The Transgender Turn: The Archive's View of Eleanor Rykener

"Undecimo die Decembris anno regni regis Ricardi secundi decimo octavo, ducti fuerunt hic coram Johanne Fressh maiore et aldermannis civitatis Londoniensis Johannes Britby de comitate Eboracum et Johannes Rykener, se Elianoram nominans veste muliebri detectus."

The Interrogation of Eleanor Rykener
London 1394

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Introduction

On December 11th, the Archive -- London Metropolitan Archives, Plea and Memoranda Roll A34, m.2 -- was present and witness to the turn of events on Cheap Street between John Britby and Eleanor Rykener, recording their confessions and the interpretations of these confessions by the scribe. In the previous sections, the Archive has been taken as an extension of the scribe's view of the events. But the Archive is also our only record of Britby's view of events. And likewise, the text is also our record of Rykener's view of events. Thus while the scribe put ink to paper, the authorship of the Archive is a collaborative work with words, perspectives, and narratives being contributed by multiple persons. Because it is an assemblage of multiple co-authors, the Archive is not identical to any one view of Eleanor Rykener or her story. As such, the Archive is worth considering in and of itself as evidencing the dysphoria in the archive of Eleanor Rykener and the wider dysphoria in the medieval archive which has been compounded by the Cisgender Turn and which the Transgender Turn seeks to answer.

What does it mean that the Archive, Plea and Memoranda Roll A34 m.2, is a dysphoric Archive? The short definition of dysphoria provided by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) attests that gender dysphoria occurs when one's gender identity or expression conflicts with the gender assigned by society, for a period of at least six months. The longer diagnostic definition also acknowledges the present of a disgust for certain forms of gender and an overwhelming desire for another form of gender. In both these respects, the Archive, A34 m.2, both reflects dysphoria, embodies dysphoria, and creates dysphoria. In the first case, the Archive reflects the dysphoria in the courtroom. The central question of the interrogation seems to be whether or not Rykener is a woman, Eleanor (according with her expressed and identified gender), or a man (according with the assigned gender given by the court and other parts of her history as "John"). The courtroom reflects the textbook circumstances of dysphoria. Furthermore, I would argue that the Archive, A34 m.2, does indeed have three co-authors, Eleanor Rykener, John Britby, and the scribe. Because the Archive is the composite perspectives of all three regarding Rykener's gender, the Archive itself embodies this dysphoria of self and society, identity and expression versus social assignment. The Archive also seems to embody the tensions, disgust, and desires of all three. The Archive records that Rykener calls herself Eleanor, yet repeatedly calls her John nonetheless, yet uses Latin to carefully avoid using gendered pronouns. The Archive embodies the disgust for and desire for different genders. Finally, as seen in the consideration of the Scribe as the perspective which greatly informs the Cisgender Turn on Eleanor Rykener, the Archive is also the grounds on which a Transgender Turn may arise as well. 

What do we do with dysphoria? This is a foundational question that the Transgender Turn seeks to answer on the individual and systematic scales. Faced with evident dysphoria, the cisgender turn may very well throw up its hands with frustration or joy. Unspeakable! Ambiguous! Queer! Yet following the lead of Eleanor Rykener's turn, a transgender turn on the Archive, A34 m.2, might likewise seek to alleviate dysphoria by transitioning discourses. This means changing some of the ways that we discuss the Archive, for instance the names and pronouns that we use, but does not necessarily mean that problematic or messy parts of history are merely erased. Granted, some forms of transition use the formulation of absolute change as describe by Carolyn Walker Bynum in Metamorphosis and Identity, wherein the past and future are divided absolutely at the point of change. Yet this is not the only or perhaps the most ethical form of trans history. As Sandy Stone writes, "transsexuals must take responsibility for all of their history" (Stone 49). So must the Transgender Turn. Yet how do we move forward without erasing the past? How do we synthesize the old turn and the new turn? Once again, Rykener's leads the way by epitomizing a Transgender Turn based on consent, payment for labor and a privileging of the transitioning identity.

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Transitioning

Despite the cisgender turns' ignorance and compounding of the problem, the dysphoria of the Archive can follow the transgender turn toward transitioning by ethically engaging it within the terms it sets for consensual use. While the dysphoric archive contains the stories of multiple persons, cisgender and transgender, only the consent of the cis persons has thus far been affirmed by later historians. Although certainly coerced into telling his story by the courts, John Britby consents to tell his story within the persona of John Britby. Because this name and identity seems to match his given name and identity, defining him as cisgender, the scribe and historians affirm both by telling the story of John Britby as John Britby's story. The power to tell one's story and one's name may be considered perfunctory by some, yet the fact that it can occur without remark points to an element of cisgender privilege perpetuated by the cisgender turn. Britby consents to tell his story in a certain way and that certain was is respected. We see how remarkable this consensual exchange between storyteller, scribe, and historian is when we consider the case within the same archive wherein the grounds for consent are not honored. Like the cisgender man, the transgender woman, Eleanor Rykener, is also asked to give her name and story to the court. The name she gives the court is Eleanor. The story she tells is Eleanor's story, mostly concerning her life as Eleanor. These are the grounds for her consent, that she will tell her story but she will tell her story her way: as Eleanor. Yet the scribe and the cisgender turn on the archive do not honor the conditions of this consent. The scribe and cisgender turn uses Rykener's story but remove or side-line Eleanor from it. Instead, the scribe and cisgender turn calls her John, her deadname. Throughout the archive, the scribe calls her John. The cisgender turn follows suit. Alternatively, some in the cisgender turn force Eleanor on the same level as John, describing her as John/Eleanor. Even as Eleanor is placed alongside John, however, she is placed second. As ever, the supposed cisgender persons gets their turn first and the transgender turn comes second. Yet Rykener did not consent to tell her story as "John" or as "John/Eleanor." She consented to tell her story as "Eleanor." The story is thus the story of Eleanor Rykener, wherein John is a footnote. Thus the dysphoria arises from the lack of honoring the conditions for consent. Thus the demand of the transgender turn to transition how scholars approach the archive, to diminish the dypshoria, to eschew the deadname in favor of Rykener's self-identification, and to honor the grounds for a consensual telling of her story.

Before she would consent, Eleanor Rykener demanded to be paid. The demand for transgender persons to be paid for their labor goes hand in hand with Rykener's conditions for consensual relations between the trans body, the trans story, and those who would use them. Yet how should Rykener be paid for her story? No longer living nor with identifiable ancestors, such payment cannot be monetary in the same form as an author might receive from consumers and publishers for sharing her story. Certainly, Rykener was not likely paid by the courts for her story. Indeed, she may have been punished instead. Yet to merely follow the medieval court's treatment of Rykener should not be the motto of the transgender turn toward the archive. Rather, we should consider how else we might honor Rykener's insistence that trans lives be compensated for their labor and use. At this point, another option arises from elsewhere in medieval scholarship: citation. Why should we not consider Eleanor Rykener an author of her own story? Critics might respond that Rykener did not write down her story, that the writer of the Archive is the scribe. Yet other cisgender medieval cisgender storytellers likewise utilize scribes, indeed they may even had been illiterate, and we still give them the honor of citing them as authors. The Book of Margery Kempe is one such example. The Book boasts of using a scribe, multiple scribes, yet scholarship still has adopted the tradition of calling the Book her book, the Book of Margery Kempe. Shall we deny Rykener, another medieval woman who may likewise have been illiterate and therefore dependent on another man to scribe her story? Now, one might respond that Kempe had more control and intention in composing her book than Rykener does over her story. Yet this merely extends the prejudice for literate male authors, or cisgender authors, to include a prejudice for authors of a class and wealth to claim control over their words. Kempe likewise found herself before courts and in prison, yet she had money to tell her side of the story and to preserve it in a book. For all the payment she received in exchange for her sexual consent from the Britby's of her city, Rykener does not have the class nor money nor cis male identity to purchase control over her words. Thus taken from her by coercion, Rykener's story is taken, used, copied, and retold within the cisgender turn without ever paying the author back. This injustice and break from Rykener's conditions for consent might likewise be rectified by another transition in scholarship: naming Eleanor Rykener as an author of her story. Or, at very least, she should by listed as a co-author alongside John Britby who likewise tells part of Rykener's story. Only by paying Rykener through citation and a byline can the transgender turn establish and maintain a commitment that is as important for medieval trans lives as modern trans lives: if you wish to use trans stories and trans bodies, you should pay trans subjects, at very least give them the credit of authorship over their own lives, bodies, names, and stories.

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John – Eleanor is a coproduction by TEHDAS Theatre and puppet theatre HOX Company.

 It was also part of the Turku European Capital of Culture 2011 official program. 

It has been touring in England, Italy, France and USA after the premiere.

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The Transgender Turn: Eleanor Rykener's View of Eleanor Rykener

"Qui ab eo argentum pro labore suo petens sibi consentiebat, 

invicem transeuntes ad illud complendum usque stallum predictum."

The Interrogation of Eleanor Rykener
London 1394

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Introduction

On December 11th, Eleanor Rykener (Elianoram Rykener) confirmed that she had been standing on Cheap Street around 8:00-9:00 PM, where and when she turned back upon and negotiated with a local man, John Britby. She was this day, as in many days before, presenting as a woman and calling herself Eleanor. She learned to perform sex work from a woman, Anna. She also transitioned into living as Eleanor with her teacher's assistance. Responding to Britby's accosting, Rykener demanded to be paid before performing any sexual acts with him. This exchange was one of a series of such exchanges that Rykener procured from other men, for pay, and other women, seemingly without pay. After this turn of the exchange, she consented to sex. She proceeded to a local horse stall and completed the transaction for which Britby had accosted her. Soon after, they were both turned on by local law enforcement, then brought to the court. Therein, Rykener consented to tell her story and how she viewed herself as Eleanor Rykener.

This is the story of Eleanor Rykener from Eleanor Rykener's perspective, and it is important to consider, especially given the way that the Cisgender Turn in scholarship has evaded such a critical trans perspective. First, it is socially important to recognize that although a cisgender man initiated the exchange with her, accosting her, Rykener turns back on him with demands that her payment and consent be established. She turns the narrative and power dynamic of the exchange around, evidencing that her trans womanhood will not be a passive text on which he will write his cis manhood. Second, it is narratively important to recognize that although the transgender turn to speak and historicize comes after the cisgender turn, Rykener consents to tell her story and name her body according to her own words. After the loss of power from various cisgender turns against her, the transgender turn works to reclaim the trans narrative and body.

The second interaction and story to be told between Britby and Rykener centers around the trans woman's demand for consent. In Latin, the word used is "consentiebat." This means, "to assent to, favor, fit / be consistent / in sympathy / unison with, agree." By demanding that payment and consent be factored into the story, Rykener works to reclaim agency over her body and story. He may see her but she turns his head. He approaches her but see receives him. He talks to her but she responds. He asks for sex but she demands payment. He engages with her sexually but she consents. He takes her to a private place but she goes there with him, may even lead him there. He touches her but she touches him back, contact always goes both ways even if only as a form of resistance. Then he is the first to speak but she speaks the most and gets the final word. Consistently, the cisgender turn may initiate and frame events but the transgender turn powers, resists, and reclaims her time, voice, and history.

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Consenting

The critical importance of the transgender turn that Eleanor Rykener is that she transforms a moment of staring, gazing, and being turned on from an accosting cisgender subject into a moment of mutual turning toward one another; into a moment insisting on consent. In her chapter on "Beholding" from Staring: How We Look, Rosemarie Garland-Thomson argues that given how trans people, queer people, crip people, women, and people of color are consistently stared at -- she discounts not being stared at as a viable or practical option -- we must learn how to shift the power from being all about their looking and towards our looks. The looking, as in the case of John Britby's cisgender turn, does indeed take power over and away from Rykener. But Garland-Thomson sees ways that power over one's looks can be reclaimed. "By putting themselves in the public eye, saying 'look at me' instead of 'don't stare,'" writes Garland-Thomson, "people... practice what might be called visual activism" (193). This visual activism is defined as (1) using the urge for others to look at us in order to make them see new things about us, (2) educating those who stare in order to make them look at people differently, better, and (3) to "create a sense of obligation that primes people to act in new ways: to vote differently, to spend money differently, to build the world differently, to treat people differently, and to look at people differently" (Garland Thomson, 193). In all these respects, we may witness in the way the trans woman turns toward the cisgender gaze, that Rykener enacts a form of visual activism which compels others to see new things about her, to see her differently, and to motivated to provide payment and consent to those formerly treated as passive bodies.

Although we are told that Rykener wears women's clothing and appears for all intents and purposes as a woman, there is no record of how Rykener looked. However, we have sufficient evidence to know that she turned heads. From her confession, we know that John Britby was not the first man (or woman) to turn about and give Rykener a second look. Furthermore, she not only made them look twice but she could hold their look long enough to receive sexual advances, gifts, and payment. She was beheld by the cisgender men but by her beauty she actively held onto them. "Beauty," writes Garland-Thomson, "is a perceptual process and a transitive action: it catches interest, prompts judgement, encourages scrutiny, creates knowledge" (Garland-Thomson, 187). Recognizing the beauty of Rykener is to recognize her power and the way transgender can turn power dynamics. In his cisgender turn, Britby does not mere stare at Rykener in a way that only degrades and mocks her. Certainly he objectifies her. He may be said to exploit her body. Yet to see Rykener only as such an object is to ignore how her beauty held power over others. She creates and exploits his interests and desires for her. She prompts him to judge her as worthy of payment. She uses the power of her beauty to inform him that she has will, agency and demands that consent be established. 

Tying consent to payment, the transgender turn on the cisgender gaze emphasizes how consent evidences a sort of collaboration, where one party exists, "in unison with" or "agrees" to work with the other. Consent and payment is one way the transgender turn works with and even accomplishes some of the desire of the cisgender turn. The demand for and exchange of money does represent one way that the cisgender patriarchy has domineered and exploited the body of women and especially trans women, past and present. Yet the narrative of victimhood that often frames the discussion of sex workers, including Rykener, may dangerously reduce the flow of power to a unidirectional current from a cisgender subject to a transgender object. The interrogation records that Britby did not offer Rykener money. She requested it before she would consent. This signals the existence of cis-misogynistic assumptions about power at play when Britby turns on Rykener. The cisgender turn assumes the passivity of the transgender body, allowing cisgender subjects to look at the trans object, to use the transgender object as a tool or instrument towards some end which the cisgender subject desires, and in the end to narrate the encounter in ways that benefit the cisgender subject. But the demand for payment evidences that Rykener knows that the cisgender agent wants to use her. It is an important turning point that she sees being used by cisgender persons as labor in which she is an active participant. She rejects passivity and collaboration. In "Beholding," Garland-Thomson discusses the theories of Elaine Scarry, and the "compact between starer and staree [which] is not static but collaborative" (Garland-Thomson, 187). Looking is not just something the cisgender agent does on his own. Rykener is active in the exchange, she owns her look and uses her look. The exchange of money is representative of that likewise, sex is not something that a man simply does to a woman or a cis person does to a trans person. Sex is collaborative. Yet given the power dynamics, the sex is collaborative but not a collaboration between equals. The trans woman is being exploited (from the moment he turned on her to the time spent in the horse stall) and wants compensation for that exploitation.

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The Cisgender Turn: The Scribe's View of Eleanor Rykener

"...pro seperali examinatione coram dictis maiore et aldermannis super premissa fienda et audienda etcetera."

The Interrogation of Eleanor Rykener
London 1394

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Introduction

On December 11th, the scribe of the Plea and Memoranda Roll A34, m2, observed and composed the interrogation of Eleanor Rykener and John Britby. Unlike John Britby who only recounts his turn upon Rykener, the scribe maintains a longer gaze and records multiple turns in her life story. The scribe is not named within the text but his presence and actions are made evident by the document he composes.

Considering the scribe as a viewpoint given for Eleanor Rykener is important in two respects. First, it acknowledges that the document which records the interrogation is not unbiased and neutral. The text has a subjective view point, embodied, composed, and facilitated by the scribe. It is likely that the scribe would have been male and would have been cisgender. Even if he was not, his text demonstrates features that follow cisgender conventions. The scribe participates in and reinforces the cisgender turn even if he himself was not cisgender. Second, by marking the scribe as an active subjective cisgender viewpoint, this brings the habits and alliances of subsequent scholarship by cisgender medievalists into a new light. For instance, if the trans woman calls herself Eleanor but the cisgender scribe calls her John, then generations of scholars call her John, this suggests an impulse among cis scholars to take the word of a cis scribe over that of a medieval trans woman.

Just like the scribe writes himself out of the record, the scribe also participates in unwriting, unspeaking, and un-transing transgender from the medieval record. By considering the relevance of the unspeakable vice, the "nephandum," we can understand how medieval trans lives are made inarticulate and insubstantial by scribes and scholars that articulate cis history (cistory) at the expense of trans history.

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Un-Speaking

Cisgender history (cistory) has made much of sodomy and transgender being unspeakable, what the scribe calls, "nephandum." Yet the inability for speech and language is not essential to either the sexual acts or gendered being of Eleanor Rykener. Rather, this silence demonstrates the way in which trans language has been disabled by the cisgender turn. Cisgender history (cistory) is thus a work of composition which comes into being as much by what is selected for inclusion or articulation as what is excluded. In this way, cistory is like the image of the woman picking dicks from a tree in another infamous medieval manuscript. Such an image represents how the cisgender turn sees all fruit as penises ripe for the picking but ignores both the other fruits, the other possible interpretations of the strange fruit, and the pickers who is forgotten in favor of penises they pick. Everything looks like a nail from the point of view of a hammer. Everyone with a penis looks like cisgender men from the point of view of a cisgender man, including a transgender woman. Such a perspective and account must then be considered not as an unbiased and neutral recording of history but as the subjective construction of cis history through the un-transing of trans history which is rendered unspeakable.

In the first case, the cisgender turn cannot articulate language for transgender because of a certain surprise which indicates both disgust and desire. This surprise is evident in the various genres in which transgender tends to be represented in cisgender media, all of which incite the body in some way, called body genres: horror (fear), detective stories (anxiety/suspense), pornography (arousal), and comedy (laughter). We see how this impulse is present both in the presumably cisgender scribe and cisgender scholar of Eleanor Rykener when Carolyn Dinshaw argues that the Plea and Memoranda roll has all the characteristics of a "fabliau." In cisgender literature in the Middle Ages and today, it is a given that there is something funny about realizing that one's sexual partner is a trans woman. Yet the courtroom setting of the interrogation also suggests something of a crime procedural and detective story, as the scribe records how the cis man and trans woman were detected, "detectus," by law enforcers. This suggests a sort of anxiety or suspense which the confessions will resolve. Yet the sexual exchange at the center of the interrogation also reflects the pornographic genre of the text. Not only is the unspeakable vice being named, it is being elaborated to an extreme degree by Rykener's prolonged confession wherein she names her numerous partners. The scribe's recording becomes something like the writing of an erotica as he puts Rykener's numerous unspeakable acts into language. Indeed, even the interrogation of her gender as a trans woman demonstrates the cisgender turns unspoken interest in her embodiment. Does the scribe look at her and describe her with anxiety or fear? His choice of Latin suggests an ambivalence in regards to pronouns, as Latin allows him to compose her story with minimal references to her gender. Is he aroused by her speaking the unspeakable? Is he amused or laughing? If the word unspeakable, "nephandum," is truly central to the scribe's view of Eleanor Rykener, then it is a word that defines how the cisgender turn often stands wordlessly stunned and affected by the transgender body.

In the second case, the cisgender turn composes the transgender life as unspeakable because cis scribes and scholars do not want to have to find a way to speak (or read) trans life. Transgender is made unspeakable, "nephandum," in cistory. Then insofar as it finds its way into cistory, transgender becomes un-transed. The scribe participates in this un-transing by identifying Eleanor Rykener primarily by her deadname, John Rykener, "Johannes Rykener." Although she introduces herself into the record as Eleanor, "Elianoram," the scribe choses to name her previously as John and then to repeat the name John no less than twenty-five times. Thus, despite the ambivelence that the scribe records regarding Rykener's gender and pronouns, the name, "John," is unambiguously decided upon by the scribe. It might be argued that the scribe was compelled by the societal norms and language, giving him no extant alternatives. Or that the scribe was compelled by the professional and legal demands of his job to refer to Rykener by her name of record. Yet that defense would only further emphasize how the scribe's view of Eleanor Rykener participates in the cisgender turn. The suggestion that the scribe was compelled by preexisting conditions which default to cisgender standards and erase, exclude, or correct transgender facts demonstrates how the cisgender turn is a powerful idealogical force. Transgender people in the twenty-first century still have to deal with medical and legal authorities referring to them by their deadname because of the excuse or compulsion to use the given name of record. A trans person's deadname is given to them first and their chosen transgender name is given second. Chronologically, the cisgender name gets its turn first and the transgender name gets its turn second. But the insistence on the deadname even after the trans person corrects the record, such as when Rykener names herself as Eleanor for the court, demonstrates how the cisgender turn is an active force that distorts the facts in order to bring them in line with cisgender standards. Eleanor Rykener is un-transed by the record into being John. Cisgender scholars, even queer cis scholars, further participate in the cisgender turn by following the naming conventions of the scribe, likewise calling Rykener, "John," despite Eleanor's recorded act of self-naming. Cistorians prefer to follow the pattern of cis authorities and scribes rather than follow those offered by trans persons. This is why cistory is not merely history written by cis people. If history is the ideal presentation of the past as it was, this is not what cis scribes and scholars do by manipulating facts and narratives to fit into cisgender norms. Rather, the warping and un-transing of the past to accord with cisgender stories and histories is not history but cistory. Perhaps the transgender turn likewise presents a subjective view-point in contradicting and correcting the cisgender turn, yet meeting turn for turn will be necessary if we are ever to begin to see the ways cistory has warped our collective histories and made our past unspeakable.

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The Praxis of Silence: Teresa de Cartagena and Grove of the Infirm

"Who could hear with the ears of his soul such healthy advice if his physical ears were filled with the noise of human voices?"

Teresa de Cartagena

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Deafness is traditionally defined as a disability but medieval and modern deaf writers have long made the case for the concept of “deaf-gain.” As part of our embodiment narrative exercises, we have been pushing beyond the intellectual assent to disability theory and into the praxis of enacting life and ideas together. Towards that end, each of you will practice the habit of Teresa de Cartagena by engaging silence physically, intellectually, and socially.

By intentionally experiencing silence in a loud, busy, stimulating modern world, you will engage to the writing of Teresa de Cartagena in a way that makes the theory into an embodied lesson and consider the challenges as well as the benefits of silence.

The Praxis of Silence will begin at the usual class-time (5:30 PM) on Monday. After this time, you have 24 hours to find an 1 hour 15 min of silence. The first critically important and integral task is to find somewhere as perfectly silent as possible to sit or stand for an hour and fifteen minutes. This may be a museum, a library, a park (be safe), or even your own empty room. Please do not use music or other audio to cover over the ambient noise. Note: what you will experience is NOT the same as what deaf people necessarily experience. Rather, you will be learning in your own way and with your own embodiment what it means to live in and with silence.

While you sit in silence, you are to limit your activities and distractions. You may walk around, think, and do some light reading from the book of Teresa de Cartagena OR from read the lyrics to some form of music (e.g. as Teresa does the Psalms). However, reading should only consist of less than half (30 min max.).

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Questions

Before 24 hours is up, you must write a four paragraph post that uses two quotes from Teresa de Cartagena’ in order to help you narrative your embodied experience of silence. How does the theory inform your praxis? How did the physical experience inform your theory? Consider attached questions.

How did the experience of silence affect your body and mind?

• Consider whether or not you moved, fidgeted, sat motionless, etc.
• Consider what emotions and sensations came and went
• Consider how your mind and thoughts changed over the hour.

How did the experience of silence make passages of the Grove of Infirm clearer?

• Consider how certain sentences are different to read than to experience
• Consider how words often are short-hand for complex physical events
• Consider how reading changes in quiet versus among noise

How did reading the Grove of the Infirm affect how you experienced silence?

• Consider what things you focused on because of the book
• Consider how you felt about the experience because of the book
• Consider how the book made the experience an intellectual one

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Additional Pedagogical Resources

Additional Disability Studies

Additional Medieval History

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Monsters: Disability and Narratives of Embodiment

“Here’s what I think: the only reason I’m not ordinary 

is that no one else sees me that way.”

Wonder
RJ. Palacio

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Course Description and Outcomes

Why are monsters so ubiquitous in literature and art? How do they, and other literary villains and anti-heroes, reinforce cultural values and anxieties? Who or what are the monsters of our own cultural moment? In this seminar, we will explore the history and representation of monsters in western culture. Using J.J. Cohen's Monster Theory, as well as other texts from disability and post-colonial studies, we will examine monsters not merely as otherworldly creatures, but as figures that stand in for a wide range of "undesirables" and "others." Readings and films for this class will be drawn from the distant medieval past up to modern horror and fantasy films, and will feature the monsters said to live on the edge of the known world, mystical visionaries, sideshow freaks, hallucinatory apparitions, witches, and even a few vampires and werewolves.

In particular, this seminar will focus on the constructions of disability from the medieval period until the current day through narratives of embodiment. Within the genre of monster stories, disability is conceptualized as a material state and social state. Over time, these states are supposed to derive from God, nature, individual or community acts of will. Utilizing crip and monster theory which understands each as "cultural bodies," these premises and their subjects will be examined to determine (1) how the narratives use tropes, frames, and signs to establish certain assumptions about embodied difference, (2) what ethical problems exist within this use of cultural power, and (3) how these narratives might be resisted or changed to more ethically empower those marked as the monsters and the disabled.


Course Objectives (Reflecting SAGES Learning Outcomes)

By the end of the course you will be able to T.E.A.C.H. on a range of ethical, historical, and aesthetic subjects:

• THINK critically on the rhetorical and ethical value of cultural narratives 
• ENGAGE respectfully across perspectives alongside and opposing your own 
• ARGUE dialectically with thesis driven claims that actively engage existing debates 
• COMPOSE collaboratively using evidenced-based research and peer-review 
• HONOR differences with nuance, complexity, and sympathy

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Selections from the Reading List

Monsters and Disability is structured around J.J. Cohen's "Monster Theses" and divided into two main parts: medieval and modern narratives. The first half of the seminar will focus on disability and monstrosity as cultural bodies, beginning with "medieval monster narratives" (Mandeville's Travels, The Knight of the Cart, and Bisclavret) augmented by critical disability and transgender studies, then ending with "medieval embodiment narratives" (de Cartagena, Kempe, and Hoccleve) as informed by Arthur Frank's Wounded Storyteller. The second half of the seminar will address the ways in which culture desires disability and monstrosity even as it uses them to marginalize difference. This sections begins with "modern monster narratives" (Animal's People) and films (Beloved, New Moon, Split) that associate disability with dangerous mental illness and animality. This section and the seminar ends with "modern embodiment narratives" (Exile and Pride, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night, Wonder, and Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children) focused the movement from isolation towards liberation by youths with disabilities.

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Part 1: How to Make a Monster

“The Monster’s Body is a Cultural Body”

Medieval Monster Narratives

(The Monster Dwells at the Gates of Difference)

J.J. Cohen, “Monster Culture (Seven Theses)”

J. Mandeville, The Travels
R. Garland-Thompson, How We Look

C. de Troyes, The Knight of the Cart
A. Solomon, Far From the Tree, “Dwarf”

M. de France, Lais, “Bisclavret”
S. Stryker, GLQ, “My Words to Victor Frankenstein”

Medieval Embodiment Narratives

(The Monster is a Harbinger of Category Crisis)

A. Frank, The Wounded Storyteller, 

•  “Illness as a Call for Stories” 
• “The Restitution Narrative” 
• “Chaos Narrative”
• “Quest Narrative”

T. de Cartagena, Grove of the Infirm
T. de Cartagena, Wonder at the Works of God
M. Kempe, The Book of Margery Kempe

T. Hoccleve, Complaint

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Part 2: How to Love a Monster

“Fear of the Monster is Really a Kind of Desire”

Modern Monster Narratives

(The Monster Polices the Borders of the Possible)

Indra Sinha, Animal’s People
J. Demme (dir.), Beloved (1998)
S. Myer, Twilight: New Moon (2009)
M. Night Shyamalan, Split (2017)

Modern Embodiment Narratives

(The Monster Always Escapes)

E. Clare, Exile and Pride
M. Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night
R.J. Palacio, Wonder
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (2016)

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A Transgender Christmas Story: Gawain and the Green Knight

All princesses and knights, who know the secrets and shames, courage and joy of the season, your stories and games bless us as special gifts this Christmas

A Christmas Prayer

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A Christmas Game

Christmas is a time when transgender identity or trans experiences can emerge in surprising ways, from gift giving, to games, to medieval stories. Personally, I recall a Christmas Eve when I was seven and a few months old, playing Pretty Pretty Princess with my sister and cousins. We were in my grandparents home. A few of the other girls and the boys wanted to wander downstairs to play with the billiards table. Few of us were very skilled in the game, since most of us were too short to make much use of the pool sticks. Yet a few of us did not care, preferring princess games over pool. I was among those choosing this childhood game of pretty medievalism and I wasn't winning but doing okay. I had a pink ring, pink earrings, and on my way to a pink bracelet and necklace. I loved the feel of the thick semi-translucent plastic resting on my finger and pinching my ears. These were sensations that I did not regularly get to experience or indulge. My sister was in the lead but I did not care. I was just happy to take this holiday, a time set apart from other times, when the miraculous, wondrous, and unexpected may occur, to occupy an identity in play which was not permitted to express in earnest. Few of the girls present may have even thought twice about this game, with so much else going on during Christmas Eve. Indeed, the other girls may have taken this game and its play jewelry for granted. For a young trans girl, however, it was one of the momentarily acceptable instances where I could claim to be both pretty and a princess. The ability to claim these associations, however contingently, did much to sooth my gender dysphoria and give some room for my trans subconscious mind to emerge more fully into my consciousness. I was in no rush to win or for the game to be over. If Christmas Eve is a time of anticipation, I was happy to dwell in its transition, possibility, and uncertainty.

Interestingly, the game never came to a close because before one of us could be fully princessed-up and ready to claim the crown, the fun was interrupted by Santa Clause. At this, the rest of the players ran out to get in line for gifts. I stood up too but lingered behind a few moments to fit on the final few pieces of jewelry and look at myself in the mirror. It would be years before I was able to come out as a trans woman to my family. These years would be long and hard. But for this moment on Christmas, in the context of frivolity and games, I was able to emerge momentarily as my authentic self. This was a self that I was glad to share with my family, even if they did not understand the significance at the time. Often the lives of transgender friends and family are not understood fully until much later, after coming out or transitions compel the reexamination of a whole lifetime of history. This is how  the revelation of transgender not only changes the way we view things in the present and into the future, but also compel us to look again at the past in new ways. This is true for personal stories as well as for broader histories. Trans identity, experiences, tactics, tools, and associations often exist without the cisgender society being aware of their presence. This may be because trans-ness is kept secret or because society lacks the tools and concepts by which to recognize it. Thus for long periods of our personal lives or histories, trans experiences appear only in the cracks between conventions of gender, sexuality, and even time. It is during special times, holidays, Halloween, Christmas Eve, or game nights and parties that society's trans subconscious breaks out for a moment before time presses on, setting everything back along normative divisions. Such games taught me the value of such breaks in the normal course of events and a new potential to find joy in the holidays.

The importance of joy in difficult times and populations cannot be underestimated. The last year has been difficult for the transgender community and our allies. As a result, much of my recent work has dealt with tragedy, grief, and sustaining our will to live on and fight. But that perseverance through adversity cannot be merely about our hate of evil and injustice. One does not get through the winter merely by spiting the cold. Instead, we are able to fight on because we have so much good worth protecting, growing, and celebrating. We shall get through the winter by cherishing the moments of warmth and by keeping our coals glowing. For this reason, this Christmas I wanted to have some fun and share with all of you a medieval Christmas story that might have special significance for my LGBTQI and ally readers. The story and the queer slant on the story may be known to a number of you, yet one of the joys of Christmas for me is in the sharing of old stories over and over again with fresh perspectives. Accept the challenge of Christmas Eve as a time of possibility, when what comes next might not be what we expect and when we allow ourselves to consider the past, present, and future for what they are but what else they might become. In this sense, our games and joy are the serious business of breaking free from the mechanisms of the day-to-day to question why we do the things we do and consider the reality of other choices and possibilities. May this reading of the medieval Christmas tale, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, with trans feminine associations be an impetus for some mirth, some honest conversations, some much needed affirmations, some joyful speculations, and some holiday gifts (beheadings optional).

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A Christmas Story

Gawain and the Green Knight is a Christmas story full of gifts, surprises, and broken or bent binaries (man/woman, hetero-/homosexual desire, truth/untruth, civilization/nature). The tale begins in Christmas time when King Arthur's court is having a feast. The King has refused to eat until something marvelous and queer happens. Suddenly, a giant green knight enters the court on his horse, hefting a giant axe, offering a challenge: a stroke for a stroke. One knight would get a chance to cut off the green knight's head with the axe and in exchange, a year and a day later, the green knight would get to cut off the head of the challenger if he is able. After some debate, Sir Gawain agrees and swiftly cuts off the head of the Green Knight. The Green Knight's body rises, picks up the severed head, and leaves. A year later, Gawain knows it is now time to gift his own head as a gift to the Green Knight. Seeking out the Green Knight, Gawain stumbles on a strange castle. The lord promises to show Gawain where the Green Knight resides if only he will stay a few days and exchange gifts with him. The second gift-exchange is very similar to the first. Each day for three days the lord will go hunting and will bring back whatever he finds for Gawain. Meanwhile, Gawain will stay at home and upon the return of the lord, give to him anything Gawain receives while at home. Two days this contest occurs and twice they exchange gifts. The lord twice gives him meat from the hunt. Gawain, in exchange, delivers gifts given to him by the lord's wife who has progressively attempted to seduce him. Thus, two days in a row Gawain kisses the lord in true report of the two kisses the lord's wife have given him. Yet on the third day, the seductions and gifts go further. At first, the lady offers Gawain a ring, which he refuses, then she offers him something more intimate:

Ho laȝt a lace lyȝtly þat leke vmbe hir sydez,
Knit vpon hir kyrtel vnder þe clere mantyle,
Gered hit watz with grene sylke and with golde schaped,
Noȝt bot arounde brayden, beten with fyngrez;
And þat ho bede to þe burne, and blyþely bisoȝt,
Þaȝ hit vnworþi were, þat he hit take wolde.

("With that she loosened a lace that was fastened at her side, knit upon her kirtle under her mantle. It was wrought of green silk, and gold, only braided by the fingers, and that she offered to the knight, and besought him though it were of little worth that he would take it," Jessie Weston, 1898).

Promised that the garter would protect any warrior from any blow and aware that he will soon have to endure an axe to the neck, Gawain accepts the woman's underclothes. While garters were worn by medieval men as well as women, the scene makes clear that this particular garter was the woman's garter, taken off her body and put onto his. This creates an intimate association between the wife and Gawain which he will sustain throughout the rest of the tale. When Gawain meets the lord, he is hiding (soon to be wearing) women's underwear, specifically those of his wife. In this way, Gawain is like many trans and non-binary people during the holidays, either hiding their preferred clothing at home or else wearing bagging clothes to cover over the body which induces dysphoria. Trans men who have not come out to their families wear tight sports bras if they cannot wear a binder, to minimize their chest's appearance. Trans women might also wear sports bras because they are less visible under thick clothing than their preferred attire. Then there are those on the trans spectrum who fall between the clothing or identity of man and woman, wearing panties beneath a suit or a masculine suit coat over a dress. Fearing the consequences of coming out on Christmas, the season becomes a time for hiding one's clothing as a way of avoiding conflict. Yet even so, signs of one's trans-ness and queerness may emerge in expected ways. But this secret transvestism is not the only sign that Gawain has been progressively transformed into an image of the lord's wife.

Þe lorde is lyȝt at þe laste at hys lef home,
Fyndez fire vpon flet, þe freke þer-byside,
Sir Gawayn þe gode, þat glad watz withalle,
Among þe ladies for luf he ladde much ioye;
He were a bleaunt of blwe þat bradde to þe erþe,
His surkot semed hym wel þat softe watz forred,
And his hode of þat ilke henged on his schulder,
Blande al of blaunner were boþe al aboute.

("The lord was gladsome at his return, and found a bright fire on the hearth, and the knight beside it, the good Sir Gawain, who was in joyous mood for the pleasure he had had with the ladies. He wore a robe of blue, that reached even to the ground, and a surcoat richly furred, that became him well. A hood like to the surcoat fell on his shoulders, and all alike were done about with fur," Jessie Weston, 1898).

Soon to be wearing a woman's undergarment, elegantly dressed among women after a joyful day in women's company, Gawain contrasts with the lord who spent his day out hunting among men. While Weston's 1898 translation of the verse about Gawain's pleasure and company makes the sexual tensions more evident, "the pleasure he had had with the ladies," the Middle English is more ambiguous. The verse, "þat glad watz withalle, / Among þe ladies for luf he ladde much ioye," alternatively could be understood as the joy Gawain felt because he loved being in the company of women. According to a cis hetero masculinist reading of the text, why else would a man enjoy being around women except by seeing them as sexual objects? Yet a trans queer reading offers an alternative: Gawain is enjoying dressing like the girls and being among the girls, rather than being out in hunting gear among the men. At this, the woman's underwear that Gawain is soon wearing might draw attention to the elegant blue robe he wears on top, which reaches to the ground and lined with fur. Again, like the garter, this robe need not be automatically feminine for being ornate. But the robe stands out in contrast to the lord's hunting gear. Such a long beautiful robe would not be functional or socially appropriate for a hunt. Thus, standing with elegant women on one side and a hunting party of men on the other, Gawain looks more like the women of the castle than the men. A trans reading of this scene would place a great emphasis on the way in which Gawain uses clothing to affirm associations with women over men. Gawain not only performs this joy in feminine association outwardly by his robe but maintains a secret inward affinity with women through the woman's underwear.

For a trans reader, the final gift exchange that follows this meeting is poignant because it demonstrates the cost of hiding rather than celebrating trans identification or association. As in the previous two exchanges, the lord offers the gift of the hunt, a set of horns, to Gawain. The cis masculine significance of the horns would not have been lost on a medieval reader nor should it a modern reader. Then it is Gawain's turn to give a gift. Rather than reveal the women's underclothes he is wearing, Gawain choses to keep it a secret. Instead, Gawain kisses the lord for a third time. The lord does not question the gift and the transvestism and the joy of female association is kept secret. While the lord does not press Gawain on the matter, the cost of keeping this secret is revealed when the contest with the Green Knight occurs. The Green Knight almost cuts off his head three times, feinting twice and then slicing the third time. This pattern, we are told, represents the two true gifts Gawain gave the lord and the one lie. While the final stroke merely cuts and does not kill Gawain, the knight returns to Camelot ashamed because of his untruth. When the story is revealed to King Arthur's court, Gawain is fully ready to be ridiculed for secretly wearing the woman's underwear. 

Þe hurt watz hole þat he hade hent in his nek,
And þe blykkande belt he bere þeraboute
Abelef as a bauderyk bounden bi his syde,
Loken vnder his lyfte arme, þe lace, with a knot,
In tokenyng he watz tane in tech of a faute.

("The hurt that he had in his neck was healed, he bare the shining girdle as a baldric bound by his side, and made fast with a knot 'neath his left arm, in token that he was taken in a fault," Jessie Weston, 1898).

While Gawain returns to court amidst post-Christmas season, wearing the woman's underwear as a mark of shame, to the knight's surprise, the court of King Arthur does not shame him for his open transvestism but instead one by one they begin to wear garters of their own in honor of their friend. This is the legendary origin myth of the Order of the Garter in England. However, to a modern trans reader, the willingness of the court to not only accept Gawain's wearing of the woman's underwear but normalize it by making it a part of chivalric tradition. Importantly, this community response is directly tied to Gawain's willingness to come out to his community about the garter. With the lord, Gawain had hid the garter for fear and shame. But having learned his lesson and received the cost of his secrecy, now Gawain enters court with the garter proudly displayed on his arm. Whether the courts reactions are good or ill, Gawain will face what comes with the courage that failed him both with the lord and the Green Knight (later revealed to be the same man). One might understand Gawain's anxiety in both cases. The transgressions of gender and sexual norms are enough to raise discomfort for a man who elsewhere fits the mold of toxic cis-het masculinity. That one should feel fear of social death or physical death is all too human. Yet the courage and honesty Gawain shows in the end by wearing his transvestism on his sleeve is rewarded. That the court should be accepting and affirming is not a given either in medieval or modern society. This is a twist in the narrative which leaves the tale with an ending that can be read fairly optimistically. Gawain and the Green Knight is a tale that can be read many ways with many different take aways; including as a model for trans inclusive Christmases.

In the end, if a family member or friend reveals to you at Christmas that they are transitioning or associating more strongly with another gender, you do not need to put on a garter or women's panties! However, openly accepting and normalizing the transition or new association is a gift worthy of celebrating. Like Gawain who feared death and shame, many trans, queer, and non-binary people might likewise enter into the Christmas season expecting the worse. In this respect, reflecting on Gawain and the Green Knight as a lesson for your transgender Christmas might lead to a more livable life with better honesty, recognized courage, and an affirming community.

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A Christmas Prayer

Creator, who makes each life with a special mold and calls each with a special name, bless your creation with special joys this Christmas.

Reformer, who was born into this world's coldness and alienation, bless your chosen family with special warmth and community this Christmas.

Advocate, who knows the dysphoria and transitions in our hearts, bless us with the spirit to speak words of special power and truth this Christmas.

All princesses and knights, who know the secrets and shames, courage and joy of the season, your stories and games bless us as special gifts this Christmas.

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