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

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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.

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

as he strips naked the villain, revealing her tucked genitals

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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!

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Ursula the Sea Witch was famously based on the performer Divine

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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.

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

and be prepared for a massive archive of erotica

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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.

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The Cast from To Wong Fu

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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!

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Chandler's "Dad" from Friends

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Women of the Civil Rights Movement: Sexual Grammar of Racism

"If they take you in the morning,
they will be coming for us that night"

James Baldwin to Angela Davis

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Course Overview

In this section of the Anisfield-Wolf Award Book seminar concentrates on "Women of the Civil Rights Movement." Looking back into the canon of winners, we see how the Civil Rights Movement inspired and was encouraged by the A-W Awards. Yet we might notice how many of those whose names became well known through publications and awards were the men of the Civil Rights Movement. This begs the questions, where were the women? This seminar seeks to fill out the picture by looking for these "Hidden Figures," through later histories and personal accounts.

Many of the women associated with the Civil Rights Movement were not published in years later, connected also to the rise of sexual and gender liberation. For this reason, in the later part of the semester we will explore the impacts of Black Liberation and Women of Color Feminism on the LGBT Rights Movement. At the same time, we will look back at the queer sexualities and genders which were previously marginalized or scrutinized, leading to the question: why are the two most famous names of the Civil Rights Movement (Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X) not only men but also heterosexual men of faith?

The semester concludes by recounting how sexism and homophobia play significant roles in the construction of white supremacy.

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Selections from the Reading List

Part 1: subject v. object

racial and sexual positions

Nouns:
How Do We Talk About Racism and Sexism?

• Shane McCrae, In the Language of My Captor (2017) (AW) 
• Janelle Monae, Dirty Computer – Emotion Picture, 1-23 min (2018)
• K. Young, Bunk(2017) (AW)
• John Howard Griffin, Black Like Me(1961) (AW)
• Jesmyn Ward, Sing, Unburied, Sing(2017) (AW)

Verbs:

How Sex Moves the Civil Rights Movement

• Martin Luther King, Jr., Stride Toward Freedom(1959)(AW)
• Malcom X, The Autobiography of Malcom X (1966)(AW)
• Angela Davis, If They Come In The Morning(1971)
• Cherríe Moraga and Gloria E. Anzaldúa ed., This Bridge Called My Back (1981)

Part 2: indicative v. subjunctive

racial and sexual moods

Adjectives: 

How Intersectionality Birthed the LGBTQI Rights Movement

• M. Kasino, Youtube, “The Life and Times of Marsha P. Johnson” (2012)
• L. Faderman, The Gay Revolution, “The Riots (PDF) AW) 
• A. Lorde, Sister Outsider(1983)
• J. Baldwin, James Baldwin Debates William F. Buckley (1965) 
• Janet Mock, Redefining Realness (2014)

Adverbs:

How White Supremacy Sexually Desires and Hates the Past

• Theodore Melfi, Hidden Figures (2016)(AW) 
• J.D. Bell, Lighting the Fires of Freedom: African American Women in the Civil Rights Movement (2018) 
• Ava DuVernay, 13th (2016) 
• Jodi Picoult, Small Great Things
• D. Kahn (dir.), White Right: Meeting the Enemy (2018)

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Through the Looking Glass: Women and Mental Illness

"Who in the world am I?
Ah, that's the great puzzle"

Alice in Wonderland

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Course Overview

In this section of Monsters and Disability, we will explore "The Monstrosity of Women and Mental Illness." Following a social constructionist approach to gender and disability, this seminar will unpack a range of genres and media for how women have been made to be figures of madness. Consequently, we will utilize affect and trauma theory to study how women are also literally made mad by the sexist and ableist roles they are made to play. Taken together, the mad woman has become a recognizable monster in a variety of media.

In the first half of the semester, we engage in disability in print media. We begin by reading the verse of John Donne from the play (turned film) "W;t" alongside Arthur Frank's "The Wounded Storyteller" to see how illness can function as a call to stories; narratives of chaos, restitution, and questing. Next, we turn to comics to see how sexuality and madness of abuse, cancer, dying, mania and depression are expressed through the interplay of text and image. Later, we examine the prose of memoirs and novels which show how crip individuals strive use narrative to explore the construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction of their sense of self. 

In the second half of the semester, we will examine disability and film. We will explore how in fantasy films young women who just don't think like the rest are brought through trials of divergence, through rabbit holes, and left deep in the woods of depression, suicidal ideation, and undeath. In horror, women are victims who must survive the traumas of slavery, silence imposed by a threatening ableist world, and men who simultaneously desire their innocence and want to see them suffer.

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Selections from the Reading List

Verse

• J.J. Cohen, “Monster Culture (Seven Theses)” (PDF)
• A. Frank, Wounded Storyteller (1997)
• M. Nichols (dir), Wit (2004)

Comics

• E. Forney, Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo and Me (2012)
• Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner, Harley Quinn: Joker Loves Harley (2017)
• The New Batman Adventures, 1.21, “Mad Love” (1999)
• WhatCulture Comics, “10 Worst Things The Joker Has Ever Done to Harley Quinn”
• Batman: the Animated Series, 1.56, “Harley and Ivy” (1993)
• Shippers Guide to the Galaxy, “Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy Rebirth – Update”
•  Jason Aaron, The Mighty Thor: Death of Thor (2018)

Prose 

• E. Clare, Exile and Pride (1999) 
• M. Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night (2004) 
• M. Russo, If I Was Your Girl (2016) 
• J. Mangold, Girl, Interrupted (1999) 
• Garland-Thompson, How We Look, “Social Relationship” & “Beholding”

Fantasy Film

• N. Burger (dir.), Divergent (2014) 
• R. Schwentke (dir.), Allegiant (2016)
• T. Solomon, Far From the Tree, “Son” (AW) 
• Snyder & Mitchell, Cultural Locations of Disability, “the Eugenic Atlantic"

• Disney, Alice in Wonderland (1951)
• N. Willing (dir), Alice (2009) 
• T. Solomon, Far From the Tree, “Schizophrenia” (AW) 

• S. Myer, Twilight: New Moon (2009)

Horror Film

• J. Demme (dir.), Beloved (1998) (AW)
• J.B. Bouson, “The Dirtied and Traumatized Self of Slavery in Beloved” (2000)
• A. Cvetkovich, Depression: A Public Feeling

• M. Night Shyamalan, Split (2017)
• T. Solomon, Far From the Tree, “Disability” (AW) 
• T. Solomon, Far From the Tree, “Crime” (AW)

• J. Krasinski, A Quiet Place (2018)
• T. de Cartagena, Grove of the Infirm

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Many Ways to Be a Woman: Intersectional Traditions of Feminism

"Feminism is worthless without
intersectionality and inclusion"

We All Can Do it!

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Course Overview

If you've ever asked, "can a person be a woman *this* way?" then this class is for you! What if she wants to be a housewife? What if she wants to be an engineer? What if she hates dresses? What if she feels powerful in skirts? This class explores the many questions and responses that surround womanhood. This seminar is designed to provide entry into the many intersectional conversations on feminism and femininity, with access points starting from where you are. That means if you do not consider yourself a feminist, you are welcome. If you are not feminine or female, you have a place at the table. If you worry about being called a "bad feminist," then this class is definitely for you. If you find feminism or femininity to be too narrow to define you, this class is excited to have you. If you take issue with feminism focusing too much on white women, cisgender women, able-bodied women, straight women, then this class needs your voice. If you want to know what the role of men in feminism can be, wonders the same thing! Historically, "feminism" as a word has challenged people's political and personal investments in different ways as they encounter issues such as voting and jobs, marriage and divorce, racism and classism, homophobia and transphobia, healthcare and disability, personal liberties and social protections. Alongside these traditions of feminism, "femininity" has been a concept that seems simultaneously ancient while also under constant revision as women of color, post-colonialism, disability, queer, transgender and intersex thinkers introduce underrepresented perspectives. Facing these reactions and reforms, some people feel disinclined to identify with either word, adding to the list of "F-words" that can raise conflict in polite company. Yet however one feels about these F-words, feminism and femininity have regularly proven important movements in public debates around government, the work-force, education, and art. This seminar seeks to connect students with intersectional and sometimes conflicting traditions in politics and gender theory in order to broaden the horizons of who or what gets to be identified with feminism and femininity.

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Selections from the Reading List

Red Pills and Pink Pills

Bad Feminists, Non-Feminists, and Non-Females

• R. Gay, Bad Feminist: Essays (2014) 
• J. Serano, Whipping Girl, “Putting the Feminine Back Into Feminism” (PDF) (2007) 
• E. Fletcher and R. Fruchbom, Parks and Rec. 7.9. “Pie Mary” (2015) P1 

#MeToo

Sex, Sexuality, and Submission

• S. de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (1949) 
• J Wootton (dir) My Little Pony 3.13 “Magic Mystery Cure” (2013) 
• The Girls Next Door 1.8. “Midsummer Night’s Dream” (2005)

• S.T. Johnson (dir.), 50 Shades of Grey (2015) 
• J. Foley (dir.), 50 Shades Darker (2016) 
• Yes Means Yes! “The Fantasy of Acceptable ‘Non-Consent’” (2008) 
• M. Weiss, Techniques of Pleasure

• H. Madison, Down the Rabbit Hole (2015) 

Life and Choice

Wives, Mothers, and Disability

• B. Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (1963) 
• J. Lucas and S. Moore (dir.), Bad Moms, 1-33 min. (2016) 
• P. Bonerz, Home Improvement, “The Feminine Mistake” (1997) E1 

• B. Condon, Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Part 1 (5-28, 34-50.5 min) (2011) 
• R. Gay, Bad Feminist, “The Trouble with Prince Charming” 
• R. Gay, Bad Feminist, “The Alienable Rights of Women” 

• M. Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

• Thom Fitzgerald (dir.), Cloudburst (2013) 
• Kafer, Feminist, Queer, Crip (2013) 

Womens March

Race, Labor, and Post-Colonialism

• C. Moraga and G.E. Anzaldúa ed., This Bridge Called My Back (1981) 

• T. Melfi (dir), Hidden Figures (AW) (2016)
• J.D. Bell, Lighting the Fires of Freedom: African American Women in the Civil Rights Movement
• J. Mock, Redefining Realness (2014)

• A.H. Ali, Infidel (2008) 
• M. Yousafzai, I am Malala (2013) 

Sisters, Not Just Cisters

Intersex, Transgender, and Queerness

L. Simon, Confessions of a Teenage Hermaphrodite

M. Russo, If I Was Your Girl

J. Babbit (dir.), But I’m A Cheerleader (1999) 

L. Faderman, The Gay Revolution (AW) 

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CFP Kalamazoo 2019: Dysphoric Pedagogies: Teaching About Transgender and Intersex in the Middle Ages (Due Sept 10)

"Earlier this year, UNESCO published a series of studies which showed how gender nonconformity lies at the core of both LGB and T discrimination in schools. Obviously, this also applies for intersex students. Sex education and the school environment tends to perpetuate the notion that only two sexes exist. "

The Global Alliance for LGBT Education

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Dysphoric Pedagogies: 

Teaching About Transgender and Intersex in the Middle Ages 

Organizer: Gabrielle M.W. Bychowski 

(Case Western Reserve University) 

Co-Sponsor: “the Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship (SMFS)” 

and “the Teaching Association for Medieval Studies (TEAMS)” 

Questions about transgender and intersex in the Middle Ages are nothing new in scholarship and especially not within classrooms. Students have long seemed curious about all the non-binary and non-cisgender lives that populate the syllabi of pre-modern seminars, sections and surveys. Hands can shoot up from wondering students when reading about the isles of Hermaphrodites or Amazons, sainted monks who started their life living as women, ambiguous figures like Chaucer’s Pardoner, and fictional stories like Roman de Silence or historical personas such as Joan of Arc. Whether or not we consider ourselves intersex or transgender studies scholars, as instructors of pre-modern eras we wrestle with such questions about how to respond to students who are excited to connect the gender diversity they see in their world with the images and stories they are reading about in the distant past.

This panel aims to offer a range of pedagogy techniques, lesson plans, assignments, reading lists, and anecdotes for all those interested in enhancing how they teach about transgender and intersex in the Middle Ages. The concept of “Dysphoric Pedagogies” is drawn from the DSM-5 diagnostic language that describes the experience where one’s identified or expressed gender conflicts with the gender assigned by society. Within the modern world there are many ways to experience dysphoria and there are trans, intersex, and non-binary who do not experience this conflict. We want to hear about your valuable experiences in teaching through such instances of dysphoria within the art, history, and literature in an era before the DSM-5 and its various diagnoses, or the coinage of the words “transgender” or “intersex,” How have these moments of gender diversity and conflict provoked conversations about self and society, expression and audience, nature and nurture, gender norms and non-conformity, past and present? Each presenter is recommended to consider how you’ve engaged with the resonance between medieval figures and the long history of trans, intersex, gender queerness and non-binary gender. Abstracts should be 250-500 words.

Send abstracts to Gabrielle M.W. Bychowski (Gabrielle.Bychowski@Case.edu)

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Transgender Ethics: NCS 2018 Remarks on the Wife of Bath's Tale

"You fucked the world up now, 

we'll fuck it all back down"

Janelle Monae

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Unmoored in Time

“In th' olde dayes of the Kyng Arthour, / Of which that Britons speken greet honour, / Al was this land fulfild of fayerye. The elf-queene, / with hir joly compaignye, / Daunced ful ofte in many a grene mede. / This was the olde opinion, as I rede; speke of manye hundred yeres ago. But now kan no man se none elves mo.” (In the old days of King Arthur, Of whom Britons speak great honor, This land was all filled full of supernatural creatures. The elf-queen, with her jolly company, Danced very often in many a green mead. This was the old belief, as I read; I speak of many hundred years ago. But now no man can see any more elves). But now no man can see any more elves. So begins the Wife of Bath’s Tale and so begins our study transgender ethics, with the uncertainty of changing times. And this raises the question of when and if we might ever see the elves dance again. Is this nostalgia or a utopian dream?

Let’s put this another way. Three years ago, I was invited to join an assembled team of trans people in the arts at the White House to advise the Obama administration on how to leverage the power of communication to make the nation a more ethical and equitable place for people of all genders. During the day, someone pointed out that the very existence of such a congregation of trans leadership in the White House would have been (until very recently) not only unthinkable, but even illegal. Everyone there affirmed how contingent and potentially fleeting this moment of strength was. We wanted to make the most of it. And only a couple years later, such a meeting in the White House is again unthinkable and if not illegal, certainly against current government policies and regulations. How quickly things change and change again! How precarious are our alliances and fidelity! The reason I ask this question and tell this story is that I genuinely feel part of a community without a time to call our own. In his chapter, Transgender Time, from Seeing Sodomy in the Middle Ages, Robert Mills says that scholars he talked to speak of transgender as a critical turn that has already come and gone. Indeed, while arguing for a medieval transgender studies, Mills’s chapter reeks of the anxiety that his language and research on transgender will soon be out of date. Personally, in my own work I hear the opposite but arrive at the same conclusions. From the government, from churches, from universities, and from my own field, I constantly hear people begging for time: slow down, we aren’t ready yet, we aren’t there yet, it's not time yet!

Politically, academically, historically, and personally I feel emphatically unmoored in time, compelling me to find language for the moral condition of never quite knowing whether one is ahead of our time or falling behind, moving forwards or backwards. In trans communities, we get asked, “are you pre-op or post-op?” This refers to whether or not we have had “the surgery,” which is supposed to mark a before and after in the telos of a trans person. Even if we set aside surgery as a marker of periodization, the concept of before and after this or that, hormones or transitions, leaves many trans folk feeling unsure of when they are, between periods that everyone else seems to think is important. I call this condition being trans-op. Literally, between operations. And I will argue today that this is a position of transgender ethics which might help us look back - or forward - to the time of the elves of the Wife of Bath's Tale; a time which may never have been.

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The Trans-Operative

In respect to feeling unmoored in time and alliances, being a trans ethicist feels actually very much like being a medievalist. And so, like the Wife of Bath, I look back into my books for ethical guidance, "This was the olde opinion, as I rede; speke of manye hundred yeres ago." After all, what do we study here if not a time between times? We study the Middle Ages, an era of study defined by what comes after this but before that. And so I ask, what is the medieval answer to a transgender ethical question of contingent alliances and moral infidelity. In searching for such a response, it should be no surprise that I turn to the Wife of Bath. Indeed, the Wife’s whole moral system seems built around moral infidelity to her husbands, of which she boasts of having many, and whether good or bad each marriage seems built in some way around contingent alliances based around mutual uncertainty about commitment. However, while I pay my respects to the nasty woman, I have always found the focus of the Tale far more trans than the tale’s teller: the Loathly Lady. This is a trans-operative woman is I have ever met one. The function of her whole Tale is to demonstrate the ethical machinations of a person caught in the position where they cannot guarantee from one day to the next what the state of their partnerships, power, or even the state of their body will be. 

For those who would enjoy the refresher, here is a summary of the Wife of Bath’s Tale: A knight stands trial before a court of female identified and allied persons, begging for his future and calling in his defense the aid of a sometimes elfin maiden, sometimes loathly lady. This queer maid-crone gives the knight insight into the mystery of futurity and women: liberty. Granting also, the knight has also been told the other demands of this medieval society of females: riches, honor, lust, joy, and rich array, flattery, and marriage. But in the end, liberty is what wins the knight his future but only if he is willing to fulfill his oath to this nasty woman. The court of femmes agree and the knight gives lip service to this foul Wight. Later, in private, the knight seeks from the woman what exactly such a commitment means. What is their future together going to look like? Well, she replies, that is up to you: either I will be ugly but committed, i.e. the crone, or beautiful and uncommitted, i.e. the elf.

The question the Loathly Lady poses seems peculiar but is an extremely honest and necessary reflection of her real state of affairs. After all, the knight is a known rapist and opportunist, willing to promise anything to anyone, even a random crone in the middle of the woods, if it means it will get him out of trouble. In short, the Loathly Lady may have some power over the Knight at this moment but he has shown infidelity in the past and may again, he has abused women like her in the past and may abuse them again. Any power she has now has no time in the past to serve as a foundation nor any certainty about her power in the future. Thus, her ethos towards the knight may reasonably be either one of cynical but persistent experience, an old loyal killjoy that has been around the block so many times his tricks won’t fool her, or else a hopeful yet vulnerable young blood that shares no loyalty with the past or the present. I shall avoid making a joke about Gen-X vs. Millennials. Again, her question may seem to lack the assurances of a fixed form or fellowship but it reflects a world that offers her no such assurances.

And the answer she receives, perhaps is the best that a trans-operative can expect: liberty. The knight allows the Loathly Lady to choose her own form and degree of fidelity. The Tale says she became beautiful and loyal. But I always ask my students, “what happens next, after the screen cuts to black and the credits roll?” The facts and conditions of the world remain the same. The Knight broke trust and raped before, he may again. The Elf Queen turned Loathly Lady turned Elf Queen is a changeling, always between one transition and another. She may change again. Given her choice in partner, despite the power the partnership currently gives her, she may need this power again. Liberty is a power she must maintain, ready to change, to alter the alliance, to be morally unfaithful, to leave if the time and place turns toxic. She needs the power to stay, to hold alliances and fidelity, but also to ethically leave, break bonds and fellowship. This is the offer of contingent alliance given by the Wife of Bath's protagonist but also the only offer given to her by the world. We are told from the start, "In th' olde dayes... Al was this land fulfild of fayerye... But now kan no man se none elves mo." The world can be filled with fairies and now we can see no more of them. The world can be filled with loathly ladies, nasty women, trans women, and feminists, but now we can see no more of them. But this does not mean that they shall not come again. The temporality of the trans-operative is the time of chronicity. Not anachronistic or a-chronic (misplaced in time or timeless), trans chronicity is the condition of going into remission and becoming symptomatic, the monster's escape and return, the transition and fluidity with many beginnings and endings, and a time full of otherwhiles.

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Moral Infidelity

This brings us back or forward to the position of the trans-operative, those not complacent to be operative, nor a double operative, but a trans-operative. I keep one foot inside the room and one foot out the door, one foot in one time and one foot in another period. We are trans-operative because frankly one can never tell when one minute you are welcomed inside the White House and the next minute not welcome in the military, in public bathrooms, or even Pride Parades. It is hard to even say that I am progressive, some days, because I have no guarantee that tomorrow will be better than today or three years ago. Occupying the trans-operative position, one strives for an ethics in a world without assured welcome and no time to look forward to or nostalgically back at. The ethics of the trans-operative Loathly Lady is a word of liberation for ourselves: things transform. Our times, our bodies, our society and jobs will change. Unmoored from time, we reject that things were ever so great as to allow us to be "Great Again" and we reject the passive naivety that our progress as a society will always be for the better. Some days we will be persistent killjoys and some days we will be beautiful traitors.

Because a transgender ethics, the ethics of the Wife of Bath’s Tale, is the ethics of the traitor. Times which do not know where or when to put us, regularly calls us traitors. White supremacists have a special hate for race traitors, white advocates for people of color; at the same time that police, government, and professions question the citizenship of people of color. Among trans-hating queers, we see the sense of double betrayal in the eyes of women who see friends in the lesbian community come out as trans men, not women, and queerly hetero, not gay. Among trans-excluding regressive feminists, TERFs, we see the turf war over feminist spaces that include trans women, who they consider men smuggling in to betray womanhood. Parents do not want trans children using the school bathrooms because they see us as liars and rapists. The US has a President who does not trust a trans soldier to serve their nation faithfully. Let us remember that when the Wife of Bath's Tale begins by saying we live in a time without fairies, "now kan no man se none elves mo," she adds that the lack of fairies is due to our own exclusions: “Of lymytours and othere hooly freres, / That serchen every lond and every streem... Citees, burghes, castels, hye toures... This maketh that ther ben no fayeryes” (Of licensed beggars and other holy friars, That overrun every land and every stream... Cities, towns, castles, high towers... This makes it that there are no fairies). The cities, towns, high towers and walls of our world as well as our profession speak to the outlawing of fairies of various stripes. The very persistence of the nasty woman and transitioning elf is an act of treason against the time and place in which she is not supposed to exist.

We all get called loathly nasty ladies, traps and traitors to our own nations –nations in the political and Chaucerian sense—because our liberty, our power, our bodies, and our alliances are deemed unthinkable or illegal. That is why we must from time to time do the unthinkable or even illegal, why we occupy times and places in which we are not welcome, not because we may but because we must. Because, we have no time to wait or start again. Because we have no past or future into which we can flee for a sense of safety. Because when we occupy times in which white knights of hate are emboldened, when men rape and abuse the vulnerable, and our old allies sell us out, treason to such nations may be the only ethical recourse. In the words of the Venerable Janelle Monae, “you fuck the world up now, we’ll fuck it all back down.” Unmoored from time and nation, we become the loathly lady that ever escapes and returns, we become the beautiful traitors who love our nations enough to stop it from hurting us, and we become agents of change, the trans-operatives and transgender ethicists that are here to tell our allies: if you do not stand with us when we are weak, then you may not receive our loyalty when we are strong.

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

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

The Interrogation of Eleanor Rykener
London 1394

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Introduction

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

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

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

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Transitioning

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

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

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

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

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

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