Shemale
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Shemale (sometimes she-male but almost never in the form she-man) is a slang term frequently referring to persons with male genitalia and augmented female breasts from breast augmentation and/or use of hormones. The term is generally acceptable to sex industry workers with the above body form.
Otherwise the term shemale is inaccurate and inappropriate when applied to transvestites or cross-dressing males with no breast augmentation and male-to-female or female-to-male transsexuals who have completed sex reassignment surgery.
Other synonyms for she-male in sex work include ladyboy and chicks with dicks.[1]
Slang terms for individuals with such preferences include "tranny chasers" and "admirers." Specialty genres of pornography and prostitution/escort services that cater to such individuals are also available. Some mental health researchers consider attraction to transgender people to be a paraphilia.
Instances of Scientific/medical use
She-male is seldom used to refer to non-human subjects though the term has been used before by by human behavior and medical researchers to refer specifically to the earlier described form above before. An openly transsexual biologist, Joan Roughgarden, has criticized the use of the term in the reptile literature, "which she says is degrading and has been borrowed from the porn industry."[2]
"The she-male phenomenon and the concept of partial autogynephilia". R. Blanchard - Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 1993.
A gynandromorph is an organism that contains both male and female characteristics. Gynandromorphy is a term of Greek etymology which means to have some of the body morphology and measurements of both an average woman and man.[3]
Early Usage
Since the mid-19th century, the term she-male has been applied to "almost anyone who appears to have bridged gender lines," including effeminate men and lesbians.[4] It has also been used to describe a "hateful woman" or "bitch."[5] It was used through the 1920s to describe a woman, usually a feminist or an intellectual.[6] Up through the mid-1970s, it was used to describe an assertive woman, "especially a disliked, distrusted woman; a bitch."[7]
Sexologists John Money and Margaret Lamacz coined the term gynemimetophilia.[8] Psychologist Ray Blanchard and psychiatrist Peter Collins coined the term gynandromorphophilia.[9] Psychiatrist Vernon Rosario has called labels like these "scientifically reifying" when applied to trans women.[10]
In her 1990 book, From Masculine To Feminine And All points In Between, Jennifer Anne Stevens defined she-male as "usually a gay male who lives full time as a woman; a gay transgenderist."[11] The Oxford English Dictionary defines she-male as "a passive male homosexual or transvestite."[12] It has been used as gay slang for faggot.[13]
In the early 19th century, she-male was used as a colloquialism in American literature for female, often pejoratively.[11] Davy Crockett is quoted as using the term in regard to a shooting match, when his opponent challenges Davy Crockett to shoot near his opponent's wife, Davy Crockett is reported to have replied: "'No, No, Mike,' sez I, 'Davy Crockett's hand would be sure to shake, if his iron pointed within a hundred miles of a shemale, and I give up beat...'"[14]
The terms gynandromorph and gynemimetomorph have been proposed as technical terms for she-males.[15]
Connotations
In 1979, Janice Raymond employed the term as a derogatory descriptor for transsexual people in her controversial book, The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male in which she argues that from a feminist point of view, transsexuals constitute an attack by males upon femininity.[16]
The term has since become an unflattering term applied to male-to-female transsexuals.[4] According to Professors Laura Castañeda and Shannon Campbell at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School of Journalism, "Using the term she-male for a transsexual woman could be considered highly offensive, for it implies that she is has retained her genitalia.' It may be considered libelous."[17] Melissa Hope Ditmore, of the Trafficked Persons Rights Project, notes the term "is an invention of the sex industry, and most transwomen find the term abhorrent."[18] In some cultures it can also be used interchangeably with other terms referring to trans woman but author Julia Serano notes that it remains "derogatory or sensationalistic."[19] The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation has said the term is a "dehumanizing slur"[20] and should not be used "except in a direct quote that reveals the bias of the person quoted."[21]
Some have adopted the term as a self-descriptor but this is often in context of sex work.[22][4][23] In Walking on The Wild Side: Shemale Internet Pornography, John Phillips writes that shemale is "a linguistic oxymoron that simultaneously reflects but, by its very impossibility, challenges [gender] binary thinking, collapsing the divide between the masculine and the feminine.
See also
- Futanari (a genre of Anime/Manga)
- Hermaphrodite
References
- ^ Sigel, Lisa Z. (2005). International Exposure: Perspectives on Modern European Pornography, 1800-2000. Rutgers University Press. pp. 254–271. ISBN 0813535190, 9780813535197. Retrieved 2008-12-14.
{{cite book}}: Check|isbn=value: invalid character (help); Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - ^ Flam, Faye (2008).The Score: How the Quest for Sex Has Shaped the Modern Man. Avery, ISBN 9781583333129
- ^ The Illustrated Dictionary of Sex: Gynandromorphy
- ^ a b c Herbst, Philip H. (2001), Wimmin, Wimps & Wallflowers: An Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Gender and Sexual orientation Bias in The United States, Intercultural Press, p. 252-3, ISBN 1877864803, retrieved 2007-10-25
{{citation}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help) - ^ Spears, Richard A (1991). A Dictionary of Slang and Euphemism. Signet, ISBN 0451165543
- ^ Green, Jonathon (2006). Cassell's Dictionary of Slang. Cassell. ISBN 9780304366361.
- ^ Wentworth, Harold and Stuart Berg Flexner (1975). Dictionary of American Slang. Crowell, ISBN 9780690006704
- ^ Money J, Lamacz M. Gynemimesis and gynemimetophilia: individual and cross-cultural manifestations of a gender-coping strategy hitherto unnamed. Compr Psychiatry. 1984 Jul-Aug;25(4):392-403.
- ^ Blanchard, R., & Collins, P. I. (1993). Men with sexual interest in transvestites, transsexuals, and she males. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 181, 570–575.
- ^ Rosario, Vernon (2004). "Quejotobonita!": Transgender Negotiations of Sex and Ethnicity. In Ubaldo Leli, Jack Drescher (eds.) Transgender Subjectivities: A Clinician's Guide. Routledge, ISBN 9780789025760
- ^ a b Stevens, Jennifer Anne (1990). From Masculine To Feminine And All points In Between. Cambridge, MA 02238: Different Path Press. ISBN 0962626201.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) Cite error: The named reference "stevens" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page). - ^ Oxford English Dictionary. Cambridge, MA 02238: Oxford University Press, USA. 1989. ISBN 978-0198611868.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) - ^ Aman, Reinhold (1982). Maledicta, Volume 6, Issue 1, p. 144.
- ^ Boorstin, Daniel J. (1965), "Part Seven: "Search for Symbols"", The Americans, vol. 2 The National Experience., N.Y.: Vintage, p. 335f, ISBN 0394703588
- ^ Money, J. (1984). Paraphilias: Phenomenology and classification. American Journal of Psychotherapy, 38, 164-178.
- ^ Raymond, J. (1994), The Transsexual Empire, New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, ISBN 0807762725
- ^ Castañeda , Laura and Shannon B. Campbell News and Sexuality: Media Portraits of Diversity. SAGE, ISBN 9781412909990
- ^ Ditmore, Melissa Hope (2006). Encyclopedia of Prostitution and Sex Work. Greenwood Publishing Group, ISBN 9780313329685
- ^ Serano, Julia (2007). Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity. Seal press, ISBN 9781580051545, p. 175.
- ^ Staff report (October 05, 2007). GLAAD Condemns "Dehumanizing" Page Six New York Post Column. The Advocate
- ^ GLAAD GLAAD Media Reference Guide: Defamatory Language.
- ^ Dixon, D., & Dixon, J. (1998). She-male prostitutes: Who are they, what do they do, and why do they do it. In J. Elias, V. Bullough, V. Elias, & G. Brewer (Eds.), Prostitution: On whores, hustlers, and johns (pp. 260-266). New York: Prometheus.
- ^ Carmichael, Amy (June 8, 2002). Rare 'shemales' seek respect and understanding. The Toronto Star