Heather MacLean wrote:
>
> At 08:55 PM 9/11/97 -0400, Marilyn Nulman <mnulman@CURTISLIBRARY.COM> wrote:
>
> >This took place in England in the late sixties. Sex roles seemed more
> >immutable then than they do today. Come to think about it, I don't hear
> >much about sex-change operations lately. Are they out of style? Made
> >unnecessary by our relaxing of gender roles? Or just so common that no one
> >notices?
> >
> >
> Hohooo. Oh my goodness, no they're not out of style--I know of at least 20
> Female to Male (FTMs) conversions being considered, or en route, among my
> friends, as well as a couple MTFs... But you're right, you don't hear about
> it much. Why would you? This is a personal operation, a (w)righting of
> "natural" wrong...
>
> Perhaps gender roles are the replacement terminology for sex roles; I'm not
> quite sure what you're referring to here..
>
> Heather
> =).
>
> hmaclean@kent.edu
> http://kent.edu/~hmaclean
I, too, know of many sex-change operations MTF & FTM.... and agree with
Heather that as a personal operation now become more common, people are
perhaps being "allowed" more privacy in the process.
Re gender roles & sex roles, rather than sex-change operations or life
choices (as in people who identify as "non-operative" FTM or MTF)
challenging patriarchal gender roles in integrated communities
(communities made up of people of various sexual/gender identities), my
real-life experience has been that stereotypical male or butch
characteristics are still given higher value than stereotypical female
or femme characteristics. Is this always true as well in SF literature?
Mike O'Driscoll's short story "The Future of Birds" (in Alien Sex) is
chilling in carrying the patriarchal option and sex-change operations to
an nth degree... Can anyone recommend a hopeful SF treatment of gender
roles in the context of sex-change operations/choices?
luz
"It is easier to ignore reality when that reality is so expressive, so
clear as to its meaning, that the simple act of speaking of it with
truth constitutes a 'subversive' act." Ignacio Martin-Baro
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