Annotated Bibliography and Proposal

I've always been interested in the topic of sexual orientation, and after reading this book and all of my sources, I discovered that my view of sexual orientation was not as clear-cut as I thought. I have gay friends here at school, and they've told me that they have always known their sexual orientation, so naturally (perhaps naively) I assumed that differences in sexual orientation were more of a biological phenomena rather than a choice one makes. In focusing on the way Allison and Will struggle with their questions of their own sexuality (i.e. Allison questions whether or not she is a lesbian by dating Dana, even though Dana used to be a man, or Will questioning if he might be gay because Dana was once a man) and also Dana's apparent confusion while he was still a man, I want to focus on the notion that the definitions of sexual orientation are not as clear within the book as perhaps society makes them out to be. I've looked at texts which seek to define sexual orientation in relation to gender, and texts that have tried to delve into the psychological aspects of being gay or lesbian. In Allison and Will's case within the book, they make the case that being gay or lesbian is something that can be chosen or changed. My research is leaning more on the psychological aspect of sexual orientations, but within that research, I've found real-life accounts which I feel validate my claims. 


Annotated Bibliography 


Black, Daniel. Perfect Peace. New York: St. Martin's, 2010. Print.


This is a fictitious story about a little southern girl who, on her 8th birthday, learns that she was actually born a boy, and now has to learn how to become one. She is the youngest of 7, with six brothers, and her mother really wanted a girl, so when the seventh child was born a boy, the mother raised the child as a girl out of her desperation for a girl. The story talks about Perfect/Paul's transition from being a girl to manhood, and how he learns to forget about his girl self. This book delves into the age-old argument of sex vs. gender, and creates a commentary on how gender is socially constructed, and how sexual orientation can be constructed as well. I will use this text to show that sexual orientation isn't as clear-cut as society sometimes makes it out to be. There are passages in which Perfect and her best friend, Eva Mae, have intimate relations with each other, and then again when Perfect is Paul, but there seems to be no change in enjoyment on Paul's part. Passages such as these will help construct my argument. 


Rudacille, Deborah. The Riddle of Gender. New York: Pantheon Books, 2005. Print.

Deborah Rudacille talks about gender issues from both scientific and human perspectives. She focuses on the transsexual perspective throughout the book, which was greatly beneficial toward my research. The book is made up of several interviews with prominant transsexuals throughout the book, which portrays the human aspect of people who don't fit into the "normal" male/female social norms. I plan on using two chapters for my research; the fourth chapter, "Men and Women, Boys and Girls" which is a interview with Chelsea Goodwin and Rusty Mae Moore, Ph.D; and the sixth chapter, "Childhood, Interrupted," an interview with Dana Bayer, M.D. In both of these chapters, I will be able to convey the human element into my argument, and dissect what it means to be a transsexual and how that affects sexual orientation. 

Green, Jamison. "Look! No, Don't! The Visibility Dilemma for Transsexual Men." The Transgender Studies Reader. Ed. Susan Stryker and Stephen Whittle. New York: Routledge, 2006. Print.

Green, a FTM activist, wrote this article about the "visibility dilemma" that transsexual men have during their transition, something which Dana in Trans-sister Radio also had trouble with. Green writes about how transsexuals just want to be accepted by society as the gender they perceive themselves to be; but, on the other hand, if one exposes too much of a transsexual life to others, one could risk "undermining the achieved gender status," presenting a dilemma. How much does one reveal about oneself? I will connect Green's article to Dana's experience with transition in the novel.

Hale, Jacob. "Are Lesbian Women?" The Transgender Studies Reader. Ed. Susan Stryker and Stephen Whittle. New York: Routledge, 2006. Print.

Philosopher Jacob Hale challenges the notion that the term "woman" is a concrete, natural term. He argues that there are many complexities within determining any one person's gender. He argues that gender is something that needs to be "worked out" by an individual, and that no set definition of a gender exists. I will use this article to back up my argument that gender and sexual orientation are things that are not set in stone; that they are things that are constructed differently by everyone. 

Valentine, David. ""I Went to Bed With My Own Kind Once" The Erasure of Desire in the Name of Identity." The Transgender Studies Reader. Ed. Susan Stryker and Stephen Whittle. New York: Routledge, 2006. Print.

This article focuses on the fact that modern views of sexual orientation and contemporary distinctions between sexuality and gender do not account for the specifics of erotic desire and sexual practice. Valentine explains that since there is a "double binary" of homo/hetero and masculine/feminine, there is a "unintelligible structure" of desire and sexuality that most people do not understand. I will use this article to support my claims, and connect it to the "confusion" Allison, Dana, and Will all experience about their sexuality. 

 

Form: Superfabulous

What I liked about Molly Kennedy's "Superfabulous" was the fact that it was written in free verse. I think that expresses a freedom that formed poems cannot express. The lack of a traditional verse form mirrors the poem's point: that homosexuals should be accepted within our society. The poem is about the speaker hearing on the news that Superman was gay and there is some sort of public outcry. The speaker then points out that Superman is also an illegal alien, he has a bad influence on kids ("Superman shows preschoolers that, yes, sweetie,/it's ok to walk around with your underwear outside your pants"), and that he is a Jesus Christ figure, yet no one raises any question about any of those things, even though they are prevalent news topics in today's media.
This poem doesn't have a rhyme scheme, or any sort of stanza form, or any sort of meter. It is like the speaker is just telling us a story. What sticks out is the varying length of the stanzas and lines. Some stanzas are twelve lines long; others are just four, and there are single lines spread through the poem. This forces us to read the shorter lines of the poem. When the speaker is talk about how she "can blame the Human Torch/for making me into a pyrotechnic" she immediately replies with a short, 3-line stanza: "No. You're right./I was playing with lighters and WD-40/before I even knew who the Fantastic Four were." This forces the reader to realize that superheroes didn't influence the speaker to play with lighters. The speaker subtly uses this example to prove her point; that not all little kids are influenced by what superheroes do, so gay Superman isn't necessarily going to turn little kids gay. The last eight lines of the poem are a perfect example:
     If Superman were gay,
     Superman would be supergay.
     Superman would be fabulous.
     Superman would be Superfabulous.
     Superman would walk up to Lex Luthor with jazz hands,
     Slap him across the face and go,

     World domination? I don't think so, honey!


     And the world would be a better place for it.

The point of these lines are clear: being gay isn't a bad thing. The author uses stereotypical gay mannerisms in this passage to prove her point; her use of the word 'fabulous,' the fact that Superman would use jazz hands and slap the bad guy instead of punch him, and that Superman used the word 'honey.' The reader can almost hear Superman say the italicized sentence in their head, because we have those stereotypes in our heads as well, but the author justifies it at the end by saying "the world would be a better place for it." This final sentence, in separating it from the rest of the poem, gets gently forced into the reader's mind.