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on the etiology of transsexuality... if you want, you can skip this intro and go directly to the table of contents Unfortunately, discussions about, and research on, transsexuality often focus on “etiology” - that is, the cause(s) of transsexuality. As an activist, this concerns me. In my book Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity, I put it this way: Why do transsexuals exist? Why are we motivated to change our sex? Is it due to genetics? Hormones? Upbringing? Living in a plastic-surgery-obsessed culture? Or maybe it’s just a good old-fashioned mental disorder? Such questions represent the intellectualization of objectifying transsexuals...For me the question of why I am transsexual has always been a source of shame and self-loathing. From my preteen years through young adulthood, I was consumed with the question - it was directly related to the fact that I did not want to be a transsexual. Eventually, I realized that it is a pointless question - the fact is that I am transsexual and I exist, and there is no legitimate reason why I should feel inferior to a cissexual [i.e., a nontranssexual] because of that. Once I accepted my own transsexuality, then it became obvious to me that the question “Why do transsexuals exist?” is not a matter of pure curiosity, but rather an act of non-acceptance, as it invariably occurs in the absence of asking the reciprocal question: “Why do cissexuals exist?” The unceasing search to uncover the cause of transsexuality is designed to keep transsexual gender identities in a perpetually questionable state, thereby ensuring that cissexual gender identities continue to be unquestionable. -Whipping Girl, pages 187-188 As a scientist, I can understand why people might feel that “what causes transsexuality?” is a compelling question. But as a trans person I find that such questions invariably reduce me to an object of inquiry and curiosity. In other words, questions of etiology marginalize me. Furthermore, many who are interested in answering such questions do so because they view transsexuality as abnormal, immoral, or a developmental disorder that needs to be corrected/eliminated. Because of such concerns, some researchers have gone out of their way to state that eradicating transsexuality is not their ultimate goal. Frankly, such claims seem somewhat naive to me. After all, these researchers may personally accept and/or respect trans people, but surely they are also aware that there *are* people out there who wouldn’t think twice about using such knowledge/info to eliminate or further marginalize trans people. For all of these reasons, I have (up until now) mostly avoided the issue of transsexual etiology in my activism and writings. However, in the last year, I have had a change of mind about this. It has become increasingly clear to me that when we transsexuals - who I would argue are the real experts on transsexuality, having lived and experienced it first hand - remain silent about this issue, it creates a vacuum that is too easily filled by cissexual “authorities” (whether they be psychiatrists, sexologists, sociologists or gender theorists) to posit their own speculative (and typically oversimplistic) hypotheses as to why we exist. Furthermore, these etiological theories are often closely associated with similarly oversimplistic taxonomies (i.e., ways of categorizing trans people). These taxonomies - whether they be transsexual vs. transvestite, primary vs. secondary, homosexual vs. nonhomosexual, etc. - are not merely hypothetical abstractions. Often they have a very real impact on who is able to access the means to transition and who is not. These taxonomies are also problematic because they define transsexuals for a lay (and largely trans-ignorant) public. When a psychiatrist/gatekeeper defines and describes transsexuality in a newspaper article or a TV documentary, their words carry far more weight than trans people’s own self-definitions and self-descriptions. When a so-called “expert” claims that someone like myself is not a “true” transsexual (when I identify as transsexual) or that I am “autogynephilic” (when I don’t see myself that way), they erase/invisibilize my identity, perspective and experiences. This issue has become most concerning to me with regards to the recent resurrection of Ray Blanchard’s model of transsexuality, which postulates that all trans women are motivated to transition for sexual reasons. [For those completely unfamiliar with Blanchard’s theory and his contentious concept of “autogynephilia,” I highly recommend Madeline H. Wyndzen’s thoughtful collection of essays called Everything You Never Wanted to Know About Autogynephilia (but Were Afraid You had to Ask); her site also contains links to countless other writings on both sides of this debate]. The fact that a theory like Blanchard’s - which has so little supporting data, is thoroughly contradicted by countless trans women’s life experiences, which plays into and reinforces the societal sexualization of trans women, and has the very real potential to negatively affect our legal and social status as women - continues to appear over and over again represents a very real political threat to transsexuals. It has led me to recognize that it is not simply enough for us to stand on the sidelines critiquing gatekeeper etiologies and taxonomies. We need to put forward theories of our own - ones that fully take into account our own complex life histories, the intricacies in the way we experience our own genders and sexualities, and that accommodate the vast diversity of trans people that actually exist. So with that goal in mind, this page is an ongoing work-in-progress that highlights articles that I’ve written (or am in the process of writing) that relate to the issue of transsexual etiology. Contents: Call for Transsexual Narratives First, I am trying to collect narratives from both FTM and MTF transsexuals that highlight what I feel are some of the inconsistencies in Blanchard’s model. If you are transsexual and are interested in contributing, please check out my call for transsexual narratives. I will probably be accepting narratives through May, 2008. Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity As I've already mentioned, I critique a number of common theories of transsexual etiology (especially those often forwarded in the fields of psychology, sexology, sociology and gender studies) and put forward some ideas of my own in my book Whipping Girl (especially in chapters 5, 7, 8, 10, 14 and 17). The Psychiatric Sexualization of Male-to-Female Transgenderism This is a paper I presented at The Association For Women in Psychology Conference (Pacific Division) in San Francisco on March 10, 2007. It discusses how psychiatric taxonomy and theories of etiology have historcally sexualized people on the trans female/trans feminine spectrums, and places this in the context of the societal sexualization of femaleness and femininity more generally. You can either download a PDF of the abstract and learning goals or listen to an audio reading of the entire paper. A more complete version of the paper has since been published as chapter 14, Trans-sexualization, in my book Whipping Girl. Academic/Scientific Freedom without Responsibility? Ray Blanchard’s concept of autogynephilia was an obsure theory only known to a relatively small number of gatekeepers and transsexuals. That is, until psychologist J. Michael Bailey published his 2003 pop-science book The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism, which is undoubtedly the most sexualizing and sexist book about trans women that I have ever read. Not surprisingly, it provoked a strong negative reaction from the trans community and allies. This article - which originally appeared on August 24, 2007 on the feminist blog Feministing - is my critique of a rather myopic NY Times article that focused exclusively on one small aspect of that backlash, namely, personal attacks on Bailey that were purportedly carried out by a few trans activists. A Matter of Perspective: A Transsexual Woman-Centric Critique of Alice Dreger’s “Scholarly History” of the Bailey Controversy This piece takes up from where the previous Feministing article left off. It is my critique of Alice Dreger’s so-called “scholarly history” on the backlash against Bailey’s book. Her book-length article is slated to be published in the psychology/sexology journal Archives of Sexual Behavior; my critique will appear in the same issue as a “peer commentary.” A version of my critique can be downloaded here and I will link to the published version as soon as possible. For those especially interested in this topic, I've also created an audio recording called Even More Dreger Critiquing where I go even more in depth about some of the numerous problems with her article. A Bio-Experiential Model of Transsexuality This is a paper I plan to present at the upcoming Transsomatechnics: Theories and Practices of Transgender Embodiment conference in May, 2008. You can download a copy of my abstract here. Academic/Scientific Freedom without Responsibility? This article originally appeared as a post on the feminist blog Feministing on August 24, 2007 This Tuesday, the New York Times ran an article about the continuing controversy surrounding psychologist J. Michael Bailey’s 2003 book The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism. The premise of the book is that *all* transsexual women transition for purely sexual reasons - either to attract straight men or because they are sexually aroused by the idea of being or becoming female. This sexualizing of trans women’s motives is of course nothing new. In the media, trans women are regularly depicted as either sex workers, sexual deceivers who prey on unsuspecting straight men, or as fetishists who get off on the idea of wearing women’s clothing. The media’s (as well as Bailey’s) assumption that MTF (but not FTM) transsexuals transition in order to fulfill some kind of sexual fantasy not only dismisses trans women’s deeply experienced female gender identities, but also insinuates that women as a whole have no worth beyond their ability to be sexualized. (For those interested, I discuss this more in depth in my own book Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity). Much of the transgender community’s initial outrage over Bailey’s book centered on the fact that it was presented to the public as a work of science. It was published by Joseph Henry Press, an imprint of National Academies Press, whose goal is “publishing well-crafted, authoritative books on science, technology, and health for the science-interested general public.” But if one looks beyond the back cover copy, one finds little science at all. Bailey simply rehashes a scientifically flawed theory that was put forward by fellow sexologist Ray Blanchard nearly a decade ago. Rather than providing data to support Blanchard’s theory, Bailey instead attempts to make his points through the use of lurid (and often demeaning) anecdotes, sexist and racist commentary, gross generalizations and unsubstantiated speculations (for specific details, see Joan Roughgarden’s review of the book). In addition, Bailey conveniently claims that trans women and gay men whose personal accounts differ from his thesis are merely lying (he’s used this tactic before: see a 2005 NY Times article called “Straight, Gay or Lying? Bisexuality Revisited”, in which Bailey insinuates that men who say they are attracted to both sexes are lying). Of course, this week’s NY Times article doesn’t discuss the hypersexualization of trans women in our culture, and it barely mentions the fact that Bailey falsely presented stereotypes and sexual innuendo as “science” without any hard data to back his claims up. Rather, the article focuses almost entirely on accusations made by Alice Dreger in her forthcoming article in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior, in which she claims that several prominent trans activists stooped to conducting personal attacks on Bailey during their campaign against the book. As Dreger comments in the NY Times article: “If we’re going to have research at all, then we’re going to have people saying unpopular things, and if this is what happens to them, then we’ve got problems not only for science but free expression itself.” Now, I’m not going to comment about the accusations Dreger makes, as the trans activists involved have denied her charges and have made counter-accusations of their own. And while Dreger presents her essay as a work of scholarly history, it’s clear that she is not an impartial, objective observer - she is currently a colleague of Bailey’s and has become embroiled in the controversy that surrounds the book herself. What does strike me though are the parallels between the way Bailey misrepresented anecdotes and opinions as “science” in his book and the way Dreger’s take on this controversy is now being misrepresented as a work of scholarly/scientific history. Indeed, the fact that a scientific journal such as Archives of Sexual Behavior would dedicate a whopping 62 pages (several times more than it allocates to standard research articles) to Dreger’s highly personalized account of this matter is unusual to say the least. While it is not uncommon for scientific journals to publish viewpoints from individual scientists on noteworthy issues, they tend to be clearly designated as editorials or opinions pieces, rather than as actual research papers (as Dreger’s article is being presented). As an academic scientist myself, what bothers me most about the NY Times’ retelling of this controversy is that they portrayed Bailey as a “scientist under siege” fighting for academic freedom, without any mention of *academic responsibility*. In our society, people tend to view opinions as being inherently valid when they are spoken in the name of science and when the person voicing them has an advanced degree in a germane field. Perhaps nowhere is this more obvious than in public discourses on transsexuality, where the opinions of non-trans “experts” (whether they be psychiatrists, sexologists, sociologists or gender theorists) regularly trump, or completely stand in for, the perspectives of actual transsexuals. The fact is that when a self-appointed “expert” like Bailey claims that transsexual women transition for purely sexual reasons, and that they are lying if they state otherwise, people will believe him because of his academic/scientist status. The NY Times may try to frame the controversy surrounding Bailey’s book as an example of political correctness run amok, but the truth of the matter is that Bailey himself did exponentially more damage to the field of academic research when he misrepresented anecdotes and innuendos as though they were science. return to the top of the page or return to the table of contents |
julia serano ©2002-2008