Drag queens or female impersonators are one of the most iconic symbols of the queer community in Western society with their recognition coming from a number of sources: from fighting against police brutality during the Stonewall riots, to putting on entertaining lip-synching performances in LGBTQ nightclubs. Drag performers have become the ultimate representation of gender non-conformity in the Western world – as they are often painted as being subversive transgressors of gender, they are often seen as interrupting what is thought to be a “natural” link between biological sex and socially created gender. In response to this reception of female impersonation as being a subversive act, a number of social scientific theorists began to put forward …show more content…
“Transgender” has become an all-encompassing term, covering any person who partakes in or identifies with a socially non-conforming gender role – in other words, an individual who is not fixed to the Western gender binary concept. There are a number of major differences between transsexual women and drag performers. Transsexual women are individuals who are born in a male body but who see themselves as having a female identity, who live fulltime in a feminine gender role, and who may seek sexual reassignment surgery, hormone therapy, counselling, and so on during their period of transition (Roberts, 2013). Transvestites or cross-dressers tend to be heterosexual men with a “pathological fetish for women 's attire” (Strubel-Scheiner, 2011: 13) and so are a separate entity from drag performers. While the term “drag queen” has increased in popularity and usage due to reality television show such as RuPaul 's Drag Race and it 's spin offs, RuPaul 's Drag Race: Untucked! and Drag U, most performers prefer “female impersonator” to this title, especially if their act involves imitating a celebrity (Strubel-Scheiner, 2011: 13). Furthermore, drag performers generally like being male and do not wish to be a “real woman” - they have “no desire to present as female except on stage” (Roberts, 2013; Strubel-Scheiner, 2011:
Not many know how to achieve success in all categories, but Tina Fey didn’t have any problems figuring that out. Tina fey, television writer, screenwriter, actress, comedian, and mother, has taken the world by storm. Tina Fey has a powerful influence on our world today and she has become a worldwide icon in the eyes of many young women. Tina Fey may have been THE woman to make it stylish to wear glasses in the mid-2000s, but there is more to this multi-talented woman then those trademark black-rimmed spectacles.
In one interview Katie Couric sat down with Cox and transgender model Carmen Carrera to discuss their experiences as high-profile transgender women. However, Couric seemed “…mostly interested in talking to both women about their genitalia, in order to ‘educate’ others who may not be ‘familiar with transgenders’” (McDonough 2014). This demonstrates a distinct lack of the sociolinguistic competence necessary to determine what questions are or are not appropriate in a social setting. No cis woman would be expected to answer questions about their genitalia in a televised interview, yet these inappropriate questions are ones trans women face far too often. The fascination with investigating whether or not they fit with the mainstream media’s view of what a woman is—one who’s gender identity and genitalia both match—results in a complete disregard for what would otherwise be a very clearly taboo topic. Additionally, her use of “transgenders” as a noun shows a clear lack of understanding in even the most basic rhetoric used in describing trans individuals, emphasizing once again the linguistic divide between cis gendered woman and trans gendered
Judith Butler’s concept of gender being performative focuses on how it creates a sequence of effect or impression. Human have a consistent way of talking about their gender as if it were something that is simply a fact. People go about their lives following patterns that are interconnected with their male or female appearance. They get very settled in the expected behaviors and common attributes of male or female, without recognizing that gender is a social construction. It is difficult to wrap your head around the idea that gender is always changing and being reproduced because it is conversation that often goes unnoticed. Butler realizes that it will be a struggle to get people to grasp the idea that nobody actually is their gender and that
Barbie is tall, thin, has large hips and a large chest; she is beautiful, blonde, and she loves to shop; overall, Barbie is the feminine ideal. As researchers Jacqueline Urla and Alan Swedlund acknowledge, “little girls learn, among other things, about the crucial importance of their appearance to their personal happiness and to their ability to gain in favor with their friends” (1995:281). Gender roles are both centered around behavior as well as around bodies; this poses huge problems for transgender people, as well as explanations for transphobia; society has, for so long, accepted gender and sex to be synonymous. Because of this, a person whose gender is female and whose body is (rhetorically) male is a frightening and concerning deviant to most people’s understanding of the way in which gender exists. Everything that has to do with ideals for bodies leads to problems for transgender people; whether it is, as Urla and Swedlund also commented, that “...woman’s body was understood through the lens of her reproductive functions” (1995:287), or the general idea of “norms” for body proportions. When considering women’s bodies’ main purpose to be that of reproduction, it is apparent why the concept of transgender people may be concerning; transgender women -- that is, people, assigned male at birth but who live as women -- are women whose bodies cannot reproduce in the way that women are expected to; transgender men -- people assigned female at birth but who live as men -- may still have bodies which are viewed as useful mainly for their reproductive capabilities, but which they do not intend to acknowledge or use as such. When things stray so drastically from a norm which has long been accepted with minimal thought, onlookers panic that other norms will start to change as well. Straying from this norm also
The news article I studied is from March 12th 2014 and found in the Fashion and Style section of The New York Times. Its title is “In their Own Terms- the growing transgender presence in Pop culture.” This article outlines the culture surrounding transgender and transgender situations in the United States, whilst following the lives and transformations of some known citizens of pop culture.
The Stonewall rebellion has been considered the birth of a new wave of a liberation movement that changed the world for millions of lesbians, gay men, drag queens, and drag kings of all races, ethnicities, and ages. Yet, it was certainly not the first raid nor the first moment of protest for homosexuals. The raid at Stonewall was preceded by decades of police harassment of gay establishments. The first recorded raid of a gay bathhouse was in 1903, at the Ariston Hotel Baths at 55th and Broadway in New York where 26 men were arrested. Seven of them received sentences ranging from four to 20 years in prison (Chauncey, 1994). Countless raids, arrests, and imprisonments occurred in the decades that followed.
Funnily drag did not n’t start out as a form of expression but as a necessity. In Ancient Greece, women could not n’t perform in plays because it was considered deemed “too dangerous”(Conger). In the middle ages, Europe’s Christian church continued the ban
The Stonewall Inn served as the backdrop of the Stonewall riots in 1969. In the 60’s, very few businesses were friendly to open homosexuals, and tensions amongst gays and mainstream culture were coming to a breaking point. Homosexuality was not as accepted as it is today, and there were few places for people to be open about their sexuality. The Stonewall Inn, apparently owned by members of the Mafia, was considered a safe haven for drag queens- the transgender community. It catered to male prostitutes, homeless youth- those were cast aside by a society that did not accept them. Police had raided the bar in the past, on a regular basis. But on June 28, 1969, the story took a turn.
In this article, Shaw and Lee describe how the action of labels on being “feminine” or “masculine” affect society. Shaw and Lee describe how gender is, “the social organization of sexual difference” (124). In biology gender is what sex a person is and in culture gender is how a person should act and portray themselves. They mention how gender is what we were taught to do in our daily lives from a young age so that it can become natural(Shaw, Lee 126). They speak on the process of gender socialization that teaches us how to act and think in accordance to what sex a person is. Shaw and Lee state that many people identify themselves as being transgendered, which involves a person, “resisting the social construction of gender into two distinct, categories, masculinity and femininity and working to break down these constraining and polarized categories” ( 129). They write about how in mainstream America masculinity and femininity are described with the masculine trait being the more dominant of the two. They define how this contributes to putting a higher value of one gender over the other gender called gender ranking (Shaw, Lee 137). They also speak about how in order for femininity to be viewed that other systems of inequality also need to be looked at first(Shaw,Lee 139).
Imagine going through life believing that you were born into the wrong body. This is how a transgender feels as they go through life. A transgender is a person who whose self-identity does not conform unambiguously to male or female sex. This topic is very controversial due to many arguments about the differences between the male and female physique. The natural biological differences between males and a females play a huge role in this controversy. These difference become serious issues when athletes want to compete for their non-biological sex. Michelle Castillo, a freelance writer and editor, believes that once a transgender athlete completes at least one year of hormone therapy, then the athletes should be eligible to compete with the sex of their choice.
Typically, it is understood that men are people with male bodies, and women are people with female bodies. However, these lines can get blurred when one’s gender identity does not coincide with their sex. An example of this is a transgender person, a person whose gender identity does not match their biological sex.
There are certainly various points in history that can be construed as trailblazing for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. One event in particular, however, sparked awareness and a call to action that previously could never have been conceptualized in the United States. This unforgettable incident, the Stonewall riots of 1969, altered the public’s view of the gay community and arguably jumpstarted the next revolution in an entirely new civil rights movement.
In today’s society people are becoming more open about their gender. Celebrities are becoming trans-gendered and this is affecting society because it leaves people in confusion on if the person is male with feminine traits. This causes society to view a trans-gendered person different than others because they chose to change their gender from what they were born as at birth. Changing from male to female allows people to view that person to be weak because generally the male is the dominant sex in life. In culture women are marked by wearing dresses, their body structures and having the title “Mrs.” while men remain unmarked by their clothing and appearances.
Transgender Today Nowadays, there are lot of unexpected changes coming in our lives every day which are challenging to our society. Gender issues are one of the hot topics among new changes. Transsexuality is a critical part of this gender issue. After reading the article “Night to his day” by Judith Lorber, I found a clarification regarding the social construction of gender. While looking for some facts about transgender, I have also found a lot of articles with different points of views from researchers, scientists and individuals who have transformed from their origin to transgender men/women.
Transgender women face just as much misogyny as cisgendered women, and often times more. “The worst insult for a boy is that he acts ‘like a girl.’ In a transmisogynistic society, being trans is punished and being feminine is punished, but nothing is punished more than the femininity of people who are not ‘supposed’ to be women,” concurs Max Thornton, a journalist at Advocate (Thornton). This is just one example of the misogyny and stereotyping that trans women face on a daily basis. People’s ideals of hypermasculinity nowadays creates even more of a stigma against these women than there might be otherwise. Even more so than there is for trans men, as Kortney Ziegler, another jou...