wk 8 REPLY

I was deeply fascinated by the story of Christine Jorgensen. Christine had been born into a male body but had always felt from a young age that she was supposed to be born into a female body. In her early twenties she realized that she was a heterosexual woman instead of a crossdresser or gay man. After this realization she became interested in learning about sex changes and began taking female hormone treatments. She had a surgery to remove her penis and testicles and reshape her scrotum into a labia. While she was recovering from surgery a trade magazine reported her story and she became "the most talked about girl in the world". It was interesting to learn about her story and understand that even though she was not the first person to undergo a gender reassignment surgery, she got the most attention for it (at the time) because of the fascination about her transformation. She had been a U.S. serviceman that had transformed into a blonde bombshell. The news stories fixated on her physical beauty and conventional white feminine looks that appealed to mainstream America. This story reminded me of Caitlyn Jenner's story, where she went from an award winning Olympic athlete to a stunning model gracing the cover of Vogue magazine. Caitlyn is a complicated and controversial figure because of her political views which seem to conflict with her identity as a trans woman. Caitlyn has a lot of privilege, she already had fame and wealth so she had a platform to speak and the wealth to allow her many surgeries which gave her passing privilege as well. I remember the story of Bruce becoming Caitlyn being a very big deal in the media and how the press fawned over her gorgeous looks. I think it is important to acknowledge how women are still portrayed in the media by their physical beauty before any other attributes. I don't mean to throw shade at Caitlyn, I just found the similarities between her story and Christine's very interesting.

Post 2

I chose to focus on the readings that centered on Bisexuality as I am always excited to read or find related material that is accurate, as there is an overall lack of representation of the community. As a psychology major, I have taken a good number of courses within gender and sexuality studies and I have done a good amount of research on bisexual erasure, invisibility, and the impact it has had on the community. Although I would find peer-reviewed journals and articles with data and facts, I would have to dig deep through them all because the sample sizes would always be lacking, or there just wouldn’t be a high count of research provided for the bisexual community unlike for the other communities. Sample sizes are very important because if it is small and secluded than it can’t really globally reach out to the targeted community. Which researchers mistake often. Which is why I very much agree with Hutchins, when they mentioned how researchers after Kinsey would just lump lesbians, gays, and bisexuals together in studies about non-heterosexuals (pg.9). I believe the reason they also decided to lump them all is to create a bigger sample, but they forget how these results could be harmful as the results aren’t going to relate to everyone. Those three groups face different forms of oppression and express in different ways and that’s before adding cultural context, race, gender, etc..

When reading the Bialogue-group’s manifesto on Bisexuality, I thought it was really powerful coming from someone whose Bisexual and have grown up with many friends who have struggled coming out as Bisexual to the immense amount of people who have a lack of understanding or acceptance as Bisexuality being a sexuality. The most annoying thing is how often people attack others who are bisexual for currently having a partner whose of opposite sex and then demeaning someone of their identity and sexuality by then calling them straight or judging them for not being “gay” enough.  We shouldn’t have to explain ourselves. A figure I would like to mention, that I look up too is Stephanie Beatriz. She is a bisexual Latina woman whose married to a man that is straight. So many people have denied her sexuality because of that and have felt the need to speak on her behalf. Although she has denied them and shared that just because she is married to a man doesn’t mean her attraction to women has just disappeared. She just so happened to fall in love with a man.

  “This person happens to be a man. I’m still bi.” (GQ, June 21 2018, Stephanie Beatriz)