Questioning the Evil Transgender Robot Army

102 thoughts on Questioning the Evil Transgender Robot Army

1. And I was recently discussing things with a fairly feminist lesbian friend, who said ‘what common do transpeople have with women and lesbians? your issues don’t hold any interest for me and no empowerment will come out of it if you succeed’… Sound like it?

2. Excellent points on Hedwig; you articulated why that movie bothers me in a way that I haven’t been able to do before.

   I simply have to wonder if a movie about the opposite – transpeople asked to “just be a lesbian” or “just be a gay boy” – would be so exciting and novel to Ms. Crouch. It could explore the horrors of being trans and pushed around, as opposed to the horrors of being a gay character and pushed around in “Gendercator”. It could be set in, say, the early 2000s. Maybe a possible prequel to this movie. I even have a great title for her: “Real Life”

   Honestly I would sorely like to be shocked and outraged, but I just have to roll my eyes and mentally add her to a long tally of ignorant transphobes. She’s not the first, and won’t be the last.

   What is most disturbing about this entry is that the Christians’ gender police in the future doesn’t seem implausible. Iran, anyone?

3. To be fair, is it neccessary for each and every film to explore trans and depict it true to life? Is it not possible for a science fiction story to adopt the methodology of becoming one gender or another without it being even related to genuine modern transitioning?

   It seems to me that the film explores forced transitioning and forced gender identification in a Stepford Wives vein and its creators I doubt earnestly mean for it to be compared with current transitioning people.

   In example, Stepford Wives presents forced gendering, but if you are a woman who has chosen a “traditional” identity as a woman, the first reaction would be to respond in a similar manner as to this. However, in deeper reading, the piece made no value judgments on the role as an informed choice with genuine consideration, but rather the idea of being forced into that role without consent. This seems to be the same deal. In deeper reading, I imagine it wouldn’t have enough comparisons to be a “critique” or even commentary on transissues, but rather a plot device.

   I can understand that one’s identity used as plot device is not an enviable idea. But it seems to me that unless the author of the work includes specific anti-trans messages, they are making a commentary about forced transitioning that has separated itself thus from chosen transitioning and all that entails.

   It’s the difference between realizing that you are the opposite sex from what your body is currently and acting accordingly and being forced to transition if you didn’t want to.

   In many ways it’s the reverse of an exploration of someone forced to not transition. Someone prevented from becoming the sex they are. These issues are different than those experienced by transitioning people and I think in fairness consideration should be made for that.

   I also think the idea that just because you’d rather trans issues were presented that this filmmaker should explore them because they have gone and used a sci-fi plot device that is so tangental is not really fair to the issues she’s exploring and misinterpreting her work.

   On the other hand, I wholly agree that there need to be more works that do explore the issues you talk about. Perhaps even sequels or works set in the same universe should arise that explore a trans-person in such a society. With gender so regulated, what happens to the person who wants to jump sex. What are the issues of these forced transitioned lesbians? They have been placed in a new pre-transitional state where their bodies don’t correlate with their mind’s gender. Perhaps it will be touched on in her work. I hope so. But I also think people should follow up and present these more trans-intensive views on the universe. There is no reason why this shouldn’t occur with permission and it’s the real way community and exploration occurs.

   Anyways, my point was, perhaps you’re being a little harsh. You mention that Crouch isn’t interested in what you said is interesting. This is true. So what? It doesn’t have to be. Hopefully someone else will expand her universe to cover those issues.

4. Piny, I’m sooooo disappointed you didn’t mention the Butch Rescue Squad!

   I imagine them as a grim amalgamation of the French Resistance, Robin Hood’s Merry (wo)Men, and the A-Team.

5. I honestly think this sounds so ridiculous that it’s going to help the trans community and make Crouch and her ilk out to be laughingstocks. Like, I can imagine it on MST 3000. Someone should nab an advance screening copy and do just that with it.

6. To be fair, is it neccessary for each and every film to explore trans and depict it true to life? Is it not possible for a science fiction story to adopt the methodology of becoming one gender or another without it being even related to genuine modern transitioning?

   No, it is not necessary for each and every film to explore trans and depict it true to life.

   However, it is important that these works of art and social commentary acknowledge the allegorical use of transsexuality–and transpeople. And it is important to notice when any given artist–like Crouch and, I think to at least some extent, John Cameron Mitchell–doesn’t seem capable of distinguishing between their portrait and reality.

   It seems to me that the film explores forced transitioning and forced gender identification in a Stepford Wives vein and its creators I doubt earnestly mean for it to be compared with current transitioning people.

   I think that Crouch definitely does means this film as a dystopian vision–a magnification of current trends–of the current position of transsexuality and transpeople and current pressures on lesbian women wrt transsexuality. From the director’s statement:

   Things are getting very strange for women these days. More and more often we see young heterosexual women carving their bodies into porno Barbie dolls and lesbian women altering themselves into transmen. Our distorted cultural norms are making women feel compelled to use medical advances to change themselves, instead of working to change the world. This is one story, showing one possible scary future. I am hopeful that this story will foster discussion about female body modification and medical ethics.

   I can understand that one’s identity used as plot device is not an enviable idea. But it seems to me that unless the author of the work includes specific anti-trans messages, they are making a commentary about forced transitioning that has separated itself thus from chosen transitioning and all that entails.

   It’s the difference between realizing that you are the opposite sex from what your body is currently and acting accordingly and being forced to transition if you didn’t want to.

   In many ways it’s the reverse of an exploration of someone forced to not transition. Someone prevented from becoming the sex they are. These issues are different than those experienced by transitioning people and I think in fairness consideration should be made for that.

   This used to be my position on Hedwig: I really wanted to see it as a reversal of transition. Its protagonist was trapped in a body and role that didn’t correlate with sense of self. However, I have the sneaking suspicion that Mitchell doesn’t relate his story to transsexuality in this particular way–that is, he sees transition as a capitulation to external pressure rather than a repudiation of is dicta. Crouch obviously feels the same way. It’s all well and good to point out that transpeople deal with the same gender-conformist issues as transpeople, and that transition is often just as frightening to the mainstream. But it’s also vital to point out that Crouch doesn’t see those comparisons and is peddling a story that doesn’t think they exist.
   \
   Finally, I really don’t think that inaccurate pictures of transition and transsexuality may be waved off as potential allegory–not when they still have some credibility and not when they are often given more credence than accurate, firsthand portrayals. The leftinsf blog (IIRC) links to a petition that compares this film to a film about a future dystopian gay fascist state, where everyone is forced to be homosexual. If the AFA released such a film–coming to a Hell House near you!–it wouldn’t be ironic social commentary on heterosexism. It’d be a really scary, delusional portrait of sexual politics in the world today.

7. That’s the problem with so much science fiction, they come up with a far-flung premise and then don’t bother to shore it up in any rational way, it’s just “hey! Imagine a world where gender was a strict binary and transgression was punished with a sex change!”. History has shown us that the religious right has found it much more cost-effective to shoot the queers than to make them transition.

   I’m with piny, I guess the big question is: Is the point of the film to challenge people’s phobias about gender and sexuality, or to exploit it? It sounds like it’s more exploitative–which is not cool.

8. Cerberus:

   It seems to me that the film explores forced transitioning and forced gender identification in a Stepford Wives vein and its creators I doubt earnestly mean for it to be compared with current transitioning people.

   This is a quote from Catherine Crouch’s director’s note, in which she talks about the present-day state of affairs as she sees it:

   Things are getting very strange for women these days. More and more often we see young heterosexual women carving their bodies into porno Barbie dolls and lesbian women altering themselves into transmen. Our distorted cultural norms are making women feel compelled to use medical advances to change themselves, instead of working to change the world.

   She absolutely means for this “forced to be a man” to be connected to and comment on currently transitioning people, and says so. Of course, I don’t think she literally believes that people are being actively forced by the government into transitioning, but it’s a use of science fiction as a “to the nth degree” exaggeration of something she sees as a problem right now, a la 1984. The current state of affairs, according to her, is that trans people are “compelled” by “distorted cultural norms.”

   What’s more, any film is part of a larger cultural conversation about the topics it explores, right? Even if Crouch didn’t just out and admit it in the quote above, her film would still be playing a role in how our society — and in particular, lesbian communities — talk about and think about people who change their gender. In the last decade there has been a growing amount of transphobic panic, fueled by a lot of misunderstanding and ignorance, about why transmasculine people are transitioning. This has been amply written about elsewhere, a whole lot. It’s not hard for those of us who have watched or been party to those conversations (many of which resolve with a greater understanding and appreciation of trans issues, I have to say) to see exactly where Crouch’s movie fits into the larger dialogue: in a very ignorant and fear-mongering place.

   I shouldn’t have to point the transphobic mistaken assumptions out in the quote I pasted above, but just in case anyone missed it:

   a) trans men are being compared and equated to women who get plastic surgery to make themselves into “porno Barbie dolls” as if transition somehow makes someone more gender-conforming (false)

   b) trans men’s reasons for transitioning are attributed to “compelled by distorted cultural norms,” erasing both the long and cross-cultural history of trans lives and identities, and the agency that trans people have to think about and decide on these issues ourselves, as if we’re just brainwashed

   c) “instead of to change the world,” as if it’s an either/or proposition, you can transition OR work to change the world. Wake up and smell the coffee: trans people have been right at the front of a whole lot of political movements, are working to change the world right now, in droves, and there’s a reason: a lot of us know how shittily the world treats the disenfranchised

   d) trans men are characterized as being a subset of the lesbian community (and referred to as “women” of course) which is yet another false generalization. Not all trans men are or were part of lesbian communities or identified as lesbian at some point, but that’s assumed to be the default or the only reality. As usual, the existence of people who transition and continue to have gender non-conforming identities and presentations, as well as the existence of gay and queer trans people, is ignored in favor of a myth in which trans people are all gender-normative and heterosexual after transition, and transitioning can be likened to conformity.

9. Oops, double-teaming the same quote again, piny!! How embarassing, I knew it was taking me too long to write that. At least I said slightly different things.

10. Its protagonist was trapped in a body and role that didn’t correlate with sense of self.

    Wow, I always saw the end of Hedwig (when she performs as gnosis) as saying that she didn’t need anyone else to become whole; Because the I thought the point is that she was looking for love to make herself complete- but in the end she finds that she has everything she needs within herself. (sorry for the cheese)

    Am I the only one who thought that?

11. I’m having the same reaction to this premise as I did to Haunted Mansion: I wrote this one when I was about 16. (That was the early 80s)

    In my version, a dictator had taken over, and any woman with an IQ over 110 was required to transition or live under insanely restrictive laws that amde them 3rd-4th class citizens.

    I’d considered revisiting it from a GLBT perspective, but now I don’t think I will.

12. I remember being all excited about Hedwig, thinking that maybe there’d be a movie about someone like me. My first thought after I saw it was that there were no women in it. And I guess, in John Cameron Mitchell’s world, there aren’t.

    If it weren’t for paranoia going back decades about men getting sex change operations to invade lesbian spaces, the Gendercator movie might be more interesting than irritating. But the ‘transsexualism as a mode of oppression’ theme was done back when Janice Raymond wrote The Transsexual Empire. I’m personally tired of dealing with it, though Ms. Crouch actually manages to acknowledge that transmen exist this time around.

    How come we’re the bad guys? We’re struggling for the same goddamn rights to live and love and to be happy, and you know what? Y’all can have the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival. Frankly, I’m done with camping. If it doesn’t have hot running water, internet access, and sushi restaurants that deliver, I ain’t interested.

    There are some rather good representations of transfolk in SF. Iain M. Banks has my favorites. In his Culture, all humans have the ability to change sex at will without any need for outside intervention, though the process takes a little while. In Excession, the protagonist has done it personally, though I liked The Player of Games a little better, where one character is in an intermediate state and still a sexual creature, still desirable. John Varley seems a little less able to let go of contemporary gender roles, though he’s seriously enthusiastic about being able to play around with body and gender in his science fiction. Even though Hildy in Steel Beach goes from stereotypically male to stereotypically female, I thought the idea of reshaping body as fashion being was a nice touch. (Though why would people three hundred years from now still hold onto late twentieth-century stereotypes of swishy femme gay male fashion designers? Aaagh! *cough* Ahem.)

    And there are folks out there writing erotica with transgendered folks in. Enough for at least a couple of anthologies.

13. Things are getting very strange for women these days. More and more often we see young heterosexual women carving their bodies into porno Barbie dolls and lesbian women altering themselves into transmen. Our distorted cultural norms are making women feel compelled to use medical advances to change themselves, instead of working to change the world. This is one story, showing one possible scary future. I am hopeful that this story will foster discussion about female body modification and medical ethics.

    If I may tripleteam the quote, I’d like to say that this paragraph encapsulates exactly the radfem gender essentialist worldview. Women are carving their bodies, altering themselves, and feel compelled to use medical advances to change themselves. The problem, from this POV, is female body modification. It’s basically just reiterating the standard line, “No matter how hairy you get or what surgery you have, you will always be a woman and poor, poor dear! oppressive forces made you do this to yourself b/c no woman could ever truly want this.”

    Which, you know, just really icks me out.

14. lucie: um, what I was given to understand from Hedwig the movie was that it’s ok for men to love men (which sure is), and lightly preaches that wigs aren’t really necessary and that Hedwig’s female gender identity wasn’t very firm and well-rooted. Perhaps even fake or forced by her desire for men.

    Which isn’t at all true for transpeople, wigs and packing dildoes can be essential for survival during transition, though they certainly don’t make a woman or a man. Ergo, the movie, although inspirational and moving, didn’t deal with real transwomen’s issues, in my mind. I wouldn’t have made it throughout transition without the sentiments of that movie to help me, but still, a transfeminist analysis of it leaves much to be desired for transpeople to identify with.

    Although, Yahtzic, Hedwig’s bandana-wearing lover *was* played by a ciswoman actor and he was given much gender ambiguity as a gay guy character, since he magically turns into a beautiful woman at the end of the story. hmm. Anyone remember that?

15. lucie,

    It’s been a while since I watched Hedwig, but that’s kind of how I remember it, too. To oversimplify it, I saw it as more of a genderfuck–that we overemphasize aesthetics in our relations to one another (Tommy can’t accept Hedwig because she hasn’t had a “complete” sex reassignment; where do you draw the lines between gay and straight, male and female, etc)–and that love is love no matter what body one is in.

    Although I see piny’s point that Hedwig’s transition isn’t necessarily presented as being a personal path (she’s kind of lacksidasical about it). I’m assuming working within a Platonic framework hampered some of the directions the movie could have taken.

16. As an admirer of Hedwig the play over the movie, I have to point out that it was not originally conceived as a film, and I think it was much more successful live. But I don’t think it was ever really about being trans. piny hits it on the head:

    its protagonist was trapped in a body and role that didn’t correlate with sense of self. However, I have the sneaking suspicion that Mitchell doesn’t relate his story to transsexuality in this particular way–that is, he sees transition as a capitulation to external pressure rather than a repudiation of is dicta.

    Through the coarse of the play, Hedwig slowly removes pieces of the “costume” until the actor is bald, nearly naked, and fairly androgynous, never leaving the stage. The role of Hedwig was a survival tool, not an external representation of an internal self. The theme is more about escaping, not transitioning. Hedwig undergoes surgery to get out of Germany, not to fulfill a need.

    The semi-mainstream trans movie that I am interested in seeing has not been made yet.

17. I personally like the lesbian feminist critique of the heteronomative lie that all lesbians secretly desire to be men. It’s the same old, same old. It was old in the 70’s, it’s old now, and it will be old in the future. Transsexuality does raise the issue of how lesbianism is conceived of within the patriarchy. And personally, I’m offended that anyone, anywhere (Middle Eastern practice, I’m looking up references) thinks it’s an acceptable practice to enforce transsexuality on lesbians as a curative social practice.

    This is not o.k. It’s also not o.k to assume that a lesbian’s portrayal of how heterosexuals use transsexuality against lesbians is about transphobia. I’m really surprised that the intelligent people who post here missed the deeper social critique.

    As it currently stands, the two most popular stereotypes of lesbians (I’m purposefully ignoring male heterosexual fetish) in the west are: 1) mother and 2) frustrated butch attempting to transition. I think that deserves a hearty feminsit critique because from where I stand, it doesn’t get any more bizarrely heteronormative than that. I also think that it is encumbant upon the trans political community to address how transsexuality is (ab)used, by the supporters of heteronormativity, against non-gender conforming women, especially lesbians.

19. Hmm.

    The link didn’t work first time.

    http://direland.typepad.com/direland/2007/05/change_sex_or_d.html

20. Wow, people want it both ways, I guess. Gay people secretly want to transition, and transgendered people are just gay people trying to fit into the hetero-norm. Talk about damned if ya do, damned if ya don’t. Being human sucks.

21. I keep seeing this whole “The trannies are making our butch women into men!” panic pop up now and then, and it’s sad.
    I have no knowledge whatsoever of the lesbian community, and if butches are being pressurised into transition, that’s certainly silly and unpleasant. But a butch and a transman are two very different things.
    Not to mention that in my experience, at least half of transmen prefer other men. How do the queer transpeople fit into this idea of “gender variant people forced into heterosexuality”?

22. 2) frustrated butch attempting to transition.

    Your wording answers your own question. Heteronormativity laughs at the idea that a person could be something other than what they’re assigned at birth. A butch attempting to transition will always secretly remain a butch. Once a woman, always a (misguided, self-mutilated, point-and-laugh-at-it) woman. This seems to be Crouch’s POV. I don’t see a critique of heteronormativity in there at all, only a reinforcement of the norm that trans people don’t really exist. Not to mention that many transsexuals don’t come out of the gay or lesbian community, or that many also are GLB identified as well as being trans. Crouch ignores these inconvenient realities to focus on her paranoia of ‘lawfully enforced butch flight’ and indulging her fantasies of transitioned ftms all harboring some secret regret.

23. This discussion is really making me want to watch this movie. (Oops, I must be a secretly self-loathing woman. Send in the Butch Rescue Squad!)

24. I think most trans people, and most readers of this blog, would also agree that it’s absolutely abominable to enforce transsexuality on lesbians as a curative social practice. I was horrified after reading the original NY Times article on Iran and really glad to hear that the GCN is reporting on both the persecution of non-trans gay people who are being coerced into a medical model of transsexuality, and on how state-controlled medical and legal systems are being used there to rape and violate trans people too. It is a testament to the fact that you can’t just “solve” one form of oppression and ignore others, especially when they are as tightly linked together as homophobia and transphobia — it can make the situation worse for EVERYONE.

    Mireille’s post makes this really clear: the system is set up for all queers & trans people to be damned, one way or the other. Making films about just one side of this is… incredibly one-sided! And therefore both ignorant and short-sighted.

    I don’t see where Crouch’s movie is talking about Iran, or where Crouch is talking about “how heterosexuals use transsexuality against lesbians.” In order to claim that “culture” is what is coercing people to transition, she has to ignore what trans people are actually saying about ourselves, and assume that we can’t even think for ourselves about cultural pressures, or make choices. What’s more, this attitude is completely, offensively blind to the fact that trans people are being heavily persecuted FOR being trans, both in Iran and everywhere else. Outside of an extremely exceptional government policy in Iran, some equally-misguided cottage industries in the West, and some localized social pressures from some kids who ought to be slapped in the face a few times, nobody is trying to convince anyone to transition — if anything, the pressure is ENORMOUSLY in the opposite direction from the vast majority of society. I mean, if there’s so much pressure, where is my fucking gift basket, already.

25. a butch and a transman are two very different things.

    I would argue that that’s often, but not always necessarily the case. I think those nuances would be lost on fans of this movie, though. :p

26. So, Holly, no one can critique the broader social/cultural reaction to both trans and lesbianism?

    Since when?

27. assume that we can’t even think for ourselves about cultural pressures, or make choices.

    I think once the idea of transition enters a person’s mind, conscious choice is necessarily a part of the equation. Do I choose to live as I am? Do I choose to transition? How do I choose to cope? It’s no longer, “Am I this or am I this (or am I something else)?” It’s, “WTF am I going to do about it?”

28. RE: the Hedwig criticism, it’s funny, when I saw that film I never really thought it was about transsexuals or being gay or anything. Sure the film used the botched sex change as a device, but I never got the impression that is what it was a bout or that it was really trying to say anything about that. I took it as a fairly straight forward story of human self actualization using the botched sex change as a bit of a metaphor.

    So I never got the cringe thing that some of you are describing, it never crossed my mind, an interesting critique for sure.

29. So, Holly, no one can critique the broader social/cultural reaction to both trans and lesbianism?

    Since when?

    Did I say that?

    I didn’t. I’m extremely interested in such critiques, and always have been. I am extremely dismayed by non-trans people who use trans people as some kind of “object lesson” without bothering to actually include trans perspectives or letting trans lives, experiences, identities speak for themselves. Both Hedwig, being discussed here and in other threads, and Gendercator, share this in common.

    I think it’s really problematic to talk about trans people with all of the mistaken assumptions that I list above, without having trans people’s voices involved in the project. It’s just as bad as the analogy that’s used in the link piny provided: if a right-wing zealot were to “critique society’s reaction to homosexuals” because they’re of the opinion that “lots of children are being pressured into homosexuality by our culture” by making a film that’s about how in the future, homosexuality will be compulsory and enforced, and made this film from the perspective of a straight person concerned about straight people “becoming gay”… don’t you see the problem there?

    This is part and parcel of an ongoing panic about “butch flight” from lesbian communities. No amount of discussion, even by actual butch women, actual trans men, about why a whole lot of this discussion is rooted in paranoia and misunderstanding, has helped dissuade this panic in some people’s minds.

    Now, I would be really interested in a discussion about how masculinity is privileged in queer communities, I think there are a whole lot of critiques that can be made around that, and about how that intersects with trans people’s transitions in both (and multiple) directions. Julia Serano’s book Whipping Girl has a lot of discussion about how on the flip side, femininity and feminine gender expressions are trivialized and degraded.

    That kind of discussion absolutely can and should take place without trans people being targeted as some kind of bogeyman scapegoat, herald of a dystopian future. The needless scapegoating and finger-pointing is what’s transphobic, and obviously so.

30. critique the broader social/cultural reaction to both trans and lesbianism

    The social/cultural reaction to trans people is that they don’t exist.* Oh wait, that’s the social/cultural reaction to lesbians too.** So how is Crouch critiquing that exactly? She doesn’t believe in transsexuality and neither does Iranian policy. In Iran’s case, it’s a convenient ‘solution’ to the ‘problem’ of a visibly queer population. In Crouch’s case, it’s a convenient ‘solution’ to the ‘problem’ of living as a (not femme) lesbian. Neither believes in the legitimacy of trans identities. It’s just that one is using the idea of sex changes to promote the appearance of their desired society, and one is against them for the same reason. They each want the thing they don’t like to just go away. B/c, like Holly said, it’s not like trans people have brains and can think or make choices or anything like that.

    *See: Trans people are liars, deceivers, deluded, sick.
    **See: Lesbians have penis envy, need a real man, do it for the attention, are sick.

31. How do you know that she doesn’t “believe” in transsexuality? I’m not getting that from anything I’m reading about the film. I think she’s drawing a line between the personal choice of body modification and the(future) state’s abuse of that choice vis-a-vis the cultural hangups of the larger population. I don’t think it’s an enitrely unrealistic leap to make, considering the rising popularity of fundamentalism, both religious and secular. She’s making that point that we are rather heedlessly promoting the hedonistic right of anyone, anywhere to surgically alter the female form to fit cultural expectations under the rubric of personal choice without unpacking what the female form means, if anything. Taken to one logical conclusion, her movie is not so far removed from today’s current social/cultural dialogue about what it means to be a (heterosexual) woman. Lesbians represent that aspect of society least likely to promote these memes and it is of interest to note (critically) that one response to this lesbian resistance is an assumption of transsexuality.

32. Is transsexuality a modification or a correction of the human form?

33. She’s making that point that we are rather heedlessly promoting the hedonistic right of anyone, anywhere to surgically alter the female form to fit cultural expectations under the rubric of personal choice without unpacking what the female form means, if anything.

    You’re right, she is comparing trans people changing their bodies to both hedonism and plastic surgery. I think that’s willfully ignorant and transphobic too. Most any trans person will tell you that reasons for transitioning are a whole lot more complicated than hedonism; it’s grotesque that anyone would attempt to reduce people’s experiences to that, especially if they’ve been exposed to trans people’s own voices and narratives. Someone would have to really, really not be paying attention if they truly believe, after listening to what trans people say about ourselves, our bodies, our choices, that it can all fit “under the rubric of personal choice.”

    And as usual, most of the focus is on trans people’s bodies, trans people being scapegoated — I don’t see anything in the description of her movies about boob jobs, except that trivializing comparison with plastic surgery.

    Lesbians represent that aspect of society least likely to promote these memes and it is of interest to note (critically) that one response to this lesbian resistance is an assumption of transsexuality.

    I totally agree that this is interesting to note and criticize. Especially when you are talking about government institutions in Iran, where this is happening right now. Claiming that it’s happening everywhere else, at a “cultural” level, amidst massive oppression and silencing and violence against trans people both in Iran and everywhere else, sounds like a whole lot of Janice-Raymond-esque 70s paranoid trans-scapegoating bullshit to me.

34. I like ‘alignment.’ Modification/correction imply to me that there was something wrong with the way I was or am. I like to feel that I’ve made myself congruent, as a not-particularly femme, slightly butch transwoman, who is bi, favors women, and REALLY likes other transwomen.

35. Also, if you want to talk about critiques and dialogue and productive discussion of gender, oppression, masculinity… let’s see what people who have tried to engage with this director are reporting, hm? From piny’s link:

    What about having a dialogue about gender? Isn’t that a good thing?

    A dialogue requires an actual exchange of ideas. Crouch has repeatedly refused to engage in dialogue with concerned community members across the country. Before SF residents began protesting the film, the conversation was framed completely in hateful, one-sided terms. There is no discussion in Crouch’s film, there are prescribed values – many of them not just hateful, but inaccurate–upon a huge, diverse population.

    Films designed to antagonize, belittle, or demonize whole populations of (trans) people in the name of “fostering debate” should not be permitted in film festivals whose aim is to support and nurture those populations. Tell Crouch there are ways to celebrate female masculinity without demonizing trans people.

    Some critique.

36. Is transsexuality a modification or a correction of the human form?

    I would say neither, as I would classify it under a state of being.

    Holly, I used the word hedonism, so the criticism should be leveled at me, not at Crouch. I think that Kathleen’s post #34 is part and parcel of that hedonism. If one pursues surgery on one’s body, that is a modification, and in as far as the goal is to decrease personal pain and increase pleasure (quality of life) on a level that is labeled “personal” but which is indeed political, hedonism is a factor. I am more free as a woman to pursue body modification through surgery (breast augmentation *or* SRS) than I am to pursue an abortion. That’s a dangerous continuum for all women. And in that vein, where a woman’s choice to pursue body modification through surgery is a *normative* choice, then all those who lie outside the norm become suspect because of their reluctance to toe that particular line.

37. Crouch also refers to her this film as satire. I don’t think that that is insignificant.

38. Why don’t you try to get an elective double mastectomy and tell me how easy it is? Your ignorance is laughable.

    Why, if being trans is a state of being, which I assume means you accept that some people assigned women are not women, do you then phrase SRS as a ‘woman’s’ choice? Your word choice is again betraying you. Do you believe that trans as a state of being should remain a strictly mental thing inside the heads of those afflicted? That they are free to believe that they are not women but that they’d damn well better remain so physically? It is pretty normal these days for a person to come out as trans without intending to transition fully or to transition at all. Transition status IS hotly debated as a source of trans-hierarchy, but again, I don’t see any of that sort of dialogue coming from this movie.

39. Q Grrl, explain please how your implied opinion that trans body ‘modification’ (of all words..) is a choice that’s easy to acquire, when I’m being force-councelled for 2 years by homophobic, transphobic medical gatekeepers who think I can’t be a lesbian and an m2f, because lesbians want to have *dicks* and I don’t want mine?

    Maybe I’m not really getting you, but it feels like you’re scapegoating transpeople for the restrictions imposed on all people who aren’t cisgender privileged men by patriarchy.

40. also, Em and Holly and piny, I want to lick your shiny brains for this discussion…

41. Then she misunderstands satire, which seeks to deflate the pomp of hegemonies. The TransHegemony, yeah that’s a good one. Sounds like an Orson Scott Card book. Or, oh, I know, the TransMason Heteronormative Cabal. I like the ring of that one.

    Seriously. Satire? The idea that trans people are coerced or complicit in enforcing the gender binary is neither new nor biting. She might as well have titled it, “Trans People: Uncle Toms to the Patriarchy so Lesbians Beware!” *yawn*, nothing new here, folks.

42. Q Grrl, would you mind explaining how hedonism enters into it at all? Especially considering that the only people I’ve heard use the word are folks like Alan Keyes, who hates gays and lesbians and transgender folks and anyone who doesn’t fit into his favored one man one (or many) woman (women) plus kids family structure. Is it hedonism for a young woman to shave her head, get lots of interesting bits pierced, wear big stompy boots and a wallet on a chain? Is it a bad thing?

    I agree that it’s a dangerous trend for women to be pursuing breast enhancement and other surgeries in order to more closely fit the patriarchal ideal of a woman (even though this ideal changes like any other fashion). It’s revolting that it’s easier to get a boob job than it is to get an abortion — and the anti-gay, anti-trans, anti-woman folks will tell you that getting an abortion for any reason, including the reasons they got their own personal abortions while they’re trying to keep you from getting one, is also part of the secular amoral hedonism of gay/trans/feminist folks.

    So. Is it hedonism for a transwoman to want genital surgery? Is it possible for a transwoman to ever qualify as just a woman?

43. Moira, for what it’s worth, I have a personal quest of reclaiming “hedonism” as “sustainable hedonism”; that is, doing things thatmake you happier while fucking up other things (notably, the environment) as little as possible. So, yes, anything I do for myself I’m going to label hedonism, and I didn’t immediately have an negative reaction to the mention of it. But I’m also aware that the word generally has a connotation of waste and excess.

    Maybe I’m the hopeless one for equating the pursuit of personal fulfillment with conspicuous wanton pleasure-seeking.

44. Christina, I haven’t had a good brain-licking in SO long! XD

45. Why don’t you try to get an elective double mastectomy and tell me how easy it is? Your ignorance is laughable.

    I didn’t say anything about ease.

    Is it possible for a transwoman to ever qualify as just a woman?

    Absolutely. Especially within the current patriarchal paradigm of surgery.

46. Satire of what, exactly? I think she makes it clear who she’s trying to paint a satirical portrait of in her director’s statement. I agree it’s not insignificant, but what would the alternative interpretation be — that she’s completely serious about an Orwellian forced-transition future? I mean, Brazil is also a political satire about an Orwellian dystopia, and it also expressed some straightforward politics about repressive regimes and “terrorists.”

    As for hedonism — I’m sure you know the connotations of that word. Would you really describe anything that improves someone’s quality of life as hedonism? I guess hedonism must also be a factor when someone who’s severely depressed seeks counseling and/or medication to decrease pain and increase quality of life. Same with any kind of pain-management technique. Generally speaking, we make a distinction between that kind of thing and “hedonism.” And Crouch is making comparisons with breast augmentation. I definitely have sen arguments about “quality of life” linked to breast augmentation, and I find them extremely suspect. If you really think trans people’s experience are more comparable to breast augmentation than say, clinical depression or other forms of “pain management / increase in quality of life” then I can only say that you are missing a very cruical piece of the picture.

    I do think it would be really interesting to talk about access to different kinds of surgical procedures. For starters, breast augmentation is much easier to get than breast reduction. When you start getting into territory like tubal ligations, doctors start protesting vehemently and trying to convince you otherwise. All of these procedures are far easier to access than SRS or abortion, neither of which are covered by insurance in the United States. Anti-abortion zealots are trying to ensure that there’s a battery of “scare tactics” in place, ostensible to make sure that a woman is really sure she wants to go through with it. SRS has had this kind of battery of “are you sure, are you sure, are you really really sure” in place for a very long time, complete with scare tactics and even worse tests and hurdles, all ostensibly designed to “test the patient’s resolve.”

    Minors can’t access SRS even with parental permission, and there is a huge ongoing controversy about whether minors should have access to trans-related healthcare at all, even if their health and well-being is in imminent danger. Minors have extreme difficulty accessing abortion as well, especially without parental permission, which anti-abortion forces have succeeded in making a requirement in more and more locales. You used to have to go overseas, or to less regulated areas like Mexico, in order to access either procedcure.

    If you’re talking about which kinds of health care are policed and which aren’t, I don’t know that I would lump together breast augmentation and SRS. Abortion and SRS are much more similar, from all the evidence I’ve seen. Breast augmentation is the example that reinforces what “women are supposed to look like” and how women are “supposed” to function. Abortion, obviously, goes against women’s intended role as baby machines, and SRS completely violates society’s intention for female-assigned people to both be available for reproduction, and to never be able to cross over into the “opposite” sex, since sex and gender categories are supposed to be immutable, unchanging, inviolate. You would have to convince me that the patriarchy is actually invested in having unstable categories of gender for me to believe that it, or “heterosexuals” in general, are really using transsexuality as a weapon against outsiders.

    Things I think really are worth talking about on this front: the fact that states often require sterilization of trans people before any kind of state sanction, so that we won’t breed (i.e. confirm that you are an utter reject from the gender-reproductive system, and let’s stamp that on your permanent record). The fact that when institutions (medical, governmental) have been convinced to allow some kind of recognition of trans people, they simultaneously expect absolutely gender-conforming behavior (gender clinics of the 60s and 70s in the US, current-day Iranian policies) which trans people then have to struggle against and resist, only to have people who should be our allies blame US for this gender-conforming expectation bullshit.

    Last thing:

    a woman’s choice to pursue body modification through surgery is a *normative* choice

    Since when is being trans always or even often a “normative choice?” This is a strawman argument that gets trotted out all the time — that somehow every transmasculine person is heading in the direction of normativity. Let’s leave aside, for the moment at least, whether people ought to be able to make considered choices about their own bodies and gender that lead them in a more normative direction. I agree that sums of personal choices across a whole society can cast suspicion and ostracism on people who lie outside the norm — speaking as someone who finds herself outside of that a whole lot.

    But trans people are not always making choices towards normativity. There are a HUGE number of trans people, conveniently ignored in these discussion, who do not end up being “more normative” by any stretch of the imagination. A whole lot transmasculine people I know have genders, as men or masculine-identified people, that break down stereotypes of what men are like far more than they re-affirm societal standards of maleness. With some notable (and unfortunately, often misogynist) exceptions, a lot of trans guys are quite challenging of stereotypes about gendered behavior, ways of seeing and thinking about gender, even if they pass as non-trans guys. Most of the trans guys I know have gone through an immense amount of thinking related to male privilege, moving through the world as a man, comparing experiences on both sides of that divide. And as previously noted, the large numbers of queer trans people are often overlooked too — and we certainly get the stick in the face twice from repressive gender policing as found in Iran. But no, many people seem content to buy into the media stereotype that all trans women are very feminine (excessively so, even) and all trans men are very masculine, etc.

    To reduce all of that to “women are being pressured into changing their bodies into men!” is degrading, insulting, fear-mongering, and deceitful.

47. My use of the word “hedonism” stems from the conflation of personal choice with political neutrality. Transsexuality does in fact affect the lesbian community; the two cannot currently be separated, and as such, the personal choice to elect surgery by some is problematic if it isn’t also addressed within the framework of that surgery’s larger meaning for the politics of lesbianism.

48. Q Grrl
    Transpeople’s need for surgery doesn’t exist to satisfy any patriarchal demands. If anything it exists because 1. some transpeople are genuinely hindered in their lives and self-worth by their wrongly-gendered bodies, and 2. different bodies are vilified by just about everyone!

    I think it’s safe to say some *transpeople* are forced into surgery, whereas they’d be perfectly happy without. An f2m friend is thinking about genital surgery for the first time, because *none* of his partners can treat his crotch like a dick, all they see is a weird vagina and treat it as that.

    But I guess it’s all wasted on you, if you think transpeople are the oppressor and the culprits for the continuation of sexist stereotypes. Um, is there a mirror near you?

49. My apologies for conflating freedom with ease.

    You said,

    I am more free as a woman to pursue body modification through surgery (breast augmentation *or* SRS) than I am to pursue an abortion.

    Qualifying for “preliminary” SRS (top surgery, for example) requires therapy visits and a letter, either of diagnosis or confirmation of sound mind.
    Qualifying for “actual” SRS (the kind that lets you change your birth certificate, so: genital surgery), requires more therapy and another letter, sometimes two letters.

    Getting an abortion (at this point, anyway) does not require a mental health professional to certify that you know what’s best for your body. So you are still wrong. But, the debate between transition as a medical condition and trans as a free choice over one’s body is a very real one.

    You see my problem with this movie? You are bringing up all these awesome points (bolded for emphasis, not sarcasm) for discussion, but do you think Crouch covers any of this stuff that we’re talking about? From all descriptions of the film, the answer is NO. So, y’know, my original point stands: we ought to MST3K it, b/c I suspect that’s about all it’s going to be good for as far as promoting dialogue or critiques.

50. Also, would you mind answering my question?

    Do you believe that trans as a state of being should remain a strictly mental thing inside the heads of those afflicted? That they are free to believe that they are not women but that they’d damn well better remain so physically?

    Thanks.

51. Since when is being trans always or even often a “normative choice?” This is a strawman argument that gets trotted out all the time — that somehow every transmasculine person is heading in the direction of normativity.

    This is not what I said. I am including women, MTF’s and FTM’s in that critique. And I would say that, hand’s down, surgery is the normative approach to transsexuality. Further, I’m not talking about transsexuality itself. I’m talking about the practice of surgical modification as cure. For any woman.

    Which, I thought, was the point of the film.

    And if you want to quibble about the use of words, pray tell how surgical “reassignment” reassigns *anything*. The surgery sure as hell doesn’t. The surgery is an act. Indeed, a modification of the physical body. The rest is up to us.

52. maybe we’re overwhelming you, Q Grrl, but how about answering any of my questions too?

53. Also, Holly, sorry. I keep meaning to either/or my arguments, but then I keep wording with transmasculine language. My bad. Just read as though it’s universally applicable.

54. But I guess it’s all wasted on you, if you think transpeople are the oppressor and the culprits for the continuation of sexist stereotypes.

    That is not my belief. And not what I’ve said. I’ve talked about how those who uphold heteronormativity use transsexuality as such, but that is not my stance.

55. Q Grrl, what does that mean? Is a transwoman’s getting genital revision surgery abetting the oppression of lesbians? Would this be true for transwomen who don’t identify as lesbian?

56. I guess hedonism must also be a factor when someone who’s severely depressed seeks counseling and/or medication to decrease pain and increase quality of life.

    Well, I used to believe that wanting to like myself was an indulgence. And now that I do like myself (much better than I did before, at any rate), it does feel like an indulgence. So that’s why I’m reclaiming it.

    /end tangent

57. Christina: I haven’t seen a question from you that isn’t packed with assertions that I did not make, so it’s very difficult to answer those types of questions. You’re starting from a claim/point that I never made.

58. Transpeople’s need for surgery doesn’t exist to satisfy any patriarchal demands.

    Who controls the mechanisms of surgery? of therapy?

59. I’m talking about the practice of surgical modification as cure. For any woman.

    A f2m is a man. So he is *allowed* surgical modification of genitals? A m2f is a woman. So her option (term used loosely) to have genital surgery is critiqued because what? Because you accept her *so* readily as a woman like all the rest that you are fighting for her right not to have her body force-modified by patriarchal stereotypes?

    That’s just laughable.

60. Ooooh, ooooh, I know!

    THE MAN.

    Too bad that the desire for cross-sex/cross-gender living existed before THE MAN invented ways to cure it.

61. Who controls the mechanisms of surgery? of therapy?

    It’s never easy when your only choice for help is sexist phallocrats. Yet transpeople are known for not accepting the situation, for not being complacent, for having challenged and changed the scene loads since the days when TS services were like those in Iran. And we’re still trying. Pathologizing the need for surgery isn’t helping any.

62. also, what Em says. Don’t transpeople have minds of their own? Am I a sad victim of patriarchal brainwashing too, Q Grrl, for pursuing my options towards something further away from the shitty situation that living wrongly-gendered was for me?

63. Christina,

    A f2m is a man. So he is *allowed* surgical modification of genitals? A m2f is a woman. So her option (term used loosely) to have genital surgery is critiqued because what? Because you accept her *so* readily as a woman like all the rest that you are fighting for her right not to have her body force-modified by patriarchal stereotypes?

    From what I understand of her posts–she won’t directly answer my question of whether a trans person should just suck it up and live the Secret Trans Life of Walter Mitty–yes. She has consistently referred to ftm SRS as a choice that a woman makes. Now she’s just repeating herself. She also hasn’t mentioned trans women at all to my recollection.

64. Uh, because I’m talking about how surgery affects women. How surgery that a woman has, or a MTF, or a FTM, has an impact on the larger view of what is acceptable to do to the female body.

    Yes folks, I went and said it. Reassignment surgery, breast augmentation, breast reduction, regardless of the sex or gender of the patient, has a damned effect on the continuum of what is considered acceptable to do to female bodies. Gosh, who would have thunk that?

    Em: I think a trans person should seek out that path, those options (yes, I said *that* too), that best fits their needs. I don’t think that this stance is incompatible with criticizing the assumed neutrality of personal choice.

65. So we’ve reached the bottom line. I couldn’t resist mentioning both m2fs and f2ms in the same paragraph, because I did sense something off and because most people have a more easy-going attitude on one of the two.

    I was half expecting Q Grrl to retort that, of course she doesn’t want to support transwomen in their choices, they’re men for gods’ sakes and should be left alone to punish themselves with unnecessary surgeries if they want. Q Grrl I don’t think I’m asserting things you don’t believe in again, am I?

66. How surgery that a woman has, or a MTF, or a FTM,

    an mtf *is* a woman.

67. Yes, but unless I spell it out like I did, you are pitbulling me and insisting I’m leaving someone out. So, your choice. Who gets to stay in; who remains out?

    Tell me, then, what precise words I should use to talk about our situation. Tell me, then, what words are neutral, without political overtones, so that I can successfully dialogue with you about nice, neutral, personal choices.

    Is it sunny, perchance where you live? Perhaps we should just talk about the weather. Hey hey hey.

68. Another strawman, Q Grrl. Holly has mentioned at least once that hello! trans people do no make their choices in a vacuum and are, unless you’re Iranian, strongly discouraged from pursuing surgeries. If you’ve had it beat into your head that you’re sick for wanting a pee-pee other than the one you’ve got, and you still go and have surgery to get it, you can be damn sure there’s no delusion about it being simply a personal choice. Society won’t let it be.

69. What would you say to a pre-transition ftm who did not consider his body to be female?

70. Reposted to get around the moderation:

    Another strawman, Q Grrl. Holly has mentioned at least once that hello! trans people do no make their choices in a vacuum and are, unless you’re Iranian, strongly discouraged from pursuing surgeries. If you’ve had it beat into your head that you’re sick for wanting a pee-pee other than the one you’ve got, and you still go and have surgery to get it, you can be damn sure there’s no delusion about it being simply a personal choice. Society won’t let it be.

71. Um, weather is fine in Greece, thank you. How is it over there?
    Apart from that, it’s not about political correctness. It’s just suspect when someone who doesn’t seem to accept transgender people as their actual gender contrasts m2fs to ‘women’. It’s not about how you said it, to be sure. It’s about what you seem to imply. If you must absolutely contrast transgender women to other women, ‘other women’ is a good starting point, and nontrans or cisgender women is the exact match. Our trust in your good faith has to be earned.

    Unless we absolutely *must* get into a fight about this

72. …if a right-wing zealot were to “critique society’s reaction to homosexuals” because they’re of the opinion that “lots of children are being pressured into homosexuality by our culture” by making a film that’s about how in the future, homosexuality will be compulsory and enforced, and made this film from the perspective of a straight person concerned about straight people “becoming gay”…

    tangentially, the book has been written, if not the movie made:
    The Wanting Seed, by Anthony Burgess
    http://feministsf.org/reviews/burgess.wantingseed.html

73. What would you say to a pre-transition ftm who did not consider his body to be female?

    It depends on where we were and what he was drinking.

    Kidding aside, I’m not sure I understand your question.

74. Is a person who identifies as a man while having a body with typically female primary and secondary sexual characteristics (XX chromotype, breasts, ovaries, uterus, vagina, etc.) a man or a woman? If this person has a double mastectomy for reasons not related to breast cancer, what does that mean within the framework of that surgery’s larger meaning for the politics of lesbianism?

75. I apologize, I should have clarified. What I mean is, some ftms consider themselves male after a certain in transition. Some ftms consider themselves male without any medical intervention at all. Part of the reason you’re catching a lot of flak is b/c you’re referring to ftms as having women’s bodies, something that a lot of them would disagree with and that I personally find disrespectful. I suppose what I’m asking is, if the ftm in front of you IDed as male without having taken any medical steps, would you refer to his body as a woman’s body and would the arguments you’ve been making still apply?

76. Moira: I have to think about that.

    Em: I would refer to them as “he”, but I would refer to their body as female, if the need arose to discuss their body specifically. I’m not generally in the practice of refering to bodies sans their owners.

    More specifically on my part: I *am* specifically talking about surgery and not the identity of transsexuality.

77. Are we still talking about how the bad transmen, after having been forced by patriarchy to mutilate their genitals, are forcing our butch lesbians to become men? (I thought we had agreed that’s one interpretation of this film’s motives).

78. Hey Q,

    I actually agree with you about the need to talk about surgery, who controls it, who is resisting that control, what “freedom” would actually mean in terms of choosing how to embody yourself, etc. I even agree that yeah, these conversations affect people who don’t want to seek re-embodiment, because they are one part of what creates our culture around this stuff.

    Just one part, because we also need to include discussion of much more long-standing dictates (the patriarchy does not approve of anyone changing genders, to the extent of trying to punish, silence, and destroy) with current trends (resistance, in some parts of the world and some communities, towards providing re-embodiment options for trans people and support for changing gender).

    Like I said, these conversations affect even people who don’t want to seek re-embodiment — all women, in the case of procedures that change women’s bodies. However, they much more directly affect people who experience a need for re-embodiment — and let’s not invalidate that need while we’re discussing these things. We also cannot ever, ever ignore the fact that these conversations take place in a larger atmosphere of extreme hostility against trans people, against both reproductive rights AND trans re-embodiment, etc.

    Based on what I’ve read about Crouch’s film and Crouch’s words herself, I don’t believe that she is challenging the surgical model of transsexuality on behalf of trans people — and that “behalf” needs to be part of any challenge like that, because the surgical model harms trans people first and foremost and most directly, and has harmed us for decades, even as it also alters, as you say, the larger conversation about gendered bodies; that process has taken place much more slowly. Instead, it looks much more to me, from the unwillingness to participate in conversations, from the reactions of trans people watching the film, from the characterizations she makes about trans people transitioning “instead of changing the world,” that she is positioning trans people on the “enemy side.” That makes her no friend of dykes or the liberation of women’s bodies as far as I’m concerned; it makes her a fear-monger and a dissension-sower and an exploiter of “butch flight panic.”

    OK, back to what I really do believe is the more important conversation, because I don’t really care about what sounds to me like a simplistic hack job of a film. Instead, I want to talk about how people make important and necessary choices about their bodies — to change their bodies or not change them, both are choices that play into larger frameworks — within this fucked-up society of ours. I discussed this kind of stuff recently with a queer disability rights activist who also fights against fatphobia, and we talked about the similarities and differences: trans bodies, disabled bodies, fat bodies.

    Changing one’s body to fit “norms” is extremely controversial within disability rights activism and fat activism as well. There are plenty of treatments and procedures, surgical and otherwise, which are meant as “cures” for deafness, mobility impairment, fatness, and on and on. The idea that these changes are “cures” for non-normative bodies is fiercely resisted by disability and fat activists I know, who believe that we should be changing the rest of the world to be more accepting and accomodating of a diversity, a plurality of kinds of bodies — not forcing all bodies to be the same. At the same time, there are plenty of disabled people, activists even, who do seek these treatments, even if they don’t regard them as “a cure” for “something that’s wrong with them.” They seek them for their own health and well-being — and I think we absolutely must look at a “healthy body” as something that encompasses not just someone’s physicality, but the entirety of their mental health, emotional well-being, and the complex, fraught-with-oppression-and-difficulty ways in which they have to navigate the rest of the frequently-hostile world.

    Similarly, my friend told me that, as a fat woman, it has been extremely difficult to watch some of her fat activist friends seek gastric bypass surgery in the last year. How do you deal with that? I asked her. How do you talk about it — the fact that there is so much pressure to be thin, but also that people have to make their own decisions about their health? Her take is that it’s of absolute, vital importance that people are empowered to make their own decisions and have their own agency over their bodies and health. If we violate that, we are violating ourselves and reproducing state control of and violence against our bodies.

    But beyond that, you still do have to have conversations — with your friends, with peers, in communities — about how people are making these decisions. How we are all dealing with pressures that come to bear on us, with the forces that are constantly pushing us around, until we have to squeeze ourselves in any number of ways to be able to survive and eke out an existence in which we can thrive and grow. I have to say, blogs on the internet are probably not the best place to have these kinds of conversations. Things here are intellectual, abstract, removed from the raw realities of the lives of your friends and close ones. I wouldn’t advise anyone to seek real emotional support and help in thinking about these issues on a blog like Feministe, and similarly I think it’s almost useless to make pronouncements about classes of people (trans people, women in general, fat people, disabled people) as if any of those groups aren’t capable of making individual choices despite all the pressures going on. The best we can do is open up — open up more space in our lives and the spaces we inhabit where these conversations can happen. Attacking trans people as scapegoats, which feels to me is what is going on with Crouch’s movie and statements, makes that whole space much, much narrower. In that, I find the enemy of real, informed self-determination that is conscious of societal pressures and which can lead to productive discussion, informed by people’s direct experience with these decisions, of how our culture is being shaped, what we should be resisting, who we should really be fighting.

79. I’m not sure, honestly. If Q Grrl admits to acknowledging an ftm as a female-bodied man, I’m not sure if the arguments about surgery on women’s bodies still apply. Has this thread jumped the shark?

80. I’m not sure, honestly. If Q Grrl admits to acknowledging an ftm as a female-bodied man, I’m not sure if the arguments about surgery on women’s bodies still apply.

    Q Grrl:

    If what Em says stands, then you would would have to acknowledge that transmen are not ‘on the same side’ with you, ergo transwomen *are*. Unless your definition of a woman is anyone born with a female body, and that includes transmen and excludes transwomen?

81. Why can’t all three be women?

82. Because transmen say they’re men, and we should take them at their word?

83. Because I’m not about to tell anyone which partiarchally-defined role they should be attempting to negotiate and subvert.

84. Sorry for late response piny, but I wanted to follow up my original post way back when.

    I missed those director notes my first reading through.

    Yes, I think from that quote the filmaker is definitely being transphobic and making an unfair depiction of trans-life that is not a valid sci-fi exploration but rather grim and false exploitation of an imaginary trend (the idea that trans-men are all lesbians who wanted the easy way out). It does seem sad that most movies out there don’t explore trans characters who are not heterosexual and thus do not present a media vision of trans-people as ones who may be transitioning into a sex where they will be additionally hated for their newly “improper” choices in gender dating from a societal standpoint.

    It’s a shame Crouch doesn’t seem to be able to escape her own transphobia considering that the premise could be an exciting tool to explore so many issues of forced gendering and forced keeping in one gender. Someone should steal it to make a better work.

85. Why can’t all three be women?

    Because transmen just aren’t.

86. “Transsexuality does in fact affect the lesbian community; the two cannot currently be separated”

    I agree that there are mutual influences, but the concepts SHOULD be separated. I guess I would like to think that the science-fiction premise of this movie COULD be used to make the point that sexual orientation and gender identity are two ENTIRELY DIFFERENT things. It’s a distinction that a large portion of the heteronormative world does not understand (as noted by those who point out the difficulty in being trans and “gay” wrt one’s truly-felt gender). But obviously, sadly, that’s not how the concept plays out in this movie.

87. Why can’t all three be women?

    um and also, Q Grll, because that means you’re doing what you hate: making decisions *for* a class of people by default and in their absence. I understand your sentiment to want to protect transmen if you see them as women, but they’re not women, and you can’t just assume that because of what you see or because ‘they were born women’. (I still want to see someone who’s *born* a woman, high heels and all). Also, how do gay transmen fit into your worldview? As straight women? What do they matter to you in a lesbian context? If you do not want to be exactly like the rest of the heteronormative, sexist and phallocratic society, you can simply stop imposing your decisions on transmen, because most of them are also underprivileged, and have been told by others what to be and what to believe about themselves for most of their lives anyway.

    If you want to educate in feminism, to protect and embrace a subclass of transpeople as women, that’s transwomen for you. Gods know we need more feminist transwomen.

    But if you operate on the previous logic, and transmen are women, then conversely transwomen are men. This isn’t doing anything to fight transphobia, it’s a transphobic belief in and of itself. I’m sorry to be imposing so general a label, like transphobia, upon you. I don’t think you read blatantly transphobic. But you still have plenty of room to prove your good intentions.

88. The leftinsf blog (IIRC) links to a petition that compares this film to a film about a future dystopian gay fascist state, where everyone is forced to be homosexual. If the AFA released such a film–coming to a Hell House near you!–it wouldn’t be ironic social commentary on heterosexism. It’d be a really scary, delusional portrait of sexual politics in the world today.

    Along these same lines, plenty of children (including me), were medically-engineered against our wills, subjected to surgical tinkering without our consent… or rather, the “consent” was rigged. (i.e. If you ask a disabled child “don’t you want to be like the other children?”–all will say YES.) I see the same thing happening to children who do not conform to gender norms. When I read NEWSWEEK cover-stories (and what did you think of it, piny?) that imply 5-year-old boys are really girls simply because they play with dolls or want to wear dresses I become alarmed. Not due to transphobia, but because of my own experience, and how eager the medical profession is to mess around with bodies for fun and profit. I can’t erase that knowledge, even if everyone gets mad at me for reminding them of the possible repercussions. (One possible repercussion is that transgenderism will later be denounced as “fake”, by some of these children, who will become very angry adults.)

    I hope that comment made sense. Trying to do 5 things at once. Sorry.

89. I actually don’t think Q Grrl is that far off the mark, in some ways. I wouldn’t call “all three women” because it would be disrespectful of a trans man’s identity and quite possibly inaccurate of his current lived experience, if he lives as a man and consistently receives male privilege. However, I think it is sometimes worth talking about “women and trans folks” in the same breath, because of the way that our sexist culture operates: targeting everyone who is not male, because that either means you’re a woman or a total reject from the system. Although I am concerned that the “women and trans” grouping might invalidate some trans guys, insofar as they identify as trans men (as opposed to just men) I think it’s also an acknowledgement of ways that their gender too is “troubled”… just like anyone’s gender is, other than gender-conforming men who are A-OK with male gender roles and expectations. So to me, saying “women and trans folks” is somewhat analogous to saying “people of color” — of course as an Asian-American woman I have different experiences than a South Asian immigrant or a black woman or an Inuit. But we’re all targets of the racist system, by the simple fact that we’re not white, recognized as not-white, treated as not-white.

90. Maybe I’m irresponsible or ignorant, but I gave not a thought to how my surgery would affect the lesbian community. Hell, I didn’t give any consideration to the trans community. I made a decision for myself in a vacuum. I lost a lot, and I gained something more important to me. As far as body modification of any sort, I honestly think people should do whatever the hell they want. If a woman thinks she wants breast augmentation, or reduction, or whatever, for no other reason than she believes it will make her happier, more power to her. If at times those choices appear to support patriarchal stereotypes, it’s *her decision* to do so. Now if her husband decides she should have bigger knockers, or the government decides to pass a law that no woman can have less than a c-cup, yeah, then there’s a problem. Yes, I think it’s sad and disappointing and wrong that women are influenced by patriarchy-enforcing social factors (advertising, etc…), but our political ideals do not exist in a vacuum. We still have to deal with the world as it *is* and not as we wish it were. So if a woman decides her life would be easier being thinner and decided to get gastric bypass, I don’t think that is necessarily an anti-feminist choice. There are no moral absolutes… We all do the best we can to live up to our ideals while making as few compromises as possible to make our lives as personally rewarding as we can make them. Surgery for me was a personal necessity. Yes, the surgery was a choice (and not a very difficult one) but being trans is not. I could have lived unaltered the rest of my life (however long that may have been), but I had the means and opportunity and desire to do what I wanted, and felt I needed. If that decision is interpreted as hetero-normative (I identify as bi and prefer men, sue me…), that’s not my fault. I guess I just mean to say, not every decision we make is driven by patriarchy, even if it can be interpreted that way. It’s all about choices. And I would never try to tell someone I know better than them what they should do to themselves. I hope any of this made sense.

91. For what it’s worth, apparently the film has been withdrawn from the lineup:

    FRAMELINE REACHES DECISION REGARDING
    THE FILM THE GENDERCATOR
    May 22, 2007

    After considerable dialogue with members of the transgender community and after careful consideration of the issues raised by Catherine Crouch’s film The Gendercator, Frameline has decided not to screen The Gendercator in Frameline31. Given the nature of the film, the director’s comments, and the strong community reaction to both, it is clear that this film cannot be used to create a positive and meaningful dialogue within our festival. We are grateful to the many Frameline members, filmmakers and Transgender community leaders who brought this issue to our attention and assisted Frameline’s senior staff in making this important decision.

    We are deeply committed to promoting the work of transgender filmmakers and films about transgender issues. Frameline Distribution distributes over twenty transgender themed films and over one third of our free monthly Frameline at the Center screenings have been transgender themed. Through the Frameline Completion Fund, we have given funding to the following films: The Brandon Teena Story, Southern Comfort, A Boy Named Sue, By Hook Or By Crook, Screaming Queens: The Riot At Compton’s Cafeteria, Red Without Blue, The Believers, Cruel & Unusual, F. Scott Fitzgerald Slept Here, and Maggots And Men.

    “Frameline has partnered with Female-to-Male International in jointly sponsoring screenings of transgender films for our community and the public. We have enjoyed our association with Frameline and welcome their timely and community-minded response to the concern we expressed on this issue,” stated Rabbi Levi Alter, President of FTM International. “We look forward to continuing our partnership with Frameline to present films of interest by, for and about the transgender community.”

    Frameline’s Board of Directors and staff are proud of our work with and on behalf of our Transgender community members. Going forward, we will continue working with the community to further our own education and encourage more discussion and understanding within the filmmaking community as a whole. Again, we thank all of our community members for respectfully expressing their concerns and we look forward to sharing our ideas and expanding our partnerships.

    Michael Lumpkin
    Artistic Director
    Frameline
    145 9th Street, Suite 300
    San Francisco, CA 94103
    P 415.703.8650 x302
    F 415.861.1404
    http://www.frameline.org

    Frameline31
    San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival
    Films That Deliver
    June 14-24, 2007

92. First of all, wow, what a long thread!

    Q, I’m glad you’re here. And FWIW, I do appreciate your comments, even if I think Crouch is an asshole.

    Yes folks, I went and said it. Reassignment surgery, breast augmentation, breast reduction, regardless of the sex or gender of the patient, has a damned effect on the continuum of what is considered acceptable to do to female bodies. Gosh, who would have thunk that?

    What Holly said. This goes both ways, and I don’t think it’s people who don’t want to transition who really have to worry about their preferred options disappearing or being obscured by compulsion. Your own words here have an effect on the continuum of what is considered acceptable to do to female bodies. Your lack of desire to transition constitutes pressure–and not all of that pressure is anti-sexist. Yes, it’s an interesting discussion. No, it’s not okay to imply that transpeople themselves should give more credence to the pressures their bodies may place on people than to their own ability to negotiate their transitions. That kind of imposition is completely in line with mainstream treatment of transpeople. Crouch’s movie–which is “satire” like the Mr. Garrison Gets a Sex Change South Park episode was, that is, in a way irrelevant to this discussion–does not imply a fair burden.

    And as for the idea that she’s only referring to some transmen, that she does actually think transsexuality is legitimate for most or even some ftms, I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree.

93. FRAMELINE REACHES DECISION REGARDING THE FILM THE GENDERCATOR

    Now I feel bad for Crouch. A film is a struggle to create, no matter how misguided the subject matter, and she doesn’t deserve this slimy corporate phrasing of its rejection followed by a list of films that do better..

94. I don’t. There are places where a film like this can be shown where it isn’t directly degrading to part of the population the festival is designed to celebrate. Besides, the publicity over this has probably put it on a lot more radar screens than it ever would have reached otherwise.

95. I’m naive and empathetic with people who make stuff, I can’t help it :-/ You’re right though. And we’ve spent a whole day arguing how her movie is hostile towards transpeople and our options. OK, I don’t feel bad for her any more.

96. This summer it is also showing at NewFest in NYC, Outfest in LA and the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival. It may also end up getting dropped from the first two, but I think it’s safe to say that it will be shown at MWMF.

97. um and also, Q Grll, because that means you’re doing what you hate: making decisions *for* a class of people by default and in their absence. I understand your sentiment to want to protect transmen if you see them as women, but they’re not women, and you can’t just assume that because of what you see or because ‘they were born women’.

    all sorts of people make decisions for me, based on various perspectives, by default, in my absence and in my presence. and these sorts of people include individuals of all sorts of classes and identities.

    i identify as a transwoman, because that’s the closest “identity” that makes any sense to me. i was assigned male at birth, lived that way for many years, and went through the medical “reassignment” that many transsexuals endure, and now am legally and socially identified as female.

    yet, i am very different from many transwomen i know.

    in comment 66, christina neofotistou says “an mtf *is* a woman.”. and this is an example of someone making a decision for me, based on the class to which i belong. and i’m not comfortable, especially in this context, with the unqualified assertion that i’m “simply” a woman. i’ll be happy to own being a transwoman, but i believe, in almost every aspect, that i am different from virtually everyone who “is a woman”, in very real and sometimes very significant ways.

    there’s quite a bit of diversity among trans and queer people. i’d argue that there’s quite a bit more in these classes than in the classes of “men” and “woman”. and to say that *all* mtf’s are women, is the same as saying “all woman are x”.

    i think this plays a powerful role in the types of discussions going on in this thread, so i thought i’d just throw that out there.

    carry on.

98. hi nexyjo! I’m m2f as well, and also identify as a trans woman. Maybe comment 66 indeed reads as an unqualified assertion on my behalf.

    It’s not the same, however, to saying ‘all women are x’, and it’s also not intended to “take the transness out of a woman” so to speak. It was a reply to a very harsh opinion by Q Grrl that transmen are women and transwomen are men.

    It was actually comment 64: “How surgery that a woman has, or a MTF, or a FTM” I was replying to. By contrasting women to m2fs I felt Q Grrl was naming m2fs something other than women, and I mean something other than transwomen. So maybe you would be dissatisfied to, if you felt it’s implied that you’re “faking” a gender instead of being one.

    It was on that very basic level. When she got over it, we might be able to have discussed the subtler shades of it.

    On the other hand I get your point, but it’s one thing when people do not acknowledge your gender when you’re trans (and for example call you male when you’re m2f) and it’s a whole other thing that you don’t want them to acknowledge you’re a woman, even after you’ve taken steps to be one legally and socially.

    I do get the lack of options for us people with questions about our gender, and I do get that it’s usually a choice of either man or woman. It’s a stupid binary system, and even if you feel inbetween, you can’t really execute it in real life.

    There *is* the neutrois movement which includes people who don’t feel comfortable with either gender. I can’t find any information on it, or people to talk with about it. I fully understand it and support it, but I can’t expect people to just go and do it, because 1. most other people will misunderstand the effort and 2. it’s usually social suicide.

99. It was a reply to a very harsh opinion by Q Grrl that transmen are women and transwomen are men.

    This is not my position, nor what I said.

    Nexy, you put into words very nicely concepts that I’ve been seeing lately coming from the trans community (props to Piny too for consistently underscoring these ideas), primarily the range of experiences and expressions that constitute the trans community (used in it’s loosest, collective sense).

    My question about “why can’t all three be women?” is a categorical one, not one of identity. It seems that the common denominator is indeed “woman”, as at some point, all three will have some experience with “being a woman”. I don’t see it as a matter of offense unless one starts from the root position that “woman” is an undersireable category for everyone. I do like to think that we are mature enough to admit that, at some point, the experience either of “being” or “being perceived as” a woman is a common one. I also like to think that for both feminists and transsexuals this can be, for the sake of political discourse, be a value neutral reference.

    The purpose of writting all that is to come back to my original argument that I don’t find, from the descriptors (written from various sides of this debate) I have seen, that this films endorses transphobia. If anything, I am starting to see an underlying phobia towards lesbian experience and cultural resistance, but that’s another day’s debate. Primarily, the only way that I can find that the movie qualifies as transphobic is if surgery itself is *the* qualifier, the definer, and the common denominator of trans experience. It is not, IMO, transphobic to creatively extrapolate how a nation ruled by religious fundamentalists (and based on our current curative view of surgery for mental health issues*) would lead to the use of surgery to cure societies ailments. I also don’t think it’s transphobic to explore how the relative ease of access to hormones and surgery currently effects the lesbian community. Hence my comments about hedonism. If we lesbians cannot honestly communicate how trans affects us, I question how our support is perceived. From my position, I feel confident that I can both honor a person’s choice and critique the larger social/political practice that does, fundamentally, effect the lesbian community.

    With that said, I am going to try to view this movie somehow.

    I am fully prepared to admit that I have been wrong. We’ll see.

100. I forgot:

     *by mental health issues, I am not referring to the process that a trans individual undergoes to seek “approval” for reassignment. I am referring to the continuum of happiness=surgical modification of the body. Issues such as sex appeal, aging, and sense of self worth are what I have in mind.

101. My question about “why can’t all three be women?” is a categorical one, not one of identity.

     i relate to this intimately, on many levels. i don’t know that i “identify” as any particular gender, or sex, or whatever the class of the day is. i’ve been known to say that i don’t have an identity, despite the fact that i said earlier that i identify as a transwomen. it’s more a matter of convention than anything else. people know what i’m talking about when i say that, more than any feelings i have pertaining to who i think i am.

     as humans, we are much more than our gender/sex, and these facets manifest on many different levels and contexts. when i write to my son, i sign the letter “love, dad”. i was, am, and will always be his father. and that (along with other things) makes me different that every single women i’ve ever known.

     yet, when i walk into work every day, my coworkers see, and treat me as a woman.

     these terms that we use, “woman”, “man”, “trans”, etc., operate in different ways depending on the context.

     so what category do i belong to? it depends on the context. and regardless of context, i probably don’t fit very neatly into any category completely.

     so yes, all three can be women in some respects, and not in others.

     and from my position, i think it vitally important to honor a person’s choice and critique the larger social/political practice that does, fundamentally, effect *all* communities.

102. I just wanted to break in and say that this thread is really educational and it’s helping me understand a lot of stuff and thank you.

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