h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Count Sandor Vay - A Transgender Icon - A87816009
Author: SashaQ - "He changed into all manner of colours with delight" - U9936370

A biography of an interesting 19th Century character from Hungary

how interesting! Never come across him, before... I like the entry

I think it is worth saying at some point that current practice when describing trans-sexual people is to use the gender that the people choose to describe themselves. This would not have been the case in the 19th Century. Someone born a female would be called "she" and "her" no matter what they chose to call themselves.

I think you yourself use confusing gender terminology in this entry:

an extravagant womaniser who had actually been assigned female at birth -- Sandor was born physically female but was 'assigned' the gender of male, surely?

the child was officially registered under the name Sarolta, but was called Sandor instead -- without knowing whether Sarolta and Sandor are masculine or feminine names, it's hard to know what the significance of this is

his mother became pregnant again, and this time the child was officially a boy -- Sandor was officially a boy although actually a girl. I presume what you mean here is that the new baby was physically a boy.

I'm also confused by the fact that you state it as if the mother presented Sandor as a boy purely as a matter of covenience when the child was actually female, but later you say that tests show that it was not as clear-cut. Was the mother actually confused about the sex of the child?

Other issues:

He married several of his girlfriends -- was he a bigamist, or did he divorce them?

Thanks 2legs

Thanks Gnomon. Some of the terminology I used is standard in transgender studies, so I'm very familiar with it, so I shall read through and try to clarify those technical points.

When a child is born, doctors or midwives look at anatomy and assign a sex, but when the child is older, they have a concept of their gender. Puberty is an added complication - hormones may cause changes that either match or contradict the sex and/or gender.

Sandor was actually a boy (because he said so) but officially he had been registered as a girl.

Changes made I hope that's an improvement.

Sadly, even though it is recognised that it is a good thing to ask people how they describe themselves, it doesn't always happen in practice There was a very sad case recently of a person (called Sasha!) whose skirt was set on fire by a fellow school student - the newspaper I read didn't ask Sasha about appropriate pronouns but instead asked Sasha's mother, who knew Sasha had been assigned male at birth, and so referred to Sasha as 'he'. I read today (in a better article) that Sasha is recovering ok after the ordeal

hi

An interesting Entry. What I don't understand: how could the child be officially registered under a female name and the father didn't know about it? I mean, I see how it all worked if the child would have had a male name and only the midwife knew about the gender, but if the female name was registered the father must have found out?
And how did he react when he heard his wife lied to him?

The one comment I would have regarding this entry is that the final sentence might be a bit too long, and I think could benefit from being split.

At first glance it can be read as 'In particular, thanks to the struggles of Sandor Vay... there is still much work to be done' in other words, Sandor Vay delayed things.

I know what you mean, but a little tweak to end the article on a strong, clear point would be good. (I feel a bit of a hypocrite as I'm not any good at ending on strong clear points either – note to self, I must try to write better endings...)

<BB<

I agree. Not with Bluebottle being a hypocrite, but with his comment on your last sentence.

Thanks Bluebottle - good point about the last massive sentence. I have tweaked the last paragraph, so hopefully it reads better.

Thanks Tavaron - I have added in something about the father's potential reaction to the news and also clarified the paragraph about the official registration

I added a couple more links and have included a bit more detail in the final paragraph to hopefully clarify terminology just in case.

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Congratulations!

Well done!

Well done Sasha!

Thank you very much everyone!

Congratulations!