MTV's True Life: I'm Changing My Sex

Last night I was laying in my bed ready to go to sleep around 11 and I flipped on MTV. There was a True Life episode on and I really enjoy them so I kept watching. After about 3 minutes I realized that this episode was about transgenders. I felt this was a perfect thing to write about in my blog, so I stayed up for an hour and watched.The episode was entitled: True Life: I'm Changing My Sex. It follows two people who are undergoing gender reconstruction surgery. The first was Elle, a girl that was born a man. She underwent breast augmentation surgery with the support and love from her mother. After only 2 weeks of recovery her mother developed a brain aneurysm and very sadly passed away. I felt such compassion for this young woman who lost her support system as she was transitioning. Her mother left her life insurance money to undergo the most expensive surgery- the genital reconstruction. She actually went to a doctor that was a transgender herself and born a man. Everything went wonderfully and Elle is successfully a beautiful woman inside and out.


The second story was of a man named Ed. He was born a woman and was just undergoing breast augmentation to remove his breasts. Ed is married to a woman happily now and his surgery went very well. He actually held a drag show where women dressed up as men and danced. It was quite entertaining. He was able to raise half of the money for it with the show and his parents paid the rest.


I think it would be hard to be born with "ambiguous genitalia" or born as a woman trapped in a mans body (or vice versa). The support that these people need is endless. Today in class the video we watched on middle sex completely intrigued me. I know that we have talked in class many times about the difference between sex and gender, the difference between chromosomes and the many differences in sexual orientations. I am so accepting of people that put themself in certain categories because other people in this world don't even give a DAMN that these people ARE PEOPLE. They have FAMILIES. They have LOVERS. And god forbid they have partners. It is rediculous that there are ignorant people out there who feel this is wrong and as a result kill these wonderful people just for who they are. The video made me extremely angry when the hate crimes and stories were being discussed. What a horrible and unaccepting world we live in!! People are blind to what is out there and need to get to seeing it.


if you would like to see more on this episode please visit the link: TrueLife:ImChangingMySex

Patriarchy all around us?

Currently I am in two courses at UNCG that are talking about some of the same topics, ironically. The two courses are Women and Gender Studies and English. In WGS of course we are talking about women and their issues in society over the years. However, in English I am reading Western Literature such as The Illiad, The Odyssey, Gilgamesh and Eumenides. Some people may wonder why I bring up the word "patriarchy". For those of you that aren't familiar with the word:

patriarchy- social organization marked by the supremacy of the father in the clan or family, the legal dependence of wives and children, and the reckoning of descent and inheritance in the male line; broadly : control by men of a disproportionately large share of power

sounds lovely, huh? Well, we are definitely living in a society where women are supposed to be dependent on their husbands for protection and shelter. Sounds a little dominant to me. I grew up in a house where dad's word was the final word, as most other children were. There is a great example of this way of living back in the 50s and 60s with the dominance of "housewives".

Recently in English we read the above stories that I mentioned. These stories are all set in present-day Middle East in the B.C. times. Each story also involves gods and goddesses. These figures are their guidance and power as a society. There are hints of patriarchal and matriarchal tendencies in each cultural setting. Eumendies touches on an interesting topic. In the story the underground gods were predominately female. These were, at first, the only power consisting of goddesses such as Athena. She was known as the almighty in the story which created a matriarchal society. Women were seen as precious and to be followed. When the sky gods came into play everything changed. These gods were predominately male. We discussed why this happened in class. My personal opinion is that this very idea that was introduced has contributed to the over male dominance in society that we have now.

Is it ironic that the female goddesses were underground and the male gods were in the sky???