Reading and Transness

[bcholmes]

I've been pondering, over the last few days, a post on Body Impolitic. I think the shape of my ponder has looked something like this:

• I read the post;
• I have a gut reaction that kinda looks like disappointment and annoyance;
• I force my brain to more fully engage and say, "Wait a minute. What are they actually saying?";
• I read and re-read the post, parsing it more and more denotatively; and
• I have a lengthy ponder about why the original reaction happened.

I like Body Impolitic; I've been reading it for a while, and I enjoy the topics that they post about. I don't know Laurie Edison, although I've been in the same room with her a coupl'a times, I think, and I have a copy of her and Debbie's book, Women En Large, which I enjoy quite a bit.

Debbie I know a fair bit better; I see her once a year at WisCon, and we knew each other from hanging out in some of the same online fora. Last April, I linked to a post that Debbie made in Other blog. The post was about Debbie's decision to not update a segment of text that appears in Women En Large. When I was in San Fran, a few weeks later, I had a meal with Debbie and her partner Alan. While Debbie and I were waiting for Alan to arrive, she asked me, "Are we okay?" I knew she was referring to the Other blog post, and I assured her that I had taken no offence. I said, then, that although I had some thoughts on the Other blog post, a lot of my reaction was mediated by the fact that I know Debbie, I've been on panels with Debbie about trans issues, and I know that she's trans-positive.

As I'm writing this, now, I'm writing with a great deal of apprehension. I'm afraid, I suppose, that I've become That Friend. The one with the hidden landmine; if you're going to go anywhere near That Particular Topic, better be careful that you've crossed all your eyes and dotted all your tease. I hesitate to dissect Debbie's post, but I feel like there's fruitful stuff to discuss. And, hey: the post advocates in favour of conversation.

So, um, hm. What is it that bothered me about the post? Let me be upfront: I think my reaction says more about me than it says about Debbie and Laurie. But I am interested in teasing out the reaction.

I think that the initial impression that the post left me with was that it was making this argument:

1. just because 'radical feminists' and 'conservative Christians' seem to agree isn't an indication that they're both wrong;
2. if anything, what looks like agreement is oversimplified; and
3. (this is the interesting part): radical feminist objection to trans womanhood is based on legitimate, nuanced arguments, and it does radical feminism a disservice to write it off in the way one might write off conservative Christian anti-trans attitudes.

Now, the post doesn't really say that. Doesn't even seem to imply that. Because I know Debbie to some extent, I doubt that she'd be articulating anything that sounded like "radical feminism good, conservative Christianity bad."

But the post is suggesting, "the reason the two characters in the cartoon appear to agree is that their positions are hypersimplified", and I have a hard time knowing how to read that other than as a call to be more open to hearing the full details about why someone is rejecting me. And, well... hm. I can't say that that suggestion fills me with warm fuzzies.

Two or three years ago, Debbie and I were on a panel at WisCon about trans feminism. I wanted to talk about how feminist groups grappled with transness, and we used, as one extreme of the argument, the example of Janice Raymond. Wikipedia quotes her most inflammatory statement about trans women:

All transsexuals rape women's bodies by reducing the real female form to an artifact, appropriating this body for themselves .... Transsexuals merely cut off the most obvious means of invading women, so that they seem non-invasive.

I mostly recognize that pulling ugly quotations like this out of the contexts in which they first appeared is a strategy to make people look their worst. And yet, I don't think it's a hypersimplification to suggest that this is, in fact, her thesis. Janice Raymond is an extreme (and polarizing) example of the radical feminist who is transphobic. At the same time, I recognize that the line of argument that Janice Raymond is making is very different than the line of argument taken by, say, Michael Coren. But, at the same time, they're both saying very ugly things about people like me. The ideology is different; the language is different... and perhaps there's some way in which the hurt they're causing is subtly different. But I'm not sure why I should care. What's the point?

I do think there's some interesting stuff to be gleaned from an analysis of the ways that anti-trans attitude are expressed. Here's a story that I told at that panel that Debbie and I were part of: I'm often in the position of being the first out trans person that a lot of people meet. I'm often answering a lot of trans 101 questions. I'm often answering the same questions again and again and again. Some time ago, I became close to someone who was, really, one of the first people very close to me who had a lot of experiences with trans people before we met. She was aware of trans issues, of gender fluidity and complexity, and she spoke supportively of trans people in many circumstances. And I think that maybe because this was so novel for me, I found myself lulled into a false sense that I didn't need to do the trans education.

One day, this friend was telling me about a mailing list kefuffle on one of the lists that she belonged to. The mailing list was for queer women, and because a trans woman had wanted to become part of the list, there was a lot of debate about whether or not trans women should be allowed to participate. There was a lengthy discussion, followed by a vote, and at the end, the list decided to exclude trans women. And there was one final interaction that the friend in question approvingly recounted: "One of the main participants in the debate said to the trans woman: 'being excluded is an experience that a lot of women go through. Now you've experienced gender-based exclusion. You should take this as a future point of bonding.'" The friend in question took this as an apt cap to the entire incident.

Me, I was appalled at the story, and at my friend's attitude. I didn't say it, then, though I regret not doing so. She and I are no longer close.

This was, I suppose, an interesting experience in recognizing how my form of "pro trans" was different than someone else's form of "pro trans". And one could, I suppose, explore that in all its complexity. Perhaps I could, as I'm doing now, recount that story, analyzing it for how it coloured my perception of the person in question. There is a certain utility to that. If anyone reads this, then they can look upon this scenario, with some dispassion. They can decide how they feel about that -- how they might act in similar circumstances. At the very least, forewarned is forearmed. Discussion is a Good Thing. Getting into all the nooks and crannies. And, really, I think that's Debbie's and Laurie's thesis.

But the subject doesn't invite that response from me. This is not the kind of conversation that goes on between equals. Because, well, where apprehension about transfolk exists, I am at the receiving end of it. Forgive me if I'm not taking extra time to acknowledge the subtle differences in the ways that people are rejecting me. I'm a little busy fighting back against being rejected.

And, here, it might look like I'm annoyed by, or impatient with the Body Impolitic post: well, not really. My reaction is complicated. I'm Walt Whitman; I contain multitudes. I think that there are some real gems of insights. The implication, not quite articulated, that the arguments in support of gender essentialism look and smell a lot like arguments that would conflate the opinions of the cartoon's radical feminist and conservative Christian. That the tools one would use to recognize the nuances between certain identities are also the tools to grok gender diversity. Those things are, well, kinda happy-making.

But something still gnaws at me, has me wondering why my first reaction was a negative one, has me wondering where are the cartoons that celebrate trans inclusion. Why do I feel like the person with no power being asked to make concessions?

Comments

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

If your soundbites sound oppressive, you need better soundbites.

*nod* Nicely said.