Second Skins: The Body Narratives of Transsexuality

280 Pages·1998·6.284 MB·English

by  Jay Prosser

theb odyn arratives
oft ranssexuality
JAY PROSSER
second skins
Gender and Culture Series
Edited by Carolyn G. Heilbrun
and Nancy K. Miller

second skins
The Body Narratives of Transsexua/ity
Jay Prosser
Columbia University Press
New York
ColumbUinai verPsrietsys
PublisShienrc1se8 93
NewY ork ChichesWteesrtS, u ssex
Copyri©g h1t99C8o lumbUinai verPsrietsys
Alrli ghrtess erved
LibraorfCy o ngreCsast aloging-in-PDuabtlai cation
ProssJeary,.
Seconsdk i:nt shbeo dnya rtrviaeosf t ranssexIu Jaalyi ty
Prosser.
p. cm.- (Gendaenrd c ulture)
Inclubdiebsl iograrpehfiecraelan ncdei sn dex.
ISBN 978-0-231-10934-5 -ISBN 978-0-231-10935-2 (pbk.)
1. TranssexI.u TailtilIsIe.m S..e ries.
HQ77.9.P17969 8
97-32529
306.77-dc21
Casebouenddi tioofCn osl umbUinai verPsrietsbyso okasr e
printoenpd e rmaneanntdd urabalcei d-frpeaep er.
Printed in the United States of America
For my parents

contents
Acknowledgments IX
Introduction: On Transitions-Changing Bodies,
Changing Narratives
Part 1: Bodies
I. Judith Butler: Queer Feminism, Transgender, and the
Transubstantiation of Sex 21
2. A Skin of One's Own: Toward a Theory of
Transsexual Embodiment 61
Part 2: Narratives
3. Mirror Images: Transsexuality and Autobiography 99
4. "Some Primitive Thing Conceived in a Turbulent Age of
Transition": The Invert, The Well of Loneliness, and the
Narrative Origins of Transsexuality 135
5. No Place Like Home: Transgender and Trans-Genre in
Leslie Feinberg's Stone Butch Blues 171
Epilogue: Transsexuality in Photography-Fielding
the Referent 207
Notes 237
Index 261

ackno\vledgments
This book took shape as a dissertation under the direction of Nancy K.
Miller. Her unwavering support, her astute readings, and, of course, the
example of her own work, have been indispensable to every step of my
project's progress. I thank her here for her intellectual and professional
guidance, for her personal generosity, and for providing me with a pro­
found, pleasurable, and ongoing learning experience.
Others' interventions have been invaluable at various stages of the
process. Joan Nestle was the first to read transsexual autobiographies
with me as part of a field for my doctoral qualifying exams; her enthusi­
asm for their narratives and her question about home served as a crucial
spur to the emergence of this project. Tom Hayes and Gerhard Joseph as
members of my defense committee read the manuscript in dissertation
form. I thank them for their incisive feedback on what was then very
much a tome. My dissertation writing group helped me formulate ideas
in the early stages; other readers to fine-tune those ideas in the all-impor­
tant final stages. Of particular help en route have been friends and col­
leagues, Deirdre Day McLeod, Clare Hemmings, Deborah Nelson, and
Victoria P. Rosner; my readers at Columbia University Press; and my edi­
tor there, Susan Heath. I thank Professor Constance Jordan, the Center
for Lesbian and Gay Studies, and the City University of New York
Graduate School English Department for awarding me fellowships that
allowed me to focus on the writing, and faculty and colleagues through­
out CUNY for their continued support of my work and welfare.