Taboo: Sexual Identity

[Linus]

K had recorded this on our DVR (along with other episodes of Taboo). I remember watching one on body modifications and was totally fascinated by it. This particular episode covered transsexualism and gender-bending that leads to transsexual medical transition. It starts in the US with Loren Cameron and continues to Thailand and Samoa and ends in the US in Trinidad, CO with Dr. Marci Bowers. While there are some things I question about how they did things, overall I didn't think it was bad other than it didn't cover gender bending without medical transition (which is very relevant in modern society today).

Anyways, it's been interesting but I feel like there are some confusing comments by the commentator as well as some of the participants. For example, one (who had done face feminization) said that they are considering whether to transition to a women because "if they had been born heterosexual, then things would be different". It almost feels as if they are tying sexual orientation with transition and I don't know if that does justice to transsexual individuals.

I don't know if transition does cause one's orientation to change as much as it does open it up to other possibilities and we find someone of the same sex or opposite sex that appeals to us/turns us on. SRS/GRS (however termed) isn't a heterosexual or homosexual thing. It's entirely a sex organ thing.

On the flip side of this was learning about the fafafini, a subset of the Samoan culture where boys are encouraged to become women! It's an interesting difference in a culture compared to Western society where it seems more "shameful" or "taboo" to be born a woman in a man's body (or to some, to even be a woman).

I personally have a theory that most of the "fear" about or over trans individuals is the masculine perception of some that they are being emasculated by transwomen in particular (given the strong response by society towards transwomen and the whole bathroom discussions that seem to crop up every now and again in lawmakers minds).

These are my immediate thoughts about it and I may have some more after I've pondered it some. Anyone else seen it?