Knowing our trans history
One of the issues I repeatedly come across when engaging with media content, academic research, and general conversations about trans* issues is a general unawareness or misunderstanding of trans* history. Yes, it is an obvious point that no one person can know everything about trans* lives lived in the past, yet often it is the misquoting and misrepresentation of facts that causes problems. Propaganda goes both ways, and often while it is easy to spot far right lies, the left and some academics are just as capable of mispresenting that history. This matters to me because as a researcher reliant on other voices and researchers to both learn from and develop their ideas, I continually cross check and fact check everything before I use it. I am paid to do this, it is my job; most people coming to trans* issues do not have the time or access to resources I do, so what resources they do access need to be honest and accessible.
My biggest concern is that any narratives we espouse inevitably draws from our own personal perspectives, and as such we tend to gravitate to sources that suit our own ends. Matt Walsh, Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson, and other Daily Wire content creators twist evidence based on a religious conservative agenda, showing trans* lives as deviant and other. Philosophy Tube, Contra Points, and academics within trans* studies courses take a liberationary left-wing perspective, with evidence included that suits their needs. One seeks to erase and eradicate, the other to fight back against that erasure, yet in fighting this fight the radicals also leave out evidence that does not suit their narrative.
Blaire White, Buck Angel, and Roberta Cowell fall into an exclusionary group of trans* folk who seek to wrest back a view of gender non-conformity that fits their personal world views. White and Angel represent a minority of current trans* discourse, yet because the wider trans* community shuns their perspectives they have found a ready home on the far-right. While I disagree with both, I believe that their shunning has given plenty of ammunition to those who seek to oppress minority gender voices. Even conceiving gender non-conformity as a trans* umbrella is problematic because it includes a plurality of voices whose only commonality is gender, every other aspect of identity and lived experience is disparate.
By exorcising dissent and dissenting opinions in a desire for purity, the trans* community commits a cardinal sin of ignoring the history of gender non-conformity. The idealised gender non-conformist has historically developed due to the pathologizing and media circusing of trans* women and men over the course of the twentieth century. It is a messy, complicated history, with no one way of living within a gendered body. Radical voices attack those who seek comfortable lives, right wing voices attack radical identities as something unter and disgusting. Both sides seek to control the narrative, to shape the narrative, to claim trans* history as their own.
Yet, the things that academic evidence and media interviews fail to disclose is that only those willing to engage with academics and the media show up in the evidence. Even quantitative research relies on people being honest in their personal disclosure, which in public spaces is not always a safe thing to do. Our history, our shared history, is more textured and nuanced that either radical voices or right wing voices want to share. Right wing trans* folk are called patsies to the oppressive forces, while radical voices use tactics derived from the right to shout down those who oppress them. Both sides send in the pitch forks. Yes, right wing ideologues directly cause violence and indirectly cause active harm to the trans* community, there is no denying that. However, radical voices propagate a version of gender often at odds with lived experiences, and to counter their narratives also requires energy and effort.
My primary research is looking at trans* rights and the perception of those rights in the media. Not many people have had the privilege of diving as deep as I have into law, media, academia, and the history of gender non-conforming identities. I certainly do not have the right to speak the truth, only that the truths we are presented with in the media, social media, and in books are a pale shade of the wider tapestry. Each of us has the right to consume and interact with whatever media we want, to align ourselves to a worldview which suits our needs. This means that there needs to be media, books, and social media content that shows the rich texture, not just what audiences want to hear.
Trans* history is framed through a western, white, heteronormative version of trans* identities because those are the identities valid to the media, medics, and academia. Radical voices have sought to reclaim non-conforming identities from this, and in doing so they have added a great deal to trans* history. They have reclaimed Pride for black trans* women, brought working class voices into the fold, brought kink and sex work into the open, made trans* out of transsexual and invert. Being radical is the antonym of conservative, and I, we, owe them a great deal.
Why grumble about the left and radical voices? Surely radical perspectives have a better grasp on the evidence. I started from this perspective hoping that radical academics would have a version of trans* lives that better aligned with lived experiences. Instead, what I am finding is that they push a particular narrative that ignores those voices that do not fit their narratives. In searching out the marginalised and oppressed, they make those marginalised voices the narrative, not just one more piece. Trans* people of colour, disabled trans* folk, intersex folk, non-binary folk all need to be included in the narrative, not simply made exemplars of. Yes, I am being reductive, and yes, it is much more complicated, but at the same time atomising for the sake of atomising only results in losing the broader audience. I am potentially guilty of this, as much of my own work is situated on the radical side of the academic discourse.
What is the point in writing this if I am only going to complain about all the narratives out there? Because I think we deserve better, can do better. My conviction is that it is impossible to account for all eight billion gendered identities in the world. Both conservative and radical voices seek to provide digestible chunks for us to engage with. Radical voices do a much better job at this, yet in seeking an ideological purity they alienate in the process. If you are not aligned to certain ideas of trans* identities, then you are left on the other side of the discourse. It ignores the messiness and the complexity in favour of an overlocked plurality.
When you shut out contrary voices you lose both the ability to audit your own perspectives but also enforce a hegemonic perspective that loses curiosity. Yet, we need to take care in blindly accepting a narrative, yet it is also important to account for content and ideas that you disagree with. What is a Woman and Adult Human Female are both examples of bad faith right wing content the trans* community actively seeks to shut down. Having seen both, and having watch a lot of Daily Wire content, my main critique of all conservative platforms is that we need to engage with it in order to defang and reclaim its narrative. Simply shunning an idea does not make the idea go away, it needs to be aired, deconstructed, and evaluated. An idea only has power if it takes root, and it can only take root if we allow it to.
I am a radical academic precisely because I want to deconstruct conservative narratives. I believe a central part of that is owning the messiness that are queer and trans* lives. Owning the fact that no-one group has the right to say they are the trans* group or represent trans* people. Conversative voices need to be as much brought into the fold and accounted for as the radical ones, and that radical gatekeeping of right wing ideas only serves to further alienate right wing trans* people. You cannot defang and detoxify conservative perspectives simply by singing or chanting over them; the right is defeated for showing the world precisely what it is: shallow, lacking in humanity, and no answer at all the problems it purports to solve.
If there is one thing I can agree with Kathleen Stock on it is that we need to listen to and tackle offensive ideas. Stock is wrong on the biological construction of womanhood, and wrong on the nature of feminism, but on this I think she is right: you cannot simply fight an idea, you have to understand it, deconstruct it, and show where it falls apart. Trans* history is one long line of showing conservatives they are wrong not simply by proclaiming it but by deconstructing it. Being radical should not simply be looking in a mirror and knowing you are right, but looking conservatives in the eye and showing them that there is a better way forward. A culture war implies there will be casualties on both sides, a culture narrative of hospitality allows for the building of a better future.
Of course I would rather not watch right wing content, as it really does scour my soul on a deep level; yet, on viewing it I am mostly laughing at the contrived and desperate nature of the content. Right wing pundits are open about their intentions, they do not hide the fact they want a conservative religious world. Their world is shallow promises build on the back of a masculine gender performativity that is toxic to women and men. Yet, by shunning it and leaving it only to the rubes to consume we miss the most radical action of all: deconstructing it and showing it for the shallow rhetoric it really is. By knowing our history, by having a clear grasp of all trans* lived experiences radical voices can build a narrative of hospitality, build a narrative bridge, that crosses this divide and brings those the right panders to along with us. Just because we can vehemently disagree with something does not mean we should shun it and lock it out of sight, for it will only grow and fester. Shine a light on it, show the emperor has no cloths, and display just how hollow it really is. This is not easy, but nothing about being trans* ever was or is.
