11/13/2002: Transgender kickboxer

[MaggieL]

Originally posted by Undertoad
This is interesting to me because the aggression involved in such a sport seems to be very male in origin, very testosterone-based.

It's *extremely* common for transsexuals who are still struggling with their gender identity to immerse themselves in activities that are decidedly *not* crossgender in an attempt to force themselves to become the person everyone else expects them to be.

There are *scads* of male-to-female transsexuals who have military backgrounds, for example. (I myself have been on active duty with the U.S. Navy in aviation antisubmarine warfare, and earlier was briefly in a US Army ROTC Ranger unit duing my don't-blink-or-you'll-miss-it college career).

Many martial arts are very gender-neutral; aikido comes to mind. But a percussive art like kick-boxing is rather a different thing.

Be that as it may, asian culture is loaded with transgender themes connected with martial arts, all the way from Brigitte Lin Ching-Hsia's role as "Asia the Invincible" in the Hong Kong film "Swordsman" trilogy to the more modern Ranma Nibo-no-ichi of anime fame.