Trans: A Quick and Quirky Account of Gender Variability by Jack Halberstam

Author:Jack Halberstam [Halberstam, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Gender Studies, History, United States, General
ISBN: 9780520966109
Google: FdExDwAAQBAJ
Amazon: 0520292693
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Published: 2017-09-01T00:52:02.839000+00:00

FIVE

Trans* Representation

Transgender is a shape.

Jeanne Vacarro, “Feelings and Fractals” (2015)

A few years ago I attended a queer, transnational performance studies conference where a play was staged about a queer historical figure. This figure greatly resembled the gender-ambiguous Juana Aguilar, researched by María Elena Martínez, whom I discussed earlier. And indeed, the play, staged by Mexican performance artist Jesusa Rodríguez, was based on Martínez’s research. Rather than receiving the play as an interesting piece of period theater, audience members became irate and angered by the depiction, especially since some parts of the life of the hermaphroditic character were played for comedic effect. The conference turned, overnight, from a wildly imaginative series of performances, talks, and theatre productions into a somber event filled with roundtables, short tables, long tables, and turned tables on what had gone wrong with this representation of a “transgender” figure. The dramaturg was accused of transphobia, historical reference points were thrown to the wind, and many tears were shed. I later wrote a blog in response to what I had seen, and I linked the event and the hard feelings it produced to calls for trigger warnings and protests that targeted queer cultural producers rather than homophobes and transphobes. My essay was received enthusiastically at first, but it quickly became obvious that my piece was the journalistic equivalent of waving a red flag at a rampaging bull. People accused me of all manner of perfidy, and one wit dubbed me the “sports dad of queer theory” for my grumpy attitude toward “the kids today.”

Since then there have been other, similar, transgender protests of queer representation. I end this chapter with one such example, in an attempt to see what we can make of these battles over the project of representing trans* bodies. My goal is not at all to chastise young people or tut-tut about how young people have lost the plot on political engagement. After all, I am not a particularly skilled or dynamic activist myself. Rather, my goal has long been to try to understand the visual protocols for representing the trans* body, trans* experience, and trans* identity, be it in texts that are positive or negative, abstract or realistic. It is generally a good idea not to approach the visual materials documenting trans* life with a moral framework that leads only to adjudication; instead, we are better served by considering the formal methods by which trans* experience can be represented and the benefits and liabilities therein.

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