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Transgender/Third Gender/Transsexualism T TRANSGENDER/THIRD GENDER/ Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto," TRANSSEXUALISM published in 1991, writing, "To a significant degree, Feinberg's 'transgender' came to name the ensemble "We are a movement of masculine females and femi­ of critical practices called for by Stone's 'posttrans­ nine males, cross-dressers, transsexual men and women, sexual manifesto'" (2006, p. 4). intersexuals born on the anatomical sweep between Prior to this time, the word "transgender" had been female and male, gender-blenders, many other sex used to refer to individuals whose identities fell and gender-variant people, and our significant others. somewhere on a spectrum between "transvestite" All told, we expand understanding of how many ways and "transsexual." Stryker explains, "If a transvestite there are to be a human being." (Feinberg,1998, p. 5) was somebody who episodically changed into the These words, written by prominent transgender ac­ clothes of the so-called 'other sex,' and a transsexual tivist and writer Leslie Feinberg, mark a significant was somebody who permanently changed genitals moment in the history both of the word "trans- in order to claim membership in a gender other than gender" and the movement for and about which it the one assigned at birth, then a transgender was speaks. Susan Stryker, a transgender scholar, film­ somebody who permanently changed social gender maker, and activist, attributes the origin of the use through the public presentation of self, without re­ of "transgender" as an umbrella term to Feinberg's course to genital transformation" (2006, p. 4). David 1992 pamphlet, Transgender Liberation: A Movement Valentine, author of Imagining Transgender: An Eth­ Whose Time Has Come. Stryker writes, nography of a Category, writes that "the idea of trans­ gender as a radical alternative or as a 'third way' "Transgender, in this sense, was a 'pangender' umbrella between transexuality and transvestism, both of which term for an imagined community encompassing developed through the previous two decades, was transsexuals, drag queens, butches, hermaphrodites, quickly overtaken in the early 1990s by a third usage cross-dressers, masculine women, effeminate men, of transgender as a collective (often spoken of as a sissies, tomboys, and anybody else willing to be inter­ spectrum or umbrella), inclusive of all and any gender polated by the term, who felt compelled to answer the variance" (2007, p. 33). Valentine also casts Feinberg's call to mobilization." (2006, p. 4) 1992 pamphlet as "among the first published uses Stryker also forges a link between Feinberg's 1992 of the collective form of transgender which explic­ pamphlet and Sandy Stone's watershed article "The itly politicized transgender identification beyond 421 422 TRANSGENDER/THIRD GENDER/TRANSSEXUALISM individual radical acts and called for a social move­ points out that "particularly in the mid-1990s, 'trans­ ment organized around its terms" (2007, p. 33). gender' has become ubiquitous in progressive com­ The publication of Feinberg's and Stone's pieces, munity-based organizations, identity-based political then, help to establish the early 1990s as an impor­ movements, popular media accounts, international tant moment for the mobilization of the term "trans- human rights discourses, academic debates, an­ gender." In tandem with these publications, grass­ thropological descriptions of gender variance cross- roots activism and transgender politics were also culturally, and, astonishingly, it is even finding its taking hold. For example, in 1991, debates about way into the medical establishment, the very institu­ transgender inclusion occurred in the wake of the tion to which transgender was originally opposed" Michigan Womyn's Music Festival's exclusion of a (2007, pp. 33-34). Significantly, Valentine notes that postoperative transsexual woman from participation many of the participants in his study did not iden­ in the yearly event. tify themselves as transgender (2007, p. 3). The self- Transgender Nation, an offshoot of the San Fran­ appellation of the term "transgender" was, and remains, cisco chapter of Queer Nation, began in 1992; part of uneven by those often categorized as "transgender" their early work included organizing against the in­ by others. clusion of "gender identity disorder" in the American Although there is widespread agreement that the Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical term "transgender" rose to prominence in the early Manual (see Stryker, 1994, and Spade, 2006). In Ne­ and mid-1990s, definitions of the term—articula­ braska in 1993, Brandon Teena was brutally raped tions of who exactly falls under such an "umbrella"— and murdered for transgressing gender boundaries. demonstrate some significant variations. Valentine Kate Bornstein, a transgender performance artist, writes, "The very flexibility of transgender, its strength activist, and author was also active during the early as a tool of political organizing, thus makes it pos­ 1990s, and her book, Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women sible to use without specifying who is being invoked and the Rest of Us, was published in 1994. These are in particular instances" (2007, p. 39). Viviane K. Na- some of the events of the early 1990s that, along with maste writes, "A variety of different identities are in­ Feinberg's and Stone's published pieces, helped cluded within the 'transgender' label: cross-dressers, shape and organize transgender politics and estab­ or individuals who wear the clothes associated with lish transgender studies. the 'opposite' sex, often for erotic gratification; drag By the mid-1990s, the growing use of the word queens, or men who usually live and identify as gay "transgender" as a preferred umbrella term to clas­ men, but who perform as female impersonators in sify numerous identities had been established. gay male bars and leisure spaces; and transsexuals, Susan Stryker reflects, "Perhaps the most surprising or individuals who take hormones and who may un­ aspect of the whole transgender thing back in the dergo surgery to align their biological sexes with 1990s was the startling rapidity with which the term their genders" (2000, p. 273). Joanne Meyerowitz itself took root, and was applied to (if not always (2002) provides a different listing, writing, "'Trans- welcomed by) the sociocultural and critical-intellec­ gendered' includes, among others, some people who tual formations that were caught up in, or suddenly identify as 'butch' or masculine lesbians, as 'fairies,' crystallized by, its wake" (2006, p. 2). She writes that queens,' or feminine gay men, and as heterosexual "transgender" has become the term of choice "for cross-dressers as well as those who identify as trans­ a wide range of phenomena that call attention to sexual." She continues to point out, "The categories the fact that 'gender,' as it is lived, embodied, experi­ are not hermetically sealed, and to a certain extent enced, performed, and encountered, is more com­ the boundaries are permeable" (2002, p. 10). Al­ plex and varied than can be accounted for by the though there is a degree of variation in the lists by currently dominant binary sex/gender ideology of Namaste and Meyerowitz, and indeed others, Valen­ Eurocentric modernity" (2006, p. 3). Valentine similarly tine points out that the minimal definition includes TRANSGENDER/THIRD GENDER/TRANSSEXUALISM 423 transsexuals and, usually, (male) transvestites (2007, Soleil-Ross (1997), Namaste writes that "these writ­ p. 39)- He also writes that the flexibility of the term ers ask important questions about the use and defi­ "transgender" "enables one group—frequently trans­ nition of the term 'transgender,' inquiring about the sexuals—to stand in for others while giving the im­ extent to which it erases transsexual specificity" pression of collectivity" (2007, p. 40). Despite these (2000, p. 62). She continues, "It is especially impor­ remarks, which posit a close connection, at times to tant to cite transsexuals (and transsexuals who the point of slippage, between the categories of "trans- refuse to call themselves 'transgendered') given that gender" and "transsexual," the relationship between the objections they raise rarely circulate within es­ the two is far more fraught. tablished lesbian and gay communities" (2000, p. In fact, whether or not transsexuals are included or 62). In Sex Change/Social Change, Namaste writes, choose to include themselves in the category is a "Yes, we can state that we are not men and not women point of debate and contention. Stryker, in her intro­ when all is well in the world. But would someone please ductory article to the GLQ Transgender Issue, writes, tell me how to get an apartment when one is neither a "In this introduction, I use transgender not to refer man nor a woman? Where does one find a physician to one particular identity or way of being embodied to treat neither men nor women? And an employer? but rather as an umbrella term for a wide variety of My point is that this transgendered discourse is utopic, bodily effects that disrupt or denaturalize heteronor- and one profoundly informed by privilege: it assumes matively constructed linkages between an individu­ that one already has a job, housing, and access to al's anatomy at birth, a nonconsensually assigned health care." (2005, p. 22 [emphasis added]) gender category, psychical identifications with sexed body images and/or gendered subject positions, Henry Rubin points out that "transsexuals thus often and the performance of specifically gendered social, continue to be disparaged even while transgenders— sexual, or kinship functions" (1998, p. 149). She con­ an umbrella term meant to represent a range of queer tinues, "I realize that in doing so, and by including genders such as drag queens, cross-dressers, hutches, transsexuality...within the transgender rubric, I am and trannies who do not pursue all or any of the sur­ already taking a position in the debate about how gical/hormonal options—are celebrated" (1998, p. these terms interrelate" (1998, p. 149). 276). Jay Prosser succinctly writes, "There is much Vivian K.
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