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Popular Culture Review
the longest running female impersonation revue in the casino capital. The New
York-based, all-male “Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo” has men
dancing as ballerinas. It has been widely acclaimed for both the laughs provided
by the actors and their amazing ability as dancers. Since its modest beginning in
the meat-packing district in Manhattan in 1974, the “trocks,” as it is called, has
blossomed and performed in over 400 cities worldwide.
Transgenderism in Two Cultures
Like homosexuality, transgenderism may well be found in every
society. Societies, however, vary in the way the issue is treated within the
culture. For example, transgendered people in Thailand are culturally
institutionalized as a third sex. Known as kathoey, the transgendered maintain a
high profile and discrimination is low. The term is broadly used to describe men
who behave in a distinctly feminine way. It is applied to effeminate males who
may marry women and raise families, to transvestites who may work in the sex,
fashion, and media industries, and to the cabaret performers who through
hormone supplements and surgeries appear convincingly female. Even though
kathoeys are not socially accepted on the same level as males and females who
conform to the gender-normative codes, they are tolerated by society with
relatively little overt discrimination (Jackson, 1999; Jackson and Sullivan,
2000). Rather than to demonstrate disgust, it is more common for '‘Thai men and
women to evince unabashed fascination with persons who exhibit either inter
sex features or men who breach gender norms . . . ” (Jackson, 1999, 230).
In other cultures, such as the United States, transgenderism is treated as
a fetish or perversion, and harsh discrimination may lead transsexuals and
transvestites to keep as low a visibility as possible. For example, a transgender
group that organizes vacation packages in Las Vegas offers this advice to
participants on its website: “Don’t overdress!” “Don’t congregate or hang
around in groups!” “Avoid places where imescorted women do not customarily
go!” “Last but not least, (on using public restrooms) if you should be confronted
by management or another customer, don’t push things, be a lady. Apologize
and get out.” (Diva, 2003).
In American culture, the transgendered are often portrayed as being at
the extreme end of the spectrum of men who are gay. Often they are looked
down upon not only by the larger society but also by other gay men. While
homosexuality has gained significant inroads into the mainstream of American
society, transgenderism has not. To many it is still considered weird, strange,
and bizarre. And those are not just the views of the laymen. In his 2003 book.
The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science o f Gender-Bending and
Transsexualism, psychologist J. Michael Bailey of Northwestern University
argues that men who dress in women’s clothing, and consider reassignment
surgery, are either extremely gay or straight men who are autogynephilic (i.e..