Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: busy

Albania's Sworn Virgins

An article about "sworn virgins" popped up on the Broad Universe mailing list. I am fascinated to discover that there is still at least one culture which wholly supports the switching of gender roles. In this case, it's based on necessity: so many men have been killed in Albania that they are making surrogate men out of tomboyish women. In America, one can get a physical sex change ... but the social acceptance is fairly low. Many people think a female-to-male transsexual is still "really" a woman. It's the rustic part of Albania where one can be absolutely, totally accepted as a man by vowing to live as one.

It makes me wonder what life would be like for an actual transsexual there. (It sounds like most of them are not male souls born in female bodies, but rather, assertive women who choose to live as men so they can have more freedom.) She could just tell people "I'm going to become a Sworn Virgin and live as a man now," and do that, and everyone would support it. Problem solved? It would be interesting to explore.

Some other references to the sworn virgins:

http://www.jolique.com/gender/crossing_boundaries.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sworn_virgin

http://www.amazon.com/Women-Who-Become-Men-Albanian/dp/1859733409
Tags: gender studies, news
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  • 1 comment
haikujaguar

haikujaguar

September 16 2007, 06:16:15 UTC 13 years ago

...

Wow.