Identity Affirmation Groups Online and the Transgender Revolution
From digmovements
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[edit] Identify Affirmation Groups Online and the Transgender Revolution
Digitizing Movements
Lucas A. Cuéllar
“Now another movement is sweeping onto the stage of history: Trans liberation. We are again raising questions about the societal treatment of people based on their sex and gender expression. … We are a movement of masculine females and feminine males, cross-dressers, transsexual men and women, intersexuals born on the anatomical sweep between female and male, gender blenders, many other sex and gender variant people, and our significant others. … Our lives are proof that sex and gender are much more complex than a delivery room doctor’s glance at genitals can determine, more variegated than pink or blue birth caps. We are oppressed for not fitting those narrow social norms. We are fighting back.”
[edit] Synopsis:
This paper is the culmination of my research on Marginalized Identity Affirmation groups online. My academic background is in Race, Ethnicity, Post-Colonialism, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Queer Theory, civil rights law, and social justice and action, especially through social movements. When I first set out to research the development of marginalized identity affirmation groups, I was interested in both ethnic identity groups online and transgender identity groups online. During the course of my research, I chose to focus on transgender groups, with a special interest in the intersections of race and ethnicity in these groups.
Over a three-month period, I have researched marginalized identity groups online. In tandem with this research, I participated in the lines of inquiry that the class, Digitizing Movements, used to study the impact and results of technology and the Internet on social movements. The result is a conglomeration of thoughts on how proliferation of the Internet has impacted the transgender community worldwide, and how the transgender phenomenon has come of age as a social movement.
[edit] On the Digital Age:
In the world of 2008, in the United States of America, we live in the midst of a communication revolution. This was brought about through the development of the Internet as a tool for the United States Military to communicate internally. This tool gone public to such an extent, that access to the Internet has become a necessary aspect of daily communication for the general populace of the western world. Through this technology, developments have brought us squarely out of the analogue age and we have officially entered the digital age. It is no longer the stuff of science fiction to have the ability to communicate anywhere in the world (with electricity, a computer and an Internet Service Provider). This is an amazing and fragile human made reality. It has also created a possibility for a greatly increased involvement of the individual in the world sphere. Mass media is now by far not the only news source; it is now possible to self-publish, along with everyone else on the planet (the above mentioned restrictions apply, of course), your personal thoughts, musings, political opinions, religious propaganda, videos of your friend’s baby, videos of your friends getting tear-gassed and beaten by cops. This has also yielded an increase in alternative and subversive news sources, such as Indymedia.org. Indymedia, or the Independent Media Center, is a collective of independent media organizations and journalists’ world wide that publish alternative news . Thus, it is now possible to access international news and events on your laptop in the coffee shop, assuming of course, that the shop is capable of wireless Internet.
Like previous revolutions in communication, the advent of the Internet has revolutionized the world. The potential is endless and amazing, the revolution will be cybercast. In addition to the international capability of communication, there is an already existing international consciousness, since the end of World War II. Treaties between countries have united into a league of nations, and we have an awareness of an International Declaration of Human Rights. This is also a time when the legal definition of the word “person” applies not only to human beings, but also to corporations; see the Civil rights Act of 1964:
“(a) The term ``person includes one or more individuals, governments, governmental agencies, political subdivisions, labor unions, partnerships, associations, corporations, legal representatives, mutual companies, joint°©stock companies, trusts, unincorporated organizations, trustees, trustees in cases under title 11 [bankruptcy], or receivers.”
This is indicative of the great legal lengths we now go through to apply and exercise rights. This is also indicative of the essence of global economy, which is the flip side of the positive elements of global consciousness. Regardless, the general population of the world now has an increased consciousness of the world, and the ability to exercise that consciousness to build coalitions across national borders through online communication. The Internet has fundamentally changed the world, although letters still fly around the globe, books are still being printed, news papers are still read over morning coffee. The Internet and digital technology has provided an extremely powerful and fast tool for communication from one to many, and people are using this tool to mobilize for social change. Thanks to the Internet, it is now possible to locate and communicate with people who share your interests, desires, hobbies, etc. What is most significant to this project is the fact that people who are members of marginalized identities can communicate and organize with each other, in the same town, in the same region, throughout the country and throughout the world. This is especially significant because transgender people are finding each other and building a movement, one whose time has come.
[edit] On Transgender Identity:
~ A note on language, and definitions:
There is a component to the transgender movement, and identity that involves the politic of language reclamation and re-definition. This is not found only in queer theory; in fact many social groups utilize this tool to create an affirming identity politic. In the case of trans people, many of the terms used to designate gender variance are medical in origin. They are seen as derogatory by radical trans and queer people. However, as the reclaimed terms hinge upon self-definition, they cannot be empirically defined. They are fluid terms designed to shift with their usage and need. The following definitions are working definitions for these reclaimed words, as I will use them in this paper.
1. LGBT sometimes including QIA: these initials stand for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and/or Transsexual, Queer and/or Questioning, Intersex, and Allies.
2. Queer: historically has been used as a pejorative term to describe Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender people, (and other things that are odd, or different). This word has been re-appropriated by the “sexually deviant” community to self describe not only sexual orientation and gender identity, but also politics and lifestyles that are contra-norm. Thus someone can be "queer-minded" and straight at the same time. Also, queer is an umbrella term used to describe lesbian, gay, bisexual, omnisexual, identities.
3. Intersex: is a term that applies to people born with characteristics of both male and female chromosomes, genitalia, etc. Intersex describes a variety of naturally occurring variances from the XX or XY chromosomes that traditionally define male and female biologically. Some of these variances result in necessary medical intervention in order to sustain the life of the individual, while others do not. Regardless of the medical severity of these variances, the medical community often takes it upon themselves to define the gender of people born intersex against a male/female measure. This is not medically necessary, and causes much strife for intersex individuals.
3. Transgender (TG): describes a person whose gender identity doesn't match the binary gender system (i.e. boy/girl, man/woman as the only options). Under the umbrella of this term falls many identities: Transsexual, Gender queer, Two-spirit, gender variant, drag kings and queens, cross dresser, gender-bender, etc. It essentially encompasses anyone who is actively pushing the boundaries of the male/female socialized gender roles, even if only in their darkest dreams.
4. Transsexual (TS): describes a person whose gender identity and biology do not match, i.e. a person born male that identifies as a woman, or a person born female that identifies as a man. This is a medical term, and some argue that it is degrading. However, it is a term that many individuals still use to signify their intentions to engage medical technology in order to transition.
Due to the fact that healthcare for trans people is at best difficult to access, medical involvement is not always indicative of how individuals identify. There are a great number of qualifiers that people may employ, non-hormone therapy, non-operation, pre-hormone therapy, pre-operation, and post-operation, all followed by the word transsexual or transgender. The reality of the trans and queer communities is that none of these terms are exhaustive, and the potential is endless. Therefore, there are folks who have surgeries, but do not use hormones, and vice versa, there are people who use hormones only occasionally to augment their bodies, there are people for whom the identification is enough. Once you leave the gender binary behind the possibilities are almost as vast as the Internet, and quite as liberating.
[edit] Transgender Revolution:
The existence of people who identify as transgender is not a modern phenomenon. There is evidence in every civilization, past and present, of people whose genders and sexes were neither male nor female, but both, neither, etc. This reality has not stopped societies from constructing genders, and gender roles, that are male and female specific. Historically it was the enactment of gender roles that did not “match” the biology that indicated a person’s transgression of gender. There ends the universality, because each society had a different mechanism to deal with these transgressions, from acceptance, to tolerance, to ostracization, to patholigization, and even to murder. History is rife with social norms and religious moralities that have been canonized into laws. For example, as late as 1960s in the United States, there was a law on the books that dictated how many articles of “non-gender appropriate clothing” one could wear. A biological female wearing men’s clothes could be arrested on charges of indecency. Now in 2008, the idea that women wearing men’s pants could be arrested seems ridiculous. This is not to say that things are fixed now, as society still very much constructs what is gender appropriate for men and women. However, the struggle that the women’s movement has undergone just over outward expression of freedom, i.e. wearing pants, has very much freed us from some of the constraints of the gender binary system. In fact society constructs gender. This may seem to be an oblique concept, especially because the common societal belief is that gender is a natural and immutable trait, one that either makes you male or female. Transgender people challenge this idea fundamentally, as do the actual representations of gender variance in nature. The construction of gender as a binary system, i.e. consisting of two categories, male and female, is so pervasive that the medical profession literally constructs genders in ambiguously gendered babies through surgery.
In this day in age it is has been indicated that intersexuality occurs in one to two percent of births. Of this percentage only a few require genital surgery in order to sustain life. Still, because this society is not prepared to accept the fact that there may be people naturally born whose genitals do not match the conventional ideas about male and female, doctors have deemed it medically necessary, and their job to determine gender at birth on a male spectrum. This means that the question becomes, is that a small penis or a large clitoris? It is not rare for the doctor to insist upon genital surgery, and if the parent is inclined to disagree, for that parent to be forced to sign a document that indicates that they declined medical advice. I mention intersexuality here not because it is comparable to transgender identity, but to challenge the idea that gender and sex naturally occur in only two flavors, male and female.
So one can imagine that gender bending, traversing, altering behavior could be seen as totally normal, especially given that people are even born ambi-gendered. This is far from the case. A person whose outward appearance does not match with societal ideas about gender is at best a member of a marginalized identity, at worst an object of physical discrimination and/or murder. We live in a time when it is possible to medically transition, to acquire secondary characteristics of a man or woman through the introduction of hormones to the physical body. It is possible to surgically create a working vagina that would confuse even a gynecologist. Transgender people face discrimination in workplaces, families, and the medical profession. Transgendered people are routinely denied health care, insurance, and jobs, and this kind of discrimination is perfectly legal under the federal statutes, and under the majority of the 50 states’ constitutions. “Transsexual” is still a term that describes a person with a psychiatric disorder, called Gender Identity Disorder, or Gender Dysphoria. In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition, Gender Identity Disorder is found under the subsection personality disorders. It was not so long ago that homosexuality was also to be found there. As the Gay Liberation Movement challenged the idea that homosexuality was a disease through identity affirmation, so does the gender revolution challenge the gender identity disorder model.
[edit] The Things Worth Fighting For:
The Transgender Movement, or the Gender Revolution is mainly one comprised of radical people who identify as transgender warriors, and are actively working to increase societal awareness to the cause. At this point, the biggest issues facing the transgender community are visibility and acceptance, access to healthcare (both mental and physical), access to jobs, and legal protections of transgender identity through civil rights. There are a number of groups devoted to the cause of each of the above mentioned issues, however at this point they are only just beginning to work together. This could be due to the fact that many of these groups are local non-profits, and the immediate needs of the community are often support groups and identity affirming conferences of trans people and their families, friends and allies. This also could be due to the divisiveness of certain elements of transgender identity; the above-mentioned designations of who is considered trans can also be used as a model for transgender hierarchy. This is increasingly seen as something that can no longer divide, and with the advent of the word transgender, we are beginning to break down the barriers and build coalitions across difference. Through the efforts of local organizations a handful of cities have mandated that their police force undergo transgender awareness training, the city of San Francisco has included hormone therapy, surgery and mental health under their employee’s heath insurance plan, and there are protections in place to prevent the discrimination against people because of their gender expression. The transgender revolution has yet to flower, although the Gay Liberation Movement, and the Feminist Movement, have both provided jumping off points. I focus here on the Gay Liberation Movement because there are so many conflations between it and the transgender movement. I also focus here because the history of the Gay Liberation Movement is remarkably similar to the current state of the transgender movement.
The social movement around a homosexual identity began in1950 in the United States with the creation of the Mattachine Foundation , an organization started by seven gay men, all of who were either communists or political radicals. The foundation was devoted to raising consciousness about the gay community, and working to change anti-gay discrimination. Soon after the Daughter of Bilitis was founded, as an offshoot of Mattachine specifically for gay identified women. This was a politically charged time in the United States, with the Civil Rights Movement formenting in the streets of the Southern US, the feminist movement bourgeoning, the country was recovering from World War II, and there was a wave of conservatism sweeping the nation. These early “Homophile” groups were themselves relatively conservative, concerned with their public image to such an extent that protest was conducted in silence, and the participants were required to wear not only gender specific clothing but also suits and dresses.
This was the birth of the gay identity, and indeed marginalized identity as a concept . People became aware of oppressions that were predicated on identity characteristics, such as gender, race, class, ethnicity, and sexuality. Through the Communist Party groups and politics people became increasingly aware of an analysis of power that included dialogue about marginalized identities. This increased awareness of the manner in which power and oppression operates informs social movements to this day. This also provided an opportunity for organization of social change groups around these marginalized identities. In the case of the “homophile” movement, dialogues were begun to support the idea that gay was ok, and there were medical doctors and psychologists to back up these claims. The word was being spread through publications put out by Mattachine, and the Daughter of Bilitis.
These efforts were quickly stunted by the McCarthy Era politics and witch-hunts, and as many of the organizers of the “homophile” movement were members of the Communist Party, many were arrested for their membership, or their known association with homosexuals. This wave of conservatism effectively squelched these groups for a time, but yielded also an explosion of radical left politics. Especially due to the hippie movement, rules about clothing and appearance were increasingly bent and broken, protest was everywhere, from the non-violent protest of the Civil Rights Movement, to the militant protest of the Black Power, Brown Power, and Red Power Movements, from sit-ins to riots. In 1969, in Greenwich Village, there was a practice of gay bars owned by the Mafia, and routine police raids. The way these raids had been going was something like this: Police enter the bar, people switch partners so that men and women are paired, the music stops, the lights come on, and the police line up all the patrons by gender, and proceed to get ids, generally harass patrons, check for gender appropriate clothing. The night of the beginning of the Stonewall Riots, the police rolled up to have their routine raid. Thus far there had been little to no organized resistance to these raids. So the police were utterly unprepared for the reaction that they were met with. People who were there seem to agree that the general sentiment was “we’ve had enough”. First the patrons of Stonewall refused to allow the police to enter, even barricading the door with the jukebox, tables and chairs. Once the police gained entry, they were barricaded inside, then by all accounts a Transgender woman began shouting rallying cries to her fellow queer folks, both inside the paddy wagon and out, and grabbed a parking meter and began smashing up the street. The presence of transfolks in the Stonewall riots is no secret. In fact, transwomen appear to be the instigators of the riot. This is logical, because even then those who could not pass as straight, i.e. the people whose queerness gave them away, were often the people who were trans. Trans people, at the time known as masculine women and feminine men, were also the people that were most likely to be arrested and raped, beaten, and otherwise harassed in custody, then released the following day with no charges. Is it any wonder that these folks were the ones who rebelled the most strongly?
However, as the riots became a full-blown movement, identity politics began to divide the community. Before long, the gay liberation movement became for male bodied and male identified people who identified also as gay, the feminist movement adopted anti-lesbian policies, thus the lesbian movement was split from both the feminist movement and the gay liberation movement. The movements were moving from critical mass, to public presentation, and no one wanted to be affiliated with the freaks and weirdoes. The transpeople who were the frontline when the sexual deviants fought back were soon pushed to the margins in this movement also. At this point there are bones of contention between the glb and t people of the world. However, increasingly there is an awareness of queer as applies to all of these people, and the coalitions are building. Sexuality and gender identity are difficult things to build a movement around, as there is no guarantee that individuals who share a common sexuality or gender identity will have anything in common. This is further complicated by the intersections of race, class, ethnicity, and even gender into these identity groups, which can serve to block communication. The idea that all people in a movement need to be on the same page is a fallacy, however because of the marginalized status of transgender and queer people, these obstacles prove difficult to overcome.
As the societal impact of the Gay Liberation Movement approaches a balance, wherein queer people have attained a recognizable presence, the transgender movement is approaching a “stonewall” moment. The gender revolution, as it turns out, may very well be cybercast, and organized into an international coalition through the usage of digital technologies. Trans folks are fighting for recognition, raising consciousness to the fact that we exist and that it is ok for us to exist and be ourselves. We are enlisting the assistance of medical doctors, psychiatric doctors, academic intellectuals, and beginning the work of grassroots coalition building and identity affirming groups, actions, protests and publications. There is an increased presence of trans people in the mainstream media, as celebrities. Trans stories, both about fictious characters and real life people, are appearing in mainstream movies and television such as TransAmerica, Boys Don’t Cry, and even on CSI shows. Real life stories about trans people appear on daytime television, as they always have, but the tone of these mainstream dealings with trans people has shifted from horror and fear to interested exoticization and limited understanding. Trans people are still the brunt of jokes in the mainstream media, but there is a beginning awareness that trans people are people too. This seems to be largely due to the emergence of a serious trans theory, and a body of literature by and for trans people. There are also sites of resistance through lobbying for fair and equal treatment of trans people. These efforts have been most successful on the city and state levels, thus far.
Still, there is no unified trans liberation movement, as such. There are support groups, both in the real world and in cyberspace, that provide safe space for trans people of every variety, and the partners, families and friends of transpeople. These spaces provide a place where positive identity can develop. Across the country, conferences are organized annually that provide a place for transpeople from all parts of the country to get together, to learn about the social activism that is happening, and discuss life as a trans person. There are online groups that provide the same kind of coalition building opportunity. There are also entire web spaces devoted to passing tips, doctor critiques, surgeon critiques, clothing made to the sizes of transpeople. There are efforts to force insurance companies to recognize the medical needs of trans people. This may seem a simple thing, but the discrimination against non-gender normative people has resulted in scores of completely preventable illnesses taking the lives of transpeople. There are also anti-discrimination efforts that are focused on the right of trans people to use bathrooms. You may have noticed that all bathrooms are marked men or women, with the occasional appearance of Unisex. I challenge my readers to attempt to enter the bathroom of the “opposite” gender, or to find a gender-neutral bathroom next time your bladder is exploding.
Some of the online group building has come through existing rainbow centers in cities and towns, but there has been an increasing usage of other types of online communication through social networking sites, and blogs. The appearance of livejournal online provided a place to self-publish thoughts. Many trans people opted to use this site, and this quickly became a very trans friendly place to look for allies, friends and comrades. There also has been an emergence of trans groups online that deal with not only the mundane issues of getting through the day, but also the larger issues of social change. The Internet has provided a space for an international coalition of transpeople to begin. It has also provided the U.S. trans community with the ability to identify alternative ways that societies have dealt with and deal with gender variance, especially in Asia, which does not have the long history of Christianity that the Western world does. The Internet also provides the virtual space that the urban centers once provided for homosexuals, a place where relative anonymity is possible, and isolated people can come to meet up with others like them. This is a crucial time, because the people do not have to leave their communities in order to participate in the trans community nationally and internationally. In 2006 the first international transgender rights conference meet in Geneva.
Participants came from all around the globe to talk about the movement for social change around the issues that face the international transgender community. This is an incredible moment for the community, and the beginnings of international recognition of transgender people. This is also indicative of a coherence that the transgender movement has lacked up to this point, and the momentous work of organizing internationally. From home computers to Geneva individuals are coming together and mobilizing for change.
There are two main talking points that the transgender community is currently organizing around. The first is aimed at using the medical definition of Gender Identity Disorder to attain much needed healthcare access. This approach states that Gender Identity Disorder is a neurobiological disorder that affects approximately 1 percent of United States residents. The only viable treatment for GID according to the psychological perspective is transitioning. This means hormone therapy and surgery, both of which are considered cosmetic in nature and therefore are not covered under most insurance. The concept behind this line of activism is that if GID is a medical disorder it treatment should be accessible . While this is not necessarily a detriment to the movement, it does espouse politics that do not agree with all transgender people. It does bear a startling resemblance to some of the pre-stonewall ideas espoused by the homophile movement. In this case, as in the case of the homophile movement, medical doctors are utilized to illustrate that GID is a disorder; therefore transgender people are ill and are unable to help themselves without treatment. With treatment, however, transgender people ought to be able to participate as “normal” men and women in society.
This line of politics is at odds with the social movement of revolutionary gender expression. The ideas that gender is a social construct, and that there is a gender spectrum which encompasses male, female, TS, TG, gender variance, gender queering, etc. do not conform with the medical argument . This created an ideological schism between those who support the medical ideas and those who wish to freely identify with fluid genders. Essentially, the ideology of the gender revolution does not support the medical model. However, there are aspects of social change that both groups espouse, the rights of transgender people to access healthcare, and the right to exist as transgender people. Under the international coalition these ideological splits will need to be addressed, and a unified politic will emerge. Through online discussion boards, the members of the transgender community are already discussing these issues and coming up with self-definitions that bridge these gaps.
[edit] Conclusion:
Through my research this quarter, I have located a number of identity affirming websites and discussion groups that are actively engaged in discussion about the rights of trans people to exist. Primarily the online communications are still representational of local groups that meet face to face, and serve to reach out to transgender individual s that cannot participate in these face-to-face groups. In addition to outreach, these groups circulate petitions and questionnaires, put out artist calls, and action calls, and bring the community together online. These groups are the sites where people are becoming activated and beginning to mobilize. They are the places transgender people can go to participate in like-minded communities, even when they are physically isolated. These are the safe havens in a world that often presents a lack of understanding. The online groups that I have found are effective in their missions to achieve just that. Above and beyond the Internet, the transgender revolution is growing. Through the use of online groups, and the Internet technology, this movement is building.
