Book Club
Last week I finished re-reading Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity by Julia Serano. I read this book a year or so ago, giving me new confidence in my identity as a feminist. It was the first book I found that actually understood transsexuality as I saw it. A book about transsexual women by a transsexual woman. What a concept! I'd like to share one of my favorite passages today because it's been very empowering.
"Deconstructive Surgery"
Because I'm an out trans woman, there is one question that follows me around wherever I go. Inquiring minds want to know: Have I "gone all the way"? You know, have I had "the surgery"?
And to me, it feels like a no-win inquisition. If I tell the truth - "No, not yet" - then I get to deal with everybody else's emotional baggage, because nothing makes people more paranoid that a real-life female with a phallus. Straight men shake in their boots at the possibility that they might "accidentally" become attracted to me. And those who patrol the gates of women-only spaces are often dead set on discriminating against me, driven by the ridiculous belief that my girly little estrogenized penis is somehow still pulsating with hypermasculine energy.
On the other hand, having the operation has its own stigma attached to it. No medical methodology induces as much fear and anxiety as SRS - sex reassignment surgery. A friend told me that he once saw SRS on the video Faces of Death, sandwiched between real-life shark attacks and murder attempts. Some people go so far as to call SRS a form of self-mutilation, conveniently ignoring the fact that more common procedures, such as nose jobs and liposuction, similarly involve the removal of a small amount of nonessential tissue.
Most people are surprised when I tell them that the surgeons don't really cut the penis off. They just turn it inside out and move the nerve endings around to make a functional and realistic-looking clitoris and vagina. At this point, I am invariably asked if I want SRS so that I can have sex with a man. And you should see the blank stares that I get when I reply, "No, but I'm really looking forward to having my wife fuck me with a strap-on dildo."
See, we live in a phallus-obsessed culture, where we're all brought up to believe that everything having to do with gender and sexuality somehow revolves around the penis. That's why so many clueless straight guys come on to dykes with pickup lines like, "Once you've had the real thing, baby, you won't ever go back." Some men actually buy into that phallocentric crap! And it's also why most people can't even talk about transsexual women or SRS without centering the discussion on the penis.
But my desire to have SRS has virtually nothing to do with my penis. This is about my wanting to have a clitoris and vagina. But we don't even have the language to describe this desire. It's the ultimate Freudian slip: We naturally assume that all young girls suffer penis envy, but we can't imagine that any boy could possibly have its polar opposite. It's all in the words we use. When someone is bold or brave, we say they have "balls," while words like "pussy" and "cunt" are only ever spoken as insults. And while everyone seems to understand how the penis works, we treat female genitalia like they're a mysterious black box. Most young women aren't even taught the names of all their own body parts; some are unaware that the clitoris even exists; and as for the vagina, well, aren't we all taught to see that as simply the hole where the penis is supposed to go?
So it's no wonder that most people assume that I must be mentally ill, because in this culture, wanting to be a woman is something most people find literally unimaginable. And when I do have SRS, my surgically deconstructed genitals will no doubt be seen by some to be an abomination or a blasphemy. Because my cunt will be the ultimate question mark, asking, How powerful can the penis really be if a sane and smart person like me decides she can do without it? And if the world supposedly revolves around the penis, then my SRS will knock it off its axis. And phallic sumbols everywere will come crashing down like nothing more than house of cards. After all, a cigar is always just a cigar. And I am simply me. And I am fed up with other people projecting their penis obsessions onto my body. As far and I'm concerned, if they can't fathom why I might want to trade in my penis for a clitoris and vagina, then they're the ones who have the gender disorder.
And one more section that always makes me proud to be born transsexual.
Excerpt from "Love Rant"
My friend [...] asked me, "So what is it about trans women's bodies that you find most attractive?"
I paused for a second to consider the question. Then I replied that it is almost always their eyes. When I look into them, I see both endless strength and inconsolable sadness. I see someone who has overcome humiliation and abuses that would flatten the average person. I see a woman who was made to feel shame for her desires and yet had the courage to pursue them anyway. I see a woman who was forced against her will into boyhood, who held on to a dream that everybody in her life desperately tried to beat out of her, who refused to listen to the endless stream of people who told her that who she was and what she wanted was impossible.
When I look into trans women's eyes, I see a profound appreciation for how fucking empowering it can be to be female, an appreciation that seems lost on many cissexual women who sadly take their female identities and anatomies for granted, or who perpetually seek to cast themselves as victims rather than instigators. In trans women's eyes, I see a wisdom that can only come from having to fight for your right to be recognized as female, a raw strength that only comes from unabashedly asserting your right to be feminine in an inhospitable world. In a trans woman's eyes, I see someone who understands that, in a culture that's seemingly fueled on male homophobic hysteria, choosing to be female and openly expressing one's femininity is not a sign of frivolousness, weakness, or passivity, it is a fucking badge of courage. Everybody loves to say that drag queens are "fabulous," but nobody seems to get the fact that trans women are fucking badass!
"Deconstructive Surgery"
Because I'm an out trans woman, there is one question that follows me around wherever I go. Inquiring minds want to know: Have I "gone all the way"? You know, have I had "the surgery"?
And to me, it feels like a no-win inquisition. If I tell the truth - "No, not yet" - then I get to deal with everybody else's emotional baggage, because nothing makes people more paranoid that a real-life female with a phallus. Straight men shake in their boots at the possibility that they might "accidentally" become attracted to me. And those who patrol the gates of women-only spaces are often dead set on discriminating against me, driven by the ridiculous belief that my girly little estrogenized penis is somehow still pulsating with hypermasculine energy.
On the other hand, having the operation has its own stigma attached to it. No medical methodology induces as much fear and anxiety as SRS - sex reassignment surgery. A friend told me that he once saw SRS on the video Faces of Death, sandwiched between real-life shark attacks and murder attempts. Some people go so far as to call SRS a form of self-mutilation, conveniently ignoring the fact that more common procedures, such as nose jobs and liposuction, similarly involve the removal of a small amount of nonessential tissue.
Most people are surprised when I tell them that the surgeons don't really cut the penis off. They just turn it inside out and move the nerve endings around to make a functional and realistic-looking clitoris and vagina. At this point, I am invariably asked if I want SRS so that I can have sex with a man. And you should see the blank stares that I get when I reply, "No, but I'm really looking forward to having my wife fuck me with a strap-on dildo."
See, we live in a phallus-obsessed culture, where we're all brought up to believe that everything having to do with gender and sexuality somehow revolves around the penis. That's why so many clueless straight guys come on to dykes with pickup lines like, "Once you've had the real thing, baby, you won't ever go back." Some men actually buy into that phallocentric crap! And it's also why most people can't even talk about transsexual women or SRS without centering the discussion on the penis.
But my desire to have SRS has virtually nothing to do with my penis. This is about my wanting to have a clitoris and vagina. But we don't even have the language to describe this desire. It's the ultimate Freudian slip: We naturally assume that all young girls suffer penis envy, but we can't imagine that any boy could possibly have its polar opposite. It's all in the words we use. When someone is bold or brave, we say they have "balls," while words like "pussy" and "cunt" are only ever spoken as insults. And while everyone seems to understand how the penis works, we treat female genitalia like they're a mysterious black box. Most young women aren't even taught the names of all their own body parts; some are unaware that the clitoris even exists; and as for the vagina, well, aren't we all taught to see that as simply the hole where the penis is supposed to go?
So it's no wonder that most people assume that I must be mentally ill, because in this culture, wanting to be a woman is something most people find literally unimaginable. And when I do have SRS, my surgically deconstructed genitals will no doubt be seen by some to be an abomination or a blasphemy. Because my cunt will be the ultimate question mark, asking, How powerful can the penis really be if a sane and smart person like me decides she can do without it? And if the world supposedly revolves around the penis, then my SRS will knock it off its axis. And phallic sumbols everywere will come crashing down like nothing more than house of cards. After all, a cigar is always just a cigar. And I am simply me. And I am fed up with other people projecting their penis obsessions onto my body. As far and I'm concerned, if they can't fathom why I might want to trade in my penis for a clitoris and vagina, then they're the ones who have the gender disorder.
And one more section that always makes me proud to be born transsexual.
Excerpt from "Love Rant"
My friend [...] asked me, "So what is it about trans women's bodies that you find most attractive?"
I paused for a second to consider the question. Then I replied that it is almost always their eyes. When I look into them, I see both endless strength and inconsolable sadness. I see someone who has overcome humiliation and abuses that would flatten the average person. I see a woman who was made to feel shame for her desires and yet had the courage to pursue them anyway. I see a woman who was forced against her will into boyhood, who held on to a dream that everybody in her life desperately tried to beat out of her, who refused to listen to the endless stream of people who told her that who she was and what she wanted was impossible.
When I look into trans women's eyes, I see a profound appreciation for how fucking empowering it can be to be female, an appreciation that seems lost on many cissexual women who sadly take their female identities and anatomies for granted, or who perpetually seek to cast themselves as victims rather than instigators. In trans women's eyes, I see a wisdom that can only come from having to fight for your right to be recognized as female, a raw strength that only comes from unabashedly asserting your right to be feminine in an inhospitable world. In a trans woman's eyes, I see someone who understands that, in a culture that's seemingly fueled on male homophobic hysteria, choosing to be female and openly expressing one's femininity is not a sign of frivolousness, weakness, or passivity, it is a fucking badge of courage. Everybody loves to say that drag queens are "fabulous," but nobody seems to get the fact that trans women are fucking badass!