time for some howling before my early-afternoon dose of thorazine

[sophiaserpentia]

The past few days i've been watching a controversy in the trans and feminist blogosphere about a movie called "The Gendercator."

In 1973 a group of hippie women are celebrating Billie Jean King’s victory over Bobby Riggs. They are partying in the rural woods outside of Bloomington, Indiana. Our heroine Sally is a simple minded, sporty type who overindulges at the party and passes out under a tree. Sally wakes up 75 years later in 2048 to discover (amongst other social changes) that feminism has failed utterly and completely. Sex roles and gender expression are rigidly binary and enforced by law and social custom. When Sally rejects the feminine hairdo and short skirt she is given, the doctor at the emergency room calls in the "Gendercator", a government official who informs Sally that butch women and sissy boys are no longer tolerated – gender variants are allowed to chose their gender, but they must chose one and follow its rigid constraints.

Sally is baffled by this brave new world. All she wants is to "do her own thing" – but her own thing is no more. Sally is a simple-minded stoner, indoctrinated into 70s feminism. She is no poster girl or freedom fighter, just a gentle tomboy dropped into the future with a tendency to respond in slogans such as "sisterhood is powerful".

Nurse Nancy locates some of Sally’s former friends – they are 100 now, but because of advances in the medical profession (cloning spare parts), they are still healthy and thriving. The friends tell Sally they heard she moved to California and that's why they never looked for her. One of her friends appears to be a man and tells Sally, "They made me do it. They'll make you too." They explain to Sally that in the early 2000s the evangelical Christians took over the government and legislated their strict family values, legally sanctioning only "one man, one woman" couples. Advances in sex reassignment surgery have made it possible to honor an individual's choice of gender AND government policy. Sally is comfortable in the middle of the genders, an unacceptable choice in 2048.

It's unfair to jump to conclusions about a film without seeing it, so what follows carries a caveat: it is a reaction to what has been written about the film which may be shown to be moot, incorrect, or off the mark by the film itself.

Does anyone think there's anything strange about transsexuality being portrayed as a tool of reactionary Christianity? I mean, take a peek behind the cut to see how reactionary Christians are portraying transsexuality right this minute:



Conservatives think our proper place is not in the world, trying to figure out how to play the hand we're dealt, but "howling" in a padded cell, straitjacketed and dosed with thorazine for our whole lives.

These people are in a very literal way out to get me.

And yet this director, Catherine Crouch, like me a member of the queer feminist community, makes a film in which she directly insinuates that transsexual treatment is indistinguishable from patriarchal gender normativity. She comments:

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.

Maybe this comes from a place of concern that hormones and surgery might not be the best thing for me. I have my own doubts in this regard, and have a conversation with myself every day of my life about this.

But does this statement reflect any genuine concern about what is best for me? Is there any indication that the director is willing to admit or even consider that maybe for some of us, being androgynous or "just doing our own thing" is not going to cut it? That it is not quite the same thing as having a boob job? We can talk all we like about feminist utopias where gender has been abolished but that is not the world we live in.

Furthermore, does this statement reflect any acknowledgment of our experience as transfolk, as recipients of horrific ongoing discrimination? It is irresponsible to blend in transsexual issues with misogynistic beauty standards and those who take advantage of it for profit. There are similar forces and patterns at work, but these are not the same issue.

Her idea for transfolk is that we should eschew medical treatment and "work to change the world." That's great. What in the holy hell does she think we've been doing? The image of transsexuals as ex-GI-June-Cleaver-wannabees is a little out of date. In between taking hormones, many of us have been actively railing against oppression. She thinks we're part of the patriarchal status quo. The same status quo who equates us with caricature 6-foot-5 drag queens in 6" heels and howling asylum inmates.

Thanks. Thanks a lot.

Okay, done howling now. Time for my thorazine.

Comments

[la-veuve-chibi.livejournal.com]

Although, quite often when people say, "having rigidly defined genders isn't a great thing" and the context includes transsexualism, what they really mean is, transsexuals are harming the movement to undermine rigid gender by seeking treatment, and should just refuse to buy into gender.

Well... do people who say this really, honestly think that we HAVEN'T tried that, among the large assortment of things we've tried?

Also for the similar statement in your original post: Damn straight. (No pun intended). One can't exactly transition on a whim, or without massive sacrifice! This isn't done lightly!