Shemales: Defining Transgender through the Porn Industry

“It’s a porn term that describes a genre.
That way, some country, straight-ass guy 
in the corner is going to understand. 
You say ‘transsexual’ & they’re confused,
 you say ‘shemale’ & they know what that is”*

Wendy Williams

*Note: if you are a church member or search committee,
please, actually ready the scholarship and don't jump to conclusions based on visuals.
The thesis of the argument is about thinking critically and not judging on first glance.

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The Definition

How does society get its relations and information about transgender? For a majority of men in the United States, their first and most instructive encounter with trans women are likely to be through a subgenre of pornography called "Shemale Porn." In an article listing a variety of amusing porn titles, Funny or Die promotes an advertisement, "A Shemale for All Seasons." The ad asks the question: "I know what you’re thinking. 'Wait, aren’t Shemales just for Autumn?' No, you’re wrong, and this porn is here to prove it. Shemale’s are for ALL seasons and especially Christmas time." Featuring a cover showing a trans woman wearing an bright green elf costume, "Jules" helps Santa with sexual release. She is advertised as "the best of both worlds." While it may seem to take the matter too seriously, with the name of the film gesturing back to the classic "A Man For All Seasons," an articulate remembering of a man who represented a controversial view-point in a critical moment of cultural upheaval, the Shemale Porn seems to beg the question: is this how we want history to remember the trans community? As historians of culture can attest, erotic media provide critical information in imagining how peoples of the past lived. In terms of realities that are shaped on perceptions, the trans community past, present, and future are at least partially defined by the powerful cultural presence that is the Shemale. 

In her Post-Transsexual Manifesto, Sandy Stone calls for a shift towards a model of gender that embraces the multiplicity of social constructions suggested by the term genre. Gender and genre share a common etymology, stemming back to the Latin, "Genus." In other words, gender and genre simply mean "category." Yet while the latter remains alive in creative arts with dynamic changes in meanings with every new iteration or new generation of artists come to embody it. Indeed, there is even a relationship between gender and genre. Certain genres are associated with certain genders. Westerns promise a kind of lone butch masculinity. Romantic-comedies always seem to summon up a manic form of femme-ness. In this way, genres lay scripts and expectations for gender. For the trans community, the associated genres of trans literature are a veritable minefield of marginalization and objectification. Among the most prominent and dangerous genders that defines trans lives are "the Shemale" and the attraction to trans bodies through "Shemale porn."

"Shemale is a term exclusively employed for the porn industry, for movies featuring pre-op transsexual women," explains MyLadyboyDate.com. Despite the terms offensive associations, it is regularly used by certain populations of men when addressing trans women. "Interestingly and unfortunately," observes LadyboyDate, "it's a very popular word, with way more results on Google on the subject than for any other term." The popularity of the term demonstrates the power of narrative. For many, masturbating to Shemale Porn is only context in which they come to know and relate to trans bodies. As a result, their own tense feelings of objectification, fetishes, and shame become invariably tied to transgender. Transgender becomes defined by pornography as a deviant sexuality that embodies all the conflicted feelings of the desirers rather than reflecting the realities of the trans community. Despite the prominence of the term, few people seem to be familiar with its definitions. Indeed, the power of the term Shemale is a lack of consideration of alternatives.  The pervasive confusion that the term inspires is evident in internet forums and encyclopedias. Wikipedia offers extensive definitions and sub-entries on the term and genres of Shemales. The entry explains that while Shemale is currently defined by the Porn Industry, it had a wider history in attacks against cis-gender women as well. Feminist intellectuals or other women in the workplace of the 19th century were sometimes called "Shemales" to describe a female taking on a male role. Likewise, lesbians were described as Shemales because they took on a male role in pursuing women sexually. There is then a continuity with the terms use in porn where Shemales are primarily portrayed as the penetrator, a supposedly male position.

A telling example comes from Yahoo Answers, where one user asks, "What is the difference between transgender, transsexual, shemale, ladyboy, and tranny?" For many, engaging with the trans community or even becoming educated on transgender is blocked by misunderstanding of terminology. A host of terms are available that all seem to mean the same and yet the majority of them seem rooted in the discourse of porn. The "best answer" (as voted by the site users) to the Yahoo question tries to distinguish these diverse histories. "Shemale is a term used by the porn industry to refer to transgendered individuals, and often more specifically, transsexuals," writes the answers. Then goes on to warn about the use of the term outside of the media of porn. "It is seen by transsexuals similar to how the N-word is seen by African-Americans," writes the answer, but adds "except that it is not used by transsexuals themselves to refer to each other." Wikipedia explains the term as an overdetermination of gender by physical sex, "in this view, the term emphasizes the biological sex of a person and neglects their gender." The entry also stresses that the term is so bound to porn that it suggests a very narrow association between transgender and sex work. 

Despite its pejorative use and associations with sex work, some academics still defend their use of the term Shemale. "Some biologists have used shemale to refer to male non-human animals displaying female traits or behaviors, such as female pheromones being given off by male reptiles," reports Wikipedia. Likewise, "The term is also used by some psychologists to refer to male-to-female transsexual people who have transitioned to female but have not undergone genital surgery" (Wikipedia). Others have tried to find a technical use for the term within the queer and trans community. In 1969, Janice Raymond, in The Transsexual Empire: the Making of the She-Male, invoked the pornographic term to paint trans women as an aggressive, sexual male invasion of the feminine sphere constituting  a "rape" of feminist culture. Others offered more optimistic meanings. In 1990, Jennifer Anne argued in From Masculine to Feminine and All Points in Between, defined a "Shemale" as "usually a gay male who lives full-time as a woman; a gay transgenderist" (Wikipedia). Likewise, The Oxford English Dictionary defines Shemale as a kind of trans/gay hybrid, "a passive male homosexual or transvestite" (Wikipedia). These practices have been highly criticized as being highly unscientific. Rather than use precise technical terms or reference language drawn from the society being addressed, these scientists impose derogatory language borrowed from the porn industry. This demonstrates that science and medicine are not free from the cultural power of porn in defining transgender early and distinctly.

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The Porn Industry

The problem with the term "Shemale" is not simply that is functions primarily to define transgender through the discourse of sex work, but that the way the porn industry treats trans performers and the narratives that they chose to tell are themselves oppressive. In a  Salon.com  article, a trans man going by "Tomcat" reports of the marginalization of trans performers. “I still encounter many non-trans performers who will not work with [female] Ts performers because they consider [them] to be more of a STI risk to do a scene with," Tomcast testifies. "This is bullshit," he adds. "In a industry where everyone is tested and everyone makes choices, the same risks are present regardless of gender identity.” The ideology suggested by the isolation of the trans community is that transgender bodies are somehow more inherently pathological. Furthermore, the Shemale genre defines transgender in porn as almost exclusively feminine. On her Tumblr, Tranzfat brings attention to the exclusion of trans men from prominent trans performances, "Because it’s the only kind of trans porn there is, i.e. trans men don’t exist." While notable exceptions exist, it is evident to all that "Porn featuring trans men is rare because it’s a niche market" because "the vast majority of porn is made for white men." In other words, the definition of transgender in the porn industry as Shemale is fueled by the simultaneous desire for a transerotic, transphobic taboo and the homoerotic, homophobic desire for feminine phallus.  As will be explored later, the term Shemale promoted in the porn industry instills a sense of transgender as a desirable taboo, an exciting danger, that can be enjoyed by not embraced.

The mistreatment of trans performers are reinforced by the Shemale Porn that they are paid to sustain in the cultural imagination despite the progress the transgender movement has made in the past decades. “People still search for Ts porn using ‘Shemale,'” Tomcat says. “To me, this is like searching online for a cab company by typing in ‘stagecoach.’ It’s an antiquated term that is ignorant, incorrect and no longer OK to use.” The intentional use of the term Shemale is at once derogatory and a rhetorical move to set back the clock to an hour when transgender rights and dignities were less respected. The pervasiveness of the term Shemale is mirrored by the use and intent of other terms such as "chicks with dicks, tranny porn, or t-girl porn." These derogatory terms point back to the primary audience of Shemale porn: "straight" cisgender men. This imagined audience is evident to trans performers, such as Wendy Williams, who acknowledges "Shemale Porn" as a "Straight Specialty." These straight men are also the typical partners portrayed in the pornography. Typically, the cismale subject becomes penetrated by the trans woman. The use of derogatory language reasserts a sense of difference, superiority, and disgust over transgender bodies. They enjoy imagining being put in the "submissive" or "feminine" sexual position and the derogatory language is a way to reclaim a sense of power. While some claim that the working conditions of Shemale performers is not as bad as reported, others, such as the blogger, Tranzfat takes issue with the way the industry and narratives position trans performers in a state of dejection or subjection, "Because you never see a trans woman in porn smiling or laughing." By playing up a distaste for transgender, the consumers of Shemale porn are able to cover up their desire for and even possible identification with the trans community.

In recent years, the Porn Industry has shown signs of wavering to pressure from progressive transgender politics. A key sign of this positive change came in 2008 in the form of the support of the Transgender Erotica Awards where trans performers can have their contribution to the industry respected and recognized. The Awards are sponsored by Grooby Productions, an adult industry production company. At first, the awards were named "The Tranny Awards" until the industry was forced to admit that the disrespect suggested by the name of the awards outweighed the good of the recognition. With the new awards and new name, the Awards work to change the place and perception of trans performers in the porn industry. The advantage of have an Award show specifically for trans performers was that diversity in the community and profession could be recognized. A few of the award categories included "Best FTM [Female to Male] Performer", "Best Non-TS (non-Transsexual) Performer," and "Best Foreign (Non-US) Performer." Despite the number of awards offered, however, the name and diversity of performers still remain relatively small and concentrated on trans women who either have or do no have a penis. While some believe that the positive change will happen over time, others are actively working to transform the circumstances. A key example of this is “Doing It Ourselves: The Trans Women Porn Project.” It's director, Tobi Hill-Meyer left mainstream porn “to create an alternative that allowed trans women to be represented the way each performer wanted to see herself represented,” reports Salon.com. “More and more performers are speaking out about changes they’d like to see and setting up their own websites or productions.” This, some suggest, may transform the way transgender is defined and treated in the porn industry. 

  

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The Genre

In an impassioned diatribe on "Why “Shemale” Porn is not OK," blogger tranzfat composes a list of reasons she opposes the industry's definition of trans performance. "1. Because… you guessed it, fuck you," she writes and echoes again in point 10. Within this emotional exhortation, Tranzfat goes into particular complaints. Highlights include issues with the way trans feminine embodiments are portrayed, "2. Because it only feature women with large breasts, often augmented ones, which not only perpetuates the idea that “real women” have big boobs," "8. Because there are never any fat transwomen," and "5. Because there are never any 'post op' transwomen in trans porn, because that’s just too close to the 'real thing' and there’s no mystery/fetish to be had. I can’t play the game 'who’s the tranny' when it’s two 'normal looking' women!" To this point, another blogger had responses from FreedomInWickness, an intersex trans worker. FreedomInWickness writes on the streotypical feminine image that the Shemale Porn genre uses. "It’s fair to say a majority of 'shemale' porn features girls with big tits, but it absolutely not only and always." While exceptions do exist, both bloggers agree that the porn industry primarily sets stereotypical feminine beauty standards on Shemale performers, that is, besides the demands for a fully functioning penis. The simultaneous presentation of the hyper-feminine with the hyper phallic creates a particular effect desired by the audience.

On Quara.com, the topic of how a trans woman becomes a "Shemale" in particular heats up and gets into how the genre defines transgender in particular ways based on narrative, sex acts, and audience. "Someone who self labels as "shemale" could technically get GRS surgery or take hormones," writes one Anonymous poster. "[B]ut their marketability as 'shemale' in porn would be eliminated because the shemale identity is essentially a bigendered one." While the transgender and intersex community might counter that the definitions of being trans are elastic enough to include many different genres of embodiments, the turn to "bigender" to describe "Shemales" gets at how the subgenre makes particular demands on trans body. "The people who buy shemale porn, in general, are looking for a particular image," continues the post. "They want a woman with a functioning penis... In a way, that feeds into a negative and exploitative stereotype of the transgender female as the best of both worlds." Indeed, when many trans persons are told they are "the best of both worlds," the echoes of porn slogans are marketing are evident. Rather than attending to the personal identity or chosen embodiment of the trans person, they become defined by the demands of those attracted to the genre of porn. In this way, Shemale is defined more by the audience and marketing than by the trans community themselves. This, more than a mere relation to the sex work industry, is why trans people take offense. A similar debate rages between the trans community and the medical industry over who gets to define terminology.

“[Men] get tired of just the same old thing. Transsexuals are more feminine, they’re like hyper-feminine. To me, it’s kind of get the best of both worlds,” Madison Montag, a nominee for Transsexual Performer of the Year, tells Salon.com. Using the language of Shemale Porn slogans, "Best of Both Worlds," Montag gestures to the expectations set by the porn market for what makes a trans woman attractive. The demand for Shemales is the desire not for the trans feminine as such but for the taboo aroused through contradictions. The Shemale is supposed to super feminine to make the phallus feel safer, less homoerotic for men. In order to fulfill this fantasy of being "both" hyper phallic and securely femme, trans women are supposed to work hard to accentuate their femininity when they play Shemales. Otherwise, they are not attractive to these "Tranny Chasers." “I pull my hair up into ponytail and throw on some lip gloss and people just think I’m a tall girl with big boobs,” recounts Montag to Salon on her day to day life as a trans woman. To become the Shemale her viewers desire, however, she needs to embody more of a contradiction, one that has real life effects on her body.  “You need to seem extremely feminine, but if you want to seem feminine, then you need to be on hormones," attests Montag. "[B]ut if you’re on hormones, you can’t stay hard and come, and if you can’t stay hard and come, you’re a bad performer.” The difficult if not impossible demands of the audience of Shemale porn demonstrate a disconnect between the consumers of the fantasy and real life trans women. 

Regardless of how one judges the current industry, the anonymous poster on Quara.com points towards ways to improve the treatment of trans persons in and outside porn. "My feeling," writes the post, "is that porn which is made to satisfy the needs of chasers will continue to perpetuate a false sense of the transgender woman (or man) unless it is either made by transgender people, or the porn industry actually becomes sensitive to the needs of transgender people (not likely)." So long as the porn industry privileges the demands of its audiences over the care and respect of its trans performers, the power dynamic will continue to keep Shemale Porn a marginalized and fetishized subculture. Indeed, the post argues that so long as people hold onto the term "Shemale," transgender rights will not effectively break into the porn industry. "People who use the term 'shemale' with regard to porn consumption usually are pinpointed by the transgender community as either being really uneducated or as being a 'chaser' or someone who fetishizes the transgender community," claims the post. "If you are an admirer, don't be a chaser and don't use the term shemale." More optimistic than others, the anonymous poster points to a few companies that offer a better model of power dynamics, definitions, and narratives. "There are actually independent companies run by transgender people for transgender people," notes the post, "such as Trannywood Pictures, or the independent video production that Buck Angel® Pioneering Filmmaker, Speaker, and LGBTQ Advocate does." In all likelihood, porn will continue to define transgender in much the same was as it defines gender and sex in other areas of culture. Yet, by attending to the words, narratives, and contexts in which transgender is imagined and by reclaiming power over the engines of the industry, trans lives can reclaim themselves from the negative work of the word "Shemale."

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Go to Part 2:

"Shemales: Desiring Transgender through the Porn Industry"

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Call me Caitlyn this Halloween: Transgender Costumes

“To make a costume out of a marginalized identity reduces that person and community 

to a stereotype 

for privileged people to abuse” 

Addison Vincent

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The following is part of an ongoing analysis

of transgender and the new authentic

as trans bodies are reproduced for profit

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Humor as Oppression

"Be an advocate for the liberal agenda in this Unisex Miss-ter Olympic Wig!" announces AnyTimeCostumes in the description of their Caitlyn Jenner costume prop. "If you cant identify as a male, throw on this brunet wig that offers a modern style and straight cut. Complete your costume by ordering a medal that shows what used to be of the infamous Bruce Jenner." This sort of text is evidence of a half-sincere warning I give about the culling of overt trans-phobia. In a world where racists, sexists, homophobes, and trans-phobes learns the dance of being politically correct, their hatred and sedition remains. Many of us experience the systematic and even intentional oppression of certain groups that are allowed to perpetuate because they no longer use their tell-tale language. Some of us may long for days in which hate groups where out and open about their violent agenda. What AnyTimeCostumes states clearly here about how the impersonation of Caitlyn Jenner on halloween is an evident political statement and rhetorical attack against social justice is nonetheless affirmed when such declarations are not made. There may be some mistake between promoting the fame or infamy of a marginalized group, but AnyTimeCostumes knows what they are doing when they promote their satirical Caitlyn Jenner (or rather "Bruce Jenner") costumes. They know humor can be a weapon.

"You probably won't break any Twitter records when you wear this outfit like Caitlyn did when she first made her account, but you'll be sure to get a few laughs out of your friends,” writes  AnyTimeCostumes in the description to their full Caitlyn Jenner costume. That the wearers of a Caitlyn Jenner costume might want to break Twitter records is a sign but can't that pictures of the farcical imitation of a trans woman is meant to be broadcast. Wearing the costume makes a political statement and statements are meant to be shared and enact change. In this case,  AnyTimeCostumes knows that twitter will not consent at large to the political oppression being exposed nor will it effect great immediate change in the trajectory of legal and cultural progress. Yet the rhetorical attack may still extend support and receive affirmation from like-minded opponents to transgender rights; or, more importantly, those who are on the fence because of a lack of knowledge or interest. In other words, AnyTimeCostumes is saying: if you can't beat them, at least you can make fun of them. In a sense, the creation of a Caitlyn Jenner costume as a tool for promoting mockery and oppression is a sign that Trans Rights are gaining enough power to be a publicly recognized target and threat. Humor and parody is the powerful weapon of the weak. It is a sign of weakness because the statements that ring with sincere aggression cannot be candidly uttered or taken for granted. It is still a sign of power, however, because it assumes a sympathetic audience who will recognize and rise to the flag of opposition that is being waved.

For these reasons and more, transgender rights activists and allies are opposing the buying and selling of Caitlyn Jenner parody costumes. As part of this push for companies such as SpiritHalloween to pull the oppressive costumes from their stock, Addison Vincent lead a petition on change.org that has garnered significant support with over 10,000 co-signatories. “To make a costume out of a marginalized identity reduces that person and community to a stereotype for privileged people to abuse,” writes Vincent in the petition. As will be explored further in the next section, the power and effect of speech can change significantly depending on the speaker. If the promotional images and descriptions of the costumes are to be followed, then privileged white cis-gender males across the country would be encouraged to take shots against a socially vulnerable group just as they are making progress towards social justice. Indeed, the abuse of such power dynamics has become evident to many who have joined in the petition. "I'm signing," writes one supporter, "because this costume mocks the validity of a transgender's identity, implying a man wearing a dress is the same as a person dressing to their comfort and identity." Any message, especially clothing, is defined by its context. Cisgender men do not have to intend an attack on the trans community for their costume to suggest an oppressive message. This may mean that the powerful should not feel free to "just have fun" and companies need to consider something other than profit when that fun or profit causes further oppression on an already marginalized group. This is not necessarily a call for censorship but a call for responsibility from those in positions of power. As a representative of GLAAD writes, "Companies should think twice before seeking to profit from mocking trans women."

There are those who would defend this mockery as an expression of free speech, expressing the real life sentiments being mocked in a recent article on The Onion : “Once again, political correctness is threatening my freedom to mock disenfranchised minorities.” But let us consider why we protect free speech. The legal right parody is not secured because it is fun and harmless. No, we preserve the freedom of speech because speech is powerful. If speech was not powerful there would be no reason to silence it or defend it. This is why the defense of free speech is not enacted by passively consuming oppressive rhetoric, because this does not show respect to the power of language. Rather, opposing violent humor and parody is not the censorship of free speech but rather a sign of respect for speech. Opposing the wearing, selling, and promoting of oppressive humor such as the Caitlyn Jenner costume sends the statement: yes, we should honor our freedom of speech by using that speech responsibly. There is a difference between being silenced by imprisonment for speaking out and being called out for promoting abusive and oppressive discourses. Companies like SpiritHalloween maintain every legal right to sell the Caitlyn Jenner costume. The outcry against the selling of such a tool for parody was not an attack by or through the government and thus no threat to freedom of speech. As such, there is nothing heroic about SpiritHalloween announcing that they will continue to sell the costume and "will be available in stores in late September," despite public demands not to profit from and promote this tool for oppression. Moving forward after being informed of the damage their business practice may enact on the trans community is not a defense of free speech (they remain legally allowed to act and also not to act in either case) but rather this is an abuse of free speech.

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Caitlyn Jenner as a Pinata for the public

hanging and beating of a trans person in effigy

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Imitation as Tribute

Despite being called out for the oppressive speech being promoted by the marketing of Caitlyn Jenner costumes, SpiritHalloween.com has remained firm on selling the product even as they change the image and tone of their sales strategy. "At Spirit Halloween, we create a wide range of costumes that are often based on celebrities, public figures, heroes and superheroes. Caitlyn Jenner is all of the above and our Caitlyn-inspired costume reflects just that,” said a representative of the company in an attempt to reframe the use of the costume from mockery to celebration. Indeed, being regarded as a "hero" or a "celebrity" is better and more accurate than being sold as "infamous" or "an advocate for the liberal agenda" (it's important to note that Caitlyn Jenner remains a stalwart Republican). “Caitlyn Jenner has proven to be the most important real-life superhero of the year, and Spirit Halloween is proud to carry the costume that celebrates her,” continues the company rep. Certainly, SpiritHalloween has heard the criticisms and has answered with the plea that they mean well. As has been noted, however, intent is not as important in considering the ethics of political speech as effect. Pride and celebrations can be just as damaging as intentional attacks, or worse when the rhetoric of good intentions cover over actual negative effects. Indeed, some, such as Vincent Villano, the spokesman for the National Center for Transgender Equality in Washington, claim  "There's no tasteful way to 'celebrate' Caitlyn Jenner or respect transgender people this way on the one night of the year when people use their most twisted imaginations to pretend to be villains and monsters." Once again, when the power of speech is concerned, context and effect matter more than intent in determining significance.

Beyond the new spin that SpiritHalloween gave to the description and advertising of the Caitlyn Jenner costume, changing the model in the picture is far more effective in redirecting the potential effects of selling such a product. While the original picture that had been circulating promoting the costume portrayed a cis-gender male with evident body and facial hair, the model was later changed to a beautiful cis-gender woman. After the criticisms, SpiritHalloween was active in trying to stress that the latter rather the former would be the version promoted and sold in the stores (although it would be sold by other sites, such as AnyTimeCostumes). This is critical shift because the change in the model embodying the message changes its meaning. The cisgender male suggests that a trans woman is nothing more than a man in drag. On Twitter, @Smeckler put forth this argument, "How is a Caitlyn Jenner Halloween costume degrading? That's exactly what it she is isn't it? Biologically a man changed to look like a woman." This model has been more strongly associated with the derisive and satirical descriptions of the costume because it suggests that the assertion of trans feminine identity is bound to fail or inherently false. The second model, the cis-gender woman, however, suggests a message of success. This is both an ontological statement about womanhood as well as a political statement. The image suggests that a cis-gender woman can identify trans woman. The costume turns from a message of difference and subjective into a tool for alliance and support.

The change in the model suggests a change in the suggested use of the costume. While cis-gender men remain legally free to purchase and wear a Caityln Jenner costume, this may not be the most ethical choice. The masculine embodiment of the wearer donning the costume in jest will continue to undercut the legitimacy of trans political messages. The statement "as with me, so with her" (but not its inverse) is hard to escape. This is even more the case, if the man makes an effort to underline an ironic distance between them and the trans woman they are representing by emphasizing male markers. In the case of an intentionally negative or humorous portrayal, a cis-gender man is asserting his difference, power, and superiority. The message is, "look what I can do to her image." The assertion of an "I" an "thou" (or "her) demonstrates the danger of ironic and sincere performance. The ironic wearer enters into the trans experience and no matter the destruction or pleasure he derives from occupying the trans position, he is free to step back out of that position with impunity. Cis-gender women too can enact this rhetorical attack on trans women by asserting a fundamental difference between the cis-wearer and trans-worn. Through farce, he (or she) retains his "cis-gender" privilege even as he ironically appropriates the trans voice and image; a continuation of an already lopsided power dynamic in a society that already privileges the voice of cis-gender persons over that of trans people; suggesting that while trans women fail to imitate (as though imitation were the goal) cis-gender embodiment, a cis person can do what they can't by being a tourist through the experience of an other that can't cross back over the divide that the cis-performers continue to police.

Within this distinction, however, there remains the possibility for cis-gender men (as well as cis-gender women) to honor trans women through the costume. This potential exists in an culturally transgressive "over-identification" with the trans subject, there by extending an invitation begun with the statement "as with me, so with her" to include the inverse, "as with her, so with me." By working to emphasize the "thou" (or "her") of the trans subject, rather the "I," the cis-gender male puts the trans subject momentarily above or in front of himself. He subverts his own essential cis-gender masculinity by bringing his virtual trans feminine traits to the forefront, thereby allowing himself to temporarily share the vulnerability and beauty of the trans subject. As has been suggested, cis-gender women may come closer to the trans-woman experience by already sharing and affirming a common social position as women. The power of irony is distance and safety, thus also its use in oppressive humor. The power of sincerity is its intimacy and vulnerability, opening the potential to affirm solidarity and honor upon the subject of imitation.

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The choice of a cis-man or a cis-woman to model the costume of a trans woman is a clear rhetorical statement that supports real world political oppression or affirmation

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Authenticity as Capital

Among what has been said here or in the media, there remains the unthought possibility that the targeted audience of a trans woman costume should be other trans women. Indeed, the trans community might be the most ethical addressee for the promotions to reach. By deeming to consider trans persons as constituting a significant demographic, in the process of advertising the companies affirms and furthers the visibility and recognizing the financial and social capital that the trans community is gaining. In this way, society can say to the trans community, "you have heroes worth celebrating." This, above the imitation of cis-gender men and women, affirms a "thou" above the "I." It honors not only a trans individual that can be turned into a product for consumption, but respects the trans community as possessing resources and intimacies with powerful figures that are beyond the ability of cis-men and women to emulate or appropriate. By not crossing a boundary that they can cross only at the risk of sending damaging messages, cis-gender men and women can affirm that they build up for the trans community a reserve of social capital already latent in the creation of a trans woman costume: authenticity.

Authenticity is a social construct that is lately being ascribed in new ways to the transgender community. Previously, I have examined this phenomenon in relation to the marketing and selling of "authentically real" transgender sex dolls. In this case, authenticity is not what the costume delivers but what its imitation depends on for a reference. Critics of the costume have been quick to note how the ascendance of transgender from the designation of being itself an imitation of cisgender male and females into an authentic category of its own is still precarious. "Trans is not a costume," defends Addison Vincent. "Even though Caitlyn is a public figure and I could understand someone wanting to celebrate her as a hero and as a public figure, this could definitely take on a transphobic vibe.” The transphobic mockery of Caitlyn Jenner tries to reduce transgender to a category of failed artifice, prompting trans allies to insist on the authenticity of trans bodies that can be put in real danger due to such messages. "When transgender women step out into the world as their authentic selves," says a representative of GLAAD. "They aren't wearing a costume." As part of the response that the costume causes is the assertion of a difference among those designated as not wearing costumes. Indeed, the work of the former propels the latter. If buyers either wear the costume as a sign of parody or tribute, nonetheless they presuppose in their emulation an authentic trans signified.

In the end, regardless of positive or negative intent, transgender may be deemed more authentically real because of the promotion of imitations and representations. Yet this authenticity, as has been noted in the case of transgender sex toys, remains largely tied to money. The concept of an authentic article is that article can be valued and sold at a higher quality than supposed imitations. In a rhetorical sense, the control over the discourse on transgender constitutes the social capital generated by the "Call Me Caitlyn" costumes. At the same time, these costumes produce financial capital. At this point, the significant problem of appropriation must be repeated. The makers, sellers, and buyers of the costume are largely a non-transgender cis-gender community. That means that while Caitlyn Jenner and the trans community are being reconstructed as bestowing an authentic transgender essence to certain products, this capital is being generated for non-transgender parties. In short, the transgender community is being used to make money that we are not receiving. Even if Caitlyn Jenner received a piece of the money, her politics and financial security is such that she is largely unaffected by the income or lack of it. The trans people that may be the most hurt by the effects of promoting and selling such a transgender costume are not in any way compensated. As a whole, because of a history and current environment where residential, medical, professional, and social security is withheld or precarious for most trans persons, their efforts to define themselves as community worthy of "authentic" status is not rewarded but rather appropriated by those who neither share nor support this vulnerable population. It is those who did not do the work (or even actively opposed it) but show up at the end to take the credit and money that enact appropriation - and that is what this is - an act that is akin to stealing the social and financial capital of the trans community.

What then is the alternative to appropriating trans culture by buying a "Call Me Caitlyn" costume this halloween? Simple: rather than give money to a cisgender corporation as they promote a practice that rhetorically leans towards discrediting the transgender movement, instead donate or buy the products of companies and advocacy groups in the trans community. The best way to honor a trans persons is to send money to trans organizations rather than to dubious cisgender groups looking to buy and sell our image for a quick dollar. Right now, trans lead organizations are still struggling to get a foot hold and trans inclusive organizations largely direct funding to other projects. The trans movement does not need authenticity or imitation so much as it needs the legitimacy and force that money provides. The more money that goes to trans organizations and companies the more donors see them as viable investments. Your money speaks, so know what it is saying and who it is giving a voice. Looking for good places to start? Instead of SpiritHalloween or AnyTimeCostumes, try donating to: the Transgender Law Center (a organization in the profession of "Making Authentic Lives Possible"), the National Center for Transgender Equality, the Trans People of Color Coalition, the Transgender American Veterans Association, and Trans Tech Social Enterprises. 

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For more on appropriation 

and capitalization of transgender:

Real Dolls: 

Transgender Sex Toys & the New Authentic

Dollification: 

Transforming Lives with Sex & Silicone

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Eunuch Facta: Denaturalizing Sex in the Transformation

"If I still could 
have the choice..."

The Transformation

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The following is part 2 of an ongoing series
on Exemplum and Eunuchs
focusing on the Transformation (1994)
a documentary by Susan Aikin

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The Facta of the Eunuch

"Now what's really important is that you need to practice your English," the preacher tells Ricardo in a ministry planning session. "You see, I can tell people what you went through, but you went through it, you lived it. You see what I'm saying? I can tell them about it from my point of view but it's not as good as you." While Ricardo already speaks Spanish, recalling in his the voice of his history as Sara, Terry insists that in order to be a proper facta for his Texan, Christian message, Ricardo must be made to speak his words in English. As in any exemplum, a concept is defined in advanced and then a body is grabbed hold of as an example; then it begins to take shape as its exempla. The body is foreign to the English language of “eunuch” or “transsexual” (or any language) yet by cooperation takes on its shape as it is made readable and as it comes to articulate itself by the expected forms of the genre. [i] This means the body must be inscribed with verbal language (English scientific terms) as well as visual language (male clothing).

By conceding his need for Ricardo to tell his own story, Terry admits the subversive aspect of using exempla that threatens to invert the power dynamics of their relationship. The examplum depends on the inarticulate material facta of the trans body to ground its dicta, yet also needs it to speak back the dicta, the Word, the Logos, that frames and forms it. This agency is nonetheless contingent. The trans body exerts its power by co-operating with the authorities making an example out him. As a part in the operation of sharp-machines, the choices of the facta are dependent on how they meet with their associated dicta. Thus agency is not free, but contingent. It arises along point of the meeting, contact, even the violent edge where authorities work like a knife pressing against the skin of the trans body to carve out the form dictated by the exempla. 

Given that exemplum function as operations in social discourse, the sacrifice of Sara is at once physical and narrative. In one direction, the story of the eunuch cannot be told without the exchanging of finances and material resources. First, Ricardo needed to be brought on board. But moving Ricardo takes further exchanges. "Ricardo, as soon as they actually sign over the deed to the land to us,” says Terry, referring to a facility he is buying to house more trans converts to his mission, “we are going to be traveling to raise money for the buildings.” After Ricardo’s transformation, Terry has tapped a certain stream of resources that need to replenished and expanded if his operations are to continue. More space and more money are going to be needed for Christus Medicus to keep working his supposed miracles on new converts. More converts are necessary, given that Terry was able to convince Ricardo to join him primarily because he took advantage of Sara’s vulnerable physical and social position after finding out she was dying of HIV.

In another direction, the movement of money and bodies are dependent on the effectiveness of the story that Terry dictates and Ricardo evidences. “You," says Terry pointing at Ricardo, "are coming with me so you can tell it from your perspective." The authority he has as a preacher is itself contingent on the continual co-operation of storyteller and audience, preacher and layperson, dicta and facta. Terry cannot move around without Ricardo. This is why it is critical that Terry gets Ricardo on board. "Understand?" Terry asks, "You are going to be traveling all around the United States to tell people where you came from and help us raise money for the buildings. Understand?" The repetition of the question, "understand?" functions at first as an assertion of his authority, as the speaker of the dicta. This insistence also shows his need for Ricardo to consent his power, as facta. The authority needs to be understood. 

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Co-Operating Power

The power of facta is not that they understands repeats the dicta in the same form, if that was the case than the dicta would be sufficient on its own, but that the materiality of the trans body can represent the doctrine in other modalities, especially visually. Terry does not just need people to hear about Ricard's transformation but to see material facts. For this, he not only needs Ricardo to work for him, he needs Sara. "We are going to send out a brochure - do you remember Sara?" Terry says to Ricardo showing him a picture of himself as he appears now. "This is going to be what's on the other side," he says pointing to a picture of Sara. "That's going to blow people away." For Terry's exemplum in the Transformation to work, he needs to show transformation. That means that he does not simply need any body. Terry’s cis-male body is not sufficient. Nor is Ricardo’s body. He needs the trans body to repeatedly perform its trans-formation. The new whole, the eunuch, needs the part that is cast away by the authority, to enact power. Sara must be repeatedly killed in sacrifice and resurrected to give Terry authority as Christus Medicus. 

The power and material resources that buy Ricardo’s cooperation, Terry in turn uses him to procure. "To me this is like a dream. I am a poor man. The poorest of the poor," admits Ricardo. "When I was a transvestite, people would say to me ‘Sara you are so beautiful.’ But they didn’t know how hurt I was inside; how much I wanted a home," says Ricardo. "But now I feel rich… rich in love. I’ve always had love, but life has been so hard on me." Ricardo is rich now, to which he adds (or corrects), “rich in love.” Far from being an abstract, transcendent belief in a cosmic force, Ricardo’s love is manifest in the riches that brought him off the street, given to him by Terry and his new wife, Betty. Ricardo’s new life comes into being out of this exchange of properties. Sara’s love and beauty are sacrificed to buy Ricardo new kinds of love: a home and finances.

Despite the church’s exploitation of Cbristus Medicus’s dicta and Ricardo’s facta, the dangerous contingencies that Terry’s mechanisms view as a threat and try to contain, are embraced by Betty who offers different approach to love than either eunuch or pastor. “Betty, there can be nothing between us,” Ricardo recounts saying to Betty. “Because I was a Transvestite for many years. I even have breasts still. And I am HIV positive.” Ricardo is well aware of the precariousness of his life. Parts of his life, particularly HIV, mark him as a threat to social wholeness. The potential life and love from Ricardo and Betty's bond would be terminal. “Are you sure you don’t mind my being HIV positive?” Ricardo asks Betty before the wedding, stressing the danger of sharing properties, including body fluids. Betty embraces the facts of his life, open to share her resources and allowing him to affect her. They do not have frequent sex, Betty admits. When they do, she too contacts the lasting material and social effects of hormones, heroin, and HIV. 

While not “transgender,” insofar as she binds herself to Ricardo, his vulnerability becomes her vulnerability as she shares in trans experiences of rejection and subjugation. When the couple went to get married, they are told, “you can’t get married in the church." When asked why they are being turned away the church tells him, “because of your past.” “We all have a past,” Ricardo replies. “Don’t you guys say that Christ cleanses us of our sins?”[ii] Like a surgeon cutting away parts of the past, baptism serves as ritual exemplum where the material washing in water signifies the spiritual dicta of being “born again.” Despite baptism’s ecumenicalism, the material facts of trans bodies allows for public challenges to the dicta, what “you guys [Christians] say,” of Christus Medicus’s power to mark an absolute separation of part and whole, of before and after. Opening the body of Christ to the facts of Ricardo and Betty’s love means cooperating with all parts of them.

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Destabilizing Power

Contingency stresses precariousness and uncertainty because it acknowledges that truth is not absolutely in either the eternal, lasting dicta or the immediate, mutable facta. Rather, contingent operations and cooperation function through the contact of different genders, matters, beliefs, and temporalities. The life and love Betty and Ricardo share is not fixed, but are formed and reformed by the transforming contact between persons, past and present, and their mutual contact with Christus Medicus. “Now everything is fine," worries Ricardo, "but if I get sick... I hope you won’t abandon me in the hospital then.” Ricardo’s concerns with Betty’s love stress that the products of cooperation cannot be known in advance. “I know," Betty replies. " But I love you and I want to be with you!” Embracing uncertainty, the contingent facts of Betty’s embodied “faith” and “love” are distinguished from Terry’s rhetorical dicta. By her continual contact, Betty asserts that she is not a docile part of Terry's exploitative operations, but a co-operative with Ricardo.

In contrast to these critiques and abuses asserted by absolute all or nothing dicta, Betty offers a model of love as a radically positive and transformative dicta, the activity of continually stitching together disparate facts of different moments and embodiments. "Love is not just something that just happens in the beginning. Love is something that continues to grow. But love is not just something that’s a feeling either. Love is a commitment … that means when things aren’t going well you are still going to be there." Change, whether it is the shift from Sara to Ricardo, or the inconstancy of health, calls on love to sustain cooperation through transformation, constituting what Betty calls growth. Betty recalls that they have “talked about this [love and mutability] many times” and will continue to have check-ins. This love is not a once and for all dictum, a feeling or essence that a person has or not, but a lived fact between persons requiring risk and collaboration.

In the end, the wholesomeness promised Terry and Betty’s dicta on faith and love depends on the cooperation of eunuch facta formed and narrated to be its antithesis, the embodiments of fragmentation, inconstancy, and contingency. “I repented for my past life [as Sara]," says Ricardo narrating the Transformation’s final scene in a drive back from Texas to New York. "Now when I think about everything I lived I remember some of it as beautiful. Because the real truth is that I enjoyed it. That’s what I would have liked to be: a woman.” This contingency leads Ricardo to consider how he might reclaim the abandoned part of his life and return to living as Sara. Yet this change would likely involve ending his life as Ricardo, as Terry’s eunuch, and Betty’s husband. As Ricardo or Sara, the trans operative life is defined by castration, a “trans” position between separated parts of life that love might hold together if our sense of wholeness might be transformed. 

Before title screens announce Ricardo’s death, his final words leave viewers with the sense of the trans life’s precariousness. “If I could still have the choice, if I could change my life right now,” says Ricardo, “even now that I have my wife and everything, I would chose to be a woman.” While Ricardo imagines a free life, “if I could still have a choice,” he knows that the facts of his life are checked by contingency, by dictated limits set between his body and will. Undoing the change enacted by Chritus Medicus is impossible, only more changes, more castrations, more cuts; perhaps in the form of film cuts that slice together lives separated by time, circumstance and operations. Sacrificing parts of his life as Sara and Ricardo an exempla with competing presences and powers, the eunuch’s life stories implicate the audience as cooperative in the narrative. Choices still exist, but now shift to the hands of those who share in the eunuch’s story. All become eunuch-makers, implicated in crafting what becomes of the future of his pasts.

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[i] Whereas most of his interviews occur in his Cuban Spanish, Ricardo uses the English terms "homosexual" "transvestite" and "drag queen" for sexuality and trans embodiment. Even by the 1990s, the scientific term "transsexual" was still fighting for legitimacy and use in the public, while another scientific terms, "homosexual" and "transvestite" were being considered expansive enough to include a wide variety of embodiments. Indeed, the trans body seemed to be so elastic so as to be able to pivot between a wider variety of exempla on both gender and sexuality. 

[ii] (Aikin & Aparicio). 

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Eunuch Dicta: Naturalizing Sex in the Transformation

"You have stuck him 
in the Devil's face and said,
'Look what I can do'"

The Transformation

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The following is part 1 of an ongoing series
on Exemplum and Eunuchs
focusing on the Transformation (1994)
a documentary by Susan Aikin

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The Dicta of the Eunuch

“Let’s talk about Ricardo,” says Terry at the film’s opening, over a black-screen introducing the preacher as the primary narrative, the source of the dicta that will grab hold of Sara/Ricardo's body in order to narrate it into an exemplum on eunuchs in the 1990s. “Let’s talk about Ricardo,” he repeats as the film cuts to him sitting in a white room, on a white couch with a photo-album in hand.[i] As if acknowledging this absent presence, the scene ends with fading back again from the white room to a black-screen announcing the film’s title. This movement from white to black plays with notions of death and heavenly light. In these spaces suggest that Terry is speaking a metanarrative dicta from outside of Time. Terry's principles are associated with scriptural dicta, a priori, and then the body is produced as facta to demonstrate it. The "talk about Ricardo," depends on the showing and looking as key to the operations of power, yet depend on laying hands on Ricardo's body in order to grab him and shove him in people's faces.

Wrestling with the splitting of these two forms of the exempla by the 1990s, Terry works to turn Ricardo, understood as a “homosexual” or “transsexual” back into an eunuch and thus reclaim a public discourse into religious, locating the medical authority with Satan in order to hold up the scripture. Public and sermon authorities, function as different dicta that differently frames the factum of the eunuch body around which he pivots. This is the necessary turn in an exemplum where the dicta must give way to the power of the facta. Yet in all these cases, the authority of nature, religion, or medicine is exterior to the body it defines. In turn, the exemplary bodies are called upon to present their bodies as facta for the Christus Medicus proses to make incomplete bodies, taking control of them, in order to “make themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom.”

"First of all, you can probably focus on this," Terry says opening up his photo album, on the right a picture of Sara and on the left a picture of Ricardo. "Find Ricardo in here, so everyone is on the same page. This is Ricardo. When I met Ricardo he was Sara." Holding Sara and Ricardo's images as illustrative facta, Terry sets himself as the authority of the exemplum that will both not only verbal but visual. He orders the engagement, tells the audience where to focus, and defines the terms. "The thing that makes him unusual," says Terry, "he is enormously charismatic. He attracts people. He has power, he has presence. he has a personality." While Terry positions himself as the authority, but he needs Ricardo as factum in order to provide the physical "presence" in order to attract people to his message. For medieval audiences examples were highly persuasive, but for modern audiences steeped in scientific empiricism and materialism, the physical facts of a eunuch are indispensible to keep these sharp machines operational.

In order for the eunuch to be a proper operative, operations cut out parts of their body and history, in order to make it fit into the Church’s sexual regulatory operations. As such, Terry must renarrate Ricardo’s history to contain and cut down Sara’s presence. "Ricardo was there on that first night [the Church visited]" Terry recounts. "Sara," he corrects himself. "Sara was there on that first night." This slip is significant. It places Ricardo before Sara; a narrative it has Sara collaborate when the film cuts to her account of living as an unhappy man in Cuba before traveling to New York to live as a woman. Ricardo is the origin and the ending, while Sara is an interruption in the middle. "There was something missing,” Terry of Sara, “He never knew what it was to be a man.” Sara becomes the non-masculine part that is always already cut away, in the story an eunuch, lacking and castrated from birth, a pre-op subject for Christ’s reparative operations.

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Naturalizing Authority

Ricardo’s latent “power” and Sara’s lingering “presence” in the film, however, remains dangerous to authorities and narratives that try to contain them. Holding images of Ricardo in his hand as he narrates the film, a mise en scène figurative of material dependences, Terry asserts the dominance of his dicta to frame and authorize the facta of the eunuch’s life story. Positioning himself as Christus Medicus, a kind of surgeon, Terry excuses laying hands on trans images and bodies by establishing a state of crisis that requires him to resolve. The poverty of trans women, the physical need for nourishment and medical care, becomes evidence of the supposed to lack of meaning without the dictum of the Church providing structure. This is especially true in cultures, medieval and modern, based on a “Gospel of Wealth” or “Prosperity Gospel” where financial success or failure is supposed to reflect degrees of God’s favor and wholesomeness.

Given the power of physical facts, the transformation of material circumstances is then key to defining Sara’s life as defined by a lack of resources and sexual wholeness and positioning Ricardo’s post-op life on the side of social fulfillment. This is done in part through the insertion of flashbacks to choice interviews with Sara from the Salt Mines. “I couldn’t wait to come [to the US],” says Sara in one talking head, “but now I am sorry I came. Because here if you have no money you are nothing.” The nothingness that Sara references is the absence of power and presence that money provides. Thus despite the promise of “the land of the free,” because she is denied material resources, she is not free to live as she will. As Sara says these haunting words, the screen freezes and the distinct voice of “Ricardo” from another scene speaks over the image. In a frozen moment before the change, we see the woman who is supposed to be “nothing” in this place linger as if to affirm that she remains an absent presence throughout the film. 

Indeed, a persistent irony of the eunuch transformation narrative is that its post-op “power” (Ricardo) is dependent on repeatedly invoking the “presence” of a supposedly erased and empty part of the pre-op past (Sara). In this, nothingness reveals itself not to be a state of non-being but rather the result of continual emptying to divide undesirable parts from the desired whole. Because nothing and being, part and whole, past and present are all operations in the same shape machine, the difference is not ontological but functional. While remaining intermeshed, the prior is made to be the unseen background to the latter’s foreground. This exchange is evident in when the film catches up the voice of Ricardo in the post-transformation time and space, where the still of Sara is replaced by the actively swaying Ricardo and the subtitle “Ricardo” appears on the bottom of the screen. “Dallas, Texas” appears on the screen as it pans over a dark room with dark furniture, where a Terry’s church thanks God for bringing Ricardo (into being) there. 

Through the ritualized operations of Chritus Medicus, Sara is made “nothing,” the missing something, to serve as a background for Ricardo’s thingness. Despite the dark enclosure that remains around them during the prayer, Terry calls the place where he brought Ricardo out from “a deep and dark hole.” This is where Sara worked the streets at night as a prostitute, injected drugs and hormones. Then, as later, she becomes a (penetrated) hole for the sake of her survival, but here she does so for pleasure as well. Sara’s location is indeed deep, as blood, semen, make-up, salt and semi-tangibles like love and community saturate each other, leaving traces of them in her blood. It is a dark space, relegated to the margins, taken off the street until the night work.[ii] It is this place, in the form of HIV/Aids that Sara carries deep in her body even as she migrates to Texas, remaining as the haunting material cause for Ricardo coming (into being) there. 

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Spiritualizing Authority

While Christus Medicus’s authority depends on asserting the essential naturalness of the post-operative trans body, the exemplum needs to continually show the scars of the operations in order to evidence its power. There is a kind of double-meaning when Terry stands beside his church with Ricardo, thanking God for his transformation, praising, “You have stuck him in the devil’s face and you have said, ‘look what I can do’” The words are telling. The material facts of Ricardo’s new body and circumstances are perpetually being shoved in the face of Christians so that Terry can effectively tell them “look what I can do.” Rather than merely disturbing established gender discourses, the materiality of the trans body grounds scriptural rhetoric in a sense of physical realness. Rather than hiding the fault lines of reconstructed gender, the scars of trans bodies were showed off as a tool of social control, even as they offered their own forms of resistance.

Sometimes the scar that is erased and shown as part of the operation of sharp machines are not enough, the exemplum occasionally needs to open wounds as a reminder of the dangerous facts of living without the security of its framing dictates. “HIV affected [Sara/Ricardo’s] mind,” recounts one of his trans friends in an interview. “He grew afraid of dying alone on the streets. The Church was the only way out.”[iii] It is perhaps too easy to paint Sara's life on the streets as free and uninhibited. Yet it was physical and social operations already acting on Sara that drove her into the hands of Terry's Church. Sara had long been trained to trade her body for what she needed. She traded her skin as a prostitute in order to gain the currency to exercise limited claims over her body: paying for food, clothing, hormones and heroin; each operating between violence and pleasure, necessity and choice. At HIV’s arrival into the network, however, this machine became unlivable and Sara came to desire the closed system of the Church.

The gated community of Terry’s Born Again Church allows admittance only at a high price, yet promises to give life and future as it takes away another. “I thank God that I have AIDs,” says Ricardo in an interview, sitting comfortably in a plush chair and warm sweater, “I wouldn’t have come off the street, and I wouldn’t have devoted myself to God. I’m not a fanatic, I just love the way God loves me.”[iv] Nowhere in the documentary does Ricardo claim that he is fully gave himself to the church, although he participates in it. He says that God participates in him through the care he is given. He does not say he loves God (or His Church), but how God loves him. Across in the exemplum of the eunuch, sharp machines reveal the contingency of parts and wholes, dicta and facta working together with the promise of mutual benefit. In this way, even as it makes its trans operatives to be docile, it teaches them a critical tool for exploiting systems. This practice of cooperating in ways that at once erase and sustain, subjugate and empower, builds into the trans operatives a powerful capacity for contingency.

Along these scars and contingencies lie fault lines where the cooperative trans body always keeps one foot out of the door, never fully deployed in any form or machine in which it participates. Those eunuch machines, those transgender operations, freed from the yoke of pre- and post-op demarcations become trans operatives (like double agents) who may use the feature which is most used to subjugate them, their mutability, to effect changes on both sides of supposedly strict divides of gender and faith. Such operatives may effect wider change that offers a greater variety of livable lives and in a new sense of Christus Medicus, to “love the way God loves.” Yet even as exemplum position its exemplary bodies to potentially open up the meaning of dicta, it is not an easy slash and burn. Changing machines, especially those working towards love, require cooperation.

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[i] (Aikin & Aparicio). 

[ii] Despite this failure to establish closure, once and for all, enclosure appears to be a pivotal desire for both Terry and Ricardo. McRuer notes that Ricardo’s environment is particularly closed-off and he is almost exclusively shown indoors, in houses, in Church or in a hospital (McRuer 116-119). Becoming sick from Aids, Ricardo appears anxious to exist in the supposed closed systems of church, house, and care.

[iii] ”(Aikin & Aparicio).

[iv] (Aikin & Aparicio).

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