Transgender is a Pan-Cultural and Trans-Historical Phenomenon

In my writings, I will often say that gender diversity and transgender identities are a “pan-cultural and trans-historical phenomenon.” What I mean by this is that if you consider other cultures, or look back through history, you will find examples of people who we would now (in this time and place) describe as falling under the transgender umbrella. This includes (but is not limited to) people who identified and lived as members of a gender other than the one they were assigned at birth, people who belonged to “third gender” categories—an umbrella term sometimes used to describe established gender categories that fall outside of the man/woman binary, which are fairly common in non-Western cultures), plus people who are gender non-conforming in all sorts of other ways.

At the end of this post, I will provide a list of books that describe such examples of gender diversity across cultures and throughout history. Or you could check out the Wikipedia page on this topic.

This evidence strongly suggests that gender diversity occurs naturally, rather than being a product of culture or modernity. To be clear, I am not suggesting that the phenomenon occurs entirely independent of culture—after all, our self-understandings and the labels we use to describe ourselves are most certainly influenced by cultural norms and the language and concepts we have at our disposal. But what I am saying is that there has to be some natural (likely biological) component to this gender diversity. The alternative hypothesis—i.e., that within each of these cultures, there is an entirely unique socially-based “cause” that accounts for this gender diversity—seems utterly preposterous, and is in dire need of being lopped off with Occam’s razor.

Activism, Language, and Differences of Opinion (a compilation of essays)

[note: The essays compiled here were written between 2012–2016. My more recent writings on these and related topics are collected in Call-Out Culture, Identity Politics, Political Correctness, and Social Justice Activism: essays and a new lecture.]

Activists of various stripes will often disagree with one another (as well as with the mainstream public) regarding what ideas and strategies are useful and productive, versus which may be self-defeating or destructive. Notably, many of these debates tend to be centered on language—for instance, is the word or phrase in question liberating, or acceptable, or anachronistic, or problematic, or downright derogatory.

While most people who participate in these debates champion a specific cause (e.g., being “for” or “against” a specific activist tactic or terminology), I have become increasingly interested in understanding the underlying standpoints and reasoning that lead people to adopt these disparate positions, and chronicling how rigid one-size-fits-all stances on these matters may erase or exclude the voices of many people who have a stake in the issue.

I have written extensively about this subject in my 2013 book Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive (the linked-to page includes excerpts from the book). Here, I will compile some of my subsequent essays related to this topic (with links when available). They are organized into the following sections:

Regarding Trans* and Transgenderism

Last year, in the second half of my piece A Personal History of the “T-word” (and some more general reflections on language and activism), I described what I call the activist language merry-go-round. Here’s how it works: Because trans people are highly stigmatized and face undue scrutiny in our culture, all of the language associated with us will face similar stigma and scrutiny. At some point, every single trans-related term will be called out as “problematic” for some reason or another—e.g., its origin, history, aesthetic quality (or lack thereof), literal meaning, alternate definitions, potential misinterpretations or connotations, or occasional exclusionary or defamatory usage. And supposedly more liberatory or inclusive alternative terms will gain favor. But over time, these new terms will eventually be challenged too. Because the crux of the problem is not the words themselves, but rather the negative or narrow views of trans people that ultimately influence how these words are viewed and used by others.

So rather than constantly trying to eliminate certain words and inventing new replacement terms, I argue that we would be best off challenging the narrow or negative views of trans people that sometimes latch themselves onto trans terminology. That is a brief synopsis of the activist language merry-go-round; I encourage you to read the linked-to essay above, as I make my case far more thoughtfully and thoroughly there than I have in these two paragraphs. 

The reason why I am bringing this up now is because I want to share some of my personal thoughts regarding the terms trans* and transgenderism, both of which have come under activist-language-merry-go-round scrutiny lately.

Regarding "Political Correctness" (my first post on Medium)

Those of you who have read my book Excluded (particularly the last chapter, "Balancing Acts") know that I have long been concerned with the ways in which activist language and strategies are sometimes employed in ways that are counterproductive, or which have the effect of silencing other disenfranchised individuals. My goal in doing this is to foster more robust, thoughtful, and inclusive conversations and communities.

However, in the last year, there has been a rash of mainstream articles about this phenomenon, often framing it under the rubric of "political correctness." For the most part, these are one-sided short-sighted attempts to condemn "language policing" without giving any thought to how we might balance that with the concerns of marginalized groups.

So I have just written a response to one of these recent articles - it's called That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore (and it’s not because of “political correctness”). If you click the link (and please do!), you will notice that I have posted it to Medium. I did so because I am hoping that it gets some attention outside of the "activist bubble" - which it will, provided enough people "recommend" and "share" it.

So I encourage you to read it! And if you like it, please "recommend" and "share" it! Thanks! -j.

Cisgender and dictionary definitions

This is happened two weeks ago, so some of you may have already heard the news. But for those who didn't, cisgender was recently added to the Oxford English Dictionary.

I first started using cisgender and cissexual almost ten years ago, while I was working on Whipping Girl. At the time, few people (even within trans communities) were aware of these words, so it has been amazing to see them garner acceptance over time, even within certain mainstream settings.

It has also been interesting to watch these terms (and the ways people use them) evolve and diverge over time. For those who are interested, last year I wrote two essays on this very subject: Cissexism and Cis Privilege Revisited - Part 1: Who Exactly Does “Cis” Refer To? and Cissexism and Cis Privilege Revisited - Part 2: Reconciling Disparate Uses of the Cis/Trans Distinction. Both essays explain the usefulness of these concepts, while also addressing some of the negative aspects or unintended consequences of cis terminology.

Both posts are significantly longer than a dictionary entry. But sometimes words are more complicated than a straightforward definition would have you believe.

Reconceptualizing “Autogynephilia” as Female/Feminine Embodiment Fantasies (FEFs)

[note added November, 2016: This essay (with additional material!) now appears as a chapter in my third book Outspoken: A Decade of Transgender Activism and Trans Feminism. If you want to read that updated chapter, it can be downloaded here]

Note added 7-14-15: a follow up post (of sorts) detailing all of the recent scientific papers demonstrating that Blanchard's theory is incorrect can be found in The Real "Autogynephilia" Deniers.

In 2010, two review articles appeared in the peer-review literature: My article The Case Against Autogynephilia was published in The International Journal of Transgenderism, and Charles Moser's article Blanchard's Autogynephilia Theory: A Critique appeared in the Journal of Homosexuality. Both of our papers presented numerous lines of evidence that disprove the main underpinnings of autogynephilia theory, namely, the assertions that trans female/feminine-spectrum people can be readily divided into two clear-cut categories based upon sexual orientation and the presence or absence of “autogynephilia,” and that “autogynephilia” is the primary underlying cause of gender dysphoria and desire to transition in trans women who experience it. (Note: subsequent analyses by Talia Bettcher and Jaimie Veale have further demonstrated that autogynephilia theory is incorrect.)

Where our papers differ is that, while Moser continues to use the term “autogynephilia” to refer to sexual fantasies and patterns of arousal in which the “thought or image of oneself as a woman” plays a contributing role, I instead argue that we should no longer use this term for the following reasons:

How Double Standards Work (understanding the unmarked/marked distinction)

This is one in a series of blog posts in which I discuss some of the concepts and terminology that I forward in my writings, including my recent book Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive. 

In Excluded, I argue that instead of focusing on only one or a few forms of sexism and marginalization, we should acknowledge that there are myriad double standards out there. And given this, it is crucial for us to more generally recognize and challenge double standards whenever and wherever they occur.

To be honest, I think that we as activists tend not to be very good at doing this—it is a main reason why people who are quite familiar with one particular form of marginalization (typically one that they are personally impacted by) will nevertheless continue to single out and invalidate other groups of people, often using the exact same tactics that they abhor when used against members of their own group. In other words, a failure to recognize and understand how double standards function in a general sense is what enables various forms of exclusion to run rampant within our movements. It is also what enables numerous forms of sexism and marginalization to proliferate in society at large.   

I discuss this issue over the course of Excluded, but I address it head on in Chapter 14: “How Double Standards Work”—it is one of the pieces of writing that I am most proud of.

Julia Serano's compendium on cisgender, cissexual, cissexism, cisgenderism, cis privilege, and the cis/trans distinction

When my first book Whipping Girl was published in 2007, it was (to the best of my knowledge) the first print publication to include the terms cisgender, cissexual, cissexism, and cisgenderism.* I did not invent these terms - they had been coined and used by trans activists before me, albeit rarely and sporadically. And in the years since, as these terms have increasingly caught on, I find that people sometimes use them in rather different, or even outright disparate, ways.

So for those interested in the history and evolution of cis terminology, I have subsequently written three (freely available!) blog posts that explain various aspects of, and differing perspectives on, these terms. They are as follows:

1) Whipping Girl FAQ on cissexual, cisgender, and cis privilege (2009)

This article discusses:

• the origins of cis terminology
• the reasoning behind why many trans activists use these terms
• my responses to common critiques of cis terminology
• a discussion of how the concept of "cis privilege" is sometimes misused

2) Cissexism and Cis Privilege Revisited - Part 1: Who Exactly Does “Cis” Refer To? (2014)

This article discusses:

• the specific way in which I used the terms cis, cisgender, cissexual, cissexism, and cisgenderism in Whipping Girl
• a discussion of how these same terms are often used in a rather different manner today
• how ambiguity regarding the terms "cis" and "cisgender" often erases the experiences of non-transsexual transgender-spectrum people
• my proposal of an alternative (albeit not mutually-exclusive) "three-tiered" model for considering gender-non-conformity and social legitimacy - one that may better account for the gender-based marginalization experienced by those who fall under the cisgender umbrella and/or who do not fit neatly into the cis/trans distinction.

3) Cissexism and Cis Privilege Revisited - Part 2: Reconciling Disparate Uses of the Cis/Trans Distinction (2014)

Marginalized populations often have different perspectives on, and take different approaches toward, articulating the obstacles they face. Two especially common activist approaches are “decentering the binary” and “reverse discourse” strategies. In this essay, I discuss the logic behind these differing approaches to activism, and explain why they tend to result in very different understandings of cissexism and the cis/trans distinction. In fact, some of the most common complaints about cis terminology are actually critiques of "reverse discourse" approaches to activism. Rather than outright championing one approach over the other, I encourage activists to familiarize themselves with the pros and cons of each strategy in order to use them in the most judicious and effective way possible.

Cissexism and Cis Privilege Revisited - Part 2: Reconciling Disparate Uses of the Cis/Trans Distinction

[note added November, 2016: This essay now appears as a chapter in my third book Outspoken: A Decade of Transgender Activism and Trans Feminism]

For the record: this essay is intended to clarify misconceptions about, and to encourage more thoughtful usage of, cis terminology. Anyone who references this piece in their attempts to deny or eliminate use of the term "cis" (and its variants) is clearly misinterpreting or misrepresenting my views.

In the first essay of this two-part series, I discussed how the way in which cis terminology is often used today can sometimes invisibilize certain forms of gender-based oppression, and potentially exclude people who exist at the margins of the transgender umbrella (i.e., people who don’t fit quite so neatly into a cis/trans binary). In this essay, I want to talk about the different ways in which a cis/trans distinction may be employed, as this can greatly shape the nature and ultimate goals of trans activism.

“Decentering the binary” versus “reverse discourse” approaches

One of the more commonly heard complaints about cis terminology is that it supposedly “creates a new binary” (i.e., trans versus cis). I strongly disagree with this argument. After all, people already make a distinction between non-transsexuals and transsexuals, and between gender-conforming and gender-non-conforming individuals. So the cissexual/transsexual and cisgender/transgender binaries already exist in people’s minds. It’s just that now we (trans activists) have explicitly named the unmarked majority as “cis.”

Cissexism and Cis Privilege Revisited - Part 1: Who Exactly Does “Cis” Refer To?

[note added January, 2017: This essay now appears as a chapter in my third book Outspoken: A Decade of Transgender Activism and Trans Feminism]

For the record: this essay is intended to clarify misconceptions about, and to encourage more thoughtful usage of, cis terminology. Anyone who references this piece in their attempts to deny or eliminate use of the term "cis" (and its variants) is clearly misinterpreting or misrepresenting my views.

My first book Whipping Girl helped to popularize cis terminology—that is, language that uses the prefix “cis” to name the unmarked dominant majority (i.e., people who are not trans) in order to better articulate the ways in which trans people are marginalized in society. In 2009, I wrote a blog post called Whipping Girl FAQ on cissexual, cisgender, and cis privilege that explained my reasoning in forwarding cis terminology and addressed some of the more common arguments made against such language. That blog post ended with a section discussing some of the limitations of cis terminology and the concept of cis privilege—a topic that I will revisit in this two-part series.

Over the years, I have observed that many people now use cis terminology in a manner that is somewhat different from how I attempted to use it in Whipping Girl, thus leading to potential ambiguity—I will address such matters in this first essay. In the last section of this essay, I will suggest another possible model for describing how people are differentially viewed and treated with regards to gender non-conformity, and which may (in some cases) provide a more effective framework than a cisgender/transgender dichotomy.    

Regarding “Generation Wars”: some reflections upon reading the recent Jack Halberstam essay

Jack Halberstam recently published an essay called You Are Triggering me! The Neo-Liberal Rhetoric of Harm, Danger and Trauma, and it’s been making waves on the activist internets over the last week. It felt like a bit of a “kitchen sink” article to me, in that it discussed a plethora of different matters (including Monty Python, historical debates between second- and third-wave feminisms, current controversies surrounding the word “tranny,” the recent proliferation of trigger warnings, supposed connections between expressions of trauma and neoliberalism, safe spaces, “It Gets Better” campaigns, and concerns about millennials being hypersensitive) and attempted to weave them into one nice neat coherent narrative. This narrative could be summarized as follows:

queer & trans culture and politics circa the 1990’s was strong, progressive, and fun!

whereas queer & trans culture and politics circa the 2010’s is frail, conservative, and a killjoy.

While Halberstam’s essay made a few points that are certainly worthy of further exploration and discussion, it also overreached in a number of ways, especially in its attempts to shoehorn a potpourri of recent events and trends into the aforementioned overarching narrative. Some concerns that I have about the essay have been addressed by others here and here and here and here (sorry, original posting of that response was here) and here. 

On the "activist language merry-go-round," Stephen Pinker's "euphemism treadmill," and "political correctness" more generally

A couple weeks ago, I published a fairly lengthy essay called A Personal History of the “T-word” (and some more general reflections on language and activism). The first half discusses shifting attitudes regarding the word "tranny" that I have witnessed over my last decade-plus of being involved in trans communities. The second half (and in my opinion, the most important part) of the essay more generally discusses how language within trans communities remains in a perpetual state of flux, where virtually every word associated with transgender people and experiences is eventually deemed by some people to be problematic, and new terms are constantly being proposed to take their place. I referred to this phenomenon as the "activist language merry-go-round."

I go on to make the case that the "activist language merry-go-round" is fueled by stigma: Trans people are stigmatized in our culture, and this stigma latches onto the words that are used to describe us and our experiences. As a result, many activists may feel compelled to focus on changing language (i.e., swapping out "bad" words with new words that feel more neutral or empowering). However, so long as trans people remain stigmatized, these newer terms will eventually become tainted by that stigma, and there will be even further calls for newer and supposedly better replacement terms. I argue that there are no magical "perfect words" that will make everyone happy. And the "activist language merry-go-round" will not stop until trans people are no longer stigmatized, at which point there will be no compelling need to replace existing trans-related terms.

A Personal History of the “T-word” (and some more general reflections on language and activism)

[note added January, 2017: This essay now appears as a chapter in my third book Outspoken: A Decade of Transgender Activism and Trans Feminism]

Important disclaimer: This is but one trans woman’s take on what has become a highly controversial term. I have penned it in the (perhaps implausible) hope of fostering more nuanced and historically situated dialogue about the word, and about language more generally. This piece is primarily intended for other trans folks, and for that reason, I have posted it on my blog rather than a more heavily trafficked or broader LGBTQ-themed website. People who are not trans-identified are free to read this, of course, but please realize that this is a personal blog, and not a space intended to serve as a platform for you to voice your opinions about the word—I suggest that you go elsewhere to do that if you are so inclined. Anyone who presumes that I am advocating for the continual usage of the word, or who cites this essay as evidence that they have “permission” to use said word, has clearly misread this piece and/or are blatantly misrepresenting my views. The vast majority of this essay was written in 2013, and it should not in any way be interpreted as me “taking a side” in any recent peripheral debates that have taken place within trans female/feminine spectrum communities lately. This is a substantial piece (with notes, it is over 10,000 words!), so I encourage readers to refrain from judgments until they have read the entire thing, as this piece may take some unexpected turns. Finally, some trans people find the word that I will be discussing to be very upsetting, so they should take this as a trigger warning that I will be using the “T-word” (sans abbreviations, hyphens, and asterisks) throughout this piece.

Language evolves. Words that were once commonplace now come off as anachronistic. And words that once had good or neutral connotations are now seen as problematic or politically incorrect, and vice versa. It happens all the time. But within my own lifetime, I can’t think of a single word that has undergone such a quick and dramatic shift as the word “tranny” has, particularly with regards to how it is used within transgender spectrum communities.

What is Holistic Feminism?

This is one in a series of blog posts in which I discuss some of the concepts and terminology that I forward in my writings, including my new book Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive.

Since my first book Whipping Girl came out, people have tended to call me a trans feminist. For those who are unfamiliar with trans feminism, it refers to transgender perspectives on feminism, or feminist perspectives on transgender issues. That definitely describes a lot of my writing and activism, especially during the time that I was writing that book. But in Excluded, I broaden the lens significantly and attempt to articulate how sexism, marginalization, and exclusion work in a more general sense. The term trans feminism seemed too narrow for this endeavor.

What is subversivism?

This is one in a series of blog posts in which I discuss some of the concepts and terminology that I forward in my writings, including my new book Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive.

So the word “subversivism” pops up a couple of times in Excluded, but I first began using the term in my first book Whipping Girl, specifically Chapter 20, “The Future of Queer/Trans Activism.” While the word had previously existed (Merriam-Webster defines it as “the quality or state of being subversive”), I began using it to describe a form of sexism that is quite prevalent within feminist and queer subcultures, albeit absent from straight mainstream society.

Why Myriad Double Standards?

This is one in a series of blog posts in which I discuss some of the concepts and terminology that I forward in my writings, including my new book Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive. 

So in an earlier post, I discussed the concept of myriad double standards that I forward in Excluded. The idea is quite simple: Generally within feminism and queer activism, we have a fixed idea of the system that we are challenging—e.g., the patriarchy, heteronormativity, the gender binary, kyriarchy, and so on. Being fixed models, each of these acknowledges certain forms of sexism and marginalization while overlooking or dismissing others. The forms of sexism and marginalization that are ignored tend to become points of exclusion—for instance, if your concept of “patriarchy” does not include transphobia/cissexism, then your movement will exclude trans people; if your concept of “the gender binary” does not include biphobia/monosexism, then your movement will exclude bisexuals. And so on.

What is gender artifactualism?

This is the one in a series of blog posts in which I discuss some of the concepts and terminology that I forward in my writings, including my new book Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive.

So in Excluded, I introduce the term “gender artifactualism” to describe, “the tendency to conceptualize and depict gender as being primarily or entirely a cultural artifact.”[p.117] Gender artifactualist viewpoints are pervasive within feminist and queer activism, and within the academic fields of Women’s/Gender Studies, Queer Theory, Sociology, certain subfields of Psychology, and in the Humanities more generally.

Why new words?

Over the next several months, I will be writing a series of blog posts that explain some of the less familiar terms that I either coined and/or otherwise forwarded in my writings, especially in Whipping Girl and my new book Excluded: Making Feministand Queer Movements More Inclusive. 

I am doing this for several reasons:

Considering Trans and Queer Appropriation

[note added November, 2016: This essay now appears as a chapter in my third book Outspoken: A Decade of Transgender Activism and Trans Feminism]

Within the activist circles I run in, I routinely hear people accuse others of appropriation, or claim that certain behaviors or endeavors are appropriative. I myself have written about how certain people (e.g., cisgender academics and media producers) sometimes appropriate transgender identities and experiences (discussed more below). So I am certainly sympathetic to the concept.

At the same time, however, I have seen the concept of appropriation used (or misused) in order to undermine marginalized groups as well. For instance, cisgender feminists have long accused trans women of “appropriating female dress” or “appropriating women’s identities”—indeed, if you click the link you will see that this was part of the justification for why Sylvia Rivera was kicked off the stage at a 1973 Pride rally in New York City. On Cathy Brennan’s anti-trans-dyke website “Pretendbians” (which I refuse to link to), the byline at the top of the webpage says: “We don't hate you, we hate appropriation”—the implication being that trans women cannot ever be actual lesbians, but rather we can only appropriate lesbian identities and culture.

Myriad Double Standards

So last week, my new book, Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive, was reviewed in Publisher's Weekly - you can read the review here. It is generally positive and I am pretty happy with it! However, there is one line in the review that I feel misconstrues what I was trying to say in the book. Namely, the reviewer describes my supposed ‘denial of the existence of a “gender system”’ and how it ‘flies in the face of much social research.’

I could imagine that people who read that review without having read the whole book might presume that I am denying that gender norms, assumptions, stereotypes, etc., often work together in a coordinated way to legitimize certain people but not others. Or that I am denying that gender-based oppression is institutionalized and entrenched in our culture. I can assure you that I do not deny any of these things.