Sex, Gender, Becoming - PULP

Technology and transexuality: Secret alliances 7
post-operative transsexuals, on the one hand, and transvestites, on
the other, has become arbitrary, according to transvestites. 21
Similarly, the distinctions between born females and males (those
born with the ‘correct’ genetic, genital and gonadic material) and
post-operative transsexuals are seen by most transgenderists as
superfluous and immaterial. 22
However, transsexualism has received a rather unsympathetic
reception from most feminist scholars, as Elizabeth Grosz’s sharp
distinction between the two embodiments indicates: ‘The transsexual
may look like a woman but can never feel like or be a woman’. 23
Accordingly, Grosz draws a very distinct line between the experiences
of the embodied woman and the embodied transsexual. Although I do
not view these different experiences as hierarchically structured, the
one more authentic than the other, I do agree that these embodiments
differ and that they cannot substitute one another. Jason
Cromwell, female-to-male transsexual, puts forward another
viewpoint, namely that not all ‘women’ are born in female bodies and
neither are all ‘men’ born in male bodies. 24 In other words, according
to Cromwell, there is no advantaged or ‘natural’ position from which
to access the essential experience of womanhood. Whatever
viewpoint is taken on the matter, the emergence of the transsexual
category has subsequently complicated traditional sex and gender
21
Anne Bolin explains in ‘Transcending and transgendering’ that transvestites view
the difference between themselves and transsexuals as a qualitative one, rather
than one of degree. Apparently, transvestites view gender-variant identities as
much more fluid and plural than most transsexuals do: therefore they do not see
the two categories as distinct or static. On the other hand, for transsexuals, any
reason not to pursue a complete biological alteration is just an excuse, and in
fact indicative of their transvestite status. See A Bolin ‘Transcending and transgendering:
male-to-female transsexuals, dichotomy and diversity’ in Denny (ed)
(n 3 above) 63 72.
22 Although transsexed women may perceive the difference between themselves
and ‘born’ or ‘full-term’ women as not of real consequence, it is an opinion not
shared by many born women. In this regard it is interesting to consider the
example of Kaley Davis, a transsexed woman who applied for membership to WIT,
the women-only online forum of ECHO and was denied access because of her
transsexed state. It is also worth considering the case of Kimberley Nixon that
occurred recently. Kimberley, a transsexed woman and rape survivor, applied to
become a rape counsellor at the Vancouver Rape Relief centre. Her application
was denied on the grounds that she is a transsexual and thus not a ‘woman’. See
TM Senft ‘Introduction: performing the digital body — a ghost story’ (1996) 1
Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory 17 http://www.echonyc.
com/~women/Issue17/introduction.html (accessed 4 March 1997).
23 EA Grosz Volatile bodies: toward a corporeal feminism (1994) 207, emphasis
added.
24
I use inverted commas when referring to ‘women’ and ‘men’ here to make a clear
distinction between the re-assessed categories of ‘women’ and ‘men’ inferred
here, as opposed to the standardised hegemonic heterosexual categorisation of
women and men. In other words, the categories of ‘women’ and ‘men’ are open
to re-negotiation and the meanings of what it means to be a ‘woman’ or a ‘man’
are also open to re-evaluation. See J Cromwell ‘Fearful others. Medicopsychological
constructions of female-to-male transgenderism’ in Denny (ed) (n 3
above) 117 128.