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

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

______________________________

______________________________

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!

______________________________

______________________________

Trans Literature: Transgender as a Trope in Cisgender Stories

"I see you shiver with anticipation...
I'll remove the cause but not the symptom"

Dr. Frank N Furter
Rocky Horror Picture Show

______________________________

______________________________

Introduction

Part 1 of this three part talk will consider "Transgender as a Trope" in cisgender stories in order to provide a background for the norm into which trans literature has arisen and also to articulate the particular limitations and failures that make trans narratives and trans methods of reading necessary. Admittedly, there are stories told by cisgender people where the trans person is more fleshed out but these are rare exceptions and will be discussed more in the next section as they represent early participation in trans literature as a literary archive. As will be seen, for most history even trans literature about trans folk was rarely written by trans folk. Thus, the focus of this section is to consider the ways that trans figures typically appear when they do appear in cisgender stories. 

In each case, there is often a pornographic or fetishistic erotica that epitomizes each trope as trans characters are frequently invoked as figures for body genre narratives. Body genre narratives are those that excite the body in some way: horror (fear), comedy (laughter), thriller (anxiety), or porn (arousal). Thus, there is an apparent bent towards the gothic, the fantastical, the comedic, and the pornographic in how trans tropes are constructed and used by cisgender narratives. 

Additionally, each trope has evident connections to hierarchies of power, especially between the sexes. This makes sense, because trans tropes are typically used in the service of cisgender stories. The trans figure and trope is thus primarily or merely a device to move the story forward in some way. Because most narratives depend on conflicts of power in some way, trans tropes are often used as ways of humbling, changing, or empowering cisgender people. Also, there tends to be a sustained power differential between the cis and trans person as a way to explain why the story is not and should not be taken over by a trans figure no matter how charismatic. Indeed, those trans figures who tend to be the most charming and powerful are typically those imagined with malevolent intent, because they are a danger or threat to the integrity of the cisgender narrative.

______________________________

It's a man shouts Ace Ventura at the climax of his detective story

as he strips naked the villain, revealing her tucked genitals

______________________________

The Trap

A staple of cisgender stories that require a dramatic twist, "The Trap" is the name that cis folk have given to transgender people who pass as their identified gender until the moment that the narrative needs to reveal their trans-ness and reassert their birth gender.

In crime stories, "The Trap" provides both a red-herring and a last minute twist. Early in the narrative, the trans person may be included as a suspect or accomplice but will be discarded because the detective and audience do not clock their trans-ness. Midway through the narrative, they are put into the background. Then, at a dramatic climax, the protagonist and audience discover the trans person's trans-ness, allowing certain pieces of evidence to click into place: semen samples, lip-stick, or a deep voice. Going back to the trans person, the confrontation is usually performed as an unmasking, Scooby-Doo style, where the wig is removed or the dead-name is named. The trans person gets angry, often breaking gender norms in some way that signals to the audience that the trap has been disarmed.

"The Trap" is usually found in detective stories but may be present in other narratives to provide melodrama or comedy. For instance, Ace Ventura famously has a trans "trap" villain who is not only revealed at the end but publicly stripped naked and ridiculed. Even more "classy" comedies like Frasier include an episode that involves the protagonist being arrested for picking up a woman he did not know is a sex worker and did not know is trans. In this case, the "Trap" is sprung midway, complete with her suddenly using a deeper voice and her large manly muscles unveiled once she is brought into the full light, so Frasier can be doubly embarrassed by his friends and family for daring to help a trans woman out of the rain.

To this day, "The Trap" remains a common term of derision for trans-folk. Often they are framed as threats to heterosexual men's heterosexuality, acting like folk-lore which teaches them to maintain the power and integrity of their manhood so they do not get "trapped." "Trap" porn is also a popular sub-genre that positions sex with trans folk as an act only ever performed when the trans person is so passing as to be indistinguishable and also the sexual aggressor taking advantage of the cisgender man, who wouldn't sexually engage with them otherwise. This way, cis het men can have their manly man cake and eat some trans cake too!

______________________________

Ursula the Sea Witch was famously based on the performer Divine

______________________________

The Mystical Drag Queen

The mystical drag queen is in many ways inspired by the tradition of mystical black men and women. This is not accidental as drag queens have long been associated with gay and trans folk of color. The mystical drag queen is framed as a kind of shaman, a being that exists between the normal world and the queer extraordinary world. 

Within cisgender narratives, mystical drag queens tend to provide advice, threats, or services for the cis protagonists. Typically, when the mystical drag queen is framed as a figure of danger, she will exist somewhere dark and secluded where the cis hero must seek them out or else find themselves by accident. She will often broker some deal with the hero to help them along on their path or back on their feet. This may involve some level of sacrifice, change, or embarrassment. After all, the mystical drag queen is a figure of transitions and liminality. She always takes with one hand as she gives with another. The more benevolent mystical drag queen on the other hand may be found out on the streets, usually harassed and marginalized by the wider community. Because she is a humiliated figure, she is also humbled, asking little from the cis protagonist beyond the bare level of respect and kindness.

The Mystical Drag Queen is found in fantasy and horror, especially in the nefarious role, but may be akin to a gay best friend in more realist narratives, especially when she takes on the humbled benevolent. Among the pseudo-villains, some of the most famous examples include Dr. Frank N. Furter from Rocky Horror Picture Show and Ursula from the Little Mermaid. Both figures occupy dark haunts and draw the heroes into a world of sorted sexual and moral transgressions. They bring them across some threshold of normative limitation, before setting them back on the road transformed. Benevolent mystical drag queens include the cast of To Wong Fu Thanks for Everything Julie Newmar, Wanda from Neil Gaiman's A Game of You, and Sophia from Orange is the New Black. In both these cases, the trans woman or drag queens of color (admitting one white leader in the case of the former film) arrive into the lives of the put upon white woman. They provide advice and kindness, helping them rediscover their womanhood and even their sexuality before disappearing into the background. Above all, it is made clear that this is not the story nor even the world of the mystical drag queen, who must be content to exist on the margins of the story as a threat or helper.

To this day, even as trans folk are beginning to be included in more media they remain side characters who exist in a world that touches upon but is not wholly the same as the other cisgender characters. In some cases, they have replaced the role of the gay best friend as the gay or lesbian characters are upgraded to more complex fleshed out roles or excluded entirely with the trans person taking on the representative weight of all LGBTQ people. After all, the mystical drag queen is fundamentally a signifier of a wider darker more morally complex universe that exists just outside the fairly normative scripts of the main story.

______________________________

Google "sissification" or "gender transformation" without Safe Search

and be prepared for a massive archive of erotica

______________________________

The Sissy

The Sissy is an old staple character within narrative for the reason that most literature has been produced by men within various forms of patriarchal hierarchies. The sissy represents the failed or corrupted man, the man turned woman. The sissy has been studied by feminists as a symptom of patriarchal definitions of gender that set men opposite and above women, with the sissy being any man who demonstrates a trait shared with women. The sissy has also been studied by queer theory as a symptom of homophobic power structures that demand the performance of hyper-heterosexuality and toxic masculinity and eschew gayness as sissies who embody a disorder or failure in this system. Yet on the face, the Sissy is a definitively trans character, a man who has become a woman, often against his will, making him a victim of women, gay men, trans-ness, or even communism, liberalness, or higher education.

Because the sissy as a target made up of feminine men (i.e. non-hyper masculine men) and gay men has been so extensively studied, I will consider the particular form of sissy trope that tends to involve some sort of overt trans identification, even if this identification comes only after harassment, abuse, seduction, or some sort of literal or metaphorical castration. The most overt example of the sissy appears in pornography or erotica, usually involving a domineering woman or domineering women who decide to punish or curb the man into a sissy. In this case, the sissification embodies the loss of the man's power, represented by his loss of man's power. Often, the domineering woman will eventually leave the sissy for a "real man." At a certain point in this process of depravity, the sissy learns to embrace the new life given and submits to the role of woman, often become the subordinate to some other men as well. Yet the process of sissification need not always be overt as pornography makes it out to be. Some sissies are marked as feminized by subtler signs, such as wearing a frilly cooking apron, crying at romantic comedies, speaking in a higher voice, or some other feminine affectation. These sissies likewise loss their manhood because they lost their man's power to women. They cook because their wives make them. They get called "mom" because their wives are working out of the house. Their wives "wear the pants in the family" and because of hetero patriarchal assumptions, this demotes the man to the role of the woman or sissy.

The non-erotic sissy is often represented in narratives that understand themselves as operating under realism with a progressive bent, usually framed by comedy as a way to defuse tensions or as a way of self-consciously apologizing to conservative audiences. Indeed, the sissy is often represented within more conservative narratives and media as a way of marking liberal men (now called "lib cuck" men) who have lost their proper masculine traditions and thus regressed into the women they increasingly resemble. Yet even when presented by liberal or progressive media, the sissy is still presented for laughs because although there is a desire for diversity or for virtue-signaling, the cisgender story tellers are not comfortable with this diversity or are not confident that their audiences will be comfortable. An example of this comes also from the comedy Frasier which includes a couple scenes where trans characters are referenced (but rarely shown), especially by the eccentric liberal woman of the core cast (Daphne) when she references having dinner with her "transvestite uncle." When asked whether the "uncle" lives as a woman full-time, she says, "oh no, his congregation would never stand for it." This wording and exchange, concluding in a laugh-track, demonstrates how even when a narrative is trying to signal diversity and even compassion for trans people in their networks, they often cannot help but undercutting the virtue move with a joke at the expense of the trans people. The sissy in this way is the acceptable trans person only because the sissy represents that shameful part of the self or of the family, which we want to include but not without reminding everyone of the proper patriarchal pecking order - pun intended.

______________________________

The Cast from To Wong Fu

______________________________

Next up: Transgender as Text

Okay, so we can see many of the problems that have come from letting cisgender people, especially cisgender men, tell the stories of trans people, especially trans women. One of the evident responses to these mischaracterizations, reductions, and caricatures is to allow trans people to tell their own stories or at least to put the trans person at the center of the narrative. What happens when trans people become the subjects of trans narratives? How does transgender affect narrative? How do different narratives affect how transgender is structured and understood? Stay tuned to find out!

______________________________

Chandler's "Dad" from Friends

______________________________

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

______________________________

______________________________

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.

______________________________

______________________________

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.

______________________________

______________________________

Beyond Male and Female: How (Not) to Argue On the Internet

“The importance of the Internet for LGBT youth and their peers overall... poses a challenge to educators, 
who must help students learn how to seek out and identify reliable sources of information and safe sources of support amidst the deluge of potential connections online.”

Out Online
GLSEN

______________________________

______________________________

Course Description and Outcomes

Gender is personal and political. Gender is not just a set of physical or mental characteristics but an ongoing social conversation between identities, expressions, and relations that fight to order how we define bodies, how we divide bodies, and what roles or values these bodies will possess. Histories and narratives form and repeat when readers follow debates on gender in society. Such narratives influence cultural imagination with tales that reflect and resist public concepts of gender, sexuality, race/ethnicity, disability, and class. In this seminar, we explore how rhetoric and worldviews have worked together to form diverse genres of texts and embodiment that have come to be collected under the name, “transgender,” as well as other forms of gender beyond the binary categories of “male” and “female.”


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

Sections of the seminar will use (public) Twitter posts in place of Canvas posts. The length of posts should be approximately the same, requiring multiple posts.

Twitter: Create a unique Twitter account for the seminar (unrelated to your name). Be aware that Twitter is an open platform, meaning the safety and respect lessons on the seminar on “How (Not) to Argue on the Internet” will need to be practiced.

Hashtags for Twitter: 

#USSO291T (Seminar) + Section Title (e.g. #Science)

______________________________

______________________________

Selections from the Reading List

Beyond Male and Female: How (Not) to Argue on the Internet is a seminar designed to interrogate the systems which continually reduce gendered embodiment to a binary and the alternative networks which are developing online. The first half of the seminar explores #Religion and #Science as practices of knowing that organize and often limit gender diversity. In the former sub-section, the class practices close-reading texts by creating their own biblical commentaries of key passages on gender and sexuality from the NRSV Bible and analyzing images, memes, and videos in the long tradition of trans and non-binary saints. In the latter, the science of sex is researched through medical histories and intersex memoirs to consider the material evidence of over 50 distinct sexual embodiments. The second half of the seminar is rooted in two critical spaces where the gender binary is enforced or undermined, #Healthcare and #Schools. In the former, students will read embodiment narratives that address different ways that gender dysphoria manifests and is managed in distinct environments: high school, hospitals, prisons, and on the streets. In the last subsections, the class concludes by looking back at how education systems help or hinder trans and non-binary youths through the autobiographic stories including Eli Clare and Jazz Jennings. Throughout the semester, in addition to traditional reading assignments, students will be encountering a variety of digital texts which will augment and model the ways in which the internet argues over men, women, and all those between and beyond.

----------------------------------------

#Religion

Print Texts

The NRSV Bible,

• “Genesis I and II,” 
• “Deuteronomy,”
•  “Galatians 3” 
• “Leviticus 21-23,” 
• “Isaiah 56,”
• “Matthew 18-19”

Aiken and Aparicio (dir.), The Transformation (1996)

N. Constas (Trans.), The Life of Saint Marinos

C. Jenner, I Am Cait, “A New Beginning”

Digital Texts

Week 1: Youtube, AustenLionheart, “Reimagining Genesis 1”

Week 2: Youtube, AustenLionheart, “Eunuchs, Prophets, and Coming Home”

Week 3: Youtube, Michael Kasino, “The Life and Times of Marsha P. Johnson”

----------------------------------------

#Science

Print Texts

T. Hillman, Intersex, 

• “Haircut,” 
• “Special,” 
• “Pray,” 
• “Reshaping” 
• “Another,” 
• “Swallow,” 
• “Testosterone”
• “Condition”

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

A. Fausto-Sterling, Sexing the Body

L. Simon, Confessions of a Teenage Hermaphrodite

Digital Texts

Week 4: Youtube, Boldly, “What It’s Like to Be Intersex” 

Week 5: Youtube, Arts & Ideas at the JCCSF, Exploring Intersex w Hida Viloria

Week 6: Podcast, Transgeneral, “Non-Binary 101” (2/5/16)

----------------------------------------

#Healthcare

Print Texts

A.P.A, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5), “Gender Dysphoria”

Scholinski, The Last Time I Wore A Dress, Ch. 1-5

K.A. Applegate, Animorphs #3: The Encounter 

J. Mock, Redefining Realness

Orange is the New Black, 1.5. “The Chickening.” (2013)

A. Belkin, New England Journal of Medicine, “Caring for Our Trans Troops”

Digital Texts

Week 7: Podcast, The Gender Rebels Podcast, “Am I Transgender Enough?”

Week 8: Youtube, College Humor, “Coming Out as Trans Everything”

Week 9: Youtube, ATME e.V., “Janet Mock @ Women’s March” 

Week 10: Youtube, MTV, “Lavern Cox Presents: The T Word” 

----------------------------------------

#Schools

Print Texts

E. Clare, Exile and Pride

L. Alcorn, Transgender Queen of Hell

A. Cavalcante, Critical Studies in Media, “I Did It All Online”

J. Jennings, I Am Jazz (Book)

J. Jennings, Being Jazz (Book), Ch. 5 

J. Jennings, I Am Jazz (TV Show), “I Looked Like a Man in a Dress”

Digital Texts

Week 11: Youtube, UNHCOLA, Notes on Cure, Disability and Natural Worlds

Week 12: Youtube, lacigreen, “Pray the Gay Away - Exposed”

Week 13: Youtube, tic uk, “Jazz Debates Tomi Lahren!” 

Week 14: Podcast, How To Be a Girl, “Episode 1: Mama, I’m a Girl!” (2013)             

______________________________

______________________________