[This new book, says reviewer Haile, surveys "the existence of
non-binary gender ideas, roles and behavior across cultures and from
different time periods."]
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PORTSIDE CULTURE
BEFORE WE WERE TRANS: A NEW HISTORY OF GENDER
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Jane Haile
September 12, 2022
New York Journal of Books
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_ This new book, says reviewer Haile, surveys "the existence of
non-binary gender ideas, roles and behavior across cultures and from
different time periods." _
,
Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender
Dr. Kit Heyam, Ph.D
Seal Press
ISBN-13 9781541603080
In_ Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender,_ author Kit Heyam
presents and analyzes testimony to the existence of non-binary gender
ideas, roles and behavior across cultures and from different time
periods, before the word _trans_ and its variants and derivatives
entered our vocabularies, roughly dated as the early 20th century.
Perhaps the “trans” of the title should be in quotation marks
though that would reduce the creative ambiguity of the phrase.
They were inspired to undertake this rich and complex journey, riddled
with conflicts, contradictions and reverses (not to mention
terminology and pronouns perhaps new to some readers), since modern
trans people, including themselves, often feel isolated; the
re-reading of the history of transness proves that it is not some
newfangled fad with little validity, as is often maintained by
anti-trans activists, of whom there is quite a range.
Heyam’s own struggles with understanding their evolving identity are
woven through the chapters.
“the few piecemeal images of transness I had access to as a child
were heavily medicalized, all suggesting that transness was something
you _did_ to change your body, not something you _felt. _I didn’t
know that it was possible for trans people to be anything other than
straight, for them not to conform to gender stereotypes [presumably
‘binary’ though it’s not stated] or for them not to have
“always known”—in a kind of static, essentialized way—that
they weren’t the gender that they were assigned at birth.”
They note that of the examples usually available the most successful
performances of transness have been individuals who had completely
converted to the norms of femininity or masculinity without
divergence, and were predominantly white (examples given are actress,
singer and recording artist, Christine Joergensen, and Roberta Cowell
a race car driver). An individual’s moving away from gender assigned
at birth into a non-binary position, i.e. people “who don’t
identify as male or female all the time” is much less well
recognized or generally accepted.
Heyam insists that transness (as gender in general?) is about who you
are and not what you do. This distinction they make between identity
and performance is harder to apply than would appear on first sight,
as is in fact demonstrated at several points in the text. Presumably
one would ideally want to express identity however transient and
changeable through valid performance . . . though that would not
necessarily relate to available binary stereotypes. And by the way,
stereotypes do not have to be binary though they often are assumed to
be.
Every substantive chapter of this interesting book is packed with
relevant testimony to support Heyam’s thesis of the long-established
nature of the phenomenon of transness; some will be familiar to most
students of gender (e.g. Albanian “sworn virgins”; South African
runner, Caster Semenya; Anne Lister aka “Gentleman Jack” now the
topic of a BBC drama of that title); and some likely to be new to most
readers.
Heyam distinguishes their book from other trans histories in that
“invasive details about trans and intersex people’s bodies that
populate many other histories” have been avoided, stating that
“nobody needs to know exactly what someone’s genitals look like to
understand their story”—although very often for intersex
individuals, examination of their genitals is precisely where their
story starts.
The modern understanding of “trans,” “transexual,” and
“transgender” is traced through the early, mid, and late 20th
century along with the word _cis_ (“dating back to at least the
1990s”); cis individuals being someone comfortable with their
assignment at birth, though not necessarily buying into associated
stereotypes of femininity and masculinity. It should be noted that the
term “cis” is not yet in general use although being the default
condition in most if not all societies.
Heyam admits that though we have now have many more labels to discuss
sex and gender, sex is still largely assumed to be biological and
gender to be socially constructed . . . though there is not much
coherence or consensus between or amongst the non-experts, the
experts, or the activists as to what that means. And what is
understood by “sex” is also “socially constructed.”
Heyam does some sterling work on putting life into the cliché of
“socially constructed” but could have been even more forceful in
exposing the narratives that hold binarism in place, and the
circumstances in which binarism is regarded as a requirement, such as
in autocratic, conservative, and expansionist political regimes who
cannot tolerate difference, other than us versus them (and would like
to have more of “us” and ideally none of “them”).
Manifestations of sex, gender and sexuality are shaped
(“constructed”) by political, economic, medical, population, and
legal narratives, and by ideas of race, class, age, and ableism.
Religion, including the Christian religion, is of course a major
culprit in terms of supporting clear cut binarism, though it gets a
rather easy ride here.
The strongest chapters, and those most likely to draw in the
intelligent “gender amateur” are those packed with historical
testimony; favorites include the wakashu of Tokugawa Japan, and the
chapter on living and performing as a woman in the First World War
internment camps.
The more explanatory and theoretical sections sometimes feel not fully
realized, or perhaps not always made with sufficient force; and, of
course, this slippery—or as Heyam says “messy”—material is not
amenable to neat conclusions. The audience Heyam is addressing is also
hard to pin down, as in principle it includes everyone with a gender,
though the title of the publication may ensure that Heyam’s
traditional sparring partners (anti-trans feminists and lesbians, some
intersex people, etc.) seize on it first.
Despite these minor reservations Heyam has gone a long way to
realizing their ambition to “open up space for so many more new ways
to relate to gender . . . and to enable people of every gender to live
more freely and expansively . . . with more fluidity,
situationality, ambiguity or creativity.” Hopefully their
revelations of gradations, variety, intersections and combinations of
sex, sexuality, and gender will soon lead more people to see that
discrimination on these grounds is really not worth the effort, and
that we should all be focusing our hostility on climate change . . .
or Botox . . . or moon landings . . . or (fill in the blank).
After a long career as staff member of the United Nations in Asia, the
Caribbean, Africa and the Middle East, Jane Haile is currently based
in Brussels as an independent consultant on gender, human rights and
development issues. She has an extensive list of academic and
professional publications.
* Gender
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* transgender
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* gender roles
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* Human Rights
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* human sexuality
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* history of gender
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