Man Who Had Two Sex Changes Says They Should Be Outlawed

By Anna North  |  November 8, 2010 | 7:45pm
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One man, two sex changes, about a million gender stereotypes — welcome, friends, to the prejudice-ridden world of millionaire Charles Kane.

The Daily Mail‘s Helen Weathers tells the story of Kane, 50, and his 28-year-old fiancee Victoria Emms. Kane was born Sam Hashimi, then “had a sex-change operation in 1987 to turn him into glamorous interior designer Samantha Kane.” In 2004, he decided to change back, becoming Charles. Somewhere along the line, he became a raging gender essentialist, and Weather’s profile reads like the syllabus for Gender Stereotypes 101. Let’s break it down:


1. Being a real woman means you love shopping.

Initially thrilled by his transformation, life as a woman quickly paled despite a jetset lifestyle in Monaco.
He hated the way female hormones made him moody and emotional. Shopping bored him and sex was a disappointment.

Is being bored with shopping really an important signal that your sex change isn’t working out? Did Kane volunteer this shopping tidbit, or did Weathers specifically ask how his new female genitalia affected his relationship with shoes? Unclear, but it gets worse:

2. Guys who have long hair and wear pink are weird.

This one is all Weathers:

Truth be told, they do look rather odd together. She looks even younger than her years, while Charles’s dyed blond hair is reminiscent of the style he sported as Samantha Kane.
Though he is wearing a beautifully cut suit, he has teamed it with a pair of dusky pink, suede moccasins.

3. “Men are from Mars and women are from Venus.”

Kane just comes out and says this:

Before, when I was Sam Hashimi, if a woman tried to talk to me about her emotions she may as well have been speaking to a Martian.
Men are from Mars and women are from Venus, and I’m in the unique position of having taken a very long trip to Venus before returning to Mars.

4. Being anorexic and being transgender are, like, the same.

So what kind of woman would want to marry a such man? A woman, it seems, with her own complicated body-image issues.
For it turns out that Victoria is a ‘recovering anorexic’. Both she and Charles believe their ‘mutual struggle with body form and image helped romance to blossom’.

If Kane and his fiancee feel like their histories make them a good fit, more power to them. But “what kind of woman would want to marry [sic] a such man?” Come on, Daily Fail!

5. Trans people don’t have sex.

Once again, Stereotype Point to Weathers:

One naturally assumes, given their separate body issues, that sex does not feature high on their list of ­priorities, but they both insist it does.

6. Being transgender is a “delusion,” and no one should have gender reassignment surgery.

Says Kane:

Based on my own experiences, I believe sex-change operations should not be allowed, and certainly not on the NHS.
People who think they are a woman trapped in a male body are, in my opinion, completely deluded. I certainly was. I needed counselling, not a sex-change operation.

Memo to Kane, Weathers, and everybody else, regardless of gender or medical history: when your statement starts with “based on my own experiences” and ends with a generalization about all people, you are doing it wrong.

A VERY Peculiar Engagement [Daily Mail]

Image via Daily Mail

 
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