Decomposing Difference: Sex vs. Gender in the Transgender Debates
Ran across a blog by bLaKtivist titled The Little Transmasculine Identity, THAT COULD today. Glad I am reading this page; glad that critical voices regarding female masculinities are being circulated.
I remember reading Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg for the first time when I was 18. It completely shaped my idea of a masculine woman, as I had no other representation of such persons in my life. The stone butch identity is the one I tried to personify for a while until I came to Bloomington and was able to break away from the butch/femme dichotomies of the South and the expectations I had built up of myself in others. I must admit though, I could never pass as a stone butch; my facial features are too soft. The best butch I ever became was a "soft" one. haha.
In my younger years (I'm really not as old as I sound), I hung with a number of masculine-identified women -- all of them expressing female masculinities in their own distinct ways. Although I found it difficult to be ambiguously gendered (e.g., people would refer to me as "sir" until they looked at my credit card) and had no special affection for the female-me, I found it difficult to actually transcend gender (e.g., by assuming male pronouns consciously) as my hair grew longer. Certain of my friends are aware that this has been a disturbing matter for me, as it provoked my self to question whether I truly was indeed a masculine woman. This point brings me to the focus of this blog: addressing the sex vs. gender distinction in debates about the authenticity of the gendered sex of transgendered persons, particularly FTMs.
The sex/gender distinction is parallel to the biology/identity distinction. For me, the search for truth has always been along the identity dimension, not the biology dimension, and thus raises the issue of how I gender identify rather than whether I wanted to become male or not.
I believe when people say that "butch" is a dying breed they are lamenting the death of the butch gender identity, not the death of females who embody physiologically male traits (e.g., aggression, muscular physiques, angular facial features, hairiness, deep voices). This is an important point to delineate, as the term "butch" is a sociohistorical construction while females who embody physiologically male traits have existed since the beginnings of time. According to Judith Halberstam, "masculinity" is taken to be "a naturalized relation between maleness and power." As such, butchness is just another social form of masculinity, one that identifies women who may embody natural male traits and assert power in certain relations.
So, should the death of the butch be lamented? Might the term "butch" be a socio-historical construction that captured the realities of masculine-identified women who were openly gay in the 50s/60s/70s (and maybe even 80s)? Might, with the success of the gay identity/gay rights movement (despite the struggles still ahead of us), this reality have changed, such that highly-visible masculine-identified women need not take on a hard, stone mentality to survive the aggression/oppressions of a heteronormative, sexually-repressed Western society?
I think not (to the first question), and I think so (to the second and third questions). Society has changed, due to strategic action on the part of gays and their allies, to allow the open expression of a wider continuum of masculine identities. Thus, the factors that connote the degree of maleness we embody biologically are molded during our lifetime under a particular set of social arrangements regarding sexuality (think the 70s sexual revolution condoning the free expression of sexuality).
To the extent that the "butch" identity was available to persons born in the 70s/80s/90s as a model for enacting maleness and power, this gender identity has been expanded because of both the more relaxed social environment we now live in and the unique interpretation of masculinity comprised by men and women of the 70s/80s/90s cohorts. The resultant identity set is what bLaKtivist refers to as "transmasculinities".
The problem arises not in the relative authenticity of the identities within the transmasculine identity set (which includes "butch"), but rather in the Western world's obsession with (presumed) biological binaries. Frankly, the tomboi, AG, dom, etc. has always existed (although without an articulated identity) as has the continuum upon which persons embody male and female traits.
If the biological differentiation of male and female at birth is taken as fact, then even transgendered men (FTM) are still female, even post-op. Thus, any effort to exclude them from participation in female-centered circles is betraying the very set of assumptions upon which the exclusionary decision was built.
On the other hand, if we embrace the idea that identities, particularly gendered ones, exist upon a multi-dimensional continuum, then the MTF and FTM can be welcomed into sex- or gendered-centered spaces without problem. For instance, the masculine-identified lesbian and FTM can occupy the same space as representatives of a particular point within the sex continuum, although along different gendered dimensions of sex.
I am not a gender/sexuality scholar, but it would seem to me that recognizing sex/gender as both CONTINUUMS (not binaries) and DIMENSIONS of a larger social system of domination built upon genitalia differentiations and gendered roles would go a long way into building a community of non-normative sexualized bodies and gendered identities that we all so badly need.
I remember reading Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg for the first time when I was 18. It completely shaped my idea of a masculine woman, as I had no other representation of such persons in my life. The stone butch identity is the one I tried to personify for a while until I came to Bloomington and was able to break away from the butch/femme dichotomies of the South and the expectations I had built up of myself in others. I must admit though, I could never pass as a stone butch; my facial features are too soft. The best butch I ever became was a "soft" one. haha.
In my younger years (I'm really not as old as I sound), I hung with a number of masculine-identified women -- all of them expressing female masculinities in their own distinct ways. Although I found it difficult to be ambiguously gendered (e.g., people would refer to me as "sir" until they looked at my credit card) and had no special affection for the female-me, I found it difficult to actually transcend gender (e.g., by assuming male pronouns consciously) as my hair grew longer. Certain of my friends are aware that this has been a disturbing matter for me, as it provoked my self to question whether I truly was indeed a masculine woman. This point brings me to the focus of this blog: addressing the sex vs. gender distinction in debates about the authenticity of the gendered sex of transgendered persons, particularly FTMs.
The sex/gender distinction is parallel to the biology/identity distinction. For me, the search for truth has always been along the identity dimension, not the biology dimension, and thus raises the issue of how I gender identify rather than whether I wanted to become male or not.
I believe when people say that "butch" is a dying breed they are lamenting the death of the butch gender identity, not the death of females who embody physiologically male traits (e.g., aggression, muscular physiques, angular facial features, hairiness, deep voices). This is an important point to delineate, as the term "butch" is a sociohistorical construction while females who embody physiologically male traits have existed since the beginnings of time. According to Judith Halberstam, "masculinity" is taken to be "a naturalized relation between maleness and power." As such, butchness is just another social form of masculinity, one that identifies women who may embody natural male traits and assert power in certain relations.
So, should the death of the butch be lamented? Might the term "butch" be a socio-historical construction that captured the realities of masculine-identified women who were openly gay in the 50s/60s/70s (and maybe even 80s)? Might, with the success of the gay identity/gay rights movement (despite the struggles still ahead of us), this reality have changed, such that highly-visible masculine-identified women need not take on a hard, stone mentality to survive the aggression/oppressions of a heteronormative, sexually-repressed Western society?
I think not (to the first question), and I think so (to the second and third questions). Society has changed, due to strategic action on the part of gays and their allies, to allow the open expression of a wider continuum of masculine identities. Thus, the factors that connote the degree of maleness we embody biologically are molded during our lifetime under a particular set of social arrangements regarding sexuality (think the 70s sexual revolution condoning the free expression of sexuality).
To the extent that the "butch" identity was available to persons born in the 70s/80s/90s as a model for enacting maleness and power, this gender identity has been expanded because of both the more relaxed social environment we now live in and the unique interpretation of masculinity comprised by men and women of the 70s/80s/90s cohorts. The resultant identity set is what bLaKtivist refers to as "transmasculinities".
The problem arises not in the relative authenticity of the identities within the transmasculine identity set (which includes "butch"), but rather in the Western world's obsession with (presumed) biological binaries. Frankly, the tomboi, AG, dom, etc. has always existed (although without an articulated identity) as has the continuum upon which persons embody male and female traits.
If the biological differentiation of male and female at birth is taken as fact, then even transgendered men (FTM) are still female, even post-op. Thus, any effort to exclude them from participation in female-centered circles is betraying the very set of assumptions upon which the exclusionary decision was built.
On the other hand, if we embrace the idea that identities, particularly gendered ones, exist upon a multi-dimensional continuum, then the MTF and FTM can be welcomed into sex- or gendered-centered spaces without problem. For instance, the masculine-identified lesbian and FTM can occupy the same space as representatives of a particular point within the sex continuum, although along different gendered dimensions of sex.
I am not a gender/sexuality scholar, but it would seem to me that recognizing sex/gender as both CONTINUUMS (not binaries) and DIMENSIONS of a larger social system of domination built upon genitalia differentiations and gendered roles would go a long way into building a community of non-normative sexualized bodies and gendered identities that we all so badly need.
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