Critiquing Genderqueer Transsexualphobia
Jasper of jasperswardrobe has written a post titled “Critiquing Brain Sex Activism (i.e. woman’s brain in a man’s body)”. I was mostly fine with commenting on that post, but now that it’s been linked on Feministe, and since Jasper is extremely selective about approving comments criticizing hir post, and fairly strict about the tone ze allows on hir blog, I’m taking my response here.
Jasper has several points ze wants to make about so-called “brain sex activists”:
- The Gender Binary is real and biologically based
- Everyone has a Male or Female physical sex
- Everyone has a Male or Female biological, neurological sex (ie Brain Sex)
- Confusingly, Gender Identity is used as a synonym for Biological Brain Sex (ie Gender Identity is biological)
- Brain Sex develops in the womb
- All people fall into one of four categories: M-in-F (Male brain in Female body), M-in-M, F-in-F or F-in-M
- F-in-M and M-in-F are called transexuals. M-in-M and F-in-F are called cisexuals.
- There is a clear biological distinction between Cisexual/Transexual. (ie. cisexual is not a ambiguous concept but something in your dna, and anyone who is not transexual (gender non conformists) are cisexual)
- The term cis privilege is used to silence all critiques of brain sex activism. (This leads to the paradox that only brain sex activists are allowed to have an opinion about brain sex activism)
- Transexuality is a biological syndrome which can be treated with hormones and surgery
- “True” transexuals have their condition treated.
- Gender nonconformists are trendy, attention seeking cissexuals. (see attacks on subversivism)
Since ze includes Questioning Transphobia as a haven for “brain sex activists” in one of hir videos, I can’t help but think that some of this is aimed at my blog.
The first is interesting – I get the impression that Jasper’s saying that the gender binary isn’t real and biologically based, which is I think a simplistic statement. The gender binary is real, it’s a system of oppression that prescribes specific roles for people based on whether they’re assigned male or female at birth, and demands that everyone be assigned male or female at birth, and is really negative about the idea that anyone can change their assignment or not place themselves in one of those exactly two socially sanctioned boxes. It is biologically based because it is based on what bodies look like, and this is another aspect of the system of oppression in terms of assigning people to one box or the other at birth. Just because something is a social construct does not make it imaginary, even if it is false.
The second isn’t true. It’s more accurate to say that nearly everyone has an assigned male or female sex. This is something that is done to nearly everyone born in the global north. You’re born, and the first thing that gets said is “it’s a boy” or “it’s a girl.” There you go, a significant part of your life already defined for you right as you’re taking your first breath.
The third isn’t true. While I am inclined to believe that there’s a possibility of people being neurologically wired to be male or female or neither or both or other possibilities, I can’t say it for sure, and I certainly would not say that everyone is wired to be male or female.
The fourth is not true, but that’s because Jasper’s collapsing two separate concepts into a single concept – I think it’s important to distinguish between gender identity (man, woman, other genders), sex (whether assigned or reassigned as male, female, neutrois, or other possibilities, whether born with an intersex condition), and the sex your brain expects your body to be. Now, Jasper will no doubt, at this point, insist that this is reductionist dogma and attempt to shoot it down, but there aren’t really a lot of ways to describe the sense of what shape your body should be vs. what shape your body is. Jasper doesn’t seem to want trans people to talk about our bodies this way, but we have to be able to talk about our bodies this way because we have to be able to distinguish between someone whose gender identity does not match with hir sex assigned at birth who doesn’t want to transition, and someone whose gender identity does not match with hir sex assigned at birth who does want to transition.
It’s also problematic for Jasper to talk about how transsexual people feel and how we relate to our bodies or minds. Obviously, ze’s not transsexual hirself, so it’s not really hir place to police or deconstruct how trans people talk about our own bodies.
The fifth is not established either way. It’s a matter of doctrine and rhetoric. There are many, mostly cisgender or cissexual people, who theorize about gender identity and how it’s formed. Quite a few of these cis people conclude that gender is a social construct, and a subset of those people further conclude that transsexual people are a bunch of big liars because we didn’t socialize as the gender we were assigned. I’ll honestly say right here that I don’t know if gender identity starts in utero. What I do know is that people have a wide variety of gender identities, and that people whose gender identities do not strictly conform to their sex assigned at birth are not respected, and that what gender means – men are masculine and women are feminine is definitely a social construct – these are expectations imposed on us by other people, and frequently even ourselves.
The sixth simply isn’t true here, and it’s such an insultingly simplistic analysis of how the diverse array of transsexual people view sex and gender. I’ve frequently encountered a particular prejudice about transsexual people, and it goes back to the Transsexual Empire – the idea is that we’re somehow unsophisticated and ignorant about gender, and don’t realize basic stuff like “You can be a feminine man or a masculine woman” or even “Your gender can be anything and you don’t have to change your body,” and this assertion feels that way to me – that we’re just incapable of thinking outside the box. A box that is, I might add, largely defined by cissexist society.
The seventh is… well, to be honest, no, I think Jasper gets this one completely wrong. People who seek to transition, are transitioning, or have transitioned, are transsexual. People who do not want to transition, have not transitioned, and will not transition, are cissexual. Cissexual and transsexual are about privilege and life experiences, and are about how society treats your body. The point of a word like “cissexual” is that it is an instinctive privileged move to consider the privileged body the unmarked default and the marginalized body as the marked other. The point of “cissexual” is to mark the non-transitioning body as equal to the transitioning or transitioned body.
The eighth is wrong. There is a distinction (and not always a clear distinction) between a cissexual and transsexual body, but it’s not in your DNA, although cis people will frequently and obnoxiously invoke DNA to delegitimize transsexual bodies. I’m sure we’ve all heard someone going on about how trans women have XY chromosomes and this marks us as male forever and ever.
The ninth is a derailing tactic. Jasper’s dismissing all attempts to analyze and critique the fact that cissexist society favors bodies that don’t transition over bodies that do as an attempt to silence criticism of “brain sex activism.” A lot of genderqueer people do, in fact, benefit from cissexual privilege, and they interrogate and attack transsexual lives and experiences from that position of cissexual privilege. It is difficult for me to have a dialogue with people who don’t transition who are intent on describing transsexual people as having a false consciousness. The additional comment about how only transsexual people are allowed to have an opinion about “brain sex activism.” Since Jasper seems to be broadly painting any trans person who identifies hirself in the binary as being a “brain sex activist,” I’m having trouble not seeing this as a complaint that only transsexual people are allowed to talk about how we relate to our own bodies. Of course, this isn’t true. Cissexual people constantly pontificate on the perceived flaws and errors in transsexual bodies as well as how we relate to our own bodies incorrectly. Transsexual people haven’t been able to prevent this for the 60 years since Christine Jorgensen was in the news, how likely is it that we’re going to be able to do it now?
I would like to say that it’s incredibly privileged for cissexual people to insert themselves into conversations about trans people’s lives and bodies, and how we relate to our own bodies – to tell us that we’re wrongly relating to our bodies, to claim that our life experiences that we live on a daily basis is harmful to someone else’s politics (whether it’s radical feminist or genderqueer). This is a silencing tactic – it’s an attempt to rob us of the ability to explain ourselves – or to limit us to explaining ourselves in ways that the privileged majority find acceptable. We’re never supposed to say “a woman’s brain in a man’s body” even when a lot of transsexual people have no better way to formulate how they experience their own bodies, who haven’t taken gender studies tests or read Judith Butler or any other theorists. And I say this as a trans woman who does not believe I ever had a “man’s body” and that I think the concept of “woman’s brain” as it’s used here doesn’t make sense. But there was a time when it was one of the best explanations I had. If I’d been shouted down for saying such essentialist things at…16 years…I’m sure that <em>totally</em> would’ve helped my ability to come out to anyone at all later that year and start transitioning the month I turned 18.
The tenth is really disturbing to me. Jasper says that being transsexual can be treated with hormones and surgery. I’m trying to figure out what ze finds objectionable about this – is it the idea that it’s “treatment,” that it has a biological cause (an objection ze’s already made clear)? Which is it? I have to say that I’m quite happy with the trans-related medical treatment I’ve had, and I don’t really like the alternative, that would have been “no treatment.” This is true for a large number of transsexual people, whether or not we believe that being transsexual has a biological cause. This does not mean that treatment is the right option for everyone, nor should it be, but at the same time, when a transsexual person hirself seeks hormones and surgery, that act is not about anyone else’s bodies, nor should anyone make it about their bodies.
The eleventh seems to be about HBSers, and I don’t care about HBSers, I don’t speak for HBSers, and if I can at all help it, I don’t talk about or to them. I think “true transsexual” is not something that another person can determine for anyone, and it’s a divisive, internalized transphobic tool used by trans people to attack other trans people, and I think it’s something that cissexual people need to not try to engage with.
The twelfth is a conflation – subversivism is an actual trend that I’ve seen in the queer community (and I’m not alone), in which, well, as Andra puts it in comments:
Subversivism is a specific form of behaviour that some gender non-conforming people engage in that belittles and erases trans people who happen to be binary. I’d advise you to read Whipping Girl by Julia Serano if you haven’t already, then you’d (hopefully) see the type of behaviour she categories as ’subversivist’ is behaviour that SHOULD be attacked.Subversivism and binarism are broadly two sides of the same coin (though they’re not comparable in wider society as binary people are privileged over non-binary people) (and being non-binary IDed isn’t the same as gender non-conforming). If trans people are going to stop attacking and misrepresenting each other both must be avoided.
This isn’t the same as binary-gendered people (cis or trans) who dismiss genderqueer people as “trendy, attention-seeking cissexuals.” Further, I would not categorize genderqueer people as a group as “cissexual” because I know several transsexual genderqueer people. However, being genderqueer does not erase cissexual genderqueers’ cissexual privilege any more than being transsexual erases the fact that some transsexual people are binary-identified.
Jasper adds some rather problematic paragraphs to these problematic bullet points:
This series of beliefs is very widely held. Among trans activists and allies, brain sex is presented as the only enlightened viewpoint. Brain Sex Activists identify trans people as sufferers of a biological condition. Unfortunately, this sets up brain sex activists on a collision course with feminists, genderqueers, gender non-conformists, social constructionists and gender activists who believe that gender is social.
To paraphrase voz elsewhere, “this puts some of us on a collision course with ourselves. Many transsexual people are feminists, many are genderqueer, many are gender non-conformists, many are social constructionists, and many are gender activists who believe that gender is social. I am myself feminist and a social constructionist. I believe that many feminists, genderqueers, gender non-conformists, social constructionists, and gender activists use “gender is a social construct” against trans people, selectively attacking what they perceive as essentialism (accurately or not) from trans people while ignoring their own essentialism (for example, claiming that transsexual women cannot truly be women because we weren’t assigned female at birth, or insisting on referring to trans people in ways that identify their sex assigned at birth), and this does create a lot of heat at these intersections, especially for transsexual people (like those of us who blog here) who are at these intersections, and having to deal with multiple sides of each argument.
In short, Brain Sex has become an identity rather than a theory. An attack on the theory becomes a personal attack on trans people which is labeled as hate, transphobia, transmisogyny (if the opponent was raised female) or cis privilege. Doubting the theory, makes you into the moral equivalent of a neo-nazi for whom the only ethical relation is outrage or a vicious counter attack. Dialog is not possible. It is the identity politics equivalent of zionism, which labels discussion of Israeli government policies as antisemitism, Isreal Critique = Jew Hater = Hitler.
This is another attempt to discredit trans people who try to call out cissexism, transphobia, and trans misogyny. It’s also an attempt to delegitimize “trans” as a valid identity – it’s really a theory, but then so is the idea that gender identity is entirely a social construct, so why don’t we stop trying to discredit each other by pretending that calling something a “theory” is really a way to discredit it? Leave it to Creationists who believe there’s no real evidence for evolution. Further, ze’s describing the way trans people describe our lived experiences as nothing more than a theory, even though our lives aren’t theoretical, they’re actual. Ze’s saying we’re discussing our lives in the wrong way.
Another element is yet again, ze misidentifies trans misogyny as a means of silencing an “opponent” who was “raised female.” Trans misogyny is not that, trans misogyny is the ways that misogyny manifests against trans women. Julia Serano covers this at length in Whipping Girl. It’s not about who said anything – I’ve seen more cis men than cis women engage in trans misogyny (although that’s not to say that some cis women I’ve seen have not been incredibly offensive and hate-filled when expressing their trans misogyny).
The last part is the really awful part, though. Jasper throws out the “Hitler” card pre-emptively, by invoking the stereotype of militant Jews who can brook no dissent on Israel, who automatically label anyone who does criticize Israel as being just like Hitler, and tying that directly to trans people, saying that we’re simply incapable of having a reasonable discussion about our own life experiences, while cissexual people tell us how we’re supposed to experience our own lives and bodies.
I believe that Jasper’s primary interest is in insuring that non-binary, genderqueer identities are respected, and I am completely in agreement with that. I think that everyone’s gender should be respected, and not dismissed or ignored or demonized or attacked. I do think, though, that transsexual people are frequently located as the source of trouble for cissexual genderqueer people – and I don’t mean individuals, but as a group. We’re held responsible for upholding or subscribing to the gender binary – something that cisgender/cissexual people do all the time. We’re held responsible for disrespecting genderqueer identities – again, something that cisgender/cissexual people do all the time. I guess my point isn’t that no transsexual person does it, but as a group, it’s stereotyping us to lump us all together into an anti-genderqueer mass, and those of us who are doing this stuff are definitely part of the larger cultural delegitimization of genderqueer identities.
Now, I agree that when people are disrespectful or offensive, they need to be called out. I think that’s pretty important, to be able to hold people accountable for what they do or say. But that does go both ways, and it’s not even possible to have a conversation if a cissexual genderqueer person is talking about how binary-identified trans people don’t respect genderqueer identities while at the same time casting doubt on whether trans people can really transition into the proper sex and describes it as “sexual essentialism” (because, apparently, it’s wrong for trans people to be male or female, but I guess only trans people?).
An apology is a good start, and I do want to see genderqueer identities respected, but I feel like the way this was set up held transsexual people (activists) as uniquely anti-genderqueer just for describing our own lives and experiences, and that perceiving essentialist beliefs in transsexual people was enough to discredit those lives and experiences, and criticisms were preemptively discounted as invalid. Just because the binary is not the only way to live does not mean that the binary is the wrong way to live, and I have to fight hard enough just to have my place in the binary respected by cisgender/cissexual people.
I just want to comment “LEARN TO SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION” on there but I think that doesn’t qualify as nicey-nice enough.
For me, sex is a bio-political category – a legal category which courts, politicians etc have produced that’s grounded in biological definitions of what constitutes a man and a woman (usually genitals, though it varies state-by-state). Brain-sex is hardly something I’m personally very interested in, though I can certainly fit it into a social constructionist framework easy enough–just as cis feminist social constructionists manage to take account of biological matter such as breasts, ovaries, uterus etc.
What I don’t see is anything remotely resembling a thought-out argument about anything we or indeed any other trans writers have said, just this conjured version of trans politics in which we and Julia Serano and HBS all blur together magically..
Oh, and of course the usual “trans women are essentialist but I’m totes social constructionist, I has read Judith Butler!!11″ bollocks. Yeah, so have I, and she essentially recanted Gender Trouble in the late 90s. Now if ze wants a Theory Battle, better bring hir A Game..
queenemily
August 4, 2009 at 10:40 pm
For me, sex is a bio-political category – a legal category which courts, politicians etc have produced that’s grounded in biological definitions of what constitutes a man and a woman (usually genitals, though it varies state-by-state).
Yes, this. It’s easy to argue that sex is a meaningless or essentialized category when so much of your life isn’t regulated by it (or rather by the mismatch of your body and your documentation), and social security marks you as a potential criminal or terrorist because your place of employment marks you as female when SS has you on record as male.
And yeah, I’ve read Gender Trouble too – it’s a challenging text, but as you point out.
I love the theory as much as anyone, too, but it’s like when lived experiences are clashing with cissexist expectations, a lot of times that theory is completely inapplicable at best, and frequently harmful to trans people in general.
Lisa Harney
August 4, 2009 at 10:58 pm
Yeah, I saw that earlier too, and, there were probably a couple of reasonable points within that post (such as keeping a greater consciousness of genderqueer/nongendered/etc people within theory, etc), but … well, you know Godwin’s law.
Plus the fact that there was a lot that appeared to be misinformed or theory originated by HBS people and assumed to speak for all of us.
z
August 4, 2009 at 10:59 pm
Yeah, it was weirding me out at first to see HBS talking points combined with “they use cis to silence people.” I mean, many HBSers seem to think that “cis “denies them normalcy post-transition, so…
Lisa Harney
August 4, 2009 at 11:02 pm
>>>It’s easy to argue that sex is a meaningless or essentialized category when so much of your life isn’t regulated by it (or rather by the mismatch of your body and your documentation), and social security marks you as a potential criminal or terrorist because your place of employment marks you as female when SS has you on record as male.
Yes. And you know, whatever her faults, the one thing Judy B would *not* be claiming is that these institutional regimes are not operational. She’s far too Foucaultian for that, ffs.
queenemily
August 4, 2009 at 11:15 pm
i can’t seem to convince myself it’s a good idea to check out Jasper’s post.
but i do want to say, as a genderqueer person, that i’ve always been very pleased with the way that y’all (and the QT community in general) have approached non-binary identities and people.
one of the hardest things for me about being transsexual AND genderqueer has been that it seems to be so tempting for members of either group to de-legitimize the other to gain credibility.
i’ve been following QT ever since i figured out how to use my feed reader, and it’s one of the few primarily-transsexual spaces on the web that i don’t really worry about stumbling on unchecked cisgenderism.
Caleb
August 5, 2009 at 6:06 am
So many straw transsexuals! 0__o
I’m decidedly gender-nonconforming, and transsexual. I can’t see a problem with ACTUAL brain-sex theories, because even though I’m quite feminine for a guy, my body needs to be male.
I wish the radical feminists would listen to this, too – I couldn’t “just be a butch woman”, partially because I’m not bloody well butch. I was known as quite a femme woman. I’m now known as quite a femme man.
I’M TRANSSEXUAL. I BELIEVE IN BRAIN SEX. I AM LESS GENDER-CONFORMING POST-TRANSITION.
This person can stick that in hir pipe and smoke it…
Oliver FP
August 5, 2009 at 6:16 am
Yeah, I think that whether or not there really is a brain sex should be irrelevant to the fact that transsexual people exist, and we need to transition, and that should be accommodated. We shouldn’t be shamed for this, or have our understanding of sex and gender denigrated because we come to our own conclusions based on our own experiences.
But far too often, our experiences and lives are battlegrounds for other people to try to plant a flag for their own ideology.
Lisa Harney
August 5, 2009 at 6:48 am
One of the issues here is that Jasper definitely approached this wrong (and admitted this in a later post), and overgeneralized. I’ve interacted with people who do make and defend the claims ze’s pointing out, and it’s really hard to have your lived experiences written off and dismissed the way they dismiss the possibility of a neither-M-nor-F genderqueer identity. In fact, I’ve been told more than once that I’m just confusing my bisexuality with being genderqueer. As if I don’t get the difference between sexual orientation and gender identity. But in my experience this is a fairly small group of people, and it seems that Jasper was suggesting that a lot of trans activists make all the claims he listed. So it’s another case of wrongfully homogenizing a diverse group.
I do think it would help, though, if we made the distinction that most people have a clear sense of their gender identity as being one of the binary choices from very early on in life, and that this may or may not match the body they were born with and the gender to which they were assigned. This way of saying it is compatible with the fact that some people don’t seem to have this clear M or F gender identity, and so it leaves room for those of us who never felt like we fit into the gender binary to begin with. And I don’t see how making this allowance threatens the position of trans advocacy. I know that social constructionist theories have often been used to delegitimize trans lives, but I think this is a different claim and perfectly compatible with affirming the trans experience.
In other words, I don’t think we have to choose between a social constructionist view that wrongly delegitimizes the trans experience or a trans-affirming position that delegitimizes the non-binary genderqueer experience. I think we can navigate some space in the middle, and rejecting some of the claims that Jasper identified is a first step in that direction. And Lisa, I think you tend to do a great job of navigating that space. So if Jasper’s words were directed at you, then he was in the wrong. I understood him to be talking to those who take the sort of anti-genderqueer stance I’ve experienced, but I don’t know all the context of this discussion, so I could be wrong.
Rachel_in_WY
August 5, 2009 at 8:21 am
>>>This way of saying it is compatible with the fact that some people don’t seem to have this clear M or F gender identity, and so it leaves room for those of us who never felt like we fit into the gender binary to begin with. And I don’t see how making this allowance threatens the position of trans advocacy.
Yes, agreed.
And indeed as Oliver FP (and numerous others I’m aware of) made clear, there’s plenty of people who identify as genderqueer or gender-non-conforming who are also transsexual. So it’s not this either/or easy distinction, and Jasper’s misrepresenting us and other trans activists in suggesting that we’re “anti gender fluid” when some of us have spent time working for genderqueer rights.
And yeah, in Jasper’s previous post, the youtube link names QT as one of the main hubs of this so-called brain sex activism. Not amused.
queenemily
August 5, 2009 at 8:52 am
Once again, I’m thrilled to read a QT post. I am politically in sympathy with genderqueer, generally, but am a medical transwoman who has gone the full route, and am quite happy with that. The ways which my local queer community priviledges genderqueer and downs trans (subversion is cool, hormones and surgery are disgusting)…and ways the more traditional trans community, even now, sometimes sneers at genderqueer (when…damnit…we need the revolution!) is endlessly dispiriting. Once again you’ve threaded the needle with common sense and care. I don’t know if this changes anyone’s mind, but it sure makes people like myself feel less alone.
One total aside, which seems kind of inappropriate given how far you go into specifics and this is inter-bloggy in nature…is how trans is coming up in the health care reform debates, generally. It is a sore point in social democracies which do have trans care, including SRS and some passing surgical work, avaliable under the system. It may very well about to become front and center in the US, as well, as a welfare queen type issue. The fact the queer community is so very fractured, from 60 years of marginalization, is not going to serve us well. Our general alliances across the boundaries you describe could well be on the verge of being…catastrophic, in terms of coverage. We all want the revolution, but we also need to fight for common sense, humane services to people who do transition.
jessl
August 5, 2009 at 9:42 am
I’ve been reading and re-reading this, but it’s really hard to wrap my head around. I see a lot of assumptions that I’ve made before, a lot of critiques I’ve made before. Thanks for taking the time to deconstruct so carefully.
RMJ
August 5, 2009 at 9:54 am
Nice timing, I was just writing a piece on missrepresentation of science with transgender politics http://caveofrationality.blogspot.com/2009/08/missrepresentation-of-science-and.html
And I concur, GQ and TS and CD and IS are none of them mutually exclusive either in individuals or in having their human rights needs met. I know of not one TS human right that interferes with any of my human rights nor vice versa.
Battybattybats
August 5, 2009 at 10:00 am
Great post! I found the original post through the Feministe link and I’d been hoping for a QT debunking ever since…
Daisy
August 5, 2009 at 10:07 am
[...] “Critiquing Genderqueer Transsexualphobia” August 5, 2009 Go read this great post by Lisa Harney at Questioning Transphobia. It’s an excellent takedown of a recent post by a [...]
Link: “Critiquing Genderqueer Transsexualphobia” « Dear Diaspora
August 5, 2009 at 10:21 am
“I’M TRANSSEXUAL. I BELIEVE IN BRAIN SEX. I AM LESS GENDER-CONFORMING POST-TRANSITION.
This person can stick that in hir pipe and smoke it…”
More like put that in hir mod queue and delete it.
Estrobutch
August 5, 2009 at 10:48 am
Right, so: “brain sex activist” does -not- have anything to do with skullfucking? Just checking.
belledame222
August 5, 2009 at 11:00 am
I wonder why Jasper had no problem publishing and responding to both my comments.
actually, i think i know why, and it bothers me.
gendereuphoric
August 5, 2009 at 11:05 am
Fun fact: I’m fully an MtF transsexual and I am gender nonconforming (I wear an awful lot of comfy guy clothing, avoid makeup, etc etc etc)
Silly crap like this drives me a little bit crazy. These clear, wildly inaccurate, blatantly generalized or even blatantly false blanket statements just serve to cause more problems for everyone. I’m glad you addressed Jasper’s comments.
The worst part is, a lot of proponents of the so called “brain sex theory” aren’t proposing that people are inherently male or female in the brain but that the brain has instincts regarding bodily structure. Like how we know on an instinctual level that a leg bent backwards is very very bad. Or BIID sufferers who want a limb removed because it sparks these instincts. (http://www.biid.org/basics.php?page=02&lan=en)
It’s not a stretch to think that human minds may have a weak or strong instinctual response to base body structure in all contexts (including sex). It’s also not a stretch to think that some may not get this response at all and many have normal instincts that match the body structure. But some don’t.
This doesn’t say that I have girl soul or a magical chick brain. It doesn’t say I am a woman in my head. All it says is that a set of bodily integrity instincts got misswired somewhere in my development (even in utereo) and I need to change my body structure to end my resultant distress.
And of course, no one is (and no one should be) claiming that such is the only cause of GID. A disorder described based on symptoms only usually has multiple causes that can be tied to said symptoms.
Generally when someone tries to critique a view, you’d think they would actually, yanno, learn what that view entailed, right? What a field of strawmen, waving in the wind. >.<
R. P.
August 5, 2009 at 11:32 am
Doesn’t surprise me one bit Jasper is from SF. What zie wrote is pretty much the spoken/unspoken gospel according to many genderqueer peeps who live here. Likewise, that Julia Serano came up with the concept of ’subversivism’ while participating in the SF Queer community is also no big surprise. I’ve heard everything expressed in Jasper’s blog entry said in one form or another by earnest Q/GQ people in this city. Sad to say, I’ve seen a lot of transmen here be very passive when faced with many of these assumptions (perhaps because many, at one time, came from the Queer community?) Which leaves transwomen who speak out against it to be demonized and labeled supporters of the binary.
The biggest flaw in Jasper’s arguments is assuming supporting theories about brain sex automatically means binary. Some brain sex zealots might believe this, but I certainly don’t think the vast majority of people who support brain sex theories do. Also zie assumes Julia Serano is somehow very caught up in privileging the binary, which I believe couldn’t be further from the truth. She just doesn’t want people who identify as binary to be reverse demonized just as she doesn’t want GQ people to be demonized. I’m not saying there is parity in the level of demonization, but I think her concern is pretty fair.
In Jasper’s YouTube response to Serano’s concept of subversivism, zie says Serano’s theory is incorrect because the real reason she’s marginalized in GQ spaces is because she was born with a penis. Well, duh! No big secret the reason transmen are more accepted in Women’s/Queer spaces is because they were born with vaginas and, therefore, still seen as some form of woman by women/GQs. Many genderqueers here still hold this view when you lightly scratch below the surface. It is a form of essentialism which is counter to what all genderqueers claim yet so many (not all) still practice. Where I think Jasper is right (in hir video) is how many GQ events, literature and spaces have internalized assumptions, policies and theory inherited from second wave feminism and their hatred/mistrust of transwomen. Sadly, perhaps inadvertently (?), Jasper is continuing this trend.
gina morvay
August 5, 2009 at 11:37 am
It is very much worth noting that a lot of transsexual people have been oppressed by Brain Sex theory. As Andrea James put it on her TS Roadmap website in unequivocal terms:
“Moir and Jessel’s Brain Sex is to sexism what Murray and Herrnstein’s The Bell Curve is to racism: a veneer of scientific methodology laid over an agenda that is sexist at its very core.”
I’m also very pleased at the number of people who’ve brought up Julia Serano’s work! It’s a well written manifesto that charts a distinct course for us all, not just as trans people but as a broader GLBT community. There’s a fair bit that needs understanding here, not the least of which is the fact that as trans people we are not the enemies of genderqueer citizens.
Speaking personally I’ve always shaken my head at how shabbily we’ve often been treated by queer theory. We are a community that is growing louder and stronger by the day but is still very vulnerable. Kicking us to score points is unconscionable and saddening. We have enough trouble without being needled by the very community that, by rights, out to be the most understanding.
We all have a stake in “questioning gender norms” and while I and many other transwomen identify as ‘women’ full stop, our very existence belies the accepted conceit of essentialist sexual determination. If someone is born with a penis or a vagina it doesn’t mean jack. Our very existence is proof of this fact, that being born with particular physical characteristics is not destiny. The implications of this simple reality on the broader understanding of ‘gender norms’ is huge.
What I truly bristle at is the implicit accusation that I am some sort of foot soldier for the status quo by dint of the fact that I identify as a woman and choose to wear a skirt.
Someone ought to send the memo to my father, who to this day insists I’m “a man” and am an unholy deviant. He’s not too convinced about my evidently stalwart support of his concept of gender.
Quinnae Moongazer
August 5, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Yeah it seems like most situations that I hear labeled subversivist, its just a fancy way of saying transmisogyny perpetuated by a queer community. I’m not against the term but I think it doesn’t get at the heart of the power differences involved around trans-status, gender expression and identity the same way. and its easy to dismiss it as “intra community conflict” unlike transmisogyny which describes oppression that exists inside and outside queer, trans and women’s communities.
Estrobutch
August 5, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Yeah, that’s a good point, Estrobutch. I don’t mind so much what the word is, although I do believe “subversivism” is an accurate description (as in, trans women are positioned as not subversive enough), but it’s also a manifestation of trans misogyny, and shouldn’t just be labeled as an intra community squabble.
Gina,
I do think, based on other stuff ze says, that Jasper is relatively positive about trans rights and trans access to queer spaces. What was bothering me was this list of sweeping generalizations and ascribing of certain unnuanced viewpoints to trans activists as a group, and the naming of Questioning Transphobia in that video.
And I was frustrated that the most critical comments on Jasper’s blog were left in moderation or deleted, apparently. Not just mine, but Andra’s and Queen Emily’s, and Estrobutch’s, and those are just the ones I’m aware of.
Rachel, I totally agree, and I do not want to erase how genderqueer people are misgendered and discriminated against and told how their genders are invalid. I know there’s problems that go both ways (I’m sure the pingback to Enough Nonsense has enough anti-genderqueer nastiness that I’ll need to excise it from the post anyway).
Lisa Harney
August 5, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Jessl,
Could you elaborate on this:
I’ve already seen some rather strident whining from right wing commentators/bloggers about possible trans coverage, and I’m kinda wondering where you’re going with this?
Lisa Harney
August 5, 2009 at 4:47 pm
“straight” non queer “genderqueer” male?
bitch please
javier
August 5, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Mmyep, Lisa. The usual news from Magical Troll Wish Land – where politics consists of clapping your hands really hard and being so nice to cis people that they’re never horrid, and “transgenders” are Yucky Fetishists Ruining It For Everyone Else By Being Loud.
So yeah. Avoid the horribleness.
queenemily
August 5, 2009 at 5:36 pm
“Trix and Jasper talk about our experiences as straight feminine males”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8PL-DDA6-w
‘MALES’:
(isn’t that “binary” inconsistant with genderqueer itself, as a concept? not getting this AT ALL…)
javier
August 5, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Lisa, I’m not saying Jasper is playing doorperson at the Queer spaces not letting in the downtrodden transwomen. What I am saying (or was trying to) is the list you addressed in the OP is frequently used to explain away why transwomen aren’t welcome at those spaces (along with, of course, penis, penis, penis, had a penis, inverted penis or mutilated a penis). So, if he believes the list, it’s hard for me to believe he really agrees with trans inclusion (as you said… unless we’re always happy, sweet and nice… I’m trying). The two don’t mesh. And the reason I think subversivism is most apt here is that most of Jasper’s list hasn’t even made it into broader straight society except for some Gender Studies programs, most of which are populated with Queer-ID’ing people, anyway. It seemed like the most apt term for what Jasper’s list is all about, not to mention the back and forth game of “who’s oppressing who?”
gina morvay
August 5, 2009 at 5:57 pm
I was being diplomatic, and I wasn’t trying to characterize you as saying ze’s a doorperson. Sorry about miscommunication.
And I agree that subversivism is apt.
Lisa Harney
August 5, 2009 at 6:12 pm
Gee, besides the attacks concerning the so-called essentialist theories of trans people, ze seems quite good at making some straw opponents. I mean, if you look at this post http://jasperswardrobe.wordpress.com/2009/02/09/sexism-and-sexual-essentialism/ , you can see that there is some effort on not only transsexual “discourse”, but also the radical feminist ones and lesbian ones.
I guess transsexual radical feminist lesbians either really suck or just don’t exist.
And the worst is that I think I could agree on many things on zir views on gender/sex issues, but seriously, the way to phrase it and to discredit some identities is really fucked up.
Ellie d'Yckgirl
August 5, 2009 at 6:35 pm
Heh, where I’m going is probably fairly obvious, and like as not just borrowing trouble.
I think the splits are pretty clear, and you no doubt can enumerate their current manifestations in far better detail than I. But — for many sufficient and complex historical reasons — in the US, there is very little advocacy for transitioning transsexuals as such. Our political stance is based on a postmodernist frame on gender, and is humanistic and inclusive. As Riki said long ago (I approximate except for the expletive): “I have no interest in a fucking transsexual movement”. While the individual goal is often, as the judge said in the Diane Schroer case, to be “culturally appropriate” as a woman, our political efforts have been toward acceptance on the LGBT spectrum. Morally and ethically, I’m totally on board. Even if the genderqueer-tonight crowd gets more cookies and gets to keep cis priviledge, I’d rather be fighting for human dignity than free estrogen.
But Press for Change in the UK, trans folks in NL, and trans folks in Canada seem to have more willingness to make a case that transsexual people — specifically transitioning transsexuals — are in a unique position regarding civil rights, and to advocate on those terms. I know that’s horrible, from the American frame, but it has resulted in remarkable gains in those places. If you chat with the average Nederlander, I do not think one will find much more trans acceptance than the average American provides. But trans identity politics has evolved very differently and has resulted in a very different civil frame, including specific protections for people who legally and formally change their putative gender.
I have a terrible feeling that transitioning transsexuals are about to be the new welfare queens. I do not know how it will play out, or even if this will matter (or if we’ll get a health care bill at all — I hope we do, regardless of all this). But it does seem to me that when it comes to specific questions of public policy, medical transfolks are running around naked. Certainly people who believe that medical intervention is grotesque and essentialist are unlikely to advocate for us; and within the group of transitioning transsexuals, we’re split even further by the ways we desperately cling to various interpretations of “real”. A great number of things which I value — from the name and gender on my passport to the fact my insurance company just pays for my gynecologist visits without fuss — are simply commonsense accommodations, entirely without legal backing. If the public cost of that becomes more visible, I am kind of concerned that there is no trans voice to argue for, simply, formalizing those accommodations, or extending care (like GRS and trans related medical procedures) on the grounds that — agree with it or hate it — it is not that expensive and it makes society more open and accommodating to trans folks, who need acceptance and care.
Like I said, it was fairly obvious :} And not new. But you asked:)
jessl
August 5, 2009 at 7:05 pm
Well, I don’t agree that what you’re saying was obviously what you meant, but I do agree with much of it.
It’s like this reactionary “Must silence trans activists” thing, or in other conversations getting chided for talking about trans-related medical care because not all trans people need it – and of course, not all trans people need it, but some do, and it’s expensive on a personal level, even though it’s relatively cheap in terms of medical procedures – both in terms of paying for each individual person as well as the aggregate cost of paying for all trans people.
And yes, I see your point regarding “welfare queens,” and I think that the LGb(…t) activism tends to ignore anything that’s not about marriage or military enrollment and practically no activism for practical needs for trans people in general.
Lisa Harney
August 5, 2009 at 9:10 pm
javier,
I don’t think identifying as male precludes him from being genderqueer, if by male ze’s referring to sex. I’m cissexual (pretty much OK with my female body) but definitely not cisgendered, not feminine, never self-identified as a woman, etc. So I can fairly easily check the “Female” box but prefer the “none of the above” box when it comes to gender.
Rachel_in_WY
August 5, 2009 at 10:23 pm
Oops – “hir”. I’m actually not sure which pronouns ze prefers.
Rachel_in_WY
August 5, 2009 at 10:26 pm
Ah, oops – yeah, I don’t think it’s necessary to question whether ze’s really genderqueer or not. One of the rules here is to not question or mock another person’s gender or sex.
I do agree ze spends way too much time referring to trans women’s genitals in gross ways (like referring to Riki Wilchins’ vagina as an inverted penis, or talking about how people who are born with penises are not respected in some queer spaces).
Lisa Harney
August 5, 2009 at 10:36 pm
Jessl wrote:
“But Press for Change in the UK, trans folks in NL, and trans folks in Canada seem to have more willingness to make a case that transsexual people — specifically transitioning transsexuals — are in a unique position regarding civil rights, and to advocate on those terms. I know that’s horrible, from the American frame, but it has resulted in remarkable gains in those places. If you chat with the average Nederlander, I do not think one will find much more trans acceptance than the average American provides. But trans identity politics has evolved very differently and has resulted in a very different civil frame, including specific protections for people who legally and formally change their putative gender.”
Oh yeah, the frame’s very different (.fi here), and while US identity politics do play their part, the concepts of identity and something-born-something don’t apply that much here.
Here transsexuality is mostly seen as an illness by the medical community: they think it’s mental, but the also more-or-less think that it’s cured by hormones and surgery and some legal stuff such as name changes and legal sex changes and changing marriages into civil partnerships and so on.
This is bad, obviously, on the level that it kinda subsumes possible genderqueerness into a forced either-or -identity (either you’re legally a man or a woman), but it does solve a hell of a lot of problems, too. And in practice, it also gives a certain legitimacy to transitioning: once your legal sex is changed, there’s, for example, no quibbling if you can marry someone of the other legal sex: you can, and that’s the end of it. HRT and some surgeries (vaginoplasty, metoidoplasty, falloplasty, mastectomies, orchi if that’s what you want, tracheal shave and such) come on the state, too, with a small copay (like ~300€ for vaginoplasty).
It also translates to acceptance on many other levels, too: while there’s a fair share of transmisogyny and subversivism and transphobia and violence, there’s also a view that ordinary, polite people are not supposed to make much of someone’s transition, that it’s kinda personal and not something to be lambasted in public. The mental climate’s very different.
Identity stuff works differently, too, IME. I don’t, personally identify as anything much. I’m mostly identified by others as a woman, and I’m all right with that. Identifying as something, personally, is something I haven’t encountered personally – people don’t seem to nail their colours to the mast, so to speak, but let their lives speak for themselves. It is, of course, entirely possible that I just haven’t been in the right circles to find the “identifiers”, but a common occurrence they are not. People do use descriptive labels sometimes, but even that seems to be kinda understated and reluctant. (I’m sorry I can’t give you all examples as they’d be a) in Finnish and b) from closed lists).
Carto
August 6, 2009 at 1:14 am
Oh yeah, totally forgot to mention that the mental illness model is pretty fucked-up, too, but that’s a bit of a given IMO anyway.
Carto
August 6, 2009 at 1:16 am
I think “identify as” gets overstate significantly. I consider it a horrible way to describe anyone, and whenever I end up using it, it’s because I feel like I’ve gotten myself stuck in a corner and it’s the least awkward phrasing for what I’m trying to say. I mean, it’s not as if I “identify as a woman,” and I think people frequently use that phrase against trans people – they don’t call me a woman (even though I am a woman), they call me a “person who was born male, who identifies as a woman” or “MAAB, identified as a woman,” or some other variation that is sure to sneak in that “Lisa totally has a Y chromosome” jab.
It’s also like how, trans and cis are only applicable in a few kinds of conversations, but cis people like to say “trans woman” or “trans man” no matter what. Like, someone might say “Lisa likes Dungeons & Dragons,” but they’ll be sure to add “Lisa, a trans woman, likes Dungeons & Dragons.”
I’m also not sure that the deconstruction of US identity politics is entirely accurate here. I will say that the relative lack of civil rights and respect in the US tends to affect the way people talk about these things.
Especially the way people tend not to let you forget your race, your gender, your gender identity, your economic class, and so on, but then accuse you of making a big deal about it when you refer to yourself that way.
It’s so far from perfect I can barely begin to describe it.
Lisa Harney
August 6, 2009 at 1:33 am
@Lisa, Carto — I think the EU frames for care actually do come out of the strongly medical model, per a diagnosis and intervention. At least the stuff from VU and National Health. The difference being that in the US we had John Mooney and Janice Raymond come along and excise it from coverage, with the help of a private insurance system looking to reduce costs, where the social health models seemed to have approached it in a more matter of fact way. Canada had a _very_ medicalized “gender center” model for a long time. NL has Josh Megens at the VU, who is just an utter gem of a human being, so the model didn’t matter so much as the compassionate and broad way it was applied. I can’t generalize (much, lol) except to say that I think the medical/transsexual model makes health care more open across the board, even for those who do not seek transition. There’s a place in the “doctor map” for gender change, which is accepted pretty much by all. That will and does make a difference even for the most genderqueer person coming in for a physical. Not a perfect change or in every case a good one…but I think it is generally better. In the US, I don’t think we have a way to get there, as we’ve emphasized genderqueer as good, and trans (where all the medical intervention stuff lives) as an odd offshoot, full of things which are hard to think about.
What Carto points out — which I think we miss in the states — is that treating a trans diagnosis as fairly normal in many ways means that trans people who take a medical path have an easier time of it in society. I think that is hard to overstate, or to get easily if one does not experience it firsthand. One of the reasons I was less than clear (besides, perhaps, a lack of native intelligence lol) is that I’m still trying to wrap my head around what universal care might mean for US trans folks. When care is part of the commonweal, then the whole taxonomy of diagnosis is no longer behind the private facade of insurers. It is part of the public discussion, in a big way, in all the social health countries. Trans is just part of this. I think it changes the cultural fabric of the place, and moves quality of life forward as a value. I am truly confused as to how it will impact trans folks, but after reading a few of the pieces (both liberal and rightie) on the subject in the last few days, I am pretty sure, covered or not, there will be an impact, should we get a bill passed. And fairly sure that the lack of coherence in trans medical advocacy will not, um, be good.
jessl
August 6, 2009 at 8:12 am
Sorry, an addenda — the reason all this came up for me, reading the original post, was that as a genderqueer identified trans woman, I kind of think…we get lost in these labels. There is tremendous value in chasing out the BS, which I think you do well here. And there are so many trans folks arguing for some sort of closely held essentialism that a common sense voice is just fresh air (thank you). But ultimately…after 16 years of this, I look at our HIV rate, the violence, the lack of civil protection…we’re spending ink and love respectfully responding to allies who characterize those who transition as “brain sex” advocates and mock our genitals…and I have to wonder what path we have from here to there. In a society where people are really marginalized, there is a tendency to hang on desperately to whatever definitional legitimacy can be found. “I’m not really a ____ and don’t believe in gender except as a construct, so I’m OK” and “I’m an HBS transsexual so I’m really a ____ and I’m OK” and “I’m autogynephilic so I know I’m a fetishist and not really a ___ so I’m OK” are really all variants on the same damn thing — people who feel so desperately marginal that they need something that lets them feel real, OK, to hold back their own shame and despair, and all of the same loaded on them by society.
Success and acceptance, _wherever_ it comes from — medical advocacy, passage of gender presentation protection statutes, whatever — will make these things less important. But in a real sense, the folks who say all forms of gender subversion are wrong(in the original sense, not as used in these inter-trans debates) have won, by locking us in our heads with our beloved labels, clinging to them like we’re drowning. I want to see a movement which could pull us away from those, not by arguing them in detail — we’ll never win — or even by trying to find the one label that includes everyone — but by emphasizing, solely, the frames of civil rights and care. I wish I had a clue how to do that :}
Sorry, thanks…
jessl
August 6, 2009 at 8:39 am
Actually, John Money was promoting a medical model.
Janice Raymond shifts targets – at first, she criticizes the medicalization of gender variance, but later she turns on transsexual people. So she moves from “An Ethic of Androgyny” to denunciations of “The Transsexually-Constructed Lesbian Feminist.” I’m surprised that subversivists haven’t appropriated her work yet.
Marja
August 6, 2009 at 10:28 am
I do agree ze spends way too much time referring to trans women’s genitals in gross ways (like referring to Riki Wilchins’ vagina as an inverted penis, or talking about how people who are born with penises are not respected in some queer spaces).
Wow. That is out of hand. Yikes.
Rachel_in_WY
August 6, 2009 at 11:16 am
Yeah, Money was promoting a medical model. What I failed to convey well at all is that the places which have run with a medical model have liberalized it somewhat over time…so that it is more about practical care and inclusion than enforcing the binary. While our genderqueer model has gotten…less inclusive :}
jessl
August 6, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Jessl,
i like the strength of the umbrella term Sex and Gender Diversity (S&GD) for civil-rights and other issues as it can include disperate communities identities and labels like intersex etc and allows for exploration of how the same human rights issue may effect different groups differently.
The word Diversity in there covers a lot of things. And emphasis on the diversity in our communities really is needed.
Battybattybats
August 8, 2009 at 4:38 am
Like, someone might say “Lisa likes Dungeons & Dragons,” but they’ll be sure to add “Lisa, a trans woman, likes Dungeons & Dragons.”
RPG GEEKS, REPRESENT!
*looks around for Ceri*
Caoimhe Ora Snow
August 11, 2009 at 2:51 am
Actually i found roleplaying games useful for education purposes.
To educate several of my friends on transgender issues as we were playing a gritty modern roleplaying game (Conspiracy X, an X-Files style government conspiracy espionage aliens and paranormal themed game) where one of the main characters was recruited into the conspiracy from a lifetime of crime I gave him a neighbour who was a poverty-stricken transsexual prostitute. As the game continued she has become a sympathetic character to all the players as they learned of the violence and hostility she faced and as she was recruited into their cell and has become a good friend and ally… especially to the characters of the friends of mine who were most transphobic when I met them :)
The power of interactive fiction to take a figure usually the focus of a negative stereotype and tear away the assumptions by providing a vehicle for making visible the invisible struggles and providing a humanity to the dehumanised is profound.
Battybattybats
August 11, 2009 at 7:32 pm
[...] kurfluffle involving a cissexual genderqueer activist and a transsexual activist documented at QT: (Linky: Critiquing Genderqueer Transsexualphobia), as well as commenting, it occurred to me that more ought to be said on the topic beyond what I [...]
The Reality of Gender « Genderbitch: An Angry Trans Girl's Blog
September 21, 2009 at 11:10 pm