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Pejic for Oyster magazine:
http://oystermag.com/andrej-pejic

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Daria

UPDATES

Androgyn Models Agency, The Netherlands http://www.androgynmodels.com/


Andrej Pejic in Daily Mail:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1359853/London-Fashion-Week-2011-Gender-bender-male-model-Andrej-Pejic-causes-stir.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Pejic in Daily Express:
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/230640/Andrej-Pejic-Catwalk-queen-who-s-a-man

And in Styleite (Video!):
http://www.styleite.com/media/andrej-pejic-zeit-magazin-sunday-night



Best,
Daria

Andrej Pejic - Whos that boy?

The Telegraph
Andrej Pejic - Who's That Boy?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/8335719/Andrej-Pejic-Whos-that-boy.html

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GENDER AND SEXUALITY

GENERAL COMMENTS ON GENDER AND SEXUALITY

“Gender-crossing is so ubiquitous, that genitalia by itself has never been universal nor essential insignia of a lifelong gender. Gender instead is an achieved status rather than an ascribed biological characteristic and is based on tasks performed and the significance of clothing as well as anatomical and other factors.”

(cross-cultural views of gender-crossing. Page 5.)  ‘Cross Dressing, Sex, and Gender’. Vern L. Bullough/ Bonnie Bullough.  University of Pennsylvania Press. 1993.

“Many, but not all, were homosexual in orientation when they presented for treatment, which meant that they might have seen sex reassignment surgery as a means for them to become heterosexual.”

(Diagnostic Criteria. Page 259.)  

“The early transsexual population was made up primarily of men who wanted to become women, but the ratio has changed over time to  about four men to one woman, with the Swedish data showing a ratio of one to one.”

(Page 260)

“After surgery there is a significant decrease in the level of dissatisfaction among transsexuals but not among homosexuals.” 

(Page 260)

“It is a sad commentary on our society that some people feel less of a stigna about being a transsexual than they do about being homosexual.”

(Page 261)

“Transsexual therapy, legitimated by the terminology of disease, pushes patients toward an alluring world of artificial vaginas and penises rather than toward self-understanding and sexual politics. Sexual fulfillment and gender-role comfort are portrayed as commodities available through medicine.”

(Page 267)

“They concluded (john money, joan hampson and john hampson studied hermaphrodites) that pyschosexuality was neutral at birth and determined almost entirely by socialization. They identified the critical period for the development of gender identity as before 27 months of age.” 

“Using Money's format, a transvestite can either be heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, or asexual. A heterosexual man or woman can be masculine, feminine, or ambivalent about gender identity.”

(Causes of transsexualism. Page 269.)

“Money and Ehrhardt argued that if the decision was made early enough, and providing it was unambiguous enough, socialization rather than chromosomal sex would be the key variable in determining gender indentity. This implied that nurture was stonger than nature in determining gender identity.”

(Page 270.)

“Sex reassignment surgery was popularized after Christine Jorgensen made her surgery public in 1952. The availiabilty of surgery as a treatment possibility caused the medical and scientific communities to rethink the diagnosis of transvestism and distinguish people who wanted both to live in the role of the opposite sex and to have different genitalia. ...there are a growing number of people who can be called transsexuals (because they want to change their gender role) who have decided to cross dress and live their preferred role full time with the help of hormonal therapy but without surgery. ... An important consequence of the transsexual movement was the interest it sparked in studies of gender identity and sexual orientation. ...We can now safely say that both gender identity and sexual orientation are the result of a combination of nature and nurture.”

(Summary. Page 274.)   

“As Devor states in her lecture, How many sexes? How many genders? When two are not enough (1996), we have begun to come to terms with the extraordinary bio-diversity around us in the world - together with an understanding of the need for its survival if the planet is to thrive - but, "unfortunately, we have been very slowt o generalise this concept to our understandings of gender, sex and sexuality. We tend to think of people whose genders, sexes or sexualities are unusual as 'mistakes' of either nature or of nurture. Our dogged insistence on thinking in terms of binary categorisations of male/female, man/woman, heterosexual/homosexual, either right/wrong serves to blinker our vision. It is time that we begin to ... retool ourselves for the job of coming to see, appreciate and understnade the value of human gender, sex and sexual diverisity." Devor, Holly (1996), 'How many sexes? How Many genders? when tow are not enough.' Univeristy Provost's lecture, University of Victoria, Canada."

(‘This is an absurd ordination for people to live in, in 2002'. Page 181.) ‘Unzipping Gender. Sex, Cross-dressing and culture’. Charlotte Suthrell. Berg.  Oxford. 2004.

“In my questionnaire, which was designated for 'Transsexual participants,' the first question was, 'Are you transsexual?' I assumed that this was a throw-away item and the second, 'What does transsexual mean?' would bring more colourful reactions. But MTF answers to Question no.1 include the following: I no longer consider myself a transsexual; I am at this point, a transsexual candidate; No  - I am a woman; No. I was during transition. I feel after completion of surgery, I'm no longer a person in gender transition.”

[ Meaning of transsexual - are they 'women' post-op, or still transsexuals? Third sex??]

(Sexualities and Genders: Eliminating dysphoria does not eliminate transsexualiam. Page 91.) S/He. Changing sex and changing clothes. Claudine Griggs. Berg. 1998. Oxford/New York.              

Think that's it for now...!

Tasha

OTHER CULTURES

OTHER CULTURES/RELIGIONS/SOCIETIES WHICH FEATURE A 'TRANSSEXUAL GENDER'

“In some eras and in some cultures, cross dressing is primarily associated with homosexuality or lesbianism, while in others it is seen as both a homosexual and heterosexual phenomenon. Dress traditionally has been a ubiquitous symbol of sexual differences, emphasizing social conceptions of masculinity and femininity. Cross dressing, therefore, represents a symbolic incursion into territory that crosses gender boundaries.”

(Introduction. Page viii) ‘Cross Dressing, Sex, and Gender’. Vern L. Bullough/ Bonnie Bullough. University of Pennsylvania Press. 1993.

“Some societies, perhaps influenced by the existence of hermaphrodites, believed in a third sex that combined qualities of the other two.”

(Cross Dressing in Perspective. Page 3)

“...naven rituals practised by the Iatmuls in New Guinea that when one gender found itself in a uinque circumstance that demanded behaviours of the other, they simply adopted a 'bit' of the other gender's culture. Margaret Mead suggested that cross dressing represented a mismatch between individual temperaments and socially demanded requirements of particular cultures. When bravery in warfare was expected, some by temperarment would not be able to perform, hence the berdache, the cross dresser, or similar individuals.”

(Status and the social implications of cross dressing. Page 4.)

(Hindu belief) “One such cult, the Sakhibhava.... They worship Radha, the favourite consort of Krishna, and the object of their devotion is to become a female attendant upon her. ... Male followers dress like women and affect the behaviour, movements, and habits of women, including imitation menstruation, during which they abstain from worship.”

“The technical term hijra (eunuch or transvestite) is applied to these men, and they serves an institutionalised third-gender role since they are regarded as neither male nor female. Some observers have called them homosexual, but it is probably better to regard the hijra role as asexual, even though many, if not most, engage in homosexual activity as the passive partner.”

“Hijras regard themselves as 'seperate', neither men nor women, although they recognise they were born as men. To be admitted to the sect, however, they had to be castrated, although some individuals pretend to be hijras and do not undergo castration or initiation. Hijras dress as women, wear their hair long, pluck their facial hair (they do not shave it), adopt feminine mannerisms, take women's names, and use femaile kinship terms and a special, feminised vocabulary. They demand to be seated as women in those areas reserved for women, and on one occasion they demanded to be counted as women in the census. Most hijras, however, do not necessarily pass as women, although there is great variation, and some are far more feminine than others. Many burlesque feminine behaviour and dress, doing things not considered appropriate for ordinary women. SOme hijras or hijra pretenders also act as prostitutes.”

“Some men (hijra) don women's clothing and style their hair like women in order to make their living performing as women, even though they might be married and have children of their own.”

“This difference between Hinduism and Western religions serves to emphasize that cross dressing is a much more complicated phenomenon that the diagnostic categories so favored by Western psychologists and psychiatrists.”

(cross-cultural views of gender-crossing. Page 8.)

(Islamic Oman Xaniths) “...the xanith has cultivated a careful intergender role for himself.”

“Like men and boys who used to act the female parts in Elizabethan drama because women were forbidden on the stage, these cross dressers were tolerated because men acting women's roles in public allowed the Muslims to keep women in purdah.” (Page 12)

(Mahu in Tahiti) “A mahu is a man who publicly takes on the activities and dress of a woman; that is, he performs household activities, take care of babies, and braids coconut palm leaves into thatching plaits. Each district in Tahiti has only one mahu, although every district has one. When the position becomes available, it is voluntarily filled. Mahu engage in fellatio with other men and by Western standards would be described as homosexual. Not all effeminate men, however, would be described as a mahu. Also it is possible to stop being a mahu and adopt a male role again.”

“On Madagascar, some parents in the past raised boys as girls. Among the Hovas, one of the island tribes, such children were called sekrata. They were biological males who came to be treated as females because they were regarded as too gentle and weak to be men. One observer reported that 'autosuggestion' was so effective that the sekrata reached the point where they considered themselves women, totally forgetting their 'true' sex.” (Page 14)

“Most of the societies they studied were considerably more tolerant of such cross-gendered behavious than had usually been the case in the United States. They reported that in Latin America, attitudes toward cross-dressing homosexuals were similar to the attitudes towards prostitutes, that is, they were part of ordinary social reality. Similarly in the Phillippines parents openly acknowledge that one's child may be bayot, or a cross-dressing homosexual.” (page 15)

(acault in Burmease Buddhism)  “The men who have sexual encounters with an acault, however, are not regarded as homosexual because of the spiritual connotation of the acault.” (Page 16)

“...the indigenous Australian tribes. They make a subincision on the penis, a procedure that some commentators believe gives the new initiate a 'female sex organ so that he will resemble the divinities' who are always bisexual.” (Page 16-17)

“...cross dressing has been ubiquitous. It is an important element in many religions and serves to emphasise that male and female are somehow incomplete standing alone, and that there is some element of both sexes in everyone.” (Page 18)

“Transvestism is both a global and historical phenomenon. Descriptions of reversals of gender-coded dressing seem ubiquitous, throughout cultures and ages. James Frazer, renowned author of The Golden Bough, cites numerous examples of cross-dressing in widely disparate parts of the world in his chapter entitled 'Priests dressed as women': "In the Pelew Islands it  often happens that a goddess chooses a man, not a woman, for her minister and inspired mouthpiece. When that is so, the favoured man is often regarded and treated as a woman. He wears female attire, he carries a piece of gold on his neck, he labours like a woman in the taro fields. ...The pretended change of sex under the inspiration of a femlae spirit perhaps explains a custom widely spread among savages, in accordance with which some men dress as women and act as women through life. These unsexed creatures....are regarded sometimes with awe and sometimes with contempt, as beings of a higher or lower order than common folk. Often they are dedicated and trained to their vocation from childhood. Effeminate sorcerers or priests of this sort are found among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo, the Bugis of South Celebes, the Patagonians of South American and the Aleutians and many Indian tribes of North America. In the island of Rambreem off the coast of Aracan, a set of vagabond 'conjurors' who dressed and lived as women, used to dance round a tall pole ... Male memebers of the Vallhaba sect of India often seek to win the favour of the god KRishna, whom they specially revere, by wearing their hair long and assimilating themselves to women; even their spiritual chiefs, the so called Maharajas, sometimes simulate the appearance of women when they lead the worship of their followers...""

(Introduction: The Prevalence of Transvestism. Page 6.) ‘Unzipping Gender. Sex, Cross-dressing and culture’. Charlotte Suthrell. Berg. Oxford. 2004.)

“There are numerous examples of transvestite/transgender categories of people being sometimes accorded 'special' status, both in history and ethnography. Examples are transglobal and some are described here to give an idea of the range of contexts. They include the 'two-spirit people' or berdaches of Native American Indian culture, the cross-dressed shamans of Siberia and Central Asia, and, in rather different ways, the Travestis of Brazil, the Bantut of the Philippines and the Xanith of Oman. Transvestism may also occur in a ceremonial or ritual context such as the Naven ceremony of Papua New Guinea, in which most memebers of society dress as the opposite sex at some time in their lives, THe notion of a third gender has been discussed by many and in widely varying contexts. In the cultures described in Chapter 6, the travestis of BRazila dn the two-spirit people (or Berdaches) of Northern America, like the Hijras, are instances in which men have chosen to dress or to live as women.”

(Page 7)

Tasha

HISTORY OF TRANSSEXUALISM

HISTORY OF TRANSSEXUALISM

“ It is a topic excluded from medical discussions of sex until the 19th century. It was also not regarded as a mental illness, which was one way our predecessors labeled phenomena we now call psychological. In fact, many so-called primitive cultures simply regarded it as one variation in human behaviour.”

“ Cross dressing was not regarded as a sign of lesbianism or homosexuality until the 18th century and then, for men, it became associated with effeminate homosexuality.”

(Introduction. Page x) ‘Cross Dressing, Sex, and Gender’. Vern L. Bullough/ Bonnie Bullough.  University of Pennsylvania Press. 1993.

“It was not until after World War II that interest in the subject reappeared in the professional literature, and as research progressed, it became clear that cross-gender behaviour included not only a desire to dress and impersonate the opposite sex but also, for some individuals, a desire to change one's sex. The latter group came to be called transsexuals and were thus distinguished from other transvestites.”

“The appearance of the new diagnostic category was not the result of a theoretical breakthrough. Rather it appeared on the scene as the result of the development of a surgical treatment for the extreme form of transvestism. In a sense, transsuxualism was a socially constructed phenomenon. Ordinarily, a diagnosis is made independent of the planned treatment, but in the case of transsexuals, the treatment became the diagnosis.”

(Transsexualism. Page 253)

(Christine Horgensen,1950-53, early sex change) “They pointed out they had not actually changed the sex or their patient, because his chromosomal sex remained the smae, but they had relieved his distress by creating the external appearance of a sex change.”

Early cases : 1943 in Germany, 1933 Lili Elbe, Sophia Hedwig 1882.

“Lili had started life as the well-known Danish painter Einar Wegener, who became convinced that a sort of twin being, a female, shared his body. He visited several doctors, some of whom thought he was homosexual. Another treated him with x-ray therapy, while still another told him he probably had a set of rudimentary female organs inside his body. He went to Berlin, where he had his penis and testicles removed and ovarian tissue from a healthy 26 year old woman transplanted into his abdomen.”

(Transsexualism: Early cases. Page 254)

“It is clear that, within these gender cultures, the spaces of possibility for transvestites vary widely from one society to another. Transvestism illustrates rather well the current inferences of the cultural discourse, in terms of whether space has been allowed for it or not. In some cultures, such as India and the Native American Indians, space has been allowed. With the hijras there is a clear message: no confusion because space has been allocated. In the Uk there is confusion because there is no place and therefore, to a British sensibility, transvestism makes no sense. The question arises as to why these spaces are or are not possible.”

(Dressing Up/Dressing Down: Reconsidering sex and gender culture. The correlates of gender culture - transvestism as material objectification. Page 155)  ‘Unzipping Gender. Sex, Cross-dressing and culture'

Charlotte Suthrell. Berg. Oxford. 2004

“Transvestites, those who tempt social jeopardy by dressing in forbidden clothing, seem to appear as a relative constant throughout most human societies - like suicides - although the form varies and their numbers are considerably more difficult to measure. Each transvestite may be acting as an individual agent but s/he is also performing a social role for the whole of society, whether this is viewed as a social imperative, a transgression or a striking out for balance and wholeness. ... The secular cross-dressers of Western industrialised societies are consigned by their culture to a position which primarily bears disadvantages, marginalisation and disapproval.”

(Thinking of themselves: transvestism and concepts of the person. Transvestism as a social phenomenon. Pages 164-165)

“One thing which becomes abundantly clear is that in both societies (UK and India), any putative crossing, reversals, or 'neutering' in the sex and gender arean is one which provokes a strong reaction; the cultural insistance on conformity is deep-rooted, and the possibilty of change in this area - especially in the westernised cultures of the US and UK - continues to be something which induces anxiety and resistance; nor would this seem to be declining.”

(A broader conceptualisation of transvestism. Page 179)

Tasha

DEFINITIONS OF TRANSVESTISM

Hello Ladies, sorry this is my first major post on here - took a while to collate all my bits of reading and research into something comprehensible! I'm going to do four posts covering four broad headings of research I have done: definitions, history, other cultures, and gender/sexuality issues.

DEFINITIONS OF TRANSVESTISM

"Cross dressing is a simple term for a complex set of phenomena. It ranges from simply wearing one or two items of clothing to a full scale burlesque, from comic impersonation to a serious attempt to pass as the opposite gender, from an occasional desire to experiment with gender identity to attempting to live most of one's life as a member or the opposite sex

The term transvestism (Latin for 'cross dressing') was coined by Magnus Hirschfeld in 1910. Havelock Ellis, his contemporary, felt that the term was much too literal, and that it overemphasized the importance of clothing while failing to include the 'feminine' identity factors present in male cross dressers.

Since that time other terms have been advnaced, including gynemimesis (literally 'woman mime') and its counterpart andromimesis, gender dysphoria, female or male impersonataion, transgenderist, femmiphile, androphile, femme mimic, fetishist, crossing, transsexual (both preoperative and postoperative)... "

(Introduction, Page vii) 'Cross Dressing, Sex and Gender'. Vern L. Bullough/Bonnie Bullough. University of Pennsylvania Press. 1993

"Recently, as distinctions have emerged between sex and gender, the term supernumerary gender has been used by many to descrive individuals who adopt the tole and many of the customs of the opposite sex. Still others hold that it is not so much an extra gender as a blending together of the masculine and feminine."

(Cross dressing in perspective: Status and the social implications of class dressing. Page 3)

"Hamburger and his colleagues, using the theories of the time, diagnosed the case as one of genuine transvestism and differentiated it from the two other types of transvestism: the fetishist who, as a consequence of a neurotic obsession, concentrates on one or more articles of dress, thereby developing an interest in cross dressing, and the homosexual man of a passive type who desires to dress in women's clothing. "  

(Transsexualism: Early cases. Page 254)   

"Although Hamburger had called the condition "gender transvestism" to distinguish it from other types of cross dressing, the label transsexualism was soon applied, and the operation came to be called sex reassignment surgery (SRS). Obviously plastic surgery on the genital organs does not change the chromosomal sex, even though it gives the appearance of a sex change."

(Transsexualism: changing definitions and terminology. Page 256) 

 

"In explaining the term transsexualism, Benjamin divided male transevestites into three major types. The first groups included transvestites who led reasonably normal lives. Most of them were heterosexual men who could appease their feelings of gender role disharmony by cross dressing. They derived erotic satisfaction from cross dressing, but this might decrease over time. Though these patients might display neurotic symptoms, they were seldom seen by doctors. Their clash was with society and the law. Transvestites in the second group were more emotionally disturbed. They required psychological guidance and endocrine therapy. The third type of transvestism was identical to transsexualism. This type represented a disturbance of the normal sex and gender role orientation. The individual wanted to be a full-fledged woman and have a male sex partner, or vice versa. The condition could present as fully developed transsexualism from the beginning, or it might gradually appear after short or long periods of transvestism. However the male transexual was much less interested in the symbol of female attire. He wanted to be a woman and function as a woman. Transsexuals, he noted, were very often unhappy people."

(Transsexualism: Changing definitions and terminology. Page 257)

"Transvestism in all contexts uses items of material culture of a very personal and individual nature to cross both sex and gender boundaries... The Oxford English Dictionary (1976) gives teh definition of 'transvest' and subsequently, transvestism as 'clothe (usually oneself) in other garments, especially those of the opposite sex'; and this meaning would appear to be universally accepted - that 'trans' = a/cross and 'vest' = 'dress'. Cross-dressing (trans-vestism) must also imply that there must be some movement across, a place of coming from and a place of going to which is between the worlds of gender polarity, otherwise a person would simply be getting dressed. And these in turn involved the notion that they are moving from the place transgendered individuals 'naturally' inhabit, dictated by birth-sex and gender. ... I would define transvestism as the deliberate and conscious wearing of clothes which, in that particular society, are perceived as the doman of the opposite sex, usually to knowingly create an image of the self as a person of the opposite sex."

(Clothing Sex, Sexing Clothes: Transvestism, A material Culture and the Sex and Gender Debate. Dress and Identity: Transvestism and Material Culture. Page 17) ‘Unzipping Gender. Sex, Cross-dressing and culture’. Charlotte Suthrell. Berg. Oxford. 2004.

Tasha