i think if more gender options (gender queer) were open to people (and i mean truly open without a lot of potentially unpleasantness) more trans people would identify as genderqueer. But i don't see the dichotomy that seems to be set up between transitioning and being genderqueer. one can be a post-op trans person who identifies as genderqueer. i don't think transitioning itself supports the gender binary. Acting in a binary fashion does. Changing ones body does not necessarily support the gender binary. i guess i usually think of trans folks as a kind of gender queer. To some degree i feel like part of the point to genderqueer as a movement of sorts is to decouple gender from the body. Someone can be a woman with a penis or a man with a vagina or a whole other gender with whatever body parts or intersex or more traditional body type gender matching. It's about the actual words genderqueer, queering gender. We can all do that, with all sorts of bodies. So why give a shit that someone has gone through surgery? They can still be genderqueer, and i think the division between genderqueer and trans and a whole lot of other queerness should stop.

i'm glad you asked this question because i've been thinking a lot about this question too lately. i've been identifying as genderqueer but often think of myself as "trans" in the sense that i am always in the process of transitioning/becoming but never actually arriving at one gender or the other. i think "trans" can mean a lot different things for different people, depending on how they gender their body through dress, binding, surgery, hormones, behavior, pronouns, names, etc. were i to identify more as trans, i would think of "trans" as its own gender--something in between f and m and something that does not suggest i have moved neatly from female to male (although some trans people do understand themselves in that way). in recent decades, ftm trans identities have been developing and gaining visibility in so many cultural sites that it can get confusing what it means, depending on where you are. for example, in san diego much of the ftm trans community seems more dominated by people who understand themselves as women who have made a transition into being men, whereas in san francisco the ftm trans community is incredibly diverse and has almost too many genders to enumerate. noting these cultural differences has made me feel at once overwhelmed by the different meanings of ftm trans identity in these different places at the same time as it has given me license to think more productively about what "trans" could mean for me. in this sense, i do not think of genderqueer and trans as opposing categories, but rather that "genderqueer" has emerged as yet another articulation of in-betweenness that many, but not all, people who identify as "trans" experience too. some of the confusion about these identities and their various meanings stems from the basic inadequacy of any gender category to account for all its members. that said, lgbtq communities do require some labels, divisions, and categories for political organizing, however flawed they may be (i.e. even "queer" itself is often understood as exclusive along race and class lines, although it purportedly includes all kinds of nonnormative gender and sexual identities).

I'm a m2f postop tranny, going on 16 years now. I am *amazed* at the acceptance that is happening within our society today. It wasn't like this in the 80's. Not even close. I was ran out of my town on a rail!

I find I was asked to go from one box to another by my support (psychs, gender center, etc) and not even offered the option of androgyny. 5 years or so after transition, I found myself happier to be in an androgynous form. I got so sick of working my voice. So tired of adding cues. I'm tired of taking hormones. I just want to be ME.

Yes, I do think that transsexual is a binary output based on societal duality. Stop the duality! Our line can be anywhere we choose!

prajna

i agree with what everyone is saying.
and theory is just theory, right? the mind makes noise and confuses us often, but the body is living its way through experience every day, and it knows our truth.

let's be ourselves! whatever that means!
surgery, no surgery, trans, genderqueer! we are all people and we all have our stories and histories and the meanings that we perceive and create out of what we know and find. we are all different and amazing and seeking on some level to make sense of ourselves and our world and to be HAPP-Y!

what i'm really trying to say here is: we all have our stories and our reasons for doing everything. i don't feel like political theory about whether something is right is the point. when people are judged for reinforcing the binary it's just another judgment. we could spend our time understanding each other instead. sharing feels better than being confused to me.
what do other people think?

=)
~Larkin

Very cool. Thanks for all of the input! I am always amazed at the level of intellect offered by tribe, unlike any other on-line community that I know of; listserv meets myspace!
I really appreciate the deconstruction of the trans- genderqueer opposition, thanks julie!

-Seven*

My 2 cents... I identify as trans and genderqueer, with no sense of opposition between those labels. Now, if I had given up my stable identity of genderqueer because I began transitioning- then I think I would have an issue. I've had my genderqueer-ness questioned since I started hormones, ala "if you're becoming a man (sic) why would you call yourself genderqueer?" For myself- changing my body to feel more at home in it doesn't make me less genderqueer, it simply makes me more comfortable in my own skin.
-Jay-

Don't think so. What I want is for folks to have the ability to settle in anywhere along the gender continuum that feels comfy for them. The extremes aren't the right place for me, but they might be for the next guy or girl.

No I don't think genderqueer is anti-trans in any sense. It is supportive of the "in-between" that us trans exist in. Being a gq/tg is fantastic but when there r structures in place that want u 2 choose either side of the binary it becomes oppressively difficult 2 just exist in the in-between. At my job, it has been strongly suggested by the higher-ups that I have 2 stcik 2 the feminine asthethic that I choose 2 live my androgynous life by. There is no "facial hair" days acceptable 4 me ( I very rarely do have facial hair days) and I have been told that I have 2 appear feminine at all times at work...not cool. I'm being urged 2 choose one side and stick 2 it. Its because me being me, a gq, isn't understood as much as being in transition, crossing the line as it were. Is it because I'm tall, slim, very pretty, naturally fem, and have a big ole one or is it because I'm strong, forthright, tenacious? Its because there is another option that is only just now taking flight and that living in the trans is more acceptable now then it ever has been. I have thought seriously about transitioning fully in2 a female but isn't that leaving behind a big part of me? And I frankly love the ability 2 shift back and forth and live more wholly 4 myself, not anyone else...
-Mahogany

I can't speak to the political/theoretical aspects of this, but would like to respond to the practical "[I]f there had been the genderqueer option I may not have transitioned/had SRS."

For myself, I see no possible medical modification of my body that would result in a more accurate representation of my internal gender. That would require things that are in the realm of science fiction, not medical science. Since bitter experience has left me not particularly trusting the medical model to treat even much simpler issues, I'm not letting them anywhere near my gender.

hmm...

I've seen this argument kicked around quite a bit: namely the idea that if a person fully transitions and identifies as one gender then they are, de facto, reinforcing the gender binary.

I would argue that any kind of transitioning actually transgresses the gender binary rather than reinforcing it. It is an act of redefinition thrown in the face of larger social expectations. That a "woman" could become a "man" is a transgression of the binary, because the binary is built on the concept that gender is fixed, immutable, and non-negotiable.

Which is why one of my best friends felt the need to tell me:
"you will never be a real man, so why are you doing this?"

To me, Genderqueer in not anti-trans. Indeed, to me, Genderqueer is not intrinsically a trans thing. On one hand, I totally respect that Genderqueer is a very important & powerful concept for many transfolk. On the other hand, I don't think that the Genderqueer concept is unique to transfolk.

I am intersexed. I identify as intersexed. I also identify as Genderqueer. I do not identify as Trans (*per se). I don't have a desire to become a man or a woman. I do not think my simply being who I am & being at peace with it is any kind of a threat to Transfolk.

Conversely, I AM a threat to the gender binary. I like to ask those difficult questions about where Intersexed folk fit, when various statements are made, which presumes the binary.


* Regarding "Not Trans, per se": I was raised a binary gender. I now see myself as a gender other than the gender as which I as raised & am most often perceived. In a broad definition, a case COULD be made that I have transitioned my gender &/or my gender identity. It's another one of these ridiculous paradoxes created by the binary myth.

No, I don't think so. I identified as transsexual for many years. I'm a male but have always been very feminine/female identified. I never felt I could go along the sex reassignment path and started to question it all. Coming to accept, appreciate and love yourself is vital and we are so much more than our bodies and our gender.

In my opinion, the genderqueer identity is in no way anti-trans. I say this because as a genderqueer identified person, I see there being infinite gender options...just like how there's infinite digits between 0 and 1. Whereas there are those who see "trans" as meaning going from gender end to another, I see the word as meaning going between the various gender options or even transcending the existing gender options and living as one feels they should live.

Long before I first solidly decided to transition chemically, I already decided to only to go on estrogen and spiro andnot have any surgicaly procedures because being "totally woman" was never something I shot for. I saw myself as being "not male" and "something else" and all I needed was the hormones to get my body to match my inner identity as genderqueer...and trans.

So no...one can be genderqueer and trans...'cause in te end, they're just words anyway. We should be able to define them as we please.

I think trans is along the same spectrum as genderqueer. We may all have different ideas how to express ourselves but are united in the feeling that we can't/won't express ourselves as society has dictated we should. Whether you're on the other end of the spectrum, the middle, or anywhere in between or just want to switch depending on mood the one common thing is a desire to do exist as you are and please yourself instead of living a lie and acting a part to please society. I think anyone existing outside of the heteronormative dictatorship are all united.