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Dismantling Cissexual Privilege
UNTIL NOW, DISCOURSES ON transsexuality have invariably relied on language and concepts invented by clinicians, researchers, and academics who have made transsexuals the objects of their inquiry. In such a framework, transsexual bodies, identities, perspectives, and experiences are continuously required to be explained and inevitably remain open to interpretation. Corresponding cissexual attributes are simply taken for granted—they are assumed to be “natural” and “normal” and therefore escape reciprocal critique. This places transsexuals at a constant disadvantage, since we have generally been forced to rely on limiting cissexual-centric terminology to make sense of our own lives.
In recent years, the rise of transgender activism has provided a new paradigm for understanding the experiences of the gender-variant population (of which transsexuals are a subset). According to this model, gender-variant people are oppressed by a system that forces everyone to identify and be easily recognizable as either a woman or a man. This perspective has led transgender activists to primarily focus their attention on opposing binary gender norms— particularly those that place limitations on one’s gender expression and appearance—and to celebrate and create cultural space for those who defy, transcend, or fail to identify within the male/female binary. While transgender activism has undoubtedly benefited the transsexual community in many ways, it has also made invisible many of our distinct issues and experiences. To a large extent, this is because transgender rhetoric favors the perspectives of those who identify outside the male/female binary (whereas most transsexuals typically identify within it) and those whose gender expression and appearance does not conform to the binary (whereas transsexuals typically cite the discrepancy between their subconscious sex and physical sex as the major obstacle in their lives).
While I believe that creating space for people who exist outside of the male/female binary remains a cause worth fighting for, those of us who are transsexual must begin to simultaneously develop our own language and concepts that accurately articulate our unique experiences and perspectives and to fill in the many gaps that exist in both gatekeeper and transgender activist language. I contend that this work should begin with a thorough critique of cissexual privilege —that is, the double standard that promotes the idea that transsexual genders are distinct from, and less legitimate than, cissexual genders. Before describing how cissexual privilege is practiced and justified, we must address two underacknowledged yet crucial aspects of social gender that enable cissexual privilege to proliferate, yet remain invisible: gendering and cissexual assumption.