transpolitics

In a timely fashion, one of my courses this term focussed for the first section on transsexuals. (I say timely because of the movie Transamerica, in which Felicity Huffman gives a great performance as a transsexual woman.) The text we read was called "Sex Change, Social Change" by Vivane Namaste, and her perspective is contrasting with much of the past literature on transsexuals written by feminists – even transsexual feminists. I'll explain more later.Transsexuals are people who do not identify with the gender role assigned to the biological sex with which they were born, and instead wish to be the other gender and sex. Most transsexuals undergo medical interventions, including hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgery, in order to become the other sex and gender. Transsexuals differ from transgendered people, who are not necessarily unhappy with their physical bodies, but who do not wish to express gender roles as they are assigned to their biological sex. Transgendered people often identify on a continuum of gender, from androgeny to cross-dressing, but do not necessarily undergo full sex reassignment surgical intervention. Note that transsexualism does not necessarily attach to sexuality: some transsexuals undergo sex reassignment and then have relationships that are homosexual (i.e., some men become women and are lesbian). Transsexualism has to do with not feeling at home in one's body and identify with being the other gender.

In feminist literature on transsexualism, transsexuals have been used as an example to show that gender is not a biological construct, but a social one. Because people exist who do not want to inhabit the gender role that has been assigned them because of their bodies at birth, feminists have pointed out that gender is not based on genitalia and is not natural and biological, but that gender is merely a role of a social design and implementation. Most feminists who write on the subject then go on to say gender is bad and should be abolished, and we should move to a more transgendered approach and be exactly how much of male or female or androgynous we want to be. Namaste claims this is a subversion of transsexualism, and that transsexual people are not interested in abolishing gender roles – they simply want to be the OTHER gender, and often in the most traditional way possible (transsexual women want to be WOMEN in the most feminine sense, and vice versa).

I won't go into all the arguments she presents in her book, because I found the book to be challenged in a few areas and I don't feel like explaining all the ins and outs of why I feel the way I do about it. Suffice to say, the book was extremely interesting and very thought-provoking and educational. I don't agree with much of what Namaste has to say theoretically, but she approaches the subject from a very practical viewpoint, and shows how transsexuals have been excluded and marginalized, and the day to day difficulties involved with transsexual life, from health care to prostitution to media representations (which are largely horrible and sensational – think Jerry Springer/Maury Povich) to getting a job or being allowed to volunteer (she gives an in-depth look at a legal human rights case brought against a rape crisis centre in BC because they refused to allow a transsexual woman to become a volunteer) to crime and legal issues (including things like not being permitted to legally change your sex on official records such as a drivers license or birth certificate until after sex reassignment surgery, which presents a problem for such things as having to show ID to pick up a registered mail package) to the problems of life in prison for transsexuals (how to get access to special health care services and where to place people at various points in their process of becoming the other sex – does a man with breasts, no facial hair, no adam's apple and a penis, or a woman with a beard and no breasts but a vagina, get placed get placed in a male or female institution).

It was very eye opening, because when you do identify with your gender that has been assigned on the basis of your sex at birth, you do not think about any of these things. It is never a problem to show picture ID. It is never a problem to belong to a society or space of any sort that is exclusive based on sex. You never have to explain your entire biological history on command, or explain the exact process you underwent to become embodied the way you are, and such ridiculously intimate questions like whether or not you can orgasm and how your mother felt about it all. You never have to explain to an employer that you are not a cross-dresser, but you identify as the opposite gender and are undergoing surgery in a very public process. You don't have to explain yourself to a psychiatrist, who diagnoses you with a mental disorder (Gender Dysphoria) that can only be cured through plastic surgery (figure that out!). You are not called a freak simply for leaving your house, and threatened with violence for dressing in the clothes you want to wear. You don't have to deal with being thrown out of your parents' home at a young age because of your gender identity and having no skills and no prospects and no money for the surgery you need (so many transsexual people at various stages turn to prostitution in order to pay for their lives). All these things are a problem for transsexual people, and this book was such a lesson to me.