Would you ever think that this lovely old lady was born some 80 years ago as a boy? No, of course not, nobody would ever think of it. As far as everybody remembers her she has always been this sweet old lady wondering around the village.
Only that she somehow never got married and has no children of her own. But she has many grandchildren from her sisters, who would never guess that their granny has a major secret – that’s her male genitals and an ID-card of laki-laki (a man in Indonesian).
But does it really matter?
Personally I follow the feminist criticism on biological determinism. I don’t agree that our gender is supposed to be in accordance with our sex, that literally based on our genitals the whole society should be divided between men and women only, and there’s no room or just a tight one for any alternatives, both, in the scope of possible genders and sexualities, and also within the substance of these possible gender and sexual identities.
I think the case of this old lady – the oldest transgender I have met in my life -, who is living in the middle of the tropical village life, very down to earth, simple life of sunny and rainy Sulawesi, surrounded by rice fields and green hills, brings out fabulously the relativity of sex-gender pairing. Any foreign visitor, even an anthropologist, would see this world here ‘traditional’ – still out of the reach of modernity and globalization, that theoretically would bring along ‘the sexual revolution’. Yet this ‘traditional world’ here has reached far further than most of the societies in the West, taking the problem with gender with far more ease.
Granny can’t talk much about it, as the children are playing around and she wouldn’t want to let them know. But she brings out her ID-card where her sex is stated as a man. As Bugis culture distinguish between 5 genders, she has probably led a decent life as a calabai (male-to-female transgender) and finally people even forgot about that, seeing her as she is, whatever she wears under her skirt.
Mmm. Hello. Five genders: M, F, F-M, M-F, Neutral?
Recently, I was talking to a psychotherapist who works with a child with testicles whom he insists on referring to as a “boy”, though the child claims to be a girl against the resistance of her father and despite the fact that in the UK she cannot get puberty-delaying drugs as she might in the US or the Netherlands. They feel terror at the thought of removing a boy’s testicles, little caring that leaving testicles on a GIRL is equally harmful.
How did you find out, if it is a secret in the village?
Hey, thank you for comment. I totally see that this is one of the crucial issues in trans* studies – this “treatment” of intersexed children. My friend once called it as a principle of “easier to dig a hole than raise a pole”.
Yes, the Bugis have indeed this system of 5-gender, amazing, the 5th is paragender, a priest or shaman called bissu. Read bit more about it in some of my earlier entries:
http://avantourists.com/2012/06/03/and-god-created-all-the-five-genders/
http://avantourists.com/2012/06/13/i-cant-talk-to-you-on-friday-said-the-shaman-between-mundane-and-divine-man-and-woman-maybe-she-was-lying/
Also about visiting bissus: http://avantourists.com/2012/06/16/what-can-the-holy-spirit-tell-about-my-love/
About the Granny – i was introduced to her through my main friend and hostess Eka (also she was in my earlier writings here), who is a transgender herself and knows the community, but also these transgenders “out of the community” such as the Granny. She doesnt publicly identify herself with thetransgender community, but just leads her life as she is. Surely closer family knows, some people like Eka know, but the point here is not who knows and who doesnt, but it is rather, that this – her being transgender- is not a big deal! And thus – the grandchildren dont have to know about it at all
excellent! the western world is so dichotomous, fearful, and strict. i long to do just what you do–travel and really see.
thank you, makes me feel warm when you say it