Saturday 12th July 2008
Hello. I’d just like to say thanks to Sophie, debi, Red and the members of FAF, the Feminist Activist Forum for inviting me to the Lambeth Women’s Project today to take part in this transgender and intersex learning exchange.
I’m Helen, and I’m a transsexual woman, or trans woman. I was diagnosed as being transsexual (which is the severe form of gender dysphoria) in 2006, although I first knew that “something wasn’t right” for many years before I actually asked for medical help. After my diagnosis, I began the process of transitioning, which is a way for transsexual people to change ourselves and our lives to match our “real” genders. For me, although I’d been born and raised, and lived most of my life as male, I identified as female. The way I think of it is that my brain was expecting my body to have female sex characteristics. This is called gender dissonance and it was – and is – at the heart of my transsexuality.
I should also add that, despite the name, transsexuality is actually about gender identity, and not sexual orientation. As the saying goes: “Sexual orientation is about who you go to bed with, but gender identity is about who you go to bed as” (and yes, that is an over-simplification, which is why I use it here only as a convenient shorthand).
So, as you might expect, I’ve been through – and am still going through – a lot of changes as I’ve transitioned. I’m happy to talk about pretty much any aspect later during the Q&A, but for the moment I’d like to focus on some of the intersections and overlaps between my transsexuality and feminism.
One of the biggest adjustments I’ve had to make is in relation to the various privileges that I benefit from. Perhaps I should just explain what I understand by the word ‘privilege’. The best definition I’ve found is by a blogger called Brown Betty, who says: “Privilege is: About how society accommodates you. It’s about advantages you have that you think are normal. It’s about you being normal, and others being the deviation from normal. It’s about fate dealing from the bottom of the deck on your behalf”.
I believe there’s a distinct connection between privilege and inequality. Privilege is both a cause of, and is caused by, inequality. And when I started to think about gender inequality, I realised that you cannot ignore sexism, either. And suddenly you have two of the fundamental concepts that feminism addresses: inequality, and sexism.
A quick history lesson – because we always need to know where we’ve come from, to be able to figure out where we are, and where we might be headed. Feminism came into being in Britain in the nineteenth century, and initially, it was focused on obtaining equal rights for women in things like marriage, and property, and of course, the right to vote: suffrage. (Via Wikipedia). But those gender inequalities all came about because of sexism, and this is summarised really well by the writer Bell Hooks in her book Feminist Theory: From Margin To Center. She says: “Feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression“. That is such a great definition – and it means as much to me as a trans woman, as it should for any other, non-trans, or cissexual woman. And for anyone who is an ally to feminists, as well, come to that…
So far, so good – but there is one area of feminist ideology that preoccupies me quite a lot, and it’s the tricky problem of gender. It’s one of those words we all use, but is really hard to define. My opinion – and I know that many second-wavers will disagree – is that ‘gender’ is about a sense of being feminine or masculine, or woman or man. I think it’s innate: it’s something we’re born with. Whereas I would say that ‘sex’ describes biological and physical traits – such as internal and external organs, chromosomes, hormones, genitalia, etc.
To me, these are two very distinct but interrelated things, and it seems that the problems only really start to arise when ‘gender’ and ‘sex’ are used as interchangeable terms. At the risk of over-simplification, for me ‘sex’ is what’s between a person’s legs and ‘gender’ is what’s between your ears. As I said at the start, the key to understanding my transsexuality was realising that my brain had always expected my body to have female characteristics.
However, nothing’s ever simple, and as soon as we start talking about gender, we also need to remember that, out of that sense of being gendered come ways of behaving, ways that society calls ‘female’ or ‘male’, ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’. These behaviours are generally what is meant when we refer to gender roles, and gender expression.
There is an aspect of gender which always provokes discussion, and, like it or not, we cannot ignore it: it’s that well-used feminist slogan, “gender is socially constructed”. And it’s one of the big problems I have in trying to synthesise a working trans-feminism. Hard-line social constructivists – and there are a few of them about! – will tell me that gender is merely a societal response to physical sexual differences. They tell me that I should be ‘fluid’ about gender and maybe even invent a hybrid ‘third gender’. Yes indeed, these cultural feminists tell me many things about how I should live my life and stay out of theirs… But I would counter their constructivism with what I realise is also a sort of essentialism; namely that there is this invisible thing inside each of us called “gender”.
I’m not saying that there is no constructivism around gender. I am saying that because something is a construct doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Money, laws, politics – they’re all constructs – but they seem pretty real to me… The way I cross my legs when I sit down, or that I like to wear a little makeup, or the way that I apologise for things that aren’t my fault – they’re constructed, too. I’ve probably learned these things in a subconscious way, and I don’t think they have much to do with my vagina or oestrogen levels.
Some feminists accuse trans women of conforming to gender sterotypes, of reinforcing the gender binary and generally behaving as willing dupes of the patriarchy. And, in turn, I wonder why it’s considered progressive to have such fixed ideas of what “man” and “woman” mean. I wonder what, exactly, those critics themselves are doing to dismantle gender. Deirdre Nansen McCloskey, in her book Crossing: A Memoir, gives a simple and heartfelt response as to why some trans women learn stereotypical feminine gestures: “It’s to keep from getting murdered, dear”.
I don’t think these things which certain feminists criticise me for doing make me a bad feminist. In my opinion, feminism is about the worth and value of every human being – or should be. Which leads us to another related source of confusion. Transsexuality is not an ideology – it’s a lived experience of a condition which has been known, by many names, for almost as long as there have been people and societies. First and foremost it’s personal, not political. But because many people simply don’t understand transsexuality, they will react first, think later (if at all). So we become a target for bigotry, hatred, abuse, harassment and violence. It’s all driven by that fear of the unknown, that irrational idea that trans* people are somehow a threat to the world and her sister. Mad, bad and dangerous to know? Er, no – I don’t think so. I’m just a very ordinary middle-aged woman who is trying to come to terms with some very big changes in her life. But if transitioning teaches us anything, it teaches us that we must learn to survive – often through adopting gender roles and expressions which are associated with our gender identities – and in the process we become politicised, even if we don’t realise it.
Developing that survival mechanism has informed my feminism to a very great extent. Trans and non-trans women alike, we all suffer oppression and inequality as a direct result of living in a society which arbitrarily puts the interests of these people ahead of those people with no justification other than maintaining a system which long ago outlived any usefulness it may arguably once have had.
But, whatever a gender-free society might look like, I believe that, had I been born with a male body, I would still have transitioned and undergone surgery (SRS). I do feel quite strongly about this, although I can’t give you any cold, hard logic for it, let alone empirical proof. But even though the research so far has been very sketchy, there do seem to be indications that some aspects of gender are ‘hard-wired’ into us, possibly when we are still in the womb, as a result of fluctuations in hormone levels. So maybe it will come to pass that this essentialist philosophy – that there is this invisible thing inside each of us called “gender” – will be proved to have a basis in fact after all.
But back in the here and now, not only am I finding it very hard to come up with a feminism that sits comfortably with being transsexual, but I’m also starting to wonder if such a symbiosis is even possible. A trans woman who identifies as a feminist seems to set herself up as a target for so many people. Men will not accept me as a man – not that I want them to – and more than a few feminists will tell me that, no matter what I do or say, I will always be a man. Ironically, that leaves me in a really good position to create that mythical ‘third gender’ – but there are two problems with that. First, by the way Thomas Beatie – ‘the pregnant man’ – was attacked by so many people, we know that redefining the gender binary is something you have to feel really strongly about. And I don’t have that strong belief: I’m a woman, and quite comfortable being a woman, thank you. Secondly, being told that I should find a hybrid gender for myself smacks of Othering – and I get more than enough of that in my everyday existence, thank you, without going out actively looking for it.
All of this is a very long-winded way of saying that I’m really glad to be here today – and I’m even more glad that you’re all here today. I’m looking forward to a fruitful and constructive workshop, and I’m confident that it’ll be an enjoyable way for us all to learn something new about each other’s views and beliefs.
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Later update: Well, that was a waste of time, wasn’t it? – All those notes for that big-deal talk I was planning at the FAF workshop on Saturday and in the event, I was too busy falling apart to even use them…
Let me backtrack a little. I arrived at the Lambeth Women’s Project building in good time and met up with Red and Sophie… Helped out a little answering the door, sticking posters up, etc, and the event finally got under way about half-an-hour late, with an audience of maybe 40 or 50, with four of us on the first panel, plus Sophie to keep it all running.
Col, a really nice trans man, started things off by showing a short film called “The Jar” that he’d made about 20 years ago, very early in his transition. It referred to his father, who collected butterflies, and the sequence showed the process from capture, to killing, to pinning and mounting; ending up with the ‘specimen’ in a glass tray being put into a chest of drawers in what looked like a warehouse.
I’m a bit of a butterfly fan anyway – partly because I have one or two good associations. Also, I suppose it’s quite an obvious metaphor for transitioning/surgery, but whatever, I found the whole thing powerfully disturbing…
Col followed this with a short talk on what it meant to him, especially in terms of his transitioning and then the other two (Phoebe and Debbie) gave similar accounts of their histories.
I suppose I should have considered beforehand that it would be about the more personal side but I didn’t. I’d stupidly assumed we’d be talking about how being transsexual affected one’s view of feminism. But with the three other people having talked about their personal histories, I felt that I probably should do the same.
And I was really rubbish. I hadn’t imagined it would be that difficult to talk about it, but for some reason it was… I got quite upset and had to sit down after a very few minutes because I just couldn’t go on for crying. (I’m tearing up again now and I’m writing this two days later).
…*sigh*…
I don’t know what was – is – the matter with me. The others managed fine and I was just a total emotional trainwreck. Very embarrassing and I’m still beating myself up about it now…
Anyway, the long and the short of it was that I left before the afternoon session started: I just came home, lay down on the bed and cried myself to sleep. I felt such a fool. I woke maybe early evening, and that was about it for the weekend, really.
Am I really so broken, inside? That I can’t talk about something so central to my life as transitioning is? But I can talk around the politics of it from dawn til dusk? What’s that about, then?
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©2008 Helen G, except the photo (which appears by kind permission of Red Chidgey) and the logo (which was stolen shamelessly from the Feminist Activist Forum website)
I gather that today is National Orgasm Day, and that it’s some sort of marketing device by Scarlet magazine. Although I don’t consider myself especially prudish, I can’t help thinking that if some people were less obsessed with the secretions of their genitalia and their own self-gratification – and a little more concerned about their attitudes to sex and gender identity and sexual orientation; their relationships with their bodies and their sex partners, and so on – then maybe I wouldn’t find myself writing such a downbeat post on what is presumably being hyped as a day for focusing on the joys of sexual climax.
First of all, the Larry King case. I originally wrote about this at TFW back in March (link here; archive copy here at BoP). To recap: on 12 February, a teenager (Brandon McInerney) apparently murdered another teenager (Larry King) because he (McInerney) did not approve of King’s apparent sexual orientation and gender presentation. For a teenager to exhibit such homophobic behaviour, let alone manifest it in the form of lethal violence (McInerney shot King in the head from point blank range), is not only disturbing but a sad indictment of a society that tells us that hate crimes are an acceptable way for people to express their phobias about non-heteronormative, gender variant members of society.
The second news item concerns the confession to the murder of Angie Zapata, by a man named Allen Ray Andrade. Ms Zapata was a trans* woman living in Colorado, USA, who was found beaten to death in her apartment on 17 July. The website of 9NEWS has quite a detailed report – link here – but the sequence of events seems to be that, having met on a social networking site, the two arranged to meet on 15 July. The report at 9news continues:
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