Males, Females and 'In-betweens': Gender Fluidity- the facts.

• Posted by Hannah Ceridwen Eluned Cavendish-Grosvenor November 9, 2015 Filed in Society Girl's Personal Blogs 1,350 views
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  The U.K.'s  Lord Justice Ormerod in the disgraceful Divorce Trial of April Ashley and her greatly less than 'Honourable' and later 'Lord' husband in the 1960's set back the legal acceptance of 'Trans' people for37 years until the Gender Recognition Act. His summary effectively stated that there are only two 'boxes': males and females, and no intermediate 'spectrum'. Your birth sex is, in effect, your only sex. He had clearly never heard of people popularily described as 'Hermaphrodites since the time of the Ancient Greeks.

  Gender Fluidity is not legally accepted in many 'developed' countries. Gender is a constructed social convention of the Western World, based on masculinity anf femininity; and neatly divided on binary principles. Mowever in many cultures this simplistic classification of merely male and female does not apply. In Thailand the 'Kathoey', in the USA / Canada the 'Berdache', and in the Pacific Islands the Samoan 'Fa'afafine' are all examples where the division into males/female does not exist.

  In certain communities and cultures gender is seem as a continuum, where categorisation does not exist. 'Two-spirited' individuals who encompass both masculine and feminine characteristics are embraced: and example of this is that of certain Native American communities

  The creation of gender distinction may be by a number of different pathways and approaches in different cultures who are more flexible in their ability to recognise the complexity and fluidity of gender than the totally inflexible so-called advanced Western 'Civilisation".

  Future blogs on this topic require a basic knowledge of Genetics; and discus the variations of sex chromosomes outwith the established and common 46XX (female) and 46XY(male)

  1) single sex hormone 45X 45Y

  2) three or more sex hormones 47XXX 47XXY 47XYY

  3) Males with 46XX ( like my boss, Dr Richard Stone- deceased )

  4) Females with 46XY

  5) the more complex range of intermediate sex determinants to include a) phenotypic variations b) hormone balance variation c)chromosome compliment variation

  I am so glad that myposition in this spectrum has been defined professionally: I am ICD ( W.H.O. ) F64.0, what a relief I am this 'simple'!.