Table of Contents
List of illustrations
Preface Shirley Ardener
Chapter 1. Changing sex and bending gender: an introduction Alison Shaw
- Defining sex and gender
- Changing bodily sex
- Long-term gender transformations
- Women in transformed gender roles
- Women disguised as men
- Women with ‘manly’ attributes, and the issue of sexuality
- Men in transformed gender roles
- Temporary gender transformations
- Women playing men on the stage
- Men playing women on the stage
- Conclusion
Chapter 2. Is it a boy, or a girl? The challenges of genital ambiguity Alison Shaw
- Intersex conditions
- Reactions to intersex births
- Botched pots, unnatural horrors and supernatural blessings
- ‘Correcting’ intersex infants
- Lessons from the Dominican Republic
- Conclusions and implications
Chapter 3. Why should biological sex be decisive? Transsexualism before the European Court of Human Rights Marie-Bénédicte Dembour
- The Convention
- The cases
- Typical facts
- The Court’s reasoning in transsexual cases
- Judge Martens’ critique of ‘Biological Sex is Decisive’
- A false positive
- The denial of legal fatherhood
- A tightening majority
- Victory at last
- The ‘normalisation’ of transsexual human rights issues
- Conclusion
Chapter 4. Two views on the gender identity of Byzantine eunuchs Shaun Tougher
- Eunuchs
- Eunuchs in Byzantium
- The Image of eunuchs
- The texts: Claudian and Theophylact
- The negative view: Claudian’s In Eutropium (I and II)
- The positive answer: Theophylact’s In Defence of Eunuchs
- A comparison
- Conclusion
Chapter 5. The third sex in Albania: an ethnographic note Roland Littlewood and Antonia Young
- The historical setting
- ‘A woman is a sack made to endure’: gender and the customary law
- Sworn virgins
- Three into two
Chapter 6. Living like men, loving like women: tomboi in the Southern Philippines Mark Johnson
- The locality
- Ethnographic encounters with tomboi in the Southern Philippines
- Living ‘like men’
- Loving ‘like women’
- ‘Women who do bad things’: hegemonic masculinity and compulsory heterogender/sexuality
- The question of tomboi likeness and being
Chapter 7. One of the gals who’s one of the guys: men, masculinity and drag performance in North America Fiona Moore
- Drag as an expression of masculinity
- Dragged up on deck: the setting
- More man than you’ll ever be: drag as gay male art form
- Rocky Horror? Straight men and drag
- Passing women: the views of performers
- Masculinity, sexuality and liminality: discussion and conclusion
Chapter 8. Male dames and female boys: cross-dressing in the English pantomime Shirley Ardener
- English vulgar comedy
- A potted history of pantomime
- Story lines
- Dames
- Dress and make-up
- Women, drag and female impersonators
- Principal Boys
- Commentary
Chapter 9. Cross-dressing on the Japanese stage Brian Powell
- Female actors
- Male actors
- Two contrasting onnagata
- Takarazuka
- Emergence of the actress in Japanese theatre culture
- Change and changelessness
Notes on contributors Index
