Deborah Rudacille - The Riddle of Gender

Diagnoses of autism, like those for gender identity disorder, have been rising steadily over the past few decades “The U.S. Department of Education reports a 900 percent increase in cases of autism since 1992. On C-Span exhausted, terrified, furious parents vent their hopeless wrath during congressional hearings investigating claims that Big Pharma has ignored for years their belief that pediatric vaccinations precipitated their child’s acquisition of autism. Is the mercury-based preservative contained in the vaccine—thimerosal—overwhelming the baby’s premature immune system? … Sensing the inevitable, bills exonerating vaccine manufacturers from liability snake their way through Congress. The most notorious of which, a rider, Mickey Finn’d at the nth hour into the density of the Homeland Security Bill under cover of smallpox, attempted to exempt Eli Lilly from any and all damages related to vaccine complaints. The provision’s author? Senate Majority Leader Dr. Bill Frist, R-Tenn. Uncovered by public watchdogs, it has since been removed from the bill.” Scot Sea, “Planet Autism,” Salon, September 27, 2003. Available online at http:// www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2003/07/27/autism/index.html.

Two interesting (though unrelated) facts are buried in this excerpt— mercury is a known endocrine disrupter, and the Eli Lilly Company was also one of the primary manufacturers of DES. 277 The navy discharged me in ‘j4 See “A Life of Service: Sister Mary, Whose Past Has Seen Many Painful Twists and Turns, Now Brings Comfort to Others with the World’s Most Comprehensive Web Site on AIDS and HIV,” Jean O. Pasco, Los Angeles Times (Home Edition), December 1,1997; “Sharing the Word on AIDS Technology: Patients and Others Can Count on Sister Mary Elizabeth’s Electronic Bulletin Board in San Juan Capis-trano to Provide Extensive Information for Free,” Leslie Berkman, Los Angeles Times (Orange County Edition), April 18, 1994; “There Is Still a Prayer for New Religious Order,” Lynn Smith, Los Angeles Times (Orange County Edition), November 14, 1988; “Vows Repudiated: Bishop Blocks Transsexual Nun’s Order,” Lynn Smith, Los Angeles Times (Orange County Edition), January 8,1988.

denied his claim of discrimination and request for damages In the ruling against Oiler, the Louisiana court noted that “the words of Title VII do not outlaw discrimination against a person who has a sexual identity disorder, i.e., a person born with a male body who believes himself to be a female, or a person born with a female body who believes herself to be male; a prohibition against discrimination based on an individual’s sex is not synonymous with a prohibition based on an individual’s sexual identity disorder or discontent with the sex into which they were born. The dearth of legislative history on section 20ooe-2(a) (1) strongly reinforces the view that the section means nothing more than the plain language suggests.” Title VII of the Civil Rights Act adopted in 1964 provides protection from discrimination on the basis of sex.

In 1989, I became aware Phyllis Randolph Frye, “Transgenders Must Be Brave while Forging This New Front on Equality,” keynote address at the Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law Fifth Annual Symposium, Washington, D.C., February 27, 2002.

scientists are being cautioned not to use hot-button words … such as “gay” An article published in the New York Times on April 18, 2003, described the challenges faced by applicants for federal grants under the Bush administration. “Scientists who study AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases say they have been warned by federal health officials that their research may come under unusual scrutiny by the Department of Health and Human Services or by members of Congress, because the topics are politically controversial. The scientists, who spoke on condition that they not be identified, say they have been advised they can avoid unfavorable attention by keeping certain ‘key words’ out of their applications for grants from the National Institutes of Health or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These words include ‘sex workers,’ ‘men who sleep with men,’ ‘anal sex,’ and ‘needle exchange,’ the scientists said.” Erica Goode, “Certain Words Can Trip Up AIDS Grants, Scientists Say,” New York Times, April 18,2003.

The following books and articles were helpful to me in understanding various aspects of the subjects discussed within these pages. Journal and magazine articles previously cited in the notes are not included in this list; book titles are duplicated in both lists. This is far from being a definitive bibliography of all the titles, both scholarly and trade, available on these topics.

Angier, Natalie. Woman: An Intimate Geography. New York: Anchor Books, 1999.

Apfel, Roberta J., and Susan M. Fisher. To Do No Harm: DES and the Dilemmas of Modern Medicine. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984.

Baron-Cohen, Simon. The Essential Difference: The Truth about the Male and Female Brain. New York: Basic Books, 2003.

Benjamin, Harry. The Transsexual Phenomenon. New York: Ace Books, 1966.

Berkson, Lindsey. Hormone Deception. Chicago: Contemporary Books, 2000.

Bornstein, Kate. Gender Outlaw: Of Men, Womenandthe Rest of Us. New York: Vintage Books, 1995.

Brevard, Aleshia. The Woman I Was Not Born to Be: A Transsexual Journey. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001.

Bullough, Bonnie, Vern L. Bullough, and James Elias. Gender Blending. Amherst, N.Y: Prometheus Books, 1997.

Bullough, Vern L., and Bonnie Bullough. Cross Dressing, Sex, and Gender. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993.

Butler, Judith. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. New York: Routledge, 1993.

———. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge, 1999.

Califia, Pat. Sex Changes: The Politics of Transgendensm. San Francisco: Cleis Press, 1997.

Canguilhem, Georges. The Normal and the Pathological. New York: Zone Books, 1991.

Clendenin, Dudley, and Adam Nagourney. Out for Good: The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America. New York: Touchstone, 1999.

Colapinto, John. As Nature Made Him: The Story of a Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl. New York: HarperCollins, 2001.

Colborn, Theo, Dianne Dumanoski, and John Peterson Myers. Our Stolen Future. New York: Dutton, 1996.

Cromwell, Jason. Transmen and FTMs: Identities, Bodies, Genders and Sexuali-ties. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1990.

de Kruif, Paul. The Male Hormone. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1945.

DeVor, Holly. FTM: Female to Male Transsexuals in Society. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997.

Diamond, Milton. Perspectives in Reproduction and Sexual Behavior. Blooming-ton: Indiana University Press, 1968.

Dillon, Michael. Self: A Study in Endocrinology and Ethics. London: William Heinemann Medical Books, Ltd., 1946.

Docter, Richard. Transvestites and Transsexuals: Toward a Theory of Cross-Gender Behavior. New York: Plenum Press, 1988.

Dorner, Gunter. Hormones and Brain Differentiation. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1976.

Dreger, Alice Domurat. Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex. Cambridge, Mass., and London: Harvard University Press, 1998.

Duberman, Martin. Stonewall. New York: Plume, 1994.

Ekins, Richard, and Dave King. Blending Genders: Social Aspects of Cross-Dressing and Sex-Changing. London and New York: Routledge, 1996.