Playing at Gender

                                                 Playing at Gender

Every society and every civilization at all times throughout recorded history has established certain tenets about the “nature” of man and woman; what they are and are not, what are their functions relating to and separate from each other; how each are different and yet the same, how each relates to the other. As history progresses into the modern age, it would seem that these identities have become more fixed, more definite and more oppositional. Terms such as masculine and feminine have entered our lexicon and have become synonymous with and often confused with man and woman, male and female, respectively. In modern, Western civilizations, even in non-Western civilizations, the idea that man and woman, masculine and feminine are used interchangeably has imposed upon the members of said civilizations restricted and often violently enforced codes of behavior and acceptable attitudes. Along with and often in conjunction to the biological foundations of male and female, the codification that each is separate and unique and must exist in opposition to the other, simply has no basis in quantifiable fact.
This author would counter that gender opposition need not exist by “definition”.  By examining the current status quo, we can begin to dissect and break down the artificial barriers that exist between man and woman, masculine and feminine.
Let us begin our journey into human sexuality by examining the nature of human sexual relations. From there, we can begin to dissect the underlying meanings of gendering bodies, identities and, finally, language.

Compulsory Heterosexuality
“In examining man-made laws of sexual selection, we need to consider compulsory heterosexuality, …defined as the violent and partially successful effort to bond women’s sexuality to the material interests of men.” (Pettigrew, 306) Rich describes it as a “mystical/biological heterosexual inclination, a ‘preference’ or ‘choice’ which draws women toward men.” (Rich, 23) In effect,  society has established the normative “correctness” as being heterosexuality, that boys are born male and must grow up to be masculine just as girls are born female and must grow up to be feminine. These “so-called natural laws of human behavior do not emanate from any preexistent or uniform metaphysical force but can be traced back to long standing, historically determined power relations between groups of people.” (Pettigrew, 317)
Every major religion and socio-political tract regarding human relations insists upon and tries to enforce the notion that heterosexuality is “ordained by God” and that it is the “natural” state of human existence. Most major world religions condemn the practice, thought and actions of anything other than purely heterosexual procreation. For Western civilizations, that authority comes to us in the form of the proscription set forth in Leviticus: “And you must not lie down with a male the same as you lie down with a woman. It is a detestable thing.” (Lev. 18:22).
Interestingly enough, having read through the entire Old and New Testament, the prohibition against homosexuality applies only to males. There is no mention of female homosexuality or its prohibition in the Holy Bible. This draws us back to the conclusion reached by Pettigrew, that heterosexual relations predominantly favor male partners.




Cultural Gender
When considering the “nature” of gender and gender markers, we must be careful not to ascribe any more symbolism or power to any one or group of accoutrements socially associated with either gender. After all, a skirt is just a piece of cloth that wraps around the waist and hides from view as much or as little as is acceptable to society. With that said, let us

… consider the case of the male who chooses to assume publicly a feminine appearance [or to assume the role of a woman]. He must overdetermine [i.e. over-emphasize] the desired look by displaying excess markers of femininity-the more stereotyped, the better-so he can pass. His excessiveness is contained within a conventional  model of femininity…itself overdetermined; if it were not, his appearance would be read as comical or even scandalous (Roberston, 38)

What society has done is ascribe power and meaning to things that have no inherent value beyond their physical properties.  Clothing, shoes, even mannerisms and methods of speech have all been codified by society as “feminine” and “masculine”. Thus, because

…gender is an effect of culturally coded markers of behavior and style that are only presumed  to be the natural attributes of one sex rather than the other, then passing as feminine [or masculine] pertains to males and females equally…(Robertson, 39)

Gender and gender expression, therefore, is ultimately a thing created by attribution of meanings and the conventions surrounding those meanings. “In performing credibly as a woman, a male [-bodied person] implicitly reveals gender itself a type of artifice and performance;…not as a natural, uniform, original fact of female or male bodies”, (Robertson, 38) Gender is something created and acted out.  Thus, crossdressing, and by extension transsexuality, challenge “easy notions of binarity, putting into question the categories of ‘female’ and ‘male’, whether they are considered essential or constructed, biological or cultural.” (Garber, 10) If one can simply put on the clothes and affectations of the ‘opposite’ gender and assume the social role of that gender, what becomes of the “natural’ inviolability of gender demarcations?

In considering social conventions and the meanings prescribed by society, we must, as E. Deidre Pribram states, consider society as a text or a script. The function of this text “is to position the spectator [in this case the individual] to receive certain flavoured (sic) –and restricted meanings,” (Pribram, 4) essentially meaning that any discourse on gender and sexual identity is limited and largely hetero-normatively privileged.  “[The] viewing subject [must be] in keeping with dominant ideology… [Because] there is no possibility of a mutually informing relationship between spectator and text…the spectator can only interpret a text in terms of preformulated gender difference.” (Pribram, 4) Society has dictated that certain affectations are “natural” to the male sex and others are “natural” to the female. Social rules do not allow for a mutually informing dialog between society and those within it, nor is the individual allowed to deviate from the text. “For those whose identity depends upon the essential and a priori nature [of gender], consciousness [of this construction] can be terrifying.” (Robertson, 39)




Gendering Bodies
Society imposes and enforces the idea of a gender binary and the individual must therefore identify within that binary. That binary is vocally enforced by those within our society who claim to be “experts” within the field of gender. Because these “experts” have the credentialing valued within the society, they have pre-empted the field and can, at will, define the terms and meaning within the discourse. The voices and definitions of those who identify outside the hetero-normative binary are shut out of the debate. What this means for the transsexual individual is that,

…discourses on transsexuality have invariably relied on language and concepts invented by clinicians, researchers, and academics who have made transsexuals the objects of their inquiry. In such a framework, transsexual bodies, identities, perspectives, and experiences are continuously required to be explained and inevitably remain open to interpretation [often indefinitely]. Corresponding cissexual [defined by Serrano as individuals whose mental and physical genders are in line] attributes are simply taken for granted-they are assumed to be “natural” and “normal” and therefore escape reciprocal critique. This places transsexuals at a constant disadvantage, since we generally have been forced to rely on limiting cissexual-centric terminology to make sense of our own lives. (Serrano, 161)

When a trans individual comes to realize that his or her assigned place within the gender binary is not where he or she identifies, the system offers no viable alternatives than to be labeled “deviant”, “freakish”, “perverted” or otherwise mentally ill. In the world of psychiatry and psychology where cissexuality is considered normative, anything that deviates form that norm is considered “disturbed”. “It is still too often the case that indifference, ignorance and prejudice prevent researchers from considering the historical and cultural significance of gender attribution.” (Robertson, 45) The notion that any sort of normative standard even exists creates an atmosphere of ignorance and intolerance.

Privileging Gender
Gender privilege, what a person is assumed to be based on a myriad of physical and social cues is largely conditional and subject to wide ranges of interpretations. A butch female, for example, can be and sometimes is socially gendered as male. Until she is revealed, or chooses to reveal herself, that privilege continues until someone else genders her as a butch woman, and so on down the line.

Most of us want to believe that the act of distinguishing between women and men is a passive task, that all people naturally fall into one of two mutually exclusive categories-male and female- and that we observe these natural states in an unobtrusive, objective manner…We can argue all we want about what defines a man or a woman…but the truth is…we rely primarily upon secondary sex characteristics…and to a lesser extent, gender expression and gender roles. (Serrano, 163)

Thus, gendering involves a very active and deliberate acquisition of certain cues that allow us to “accurately” identify someone as man or woman; for instance, the presence or lack of facial hair in determining “man” or the presence or absence of breasts in determining “woman”.  While generally it may be true that the woman cited as an example is female, this assumption depends on the existence of a normative, cissexual-centric function of gendering bodies. Simply put, we guess.  “Most cissexuals remain oblivious to the subjective nature of gendering, primarily because they themselves have not regularly had the experience of being misgendered –i.e. mistakenly assigned a gender that does not match one’s identified gender.” (Serrano, 164) Cissexual women are rarely gendered “male” and vice versa, whereas transwomen and men are often called to task to “explain” their gender and must constantly do so in the face of a socially enforced code of gendering that holds that biological males must always be men and biological females must always be women. “The normalizing principle at work posits that…masculinity is a natural attribute of male bodies” (Robertson , 50) and, by extension, femininity is a natural attribute of female bodies. Any male or female who chooses to “deny their nature” must have something wrong with them.
In the case of this author, as long as she continues to look, act and speak like a woman, she is gendered female. Until she calls attention to her gender history, the privilege of female gender will not be revoked.

Passing
Passing, a major component in gendering and gender privilege, also falls into the category of cissexual normativity. “Passing” is an active verb; the individual attempting to “pass” must make a –seemingly- conscious effort to do so. The original intent of “passing” involved light-skinned, racially mixed persons (race is also an invented, artificial distinction, but beyond the scope of this monograph) attempting to pass -i.e. play off their appearance- as white. The ultimate goal was to gain acceptance into the white community as a member of the white “race” and not be “mistaken” or revealed to be of mixed heritage.
Eventually, the term “passing” was co-opted by the gay and lesbian communities. To “pass” for straight meant that a gay individual would be accepted into the wider heterosexual world. In the context of the gay and lesbian community, “passing” came to mean “in the closet”, hiding or not revealing one’s sexual orientation.
Lately, the term “passing” migrated into the trans community where it has evolved to mean “gendered [correctly] as woman (MtF) or man (FtM)” without society at large suspecting the trans-person’s gender history. In this sense, passing has come nearly full circle from its origins within race relations to mean nearly the same as within gender relations. “Upon close examination, it becomes quite obvious that the concept of ‘passing’ is steeped in cissexual privilege as it is only ever applied to trans-people.” (Serrano, 176) We never accuse a cissexual male weightlifter of attempting to “pass” for a man, nor do we accuse the female runway model of attempting to “pass” for a woman. Cissexuals remain secure in the knowledge that their gender is never mistaken, never taken for granted and can never be taken away.
When the “pass” is denied, either by revelations about past history or by self-conscious deed, the gender of the trans-person becomes de-legitimatized by normative standards as merely “playing at” man or woman. The trans-person’s gender self-identification is no longer valid and birth gender norms are re-enforced, such as the use of pronouns, restrictions in facility usage and, more rarely, legal sanctions. Either way, the person attempting to “pass” is accused of trying to deceive society and must be put back into his or her “proper” place within the hierarchy.



To reiterate, gender is a performance, nothing more. The accoutrements, the attitudes of the performer and the audience, and how well the part is acted out are all part of one great, elaborate play staged by humanity within a set of vague and ever changing guidelines that we must constantly re-discover and re-incorporate simply to get on in our lives.
The idea that anyone’s gender history can be cause for such violence and hatred on the simple basis that they are not “normal” simply cannot stand any logical scrutiny. After all, how

“…is a dominant gender ideology constructed, reproduced, and even subverted, sometimes all at once, by women and men whose private and professional lives confound tidy, universalistic schemata…? Real people tend to be messy, inconsistent, hypocritical and mostly opaque when the relationship of sex, gender and sexuality in their own lives is at issue. (Robertson, 48)

Gender “wars”
Gender is treated as a zero-sum game in Western societies; that men and women, males and females, masculine and feminine must be at constant odds and in constant opposition is seen as “natural” and biologically driven. As long as the line between these two artificially divided camps is maintained, society continues on undisturbed. However, once someone breaches that so-called immutable division, the entire nature of the opposition is called into question. The perceived threat is that, because masculinity and femininity are working in opposition, they lose value in relation to each other when a male becomes woman and a female becomes man.
What, then, is the value of masculinity-or even femininity- if one can be simply traded over for the other with seeming impunity? This type of polemic is resurrected about once a generation and often used to reinforce the binary, oppositional roles of gender and the dichotomy between masculine/male and feminine/female. “However, masculinity [and femininity are] not a product of nature-that is some sort of agentless creation-but a socio-historical representation of [human] bodies, a representation that is subject to manipulation and change.” (Robertson, 50)

Gendering Language
Humans are seemingly compelled to categorize and divide. When one looks at the language we use and how it is constructed, that compulsion becomes evident. “He”, “She”, “his”, “hers” and the myriad and near countless words used to gender people, things and ideas are simply examples of the human drive to divide and categorize. That such usage is on a subconscious level speaks to the power of socially created normatives.
Words do have power and they are more often that not used to inflict hurt. If that point is disputed, try hurling a racial, ethnic or sexual epithet at someone and gauge their reaction. Words have the power to disfranchise and dis-empower individuals. “Just a girl.” “Sissy” “bitch”. Words have the power to deny the right of existence. “You’re not really a woman/man.”

Conclusion
While there are undoubtedly certain minor differences in biology between the categories of male and female, the idea of man/masculine and woman/feminine is merely a social construct. Playing at gender, gender roles and differences and language all play their part in reinforcing the notion that man/male/masculine and woman/female/feminine are unique and distinct and have no functional relation to each other.
Think about this the next time you are walking down the street. The man you see on his bicycle may very well have been born female and the woman on the other side of the teller window might be male-bodied.

Much of being able to pass is related to your physical image. Women come in as wide a variety as men, so that if you have applied your makeup well and wear appropriate clothes, you will most likely pass for female. (Roberts, 26)

Image is everything.



                                                     Bibliography

Garber, Marjorie: Vested Interests: Crossdressing and Cultural Anxiety; Harper Perennial, New York, 1992

Holy Scriptures, New World Translation, Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, Brooklyn (NY), 1984

Pettigrew, John: Brutes in Suits: Male Sensibility in America, 1890-1920; The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2007

Pribram, E. Deidre: Female Spectators: Looking at Film and Television; Verso Press, New York, 1988

Rich, Adrienne: “Compulsory Heterosexuality and the Lesbian Experience” from the book Blood Bread and Poetry: Selected Prose 1979-1985; W.W. Norton, New York, 1986

Roberts, Joanne: Art and Illusion: A Guide to Crossdressing 2nd Ed; Creative Design Services, King of Prussia (PA), 1988

Robertson, Jennifer: Takarazuka: Sexual Politics and Popular Culture in Modern Japan; UC Berkeley Press, Berkeley, 1998

Serrano, Julia: Whipping Girl, A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity ; Seal Press, Emeryville (CA), 2007