Month: May 2010

From the Chrysalis

Katherine Alejandra Cross4 Comments

Not terribly long ago I wrote about the fool’s errand of trying to somehow empirically prove one’s gender or sexual identity and likened the very endeavour to castles in the air. As a metaphor, it’s not perfect, but damn does it sound good. It made for a great companion graphic, to boot. But the ultimate question is one I will return to today: How do I know I’m on the right path? How do I know transition is right for me?

Their union contract requires them to appear periodically, no matter how meaningless or random.

As I’m so fond of saying, the proof is in the pudding. I’m simply a good deal more happy and fulfilled now. However, as of today, there is yet more lurking in the pudding that is just plain delicious. For the first semester ever in my college career I’ve pulled straight As, including two A+s. What does this have to do with transition? Prior to me coming out I all but flunked my way into an unofficial leave of absence from college, including simply letting the courses run the clock without withdrawing, thus earning me the equivalent of three F grades at the time. I was so lethargic that rising from bed every day at an appointed hour was an impossible dream, so sapped of energy that I nether knew nor cared how to declare a major, so blah that I could scarcely put pen to paper for anything worthwhile.

This past spring semester, however? In Classical Sociological Theory I got no grade below 100, quite literally. My teacher adored me, as did the other students. In Political Sociology I turned in my first term paper under my new legal name. It was christened with a grade of 97. In Astronomy my lowest score was a 99; extra credit on every exam ensured I got over 100% on all the others. To say nothing of all the extracurricular reading; the nonfiction books and textbooks purchased and read purely for fun. So my final grades should come as no surprise. And yet I am nearly moved to tears when I think on it- how close I was to ending my life sometimes, how I wretched away from the future like a vampire facing sunlight, how I feared the passing of each day. All within fairly recent memory. I never knew what it was like to feel “normal” or truly productive. I never knew what it was like to feel exhausted after a day’s labour one truly cared about.

Now I do.

Scientifically speaking, I cannot explain this. But I shouldn’t have to. The proof is there. I’ve always been a good student, managing a B average before gender dysphoria really kicked in. But this year I was the class genius girl. I polevaulted over challenges I’d have walked away from two years ago. Not only that, but I participated in clubs for the first time. I joined the Women’s Rights Coalition and as of next semester will be an officer therein. I hung out with people for lunch instead of eating alone. The lists of firsts go on.

Being trans over this period was its own experience as well, one fraught with complicated political implications which I am still trying to navigate. Before signing up to become a Women & Gender Studies major I went to the department chairs and very forthrightly asked them about their views on trans people, their assessment of transphobia in the department, oh and by the way I’m a trans woman myself, so do please go on. Inside I was rattling like a leaf but I retained my composure and a posture to match my professional dress, feeling every inch the equal of the department chair who sat across from me. Ready for conflict I was much surprised at the conciliatory tone she took and emphasised that transphobia would be verboten under her watch. Outlining the steps the school had taken, at the urging of the then-Women’s Studies Program, to make the policies of the campus trans affirmative, she also said if I had any trouble with the professors to see her or the other department chair personally.

I declared my major that same day.

The same sense of history compelled me to out myself to the Women’s Rights Coalition at the first meeting I attended. The subject was about body image and everyone discussed their complex relationships with their self image and what they see in the media, how they were raised, and so on. The other women told great stories, and when it was my turn I spoke from the well of passion I had as a trans woman. I spoke of how body image was a perpetual double bind, how appearing conventionally feminine could be a matter of life and death, and yet was a source of political consternation. Eventually, having spoken so passionately about the numerous issues trans women confront with regards to our bodies, I came out. Everyone seemed surprised, and yet I won plaudits and thanks from everyone there. I wasn’t treated any differently from what I could tell, and I’d become fast friends with two people from the organisation, receiving two big hugs at the end of that very afternoon.

I went for the pizza and stayed for the feminism; what I got was perhaps the best that such gatherings could offer, the tiniest glimpse of what that Better World ™ might look like.

Another trans woman I met that semester who is also becoming a good friend commented to me that I always seemed to be very aggressive and forward about my identity, and that I was quite brave for coming out as often as I did. “Brave or stupid,” I thought to myself balefully, knowing full well the all-or-nothing gambles I was taking at a very fragile point in my academic career. I told her that I did it because I couldn’t live with the Schrodinger-like uncertainty about whether or not certain groups I’d work with at college were transphobic in an overt way. But also, it was a desire to march with my spear thrust forward so to speak, to demonstrate that I wouldn’t be easily cowed and that I took some measure of pride in this. It was born of the hope that I would challenge some people’s perceptions if they were on the fence about trans issues.

Yet even then, for all of my supposed bravery, I knew I chose well those places I came out. Small groups that I knew were likely not to harbour overt ignorance in a school whose reputation for liberalism I knew well. I knew from the beginning that this didn’t mean I could take a positive welcome for granted, but I knew the odds were on my side.

Much harder was coming out in class, which I never did.

I knew that if I came out there I was taking a much much greater risk. I still remember one day in Theory when I was discussing the nature of intersecting oppression for the benefit of the class, many of whom seemed unfamiliar with the concept. I was usually very dry and academic in outlining basic sociological concepts, but on occasion I meshed in some personal experience and this was one such time. I came out as an “LGBT person” and yet as my sentence reached its culmination where I’d specify which letter there described me I paused and said “…I’m a lesbian.”

It still bothers me to this day that I felt that was a much safer corner of my identity to wave before the class, rather than the much more integral and vital trans element of who I am. The sense that I feared risking the good will of the other students, especially the women who praised my intellect and opinions, and who talked to me after class. The sense that I’d be seen as a “crossdresser” or a man in a skirt. For all the oppression and marginalisation lesbians face, it felt much safer to declare my allegiance to the L than the T.

This was the apogee of a struggle I had all semester. I knew my professors and the students thought highly of me. Here was this sharply dressed, eloquent young woman who could practically be teaching the class, wouldn’t it be awesome if I said “oh, and I’m a transgender woman”-  and challenge any stereotypes they might’ve had? Could I not have been a good example? Did I value passing for cis more than I did potentially helping other trans people by standing up and saying “Yes I am”?

These are the wages of marginalisation, of course. Why should I have that responsibility? Why should I feel that tension between my personal safety, reputation, and the need to advocate for my community? At the end of the day I know my safety has to come first, and that was what I chose. But I couldn’t deny that I also enjoyed the good graces and opinions of those around me. A taste of what could very well have been cis privilege.

I suppose that’s why I always felt more comfortable in the Women’s Rights Coalition, even as I dominated my sociology classes. Because I was out there, yet still one of the women. I was a friend and colleague. A receiver of hugs and soon to be taker of club attendance.

That’s the way it should be, I know, and mundane or simple as it may seem it’s something I cherish a great deal precisely for its rarity as an oasis of compassion.  A place where I can just be me for a little while and the entangling politics of my personal identity and its considerations can be checked at the door, even as I discuss weighty issues for all women, cis and trans alike. I do not feel the brand of outsider, nor the gag that holds back me naming myself as a trans woman. I can say “as a trans woman” as easily as “as a woman” and that feels wonderful.

I still get a little shiver each time I say “as a woman”, as if I’m keenly aware of how quickly that could be taken away from me, how fragile and tenuous it still is. Yet, at the end of the day, this semester is proof that I can and will make it. One way or another people will know trans women kick ass rather hard. Contrary to the assertions of privileged complainers, antifeminsts and transphobes, my activism and awareness has made me only more determined to succeed- as opposed to, say, just sitting around complaining, which is their fantasy about what people like me do. If this semester is any indication, I’m not going to let any barrier hold me back.

The various considerations I outlined here will be my constant companion, of course, and I will find ways to navigate these jagged shoals. One way or another I’ll be doing it as a fucking awesome female.

Invisible Women

Katherine Alejandra CrossLeave a comment

Visibility matters. To be sure it carries with it various risks; to be known is certainly not always to be loved. For example the type of visibility transsexual women “enjoy” in society is of perhaps the lowest order; stereotyped, parodied, and exploited- this is what our visibility in the mainstream media usually accounts for. Which is why it’s all the more frustrating to take note of where we are not visible. Recently various trans and women’s websites have been blowing the lid off of a particularly egregious episode of appropriation. By now most people have heard of the beleaguered and persecuted “gay couple” in Malawi who have just been sentenced to prison terms in an inhuman miscarriage of justice. What far fewer people know, however, is that they are not quite a gay couple per se. Indeed, one half of that couple understands herself quite firmly as a female.

Questioning Transphobia among others have taken a look at this issue, and as per usual Skip The Makeup has an excellent overview of the problematic media coverage. It is erasure writ large. I will not rehash (much) the details nor the criticism of why so much of the coverage has been, at best, condescending, borderline racist, and erasing when others have done this so well. What’ll concern me this afternoon is responding to the criticisms of people who feel that the trans community is making a mountain out of a molehill. Many, including within the cis LGB community, have suggested that it doesn’t really matter how Tiwonge Chimbalanga identifies or what her life experience is, and that what matters is that folks care about two people being persecuted for loving one another.

It’s a seductive argument, certainly, and adheres to the ever enticing liberal equalism that asserts difference only gets in the way.

The problem is that those same people- especially the cis gays and queers among them- would not let this excuse wash if some other human rights issue that got wide press omitted the fact that one of the people being attacked, maligned or disenfranchised was gay, and this would be a perfectly valid response. Why? Because explicating how various forms of discrimination operate and bear on a case like this is elucidating; it highlights the struggles of groups of people to those who might otherwise be inclined to believe that discrimination is a thing of the past. If something bad happens to a member of your community, wanting to raise hell about it is a natural reaction.

Secondly, it ought to be obvious why it “matters”: because Tiwonge Chimbalanga says she’s a woman and bloody well lives as one. Does it not strike these people, especially the cis LGB folks among them, as more than a little rude and disingenuous to simply ignore that and condescendingly wave her off? That is really what is at issue here with the media coverage, including the New York Times’ cringe inducing speculation that society had repressed Tiwonge into merely being deluded about being a woman. It smacks of the same cis LGB attempt to colonise and claim trans people as merely extremely gay individuals, regardless of what we say about ourselves. Or the attempts by those same people, and some particularly tone-deaf feminists, to cis man’s burden us by asserting that our identification merely marks us as particularly battered victims of the gender binary.

The perpetuation of such beliefs, the privileged right to define us, are the consequences of this kind of erasure.

The other response to this critique- that quibbling over identity is a mug’s game- is twofold.

  • For one, the uncomfortable question has to be asked: Would this case have courted such international outrage had Tiwonge been identified as a transgender or intersex woman from the start?
  • Two, to consider the difference between being publicly regarded as a man as opposed to a woman, a mere ‘quibble’ over labels for transgender people is to display a rather saddening lack of empathy. It is pretty damn important to us.

Another argument I’ve heard floated is from some savvy liberals who say that these distinctions are a western invention and that by imposing the label of trans on Tiwonge, we are the ones erasing her. This is what I call ‘hipster privilege’, left wing constructions of privileged statements that use emancipatory language to express marginalising ideas (you can also file feminist transphobia under this). Everything I’ve read from trans activists and feminists who’ve called out this erasure has been based on Tiwonge Chimbalanga’s own expression of her identity as quoted many times over (and then usually redacted by many mainstream media organisations). I’m not imposing this on her. She, time and again, has called herself a woman.

Now let’s look at a different sort  of erasure for a moment, and how this type of erasure has a very bad habit of silencing women in the most patriarchal ways possible.

In Australia much brouhaha has been ginned up by conservative whites- mostly men- in power and in the media who are seeking to ban the burqa, a ban which mainly targets religious dress like the face-covering niqab. Recently a Sydney talkback radio programme on station 3AW hosted a rather roudy roundtable debate on the matter. Most of the callers were openly hostile, one woman brazenly declaring herself a racist, another bemoaning the loss of “Australian culture,” we’ve been here before, these shades of Islamophobia and racism are nothing new.

What was rather interesting was what happened when a Muslim woman and community representative, Sherene Hassan, who is the VP of the Muslim Council of Victoria, was called in to participate in the debate with three white men in the studio. She would be on the phone, speaking with presenter Darren James, and the two panellists, liberal Nick McCallum, and right winger John Michael Howson. At least that’s what was supposed to happen. After being kept on hold for over twenty minutes Ms. Hassan was finally told that she was not wanted on the show as Mr. Howson refused to speak to her. Whatever perspective she had to offer, as a  Muslim woman professional and community activist, was effectively silenced.

What was Howson’s justification for this?

“Well it was another propagandist coming on. We know what we’re going to get… I’ll tell you what it is Nick. They are well skilled propagandists who come on at a moment’s notice with their rote and we’ll get the same thing.”

You really do have to listen to the recording to hear the sneering behind these words.

And so, there you have it. Three white men hosting a debate to a primarily white audience, ginning up racial resentment, taking calls primarily from said white audience, all about a political issue that surrounds a law which if passed explicitly targets Muslim women. But an actual Muslim woman’s opinion on the matter? Shut down from that discussion. Mr. Howson does not seem to think very highly of his listeners’ ability to take it. An actual Muslim woman becomes a “propagandist” unlike the ostensibly neutral Mr. Howson who knows what’s best for women of colour.

This is the real problem with erasure: it compels people from minority groups to stay out of these debates, even in ostensible democracies and free presses, and to let the dominant group hash out their future. The charity of white liberals like Mr. McCallum must be relied upon and obstacles are thrown in our way if we try to stand up for our own rights.

The erasure of Tiwonge Chimbalanga’s identity has a similar effect in marginalising and silencing trans voices, including that of Ms. Chimbalanga’s herself, despite the pretensions of so many to care about what happens to her.  For the New York Times, BBC, and countless cis LGB activists to say they know her identity better than her (and that’s okay anyway because they’re trying to save her) has particularly colonialist overtones that can’t help but marginalise. Trans people need positive visibility and above all our voices must be heard, not second guessed, buried on page A12 followed by a challenge to our self-knowledge, but heard.

Respect need not be mutually exclusive with advocacy.