whflanagan

Thesis

Transexuality questions our notions of what it means to be homo/heterosexual.

Intro

You’re girlfriend has a vagina and breasts, so it’s probably fair to say that you’re attracted to females. What about when she tells you that she once had a penis and has two children that she made with her very own sperm? She is now a woman, but was once a man. Is your girlfriend still a “true” woman? Can you still be a true heterosexual or lesbian if your vagina-wearing companion happens to also be a good father?

It is no surprise that transsexual individuals challenge our notion of the gender binary: that all boys live as boys and are attracted to girls, while all girls live as girls and are attracted to boys. They clearly demonstrate that there are exceptions to the strict laws of society. Boys can become girls and girls can become boys. Or maybe they can just become partly one sex and partly the other.

What is surprising is that transsexual individuals make the rest of society reconsider their own sexuality. We ask ourselves if transsexuals truly belong to the sex they are now or the sex they were born as. Immediately thereafter the question is raised as to what it means to be a true boy/girl. We know that the transsexual is violating the gender binary, but what about their potential partners. Transexuality questions our notion of what it means to be homo/heterosexual.

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