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Trans' Through Feminist Science Fiction Writing

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Trans' Through Feminist Science Fiction Writing Monsters, Time-Travel, and Aliens: Tracing the Genealogies of 'Trans' through Feminist Science Fiction Writing and Film A thesis submitted to the University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities 2020 Sabine R. Sharp School of Arts, Languages and Cultures 2 Table of Contents Table of Figures ....................................................................................................................................... 4 Abstract ................................................................................................................................................... 5 Declaration .............................................................................................................................................. 6 Copyright Statement ............................................................................................................................... 6 Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................. 7 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 9 Why Feminist Science Fiction? .......................................................................................................... 16 Tracking Trans Debates ..................................................................................................................... 23 From ‘Transgender’ to ‘Trans*’ ..................................................................................................... 29 Trans as Counter-Discourse .......................................................................................................... 37 A Genealogy of Trans ........................................................................................................................ 45 Structure of the Thesis ...................................................................................................................... 48 1: Tracing the Monstrous Birth of ‘Trans’ through the Frankenstein Origin Myth of Science Fiction .. 53 The Feminist Science Fiction Origin Story ......................................................................................... 58 Generic Reproduction and Male Appropriation ............................................................................... 62 Radical Feminist Readings of Frankenstein....................................................................................... 68 Reclaiming Monstrosity .................................................................................................................... 74 2: Monstrous Textual Reproduction: Race, Gender, and Genre in Larissa Lai’s Salt Fish Girl and Hiromi Goto’s ‘Hopeful Monsters’ .................................................................................................................... 82 The Racial Legacy of Frankenstein’s Monster ................................................................................... 87 Monstrous Pregnancies and Other Bodily Transformations............................................................. 92 Racialised Gender, Gendered Race ................................................................................................... 98 Monstrous Generic Mixtures .......................................................................................................... 108 3: History as Time-Travel: Trans Historiography and the 1973 West Coast Lesbian Conference ...... 114 History as Time-Travel .................................................................................................................... 117 ‘Trans’ as Anachronism ................................................................................................................... 122 Alternate Histories .......................................................................................................................... 126 Dangerous Anachronisms ............................................................................................................... 130 Unintended Erasures ...................................................................................................................... 132 The Instability of ‘Lesbian’ .............................................................................................................. 135 Envisioning Alternative Futures ...................................................................................................... 141 4: The Colonial Politics of Time-Travel: Orlando, The Sticky Fingers of Time, and Conceiving Ada.... 144 Feminist Time-Travel....................................................................................................................... 149 Non-Linear Temporalities ............................................................................................................... 154 Time-Travel’s Colonial Connotations .............................................................................................. 168 3 5: Untranslatability: Towards Critical Utopia in Debates on Trans Terminology as Alien Language .. 181 A Brief History of Alien Language in Science Fiction ....................................................................... 194 Trans Terminology Guides as Alien Language ................................................................................ 201 The Gender-Critical Backlash .......................................................................................................... 206 Untranslatability as Critical Utopia ................................................................................................. 211 6: Troubling Recent GRA Debates through the Alien Languages of Friendship’s Death and the Native Tongue Trilogy ..................................................................................................................................... 215 Gender Recognition Act Reform ..................................................................................................... 225 Performativity and the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis ............................................................................ 233 Making Language Alien ................................................................................................................... 240 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................... 251 Resisting Progress Narratives .......................................................................................................... 262 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................ 270 Online Sources .................................................................................................................................... 291 Filmography ........................................................................................................................................ 303 Word Count: 78,809 4 Table of Figures Figure 1 Sharp increase in use of ‘trans’, Google Books Ngram Viewer, <https://books.google.com/ngrams> [accessed 18/08/2020]………………………………………...... 34 Figure 2 Orlando and his fiancée Euphrosyne stand in front of Orlando's parents in Orlando (Potter, 1993)……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….................... 157 Figure 3 The painting of Orlando's parents in the background above her and her daughter in Orlando (Potter, 1993)………………………………………………………………………………………………......... 158 Figure 4 Orlando and her daughter examine Orlando's portrait in Orlando (Potter, 1993)………......... 158 Figure 5 Orlando's daughter as would-be filmmaker in Orlando (Potter, 1993)…………………………….... 159 Figure 6 Orlando's daughter's video-diary in Orlando (Potter, 1993)………………………………………………. 159 Figure 7 Screens of shifting code, in Conceiving Ada (Leeson, 1997)……………………………………………….. 164 Figure 8 Screen within a screen, in Conceiving Ada (Leeson, 1997)…………………………………………………. 164 Figure 9 The cover of the novel in The Sticky Fingers of Time (Brougher, 1997)………………………………. 165 Figure 10 'A Mysterious Woman with Time to Kill', in The Sticky Fingers of Time (Brougher, 1997)…………………………………………………………………………………………….………………………………….. 165 Figure 11 The Khan in stylised 'Eastern' costume in Orlando (Potter, 1993)……………………………………… 173 Figure 12 Orlando imitating the Khan's attire in Orlando (Potter, 1993)……………………………………………. 173 Figure 13 Diagram of blood vessels in the eye overlaid with alien script in Friendship's Death (Wollen, 1987)………………………………………………………………………….…………………………..………………………… 243 Figure 14 Extreme close-up of typewriter in Friendship's electronic diary in Friendship's Death (Wollen, 1987)………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 243 Figure 15 Everyday objects appear unfamiliar in Friendship's Death (Wollen, 1987)………………………… 244 Figure 16 A UFO's eye view in Friendship's Death (Wollen, 1987)…………………………………………………….. 244 Figure 17 Grainy archival footage of Jordan in Friendship's Death (Wollen, 1987)……………………………. 245 Figure 18 Friendship seen reflected in a mirror in Friendship's Death (Wollen, 1987)………………………. 245 5 Abstract The past three decades have seen the term ‘trans’ circulate more widely in Britain and the United States, moving from the obscurity of activist and legal discourses in the 1990s into the spotlight of mainstream media, cultural production, and national politics. 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