A
fter much consideration, I have decided to
remain as a male. I know it’s the height of
fashion to declare ourselves transgender,
transitioning, transsexual, trans-fat, transponder,
etc., but I have decided to forego all that trendy stuff. I
hope you will support my decision, as my family comes to
terms with the hard truth that Dad is a man trapped in a
man’s body.
Have you read the news lately?
A father just gave birth to a baby. This was after a
man born a woman married a woman born a man. In
each case they changed sex but kept a selection of their
original parts. You can do this now: doctors have a menu.
“I’ll take two of those and one of those.”
This switch-over couple’s offspring is going to have a
tough time explaining this, said reader Aalia Shan, who
sent me the AP news report about a mixed-up family in
Ecuador. “That’s my Dad. He’s my Mom. This is my Mom.
She’s my Dad.”
“Who wears the trousers in that family?” I asked. “This
is 2016,” Aalia replied. “Everyone wears trousers except
the Pope.”
I threw this odd-but-true news report into the lunch
discussion at the local noodle shop. An unmarried young
man was intrigued by the concept of partial sex changes.
“I have a very strong aesthetic appreciation of the female
bust, but have no access to such. Should I get my own?”
The general consensus was that he should consider
doing so for experimentation’s sake, but should be
prepared to get no work done for weeks afterwards.
A colleague said there was a recent case in the US of
The end of gender is upon us
This columnist has a deeply personal announcement to
make, announces father-of-three
Nury Vittachi
.
a woman who gave birth to her own grandchild with help
from a doctor. Again the child ends up with the tough job
of explaining it: “This is Grandma, she’s my Mom. And this
is Mommy, she’s my sister.”
A UK reporter said there had been a huge controversy
in his country recently when a woman/man was crowned
Miss Transgender UK, but was then disqualified because
organizers said he/she was “not transgender enough”.
Reporters were left with a massive pronoun problem. “If
we referred to him/her as either him or her we would be
making a judgment, so had to call him/her him/her the
whole time,” the journalist said. “On the plus side, I get
paid by the word.”
It reminded me of author Sarah Caudwell’s books
featuring a unisex main character called Hilary.
WARNING: If you are on the Internet and want to flirt
with a Westerner named Kelly or Ashley or Meredith or
Shirley, or Vivian or Lynn or Kim or Jocelyn, proceed very
carefully until you find out where they are from. In the US,
these names signify young women; in the UK, they signify
ancient men.
Asia can be tricky too. I know a Sri Lankan man named
Sally, a Bangladeshi man named Joy and a Hong Kong
girl with possibly the most masculine-sounding name
possible in English: He-man.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go set up a support
group for people who are only one gender. Slogan: “Are
you male or female? You are not alone.”
Nury welcomes your comments and ideas at his
Facebook page:
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