“You’ve Changed” Studies in Feminist Philosophy is designed to showcase cutting-edge monographs and collections that display the full range of feminist approaches to philosophy, that push feminist thought in important new directions, and that display the outstanding quality of feminist philosophical thought. STUDIES IN FEMINIST PHILOSOPHY Cheshire Calhoun, Series Editor Advisory Board Harry Brod, University of Northern Iowa ● Claudia Card, University of Wisconsin ● Lorraine Code, York University, Toronto ● Kimberle Crenshaw, Columbia Law School/UCLA School of Law ● Jane Flax, Howard University ● Ann Garry, California State University, Los Angeles ● Sally Haslanger, Massachusetts Institute of Technology ● Alison Jaggar, University of Colorado, Boulder ● Helen Longino, Stanford University ● Maria Lugones, SUNY Binghamton ● Uma Narayan, Vassar College ● James Sterba, University of Notre Dame ● Rosemarie Tong, University of North Carolina, Charlotte ● Nancy Tuana, Penn State University ● Karen Warren, Macalester College Published in the series: Abortion and Social Responsibility: Women’s Liberation and the Sublime: Depolarizing the Debate Feminism, Postmodernism, Environment Laurie Shrage Bonnie Mann Gender in the Mirror: Confounding Imagery Analyzing Oppression Diana Tietjens Meyers Ann E. Cudd Autonomy, Gender, Politics Self Transformations: Foucault, Ethics, Marilyn Friedman and Normalized Bodies Cressida J. Heyes Setting the Moral Compass: Essays by Women Philosophers Family Bonds: Genealogies of Race Edited by Cheshire Calhoun and Gender Ellen K. Feder Burdened Virtues: Virtue Ethics for Liberatory Struggles Moral Understandings: A Feminist Lisa Tessman Study in Ethics, Second Edition Margaret Urban Walker On Female Body Experience: “Throwing Like a Girl” and Other Essays The Moral Skeptic Iris Marion Young Anita M. Superson Visible Identities: Race, Gender “You’ve Changed”: Sex Reassignment and the Self and Personal Identity Linda Martín Alcoff Edited by Laurie J. Shrage Women and Citizenship Edited by Marilyn Friedman “You’ve Changed” Sex Reassignment and Personal Identity EDITED BY LAURIE J. SHRAGE 1 2009 1 Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further Oxford University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offi ces in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Copyright © 2009 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data You’ve changed : sex reassignment and personal identity / edited by Laurie J. Shrage. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 978-0-19-538571-7; 978-0-19-538570-0 (pbk.) 1. Transsexualism. 2. Transgenderism. I. Shrage, Laurie, 1953– HQ77.9.Y68 2009 306.76'8—dc22 2008047334 2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Contents Contributors vii Introduction 3 1. Sex/Gender Transitions and Life-Changing Aspirations 11 Christine Overall 2. Transsexuality and Contextual Identities 28 Georgia Warnke 3. Tracing a Ghostly Memory in My Throat: Refl ections on Ftm Feminist Voice and Agency 43 C. Jacob Hale 4. Transsexuality and Daseia Y. Cavers-Huff 66 Naomi Zack v vi CONTENTS 5. The Sexual Schema: Transposition and Transgender in Phenomenology of Perception 81 Gayle Salamon 6. Trans Identities and First-Person Authority 98 Talia Mae Bettcher 7. Queer Breasted Experience 121 Kim Q. Hall 8. Changing Race, Changing Sex: The Ethics of Self-Transformation 135 Cressida J. Heyes 9. Artifi ce and Authenticity: Gender Technology and Agency in Two Jenny Saville Portraits 155 Diana Tietjens Meyers 10. Sex and Miscibility 175 Laurie J. Shrage 11. Who Do You Think You Are? When Should the Law Let You Be Who You Want to Be? 194 Graham Mayeda Index 217 Contributors Talia Mae Bettcher is associate professor of philosophy at California State University, Los Angeles. She is the author of several articles about transphobia and is currently co-editing a special issue of Hypatia titled “Transgender Studies and Feminism: Theory, Politics, and Gendered Realities” with Ann Garry. Bettcher also focuses on early modern philosophy and is the author of Berkeley’s Philosophy of Spirit (2007). C. Jacob Hale is currently director of the Center for Sex Research and profes- sor of philosophy at California State University, Northridge. He is the author of “Consuming the Living, Dis(re)membering the Dead in the Butch/Ftm Borderlands” (1998), “Leatherdyke Boys and Their Daddies: How to Have Sex without Women or Men” (1997), and “Are Lesbians Women?” (1996). His teaching interests include feminist, queer, and transgender studies and the philosophy of mathematics. Kim Q. Hall is associate professor of philosophy and a faculty member of the Women’s Studies and Sustainable Development programs at Appalachian State University, Boone, North Carolina. She is currently completing a manuscript titled “Making Our Bodies Our Selves,” of which this essay is a part. She is the editor of Feminist Disability Studies (forthcoming). Cressida J. Heyes is Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of Gender and Sexuality at the University of Alberta, Canada. She is the author of Line Drawings: Defi ning Women through Feminist Practice (2000) and of Self-Transformations: Foucault, Ethics, and Normalized Bodies (Oxford University Press, 2007), as well as the edi- tor of The Grammar of Politics: Wittgenstein and Political Philosophy (2003). She vii viii CONTRIBUTORS is currently co-editing (with Meredith Jones) a volume of essays on feminism and cosmetic surgery. Graham Mayeda is assistant professor of law at the University of Ottawa. His cur- rent research focuses on theories of global justice, law and development, criminal law, and legal philosophy. He has written numerous articles, including “Re-Imagining Feminist Theory: Transgender Identity and the Law” (2005), “Uncommonly Common: The Nature of Common Law Judgment” (2006), and “Commentary on Fichte’s ‘The Illegality of the Reproduction of Books’: An Essay on Intellectual Property during the Age of the Enlightenment” (2008). Diana Tietjens Meyers is Ignacio Ellacuria Chair of Normative/Social Ethics and professor of philosophy at Loyola University, Chicago. She is the author of Being Yourself: Identity, Action and Social Life (2004), Gender in the Mirror: Cultural Imagery and Women’s Agency (Oxford University Press, 2002), and Subjection and Subjectivity: Psychoanalytic Feminism, and Moral Philosophy (1994). Her edited books include Feminists Rethink the Self (1997). She has written numerous articles in the areas of moral, political, and social theory, including “Feminist Perspectives on the Self,” in the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Christine Overall is professor of philosophy and holds a University Research Chair at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario. She is the editor or co-editor of three books and the author of fi ve. The most recent, Aging, Death, and Human Longevity: A Philosophical Inquiry, won both the Canadian Philosophical Association’s Book Prize (2005) and the Royal Society of Canada’s Medal in Bioethics (2006). Her main teaching and research are in the areas of philosophy of religion and feminist philoso- phy, especially philosophy of the body. Gayle Salamon is the Cotsen LGBT Postdoctoral Fellow at Princeton University. Her areas of specialization are phenomenology, psychoanalysis, gender theory, and queer theory, and she is currently completing a manuscript on embodiment and trans subjectivity. Recent articles include “Transfeminism and the Future of Women’s Studies” in Women’s Studies on the Edge, edited by Joan Scott (2008), “ ‘Boys of the Lex’: Transgenderism and Rhetorics of Materiality” (2006), and “Sameness, Alterity, Flesh: Luce Irigaray and the Place of Sexual Undecidability” (forthcoming in Luce Irigaray and “The Greeks”). Laurie J. Shrage is director of women’s studies and professor of philosophy at Florida International University in Miami. Her books include Abortion and Social Responsibility: Depolarizing the Debate (Oxford University Press, 2003) and Moral Dilemmas of Feminism: Prostitution, Adultery, and Abortion (1994). She has written papers on eth- nic identity and passing, pornography, pay equity, and feminist fi lm theory. Her current work includes “Does the Government Need to Know Your Sex?” at http://publicreason. net/2008/10/10/ppps-does-the-government-need-to-know-your-sex/. CONTRIBUTORS ix Georgia Warnke is currently professor of philosophy and associate dean at the University of California, Riverside. She is the author of After Identity: Rethinking Race, Sex, and Gender (2007), Legitimate Differences: Interpretation in the Abortion Controversy and Other Public Debates (1999), Justice and Interpretation (1993), Gadamer: Hermeneutics, Tradition and Reason (1987), and numerous articles in the areas of moral and political philosophy, contemporary German philosophy, and philosophy