Transl:ender Politics By Surya Monro Department of Sociological Studies University of Sheffield PhD Thesis Submitted 2000 IMAGING SERVICES NORTH Boston Spa, Wetherby West Yorkshire, LS23 7BQ www.bl.uk PRINT FADED IN ORIGINAL CONTENTS Acknowledgements 1 Chapter 1 Introduction 3 Chapter 2 Methodology 24 Chapter 3 Transgender and Gender Pluralism 58 Chapter 4 Theorising Transgender: Butler and Poststructuralism 81 Chapter 5 Transphobia, Subjectivity and Social Structure 116 Chapter 6 Transphobic Discourse 154 Chapter 7 Transgender Politics and Citizenship 195 Chapter 8 Conclusion 230 References 251 Appendices 294 Acknowledgements My first thanks is to the transgender people who generously gave their time and energy to this research. Many people helped and I am grateful to all of them. Of those I can name, the people who have contributed in an ongoing way are Kate More, Stephen Whittle, Roz Kaveney, Simon Dessloch, Zachary Nataf and Kate N' Ha Ysabet. I would also like to acknowledge the organisations Press For Change, the Gender and Sexuality Alliance, Gendys, the Beaumont Society and Transgender Menace for their help. I would like to warmly thank my supervisors, Lorna Warren and Nick Stevenson, whose friendship and academic support helped me through the wilderness. Thanks too to Diane Richardson and Lena Dominelli, who saw me though the earlier stages of the research. I am grateful to those colleagues and friends in the Department of Sociological Studies who helped to make my period of study an enjoyable and worthwhile one, in particular Louise Goodwin, Saeed Zokai, Steve Huckerby, Donna Luff, Sean Kimber, Wanda Thomas Bernard and Emma Wisby. I would like to thank the academic staff, particularly Malcolm Cowburn, Sharon Macdonald, Bob Franklin and Dave Phillips for their encouragement,and the administrative staff, particularly Linda Wilde, Sylvia Parkin and Marg Walker, for their ongoing support. I would also like to acknowledge academics and professionals elsewhere who have helped me with the research, in particular Alice Purnell, Dave King, Nettie Pollard, Sue Webb and my Women's Studies students at the Division of Adult Continuing Education, Sheffield University. My friends and family have been incredibly important companions on this journey. There are many people I would like to acknowledge. In particular, I would like to thank Sunil Nandi, in whose house this thesis was born, Christine Moon, Rafie Beckett, MKP, Bob White, Annette Parker, JL Dakin, Dominic Davis and Lee Adams, Sue and Vik Hall, Sarah Hampshere and Barbara Horley, Lisa Halse, Anna Ravetz and Liz Sharp, Jay Lambert, Siobhan Judge, Fred Gillam and of course Bryan Murphy. Those friends who have been really crucial include Kate More, Alice Purnell and Roz Kaveney, whom I met through the research and whom I would like to acknowledge again here. I would like to thank my sister and parents for their love and support. I would also like to thank those others who 1 have helped with this process, including Ivor and Elizabeth Perry, Jennie Daff, William Bloom and Pam Hampton. Lastly, I would like to acknowledge and thank the funders, without whom this work would have been impossible. These include the ESRC, the Northern Dairies Educational Trust, Sheffield University Hardship Fund, roni, Robin Monro, Rhea Quien, Tontyn Hopman and Dr. Phung Ly. 2 Chapter 1: Introduction Transgender poses a fundamental challenge to the rigid male/female categorisation which underlies the Western social system. Alternatives, such as those presented by feminist and queer accounts, continue to pay homage to gender binaries. Postmodernism is also problematic, as it fails to account for much transgender experience. The challenge which transgender people present to Western gender binaries is masked by their current social exclusion, which relegates them to the margins and thus nullifies demands for social change. The marginalisation of transgender people can be traced to transphobia, or the fear and stigmatisation of transgender people. The developing transgender movement challenges transphobia and the social exclusion of transgender people. Discourses of citizenship and democracy form an effective basis for an inclusive politics of gender. However, transgender politics is rife with complexity and tension. Transgender Politics seeks to explore the implications of transgender, firstly for sexual/gender politics and theory and secondly for Western social structure. The thesis aims to usefully inform transgender politics, in keeping with its participative methodology, and locates the main author in relation to the research. The introduction addresses, firstly, ~he rationale for the project and the core debates. It then provides an overview of definitions and prevalence of transgender, the development of the transgender movement, cross-cultural and trans-historical contextualisation, and the literature. Lastly, the introduction describes the structure of the thesis. It is worth noting that some of the terminology in this field is unusual and that I have included a glossary in the appendices. In addition, I would like to point out that the published material which I have used in the thesis can be distinguished from direct contributions by interviewees because the former and includes a date and does not include a first name, where as the interviewee's material includes a first name and is not dated. Lastly, I wish to note that unclear parts of the interviews are indicated by a question mark in the text. 3 Rationale Why study transgender? As Weeks (1998) points out, humanity is in the middle of huge social and cultural changes. On a global scale, the majority of people are still struggling with survival issues, environmental devastation is a serious threat, and in many countries economic and social inequalities are increasing. Faced with the enormity of such problems, gender concerns might pale into insignificance. However, gender and sexual relations can be seen as crucial for politics and social structure (see for example Giddens 1992). Gender relations are also in a state of flux and uncertainty (Weeks 1997), informed by processes of democratisation and autonomy (Weeks 1998). One, mostly hidden, aspect of such processes is the transgender movement for social recognition and rights. Transgender social inclusion would explode conventional, binaried, models of sex and gender, leading to expanded, pluralist social structures concerning sex and gender and new ontologies and epistemologies. Transgender Politics breaks new ground in a number of inter-linking ways: methodologically, politically and theoretically. In terms of methodology, it is the first empirical study to be conducted by someone who did not, initially, identify as transgender in consultation and collaboration with a range of transgender people. It aims, in contrast to much previous research, to avoid appropriation of findings and misrepresentation of 'subjects', includes discussion of the researchers' subjectivity, and sites the researcher as an equal rather than an 'expert'. In addition, the study reveals problems with postmodernist, participative and feminist research methods which can usefully inform qualitative research methodology. Politically, the study is important because it fore grounds people and processes that have been marginalised by modern Western society. In doing this, it challenges Western gender binaried social structure and attendant ideologies, including academic theory, and subculture as well as mainstream norms. Research and literature on transgender, with the exception of several recent additions, has taken pathologising, individualising, sensationalising approaches or has remained within the realms of cultural or queer studies. Wilchins (1997), Whittle (1998b) and other transgender people have justifiably attacked academia for failing to address the real problems that transgender people face: those of 4 transphobia and social exclusion. This study aims to address these issues and to theorise them in a way that may contribute to processes of democratisation. Transgender is therefore discussed in terms of citizenship, participation and new social movements. Political conceptualisation is underpinned by use of poststructuralism and is thus more incisive than analysis focusing just on social structure. Transgender Politics attempts to address the fact that "there are huge swathes of unwritten history, huge swathes of unwritten theory" (Stephen Whittle, interview 1996). Core initial theoretical issues for the research concerned the deconstruction of gender and sexual orientation binaries, essentialism/constructionism debates, and the use of transgression as a motor for social change. These themes permeate the research, with perhaps unexpected implications for current gender theories, which are found to be inadequate for dealing with transgender. The rejection of sex and gender binarisms destabilises feminism, indicating the need for alternatives. Gender pluralism calls for a critique of the traditional feminist line on transgender, yet feminist praxis and ethics remain important for informing gender pluralism. Queer theory is critiqued in another way: transgression implies a mainstream whilst transgender transcends mainstream/subculture separations. Postmodernist and constructionist theory are also shown to be limited. Some transgender people experience gender essentialism: an anathema to constructionists. Moreover, postmodernist deconstruction, when taken to its chaotic, fluid, apolitical, relativistic conclusion,