Transexualism, Feminism, and Gender

This is an article I found some years ago on Below the belt.org, regarding Transphobia and Feminism.

For those who follow my BLOG, you will be aware that I have a huge interest in the psychology behind all aspects of BDSM, including transgender issues.

As aggressively vitriolic and hurtful as radical feminist criticism of transsexuals often is, I believe that transsexuals do themselves a grave disservice by dismissing that criticism as entirely rooted in blind transphobia. There is certainly a very strong element of transphobia in certain quarters of the feminist movement, but even a broken clock is right two times a day. It is hardly surprising that the majority of transsexuals are heteronormative in terms of their chosen gender presentation and behavior, but this becomes exceedingly problematic due to the extremely loud and highly active minority of transsexuals who are militantly heteronormative.

Due to the disparity in visibility between different types of transsexual, there is a very unfortunate illusion that female-to-male transsexuals don't exist at all and that male-to-female transsexuals are mostly overcompensating super-macho males transitioning into oversexed, hyper feminine females who insist on absolute conformity to patriarchical norms and the "Madonna-Whore Complex". Given that perception, it's no wonder that radical feminists tend to brand transexualism as nothing more than a particularly crazed attempt to invade and subvert the women's rights movement. This ugly misunderstanding is exacerbated by the small but extremely vocal minority of transsexuals who condemn non-traditional gender expression as "perverting" or "diminishing" the meaning of gender itself. While the vast majority of transsexuals do not agree with this militant conformist position, many of them also do not speak out against it because they are personally comfortable with traditional gender roles and often fear the lack of structure involved in a gender deconstructionist world.

It is important to point out that those who are not familiar with the psychological treatment protocols for transsexuals often fail to realize that a lot of the gender policing in the trans community originates behavioural requirements imposed on transsexuals by the medical gatekeepers who control our access to treatment. The Standards of Care for Gender Identity Disorders mandate that transsexuals go through a "real life test" to demonstrate their gender identity prior to receiving hormone replacement therapy and sexual reassignment surgery, and the majority of psychologists use this requirement to demand and enforce gender policed behaviour throughout the transition period.

Those who have completed the gender transition process are largely free of the mandates of psychologists, but the intense social and legal discrimination against them often pushes them into continued gender policing as a defence mechanism. The safety provided by "stealth" status is in many ways only an illusion, but it's very fragility tends to make "passable" transsexuals extremely reactionary towards anything which has the slightest possibility of outing them. Exercising passing privilege is a double-edged sword in that living in stealth is living in constant terror of discovery, and that terror may cause transsexuals to betray everything they should believe in. This is why stealth transpersons' often hypocritically adhere to social conservatives or the transphobic flavour of radical feminism; in their persecution-induced paranoia, they decide that no one would suspect an outspokenly transphobic man or woman of being a transsexual.

The fearful silence of the "stealth majority" has given the militant conformists a disproportionate voice within the American transsexual community, and this has produced an distinct tendency towards both internal and external gender policing behaviour. Relatively few step forward to challenge the conformists' dogmatic assertions that that anyone who exhibits gender variant behaviour is "not really transsexual", that only transsexuals merit treatment because they are "normal", and that transsexuals who cannot pass should "be realistic" and not transition because it would trigger witch hunts against those who do pass. To be perfectly blunt, the militant conformists have chosen to sell out to the very society which oppresses them, spurning the deconstruction of rigid gender roles which would set them free, and instead embracing a traitor's thirty pieces of silver in the form of passing privilege.

Most transsexuals are distinctly uncomfortable with the extremism of the gender conformists, but they also seem to be unwilling to completely distance themselves from it. This is probably because the clear lines and standards drawn by the conformists are reaffirming to those who are themselves comfortable with gender normatively in the first place; they may not necessarily agree with excluding others, but they still feel reassured of their own "belonging". This is extremely unfortunate because as long as moderates do not clearly distinguish themselves from extremists, they will inevitably be smeared with guilt by association. As long as the bulk of the transsexuals who make themselves visible to outsiders are the militant conformists and those conformists have (or are perceived to have) tacit support from the majority, it is going to be nearly impossible to refute the assumption that all or most transsexuals are the same way.

The long term solution to these issues is for the current generation of transsexuals to reject the vicious orthodoxy of conformist gender policing and to embrace in its place the freedom of gender deconstruction. This does not mean that all of us must reject traditional gender expression or stealth concealment as personal decisions, only that need to cease imposing them on others as moral imperatives. Just as a feminist may choose to be a housewife while fighting society's attempts to force all women to be housewives, so also can a transsexual chose to be gender normative while fighting misguided attempts to force all transsexuals to be gender normative. The bottom line is that there is no one "correct" form of gender expression which all males or all females should be required to adhere to.