The Riddle of Gender - Deborah Rudacille [175]
I could not have written this book without the support of my colleagues and employers at the Center for Talented Youth—Pat Wallace, Ben Reynolds, and Sylvia Kielsznia—who were willing to offer me time off and a flexible work schedule to write. The friends who wined and dined me during the course of the writing, providing much needed relaxation, also deserve acknowledgment— Nancy, Claudette, Paula, Liz, Kathy, Mark, and those other friends (you know who you are) who took me out and lifted me up when I was feeling overwhelmed. Finally, I’d like to thank my family—my children, Amelia, Jake, and Sofia, and their father, Rafael; my mother, Jean, and brother Jeff; and my nieces Jessica, Victoria, and Angela. Their constant love and support is the firm ground that I stand on in all my endeavors.
NOTES
INTRODUCTION
Walking home from a neighborhood bar Peter Hermann, “1 Killed, 12 Robbed in Violent City Spree,” Baltimore Sun, November 24, 1999; Michael Ollove, “Tacy’s Story,” Baltimore Sun, December 15, 1999. Downloaded from SunSpot.net January 10, 2001.
Baron-Cohen proposes an explanation for these and other differences See Simon Baron-Cohen, The Essential Difference: The Truth about the Male and Female Brain (New York: Basic Books, 2003).
gender is what’s above the neck See for example Virginia Prince, “Sex vs. Gender,” in “Transsexualism: A Perspective” in Proceedings of the Second Interdisciplinary Symposium on Gender Dysphoria Syndrome, Donald R. Laub, M.D., and Patrick S. Candy, M.S., eds., Stanford University Medical Center, February 2-4,1973. “For those of you who do not know me, I am a male. I was born one and I will die one. I am not a homosexual. I am not a transsexual, but I have lived the last five years as a woman. There is not one thing that any doctor or any surgeon at this symposium could possibly do to improve my gender. Any kind of carving that you might do on me might change my sex, but it would not change my gender, because my gender, my self-identity is between my ears, not between my legs,” 21.
one cheeky irony of life Lindsey Berkson, Hormone Deception (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 2000), 43.
In 2002 alone, twenty-three people in the United States were slain National Transgender Advocacy Coalition interview with Gwen Smith, creator of “Remembering Our Dead” website, http://www.gender.org/remember/index.html. “I think 2002 is only the ‘deadliest year’ we have statistics for because of three factors. The media is more willing to report on these cases, we have more avenues to find these stories via the world wide web, and we are more sensitive to these cases within our own community. … Rather than thinking of 2002 as being part of an upward trend of murder cases, I paint a somewhat more disturbing picture: maybe 2002 is much closer to the actual per-year number of cases.”
seventeen-year-old Gwen Araujo was dragged into a garage On June 22, 2004, Judge Harry Sheppard declared a mistrial in the Araujo murder case after the jury foreman informed him that the eight-man, four-woman jury was “hopelessly deadlocked.” The jury had deliberated for ten days. Defense attorneys had used a “gay panic” strategy, arguing that their clients (twenty-four-year old Jason Cazares, Michael Magid-son, and Jose Merel) were inspired by “passionate rage” when they discovered that Araujo, with whom all three had previously had sex, was biologically male. After bludgeoning Araujo with a can, frying pans, and a shovel, and strangling her, the defendants buried her in the Sierra foothills, and then went out to McDonald’s for breakfast.
Tyra’s story is surprisingly commonplace Sarah D. Fox, Ph.D., “$2.8 million Award in Tyra Hunter Wrongful Death Suit,” Quill, December 12, 1998. Retrieved from http://www.gendernet.org/quill/pr000004.htm,