The Gender of the Travestis - Essay Example

The gender of the travestis The book Travesti:Sex, Gender, and Culture among Brazilian Transgendered Prostitutes by DonKulick interestingly gives details behind a ‘gender’ mostly unstudied: the travestis. Unlike most other prostitutes, travestis are born-male prostitutes. These males start at an early age to artificially feminize themselves – “they adopt female names, clothing styles, hairstyles, cosmetic practices, and linguistic pronouns” (Kulick p.5). They as well inject themselves with feminine hormones and take in lots of industrial silicone that makes them develop female like physical features including large breasts, hips, thighs and so on (p.5, 6). Interesting a topic, Kulick undertakes to study the lives of the travestis and their general take on the question of gender identity.

So to what gender do travestis belong to? Kulick, through a series of illustrations and interviews with volunteer travestis, gives comprehensive details about the travestis. Surprising as it can be for a person changing his or her gender, to the travestis, it is a norm. Most people who hear of travestis the first time think of them as being abnormal. They are somewhat an in-between gender, completely lost from the normal life and perhaps they live in a world of their own, away from reality.

Kulick candidly suggests: “We see reality like it is, they [travestis] don’t. They live in a world of fantasy.” (p.94). Kulick finds out that travestis are not generally accepted in their homes or families. Once they start on the journey to becoming travestis, often at the age of as low as ten, they are no longer wanted by their parents. Their spirit growing stronger, most aspiring travestis will choose to leave their families and go out on their own, and some are forcibly expelled (p.59).

Kulick gives an example of Keila, a travesti who chose to leave their home at the age of thirteen (p.59) and went to live alone, this time too choosing a female name. This tells about the pains the travestis are determined to endure to be fully free, or else to belong to the ‘gender’ of their choice. That is not the end: “Travestis consider that males are males and females are females because of the genitals they possess.” (p.193). This derives a strong conviction, on their part, that they should retain their genitals – it does not matter the genital one possesses and at least they respect God’s thus creation of genitals (p.193) – so the travestis never remove their penises.

Quite suggestively, the aim to become a travesti is to become a prostitute – they are prostitutes. Even Kulick addresses them with a female pronoun. But the travestis do not like being termed as women (p.6), despite their possession of female body forms. But as Kulick suggests (p.248), they are prostitutes (p.248) with their obvious targets as men. The retention of their genitalia and their prostitution can only, quite suggestively, translate to their being homosexuals, they are “anally penetrated” (p.59). The worst part is that the travestis have the wrong reasons for their gender orientation – prostitution that includes cheating men (disguising as females, (p.223)) –, that is, their transgendered state is only justified for its economic use and not social use.

Simply put, travestis are males but who have homosexual orientation – feminine morphology is a blend for marketability in their prostitution. The fact that the travestis are males in the first place, that they choose to retain their natural genitals, and that they do not like being referred to as females are enough reasons. But the female names, behavior and morphology breeds more mystery. They do not respect the idea of belonging to masculine or feminine gender and therefore, essentially, they just exist among normal humans.

The best they can be is an in-between gender, completely lost from what we know as normal human life in this context. Works cited; Kulick, Don. Travesti: Sex, Gender, and Culture among Brazilian Transgendered Prostitutes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009.