Shemale (also spelledshe-male) is a term most commonly used in thepornography industry to describetrans women or other people with malegenitalia and femalesecondary sex characteristics (including breasts) acquired viahormones or surgery.[1] Many people in thetransgender community consider the term offensive and degrading.[1][2][3] Using the termshemale for a trans woman may imply that she is working in thesex trade.[3]
The term has been used by somepsychologists to refer to transgender women who havetransitioned, but have never undergonegenital surgery.[4][5][6]
Somebiologists have usedshemale to refer to male non-human animals displaying female traits or behaviors, such as female pheromones being given off by male reptiles.[7][8][9][10]Joan Roughgarden, a biologist and Charles Darwin-critic, rejected use of the term in the reptile literature, as she says it is "degrading and has been borrowed from the porn industry."[11]
Since the mid-19th century, the termshe-male has been applied to "almost anyone who appears to have bridgedgender lines", includingeffeminate men andlesbians.[12] In the early 19th century,she-male was used as acolloquialism in American literature for female, oftenpejoratively.[13]Davy Crockett is quoted as using the term in regard to a shooting match; when his opponent challenges Crockett to shoot near his opponent's wife, Crockett is reported to have replied: "'No, No, Mike,' sez I, 'Davy Crockett's hand would be sure to shake, if his iron pointed within a hundred miles of a shemale, and I give up beat...'"[14] It was used through the 1920s to describe a woman, usually afeminist or anintellectual.[15]
The term came to have a more negative connotation over time and been used to describe a "hateful woman" or "bitch."[16] Up through the mid-1970s, it was used to describe an assertive woman, "especially a disliked, distrusted woman; a bitch."[17]
The term later took on an implicit sexual overtone. In her 1990 book,From Masculine To Feminine And All points In Between, Jennifer Anne Stevens definedshe-male as "usually agay male who lives full-time as a woman; a gay transgenderist."[18] TheOxford English Dictionary definesshe-male as "a passivemale homosexual ortransvestite."[19] It has been used as gay slang forfaggot.[20]
In 1979,Janice Raymond employed the term as a derogatory descriptor for trans women in her controversial book,The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male.[21] Raymond and othercultural feminists likeMary Daly argue that a "she-male" or "male-to-constructed female" is still male and constitutes apatriarchal attack by males upon the femaleessence.[22] This is often considered to be part oftrans-exclusionary radical feminist (TERF) ideology. In some cultures,shemale can also be used interchangeably with other terms referring to trans women.[23]
The term has since become a derogatory term applied to trans women.[12] Psychologists Dana Finnegan and Emily Mcnally write that the term "tends to have demeaning connotations."[24] French professor John Phillips writes thatshemale is "a linguisticoxymoron that simultaneously reflects but, by its very impossibility, challenges[gender] binary thinking, collapsing the divide between themasculine and thefeminine."[25] Trans authorLeslie Feinberg writes, "'he-she' and 'she-male' describe the person's gender expression with the first pronoun and the birth sex with the second. The hyphenation signals a crisis of language and an apparent social contradiction, sincesex and gender are 'supposed' to match."[26]Jack Halberstam, director of the Institute for Research on Women, Gender and Sexuality, describesshe-male as "a degrading pornographic term".[27] TheGay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation has said the term is a "dehumanizing slur"[28] and should not be used "except in a direct quote that reveals the bias of the person quoted."[29]
Willow Arune wrote, "Using the termshe-male for a transsexual woman would be considered highly offensive, for it implies that she is working 'in the [sex] trade.' It may be consideredlibelous."[3] Melissa Hope Ditmore, of the Trafficked Persons Rights Project, says the term "is an invention of the sex industry, and most transwomen find the term abhorrent."[30] Biologist and transgender activistJulia Serano states that it remains "derogatory or sensationalistic."[31] According to sex columnistRegina Lynn, "Porn marketers use 'she-male' for a very specific purpose — to sell porn to straight guys without triggering theirhomophobia — that has nothing to do with actual transgendered people (or helping men overcome their homophobia, either)."[32]
Some have adopted the term as a self-descriptor, often in the context ofsex work.[5][12][33]Gender non-conforming authorKate Bornstein wrote that a friend who self-identified as "she-male" described herself as "tits, big hair, lots of make-up, and a dick."[34] Pornographic actress Wendy Williams stated, "I don't thinktranny andshe-male are slurs. They were words initially used so the laymen person could understand the products they were buying in porn. There are more issues we have to worry about: suicide, the homeless rate, getting an education and finding jobs as trans women."[1] According to sex columnist Sasha, "The termshemale is used in [the pornography] setting to denote a fetishized sexual persona and is not typically used by transgendered women outside of sex work. Many transgendered women are offended by this categorization and call themselves T-girls or trans."[35]
In addition to its use in pornography, the term has been used as apunch line or for rhetorical effect.Flora Finch starred inThe She-Male Sleuth,[36] a 1920 film comedy. As part of the 42nd Street Art Project in 1994, designerAdelle Lutz turned a former shop inTimes Square called American Male into "American She-Male", with brightly colored mannequins and clothes made of condoms.[37] The 2004Arrested Development episode "Sad Sack" had a gag where Maeby tricks Lindsay into wearing a shirt that says "Shémale", in order to convince a suitor Lindsay is transgender. Film criticManohla Dargis has written about the lack of "real women" in summer blockbusters, claimingJudd Apatow comedies feature men who act more like leading ladies: "These aren't the she-males you find in the back pages ofThe Village Voice, mind you. The Apatow men hit the screen anatomically intact: they’re emasculated but not castrated, as the repeated images of the flopping genitals inForgetting Sarah Marshall remind you."[38]
The word came under extreme criticism when it was used during episode four ofRuPaul's Drag Race season 6.Logo TV, the show's broadcast station, released a statement on April 14, 2014, saying: "We wanted to thank the community for sharing their concerns around a recent segment and the use of the term 'she-mail' on Drag Race. Logo has pulled the episode from all of our platforms and that challenge will not appear again. Furthermore, we are removing the 'You've got she-mail' intro from new episodes of the series. We did not intend to cause any offense, but in retrospect we realize that it was insensitive. We sincerely apologize."[39]
shemale empowerment.
