Horsexe: Essay on Transsexuality

141 Pages·1989·14.995 MB·English

by  Catherine Millot

HORSEXE
ESSAY0NTRANSSEXUALIW
CATHERINE MILLOT
Translated from the French
by Kenneth Hyiton
AUTONQMEDIA
©1990 Autnmmedia, Inc.
First published in French in 1983 by
PaintHers Ligne:
3, rue Thouin 775005 Paris
Coverphotngraph: André. Berg, courtesy ofPoint;Hots Ligne
Cove:design: SueAnn Harkey
Bookdesign: Jim Fleming
Printed in the United States ofAmerica
AUTONOMEDIA
55 Souih 11 Street
Brooklyn, New York 112114568
U.S.A.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART ONE ——- FROM PIGALLE TO CYEELE "F
I — SHE MALE. 9
2 w TEE FEMALEDRIVEINPmCHOSIS ................. 19
3 — KEYS TO TRANSSEXUALITY ........................... 29
4 ~— A MOTHER T00 G001) .. ... 47
5 — IN THE QUEEN’S PRESENCE ............................ 61
PART Two m TEE RITES OF CASTRATIGN ......................... '13
6 —» CYBELE AND ATYS ........................................ 3'5
7 m TEE SKOEI‘EY SECT 85
8 W WHAT DOES MOTHER WANT? ....................... 95
PART THREE ~— FEMALE TRANSSEXUALITY ..................... 101
9 - ARE THEY HQMQSEXUALS? ......................... 103
10 __ ViCTOR AND A FEW OTHERS: HOPE ............. 1'13
11 w GABRIEL, OR THE SEX OF THE ANGELS . ..if2.7
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Chapter 1
She Male

Along the corridors ofthis psychiatric hospi—
tal, it’s not unusual to encounter such curious apparitions as
this mini—skirted silhouette of a wrestler, wobbling on high
heels, with shadowy though close~shaven cheeks covered
ever with make-up foundation. This is Robert, a deter—
mined transsexual. He does not hesitate to use his fists in
defense of WLM militants, who are too timid for his taste.
Robert is on the verge of delirium; now and then, he leaves
the brothel where he officiates as chambermaid, and takes
refuge againstimminent depression in an asylum.
Elsewhere, on other borderlines, in eabarets
and gay nightclubs of all sorts, stunning blonde supergirls
mime their universal model, Marilyn Monroe, in playback,

and save up to pay for the surgery that will complete their
r’ttetemorphosis into “real women.” Here the dividing line
1,!
SHE MALE
is unclear between the transvestite, who, in the terms ofthe
specialist, is careful to hide the wherewithal to dumbfound
his neighbor, and the transsexual, who despises and detests
the burden of a virility that he has always refused with all
his strength. At night, in the streets of Paris’ Pigalle, or
New York‘s 42nd Street, or San Francisco’s Castro, the
client with a taste for the equivocal is well served, and can
no longer tell if this or that superb Brazilian is a woman, a
transvestite with brand—new, estrogen—cultured breasts and
a highly virile organ, or a man “transformed,” endowed
with on artificial vagina, who no longer bears any resenv
blance to the man he once. was. Plastic surgery to feminize
the body and facial features (nose, chin, cheekhones, eyew
hrowerches, hands, legs) and sex-change operations are
now common practice almost everywhere in Europe, and
have long been performed in the US. Countless young male
prostitutes go to the expense of these operations, but what
drives them to such lengths is still uncertain. Perhaps it is
the market forces of prostitution _ i,e., what the client
wants (which is more saleable, a transvestite with or with
out o penis?) m or perhaps it stems from an inner convict»
tion, a vocation dating from earliest youth.
One may also encounter transsexuals outside
this marginal universe ~- and in fact, anywhere at all. Your
buxom eheesewendor may be a father of three; priests,
doctors, nurses, clerks and modest state-employees
“change” sex. In the Netherlands, a considerable effort has
been undertaken to facilitate the process, A number of
interviews with the psychologist suffices to open up the
possibility of transfonnation, which culminates in changed
civil statue. Men who become women can marry and adopt
children; women transformed into men, whose Witttfihttt‘fi

”.3