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Playing Peter Pan Conceptua izing "Bois" in Contemporary Theory

SARAH TRIMBLE

L 'auteure nous initie h l'kmergence du temporary North America's queer rupting the teleological continuity dialope qui se pose h la jonction de communities. between "boyDand "." The boi lbrientation c boi w et avoue l2vidente The January 2004 edition of New announced by New York, then, is in complexitkdelasittlation de cesfimmes- York magazine includes an article by dialogue with queer communities as qui chevauche celle des Ariel Levy ("Where the Bois Are") well as with mainstream construc- lesbiennes-butch dans les communautks heralding the arrival of the "boin- tions of boyishness. As such, he is in c( trans w sans oublier leur relation Li. an identity andlor label being taken complex negotiation with hegemonic l'intkrieur de l'hkgkmonie mdle. up by "femalen-bodiedpeople in some masculinity. Bois emerge into the lesbianldyke, queer, and - paradoxical position of subverting As a queer and gender-queer indi- queer communities in urban North the ontological "reality" of norma- vidual, my relationships to both les- Arneri~a.~The increasing visibility of tive masculinity even as they negoti- bian as an identity and to Toronto's gender-queer lives and politics, in- ate its imperatives in an effort to communities have been cluding the king cultures which remainlbecome legible as masculine marked by a strangely productive are thriving in many urban centres, is subjects. ambiguity. While "" as a just one of the historical conditions As Levy's article suggests, the term lesbian was and continues to be em- from which the boi emerges. Under- "boi" can reference any-but is re- powering, I have become increas- lying this historical moment is acom- ducible to none--of the following: a ingly aware of my own emotional bination of theory and activism that torsion ofthe man/boy dichotomy in and intellectual tensions with respect has been carrying on the work of de- male sado-masochistic play to the signifier, "lesbian," as it pur- pathologizing gender "dysphoria," (meaning that bois are submissive ports to simultaneously describe and foregroundingthevarious eroticcom- and have sexwith dominant butches); produce me. Noticing my develop- binations that constitute queer com- -to-male (FTM) ing affinities towards the city's vari- munities, and challengingwhat Gayle or subjectivities; boiswho ous trans' communities, I began to Rubin has termed the "'sexlgender mostly date other bois and thus self- imagine myself as tenuously located system,' the system by which chro- identify as "fags"; and bois who mostly in the liminal spaces between "les- mosomal sex is turned into, and proc- date femmes or "grrls" (25). What is bian" and "transn-indeed, between essed as, cultural gender" (Sedgwick consistent about these social/sexual "butch" and "boi." As such, in the 28). Equally important is the cultural positions is a particular aesthetic, a midst of my undergraduate career at capital accruing to contemporary performance of masculinity that re- York University, I became keenly "boy culture." This is a culture signifies and redeploys an otherwise interested in the "boi" identity as it marked by, among other things, the "female" body. Levy points to such gained subcultural currency and be- popularity of "boy bands," the recent superficial accessories as the preva- gan to shift the meanings that circu- explosion ofvideo game cultures and lent newsboy cap as well as to the lated around pre-existing identities markets, and the resurgence of inter- more explicitly masculine effects such as lesbian, transgender,- butch, est in comic books as cultural arti- achieved by (wearing a dildo and -boy. I intend to interro- facts. The contours ofthis culture are or sock inside one's jeans), binding gate the spaces which the term "boi" not shaped by age, but by a plafil (flattening one's breasts with a medi- opens up for self-fashioning in con- accessorizing that insists upon dis- calltensor bandage), or various kinds

VOLUME 24, NUMBERS 2,3 75 of surgery. In Levy's words, what is demarcates a boundarywithin which the masculinist project of contain- common among- bois is "a lack of hegemonic masculinity is "shored up" ment depends upon representational interest in embodying any kind of against the threat of incoherence economies that displace the "messy" girliness" (25). More than any other posed by excess. Or, in Eve Sedgwick's question of the body onto the femi- kind, "Where the Bois Are" focuses terms, "the ontologically valorized nine. Drawing upon both a history of on "a particular camp of bois who term A actually depends for its mean- dualisms-male/female, mind/ date femmes exclusively and follow a ing on the simultaneous subsumption body-in Western philosophy and a locker-room code of ethics referenced and exclusion ofterm B" (1 0). Within psychoanalytic tradition that pro- by the phrase 'bros before hos' or this framework, bois whose identities duces masculinity as universal and 'bros before bitches"' (Levy 26). It depend upon being read as mascu- as gendered, Thomas should be stressed that this charac- line have the potential to take up the writes that

femininity becomes the reposi- Sexual difference,-. upon which normative tory not only for the bodily but for the excessive as such, for masculinity depends, is reified through the everything that masculine sub- policing of borders between self and Other, jectivity cannot admit or accept same and different. about itself. (2) Normative masculinity accedes to a position of power and privilege terization arises from a small number project of containment/expulsion through the disavowal of the body in of interviewees, almost exclusively outlined by Thomas in order to as- all of its messy permeability; it can- New York-based (though one inter- suage the anxiety of unintelligibility, not be self-reflexive about embodi- view takes place in San Francisco), an anxiety (arguably) more pro- ment except in the most rigidly codi- and mostly from bois who take active nounced for "femalem-bodiedsub- fied representational circumstances and frequent part in the city's bar jects. The final interview in "Where (e.g. the male body as weapon). culture. This is not to dismiss Levy's the Bois Are" takes place in San Fran- Coming from a similar theoretical representation as somehow too spe- cisco, where "Kmm--"pretty, punky position, Lee Edelman argues in "Tea- cific; on the contrary, this "particular 24-year-old" (Levy 27)-outlines rooms and Sympathy" that the insti- camp of bois" opens up possibilities what she perceives to be bois' general tutional bathroom is a site ofextreme for interrogating the connections approach to women: anxiety for heterosexual men, espe- between normative, misogynistic cially when figured as "the site of a masculinity and the conceptuali- they are so very predatory about looseningofsphinctercontrol" (l59). zation of boi subjectivities. As such, it.. .. Clara [her boi-friend] won't Thus, it invokes "the anxiety of an these are the bois with whom this just touch on it, like: Thatgirl? internalspace of dzfference within the essay is primarily concerned. hot. She will talk and talk and body, an overdetermined opening or In its claims to authority and au- talk about how she wants to get invagination within the male" thenticity, hegemonic (white) mas- them home and hck them. (27) (Edelman 160, my emphasis). Sexual culinity must, as Judith Butler fa- difference, upon which normative mously notes, "conceal its genesis" From this interview, it is clear that masculinity depends, is reified (1999: 178), establishing itself as an Km views Clara's objectification of through the policing of borders be- ontologically fixed category that women as not only troubling but tween self and Other, same and dif- therefore can and mwt resist chal- also compulsive. Like the boi who ferent. As such, the body as a site of lenges made bywomen's movements, cannot take his eyes off the nearby openings and entrytexit points lies Black Power movements, etc. to its go-go dancer at the start of the article within the realm of the dangerously universality and dominance. In the (Levy 24), Clara objectifies femmes feminine. It is here that one begins to critical and psychoanalytic text, Male and grrls in an effort to secure and see the points of connection between Matters, Calvin Thomas argues that shore up the boundaries of "her" biological boys--whose fascination normative masculinity is (tenuously) masculinity. with the grotesque and with excess is maintained through a compulsive The conceptual paradox that char- demonstrated by such cultural phe- project ofsemioticcontainment.Such acterizes bois' relationships to nor- nomena as the televisionshowlmovie, a project works through the expul- mative masculinity, however, be- Jackass-and queer "bois." Both play sion of "Others," especially feminine comes evident when Thomas high- and present in a way that challenges subjectivities, so that the abjection of lights the body as central to the issue normative masculine imperativesvis- , women, and people of colour of boundary anxiety. He argues that i-vis the body.

76 CANADIAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA On one hand, bois who desire to through the boi as an "eventn-a who share this opinion. However, in be read as masculine subjects may subject position emerging in its his- defining themselves against butches, become implicated in the oppressive torical and cultural context-rather bois invoke a complex history of fe- and violent rehal of fem(me)ininity; than an identity category that sug- male masculinities and erotic on the other, the boi's ernbodiedper- gests certain constitutive features. In subjectivities that become part oftheir formance is one position from which "Friendship as a Way of Life," Michel self-definition; the butch becomes to trouble normative masculinity. Foucault writes that one of the Others, a definitional ref- Not only do bois rupture the sup- erence without whom descriptions posedly synonymous relationship be- is a historic occa- of "boi" flounder. In Masculinities tween "anatomy, identity, and au- sion to reopen affective and rela- Without Men?, J.Bobby Noble ar- thority" (Noble X), but in so doing, tional virtualities, not so much gues that in the mid-1980s, cultural they (re)construct masculinity as prosthetic: it is something to be "put on" through various combinations Bois situate masculinity firmly within the realm of accessories, acts, and other signi- fying practices. In other words, bois of the body.They lay bare its existence as situate masculinity firmly within the representation (open to disruptive re-articulation) realm of the body. They lay bare its as opposed to an ontologically fixed category. existence as representation (thus open to disruptive re-articulation) as op- posed to an ontologically fixed cat- egory. The subversive potential of through the intrinsic qualities of work in both theory and fiction ex- bois lies not only in the queer juxta- the homosexual but because the plored "butch-femme as embodied position of "female sex" and "mas- "slantwise" position of the lat- resistance to the sexlgender system" culine gender," but more impor- ter.. ., the diagonal lines he can (xi). On the heels of lesbian feminist tantly in the theatricality with which lay out in the social fabric allow criticisms that butch-femme repro- they infuse their masculinities. Tho- thesevirtualities to come to light. duced the power imbalances of het- mas writes that "masculinity does (138, my emphasis) erosexual relationships, texts such as not exist outside representation, yet Joan Nestle's A Restricted Country in the processes of self-representa- Bois emerge at the intersection of, repositioned as tion it risks losing itself, seeping out among other things, alineage oferotic erotic identities that challenged the through its own fissures and cracks" identities and gender performances "'naturalness' and biological essen- (16). It is exactly this risk that bois whose history is intelligible as a his- tialism of the sexlgender system" take as subjects performing mascu- tory of female masculinities andlor (Noble xii). In pressing on the linity. At its most conservative, the butch-femme relationships, as well unproblematic mapping of gender anxiety caused by such potential as a (North American) cultural fasci- identity onto biology, butch unintel-ligibility is (provisionally)as- nation with the economies of boy- subjectivities have been and are inte- suaged through the radical expul- hood, a fascination that must be gral to the deconstruction of a singu- sion and disavowal of fem(me)- contextualized in terms of the post- larly authentic masculinity and to ininities-through the compulsive war deconstruction of monolithic the subsequent proliferation of rec- objecti-fication evidenced by some masculinity. Re-directing the argu- ognizable masculinities. As Noble of the bois whom Levy interviewed. ment made by Foucault, the boi reo- points out, However, according to Thomas, if pens erotic, gendered, and embodied one refuses to foreclose this anxiety, virtualities, among others. Concep- more recently, debates around it may be mobilized "as [a] disrup- tualizing the boi as an "event," ~nex-' butch-femme have widened to tive, interventional force, even if (or tricably linked to and in negotiation overlap with those of trans-gen- perhaps precisely because) the dis- with a series ofhistorical and cultural der, trans-sexuality, gender ruption necessarily extends to identity threads, begins to de-emphasize the perf~rmativit~,and drag politics itself" (7,my emphasis). Con- binary structures that produce the "kinging," thus necessitating a ceptualizing bois in terms of a rigid boi in an oppressive repetition of the similar shift in language from identity category not only reproduces refusal of Others. "butch" . .. to "female mascu- the impulse toward exclusion already In her article, Levy notes that for linity." (xii) at work, but also circumvents the bois, "butch is an identity ofthe past, contradictions and tensions that a relic from a world of Budweiser and What Noble highlights here is that overdetermine the term, "boi." motorcycles gone by" (25), before even while each ofthese subjectivities Instead, I am suggesting thinking going on to quote a number of bois or practices has its own politics and

VOLUME 24, NUMBERS 2,3 77 history, they are nonetheless concep- This queering of the teenage boy is test and legitimate the late capitalist tually linked. Insofar as the boi is evident at the textual level in the system(s) from which they emerge? understood to be in conversationwith altered spelling taken up by bois, Or, what are the salient concerns "female masculinities," his relation- leading Levy to write that "it's no around bois' racialized identities or ship to the butch is not and cannot be coincidence that the word is boi and bois' relationships to racialized bio- one of straightforward refusal. As the not some version of man" (25). In masculinitie~?~For instance, can the abjected "relic," butch identity is al- another analysis of filmic representa- spaces opened up by bois within and ways already one of the boi's tions, Steven Cohan identifies Hol- around hegemonic masculinity be definitional terms. lywood's furation on (biological)boys mobilized in a way that disrupts that In "Where the Bois Are," one of as beginning with the post-war gen- masculinity's implicit whiteness? the interviewees asserts that the dif- eration of actors including James Further, while this essay focuses spe-

Conceiving of the boi as an event rather than an identity begins to open up possibilities for imagirring bois both within their historical and cultural continuities as well as in the discantinuitiies that manifest their differerrce.

ference between bois and butches is Dean, Marlon Brando, and Mont- cifically upon bois who date femmesl organized around signifiers of age, or gomery Clift. He argues that the re- grrls, more work needs to be done "play": fusal to be a "he-man," a role epito- around the different kinds of "bois" mized for Cohan by John Wayne that I listed towards the beginning That sense of play-that's a big (202), threatened to disrupt a "long- and the equally productive ways in

difference from being a butch. standing- tradition in American cul- which each can destabilize hegemonic- To me, butch is like adult. If ture of securing the position of masculinity, opening up spaces in you're butch, you're a grown- hegemonic masculinityby represent- which various kinds of masculinities up: You're the man ofthe house. ing it as the top of a generational might proliferate. (Levy 25). hierarchy" (237). In Cohan's analy- As Levy's article suggests, while sis, the boy could slip across both bois do destabilize masculinity's This explanation of difference sides of binary structures such as "legitimative ideological grounding clearly situates the boi, as I have been "masculinitylfemininity, straight1 in biologically based narratives of the arguing, at the intersection of two gay, authenticltheatrical, younglold" 'natural"' (Sedgwick 28), this does registers. Not only is he "anti-butch," (252) that organized and authorized not preclude their implication in the but he is also "anti-man." The post- normative masculinity. If bois are oppressive ideologies that underpin war fascination with biological boys read as queer(ed) "boys," they have that same masculinity. However, is at least partially located in their the potential to increase the stakes of Thomas' argument that anxieties refusal of the imperatives of mascu- this challenge to masculinity as domi- about masculinity may be re-deployed linity; the refusal to "grow up," as it nance. to effect social change and to re- were, is shared by the boi who is in A relatively new subjectivity, the imagine masculinities speaks to bois dialogue with queer cultures. In his boi's fraught relationship to just as much, albeit differently, as it analysis of the film, Boys Don t Cty, hegemonic masculinity suggests a does to men. Levy's "particular camp Noble conceptualizesHilary Swank's number of possible interactions and of bois" view their masculine self- performance as Brandon Teena in theorizations. Thus, I intend this es- preservation in terms of dominating terms of the representational econo- say to be part of a necessarily larger Others through exclusion; however, mies of boyhood: conversation, addressingonly a hand- conceiving of the boi as an event ful of the pertinent sets of concerns rather than an identity begins to open Swank's portrayal of Brandon and questions that circulate around up possibilities for imagining bois both relies on and queers the bois. While this is a beginning, it is both within their historical and cul- new teenage "boy," the "not- equally important to engage with tural continuities (thus, not as sim- male" pin-up, whose appeal is frameworks that I have left out ofthis ply refusing butches and fem(me)in- similar to that of Leonardo Di analysis: situated at the intersection inities) as well as in thediscontinuities Caprio or the proliferating boy- of mainstream boyishness and queer that manifest their difference. In lay- bands. (147) subcultures, how do bois both con- ing bare the performativity of mascu-

78 CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIESILES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME linity even while he desires to be read in Women i Sdies) at York Univer- Diana Fuss. New York: Routledge, as such, the boi hazards unintel- sity and will begin an MA at the Centre 1991. 13-31. ligibility as he becomes implicated in for Theory and Criticism at the Uni- Cohan, Steven. "Why Boys are Not the project of proliferating non-es- versity ofWestern Ontario thisfall. She Men." MaskedMen. Bloomington: sential rnasculinities. The anxiety that lives in Toronto i west endand intend Indiana University Press, 1997. marks these negotiations can be mo- to complete her Ph.D. in the near(ish) 200-263. bilized to effect anti-racist and femi- hture. Edelman, Lee. "Tearooms and nist boi subjectivities-a theory that Sympathy." Homographesis: Essays must be put into practice ifbois are to 'I intend the term "trans" to loosely in Gay Literary and Cultural Theory. avoid repeating the oppression of reference the collectivity ofthose iden- New York: Routledge, 1994. 148- fem(me)ininities that is constitutive tities and communities that self-iden- 170. of hegemonic masculinity. The po- tify as trans-gender andlor trans- Foucault, Michel. "Friendship as a tential for a politicized boi is evident, sexual, among other terms. Way of Life." Ethics: Subjectivity ifnot explicit, in this quotation from 21use "queer" and "gender-queer" at and Truth: Essential Works of "Sienna," one of Levy's interviewees: their most ambiguously inclusive in Foucault, 1954-1984. Vol. 1 of "We're not in the clean, pressed, this paper; these terms are meant to Essential Works ofMichel Foucault, button-up world-you'd never see a encompass any (or all) of gay, les- 1954-1984. Ed. Paul Rabinow. boi cop" (26). Where the cop stands bian, bisexual, transgender, and trans- Trans. Robert Hurley et al. New in for various permutations of"Mann sexual identitieslcommunities with- Press, 1997. 135-140. (adult male, metonym for the state, out limiting the "list" to just these Levy, Ariel. "Where the Bois Are." "Establishment," cultural Father, terms. New York. 37(1): 12January2004. etc.), the boi's radical political poten- 3The use of the term "bio- 24-27. tial lies in his refusal to embody these masculinities" and, later, "bio-boys" Nestle, Joan. A Restricted Country. regulatory regimes. However, as some references those boys and men whbse Ithaca: Firebrand Books, 1987. oflevy's bois demonstrate, these radi- are "appropriately" aligned Noble, Jean Bobby. Masculinities cal politics are inherent in the boi's with their biological sex. Without Men?: Female Masculinity definitional terms only as potential; in Twentieth-Century Fictions. they must be actively and critically References Vancouver: University of British engaged in order to avoid what But- Columbia Press, 2004. ler terms "recolonization by the sign" Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. New Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsb. Epistemology (199 1: 14) underwhich he performs: York and London: Routledge, of the Closet. Berkeley: University masculinity. 1999. of California Press, 1990. Butler, Judith. "Imitation and Gender Thomas, Calvin. Male Matters. Sarah Trimble has completed a BA Insubordination." Insidelout: Urbana: University ofIllinois Press, (with a major in English and a minor Lesbian Theories, Gay Theories. Ed. 1996.

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VOLUME 24, NUMBERS 2,3 79 Reconsidering the Socio-Scientif ic Enterprise of Sexual Difference The Case of Kimberly Nixon

AJNESH PRASAD

L 'autwreabordelecmKimberlyNkon nal (BCHRT), and two judicial cases for gender egalitarianism (Firestone; pour critiquer h construction socio- were taken before the provincial court. Chodorow; Gilligan; Dworkin, politique de h dzfkrence sexuelle. En Central to each of these proceedings MacKinnon). confFontant nature et culture je uois was the question of the corporeal The sex dichotomy hinges on laws que les transsexuelles hncent un djau ontology of MTF . ofgender, which have been succinctly modleprhalent qui estfondksur l'm- This analysis is primarily rooted in abridged by Harold Garfinkel in his somption que lesexe dtermine legewe. understanding that "sex" and "sex 1967 seminal text Studies in Ethno- differences" have been intricately methodology. These laws conclude When I first viewed Boys Don't Cry constructedthrough science andother that: (1999), I was struck by conflicting cultural discourses. I provide a brief sentiments. On theone hand, I lauded but critical account ofhow sex differ- 1. There are two genders,- and the fact that issues pertaining to the ences have been construed since the everyone islhas one. experiences of a particular sexual Enlightenment. Thereafter, I use to 2. Gender is lifelong, invariant, minority group were finally making Nixon case to elucidate the falla- and unchangeable. its way into popular culture. Hillary ciousness of the naturelculture and 3. Exceptions to two genders are Swank's portrayal of the life, rape, malelfemale binaries and rethink the jokes or abnormalities. and murder of Brandon Teena, viv- culturally-marked, scientifically pre- 4. Genitals (penis, vagina) are idly illustrated the lived reality of a scribed ideology of sexual difference. the essential sign of gender. female-to-male . On the 5. The categories are created by other hand, I could not help but Constructing Sexual Difference nature, and membership in a ponder what impact Teena's legacy gender category is assigned by would have-and perhaps, more Since the Enlightenment, social nature. importantly, should have-on femi- relations in the West have pivotedon nist and queer theorizing. At the crux a paradigm of sex dichotomy In short, Garfinkel concludes that of my inquiry rested the question: (Laqueur). Cohesive with liberal sex dimorphism is dictated by the Was Brandon Teena reifying or tran- democratic theory and dictated by presumption of genitalia; often un- scending the malelfemale binary? modern science (Schiebinger 1989: derstood to be immutable, stable, In this paper, I use the Kimberly 244), sexdichotomyhas become crys- and above all "pre-social." Indeed, Nixon case to consider the impact tallized in language and pervades every since the mid-eighteenth century transsexuals have on the conventional institution signified by human au- western civilization has been witness socio-sexual paradigm. Nixon was thority. Its ideological f~ationhas to an epistemic shift; a transition prohibited from working at the Van- proved so hegemonic that sexual dif- from the understanding- that all indi- couver Rape Relief Centre-a wom- ference is commonly experienced as viduals are "positioned on a single en's only organization-after it was part of ontology rather than episte- axis of 'sex"' (Hird 18) to the rigid made known that she is a male-to- mology, as part of nature instead of inference that two distinct sexes pro-

female . As a result, there culture. Even many. -prominent femi- duce two essentialized genders. This was a complaint lodged with the Brit- nist scholars have relied upon the episternic shift, undergirded in the ish Columbia Human Rights Tribu- two-sex model to endorse the project natural sciences, negated the ques-

80 CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIESILES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME tion of cultural agency in creating examines the reification of orthodox nial policies through the logistical categories of "male" and "female." gender roles in research concerning enactment of the discourse, "white During this period there was a the sperm and the egg, and sociolo- men saving brown women from socio-political agenda supported by gist Alan Petersen cites how sex dif- brown men" (Spiv& 296). In short, Cartesian and other classical liberal ferences are perpetuated in a seminal the intersection between the enabling values which actively discredited pre- anatomy text. What is amplified by paradigms of racism and sexuality vious appreciation for the one-sex each of these scholars is the idea that that underlies the imperialist project, continuum, denied alternative asser- the scientific understanding of sex manifested as a crucial technology of tions for sex diversity, and strategi- differences is a corollary not of the colonial rule (Stoler; Yuval-Davis). cally brought into mainstream focus Archimedean model of disembodied During the eighteenth and nine- what onescholar refers to as "The knowledge but rather of specific cul- teenth centuries, distinguishing one Triumph of Complementarity" (Schiebinger 1989: 214-244). Re- futing the one-sex model of the hu- Providing scientific explanations far sex man body that existed from antiq- dirCFerences rooted irr the natural world, effectively uity to the Enlightenment was quin- eschewed demands for the rectification of tessential in cultivating a rationale that permitted, if not encouraged, social, political and economic ivrjlrsti~esthat the subordination of women while emanated from being female. remaining consistent to the emerg- ing creed of universal, inalienable, and equal rights (Shilling 44). In tural manifestations. As such, the race of individuals from another- other words, providing scientific ex- corporeal can never be defined solely which would serve as the justification planations for sex differences rooted within the domain of nature, as even for imperialist conquest-was sup- in the natural world effectively es- nature's very parameters-that is, ported by evidence from scientific chewed demands for the rectification what constitutes nature-have been disciplines. This evidence, however, of social, political and economic in- circumscribed by cultural precepts. was encumbered by the fact that natu- justices that emanated from being This analysis shares an intricate ralists were unable to develop a uni- female without "self-constitution" nexus with power, righteousness and versal criterion from which to cat- (Scheman 350). the politics of imperialism. Several egorize races into neat taxonomies. Moreover, the ontologyofsex post- postcolonial theorists, including As John Haller Jr. explains, Enlightenment became a segment of Edward Said, have noted the me- a much broader endeavour. It relied thodical and, at times, discursive reg- [t]o visually identiQ differences on transcendental reason of the isters through which the racialized is one thing, but to determine a monadic subject to demarcate cat- Other is produced at the interface of method for measurement and egorical truths from corporeal expe- sexuality discourses. Ann Stoler has an index for tracing affinities riences.' Within this schema, science taken this examination further in her among various races is far more became posited into the privileged critique of Foucault. Borrowing from vexatious undertaking. (3) realm of nature, severed from cul- the thesis-claim put forth by Anne tural variables of subjectivity, inter- McClintock, among others, Stoler By the nineteenth-century, anatomic pretation, and nuance, and ultimately describes how during Western impe- measurement emerged as the prefer- became mystified as the repository rialism the governance of sexual rela- ential, albeit, essentialist source for possessing factual answers to all ques- tions was central in classifying the the study of racial difference-inter- tions human. Those who challenged colonizer and the colonized into estingly, analogous physical traits science, and in this case ontological spheres of "distinct human kinds were employed to champion the case sex, were either dismissed, labeled while policing the domestic recesses for sexual difference. "uppity," or persecuted. of imperial rule (145). This move Since the decolonization and civil In recent years, academics from was both strategic and calculated, rights movement, many of the within and outside the feminist com- and resulted in two occurrencesworth premises ofracial differencehave been munity have attempted to configure mentioning here. Positioning the debunked. Indeed, it has been com- how and why we understand sex and colonizer and the colonized into dis- monly accepted that "[S]tudies which thesex dichotomy. Historians Londa tinct human kinds on the one hand purport to demonstrate the genetic Schiebinger (1989) and Thomas engendered "corporeal malediction" basis for this or that behavioral char- Laqueur each provide a genealogy of (Fanon 258) on the psyche of latter, acteristic observed among persons sex construction in the past few cen- and on the other hand, played a who make up popularly defined races turies. Anthropologist Emily Martin seminal role in implementing colo- are essentially non-scientific and

VOLUME 24, NUMBERS 2,3 81 should be labelled as such" (Marshal1 on genital determinism. They can be been a woman, and thus, had not 125).While racial difference has been read as follows: been subject to those experiences- adamantly repudiated, and the nexus presumed monolithic-associated between ontology and race similarly Penis + Male + Masculinity with being a woman. Nixon, subse- dismantled, differences relating to Vagina + Female + Femininity quently, retained the services of sex have unfortunately only gone re- barbara findlay, a legal and gay rights inforced. Sex complimentarity's stability is advocate, and filed a complaint with This is perhaps because, in addi- inherently dependent on society's the BCHRT. In 2000, prior to the tion to being derivative of epistemo- adherence to these equations; diver- BCHRT releasing its decision, the logical and political transformations, gence from them is, as a result, por- rape centre went to provincial court- sexual difference is functional to the trayed as aberration. What requires VancouverRape Reliefv. B. C. Human

By anesting that her did not reflect her genitalia, Mixon refutes biofogi~aldeterminism and provokes discarder avad anxiety to a cultural ideofogy that is reliant so heavity on a priari scientific and metaphysical claims,

socio-sexual paradigm of hetero- acknowledgement here is that resist- Rights-in an attempt to eschew the normativity. As one scholar notes, ance to these equations in fact poses tribunal's authority. The case was "(hJeteronomzatiuity, the hegemonic substantial challenges to the entire ultimately dismissed.Two years later, discursive and nondiscursive norma- scientific enterprise that attempts to the BCHRT ordered the rape centre tive idealization of , decipher and instill sex differences. to compensate Nixon $7,500 for in- played a leading role in establishing Indeed, such challenges vividly dis- jury to her dignity. In response, the and then maintaining sex compli- close that "bodies are not static slaves rape centre filed a second case. In mentarity" (Hird 27). It is precisely to their biology" (Fausto-Sterling3 1). VancouverRape Reliefsociety U. Nixon heteronormativityand its institution- Kimberly Nixon, a transsexual et. al., the rape centre made a success- alization through patriarchal mar- woman, is central to this resistance ful petition to overturn the verdict of riage that sustains dominant ideals of campaign. the BCHRT (findlay; Boyle). "family values," which privileges and Both cases initiated by the rape vigorously demands for "two bio- Contextualizing Kimberly Nixon centre, invoked notions of ontologi- logical parents" with a "stable rela- cal sexual difference. They contended tionship to male authority" (Stacey Kimberly Nixon was born a bio- that being born with male genitalia 69). Within this framework, often logically-read male in 1957. At an involuntarily consigned Nixon to described as the "sexual contract" early age, it was clear to Nixon that certain privileges and experiences not (Pateman), sex differences are repro- her gender identity was not congru- delineated to those individuals born duced whereby men and women ent with her naturally assigned geni- female. They failed to consider how naturally undertake distinct, how- talia. After years of living as awoman, identification with the opposite gen- ever, complementary roles. Women in 1990 Nixon underwent sex reas- der may have precluded Nixon from are relegated to the private economy signment surgery, and had her birth taking advantage of privileges de- fulfilling domestic responsibilities, certificate altered to indicate her sex signed to benefit men. In short, by while men occupy the public sphere as being female. denying a transitioned transsexual where decisions of popular morality, In 1995, Nixon began training as a woman from working at their insti- social norms, and public policy are peer counselor at theVancouver Rape tution, the rape centre's argument debated and subsequently validated. Relief Centre-a non-profit organi- relied upon socio-scientific knowl- For sex complementarity-and zation that provides services to women edge concerning sex articulated in thus, , family val- who encounter male violence. While the post-Enlightenment, which ues and the patriarchal marriage-to attending a training session, Nixon renders innate differences between stay intact, two strict equations that acknowledged that she was a post- males and . conflate biological sex with cultural operative transsexualwoman.On the gender must be maintained. These spot, a representative at the centre Nixon's Implications equations are structured by the laws terminated Nixon's training, con- of gender described earlier and pivot cluding that Nixon had not always Why is it important for feminists

CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME to scrutinize the Nixon case? What condition, the psychiatry discipline Helping Professionals. San value, if any, does it hold for feminist entered transsexuality as a psycho- Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, theory and practice? sexual disorder into the Diagnostic 1996. Nixon's legal claim affectively Statistical ManualIII (Whittle 197). Butler, Judith. Gender Troubles: "denaturalize[s] and resignifie[s] bod- Patricia Elliot examines how the Gender and the Subversion of ily categories" (Butler xii). It chal- Kimberly Nixon case has divided Identity. London: Routledge, 1990. lenges the core ofthe traditional socio- members of the Canadian feminist Chodorow, Nancy J. The Repro- scientific understanding of sex, as community. From Elliot's argument, duction ofMothering Psychoanalysis described by Garfinkel. Some may it is apparent that what has been and the . argue that that by undergoing sex neglected from feminist debate con- Berkeley: University of California reassignment surgery, Nixon simply cerning this case is substantive dia- Press, 1978. moved from one end of the sex con- logue on how science has created our Dworkin, Andrea. Pornography: Men tinuum to the other, thereby fortify- understanding ofwhat it means to be Possessing Women. New York: ing it. However, by attesting that her a woman, or man. If sex is a cultural Perigee, 198 1. gender identity did not reflect her manifestation, and the naturelcul- Elliot, Patricia. "Who Gets to Be genitalia, Nixon refutes biological ture binary is likewise a myth, then Woman?Feminist Politics and the determinism and provokes disorder there is definitely great potential for Question of Trans-inclusion." and anxiety to a cultural ideology alliance between trans and non-trans Athntis: A Women >StudiesJournal that is reliant so heavily on a priori feminists. At aminimum, Nixon uses 29(1) (2004): 13-20. scientific and metaphysical claims. jurisprudence to illustrate the need Fanon, Frantz. "The Facts of She exemplifies that naturalgenitalia for feminist scholars to engage with Blackness." Theories of Race and do not have ontological meaning. and critique the hard sciences, and Racism: A Reader. Ed. Les Back Accordingly, Nixon becomes part of reconsider their position on exclu- and John Solomos. New York: the feminist revolution, resisting sion. Routledge, 2000. 257-266. masculinity and patriarchy, while si- Fausto-Sterling,Anne. "Refashioning multaneously embodying "a subject The author would like to thank Myra Race: DNA and the Politics of of differentiation-of sexual contra- J. Hirdfor her insigh@l comments on Health Care." Dzfferences:A Journal dictions" (Kristeva qtd. in Hekman an earlier version of this manuscript. of Feminist Cultural Studies 15(3) 56). (2004): 1-37. In other words, Nixon affirms the Ajnesh Prasad, originallyfiom Surrey, findlay, barbara. "Real Women: claim that the scientific production British Columbia, is a graduate stu- Kimberly Nixon v. Vancouver of knowledge is congenitally affixed dent in the Department of Political Rape Relief." The University of to the regulatory measures defined Studies at i Uuniversity, King- British Columbia Law Review 36 by cultural forces. Science, although ston. (1) (2003): 57-76. it purports to otherwise, cannot think Firestone, Shulasmith. The Dialectic or act outside ofculture (Schiebinger 'During this period it was deemed of Sex: The Case of Feminist 1999). The dichotomies that science that unlike men, women lacked the Revolution. London: J. Cape, 1970. fabricates-nature/culture, male/fe- faculties to ascertain transizendental Garfinkel, Harold. Studies in male-are each part of a more con- reason because "[tlhe conditions of Ethnomethodology. Cambridge: ceptual political project that sustains women's embodiment were ruled by Polity Press, 1967. the subordination ofwomen through natural cycles associated with preg- Gilligan, Carol. In a Dzfferent Voice: their relegation into devalued social nancy, childbirth and menstruation" Psychological Theory and Women i spheres. (Shilling 43). Development. Cambridge: Harvard Science asserts that the dichoto- University Press, 1982. mies it supports are salient and pre- References Haller, John S. Jr. Outcasts fiom social. Nixon as a post-operative trans- Evolution: Scientific Attitudes of sexual woman belies this claim. Her Boyle, Christine. "The Anti- Racial Inferiority, 1859- 1900. body, like other classified human Norm in Human Urbana: University off llinois Press, aberrations, becomes the site of am- Rights and Charter Law: Nixon v. 1971. biguity for science. For this reason, Vancouver Rape Relief" The Hekrnan, Susan. "Reconstituting the when transsexuality was becoming University ofBritish Columbia Law Subject: Feminism Modernism, more widely acknowledged in the Review 37 (1) (2004): 31-72. and Postmodernism." Hypatia: A modern West, the medical establish- Brown, Mildred L. and Chloe A. ~ournalofFeministPhilosophy 6(2) ment rushed to discover its causes Rounsley. True Selves: Under- (1991): 44-63. (Brown and Rounsley 22). After sev- standing Transsexualism-For Hird, MyraJ. Sex, Genderandscience. eral endeavours to understand this Families, Friend, Coworkers, and Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2004.

VOLUME 24, NUMBERS 2,3 83 Laqueur, Thomas W. Making Sex: Urbana: University ofIllinois Press, Body and Gender From the Greeks 1988.271-313. to Freud. Cambridge: Harvard Stacey, Judith. In the Name of the FARIDEH DE BOSSET University Press, 1990. Family: Rethinking Family Values MacKinnon, Catherine. Feminist in the Postmodern Age. Boston: Unmodzjed Discourses on Life and Beacon Press, 1996. Farewell Law. Cambridge: Harvard Stoler, Ann L. CarnalKnowledgeand University Press, 1987. Imperial Power: Race and the Martin, Emily. "The Egg and the Intimate in ColonialRuIe.Berkeley: Leaning on her walker Sperm: How Science Has University of California Press, she stepped out of her bed Constructed a Romance Based on 2002. to the window StereotypicalMale-Female Roles." VancouverRape Relief U. B. C. Human looking at the snow falling Signs:JournalofWomen in Culture Rights, [2000] BCSC 889. (as white as her hair) and Society 16 (3) (1991): 485- VancouverRape ReliefSciety v. Nixon and the snow-covered trees. 501. et. al., [2003] BCSC 1936W. Her eyes laden with nostalgia McClintock, Anne. ImperialLeather: Whittle, Stephen. "Gender Fucking as if saying Race, Gender and Sexuality in or Fucking Gender? Current farewell; Colonial Contest. New York: Cultural Contributions to Theories I will not see you again Routledge, 1995. of Gender Blending." Blending until I am part of you. Marshall, Gloria A. "Racial Genders: Social Aspects of Cross- Classifications: Popular and Dressing and Sex-Changing. Eds. Scientific." The "Racial" Economy Richard Ekins and Dave King. New of Science: Toward a Democratic York: Routledge, 1996. Farideh de Bosset is a poet who sees Future. Ed. Sandra Harding. Yuval-Davis, Nira. Gender and the storm in each soul and the seed of Bloomington: Indiana University Nation. New York: Sage, 1997. beauty in each cell and wants to share Press, 1993. 1 16-127. it with the world. Pateman, Carole. The Sexual Contract. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988. Peterson, Alan. "Sexing the Body: Presentationsofsex Differences in Gray's Anatomy, 1858 to the Present." Body and Society 4 (1) (1998): 1-15. Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Books, 1978. Scheman, Naomi. "Though This Be Method, Yet There Is Madness In It: Paranoia and Liberal Epistemology." Feminist Social Thought: A Reader. Ed. Diana T. CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY'S Meyers. New York: Routledge, SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR INSTITUTE 1997.342-367. offers Certificate and B.A. Major, Minor, and Specializationprograms in Schiebinger, Londa. Has Feminism Women's Studies including such courses as: Queer Feminism, Advanced Changed Science? Cambridge: Studies in Queer Feminism, Introduction to Trans Studies, Transsexual Harvard University Press, 1999. &Tramgender Cultural Production, Health Issues; Feminist Perspectives, Schiebinger, Londa. The Mind Has Deviant Bodies, & Popular Culture, Boys, Dudes and Men: No Sex? Women in the Origins of Feminist Perspectives on Maxulinities, Girlhood: Socialization and Sexualization, Women & Peace, Feminist Thought, Postcdonidismst & Modern Science. Cambridge: kminisms, Women & Globalkation, Feminist Perspectiveson Genocide, Haward University Press, 1989. Feminist Perspectives on Culture, Controversies in Feminism, Women's Shilling, Chris. The Body and Social Organizing & Resistance Across Cultures, Black Women's Cutlure, Feminism, Theory. London: Sage, 1993. Race, & Racism Spivak, Gayatri C. "Can the Subaltern Speak?" Marxism and the For more information, contact us at (5 14) 848-2424, ext. 2370 or check out Interpretation of Culture. Ed. Cary our web site httpd/artxmdscience.concordia.ca/wsdb Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg.

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