Abstract: What, how, and who is transbutch? In this thesis, I examine memoirs and personal essays that define and defy boundaries between “butch" and “transmasculine" subjectivity –– and investigate my own queer experience in the process –– in order to counter the myth of an irreparable trans/ butch divide. Deemed by some to be “border wars,” conflicts between transness and butchness are emblematic of the contested (hi)stories on which the identities are founded: namely, white supremacy, colonialism, transmedicalism, and lesbian separatism/trans-exclusionary radical fem- inism. Ensuing identity-battles –– which have increased with increased access to biomedical transition –– rely on a teleological approach to identity, and, I argue, may only be ameliorated by prioritizing experiential multiplicity and political affinity over fixed, essential truth. Through en- gagement with a variety of personal narratives by authors such as S. Bear Bergman, Ivan Coyote, Rae Spoon, and blogger MainelyButch, I counter the understanding of identity as intrinsic and immutable, showing instead the dynamism of transbutch life, its stretchiness as a personal and community signifier, and its constant re-definition by its occupants. 2 Enacting Transbutch: Queer Narratives Beyond Essentialism BY: SARAH LYNN CAVAR Bachelor of Arts Mount Holyoke College South Hadley, MA 2020 3 Acknowledgements: How to start but with a story. I am about to send this final document to my advisor, Jacquelyne Luce, in anticipation of a thesis defense that is as I write this only days away. Without her sup- port and guidance at every stage –– all the way from a disorganized 120-page Google Doc of notes to the PDF you now read –– this thesis would not be possible. I couldn’t ask for a more stimulating and compassionate guide through the often-treacherous waters into which this thesis wades, and through the equally treacherous-process of sculpting a textual raft to ride the waves. I also thank my second and third readers, Professors Ren-Yo Hwang and Samuel Ace, for the generosity of their time and feedback both face-to-face and through computer screens. I thank my parents, who researched trans identity on their own back when I was a bashful high school student too nervous to self-advocate. From them I learned to be relentless in all aspects of my life, most specifically in my pursuit of knowledge and engagement in intellectual debate. I am incredibly appreciative of the SIT Amsterdam Spring 2018 cohort for giving me the space to think queerness anew. Plus, for being my long-suffering comrades in 10:00am Dutch class. I thank all of those who have put up with listened to interminable hours of infodumping, particu- larly Elliot, Madeline, Sarah, and most of all, my mom. I am grateful to have parsed bits of this project with Ariya, Bran, Bryn, Divonne, Janine, Maren, Mila Cedar, Noam, Pa, Simon, Theo, and more. I especially thank those who supported me emotionally throughout this year in spite of 4 frequent absences, stressed-out conversations, and isolated spells, but will in reading this docu- ment encounter many of my analyses for the first time: Delia, Elisa, and Molly. Thank you to Katherine, too. For everything, for life. Lastly and most importantly, I write with gratitude toward Alison, Kate, Leslie, Lou, Mattilda, Mel1, Riki, Sandy, and countless others, both known and unknown, whose manifestations of queer and trans possibility are responsible for my existence. [To you I owe The language I have become] 1 Genderless autistic activist and personal hero of mine, Mel Baggs, died of respiratory failure on April 11, 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. 5 Table of Contents Abstract: 1 Acknowledgements: 3 Table of Contents 5 Vocabulary Guide 8 Abbreviation Guide 11 INTRODUCTION 12 Why Narrative? / Meet The Narrators 19 Roadmap: A Reading Guide 22 Who I Cite 25 Autobiography (Where am I?) 28 Why (am I) Transbutch? 31 TRANSMEDICAL (HI)STORIES: RACIALIZING GENDER 35 Anti-Blackness, Degendering, and the Legacy of Slavery 39 Two-Spirit & “The LGBTQ Family” 46 Anzaldúa’s Borderlands, “An Unmapped Common Ground” 52 Borderlands / La Frontera: Queer & Mestiza 56 Anzaldúa’s Trans-Narrativization 59 Transness and Mestiza Consciousness 62 TRANSMEDICINE: A DIAGNOSTIC (HI)STORY 66 Narrativising Transmedicalism 70 Narrative Domestication: Martino’s Queer2Straight Transition 77 Transness & The Politics of Self-Naming 86 Testosterone As Discourse, Testosterone As Symbol 98 Testosterone-As-Cure: Kyle Lukoff 108 Trans Manhood, Emerging Through Lesbianism 114 6 BUTCHNESS IN CONTEXT 125 At the Bar and In the Clinic 125 Cultural Feminism & Female Separatism 134 Butch Reincorporation and the Discourse of Dysphoria 140 Entirely Butch? MainleyButch & Butch Flight 145 Claiming Coyote 156 TRANSBUTCH LIVES, TRANSBUTCH FUTURES 161 Ivan Coyote 165 Critical Top Surgery 165 Narrating Diagnosis, Critiquing Power 169 Among the Guys 175 Interlude: Choosing Nothing 181 Coyote & Bergman: Walking the Identificatory Trail 182 Unbecoming Tomboys 193 Queer Re(-)creation: The Transbutch Approach 202 Our Personal Names 202 Our Community Names and Beyond 211 Effeminate Butchness 215 Bergman 220 Bergman Against Boxes 220 Satirizing Dysphoria 224 Bergman’s Butch2Gay Transition 229 INCONCLUSION 233 Transbutchness and Experience 233 Terminological Disobedience 236 W(h)ither Dysphoria? 239 Taking the Hand That Sees You 241 7 Bibliography: 245 Images Used: 259 8 Vocabulary Guide Lowercasing of “europe,” “america,” etc.: Words have power, and so does the respect we afford them. By flouting the conventional “propering" of nouns like these, I aim to draw attention to the commonsensical authority we afford to standard american english, and allow readers to question these facets of lan- guage we are trained to take as gospel. Sexgender: A term that refers to the mutually-constitutive relationship between “sex” (a biologized version of binary gender) and “gender” (the ostensible enacted result of “sexed” behav- ior as well as the social inventor of sexualized characteristics). I will sometimes use phrases like “male-man” and “female-woman” to discuss essentialist practices and atti- tudes that present the two as necessarily identical. TERF: Stands for “trans-exclusionary radical feminist.” The biological-essentialist ideological contemporaries and descendants of Dworkin, Jefferys, Raymond, and more, who ap- proach female-womanhood and lesbianism with nationalistic fervor (hence the term “cultural feminist”). Their fiercest vitriol is directed toward trans women –– deemed ap- propriators attempting to penetrate the borders of female-womanhood. They also, as I discuss, hold a particular pity, fear, and loathing for various assigned-female/transmascu- 9 line people –– deemed woman-hating traitors and/or delusional victims of patriarchal brainwashing. TMA (transmisogyny-affected): A nonessentialist way of referring to people who are the primary targets of transmisogy- ny, usually (though not exclusively) those who are assigned male at birth. TME (transmisogyny-exempt): A nonessentialist way of referring to people who are not the primary targets of trans- misogyny, usually (though not exclusively) those who are assigned female at birth. Transbutch (Trans(/)butch): Variously, an identity/political project between, encompassing, questioning, and incorpo- rating aspects of what is called “transness” and what is called “butchness.” Also a tool through which I analyze the narratives I discuss, and a lens we invite others and our- selves to look through at our bodies/experiences. An acknowledgement that trans(and)butch existences are culturally, temporally, and in the context of who we are speaking with. Transmedicalist (“Truscum”2 casually/pejoratively): 2 “true-trans” scum. 10 Those who believe that legitimate transness exists in a given person when and only when they also have diagnosed gender dysphoria. Transmedicalists most often propagate the narrative of born-this-way, binary transness, in which one from early childhood knew themself3 to be “born in the wrong body.” Rather than an identity per se, the fact of be- ing transgender is to them a disease to be cured by medical intervention. Meanwhile, they mark those insufficiently or improperly “dysphoric” as inherently non-trans, at- tempting to gatekeep access to terminology, community, and medical care. 3 Though given the anti-nonbinary sentiment popular among truscum, perhaps I should say “his-or-herself”. 11 Abbreviation Guide Below is a list of in-text citation abbreviations, in alphabetical order. ARG: The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson B: Borderlands / La Frontera by Gloria Anzaldúa BAAN: Butch is a Noun by S. Bear Bergman. E: Emergence: A Transsexual Autobiography by Mario Martino GF: Gender Failure by Ivan Coyote and Rae Spoon GO: Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation by Kate Bornstein and S. Bear Bergman, eds. MB: MainelyButch (blog) by the blogger also referred to as MainelyButch (MB) PM: PoMoSexuals: Challenging Assumptions about Gender and Sexuality by Carol Queen and Lawrence Schimel, eds. TBSG: Tomboy Survival Guide by Ivan Coyote TNE: The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You by S Bear Bergman UB: Unbound: Transgender Men and the Remaking of Identity by Arlene Stein XY: Outside the XY: A Bklyn Boihood Anthology by Morgan Mann Willis, ed. 12 INTRODUCTION This discussion starts, as all discussions do, in the middle of many idioms and vernaculars and at the point where many genealogies converge. ––(Lauren Berlant & Lee Edelman).1 Between the year I first purchased the laptop I still use today, 2015, and January of 2020, I did not once update my software. I was only vaguely aware that I was fighting a losing battle. I was (and am) fortunate to have been able to keep my old computer around for this long, given an inarguable trend toward early technological obsolescence. But my computer did begin to cause me problems in January 2020, screen periodically glitching and going black, requiring a full restart. One time, when I attempted such a restart, my computer refused to comply. It was mid- night. I was, unwisely, working on this thesis. The following day, I went to the Apple store, driving for more than an hour in the snow.