So this is just *another* example of how off-topic some articles become when the (in)dividual featured in the piece doesn’t fit neatly into the m/f binary. One good thing I will say about the article is that the author uses the male pronoun to refer to Mr Murphy.
‘Crime lord’s’ fake penis falls off in raid
- From: AFP
- January 10, 2010 8:17PM
SOUTH African police caught more than they expected in a Cape Town drug raid when a strap-on dildo fell off a suspected crime lord during a search, the Sunday Times reported.
Fat Murphy, feared on the streets of Cape Town’s notorious Cape Flats suburb, told a court that he is a hermaphrodite who holds male and female identity documents – one under the name Fadwaan, the other under Hilary.
Police and a tearful Murphy recounted the saga during a bail hearing for Murphy’s charges of possession of stolen property, which come on top of earlier charges of kidnapping and intimidation, the paper said.
“I had a vagina that could not be penetrated. But I also had male organs, testes. But I always knew I was really a man and that was what I wanted to be,” he told the court, according to the newspaper.
“God created me with both sexual organs. It was God’s decision, not mine.”
Murphy has been married twice – his second wife’s name is tattooed on his arm. He said received his male identity documents after undergoing surgery to remove his female organs when he was in his teens, the paper said.
Police say Murphy offered them $1300 not to search him during the raid.
Police said they were investigating how Murphy obtained his male identity documents, saying they found no records of him undergoing sex change surgery.
Murphy was released on $43 bail.
Ok. So it is supposed to be an article about how a dude is on charges for possession of stolen property, as well earlier charges for kidnapping and intimidation. Instead, the writer manages to make it an article about the ‘genesis’ of Mr Murphy’s gender ‘identity’, ‘exposing’ parts of his life that really aren’t anyone else’s business.
Let’s break it down:
- the author begins the article with what is supposed to be a really amusing pun for all da cis people to chortle at, “South African police caught more than they expected in a Cape Town drug raid”
- the author then, by quoting Mr Murphy, gives the reader a detailed genitogentric account of Murphy’s gender ( again, apparently this is everybody’s business, as well as the court’s)
- the author then details how Mr Murphy has been married twice ( because we all know being involved in heterosexual relationships proves you are a man, right?)
- we then learn that Mr Muphy didn’t want the police conducting a personal search on him, and felt as though he had to offer a bribe to prevent this from happening
- the article finishes with the reader being informed that, in South Africa, you must undergo sex change surgery if you want to be recognised as having a gender other than the one the doctor labeled you with at birth ( apparently if you are a pre-op male/female-or don’t ever intend to get surgery-or don’t want to identify as m/f- you *aren’t allowed* legal recognition as another gender! Great!)
So in articles like this one, there are common themes that piss me off. These include ( but are not limited to):
- the courts and much of the cis population (re)constructing narratives that gender nonconformist folk must tell in order to be recognised as their preferred gender
-reporters merely reporting on legal gatekeeping, rather than deconstructing it
- people believing they have the *right* to know ( hello cis privilege!) about gender nonconformist folk’s genitals
- Reporters making jokes/puns about trans and intersex folks’ genitals
- Reading about how the police just don’t seem to get (and/or perhaps aren’t sufficiently trained to understand) that some people really do feel uncomfortable, intimidated,scared and panicked about undergoing personal searches or being touched by others. This fear is often disproportionately felt by women, dys-abled folk, and those who identify as trans or intersex.
