| Introduction When we both (independently) began
research in this area in the latter half of the 1970s, the term gender dysphoria had been
in use for some time.
Transsexualism and transvestism however were in more common use certainly in the UK.
Even now, more than 20 years on, transvestism and transsexualism have not been expunged
from the literature (Bockting and Coleman, 1992) and indeed are still to be found in use.
The history of these terms and their conceptions has now been fairly well documented
(King, 1981; 1993).
At the time of the Second World War, transvestism had become the preferred term and was
used, across the literature, broadly enough to encompass those wishing to change sex
through to the 'automonosexual' fetishistic cross- dresser. With the wider availability of
reassignment procedures in the 1950s and 60s, a term was required to specify those
'transvestites' who wished for and were suitable for such procedures. In such cases,
Benjamin's 'transsexual' became the preferred term. It was not until the late 1960s that
these terms and their differentiation became standard throughout the literature.
No sooner had this happened, however, than these terms were being superseded by the
idea of 'gender dysphoria'. Although sometimes used synonymously with transsexualism,
gender dysphoria represents more than a change of terminology. The problem was that
transsexualism was too specific - it detailed a condition which only the patient's own
accounts could demonstrate, and it specified a type of treatment (SRS). Gender dysphoria
is, by contrast, a very general descriptive term for a symptom. To say that a patient
suffers from gender dysphoria is as non-committal as saying a patient suffers from back
pain or headaches. Further diagnosis and treatment is firmly retained in professional
hands.
All of these terms have limitations for research from a sociological point of view. In
the first place they presume pathology - things have gone wrong. We do not wish to deny
the pain of those struggling with issues surrounding their gender identity, but social
problems are not necessarily sociologist's problems.
As Peter Berger put it the sociological problem is not so much why some things 'go
wrong' .... but how the whole system works in the first place ... the fundamental
sociological problem is not crime but the law, not divorce but marriage... (1963: 49-50).
Secondly, they typically refer to a narrow range of cross-dressing/sex-changing
phenomena - those presented to the medical profession. Other phenomena which might be of
interest to the sociologist such as, for example, androgynous fashions in youth culture,
are excluded. Either that or they are reduced - as anthropological and historical
instances of cross-dressing and/or sex-changing often are - to mere examples of the modern
condition. Whilst this may be satisfactory from a medical perspective, for the sociologist
it removes from sight what may be radically different social characteristics.
Thirdly, when medical practitioners study transsexualism, for instance, they study the
characteristics of those labeled with this condition. As sociologists we may do the same
but we are also interested in looking at the behavior of those medical practitioners,
social workers, speech therapists and others who, from a sociological point of view, are
also part of what transsexualism means in our society.
From time to time we have therefore sought to use other terms such as gender reversal,
gender mobility and gender migration. Others have written of gender crossing (Shapiro,
1991; Whitehead, 1981). When one of us (Ekins) founded the Transgender Archive in 1986,
that title was chosen to reflect the wide base of the archive and that it was not confined
to material relating to medical conditions. The term transgender has now come to have a
number of connotations.
It can refer to 'any kind of dress and/or behavior interpreted as
"transgressing" gender roles' (Raymond, 1994: xxv). It has been used more
narrowly within the subculture as an umbrella term uniting transvestites and transsexuals
as the transgender community. More narrowly still, it has been used to refer to those who
live full-time in the 'opposite' gender but without surgery (Rudd, 1993: 134).
In the mid 1980s, the term 'gender blender' could be found in the mass media. 'Gender
blending' was first used, in an academic context, by Devor to refer to females who 'have
clear female identities and know themselves to be women concurrently with gender
presentations that often do not successfully communicate these facts to others' (1987:
12). Used in a much broader way, we think that the concept of a process of blending gender
is a useful one. Blending has two basic meanings -- to mix or combine, and to harmonize.
The use of this term points to something important about what is going on. It also allows
us to pursue our concern with those who -- in both senses -- attempt to, or succeed in,
blending various aspects of the culturally established components of gender, either in
respect of themselves (e.g. transvestites, transsexuals) or in respect of others (e.g.
medicine, the mass media).
Gender is attributed to social actors by self and others (Kessler and McKenna, 1978)
and is a fundamental element in the everyday presentation of self (Cahill, 1989; Goffman,
1979). Once a gender attribution has been made, expectations follow that an actor will
display the 'correct' blend of such things as dress and demeanor, sex object choice,
occupation, leisure time activities, and so on. In theory, the whole of social life could
be dichotomized by gender, but in practice, a lot of 'incorrect' elements are allowed into
the blend, particularly on an occasional and trivial level. More sustained and more
fundamental blending of the elements themselves threaten the gender categories themselves.
In most cultures this is problematic although some authors argue that in some societies
such as that of the North American Indians, a third gender category exists (Kessler and
McKenna, 1978; Herdt, 1994). Connell (1987: 76) argues that some transsexuals who live
openly as such in contemporary society may be seen in similar ways, as a 'third' gender
category.
Gender blending in the first sense - the mixing of various aspects of male and female
gender - has been seen in contemporary industrial societies as a pathological phenomenon,
properly apprehended within a medical discourse, or as a source of amusement to be
conceptualized as entertainment. Gender blending in the second sense of harmonization is,
arguably, a psychological and cultural imperative. Thus, in their accounts, individuals
seek to bring harmony to otherwise disparate elements (Ekins, 1993; King, 1993). Medical
and other interventions in cases of transsexualism or intersexuality seek to harmonize
gender identity, gender role, social status, the body, and so on. Media representations of
transsexualism can be seen to be mainly concerned with the symbolic maintenance of the
gender dichotomy (Pearce, 1981; Silverstone, 1982).
We have divided the paper into five parts. In each part, we comment on the major
developments and current areas focused on by social scientists, and consider their
implications for transgender studies.
Experiencing gender blending
A sociological approach certainly does not mean that individual experiences are of no
interest. On the contrary, we both subscribe to a sociological tradition which emphasizes
a respect for and an intimate appreciation of the lives of the people we study. That is
not to say that we simply report the lives of others but it does mean that our analyses
cannot be imposed from outside without regard to the way in which society's members make
sense of their own lives. One of the sociologist's tasks is to relate individual
experiences and biography to their historical and social context.
Prior to the categorization and medicalization of sexual 'perversions' in the latter
half of the nineteenth century, gender blending could be written about in terms of simple
descriptions of enjoyable experience and preferred behavior (Farrer, 1987; 1994).
Medicalization, however, brought with it new 'conditions' and the emergence of new
identities. Increasingly, gender blending experiences and behaviors were made sense of in
terms of the categories of 'science', most notably those of the 'transvestite' and the
'transsexual'.
A concept that is widely used in sociological writings as a means of imposing an
analytic order on experiences, actions and identities over time is that of career (Abrams,
1982; Ekins, 1993)). Its value lies in its incorporation of the ideas of movement, of
development, of becoming, and of personal history.
Furthermore, as Goffman (1968: 119) points out, it 'allows one to move back and forth
between the personal and the public, between the self and significant society', and is,
therefore, peculiarly sociological. Ekins' use of the methodology of grounded theory leads
him to reconceptualize the research arena of male cross- dressing and sex-changing in
terms of the basic social process (Glaser, 1978) of 'male femaling' (Ekins, 1993; 1996).
His analysis considers the major modes of male femaling within a phased ideal-typical
career path of the 'male femaler' and indicates oscillations between the major facets of
sex, sexuality and gender frequently confronted in each phase. This approach enables the
proper respect to be paid to the process and the emergent nature of much cross-dressing
and sex- changing phenomena. In particular, the approach facilitates an exploration of
neglected interrelations between sex, sexuality and gender, with reference to the
differing modes of femaling; to the categorizations of 'transvestite' and 'transsexual';
and to the constitution of 'femaling' self and world as variously sexed, sexualized and
gendered.
In the past and this is probably still true for most, the actions and emotions involved
in gender blending have initially been confusing and often distressing. Adopting an
identity which makes sense of things - 'finding oneself' as it is sometimes put - can
therefore be immensely liberating. As April Ashley put it 'You cannot imagine the comfort
in knowing that one is something, and not merely monstrous' (Fallowell and Ashley, 1982:
76). Those who we interviewed in the late 1970s and 1980s and into the 90s did not doubt
the existence of a special group of people characterized by a condition to which the terms
transvestite and transsexual had some reference, despite doubts about their own or others
'correct' identity and despite some controversy over the central characteristics of the
conditions. There were a number of aspects to this claimed identity or condition.
Firstly, it was endowed with a reality and a centrality which was denied to other
aspects of their existence which by contrast, would be described as 'not real', 'an act'
or peripheral to the 'real self'. In many cases, this real self was also a purely private
self or one which only a small number of others were aware of. In some cases the private
'real' self had become harmonized with public identity through 'changing sex'.
Secondly, transvestism and transsexualism were seen as pervasive aspects of self. They
were described as a part of the actor's nature of which they were 'always' aware. In some
cases, this pervasiveness also extended to actual effects on the person's life style, for
example influencing choice of job or house, spending patterns and, of course, in the case
of some transsexuals, resulting in an almost total change of life style and public
identity.
A third aspect of this state of being, perhaps readily inferred from the foregoing, is
the assumption of its permanence. Although some recalled believing at some time in the
past that it was or could be temporary, perhaps conceptualizing it as something which they
would 'grow out of' or which could be removed by therapy of some kind, at the time they
were interviewed, they were convinced that transvestism or transsexualism had been and
would be always a central feature of their existence.
Finally, as an inherent and integral part of their nature, transvestism or
transsexualism was seen as something over which they had no control. Whether childhood
experiences or biological anomalies were cited as the cause, the emergence of their
natures was not seen to be dependent on their own volition and neither could it be
effectively or permanently brought under their own control. Most informants reported
periods of fighting 'it' without any lasting success.
Their identities also contained a strand which related to conventional gender
identities. So male transvestites might talk of expressing their feminine self and male to
female transsexuals might see their quest for surgery as bringing their bodies into line
with their gender identity as women. Transvestite and transsexual identities only
made/make sense in relation to the conventional gender dichotomy
These identities were/are also hidden identities. The male transsexual and the male
transvestite in public seek to pass as women - not to be read as a transsexual or
transvestite.
In contrast, the transgender identity breaks down the gender dichotomy by mixing and
matching its characteristics in any combination. It is also a more open identity in that
transgenderists are perceived as neither male nor female.
Pushed further, the idea of permanent, core identities and the idea of gender itself
disappear. The emphasis today, at least in some parts of the literature, is on transience,
fluidity and performance. In Kate Bornstein's Gender Outlaw, she talks about 'the ability
to freely and knowingly become one or many of a limitless number of genders for any length
of time, at any rate of change. Gender fluidityrecognizes no borders or rules of gender.'
'A fluid identity', she continues, 'is one way to solve problems with boundaries. As a
person's identity keeps shifting, so do individual borders and boundaries. It's hard to
cross a boundary that keeps moving' (1994: 52 quoted by Whittle, 1996). In this writing,
however, the experiences and behaviors are made sense of in terms of the deconstructions
of postmodernist cultural theory rather than from the standpoint of the experiences of
cross-dressers and sex-changers themselves. In consequence, these writings have yet to
make a substantial impact on the subjective experience of the vast majority of gender
blenders. In that gender fluidity recognizes no borders or 'laws' of gender, the claim is
to live 'outside of gender' (Whittle, 1996; see also Devor, 1987): as 'gender outlaws'.
Whether this can be sustained remains to be seen.
The social organization of
gender blending
Under certain conditions, subcultures or communities develop around shared spheres of
activity. When that sphere of activity is considered deviant and is thus both unexpected
and without moral sanction, there are additional pressures towards subcultural or communal
formations. When an activity is deviant, engaging in it carries additional problems such
as those concerning access, secrecy and guilt. A subculture can thus be seen to provide
solutions to some of these problems. Deviant activities, to varying degrees, provoke a
hostile response from others. Such condemnation can further contribute to the emergence of
subcultural forms by reinforcing, alienating and segregating deviant groups (Plummer,
1975).
The men who wrote to various publications about their experiences of wearing female
clothing in the later years of last century and the early years of this (see Farrer, 1987;
1994), appear, in the main, to have pursued their activities in isolation from other men
who were similarly engaged. There is some evidence that around this time a number of
informal networks of cross-dressers were emerging, but it was not until the 1960s that
these became more formalized and extensive (King, 1993: chapter five). The male femalers
who provided the material on which Richard Ekins' analysis (1993) is based had available a
wide range of organizations and settings in which to pursue their activities along with
others in similar situations. By contrast, there has been little available to the 'female
maler' who has often been forced to carve a small niche in the world of the male femaler.
This is reflected in the literature which is almost exclusively concerned with male
femalers. In that literature we can discern two types of community.
The first type of community covers a range of small communities which seem to be
centrally concerned with doing rather than being, with celebrating and enjoying the
artistic possibilities and the pleasures of cross-dressing and its associated sexual and
other activities. In some cases such communities may be occupational ones concerned with,
for example, prostitution (Perkins, 1983), or female impersonation (Newton, 1979). Some
may be geographically located in those areas associated with deviant sexuality which are
to be found in most large cities -- Soho in London, Kings Cross in Sydney, the Tenderloin
in San Francisco.
The members of these communities are full time 'outsiders', living out their gender
'deviance' in 'deviant' ways -- stripping, engaging in prostitution, performing as female
impersonators in bars and night clubs (Driscoll, 1971; Kando, 1973). They may also be
involved in drug use or petty theft. This type of community is not consciously organized
as such although particular aspects of it will obviously require organization of some
kind. It depends primarily on face to face contact and is not literate in the sense that
its members are concerned more with enjoyment, expression or practice than analysis or
remote communication. The 'outpourings' of such a culture are in the form and language of
art -- for example, the photograph (Goldberg, 1993; Kay, 1976; Kirk and Heath, 1984; Berg,
1982; Mark, 1982; Newman, 1984) and the novel (Marlowe, 1969; Rechy, 1964).
The second type of community is that described by Feinbloom (1976), Talamini (1982) and
Woodhouse (1989). This is not delineated by a geographical area and its members are not
full time 'outsiders'. They come together because they feel they share a common problem,
one which is often hidden from the members of the other social worlds within which the
major part of their lives is lived. If and when their lives do become organized around
their gender deviance, this happens still within 'respectable' worlds, not the
'underworld' of prostitution or stripping. This community is more centrally concerned with
individual being or identity. It has been consciously engineered in relation to the terms
supplied by modern medicine. It is a literate community since one of its central
characteristics is the production of written accounts of its aims, its policies and its
activities. It does not depend on face to face contact (although this does, of course,
take place) since membership depends not on doing but on identity. It is possible to live
in remote parts, never meet another member, yet to feel a part of a community to which one
is linked by the written word. Such a community is thus less locally based than the first
type and its potential membership much larger. It forms a national and even international
network of those who identify with the terms transvestite or transsexual.
During the 1990s, but with roots reaching back earlier, some changes have taken place.
The two types of community mentioned above continue, but currently commentators have drawn
attention to a number of changes.
Firstly, the emergence of a greater diversity of transgendered people not conforming
simply to the transvestite/transsexual patterns and associations created to cater for
them. As Whittle puts it 'there is now a plethora of groups catering for a significant
level of diversity in cross-gendered behavior' (1996; see also Bolin, 1994).
Secondly, at the same time as there is an acknowledgment of diversity, there also
appears to be developing a greater sense of unity. So writers now comment on the
'transgender community' and this is sometimes seen to extend into the gay community (see
Mackenzie, 1994; Whittle, 1996).
Thirdly, the greater visibility of transgendered people as a permanent status or 'third
sex'. Formerly, the transsexual ideal was to disappear into the other gender and to be
known simply as a man or a woman. Transvestites typically pursued their activities in
solitude or in safe, private venues (Bolin, 1994; MacKenzie, 1994).
Fourthly, the greater involvement of transgenderists in gender and sexual politics both
in a practical and a theoretical sense. This has become possible as a result of the
changes detailed above and also as a result of the changing view of the political
significance of transgenderism (Bolin, 1994; MacKenzie, 1994). The influence of writers
such as Janice Raymond effectively silenced transgenderists for many years as it did other
groups whose behaviors or views were not seen as politically correct. (Whittle, 1996).
The medicalization of gender
blending
What ethnomethodologists call the 'natural attitude' towards gender (Garfinkel, 1967:
122--128: Kessler and McKenna, 1978: 113--114) assumes that all human beings will belong
to one of two discrete gender categories permanently determined on the basis of biological
('naturally' given) sex characteristics.
Congruence is expected both within and between a person's sex and gender. Congruence is
also expected between these two areas and a person's sexuality with the 'default'
assumption being probably, even in the 1990s, that this will be heterosexual. These are
expectations in both cognitive (this is how things are) and normative (this is how things
should be) senses.
Any breach of these expectations is therefore a potential threat to this aspect of what
constitutes our reality. In the face of threats such as these, societies: develop a
conceptual machinery to account for such deviations and to maintain the realities thus
challenged. This requires a body of knowledge that includes a theory of deviance, a
diagnostic apparatus, and a conceptual system for the 'cure of souls'. (Berger and
Luckmann, 1967: 131)
In contemporary industrial societies, the institution of medicine has assumed or been
given the task of maintaining this aspect of our reality, just as many other phenomena
have become 'medicalized' (Conrad and Schneider, 1980). The innocence with which the men
discussed by Peter Farrer (1987; 1994) pursued their activities, is now no longer
possible. Medicine has provided us with a language through which the activities of such
men are apprehended as pathologies which can be diagnosed, treated and, perhaps ultimately
prevented. So, now, medical perspectives stand out as the culturally major lens through
which gender blending may be viewed in our society. Other perspectives must take medical
erspectives into account whether they ultimately incorporate, extend or reject them.
The history of medical intervention in this area stretches over little more than a
hundred years. This history discloses much controversy over the nature of 'transvestism'
and 'transsexualism' and particularly over the appropriate methods of dealing with the
latter. Since the late 1940s, when the endocrinological and surgical means to 'change sex'
began to be more widely employed, transsexualism has dominated the literature with some
practitioners advocating physical or psychological methods directed at the removal of the
transsexual's 'pathological' wishes and desires, and others being willing to facilitate a
'change of sex' in what are regarded as appropriate cases. Both approaches can be regarded
as seeking to restore harmony in a situation of discord. Both are, in different ways (and
this is also true of the patients who seek out the practitioners of these approaches),
seeking to ensure that identity, social status and biology 'match'. The end result is that
the binary structure of gender is maintained.
The dominant medical position is that transsexualism is a 'given' disorder which has
been discovered. Several critics from outside the profession (Birrell and Cole, 1990;
Eichler, 1980; Raymond, 1980; Sagarin, 1978) and some within it (Socarides, 1969, 1775;
Szasz, 1980) have argued, in contrast, that transsexualism has been invented. The medical
conception of transsexualism is, it is claimed, an illusion, a fabrication whose
explanation must therefore be sought in terms other than the putative 'thing' itself. Once
conjured up, legitimated and disseminated, this illusion has real social consequences
through the actions of members of the medical profession, 'transsexuals' themselves and
other members of society, all of whom have been seduced into believing in it. The
invention of transsexualism is said to serve the interests of men and patriarchal society
(Raymond, 1980) or on whose account you read. Whilst we certainly would not deny the need
for a critical/skeptical stance towards medical or any other categories, we have argued
elsewhere (King, 1987; 1993) that the arguments of Raymond, Billings and Urban and others
are flawed and do not accord with empirical reality.
In what ways has medical practice changed during the 1980s and into the 90s? What
transsexuals wanted, in the past, was to slip invisibly into the other gender - to
assimilate. Transvestites wanted to be 'cured' if they came to the idea, they wanted to be
able to cross-dress without being seen to do so; to remain in private settings or to pass
in public. With regard to transsexuals, medicine either helped them to cross over
completely or remain where they were. Much the same was true with regard to the medical
approach to intersexual conditions, patients had to be one or the other, they could not
remain in between (Fausto-Sterling, 1993). Fausto-Sterling suggests that maybe we should
accept what she calls sexual multiplicity instead of shoehorning people into one or other
of the two available sexes. We know of at least one group of intersexual people who are
now campaigning for just that (The Intersex Society of North America). Something similar
seems to be occurring in the transgender field too. Bolin (1994), for example, argues that
one factor which facilitated the emergence of a transgender category was what she calls
the 'widespread closure of university-affiliated gender clinics in the 1980s. Such
clinics, in selecting patients for sex reassignment surgery, had enforced the segregation
of transvestites and transsexuals and the latter's conformity to conventional sex/gender
dichotomies. The reduction of such clinics, as she argues, left a smaller number of non
university-affiliated, 'client-centered' clinics which ontributed to 'greater flexibility
in the expression of gender identities' (p. 463).
This apparent shift in power may perhaps be reflected in Bockting and Coleman's use of
the term gender dysphoric client rather than patient. Such clients they claim 'often have
a more ambiguous gender identity and are more ambivalent about a gender role transition
than they initially admit' (1992a: 143). Their treatment program allows their clients,
they say to 'discover and express their unique identity' (1992a: 143) and 'allows for
individuals to identify as neither man nor woman, but as someone whose identity transcends
the culturally sanctioned dichotomy' (1992a: 144).
Gender blending and the media
The large medical and psychological literature dealing with cross-dressing and
sex-changing is probably larger than the prevalence of these phenomena would lead one to
expect (Hoenig, 1985). The coverage of these topics by the mass media is probably even
greater again, and certainly reaches a wider audience than does the medical and
psychological literature.
The terrain covered by the media is not the same as that covered by medical practice.
There is some overlap but media interest does not begin or end with the medical categories
of transvestism or transsexualism. Transgressing the boundaries between the categories of
male and female, in whatever way, seems to be always of interest to the media. However,
medicine has become the culturally major lens through which gender blending is viewed in
modern western societies. So, whilst the media do not simply reproduce medical knowledge,
this perspective has had a major impact on the media treatment of gender blending.
As one moves out from the few medical and psychological specialists in 'gender identity
disorders' -- through specialists in other psycho-sexual areas, psychiatrists and other
medical professionals -- to lay members of society, it becomes probable that 'knowledge'
of cross-dressing and sex-changing is framed less and less by the medical literature and
more and more by the mass media. There are grounds, then, for regarding the media as
potentially having the greater influence on the conceptions of these phenomena held by the
general public, the largest part of the medical profession and many of those who
themselves cross- dress and sex-change.
Given the secrecy that is imposed on those whose gender or sexuality falls outside the
mainstream, it is not surprising that the media play an important role in helping them to
gain a degree of self-understanding - 'assembling their stories', as Plummer calls it
(1994). In the stories of transsexuals in particular, encounters with media reports occur
frequently and are accorded some significance. Mark Rees, a female-to-male transsexual,
describes the impact a newspaper article had on him:
"In 1969, four years after my WRNS' discharge, I chanced to see an article in The
Times of London which described the condition of transsexualism. It was a moment of
enlightenment; at last it all fitted into place. I was transsexual" (Rees, 1996).
Such writers credit media reports with a profound effect on their understanding of
themselves. In the reports they find clarification of puzzling thoughts, feelings and
behavior; they find the suggestion of a possible solution to their problems; and some even
find enough practical information to begin to reach that solution.
This is not a state of affairs which is welcomed by some writers. Sagarin (1978),
Raymond (1980, 1994) and Billings and Urban (1982) who have been critical of the role of
medicine in relation to transsexualism have argued (complained?) that the American media,
pushed by a greedy medical profession and self interested transsexual groups, have induced
us to believe that transsexualism is a legitimate medical condition which can best be
managed by sex-reassignment. However, as we have argued elsewhere (King, 1987, 1993), in
Britain the media present a more complex picture of changing sex and cross- dressing, one
which does not simply reproduce medical perspectives and one which is not universally
favorable.
In addition to encouraging positive attitudes towards transsexualism and changing sex,
Billings and Urban (1982), Birrell and Cole (1990) and Raymond (1980) argue that one of
the wider consequences of the media dissemination of current conceptions of and responses
to gender dysphoria is, by affirming the link between sex and gender, a reinforcement of
an oppressive gender system . In a similar vein, Garber (1992) argues, with regard to the
discussion of the motives of Billy Tipton, that 'such normalization reinstates the binary
(male/female)' and 'recuperates social and sexual norms' (Garber, 1992: 69).
It is not possible to disagree: behind all the various press, television and radio
reports of cross-dressing and sex-changing and informing all the novels, films and stage
plays which deal with these themes, there is a necessary backdrop -- a system of two
gender categories, based on sex and distinguished by 'appropriate' dress, mannerisms and
many other characteristics. The 'self-evidence' of this system is what gives the media
content any point at all. Only on this basis can the producer and consumer make sense of
it. However, this is true of all media content and not only that fraction which is
concerned with gender blending in some way.
What may now, perhaps, be thought of as the traditional mass media, the press and
television in particular, continue to present us with personal stories and scandals much
as they have done since the 1950s. Alongside this, though, are occasionally new themes.
Thus a recent British documentary looked at the idea of a 'third sex' (QED, BBC1, 28th
March, 1995). The press and television in the form of teletext has also come to provide us
with 'contact services' and gender blenders are to be easily found there. An interesting
question is whether such ways of making contact with others are superseding or
supplementing the organized groupings. The latter, though, are beginning to make use of
the growing availability of computer networks.
The telephone has come to take on new roles in the late 1980s and 1990s. Like the press
and teletext, the telephone has, with the development of 'chat lines', provided new
methods of contact for gender blenders. Pre-recorded material may be accessed giving
medical advice and other information as well as pornography. Telephone sex lines are now
big business. About 330 million calls were made to premium rate phone lines in the United
Kingdom in 1992, producing a 200 million pound turnover for the industry. An estimated
twelve percent of this business covered adult services. A large number of these services
feature aspects of gender blending. These pre-recorded male femaling telephone scripts
provide a new and readily accessible source of masturbatory fantasy for male femalers
(Ekins, 1996).
Gender blending and gender politics
Until the late 1960s, to write of the political aspects of gender blending would have
made little sense. However, with the second wave of feminism and a new focus on the myriad
dimensions of gender, it became possible to conceive of ways in which the apparently
private practices of cross-dressing and sex- changing could have political significance.
In the era of the Gay Liberation Front in the early 1970s, 'it seemed to many
homosexuals that a new day was dawning, ushering in an era of spontaneity, openness and
liberation' (Weeks, 1977: 185). In retrospect, it seems that what was initially the
transvestite/transsexual community emerged too late to benefit greatly from the period of
'liberation'. By 1974, the end of the gay liberation period, cross-dressers and
sex-changers were only just struggling to reach the position from which their gay
counterparts had begun. Whilst there were some small groupings which showed a willingness
to engage with the issues being raised by the gay and women's movements, the importance of
these radical groupings, like those of the more conservative ones, probably lay in their
provision of a means whereby gender blenders could come together and forge identities as
transvestites and transsexuals.
In the mid 1970s, the largest and most influential organizations for transvestites and
transsexuals were the American Foundation for Full Personality Expression (FPE), and its
many offshoots such as the British Beaumont Society (King, 1993) or the Australian
Seahorse Club, all of which were criticized by sections of the gay and women's movements
as well as by other transvestites and transsexuals (Brake, 1976; Weeks 1977: 224--225).
These organizations were attacked for their failure to engage openly in sexual politics;
for their low profile 'closed closet' form; for their support of conventional norms and
structures such as marriage and the family as well as traditional sexual stereotypes
exemplified in the image of women portrayed by members and in their publications; and for
their attempt to normalize transvestism by excluding from or denying the presence within
their membership of, for example, transsexuals, homosexuals or fetishists.
Despite a few dissenting views such as those of Brake who in an article originally
given as a conference paper in 1974, noted that transsexuals and transvestites whose
'oppression is similar to that experienced by gay men and all women' (1976: 187) could be
perceived as, 'revolutionaries who publicly challenge the notion of ascribed gender'
(Brake, 1976: 188), the prevailing view came to be that cross-dressing and sex-changing
were conservative, reinforcing traditional gender roles and (in the case of
transsexualism) reinforcing the link between gender and biology.
By the end of the 1970s, transsexualism was seen by some writers to have increasing
political significance. Raymond (1980; 1994) is the best known exponent of these views.
She argues that transsexuals are among the victims of patriarchal society and its
definitions of masculinity and femininity. By creating transsexualism and treating it by
means of sex change, the political and social sources of the 'transsexuals' suffering are
obscured. Instead it is conceptualized as an individual problem for which an individual
solution is devised. By means of this illegitimate medicalization, then, the 'real'
problem remains unaddressed. Medicalization also serves to, 'domesticate the revolutionary
potential of transsexuals' who are, 'deprived of an alternative framework in which to view
the problem'. (p. 124)
Raymond also sees other reasons for the creation of transsexualism and sex change
surgery. She places these alongside, 'other male interventionist technologies such as
cloning, test-tube fertilization, and sex selection' as an, 'attempt to wrest from women,
the power inherent in female biology' (p. xvi) or 'an attempt to replace biological women'
(ibid., p. 140). She also sees 'gender identity clinics' where transsexuals are 'treated'
as prototypical 'sex-role control centers' (p. 136). Thus transsexualism is not merely
another example of the pervasive effects of patriarchal attitudes - it actually
constitutes an attack on women. 'Transsexualism constitutes a sociopolitical program that
is undercutting the movement to eradicate sex role stereotyping and oppression in this
culture' (p. 5). Views such as this were sometimes used, for many years, to legitimate
violence towards transsexuals and effectively silence the production of any dissenting
views within the academy.
In contrast, crossing the gender border is now seen by some as subversive,
transgressive. Recently Garber (1992: 17), for example, has argued that 'transvestism is a
space of possibility structuring and confounding culture: the disruptive element that
intervenes, not just a category crisis of male and female, but a crisis of category
itself'. Similarly, Anne Bolin (1994: 485) argues that the transgenderist 'harbors great
potential to deactivate gender or to create in the future the possibility of
"supernumerary" genders as social categories no longer based on biology'. This
is because of its 'decoupling of physiological sex, gender identity and sexuality' (1994:
483).
Conclusion
Gender blending is not a static phenomenon which remains unchanged as we look at it
from different perspectives. At times, the perspectives we use can have a major impact on
its nature as many writers have argued the medical gaze has had. Moreover, as a social and
cultural practice, it changes as a result of other dynamics. Over the past ten to fifteen
years, gender blending has become more complex and diverse. It has also been subjected to
some reassessments and new interpretations of its political significance. For some, the
issue of transsexualism has been largely superseded by debates over transgenderism or what
has been called 'sexuality's newest cutting edge' (Raymond, 1994: xxv). In particular,
gender blending has achieved a position of prominence in a number of recent contributions
to cultural studies and in what has come to be known as queer theory. This, according to
Segal (1994: 188) 'seeks to transcend and erode the central binary divisions of
male/female, heterosexual/homosexual in the construction of modern sexualities'.
Once this move is made, however, the tension in the umbrella term 'gender blending'
becomes apparent. As Plummer (1996) points out: '"Gender blending"... might
imply that a core gender exists that can be mixed, merged and matched'. On the other hand,
it might refer to those '"blenders" who transcend, transgress and threaten',
with a view to living 'beyond gender'. In each of the areas we have considered, we have
traced a shift from the former to the latter.
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Correspondence and requests for materials to:
Richard Ekins
University of Ulster,
Londonderry, UK
Dave King
University of Liverpool,
Liverpool, UK
Email: d.king@liverpool.ac.uk |
