(Per a request from tigtog, I’m gonna tag all such posts in the LGBTQ category. If I forget to do so, tigtog or anyone else please feel free to let me know in comments.)
I hate talking about the infighting that goes on within the trans community SAII. There are a few reasons for this. First of all, naming these factions implies that they are distinct in any reliable sense, which is not true. It also implies that these political affiliations break down in ways that are neither counterintuitive nor counterproductive, which definitely isn’t true. It usually involves defining a bazillion terms before I can even start talking about the people who claim them. It can also imply various things about my position in these fights. Finally, the clannish tranny in me doesn’t particularly enjoy airing our squabbles out loud. For purposes of this discussion, I am going to ignore all of those problems, and talk about two basic and major distinctions that are actually complicated in any number of ways.
The origin myth of transsexual vs. transgender goes like this:
First there were the people who would come to be known as transsexuals. They were convinced that they were meant to live in a gender different from the assigned one (they didn’t use those words yet), and they demanded that their doctors help them do so.
After several decades of haranguing and some pointed suicides, some medical professionals finally decided to create some sort of standard of care for transsexuals that didn’t involve laughing them out of the waiting room. They decided that there had to be some hoops to jump through, because you couldn’t have just anyone remodeling their genitalia; they had to be the right sort of freaks. In fact, the doctors came up with a revolutionary idea: they would no longer be freaks. The doctors would accomplish nothing short of a miracle: they would make a human being completely normal.
There were all sorts of laws and bylaws imposed on the former-freaks in the service of the de-freaking project. You couldn’t be gay, for example–that was a big one. I mean, why bother changing sex if you’re gonna fuck up so badly in the new one? Your ideas about masculinity/femininity and womanhood/manhood had to track those of your doctor very closely. You couldn’t personalize your post-transition body. Personal patient comfort was only a macro factor for these doctors; the details of transsexuals’ desires were ignored. They also decided that there had to be a way of psychologically and emotionally negotiating one’s transition that would cause the least harm to everyone involved (the rest of the world in particular). Unfortunately, they chose a strategy best suited to driving people insane.
The transsexuals put up with this, largely because they had no choice. You went with the program or you were denied treatment. They learned to lie to these stupid doctors (consequently gaining a reputation for mendacity, immaturity, and instability), and they learned to give each other the information, care, and assistance that they were not receiving from their physicians. The latter tradition continues to this day.
But the transsexuals were wroth, because they were tired of being treated like children, and they were tired of being forced into a clinical model that made no sense. So, to the extent they were able, they complained and complained and complained and complained and complained. Over far too much time, the treatment model began to open up. By the first Bush administration, you could transition to female and make it known to your doctor that you went down on other women. In most places, anyway. The current official standard of care is a striking contrast to the initial one, and transsexuals are actually included in discussions about its criteria.
Most recently, there has been a new model of treatment: informed consent. As long as you know the risks of hormones, and are willing to be monitored for health problems, you can start taking them. You do not have to believe yourself to be one gender or the other. You do not have to feel horribly discontent with your body. You do not have to want surgery. You do not have to pass. You do not have to want to pass. You do not have to be attracted to certain people, or relate sexually to them in any particular way. All you have to want is the changes the hormones will cause. The rest is completely up to you.
While all of this was happening, a hierarchy–it would be better described as several sister hierarchies–came into being. There’s no single culprit, nor any single motive for them. They dovetail very neatly with the gender-clinic model of transsexuality. In Gender Outlaw, published way back in 1994, Kate Bornstein described the version she was best acquainted with like this:
Post-operative transsexuals (those transsexuals who’ve had genital surgery and live fully in the role of another gender) look down on:
Pre-operative transsexuals (those who’re living full or part-time in another gender, but who’ve not yet had their genital surgery) who in turn look down on:
Transgenders (people living in another gender identity, but who have little or no intention of having genital surgery) who can’t abide:
She-males (a she-male friend of mine described herself as “tits, big hair, lots of make-up, and a dick.”) who snub the:
Drag Queens (gay men who on occasion dress in varying parodies of women) who laugh about the:
Out Transvestites (usually heterosexual men who dress as they think women dress, and who are out in the open about doing that) who pity the:
Closet Cases (transvestites who hide their cross-dressing) who mock the post-op transsexuals.
(Bear in mind that this is not a current lexicon, and probably not to be used when figuring out how to describe us.)
Do you see how it breaks down (until the worm swallows its tail, anyway)? The most straightforward identity, the most straightforward bodily affiliation wins.
While all of these incredible changes were taking place, “queer” and “queer theory” were getting started (first there were the perverts, and then there were the inverts…). Coalition politics met postmodernism, and had a greedy little baby. Inclusivity was in, and sectarian violence was supposedly declasse. Thus arose “transgender,” and “genderqueer,” terms which wanted to swallow transsexuals whole. Apparently, every single one of us was a gay, even the straight people! Especially the transpeople! I mean, talk about freaks!
So, remember in the first paragraphs, when we discussed what happens when a theory is created by outsiders and applied to people without their consent? Well. The transsexuals were not any more pleased about being lumped altogether into “queer” than they had been about being shoved into “straight.” Some transsexuals loved the idea; some were lukewarm; some were vituperatively anti-queer(s); some wanted to be left alone. Some transsexuals have found more fertile ground in queer theory and “transgressing all over gender” than anywhere else–Kate Bornstein, for example, and Riki Wilchins. Some would like it to get its hand out of their pants–Jamison Green and Max Wolf Valerio (more later), for example.
There’s also the issue of the other hierarchy, which is based on…we’ll call it homonormativity. Queer theory can privilege queerness in a very disturbing way. If taken far enough, it can violate the sensibilities of transfolks–and, indeed, lose the very reason we transition. The hierarchy breaks down in the opposite way: the least straightforward identity, the least straightforward bodily affiliation wins. Transsexual lives become a medium for revolutionary performance art rather than the province of the transsexuals themselves.
So the transsexuals call the genderqueers/transgenders lightweight losers, and the genderqueers/transgenders deride the transsexuals for being sell-outs. We all call each other cowards. We both seem to believe that the other is more palatable to the mainstream.
This is the context in which I read Max Valerio’s decision to reclaim “transsexual.”
That is why, while I empathize, I’m a little leery. I don’t think I can agree with the idea that “transgender,” or any of the non-transsexual people it describes, are more palatable to polite company. Valerio makes this excellent point:
Anne Ogborn, one of my favorite transsexual woman pioneers, pointed out to me that people are never really sure if we transsexuals are flaming radicals and revolutionaries or complete reactionaries. There is an essential and defiant tension in our decision to change our biological sex that defies casual pigeonholing. Are we buying into the binary gender system, or transforming the rules altogether by proving that the exact biology of one’s birth is not one’s ultimate destination or destiny? Take your pick.
I would argue that this is equally true of other people whose identities are commonly lumped together in “transgender.” It is equally provocative, I think, to refuse a gender in this context as it is to claim one.
You cannot reclaim a hierarchy in the service of a revolution. This is true no matter what direction you want to refocus it in. It will always cut across lives. It will always demean some people and set others up for reasons that have nothing to do with their own. Max Valerio did not transition because he wanted to bear a “fleshy badge of resistance” on his body, as darkdaughta put it. He became a man because he was one. His genderfucker inlaw didn’t opt out of transition because ze wanted to transgress all over gender. Ze decided not to become a man because ze wasn’t one.
I have a small request, re formatting. When you have a long post like this, could you put a more tag in there somewhere? Thanks.
Sure. Sorry.
Do (some/many/any) transsexuals really think transgender folks are more accepted? I must be way behind on my reading, but my mind just kind of boggles at that… My impression was always that transsexuals were afraid that transgendered folks would “give them away” or draw undue attention (though that’s based on personal contact, not anything even remotely resembling a proper sampling).
But, obviously, I could be blinded by my own perspective.
a very interesting read… i’m coming at this from the “B” part of GBLTQ, and we’ve got our own history of being thrown under the bus in the name of revolutionary politics. yet it seems to me that there is broader consensus on wanting to be recognized as a part of Queerdom than i see as i read your piece.
which makes things interesting for me…i’d like queer to be a broad label, that recognizes the multiple ways in which people find their sex, gender, and presentation conflicted, opposed, and marginalized…but this is a reminder to be very careful about the difference of opening a defintion by invitation, and doing so by assignment.
I agree that that’s there too. And on a related note, some transsexuals might feel that an alliance with transgendered people might force them to identify as trans- rather than -men or -women.
I think that there are specific privileges that attach to not having a transitioned body. It would be really stupid to argue that those privileges outweigh the privilege that attaches to passing or movement away from gendervariance, but they are there. People who are transitioning are losing those privileges, so they’re probably pretty immediate, so they might be inclined to ignore other aspects of the tradeoff. They may also have difficulty understanding that they pass; sometimes there’s a lag. I don’t agree with that mindset, but I can empathize.
Thank you for your comments Piny, as always they are stimulating. You said many interesting comments and I appreciate your thoughts.
The text is, however, in some instances — being misread.
I think the fundamental issue here is that I am not reclaiming a hierarchy, or even, stating that transgenders have it “better” than transsexuals. Possibly, the problem is that so many people have been trained to think in terms of someone reinforcing hierarchies or not, or talking endlessly about who is more privileged than who. The text (of the article) is not actually saying either thing.
I am referring instead to language, and the fact that the word, “transgender”, for me, had no “edge” and feels like a substitution word. A “nice” word. Something like calling my lover or girlfriend my “partner”. (I had discussed my dislike of the term “SOFFA” early in the piece). Now, transgender has become a word that applies to many expressions of gender transgression, including the act of medically changing one’s birth sex. I am not saying that people who are genderqueer have it easier or harder in the real world, but I am saying that using the word “transgender” to describe “transsexual” is erasing our (transsexual’s) identity and unique history and path. It is fine, in some sense, as an umbrella term, for utilitarian purposes such as policy making in Washington DC (transgender equality) , but not as a substitution.
In fact, even in that sense it can be problematic as our needs may in fact be at odds with or different from, those of genderqueer type people. Each thing needs to be discussed on a case-by-case basis.
I also prefer the phrase, “sex change” to the term “transition”, although I use both. I prefer the older term for similar reasons. I like edgy language, and evocative language. I also dislike words like “differently able” or “temporarily able”. I prefer “blind” or “paralyzed”. Maybe it’s just my poet’s ear, but they sound clunky and “polite” and I like words that are more raw and descriptive. Frankly, they have that essence of middle-class propriety, and I have always disliked that. BTW – there are disabled people who would agree with me.
I am reclaiming the word “transsexual” because it is “our” word and “transgender” appears to erase our unique experience. Also, in many respects, it places transsexuals together with a group of people that we may not actually have anything in common with. I have asked myself what my life as a transsexual heterosexual man has in common with the life of a genderqueer butch dyke, and frankly — I sometimes think – nothing. Sometimes, in a room filled with gender-bending dykes, I feel like I have next to nothing in common with them.
The assumption is that we have a great deal in common.
I prefer not to think of these distinctions as part of a hierarchy, although they certainly can be perceived in that way – however, I don’t ascribe to that. I think of the “gender continuum” as less of a straight line and more of a spiral with many dimensions and interlocking matrices. I have spoken about this in other articles published back in the mid-nineties. I see this “continuum” as a spiral that moves and has depth, not again, a static line or hierarchy. It can be traveling on its side, or upside down through the space that is our collective imagination.
I do believe that changing sex is a radical act. And, although I am not anywhere stating that gender ambiguous people are more acceptable to the greater society, or lead easier lives — I will state that people are very receptive to the idea of me being “part man and part woman” and have a very, very difficult time accepting that I could actually be – man – period. Once they find out I am transsexual, they are always looking for signs of gender ambiguity, and I find this interesting. If I was to state, “I am not a man, but I am a man-woman hybrid “– these same people would feel comforted and vindicated. That doesn’t mean they would treat me better of course, but it would vindicate their deeply held belief that man does not become woman, and woman does not become man.
This doesn’t mean, again, that gender ambiguous people are privileged in some way – only that their reality seems to be the more common interpretation of my own. In other words, people seem to want to believe I am a super-butch dyke who is uncommonly mannish instead of a man. This would not be problematic except that I am not. Of course, most people, due to what I look and sound like, do in fact see me as a man in my everyday life – it is only when I come out as being transsexual that the argument begins.
So, for whatever reason, changing sex is a very difficult idea for people to wrap their minds around. They are very resistant.
I state:
I have no argument or grievance with anyone transgressing any boundary — in fact, I celebrate it. There’s nothing I like better than chaos and subversion. However, my very distinct experience as a transsexual person who has undergone a biological transformation in order to live as the sex opposite to the one I was born with is in danger of being unheard. If transsexual and transgender become completely equivalent, then subsequently, my identity becomes equivalent to the that of this newly declared transgendered genetic nontranssexual femme or the boy-identified lesbian wearing a suit coat. We may or may not have things in common — but these people cannot speak for me.
This is the important part, they cannot speak for me, and often, I find they try to. Because my life project does not appear to be “gender transgression” I am considered to be buying into the binary. I think most transsexuals have heard this.
Also, you state: “He became a man because he was one. His genderfucker inlaw didn’t opt out of transition because ze wanted to transgress all over gender. Ze decided not to become a man because ze wasn’t one.”
I have to disagree and say that *some * people do appear, by their own accounting, to want to “transgress all over gender”. This is what they tell me. This gender transgressing, does appear to be, with some individuals, a life project. In my life, I’ve wanted to transgress all over many things, and have enjoyed it. So, I have no argument with that impulse. It is also true I’m sure, that many people are simply gender transgressive and non-conforming, and don’t see it as a “life project” but as who they authentically are. Both personal mythologies can be true simultaneously. One does not necessarily cancel out the other. However, again, I have met people who have told me that they wish to transgress the “gender binary” and see this as their life mission. More power to them, but it isn’t why I changed my sex.
Also, I don’t actually think that most of these people are transsexuals who for whatever reason don’t transition, I think they are what they say they are. And, I have no interest in convincing anyone to transition.
I don’t generally play the “who is more privileged or more oppressed” mind game. It is very difficult to quantify oppression. Also, frankly, I don’t sit around thinking about myself as being “oppressed” very often, in fact, I prefer not to dwell on this idea, even though, it is certainly true that I am . However, generally I don’t find this idea useful, and I prefer to view my life not as the life of an oppressed person, but as the charmed and other-wordly existence of a uniquely lucky person who has a great deal to be thankful for. So, again, I am not making a comment about who is more privileged, but about precision and the flavor of language as it describes a complex subject – transsexuality. I am talking more about erasure and what feels like the “toning down” of my identity – by lumping it in with other people who I may not always have a lot in common with.
I also don’t believe that I represent the penultimate in any hierarchy. Certainly, not a hierarchy I don’t subscribe to. These identities are not better or worse, or more privileged or not, they are simply – distinct.
Thanks again for your thoughts Piny! I do appreciate them. And, BTW folks, my memoir – The Testosterone Files tackles some of these issues and others as well. Thank you all.