Via Questioning Transphobia, go read this incredible open letter to cissexual gender theorists, feminists and trans allies. This was my first encounter with (trans)prose — what a great blog!
Among other the things, Caleb, the author of the post, raises some really powerful critiques of the term “transmasculine.” (And he’s not the first to do so.) I was really intrigued by the word when I first encountered it — I’ve come a long way with my gender issues since then, but since learning it I’ve liked a lot of things about it: its ability to unite a diversity of experiences around something they all share, and its openness, welcoming (some) people of indeterminate identity into the conversation. I’ve since realized, though, just how small that “(some) people” is: basically female-assigned-at-birth (FAAB) masculine-leaning queers. It doesn’t need to be that narrow, but, in practice, it is. (Read Caleb’s afore-linked post if you want to know why.)
And it’s tricky, because I understand the impulse. There are shades of gray in and around and between (some) FAAB genderqueers, (some) butches and (some) trans men, and there are people who exist between those categories or who straddle their lines. But there’s a catch, those tricky parenthetical “somes,” which are important and can’t be ignored.
What alliances are being drawn, and why–who is being left out of those alliances? What potential alliances are being erased and precluded?
And those are immeasurably important questions here. There’s this reflex among many of us to group butches and trans guys together (sometimes even under the label “butch”). In some ways this makes incredible sense. It makes sense to the people who mistake us for one other. It makes sense to (some of) the femmes and other queers who love us and fuck us. It makes sense to me in my conversations with a friend of mine whose gender issues are so much the same as mine except that ze seems to be heading fast toward some kind of trans male identity and I’m not. (Or should that be “not yet”?)
But where does it leave us? As others have said: Where does it leave us when someone says that trans men are just really intense butch dykes? When someone says that butches just want to be men? (And shit, those statements are hard enough to deal with anyway.) Where does it leave trans women? Especially trans women who are genderqueer and/or dykes? Trans men who don’t identify as masculine? Is “transmasculine” actually a meaningful or useful designation at all? If so, what does it mean?
It can’t really, as Sinclair has said, mean “’butches and other masculine-identified females’ or ‘butches and trans guys and bois and other girls who are boyish,’” when it includes trans men (who are neither females nor “girls who are boyish”) and, in practice, excludes trans women (some of whom are “masculine-identified females”).
I really don’t know. These border wars are pretty new to me and I’m confused as hell about all of it. Sometimes I think the framework is just bad and broken and that’s why there is so much intra-communal strife.
But what a better framework would look like, I don’t know.
Tags: butch, gender identity, queer
July 1, 2009 at 4:30 pm
ya… geez, the frame work seems integrally flawed, because of it’s flawed nature it seems really important to ask questions and talk about gender with our community and friends to figure out how folks identify and about what assumptions get made… seems kinda intimidating, exhausting, irritating and potentially alienating if not done under the right circumstances. I wonder what other options we have when trying to work through a lot of the wierd bullshit of false assumption and labeling( as relevant in the queer community as anywhere else) and blatant prejudice. I just figure that as a trans-masculine queer person, i owe it to anyone who seems to fall into the grey area that i inhabit(and every one else for that matter) the courtisy of not making too many assumptions and being prepared to rework my assumptions. easier said then done, especially when one is looking for steady footing, while balancing the insecurity of gender variant living and lovin. this leads into the direction of heteronormativity, masculine presentation vs. masculine behavior. feminine presentation vs. feminine behavior and a whole handful of other hot topics. how much are we willing to put into establishing a safe place for ourselves within our gender presentation, while not playing into the social pressures that are born out of false assumption and historically(feel like there is a better word)approved behavior for gender, sex and the dynamics between the two?
I don’t know… i guess stay true the our hearts and not play into how utterly painful all of this can be and educate ourselves so we can lay it down when necessary?
July 2, 2009 at 11:17 am
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