Choosing Terms of Empowerment

By Jessica Xavier

In my travels throughout the transgender community, I am often struck by the way transgendered persons refer to themselves. Everywhere I go, I hear people persist in comparing themselves to "real women", "genetic women", "native women" and even "women-born women". With this past summer's trip to Camp Trans and the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival still fresh in my mind, this last one made me wince, especially since the transgendered person who used it should have known better. But then again, we transgendered people know the limitations of language all too well when we are concerned.

In her lectures, Leslie Feinberg often makes the point of how our language and culture as transgendered persons has been taken and hidden from us by a western patriarchal society bent on preserving its male privilege and property. More of us are now becoming aware of the rich transgender tapestry woven throughout human history, but in the historical literature the lives of our predecessors are often obscured or confused with those of gay men and lesbians. Until Magnus Hirschfeld coined the term transvestite about 1920, and Dr. David Cauldwell coined the term transsexual about 1949, there were no modern terms to describe who we are. Both terms eventually caught on within the medical and psychotherapy professions, through which they were introduced into the vernacular. Yet these generic terms were not of our own choosing, and for many within our community, they have fallen into disfavor. For example, most who are prefer the term crossdresser to transvestite, which has a harsh, clinical ring to it. Perhaps the greatest appeal of the term transgender is that it originated from within our community, and thus we may claim it as our own.

Self-identification has become an important personal right, for if we do not assert who we are, then the power to self- define may be usurped by someone else, who usually screws it up. For example, the gay writer Paul Vernell recently described transsexualism as "the highest form of transvestism!" And the reasons behind the choice of terms people use to describe themselves are quite revealing. Pride, for example. When asked to describe himself, a crossdresser might say father, husband, soldier, football fan, doctor, lawyer, indian chief or whatever. But crossdresser or transgender is usually not mentioned, unless the listener is someone who is as well. The reason we don't identify ourselves as transgenders is very simple: We are fearful of the consequences of being open about it. And that fear comes from our shame.

Yes, shame, for without it, we wouldn't be afraid. Shame is the real reason 99% of the transgender community is closeted. People don't hide unless they have something to be ashamed of. In most cultures, a sexual or gender minority is forced to bear the stigmata of shame by an ordinary majority that neither understands nor tolerates it. Although the closeted nature of our community affords ample evidence of its shame, it is far more pervasive than even that. You can hear it at any convention or support group meeting, or read it in any letter or computer bulletin board conversation between transgenders. We use an alphabet soup as a shorthand that eases the pain of fully pronouncing who we are. TV. CD. TG. TS. TS what? Oh, MTF or FTM. But wait a minute. My life can't be condensed into just three letters. Are not MTF and FTM merely the directional vectors for sex transformation? Surely these letters cannot adequately describe transsexual human beings with all our differences and complexities?

Moreover, the yardsticks we use to measure ourselves in the elusive hunt to pass perfectly are always "real" or "genetic" women or men. Transsexuals are purported to live for the moment they can have surgery so they can at last be considered "normal". But what is so real or normal about the nontransgendered that we should want to mimic them and all their problems? Don't we have enough problems of our own? But more to my point, it is the repeated use of this type of language and comparisons when describing ourselves that forms the basis of our shame. These are terms of our inner, self-oppression. If we use terms that are filled with shame, we will internalize that shame. If we constantly compare ourselves to those who we are not, we will always be second best. But even worse, by acting out the shame we have been force-fed by those who do not understand us, we have become accomplices in our own stigmatization. Guilt follows shame, and like homosexuals who are stricken with the self-hatred of internalized homophobia, we transgenders have fallen victim to internalized transphobia. The price we pay as individuals is perpetual low-self esteem, but collectively, as a community, the larger victim is transgender pride.

When I came out as a transsexual in a support group, I was taught by the older, wiser transsexuals that I should immediately assimilate after my surgery and never tell anyone of my true sex origin. This formula for our success forms the core of the conventional wisdom of transsexualism, which has become ingrained after several decades of indoctrination by the medical and psychotherapeutic professions. Hide your selves. Hide your shame. Who you are is a freak. You must bury this knowledge deep, keeping this darkest secret from everyone, if you wish to live out the rest of your years happily and safely. And we did. Accordingly, in the early days of transsexualism, few of us ever associated with each other after our surgeries. Little wonder it's taken us this long to build a community of transsexual women and men.

And if you think you're immune to this shame, think again, Cleopatra. Denial buries our shame and guilt deep within all of us. And probably every transgendered person has it, even post-operative transsexual men and women. I have always believed that sex reassignment surgery only ameliorates, but doesn't cure, gender dysphoria. Although I've had surgery, I still missed out on my girlhood, my high school prom, and lots of other experiences non-transsexual women have had. I can't menstruate but I would do so (maybe not gladly) if I could have a baby. No matter what else we may accomplish in our lives, we will always be less than those we all have tried so terribly hard to emulate, either through crossdressing or surgery. And being second best will have long term effects on anyone's psyche. What can we do about it?

Building pride within a stigmatized group of people is never easy. To reject the dominant patriarchal paradigm that forces sexual and gender minorities to think their difference makes them deviant or evil takes a lot of courage, will-power, time and effort. Look at how our gay and lesbian cousins have grown over the past twenty five years since Stonewall. Their efforts are just beginning to pay off. For starters, we transgenders as a community could begin to make conscious efforts to choose and to use terms of empowerment when we refer to ourselves and to others like us, rather than repeating terms that others use to oppress us.

Here's one example you can use for referring to transsexuals, which I will credit here to Riki Anne Wilchins and Anne Ogborn. Rather than using MTF or FTM, or just transsexual alone, use transsexual women and transsexual men. It's doubly reinforcing, in that it uses us as the point of reference, not the non-transsexuals (or just the nons), and it also definitively gender-identifies us. Instead of "real" or "genetic", use nontranssexual or nontransgender men or women. Using this terminology will eliminate all the negative, oppressive comparisons. I am not a transsexual. I am a transsexual woman. Using either term alone does not fully identify who I am. It's that simple.

When we choose language to describe ourselves, we also differentiate ourselves from others in our community, and we must do so in ways which do not demean them for their differences from us. For example, the terms pre-operative and post-operative convey a subtle elitist message that post-operative transsexuals are somehow better than their pre-operative brothers and sisters. The terms "New Women" and "New Men" have a similar effect. Denise Norris has suggested using transsexual women or men with or without surgical experience. Similarly, instead of male or female crossdresser or transvestite, try using male or female transgender, or passing woman. And don't put words in quotes that demean our anatomy or our gender choices. For example, my vagina is not a "neovagina" nor is it a "vaginoplasty". Leave those terms for the male surgeons. Never put our pronouns in quotes. If we think about it, I'm sure there are lots more ways to put a more sensitive and positive verbal spin on the way we look at our lives.

As I mentioned earlier, personal identification is an important personal right, and if we fail to assert that right, then someone else will take it away from us. The main reason I went to Camp Trans at the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival this past summer was that our right of self-definition had been stolen from us, and we had to be there to reclaim it. Our sex, our gender, our bodies, our selves and our very lives cannot be held subject to arbitrary definition by a security guard at the gate (or by the producers, for that matter) of a music festival ostensively open to all women. Who we are is up to each of us to define, and in effect, we forced the festival producers to agree with us. I am a woman-born woman, because my mother gave birth to a transsexual female. But I won't use that term to describe who I am, because it is a term of oppression used by a few other women who don't know who I am. But they will know me eventually.

Similarly, I don't care for the term berdache, because that is a also an oppressive term applied by colonialists and imperialists to indigenous persons they encountered who happened to be differently gendered. What's wrong with their own terms, like Winkte or Nadle? Many people consider using someone's language as a sign of respect, and as modern-day transgenders, we should honor indigenous transgendered people whenever we have the opportunity. Once upon a time, the white man's guns gave him all the male privilege he needed to expropriate the right to identify the people he was subjugating. Cultures that respected the choices of their people to be differently gendered were obliterated, and their history and languages lost for centuries. So much for Manifest Destiny.

You might think I am hinting here at Transgender Political Correctness. Well . . . yes, I am. Before you object, I think we have forgotten that Political Correctness developed in our western culture because it became necessary to help people stop hurting themselves and others. Although it can be carried to uncomfortable extremes, PC has been successful in fighting racism and sexism. Because of it, most people now think that using racial slurs or derogatory names for women are abusive and rude. The politically correct choice of words has thus became a potent tool of empowerment, because it forced people to rethink the ways they spoke about and related to minorities, which sometimes included themselves as well. Accordingly, since shame is redolent throughout the transgender community, we need all the help we can get to start rethinking who we are. A little Transgender PC now could mean self-empowerment later. And the major transgender organizations should start using these terms of empowerment in their publications immediately.

Choosing self-descriptive words that empower us may not seem like much, but they are a first step toward reaching that elusive goal of Transgender Pride. It will take time, but if some of us begin to raise consciousness now, we will eventually reach everyone in our growing community. And the rising tide of Transgender Pride will lift all our other boats as well. We transgenders are a unique people, born with a special difference that has given us our own special gifts and perspectives to offer the nontransgendered world. Long overdue and years in the making, Transgender Pride is a notion whose time has finally come. So come on, all you transgender males and passing women, and all you transsexual men and women. Let's all get on board the Transgender PC Bandwagon together. We have nothing to lose but our shame.

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