Abstract
When we carry out analyses of gender and embodiment, the paradigms we employ can determine our outcomes—often in exclusive ways. While many feminists have demonstrated that philosophical paradigms can contain masculine or normative bias, Vivane Namaste has criticized gender theorists in a similar way: By abstracting the question of “gender” from economic and social factors, theorists have neglected essential aspects of transgender experience. Building upon Namaste’s insight, I wish to examine four paradigms that have been employed to analyze gender and embodiment: sex/gender, queer, phenomenology, and transfeminism. While doing so, I will indicate how the limitations of certain methods affect their analyses, especially in light of transgender experience, and how engaging two or more approaches together could offset the shortcomings of each taken alone.
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- 1.
“Cisgender” is a term that refers to gendered embodiments where one’s gender assigned at birth correlates with how one lives and experiences one’s gender. Here, it also serves as an indicator of the position of privilege held by those who experience their gendered embodiment in a way that is normatively accepted.
- 2.
See Susan Stryker and Talia M. Bettcher, “Introduction: Trans/feminisms,” TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, Vol. 3, No. 1–2 (2016), 6.
- 3.
Rebecca Tuvel, “In Defense of Transracialism,” Hypatia, Vol. 32, Issue 2 (Spring 2017), 263–278. I hesitate to mention Tuvel’s article here, as the issues surrounding its publication were much bigger than any problems within the article itself. Nevertheless, Tuvel’s article reflects some of the errors I have made in the past, which I discuss later in this chapter.
- 4.
Although race will be indicated as an important aspect of trans embodiment, I will be unable to address racial embodiment explicitly given the limitations of this chapter.
- 5.
Along the same lines of these reflections, Sarah Ahmed writes of “affinity” as a way to analyze transphobia while also acknowledging her position of cis privilege. Sara Ahmed , “An Affinity of Hammers,” TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, Vol. 3, No. 1–2 (2016), 22–34.
- 6.
This list of paradigms is certainly not exclusive. Psychoanalysis, for example, is another extremely important paradigm that has been employed to describe transgender, and it has also been taken up by feminists and trans scholars, both critically and affirmatively. Given the limitations of this article, I am unable to address it here.
- 7.
Embodiment can be understood in many ways, but it especially focuses upon the sensory feeling of being in one’s body. Here, sensory feeling goes beyond the traditional “five senses,” including also bodily form and movement (proprioception), inner feelings (such as tension, excitement, or exhaustion), and surface feelings on the skin as an interface between the world and myself. In addition, I am including concrete lived situations, such as the economic, health, and racial factors addressed by Viviane Namaste (2000, 2009), as important layers of embodiment and gender.
- 8.
Although they are not equivalent, I will be using the terms “paradigm,” “method,” and “approach” somewhat interchangeably in this chapter.
- 9.
Janice G. Raymond , The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1979), 99 and 104.
- 10.
Raymond’s argument also includes a more subtle claim that trans women cannot claim (or re-claim) the name of women because they have not experienced a life of sexual oppression as women. This argument is based less upon material embodiment than upon the importance of a personal history of sexist oppression. By this analysis, Raymond allows for intersex persons who were raised as girls to claim the name of women, but excludes trans women who grew up as boys. Raymond , Transsexual Empire, 114–116. See also Talia Mae Bettcher’s analysis in “Intersexuality, Transgender, and Transsexuality,” The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory. (Oxford University Press, 2016), 411–12. However, while this move troubles Raymond’s reliance upon a material basis for her claims—indeed, she later re-emphasizes the essential material grounds of her argument—it ultimately reifies history in a sense similar to her understanding of the material or biological grounds to sex.
- 11.
This is not to say that no trans people experience their embodiment as evidence of a sex/gender divide. Indeed, some trans people understand gender identity as similar to—if not related to—a biological grounding, while how gender is expressed remains culturally constructed. However, many descriptions offered by trans people also challenge the dichotomy of sex/gender, and this is my focus here. I might also note that, if gender identity is materially grounded, then the conflict between birth anatomy and gender identity reveals a materiality that is, at the very least, paradoxical. Given this, the notion of materiality as a simple and obvious density becomes problematized, challenging the sex/gender divide in yet another way.
- 12.
Cristan Williams provides a compelling description of some events in the history of radical feminism, demonstrating that not all radical feminists are trans-exclusionary, and in fact, that early radical feminists actually defended trans women from attacks. Cristan Williams, “Radical Inclusion: Recounting the Trans Inclusive History of Radical Feminism,” TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, Vol. 3, No. 1–2 (2016): 254–8.
- 13.
It would be worthwhile to reflect upon how Jeffreys’ manuscript passed through the review process at such a notable press as Routledge. Given the limitations of this chapter, I cannot do so here.
- 14.
Sheila Jeffreys , Gender Hurts: A Feminist Analysis of the Politics of Transgenderism (London and New York: Routledge, 2014), 11.
- 15.
She even goes so far as to compare “transgenderism” and “the transgendering of children” with eugenics. Jeffreys , Gender Hurts, 123–141.
- 16.
It is important to note that Jeffreys’ book was very critically reviewed by Tim Johnston on Hypatia Reviews Online.
- 17.
Published online in The Guardian, January 31, 2004.
- 18.
Raymond , Transsexual Empire, 101–3.
- 19.
Sandy Stone , “The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto,” in The Transgender Studies Reader, ed. Susan Stryker and Stephen Whittle. (New York and London: Routledge, 2006), 230.
- 20.
Stone, “Empire Strikes Back,” 231.
- 21.
Jay Prosser , Second Skins: The Body Narratives of Transsexuality (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 59.
- 22.
Jay Prosser , Light in the Dark Room: Photography and Loss (Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 2004), 163–181.
- 23.
Viviane Namaste , “Undoing Theory: The ‘Transgender Question’ and the Epistemic Violence of Anglo-American Feminist Theory,” Hypatia 24/3 “Transgender Studies and Feminism: Theory, Politics, and Gendered Realities” (2009), 20.
- 24.
Namaste , “Undoing Theory,” 27.
- 25.
- 26.
Marjorie Garber , Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing & Cultural Anxiety (New York and London: Routledge, 1992), 109.
- 27.
Judith Butler has also been criticized for her discussion of transgender people, especially regarding the death of trans prostitute Venus Extravaganza. See Prosser (1998, 45–50) and Namaste (2000, 13–14). Although Butler presents a relatively more informed view of transgender experience in later texts, her position of the performativity of gender remains problematic for at least some scholars. See Namaste (2009) and Rodemeyer (2018, 64–7).
- 28.
Bernice L. Hausman , Changing Sex: Transsexualism, Technology, and the Idea of Gender (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1995), 4.
- 29.
Hausman , Changing Sex, 141.
- 30.
It is interesting to note that Hausman is extensively cited by Jeffreys as support for her position that “transgenderism” is socially constructed.
- 31.
Prosser , Second Skins, 132.
- 32.
Hausman explicitly chooses to ignore texts by “marginalized” trans people (such as sex workers), on the basis that they are marginal within the community of trans people and thus do not represent the “official” position of “public transsexuals.” In addition to appearing rather circular, Hausman’s argument essentially eclipses experiences and individuals that are fundamental aspects of trans experience. (Hausman , Changing Sex, 141–2.) Viviane Namaste’s response (2009) to such tendencies in feminist theory is discussed below.
- 33.
Gayle Salamon , Assuming A Body: Transgender and Rhetorics of Materiality (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010), 190.
- 34.
Salamon , Assuming a Body, 83. Emphasis in original.
- 35.
I address Salamon’s arguments in much more detail elsewhere (Rodemeyer 2018, 71–6).
- 36.
Salamon , Assuming a Body, 83.
- 37.
- 38.
Henry S. Rubin , “Phenomenology as Method in Trans Studies,” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 4:2 (1998), 279.
- 39.
In fact, Rubin’s recommendation of a phenomenological approach as a corrective to discourse analysis follows upon his critical assessment of Hausman’s Changing Sex. Rubin , “Phenomenology as Method,” 266.
- 40.
Gayle Salamon , “Phenomenology,” TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, Vol. 1, No. 1–2 (2014): 154.
- 41.
Salamon , Assuming a Body, 65. Salamon reasons in her second chapter that the notion of “flesh” would be quite useful in analyses of gender and trans embodiment, but she never mentions it again in the remainder of her book.
- 42.
Salamon , Assuming a Body, 88–93. It is interesting to note that Salamon points to Husserl’s phenomenology as pointing beyond matter or the body as “real.”
- 43.
Salamon, “Phenomenology,” 154–155.
- 44.
A brief review of works that fall under the heading of “transfeminism” is deftly treated in Susan Stryker and Talia M. Bettcher, “Introduction: Trans/Feminisms,” TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, Vol. 3, No. 1–2 (2016): 9–12.
- 45.
Namaste , “Undoing Theory,” 27.
- 46.
Paisley Currah , “General Editor’s Introduction,” TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, Vol. 3, No. 1–2 (2016): 3.
- 47.
Reese simpkins , “Trans*feminist Intersections,” TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, Vol. 3, No. 1–2: 233.
- 48.
Micha Cárdenas , “Pregnancy: Reproductive Futures in Trans of Color Feminism,” TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, Vol. 3, No. 1–2: 51.
- 49.
Micha Cárdenas , “Pregnancy,” 51.
- 50.
Currah , “Introduction,” 3.
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Rodemeyer, L.M. (2018). Feminist and Transgender Tensions: An Inquiry into History, Methodological Paradigms, and Embodiment. In: Fischer, C., Dolezal, L. (eds) New Feminist Perspectives on Embodiment. Breaking Feminist Waves. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72353-2_6
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