To give light to Transgender Awareness Week, read with me a chapter of Julia Seranoโs Whipping Girl, one of the most acclaimed โtransfeministโ books. A foundational text in understanding transgenderism, hailed in both transfeminist and intersectional spaces.
I chose this book specifically because it is celebrated and was written by a trans โwoman.โ Before the bad faith accusations, let me preface: Indeed, the broader book discusses transmisogyny theory. But that theory is built on understanding womanhood through this pornographic lens. You canโt separate them when Serano doesnโt separate them.
โWHEN I WAS A CHILD, I was sexually assaulted, but not by any particular person. It was my culture that had his way with me. And when he was through, he carved his name in my side so that Iโd always have something to remember him by. Itโs the scar that marks the spot where my self-esteem was ripped right out of me. And now all thatโs left is a submissive streak thatโs as wide and as deep as the Grand Canyon.
And maybe I was born transgenderโmy brain preprogrammed to see myself as female despite the male body I was given at birthโbut like every child, I turned to the rest of the world to figure out who I was and what I was worth. And like a ๐ด๐ผ๐ผ๐ฑ ๐น๐ถ๐๐๐น๐ฒ ๐ฏ๐ผ๐, I picked up on all of the not-so-subliminal messages that surrounded me. TV shows where Father knows best and a womanโs place is in the home; fairy tales where helpless girls await their handsome princes; cartoon supermen who always save the damsel in distress; plus schoolyard taunts like โsissyโ and โfairyโ and โpussyโ all taught me to see โfeminineโ as a synonym for โweakness.โ And nobody needed to tell me that I should hate myself for wanting to be what was so obviously the lesser sex.
When I hit puberty, my newly found attraction to women spilled into my dreams of becoming a girl. For me, sexuality became a strange combination of jealousy, self-loathing, and lust. Because when you isolate an impressionable transgender teen and bombard her with billboard ads baring bikini-clad women and boysโ locker room trash talk about this girlโs tits and that girlโs ass, ๐๐ต๐ฒ๐ป ๐๐ต๐ฒ ๐๐ถ๐น๐น ๐น๐ฒ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ป ๐๐ผ ๐๐๐ฟ๐ป ๐ต๐ฒ๐ฟ ๐ด๐ฒ๐ป๐ฑ๐ฒ๐ฟ ๐ถ๐ฑ๐ฒ๐ป๐๐ถ๐๐ ๐ถ๐ป๐๐ผ ๐ฎ ๐ณ๐ฒ๐๐ถ๐๐ต.
So without ever having seen pulp fiction or hardcore porn, my thirteen-year-old brain started concocting scenarios straight out of SM handbooks. Most of my fantasies began with my abduction: Iโd turn to putty in the hands of some twisted man who would turn me into a woman as part of his evil plan. Itโs called forced feminization, and itโs not really about sex. It is about turning the humiliation you feel into pleasure, ๐๐ฟ๐ฎ๐ป๐๐ณ๐ผ๐ฟ๐บ๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐๐ต๐ฒ ๐น๐ผ๐๐ ๐ผ๐ณ ๐บ๐ฎ๐น๐ฒ ๐ฝ๐ฟ๐ถ๐๐ถ๐น๐ฒ๐ด๐ฒ ๐ถ๐ป๐๐ผ ๐๐ต๐ฒ ๐ฏ๐ฒ๐๐ ๐ณ๐๐ฐ๐ธ ๐ฒ๐๐ฒ๐ฟ.
While I never really believed the clichรฉ about ๐๐ผ๐บ๐ฒ๐ป ๐ฏ๐ฒ๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐ด๐ผ๐ผ๐ฑ ๐ณ๐ผ๐ฟ ๐ผ๐ป๐น๐ ๐ผ๐ป๐ฒ ๐๐ต๐ถ๐ป๐ด, I found that that sentiment kept creeping into my fantasies. In my late teens, I would ๐ถ๐บ๐ฎ๐ด๐ถ๐ป๐ฒ ๐บ๐๐๐ฒ๐น๐ณ ๐ฏ๐ฒ๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐๐ผ๐น๐ฑ ๐๐ผ ๐๐ฒ๐
๐๐น๐ฎ๐๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ and having strange men take advantage of me. It wasnโt so much that I was attracted to men, but that movies and magazines made it seem that ๐ฏ๐ฒ๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐ณ๐ฒ๐บ๐ถ๐ป๐ถ๐ป๐ฒ ๐บ๐ฒ๐ฎ๐ป๐ ๐ฎ๐น๐น๐ผ๐๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐๐ผ๐๐ฟ๐๐ฒ๐น๐ณ ๐๐ผ ๐ฏ๐ฒ ๐ฑ๐ผ๐บ๐ถ๐ป๐ฎ๐๐ฒ๐ฑ ๐ฏ๐ ๐บ๐ฒ๐ป. In my mind, Iโve been pinned down by bodies so large that they dwarfed me, felt the ghost pains that accompanied the unwanted groping of body parts that did not yet belong to me, experienced the helplessness of having some faceless john stick his cock into the cunt that I hated myself for wishing that I had. And with each make-believe thrust, I felt simultaneous ecstasy and shame. ๐ ๐ ๐ฟ๐ฎ๐ฝ๐ฒ ๐ณ๐ฎ๐ป๐๐ฎ๐๐ถ๐ฒ๐ ๐๐ต๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐ฏ๐ฎ๐๐๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฑ ๐๐ฎ๐๐ต๐ผ๐น๐ถ๐ฐ ๐๐ฎ๐ฐ๐ฟ๐ฎ๐บ๐ฒ๐ป๐๐, as I absolved myself of guilt by combining my desire to be female with self-inflicted penance and punishment.
In my twenties, I discovered role-playing relationships: placing personal ads in the โwild sideโ sections of weekly papers, conducting phone interviews with potential tops who got off on the idea of dominating a small and โpassableโ crossdresser. For them, I wore skimpy outfits and four-inch heels, not because I thought it made me more of a woman, but because I spent so much of my life guarded and making myself invisible ๐๐ต๐ฎ๐ ๐ถ๐ ๐๐ฎ๐ ๐ฎ ๐๐ต๐ฟ๐ถ๐น๐น ๐๐ผ ๐ฏ๐ฒ ๐ฒ๐
๐ต๐ถ๐ฏ๐ถ๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป๐ถ๐๐๐ถ๐ฐ ๐ฎ๐ป๐ฑ ๐๐๐น๐ป๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ฎ๐ฏ๐น๐ฒ. ๐ ๐ฝ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐๐ฒ๐ป๐ฑ๐ฒ๐ฑ to be their ๐๐ฒ๐ฐ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ถ๐ฒ๐ or ๐ฐ๐ฎ๐น๐น ๐ด๐ถ๐ฟ๐น๐, roles that had as much to do with class as they did with gender and sex. We were creating fantasy worlds out of real-life meanings and symbols, ๐๐๐ฟ๐ป๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐ผ๐๐ฟ๐๐ฒ๐น๐๐ฒ๐ ๐ถ๐ป๐๐ผ ๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ถ๐ฐ๐ฎ๐๐๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ of a culture that denies its own infatuation with hierarchies and pecking orders.
Sometimes the line between fantasy and reality would blur, like the time I had a top who refused to stop for safe words.1 When I finally thwarted his advances, he guilt-tripped me with fucked-up lines about how I had led him on and how it was all my fault for being such a tease. When I got home, I sat in the shower for almost an hour, but I still felt dirty and diseased. And I didnโt dare tell a soul because, on a subconscious level, I couldnโt shake the feeling that I had deserved what happened to me.
At some point, all of us who identify as female have to come face-to-face with our own internalized misogyny. And when people ask me what has been the hardest part of being a transsexual, expecting me to say that it was coming out to my family or the growing pains of going through a second puberty, I tell them that the hardest part, by far, has been unlearning lessons that were etched into my psyche before I ever set foot in kindergarten. The hardest part has been learning how to take myself seriously when the entire world is constantly telling me that femininity is always inferior to masculinity.
These days, I am an outspoken feminist and transgender activist. And most days, I dress like a tomboy in striped shirts, jeans, and Chuck Taylors. To most people, I probably seem pretty self-confident, but thatโs only because they canโt see my submissive streak. Itโs like a scar I keep hidden up my sleeve, a scar that still sometimes opens up and bleeds. Like a shark bite, it literally tore me apart when it was first happening to me. But these days, ๐บ๐ ๐๐๐ฏ๐บ๐ถ๐๐๐ถ๐๐ฒ ๐๐๐ฟ๐ถ๐ธ๐ฒ ๐ถ๐ ๐ท๐๐๐ ๐ฎ๐ป๐ผ๐๐ต๐ฒ๐ฟ ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐บ๐ถ๐ป๐ฑ๐ฒ๐ฟ ๐ผ๐ณ ๐ต๐ผ๐ ๐ ๐๐๐ฟ๐๐ถ๐๐ฒ๐ฑ.โ Julia Serano, Whipping Girl (2007)
I highlighted parts that reflect how transgenderism is merely a male constructing womanhood through sexual fetish. While the male may live what he thinks is โbeing a womanโ, he experiences his malehood all the time. This is not misinterpretation, this is how a large part of the male population understands womanhood, through porn fetish, and the male gaze. This extends to trans identified males. Cherry picking is not choosing to overlook the blatant misogyny and this is what the trans community constantly practices. Yet it is undeniable, even in transfeminist staple texts, trans women like Serano explain themselves to be a part of a community that cannot be divorced from porn, identity consumerism, and incelhood. Constantly rebranding fetish as identity, porn as exploration, and misogyny as gender euphoria.
There are accounts on Reddit of trans women talking about their Nazi phases before they โcrackedโ the egg. But before that, there are โeuphoria bonersโ, sissy porn, and BDSM, not condemned but rebranded as essential in their โliberation.โ Which is why the fight of women and the fight of the trans community will always be in tension, a middle ground is impossible. And while I advocate against trans hate crime, the oppression they are suffering from should never be weaponized to evade critiquing of the roots of their ideology, or from what they call, identity.
I have read Pageboy before by Paige and while, I found it mediocre both in form and substance, it was arguably an experience with the discomfort from expectations of femininity, different from Seranoโs autobiography that eroticizes misogyny, introducing it as radical, โgoing beyondโ and expelling binaries. An intellectualization of incel culture is not progressive. Either women can name sex-based oppression, or gender identity supersedes it, the manipulation of language without political and social change will only leave women deprived of the language for their resistance.
Meanwhile, I recognize the legitimacy of gender dysphoria but it cannot be addressed by the medicalization of gender. Women convinced that the only way to live authentically is by the modification of their bodies is a feminist nightmare, a misogynistic dream come true for patriarchy that has convinced them to hate their bodies for centuries. There is no fixed way of living for a woman. Everyone who convinces women otherwise is lying to them.
The Right treats us like cattle, the Left treats us as costumes. Thus, it is radical to treat ourselves as who we are, human beings deserving of a life of dignity away from the constant tokenism, false allyship, and weaponization against our fellow women.
Let us reflect on what is being omitted from every โtransfeministโ text that uses Beauvoir: Beauvoirโs โOne is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.โ is a critique of the philosophizing of womenโs subordination as natural, that being born female entails a life of being โnaturallyโ passive, nurturing, and inferior. Not the trans inversion that โwomanโ is socially constructed, thus, everyone can become a woman.
We need to double-think, to hesitate, and to assess ourselves all the time of the biases that are of patriarchal conditioning. If women cannot define their experiences, men will. Symbolic matricide has occurred to feminist figures throughout history. The trans communityโs negation of womenโs meanings to appropriate it for their own political fights is an omen of an ongoing femicide against feminist analysis. The discomfort we derive from gender is not an affirmation that we are the other gender, itโs an affirmation that gender is an oppressive structure that must be abolished. Thus, the reasonable path is to denounce the system instead of pathologizing what should be addressed politically. No child is a trans child. Puberty is not a disease.
