Theorist Questions Gender Emphasis

Kate Bornstein added the fictional voices of six transsexuals to her own voice as a transsexual lesbian last night in a performance that questioned the role of gender in society.

Approximately 100 people filled Boylston Hall's auditorium for the free one-woman play, "The Opposite Sex is Neither!" co-sponsored by the Center for Literary and Cultural Studies and the Committee on Degrees in Women's Studies.

Marjorie Garber, professor of English, introduced Kate Borstein as an actor, writer and gender theorist who has won numerous awards for her theatrical innovation.

Bornstein, playing a "goddess in training" called Maggie, began the performance by asking the audience "How can I even tell you who I am?"

Gender is the key to identity in our society, she said, and as a transsexual she cannot define herself in those terms.

"Do you really think it's important what gender you are?" she asked.

Bornstein criticized the 20th century as a time of unquestioning passivity and hostility between the sexes.

"This world hates women...one side hates the other like two bad notes, out of tune forever," she said. "You call yourself modern? Oh, that's so cute."

The performance artist portrayed a number of different transsexual characters in the show seeking to show the struggles that transsexuals face in today's society. "They said to me: if I wasn't a man and I wasn't a woman, I had to be one of these erotic playthings," she said. "Do you really want to change my mind?"

Bornstein also emphasized the importance of self-affirmation and self-definition in today's world.

"I am the person that I create...when the whole world said, 'No, you can't,' I said, 'Yes, I can,"' she said. "Do you know what it's like to be hunted down...just because you're different? Yes, you probably do."

Amidst all the ambiguity, Bornstein's character Maggie realizes in the end the value of community.

"We can keep each other company, because I think that's the deal," Bornstein added. "It's not a bad lesson after all."