Susan Stryker's Subjugated Knowledge

Imagine, you go to work in your dress shoes, black suit, buzz-cut hair, red power tie, and nobody pays you a second look. But, the second you get home, you kick off your shoes, and don high-heels, the suit is replaced with a dress, your short wig is taken off, and you let your long curls fall, and your tie is in the closet, with a necklace in its place. Such hiding of true feelings is not an unheard concept in the transgender world. Millions of transgender people will never express their true feelings in their lifetime. This is similar to The Intruder by Andre Dubus, Kenneth Girard a

In her book “Gender Outlaw: On Men, Woman, and the Rest of us,” Kate Bornstein goes over a lot of the major issues regarding gender awareness and identity politics. She talks about the ideas of labeling ones self, understanding gender differences, how people view laws, behaviors, and the medical and scientific privilege that make transitioning challenging for a lot of people. Bornstein touches on many of the issues today that affect trans people. She includes poetry, pictures, quotes, essays, and a play to raise questions and discuss the idea of gender. This is a great book to introduce and discuss the issues that affect the lives of trans people as they navigate and explore the lines that define gender.

In “Transgender People of Color at the Center: Conceptualizing a New Intersectional Model,” Kylan Mattias de Vries explores the “link (between) multifaceted social positions to institutional and structural inequalities” (21). More specifically, the author hypothesizes that the trans population experiences gender as intersectional, along with “race, class and sexuality” (4).

The most obvious example is the differentiation of “transsexual” and “transgender.” In the article, “transsexual” is used to refer to someone who has specifically had treatment to physically change their body to match their gender identity; “transgender” is someone whose gender identity does not match the gender they were assigned at birth, regardless of whether they have made physical gender-related changes to their body (155). Today, the term “transsexual” is almost obsolete. Interestingly, however, Halberstam briefly presents conflict between “transsexuals” and “transgenders” that is mirrored somewhat today in informal conflicts between “truscum” and “transtrenders/tucutes” (154-155). In today’s transgender communities, people called “truscum” (generally by other people) feel that people they call “transtrenders” or “tucutes” are not truly transgender; they feel these people are merely pretending to be transgender for the sake of attention. On the other hand, those called “transtrenders” or “tucutes” (generally by other people) feel attacked and policed by “truscum” and insist that they are transgender regardless of whether they meet the standards set by truscum. Halberstam cites some identity politics (154-155) that are reminiscent of this, which suggests that even as terms change, identity policing remains a consistent issue in transgender

Transgender issues cover a a multitude of spheres: discrimination (at school, in the workplace, when looking for housing), violence, suicide, and identification through legal documents to name a few. Transgender individuals deal with greater struggles than that of cisgender individuals, or those who identity as the gender which they were assigned at birth. Perhaps one of the greatest struggles transgender individuals have to deal with is acceptance, whether it be acceptance from others or acceptance of themselves. Cisgender individuals, or those who identify with the gender identity given at birth, do not have to worry that their gender identity will be accepted; society has already dictated it to be ‘normal’ and ‘acceptable’ (“Definitions of Terms”). Trans individuals are not afforded this luxury.

Serano recalls her own experiences of being sexualized to shed light on how trans identities are sexualized. The story points out how a person’s transition from one gender to another, or being trans itself can be viewed as sexual solicitation, rather than a result of their own identity (Serano 257). The sexualization of trans people is based on a societal viewpoint that centers itself around male heterosexuality, as Serano expounds:

According to Jonathan Alexander’s chapter “ Transgender Rhetorics: Sex and Gender” he notes that “acknowledging the presence of the transgendered is useful not only for understanding those who are differently gendered or whose presentation … falls outside our ‘norms,’ but also for helping us interrogate the constructs of gender that we often take for granted as ‘natural’” (Alexander, 2008, pg. 130). Ways that the cisgendered public attempts to normalize gender roles is through literature where “male authors… depict a young woman as frightened and helpless, and the female authors… poke fun of the muscle-bound idiocy of a “macho” man”( Alexander, p. 137). The idea as the female being weak and terrified and the man as muscular moron help to reaffirm the cycle of “gender tied narrations” that are tied to society’s dominant public. This is important because society’s cisnormative narrative teaches that gender expressions have strict guidelines that are “innate” in us at birth. These instincts dictate a lot about an individual; however, the recognition of transgender individuals cause the cisgendered to think that “gender is not necessarily an essential and natural given, but rather a sociocultural construct whose repeated performances—as masculinity and femininity” (p. 131). The transgendered attempt to create a discourse to disrupt these social categories and show that there is more to one’s identity than what is socially constructed and self

Throughout the past decades sex and gender have remained in major taboos and impacts within the transgender communities. Indeed, after participating in a Transgender Panel Discussion at Fresno State University, reading articles like Meet the Muxes, class discussions and the conclusion for all four sources lead to words like exclusion, discrimination, and oppressions because those define the lives of transgender, Muxes, and that for following their gender identities become the target for judgement and for countless . However, I never imagined that I could put myself in the shoes of these diverse identities until I visualized the challenges that fill their lives everyday for simply

In the documentary Middle Sexes: Redefining He and She, the prejudices towards transgender and intersex individuals, as well as the fear they experience because of these prejudices, are underlined. A transgender individual is one that identifies with a gender that is not associated with their biological sex. An intersexual individual, however, is one that is born with indefinite sexual anatomical characteristics, making it difficult to identify as a male or female (Croteau & Hoynes, 2013). In addition, this documentary emphasizes the impact of cultural expectations on sexual orientation and gender identification.

One of the most well-known autobiographies is by Christine Jorgensen, Charles Brown’s inspiration for wanting to undergo sex change surgery, Jorgensen’s autobiography, “Christine: A Personal Autobiography,” was revolutionary in that challenged pejorative tabloid stories as well as encouraged other transgender women to write and publish their own stories. The 1970s and 1980s were filled with these personal narratives. The publication of such works highlighted the absence of autobiographies from transgender men. The 1980s and 1990s gave rise to queer theory. Scholars such as Judith Butler and Teresa de Lauretis took interest in questioning gender and exploring gender as a performance. Scholarship on queer theory received backlash from transgender people who argued that their lived experiences continued to be ignored. However, this body of literature has led to numerous works exploring the many facets of transgender experiences and lifestyles. While scholars continue to investigate this field, discussions of race gradually enter into these narratives, however, within the following works, discussions of black transgender individuals are

Gender is one of the most socially ingrained social constructs. The rigid enforcement of gender is harshly controlled by the medicalization and what I will refer to as the construction of the illness of gender transgression. I postulate that there are two forms of gender transgression: a general rejection of gender norms and a rejection of these boundaries in manners that do not fit into the dominant script of gender (i.e. deciding to transition). When someone “transgresses” the boundaries of gender in this latter way, I postulate, they are inculcated both by society and by the medical community to conform to a normative trajectory of transition. This relationship between a socially constructed identity to a molecularized body – a body

Thus, this law restricted male-to-female transsexuals from receiving vaginoplasty, making it impossible for these individuals to legally change the sex documented on their papers. As a result, finding employment or access to health care became a constant struggle. This theme of oppressing marginalized people is what ultimately leads to institutionalize discrimination as bylaws are created to target those who do not fit into social norms. As a result Namaste states, “transgendered discourse is utopic, and one profoundly informed by privilege” as political programs only benefit a select few such as those who already have jobs, homes, and access to health care (22). Thus, Namaste implores that those involved in transsexual politics and theory, as well as feminists, to focus on “making broader links among the structures that regulate marginalized people”. It is for this reason that Namaste cannot condone the actions of those that reside within Transgendered Officers to Protect and Serve (TOPS) as it entails transsexuals the ability to arrest prostitutes, drive homeless people away from a bench, send someone to jail, or “ticket the street kids trying to make a few bucks at the traffic lights” (29). Thus, Namaste concludes by stating that in order for change to begin, it is crucial for transsexuals and feminists to intervene in the criminalization that occurs within the lives of those who are

In a world moving advancing with near instantaneous publication worldwide the fringe edges of society have become more visible. One group of people that has had the spotlight shined on them is those suffering from gender dysphoria–persons who are not comfortable living in the bodies that they are born with and are often referred to as transsexual. As of 2010, there was an estimated population of less than 1,000 of these fringe members of our society incarcerated in state and federal facilities. (Brown)

Cheryl Chase article “Affronting Reason” and “Beards, Breast, and Bodies Doing Sex in a Gendered World” by Raine Dozier both illustrates the struggles of intersex and transgender face in society. Cheryl article focus on a child who is born intersex and now is dealing with her parents' decision of having a clitorectomy surgery. In Breads, Breast, and Bodies we see how transgender female to male dealt with society at a new point of view. Both stories reflect on the negativities each individual faced and also rise above the norm to embrace their new identity. Betray can cause trusting issue amongst one another, especially when that person is a family member.

In the mid-twentieth century, Christine Jorgenson became the first publicly known American trans woman to undergo sex reassignment surgery. Christine initially referred to herself as a “homosexual with a large amount of femininity”, before she knew the language for what she actually was (Meyerowitz, p. 59). She claimed that she needed desperately to live as a woman and later claimed that her “condition” was “an error of nature” (Meyerowitz, p. 61). She was initially sent to a psychiatrist