Be Trans, Read Leslie Feinberg***
This is the sixteenth entry in a series I’m writing on gender. Equal parts personal narrative and transgender studies I hope to explore topics that have, by-and-large, been nagging at me for some time, but that I haven’t taken the time to write about. Who gets to define what transgender means and what does transgender mean? What do Tumblr, lexicographers, and transtrenders have in common? Why should anyone care about the personal stories of a girl from small town rural Georgia? This series hopes to cover all of this and more. Have a topic you’d like me to write about? Leave a comment or tweet me @JessieRaeFisher.
As I’ve been reading for my master’s thesis I’ve been reading Leslie Feinberg’s Trans Liberation and Transgender Warrior. As I’ve been working through the on-going conversation between transtrender-transgender people and transmed-transgender people, I’ve been trying to find older and non-academic conceptions of what transgender is, can be, could be, will be, was, etc. I find that this is important. It seems that at-large conversations about who or what transgender is or can be doesn’t seem to have any grounding. Transtrender-transgender people and transmed-transgender people, largely don’t sit down and start their disagreements by agreeing on definitions of “transgender” and “gender dysphoria.”
I find Feinberg’s writing an excellent place to start. Writing in the 1990’s, Feinberg was at the forefront of transgender thought. With this however, it is important to note that, for example, in 1996’s Transgender Warriors Feinberg notes that ze is, “... writing this book as a contribution to the demand for transgender liberation, the language I’m using in this book is not aimed at defining but at defending the diverse communities that are coalescing,” (emphasis original, Feinberg, IX).
With that in mind, on the next page, Feinberg writes, “I’ve been called a he-she, butch, bulldagger, cross-dresser, passing woman, female-to-male transvestite, and drag king. The word I prefer to use to describe myself is transgender,” (emphasis original, Feinberg, X).
Feinberg writes that, as of the time of hir writing that there are “at least two colloquial meanings” of the word transgender, “It has been used as an umbrella term to include everyone who challenges the boundaries of sex and gender. It is also used to draw a distinction between those who reassign the sex they were labeled at birth, and those of us whose gender expression is considered inappropriate for our sex,” (X).
When asking transgender activists who were included in the Transgender Warriors book “... who they believed were included under the umbrella term,” and responses ze got included, “transsexuals, transgenders, transvestites, transgenderists, bigenders, drag queens, drag kings, cross-dressers, masculine women, feminine men, intersexuals [...], androgynes, cross-genders, shape-shifters, passing women, passing men, gender-benders, gender-blenders, bearded women, and women bodybuilders who have crossed the line of what is considered socially acceptable for a female body,” (X).
Feinberg goes on to quote Virginia Prince who introduced the term transgenderist, “I coined the noun transgenderist in 1987 or ‘88. There had to be some name for people like myself who trans the gender barrier - meaning somebody who lives full time in the gender opposite to their anatomy. I have not transed the sex barrier,” (emphasis original, X).
Maybe this piece should be titled “Be Trans, Read Virginia Prince.” Maybe that piece is forthcoming. Feinberg goes on to write that transgender people, “... traverse, bridge or blur the boundary of the gender expression they were assigned at birth,” (X) and ze goes on to say that, “... not all transsexuals choose surgery or hormones; some transgender people do,” (X).
About passing, Feinberg writes, “We have not always been forced to pass, to go underground, in order to work and live. We have a right to live openly and proudly. When we are denied those rights, we are the ones who suffer that oppression. But when our lives are suppressed, everyone is denied an understanding of the rich diversity of sex and gender expression and experience that exist in human society,” (emphasis original, 88).
For Feinberg’s part, ze writes, “Yes, I am oppressed in this society, but I am not merely a product of oppression. That is a phrase that renders all our trans identities meaningless. Passing means having to hide your identity in fear, in order to live. Being forced to pass is a recent historical development. It is passing that is a product of oppression,” (emphasis original, 89).
None of this is to say that Feinberg is the end all or be all of this work, that is the opposite of what I’m trying to suggest here, instead, I’m offering Feinberg’s work up as a place where those in the same community, who are facing a disagreement that is in no small part semantic, can start to think about the terms they use, how they use them, and where they get the definitions and ideas for the terms they use. So maybe we should read Feinberg, especially if we want to speak socio-politically about what and who transgender is. If we want to be able to try to have a conversation about who is or isn’t trans and why - maybe we should have Feinberg’s ideas of transgender in our minds when we have these conversations. If we don’t have hir ideas in mind, we should have someone’s ideas in mind, and it might help if we either agree on whose ideas to start from, or at least acknowledge where each person in a conversation is starting from. Otherwise, certainly, any conversation had can be seen as disingenuous. At the very least, maybe one’s idea of what transgender is should be more founded than what’s given as a definition on Google without ever even needing to click a link. Or, if one refuses to abandon that definition, they should at least understand Google’s motivations and biases, dare I say, one would want to understand the positionality of Google.
*** This title is a play on the popular “Be gay, do crimes!” and is not in any way meant to suggest that if one doesn’t read Leslie Feinberg that they aren’t transgender or that they’re less trans. This “Be Trans, read —” series-in-a-series will return.
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