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This thesis has been submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for a postgraduate degree (e.g. PhD, MPhil, DClinPsychol) at the University of Edinburgh. Please note the following terms and conditions of use: This work is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, which are retained by the thesis author, unless otherwise stated. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author. When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. Transgender Gaze, Neoliberal Haze: the impact of neoliberalism on trans female bodies in the Anglophone Global North Gina Gwenffrewi Wordcount 89,758 PhD in English Literature / Transgender Studies The University of Edinburgh 2021 1 Ethical statement This thesis includes the analyses of texts by, or about, trans women of colour. As a white scholar, I am conscious of my privileged position within an academic setting in having this opportunity. I write with a platform that several of these women, and many others who might have had such a platform themselves in a fairer society, lack access to. Aware of this position of power and privilege that I occupy, I state here, at the outset, that I do not claim to speak for or on behalf of the trans women of colour in this thesis. Instead, my research displays and analyses their words, in relation to some of the forms of oppression these women face as a result of a socio-economic and political system with white supremacy at its heart. 2 Abstract This thesis analyses the impact of neoliberalism on trans female bodies, in recognition of a warning by trans studies scholar Dean Spade that identifies how “activists and theorists have tended to miss the vital connection between economic and anticapitalist analysis and the regulation of sexual and gender expression and behavior” (2006: 218). With a focus on the arts, this thesis addresses the gap in scholarship by analysing several literary and cinematic texts featuring trans or gender nonconforming bodies. The thesis argues that patterns emerge between visibility and ideological compatibility: this includes either in relation to neoliberal ideals, characterized by what Sujatha Fernandes calls “entrepreneurial, upwardly mobile subjects” (Fernandes, 2017: 3), or according to majoritarian norms implicitly present in neoliberal society, including middle-class notions of female identity. The thesis concludes that the rhetoric of individual liberty and meritocracy that characterizes neoliberal capitalism is a selective and ultimately illusory one, and implicitly divides trans female bodies into either a form of homonormative legitimacy, or a more marginalized, ideologically incompatible Other. The newly liberated Transgender Gaze and Voice, emerging in film and literature as part of what Aren Aizura calls “the enormous groundswell of transgender cultural production in the 2010s” (2018: 89), is therefore to be celebrated but also viewed with caution given the varying, ideologically sanctioned visibility and invisibility of particular texts. 3 Lay Summary In this PhD thesis I address the exciting surge of “transgender cultural production in the 2010s” (Aizura, 2018: 89), with a focus on the representation of trans female bodies in film and literature. In doing so, I study the socio-economic impact of neoliberal capitalism on these representations, and why certain representations gain visibility, and others less so. I argue that representations that align with neoliberal themes of upward mobility, career success, private property, and self-reliance, enjoy particular visibility. Equally, we see the importance for the trans female body of resembling as closely as possible the notions of cisgender female beauty. Texts, meanwhile, which subvert or contradict gendered norms or neoliberal ideals, and which expose issues of inequality and forms of oppression as part of neoliberal society, enjoy far less visibility. 4 Acknowledgements Yn gyntaf, i’m rhieni. Diolch am eich cariad a chefnogaeth trwy gydol fy mywyd. I would like to thank my PhD supervisor Carole Jones for her kindness, support and guidance over the past four years, to Suzanne Trill and Benjamin Bateman for their valuable input, and to my former MSc supervisor Allyson Stack for re-inspiring my love of literature, which started this journey. For their translation of Spanish and Portuguese texts necessary for this thesis, I thank Valentina Aparicio and Claudia Ferreira. The beginning of this PhD coincided with my coming out as transgender, and I would like to thank the support I received from the Staff Pride Network of the University of Edinburgh, especially its co-chairs Jonathan MacBride and Sharon Cowan. Their personal support, as well as attendance and encouragement with various events, was invaluable, and so too their affirming presence of tolerance and strength as allies for the transgender community during this time. I have been lucky with my flatmates over the course of these past five years. A huge thank you to Yesenia, Niki, and Valentina, as well as Charlotte, Andrea, and Claudia. To Calder, Tess, and Angela, not least for that bottle of wine, the chocolates, and the letter, after Transgender: Intersectional/International. To Mairi and the team at Lighthouse Books, providing a moral and intellectual hub for disempowered communities in Edinburgh and where my research and worldview changed forever. 5 Contents Introduction i. Neoliberalism in relation to trans female bodies in film and literature .............................................................................................................……………………8 ii. Gaze and Voice: analysing trans female bodies in film and literature ……………………………………………………………………………………………14 iii. Global argument, local arguments, thesis structure, and the texts selected ……………………………………………………………………………………………17 iv. Theoretical background: postmodern and neoliberal-related critiques ……………………………………………………………………………………………22 v. Taxonomy of the transgender woman ……………………………………………………………………………………………32 vi. Cisheteropatriarchy, Intersectional Feminism, and Lacanian terminology ……………………………………………………………………………………………39 Chapter 1 When the Cisgender Gaze Fails to See a Transgender Body: Kiss of the Spider Woman ……………………………………………………………………………………………43 Chapter 2 When the Cisgender Gaze Defines a Trans Female Body for a Cisgender Society: David Ebershoff’s novel The Danish Girl ……………………………………………………………………………………………84 6 Chapter 3 Fictional Movies: Where Transgender and Cisgender Gazes Collide i. Introduction: The Male / Cisgender Gaze in The Danish Girl and Girl ……….107 ii. The Transgender Gaze in A Fantastic Woman …...……………………………115 Chapter 4 The Transgender Voice in Memoir i. Introduction ……………………………………..………………………….......136 ii. Janet Mock in Redefining Realness…………………………………………….145 iii. Lovemme Corazon in Trauma Queen .................................................................175 Chapter 5 The Transgender Voice in Polemical Essay-Writing and Fiction i. Introduction …………………………………………………………………….210 ii. Essays by Jamie Berrout ……………………………………………………….216 iii. The short story ‘Mansion’ by Jamie Berrout …………………………………..230 iv. The short story ‘Subject’ by Jamie Berrout ……………………………………244 Chapter 6 Documentary: the Transgender Gaze and the Value of Community i. Introduction…………………………………………………………………271 ii. Miss Maria, Skirting the Mountain ………………………………………...275 iii. Free CeCe! …………………………………………………………………297 Conclusions to Transgender Gaze, Neoliberal Haze …………………………………………………………………………………………..332 Works Cited and Appendices 7 …………………………………………………………………………………………..343 8 Introduction i. Neoliberalism in relation to trans female bodies in film and literature This study is intended to address an underdeveloped area of research in Trans as well as Queer Studies, namely the impact of neoliberal ideology on the representation of trans female bodies in the Anglophone Global North, in this case, in the depiction of trans women in literature and film. As Dean Spade says of its relative absence within Queer Studies, “many lesbian, gay, and bi activists and theorists have tended to miss the vital connection between economic and anticapitalist analysis and the regulation of sexual and gender expression and behavior” (2006: 218). Similarly, on the theme of regulation, and implicitly, representation, Dan Irving identifies the need within Trans Studies to analyse the “underexamined” patterns “in which hegemonic capitalism’s socioeconomic and political relations are reproduced vis-à-vis the transsexual body” (2013: 16). Irving also highlights another neglected area, namely the material consequences of neoliberalism on trans lives, in which “critical analyses of the impact of capitalist productive relations on trans subjectivities are rarely offered.” As this research makes clear, these two areas of regulation and economic impact are connected: within neoliberalism, regulated representations of a ‘right’ kind of transgender woman become welcomed in mainstream discourse, aligned to what Sujatha Fernandes describes as some of the characteristics of neoliberal narratives, namely, “entrepreneurial, upwardly mobile subjects” (2017: 3). Concurrently, representations that