Trans Studies
What are Transgender Studies?
(1) Susan Stryker distinguishes between ‘transgender studies’ and ‘the study of transgender phenomena.’ (The latter expression is a sly reference to the influential book The Transsexual Phenomenon by Harry Benjamin, M.D.)
“Trans-ness” and ‘gender variance” have been studied for a very long time as a deviant category in the field of sexology. Transsexuality was also written
about in somewhat more positive ways by surgeons such as Benjamin who were instrumental in helping pave the way for transsexual surgeries in the U.S. It
has also been studied in sociology and feminist theory. In all such cases, there has been little attention to non-stereotypical, non-monolithic subjectivity of the
actual transpeople involved. Theories have been formulated (and research conducted) from an entirely non-trans perspective largely to promote the
interests and agendas of non-trans people.
(2) Transgender studies emerged in the late nineties in conjunction with the new transgender movement of this period as well as the Queer Theory of Judith Butler whose book Gender Trouble became widely influential. Two key features distinguish ‘transgender studies’ from ‘the study of transgender phenomena’ (reflexivity, and the resistant politics).
(3) Reflexivity.
Trans folk themselves began to write the theory, do the research, etc. In other words: The objects (of investigation) are now the subjects (who conduct the
investigation).
This reflexivity is peculiar in some important ways. Contrast, for example, cases in which philosophy can be used to study philosophy as a discipline, sociology can be used to study the discipline of sociology, psychology can be used to study the psychology of psychologists, and so forth.
In these cases, fields of inquiry turn their attention to themselves – make themselves an object of investigation.
In the case of transgender studies, by contrast, people who were not allowed access to the resources of academia now claim those resources, seizing an academic subjecthood and thereby moving from the status of mere objects of investigation to academic subjects as well.
In these kinds of studies, the status of trans people as mere objects of investigation is one of the things challenged and studied. So, too, is the use of objectification within a greater context of power.
According to Stryker, this seizing of subjecthood involves at least two ways of viewing knowledge.
First, trans communities and trans folk themselves are viewed as experts about who they are and how their communities operate. Thus, in this view, certain “knowledges” of (trans) people have been repressed and ignored by “academic” “scholarly” and “scientific” views about trans people.
Second, the hidden history of trans people and trans communities needs to be uncovered. History, as they say, is written by the winners of the wars. But this means that there is much that is lost “under the radar.” This retrieval process involves specific historical methologies for retrieving them.
(4) Politics of Resistance.
As is already clear, trans studies (like women studies, critical race studies, etc.) are essentially political in nature. They explicitly theorize the oppression of trans folk and intervene as a kind of resistance (and possibly outlines theories and methods of resistance).
This is obvious and yet important. If women studies were to lose concern in combating sexism, the question would surely arise: What’s the point? Likewise, trans studies would become, in my view, largely irrelevant were it to lose sight of this political mandate.
It is worth noting, however, that even if not explicitly announced, ‘the study of transgender phenomena’ is also political: It marginalizes, objectifies, and often de-humanizes trans folk. This is surely political in nature. The difference, in the case of transgender studies is that (1) rather than further promoting the oppression of trans people, it aims to resist this oppression; (2) the political nature of trans studies is largely (although not always) explicitly announced while the oppressive nature of some studies of transgender phenomena is hidden and/or ignored in the theoretical/investigative content.
NOTE: The fact that transgender studies is reflexive does not mean that non-trans folk cannot engage in it. It means, rather, that the expertise of trans people over their own lives and communities is accepted as a starting point of inquiry. It does mean that the study must explicitly aim at undermining transphobia rather than tacitly seeking to promote it. Thus, we now have Hales’ helpful “Suggested Rules”:
Some political points worth mentioning: Note that if trans studies involve objects of investigation claiming academic subjecthood to speak for themselves, then it arises as a question who is enabled to claim this capacity to speak in academic discourse and why. There are material conditions which might enable some trans people to speak while disabling others. Obviously, issues of racism, economic stratification, access to educational resources play a significant role here.
Stryker explicitly acknowledge the fact that the early writings in transgender studies do not especially reflect racial diversity.
However, in addition to this issue of material conditions enabling and constraining access to the resources of academic discourse, there is also the question to what degree the whiteness, for example, of early transgender studies is explicitly included in the theoretical/investigative content. To the extent that race, nation, economic privilege, etc. are marginalized or even ignored altogether, and to the extent that the privileges of the new trans subjects speaking is not itself explicitly theorized in the content, trans studies is also political in a non-resistant (indeed, oppressive way) that hides these actions of political dominance from itself.
It take it as a starting point that transgender studies has involved (and continues to involve) political oppression and theoretical distortion.
(5) The Scope of the Domain: What do Trans Studies Study?:
According to Stryker:
“Transgender studies, as we understand it, is the academic field that claims as its purview transsexuality and cross-dressing, some aspects of intersexuality and homosexuality, cross-cultural and historical investigations of human gender diversity, myriad specific subcultural expressions of “gender atypicality,” theories of sexed embodiment and subjective gender identity development, law and public policy related to the regulation of gender expression, and many other similar issues” (TSR p. 3).
There are three related questions. One (The Question of Criteria): What are the criteria (the necessary and sufficient conditions) for determining who counts as a trans? Two (the Questions of Translation): Can/do people from different cultures and different historical periods count as “trans”? Three (the Question of Intersectionality): What role do other categories of oppression/resistance (such as race, class, sexuality) play in trans studies? I discuss these three in greater detail in what follows.
(6) The Question of Criteria. I doubt very much that any clear criteria for determining who counts as trans and who doesn’t can be produced. One solution might be to leave it up to self-identification (one is trans if and only if one self-identifies as trans). But clearly, trans studies includes folks who might be described as trans, despite the fact they do not so self-identify.
Note, that if transgender involves a departure from gender norms, then one can ask the question how much departure from the norm is required before one counts as transgender. Is a heterosexual man who expresses a little bit “too much” emotion count as transgender? This seems implausible (and it would make almost everybody transgender). But don’t laugh: An influential transgender theorist (Judith Halberstam) argued for precisely this thesis (that everybody is transgender). And Kate Bornstein also suggests that everybody is really beyond the meager roles of man and woman. This move does have the political advantage of pointing to the ways in which everybody is victimized by gender norms. (This is called a majoritizing tendency by Eve Sedwick).
By contrast, one might want to emphasize that transgender applies to a smaller group of people who are victims of a specific kind of oppression. Leslie Feinberg, for example, tends to emphasize the notion of trans cultural and trans historical people. (Eve Sedwick calls this a minoritizing tendency).
Obviously, we will notice both minoritizing and majoritizing tendencies in trans studies.
(7) The Question of Translation: This issue is discussed in the earlier handout. In addition to the question of the criteria for membership in categories, terms like trans and transgender have meanings roughly provided by the background theory or ideology which renders their deployments intelligible. For example, the terms transgender seems to rely quite a bit on the underlying account of oppression and resistance first articulated by Leslie Feinberg and Kate Bornstein (what I call the Transgender Paradigm). There is a concern that in using terms such as trans and transgender (which fix the domain of inquiry), one will impose a theoretical (and political) framework upon people for whom such an account does not reflect their own realities. Not only will this lead to epistemological distortion, it will inevitably lead to a kind of cultural imperialism.
(8) The Question of Intersectionality: The notion of intersectionality is central to my approach to Trans Studies (and my approach to politics more generally). I take it as axiomatic. In what follows, I briefly outline the notion (that was first characterized by Kimberle Crenshaw). I then discuss its application to the field of trans studies.
We distinguish discrete features on the basis of which somebody might be oppressed (e.g. race, ethnicity, nationality, language, sex, sexual orientation, class etc.). In treating these features as discrete (singular, individual), we may not always notice that sometimes these features are so entirely blended together that they are merely different aspects of the same form of oppression. For example, sexual stereotypes are often gender and race specific, and racial stereotypes are often sexual (and gender-based) in nature. Consider that the black woman as sexually promiscuous has been a historically salient oppressive cultural stereotype. It concerns race, gender, and sex. In such as case, black women are stereotyped as black women, and so we can say that the features of discrimination (such as race and gender) are interlocking. They cannot be separated.
By focusing only on features as discrete (singular, individual), we erase the possibility of interlocking oppression. Consequently the experiences of those who fall prey to interlocking oppression are rendered invisible (i.e. erased).
Note: By ‘erased’ I mean that something (or someone) is left off of the ‘cultural map’ (or out of a theory, an ideology, a narrative). They are not included in an “understanding of things.” For example: The assumption that somebody is either gay or straight erases the possibility of bisexuality.
According to Crenshaw, black women can be discriminated against (a) on the basis of race alone, (b) on the basis of sex alone, (c) on the basis of race and sex (as distinct features), and (d) on the basis of race/sex as interlocking. For example: A black woman may be vulnerable to sexual harassment (as a woman) as well as racial slurs (as a Black human being). She may also be vulnerable to sexual harassment/racial slurs that are blended together into one thing.
According to Crenshaw, when we focus only on features taken as discrete (singular, individual), we end up privileging those who do not experience interlocking forms of discrimination, and who only experience single-feature discrimination. In this way, a white woman’s perspective of sexism may end up being taken as representative of sexism in a way that a black woman’s perspective is not. (The thought is: What does race have to do with sexism?). ‘But for’ sexism, a (white) woman would not experience discrimination. ‘But for’ racism, a straight black man would not experience discrimination. Both attempts to single out discrete features require that certain perspectives be privileged.
According to Crenshaw, this ‘top-down’ approach of helping people who would be ok ‘but for . . .’ only leaves in place a system of privilege. Thus, the racial privilege of white women is ‘hidden’ (to white women) when they focus on sexism as ‘but for sex’. Thus, the gender privilege of straight black men is ‘hidden’ (to black men) when they focus on racism as ‘but for race’. According to Crenshaw, we need to start by taking interlocking oppression seriously, and focusing first on those who have been victims of this kind of oppression.
(9) The Question of Intersectionality applies to Trans Studies in the following ways.
First, insofar as trans studies neglects the study of race, nation, class, and so forth and their intersections with ‘trans-ness’ they will most likely end up
coming from a privileged (e.g. white, American, middle-class) perspective. This means: (1) Even though the point of trans studies is resistant politics, trans
studies will nonetheless serve the interests of various forms of oppression. (2) Trans studies will be seriously undermined as an academic discipline which
searches after the truth insofar as the perspectives (and the results) will be seriously distorted.
Second, even a more self-consciousness trans studies which aims to centralize intersections of race, nation, and class, will nonetheless yield an inevitable distortion simply because as trans studies there is a prioritization of tran-ness over other aspects of oppression. Rather than pretend that this kind of bias can be completely eliminated, I would prefer to acknowledge an inherent limitation in all studies of this type and remain vigilant about the need to minimize distortion.