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Beyond the razor and melted wax: Our bodies are battlegrounds

Kim Makhlouf - January 6, 2022

Our bodies are battlegrounds, and our body hair is a feminist issue. We are told from a very young age that our body hair is “dirty”- that it must be removed. We are expected to be hairless temptresses, ready to be gazed at. Silent seductresses with hair-free skin. Even talking about our body hair is somewhat of a taboo. Such is grasp of the patriarchy, on our bodies, our choices, and our voices. Between shame and pain I was about 10 years old the first time I was shamed for my body hair. I had this one friend, exactly my age, who lived in the building next door. We spent a lot of time together riding bicycles and playing teachers and house, doodling on her large chalkboard. One spring evening, she and I went for our usual bike ride. I distinctly recall wearing a colorful pair of leggings and a sleeveless tank top. She looked at my armpits with utter disgust and said, “Aren’t you embarrassed with yourself?” I, of course had no idea, and you can imagine the sort of shame that abashes you when you only learn something you should already know. Our bodies are battlegrounds, and our body hair is a feminist issue. A short while later, I started removing every bit of body hair I could see and reach, nipping each follicle at the bud. You could almost say, I was traumatized into the practice that I quickly learned can be painful, time-consuming, and sometimes even harmful if not done correctly. So why are we conditioned to hate our body hair? According to Rebecca Herzig’s “Plucked: A History of Hair Removal,” the modern perception of body hair being unwomanly may be traced back to Charles Darwin’s 1871 book “Descent of a Man.” Body hair was linked to “primitive ancestry and an atavistic return to earlier, ‘less evolved’ forms” in Darwin’s theory of natural selection, according to Herzig, a gender and sexuality studies professor at Bates College in Maine. The modern perception of body hair being unwomanly may be traced back to Charles Darwin’s 1871 book “Descent of a Man.” But before Darwin, hair removal can be traced back to 3000 BCE Egypt, India, and Rome. Ancient Egyptians even considered pubic hair “uncivilized,” resorting to a method quite similar to waxing. Known as the sugaring method (which remains popular to this day), women melted sugar by adding some water and the juice of a lemon in a pot. The mixture would then be cooled and molded into a paste that would be applied to the skin and ripped off. Needless to say, it was/is painful. © Downs Fast forward to the 19th century, Gillette introduced the Milady Décolleté, the first women’s razor, replete with its own rose velvet wrapping. Remington also released the first electric razor for women in 1940. In Islam, hair removal is mandated – within certain parameters. Women and men are expected to shave all their pubic hair before marriage. For men, it is important to keep the beard clean and kempt. Women have to go the extra mile and keep a clean-shaven body, repeating the process no more than 40 days at a time. So why is removing body hair more targeted towards women rather than men? To paraphrase Herzig, it has a lot to do with gendered social control… and also, it has a lot to do with what sells and those in positions of power who get to make the decisions over what it is that actually sells. Ugly hairs One of the first anti-hair campaigns was advertised in Harper’s Bazaar in 1914. As fashion was slowly evolving to expose women’s arms and armpits, going bare became the trend. Shaving later expanded to include legs. As nylon – a fabric used to manufacture pantyhose – shortages became more common during World War II, women were forced to maintain the hairless look that pantyhose once helped them achieve. And as the bikini made an appearance in 1946, women were routinely trimming pubic hair as well. Shave the kitty, Missy In the 1950s, Hugh Hefner’s Playboy magazine shifted the standards of feminine beauty. Erotic, clean-shaven, scantily-clad women, draped in very little lingerie pictured on magazine covers became the benchmark of beauty. Shave the kitty, missy, became the motto. Despite the wave of feminists that boycotted this trend in the 1960s and 70s, body hair and pubic hair removal, championed their way in many forms all the way to 2021, and the term Brazilian into our everyday vocabulary. One of the first anti-hair campaigns was advertised in Harper’s Bazaar in 1914. A Brazilian is a grooming service in which a woman’s pubic region is stripped bare of all its hair. Pioneered in the 1990s by seven Brazilian sisters living in New York, the Brazilian wax became a trend as more TV shows, models, and magazines standardized the look. Not only limited to waxing, the Brazilian later expanded to encompass razors, sugar (sukkar), epilator, depilatory creams and lasers to groom the pubic area. But is it popular in the Middle East? “I have had laser hair removal for almost two years now. Before that, I used to get my body professionally waxed, but I always shaved my bikini area myself, I was too shy to get it done by someone else,” Maha*, 20, from Qatar, tells me. “My mom never told [me and my sisters] to get our pubic hair waxed, so we always assumed we should shave instead. I don’t get uncomfortable doing it anymore. I’ve been doing it for ages with the same lady. She’s also a Muslim, the woman who lasers me, a hijabi.” According to Maha, women rush to get laser hair removal, especially of their nether region, right before they get married. Some women start almost two months before their weddings, which yields very little results, as laser is a long process, stretching over several months. © Exotic Cancer For Lina*, a 22-year-old Palestinian, it has a lot to do with self-esteem. “I used to get a Brazilian wax every three weeks,” she shares. “I like to be completely [hairless] down there, especially considering my active sex life. It’s just a preference. Otherwise, it just messes with my self-esteem.” The 2020 lockdowns forced her to explore other grooming methods, she says. “After the salons closed due to COVID-19 lockdowns, I had no choice but to shave. My mum was never aware that I used to get a Brazilian wax regularly; she doesn’t mind if I was shaving myself – in fact she used to buy razors for me and instruct me on safe shaving methods. It was however an issue of another woman touching my genitals.” Grooming her pubic hairs also depends heavily on her relationship status in terms of longevity and her partner’s gender: “When I am in a long-term relationship, I eventually get comfortable with my boyfriend seeing some of my pubic hair. If it’s a new relationship or random hookups, I stick to the fully shaven look. I also take my partner’s preferences into account as well.” Dating a woman definitely changed the course of her grooming choices and the types of conversations they have about body hair, she tells me. “I have a girlfriend now, and one time I felt uncomfortable getting intimate with her because I hadn’t shaven. She didn’t really care. Women partners differ to men from my experience,” Lina says. For Lamia*, her grooming preferences have changed with age: “When I was much younger, removing all pubic hair was such an important part of our young adulthood for me and my girlfriends, especially if we were in love or anticipating any sexual activity, including marriage,” the 47-year-old mother of one tells me. “Norms and taboos really differed from household to household. Not all the girls I knew had similar opinions or practices. I used to fully groom my pubic region, I thought it was an important variable that measured my attractiveness and how much my partners wanted me.” “I don’t groom for anyone else anymore, I do so for myself.” Now, Lamia says that her grooming choices depend on her needs and the mood she is in. “I don’t groom for anyone else anymore, I do so for myself. It feels better for me, more comfortable and more importantly, more hygienic.” As for her daughter, she says, “She has the power to make decisions regarding her body. I know many women and girls who don’t have much of that freedom and that is detrimental to a woman’s physical and mental health.” Boxes that we must overcome “’Body hair needs to be extracted. It’s a sign of cleanliness, [implying] waxing or shaving to beautify the areas with hair.’ [This] is drummed into women’s heads, that hair is ugly and needs to be removed,” says Myriam Sfeir, a professor at the Lebanese American University. In my conversation with her, Sfeir explains that often removing hair is not necessarily an informed choice, that women grooming their body hair is a result of societal pressures, gender norms and wrongful ascriptions to religion. © Jocelyn Runice “It’s part of the patriarchal system and its notions to fit women into the boxes they are supposed to occupy… Social media also plays a role in shaping opinions, as well as peer pressure. [You will] find mothers who instill that in their daughters, and others who are shocked by their daughters’ requests to remove pubic hair and body hair in general.” For me, grooming my nether region became second habit shortly after the afternoon biking incident with my friend. The shame I wanted to avoid was tied to how efficient I would become with the razor. How skillfully I would contour and “clean” around all the nooks and crevices. I am 20-years-old now – that’s a decade of grooming! When I asked my boyfriend about his grooming practices, he said the first Brazilian he gave himself was around the age of 16 or 17. I still think of growing a bush and taking it to the beach, but I haven’t grown that confidence quite yet. I have in my sexual life, to a certain extent. Maybe because I’ve been in a long-term relationship. But who knows? Maybe my bush will one day become a permanent part of my body I am no longer ashamed of. After all, whether one prefers the bare look or the bush, it is ALL about choice. A choice that only we women get to make about our bodies.

Essays ,

Sophia and the Uncanny Cliff

Malak el Halabi - March 8, 2022

Sophia is a Greek name meaning “wisdom.” The origins of its use can be traced to the beginning of the fourth’s century, and to this day it remains as popular as ever. It is a melodic and regal name, and one that I would have definitely considered for my future child had it not become a name associated with the field of robotics. Sophia is the name chosen by Dr. David Hanson of Hong Kong-based Hanson Robots for his new brainchild, a social humanoid robot that saw the light on the 14th of February 2016. And… She almost looks like us Unlike recent newborns, Sophia can strike and engage in conversations, imitate human gestures as well as facial expressions and is designed to simply “get smarter over time.” In 2017, Sophia was declared a citizen by Saudi Arabia, becoming the first robot to ever receive citizenship. Moreover, in the span of the same year, she was appointed by the United Nation as the UNDP’s first ever Innovation Champion, becoming the first non-human to be awarded a United Nation title. And in the similar fashion of world public figures, Sophia has appeared on Good Morning Britain with Piers Morgan, the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon as well BBC News. News headline have described her as “a delicate looking woman with doe-brown eyes and long fluttery eyelashes” and a “hot lifelike robot” that has even been featured on the cover of Elle Magazine—Sophia herself being modeled by Hanson based on a mishmash of Queen Nefertiti, Audrey Hepburn and his wife. She has been without any doubt the subject of a lot of controversy and major criticism. However, the majority of those who have conversed with Sophia (or even gazed at her) can repeatedly agree on one thing: Awkward. Eerie. The more robots appear to be humanlike, the more they become appealing. It is an awkward eerie experience. But what specifically makes it so? © ELLE Is it the mere fact that Sophia, with her sophisticated computer algorithms along with the cameras embedded in her eyes, is able to see things? Or is the fact that Sophia possesses “human intelligence” and has successfully attended several events as a keynote speaker, addressing audiences and answering their various questions? Could it be the fact that Sophia, with her sophisticated software and artificial intelligence system, will soon cause a disruption in the job market place? Or is it fact that this humanoid woman has recently created and sold a digital piece that sold for $688,888 and is planning to explore music as an art form as well? Could it be all this or could it simply be the fact that Sophia almost looks like us, almost looks like a human and is able to maintain eye contact, like the rest of us do? Recent research on the Uncanny Valley suggests the latter. Humanoids and the Elicited Sense of Eeriness Humanoid Robots, which are robots designed with humanlike features, are designed by firms to induce trust and to appear more sociable – encouraging humans to interact with them—an element that is deemed necessary to induce the acceptance of robots in service settings and that has been proved to be critical and beneficiary in comparison to the acceptance of their counterparts: mechanical robots. We are afraid to disappear. We are afraid to be replaced. We are afraid that we, like the dinosaurs, might not be as unique as we thought we were. However, an alternative theoretical lens argues that robots with highly human-like features elicit eeriness and averseness in humans. In fact, recent research has examined humans’ responses to 80 real-world robots placed on a continuum from highly mechanical to highly human-like. Participants significantly rated robotic faces as more likeable the more they became human-like and the less they became mechanic. However, the more the robotic physical appearances approached the end of the human-like spectrum, the more participants rated them as unlikeable and eerie. © Getty The uncanny valley is a concept that was introduced in the 70s by Masahiro Mori, a professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. Mori coined the term and argued in his several seminar essays the following: The more robots appear to be humanlike, the more they become appealing. However this appeal or affinity increases up until it reaches a certain point at which point it is a steep descent into the valley – the uncanny valley. The appeal is soon taken over by a crippling feeling of unease and an unexplained sense of strangeness. In an interview with IEEE Spectrum, Mori describes the intuition that led to his extensive research on the uncanny valley: “Since I was a child, I have never liked looking at wax figures. They looked somewhat creepy to me. At that time, electronic prosthetic hands were being developed, and they triggered in me the same kind of sensation. These experiences made me start thinking about robots in general.” Threat to human uniqueness? The uncanny valley draws on several evolutionary mechanisms that could be unified under the general idea that we, humans, are threatened by humanoid robots. According to Karl MacDorman and the theory of terror management, the physical uncanniness elicited by a humanoid when it violates the norms of human appearance and movement triggers in us an innate fear of death. It is as though we are staring at our own impeding mortality and reminded of our own fragile corporality as a human race. On the other hand, contending opinions argue that the eeriness we feel is the result of a defense mechanism that has as an aim to protect us from the encumbering danger of humanoids such as fears associated with job loss and being replaced by robots. It is as it robots increase in likeability the more they become human. Then crash and burn once they become too humanlike and fail at reaching humanness. The above several evolutionary mechanisms are pertinent and can be unified under one simple notion: Human sapiens (we) are afraid. We are afraid to disappear. We are afraid to be replaced. We are afraid that we, like the dinosaurs, might not be as unique as we thought we were. And we are afraid that humanness is at stake. That humanness might be perverted. And the igniter is the almost too similar physical corporal component that humanoids share with us. The sense of eeriness that we experience when we gaze at highly human-like humanoid robots that have faces as well as bodies similar to us is theorized to lie in the mismatch between the humanoid’s anticipated human qualities and the humanoid’s failed imitation at attaining humanness. It is then the failed imitation at attaining humanness that constitutes the essence of what ends up constituting the uncanny valley. It is as if robots increase in likeability the more they become human. Then crash and burn once they become too humanlike and fail at reaching humanness. © Pixabay Isn’t this steep descent into the uncanny valley the analogue of simply being thrown off of humanity’s cliff? Aren’t we then all, members of the homosapien species, without exception, the variations of Narcissus? In love with our worshiped reflection, and ready to metaphorically throw any humanoid off the cliff, if it fails to accurately materialize our very own idealized and worshipped humanity? It seems to be the eerie case.

Dossier ,

Transgenderism and its implications in the Middle East

Reem El Baba - March 11, 2022

Culture plays an important and crucial role in the determination of gender. Most cultures understand genders and sexes as binary entities. A plethora of societal characteristics, marked and tainted by gender roles, play the pivotal role of categorizing a person into either a male or female category. These can vary from physical appearance, clothes, haircut, and mannerism to even personal characteristics and career paths. This categorization is even more accentuated with gender stereotypes that predominate in our cultures: Girls are expected to wear pink and play with dolls, try on makeup and become housewives. Boys are expected to play football and go into professions such as engineering and medicine. Boys are expected to be “strong” and not show emotions while girls are expected to be sensitive and caring. In the dark Language, which is a central part of any culture, also plays an essential role in influencing the way we see the world around us. Countries using gendered languages where nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and sometimes verbs have a gender, showed less equality in comparison to countries that established neutral gender or genderless language systems (Prewitt-Freilino, Caswell, & Laakso, 2012). Arabic is considered a gendered language, the sociolinguistic (relational) level of Arabic is male-associated and the formal level of the language is androcentric (Alkohlani, 2016; Sadiqi, 2006). It is no surprise then that transgenders in the Middle East belong to an underground community (Whitaker, 2016). Being in the dark seems the only way for them express who they truly are all whilst avoiding all kinds of discrimination from personal, professional to judicial. There has been a witnessed shift of perspective when it comes to gender from a rigid dichotomy to a spectrum (Butler, 2011; Fausto-Sterling, 2000). According to biological determinism on the conceptualization of gender, femininity and masculinity naturally abide by the physical differences between males and females. However, according to the social learning theory, individuals acquire different gender roles by adapting to cultural and societal values of gender conduct. A third theory pertaining to cognitive development emphasizes the combination of an individual’s interaction with the world, their information processing and own conceptual thinking (Tiwari & Ghadially, 2009). Furthermore, according to normal cognitive and sexual development, children around 7 years of age identify the flexibility of gender expression (Bancroft, 2008). Cross-cultural studies show that children from countries where negative attitudes towards gender non-conformity are present express greater gender stereotyping compared to children growing up in countries that showed tolerance towards gender differences (Bancroft, 2008). In a world of uncertainties, a ‘leap of faith’ is at times needed to allow the person to self-actualize. Laws & Psychopathologies in the Middle East Transgenderism in the Middle East is often seen as cross-dressing and the Hadith of devout Muslims banishes these practices (Whitaker, 2016). At the World Conference on Women held between 1995 and 2005, conservative Muslim and Catholic delegations radically rejected the use of the term “sexual rights” in United Nations (UN) documents. During the UN Commission on Human Rights conference in 2003, the affirmation of protection and promotion of persons regardless of sexual orientation followed a backlash by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Egypt and Bahrain as well as other conservative delegates supported by the Vatican (Ilkkaracan, 2016). Middle Eastern countries do not acknowledge any gender identity other than the binary female/male. The right of social protection, freedom of gender expression privacy and basic human rights of individuals are therefore constantly violated by targeting and persecuting persons with non-normative sexualities and gender identities. Thus LGBTQ+ persons are continuously facing social discrimination, rendering their lives a living hell. © diane arbus But it doesn’t stop at social discrimination. “One of the main challenges we face besides the stigma is hospitalization. It is extremely difficult to be admitted to a hospital if you are a transperson. And this happened to me twice”: This is what Coco, a Lebanese transgender woman, told Jasad. Another main challenge Coco mentioned is the constant struggle to find a job instead of having to resort to sex work in order to make ends meet. Mimi, another trans woman, pointed out that on top of hospitalization, there’s another problem with insurance policies. She explained: “You have to pretend you are still a man, or lie by saying that your “sister” is going to renew the insurance on your behalf, in order to get things done. If they know you have undergone a sex change operation, they will consider the policy to be void because you deliberately “hurt” yourself”. Moreover, there is an immense lack of doctors who are specialized and knowledgeable about transgenders. “I haven’t met a single doctor in Lebanon that knows about transgenders more than me,” she exasperatedly said. In 2007, during a speech in New York, the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) stated that there are no homosexuals in Iran (Ilkkaracan, 2016). This political statement puts in context sexual freedom in a Middle Eastern country such as the IRI; it is simply deemed nonexistent. But, IRI authorities ironically offer homosexual individuals the choice between the death sentence and sex change operations partially funded by the government (Bahreini, 2009). This stance could appear beneficial towards transgenders seeking surgical transformation however it invalidates and illegitimates non-surgical transgender persons and limits irrevocably their freedom of choice. The IRI, in that regards, symbolizes a Middle Eastern country where gender non-conformity is perverse and harshly punishable by law, which makes sex reassignment surgeries a coercive strategy for homosexuals to conform to heteronormative orders. Article 534 of the Lebanese Penal Code clearly states the punishment of “unnatural sexual intercourse.” The judicial system in Jordan and Penal code of 1951 does not condemn homosexual conduct, but LGBTQI+ persons can be prosecuted for displaying public affection, which is considered a disruption of public morality. In Kuwait, Article 193 of the Penal Code condemns homosexual behavior up to six years in prison and Article 198 stipulates 8 years of prison for transgender persons. There are no written laws around homosexual conduct or Transgenderism in Saudi Arabia but, in strict execution of the Shariah Law, the State penalizes LGBTQ+ activity with a death sentence. It is the basic institutions’ responsibilities to allow the freedom of gender expression that may not be conform to the socialization process. Taking into account the dire living conditions of Transgender people, it is necessary to look into comorbid disorders that may be experienced by the transgender person in order to implement individualized treatment plans. The findings of the study conducted by Ibrahim, Haddad, and Richa (2016) in Lebanon portray significant differences in suicidality, major depressive disorder, anxiety disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among transgender persons compared to control groups. Discrimination is a major risk factor of psychiatric problems among this vulnerable population; the marginalization of transgenders in the workplace further accentuates their financial instability and harsh living conditions (Ibrahim, Haddad, and Richa, 2016; Nemoto, Bödeker, & Iwamoto, 2011). However, a shimmering light is that a growing number of transgender persons are fighting for positive change in their communities by promoting self-actualization and self-disclosure on social media platforms (Miller, 2018) and this was seen in May 2020 when an Egyptian actor’s transgender son was revealed on TV (BBC News, 2020). Transgenderism and Existentialism We are responsible for our life’s meanings, choices, actions and ways of being and first and foremost, being true to one’s self. Can a transgender person live authentically if sex change is not made? “Sex change allowed me to feel alive in the body of a woman and to feel internally comfortable in my body,” said Mimi. However, she also believes that “you can live authentically without it and that sex change does not make you more or less of a woman”. According to her, it depends on what is it exactly that triggers your womanhood. Is it the genitalia or is it simply dressing up and feeling like a woman by socially presenting yourself as one? Another challenge that was addressed by Coco is that, even after undergoing the operation, your identity on paper is extremely difficult to change legally in the Middle East. “This is an essential barrier that stands in the way of a transgender being able to live authentically”, she told Jasad. © Terrance Hinch The risk of living in ‘bad faith’ becomes higher when sociocultural factors constitute a barrier to the person’s expression of their authentic identity (Sartre, 1958). In fact, human existence is constituted of a myriad of tensions, paradoxes and dilemmas and incongruence needs to be resolved between the basic dimensions of the person’s existence: the social world (eigenwelt), the physical dimension (mitwelt), and the personal microenvironment (umwelt) where the person recognizes and expresses their gender identity (Cooper, 2016). The therapeutic work revolves around exploring the client’s attitude to their own body, other people’s bodies, their own bodily needs, how they interact with the world around them, their own views about their strengths and weaknesses, how they define themselves and their sense of identity (Godman, 2018; van Deurzen, 1997). Existential psychotherapists may want to examine the client’s culture; the person’s response to the community they belong to, their values, their beliefs and challenge some of the clients’ world-views. The therapeutic process may lead to the integration of the person’s past gender and current identity. As a mater of fact, we are continuously forming and rewriting our narratives and might project them to the future Self which in turn may create ontological anxiety about the possible transition (Richards, 2011). In a world of uncertainties, especially in the Middle East where laws condemn LGBTQI+ communities, a ‘leap of faith’ is at times needed to allow the person to self-actualize (Kierkergaard, 1944; McLeod, 2007). It is essential to keep in mind the medical model with gender dysphoria while also bracketing all preconceived ideas of what transgenderism is. Hence, a trusting and containing environment is key in the therapeutic relationship and confidentiality measures are also necessary to keep the client safe from any persecution or lynching. Creating clear boundaries between the therapist and client helps them feel contained and sufficiently safe in the uncertain and chaotic internal and external world they are already living in (Strasser & Strasser, 1997). © Frida Kahlo In conclusion, gender identity is fluid, complex and personal, and certainly not defined by others. Gender identity and its expression pertain to a continuum between masculinity and femininity. Scientists and practitioners may pathologize the person’s own body experience as body dysphoria. But, the lived experiences of these individuals clearly show that the change in gender expression may alleviate the significant distress experienced. It is then the basic institutions’ responsibility, notably the family and school, to establish non-gendered discourses and to allow the freedom of gender expression that may not be conform to the socialization process (Dilanyan, Doğan, & Iluridze, 2017). Labels thus should be abolished and stigma reduced for the LGBTQI+ community, which in turn will lead to a better adaptation and transition of the transgender person. Advocacy in sexual education should empower transgender persons as well as promote inclusion among cisgender young people (Riggs & Bartholomaeus, 2018). A comprehensive approach towards their own body, desires, needs leading to a more authentic Self is also highly needed and encouraged. Although the word “disorder” in the DSM-5 was changed to “gender dysphoria”, the stigma is unfortunately still prevalent in our world. Can a transgender person live authentically if sex change is not made? Some relevant definitions: Sex is related to the biological and anatomical expression of the genitals and includes hormonal, genetics, and other components of the human body (Butler, 2011). But sex expression is not always as categorical and clear: a third sex or intersex category emerged in history and medicine (Ahmed, Morrison, & Hughes, 2004). Gender Identity is the person’s self-identification and deep sense of being male, female, something in between or neither. Biological sex is a distinct concept from gender, thus gender identity may be distinct from biological sex (Tiwari, & Ghadially, 2009). Gender expression is the person’s expression of their gender through characteristics manifested by society’s definition of masculinity and femininity. Gender is on a spectrum of expression (Knafo, Iervolino, & Plomin, 2005). It is a choice of pronouns, names, and physical appearance and it can vary in different contexts. For example, gender atypical behavior refers to boys behaving in a feminine way. Sexual orientation refers to the person’s sexual identity related to the gender they are physically or emotionally attracted to. The orientation can be heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual. Transsexual is a term introduced by psychiatrist Cauldwell in 1949 designating a person whose identity is strongly linked to the opposite sex (Bancroft, 2008). The person usually seeks medical assistance that pertains to sex reassignment surgeries and/or hormone replacement therapies (Ibrahim, Haddad, & Richa, 2016). Transgender is an umbrella term incorporating a plethora of gender identities and expressions. It designates “embodied movements across, between, or beyond the binary categories of male and female” (Hines, 2007, p. 1). Individuals identifying as transgender may or may not undergo permanent bodily changes; the person could use hormone treatments, endure reconstructive surgeries, or cross dress to express their authentic gender identity. Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld (1910), a physician and sexologist that examined human sexuality and actively advocated lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI+) minorities, placed Transgenderism in a distinct category from homosexuality and transvestism (Stryker & Whittle, 2006). Gender dysphoria is defined in the Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM-5) as any person who experiences significant difference between his or her expressed gender and his or her gender assigned at birth (APA, 2013). Gender nonconformity is not considered a mental health condition, but a person diagnosed with gender dysphoria experiences significant distress related to being non-conforming (Bancroft, 2008).

Essays ,

Philosophy or the Oscillation of Desire

Frank Darwiche - February 16, 2022

He was out there, waiting and observing. Aristodemus looked at him askance. He loved him and loved every gaze he could elicit from him. He wondered: “How is he able, at his age, to drink so much and yet keep his wits?” How come the jugs of wine they all drank after the dinner had no effect on Socrates, throughout the long nocturnal hours of the symposium, except make his rational discourse and his dialectic ever more vivid, precise and clear? He found himself helpless before those famous eyes. The company sat round the room, each preparing himself for interminable conversations and his own discursive contributions, while Eros thematically and divinely presided over the company. At stake in the question asked and the answers given was the very essence of philosophy, what it is in its ‘substance’ and in its operation, its very own being. The last word that would settle the issue came as the elucidating mystery prepared through the failure of the first speeches. In the beginning was desire It was and had to be the word of a woman, since women were at the heart of Greece’s mystery cults. Diotima, that signal woman, came as a stranger into the ongoing discourse, as a foreign word among Athenians. She was from Mantinea and brought with her what was unknown and unexpected to the inebriated guests, i.e. the truth on Eros, which turned out to be, in its proper depth, the truth of philosophy and its primordial stakes. The name truth takes on in Diotima’s dialogue is ‘immortality’, ‘what does not meet with death’ or, to use Heraclitus’ words, ‘what never founders’. There precisely lies the philosophical tension, its going-toward, of which it has made a quasi-natural necessity, of the same kind as that of nature in its original meaning, which Heidegger later expounds as that of “all that is”. The objective of love, says Diotima, is the eternal possession of the good. @ Albert Mentzel That sole meaning given to Eros – immortality – as its ultimate truth, its true end, takes on a double dimension. It is first procreation, insofar as “bringing to birth” is, for a mortal, equivalent to immortality. Procreation as such is inscribed in and desired by the body, but it has also something to do with the soul, in that both are constantly changing and becoming. That is why Diotima speaks in both cases of fecundity. The second tendency or tension is that of he who is fecund or pregnant in his soul from his youth, and who is thus divine. Such one aspires to the highest destiny and is in love in a double fashion – through his intellect’s love for the Good as ultimate end, where the soul will one day find itself, and through the Maieusis effected by his lover-educator allowing the youth in question to aim toward the Good. “Therefore,” Diotima asserts, “those of this sort maintain a greater association and firmer friendship with one another than do those who have children in common”. I wish to highlight here, that the one who gives offspring from his/her soul is subject to two attractions toward the young man he is seeking to educate. He gets attached to what he perceives as beautiful rather than ugly bodies, just as he does to the beautiful rather than ugly souls – the two go together. Desire, in such double operation, is a lack – a lack of the Good – but also an active force, an appeal exercised by the other, body and soul, and such appeal contributes through its power to leading the philosopher’s own body and soul toward the Good. Philosophy oscillates between the two, and it is in this ‘between’, which is often overlooked, that it has its origin. Procreation as such is inscribed in and desired by the body, but it has also something to do with the soul, in that both are constantly changing and becoming. Such ‘lack’, I emphasize, is not itself purely negative: it entices one to action and requires an act of ‘conversion’. The conversion needed is that of the gaze, turning from illusions toward true “vision”. Love is then a call for contemplation of the True and for bringing the other, body and soul, on the way toward that contemplation. We must thus see in the refusal to penetrate the body of the young man being educated and in the ejaculation’s taking place between the thighs rather than internally a refusal to unite with the body alone or to possess it and a call for the sensory body to be informed by the soul aiming toward the True, the Good, whose unique manifestation is through the Idea of the Beautiful. Shaking Being Alive © François Boucher It must be said at this point that this dynamic, which arises and takes its meaning in the power elicited by Eros, acts while that determination of Eros obnubilates the intrinsic functioning and nature of the operations directing toward it, i.e. the content and nature of desire. The latter become apparent at the occasion of the dislocation of the substantive-individual definition of being and its fractional/proportional one, as we find it, for example, in Thomas Aquinas. This occurs in the 17th century in Spinoza’s Ethics. The famous propositio VI, in pars III of the Ethica says: “Each thing, inasmuch as it is capable in itself, exerts force to persevere in being”. Being became intensity and abandoned its definitional-extensive essence. As for desire, what was important was the constitution of desire that each person was and of the other as a field of desiring forces. There is, in the case of amorous desiring forces, an increase in the conatus and a perseverance in being, coming from refinement in the quality of knowledge and the manner of acquiring it. The form those forces take on leads toward an increased intensity on both sides, such that the total is greater than the sum of the two. In this particular case there is no appropriation and especially no destruction or consumption – no consumere – of the other. We are in the presence of a very peculiar kind of desire, which will take on the name of ‘love’. Love is an implication and conjoining of beings. It is discovered by skins, the flesh of beings and even concepts, which inter-penetrate, caress, and join each other in sensuousness. What about philosophy in all this? In fact, this ‘spiritual’ will express itself also at the exchange level as a new and enriched relation to language’s manifestations then specifically in discursive knowledge. Desire as a love that is the conjoining with the other carries one toward his/her greatest fulfilment on all levels. A Continuous Creation of Concepts The protean force which characterizes the dynamic philosophical work and habitus takes on a more creative dimension, once it is understood through the notion of production as that of the Deleuzian desiring machine. At the basis of concepts as the possibility that runs through them with its ‘machinal’ flux is desire. Through it alone love is made and exercised and has the value of a breakthrough that taunts Oedipal figurations. Love affairs, says Deleuze, are “complexes of de-territorialisation and re-territorialisation. What we love is always a certain mulatto”. Love here is an implication and conjoining of beings-as-forces, of crossed relational systems of energy. It translates as/upon and is discovered by skins, the flesh of beings and even concepts, which inter-penetrate, caress, and join each other in sensuousness. It then allows for the effecting of two essential operations: the liberation of forces repressed by the familial scheme and squelched by the social construct, and the ever-renewed discovery of investment territories, whence all concepts emerge. Each person is a field of desiring forces for the other. That is when the word rises in its essence, the word traced and as a trace; and the dictatorship of the Logos finds itself undone, insufficient to say the plethora of concepts. The other becomes with me the oscillation of thought itself, creating concepts. We ourselves are then – our irreducible “we” – the oscillation of desire. We are philosophy as oscillation of desire.