Queer

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queer

 

Queer is an umbrella term for sexual and gender minorities who are not heterosexual or are not cisgender. Originally meaning "strange" or "peculiar", queer came to be used pejoratively against those with same-sex desires or relationships in the late 19th century. Beginning in the late 1980s, queer activists, such as the members of Queer Nation, began to reclaim the word as a deliberately provocative and politically radical alternative to the more assimilationist branches of the LGBT community.

In the 2000s and on, queer became increasingly used to describe a broad spectrum of non-normative^{[note 1]} (i.e. anti-heteronormative and anti-homonormative) sexual and gender identities and politics.^[3] Academic disciplines such as queer theory and queer studies share a general opposition to binarism, normativity, and a perceived lack of intersectionality, some of them only tangentially connected to the LGBT movement. Queer arts, queer cultural groups, and queer political groups are examples of modern expressions of queer identities.

Critics of the use of the term include members of the LGBT community who associate the term more with its colloquial, derogatory usage, those who wish to dissociate themselves from queer radicalism, and those who see it as amorphous and trendy. The expansion of queer to include queer heterosexuality has been criticized by those who argue that the term can only be reclaimed by those it has been used to oppress.

Origins and early use

Entering the English language in the 16th century, queer originally meant "strange", "odd", "peculiar", or "eccentric." It might refer to something suspicious or "not quite right", or to a person with mild derangement or who exhibits socially inappropriate behaviour. The Northern English expression "there's nowt so queer as folk", meaning "there is nothing as strange as people", employs this meaning. Related meanings of queer include a feeling of unwellness or something that is questionable or suspicious. The expression "in Queer Street" is used in the United Kingdom for someone in financial trouble. Over time, queer acquired a number of meanings related to sexuality and gender, from narrowly meaning "gay or lesbian" to referring to those who are "not heterosexual" to referring to those who are either not heterosexual or not cisgender (those who are LGBT+).

Early pejorative use

By the late 19th century, queer was beginning to gain a connotation of sexual deviance, used to refer to feminine men or men who were thought to have engaged in same-sex relationships. An early recorded usage of the word in this sense was in an 1894 letter by John Sholto Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry.

Queer was used in mainstream society by the 20th century, along with fairy and faggot, as a pejorative term to refer to men who were perceived as "flamboyant", who were "the predominant image of all queers within the straight mind", as historian George Chauncey notes.

Starting in the underground gay bar scene in the 1950s, then moving more into the open in the 1960s and 1970s, the homophile identity was gradually displaced by a more radicalized gay identity. At that time gay was generally an umbrella term including lesbians, as well as gay-identified bisexuals and transsexuals; gender-nonconformity, which had always been an indicator of gayness, also became more open during this time. During the endonymic shifts from invert to homophile to gay, queer was usually pejoratively applied to men who were believed to engage in receptive or passive anal or oral sex with other men as well as those who exhibited non-normative gender expressions.

Early 20th century queer identity

Drag Ball in Webster Hall, ca. 1920s. Many queer-identified men denigrated the "flagrant" appearances of "fairies" at such events.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, queer, fairy, trade, and gay signified distinct social categories within the gay male subculture. Queer was used among gay men in order to claim or self-identify with perceived normative masculine status. Many queer-identified men at the time were, according to Chauncey, "repelled by the style of the fairy and his loss of manly status, and almost all were careful to distinguish themselves from such men", especially because the dominant straight culture did not acknowledge such distinctions. Trade referred to straight men who would engage in same-sex activity; Chauncey describes trade as "the 'normal men' [queers] claimed to be."

In contrast to the terms used within the subculture, medical practitioners and police officers tended to use pathological terms like "invert", "pervert", "degenerate", and "homosexual".

None of the terms, whether inside or outside of the subculture, equated to the general concept of a homosexual identity, which only emerged with the ascension of a binary (heterosexual/homosexual) understanding of sexual orientation in the 1930s and 1940s. As this binary became embedded into the social fabric, queer began to decline as an acceptable identity in the subculture.

Similar to the earlier use of queer, gay was adopted among assimilationist men in the mid-20th century as a means of asserting their normative status and rejecting any associations with effeminacy. The idea that queer was a pejorative term became more prevalent among younger gay men following World War II. As the gay identity became more widely adopted in the community, some men who preferred to identify as gay began chastising older men who still referred to themselves as queer by the late 1940s:

In calling themselves gay, a new generation of men insisted on the right to name themselves, to claim their status as men, and to reject the "effeminate" styles of the older generation. [...] Younger men found it easier to forget the origins of gay in the campy banter of the very queens whom they wished to reject.

Reclamation

Beginning in the late 1980s, the label queer began to be reclaimed from its pejorative use as a neutral or positive self-identifier by LGBT people. An early example of this usage by the LGBT community was by an organisation called Queer Nation, which was formed in March 1990 and circulated an anonymous flier at the New York Gay Pride Parade in June 1990 titled "Queers Read This". The flier included a passage explaining their adoption of the label queer:

Ah, do we really have to use that word? It's trouble. Every gay person has his or her own take on it. For some it means strange and eccentric and kind of mysterious [...] And for others "queer" conjures up those awful memories of adolescent suffering [...] Well, yes, "gay" is great. It has its place. But when a lot of lesbians and gay men wake up in the morning we feel angry and disgusted, not gay. So we've chosen to call ourselves queer. Using "queer" is a way of reminding us how we are perceived by the rest of the world.

Queer people, particularly queer people of color, began to reclaim queer in response to a perceived shift in the gay community toward liberal conservatism, catalyzed by Andrew Sullivan's 1989 piece in The New Republic, titled Here Comes the Groom: The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage. The queer movement rejected causes viewed as assimilationist, such as marriage, military inclusion and adoption. This radical stance and rejection of U.S. Imperialism continued the tradition of earlier Lesbian and Gay anti-war activism, and solidarity with a variety of leftist movements, such as seen in the positions taken at the first two National Marches on Washington in 1979 and 1987, the radical direct action of groups like ACT UP, and the historical importance of events like the Stonewall riots. The radical Queer groups following in this tradition of LGBT activism contrasted firmly with, "the holy trinity of marriage, military service and adoption [which had] become the central preoccupation of a gay movement centered more on obtaining straight privilege than challenging power." Commentators noted that it was exactly these "revolting queers" (who were now being pushed aside) who had made it safe for the assimilationists to now have the option of assimilation.

Use

The term may be capitalized when referring to an identity or community, rather than as an objective fact describing a person's desires, in a construction similar to the capitalized use of Deaf. The abbreviation 'Q' has developed from common usage of queer, particularly in the United States.

Criticism

However, this reclamation and the use of the term queer is not uncontroversial; several people and organizations, both LGBT and non-LGBT, object to some or all uses of the word for various reasons. Some LGBT people dislike the use of queer as an umbrella term because they associate it with this political radicalism; they say that deliberate use of the epithet queer by political radicals has, in their view, played a role in dividing the LGBT community by political opinion, class, gender, age, and other factors. The controversy about the word also marks a social and political divide in the LGBT community between those (including civil-rights activists) who perceive themselves as "normal" and who wish to be seen as ordinary members of society and those who see themselves as separate, confrontational and not part of the ordinary social order. Other LGBT people disapprove of reclaiming or using queer because they consider it offensive, derisive or self-deprecating because use by heterosexuals as a pejorative continues to this day, and some LGBT people avoid queer because they perceive it as faddish slang, or alternatively as academic jargon.

Scope

Intersex and queer identities

Scholars and activists have proposed different ways in which queer identities apply or do not apply to intersex people. Sociologist Morgan Holmes describes intersex bodies as queer bodies while documenting a heteronormativity in medical rationales for the surgical normalization of infants and children born with atypical sex development. Bioethicist Morgan Carpenter also describes intersex bodies as queer bodies. In "What Can Queer Theory Do for Intersex?" Iain Morland contrasts queer "hedonic activism" with an experience of insensate post-surgical intersex bodies to claim that "queerness is characterized by the sensory interrelation of pleasure and shame".

Emi Koyama describes a move away from a queer identity model within the intersex movement:

Such tactic [of reclaiming labels] was obviously influenced by queer identity politics of the 1980s and 90s that were embodied by such groups as Queer Nation and Lesbian Avengers. But unfortunately, intersex activists quickly discovered that the intersex movement could not succeed under this model. For one thing, there were far fewer intersex people compared to the large and visible presence of LGBT people in most urban centers. For another, activists soon realized that most intersex individuals were not interested in building intersex communities or culture; what they sought were professional psychological support to live ordinary lives as ordinary men and women and not the adoption of new, misleading identity. ... To make it worse, the word "intersex" began to attract individuals who are not necessarily intersex, but feel that they might be, because they are queer or trans. ... Fortunately, the intersex movement did not rely solely on queer identity model for its strategies.

Queer heterosexuality

Queer is sometimes expanded to include any non-normative sexuality, including (cisgender) "queer heterosexuality". This has been criticized by some LGBT people, who argue that queer can only be reclaimed by those it has been used to oppress: "For someone who is homosexual and queer, a straight person identifying as queer can feel like choosing to appropriate the good bits, the cultural and political cache, the clothes and the sound of gay culture, without the laugh riot of gay-bashing, teen shame, adult shame, shame-shame, and the internalized homophobia of lived gay experience."

Academia

In academia, the term queer and the related verb queering broadly indicate the study of literature, discourse, academic fields, and other social and cultural areas from a non-heteronormative perspective. It often means studying a subject against the grain from the perspective of gender studies. 

Queer studies is the study of issues relating to sexual orientation and gender identity usually focusing on LGBT people and cultures. Originally centered on LGBT history and literary theory, the field has expanded to include the academic study of issues raised in biology, sociology, anthropology, history of science, philosophy, psychology, sexology, political science, ethics, and other fields by an examination of the identity, lives, history, and perception of queer people. Organizations such as the Irish Queer Archive attempt to collect and preserve history related to queer studies.

Queer theory is a field of post-structuralist critical theory that emerged in the early 1990s out of the fields of queer studies and women's studies. Applications of queer theory include queer theology and queer pedagogy. Queer theorists, including Rod Ferguson, Jasbir Puar, Lisa Duggan, and Chong-suk Han, critique the mainstream gay political movement as allied with neoliberal and imperialistic agendas, including gay tourism, gay and trans military inclusion, and state- and church-sanctioned marriages for monogamous gay couples. Puar, a queer theorist of color, coined the term homonationalism, which refers to the rise of American exceptionalism, nationalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy within the gay community catalyzed in response to the September 11 attacks. Many studies have acknowledged the problems that lie within the traditional theory and process of social studies, and so choose to utilise a queer theoretical approach instead. One such study was conducted in Melbourne in 2016 by Roffee and Waling. By using queer and feminist theories and approaches the researchers were better equipped to cater for the needs, and be accommodating for the vulnerabilities, of the LGBTIQ participants of the study. In this case, it was a specifically post-modern queer theory that enabled the researchers to approach the study with a fair perspective, acknowledging all the varieties of narratives and experiences within the LGBTIQ community.

Culture and politics

Several LGBT social movements around the world use the identifier queer, such as the Queer Cyprus Association in Cyprus and the Queer Youth Network in the United Kingdom. In India, pride parades include Queer Azaadi Mumbai and the Delhi Queer Pride Parade. The use of queer and Q is also widespread in Australia, including national counselling and support service Qlife and Q News. 

Other social movements exist as offshoots of queer culture or combinations of queer identity with other views. Adherents of queer nationalism support the notion that the LGBT community forms a distinct people due to their unique culture and customs. Queercore (originally homocore) is a cultural and social movement that began in the mid-1980s as an offshoot of punk expressed in a do-it-yourself style through zines, music, writing, art and film.

The term queer migration is used to describe the movement of LGBTQ people around the world often to escape discrimination or ill treatment due to their orientation or gender expression. Organizations such as the Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees and Rainbow Railroad attempt to assist individuals in such relocations.

Art

The label queer is often applied to art movements, particularly cinema. New Queer Cinema was a movement in queer-themed independent filmmaking in the early 1990s. Modern queer film festivals include the Melbourne Queer Film Festival and Mardi Gras Film Festival (run by Queer Screen) in Australia, the Mumbai Queer Film Festival in India, the Asian Queer Film Festival in Japan, and Queersicht in Switzerland. Chinese film director Cui Zi'en titled his 2008 documentary about homosexuality in China Queer China, which premiered at the 2009 Beijing Queer Film Festival after previous attempts to hold a queer film festival were shut down by the government.

Multidisciplinary queer arts festivals include the Outburst Queer Arts Festival Belfast in Northern Ireland, the Queer Arts Festival in Canada, and the National Queer Arts Festival in the United States.

Television shows that use queer in their titles include the UK series Queer as Folk and its American-Canadian remake of the same name, Queer Eye, and the cartoon Queer Duck.

Androgyny

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgyny

Androgyny is the combination of masculine and feminine characteristics into an ambiguous form. Androgyny may be expressed with regard to biological sex, gender identity, gender expression, or sexual identity. 

When androgyny refers to mixed biological sex characteristics in humans, it often refers to intersex people. As a gender identity, androgynous individuals may refer to themselves as non-binary, genderqueer, or gender neutral. As a form of gender expression, androgyny can be achieved through personal grooming or fashion. Androgynous gender expression has waxed and waned in popularity in different cultures and throughout history.

Etymology

Androgyny as a noun came into use c. 1850, nominalizing the adjective androgynous. The adjective use dates from the early 17th century and is itself derived from the older French (14th Century) and English (c. 1550) term androgyne. The terms are ultimately derived from Ancient Greek: ἀνδρόγυνος, from ἀνήρ, stem ἀνδρ- (anér, andr-, meaning man) and γυνή (gunē, gyné, meaning woman) through the Latin: androgynus, The older word form androgyne is still in use as a noun with an overlapping set of meanings.

History

Androgyny among humans – expressed in terms of biological sex characteristics, gender identity, or gender expression – is attested to from earliest history and across world cultures. In ancient Sumer, androgynous and hermaphroditic men were heavily involved in the cult of Inanna. A set of priests known as gala worked in Inanna's temples, where they performed elegies and lamentations. Gala took female names, spoke in the eme-sal dialect, which was traditionally reserved for women, and appear to have engaged in homosexual intercourse. In later Mesopotamian cultures, kurgarrū and assinnu were servants of the goddess Ishtar (Inanna's East Semitic equivalent), who dressed in female clothing and performed war dances in Ishtar's temples. Several Akkadian proverbs seem to suggest that they may have also engaged in homosexual intercourse. Gwendolyn Leick, an anthropologist known for her writings on Mesopotamia, has compared these individuals to the contemporary Indian hijra. In one Akkadian hymn, Ishtar is described as transforming men into women.

The ancient Greek myth of Hermaphroditus and Salmacis, two divinities who fused into a single immortal – provided a frame of reference used in Western culture for centuries. Androgyny and homosexuality are seen in Plato's Symposium in a myth that Aristophanes tells the audience. People used to be spherical creatures, with two bodies attached back to back who cartwheeled around. There were three sexes: the male-male people who descended from the sun, the female-female people who descended from the earth, and the male-female people who came from the moon. This last pairing represented the androgynous couple. These sphere people tried to take over the gods and failed. Zeus then decided to cut them in half and had Apollo repair the resulting cut surfaces, leaving the navel as a reminder to not defy the gods again. If they did, he would cleave them in two again to hop around on one leg. Plato states in this work that homosexuality is not shameful. This is one of the earlier written references to androgyny. Other early references to androgyny include astronomy, where androgyn was a name given to planets that were sometimes warm and sometimes cold.

Philosophers such as Philo of Alexandria, and early Christian leaders such as Origen and Gregory of Nyssa, continued to promote the idea of androgyny as humans' original and perfect state during late antiquity.” In medieval Europe, the concept of androgyny played an important role in both Christian theological debate and Alchemical theory. Influential Theologians such as John of Damascus and John Scotus Eriugena continued to promote the pre-fall androgyny proposed by the early Church Fathers, while other clergy expounded and debated the proper view and treatment of contemporary “hermaphrodites.”

Western esotericism’s embrace of androgyny continued into the modern period. A 1550 anthology of Alchemical thought, De Alchemia, included the influential Rosary of the Philosophers, which depicts the sacred marriage of the masculine principle (Sol) with the feminine principle (Luna) producing the "Divine Androgyne," a representation of Alchemical Hermetic beliefs in dualism, transformation, and the transcendental perfection of the union of opposites. The symbolism and meaning of androgyny was a central preoccupation of the German mystic Jakob Böhme and the Swedish philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg. The philosophical concept of the “Universal Androgyne” (or “Universal Hermaphrodite”) – a perfect merging of the sexes that predated the current corrupted world and/or was the utopia of the next – also plays a central role in Rosicrucian doctrine and in philosophical traditions such as Swedenborgianism and Theosophy. Twentieth century architect Claude Fayette Bragdon expressed the concept mathematically as a magic square, using it as building block in many of his most noted buildings.

Symbols and iconography

The Caduceus

 

In the ancient and medieval worlds, androgynous people and/or hermaphrodites were represented in art by the caduceus, a wand of transformative power in ancient Greco-Roman mythology. The caduceus was created by Tiresias and represents his transformation into a woman by Juno in punishment for striking at mating snakes. The caduceus was later carried by Hermes/Mercury and was the basis for the astronomical symbol for the planet Mercury and the botanical sign for hermaphrodite. That sign is now sometimes used for transgender people.

Another common androgyny icon in the medieval and early modern period was the Rebis, a conjoined male and female figure, often with solar and lunar motifs. Still another symbol was what is today called sun cross, which united the cross (or saltire) symbol for male with the circle for female. This sign is now the astronomical symbol for the planet Earth.

Mercury symbol derived from the Caduceus

 

A Rebis from 1617

 

"Rose and Cross" Androgyne symbol

Alternate "rose and cross" version

Biological

Historically, the word androgynous was applied to humans with a mixture of male and female sex characteristics, and was sometimes used synonymously with the term hermaphrodite. In some disciplines, such as botany, androgynous and hermaphroditic are still used interchangeably.

When androgyny is used to refer to physical traits, it often refers to a person whose biological sex is difficult to discern at a glance because of their mixture of male and female characteristics. Because androgyny encompasses additional meanings related to gender identity and gender expression that are distinct from biological sex, today the word androgynous is rarely used to formally describe mixed biological sex characteristics in humans. In modern English, the word intersex is used to more precisely describe individuals with mixed or ambiguous sex characteristics. However, both intersex and non-intersex people can exhibit a mixture of male and female sex traits such as hormone levels, type of internal and external genitalia, and the appearance of secondary sex characteristics.

Psychological

Though definitions of androgyny vary throughout the scientific community, it is generally supported that androgyny represents a blending of traits associated with both masculinity and femininity. In psychological study, various measures have been used to characterize gender, such as the Bem Sex Role Inventory, the Personal Attributes Questionnaire.

Broadly speaking, masculine traits are categorized as agentic and instrumental, dealing with assertiveness and analytical skill. Feminine traits are categorized as communal and expressive, dealing with empathy and subjectivity. Androgynous individuals exhibit behavior that extends beyond what is normally associated with their given sex. Due to the possession of both masculine and feminine characteristics, androgynous individuals have access to a wider array of psychological competencies in regards to emotional regulation, communication styles, and situational adaptability. Androgynous individuals have also been associated with higher levels of creativity and mental health.

Bem Sex-Role Inventory

The Bem Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI) was constructed by the early leading proponent of androgyny, Sandra Bem (1977). The BSRI is one of the most widely used gender measures. Based on an individual's responses to the items in the BSRI, they are classified as having one of four gender role orientations: masculine, feminine, androgynous, or undifferentiated. Bem understood that both masculine and feminine characteristics could be expressed by anyone and it would determine those gender role orientations.

An androgynous person is an individual who has a high degree of both feminine (expressive) and masculine (instrumental) traits. A feminine individual is ranked high on feminine (expressive) traits and ranked low on masculine (instrumental) traits. A masculine individual is ranked high on instrumental traits and ranked low on expressive traits. An undifferentiated person is low on both feminine and masculine traits.

According to Sandra Bem, androgynous individuals are more flexible and more mentally healthy than either masculine or feminine individuals; undifferentiated individuals are less competent. More recent research has debunked this idea, at least to some extent, and Bem herself has found weaknesses in her original pioneering work. Now she prefers to work with gender schema theory.

One study found that masculine and androgynous individuals had higher expectations for being able to control the outcomes of their academic efforts than feminine or undifferentiated individuals.

Personal Attribues Questionnaire

The Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ) was developed in the 70s by Janet Spence, Robert Helmreich, and Joy Stapp. This test asked subjects to complete to a survey consisting of three sets of scales relating to masculinity, femininity, and masculinity-femininity. These scales had sets of adjectives commonly associated with males, females, and both. These descriptors were chosen based on typical characteristics as rated by a population of undergrad students. Similar to the BSRI, the PAQ labeled androgynous individuals as people who ranked highly in both the areas of masculinity and femininity. However, Spence and Helmreich considered androgyny to be a descriptor of high levels of masculinity and femininity as opposed to a category in and of itself.

Gender identity

An individual's gender identity, a personal sense of one's own gender, may be described as androgynous if they feel that they have both masculine and feminine aspects. The word androgyne can refer to a person who does not fit neatly into one of the typical masculine or feminine gender roles of their society, but is uncommon. Many androgynous individuals identify as being mentally or emotionally both masculine and feminine. They may identify as "gender-neutral", "genderqueer", or "non-binary". A person who is androgynous may engage freely in what is seen as masculine or feminine behaviors as well as tasks. They have a balanced identity that includes the virtues of both men and women and may disassociate the task with what gender they may be socially or physically assigned to. People who are androgynous disregard what traits are culturally constructed specifically for males and females within a specific society, and rather focus on what behavior is most effective within the situational circumstance.

Many non-western cultures recognize additional androgynous gender identities. Jewish culture recognizes the Tumtum and Androgynos genders. In Chinese culture exists the Yinyang ren gender. The Bugis of Indonesia recognize five genders, Bissu representing the androgynous category. In Hawaiian culture, the third gender Māhū is recognized. In Oaxacan Zapotec culture, the Muxe are recognized as a third gender. In India, the Hijra is the third androgynous gender. Samoans accept Fa’afafine as a third gender. Native American culture includes Two Spirit as a general third gender.

Gender expression

Gender expression, which includes a mixture of masculine and feminine characteristics, can be described as androgynous. The categories of masculine and feminine in gender expression are socially constructed, and rely on shared conceptions of clothing, behavior, communication style, and other aspects of presentation. In some cultures, androgynous gender expression has been celebrated, while in others, androgynous expression has been limited or suppressed. To say that a culture or relationship is androgynous is to say that it lacks rigid gender roles, or has blurred lines between gender roles. 

The word genderqueer is often used by androgynous individuals to refer to themselves, but the terms genderqueer and androgynous are neither equivalent nor interchangeable. Genderqueer is not specific to androgynes, and does not denote gender identity. It may refer to any person, cisgender or transgender, whose behavior falls outside conventional gender norms. Furthermore, genderqueer, by virtue of its ties with queer culture, carries sociopolitical connotations that androgyny does not carry. For these reasons, some androgynes may find the label genderqueer inaccurate, inapplicable, or offensive. Androgneity is considered by some to be a viable alternative to androgyn for differentiating internal (psychological) factors from external (visual) factors.

Terms such as bisexual, heterosexual, and homosexual have less meaning for androgynous individuals who do not identify as men or women to begin with. Infrequently the words gynephilia and androphilia are used, and some describe themselves as androsexual. These words refer to the gender of the person someone is attracted to, but do not imply any particular gender on the part of the person who is feeling the attraction.

Louise Brooks exemplified the flapper. Flappers challenged traditional gender roles, had boyish hair cuts and androgynous figures.

Androgyny in fashion

Throughout most of twentieth century Western history, social rules have restricted people's dress according to gender. Trousers were traditionally a male form of dress, frowned upon for women. However, during the 1800s, female spies were introduced and Vivandières wore a certain uniform with a dress over trousers. Women activists during that time would also decide to wear trousers, for example Luisa Capetillo, a women's rights activist and the first woman in Puerto Rico to wear trousers in public.

Coco Chanel wearing a sailor's jersey and trousers. 1928

 

In the 1900s, starting around World War I traditional gender roles blurred and fashion pioneers such as Paul Poiret and Coco Chanel introduced trousers to women's fashion. The "flapper style" for women of this era included trousers and a chic bob, which gave women an androgynous look. Coco Chanel, who had a love for wearing trousers herself, created trouser designs for women such as beach pajamas and horse-riding attire. During the 1930s, glamorous actresses such as Marlene Dietrich fascinated and shocked many with their strong desire to wear trousers and adopt the androgynous style. Dietrich is remembered as one of the first actresses to wear trousers in a premiere.

Yves Saint Laurent, the tuxedo suit "Le Smoking", created in 1966

 

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the women's liberation movement is likely to have contributed to ideas and influenced fashion designers, such as Yves Saint Laurent. Yves Saint Laurent designed the Le Smoking suit and first introduced in 1966, and Helmut Newton’s erotized androgynous photographs of it made Le Smoking iconic and classic. The Le Smoking tuxedo was a controversial statement of femininity and has revolutionized trousers.

Elvis Presley, however is considered to be the one who introduced the androgynous style in rock'n'roll and made it the standard template for rock'n'roll front-men since the 1950s. His pretty face and use of eye makeup often made people think he was a rather "effeminate guy", but Elvis Presley was considered as the prototype for the looks of rock'n'roll. The Rolling Stones, says Mick Jagger became androgynous "straightaway unconsciously" because of him.

However, the upsurge of androgynous dressing for men really began after during the 1960s and 1970s. When the Rolling Stones played London's Hyde Park in 1969, Mick Jagger wore a white "man's dress" designed by British designer Mr Fish. Mr Fish, also known as Michael Fish, was the most fashionable shirt-maker in London, the inventor of the Kipper tie, and a principal taste-maker of the Peacock revolution in men's fashion. His creation for Mick Jagger was considered to be the epitome of the swinging 60s. From then on, the androgynous style was being adopted by many celebrities. 

Annie Lennox was known for her androgyny in the 1980s

 

During the 1970s, Jimi Hendrix was wearing high heels and blouses quite often, and David Bowie presented his alter ego Ziggy Stardust, a character that was a symbol of sexual ambiguity when he launched the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and Spiders from Mars. This was when androgyny entered the mainstream in the 1970s and had a big influence in pop culture. Another significant influence during this time included John Travolta, one of the androgynous male heroes of the post-counter-culture disco era in the 1970s, who starred in Grease and Saturday Night Fever.

Continuing into the 1980s, the rise of avant-garde fashion designers like Yohji Yamamoto, challenged the social constructs around gender. They reinvigorated androgyny in fashion, addressing gender issues. This was also reflected within pop culture icons during the 1980s, such as David Bowie and Annie Lennox.

Power dressing for women became even more prominent within the 1980s which was previously only something done by men in order to look structured and powerful. However, during the 1980s this began to take a turn as women were entering jobs with equal roles to the men. In the article “The Menswear Phenomenon” by Kathleen Beckett written for Vogue in 1984 the concept of power dressing is explored as women entered these jobs they had no choice but to tailor their wardrobes accordingly, eventually leading the ascension of power dressing as a popular style for women. Women begin to find through fashion they can incite men to pay more attention to the seduction of their mental prowess rather, than the physical attraction of their appearance. This influence in the fashion world quickly makes its way to the world of film, with movies like "Working Girl" using power dressing women as their main subject matter. 

Androgynous fashion made its most powerful in the 1980s debut through the work of Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo, who brought in a distinct Japanese style that adopted distinctively gender ambiguous theme. These two designers consider themselves to very much a part of the avant-garde, reinvigorating Japanism. Following a more anti-fashion approach and deconstructing garments, in order to move away from the more mundane aspects of current Western fashion. This would end up leading a change in Western fashion in the 1980s that would lead on for more gender friendly garment construction. This is because designers like Yamamoto believe that the idea of androgyny should be celebrated, as it is an unbiased way for an individual to identify with one's self and that fashion is purely a catalyst for this.

Also during the 1980s, Grace Jones's a famous singer and fashion model gender-thwarted appearance in the 1980s which startled the public, but her androgynous style of heavily derivative of power dressing and eccentric personality has inspired many, and has become an androgynous style icon for modern celebrities. This was seen as controversial but from then on, there was a rise of unisex designers later in the 1990s and the androgynous style was widely adopted by many.

In 2016, Louis Vuitton revealed that Jaden Smith would star in their womenswear campaign. Because of events like this, gender fluidity in fashion is being vigorously discussed in the media, with the concept being articulated by Lady Gaga, Ruby Rose, and in Tom Hooper's film The Danish Girl. Jaden Smith and other young individuals, such as Lily-Rose Depp, have inspired the movement with his appeal for clothes to be non-gender specific, meaning that men can wear skirts and women can wear boxer shorts if they so wish.

Alternatives

An alternative to androgyny is gender-role transcendence: the view that individual competence should be conceptualized on a personal basis rather than on the basis of masculinity, femininity, or androgyny.

In agenderism, the division of people into women and men (in the psychical sense), is considered erroneous and artificial. Agendered individuals are those who reject genderic labeling in conception of self-identity and other matters. They see their subjectivity through the term person instead of woman or man. According to E. O. Wright, genderless people can have traits, behaviors and dispositions that correspond to what is currently viewed as feminine and masculine, and the mix of these would vary across persons. Nevertheless, it doesn't suggest that everyone would be androgynous in their identities and practices in the absence of gendered relations. What disappears in the idea of genderlessness is any expectation that some characteristics and dispositions are strictly attributed to a person of any biological sex.

Contemporary trends

Jennifer Miller, bearded woman

 

X Japan founder Yoshiki is often labelled androgynous, known for having worn lace dresses and acting effeminate during performances

 

South Korean pop star G-Dragon is often noted for his androgynous looks

 

Androgyny has been gaining more prominence in popular culture in the early 21st century. Both fashion industries and pop culture have accepted and even popularised the "androgynous" look, with several current celebrities being hailed as creative trendsetters.

The rise of the metrosexual in the first decade of the 2000s has also been described as a related phenomenon associated with this trend. Traditional gender stereotypes have been challenged and reset in recent years dating back to the 1960s, the hippie movement and flower power. Artists in film such as Leonardo DiCaprio sported the "skinny" look in the 1990s, a departure from traditional masculinity which resulted in a fad known as "Leo Mania". This trend came long after musical superstars such as David Bowie, Boy George, Prince, Pete Burns and Annie Lennox challenged the norms in the 1970s and had elaborate cross gender wardrobes by the 1980s. Musical stars such as Brett Anderson of the British band Suede, Marilyn Manson and the band Placebo have used clothing and makeup to create an androgyny culture throughout the 1990s and the first decade of the 2000s.

While the 1990s unrolled and fashion developed an affinity for unisex clothes there was a rise of designers who favored that look, like Helmut Lang, Giorgio Armani and Pierre Cardin, the trends in fashion hit the public mainstream in the 2000s (decade) that featured men sporting different hair styles: longer hair, hairdyes, hair highlights. Men in catalogues started wearing jewellery, make up, visual kei, designer stubble. These styles have become a significant mainstream trend of the 21st century, both in the western world and in Asia. Japanese and Korean cultures have featured the androgynous look as a positive attribute in society, as depicted in both K-pop, J-pop, in anime and manga, as well as the fashion industry.

XY sex-determination system

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_sex-determination_system

 

Drosophila sex-chromosomes

 

Pollen cones of a male Ginkgo biloba tree, a dioecious species

 

Ovules of a female Ginkgo biloba tree

 

The XY sex-determination system is found in humans, most other mammals, some insects (Drosophila), some snakes, and some plants (Ginkgo). In this system, the sex of an individual is determined by a pair of sex chromosomes. Females typically have two of the same kind of sex chromosome (XX) and are called the homogametic sex. Males typically have two different kinds of sex chromosomes (XY) and are called the heterogametic sex.

 

In humans, the presence of the Y chromosome is responsible for triggering male development; in the absence of the Y chromosome, the fetus will undergo female development. More specifically, it is the SRY gene located on the Y chromosome that is of importance to male differentiation. Variations to the sex gene karyotype could include rare disorders such as XX males (often due to translocation of the SRY gene to the X chromosome) or XY gonadal dysgenesis in people who are externally female (due to mutations in the SRY gene). In addition, other rare genetic variations such as Turner's (XO) and Klinefelter's (XXY) are seen as well.

The XY system contrasts in several ways with the ZW sex-determination system found in birds, some insects, many reptiles, and various other animals, in which the heterogametic sex is female. It had been thought for several decades that, in all snakes, sex was determined by the ZW system, but there had been observations of unexpected effects in the genetics of species in the families Boidae and Pythonidae; for example, parthenogenic reproduction produced only females rather than males, which is the opposite of what is to be expected in the ZW system. In the early years of the 21st century such observations prompted research that demonstrated that all pythons and boas so far investigated definitely have the XY system of sex determination.

A temperature-dependent sex determination system is found in some reptiles.

Mechanisms

All animals have a set of DNA coding for genes present on chromosomes. In humans, most mammals, and some other species, two of the chromosomes, called the X chromosome and Y chromosome, code for sex. In these species, one or more genes are present on their Y chromosome that determine maleness. In this process, an X chromosome and a Y chromosome act to determine the sex of offspring, often due to genes located on the Y chromosome that code for maleness. Offspring have two sex chromosomes: an offspring with two X chromosomes will develop female characteristics, and an offspring with an X and a Y chromosome will develop male characteristics.

Humans

Human male XY chromosomes after G-banding

 

In humans, half of spermatozoons carry X chromosome and the other half Y chromosome. A single gene (SRY) present on the Y chromosome acts as a signal to set the developmental pathway towards maleness. Presence of this gene starts off the process of virilization. This and other factors result in the sex differences in humans. The cells in females, with two X chromosomes, undergo X-inactivation, in which one of the two X chromosomes is inactivated. The inactivated X chromosome remains within a cell as a Barr body.

Humans, as well as some other organisms, can have a rare chromosomal arrangement that is contrary to their phenotypic sex; for example, XX males or XY gonadal dysgenesis (see androgen insensitivity syndrome). Additionally, an abnormal number of sex chromosomes (aneuploidy) may be present, such as Turner's syndrome, in which a single X chromosome is present, and Klinefelter's syndrome, in which two X chromosomes and a Y chromosome are present, XYY syndrome and XXYY syndrome. Other less common chromosomal arrangements include: triple X syndrome, 48, XXXX, and 49, XXXXX.

Other animals

In most mammals, sex is determined by presence of the Y chromosome. "Female" is the default sex, due to the absence of the Y chromosome. In the 1930s, Alfred Jost determined that the presence of testosterone was required for Wolffian duct development in the male rabbit.

SRY is a sex-determining gene on the Y chromosome in the therians (placental mammals and marsupials). Non-human mammals use several genes on the Y chromosome. Not all male-specific genes are located on the Y chromosome. Platypus, a monotreme, use five pairs of different XY chromosomes with six groups of male-linked genes, AMH being the master switch. Other species (including most Drosophila species) use the presence of two X chromosomes to determine femaleness: one X chromosome gives putative maleness, but the presence of Y chromosome genes is required for normal male development.

Other systems

Birds and many insects have a similar system of sex determination (ZW sex-determination system), in which it is the females that are heterogametic (ZW), while males are homogametic (ZZ).

Many insects of the order Hymenoptera instead have a system (the haplo-diploid sex-determination system), where the males are haploid individuals (which have just one chromosome of each type), while the females are diploid (with chromosomes appearing in pairs). Some other insects have the X0 sex-determination system, where just one chromosome type appears in pairs for the female but alone in the males, while all other chromosomes appear in pairs in both sexes.

Influences

Genetic

PBB Protein SRY image

It has long been believed that the female form was the default template for the mammalian fetuses of both sexes. After the discovery of the testis-determining gene SRY, many scientists shifted to the theory that the genetic mechanism that causes a fetus to develop into a male form was initiated by the SRY gene, which was thought to be responsible for the production of testosterone and its overall effects on body and brain development. This perspective still shares the classical way of thinking; that in order to produce two sexes, nature has developed a default female pathway and an active pathway by which male genes would initiate the process of determining a male sex, as something that is developed in addition to and based on the default female form. However, In an interview for the Rediscovering Biology website, researcher Eric Vilain described how the paradigm changed since the discovery of the SRY gene:

For a long time we thought that SRY would activate a cascade of male genes. It turns out that the sex determination pathway is probably more complicated and SRY may in fact inhibit some anti-male genes.
The idea is instead of having a simplistic mechanism by which you have pro-male genes going all the way to make a male, in fact there is a solid balance between pro-male genes and anti-male genes and if there is a little too much of anti-male genes, there may be a female born and if there is a little too much of pro-male genes then there will be a male born.
We [are] entering this new era in molecular biology of sex determination where it's a more subtle dosage of genes, some pro-males, some pro-females, some anti-males, some anti-females that all interplay with each other rather than a simple linear pathway of genes going one after the other, which makes it very fascinating but very complicated to study.

In mammals, including humans, the SRY gene is responsible with triggering the development of non-differentiated gonads into testes, rather than ovaries. However, there are cases in which testes can develop in the absence of an SRY gene. In these cases, the SOX9 gene, involved in the development of testes, can induce their development without the aid of SRY. In the absence of SRY and SOX9, no testes can develop and the path is clear for the development of ovaries. Even so, the absence of the SRY gene or the silencing of the SOX9 gene are not enough to trigger sexual differentiation of a fetus in the female direction. A recent finding suggests that ovary development and maintenance is an active process, regulated by the expression of a "pro-female" gene, FOXL2. In an interview for the TimesOnline edition, study co-author Robin Lovell-Badge explained the significance of the discovery:

We take it for granted that we maintain the sex we are born with, including whether we have testes or ovaries. But this work shows that the activity of a single gene, FOXL2, is all that prevents adult ovary cells turning into cells found in testes.

Implications

Looking into the genetic determinants of human sex can have wide-ranging consequences. Scientists have been studying different sex determination systems in fruit flies and animal models to attempt an understanding of how the genetics of sexual differentiation can influence biological processes like reproduction, ageing and disease.

Maternal

In humans and many other species of animals, the father determines the sex of the child. In the XY sex-determination system, the female-provided ovum contributes an X chromosome and the male-provided sperm contributes either an X chromosome or a Y chromosome, resulting in female (XX) or male (XY) offspring, respectively.

Hormone levels in the male parent affect the sex ratio of sperm in humans. Maternal influences also impact which sperm are more likely to achieve conception. 

Human ova, like those of other mammals, are covered with a thick translucent layer called the zona pellucida, which the sperm must penetrate to fertilize the egg. Once viewed simply as an impediment to fertilization, recent research indicates the zona pellucida may instead function as a sophisticated biological security system that chemically controls the entry of the sperm into the egg and protects the fertilized egg from additional sperm.

Recent research indicates that human ova may produce a chemical which appears to attract sperm and influence their swimming motion. However, not all sperm are positively impacted; some appear to remain uninfluenced and some actually move away from the egg.

Maternal influences may also be possible that affect sex determination in such a way as to produce fraternal twins equally weighted between one male and one female.

The time at which insemination occurs during the estrus cycle has been found to affect the sex ratio of the offspring of humans, cattle, hamsters, and other mammals. Hormonal and pH conditions within the female reproductive tract vary with time, and this affects the sex ratio of the sperm that reach the egg.

Sex-specific mortality of embryos also occurs.

History

Ancient ideas on sex determination

Aristotle believed that the sex of an infant is determined by how much heat a man's sperm had during insemination. He wrote:

...the semen of the male differs from the corresponding secretion of the female in that it contains a principle within itself of such a kind as to set up movements also in the embryo and to concoct thoroughly the ultimate nourishment, whereas the secretion of the female contains material alone. If, then, the male element prevails it draws the female element into itself, but if it is prevailed over it changes into the opposite or is destroyed.

Aristotle claimed that the male principle was the driver behind sex determination, such that if the male principle was insufficiently expressed during reproduction, the fetus would develop as a female.

20th century genetics

Nettie Stevens and Edmund Beecher Wilson are credited with independently discovering, in 1905, the chromosomal XY sex-determination system, i.e. the fact that males have XY sex chromosomes and females have XX sex chromosomes.

The first clues to the existence of a factor that determines the development of testis in mammals came from experiments carried out by Alfred Jost, who castrated embryonic rabbits in utero and noticed that they all developed as female.

In 1959, C. E. Ford and his team, in the wake of Jost's experiments, discovered that the Y chromosome was needed for a fetus to develop as male when they examined patients with Turner's syndrome, who grew up as phenotypic females, and found them to be X0 (hemizygous for X and no Y). At the same time, Jacob & Strong described a case of a patient with Klinefelter syndrome (XXY), which implicated the presence of a Y chromosome in development of maleness.

All these observations lead to a consensus that a dominant gene that determines testis development (TDF) must exist on the human Y chromosome. The search for this testis-determining factor (TDF) led a team of scientists in 1990 to discover a region of the Y chromosome that is necessary for the male sex determination, which was named SRY (sex-determining region of the Y chromosome).