Gender Hurts: A Feminist Analysis of the Politics of Transgenderism

275 Pages·2014·1.78 MB·English

by  Sheila Jeffreys

GENDER HURTS

It is only recently that transgenderism has been accepted as a disorder for which
treatment is available. In the 1990s, a political movement of transgender
activism coalesced to campaign for transgender rights. Considerable social,
political and legal changes are occurring in response and there is increasing
acceptance by governments and many other organisations and actors of the
legitimacy of these rights.
This provocative and controversial book explores the consequences of these
changes and offers a feminist perspective on the ideology and practice of
transgenderism, which the author sees as harmful. It explores the effects of
transgenderism on the lesbian and gay community, the partners of people who
transgender, children who are identified as transgender and the people who
transgender themselves, and argues that these are negative. In doing so the book
contends that the phenomenon is based upon sex stereotyping, referred to as
‘gender’ – a conservative ideology that forms the foundation for women’s
subordination. Gender Hurts argues for the abolition of ‘gender’, which would
remove the rationale for transgenderism.
This book will be of interest to scholars and students of political science,
feminism and feminist theory and gender studies.
Sheila Jeffreys is Professor of feminist politics in the School of Social and
Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne, Australia.
GENDER HURTS

A feminist analysis of the politics of
transgenderism

Sheila Jeffreys
First published 2014
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business
© 2014 Sheila Jeffreys
The right of Sheila Jeffreys to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance
with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any
electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used
only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
Jeffreys, Sheila.
Gender hurts : a feminist analysis of the politics of transgenderism / Sheila Jeffreys.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Transgenderism. 2. Transgender people–Political activity. 3. Feminism.
4. Feminist theory. I. Title.
HQ77.9.J44 2014
306.76′8–dc23
2013042861
ISBN: 978-0-415-53939-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-415-53940-1 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-77826-6 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Out of House Publishing
This book is dedicated to Ann Rowett with my love and with gratitude for
her support and advice throughout this project.
CONTENTS

Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 The construction of transgenderism
2 Transgenderism and feminism
3 Doing transgender: really hurting
4 ‘A gravy stain on the table’: women in the lives of men who transgender
5 Women who transgender: an antidote to feminism?
6 Gender eugenics: the transgendering of children
7 A clash of rights: when gender is inscribed in the law
8 Women’s space and the transgender challenge
Conclusion: the abolition of gender
References
Index
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am indebted to Janice G. Raymond for her pioneering book, The Transsexual
Empire (1994, first published 1979). Her work is the foundation on which
feminist criticism of transgenderism has been built, and continues to inspire
radical feminist thought. I am grateful to all those friends who have read and
commented upon chapters of this book: Lorene Gottschalk, Lynne Harne, Kathy
Chambers, Ruth Margerison. Lorene Gottschalk’s contribution was particularly
valuable. She was much involved in the initial stages of this project and
contributed to the writing of half of the chapters, and she conducted the three
interviews that have been so important to Chapters 3 and 4. I am grateful, too, to
the new wave of radical feminism both online and offline. Radical feminist
bloggers such as Gallus Mag from ‘GenderTrender’ (n.d.a) and Dirt from ‘Dirt
from Dirt’, among others, have provided invaluable factual material, references
and ideas on their blogs, without which it would have been harder to write this
book. Indeed, over the period that this book has been incubating, radical feminist
bloggers strengthened and clarified my analysis. Radical feminist activists have
provided venues at which I have been able to test out my thinking, these being
the two very successful radical feminist conferences in London – Rad Fem 2012
and Rad Fem 2013. I owe much to these brave women. I salute the courage and
tenacity of those radical feminists who are making it possible for radical
feminists to speak, and furthering radical feminist analysis. I intend this book as
a contribution to the considerable struggle that is presently taking place between
mainly male transgender activists and radical feminists over who has the right to
define what a woman is: women, or men who fantasise about being women. I am
thankful for the support I continue to receive from the University of Melbourne,
which has provided a crucible over the last two decades in which to develop my
ideas, research and write.
INTRODUCTION

This book will explore the harms created by the ideology and practice of
transgenderism, a phenomenon that developed in the mid to late twentieth
century. Transgenderism has only been an accepted disorder for which the
treatment of choice is the administration of hormones, and perhaps amputation
or other surgery, for a comparatively short time. Many US physicians contested
the idea of such treatments for the condition until the 1970s, and some still do
(Meyerowitz, 2002). In the 1990s, partly as a result of the potential for
networking created by the Internet, a political movement of transgender activism
was created to campaign for transgender ‘rights’. Considerable social, political
and legal changes are occurring in response, and there is increasing acceptance
by governments and many other organisations and actors of the legitimacy of
such rights. These changes have ramifications for lesbian and gay existence and
the lesbian and gay community; for the health and life chances of transgenders
themselves; for the possibilities of women’s equality; for organisations,
workplaces, services and the law. There is now a copious literature on
transgenderism, on its history, treatment, theory and practice. But this literature
is generally positive towards the phenomenon, seeing transgenders as
constituting an essential category of persons that has been denied rights and
needs recognition. Some of this literature makes the claim that transgenderism is
transgressive and part of a revolutionary process of social change, because it
destabilises the ‘gender binary’.
This book takes a quite different approach. It argues, from a feminist
perspective, that transgenderism is but one way in which ‘gender’ hurts people
and societies. Transgenderism depends for its very existence on the idea that
there is an ‘essence’ of gender, a psychology and pattern of behaviour, which is
suited to persons with particular bodies and identities. This is the opposite of the
feminist view, which is that the idea of gender is the foundation of the political
system of male domination. ‘Gender’, in traditional patriarchal thinking, ascribes
skirts, high heels and a love of unpaid domestic labour to those with female
biology, and comfortable clothing, enterprise and initiative to those with male
biology. In the practice of transgenderism, traditional gender is seen to lose its
sense of direction and end up in the minds and bodies of persons with
inappropriate body parts that need to be corrected. But without ‘gender’,
transgenderism could not exist. From a critical, feminist point of view, when
transgender rights are inscribed into law and adopted by institutions, they
instantiate ideas that are harmful to women’s equality and give authority to
outdated notions of essential differences between the sexes. Transgenderism is
indeed transgressive, but of women’s rights rather than an oppressive social
system.
This book is necessary now because the practice of transgendering adults and
children has been normalised in Western cultures but very little critique exists.
There is evidence of an increasing criticism of the practice both from within a
developing new wave of online feminism and from within the medical
profession, but this is met with considerable resistance from transgender
activists. Critics are labelled ‘transphobic’, subjected to Internet campaigns of
vilification, and, in some cases, there are attempts by transgender activists to
expel such insubordinate persons from their jobs or threaten their reputations.
Nonetheless, the understanding of transgenderism is at a tipping point and there
is evidence of a desire to rethink approaches to the practice. For instance, a
conference was organised by the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ Gay and
Lesbian Special Interest Group for 20 May 2011 in London, entitled
‘Transgender: Time to Change’, which might have provided a platform for
critical voices. Unfortunately, it was cancelled because of pressure from
transgender lobbyists (Green, 2011).
There are attempts to censor all expressions of dissent towards malestream
transgender ideology and to prohibit speaking platforms to those seen as
heretics. This campaign against free speech is particularly directed against the
burgeoning of an online radical feminist movement that is incisively critical of
transgenderism. This includes feminists who operate under their own names and
a far greater number who use pseudonyms, keenly aware of the severe
harassment they face if their identities are revealed. These include Gallus Mag
from GenderTrender (GenderTrender, n.d.b), and Dirt from the blog, The Dirt
from Dirt, Change your World, Not your Body (Dirt from Dirt, n.d.), and many
other critical voices.
An indication of the campaign being waged against feminist critics by
transgender activists is the way that I have been prohibited from speaking not
just on this issue, but on any issue at all. I was disinvited from a major feminist