Labels

The following copyrighted article appeared in the Houston Chronicle on May 6, 1997, under the headline "Man, woman, serpent killed in fiery collision":

"Two drivers and a snake died in a fiery head-on collision early Monday that, because one of the victims apparently was a cross-dresser, initially left investigators confused about the number of victims.

The wreck occurred at 2:13 a.m., when a 1988 Mercury Tracer driven southbound in the northbound lanes of the Southwest Freeway struck a 1988 Cadillac Coupe de Ville going in the correct direction.

Dead at the scene were the driver of the Tracer, 19-year-old Monica Rose West, of the 5500 block of Pine, and the other driver, Rogelio Pimental, 31, of the 6600 block of Welch.

Investigators were uncertain where West’s vehicle entered the freeway headed the wrong way. Houston Police Department spokesman Fred King said the Tracer had just passed a patrol unit, which left the freeway to turn around and go back for the wrong way driver.

By the time the officer found the Tracer, King said, the cars had collided. Both cars burned afterward, and the bodies were recovered after the flames were extinguished.

Police initially thought Pimental’s car contained two victims because they found the lower half of a man’s body and the upper half of a body that appeared female and wore female clothing. It was later determined that both body halves were Pimental’s.

Recovered from the wreckage of the Tracer along with West’s body was a 3-foot Ball python, also dead, that appeared to have been on the woman’s neck or chest when the wreck occurred.

Investigation into the accident is continuing."

The article above irritated me because it was obvious to me that one of the victims was not simply a crossdresser in the currently accepted meaning of the word. While the article was on an inside page of the second section of the paper, the incident was played up on the evening news because of the unusual nature of the victims. The initial “teaser” for the story on the station I watched irked me because they also used the term "crossdresser", but the actual report was almost tasteful and sympathetic. In addition to the obligatory scenes of the mangled cars, it also let viewers know that Rogelio Pimental had been living as a woman for 10 years and was the manager of a successful night club. They also interviewed Ms. Pimental’s brother who said that the way Rogelio lived was Rogelio’s business, that the whole family supported her and they were all justifiably devastated by her death. They also interviewed the family of the other victim, who were also in shock and mourning, but offered no explanation for the snake.

So why bring this tragedy up? Because it touched a nerve in me regarding labels. I am not a big fan of labeling and categorizing people, and I try very hard not to do it. I think that it doesn’t take much before we start to deal with the label and not the person. In this case, the press labeled Rogelio Pimental as a crossdresser, a label I personally think was inappropriate. However, I did not know Ms. Pimental, and therefore don’t know if that might have been a label that she applied to herself. My personal desire would be to see all such labels done away with. (If one is absolutely necessary, I might accept "transgendered" in the generic sense.) It is very rare nowadays to see or hear anything in the media about someone’s race or religion or sexuality, but gender "irregularities" are still fair game.

I often get e-mail from folks just venturing out of their private, insular gender world into the world at large wanting to know "What am I?" They are justifiably confused. They see all the labels and want to know where they fit in, what label to apply to themselves. They want to know if they’re gay, transsexual, transvestite, whatever. At the same time that they are just acknowledging to themselves that they are different, they are looking for others like themselves, for a new place to fit in, for a new label. To my way of thinking, there are entirely too many categories for people, especially those like us. Instead, I try to dissuade people from categorizing themselves. Instead, I give them my short dissertation on sex, sexuality and gender, and tell them that if they must find places to fit, pick one of each and then work on being happy with WHO they are rather than worrying so much about WHAT they are.

My short dissertation? It’s not based on anything but my perceptions and opinions, and I know it has gaps and is simplistic, but it works for the purposes of explaining the differences. And since I’ve brought it up, here it is:

Sex, sexuality and gender are three entirely different things that get all mixed together in our society’s view of people. Briefly, sex is the plumbing you have, sexuality is who you like to play with that plumbing for fun and gender is how you cover that plumbing for the rest of the world.

Sex is simple - it’s either male or female, whether the plumbing is naturally or surgically constructed. True hermaphrodites are extremely rare, and they are usually surgically assigned one of the two sexes very early in their lives.

Sexuality is only concerned with sexual intercourse, not the prelude to it. So, regardless of whether you like to whip or be whipped or use whipped cream, that’s not germane to your sexuality; that’s just foreplay. Primary sexuality, or who you truly prefer as a partner, can be one of five distinct types: heterosexual (partner of opposite sex), homosexual (partner of same sex), bisexual (partner of either sex), monosexual (no partner, self only), and asexual (no sexual desires). Celibacy is not asexuality, but is simply abstinence.

Finally, gender is not a fixed condition. It is instead a spectrum of behaviors, attitudes and appearances ranging from masculine on one end to feminine on the other. Although we all tend to stay within a certain range on this spectrum, at any given instant an individual can be anywhere along the spectrum. And the spectrum itself is not fixed; it is cultural. For example, high heels, perfume and wigs were not considered feminine in Marie Antoinette’s time.

So, my bottom line here is that while it’s convenient for the media to slap a one-word label on someone because it makes good copy, that doesn’t make it the correct thing to do. I know that I’m more of a person than a one-word label implies, and I think everyone else is, too. Categorizing me as transgendered, even though I am, completely ignores all the other things I am: a great parent, a fairly decent cook, a good friend and on and on. I think we all benefit when we deal with people as people, not things with labels. (Insert sound of soapbox being dragged off here.)