Normal Life Ch.1

Text: Normal Life Ch.1

Neoliberalism and emphasis on ‘redistribution of chances’

Dean Spade, author of the book ‘Normal Life’, dedicates this particular chapter to laying down the groundwork for further development of his ideas. In this chapter, he presents to us how the discussions and social movements regarding gay and lesbian rights came into light. Moreover, he briefly discusses, toward the end of the chapter, the ways in which trans people can attain their own rights as well as equality.

Spade starts off by introducing the idea of neoliberalism, an economic and political theory that pervades throughout our society, especially in the United States. The idea of neoliberalism, on the surface, is something that anyone would advocate. Neoliberalism promotes ‘freedom’ and ‘choice’ at all levels of class and more widely, on the international level, advocates free trade, privatization and deregulation. On the contrary to its spurious external goodness, it has been observed that neoliberalism, through its ideals, increases the gap between the rich and the poor, takes away the social welfare schemes and basic healthcare services and deprives the low-class people of many more basic necessities without federal support. In addition, people who worked for private businesses were stripped of their job security and power as a part of the labor union. The effect of the implementation of neo-liberalism in the United States did not only negatively influence the people in the country but also families and individuals in other developing countries. Through treaties and agreements like NAFTA and FTAA, the United States exploited the relatively inexpensive human and natural resources of the less powerful countries such as China, India and many Latin American countries. As a result, people in these countries grew more destitute and desperate and started to migrate to developed countries, most notably to the United States, in pursuit of greater monetary compensation. The sudden surge in the number of poor immigrants in the United States and growing number of poor families within the country led to a greater enforcement of laws and regulations in the country. Various immigration laws and criminalization of petty crimes put the poor communities under much chaos and policing.

As most people’s social and economic life fell apart, public sector organizations began to emerge that were led by rich educated white lawyers to fill in the gaps left by the government such as providing basic social and legal services. These organizations did not attempt to instigate the ‘transformative social movement’ which would change the entire paradigm of the society, but aimed to include and incorporate the underprivileged and the minority (including gay and lesbian) through legal reform projects and many more diverse agendas. Amidst this fresh uprising, the sexuality/gender-focused resistance was institutionalized in the 1980s into non-profit organizations led by people of class and educational advantages. As mentioned before, the method of achieving equality for gay and lesbians was to try to assimilate them into society harmoniously.

Dean Spade argues that despite the successful achievements of gay and lesbian activists in earning their rights and convincing the public that their eccentricities as normal and natural, the path to formally recognizing and assimilating the trans people into society is entirely different from the path that gay and lesbian activists took. He identifies numerous obstacles and states ‘a crucial trans politics imagines and demands an end to prisons, homelessness, landlords, bosses, immigration enforcement, poverty, and wealth.’ Furthermore, he asserts that unless there are absolutely ‘equal opportunities’ and ‘redistribution of chances’ within the nation, trans people will not be able to attain their own voice and rights.

The Current Wave - Susan Stryker

Transgender History Chapter 5, The Current Wave, by Susan Stryker

In chapter 5 of her novel, The Current Wave, Susan Stryker demonstrates the emergence of transgender communities from the very beginning. The transgender communities and the public attention given to them, according to Stryker, began as early as 1960s. Despite its gradual growth in recognition by the public and their solid place in society, the trans community emerges as an important part of the larger society in the 1990s due to various contributing factors such as the spread of AIDS and the rise of feminism.

Starting in the 1960s, small organizations started to spring in order to promote and protect their identity as a transgender. Although the growth of these organizations seemed to be staggering, this didn’t stop them from carrying out their jobs through the bleakest times for transgender activism in the 1970s and 1980s. For instance, a transgender community based in Boston brought forth the International Foundation for Gender Education (IFGE) in 1987. Its major focus was on the needs and interests on MTF cross-dressers, but it also aimed at increasing the general transgender constituency. In addition, small scale, self-financed, homegrown resources such as the J2PC foundation (established by Jude Patton and Joanna Clark in California) awoke as a result of various historical factors such as the end of the Cold War, rise of feminism and development of internet. These organizations, more than anything else, worked on enhancing social justice for trans people and communities.

Among the prominent activists were female writers who would redefine and reshape the public perspective toward trans people such as Leslie Feinberg and Sandy Stone. Leslie Feinberg, who had been transitioning from female to male in the 1980s, attempted to define and occupy the space between the two conventional genders. By doing so, and using other kinds of means, she also instigated the social and political gender-specific oppressions. Another influential female activist promoting transgender communities was Sandy Stone who through her popular novel, The Empire Strikes Back, gave the nascent transgender movement intellectual and political dimensions and agenda.

In the midst of the active participation of various organizations and trans community activists, feminism was on the rise. The discussion regarding feminism and power of women also opened rooms for the expansion of transgender feminism in the 1990s through which (although discussions on trans communities were limited) the idea and philosophy behind trans-gender communities grew dramatically along with others. For instance, Judith Butler suggests the idea of ‘gender performativity’ through her book, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. This feminist assertion can be related to the rather radical idea of gender identity which states that gender should not be defined by two distinct groups but based on the different kinds of acts that people ‘perform’. Since no two people act identically, expressing identity gender-related characteristics, every individual is different in terms of his/her gender identity and therefore, trans people are as natural as heterosexual and cissexual individual. This iconoclastic idea of indistinct and undefinable gender roles that sprang from feminism had an unexpected influential impact on the growth of trans-related ideas and communities as well.

Feminism was not the only factor that grabbed the public’s attention in the 1990s. The wide spread of AIDS epidemic also played a crucial role in sparkling  major discussions about trans people and their communities that were vulnerable to the disease. If not acted upon, these people would act as carriers of the disease to the entire population. First of all and most importantly, trans people, compared to the rest of the population, specially lacked access to healthcare system and suffered social stigma, survival prostitution and were given fewer educational resources due to discrimination. Recognizing the devastating effects that these factors would bring to the larger, more ‘normal’ world, AIDS funding entities directed money and various forms of financial resources to the trans communities as a prevention and harm-reduction strategy. This attention and resources given to the trans communities aided them in creating new kinds of alliance politics which disregarded the discriminations against ‘race and gender, class and nationality and citizenship and sexual orientation. ‘

It is tremendously intriguing and rather impressive to see different social uprisings and ideas are inter-connected and further aid each other in amassing attention and expanding each group’s interests hand in hand. Despite such a struggle that trans communities have been through and the paramount efforts of innumerable activists, I personally feel, based on my present life, that they have not justly been recognized and caught the public’s attention. The idea that each and every individual is different, regardless of what their socially labeled gender is, in their fundamental gender identity is something that everyone should realize by reflecting deeply on themselves.

Overcoming Obstacles As an African-American Transgender Woman – Anonymous

This article written by an African American woman reveals the story of her painful journey as a transgender. Her life before transition, she says, was a very unhappy one. She would always be in pursuit of her real identity, what her subconscious told her she was. She was perceived to be gay (because everyone thought she was a boy and she liked guys) and on the inside, she felt extremely uncomfortable and out of her natural place/body therefore, miserable. She indicates that she felt as if she was living a lie and that she wanted to find out who she really was.

She claims that deciding to be a transgender was something more fearful than coming out as gay or lesbian because society has rarely seen a transgender come out. It seems that her race, skin-color, economic status and family’s religious beliefs complicated, if not prevented, her decision to transition.  According to the author, in an African American Christian community which she was born and brought up in, changing one’s gender (being a transgender) was something completely illogical and defying what God had naturally provided. This fact, as the author speculates with definite certainty, would have resulted in vehement disapproval from her entire family. As a result, the author has no one to turn to and no one to understand her situation. The author proves to be a strong female individual even though she has ‘no hiding place’ and eventually does go through the transition despite all the disadvantages and ruinous consequences that it would bring. In the end, she admits that the transition, against all down-sides, was worth it and that she was finally happy.

I think that this piece of writing gives a perfect insight into life of transsexuals and how difficult it is to live as one, especially an African American transgender. I learned that one does not suffer just because he/she is a transgender, but also because of other aspects of his/her identity such as being an African American and a Christian in this case. I think that the last heart-felt statement of the author is very true – ‘Transgender people, live free and be true to yourselves, and always remember that education is the key, because knowledge is power.’ I believe that she means that through learning, people are empowered and they grow strong enough to take confident steps in life and do what’s right.

The strength that the author exhibits is admirable and the candid personal account and the advice of the author, invaluable. 

Whipping Girl by Julia Serano

Whipping Girl, Introduction & Chapter 5

The novel Whipping Girl, is an extremely personal account of the author’s (Julia Serano) views on how the transsexuals are viewed by the general public mixed with the initiatives and pondering that she suggests that the ‘cissexuals’ take in order to understand transsexuals in a more positive and accepting light.

In the introduction, she tells us that her novel is not going to be a reaffirmation of the current general ideas of sexuality and gender or like any other novels on trans-sexualism by non-transsexual authors, but something that takes a new path. Furthermore, she proposes to fill in the ‘gaps’ created by our lack of knowledge on gender issues related to transsexuals by coming up with new terms and suggesting more intimate ideas that we are not yet familiar with or never heard of. She goes on to elaborate that under the title ‘transsexuals’ that we have made and accepted so far, there are a variety of different forms of gender. It seems as though she tries to completely break away from the binary gender system that we adopt now and encourage the readers to think of each individual a special and different case. By doing this, she demonstrates how she will be able to eradicate the pre-conceived notions and prejudices that ultimately result in discrimination against transsexual people.

Serano gives us a glimpse of the general prejudices of the public that she plans to attack and rectify such as the idea and importance of disparity between femininity and masculinity in our society which plays a huge role in people’s minds and decisions. She asserts that the general notion that females who are ‘feminine’ are inferior to men who are ‘masculine’ inhibits people’s understanding of transsexuals and their lifestyles and life decisions. Her candid confessions and real-life examples of meeting numerous people and asking them about their views on feministic qualities and transsexuals make this novel an exciting and novel one.

In Chapter 5 of her book titled ‘Blind Spots: On Subconscious Sex and Gender Entitlements’, her main objective seems to be to encourage people to understand their own sexuality before they try to understand transsexuals. And when they do, it becomes easier and an obvious thing to understand them. The Chapter begins with her early years when she realized that she was trapped in the wrong body (in a conventional sense) of a boy while her brain told her to be more feminine than most boys. She introduces the idea of the conscious sex and subconscious sex which differ in a way that conscious sex is what we recognize us to be and subconscious sex is what our brain and the subconscious tells us what we are. For most people, these two criteria match (bodily and psychological gender). However, a lot of transsexuals find themselves at crossroads when the view their conscious and subconscious sex. For instance, Julia Serano herself was physically a male but her brain told her, from her early ages, that she had more feminine qualities. She defines the mismatch of these two characteristics to be a ‘gender dissonance’ which, if plagued by it for years, could result in depression and extreme mental and psychological stress which, in turn, arise from insecurity from the society’s dictating eyes.

She asserts that if we all understood the meaning of subconscious sex and come in terms with our ‘blind spots’ (refers to the ideas and notions regarding our sexual orientation that we take for granted), we will be looking at transsexuals and any other queer gender-oriented people as equal and same human beings. The idea that ‘normal’ people should identify themselves as not ‘normal’, but heterosexuals, a member of a large group of gender orientations (according to Serano), is literally convention-shattering and extremely novel. Getting rid of our blind spot and recognizing that each person’s sexuality and gender identity are different when it comes to the fundamentals, according to Serano, will improve our understanding of the transsexual community.