The Next Genderation
Don’t tell the reactionary right, but there is no Big Gay Agenda, no coherent set of GLBT talking points for political progress, and honestly, when we get right down to it, no impervious cohesion among the populations that make up the letters in that quasi-acronym of GLBT. Within the greater queer community, debate rages on, as it has for many years now, over where transgender folks fit into a group, loosely bound as it is, for which the defining thread has been sexual orientation, not gender. And yet gender cannot be pulled out the G, the L, or the B without making sexual orientation as a concept meaningless.
At the same time, among transfolk, there is little agreement regarding how to define the words that describe us, and lots of conversations about which words exist, which we can use, which others can use, and which subpopulations within the trans community can use—I’m thinking of “tranny” in particular here. We debate amongst ourselves about what being trans means for us, for our families, and for society at large. We argue about what impact transness has on deconstructing or reifying gender itself. Some people express gender nonconformity, living as genderqueer, a third gender, or living for the moment between the poles of male and female as they move from from one all the way over to the other. Others pass unflinchingly as their chosen gender and not shockingly, often express that they just want to be left alone and not asked to analyze every waking moment for subversive opportunities. We just do not agree on what any of this means.
Into this morass wades Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation, co-edited by Kate Bornstein and S. Bear Bergman, and published by Seal Press. They’ve pulled together voices from this cacophony of ideas and whittled them into a statement, in five parts, on this moment in our collective transgender experience, a snapshot a little like the one presented on the cover. And yes, that is a transphone, I’m sure. The clever section names—e.g., It might not be a picnic, but there’s a great buffet—both open up and obfuscate the messaging of the essay collection. In the midst of all of this disagreement, can we get along well enough? Is there cohesion anywhere?
While I don’t agree with all of the sentiments in each essay—and how could I, given that the pieces in the book take every position imaginable, including contradictory ones—I can certainly appreciate the conversation, acknowledging that people find meaning in their lived experiences in order to survive. And I’ll say that it’s damn near impossible to make it into, much less through, a transition experience (no matter what that looks like for the individual) without questioning why and asking what it all means. And there’s no reason not to pose these questions when making sense of one’s life. Julia Serrano, in her piece, opened up a space for multiple interpretations:
Instead of saying that all gender is this or all gender is that, let’s recognize that the word gender has scores of meanings built into it. It’s an amalgamation of bodies, identities, and life experiences, subconscious urges, sensations, and behaviors, some of which develop organically, and others which are shaped by language and culture. Instead of saying that gender is any one single thing, let’s start describing it as a holistic experience.
Likewise, Telyn Kusalik argued a case for using experience instead of identity as the defining paradigm for communities, a position I find endlessly refreshing, as it happens to dovetail with my own preference. People policing gender, after all, tend not to ask someone who is not gender conforming what their exact identity is before meting out their ill-conceived justice. They just see a man in the ladies room. Likewise, people live through their experiences, not their identities. Kusalik writes:
. . .the debate doesn’t have to be about who is and is not a woman. These sorts of considerations become irrelevant if we start organizing our events, meetings, and working groups in terms of experience of sexism rather than identity. (emphasis Kusalik’s)
In this context, all of the arguing about authenticity—everything from “what makes a real woman” to “who has the better trans narrative”—ends. Experiences are corporeal, not trapped in each person’s head space. And experiences come into contact with other vectors of power in culture, also noted in Gender Outlaws, such as race. This was one of the most fascinating aspects of the book to me, because several of the writers of color focused on how their gender presentation was affected not along racial lines but along conduits of power. Leona Lo describes a stifling Anglican archbishop’s angry proscriptions against homosexuality (read: transgender people); Kenji Tokawa talks about how white people’s lack of cultural competence with Japanese names becomes a repeating failure to regard his gender respectfully; Francisco Fernandez goes directly to how languages—Spanish and English—open up or close down spaces for introspection in one’s sense of gender. Not all gender is equal, certainly, but what we experience as gender is itself part of larger systems of identity formation and policing and yes, it’s not all as simple as taking testosterone or estrogen.
We’re halfway through the book before the first Oh, Snap! moment comes against Judith Butler, but it’s a good one, from Ryka Aoki:
We break gender, bust gender, punch gender in the mouth, and shove gender into a wood chipper. Shouldn’t we know better than to use the same rhetoric as a college football coach? Declining to participate in the chest-pounding and vitriol is not a sign of weakness; it’s a sign of disagreement. And disagreeing with someone else’s definition should not mean that one is less savvy, less informed, or less committed to gender equality than someone who has just discovered Judith Butler. Or, for that matter, Judith Butler.
Oh, snap!
Yes, let’s agree to disagree, for now, at least, because I’m nowhere near saying my past lady experience would make me the best diplomat to bridge the gap between my non-trans male and female colleagues at work, and I say that having marveled at how differently men and women talk amongst themselves. I’m not going to agree that drag performance is in and of itself subversive, and I say that counting several drag queens and kings as friends I’ve had. I’m not in agreement on the concept that this is some Grand Trans Narrative that explains my condition, but I laughed my head off when Red Durkin, during a Tranny Roadshow performance last year, proposed we change the basic metaphor to “living inside a gorilla costume.”
I’m very glad this book is here and I hope it takes its rightful place in gender studies programs, in the hands of young adults questioning their own experiences, being read on mass transit systems, opened up and read in living rooms instead of watching the latest Big Brother, and that people keep talking about what to make of the existence of us transfolk. And hey, if anyone wants to come up with a Big Trans Agenda to combat the right wing zealotry, I’m all ears.
Everett Maroon is a Washington-based writer and former activisty guy. He blogs here, at Transplantportation.com, and will be guest blogging for Bitch Magazine next month on the midterm elections.
This was a great post. Thanks for it.
I had this book in my hand yesterday but decided to wait until I read your review before I purchased it! Now I have something to look forward to for the plane ride home.
Are any of our homies in the book? I’m really excited about reading this. I haven’t had a good anthology to read in quite some time.
Kyle Lukoff has a piece in it, as does StormMiguel Florez, though I don’t remember Florez from the chainsaw.org days. Better known transfolk represented are Julia Serrano, whom I quoted in the post, Scott Turner Schofield, and Gwendolyn Ann Smith. There’s also musician Shawna Virago and Bear’s partner, j wallace. Personalities I thought I might see but who aren’t in the book are Morty Diamond, Rahne Alexander, and Imani Henry.
Ahhh! I was wondering if Imani Henry was in the book!
I am intrigued by this book and was waiting for a review from someone I trust–one of the things I like about this review is the point that it’s not a grand unifying narrative being presented in the book and that, in fact, there’s a lot of conflict/debate within the book. I would expect this, given the huge diversity of the trans community and the varying ways we navigate issues like gender, but I feel like there’s often a tendency in anthologies to a.) Have writers who say the same thing over and over, albeit in slightly different ways and b.) To ignore/erase intersections, and it sounds like neither of those things happened here, which is exciting.
Too bad it’s published by Seal Press.
Ha! I appreciate the distance and perspective with which you articulate the myriad of disagreements that make up this book, and our people. I think you hit the bullseye when you singled out Telyn Kusalik for arguing the use of experience instead of identity as the defining paradigm for communities. It’s the richness of experience that blows me away with this collection.
As to agreements… Neither Bear nor I agreed with *all* the points of view in this book. As you point out, that would be impossible. Several times, Bear and I disagreed with each other which pieces to include or not include. We finally did manage to agree that whatever made it into the book had to be something that surprised the hell out of both of us.
Thank you for your kind and thoughtful analysis. Glad you enjoyed the read.
xo
K
@s.e. smith: I’m not up on any issues over at Seal Press, but now I’ll go look into it!
is it because it’s “for women. by women”?
Thanks, Kate! I wondered, as I was reading, how you two collaborated to include the pieces together. While I tend to like succinct, logically oriented political positions, there’s no getting away that when we start theorizing about gender and intersections of identity and power, controlling narratives rush in to take over our conversations. I like that these tensions are held together with some kind of kinetic power, at least so readers can see with some kind of clarity where the broad frames of discussion are.
And I’m heartened to know that these are global conversations, not just the musings of very privileged people in very privileged spaces. I think the more voices we gather into discussion, the more we can discredit the very hurtful “transer than thou” rubrics that have played ad nauseum since trans*anything hit our collective experience. And GOTNG goes a long way toward finding voices in that debate.
@Evmaroon; coincidentally, I was recommending your blog today to a friend who is interested in getting published, and as part of that email, had also linked to one of Tasha’s posts on Feministe that discussed the Seal Press Mess, so a quick source of links is here:
http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2010/07/17/the-masters-publishing-house/
However, this sounds like a library order to me.
@IrishUp: Thanks for recommending me! I’ll have a post up later this week about my self-publishing experiment with Amazon Digital Press. And yes, this really ought to be in every library, if not every college library.
@Kate Bornstein, that process of editing an anthology sounds book worthy itself! Congrats on the book and I can’t wait to read it.
Thanks, Ev; I’ll have to check this out!
Very good read. Thanks.
@eieioj and @hsofia You’re very welcome! I was happy and curious to take a look at it.
This was fantastic, Everett! The clear positives is that the discussion has to begin somewhere, and this book (though it seems the authors are trying to start every possible discussion at once) is doing just that.
Really, it seems like they could have turned each chapter into a tome of its own, and maybe that will eventually happen. But it’s a good start.
“And yes, this really ought to be in every library, if not every college library.”
Your wish is my command — order submitted to the Grande Bibliothèque du Québec. (Yours truly has seen to it that they have all of Kate B.’s books, and they’re all constantly checked out. Also, props to Telyn, who is an old friend of mine.)
Awesome! And just to write it out loud: librarians rock. Merci beaucoup!