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Abstract
The term “bigender” is proposed to describe people who combine male and female gender identities. Bigenderism is to be distinguished from “bisexuality” whose meaning would be limited to sexual attraction to both sexes. This change in terminology allows for more precise theory and clinical formulations, since some cases of bigenderism have been mistakenly identified as transgender. The relationship between gender identity and sexual orientation is discussed in the classification schemes of Kinsey, F. Klein, and Krafft-Ebing, and in some cases described by contemporary clinicians. Irrational ideas about bisexuality and bigender, and the way they inform understanding of transference and countertransference, are identified and analyzed.
Notes
1 Young-Bruehl, for example, described a female patient who “had relationships with men early in life and after college was involved only with women. Although she described herself as lesbian, she acknowledged that her fantasies continued to be bisexual” (Grossman, Citation2001, p. 1375).
2 Kinsey and Evelyn Hooker (Citation1957) were two pathbreaking researchers who paved the way for acceptance of homosexuality as a normal variant of human experience rather than an illness.
3 Many psychoanalysts were hostile to Kinsey's research, although one might have expected them to have lauded his work, given that he provided empirical data that supported Freud's idea that the potential for bisexuality was much more common than normally thought. Freud (1905/1953, p. 136) discussed “amphigenic inverts” whose “sexual objects may equally well be of their own or the opposite sex.” An amphigenic invert corresponds to a Kinsey 3.
4 Voltaire was more definitive. When asked if he had ever had sex with a man, he replied that he had, once. When asked why he had not repeated the experience, he replied, “Once, a philosopher; twice, a pederast.”
5 There are many problems with the Kinsey scale; for example, many people have trouble remembering which number stands for what. It might have been easier if Kinsey's seven-point scale had gone from −3 to +3. In that case, the midpoint, equal bisexuality, would be 0, which would be more intuitive and easy to remember. The way the Kinsey scale is set, it measures the presence or absence of homosexuality, 0 being no homosexuality, 6 being the most homosexuality, which may unconsciously skew our understanding of sexual orientation, instead of giving equal value to hetero- and homosexualities.
6 The term “monosexuality” seems to have become uncommon in our time, but it was an important word in 19th- and early 20th-century sexology. It was used to mean both “having the sexual characteristics of only one sex” and “being attracted to only one sex.” Krafft-Ebing (1886/1965) wrote about how some creatures have the physical characteristics of both sexes but as evolution progressed monosexuality became more common.
7 Freud (1905/1953, p. 137) wrote: “A periodic oscillation between a normal and an inverted sexual object has also sometimes been observed.”
8 Kinsey's view of bisexuality is relevant to the study of history, too. Many of the icons of gay history were actually bisexual in behavior. Socrates, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Nero, and Oscar Wilde, for example, all had wives and children. Some historians tend to call them “gay,” but the data indicate that they were behaviorally bisexual to some degree. The truth is that some people are Kinsey 5's—predominantly homosexual, but incidentally heterosexual; or Kinsey 4's—predominantly homosexual, but more than incidentally heterosexual. Whether they called themselves bisexual, or we call them bisexual, they are behaviorally bisexual.
9 In the meantime, I have encountered a gay man whose favorite pornography is of lesbians. There is great risk in assuming that something does not occur.
10 Perhaps incorrectly, Kernberg said: “Bisexuality … is characteristic of late onset homosexuality in women, usually in the context of neurotic or normal personality organization. In contrast, its development in men is usually in the context of the syndrome of identity diffusion and severe character pathology” (Grossman, Citation2001, p. 1363).
11 Empirical data do not support a connection between bisexuality and nonmonogamy (Diamond, Citation2008).
12 In Civilization and Its Discontents, Freud (1930/1961) wrote: “Man is an animal organism with (like others) an unmistakably bisexual disposition. The individual corresponds to a fusion of two symmetrical halves, of which, according to some investigators, one is purely male and the other female. It is equally possible that each half was originally hermaphrodite.… if we assume it as a fact that each individual seeks to satisfy both male and female wishes in his sexual life, we are prepared for the possibility that those [two sets of] demands are not fulfilled by the same object, and that they interfere with each other unless they can be kept apart and each impulse guided into a particular channel that is suited to it.” Note that “male and female wishes” implies the wish to be sexually with a woman and a man. It was a common presumption that one's gender identity was linked with a heterosexual desire for the opposite sex, so that gender identity and sexual orientation were linked in the unconscious. Nevertheless, Freud (Citation1920, p. 170) observed that the linkage was not absolute. Seemingly masculine men could seek penetration by other men, and feminine men might be attracted only to women.
13 Nevertheless, Krafft-Ebing (1886/1965), the preeminent sexologist of his time, noted how often homosexual men appeared completely masculine and were indistinguishable from heterosexual men.
14 Renée Richards (Citation2007), the former Richard Raskin, was attracted to women before sex-reassignment surgery, but was, after surgery, only attracted to men. She wrote, “If I had undergone a sex-change operation only to become a lesbian, I would really be a cuckoo!” (p. 270), implying the typical belief that one would not go through sex-reassignment surgery to become a lesbian.
15 Tyson (Citation1982) noted this confusion. She proposed that we differentiate gender identity, gender role identity, and sexual partner orientation. Gender identity, or a sense of femininity or masculinity, refers to a broad psychological configuration that combines personal identity, biological sex, erotic sensations, interpersonal experiences, intrapsychic consequences (such as identifications), and social and cultural influences. Gender role identity refers to the gender-based patterning of conscious and unconscious interactions with other people. Sexual partner orientation refers to the preferred sex of sexual partner. Yet, after 30 years, her classification is not in common usage.
16 See also Chiland (Citation2000) who founders over the same question of diagnosis.
17 The tendency to see same-sex behavior as intensified by cross-gender behavior was also common in ancient Arabic cultures (Palmer, Citation2012). The Arabic word “ubnah” typically referred to receptive gay male sex, but according to gay-studies scholar Stephen O. Murray, medieval Arabic medical researchers also described ubnah as a condition, and debated whether it was susceptible to treatment. One physician opined (Murray, 1995, p. 625): “If the ubnah is prolonged, the person affected by it cannot be cured, in particular, if he is obviously feminine and effeminate and loves very much to be like a woman.” So, as for Krafft-Ebing, same-sex desire was seen in Arabic culture as more intense and invariable when combined with cross-gender behavior.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Mark J. Blechner
Mark J. Blechner, Ph.D. is the former Editor-in-Chief of Contemporary Psychoanalysis. He has published three books: Hope and Mortality (1997), The Dream Frontier (2001) and Sex Changes: Transformations in Society and Psychoanalysis (2009). At the William Alanson White Institute, he is Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst. As Founder and Director of the White Institute's HIV Clinical Service (1991–2001), Dr. Blechner led the first psychoanalytic clinic devoted to working with people with AIDS, their relatives, and caregivers. Dr. Blechner has taught at Columbia University, Yale University, and New York University.