I think, it would be better to part from Butler's perspective of a broad variety of genders. Between "male" and "female" (and beyond), there is a infinite variety of possibilities of how to live gender and sexuality. So, the victory of Wurst may be a sign of the breaking down of the old perspective.

Please note that the actor who developed the artifical personality "Conchita Wurst" is NOT considering himself as a transgender, but simply as a artist. Therefore he is not the right person to refer to when speaking of this predisposition, even though his performance definitely raised the broad perception of it.

Back to your question: Transgendered people are most correctly regarded as a natural but rare variant of the vast universe of biological variations. Apart from the obvious occurrence frequency they are no more different from "ordinary persons" than coloured people relative to white skinned ones. Just to clarify the frequency effect, habitants of classic central European countries may consider the attention a coloured person got in the mid of last century living in a rural European area, or vice versa the attention of a white skinned person living in rural central Africa.

Thank you Petra, you're right, I did not mean Thomas is transgender,he plays a "drag -queen" how we call it here, a  transgender/transvestite character. I also read his interviews about his own perception of his sexual preference. However , as you say, his performance and his "success" in being accepted as a show person raised all these questions and discussions in some circles. Therefore I wanted to bring it up here.

By the way, what I found interesting about Conchita ( I am talking about the bearded transvestite-like character again) is the fact that she leaves the beard on. Transsexual people , as far as I know want to look like women and want to get rid of everything masculine while  transvestites might  keep their manly-ness to a certain extent ! by just cross-dressing, Conchita character is depicting an "inbetween-ness" which make the whole appearance and expression unique.

@Leyla: As you mentioned "sexual preference" in your statement, please be aware of the fact that there is a broad misconception of the transgender nature. Transgenderism is dealing with the objective how the person is perceived by other people. Sexual preference, otoh, is concerned about the preference w/r/to a desired mating partner. These are intrinsically completely different aspects of human nature.

Back to Conchita, yes, it is a provocative character of art. I think it positively helped to raise a general awareness about role concepts, even though not intending to create a practicable role for real life conditions, as Philip Altmann stated already earlier. And it obviously stepped onto the toes of some simplistic die-hard eastern Europe leader minds who felt compelled to comment on it, only to show their own, very limited understanding of the variability of nature.

Thank you Petra, I would almost like to say Frau Dr, Rosen ! I could barely get used to calling people of titles and positions by their first name here in North America. However,  being a former "Austrian trained" actor and having had performed my self developed Trans Character in my former stage and TV shows, I was certainly interested in how academia sees the "third gender" especially the ones who are either seen or preferred to be "neither/nor" I appreciate your input and hope many more colleagues would follow.

@Leyla - Austrians are really hardcore when it comes to titles and positions. But over here in a traditional technical university town (Aachen) we very rarely use any of this, and in fact I almost perceive it as a nuisance to be called like this, especially if it is repeated. ;-)

With respect to a general academic perception I am somewhat biased (see my "About" box and reflect on it) and, as a thermodynamics professional, definitely not in the right place to judge. But at least with respect to the general Western European environment I would state that public perception has changed very positive and accepting. Public broadcasts that completely lost their sensationalistic touches over the years and highlighted typical everyday live of respective people instead have definitively helped on that road.

Hi Petra: I certainly looked at your about box and everything you wrote made so much more sense since. I wish I could come to Aachen, get to know you, refresh my Germany memories (also lived, married and gave birth to my child in Munster !). Who knows? :) All the best from Vancouver !

Hi Leyla, greetings from Aachen to Vancouver! :-) Should you visit/return to Germany some time I guess you would find a society that has changed its stuffiness by and by, and seems to be more open-minded, at least compared to the situation one or two decades ago. This is not meaning to say that every single member of it kept pace, and of course you will find a sincere share of more or less "traditional-minded" people. But alas, a society is always a grab bag of very different attitudes.

At least the public multiplicants of attitude seem reasonable enough over here not to display openly their narrow-mindedness - quite controversial to some (most?) of the exponents in Eastern Europe.

Cheers, Petra

From what I see, we are the third party that shouldn't be commenting about them. After all, everyone is trying hard to live with the way they feel comfortable with. Some religions prohibit the change of gender and etc, but still, after all, everyone has equal rights to live in this world and choose who they wanted to be as long as they don't commit criminal... 

HI Chang Lee Wei:

I don't think that we should be a party to comment or ask questions of anything related to the planet even universe in an academic setting. Can a man not as question about female behaviour and its effects on social system? I just wanted to know the psychological well as biological causes and consequences about being "neither nor" or either or". It was an academic query not a biased one. Thanks

@Leyla: Btw, as you just mentioned the question about 'biological causes': Presently there are two main theories that seem to be increasingly supported by respective research results: i) a hormone sweep in the pregnant mother during a certain phase of child-bearing, and ii) a certain biochemically caused lack of hormone docking points in at least the brain cells. Both potential causes are deemed to lead to a diverging development of the (gender-defining) brain structures and the rest of the (sex-defining) body.

Cheers, Petra

Woow, that explains a lot. I recently watched a documentary about the relation between homosexuality and multiple child production in families. It has been said that , families who might have homosexual members also have a tendency of producing more children, at least having the ability of it. I surely do not know the scientific relevance or accuracy about those findings but the presenter (implied to be gay himself) smilingly said that "although 'gay-ness' seems to be a condition which might jeopardize the production of human race and looks like an obstacle for that purpose, having many  fertile females in their families  makes up for the concern :)))

I would hope that we, as science-minded individuals, would have positive thoughts about people of all genders, and recognize their unique value to research. As a professional and a genderqueer individual, I would like to see recognition of nonbinary individuals in literature and research. For example, I hope that we can find ways to establish assessment norms for individuals who fall outside of the male-female binary.

> I would like to see recognition of nonbinary individuals in literature and research. For example, I hope that we can find ways to establish assessment norms for individuals who fall outside of the male-female binary.

I completely agree! As soon as a divergence from the 99+% general bipolar gender sex  parallelism occurs the individual will be somewhere in a multidimensional configuration space. The probability that it is somewhere even on the straight line between (traditional) "male" and "female" clusters is rather small, given the fact that there are lots of other possible configurations.

Dear Petra;

As I always say here, the more I observe the wildlife the more I understand human species.The clash between "natural" and "normal" also happens in the nature. I think we human species fall victim to our reptilian brain when showing aversion against so called"oddities". I see a huge parallelism between traditional human behaviour and the bees (for example) who beat a member of their hive to death when it accidentally ingests an alcohol-laden nectar, and come home "drunk"Upon researching a little and discussions here on RG, I found out that this "URINSTINKT" comes from a need for protection since species think any oddity would threaten the society/herd/flock/pack etc. Therefore it will probably take time to generate understanding for "not so common" sexual preference/being/behaviour , I am afraid. I wish other than you and me, even scholars from unrelated disciplines join our conversation.

I don't have any technical knowledge regarding this question. But I would like to share my opinion by analogy. Descriptivism and prescriptivism are two concepts in applied linguistics...

As far as language change is concerned, on the one hand, descriptivists believe that linguists should describe the language as it is and language change is an ongoing process and there is no need or use in stopping this process. On the other hand, prescriptivists equate language with identity, history as well as culture and are of the opinion that the job of the linguists is to do their best not to let the language go astray. 

To me, if humans welcome everything that occurs (as is the trend now...), future humans won't be humans as we know today!

If we are concerned about what humans were yesterday and are today we will probably stick with the second view. However, if we think there is no fixed definition for being a human and being a human means being in constant changes, then we will definitely opt for the first view.

Thank you !