The Future of Queer/Trans Activism
1 I do not have any problems with describing a gender as “transgressive” per se—I recognize how the notion that transgender people “transgress gender norms” has tremendously aided activists in articulating the discrimination that many of us face due to oppositional sexism. Neither do I have any issues with any specific gender identity or expression in and of itself. Things become problematic, however, when we move beyond simply claiming that “transgressive” genders are just as legitimate as any other gender, and into the realm of arguing that “transgressive” genders are better than “non-transgressive” genders. In other words, it is the value judgements often placed on “transgressive” gender identities and expressions (rather than those specific identities and expressions) that I critique with this piece. I should also mention that, throughout this book, I have placed the word “transgressive” in quotes. My reason for doing so is similar to the argument I have made regarding the word “pass.” By talking about whether trans people “pass” or “transgress gender norms,” we place undue focus on what a trans person “does” while ignoring the gendering and judgments of others. I would argue that a trans person doesn’t “transgress” gender norms per se, but rather a gender-entitled public judges them as being either “transgressive” or “nontransgressive.” 2 Hand-wringing by cissexuals over whether transsexuals either “reinforce” or “challenge” gender norms has dominated academic discourses on transsexuality for over thirty years now. Examples include Butler, Bodies That Matter, 121-140; Greer, The Whole Woman, 71; Jeffreys, Beauty and Misogyny, 65-66; Kando, “Males, Females, and Transsexuals,” Kessler and McKenna, Gender: An Ethnomethodological Approach, 112-141; Judith Lorber, Paradoxes of Gender (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 18-22; Nanda, Gender Diversity, 94-98; Lewins, Transsexualism in Society, 153-160; and Raymond, The Transsexual Empire. The issue is so pervasive that sociologist Henry Rubin has proposed “a ban on the question of whether transsexualism and transsexuals are unequivocally subversive or hegemonic,” because he believes that this “sort of scholarship fetishizes transsexuals.” (Rubin, Self-Made Men, 163-164) For transsexual critiques of this myopic and cissexist practice, see Carol Riddell, “Divided Sisterhood: A Critical Review of Janice Raymond’s The Transsexual Empire,” in The Transgender Studies Reader, Susan Stryker and Stephen Whittle, eds. (New York: Routledge, 2006), 144-158; Namaste, Invisible Lives, 9-70; Namaste, Sex Change, Social Change, 6-11; Prosser, Second Skins, 1-60; and Valerio, “‘Now That You’re a White Man.’” 3 Serano, “On the Outside Looking In”; Tea, “Transmissions from Camp Trans.” 4 Echols, Daring to Be Bad. 6 Queer Nation and Transsexual Menace were activist organizations that regularly staged public demonstrations during the early 1990s to protest injustices and to increase queer and trans visibility, respectively. 7 Currah, Juang, and Minter, Transgender Rights, 154; Harris and Crocker, Femme, 219-220; Namaste, Invisible Lives, 60-65; Namaste, Sex Change, Social Change, 51-57, 89-90; Valerio, “‘Now That You’re a White Man.’” 8 Namaste, Sex Change, Social Change, 17-26, 60-81.