The first thing that struck me in Marjorie Garber's “Spare Parts” was the section entitled “The Absolute Insignia of Maleness” In it she explores Dr. Robert Stoller's proclamation that the penis is the insignia of maleness. While I had never thought of it in this way it must be though of as such. It is the only external part that is truly unique. It is a sixth appendage. (two arms, one head, two legs, one genitalia complex) I believe I have seen it stated that everyone starts out in the womb with a female configuration. (Assuming you exclude the X and Y chromosomes) What this means to the male body that the penis and the testes are an add on to the body sort of a tag on. This could have been interpreted in two ways as our species was evolving and becoming aware of itself. It could have taken on the connotation “that males have something extra that must be hidden and shame should felt about it.” In our evolution the opposite occurred, the connotation “that males have something extra that must mean males are superior to females because of the extra package.” This form of thinking has led us to consider the penis to be the insignia of maleness.
In the section entitled “`A Real One'” Garber describes Female-to-Male transsexuals. I must note that while reading a passage where she describes that one patient's penis fell off I was uproarious in laughter. I don't really remember what I found so funny while I was reading that but in hindsight it is just a weird fact. I do feel sorry for the pain a suffering that the patient had to have gone through. Losing the only maleness that he had obtained must have been a traumatic affair.
Both of the above paragraphs assume that to be male is to have a penis. This phallocentric society values the penis as maleness. But as many transvestites point out it only requires the clothed look of a man, and in some cases even a transvestite has had intercourse with a female, who thought she became pregnant. Maleness is not dependent on the penis despite the societal belief that it is a requirement to be perceived as a male.