BOOK REVIEWS NEW MILLENNIUM TRANNIES: GENDER-BENDING, IDENTITIES, AND CULTURAL POLITICS
by Joelle Ruby Ryan
Charlotte Suthrell, UNZIPPING GENDER: SEX, CROSS-DRESSING AND CULTURE. Oxford, UK: Berg, 2004. 220p. $24.95, ISBN 1-85973-725-0.
Helen Boyd, MY HUSBAND BETTY: LOVE, SEX, AND LIFE WITH A CROSS-DRESSER. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2003. 285p. $16.95, ISBN 1-56025-515-3.
Henry Rubin, SELF-MADE MEN: IDENTITY AND EMBODIMENT AMONG TRANSSEXUAL MEN. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 2003. 217p. $22.95, ISBN 0-8265-1435-9.
J. Michael Bailey, THE MAN WHO WOULD BE QUEEN: THE SCIENCE OF GENDER-BENDING AND TRANSSEXUALISM. Washington, DC: Joseph Henry Press, 2003. 233p. $24.95, ISBN 0-309-08418-0.
It can no longer be said that riences and identity categories. These concert with feminism and queer theo- transgender issues are invisible. In fact, have included texts for both academic ry, transgender studies scholars have they seem to be everywhere. Flipping and general audiences, penned by both sought to destabilize hegemonic gender through television channels, one can trans-identified and non-trans authors. categories and call into question cul- see gender variance represented on Since the early 1990s, transgender tural assumptions regarding the pre- sensationalistic daytime talk fests like studies has begun to emerge in aca- sumed unity among biological sex, Jerry Springer and Maury Povich, on demia, although it has often been diffi- gender identity, and gender expression. pseudo-scientific programs like Chang- cult to place this burgeoning field of ing Sexes: Male to Female on the Dis- study within pre-existing academic dis- While as a community we have covery Channel, in poignant and pro- ciplines. Like women’s studies and gained increased visibility in many ar- vocative documentaries like Southern queer studies, transgender studies is an eas of society and culture, such as me- Comfort and Venus Boyz, and even in inter- and trans-disciplinary field that dia, academia, and publishing, we the realm of reality TV on shows like makes use of a variety of epistemologi- must continually ask, What kind of TBS’s He’s a Lady, where “macho” cal and methodological traditions to visibility? And at what cost? The polit- straight men dress and live as women further knowledge about the diversity ical stakes for texts that explicate the in order to vie for a cash prize. A of sex, gender, and sexuality in cultures realities and complexities of transgen- plethora of websites deal with gender all over the globe. One of the central der lives are enormous, particularly diversity, and a slew of popular concerns of transgender studies has during this conservative cultural ep- films—such as To Wong Foo, Different been to radically interrogate the binary och. Further, in order to facilitate anal- for Girls, Normal, Soldier’s Girl, and system of sex, gender, and sexual orien- yses that interrogate reigning systems the Oscar-winning Boys Don’t Cry, tation that so stubbornly persists in pa- of power, exploitation, and physical, about the real-life rape and murder of triarchal, androcentric societies. This economic, and psychical systems of transgendered Nebraskan Brandon work is perhaps best exemplified by violence, we must ask difficult ques- Teena—have emerged. In addition to Kate Bornstein’s brilliant Gender Out- tions about texts that explore transgen- these media texts, a number of books law, the first book of gender theory that have joined the gender debate written by a transperson. Working in have centered transpeople’s lived expe-
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der issues. Viviane Namaste, author of in both India and the U.K., consisting theoretical debates about gender and Invisible Lives, has provided an excel- mainly of extensive in-person and sexuality within material culture. lent critique of studies of transgender- phone interviews with individuals who ism in both the humanities and social identified as transvestites or hijras. Unzipping Gender is cogently sciences. She writes that “queer theory Central to Suthrell’s mission is an ex- written and enjoyable to read. Suthrell as it is currently practiced must be amination of clothing and its relation clearly lays out her methodology (in- challenged because it exhibits a re- to prevailing cultural categories, ideol- cluded are four appendices that reveal markable insensitivity to the substan- ogies, and contradictions. Suthrell sees some of her questions and her subjects’ tive issues of transgendered people’s clothes as a “tangible indicator of nor- responses) and includes detailed de- everyday lives” (p.23). Namaste and mative structures which are so taken- scriptions of some of the interviews she others seek to promote a mode of aca- for-granted, so obvious, they can re- conducted with both British transves- demic inquiry that is “theoretically so- main almost invisible if they stay with- tites and Indian hijras. One of her phisticated, politically engaged and in permitted, ‘common-sense’ bound- chief concerns is with the conflicting practically relevant” (p.1). Each of the aries” (p.3). Once these boundaries are ways in which transgenderism is con- texts reviewed below contributes ceived and treated in different to ongoing political and scholar- cultural and geographical con- ly debates about the nature of texts. Other researchers have sex, gender, and desire in the attempted cross-cultural and new millennium. Each achieves trans-historical projects in order a different level of success in to create historical continuity making a connection between and cultural parallels between theory and praxis. disparate “transgender” subjects. For instance, Leslie Feinberg The central objective of explores transgender identity Charlotte Suthrell’s Unzipping and resistance to oppression Gender is to examine the ways throughout history in Transgen- that culture shapes and con- der Warriors, while Serena Nan- structs notions of gender and da examines seven gender-vari- sexuality. In order to accomplish ant groups across the globe in this important goal, Suthrell Gender Diversity. One of the examines and compares the cul- fundamental credos guiding ture of British male-to-female such work is that gender-variant transvestites and that of the people have existed throughout hijras — also called eunuchs — time and in every society of contemporary India. While throughout the globe; it is nei- many in the U.S. have eschewed ther a “new” phenomenon nor the term “transvestite” for its one confined to Western, capi- clinical, fetishistic, and psychiat- talist culture. Although there is ric connotations, in the U.K. scholarly merit to such an en- the term has a different, more deavor, and often positive politi- positive valence. Through an cal intention, this approach is ethnography of these two also very problematic. Postmod- groups, Suthrell attempts to center violated through gender crossing, how- ernism has insisted on the importance their experiences in order to analyze ever, cultural ideology becomes readily of analyses that are localized and spe- larger cultural questions about the na- apparent, and clothing can serve as a cific and that avoid universalizing gen- ture of sex, gender, and sexuality. “material marker of ideas, notions and eralizations. Cross-cultural compari- Suthrell conducted extensive fieldwork theories” (p.3). Suthrell uses the dis- sons often center Western subjectivity cussion of clothing to ground complex and “other” Third World cultures and identity categories.
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While Suthrell’s attempt to ex- ments of the global gender-variant tion to the transgender community, amine the differential ways that gender community and asks pivotal questions but it never veers far from its true fo- variance is treated in two cultural tra- that are relevant to all scholars of gen- cus, which is to demystify the experi- ditions is important and ambitious, der studies and to textile and apparel ences of heterosexual cross-dressers and there is very little analysis devoted to studies in particular. their wives and family members. race and class, ethnocentrism, Boyd writes in her introduc- and the huge impact of imperi- tion, “I am writing this book alism and colonization on India. because many of the crossdress- Given Great Britain’s long impe- ers’ wives I’ve met are angry and rialist rule of India, Suthrell’s bitter… If and when they do text could have benefited from a come around to accepting their longer analysis of imperialism, husbands’ peculiarity, they only post-coloniality, and the way tolerate it, and rarely enjoy it” hegemonic Western culture has (p.13). Although the book fo- affected sexual and gender iden- cuses on a variety of important tity formation. Further, Suthrell topics, I find most compelling would do well to interrogate her its exploration of cross-dressing own privileged social location from the point of view of the vis-à-vis the hijra population girlfriend, fiancée, or wife. Why that she studies. Suthrell calls are so many female significant herself “handicapped” by her others “angry” and “bitter” “English-ness” and “white-ness” about their male partners’ cross- (p.76) and notes that she found dressing? Why do they not ac- most of the hijras she met “diffi- cept it? cult to talk to, uncivil in their The answer, as you might ex- manner and considerably more pect, is highly complex. In reali- interested in financial reward ty there is a complicated contin- than in any notion of hospitality uum of acceptance/non-accep- or friendship” (p.111). Here, she tance, and the reasons for this seems to have an attitude of en- vary tremendously. Boyd writes titlement that sadly reinstates that she wants her work to “be the colonizing impulse of the the kind of book a wife or a British over the Indians. As girlfriend can read with her Suthrell points out, attitudes toward cross-dressing husband or boyfriend the hijras have gone from general spiri- Like Suthrell, Helen Boyd invites that might lead to a new level of com- tual and cultural respect and acknowl- readers to enter an often secret world: munication between them” (p.18). edgement to increasing derision and in this case, that of cross-dressing. In Reaching that level of communication hostility, largely because of globaliza- the nearly 300 pages of My Husband requires, in part, that female partners tion, westernization, and seculariza- Betty, Boyd brings readers on both a express honestly how they feel about a tion. Many hijras are unable to find highly subjective and a more factual mate’s cross-dressing activities and be steady employment and must resort to and universal gender journey. To do able to create appropriate limits and sex-industry work to survive. The fact this, she discusses her own experience boundaries. A woman typically experi- that payment is foremost in their as the girlfriend and now wife of a ences two immediate fears upon learn- minds for the interviews reflects their cross-dresser named Betty, interweav- ing that her male partner is a cross- economic survival instinct; Suthrell’s ing it with accounts of other cross- dresser. The first is that he is a latent or analysis could better take these con- dressers and their wives as well as of closet homosexual. The second is that cerns into account. Despite these blind transsexuals, scientists, and theorists. spots, however, Suthrell’s text provides The book provides an overall introduc- a fascinating glimpse into two seg-
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he is a transsexual and will want to sexual, bi-curious or have had les- agency and voice. Building on the transition into full-time womanhood bian experiences. We are not des- work of such scholars as Jason Crom- in the near future. I appreciate that perate, in denial, or submissive to well and Aaron Devor, Henry Rubin Boyd clarifies these concerns but does our man’s needs. The ones who are explores, in Self-Made Men, the lives of not dogmatically dismiss them. For the accepting do not belong to any the twenty-two female-to-male trans- most part, heterosexual cross-dressers one political party or belief. Quite sexuals he interviewed in Boston, San are just that: straight men who like to conservative women have wrapped Francisco, and New York. The book dress in clothing associated with femi- their heads around cross-dressing. combines rich theoretical insights ninity, on a part-time basis. They They have found their way to- about transsexuals with the grounded, cross-dress neither primarily as a means wards acceptance as I have, al- lived experiences of these men. Tradi- of attracting men or declaring a gay though we may have taken differ- tionally, academic treatises about trans- identity nor as a precursor to coming ent paths. (p.58) sexualism have been conducted by out as transsexual women. Wives and non-transgender people with an ideo- girlfriends almost universally fear ex- Boyd, a New York City denizen, logical axe to grind, such as Janice Ray- actly that, however, because the general reports that she has gay friends and mond in her scathing diatribe The public tends to automatically and re- friends of color, and that she is a femi- Transsexual Empire in 1979. Rubin, flexively link cross-dressing, or “drag,” nist. She didn’t expect to have any himself a transsexual man, shows the with male homosexuality. When a man problems accepting her husband’s utmost respect for his interviewees, but puts on a dress, he is assumed to be cross-dressing, and yet she did. She is still manages to ask tough, probing gay. Further, with the increased visibili- ever so candid about the many strug- questions that reveal the controversies ty of transsexuals and sex reassignment gles she has endured in trying to accept surrounding transsexualism in contem- surgery in media culture, many women her husband’s identity and practices. porary culture. are at least casually acquainted with the She struggles openly with her expecta- idea of men wishing to move from tions of her husband and of masculini- Rubin uses Foucauldian genealo- male to female through hormones and ty, and with how her husband’s cross- gy and phenomenology to trace his surgery. Meanwhile, the heterosexual dressing reflects (and does not reflect) transsexual subjects. In the first chap- male cross-dresser has remained largely on her in the outside world. Overall, I ter, he does a genealogical history of invisible. Thus, many women are would highly endorse Boyd’s book as a endocrinology and plastic surgery, thrust into a whole new world that balanced, clear, and lucid account of practices that are central to his sub- they knew nothing about, and often the heterosexual cross-dressing com- jects’ abilities to transition physically. they feel angry, scared, or isolated. munity and the most salient issues it Rubin discusses how female-to-male While their husbands may have had faces in contemporary society. It will transsexualism emerged as a result of decades to adjust to their own cross- coax readers into interrogating their both the emerging science of endocri- dressing, the wives are forced to con- own views regarding cross-dressing and nology and the surgical treatment of front it all at once. sexuality. war veterans. In Chapter 2, he exam- ines the historical importance of lesbi- Boyd’s writing is direct, engag- Many people have the idea that an-feminism and its relationship to ing, and blunt, especially when she dis- transgender equates with “a man in a transsexualism. In the years before fem- cusses the wives’ and girlfriends’ situa- dress.” Because of this misconception, inism’s second wave, there existed a tions and her own personal journey of the experiences of those on the female- rich history of butch-femme identities being married to a cross-dresser: to-male (FTM) spectrum have often in working-class gay bar culture. Some been ignored or disregarded. Within nascent FTMs existed as butches in So let’s get this straight: cross- the last fifteen years, there has been this framework because resources for dressers’ wives are not necessarily both a burgeoning transgender politi- claiming or exploring a specifically overweight or suffering from low cal rights movement and a parallel transsexual identity were lacking. With self-esteem. We are not closet les- move in academia to study transgen- the advent of lesbian-feminism, butch- bians, although some of us are bi- dered people in a way that gives them femme roles came under attack. They were criticized as aping and reproduc- ing hegemonic, heterosexual roles, and
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such roles were seen as bad for serves to further concretize gen- both lesbianism and feminism. der relations by naturalizing the Rubin traces how this political need for humans to sex bodies and ideological development in visually. In our Western tradi- 1970s U.S. feminism helped to tion, visuality is at the heart of propel an increase in female-to- gender attribution. Gender at- male identification. In the re- tribution is the culturally medi- mainder of the book, he turns ated process whereby someone to his ethnographic data, while assigns a gender to another hu- still maintaining theoretical en- man based on social, behavioral, gagement. and sartorial cues: type of dress, gait, tone of voice, mannerisms, Rubin sees the question of hairstyle, cosmetics usage, jewel- embodiment as central to the ry, etc. But gender identity experiences of his subjects. His (one’s sense of self) and gender subjects almost unanimously expression (communication of feel a radical incongruence be- gender to others) are two sepa- tween their own gender identity rate issues. Why is it necessary and their corporeality. In order to have a “feminine” gender ex- to manifest their innermost pression in order to be culturally selves, they feel a need to trans- regarded as a woman? Why are form their bodies physically to our society’s criteria for gender make them recognizable to oth- designation based on visual cri- ers as male. Rubin quotes his teria rather than on a commu- subjects extensively and allows nal pact or shared social agree- their voices to guide us closer to ment? an understanding of these in- tense feelings of gender dyspho- While Rubin is entirely cor- ria. He also explores what he terms the sexual experience, but for the most rect to note the historical invisibility of “transsexual trajectory” and pays con- part Rubin does not discuss the impact FTMs vis-à-vis their male-to-female siderable attention to the issue of sexu- of these social categories on his sub- counterparts, statements such as “there al orientation and to how FTMs iden- jects, thus reifying a white, middle- are no natural affinities between FTMs tify their sexuality before, during, and class notion of transsexual subjectivity. and MTFs” (p.123) are over-deter- after gender transition. Finally, Rubin Further, Rubin states that he was pres- mined and impede political unity be- discusses how FTMs feel about the sured by a prominent FTM to explore tween these two potentially allied physical changes wrought by andro- transsexuals who are in some way med- groups. Rubin is to be commended for genic hormonal therapy. His sugges- ically transitioning (with hormones treading on controversial ground, but tions for the insights FTMs can offer and/or surgery), and thus non-hor- some of his findings are unsatisfying society and researchers about the na- monal and non-surgical trans voices because he seems to accept hegemonic ture of desire, sex, and gender will are completely absent. Rubin’s FTMs social constructs rather than radically prove unsettling to many who advocate are emphatically men, and they are of- interrogate them. Despite these prob- a socially constructed vision of gender. ten quite essentialist in their gendered lems, readers of Self-Made Men will pronouncements. Although both he gain a thorough understanding of While this book is highly read- and his subjects show awareness of this many of the theoretical challenges sur- able, cogent, and theoretically sophisti- problem, Rubin seems to elide these rounding transsexual identity, embodi- cated, it also has some shortcomings. concerns by noting the importance of ment, and politics. Perhaps most important is the lack of “intersubjective recognition.” This diversity among the voices represented. Race and class greatly affect the trans-
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I will end with the book that has nephilic.” Anyone with even a cursory area gay bars, is among the many rea- ignited the most controversy: J. Micha- understanding of transgenderism un- sons that I strongly oppose use of this el Bailey’s The Man Who Would Be derstands that male-to-female transsex- text. While other texts attempt to fur- Queen. Bailey, claiming to use scientific uals are an extremely diverse lot, with ther information on gender as social methods, discusses sexual orientation, differing motivations, identities, and construct, Bailey operates within a gender identity, and transsexualism in outlooks on life. Bailey, following Ca- conservative, medical model of trans- a book intended for a non-academic or nadian sex researcher Ray Blanchard, sexualism that privileges the biological “lay” audience. Surprisingly, the book feels the need to neatly categorize and the “scientific” and also serves to is highly readable and engaging; Bailey male-to-female transsexuals. He writes essentialize gender categories. invites readers along for a gender and that “Blanchard’s observations trans- sexual journey that explores subjects formed male-to-female transsexualism All of the titles reviewed here dis- previously deemed taboo in American from a seemingly chaotic and bizarre cuss trans identities in the new millen- culture. He proceeds, however, to collection of phenomena into two nium and their relationship to domi- make gross generalizations and inap- straightforward and clinically compre- nant arrangements of sex, gender, and propriate stereotypes and to spread bla- hensible patterns” (p.158). Thus, Blan- sexual orientation. All of them could tant misinformation throughout the chard’s and Bailey’s desire for neat, or- benefit from increased attention to bulk of the text. Given the gains of the derly categories is made visible and ap- power dynamics, as well as to the con- autonomous transgender liberation parent; postmodern gender “chaos” tinued oppression of transpeople in all movement of the past decade, his book must be transformed into “straightfor- aspects of contemporary life despite is particularly egregious and troubling. ward and clinically comprehensible increased representation and visibility. His work might well be characterized patterns.” In Bailey’s text, transwomen However, with the exception of The as backlash against the gender diversity who challenge traditional notions of Man Who Would Be Queen, all of these movement, and all who read it should femininity and/or who identify as les- works make very valuable contribu- do so with a discerning and critical eye. bians are ignored, since they do not fit tions to gender and women’s studies, the model of the hyper-feminine crea- feminist and queer theory, and the ex- Transgender is a grassroots politi- ture who lusts after straight, “mascu- plication of highly stigmatized identi- cal term that emerged in the early line” men. ties and their relationships to ongoing 1990s to refer to a “big-tent” approach It is impossible to enumerate all of political debates. As the push for trans- to gender diversity; it’s an umbrella the other problems with the book, but gender liberation continues to gather term that encompasses transsexuals, they include Bailey’s body/beauty fas- steam, books on trans issues can pro- cross-dressers (formally termed trans- cism, his delimiting and oppressive vide useful jumping-off points for pro- vestites), transgenderists, drag queens feminine stereotypes, his reliance on voking dialogue, illuminating and drag kings, gender-benders, and a and reification of bipolar systems of transphobic cultural institutions, and wide array of differing identity catego- gender and sexual orientation, his sen- encouraging social change. ries that connote gender-diverse indi- sationalizing of the transsexual body, viduals and constituencies. In terms of his obsession with lurid details of Works Cited both its definition and its inclusive transpeople’s sexual lives, his shoddy constituencies, the term has overtly “junk” science, and his problematic, Anderson, Jane, Dir. Normal. HBO political connotations. It is not surpris- paternalistic positioning as “benevolent Films, 2003. 110 minutes. ing that Bailey, a psychologist, general- scientist.” Information has come to ly eschews the term, or places it in light suggesting that Bailey included Baur, Gabrielle. Venus Boyz. First Run scare quotes, in favor of the outdated interviews for which he did not have Features, 2002. 104 minutes. and politically incorrect “transsexual.” proper human subject review clearance In addition, at root in his transsexual (see Robin Wilson’s pieces in the Bornstein, Kate. Gender Outlaw: On project is the intention to prove that Chronicle of Higher Education, June 20 Men, Women and the Rest of Us. New there are two and only two “types” of and July 17, 2003). Bailey’s lack of eth- York: Vintage, 1995. male-to-female transsexuals—“femi- ics, including his scandalous “picking nine homosexual” and “autogy- up” of research subjects at Chicago-
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Changing Sexes: Male to Female. Be- Namaste, Viviane. Invisible Lives: The Spence, Richard, Dir. Different for thesda, MD: Discovery Channel Vid- Erasure of Transsexual and Transgender Girls. Fox Lorber, 1997. 101 minutes. eo, 2002. 52 minutes. People. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. Wilson, Robin. “Dr. Sex.” Chronicle of Cromwell, Jason. Transmen and FTMs: Higher Education, June 20, 2003. Identities, Bodies, Genders and Sexuali- Nanda, Serena. Gender Diversity: Cross-
Miriam Greenwald
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