[MUSIC] In this lecture, we will explore a brief history of changing ideas about transgender identities, and we will discuss a few common theories in transgender theory. By taking a historical approach, we can see how our ideas about a gender have changed over time. A solid, critical, and informed understanding of trans topics requires both a historical and a cross-cultural, or global approach. Essentially because this allows us to see how our ideas about bodies are historically and culturally specific. There's another short lecture on global trans identities in this course, and I'll say more about cross-cultural comparisons there. There are of course, some consistencies between the past and present and among different cultures. Most cultures have in the present and historically communities of people who transgress or challenge accepted truths about gender and biology. We see more examples of this as print culture expands in the 18th century. But, there is certainly evidence of gender transgression prior to this. Consider, as an example, the many instances of what some call cross-dressing. The act of wearing clothing that is culturally coded as opposite or cross to your gender. Most commonly, men dressed as women or women dressed as men in Shakespeare. Even further, the field of archaeology has unearthed skeletons buried in ways that could be described as transgender or third gender. Men buried in ways consistent with women's burial rights or vice versa. One of the great lessons to be learned from a long historical approach is to be aware of the culturally and historically specific nature of our assumptions about what counts as gender transgression. Theater is a great example of this. We might be shocked or surprised to see gender transgressions in early modern England, but cross dressers were fairly common on the stage, thus perhaps not nearly as shocking to their audience as we might think. Another key issue is the significance of terms and language. We struggle to categorize or generalize experiences across time primarily because the individuals in question did not self-identify as transgender. They did not use the terms some of us use today. To make matters even more complex, the relationship between language and identification tells us that language is a central aspect of how we come to know and understand the self. By this frame, it is not make much sense to call gender gender transgressors from the past, transgender since they would not of understood themselves in these terms. And yet, both of this theoretical or interpretative problems, what defines trans-identity and the relationship between language and identity are really useful problems for allowing us to see and recognize that identity does change. It is historically and culturally specific, and it will change again. Consider that years from now, future people will try to make sense of our key terms and categories. As these introductory comments suggest, the term transgender is relatively new. And it's only been in common usage for the last two decades. And what transgender actually refers to is still subject to change. A very broad definition of transgender refers to anyone who moves away from the socially enforced boundaries of the sex they were assigned at birth. In some ways, this is in fact nearly everyone. Most of us are gender atypical in some form or another. This definition is what is typically understood as a universalizing definition. Unlike a minoritizing definition which sees transexperience as rigidly defined by the desire to move from one sex to another. Universalizing definitions of transgender show how common gender transgression is. However, the term transgendered typically refers to people for whom this crossing is central primary or consistent. People do not need to identify as the so called opposite sex in order to identify as transgender. Feeling not quite at home in both dominant and anatomical categories, legally medically defined as male and female, is a fairly common experience for trans people. People identify as transgender for a whole range of reasons. Some feel very much like they are men or women, and thus do seek to transition fully into one of these categories. Some just want to move away from restrictions of those two categories, and find that the term transgender helps them carve out this third or alternative space. The term transgender gives us the language to articulate these experiences. Medical theories of transgender identity do not often use this broad definition of transgender. And instead, they define transgender people as those who want to move from one sex category to another or people who are identified as Female To Male, FTM or Male To Female, MTF. Over the course of the 20th century, doctors explored various causes of transgender identification often looking for simple medical definitions and solutions to complex historical and cultural processes. Trans people who understood us anomalies, quote trapped in the wrong body and were even though to be genetically predisposed to become transgender. To date there's still no evidence that transgender identity is biological. Transgender history is also deeply entangled with gay and lesbian history, since some of our early medical accounts of homosexuality actually seems to describe trans identification. Sexologists like Havelock Ellis, viewed lesbians as women with men's souls, a formula that helped them to make sense of queer sexuality, while still holding on to an essentialist or biological theory of sexuality. Homosexuality, in general baffled doctors who believed that the sex instinct is innate. And fundamentally reproductive instead of pleasure seeking as Sigmund Freud later argued. Because of this they often could only see gay men as really women or lesbians as really men. Of course, this theory only worked when the homosexual in question was actually showing some signs of transgender behavior. Lots of homosexual people are, outside of their sexual practices, very gender normative. These folks were also baffling to doctors who sought theories of gender and sexuality that made two simple links between gender and sexuality. Ideas about trans embodiment and identity change dramatically once trans people started having a voice about their own experiences. Some of this movement occurred in both Feminist Theory and Queer Theory, two academic field that explore gender and sexuality. Women's liberation, in some very key ways was fundamentally about challenging social rules that determined what kinds of things we could do based on our gender and our bodies. Can women vote? Can they do math? Or conversely, can men take care of children? Are they good at domesticity? These questions hopefully seem very dated now, but at the time they introduced the radical idea that biology is not destiny. However importantly, both Feminist Theory and Queer Theory have had moments when they've dramatically failed the transgender community. Some Feminist Theorists have challenged transwomen's rights, excluding them from women only spaces and events based on their belief that one must be born a woman to identify as a woman. In other words, they used biological essentialism, the idea that there was one kind of man and one kind of woman, to exclude and oppress transwomen. On the flip side of this, Queer Theory, with its commitment to destabilizing essentialist and fixed categories of identities, has frequently challenged trans people who experience their gender identity in gender normative ways. So, while the feminist theorists might see categories as rigid and thus deny transwomen of their experience, Queer Theorists see categories as social fictions designed to regulate our behaviors and actions. Significantly, in the recent past much of understanding of trans lives was actually filtered through medical therapeutic discourse. It's only very recently that we have academic journals and programs dedicated to transgender specific scholarship in the social aspect of transgender lives. This has dramatically shaped our accepted ideas about gender and embodiment. In the final comments of this lecture, we will explore some common ideas and questions that have entered our communities since the rise of trans theory. First and foremost, much like the feminists of previous generations, trans theories move away from biology, claiming that biology is not destiny. Which is to say, biology does not predetermine identity. People are born with different types of bodies, but there is no direct correlation between the body and gender identity since identity, though impacted by embodiment, does not always determine gender identity. Second, gender is not a binary. Historically, gender has been organized this way. But the binary, the system that says that we all identify as one of two genders, does not accurately capture all of our experiences. Many of us experience gender outside of this binary and thus find the two sex system confining or limited. Third, transgender identification is not a medical disorder. Some people might seek medical or therapeutic intervention so their bodies affirm their gender identity, but the idea of transgender as a gender disorder is pathologizing. It normalizes one way of doing gender to the exclusion to all of the variations of gender behavior. It's important to note that some transgender people might be perfectly fine with the medical model of transgender identity. Much like other forms of discourse, medical discourse helps us to understand the self, and it helps us to make sense of ourselves to others. It might be that medical discourse can be both pathologizing and helpful at the same time. Fourth, people who identify as transgender do not necessarily desire gender affirming surgery or medical therapeutic interventions. Some do of course. Transgender healthcare is a small but important and growing field and really can really be essential to trans folks capacity to live comfortably. Fifth, study shows some correlation between transgender identification and lowered overall well-being. Whether that'd be in terms of financial success, mental health or happiness. This link typically indicates that transgender people statistically have more struggles than people who do not identify as transgender. This is largely because of stigma which leads to poor treatment by others in our communities. This is precisely why improving awareness about trans lives is so key. Trans theory and trans history can help people to understand our differences a bit more. And to be more compassionate to people in our workplaces and in our communities. [MUSIC]
