This is mostly a blogular mash note to Holly, who has complained about the political limitations and cultural saturation of the trans metaphor–I mean, memoir–before, as well as about Jennifer Finney Boylan in particular:
http://www.bookslut.com/features/2006_11_010194.php
But it’s also beause Heather Smith writes throwaway lines like, “America was fascinated — at the time, the cultural zeitgeist approved of nothing more than it approved of technological innovation and women who looked like Joan Crawford.”
Due to constraints of conceit, Smith doesn’t bother looking inside the books, but I think that she makes some valid points about how transsexual (and transgender) memoirs have at least been packaged. These covers present a familiar set of tropes: tabloid, clinical, folksy, gently funny, edgy. Other memoirs and part-memoirs–Gender Outlaw, for example–have been wrapped up the same way. Gender Outlaw is full of Kate’s humor and insight and is also a studied attempt to avoid the memoir format. The outside looks a little bit like Max Wolf Valerio’s cover, with the blurred black-and-white photograph of the figure in a challenging pose, largely obscured by the title in a typeface like an official stamp.
I have noted these complaints about the memoir format:
1) Know your audience. A trans memoir has to start at 101: “WTF is “transgender?” or more recently, “No, that’s not what ‘transgender’ means.” This can be extremely limiting, especially when the author in question would like to get to upper-level discussions like, “Where are the intersections between ‘transgender’ and ‘transsexual?” and, “Is it proper to call it male privilege if it was accorded to me in queer space as a masculine-presenting woman?” and, “How does my status as a person of color complicate the dimensions of male privilege post-transition?” and, “How does my family’s attitude towards fatherhood and/or childbearing affect my perspective on parenthood?” and, “At what point can one become ‘post-transition?’” and, “How do I and my partner reconcile my partner’s straight (or gay or lesbian or queer or bisexual) identity with my current status?” and, “Nu, what now?”
2) It’s a story, so it’s gotta have a beginning and an end. This isn’t an altogether unfair expectation on the part of the audience, particularly if you’re trying to write a memoir. However, the audience also often demands a particular beginning and end: the first stirrings in early childhood of the unshakeable belief that one is a man or a woman, and SRS, respectively. Sometimes the beginning is the first agonized confession of the unshakeable belief. These are quite common narrative points in real life–lots of transsexuals get surgery and might or might not consider it a culmination, and lots of them notice these feelings for some time. It’s still not universal. There’s also the problem of associating the unshakeable belief with validity, “the surgery” with completion, and the coming-out–which usually happens after a long period of internal discussion–with the start of the journey.
Either (3) or (2a): There’s also the problem of the linear format. While this works quite well for some people, it can be difficult to communicate trans-gendered histories and memories. The linear format might work better for me when time gives me a better sense of the curve, but it’s dismaying right now.
3) They only want (to know) one thing. The audience for a memoir has a more just expectation of personal details than, say, the guy at the office brunch buffet, I think. And again, lots of transition stories do contain surgery. But this focus on medical treatments and genitalia is objectifying and reductive.
(I had a fun post-transsexual experience some months ago. I read a piece about regret at a queer spoken-word event, and afterwards this peripheral acquaintance came up to me and asked me all about my re-transition. When did I realize? Did I need to take hormones? What would they do? What did the doctors say? Had I had any surgery? Would I need any more surgery? Oh, and by the way, I looked great.)
4) Selection bias. The people often asked to tell their stories–no offense to them–are not exactly representative. This is standard. Spokespeople for any marginalized group tend to be drawn from its least marginalized subset. On the other hand, we tend to be most ready to sensationalize people we consider least human. Specific circumstances mean specific needs, and so the portrait of the political views and goals of transpeople gets warped. It also means that intersections often go unmarked.
So, assuming it will remain true that, “trans people are subjected to so many questions that it just gets simpler to write a book about it and tell your friends to read it,” and assuming that most transsexual and transgendered stories will contain transsexual and transgendered lives, how do you break out of the memoir format? What else would everyone like to see?
Speaking only as me, I want to see an awareness of internal contradiction, conflict, uncertainty, ambiguity and the like if/where they exist. I know that it may be dangerous in the eyes of some to expose these issues to external eyes that are quite possibly looking for any excuse to dismiss all trans experience based on the very human concerns and doubts of any members, but that only serves in relation to outside the trans group, and then only sometimes. I guess what I’m looking for is a book written for the “in” community, rather than a justification to the external community, and most of the time, I think that’s what I think memoir serves as.
Well, there are folks breaking out of this format, just not so many, and not with the big publishers with the big marketing bugets (like Random House, which published Boylan). I’m thinking Ivan Coyote’s brilliant short story collections, Alicia Goranson’s novel Supervillainz, and of course Julia Serano’s amazing treatise Whipping Girl.
What all those books have in common is that they transcend the coming out narrative. I think that’s what’s necessary at this moment in trans lit. If you look at gay/lesbian lit as an example (and I’m leaving out the B and T on purpose here), you’ll see it went through a period where just the act of coming out was enough to drive a whole story. It hardly is anymore. Gay lit went through a phase where you came out, and then you died or met some awful end, then a phase where you came out, and it was OK/good, and then it got diverse and interesting.
Trans lit is a younger genre b/c the movement is younger. So we’re now in the phase two: you “transition” (in a very socially prescribed way), and it’s OK! Good, even! And that’s the whole story!
Except it isn’t hardly, of course. We need stories, both real and fictional, that feature trans characters leading messy and interesting lives. Where the fact of their trans-ness interacts with other ideas and plot points, but it’s not the WHOLE story — and certainly isn’t the WHOLE conflict. And trans lit is trying to come of age in a time when there are almost no commercial feminist indy presses left (hi, Seal Press! Thanks for keeping on!), and publishing in general is a lot less friendly to queer stories or even new genres or new ideas. So it’s going to be harder. We’re going to have to find new and different ways of not only telling out stories, but of distributing them to each other and to a mass audience. But it’s starting to happen. That’s the good news.
Serano’s on my reading list for the weekend, but I’ve not heard of the other two; I’ll add them to my list.
I can remember some of the gay coming out lit, and it frustrated me then as much as the trans memoir lit does today. I guess I’m reluctant to buy the progressivism argument, since I can remember reading trans narratives/memoirs for 20+ years, to the point that I could probably outline most of them in my sleep. I’d like to believe that things are changing, but damn, it’s slow, and I’m impatient. I do believe people being themselves is radical, but not if they’re all themselves according to a one size fits all script.
My primary care doctor is trans, and I’m really glad she has been open with her patients about transitioning (rather than leaving town and starting a new practice where nobody knew anything about her past.) The Boston Globe has a long interview with her in last Sunday’s magazine, and I’m remarkably uncomfortable with it…I feel like she approached transgender issues in a very clumsy way. I’m torn between resenting that this is the best public face of gender transition a lot of people see, because she seems pretty clueless about gender and sexuality issues. But at the same time I’m glad the Globe is covering it at all, and that the interviewer is focusing on “this was a good doctor whose patients liked him, and they’re startled but ok with the change” more than “oooo! lookit the freak!” http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2007/08/12/family_doctors_journey_full_story/
the article adrian links to is quite typical. personally, i’m finding these kinds of reports more and more offensive, with this one in particular, a perfect example. it leaves us in suspense, waiting until next week for the big reveal, when we’ll finally be able to see roy as a woman, after the magical transformation.
don’t get me wrong – any coverage of trans people outside the context of them being criminals, sex workers, or mentally ili is probably a good thing. and at the very least, perhaps gives hope to some, and positive reinforcement to others. but i can’t shake the feeling that these reports are nothing more than “look at the freak” sensationalism.
Apologies for my ignorance, but what is the difference between transgendered and transsexual?
you’ll find a lot of discussion and disagreement on this topic, and opinions of the definitions vary to quite a degree. i identify myself as a transsexual woman because i’ve legally changed my sex designation on my legal identification papers, and have had surgical and hormonal treatments to physically change my external appearance. i’d also say that i’m transgender (there’s more discussion and disagreement as to whether the proper term is “transgender” or “transgendered”).
i would say that someone is transgender when they cross over or live outside traditional stereotypical genders *and* they identify themselves as transgender. i know many people who do not adhere to stereotypical gender identifications, who are definately not transgender, because they say so.
each of these terms have specific meanings imposed by the society in which we live. many individuals who may or may not be trans, do not agree with these stereotypical meanings. i often use the term “trans”, in an effort to eliminate the distinction between the two terms.
i’d further say that a trans person is someone whose gender is not universally considered valid, courtesy of Tobi Hill-Meyer.
Thanks nexyjo.
Yeah, whats nexy said. Transsexual specifically implies a relationship to medical treatments, transgendered doesn’t..
Just to muddy things up further, transgendered is also sometimes used as an umbrella term for transsexuals, cross-dressers, drag kings and queens, genderqueers and anyone else who doesn’t fit normative ideas of gender.
Some transsexual people object to being labelled transgendered, so trans* is sometimes used to signify transgendered and transsexual.
@nexyjo in 7:
If you don’t mind, why do you try to eliminate the distinction between transsexual and trandgendered? All too often I find myself fighting to differentiate the two, mostly because I get tired of people assuming that I want or need to change my genitals to place myself on either end of the gender binary when my ultimate goal is to step off the line all together. I’m genuinely curious as to the value of nondifferentiation, at least your take on it.
because i know transsexual people who do not engage in medical alterations of their body, and transgender people who do. i know crossdressers who go on to medically transition, and transsexuals who don’t. i don’t believe there is a clear line between the two.
Goodness, I’m going the muddy the waters wrt to the terms transgender, transsexual, and trans.
I’ll tackle the word trans first… it’s simply a label of convenience for a very messy
and non-coherent grouping of people.
Transsexual is pretty easy, however there’s dispute among people that see it as
a label for an identity and those that consider it a label for a medical condition.
Most would agree that it encompasses a group of people that are seeking or have
sought a change in sex assignment. I believe it should be noted that for the vast
majority of people in the world, sex assignment is based on a cursory examination
of a persons genitals. Those that see it as a medical condition believe in medical
amelioration of that condition (hormonal and surgical interventions). Personally
I don’t understand those that see being transsexual as an identity.
Transgender has been floated as an umbrella term and as such it is necessary
to use “birth assigned sex” as a constant in it’s definition. In societies where “birth assigned sex” is the basis for a whole set of social assumptions about
individuals (the ways they should gender their lives), transgender becomes an
identifier for the many ways individuals violate those assumptions.
Many transsexuals or those with a transsexual history (people that are post medical interventions) do not see themselves as transgender simply because
they live their lives gendering in a way that is consistent with expectations for
their currently assigned sex. Many people that do transgender (specifically
gays and lesbians) do not identify as such simply because they don’t understand that sexuality is one of the social assumptions made for people
based on their sex assignment. It should be noted that gendered social assumptions change from era to era and society to society. That variability
leads some of us to question the whole concept of an innate “gender identity”.