What is "androgeny" as it relates to transgendered individuals in transition?
- What is it?
- What does it do?
- What is its purpose?
- How does it work?
- Why does it fit those who are gender conflicted?
- Why does it not fit those who are strictly cross-dressers?
- How does it move one from M->F or F->M ?

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Request for Question Clarification by jumpingjoe-ga on 11 Feb 2003 08:16 PST

As I understand it, androgeny is the state of an unfertilised embryo,
as it cannot properly take gender. Alternatively, androgeny is the
state where someone displays no characteristics of either gender.

Do you mean androgen? This would suit the questions you ask better.

-androgen-
One of a group of male sex hormones that stimulate development of the
testes and of male secondary sexual characteristics (such as growth of
facial and pubic hair in men).

Please indicate, so that someone can research the answers to your
questions.

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Clarification of Question by cricket_c-ga on 12 Feb 2003 10:32 PST

Here's a potential answer. However, I'm hoping for corroboration or
clarification from those counselling or within the TG community.
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Greek: androgunos, andro = male + gune = female
Latin: androgynous, andro = masculine + gynos = feminine

The word “androgynous,” as used in biology, describes something which
has both female and male characteristics, or is hermaphroditic. In
contemporary general usage, the term implies a *lack of*
distinguishable masculine or feminine traits in dress, behavior, or
appearance.

Androgyny is a state taken on by transsexual individuals in which
marked characteristics unique to one’s current gender role are
gradually eliminated and characteristics of the opposite gender role
are gradually added. These traits include all aspects behavior,
grooming, and appearance. The purpose of this status is to facilitate
the transition from one societally accepted gender role to the other.
An androgynous state provides the transsexual a gradual means to adopt
the other gender role. Those who are not gender conflicted, but rather
are considered cross dressers, choose to alternately adopt the two
gender roles; at times fully playing a masculine role, and at others
playing fully a feminine role.

Today’s society generally anticipates and expects its members to
assume only one of two defined gender roles: male or female. While
some do accept ambiguous or blended gender portrayal, others such as
George Gilder, in his book “Men and Marriage,” attribute the fall of
Greek and Roman (and our own) civilizations to a culture of androgyny.

Such constant bistable pressure urges the androgyne to shed their
blended behavior for just one unambiguous role. As such, it is
difficult (but not impossible) to maintain an androgynous state for
extended periods while still functioning and interacting fully in
day-to-day events.

Please note that "transgender" and "transsexual" are not synonymous.
Transgender is a much wider term, it includes *all* people who feel
that the gender they were assigned is a wrong or incomplete
description of themselfes, and transgender includes transsexuals,
cross-dressers, gender-benders, many (but not all) intersexuals and
more. Transgender people want to change their gender either
permanently or temporarily, to anything other than their originally
assigned gender. That may or may not include any of the available
medical procedures (Hormones, surgery, etc.).
Transsexuals are a far more narrow defined group, and wish to change
from "the one" gender to "the other", and who also wish to change
"sex", that is their gender-definig physical characteristics. (Flat
chest <-> breast, vagina <-> penis, beard or <-> beard, etc.)
The term "gender confliced" sounds rather strange, too; especially
since by no means everybody who is transgender feels that this is per
definition a conflict. "Transgender people" therefore will do
perfectly well.

Androgyny therefore can be the end for some transgender people, who
wish to appear as ambiguous, or as falling out of the male-female
binary system. Obviously, that can lead to social problems.
It is at best a passing thing for transsexuals, though, since it is
one of the defining characteristics of transsexualism, that one wishes
to present a traditional gender.

Also, "Androgyny" is not exactly easy to achieve, especially for
people who are past their teens. By then, most people's bodies are to
obviously the one or the other to be able to appear androgynous.

As to what it does to people appearing that way, voluntarily or
otherwise, and how it is achieved, those are extremely individual
questions which depend on a lot of factors; therefore a general answer
is impossible.

And I would not pay too much attention to people declaring the decline
of any society to a culture of androgyny, or the role of women, or
gays and lesbians, or any religion, or any such usually badly
supported claims. There is a word for books like these, and that word
is "junk science".
In the case of Rome, one could just as well (and just as
unconvincingly) argue that Rome thrived as long as debauchery thrived,
and declined after Christianism won over the older religions. Then
again, it might be *much* safer and sounder to take into account
thinks like the migration of whole nations at the time.