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Abstract:

In theory, transgender is a challenge to the social construction of gender. In practice, it usually is not. Transgendered people ---in one way or another--- place themselves outside the conventional female/male dichotomy, yet live in a social world that recognizes only females and males. How could a self-identified transgendered person earn and maintain a transgender attribution, when others are constrained to attribute an unproblematic "male" or "female" gender to him/her? Is it possible to alter, in practice, what seems to be the incorrigibility of the gender attribution process? Is this, in fact, what transgendered people want to do? In the light of three possible meanings of trans, we consider whether there is any point to deconstructing gender. The prefix "trans" has 3 different meanings. Trans means change, as in the word "transform." In this first sense transgendered people change their bodies to fit the gender they feel they always were. They change from male to female or vice versa. Transgender in this sense is synonymous with what is typically meant by the term "transsexual."Trans means across as in the word "transcontinental." In this second sense a transgendered person is one who moves across genders (or maybe aspects of the person cross genders). This meaning does not imply being essentially or permanently committed to one or the other gender and therefore has a more social-constructionist connotation. Nevertheless, the transgendered person in this meaning does not leave the realm of two genders. Persons who assert that although they are "really" the other gender they do not need to change their genitals, are transgendered in this sense of "trans." The emphasis is on the crossing and not on any surgical transformation accompanying it. Such a person might say, "I want people to attribute the gender "female" to me, but I'm not going to get my genitals changed. I don't mind having my penis." This type of identity is relatively recent as an open, public identity, but it does not seem to be an identity separate from male and female. It is more like a previously unthinkable combination of male and female. But even a combination of male and female reflexively gives credence to these categories. There are still two genders.The third meaning of "trans" is beyond or through as in the word "transcutaneous." In this third sense a transgendered person is one who has gotten through gender, beyond gender. No clear gender attribution can be made, or is allowed to be made. Gender ceases to exist, both for this person and those with whom they interact. This third meaning is the most radical and the one of greatest importance to gender theorists like us who are interested in the possibility, both theoretical and real, of eliminating gender.