More on the Gendercator

While following links from blogroll to blogroll, I found a pair of posts about Frameline and Gendercator by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore.

In Gendercator drama, part one, Mattilda talks about everything from how Frameline deals with transphobic content (it only becomes an issue when it’s brought to their attention) to a description of the movie itself:

But what about the movie? I was able to see it after writing to the director for a DVD, and I’ll admit that initially it’s quite seductive, opening with colorful Super-8 footage of 1970s lesbians partying on park benches to the Rare Earth anthem “I Just Want to Celebrate.” The lead character, Sally, a stylish butch lesbian wearing yellow pants and shirt, tweed vest and cap with leather jacket, is led into the woods by a full-bodied femme and they start to make out until Sally passes out under a tree and the other woman leaves her. The drama happens when Sally wakes up 75 years later and a nurse and doctor are evaluating her gender presentation. It’s still humorous enough until Sally meets two of her friends from the old days, one of whom has transitioned from female to male. He tells her, “It all began with the evangelicals — you know, one man/one woman and all that — then the next thing the trannies went along with it.” His wife (and former lesbian partner) adds, “Before long, butches and fairies were forced to make the change — you have to be a man or a woman, no more in between.”

While the movie is allegedly engaging in satire through sci-fi stylings, the notion of evangelical Christians joining with transpeople to impose binary gender tyranny was certainly jaw-dropping. Satire generally takes a terrible situation and brings it to an extreme that reveals insight about the actual predicament. Here the “insight” is that Christian fundamentalists and transpeople are on the same team. While there are some funny moments in The Gendercator, it’s this irrational fear of transpeople that ends up dominating — the movie ends with a transman, “the Gendercator,” deciding to nonconsensually reassign Sally, and we see hair growing on Sally’s arms and face as she gasps in heavy breaths like a Frankenstein-type monster while machines beep ominously.

This fear of a Brave New TransChristian World is juxtaposed against a naïve faith in 1970s white feminist visions of womyn’s land, as one scene (a dream?) depicts Sally rescued by a group of women in a VW bus who declare, “We’re taking you home.” Home is apparently a wooded area where Sally can play softball with long-haired white women wearing bandannas. It’s hard not to think of the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, the largest public gathering still celebrating the womyn’s land ethos, and riled in controversy for its abominable “womyn-born womyn” (i.e. no transwomen) policy for entry (only recently amended to the contradictory policy of asking transwomen not to attend, but not necessarily denying entry).

I do believe this notion of lesbian homeland, however fraught and potentially fraudulent, is exactly what is at the heart of Catherine Crouch’s movie. In other words, the question she’s trying to ask is: what becomes of homeland when more people are allowed inside? I would say that if the borders aren’t shifting to allow for innovation, exploration and transformation, then it doesn’t sound much like home. But Crouch, like many identitarians (and the gay establishment), is more interested in policing the borders.

In The Gendercator drama, part two, Mattilda talks about the discussion panel afterward, which included Catherine Crouch, Jamison Green, Susan Stryker, Elana Dykewomon, Yavanté Thomas-Guess, Fresh! Encounter, and Mary Guzmán.

About Catherine Crouch herself:

Okay, well the question that got asked eight times was more or less about Crouch’s transphobia, whether she thinks that all trans men are really lesbians, and I will say that Crouch was a bit conflicted on this one. She did say that she wasn’t interested in making all or none statements, but that she was concerned because of so many butch lesbians transitioning so fast — and worried that this FTM identity was not arising “from inside,” but due to outside pressures and the difficulties of being a lesbian in a misogynist, homophobic culture. She also talked about the increase of elected medical procedures, and stated, “I don’t know what’s happening right now.” When someone asked about Crouch’s equation of trans surgery with mutilation, Crouch declared “I never used that word.” Then she declared that she was concerned that surgery was being used to solve the problems of being unsafe as a masculine women. Later, Crouch got wackier when she said that her fear was of the gender binary, of the religious right, and it did seem that she was suggesting that the religious right could actually join with transpeople to take over the world. She didn’t say how, but this was one of the moments when I’ll admit I was a bit frightened — Crouch was giving a good performance — she kept saying how happy she was that these discussions were happening, but still her fears were palpable.

Crouch is talking about the fear of butch flight, something I’ve covered earlier. This does seem to be more about some lesbians’ insecurities about lesbian culture than about the men who are transitioning out of lesbian culture, and some feminists (such as Sheila Jeffreys) have latched onto this particular fear while simultaneously criticizing the butch/femme dynamic.

The entire post is full of good material that I really have a hard time pulling out of context. Please, go read it. It’s worth it.

jayinchicago adds this in the comments:

I’m not sure I really like how the second post ended, though. To quote:

“But I will say one more thing — there have been hushed conversations about the more problematic and unquestioning transitions into masculine privilege, within genderqueer, trans and dyke cultures (mostly, in my experience, among femmes and faggots).”

I think it’s rather unfair to expect trans men to bear the brunt of dismantling male (masculine?) privilege. This kind of comment just makes me think we are being viewed as magical double-agents or something. I’m not a double agent. I’m a man, a feminist man to be sure, but to say that I problematically and unquestioningly transitioned into masculine privilege is unthinkably simplistic to me. Men (trans and nontrans) need to understand sexism and patriarchy and how privilege is oppressive and unjust. Please don’t judge my activism based on whether I once lived as female or not. I don’t think I’m expressing correctly what I mean. I guess I don’t exactly understand how I should have “questioningly transitioned into masculine privilege”. I’m a relatively masculine man, and in this society that is the position of privilege, and yes it’s wrong…but really the only way to have prevented myself from beginning to receive male privilege was to have continued to live as someone seen as a butch dyke. And isn’t that kind of making Crouch’s point?

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And I agree with him. I rushed a bit reading past the end and completely missed this - my apologies for that. Trans men do not have any more responsibility to unpack male privilege than cis people, and it’s frustrating to deal with anyone who starts talking about it as if there were any kind of imperative.