When Do Trans Documentaries Get Past 101?

[bcholmes]

Yesterday, I had two conversations (with futabachan and the_siobhan) about a recent CBC documentary called Becoming Ayden. It was, put briefly, extremely disappointing. The only thing I think it had going for it was that it didn't make a big deal about bathrooms.

One of my (numerous) beefs was that this was an "explain the basics" documentaries. "This is what it means". "This is how they do the surgery". "These are the steps that professionals recommend." And I'm tired of seeing that same information repeated in each and every documentary. "When," I asked the_siobhan, "do we get to have the next set of conversations?"

"What would those be?" she asked.

I thought for a moment. Here are some of my answers:

• I want to see trans documentaries about people other than white middle-class trannies. I want to see where transness intersects different cultural and class identities. How is the experience of transness different, say, in much more sexist or hypermasculine cultures?
• I want to talk about the odd location of trans "identity" in the larger GLBTQ community. How we're often forgetten, sometimes viewed with suspicion. I want to talk about the former-dyke couples where one partner transitions and the other partner goes through angst at suddenly feeling straight.
• I want to talk about third spaces. And about people who are really trying to subvert gender. And the conflict those people feel with the parts of the trans community that views that there are simply crossdressers and transsexauls.
• The complicated nature of choice and agency in the trans world.

Some time ago, I was at an IFGE convention in (I think) Chicago. And I was attending a panel given by Dr. Richard Docter. Dr. Docter wanted to talk about trying to understand cases like Dierdre McCloskey. McCloskey was a part of the trans community for a long time, comfortably self-identifying as a cross-dresser for years and then suddenly, wham, she identifies as a transsexual.

Dr. Docter talked about five criteria against which he rated a number of members of the trans community, and based on the results, found a number of result set clusters. It was an interesting talk (most of which, I've sadly forgotten).

Dr. Docter opened the floor to questions, and some 30ish post-op transsexual woman started talking about how horrified she was that Dr. Docter was talking about choice in the trans world. (Huh?) She went on that it was absolutely essential that everyone in her life recognize that she had no choice, whatsoever, in transitioning. Therefore, her friends and co-workers could not discriminate against her. Because that would be wrong.

And me, I thought: "Where the hell did that come from?" Followed quickly by: "That's a place of real disempowerment you're coming from."

Flash to another time: New Years Eve, 2001/2002. I was at a retreat in North Carolina, spending time with a group of trans and non-trans people. A woman I've known for several years, Zantui, started talking about honouring the choice to transition.

Choice is such an interesting word. A few years ago, back on alt.poly, someone (redbird?) made the comment that the word "my" in phrases like "my car" and "my spouse" means very different things. One seems to very clearly be a statement of ownership, whereas the other seems to clarify which spouse by describing a relationship to me. I think that when we talk about choice, we tend to think that all the options that one can choose from have fairly equal weight. "Should I go out to the Italian restaurant or the Chinese restaurant". I have a pretty good idea of what those two choices entail, and neither choice has much in the way of consequence.

However, just about everything that we call a choice seems to be figured that way. I've been reading a book called The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz, in which he talks about some of the bad ways we choose.

A study of people actually making decisions about where to put their retirement contributions found that when people are confronted with a large number of options, they typically adopt a strategy of dividing their contributions equally among the options -- 50-50 if there are two; 25-25-25-25, if there are four; and so on.

The underlying assumption that such results seem to suggest is that people tend to think that the outcome in each case doesn't really make a lot of difference. Choosing to transition isn't like that. Let me say that again. Making a choice between transitioning and not transitioning isn't like making a choice between an Italian restaurant and a Chinese restaurant. And sometimes it bothers me that the word, choice, fits so neatly into both of those scenarios.

So back to my friend, Zantui, talking about honouring choice and owning that choice. Me, I thought, "That can be very empowering." And I've wanted to talk about this sort of thing more, but I tend to use the word, agency, rather than choice when I do so. But my second thought was, "We can't talk about this with the non-trans world." Because, hey, we've seen what the word, choice, means to the prejudiced right.

But I would love to see a documentary talk about those kinds of things. While I was talking to the_siobhan about this, I wondered if the Counting Past 2 trans film festival was still going on (in Toronto, a community doesn't really come into its own unless it has its own film festival). It doesn't look like it is.

And since then, I've been thinking about something that wild_irises said to me at last year's WisCon: you can't expect that mainstream to suddenly wake up and present the kind of stories that you, the marginalized fringe, really want to see. When, for example, women wanted feminist SF, they had to go out and write it.

I am the subaltern. And I feel like I'm about to speak.

Comments

[lovecraftienne.livejournal.com]

The choice/born-with-it debate is an old one, and a pointless one, in the gay community. We don't need to have it again; it was futile then, and a diversionary waste of our energy, and still is.

Simply put: we don't allow discrimination against various classes of people; variously, some of these people are choosing their potential oppression (religion or creed, for example), while some are not (many others). In neither case do we allow discrimination; it is thus a complete non-issue. I believe that some of us are born with it, and some of us grow into it, and some of us were born to grow into it. And that none of it matters; we are, and we eventually choose - some of us do, and some of us don't. Some of us choose not to choose. But in every way, we act by our very existence.

Don't let right-wingers distract our debate with irrelevancies about whether or not we choose our oppression - it is, and should be, irrelevant by any standard of logic, based on our various Constitutia (yes, I know it's not the plural, but it's a fun word, isn't it?).

[silverkarakuri.livejournal.com]

The concept of choice in the trans community also bothers me too a great deal... and even in my own discussions with others I have quoted one side and then the other for my own basis of explaining it to others.

The stance that we didn't have a choice about it is an acceptable argument for some transsexuals, but I don't believe all transsexuals really come from that background, it has become the party line because of the larger issues at hand like discrimination, and certain powerful personalities within the transcommunity pushing certain agenda's be the for good reasons or not...

But there is a joke I once heard that most transsexuals seem to understand.

"What is the difference between a crossdresser and a transsexual? .... About two years."

I also like to quote something which I myself came up with as an argument for others to deal with. "What is difference between someone who isn't a transsexual choosing to transition doing it successfully and leading a fufilling life, vs a transsexual doing the same thing?" as you can see its quite rhetorical.

I call myself transsexual, but the definition that I needed to transition, almost like the genetic urge of Salmon swimming upstream as part of the breeding cycle isn't something that I believe was part of me. I chose to transition for my own reasons. I will say that there has been some innate sense to me that I was going to be involved with gender no matter which path my life took, that I believe was going to be a part of me no matter what I did, but to what level I was going to take it? That was the choice I had.

But if a person chooses to transition and understands the choice in its entirety. That going on HRT (if thats a part of their transitional path) does physically change someone and not always for the better, makes one sterile, increases risks for heart disease. That appearing femminine despite it being wrong to do so or right to do so, people will assume particular traits about them, be they correct assumptions or not. Social discrimination will happen from segments of society for quite sometime its not right to have it happen, but it will happen. If they can understand the whole part of this decision then its my opinion that they can make it if they desire to. Like having a rhinoplasty or breast augmentation, its a choice people make with very real concequences that have to be weighed.

But being adults, and being human, the whole of human experience is our birthright and anyone who tries to block us from it simply because they don't like it (unless there is good reason, ie a victim of a robbery doesn't like getting robbed, even if the robber LIKES robbing people) well that I think is wrong.

But thats my opinion...

[starstraf.livejournal.com]

Choice is a very important part of the T world, especially when you are persuing a path that you don't find others on. (IE non-transition but on hormones).

We are currently in a documentary "Same but Different" that isn't the standard 101 but probally more like 102 (not an upper level). Showing the ways that lives of couples where one is trans are the same and ways they are different. I think there is us (bi-gg-female, mtf middleground T), and a couple of a post-transition ftm and his girlfriend, a lesbian couple, and a hetero couple. Hopefully it will come out wonderfuly!

Re: When Do Trans Documentaries Get Past 101?

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

yeah, i think wild_irises has put her finger on it -- we get trans 101 over and over again because trans people really are not known by the mainstream at all, and so of course they're not gonna write our stories.

the trans community is somewhat more likely to write them, but they seem to me so uptight as to choice, i don't expect it any time soon. the party line is why i basically no longer hang out in that community. i can't abide the notion, it doesn't fit me (i always have choices, and it is still extremely empowering to recognize that), and i'll be damned if i kowtow to fundamentalist idiots, or the medical establishment when it comes to my own body and my own feelings.

[nellorat.livejournal.com]

Chewy, with a lot to think about--thanks.

The issue of choice is sticky in fat/size issues, too. It's tough for me because I actually find issue fascinating purely as a scientific conundrum, but I know that in terms of rights and understanding of the moral/social issues it's just a huge swamp pulling everyone under.

My thought about trans documentaries being 101 was, "That's where the students are." I do think it's serving a good purpose. You should help do, or do yourself, a smaller-audience docmentary, or conference, or a book or whatever, for the smaller pool of advanced thinkers in the area.

Beyond 101 - No Interest

[tibetanmonastic.livejournal.com]

Two years ago The Discovery Channel wanted to do a documentary.
I got a call from IFGE and was asked to consider helping. Being a media person, I contacted the producer and told them I was interested. I proposed to them why not do a portion of the documentary on trans persons who are deep into thier new lives. Deep post-op persons. I contacted several very successful TS persons to support the effort. I asked my stuffy corporate 100 company if Discovery could follow me around at work and show me functioning in a very Diversity Corporate culture. Corporate Communicatons concurred and gave permission.

The next day I suggested to the producer why not do the documentary on a Pre-op a new post op and a long term post=op. I was told they were only interested in the person going thru the change. I pointed out that the transition is a three Train wreck for most of us. Why not see us deeper into life, when we are at the top of our game.They flat out weren't interested.

Now that I have pro-equipment I'm thinking of making a documentary on long term post-op Transpersons, especially notable and successful ones.
Cheryl