors woo transgender woman Calpernia Addams. Addams chooses a suitor by process of elimination. When the show first aired, viewers could vote their preferences online, but it was Addams who chose whom to eliminate. Calpernia is accompanied by her friend Andrea James; each episode is hosted by comedian Alec Mapa.
Mak Nyah, alternatively spelled maknyah, is a Malay vernacular term for trans women in Malaysia. It arose in the late 1980s in order to distinguish trans women from other minorities.
Andrea Jean James is an American transgender rights activist, film producer, and blogger.
Intersex people are individuals born with any of several sex characteristics including chromosome patterns, gonads, or genitals that, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies".
Gendernauts: A Journey Through Shifting Identities is a 1999 film by Monika Treut featuring Sandy Stone, Texas Tomboy, Susan Stryker, and Hida Viloria. It shows us a group of artists in San Francisco who live between the poles of conventional gender identities.
Alice Domurat Dreger is an American historian, bioethicist, author, and former professor of clinical medical humanities and bioethics at the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, in Chicago, Illinois.
Morgan Holmes is a Canadian sociologist, author, and a professor at Wilfrid Laurier University, Ontario. She is also an intersex activist and writer, and former member of Intersex Society of North America. Holmes participated in the first public demonstration by intersex people, now marked by Intersex Awareness Day.
Tiger Devore, previously known as Howard Devore and Tiger Howard Devore, is an American clinical psychologist, sex therapist, and spokesperson on intersex issues. He was a member of the defunct Intersex Society of North America. Historian Alice Dreger credits him with starting the work of the intersex movement.
Intersex, in humans and other animals, describes variations in sex characteristics including chromosomes, gonads, sex hormones, or genitals that, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies". Intersex is a part of nature and that is reflected in some representations of intersex in film and other media.
Intersex, in humans and other animals, describes variations in sex characteristics including chromosomes, gonads, sex hormones, or genitals that, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies".
Cary Gabriel Costello is an intersex trans male professor and advocate for transgender and intersex rights. His areas of study include identity, sexuality, privilege, and marginalization.
Intersex people are born with sex characteristics that "do not fit the typical definitions for male or female bodies". They are substantially more likely to identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) than endosex people, an estimated 52% identifying as non-heterosexual and 8.5% to 20% experiencing gender dysphoria. Although many intersex people are heterosexual and cisgender, this overlap and "shared experiences of harm arising from dominant societal sex and gender norms" has led to intersex people often being included under the LGBT umbrella, with the acronym sometimes expanded to LGBTI. Some intersex activists and organisations have criticised this inclusion as distracting from intersex-specific issues such as involuntary medical interventions.
Military service of intersex people varies greatly by country. Some armed forces such as the Australian Defence Force fully embrace intersex people in the modern era, while others such as the United States Armed Forces have vague rules or policies or treat the subject on a case by case basis.
This article addresses the history of transgender people across the British Isles in the United Kingdom, the British colonies and the Kingdom of England until the present day. Transgender people were historically recognised in the UK by varying titles and cultural gender indicators, such as dress. People dressing and living differently from their sex assignment at birth and contributing to various aspects of British history and culture have been documented from the 14th century to the present day. In the 20th century, advances in medicine, social and biological sciences and transgender activism have influenced transgender life in the UK.
