''Imagining Transgender'' is an ethnographic
examination of the emergence and institutionalization of
''transgender'' as a category of collective identity.
Embraced by activists in the early 1990s as a means to
advocate for rights and services specific to the needs
of gender variant people, the category quickly gained
momentum in public health, social service, scholarly,
and legislative contexts. Working as a safe-sex activist
in Manhattan during the late 1990s, David Valentine
conducted ethnographic research, mostly among
male-to-female transgender-identified people, across
sites including drag balls, support groups, meetings of
a cross-dresser organization, clinics, bars, and clubs.
He found that while young fem queens were labeled
''transgender'' by social service agencies and
activists, many of them either did not know the term or
were fiercely resistant to its use. They self-identified
as gay.Valentine analyzes the reasons for and potential
consequences of this difference - between how some of
the most vulnerable and marginalized gender variant
people conceive of themselves and how they are perceived
by service providers and others.Valentine argues that
''transgender'' was so rapidly adopted because it
clarifies a model of gender and sexuality that has been
gaining traction since the 1970s: a paradigm in which
gender and sexuality are distinct arenas of human
experience. Prevalent within feminism, psychiatry, and
mainstream gay and lesbian politics, this distinction
and categories based on it unintentionally exclude some
gender variant people - particularly poor persons of
color - for whom gender and sexuality are deeply
connected experiences.Valentine does not oppose the rise
of ''transgender'' as a category; he appreciates the
genuine legal, medical, and social advances it has
facilitated. Instead, he advocates a broad, inclusive
vision of social justice and an attentiveness to the
politics of language. |
|