93 lines
5.5 KiB
Org Mode
93 lines
5.5 KiB
Org Mode
#+TITLE: Second edition transgender history: the roots of today’s revolution
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#+ROAM_KEY: cite:SusanStryker2021
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#+roam_tags: literature books
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An account of [[file:20210101025247-transgender.org][Transgender]] history in the United States from the 1800s
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through 2017.
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* Prologue
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** Coming Out
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#+begin_quote
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When I [[file:20210101023555-coming_out.org][started living full-time]] as an openly transsexual lesbian woman in San
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Francisco in the early 1990s, I was finishing my PhD in United States history at
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the University of California, Berkeley. Transitioning was something I needed to
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do for my personal sense of well-being, but it wasn’t a great career move.
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However wonderful it was for me to finally feel right about how I presented
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myself to others and how others perceived me, making the transition from living
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as a man to living as a woman had negative effects on my life. Like many other
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transgender women, I spent years being marginally employed because of other
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people’s discomfort, ignorance, and prejudice about me. Transitioning made
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relationships with many friends and relatives more difficult. It made me more
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vulnerable to certain kinds of legal discrimination, and it often made me feel
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unsafe in public.
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#+end_quote
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* Chapter 4: The Difficult Decades
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** The Transexual Empire
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Janice Raymond's inflammatory book "The Transexual Empire: The Making of the
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She-Male" is covered, in which a connection between transexualism and naziism is
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imagined through some curious leaps of imagination. Citing Magnus Hirschfeld
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being German as a link, somehow, despite his institute and its literature being
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the highlight of nazi book burnings. That nightmare of a book came out in 1979.
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Meanwhile, the BBC [[https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/02/11/graham-linehan-newsnight-transgender-children-nazi-doctors-puberty-blockers/][continues to host nutjobs making the same exact claims]].
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** Sylvia Rivera's speech
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Susan does a real nice job of contextualizing Sylvia Rivera's [[file:20210104192606-ya_ll_better_quiet_down_speech.org][short impassioned
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speech]] in 1973, which was featured in Netflix's "[[file:20210104192232-disclosure_trans_lives_on_screen.org][Disclosure]]" documentary,
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regarding divisions and tensions with cis and white members of the gay and
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feminist movements.
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** Pathology and treatment
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The contradiction is pointed out between the pathologization of queer and trans
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identities (there is something wrong that needs to be treated) vs. labeling
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treatment as cosmetic or otherwise not medically necessary (don't treat it).
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#+begin_quote
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In spite of it being recognized by psychomedical professionals as a legitimate
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and diagnosable psychopathology, treatments for GID were not covered by health
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plans in the United States because they were considered “elective,” “cosmetic,”
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or even “experimental.” This was a truly inexcusable double bind—if GID was a
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real psychopathology, its treatment should have been insurable as a legitimate
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health care need; if treating it was not considered medically necessary, it
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should not have been listed as a disease.
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#+end_quote
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* Chapter 5: The Millennial Wave
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** AIDS and the reclamation of "Queer"
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Interesting. It's now gotten into the reclamation of the "queer" [[file:20210104201824-slur.org][slur]] as part of
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the various LGBT communities coming together to deal with the AIDS epidemic. Not
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the most fun way to pull disparate communities together, but certainly an
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effective one. *Diseases, it turns out, are quite impactful on disadvantaged
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minorities, and aggressively intersectional.*
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** ENDA
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The federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act. Controversy over gender identity
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protections that were added (and subsequently stripped) from the failed bill
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sparked division in the LGBT movement.
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* Chapter 6: The Tipping Point?
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** Participation in uprisings
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[[file:20210112171602-transgender_activist.org][Trans people]] have played significant roles in activist and anarchist groups,
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such as those who registered OccupyWallStreet.org and the Philadelphian "Trans
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World Order" group that ran its servers.
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There is also the case of Chelsea Manning and the information she released to
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Wikileaks. Her treatment was appallingly cruel. ACLU attorney Chase Strangio
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(also trans) handled her case until her sentence was communted by President
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Obama.
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The Black Lives Matter movement is itself highly intersectional in its mission.
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** Incarceration and sex work
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Trans people face possible arrest on the /assumption/ that they are involved in
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sex work. Jails and prisons are also often sex-segregated, effectively holding
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transgender men with women and vice-versa, or in solitary confinement. They may
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also be denied their hormone medication, and are at high risk of sexual assault.
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** Transgender studies
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https://www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net/
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** Transgender civil rights
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Trans civil rights made great strides, particularly during the Obama
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administration, but faced massive setbacks as the Trump administration began. It
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feels though that now we're very much still embroiled in the backlash from those
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gains, with the behavior of the Trump administration and its emboldening of
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groups with conservative agendas alongside "[[file:20210105230905-trans_exclusionary_radical_feminists.org][Trans-Exclusionary Radical
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Feminists]]". Accusations fly of a "transgender lobby" pushing "gender ideology".
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#+begin_quote
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If there is a lesson to be learned from US transgender history at the
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dispiriting moment in which these words are being written, it is that trans
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people have a long record of survival in a world that is often hostile to us.
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#+end_quote
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