building blocks
Well, at piny's request, I'm going to put up another thread while I'm at it.
The aforementioned thread at Alas has gone where it will, but there are still building blocks--even the brightly-colored kind you clonk together as a wee bairn--to get out of our frustrations.
Someone over there suggested that trans people's primary goals in organizing are, basically, to kick at the feminist movement and complain.
I think we can do better in defining our goals, even if nobody else is listening except when it's convenient.
What are--and what should be--the philosophical, practical and pragmatic concerns of the transgender-movement-such-as-it-is? I've got some ideas, but seeing the quality of discussion there's been here already, I'm also excited to see what you-all have to say. Suggestions from non-trans people, of course, are welcome.
I'll be moderating.
The aforementioned thread at Alas has gone where it will, but there are still building blocks--even the brightly-colored kind you clonk together as a wee bairn--to get out of our frustrations.
Someone over there suggested that trans people's primary goals in organizing are, basically, to kick at the feminist movement and complain.
I think we can do better in defining our goals, even if nobody else is listening except when it's convenient.
What are--and what should be--the philosophical, practical and pragmatic concerns of the transgender-movement-such-as-it-is? I've got some ideas, but seeing the quality of discussion there's been here already, I'm also excited to see what you-all have to say. Suggestions from non-trans people, of course, are welcome.
I'll be moderating.
Labels: building blocks, feminism, trans
posted by little light | 4:03 PM
21 Comments:
well, since you're asking...:p
I think ending violence in all its forms is a worthy goal--ending violence against women is something that Radical woc are doing, and it is generalized enough such that all sorts of ills can be addressed with our analysis, and yet it definitly centers us and our communities. I think there are a lot of places and sites where woc and trans people of color and intersect and overlap our fight--and having a fluid concept of gender will allow us to expand our ideas of what violence means and what are effective methods to end that violence--I mean, i really think there's just so much that we could do working together, and I know the foundations are being laid to begin intersecting our movements in sort of alliance building fashions--but I don't think it's gotten to the point where things like isolation in the trans community (i.e. the discussion that there really, in many places, if not most, is no such thing as a trans "community") simply aren't being addressed on any meaningful level yet.
I want to see how to begin addressing issues like that with the ultimate goal of building a base of power being all of us...
"Someone over there suggested that trans people's primary goals in organizing are, basically, to kick at the feminist movement and complain.
I think we can do better in defining our goals, even if nobody else is listening except when it's convenient."
i totally agree. you know, i've spent quite a bit of time at the michfest board, and over on heart's blog, reading and occasionally commenting. and while it's difficult to be told what my "primary goals" are without know what, well, my primary goals actually are, my motivation in spending time there is to try and build a relationship with radical feminists, so we can work together toward our common goals. and i believe we, as in our respective communities, have a lot of common goals.
"What are--and what should be--the practical and pragmatic concerns of the transgender-movement-such-as-it-is?"
yes, we really need to define what this "transgender movement" is, because from where i sit, i've been told a lot about what the trans agenda works toward, and i don't ever remember having a voice in that agenda.
unlike feminism, i think the so called "trans movement" is a group of trans people struggling to find a job (as opposed to getting paid 70 cents on the dollar compared with men), trying to find a safe place to pee in public accomodations, trying to find *any* medical care, and trying to find housing. so we've thus far been defined by a small vocal group of trans people who may not be representing our best interests.
so far, i don't believe we've been offering any sense of a political stance. i don't see the trans movement as political at all. many of us are too busy just trying to stay alive. and the result of that is other groups defining our movement for us.
so i think the first step might be to find common ground among ourselves - the trans community is extremely diversified. and i've seen so much in-fighting, it would seem from the outside that our goal is to self destruct.
It's interesting, Nexy, because your comment reflects a lot of the problems that people of color have with the white normative sexuality pride movements. I'm definitely seeing common points from your assessment of the concerns some transpeople wish to address compared to what "The Movement" is pursuing.
I think philosophically a lot of work has to be done to modify discussions of the gender binary to a better view of biological effects on sexual development. Feminist studies have uncovered experiments where male scientists using the heteronormative model (male, female) have missed key observations from other angles. If as a cohesive unit we worked to unpack these assumptions by reviewing our language, our understanding of relationships, and our methods of perceiving difference...that'd make inroads for a lot of groups, especially trans people in areas of sex and gender.
I can think of a bunch of goals.
1) Survival. The most vulnerable populations of trans people are also the most ignored and voiceless. We need those voices, and we need to stop the violence, state-sanctioned and otherwise, against trans people. Especially low-income trans women of color in large urban centers who often have extreme difficulty findings jobs, finding housing, getting health care, even finding temporary shelter. These extreme crisis points, where people can't even get a toehold due to pervasive institutional discrimination as well as harassment from all corners, expose extremely vulnerable populations of trans people to increased risk of substance addiction, HIV, and criminal violence. A sizeable portion of the trans people in this part of the world are in crisis and nobody is going to lift a finger to help unless the rest of us do something, because few other political entities care about trans people. Our people need access to basic means of survival!
2) Political agency and voice in our communities and in order to make change. Like I said in part 1, the most vulnerable are the most voiceless. We need to hear these voices and help them be heard. Across all walks of life, income levels, ethnic backgrounds, trans people have less political voice and are more disenfranchised from all sorts of political processes (community, local, broard) because of prejudices against trans people. Even rich, white, privileged trans people are not taken seriously because all trans people are generally regarded as freaks, deviants, mentally ill, liars, etc. Even gay rights groups and politicians (HRC, Barney Frank) do little more than pay lip service a lot of the time. And that's at the wealthy white end of the trans population! It just gets worse downhill from there. Education and reform is needed in all sorts of communities -- bridges need to be built -- trans people need to be taken seriously and heard. This is the goal that might be the closest rationale for engaging in frustrating discussions online with people who don't (or refuse to) listen to trans voices. Give us voice to let us participate in our larger communities!
3) Improving the situation for future generations. I think a lot of trans people can agree on this idea -- that decades hence, children who are gender non-conforming in one way or another should not have to go through what trans people who are adults now almost all had to go through in one way or another as kids. In contemporary child-rearing practices, there's still so much shame and enforcement around gender-normativity. There are still so many families who are horrified, angry, shocked, terrified about their kids being gender-different in some way. (Obviously there are overlaps here with queer youth too.) Having far fewer trans kids kicked out of home, or running away because nobody will help them deal with their feelings about gender, or subjected to electroshock treatments, is a worthy goal for the next few decades. Progress is happening already, here and in some other countries. Kids in the future don't need to go through what we did!
4) Recognize the diversity of gender expression and strategies for "dealing with gender," and work to end gender coercion, starting inside our own communities. There are two basic principles that I think are vital for a general humane treatment of trans people. First, there are as many different ways of reacting to "gender" and dealing with gendered systems, the binary, etc as there are people. There are not two paths, or six, or a dozen; there are many. There aren't "two types" of trans people either. Second, nobody should be coerced into certain kinds of gender expressions, behaviors, or feelings. This is harder than it sounds -- there is a whole lot of coercion inside trans communities as well. The "right way" to be trans. Feelings of not being "trans enough." Butch women being pressured to transition in some communities. Plenty of other people pressured not to transition or not to choose certain paths for their own body. Recognize gender diversity, end gender coercion!!
5) Find common ground. It's important to recognize diversity to acknowledge that no, not all trans people are the same. Not all gender-non-conforming people do the same thing, nor do we have to, nor is one "type of person" gross or "less real" than another. After that is sorted, we can begin to look for lines of connection and figure out what we have in common: what threats endanger all of us, what emergencies threaten certain vulnerable groups, where the correspondences are between all sorts of communities that we can explore and draw advantage from. And of course this is not just inside trans communities, but broader as well, like we've been talking about with all sorts of interconnections between various kinds of marginalized, outsider-ed groups of people. Let's find those connections and build networks of empowerment.
i think it's unfortunate that patriarchal medicine coined the term "transsexual". also unfortunate that, according to wikipedia, virginia prince coined the term transgender. both suggest a gender binary, or at least allude to it, which goes against the grain of radicial feminism, as i understand it. further, i never really bought into the transgender term, or transsexual term for that matter. both assume an essential identity, whether it be sex or gender, and that hasn't been my experience at all. i never "felt" like, or had any internal sense of being, a man or a woman. even at a rather early age, i felt myself to be "genderless", if such a thing is possible.
i'd be perfectly fine with a term that didn't reference sex or gender, and i think rad fems see the existing language as evidence that trans people are all about gender. that's not to say that some of us are. i know many trans women especially that totally believe they were born with a "female" brain. and i believe rad fems have a problem with that, as do i, to be perfectly honest.
sylvia, you touch on this in your comment. it's frustrating for me because i have trouble finding the language to use that conveys my thoughts. i mean, feeling not like a man and not like a woman is all well and good, but i think it's a problem in defining my stance in terms of what i *don't* feel like.
so i think the very language we use might also be a good place to start.
and yeah, what holly said.
Yeah and I also agree about re-examining language, although after a while of doing that I sort of feel like I'm picking apart bellybutton lint. Maybe I'm just not cut out for it.
Oh I forgot one relatively minor one, which is that I think the medical establishment needs to be challenged to re-examine what constitutes a "healthy body" and that "transsexualism" or whatever you want to call it needs to be depathologized and de-medicalized without withdrawing medical care from anyone who needs it and has informed consent. And of course this ought to take place in conjunction with other movements to depathologize stigmatized bodies (for instance of disabled people) and deal with harmful pathologization of mentally ill people as well.
Also, end genital mutilation of intersex infants!!!!! OK I'm getting a little carried away with everything now, but that's important too, and ideologically intertwined pretty closely with the ideal of ending gender coercion.
Yeah what am I talking about relatively minor, that's not minor. That should be a major number, ending pathologization and stigmatization of bodies that are "different" and changing our model of medicine so that human differences are recognized as natural variety instead of problems to be "corrected," and providing adequate respectful care to everyone in a way that enhances patient autonomy, consent, and self-determination over our bodies, for everything from reproductive care to not having fatphobic crap about weight loss pushed on healthy fat people to ending stigmatizing crap about people of color's bodies to helping trans people get transition-related care that makes sense for each individual. That's really fucking important. Stop stepping all over our bodies just because they're different or have different needs!!
One of the problems, from my perspective, is that there is no "trans movement". Sure, many have mentioned that, but what external viewers tend to miss is that the internal stresses and conflicts are often at least as divisive, and in all too many cases, acrimonious, as external conflicts. Fear and the need to simply survive seem to be behind much of this, but how to alleviate that?
I'm not at all sure. From my perspective, it seems like validating a wide and expanding idea of gender identity, delinked from the binary, would be a starting place, but that's not always a popular position. A lot of people are vitally connected to binary gender, both within and without, and perceive any attempt to expand or open up the concept of identity as a direct threat to much that is important to them. I can't really argue with that well, despite it not being my reality, and I'm really afraid that until a way to even talk about this is found, the same old thrashes will keep coming up.
words are powerful. i was listening to npr the other day and they interviewed frank luntz who, as a republican pollster, helps his clients choose words that work. while his supporters hail him and his critics accuse him of "using language that misrepresents policies to "sell" them to the public", for me the thrust of the story is that the words we choose, especially in the context of a political statement, can make or break acceptance.
if we're speaking to a group of feminists who live and breathe in the destruction of gender, and we're calling ourselves "transgenders", then that going to majorly contribute to their negative view.
on the other hand, i see the wording that people of color have chosen to identify themselves. it not only emcompasses greater numbers, but it also eliminates the baggage that previous identifiers have gathered. at the same time, it reclaims the term "color". i totally believe that the term "people of color" incites a much more positive feeling than any previous terms used to describe people of color.
anyway, i believe language is everything, and i believe if we are going to be a political entity, we need to be especially sensitive to how the words we use to define this "trans movement" effect our listeners.
and the first thing i'd do (if i were queen of the world) is change our name to something like, "people of change". get rid of "sex", "gender", "identity", "reassignment" - all these words are triggering and they don't reflect all trans people experiences.
as far as there being no trans movement, i believe we need to define one whether or not it existed in the past. and i believe it's important for us to define that, instead of having others define it for us.
actually, any word that indicates change is probably not good either, in labling ourselves. it still indicates a support of the binary. we ought to positions ourselves as rejecting the binary.
I agree with nexy about language being important, especially in communciation. I don't think the only goal for choosing our words and labels should be "win those anti-trans feminists over!" But there are other reasons besides "good PR" to always be looking at and thinking about how the language we use is actively constructing the way we think about ourselves and others. Change the way you talk about something, and you change your perspective too. It's worth exploring.
I think "trans" with nothing on the end has grown more popular, especially starting with younger groups (20s) of trans people, because it's really non-specific. It doesn't say gender, or sex, or identity. But that doesn't help the term avoid becoming a target for people who just don't like the idea of people changing their gender in some way. I used to try and say "of trans experience" a lot, as in "I'm a woman of color and a woman of trans experience." That rings the most true to me; "trans" is part of my experiences. It's a little cumbersome, though.
I don't get the whole "change inside a binary is in support of the binary" angle though. Part of the rules of the binary is that the categories are immutable and you can't switch. Trans people break that rule, which is part of the structure. Even if that's not the central strut that's going to bring the whole house down, it's not like trans people are shoring up the house any more than all the other people who are still inside it... which includes almost everyone.
I don't think it's change inside the binary that's problematic for most; it's change across the binary. This rests on a few unspoken, often unacknowledged, assumptions: that gender=sex; that there are only two genders/sexes; that there are not now, nor will there ever be, more than one of two options. Add to this the apparent subordination model of many of the antitrans radfems, and it all makes a sick, sinking sort of sense.
I'm not sure there is a good way to build a dialectical bridge to that. If gender doesn't necessarily equate to sex, if there are more than two options, what happens to the subordination aspects of certain feminisms? If gender is not absolute, but contingent and fluid, how can there be a class woman who is known by constant Othering? If there are more than two options, how can positionality be defined in a straight line from oppressor to oppressed? This is the problem of identity based on resistance; the resister becomes horribly intertwined with that against which resistance is defined, such that any "liberation" comes to be seen as threatening danger.
Nexy--why does any word that indicates change support a binary? Why can't the concept of change-from or even change-to apply to a huge plurality of choices, rather than just two?
This is part of my problem with objections to the use of "trans" or "transgender." There is nothing inherent to me, in the concept "movement" or "across," indicating a necessary movement from one thing to another thing, those two being the only two options.
I think forcing "change" or "movement" as in "trans" to mean only movement from one pole to another is mistaken, and doesn't take into account the huge number of possibilities inherent in the concept.
There's nothing keeping "trans" from meaning "movement to anything," or "having a history of change," even if we restrict ourselves to "change regarding gender," except pre-existing entrenchment in a binary before even considering the concept. This is part of what drives me crazy about the whole discussion--the automatic assumption that "transgender" equals MtF or FtM, or "masculine" and "feminine" as the only two genders to be "trans'd" to or from.
Part of this, though, I suspect, is that in every one of these arguments, I've heard people recoil from what they call "queer theory" and "pomo"--can someone explain to me what the damn problem is with queer theory? I come from a queer theory background, and from a background of, among other lenses to use, postmodernism, and nobody has ever suggested to me before that these are in any way inherent patriarchal or antifeminist.
Further, though I don't have the time to expand on this until later tonight, I can't get on board with the complete abolishment of gender as a common, automatically-desirable goal for a big-tent trans movement.
I think we need to clarify what we're calling "gender" in this discussion. If we're using it as shorthand for "a coercive cultural system of rigid, binary, sex-linked gender roles," then yeah, I'm all for calling that out as hierarchical, patriarchal, oppressive to women and trans folk of all stripes, and worth demolishing. But if we're using "gender" as "a sociocultural position marked by particular behaviors, expressions, and expectations, one of many across various cultures," for instance, then, well, how do we even think it can be eliminated? That is, if we're calling "gender" a category of cultural performance, as a way of talking about ways people behave and move in the world, then it's a concept that will always exist. In a world without a coercive, oppressive binary system, it might mean that everyone constitutes a gender of their own, but in terms of describing human behavior and self-awareness, "gender" is about as easy to eliminate as "language" or "ritual." Maybe this is my anthropology background talking.
I would posit that it is definitely a common goal to end gendered oppression, coercive binary gender, and the chaining of gender to genitalia. I'm not sure "gender" itself is something that can or should be eliminated, though, whether orn ot we can all agree that how it behaves needs to be drastically changed. Descriptive gender is entirely different from prescriptive gender, and the latter needs to be hammered on, but the former might, by its nature, be an irrelevant thing to be shooting at.
"Nexy--why does any word that indicates change support a binary? Why can't the concept of change-from or even change-to apply to a huge plurality of choices, rather than just two?"
well, it can. unfortunately, in the context of trans people, any word that indicates change already has the baggage assigned to it so that it means to change from one to the other, from the perspective of the listener. the word and meaning itself is not the problem - it's the meaning assigned to it by association. in my opinion anyway.
a word that indicates, inherently, a change from a traditional construct to nothing, or to something that is clearly not a traditional construct would work, if i could think of one.
"I think we need to clarify what we're calling "gender" in this discussion. If we're using it as shorthand for "a coercive cultural system of rigid, binary, sex-linked gender roles," then yeah, I'm all for calling that out as hierarchical, patriarchal, oppressive to women and trans folk of all stripes, and worth demolishing."
when i speak of abolishing gender, that is exactly what i'm refering to. many people believe that gender, as a set of behaviors, and/or expressions, and/or culture, and/or feelings, is a part of our biological being. and i don't know that we could be very successful in speaking about ending that. and frankly, i don't know that a discussion of that is relevant, at least in the context of our objectives here.
on the alas thread, the question was posed "So … why are you Tranz? How do you explain it to others? And for bonus points, how do you justify that within a feminist context?"
piny answered "I think I will pass, if that’s okay. I think that justifying it is rather a fool’s exercise, and don’t want to turn into Lynne. I interrogate my behavior on either side of the divide, but that’s different." and to me, that's the heart of the matter. it's really who we are, and how we act, not the change, or transition, that is at issue.
i think the trans community spends way too much time on the whys and hows of transition, instead of who we are as people, and what we stand for and against. there's endless talk about hormones, gender identity, and surgery (and clothes), but very little about politics and how we fit into the queer (or even human) community at large, especially once our individual physical transitions are over. many of us simply crawl back under the rock from whence we came. perhaps understandable, but not very productive in a political context.
prosporous wrote:
Part of the problem, I think, is that pomo focuses on things like intersectionality and decentering, which to second wavers, removes class woman as the right and proper Subject of History
---
Well, like Katha Pollit said recently at the women's studies list: "I've met young women for whom the takeaway message (of feminism) is: feminism is racist and classist, Betty Friedan was an elitist, the concept of privacy (as in repro rights) is bourgeois, the concept of "women" is a biological fiction etc. I have certainly met many women who came away highly conscious of everything that divides women, and much less interested in what they share."
OH NOES! The sky is falling Henny Penny!
Well, so what if it was and is?
but you see what ultimately underwrites that statement is the lament over our current failure to focus on "what (we) share" as if that's the solution.
ahhh. grumpy tooooday.
Well, I guess a road to some people is a barrier that divides, to others it's a connection of one place to another place... a different place.
And to others still it's a dusty place that you can dance in the middle of, dodging traffic.
I think the soft-spoken, "reasonable" bigots are much worse, in the long run, than the really "out there" ones, like luckywhatever. Just sayin'.
Oh, yes.
"And to others still it's a dusty place that you can dance in the middle of, dodging traffic."
Oi, story of my life right there, nice description. What about instead of a spectrum involving a line it gets conceptualized as a circle, instead? Back in high school my history teacher had a saying, not sure where she got it but it was "The further to the right you go, the closer to the left you become." Somewhere 'round there, anyway. If transgender is supposed to mean transgressive behavior between or over gender expectations, then it pretty much fits everyone alive if it's used in that context anywhere in any way somewhere. But even a circle is made of a bended line, and I'm sure someone, somewhere would argue that since someone seems to be associated on a part of the circle, that they couldn't possibly also be on that-other-part, so I honestly have no idea how to construct the idea in language. Scratch that, I've a vague idea, but it's fuzzy and has to do with different dimensions, probably illustrated by a semi-transparent see-through chart with lots and lots of colored overlapping sheets.
...And yes, I'm serious about the chart.
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