Read My Lips by Riki Wilchins

Author:Riki Wilchins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Riverdale Avenue Books

The Body as a Site of Constraint and Authorization

What has become apparent is that my physical person—its perceived properties, size, weight, curvature—has been pressed into service by society as a site of constraint and authorization. Constraint, because some meanings are disallowed me by my own flesh. Authorization, because having certain characteristics authorizes me—obliges me—to feel certain things, to have a particular sense of myself. I suspect that the issue is not so much freeing my “self” as uncovering the ways in which this particular self is a product of culture—again, an historical item, as much as the clothes I wear or the books I read. Just like them, it was created, distributed, and promoted in responses to highly specific, if diffuse, cultural needs.

I am reminded of a friend I spoke with whom I addressed as a woman. She’d been considering surgery between bouts of crossdressing and deep depression. She responded that she could not ever possibly be a woman, since she had a big belly, hairy arms, and a penis. I responded that that was exactly the kind of woman I liked. She broke down in tears.

If human beings were forced to march from one person to another, announcing things about themselves that made them feel dreadful, or made to carry signs inscribed with the painful words, we would instantly recognize this as a terrible assault. But what about a system that uses the body itself as a text to announce certain things? What about the large-breasted woman, for example, who feels that, whenever she enters a room, her body is forced to say, “I am sexually provocative and sensuous?” If you happen to wear a 44-D cup, you are going to have to constantly pull uphill against what your breasts are perceived to be saying to the world.

The use of bodies to constrain or authorize various meanings and feelings doesn’t affect only transpeople. Why is it okay in this society to be “fat and lazy” or “fat and jolly,” but not “fat and sexy”? Why is it that fat people often have tremendous difficulty seeing themselves as sexy, or, if they do, are not allowed to display that meaning? If people perceive you as fat, try walking out the door in New York City in a low-cut blouse, short skirt, and high heels and see if you can make it to the subway without being humiliated.

In my case, I was constrained from feeling things about my body and obliged to feel others. I was denied access to the broad range of non-verbal language with which we express our sense of self: in posture, gesture, clothing, adornment, and inflection. This, in turn, helped constrain what I actually felt, for, as anyone knows, it is a difficult maneuver to feel something and simultaneously refrain from expressing it non-verbally. Visibility can be a trap.

To avoid displaying any of the “inappropriate” and prohibited signs about myself, I policed myself from feeling them, lest I give myself away with a gesture, a stance, or

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