Anger

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  On the surface, subversivism gives the appearance of accommodating a seemingly infinite array of genders and sexualities, but this is not quite the case. Subversivism does have very specific boundaries; it has an “other.” By glorifying identities and expressions that appear to subvert or blur gender binaries, subversivism automatically creates a reciprocal category of people whose gender and sexual identities and expressions are by default inherently conservative, even “hegemonic,” because they are seen as reinforcing or naturalizing the binary gender system. Not surprisingly, this often-unspoken category of bad, conservative genders is predominantly made up of feminine women and masculine men who are attracted to the “opposite” sex. One routinely sees this “dark side” of subversivism rear its head in the queer/trans community, where it is not uncommon to hear individuals critique or call into question other queers or trans folks because their gender presentation, behaviors, or sexual preferences are not deemed “subversive” enough. Indeed, if one fails to sufficiently distinguish oneself from heterosexual feminine women and masculine men, one runs the risk of being accused of “reinforcing the gender binary,” an indictment that is tantamount to being called a sexist. One of the most common targets of such critiques are transsexuals, and particularly those who are heterosexual and gender-normative post-transition. Indeed, because such transsexuals (in the eyes of others) transition from a seemingly “transgressive” queer identity to a “conservative” straight one, subversivists may even claim that they have transitioned in order to purposefully “assimilate” themselves into straight culture. While these days, such accusations are often couched in the rhetoric of current queer theory, they rely on many of the same mistaken assumptions that plagued the work of cissexist feminists like Janice Raymond and sociologists like Thomas Kando decades ago. 2 The practice of subversivism also negatively impacts trans people on the MTF spectrum. After all, in our culture, the meanings of “bold,” “rebellious,” and “dangerous”—adjectives that often come to mind when considering subversiveness—are practically built into our understanding of masculinity. In contrast, femininity conjures up antonyms like “timid,” “conventional,” and “safe,” which seem entirely incompatible with subversion. Therefore, despite the fact that the mainstream public tends to be more concerned and disturbed by MTF spectrum trans people than their FTM spectrum counterparts, subversivism creates the impression that trans masculinities are inherently “subversive” and “transgressive,” while their trans feminine counterparts are “feckless” and “conservative” in comparison. Subversivism’s privileging of trans masculinities over trans femininities helps to explain why cissexual queer women and FTM spectrum folks tend to dominate the queer/trans community: Their exceptional gender expressions and identities are routinely empowered and encouraged in such settings. In contrast, there is generally a dearth of MTF spectrum folks who regularly inhabit queer/trans spaces. 3 To me, the most surreal part of this whole transgressing-versus-reinforcing-gender-norms dialogue in the queer/trans community (and in many gender studies classrooms and books) is the unacknowledged hypocrisy of it all.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  66 Ibid. 67 Will Roscoe, “How to Become a Berdache: Toward a Unified Analysis of Gender Diversity,” in Herdt, Third Sex, Third Gender, 360–362. 68 Ibid., 362, 365. 69 For examples, see Roughgarden, Evolution’s Rainbow, 343–346; and Califia, Sex Changes, 147–149. 70 Lewins, Transsexualism in Society, 144. 71 David E. Grimm, “Toward a Theory of Gender: Transsexualism, Gender, Sexuality, and Relationships,” American Behavioral Scientist 31, no. 1 (1987), 70. 72 Eichler, The Double Standard, 75. 73 Greer, The Whole Woman, 71. 74 Judith Shapiro, “Transsexualism: Reflections on the Persistence of Gender and the Mutability of Sex,” in Body Guards: The Cultural Politics of Gender Ambiguity, Julia Epstein and Kristina Straub, eds. (New York: Routledge, 1991), 253. 75 Thomas Kando, “Males, Females, and Transsexuals: A Comparative Study of Sexual Conservatism,” Journal of Homosexuality 1, no. 1 (1974), 63–44. 76 Bolin, In Search of Eve, 107; Namaste, Invisible Lives, 191–234. 77 Bolin, In Search of Eve, 41. 78 Ibid., 118. 79 For a general review of how transsexuals are rarely accepted socially and legally in the United States, see Currah, Juang, and Minter, Transgender Rights —this book also contains Kylar W. Broadus’s account of how much worse he was treated by coworkers as a trans man than when he was perceived as a butch dyke (page 94). 80 Mildred L. Brown and Chloe Ann Rounsley, True Selves: Understanding Transsexualism—For Families, Friends, Coworkers, and Helping Professionals (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1996), 105–107. 81 For example, see Tom Waddell Health Center, “Protocols for Hormonal Reassignment of Gender,” July 24, 2001 (https://web.archive.org/web/20061010065247/http://www.dph.sf.ca.us/chn/HlthCtrs/HlthCtrDocs/TransGendprotocols.pdf). 82 Lev, Transgender Emergence . 83 Ibid., 180–181; Rudacille, The Riddle of Gender, 18. 8 Dismantling Cissexual Privilege 1 Greer, The Whole Woman, 74. 2 Califia, Sex Changes, 116. 3 During the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, eight of 3,387 female athletes screened for Y chromosomal material tested positive; the Olympics has since discontinued its genetic sex testing (Myron Genel, “Gender Verification No More?” Medscape Women’s Health 5, no. 3 [2000], https://web.archive.org/web/20220308131718/https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/408918). Infertility clinics have found that up to 11 percent of azoospermic males (i.e., males who have no sperm in their semen) have a XXY karyotype (Hiroshi Okada, Hitoshi Fujioka, Noboru Tatsumi, Masanori Kanzaki, Yoshihiro Okuda, Masato Fujisawa, Minoru Hazama, Osamu Matsumoto, Kazuo Gohji, Soichi Arakawa, and Sadao Kamidono, “Klinefelter’s Syndrome in the Male Infertility Clinic,” Human Reproduction 14, no. 4 [1999], 946–952). 4 Tarynn M. Witten, Esben Esther Pirelli Benestad, Ilana Berger, R. J. M. Ekins, Randi Ettner, Katsuki Harima, Dave King, Mikael Landén, Nuno Nodin, Volodymyr P’yatokha, and Andrew N. Sharpe, “Transgender and Transsexuality,” The Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender: Men and Women in the World’s Cultures, C. R. Ember and M. Ember, eds. (New York: Kluwer/Plenum, 2003), 216–229; Lynn Conway, “How Frequently Does Transsexualism Occur?” LynnConway.com (2001–2002; http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/TSprevalence.html). 5 The notion of “doing” gender is often attributed to Candace West and Don H. Zimmerman’s article, “Doing Gender,” Gender and Society 1, no.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  This premise underlies Jay Leno’s infamous question to Hugh Grant: “What were you thinking?”4 It’s why Grant and fellow celebrity Eddie Murphy are still able to star in films for Disney while the tranny prostitutes they sought out are reduced to cinematic novelties: tasteless jokes in teen comedies, bad Lou Reed anecdotes in art films produced by Andy Warhol wannabes, or as examples of urban decay in police dramas set on sordid and seedy city streets.Transgender women are portrayed as deceivers so that rabid heterosexuals can turn a blind eye to the transsexual porn ads that litter the back of men’s magazines like Hustler and Penthouse, so that mainstream moviegoers can watch The Crying Game and act surprised to find out that the woman who performs in the drag bar happens to have a penis. “Deception” is the scarlet letter that trannies are made to wear so that everybody else can claim innocence.This is why the police, lawyers, and press who worked on the Gwen Araujo case ignored the multiple sources who insisted that Gwen’s killers knew she was transgender to begin with.5 It’s why nobody ever questioned how next-to-impossible it would be for two of Gwen’s killers to have had anal sex with her without ever coming across her genitals. Nobody was willing to even consider the possibility that Gwen’s murderers knowingly had sex with her. Why challenge our culture’s myopic view of male sexuality when it’s so easy to blame it all on one deceiving tranny? And why question the psychotic paranoia with which many men defend their masculinity when it’s so convenient to trash one young trans person’s gender identity?

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  As I walk home after the appointment, I call #5. He asks me how it was and I tell him I’m fine minus an infection. I barely have the words out before he announces definitively that the infection is not from him because he doesn’t have any diseases. “Neither do I. It’s an infection. Women get them all the time. I don’t even know for sure if I have one. Anyway, thanks for your concern,” I say sarcastically. A few days later, he calls as I leave the nail salon with freshly painted bright pink fingernails, asking me my plans for the evening since Georgia is with Michael. When I tell him that I am going to dinner with my friend Danny, an old college friend, he sounds dejected. “I’m disappointed. I was going to come downtown and surprise you, take you out,” he says. I thank him, but since I’ve had these plans for a while I don’t offer to change them. “I find it a little odd that you’re having dinner with a man I’ve never heard about and that you didn’t tell me sooner,” he says. It’s not odd at all as I have a lot of friends he doesn’t know about yet, but he continues, “I don’t believe that men and women can be platonic friends because it’s impossible to be attracted to someone as a friend and not eventually be curious about what else could be there.” “Is this one of those moments in which you’re arguing with me for argument’s sake or are you serious?” I say. He replies immediately that he is serious and reiterates that he doesn’t like that I have these dinner plans. “Oh wow. Listen, I’m not someone who gets jealous easily and I’ve never been with a man who gets jealous, and I don’t like that I feel defensive when all I’m doing is having dinner with a very old friend,” I say. “I’m not jealous at all,” he says. “I’m calling you out on the fact that this is not just a friend.” “I don’t think this is going to work between us,” I say, coldly and abruptly. “It feels like we are fundamentally too different to be together.” “I’m hurt,” he says quietly. “I really like you.” Neither of us says anything for a long, awkward moment. “Let me come downtown and take you to dinner,” he says. “Tell your friend you’ll see him another night. I had a nice surprise planned for you.” “No,” I say firmly. “I’m not changing my plans. If you don’t trust me, I don’t want to see you again.” “I’m sorry,” he says evenly. “I get hot-headed sometimes. I do trust you. Give me another chance?” I tell him that I’m too frustrated to talk further and hang up the phone. * The next day, I have to acknowledge that the relentless itchy sensation I feel is likely a yeast infection. Back to the gynecologist I go, tail between my legs.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  Anderson explained that she used transsexuality primarily as a device to challenge the couple’s relationship. In fact, she draws a comparison between the way she employs transsexuality and the way other writers have used extra-marital affairs in the past. While Anderson seems to believe that stories that center on extra-marital affairs have become passé (both because the premise has been overused by writers and because many people continue to love the person who has cheated on them), she views transsexuality as “ultimate betrayal” that can occur within a marriage. 4 So, in other words, one of the characters, Roy, is ungendered in order to throw a monkey wrench into the couple’s marriage. And transsexuality is no longer a marginalized identity or a grueling issue that real human beings struggle with; it is merely a literary device—a “metaphor” for the “ultimate catastrophe” that can strike a relationship. You would think that Anderson—as a woman and a lesbian—would be aware of the troubling way sexual minorities are portrayed (and their voices silenced) by the media, and that she would, at the very least, make a modest attempt to ensure that her character was respectful of the transsexual experience. Unfortunately, this is not the case. When the interviewer asked her if she drew on any sources when researching the movie, Anderson unabashedly answered that she relied solely on her “imagination,” that she made it up all herself. 5 Unencumbered by any need to have her character reflect reality, Anderson was free to turn Roy into a transsexual caricature. She explained in the interview that she purposely set out to make sure that the audience would not take Roy seriously as a woman. 6 Perhaps this is why Anderson makes no attempt to have any of the other characters come to relate to Roy as female or use female pronouns when addressing her. Roy herself doesn’t seem to protest this fact or assert her female identity at any point; in fact, she is inordinately meek and docile for someone who is in the process of coming out as transsexual. In a pre-movie interview, Tom Wilkinson, who played Roy in the made-for-cable movie, said, “I wanted to retain the kind of innocence about the whole thing that that guy had. He doesn’t know quite what he’s getting into.” (Emphasis mine.) 7 Thus, like his director, Wilkinson shows no respect for his transsexual character’s gender identity. As a result, Roy comes off as excruciatingly mousy and confused, presumably because it never occurred to either Wilkinson or Anderson that a man who wanted to be female could be any other way.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  Some feminists (particularly unilateral feminists) will no doubt have a negative knee-jerk reaction to my suggestion that we extend our understanding of misogyny to encompass effemimania—our societal obsession with critiquing and belittling feminine traits in males. However, as I have argued in past chapters, effemimania affects everybody, including women. Effemimania encourages those who are socialized male to mystify femininity and to dehumanize those who are considered feminine, and thus forms the foundation of virtually all male expressions of misogyny. Effemimania also ensures that any male’s manhood or masculinity can be brought into question at any moment for even the slightest perceived expression of, or association with, femininity. I would argue that today, the biggest bottleneck in the movement toward gender equity is not so much women’s lack of access to what has been traditionally considered the “masculine realm,” but rather men’s insistence on defining themselves in opposition to women (i.e., their unwillingness to venture into the “feminine realm”). Until now, the typical feminist response to men who fear being associated with the “feminine realm” can be paraphrased as “Get over it!” Such an attitude is ignorant, as it fails to take into account the fact that male femininity is perceived very differently from female femininity. If femininity in women is already seen as “artificial” and “contrived,” then oppositional sexism ensures that femininity in men appears exponentially “artificial” and “contrived.” While a handful of feminists have recognized this fact—that male feminine expression tends to evoke levels of contempt and disgust that far exceed that which is normally reserved for female masculinity or femininity—most have unfortunately chosen to ignore or dismiss misogyny when it targets those who are male-bodied. 21 By doing so, these feminists have become enablers for one of the most prevalent and malignant forms of traditional sexism. The greatest barrier preventing us from fully challenging sexism is the pervasive antifeminine sentiment that runs wild in both the straight and queer communities, targeting people of all genders and sexualities. The only realistic way to address this issue is to work toward empowering femininity itself. We must rightly recognize that feminine expression is strong, daring, and brave—that it is powerful—and not in an enchanting, enticing, or supernatural sort of way, but in a tangible, practical way that facilitates openness, creativity, and honest expression. We must move beyond seeing femininity as helpless and dependent, or merely as masculinity’s sidekick, and instead acknowledge that feminine expression exists of its own accord and brings its own rewards to those who naturally gravitate toward it. By embracing femininity, feminism will finally be able to reach out to the vast majority of feminine women who have felt alienated by the movement in the past. The movement would also be able to reach those who are not female (whether male and/or transgender) who regularly face effemimania or trans-misogyny, but who have not been able to seek refuge or have a voice in the feminist movements of the past.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  A friend told me that he once saw SRS on the video Faces of Death, sandwiched between real-life shark attacks and murder attempts. Some people go so far as to call SRS a form of self-mutilation, conveniently ignoring the fact that more common procedures, such as nose jobs and liposuction, similarly involve the removal of a small amount of nonessential tissue. Most people are surprised when I tell them that the surgeons don’t really cut the penis off. They just turn it inside out and move the nerve endings around to make a functional and realistic-looking clitoris and vagina. At that point, I am invariably asked if I want SRS so that I can have sex with a man. And you should see the blank stares that I get when I reply, “No, but I’m really looking forward to having my wife fuck me with a strap-on dildo.” See, we live in a phallus-obsessed culture, where we’re all brought up to believe that everything having to do with gender and sexuality somehow revolves around the penis. That’s why so many clueless straight guys come on to dykes with pickup lines like, “Once you’ve had the real thing, baby, you won’t ever go back.” Some men actually buy into that phallocentric crap! And it’s also why most people can’t even talk about transsexual women or SRS without centering the discussion on the penis. But my desire to have SRS has virtually nothing to do with my penis. This is about me wanting to have a clitoris and vagina. But we don’t even have the language to describe this desire. It’s the ultimate Freudian slip: We naturally assume that all young girls suffer from penis envy, but we can’t imagine that any boy could possibly have its polar opposite. It’s all in the words we use. When someone is bold or brave, we say they have “balls,” while words like “pussy” and “cunt” are only ever spoken as insults. And while everyone seems to understand how the penis works, we treat female genitalia like they’re a mysterious black box. Most young women aren’t even taught the names of all their own body parts; some peo ple are unaware that the clitoris even exists; and as for the vagina, well, aren’t we all taught to see that as simply the hole where the penis is supposed to go? So it’s no wonder that most people assume that I must be mentally ill, because in this culture, wanting to be a woman is something most people find literally unimaginable. And when I do have SRS, my surgically deconstructed genitals will no doubt be seen by some to be an abomination or a blasphemy.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  But not just any women and children; only those of the dominant/majority group, who are imagined to be “pure” and “untainted.” This explains why fears of “transgender sexual predators” in women’s restrooms are so pervasive despite numerous studies showing that trans people and trans-inclusion policies pose no such threat, and why accusations of trans people “grooming” and “sexualizing” children resonate with many people despite the fact that child sexual abuse is overwhelmingly perpetrated by cis-hetero men who are family members or close acquaintances of the child in question. 37 Many people have pointed out the unmistakable parallels between today’s anti-trans “groomer” claims and those of Anita Bryant’s 1970s “Save Our Children” campaign, in which she smeared homosexuals as “child molesters” who are “recruiting children.” But eerily similar “sexual threats to children” language has been used by white segregationists against Black people and by antisemitic Christians against Jewish people, and more general “sexual predator” accusations have been weaponized against many other minority groups. 38 During the late nineteenth-century, caliper-wielding Northern European scientists promoted the theory of “degeneration,” which posited that members of their “race” were at risk of “de-evolving” if they had sexual dalliances with people of color, people with disabilities, or gender and sexual minorities—essentially, any group who was stigmatized in their eyes. While this theory has long been debunked, some on the far right continue to promote it, vilifying minority groups as “degenerates” that supposedly pose an imminent threat to their imagined “purity.” “Degeneration,” “social contagion,” and accusing entire minority groups of “sexual predation” are all different manifestations of the stigma-contamination mindset: They may differ in the specifics, but they are all driven by the same unconscious fear of stigmatized outgroups “corrupting” the supposedly “untainted” ingroup. And they all suggest a similar solution: If the stigmatized outgroup truly is “contagious,” then perhaps they should be quarantined (isolated, censored, prevented from participating in society). And if they truly represent a “sexual threat,” then perhaps they should be criminalized (which is the unspoken goal of this recent wave of anti-trans legislation). Understanding and Ending Moral Panics Much of my post– Whipping Girl writing has been centered on better understanding how prejudice works in a general sense. While every form of marginalization is unique in its history, its stereotypes, the way it is institutionalized, and so on, they often share strik ing parallels with one another. This suggests that similar unconscious patterns of thinking may underlie them. Elsewhere, I have argued that less blatant forms of prejudice are often the result of the unmarked/marked mindset, which leads us to view marginalized groups as some combination of “conspicuous,” “questionable,” “suspect,” “artificial,” “exotic,” “manipulative,” and/or “asking for” any unwanted attention that they receive (with those who are multiply marginalized being interpreted as “doubly questionable” or “doubly artificial” and so on).

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  Those gatekeepers who believe that they alone should have the authority to determine who should and should not be allowed to transition ignore the obvious fact that gender dissonance has always been a “self-diagnosed” condition: There are no visible signs or tests for it; only the trans person can feel and describe it. Once we make the arduous decision to transition—letting go of other people’s perceptions of us in favor of being true to ourselves—there is really nothing anyone can do to stop us. For these reasons, medical and mental health professionals should turn their attention away from regulating sex reassignment and toward facilitating the safe access to the means of transitioning. Thankfully, some have already begun working toward this goal, designing programs that provide trans people with affordable access to information, hormones, and the appropriate medical tests to ensure a safe transition. 81 Others in the field of psychiatry have similarly advocated that mental health professionals move away from the gatekeeper model and toward one focused on helping the transsexual manage the emotional stress and obstacles they are faced with when transitioning. 82 While all of these changes represent a promising start, true equality for transsexuals and transgender people will remain elusive as long as gender variance remains pathologized by the American Psychiatric Association, which publishes the DSM. Human beings show a large range of gender and sexual diversity, so there is no legitimate reason for any form of cross-gender behavior or identity to be categorized as a mental disorder. That said, I also take issue with those who argue for completely demedicalizing transsexuality, or who advocate removing GID from the DSM without first ensuring that there are provisions in place to allow people who choose to transition affordable access to transsexual-related medical procedures. Some have suggested creating a medical diagnosis for transsexuality to replace the current psychiatric diagnosis of GID; this makes sense, being that most transsexuals feel that our problem lies not with our minds, but with our bodies. 83 Once these medical provisions are in place, the importance of psychiatrically depathologizing transgenderism cannot be underestimated. After all, it is the popular misconception that gender variance constitutes a mental illness—that transsexual and transgender people are the ones who have the problem—that enables cissexual and cisgender prejudice against us. Notes Preface 1 As of August 2015, Whipping Girl has been cited or discussed in numerous mainstream publications, including Alternet, The Atlantic, BuzzFeed, The Chicago Reader, The Daily Beast, The Guardian, Huffington Post, Marie Claire, Ms. Magazine, NBC News, New York Magazine, The New Yorker, New Republic, New Statesman, NPR, Playboy, Rolling Stone, Salon, The San Francisco Chronicle, Slate, The Telegraph, Time, Variety, Vice, Vogue, and Washington Post . 2 Trans people’s involvement in both the gay liberation and queer movements is detailed in Susan Stryker, Transgender History (Berkeley: Seal Press, 2008), 59–89, 121–153. For demographics regarding trans people and sexual orientation, see Jaime M. Grant, Lisa A.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  For example, in her 1991 essay “How to Bring Your Kids Up Gay: The War on Effeminate Boys,” Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick discusses how Richard C. Friedman, a psychoanalyst and the author of Male Homosexuality: A Contemporary Psychoanalytic Perspective, speaks rather admirably about gay men who exhibit masculine traits, while correlating “adult gay male effeminacy with ‘global character psychopathology’ and what he calls ‘the lower part of the psychostructural spectrum.’” 38 And while all forms of transsexuality are still formally pathologized, it has been quite common for gatekeepers to claim that trans men are more psychologically “stable” than trans women. 39 Often, such comments are made without any further explanation, leading one to suspect that these characterizations stem from the gatekeepers’ unspoken assumption that masculinity and the desire to be male are, in and of themselves, more rational and healthy tendencies than femininity and the desire to be female. Another issue that seems to fuel effemimania is our cultural tendency to sexualize femininity and femaleness in all its forms. While countless feminist writers and theorists have analyzed the ways in which the sexualization of femaleness and femininity permeates virtually every aspect of our culture and has a negative impact on most women’s lives, they have typically ignored the way this tendency creates an environment in which “male femininity” is almost always considered in purely sexual terms. For example, most popular images and impressions of trans women revolve around sexuality: from “she- male” and “chicks with dicks” pornography to media portrayals of us as sexual deceivers, prostitutes, and sex workers. And of course, there are the recurring themes of trans women who transition in order either to gain the sexual attention of men or to fulfill some kind of bizarre sex fantasy (both of which appear regularly in the media, and also in Bailey and Blanchard’s model of MTF transgenderism). In this context, it’s easy to understand why Bailey and Blanchard were able to get away with proposing a homosexual/autogynephilic model for MTF spectrum trans people without ever being challenged by their professional peers to apply their theories to FTM spectrum trans people.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  (Emphasis hers.)24 Of course, Hausman chose to use the “Foucauldian” approach of examining “official discourses” (primarily gatekeeper research and transsexual autobiographies), which allowed her to superficially critique transsexuality from a distance, without the inconvenience of having to address the harsh realities and obstacles that actual transsexuals face.Not all academics who study gender hold gender-variant people in such low regard. However, the very goal of queer theory—denaturalizing and deconstructing the binary sex/gender system—inevitably tempts many scholars to appropriate the bodies and experiences of those people who are most marginalized by that very system. This tendency is thoroughly examined in Viviane Namaste’s book Invisible Lives (cited in chapter 7), which chronicles the erasure of transsexual and transgender people by public institutions, including academia. Namaste critiques the writings of several prominent queer theorists and shows how their work reduces trans people to “rhetorical tropes and discursive levers.”25 In particular, she argues that trans voices are made invisible by these academics’ tendency to focus narrowly on cultural texts (which are almost always of cissexual origin), and the fact that they often conflate and confuse drag, crossdressing, and transsexuality, thereby minimizing the very different perspectives and experiences that distinguish these transgender people from one another. Namaste argues that such queer theorists “have defined the terms of the debate on transgendered people within American cultural studies of the 1990s: terms wherein transvestites and transsexuals function as rhetorical figures within cultural texts; terms wherein the voices, struggles, and joys of real transgendered people in the everyday social world are noticeably absent.”26A similar argument is made by Jay Prosser in his book Second Skins: The Body Narratives of Transsexuality .27 In particular, Prosser focuses on how many queer theorists appropriate transsexuals’ gender difference to denaturalize binary gender, yet simultaneously dismiss transsexuals’ personal accounts (of strongly identifying as the other sex) and physical experiences (inhabiting their own physically sexed bodies). His critique touches on a certain level of unacknowledged intellectual dishonesty regarding academic ungendering. Cissexual academics eagerly cite aspects of gender-variant lives that support their claims that gender is primarily constructed, while ignoring those aspects that undermine their cases. For example, many academics have focused on the transsexual transition process to argue that gender does not arise “naturally,” but that it is learned, practiced, and performed.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  This is not what I imagined my daughter’s first time home from college would look like. I want you to understand all the ways in which we suffer because of you. Actions have consequences, Michael, and unfortunately we are all impaired by your actions even on what should be happy occasions. Did you ever once stop to think about how your affair would affect the rest of us?” “I’m sorry, Laura,” he writes back. “I know how excited you’ve been to have Daisy home and now she’s taking her anger out on you because you’re a safe person. It’s not fair and it’s my fault. I wish I could help. You’re a great mom and are single-handedly getting our kids through this terrible time. They’re so lucky that you’re their mom.” Tears spring to my eyes. Finally, a real apology. I have waited months for this, wondering how our trajectory might have been different had he shown regret and compassion from the beginning instead of anger and resentment. “That doesn’t ease the blow of Daisy’s anger, but it means something to me that you’ve acknowledged how hard this has been on me,” I write. “As much as you’re dealing with now, just know that I will forever have to live with the devastating knowledge that I traumatized the people I should have protected. You didn’t deserve this Laura,” he writes. I put the phone down and weep. It’s been so long since Michael has been recognizable to me, and here is a shred of him that matches up with the Michael I had fallen in love with, the Michael who had been gracious and loving and kind. I have been so incensed at him for upending my life, smoke pouring out of my ears when I think of him, overwhelmed by fury and loss, that I have not allowed myself to admit that I miss him desperately. He had been my partner for 27 years and then he was gone, overnight. In this brief exchange of texts, I see him again, and the grief that it elicits feels unbearable. I miss him, I long for his friendship and his calming words, his optimism and support, but I understand too that our marriage is over, truly and irreversibly over. I don’t want to be with him going forward, I want to go back in time and hold tight to all that was good between us for my entire adult life thus far. It’s like seeing a ghost who has come to reassure me that I hadn’t misunderstood who he had been all those years of our life together, that the essence of him is still in there. I move through the next days in a new state of grief, trying to piece Daisy together before she leaves again, feeling a heavy sadness envelop me.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  Once again, this sort of thinking stems directly from the predator/prey power dynamic, where a woman can never truly be seen as a sexual aggressor, only a sexual object. Thus, women who do take sexual initiative are not considered to be preying on men per se, but rather opening themselves up to or inviting male sexual aggression. Of course, what constitutes “inviting” male sexualization is typically defined by male presumptions. For example, women who are raped by men are often mischaracterized as instigating their own sexual violation by virtue of the clothing they wore, their past sexual histories, or their willingness to meet privately with a man. In fact, any action carried out by a woman that can be misconstrued as enabling others to view her as a sexual object is presumed to invite male sexual advances. In this context, I would argue that trans women are hypersexualized in our culture because we are viewed as enabling our own sexual objectification (by virtue of the fact that we physically transition from male to female) in much the same way that a woman who wears a low-cut dress is presumed to facilitate her own objectification. The idea that trans women deliberately transform ourselves into women to invite male sexualization and sexual advances is perhaps the most popular assumption made about trans women. According to this myth, trans women do not “prey” on men so much as we “lure” them, by turning ourselves into sexual objects that no red-blooded man can resist. Framing the matter this way not only relieves men of any responsibility for their own sexual actions, but also prevents them from being cast in the role of sexual object or prey—an inherently subordinate position. Further, this tactic insinuates that trans women’s physical transitions are centered on the desires of men, in much the same way that people presume that women who wear highly feminine or revealing outfits do so not for themselves, but in order to attract male attention. This point is crucial: If trans women were seen as changing our sex primarily because we wanted to be female (as is generally the case), then MTF transitioning would become both a self-empowering act and one that potentially empowers femaleness itself. However, the assumption that we change our sex in order to attract men essentially sexualizes our motives for transitioning, a move that disempowers trans women and femaleness while reinforcing the idea that heterosexual male desire is central. This sexualization of trans women’s motives not only belittles our own female identities, but also implies that women as a whole have no value beyond their ability to be sexualized by men.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  In what is now considered classic research, sociologists Suzanne Kessler and Wendy McKenna showed that in our culture, when people (both women and men) gender others, we tend to weigh male visual cues as far more significant than female ones, and almost invariably consider the penis as being the single most important gender cue of all (i.e., its presence trumps all other gender cues; the presence of a vagina does not elicit a similar effect).4 In their words, “There seem to be no cues that are definitely female, while there are many that are definitely male. To be male is to ‘have’ something and to be female is to ‘not have’ it.”5 Kessler and McKenna view this privileging of male cues as resulting from male-centrism (similar to how people often favor using the pronoun “he” when speaking generically). Taking this into account, it becomes rather obvious that when cissexual women deny trans women the right to participate in women-only spaces because of their own tendency to privilege any “mannish” or “masculine” traits we may have over our many female attributes, they are fostering and promoting male-centrism.Of course, trans-woman-exclusion cannot be justified solely on the basis that some of us look or act “mannish” or “masculine”—otherwise, butch women would have to be excluded as well. Indeed, in recent years, as feminism itself has shifted away from gender essentialist theories and toward more social constructionist ones, the basis for trans-woman-exclusion is more frequently our male socialization rather than our male biology. This approach also provides convenient intellectual cover for those who wish to include FTM spectrum folks (who were socialized female) in women’s spaces. But once again, such an approach runs counter to the precepts of feminism. After all, feminists regularly insist that women are capable of doing anything men can despite having been raised as girls and encouraged to take a subordinate position to men. Thus, women can (and often do) transcend their female socialization.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  I have the privilege of being appropriately gendered as female, so in my day-to-day life, when I am forced to come out to someone, nine times out of ten it is not as a transsexual, but as a lesbian. It happens every time somebody asks me if I am seeing someone and I reply, “Actually, I have a wife.” It happens every time Dani and I dare to hold hands or kiss in public. It happens when Dani is not around, but someone assumes that I am a dyke anyway because of the way that I dress, speak, or carry myself. After my transition, I began to write not only about being transgender, but about my experiences living in the world as a woman and a dyke after years of being perceived as a straight man. Not surprisingly, most of what I wrote had a definite feminist bent. It seemed impossible for me, as a trans woman, to discuss my journey from male to female without placing it in the context of the differing values our society places on maleness and femaleness, on masculinity and femininity. Unfortunately, many people tend to artificially separate feminism from transgender activism, as if they are distinct issues that are in no way related. However, I have found that much of the anti-trans discrimination that trans women come across is clearly rooted in traditional sexism. This can be seen in how the media Powers That Be systematically sensationalize, sexualize, and ridicule trans women while allowing trans men to remain largely invisible. It’s why the tranny sex and porn industries catering to straight-identified men do not fetishize folks on the FTM spectrum for their XX chromosomes or their socialization as girls. No, they objectify trans women, because our bodies and our persons are female. I have found that many female-assigned genderqueers and FTM spectrum trans people go on and on about the gender binary system, as if trans people are only ever discriminated against for breaking gender norms. That might be how it seems when the gender transgression in question is an expression of masculinity. But as someone on the MTF spectrum, I am not dismissed for merely failing to live up to binary gender norms, but for expressing my own femaleness and femininity. And personally, I don’t feel like I’m the victim of “transphobia” as much as I am the victim of trans-misogyny.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  Despite the fact that the concept of autogynephilia (which was originally coined by fellow gatekeeper Ray Blanchard in the late 1980s) is based on dubious evidence and has never been scientifically substantiated, it also appears in the DSM. 35 Of course, anyone who has spent any significant time in the transgender community—beyond interviewing folks at a nearby gender identity clinic, a local crossdressing support group, or the tranny bar scene (where Bailey apparently conducted much of his research)—realizes that there are countless exceptions to all of these models. 36 Rather than trying to shove all trans people into some rigid, dichotomous model, one could instead easily explain the vast diversity that exists in the transgender population by assuming that gender expression, subconscious sex, and sexual orientation are determined largely independently of one another (as I did in chapter 6 , “Intrinsic Inclinations”). This would not only account for the variation seen among transgender people, but can also explain why some trans people consciously identify as the other sex from their earliest memories, while others come to this realization later in life. After all, prior to puberty, social distinctions between girls and boys are almost solely based on gender expression and gender roles. Thus, a physically male child who has both a feminine gender expression and a female subconscious sex is likely to come to the conclusion that they are (or should be) a girl rather than a boy. On the other hand, if that same child were masculine in gender expression, they might initially identify as a boy—both because of their physical sex and their tendency to exhibit stereotypically masculine behaviors—and might not become consciously aware of their female subconscious sex until puberty, when physical sex becomes the predominant distinguishing characteristic between females and males. This model can also explain why many cross-gender-identified boys grow up to be gay or bisexual rather than transsexual: Their early cross-gender identification arises from their feminine gender expression rather than from a female subconscious sex. So if a relatively straightforward intrinsic inclination model can explain all of the variation among trans people on both the MTF and FTM spectrums, then why have so many gatekeepers continued to put forward effemimanic, MTF-specific models to describe transgenderism? Because effemimania is first and foremost an expression of traditional sexism. And because the gatekeepers often work from the implicit assumption that femininity is inferior to masculinity, it should be no surprise that they view “male femininity” to be a greater concern than “female masculinity.” Such assumptions are illuminated in Phyllis Burke’s 1996 book Gender Shock, which focuses heavily on Richard Green’s Feminine Boy Project.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  Their desire to dress as women was viewed not as a self-empowering or even neutral act of gender expression, but rather as a fetish for wearing feminine clothing. This sexualization of feminine gender expression has been codified in the psychiatric diagnosis transvestic fetishism, which is so vaguely written as to suggest that all heterosexual men who crossdress are driven by this “sexual paraphilia.”7 The bizarre assumptions built into the transvestic fetishism diagnosis—especially its specific exclusion of nonheterosexual men who crossdress—suggest that it has been created for the sole purpose of reinforcing the predator/prey dichotomy. In a sense, Transvestic Fetishism misconstrues feminine gender expression in heterosexual males as a somewhat “normal” (albeit misdirected) example of male sexual aggressors who sexually objectify femininity. Homosexual males are presumably exempt because women are not their sexual object choice (as that would undermine the labeling of their crossdressing as a fetish) and/or their expressions of femininity are presumed to primarily facilitate their own sexual objectification by other men.Over the years, the MTF transsexual/transvestite dichotomy has increasingly been called into question, as it has become apparent that many (but certainly not all) self-identified male crossdressers eventually come to see themselves as transsexuals and choose to physically transition to female.8 This occurs despite the fact that they often remain primarily attracted to women and/or that their gender expression may not be viewed by others as sufficiently feminine. Now, if we were to attempt to account for this phenomenon in the simplest way and with the least number of assumptions, we might suggest that some crossdressers (like their transsexual female counterparts) also have a female subconscious sex. However, in a world where women are regularly assumed to be “naturally” feminine and attracted to men, MTF spectrum trans people who do not meet those expectations may have a more difficult time considering the possibility that becoming female and living as a woman is a realistic option for them. So they may initially gravitate toward a crossdresser identity because it seems to be the only viable alternative for them. This was most certainly true in my case.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  Perhaps there are additional male privileges that exist but which were regularly denied to me because I was a rather unmasculine (and at times, downright feminine) guy. In any case, as a female- and feminine-identified person, I find that the male privileges I have lost since transitioning, while significant, do not compare to the privileges that I have gained from finally having my subconscious and physical sexes aligned and from being able to live openly as female. It infuriates me when cissexual women use “male privilege” as an excuse to dismiss MTF spectrum folks, as it belies their reluctance to examine their own birth privilege (having been born into a physical sex that matches their subconscious sex), their socialization privilege (being socialized into a gender consistent with their subconscious sex), and their cissexual privilege (having others consider their femaleness legitimate and unquestionable). Some women bristle when I suggest that they may have experienced socialization privilege, as they assume that I am negating the many ways in which childhood socialization can be restrictive and disempowering for cissexual female children and adolescents. My intention in bringing up the notion of socialization privilege is not to dismiss the obstacles faced by cissexual girls, but to highlight the very different, yet significant, gender disadvantages faced by MTF spectrum children. For example, when I ask my cissexual female friends if they would have preferred it if their parents had decided to raise them male rather than female, most of them immediately answer “no.” Posing the question in this way allows them to recognize that the potential male privileges they might have gained if raised male would not be worth the price of having to deny or repress their femaleness and femininity. Male privileges, while very real, are little consolation when you feel like you have to hide your femaleness/femininity from your family and friends; when you’ve endured being the only female/feminine-inclined person in often-misogynistic male-only spaces such as men’s locker rooms; when you cannot safely share your femaleness/femininity with others, but instead must clandestinely explore it on your own in isolation; when you are unable to simply be female/feminine without having others accuse you of “emulating” women or of merely being “effeminate.”

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  The truth is that the myth of transsexual deception is merely a ruse, a smoke screen designed to hide societal complicity in this tragedy.Most people want to believe that Gwen’s murder was an isolated incident, an egregious act committed by a handful of young men who were provoked into doing the unthinkable. That way they need not confront the fact that half of the hung jury was more willing to identify with male homophobic hysteria than with an innocent transgender teenager. They need not examine how the news coverage and commentary, articles, editorials, and analyses invariably chose to view this crime through the murderers’ eyes, or through a grieving mother’s tears, for fear of what might happen if they dared to imagine themselves as Gwen, a young tranny they so desperately wanted to believe was nothing like them.Everyone chose to tiptoe around the subject because they were too afraid to put themselves in Gwen Araujo’s shoes, if only for a moment, to ask what the world looked like from her view: To imagine how frustrated you might be if you were unable to explore your own sexuality without having other people turn your body into a lightning rod for their own insecurities. To imagine how unjust it would feel to be dismissed as a fraud despite being the only nineteen-year-old in your known universe with the guts to truly be yourself. To imagine how frail masculinity would seem to you if you had seen a pack of young men in their twenties exude pure fear over one feminine transgender teen. To imagine how flat-out foolish those boys must have seemed as they confronted you with the question, “Are you a woman or a man?” And to picture the blank stares on their faces when you replied, “Isn’t it obvious?” To imagine how hollow accusations of deception would sound to you if you understood that the real question that needed to be asked was “Who’s deceiving whom?”As I said, this piece is not about hate crimes, violence, ignorance, or prejudice. It’s about self-deception. It’s about the assumptions that people like me live with on a daily basis. Because like Gwen, I was born male. I am a transgender woman. And if we were to meet and if I didn’t immediately share that information with you, would that be an act of deception? Could you accuse me of telling a lie if you were to see what you wanted to see with your own eyes and I decided to simply keep quiet? And if I were to presume things about you that were not true, could I accuse you of misleading me too? Or would such careless accusations of deception merely be expressions of callous pride, a stubborn refusal to acknowledge our own mistaken assumptions?The untold story behind Gwen’s much-publicized death is that she is only the tip of the iceberg.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  Of course, what constitutes “inviting” male sexualization is typically defined by male presumptions. For example, women who are raped by men are often mischaracterized as instigating their own sexual violation by virtue of the clothing they wore, their past sexual histories, or their willingness to meet privately with a man. In fact, any action carried out by a woman that can be misconstrued as enabling others to view her as a sexual object is presumed to invite male sexual advances. In this context, I would argue that trans women are hypersexualized in our culture because we are viewed as enabling our own sexual objectification (by virtue of the fact that we physically transition from male to female) in much the same way that a woman who wears a low-cut dress is presumed to facilitate her own objectification.The idea that trans women deliberately transform ourselves into women to invite male sexualization and sexual advances is perhaps the most popular assumption made about trans women. According to this myth, trans women do not “prey” on men so much as we “lure” them, by turning ourselves into sexual objects that no red-blooded man can resist. Framing the matter this way not only relieves men of any responsibility for their own sexual actions, but also prevents them from being cast in the role of sexual object or prey—an inherently subordinate position. Further, this tactic insinuates that trans women’s physical transitions are centered on the desires of men, in much the same way that people presume that women who wear highly feminine or revealing outfits do so not for themselves, but in order to attract male attention. This point is crucial: If trans women were seen as changing our sex primarily because we wanted to be female (as is generally the case), then MTF transitioning would become both a self-empowering act and one that potentially empowers femaleness itself. However, the assumption that we change our sex in order to attract men essentially sexualizes our motives for transitioning, a move that disempowers trans women and femaleness while reinforcing the idea that heterosexual male desire is central. This sexualization of trans women’s motives not only belittles our own female identities, but also implies that women as a whole have no value beyond their ability to be sexualized by men.This tendency to focus on heterosexual male desire also dominates mainstream discourse on the MTF transitioning process itself. For instance, in the media, it seems that the most commonly described effect of MTF hormone therapy is that it causes trans women to develop breasts or “curves.” While this is certainly true, trans women themselves do not always see this specific change as the most important result of hormone therapy.