Trans-Facsimilation and Ungendering
Because cissexuals have a vested interest in preserving their own sense of cissexual gender entitlement and privilege, they often engage in a constant and concerted effort to artificialize transsexual genders. A common strategy used to accomplish this goal is transfacsimilation —viewing or portraying transsexual genders as facsimiles of cissexual genders. This strategy not only mischaracterizes transsexual genders as “fake,” but insinuates that cissexual genders are the primary, “real” version that the transsexual merely copies.
The tactic of trans-facsimilation is evident in the regularity with which cissexuals use words such as “emulate,” “imitate,” “mimic,” and “impersonate” when describing transsexual gender identities and expression. It can also be seen in the way cissexual media producers tend to depict real or fictional transsexual characters in the act of affecting or practicing gender roles associated with their identified sex. These depictions of transsexuality as mere affectation undermine the very real gender inclinations and experiences that lead transsexuals to live as members of their identified sex in the first place. Further, they ignore the ways in which all people—whether transsexual or cissexual—observe and imitate others with regard to gender. For cissexuals, such imitation mostly occurs during childhood and adolescence, when they may emulate certain gendered behaviors exhibited by a parent or an older sibling of the same sex. For transsexuals, this process often occurs later in life, at the period just before or during one’s transition. In both cases, imitation is primarily a form of gender experimentation, with behaviors that the person feels comfortable with being retained over time, while those traits that feel awkward or incongruous with their sense of self eventually falling by the wayside. Once we recognize this, then it becomes apparent that trans-facsimilation is a blatant double standard that ensures that acts of cissexual gender imitation will typically be overlooked (thus naturalizing their genders), while acts of transsexual gender imitation will be overemphasized (thus artificializing our genders).
Another way in which transsexual genders are often dismissed as “fakes” is by applying different standards of gendering to transsexuals and cissexuals. This practice is well-illustrated by the following passage from Patrick Califia’s book
Sex Changes:
Recently, I had a very educational experience. I found out that one of my long-term women acquaintances is transgendered. ... Given how much work I’ve done to educate myself about transsexuality, I didn’t think it would make that much of a difference. But I found myself looking at her in a whole different way. Suddenly her hands looked too big, there was something odd about her nose, and didn’t she have an Adam’s apple? Wasn’t her voice kind of deep for a woman? And wasn’t she awfully bossy, just like a man? And my God, she had a lot of hair on her forearm.2
Califia goes on to say that this incident made him aware of the double standard that exists in the way transsexuals are often viewed. For example, when we presume a person to be cissexual, we generally accept their overall perceived gender as natural and authentic, while disregarding any minor discrepancies in their gender appearance. However, upon discovering or suspecting that a person is transsexual, we often actively (and rather compulsively) search for evidence of their assigned sex in their personality, expressions, and physical bodies. I have experienced this firsthand during the countless occasions when I have come out to people as transsexual. Upon learning of my trans status, most people get this distinctive “look” in their eyes, as if they are suddenly seeing me differently—searching for clues of the boy that I used to be and projecting different meanings onto my body. I call this process ungendering, as it is an attempt to undo a trans person’s gender by privileging incongruities and discrepancies in their gendered appearance that would normally be overlooked or dismissed if they were presumed to be cissexual. The only purpose that ungendering serves is to privilege cissexual genders, while delegitimizing the genders of transsexuals and other gender-variant people.