Defining Marriage is Problematic

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Defining Marriage is Problematic
266
Sat, 02-07-2004 - 10:49am
Laws Can't Define 'Man' or 'Woman,' So How Can They Ban Gay Marriage?

Commentary, William O. Beeman,

Pacific News Service, Feb 05, 2004

Editor's Note: Legislators' attempts to codify marriage as "between a man and a woman" won't work, writes PNS contributor William O. Beeman. Like it or not, there is no single, clear biological, psychological or cultural definition of "male" and "female." Already, courts are faltering on the ambiguity of gender.

The Massachusetts Supreme Court advisory, stating that nothing short of marriage for same-sex couples would satisfy the state constitution, has sent legislators throughout the nation as well as President Bush scrambling to define marriage as between "one man and one woman."

These legislative attempts are doomed, because there is no clear, scientific and strict definition of "man" and "woman." There are millions of people with ambiguous gender -- many of them already married -- who render these absolute categories invalid.

There are at least three ways one might try to codify gender under law -- biologically, psychologically and culturally. On close inspection, all of them fail.

Biologically, one must choose either secondary sexual characteristics -- things like facial hair for men or breast development for women -- or genetic testing as defining markers of gender. Neither method is clear-cut. Some women show male secondary characteristics, and vice versa. Before puberty, things are not necessarily any clearer. A significant proportion of all babies have ambiguous gender development. It has been longstanding -- and now, increasingly, controversial -- medical practice to surgically "reassign" such babies shortly after birth so that they will have only one set of sexual organs.

Sometimes doctors guess wrong, and children are "reassigned" and raised as males, when they are genetically female, and vice versa.

In one condition, androgen insensitivity syndrome, genetic males are born with a genetic immunity to androgens, the hormones that produce male sexual characteristics. Though they are genetic males, these children typically grow up looking like females, although they have no internal female organs.

Although figures are imprecise, experts in intersexuality, such as Dr. Anne Fausto-Sterling of Brown University, estimate that persons born with some degree of ambiguous gender constitute approximately 1 percent of the population. This means that there are 2 million Americans who may be biologically ambiguous.

Psychologically, another dilemma for those who seek to codify gender is the condition known as gender dysphoria, in which a person feels that their true gender is the opposite of that in which they were born. These individuals are often referred to as "transgendered." Some experts estimate as many as 1.2 million Americans are transgendered. Gender dysphoria is a matter of personal identity and has nothing to do with sexual orientation. A male-to-female transgendered person may be attracted to women or to men.

Finally, human societies around the world recognize individuals who are culturally female or culturally male no matter what their physical gender. The "berdache" is an umbrella term used by Europeans to designate a man who is culturally classified as a woman, and who may be a "wife" to another man. The practice is perhaps best known among the Zuñi Indians of Arizona, but is widely seen in other tribal groups as well. Outside of North America, the hijra of India, a cultural "third gender," is important in ceremonial life. Hijra are classified as "neither man nor woman," but they may marry males. These examples of cultural gender ambiguity are only two among dozens throughout the world.

If the United States tries to enact a national law defining gender conditions for marriage, it is only a matter of time before the law falters on one of these rocks of ambiguity. There are undoubtedly existing marriages where the wife is a genetic male or the husband is a genetic female. In a medical examination, if it is determined that this genetic fact is discovered, is the marriage then voided? When post-operative transgendered persons wed, whom will they be allowed to marry -- persons with the opposite set of chromosomes, or people with the opposite set of genitalia?

There has already been one Texas decision where two "women" were allowed to marry, because one of them had originally been a male. We can expect far more stories like this should this legislative circus proceed.

PNS contributor William O. Beeman (William_beeman@brown.edu) teaches anthropology at Brown University.

http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=d3362852002e314524ffb9ac8eac3c91

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iVillage Member
Registered: 02-25-2004
Wed, 02-25-2004 - 9:33pm
First of all I want to say who gives the government the right to define our private lives? They're saying it's a moral issue but we are supposed to have separation of church and state are we not? They want to preserve the sanctity of marriage...blah blah marriage isn't sacred anymore..have you seen the divorce rate? I think people should be able to be who they want to be and with whom they want to be with. The government is just trying to be in our lives even more. Maybe they shouldn't call it marriage, make up a new word for it. We have bigger problems in America than who is marrying who.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Wed, 02-25-2004 - 9:38pm
Ahhh....but what is 'usual or normal'?

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Wed, 02-25-2004 - 9:43pm

Reminder...deep breath time...attack the post NOT the poster.


iVillage Member
Registered: 05-27-2003
Wed, 02-25-2004 - 10:01pm
First congratulations on your marriage. I agree with everything you have said. Good luck because unfortunatly I think that gay couples are going need it. Hopefully we can end this reign in November. God Bless
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-27-2003
Wed, 02-25-2004 - 10:20pm
What exactly is your problem. Are you so unsure of yourself that you need to insult people to feel good about yourself. How sad for you.
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-27-2003
Wed, 02-25-2004 - 10:22pm
What about people that don't agree with you where is your respect for them
iVillage Member
Registered: 02-26-2004
Thu, 02-26-2004 - 12:28am
I think it is terrible when we as Americans deny people the right and freedom to express their views. All that homosexual couples want is to be able to express their love for one another in the same way as heterosexual couples do. They want to be legally joined in marriage. I see nothing wrong with this because this is supposed to be a country for freedom. If people are fighting this as a moral issue than they really have no grounds to fight this on because everyone's morals are really only matters of opinion. These people are not trying to kill each other or other people. They are not asking for legalization of drugs. They are not asking to be allowed to walk around with guns. I find it a travesty that in a country where almost anyone is allowed to walk around with a concealed weapon (permitting that they have a license of course) that we are trying to deny people the right to marry the one that they love. What a grave injustice!
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-12-2003
Thu, 02-26-2004 - 6:45am
The fact that you can use the words "normal" and "George Bush" in such close proximity without laughing tells us something. I have no problem with Adam and Eve--I think God does fine work. The ignorant always trumpet that tired line that God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve, but if God is the Creator of us all, He must have made Steve too.

BTW, I have benn happily married (to a person of the opposite sex) for 18 years, so I guess I'm what you consider "normal."

I agree with you on one point--this politicization of this issue is absurd. Politicians of both major parties have no substantive solutions to the "big" issues (jobs, taxes, crime, the war) so they whoop and holler and stir up all sorts of pointless controversy.

The question of whether recognition of gay marriage is required by the equal protection clause is a legal question, not a politial issue. Once you take out all the emotional hoo-ha ("marriage is a man and a woman because that's the way I feel!") what's left?

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-25-2004
Thu, 02-26-2004 - 9:21am
I think the issue is that it's unlikely that civil unions will be treated as equal to marriage. When has separate ever been equal? The problem with creating a new type of union is that it has to be integrated into society: written into insurance policies, company by-laws, hospital policies, tax laws...the list goes on. Institutions that fail to add a civil union clause to their policies are leaving themselves free to discriminate by way of technicality. But if gays could use the word "marriage," the policies are already in place.

And what's so insecure about asking for the same rights as everyone else? My gay friends certainly don't see it that way. It takes a lot of courage to stand up and demand access to a basic social institution from which you are restricted. I can't understand why anyone would be willing to settle for less. "Not wanting to be like the straights" reeks as much of discrimination as the straight people who don't want to be "like the gays." Being proud of who you are is an essential part of standing up for what you believe in. If these people were ashamed of themselves, gay marriage wouldn't even be an issue.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Thu, 02-26-2004 - 9:21am

Hi Celsmiles Welcome

 


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