Transgender in God's Army: A Queer Christian Retrial of Joan of Arc

"Men are sometimes hanged 
for telling the truth"

Joan of Arc

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Assignment Overview

In this exercise, the seminar will engage is a new re-trail of Joan of Arc. Since Joan's death at the hands of the medieval English courts, Joan has be retried by the French, and generations of Christians, historians, and LGBTQI people trying to understand all that Joan's life meant. To this day, even as some historians fight adamantly that Joan of Arc is not trans, when "medieval transgender history" is mentioned in academic or the public the first responses almost always include some variation of the question: "don't tell me... Joan of Arc?" What is it about Joan of Arc that continues to bring scholars back to debate the gender and sexuality of a person over and over again across centuries? No matter how we might try to dismiss the cases about Joan of Arc as indisputable, unknowable, or unimportant, we cannot ignore society's perpetual fascination with the sometime heretic, sometime saint, sometime visionary, sometime virgin, sometime warrior, sometime queer, sometime trans figure at the center of these trials.

In order to get closer to Joan of Arc, the discussions will be led using (mostly) primary texts. Yet the additional research and questions challenge your groups to think about the society that produced and the eras that judged and rejudged Joan of Arc. In the process of providing a summary of the discussion, note (1) a thesis, (2) an anti-thesis, and (3) explain how your group synthesized the different points of view. Conclude by hearing arguments from other witnesses, the other students who likewise have been part of the investigation of Joan of Arc.

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Sample Groups

Group 1: Joan of Arc
as Visionary

A key piece of Joan of Arc's trial was the repeated visions and communications the saint had with angels, Biblical figures, and God. It is on the basis of these visions that Joan claims to be compelled, excused, and endorsed in becoming a soldier. Arguing truth based on feelings, intuition, ingrained natural orientations, and unconscious insights are also part of queer and trans history. Consider a few quotations relating to these visions in relation to the question of if being a visionary is part of Joan's queerness or transness:

"Men are sometimes hanged for telling the truth...I was admonished to adopt feminine clothes; I refused, and still refuse. As for other avocations of women, there are plenty of other women to perform them...

What concerns this dress is a small thing - less than nothing. I did not take it by the advice of any man in the world. I did not take this dress or do anything but by the command of Our Lord and of the Angels...

Everything I have said or done is in the hands of God. I commit myself to Him! I certify to you that I would do or say nothing against the Christian faith...

... since God commanded me to go, I must do it."

Terms to research: gender dysphoria, queer, trans, heteronormative.

Group 2: St. Joan of Arc
as Warrior

Going to war is difficult in a gown or even a peasant's dress. This is part of the rationale that kept women and other gendered people from engaging in military service openly until very recently. The assumption was not only that women must not be soldiers but that women must always wear clothes customary for women. Crossing one law would involve crossing both laws: to be a soldier would also to be a gender outlaw. This is part of the case against Joan of Arc but also the case in defense of Joan of Arc. Because if we allow the former, that Joan was and could be a soldier, then the latter follows, that Joan was and should wear soldier's clothes. Consider these arguments and conclude if Joan was being sufficiently customary and modest:

Another consulted cleric was Teodoro Lelio[59] (1427-1466), an Italian theologian attached to the Papacy who was considered one of the greatest canon lawyers of the 15th century, whose eloquence inspired Pope Pius II to label him "[my] harp". [85] In his paragraph on the male clothing issue, Lelio notes that her motives were connected with the practical needs of participating in a military campaign, among soldiers whose lust she did not want to excite, rather than from any indecent or otherwise forbidden motive.

Martin Berruyer (died 1465), Bishop of Le Mans,[61] takes a slightly different approach with regard to the Summa Theologica, citing section Ia-IIae, q. 102 a. 6, [91] which is concerned with the Christian relation to the laws in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. [92] As with the more commonly-cited section mentioned above, this passage clarifies the intentions behind the clothing regulations in the Bible, such as prohibiting the practice of cross-dressing for sexual reasons or in connection with ancient pagan religious rites. Berruyer notes that Joan of Arc therefore was not violating the intent of these laws, quoting as an example her statement that since she was among men it was "more lawful and proper to wear male clothing" in order to avoid various problems that could result otherwise. [93] He then refers to the more familiar passage (IIa-IIae, q. 169 a. 2 ad 3) justifying such a usage, and notes that the protection of one's chastity, as well as the greater suitability of such clothing for horseback riding and other activities associated with military campaigns, are perfectly lawful purposes, especially as she believed to have been acting under God's orders. [94]

The next opinion is from Guillaume Bouillé[64] (d. 1476), a professor of theology and Superior of the Cathedral of Noyon. His treatise begins: "To the honor and glory of the [Divine] King of Kings, Who defends the cause of the innocent..." [102] Bouillé covers the issues of her male clothing, armor, and short hair, beginning with the customary explanation that the prohibitions in Deuteronomy 22:5 and in the Decretum Gratiani (I.30.6 and I.30.2) would not apply in this case since it was fitting for her to make use of these things in order to live among soldiers; moreover, if she was commanded via Divine revelation to do so then it would be justified on that account. [103] He comments that she was not wearing this clothing for reasons connected with sexual depravity or idolatrous purposes, noting that it is these cases which the Bible forbids, "as says the Holy Teacher [St. Thomas Aquinas]". Here he cites the usual passage in the Summa Theologica. [104] Among the female saints who had worn such clothing, he mentions Natalia, Marina, Eugenia, and Euphrosyne.[65] [105]

Terms to research: gender expression, gender identity, cross-dressing, trans, butch, femme, heteronormativity, cisgender privilege, transgender in the military.

Group 3: St. Joan of Arc
as Virgin

In the Middle Ages, virgins had distinct legal (secular) and ecclesiastic (religious) definitions, rights, and privileges distinct from other genders/genres of women: wives, mothers, widows, and nuns. Moving from virgin to wife and mother (or other sexually active form of womanhood) was a legal and spiritual transition that corresponded to a change in social identity. As such, it is significant that Joan of Arc repeatedly invokes being a "maid" (aka. a virgin) throughout the proceedings of the trail. Even the gender presentation as a soldier is tied to this identity as virgin. Discuss how Joan of Arc's virginity is helpful to understanding the queer and/or trans tactics used to defend and attack Joan.

Read a few of the following passages:

Some additional details are provided in Massieu's final deposition (12 May 1456):

"Questioned, furthermore, concerning the contents of the 26th Article, [the witness] testifies that on the day of the Holy Trinity [i.e., Trinity Sunday], when Joan was accused of having relapsed, she replied that, as she was lying in bed, her guards removed the female clothing from the bed in which she was lying, and gave her the male outfit; and, although she asked the guards to return the female clothing so she could leave her bed to go relieve herself, they refused to give it back to her, saying that she would not receive anything but the aforesaid male clothing. 

From the deposition given on 13 May 1456[10] by Friar Martin Ladvenu one of the clergy who had served as an assessor (theological advisor) at her trial:
"Concerning the contents of the 26th and 27th [articles], he testifies that he heard from the aforementioned Joan that a certain high-ranking English lord visited her in prison and attempted to violate her by force.[13] And she told the aforesaid witness that this was the reason she had readopted male clothing after the first sentence."[14] [13]

From the deposition given on 3 May 1452[15] by the Rouen citizen Pierre Cusquel:[16]

"Concerning the 9th Article, he says that people were saying that there was no other reason for her condemnation except the readoption of male clothing, and that she had not worn, and was not wearing, this male clothing except in order to avoid accommodating the aims of the soldiers she was with; and [the witness said] that once in prison he asked her why she was wearing the aforesaid male clothing, to which she replied as above." [14]

From Guillaume Manchon's deposition on 12 May 1456:[17]

"And in the witness' presence she was asked why she had readopted this male clothing, to which she replied that she had done it for the protection of her virginity, for she was not secure while wearing female clothing with her guards, who had tried to rape her, which she had complained about many times to the Bishop and Earl; and [she said] that the judges had promised her that she would be placed in the custody of, and in the prisons of, the Church, and that she would have a woman with her [i.e., a nun, following Inquisitorial procedure];[18] additionally saying that if it would please the lord judges to place her in a safe location in which she would not be afraid, then she was prepared to readopt female clothing..." [15]

Terms to research: eunuchs, asexual, agender, grey ace, queer, gender queer.

Group 4: Joan of Arc
as Transgender Saint

On Monday, we read the Life of St. Marinos the Monk. This saint fits many of the definitions of transgender men, transitioning in his youth, changing gender presentation, pronouns, and his name then living as a man until his death. Joan of Arc has a different story and yet throughout Joan's retrial, St. Marinos (called St. Mary or St. Marina) are regularly invoked as an example of God and the Church embracing transgender identity and presentation as not only permissible but even holy. How do you see Joan of Arc fitting into this theology and history of trans saints?Another consulted cleric was Teodoro Lelio[59] (1427-1466)... adds that she should not be judged a heretic for taking the sacraments while in this clothing, as she had adopted it for good purposes. He points out that St. Marina repeatedly took the Eucharist while dressed as a monk, and likewise mentions St. Eugenia as another example. As proof of Joan of Arc's proper attitude toward the sacraments, Lelio cites one of her statements concerning the Eucharist recorded in the Condemnation transcript. [86] 

Martin Berruyer (died 1465), Bishop of Le Mans... lists the cases of other female saints who wore male clothing for various purposes of necessity - Thecla, Eugenia, Pelagia, Marina, etc - and cites the Biblical prophetess Deborah. [95]

Terms to research: non-binary, gender queer, butch, trans*, transgender men.

Group 5: Joan of Arc
as Gender Dysphoric

The authors and editors of the document we examined for class takes a traditional approach to Joan of Arc, trying hard to define Joan as not transgender. Yet what many of these scholars miss are the wider definitions of transgender and gender dysphoria that include a range of individuals, including those who do not follow the "man trapped in a woman's body" narrative. Specifically, consider how gender dysphoria arises out of social context and social prejudice against non-customary gender expression and identity, then consider if Joan is killed on the grounds of presenting non-customary gender expression and identity.

Read Definition of Gender Dysphoria


For a person to be diagnosed with gender dysphoria, there must be a marked difference between the individual’s expressed/experienced gender and the gender others would assign him or her, and it must continue for at least six months. In children, the desire to be of the other gender must be present and verbalized. This condition causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
Read selections from the introduction:

The stated legal justification for Joan of Arc's conviction and execution on 30 May 1431 was her resumption of male clothing on the 28th. Her judges implied that her actions were sinful; certain modern authors have surmised that she was motivated by transgender feelings or other such identity issues. Both positions allege that she was guilty of heresy under the tenets of 15th century theology. To any historian of the subject, these assertions present a number of obvious problems, on both factual and theological grounds. 

Re-read, Deuteronomy 22:5 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

5 A woman shall not wear a man’s apparel, nor shall a man put on a woman’s garment; for whoever does such things is abhorrent to the Lord your God.

Terms to research: gender dysphoria, gender expression, gender identity, gender presentation, gender, sex, cross-dressing, transvestite.

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New Publication: TSQ Trans*Historicities Roundtable

"We need transgender history now more than ever."

Jack Halberstam

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Honored to be co-authors with gifted scholars of the caliber of Howard Chiang, Jack Halberstam, Jacob Lau, Kathleen P. Long, Marcia Ochoa, C. Riley Snorton, Leah DeVun, and Zeb Tortorici. A truly fantastic issue and an especially enjoyable roundtable discussion on the critical theories of "Trans*historicities"

The TSQ abstract:

“Trans*historicities: A Roundtable Discussion” offers reflections on how thinking about time and chronology has impacted scholarship in trans studies in recent years. Contributing scholars come from numerous disciplines that touch on history, and have expertise in far-ranging geographic and temporal fields. As a broad conversation about some of the potential possibilities and difficulties in seeking out—and finding—trans in historical contexts, this discussion focuses on the complex interrelations between trans, time, and history."

Read more via Transgender Studies Quarterly online!

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New Publication: Were There Trans People in the Middle Ages?

"Yes...
Sorry, did you need more than that?"

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Transliterature recently partnered with the Public Medievalist in order to produce a summary of some of my research in order to introduce a lay audience into the history of transgender in the Middle Ages. Already the article has had wide readership just in time for the midterm elections! As addressed in the article, responses to medieval trans studies reflects many of the interests as well as anti-trans prejudices which cluster around contemporary transgender studies. Yet overall, it has been a gift to speak again to a wider audience to let them know that the future of our past is much vaster and more complicated than society leads us to expect.

Introduction from the Public Medievalist:

"A fantastic article on the long history of medieval transgender people, by the amazing Gabrielle MW Bychowski. If you've been led to believe that being transgender is a relatively "new" phenomenon, or some kind of "postmodern lifestyle choice", you should read this article. There is a long transgender history that shows clearly that being transgender is simply part of the human condition, and can't be imagined away."

Read more on the Public Medievalist Website!

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Trans Literature: Transgender as a Literary Archive

"When you hear the same stories over and over again, from people from all over the world, you start realizing that transgender is not an anomaly. 
It’s a part of the spectrum of people’s realities."

Susan Kuklin
Beyond Magenta

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Introduction

As a recognized archive, transgender literature remains largely on the horizon. There are no "trans lit" sections of most major book stores. Yet in recent years, feminist and LGBTQI book stores are beginning to have shelves or at least special displays that host a variety of books on transgender: history, medicine, self-help, family stories, memoirs, and fiction. As a field of academic study, trans literature is even further behind. This is ironic, given the number of transgender studies scholars who have degrees in English or at least have used trans films in their work. Yet even as transgender studies begins to break away from being a mere sub-set of queer or gender studies, trans literature remains largely subordinate to other fields of trans research: psychoanalysis, sociology, history, and media studies. Of them all, media and film studies has come perhaps the closet to describing transgender film as an archive worthy of study in its own right. As more trans films begin to win awards or at least get nominate, film may continue to lead the way in public awareness of the wider literary archive.

Yet once one begins to ask the question, the number of trans literary texts and narratives that begin to appear are massive. On the surface are those books and films that have begun to get some distinction. When one expands beyond those books marketed as "transgender" by publishers, marketing firms, or stores, one sees how trans literary archives have long existed. One finds trans narratives categorized in genres and archives defined more broadly as women or queer literature, as well as disability, post-colonial, and African-American literature. Looking further for trans narratives, genres, and literary forms, suddenly one arrives at medical, legal, religious, and historical texts that tell trans stories as pieces -- even center pieces -- of other agendas. At this point, one needs to begin to learn other methods of research, other professional and linguistic languages, in order to locate these trans narratives. But once learns how to find them in places not readily marked by the category "transgender literature here," the flood-gates burst open. Suddenly one begins to see trans literature all over the place, from media and books, to medical and government documents, to blogs and suicide notes, to historical manuscripts and saint's lives.

With such a massive and widely distributed archive, it is difficult to give a mere reading list. Such lists are available and reflect mostly recent English language publications currently sold in local book stores or films available on Amazon or iTunes. What I wish to provide in place of giving a "Top 10" or potential candidates for a new literary canon, is a method of categorizing and patterning trans literature as types of narrative. Through such an approach, my goal is to help you dig into the broad, interdisciplinary, and buried archive of trans literature so you will be able to grow the canon rather than merely reiterating the same handful of books and films on sale in specialty markets. So let's dig in and see where and when these narratives lead us!

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The Transition Narrative

As a formal genre, I argue that the transition narrative fits into the example (or exempla) genre. The example (or exempla) are defined by a doctrine (or dicta) that provides a theoretical concept for proof and facts (or facta) that provide the evidentiary grounding. In the case of most transition narratives, the visualization and narration of the facts of altering one's gender signifiers are supposed to fulfill the doctrine of one's trans identification. This doctrine may be as simple as "I am a woman, not a man," or may be as complex as "I have gender dysphoria." While other genres may utilize the transition narrative, the example is the genre most often used and most closely tied the rhetoric used for many transition stories.

Historically, the discursive context that produced and consumed the most number of transition narratives in the modern era is the medical field. In this case, the facts of case studies are given to prove whatever medical and psychological doctrines the researcher is trying to prove. For authors seeking to explore the histories and literary archives of trans persons undergoing transitions, one will spend a lot -- if not most -- of one's time reading such case studies from books written and consumed within a medical context. In some cases the dicta being proven are affirming of these transitions, offering advice for procedures, and others are critical warnings against transitioning. This tension is more pronounced the further one goes back in the study of medicine. If one pushes back even further, prior to the modern medical interest in transition narratives, a researcher will find them present within religious texts that also take the form of exempla. In this case, religious exempla are interested in using these histories and folk stories to prove doctrines of faith and philosophy. As in the early medical exampla, the dicta that accompany the trans facta are often not affirming of transitions, although there are some surprising examples of sympathy for the facts of the case.

The examples of transition narratives take on three dominant forms. These forms present the facts in different ways which correspond to different doctrines of change. The three dicta of change I highlight here are greatly influenced by Carolyn Walker Bynum's work on Metamorphosis. The three forms of transition narrative are: absolute change, hybrid change, and no change:

• The Doctrine of Absolute Change
• Facts are presented within a structure of before and after. There is often a defining event (such as surgery or a name change) which represents the transition. The narrative often diminishes the time given to this period of change because it represents the ambiguity that Absolute Change is trying to diminish.
• In this form, the narrative will often refer to the person's time before transition using the name and pronouns that accompanied that gender presentation (such as "he") and then after the event the person will be described using the name and pronouns that fit that gender presentation (such as "she").
• Examples using absolute change include: Caitlyn Jenner's The Secrets of My Life, The Danish Girl (book and movie), and many medical journals, especially the more sympathetic ones.

• The Doctrine of Hybrid Change
• Facts of different genders are presented alongside each other, before transition and after. Whereas absolute change tends to collapse transition into the short period of a single key event, hybrid change narratives tend to prolong transition to a much greater degree. One may see multiple transitional events, where the person is living one gender in one context and another gender in another context. The effect of this narration often supports doctrines of gender as a fluid spectrum, where male and female traits are present at the same time just in different degrees.
• In this form, the narrative will often switch between pronouns and names. Such examples will even favor the name/name or pronoun/pronoun way to describing a person, such as "John/Eleanor" or "He/She."
• Examples using hybrid change include: most discussions of Eleanor Rykener, Boys Don't Cry (and other discussions of Brandon Teena), and She-Male porn (a genre which depends on presenting trans women as monstrous hybrids, thus the choice and construction of the word "she-male" as "the best of both worlds").

• The Doctrine of No Change
• Facts are presented so as to foreground the present of the identified genders from the very start. The gender assigned at birth is presented as secondary and based on appearances and the identified gender is presented as primary and based on essences or predispositions. Also called the "born this way narrative." This is the most popular among current transgender stories because it affirms that transgender is a discreet and insular identity that is unchanging, based in nature rather than choice or nurture. These qualities have proven important and effective in convincing doctors, medical insurers, the courts, and government bodies to provide assistance and protection for trans people.
• In this form, the pre-transition name and pronouns are de-emphasized. Sometimes, the post-transition name and/or pronoun of the person is used from the start even while it records how other people used the socially assigned deadname and pronouns. Other times, these names and pronouns will be used in describing the person pre-transition but will come with an explanation, "scare quotes," or asterisk* denoting them as based on appearances rather than the person's identified gender.
• Examples using this form include: If I Was Your Girl, A Fantastic Woman, Trans America, and Leelah Alcorn's suicide note.

Transition narrative exempla are very effective and common in circumstances where transgender is considered novel or contentious. This is because exempla transitions are geared at showing as a way of telling. You get the theories of transgender communicated but in a way that typically does so obliquely through narratives and facts that work on the emotions of the audience. By giving case studies with facta that invoke pity (how terrible!) or identification (they use the same lipstick as me!) the dicta can be consumed without inciting the debates that tend to arise when discussions are based more in abstraction.

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The Memoir

Whereas Transition Exempla may be the most numerous in the archive, the confessional memoir is perhaps the most popular. It occurs with relative frequency since transgender has entered public discourse that a trans person gets told, "you should write a book! Tell your story!" Indeed, this turn towards memoir is often part of the process of marginalized identities entering the mainstream. When there is a recognized lack of fact or fiction (beyond the medical or sociological which can be considered to academic for public audiences) memoirs or biographies tend to be the first to fill the void. Whereas exempla demand that readers take some medicine with their sugar, some dicta with their facta, memoirs seem to offer pure sugar, all facts with no doctrinal agenda. Now, one may still derive theories and believes from reading a memoir but they are not nearly as important, if they come at all. Memoirs thus give the sense of learning truth (or truthiness) without the fetters of ideology.

Calling trans memoirs confessional gets at their rhetorical function and their historical genre. Because memoirs are typically highly formalized, edited, and published for a wider (if still somewhat niche) audience. As such, not every trans person will have the chance, means, or desire to write a memoir. Yet nearly every trans person will be asked or even required to tell their life story. This biography may sometimes be given by others but the first person confession is generally preferred as the most authoritative. This may take public form such as an interview, a vlog/blog, or a speech in front of a community group. This may also take an important institutional form, wherein the trans person must confess the truth of their lives to doctors in order to get treatments, to insurers in order to get coverage, to employers or Human Resources to get accommodations, to government agencies to get new documentation, and lawyers or judges to get protections or compensations. Confessional life stories also are frequently used to persuade friends and family members to cooperate with a transition. Rare is the situation where a trans person transitions name and pronouns without someone demanding to hear the life story of the person.

Historically, before transgender was accepted enough to get book deals, confessions were a prominent and important genre in establishing transgender as a discrete condition of life. Before a psychiatrist is willing to sign on to support an individual trans person and before the wider medical industry got into the business of publishing research on trans people in general, a trans person had to sit in front of a doctor and convince them of the veracity and necessity of their gender. The most common and effective way to get these authorities on their side was by providing the facts of one's life. Before doctrines (dicta) could be drawn up to explain the facts (facta) of trans people, making exampla possible, the facts were confessed wholesale to the best of the trans person's ability. And before the private confession of the therapist's office, there were confessions to priests and judges. For much the same reason, as religious institutions and the courts have dominated much of western culture, trans people historically had to also try to convince these authorities of their veracity as well. Thus we see the long history of transgender found in religious and legal documents. At times, the recorder of the confession imports their own doctrines and ideology, but often enough the confession is so surprising to the authority that they do not fully know how to make an example of it. As such, confessions often break free of over doctrine in order to persuade often suspicious audiences of the internal and external realities of transgender.

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The Journey

If transition examples frequently collapse time into a before/after picture and confessional memoirs often assert an essential truth that took a lifetime to unravel, journey narratives tend to fall somewhere in the middle. In fact, journey narratives are often all about the middle, extending the second act of a three into a narrative in and of itself. As such, even though transition narratives can at times be presented as journeys they are presented in ways generically distinct from examples of transition. In fact, they may be seen as inversions of each other. An example typically focuses the narrative on the trans person as the object of study. Even confessional memoirs are sold as the outside looking into the mind and soul the trans person. Yet trans journey narratives are more interested at looking through the eyes of transgender person outward at the world. The trans person becomes the subject and the world becomes the object. Whereas the before/after picture emphasizes the visual difference in the trans person, the timeline of a journey is more about the scenery and saying look at my life "here" and compare it to my life "there." At times, these places are literally different spaces, such as the move from a rural or suburban hometown to the city. Yet frequently, whether or not there is a journey through space there is a usually journey through time. And the goal of this journey from a narrative stand-point is to get the reader to come along with the trans person, to look along with them, to see how the world looks from a different perspective.

For a fan of pilgrimage narratives and travel narratives, it is unfortunate that the vast majority of such trail literature is not only cisgender but white able-bodied heterosexual and male. Yet tropes and narrative structures of these journey narratives are still at play in transgender journeys but in a different form. As noted, there are often physical journeys that define a trans journey narrative, moves across country, from a parent's home to college, going to a new job, getting a new place after a divorce. These physical moves often correspond to other changes in the trans persons life. Part of the journey may be transition but may also be coming out to the family, finding a safer place to live, getting a more accommodating job, etc. Such physical journeys are often described in great detail because journey narratives generically focus on environment. Details such as social contexts and the availability or absence of support are important features of the social terrain, even though the physical differences between one city and another may not be as drastic as walking from the mountains into the dessert. Yet any journey through space is also a journey through time. A journey narrative in this way may resemble a confessional memoir, insofar as it gives details of a life across time. Yet their purposes and foci are different. A confession functions to give insights about the interior life. A journey narrative on the other hand focuses more on the change of circumstances over time. How did moving in with Dad after your parents divorce affect your gender presentation? How did living in Boystown, Chicago affect your freedom of gender expression? How did taking the rural small town job affect your work life? The focus in these journeys are on the external life, which this genre considers no less important.

Because they often lack the typical markers of travel literature (a hiker with a backpack, a walking stick, mountains in the distance) it can seem tricky to locate trans journey narratives. Often you will find them located among other genres: memoir, transition examples and case studies, and histories. An interesting trend in journey narratives are the higher number written by activists or academics. This may be because the activist and academic are habituated in analyzing their surroundings as much if not more than analyzing themselves. For instance, when Eli Clare tells his life story, he will often pause for an extended consideration on his geo-social context, his historical context, his philosophical context. Thus one learns as much if not more about Clare's world as one does about him. Likewise, a characteristic of Laverne Cox's interview or lecture style is that she will introduce a piece from her own life story but primarily as a way to take a journey through the other stories that surround her social contexts: the experience of people of color, women, working actors, LGBTQIA people etc. Yet even non-activists and non-academics will turn to the journey narrative. If I Was Your Girl tells the story of a trans girl moving back in with her father after her transition and mental health breakdown while she lived with her mom. Thus the novel records being a fish out of water in her new school. Being a fish out of water is one way of describing many trans journeys but also travel narratives in general. This is because journey narratives give perspectives that allow us to see the world we live in through a new light and suddenly the world becomes stranger and more interesting. 

Admittedly, a specific form of trans journey narratives are beginning to develop utilizing more traditional markers: the trans road story. From To Wong Fu to Trans America, the trans journey on the road becomes a way of showing the different contexts and problems trans people experience as they move from one place in the country to another. These journeys typically involve many of the features of other travel narratives, including the negotiation of transportation, pilgrimage narratives, including a prophesied holy land or loca sancta on the horizon, or epic and romance, including strange battles, dangers, and veering.

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Next up: Transgender as Literary Theory

Thus far, we have consider the tropes of transgender often found in cisgender narratives as well as the common types of narratives written by or at least focused around a transgender person. Yet this still leaves trans literature largely in the position of text or object for academic study. What is important to consider are the ways in which transgender may affect our methods of reading or enacting literary analysis. What is a trans way of reading? How does transgender affect the way narratives and archives are formed? Stay tuned for the third part of this series as we consider transgender as literary theory!

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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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Transgender in the Modern Military: A Lesson in Class and Culture

"The financial cost of transition-related care, in short, is too low to matter."

Aaron Belkin
Caring for Our Transgender Troops

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Framing the Lesson

• Patriotism: x2 Higher Enrollment than % of Cisgender Population
• Veterans: Significant Number of Post-Military Transitions
• Legacy: Long History of Trans Service Persons

Debates around transgender in the military may arise from and may arouse forth a wide range of tangential discussions in a host of classrooms; on medicine, the military, law, government, and politics; on classism, sexism, homophobia, and disability. As an activist and consultant, I see how these conversations have direct effects on the present and future of thousands of transgender persons in the armed forces and countless people affected by the related politics. As a scholar of cultural studies, I see how this issue is inextricably tied to wider norms and problems related to gender, sexuality, class, race, religion, geography, and embodiment. As a historian, especially as a medievalist, I see how this issue is both very much of the present moment, and also very much a part of ancient history. As a public writer, a scholar, and a teacher I want to frame lessons in response to explicit and implicit claims against transgender service people.

Before I do, however, I want to acknowledge that transgender people's relation and participation to the military does not merely exist as a way to spite transphobic complaints. One could and should be able to have a rich, complicated, and historical day (or semester) discussing transgender people in the military without giving transphobes more than a footnote. It might be hard to avoid the draw to address major transphobes, especially those commanders-in-chief, but such trans-positive conversations are possible and important. Reports show that transgender people enroll in the military at twice (x2) the rate of cisgender people. These numbers increase exponentially when they consider all the transgender people who have transitioned after leaving the military. Transgender people currently and historically have a complicated and long relationship to institutions of warfares and service to the nation. Indeed, once one considers the many historical and fictional gender non-conforming and gender variant persons that appear in texts from Disney and Lord of the Rings to Joan of Arc's interrogation, there is material enough to fuel many lessons without directly needing to address the myths and misinformation of transphobes.

Yet teaching often occurs at bleeding edges. And these bleeding edges are often also growing edges. I tell my students that I conservatively spend 60% of my time reading the arguments of people who hate me and my communities; against the remaining time which I get to spend reading about the wonderful things that we actually do and are. In reality that percentage is probably a lot higher. Because lessons are about the information that others need to receive and not about the information I want give, this practice of leaning into the hate is often the most effective at bringing the haters closer to embracing me and my communities. Following that policy, I have thrown together some notes that may be useful for a wide range of audiences on the critiques of cost and class, culture and history in the web of transgender in the military. The goal is to be accessible and adaptable for various readers or teachers. An advanced series of lessons might be given using critical theory, expansive histories, and memoirs that further fill out and complicate these conversations. Indeed, my own scholarship leans into the particular significant nuances of medieval stories, particular those tied to Joan of Arc and Roman de Silence, that are critically important to current transgender studies on issues of military service, nationalism, sexual embodiment, history, and faith. That is where I am going but I do not want to go there alone. Joan of Arc leads by example in showing us that we do not turn the tide of a war on the battle grounds of culture, history, and government in solitude, nor by merely working with those who agree with us, but by working, fighting, and sacrificing alongside those who do not yet understand or approve. The culture and history of transgender in the military time and again teaches many lessons, among them the willingness to serve, defend, and support those who otherwise would not share a church, a nation, or a classroom. Such a willingness may very well better us in our capacities as activists, scholars, and teachers; as it may then affect even more of us in our capacities as citizens and voters.

Example Discussion Questions:

• How does the higher than average number of transgender persons serving in the armed forces compare or contrast with public conceptions of the political alignments of trans populations? What are a few of the social, economic, and historical factors that may contribute to the U.S. military being one of the largest employers of trans persons nationwide?

• How does transitioning after a military career potentially affect relationships between veterans and other service persons? What are a few social, legal, and personal factors that may lead to this historic trend of waiting until after retirement to transition?

• How does the long history of trans persons represented in armed forces (going back to medieval literature and history) widen the conversation about transgender military beyond the immediate concerns of federal bans, American policy, or contemporary politics? What are factors about military service that might be similar and different for trans service persons in the distant past?

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A Lecture on Classism

Responses to Stated Critiques

• Costs: Extraordinary Expenses vs. Low Costs Relative to Overall and Gender-Specific Healthcare Budget Totals
• Cohesion: Prejudice vs. Testimonies on Troop Camaraderie
• Competency: Mental Illness vs. Excellent Records of Service

Costs: The stated critiques around transgender people serving openly in the military open hinge arounds the cost of transition related healthcare. Such critiques tend to claim either concern for ballooning the military budget in general or a personal repulsion at tax money going to help transgender people transition. The former claim is addressed in the critical literature and interviews suggested, where dedicated studies as well as direct professional experience demonstrates that transgender healthcare represents a tiny fraction around (2-4 million) out of the massive healthcare costs of the military (around 50 billion), which is all the more diminutive in relation to the overall military budget (around 600 billion). This is in part related to the relatively small number of transgender service persons and that a great number of these service persons will not elect to undergo surgical procedures which make up the majority of the projected expenses. Furthermore, placing the amount spent on transgender healthcare in comparison to other gender specific expenses (such as the much larger amount spent on erectile disfunction treatment like Viagra) likewise puts these costs in context. In regards to the latter personal concern, the literature likewise addresses how the military covers ordinary and extra-ordinary healthcare costs for all of its service people that is particular to their needs. This includes eye-glasses for those with vision related issues and Viagra for those with erection related issues. For transgender persons, transition related healthcare is deemed necessary and normal by the medical community.

Cohesion: Another area in which the public political concern focuses is on concerns about troop cohesion and culture. The thesis essentially boils down to the projection, "if I, a 'normal' American would have issues working with transgender persons... theoretically ... then the military MUST have issues as well." Based on the reports generated by military leadership, there is no cohesion problem. In this respect, the military seems to know what it can and cannot handle - in respects to troop cohesion - better than the transphobic public; in no small part because of the intentionality given in recent decades to the integration of women, people of color, and LGB service people. This does not mean that every military unit will have a culture that is explicitly pro-LGBTQI politics. What this does mean is that as far as the leadership and independent research has seen, members of the military being LGB or T (transgender) in no way interferes with troop cohesion or effectiveness. In comparison, the military may still be a hard place to be a woman, however being a woman is no longer considered a reason to exclude someone from military service. Addressing this concern, the interviews with current and former transgender military service peoples (as well as their comrades) helps to humanize and contextualize the cohesion already occurring within the armed forces.

Competency: A less popular claim among professional politicians but a more popular claim among the uneducated public is that transgender people are mentally ill and therefore not able-bodied enough to serve. In this respect, not only are the military specific studies helpful but the wide array of medical and legal literature going back for many years that affirm that being transgender is not a mental illness. What educated and specialized experts can explain is that transgender people require gender specific healthcare much in the way other men, women, and intersex people require particular forms of healthcare. The fact that menstruation related healthcare may be needed by some women and not by most men does not make them disordered. The medical community regards transgender persons as part of the natural, normal, and healthy gender diversity of the human species. Some transgender persons may experience gender dysphoria but this can be readily managed by decreasing prejudice against transgender persons and increasing transition related care. Once again, these specific needs for some trans service persons is not considered extra-ordinary nor in any way inhibits their ability to serve. In fact, what medical studies have shown is that transgender troops are healthier and more effective at their jobs when allowed to serve openly as well as receiving the full range of transgender related health care. Once again, interviews with specific service people also demonstrate the many extraordinary accomplishments and success of transgender persons in the military. This replaces the image of transgender persons as disordered with images of trans persons as strong, efficient, and productive members of the armed services.

Example Discussion Questions

• What is the role and responsibility of the military to provide limited or full healthcare to armed service people? Does gender specific healthcare (men, women, trans people, etc.) complicate these responsibilities or not? How should the military respond to partisan political complaints from the public that does not approve of trans healthcare on pro-religious rather pro-military grounds?

• How might a person coming out as transgender improve rather than hinder troop cohesion? How does "bringing all parts of yourself" to military service improve rather than hinder a trans person's capacity to serve? What are non-military or non-transgender comparisons we might draw to similar conflicts around integration?

• How might a transgender service person be trans but not experience dysphoria? How might anti-trans prejudice or transgender bans increase dysphoria? What are the qualities of dysphoria and does it in any way inhibit the performance of duties? How do debates around transgender and mental illness bring latent and overt ableism in the military to the forefront?

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A Discussion of Culture

Responses to Unstated Critiques

• Sexism: Military as Masculine Space vs. History of Women Service People
• Homophobia: Military as Hetero Space vs. History of Queer Service People
• Ableism: Military as Able-bodied vs. History of Extraordinary Health Needs

Sexism: the attacks leveled against transgender service people are in many respects extensions of wars that have been waged against women, queers, crips, people of color, and the poor for decades onto centuries. Approached from a wide-screen historical timeline, transgender exclusion and inclusion in the military may be seen as another wave of the old debate of whether non-men could and should be allowed to serve. In these old assumptions, men were supposed to be cisgender, heterosexual, able-bodied, white and educated (at the level of command and prestige) or usually, mostly, white and poor (at the level of the commanded). Thus the question of transgender inclusion meets with implicit biases that the military is a place for "real men," meaning cis men. But this tradition of manhood has already been under revision as the complaint that gay men are not "real men" is proven wrong. Likewise, cisgender heterosexual women were and are met with the demand that they can be "just one of the guys" as they fight for the right to fight alongside the "real men." In this vein, the Disney musical Mulan, specifically the song, "Be a Man," gets at a cultural assumption about the military and manhood which is suspicious of other genders, including other ways in which one can "be a man." Consider the line, "you are unfit for the rage of war, pack up, go home, you are through, how could I make a man out of you?" Such a lyric rings heavy in the ears of trans service persons today, just as it rings for the great many queer service people dishonorably discharged from the military on account of their sexuality, as it rings for the centuries of women who could and did fight alongside men in war without recognition. The story of Mulan serving in the military at once represents trans men and women, queers with unspeakable truths and desires, and women doing the work without being able to stand up and claim the credit for fear of being told, "pack up, go home, you are through."

Heterosexism: an excessive amount of critique, attention, and ridicule is leveled at transgender persons through sexually loaded rhetoric. As a scholar but also a reader and target of much anti-transgender argumentation, it is not lost on me how much of the language, terminology, images, and metaphors used by transphobic people are drawn directly from pornography. The term "she-male" is a clear example because a simple Google search with demonstrate that the word is almost exclusively used in porn and only secondarily used in transphobic rants. Other terms such as "tranny" or "trap" likewise drawn from heterosexual anxiety around the intentional sexual engagement with trans sex workers or the fear of unaware sexual engagement with trans persons. Yet even the fascination with trans people's genitals in arguments about what makes a "real man" or "real woman" demonstrates how much of "realness" and "manhood/womanhood" is grounded for many heterosexuals in their sexuality. By this logic, being a man means penetrating women with a penis (as opposed to women-with-penises). As stated above, this not only reduces what it means to "be a man" to a sexual act which is otherwise tangential and irrelevant to military service but an act that is specifically heterosexual. Thus one can understand the exclusion of transgender people from the military as homophobia in another form. This is not surprising, as even within the queer community, extremely femme gay men and extremely butch lesbian women (a certain amount of whom later came out as transgender) were repeatedly hidden or excluded as representing the least socially acceptable version of queerness. The narrative that helped lead to open service in the military for gay men and lesbians was presenting cis queer men and women in ways that contradicted the public image of them as sparkly fairies in drag and the butch leather dykes. One sees even in the "positive" images of transgender persons being represented in the media (in an effort to gain social acceptance) a repetition of the formula, trying to show extraordinarily normative and binary trans men and women as otherwise indistinguishable from the very same cisgender heterosexual men and women that gay men and lesbian women were compared to years prior.

Ableism: across the board, one of the worst things a soldier can be called (insofar as it will exclude them from remaining a soldier) is not simply to be called "not a man," but to be not an "able-bodied" man. All service people in the military (even office clerks) are supposed to be able-bodied combatants that could lift a weapon and fight if the occasion arises. Thus, the exclusion of trans people, women, and queers can be understood as extending from the primary claim that they are not as able-bodied as cisgender, heterosexual men. The line "unfit for the rage of war" is itself an invocation of disability, as the lack of ability or fitness for war. Claims and misinformation that transgender people are innately mentally ill are then also claims that they are unfit for military service. These claims are both the easiest to disprove (for audiences that accept years of medical science and evaluation) and also some of the most problematic to answer without conceding disability in the military as essentially undesirable and unfit. If addressed head-on, this tension can be unpacked to show the complicated network of military duties actually and potentially expected of someone in the armed forces. A wheel-chair may make it hard to move from dug-out to dug-out but may not be a problem for someone driving a tank; unless the tank needs to be abandoned; unless... the list of potential possibilities for service and for an inability to serve multiply with every "what if?" What such evaluations show is that a transgender person is effectively able-bodied in regards to all the same grounds as a cisgender person with all the same capacities. What is also shown is the tangled web of expectation and contingency that defines all the ways a person may be considered able or unable to serve in different circumstances. Inevitably and necessarily, this will also address the ways in which the wages of war produce disabled bodies - literally bodies that have been affected by violence so as to be made disabled. Among the most prominent forms of being disabled by the military is mental illness, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The irony then is that the military produces bodies (including minds) that it otherwise would not include if those conditions were derived before and outside military service. 

Example Discussion Questions:

• Are debates about transgender service in the military separate from other debates around cis women and queer women? In what ways is this a continuation of previous feminist movements and in what ways does it introduce particular concerns? How do you respond to claims that gender segregation should be preserved for biological, reproductive, or traditional reasons?

• How might anti-transgender sentiment be misplaced or misunderstood homophobia? Is the anger against trans service persons vengeance for allowing LGB persons to serve or is this a completely different phenomenon of hate? How might LGB persons be adding fuel to the transphobia?

• Should transgender service people completely disassociate themselves from disability identity in order to serve? Should trans service people maintain this association in order to advocate for people with disabilities being allowed to serve? How are advancements in technology and warfare changing what it means to be a soldier in ways that contrast with the demands for bodily capacity during previous trench wars? How inclusive and accessible should the military be? How might being more accessible provide surprising benefits to force effectiveness?

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Recommended Readings

Critical Studies - Regarding Lifting the Original Ban

• A. Belkin, New England Journal of Medicine, “Caring for Our Trans Troops” (2015)
• Schaefer, Iyengar, Kadiyala, Kavanagh, Engel, Williams, and Kress, RAND Corporation, "Assessing the Implications of Allowing Transgender Personnel to Serve Openly" (2016)

Interviews with Transgender Troops - Regarding the New Bans

• The Ellen Show, Youtube, "Ellen Chats with Transgender Military Couple Logan & Laila Ireland" (2017)
• Fox 11 LA, Youtube, "Transgender veteran Shane Ortega discusses Trump's military ban" (2017)

Film Scenes for Close-Reading - Regarding Military Culture

• Disney, Mulan, "Be A Man" (1998)
• New Line Cinema, Lord of the Rings: Two Towers, "Eowyn" (2002)

Pre-modern Texts for Historical Reference 

• Heldris of Cornwall, Roman de Silence, "Sir. Silence"
• Historical Association for Joan of Arc Studies, Primary Sources and Context Concerning Joan of Arc's Male Clothing

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