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Language is an exceptionally powerful tool, yes, at communication and the development of ideas, but also in a far more potent manner of defining milieu. Language indeed has the ability to define ones gender. This idea has been discussed at length, and though I hate always having to return to Judith Butler, her work is the foundation for all current Transgender and Queer theory studies. The very fact that we use the term ‘man’ and ‘woman’ necessarily creates the gender binary of male/female and all of the cultural connotations that are attached to each term.
I wish not to discuss the power of language with regards to stable gender norms, but something much less pedantically academic ( and thus less pompous and irritating)
What I would like to discuss is how the discourse of ‘wrong body’ has come to define the world of transgenderism. So often one will hear or read that a person experiencing gender dysphoria, or having a ‘sexual identity crisis’ (awful phrase) needs the pity of the ‘normal’ world ; that that individual with said crisis was ‘born with the wrong body’. Okay, I get it, I understand it, I’ve never been through something like it, and thus might be said to have very little validity to comment upon it; however. I do care about it though, and thus take at least a mere measure of warrant from my caring as a human being.
That being said, what does this wrong body narrative indicate, or precipitate; indeed, what is at stake? Well, firstly, and obviously, the very moment one uses the language of ‘wrong’ necessarily indicates that what the subject in question is actually going through is a problem, isn’t correct, or therefore isn’t normal. It creates and adds to a politics of cisnormative ideology.
Sandy Stone argues, in her extraordinarily influential essay ‘The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttransexual Manifesto’, that the idea of being in the wrong body has come to define the ‘syndrome.’ Stones’ claim about wrong body narrative prompts discussion of the cultural factors that provide the makeup for these ideologies. Furthermore, contemporary transgender theorist Jason Cromwell argues that ‘wrong body’ is an inadequate description of an individual’s experience of their body not being part of their self This is further echoed by Lucas Crawford who sees the wrong body narrative as inadequate and unhelpful discourse when talking about transgenderism (Crawford 2013). Indeed, is not the sense of wrongness the very result of gender ideologies that mandate what it is that constitute ‘femaleness’ and ‘maleness’?
Without delving to much further into the contemporary debate on these matters, ( as I assure you, I would loooove to ramble on), My main interest at this point is to see what other people here think of this? Do you agree or disagree with the idea of “wrong body” ? by this, of course we mean that in the case of M-t-F the woman inside has always felt she was in the wrong body and therefore needs to ‘correct’ or change into the body she feels her gender connects with. Also, is it always as simple as this? ( I can’t imagine it is). I often think that the world of scholars do not focus enough on actual real people living in a world that is bent on the classification of everything that doesn’t conform to the standard norms. Too often things are left in this theoretical field with real people being completely left out of the debate, or being chastised for not trying to bring about some sort of “free gender revolution”. My dear friend who identifies as woman and is indeed an M-t-F transitioned, says she is very happy BEING herself as a woman, taking on all of the gender assigned qualities of a so called womanhood. Whether that is viewed as oppressive by feminist politics, she cares not… she likes being ‘the bottom’ and likes doing the baking and what not. That academia says this is wrong, I personally find unbearably insulting. But I am looking for other views here… I hope I get at least a few responses as this is obviously not a sexy, but rather serious thread.
-Mark
citations ---
Crawford, Lucas Cassidy. “Transgender Without Organs? Mobilizing a Geo-Affective Theory of
Gender Modificiation.” The transgender Studies Reader 2. Ed. Susan Stryker and Aren Z.
Aizura. New York, NY: Routledge, 2013. 473 - 482. Print
Stone, Sandy. “The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttransexual Manifesto.” The transgender Studies
Reader. Ed. Susan Stryker and Stephen Whittle. New York, NY: Routledge, 2006. 221 –
235. Print
I wish not to discuss the power of language with regards to stable gender norms, but something much less pedantically academic ( and thus less pompous and irritating)
What I would like to discuss is how the discourse of ‘wrong body’ has come to define the world of transgenderism. So often one will hear or read that a person experiencing gender dysphoria, or having a ‘sexual identity crisis’ (awful phrase) needs the pity of the ‘normal’ world ; that that individual with said crisis was ‘born with the wrong body’. Okay, I get it, I understand it, I’ve never been through something like it, and thus might be said to have very little validity to comment upon it; however. I do care about it though, and thus take at least a mere measure of warrant from my caring as a human being.
That being said, what does this wrong body narrative indicate, or precipitate; indeed, what is at stake? Well, firstly, and obviously, the very moment one uses the language of ‘wrong’ necessarily indicates that what the subject in question is actually going through is a problem, isn’t correct, or therefore isn’t normal. It creates and adds to a politics of cisnormative ideology.
Sandy Stone argues, in her extraordinarily influential essay ‘The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttransexual Manifesto’, that the idea of being in the wrong body has come to define the ‘syndrome.’ Stones’ claim about wrong body narrative prompts discussion of the cultural factors that provide the makeup for these ideologies. Furthermore, contemporary transgender theorist Jason Cromwell argues that ‘wrong body’ is an inadequate description of an individual’s experience of their body not being part of their self This is further echoed by Lucas Crawford who sees the wrong body narrative as inadequate and unhelpful discourse when talking about transgenderism (Crawford 2013). Indeed, is not the sense of wrongness the very result of gender ideologies that mandate what it is that constitute ‘femaleness’ and ‘maleness’?
Without delving to much further into the contemporary debate on these matters, ( as I assure you, I would loooove to ramble on), My main interest at this point is to see what other people here think of this? Do you agree or disagree with the idea of “wrong body” ? by this, of course we mean that in the case of M-t-F the woman inside has always felt she was in the wrong body and therefore needs to ‘correct’ or change into the body she feels her gender connects with. Also, is it always as simple as this? ( I can’t imagine it is). I often think that the world of scholars do not focus enough on actual real people living in a world that is bent on the classification of everything that doesn’t conform to the standard norms. Too often things are left in this theoretical field with real people being completely left out of the debate, or being chastised for not trying to bring about some sort of “free gender revolution”. My dear friend who identifies as woman and is indeed an M-t-F transitioned, says she is very happy BEING herself as a woman, taking on all of the gender assigned qualities of a so called womanhood. Whether that is viewed as oppressive by feminist politics, she cares not… she likes being ‘the bottom’ and likes doing the baking and what not. That academia says this is wrong, I personally find unbearably insulting. But I am looking for other views here… I hope I get at least a few responses as this is obviously not a sexy, but rather serious thread.
-Mark
citations ---
Crawford, Lucas Cassidy. “Transgender Without Organs? Mobilizing a Geo-Affective Theory of
Gender Modificiation.” The transgender Studies Reader 2. Ed. Susan Stryker and Aren Z.
Aizura. New York, NY: Routledge, 2013. 473 - 482. Print
Stone, Sandy. “The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttransexual Manifesto.” The transgender Studies
Reader. Ed. Susan Stryker and Stephen Whittle. New York, NY: Routledge, 2006. 221 –
235. Print
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