I don’t know how universally relevant this is (I guess no part of queer history ever is) but I wonder how many trans people know the history of T&T groups.
Like, in the 90′s and 00′s in the Netherlands almost every trans related groups was a T&T ‘Transsexual and Transvestites’ group and that seemed to also be a quite common thing in other north-west European countries for as far as I can see. Maybe beyond Europe too? I’m not sure.
People who called themselves transsexual and transvestites at the time felt that they had many experiences in common that made organising together valuable and many agreed that there was a large grey area of overlapping identities. With very little information available, a lot of trans women identified as transvestites first, before identifying at trans women (in that period often using the term Male-to-Female transsexual and transwoman without the space between the words).
Then, in about 2007-2012, things changed. Transgender became more popular than transsexual and crossdresser largely replaced transvestite. In those early days, the term transgender was often understood to include crossdressers. The transgender umbrella is from that time:
Back then, the word transgender was seen by many as the umbrella term that would unite all the struggles against gender roles. But that grouping together was far from uncontroversial and a lot of heated debates took place over how broad or narrow the transgender umbrella term should be. Some feared too wide an umbrella would take attention away from transsexuals, others feared it would be confusing, some groups that had previously only had transwomen and transvestites did not appreciate the new presence of transmen and transmasculine people in their transgender community, some felt that it was very important to distinguish binary-identified transsexuals from all sorts of weird non-binary identities.
Those who took part in the debates probably remember the specific standpoints in more detail. For me, I just remember how in 2008-2012 all the T&T groups started changing their names to ‘transgender groups’ and then slowly but surely focussing more on only those transgender people that wanted some kind of transition, physical or social. Eventually, transvestites (or crossdressers, as the common term was by then) disappeared entirely from the transgender groups and a lot of transgender people forgot about the earlier wider meaning of transgender as an umbrella term.
Within that same period, there started to be a LOT of new and fairly positive media attention for transgender issues, specificallytransition related atttention. The media was no participant at all in the ‘what does transgender mean’ question but the questions they did ask were ‘are you on hormones yet?’ and ‘did you have the surgery’? Since that was a lot better than ‘so are you mentally ill because you want to be a woman?’ a lot of people who fitted the hormones + surgery narrative eagerly accepted this ‘positive visibility’ and did not question the narrow focus. This further cemented the view that transgender meant transition.
And the transgender activists? Well, let’s just say many of them, knee deep in a struggle against terrible health care and cruel human rights violations, leaped at the opportunity to seize the momentum and finally make some changes and many didn’t really give much thought to the slow disappearance of transvestites from the newly named ‘transgender’ community.
So where are we now, in 2018?
The transgender community seems to have largely forgotten about their T&T history. The terms transvestite and crossdresser both seem to be in decline, as are the communities that meet around those identities. Younger people who don’t fit the gender binary but also do not desire social or physical transition, are now more likely to identify themselves as some kind of genderqueer and nonbinary or just ‘not into labels’ or just to wear whatever they want and rock it. Some of them find their way back under the transgender umbrella after all. Which I guess is some kind of a happy ending.
But then theres the question of recognizing our legacy. I don’t think a lot of these young people realise that, had they been born 20 years earlier, many of them would probably have found a home in the transvestite community. I don’t think a lot of young transgender people recognize older transvestites as their elders, who paved the way for them. I often get the impression that they view the dwindling groups of 50+, 60+, 70+ transvestites with an element of disdain, as people who held on to a regressive binary identity, instead of as like – their badass grandfather-mothers who build parts of trans history.
I encourage everyone to think of the above next time you see someone shitting on crossdressers. We’re stronger together than we are divided.
The only reason “coming out” is still even a thing is because it’s presumed that people are straight until they tell us otherwise. “The Other must identify itself, or else it is decieving us” is a fucked up, dangerous idea.
It also feels very similar to this when revealing you have an invisible or mental disability. People are somtimes angry that they weren’t told right away as though it changes everything about you.
Apparently now that I’m not in school anymore I’m all about giant long-form comics.
Identity is a really important topic to me, and the trope of ‘finding yourself’ is almost as problematic and insulting to me as the trope of ‘coming out’.
I want to destroy the idea that some identities are less valid than others, the condescension that comes with ‘they’re just figuring themselves out’, and the insulting dismissal of identity exploration and performance in youth as being somehow not ‘real’, or as ‘attention seeking’. Fuck all of that.
And beyond the fact that ’inconsistent’ identities are really challenging socially, they ALSO carry these real, actual life and liberty risks; we’re expected to use the same name, orientations, values, languages, and identities across all aspects of our lives, we are expected to have normative identities that can be quantified and qualified and trust me, TRUST ME when a person is perceived as having inconsistent or unusual identities they are being flagged in all sorts of systems for extra scrutiny and action. I know this from experience.
So, yeah, this ‘one true identity’, this ‘finding yourself’, this ‘who is the real you’ stuff is bullshit. We are so, so much more interesting than that, and we deserve better.
This is very important to me as someone whose identity has changed a lot over the years – and I don’t just mean gender or sexuality, I mean everything. I am a totally different person than I used to be, and the world can’t really handle that. I’m not interested in my “profession” the way I used to be, and want to do something else. My hobbies has changed, dress sense, opinions on things like piercings, smoking, alcohol. Everything changes. Get over it.
knitting in the dark 