In Depth or in Distraction > Identity Matters
'Gender immigrants'
kate00:
I recently read this personal story by Rachael Padman, and was quite struck by her concluding paragraph:
--- Quote ---By way of analogy, I note that I have now lived in the UK in total for well over half my life. I work, vote and pay taxes here, and am politically aware, in a way that I am not about Australia these days. In fact, I am just about getting to the point that I can say "we" rather than "you" when talking to other Brits about national politics. But some things that are deeply ingrained in the British political consciousness date from before the time I lived here, and it's simply wrong to pretend otherwise. I can, however, and do, rejoice in my own Australian experiences. In fact, those differences in upbringing are part of what makes me interesting to my friends. Something similar would seem to apply to us -- often privileged, I think -- "gender immigrants".
--- End quote ---
I found this an interesting idea, and quite different from saying: "I was always female, but I was born with the wrong body"(compare: "I was always British, but I was born in the wrong country").
I guess I'm just interested in people's thoughts about this analogy from either a political or a personal perspective...?
Charlotte Mew:
It is an interesting idea but I would not like to set it _against_ the idea of always having been the identified gender but the person's body did not match.
I think there are two different experiences of gender and identification here and I am not sure you can conflate them as I think your analogy to national identity does.
What I mean is this:
1)There is socialised gender and gender identity formed by upbringing and social exclusion from experiences of the other binary gender, oppressions related to one's social gender etc., and also experiences one has in common with others of the same gender in society (whether you are cis or trans). I think this is what Rachael Padman is referring to.
2)Many trans people report having always had a gender identity that didn't match their body, and that this is different from socialised gender. Some people dispute this could exist and many cisgendered people say they have never felt it. Yet because many trans people have felt this, urgently and insistently, I think we have to consider there may be some kind of biologically formed gender identity perceptible to some more than others - whether it's the effect of hormone variations when they are in the womb or what I have no idea. And I'm ininformed, not a biologist. But I think it is to do with this that trans people say 'I was always female/male'.
So politically, on the basis of the disabled activism slogan 'Nothing about us without us' (which I think has applications outside of disabled politics) I'd say that perception of trans people in my example 2) has to be accommodated.
I don't think the analogy of 'I was born British but' does accommodate it. My two penn'orth.
Ciaran:
I don't think it's a direct analogy but a personal perspective on it, which is probably slightly wider, in terms of identity of place, than that original aspect of someone who migrates from one country to another.
Although I'm strongly political, my politics aren't gender-related. They relate to place. Place is important to me, both in terms of where I am from (Belfast) and how that place is defined (i.e. British or Irish or both). Although my gender identity is very non-conventional and can sometimes cause me angst, I can go days without consciously thinking about my gender identity / presentation.
However, place is constantly on my mind. In many respects, sad as it may appear to some, where I'm from is probably more important to me than my gender. It's an incredibly important part of my identity - I view it as intrinsic to who I am. Furthermore, even if I wanted to escape it and it's influence in shaping who I am, I don't think that I would be able to.
During my adult life, I've lived in a number of countries outside of the UK. This includes the Philippines, a country that I've grown to love and may return to live there at a future stage (i.e. early retirement option). When in the Philippines, my theoretical legal rights were considerably less than those of citizens (in terms of buying property, voting etc).
However, in practice, my rights were probably much greater than many Filipinos due to economic purchasing power and for the simple fact that I am white. The latter appears largely a legacy of colonialism.
Although I am well-informed on Filipino politics and current affairs, I don't think that I was really able to understand the nuances of Filipino politics and mores in the way that people who were born there and lived all their lives there could. For example, people would often talk, in terms of their personal experience or that of their family, of life under the Marcos regime and the revolution in the mid 1980s when Cory Aquino came to power. For all I knew factually about this turbulent period, I couldn't contribute to these discussions in any personal way because it wasn't MY history or shared history. I didn't feel a part of it and, even if I had continued to live in the Philippines for another 50 years, I still wouldn't have felt a part of it.
However, that never caused me any angst because I'm not Filipino and didn't feel any desire to be or need to be, just as I don't feel a desire to be anything but my complex blend of Northern Irish / British / Irish.
Many people throughout the world continue to have a strong sense of displacement over place and their national / ethnic identity. The many conflicts reiterate that this sense of displacement can be all too real, painful and deeply held. However, in my view, although both represent forms of displacement, this is very different from gender "migrants" as this sense of displacement tends to be shared with family, friends and the immediate community. Gender displacement is more solitary and, therefore, can be much more personally challenging as it will often not be appreciated or understood by family or friends.
kate00:
Great replies...
Charlotte Mew, I realised after I posted this that perhaps the analogy could sound a bit insulting, in the sense that for many (though of course not all) immigrants, moving to another country is experienced as an unconstrained choice. And I wasn’t suggesting that this is necessarily true of ‘gender immigration’.
Also, I take your point about 2, but I suppose what I’d ask is whether accepting the subjective validity of someone else’s experience necessarily means you need to accept any particular theorisation of that experience. Because I think what I’m trying to get to the bottom of here is not even transgenderism per se but identity more generally. I think the reason the Padman quote resonated with me was that it has often seemed to me that although we might experience our various identities as being intrinsic to ourselves – just simple, unadulterated facts – “I’m gay” or “I’m a woman” and that’s all there is to it – in fact we are claiming a relationship with a term or concept that wouldn’t have any meaning at all if it weren't for things completely external to us. Identity is about how we situate ourselves in relation to something else.
--- Quote from: Ciaran on Apr 14, 2012, 08:58:01 AM ---Many people throughout the world continue to have a strong sense of displacement over place and their national / ethnic identity. The many conflicts reiterate that this sense of displacement can be all too real, painful and deeply held. However, in my view, although both represent forms of displacement, this is very different from gender "migrants" as this sense of displacement tends to be shared with family, friends and the immediate community. Gender displacement is more solitary and, therefore, can be much more personally challenging as it will often not be appreciated or understood by family or friends.
--- End quote ---
True...
Charlotte Mew:
Kate00 I hear what you say about gender having meaning because of externals (and this accords with the neo Freudian idea that gender awareness only comes with language and a place in society/community/family). But I am not sure of this any more. How can we be sure that gender dysphoria is not in many cases the result of dissonance between some as yet not understood self-perception in the mind or brain (perhaps analogous to proproception by which we know our limbs are 'ours' and where they are) and the possession of gonads pr genitals that seem not to match. Having been a totally 'everything is socially constructed' person I've had to let in other possibilities because of reading and talking to trans friends.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
Go to full version