I Am Not Just a Crossdresser,
Excuse Me!

Gender Bender
By Kiki Mura

“Lucky you, you’re wearing pants,” this employee from the office of the mayor of Makati City said to me, asking me to remove my earrings, anyway (“They’re easy to remove, anyway”), since if the mayor sees me (her words, not mine), he wouldn’t like it.  “Especially if you’re wearing women’s clothes,” she added, because then, if that was the case, I was supposed to have a hard time speaking with him at all, as he wouldn’t even see me.  “Okay lang kasi maging bakla, bakit pa nagdadamit babae.”

Jojo Binay’s homophobia – or, if his employee is mistaken, homo-friendliness – is really a concern of the people of Makati City (I’ll worry about him if he becomes President – thank goodness he never will), so I’ll let that one go.  What I can’t let go is the perspective that I am a crossdresser.

So I looked at the mayor’s employee, a bad representation of him (with her high-waisted jeans, tucking in a blusang itim even Snooky Serna couldn’t pull off as a costume), unless, of course, she’s telling the truth.  “Miss, hindi ako nagdadamit babae.  Babae ako.”

And this, dearies, is the truth.

Even if I, of all people, have nothing against crossdressers.

Let’s define the terms.

Harry Benjamin, M.D., in The Transexual Phenomenon (symposion.com), simplistically divides transvestites (TVs) into three groups: those who simply want to gout dressed (in the opposite gender’s clothes), those who want to experience physical change to identify with the opposite gender, and those who are full transsexuals (TSs, whose identification is completely with the opposite gender).  But I mentioned the word “simplistically” because Benjamin’s division is nothing but that – a simplistic (presumably heterosexual) way of explaining sexual/gender identification.

Much like the woman (I can’t call her lady, sorry) in the city hall.

Thing is, TV is different from TS and transgender (TG).

Nancy Nangeroni in Transgenderism: Transgressing Gender Norms (1996, cited by
http://allies.tamu.edu), states that “in order to understand the difference between someone who is gay, lesbian, or bisexual, and someone who is transgender, you need to know the difference between sex and gender.  Simply put, sex is polarity of anatomy, gender is polarity of appearance and behavior.  As one gains familiarity with transgenderism, these definitions quickly break down, but they serve as a good starting point.”

The problem is because “most people think there are just two sexes, male and female.  Such is not the case.  People who are intersexed and people who are transsexual constitute sexes, which are neither exactly male nor exactly female. Likewise, gender is not a simple case of ‘either/or.’  Gender is exhibited by countless signals, from articles of clothing to cosmetics, hairstyles, conversational styles, body language and much more.  Notice, however, that our gender ‘norms’ are not symmetric.  Women have won for themselves the right to a wide range of gender expression.  Men have not made a corresponding effort.  Most men live within a much narrower range of ‘acceptable’ gender.  Though our culture tends to group characteristics into ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine,’ many people find some amount of gender transgression exciting, so there is some crossover between the two categories.  Ultimately, gender is a mix and match mode of self-expression, and people within our culture are ever finding new ways to express their gender, with exciting subtleties and intriguing implications,” Nangeroni adds.  Thus, in general, “it works best to think of all effects - sexual orientation, gender identity, sexual identity, and any others - as varying along a continuous spectrum of self-expression, rather than in just one of two or three ways.”  Remember: “sexual orientation, gender identity, and sexual identity are independent of each other.”

Let’s go into specifics.

Gender identity is how you see yourself socially: man, woman, or a combination of both – meaning, even if I have a penis, I can still relate socially as a woman.  This is different from sexual identity, how one sees him/herself physically – male, female, or in between.  “If someone is born female, but wishes to see their body as male in all respects, their sexual identity is male,” Nangeroni says, adding – with emphasis – that it is “generally rude to speak of such a person as female, since it denies their right to inhabit the social and physical role of their choosing.  We call such a person a TS, whether or not they have had any surgery.”  Take note that the gender identity and the sexual identity are different from sexual orientation, which is when “you identify yourself according to who you find romantically/erotically attractive: opposite (hetero), same (homo), or both (bi).”

Of course we have female to male (FTM) and male to female (MTF) TGs, who see themselves as partially or fully the other gender; and then, the intersex; and the...
The more – if not most – important thing to remember here is that “the identification can be helpful in finding like-minded others with whom to make friends, it can be hurtful if imposed on an individual by others, well-intentioned or not,” as Nangeroni best puts it.

So, no, I’m not a gay guy who dresses like a woman (that would be transvestitic homosexuals). 

I’m a woman.

Get used to it. 

Especially since, I guess I should remind women like the Makati City’s mayor’s employee, I definitely do not only look more like one. 

For that matter, I seem to be better at being one, too.

Kiki Mura is a “budding” transgender who makes the rounds and is in the know of the five Wives (in newsmen terminology, the important Ws to ask when interviewing, i.e. Who, What, When, Where and Why) and one Husband (for the one H, i.e. How) for everything transgender in the Philippines . “Besides,” she said, “even if I didn't know, my dear, my circle is wide enough to fill in the rest of those that I missed or simply don't know!”