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Pink Triangulation Anne Lawrence, Tammy Bruce, and transsexualism
A reader was kind enough to alert me to a new book by some right-wing nutjob
named Tammy Bruce. She’s one of these types who has a baseline radical
personality, so after becoming dissatisfied with left-wing radicalism, she underwent
a radical political transition and has emerged as a radical right-wing darling.
Yes, I know I used forms of “radical” four times in that sentence.
That's how radical she is. Anyway, in April 2003 she came out with a silly little book called “The
Death of Right and Wrong: How the Left’s Moral Vacuum Corrupts Our Culture
and Threatens Our Liberty.” The title reads like a focus-grouped amalgam
of right-wing buzzwords. The only reason I’m bothering to comment on this book (it’s actually
a little more laughable than Bailey’s) is because she discusses Anne Lawrence
as an example of said moral vacuum corrupting our culture and threatening our
liberty. Hmmm. So here’s the interesting part—Tammy’s rant helps to explain
where I agree with her sometimes, with Anne sometimes, and with neither sometimes.
Let me explain. Symbol and symbolism My title for this essay is based on Anne Lawrence’s logo, which no doubt
causes Tammy conniptions.
Anne writes: “In early 1997 I designed the TWR logo: the pink ‘queer’
triangle overlaid by the vulva symbol.” Tammy would argue that Anne has no right to appropriate either symbol. In her
chapter “First the Culture, Then the Children: The Agenda of the Radical
Gay Elite,” Tammy notes that “all manner of sexual perversion enjoys
the protection and support of what was once a legitimate civil-rights effort
by decent people” (p. 90). Here’s the twist: Tammy identifies as lesbian,
but the “decent” kind of lesbian. Tammy is apparently unable to see the moral relativism in her ridiculous claim.
Now that she’s got her rights thanks to the hard work of a generation of
radicals before her, she draws the line of "morality" on the other
side of her own behavior and desires. She would have to be even more stupid
than this book makes her out to be not to see the irony in her statements. The
accusations she levels at Anne Lawrence were the very accusations leveled at
the activists who made it possible for her to enjoy the rights and privileges
of being an out lesbian. Her accusations are even more risible because of how
shrill she is about it all. Tammy also has a big problem with the vulva part of Anne’s logo. Typical
rants include:
These are certainly not new complaints about transgenderism and transsexualism.
It does, however, bring up an interesting point: what is a “woman?”
Tammy and I would agree that it’s more than body parts, but what is that
elusive quality?
I have always looked at Anne’s logo as very expressive of her views on
her condition, in the same way my logo reflects my view of my own condition.
My logo suggests that “female” is a direction in which one can travel,
an orientation of sorts. Anne seems to believe that “female” is a
medical construct, defined as the presence of a vagina. Anne’s focus on
hormones and genital surgery suggests that she thinks “female” can
be literally embodied by anyone, where I feel “female” is more of
a social condition, a journey to another place where you can either be taken
as a foreigner or be taken as a native citizen. For people like Tammy, Anne is worse than a foreigner: she’s like an ugly
American standing at the base of the Eiffel tower in a gift shop beret wrapped
in a French flag screaming “Yee-haw! Lookit me! I’m French, y’all!”
I’m like the assimilated American expatriate living in Paris who is at
times dreadfully embarrassed to be considered from the same country as Anne. Anne is a political nightmare for me on several different levels:
All this embodied in one person makes Anne the perfect human piñata
for anyone seeking to deny transsexuals basic human rights and acceptance. They
just have to hoist Anne up and start whacking away, as Tammy does. She’s
such an easy target even a dullard like Tammy can make her point using Anne
as an example. I find myself working hard to resist the temptation to do the same, and I don’t
always succeed. I admire and respect much of what Anne has done for me personally
and for so many others, but she is so diametrically opposed to me on several
issues that it’s hard for me not to take a whack at her now and then, in
hopes of knocking a little sense into her. She has shown no respect for my opposition to her sexualized taxonomy, and
has been dismissive of my other attempts to discuss this matter in private.
Despite that I’ll try to keep this public expression of my opposition to
gentle taps of the piñata in this next section. I feel our differences
are as important as our similarities. Giving shape to selected differences I have reappropriated the pink triangle once again to help give a shape to parts of this argument. I haven’t chatted with the other people in this model, and this by no means covers all the problems I have with Anne’s and Tammy’s points of view. Other issues will have to wait. I'm going to refer to myself by name in the discussion below to make everything
clearer here. Don't worry, Andrea doesn't usually do that.
Each corner represents a worldview. Each of us rejects one of these worldviews,
but embraces the other two. Wherever two people embrace a worldview, they represent
opposing views within that model. To wit: Tammy and Andrea are both queer assimilationists who see Anne’s worldview
as problematic. Anne thinks our assimilationism is regressive and conservative,
and rejects it. Tammy and Andrea agree that “female” is a matter of
social conditioning and interaction with others in whatever way “female”
is defined by society. Although Tammy and Andrea are both assimilationsists,
they are on opposite sides of the transsexualism debate. Tammy and Anne both buy into a scientific model and see Andrea’s worldview
as problematic. Andrea thinks their “science” model is a regressive
and subjective belief system in which biology = destiny, and she rejects it.
Anne and Tammy agree that “transsexual” is a condition that can be
expressed scientifically, either through a medical or psychological model. Although
Anne and Tammy are both invested in “science,” they are on opposite
sides of the transsexualism issue. Anne and Andrea both buy into a model where transsexualism falls outside of
“moral” questions. We see it as neither moral nor immoral. Tammy accuses
us of moral relativism and sees us both as degenerate and immoral. Although
Anne and Andrea agree about the “morality” issue (or lack thereof),
we split over whether “female” and “transsexual” are defined
by science or by assimilation (“passing”). Confused? Don’t worry, it’s all very confusing. That’s why I’m
struggling to express the issue in many ways. My hope is that these will help
explain why this debate cannot be expressed by incomplete models of “science,”
and that any attempt to do so will be an abject failure. Anne and me Now that you understand some of the ways in which I agree with Anne’s
positions, let’s explore why I feel she and I are very different, and what
that might mean within the larger framework. As an assimilationist, I need my self-identity as female reflected back to
me in the mirror of social acceptance from people outside the transgender
world, where someone like Anne seems OK with getting it from an actual mirror
or from visibly gender variant peers. Anne feels her body parts make her female
and that’s good enough for her. I need to have agreement from others in
social settings, and my body parts are less important than my interaction with
others as female. There is certainly a sexual component, and it has been nice
to meet people and have the opportunity for sexual intimacy without necessarily
having to divulge my transsexualism. However, my primary interest in sex reassignment
surgery was a matter of expediency—it was a way to get more social acceptance
as female, because current laws require the procedure in order to change certain
documentation. Going full-time was more emotionally satisfying than completing
sex reassignment surgery, which was really just icing on the cake in my opinion. My need for validation from others is evident in my site’s extensive discussion
of assimilation and stealth. One of the most telling differences between my
web project and Anne’s can be illustrated with one of the most popular
pages on my site. After several women wrote to me about problems with having
personal information online, I wrote a very detailed article on internet safety
and the option of stealth. It is consistently near the top of popular pages
on my site. I sent the link to Anne and stressed its importance. Anne wrote
back, “I'll have to think a bit about where the netstealth link could go.
Any suggestions?” The fact that Anne had no place on her site for something women like me consider
absolutely essential, and to this day has no link to it, is perhaps the best
example of the differences in our worldviews. I would argue that “female”
as an identity does not exist in a vacuum. Transsexual women as I define them
wish to be completely accepted as female, especially in social settings.
Not humored or tolerated, but accepted without question or suspicion. People
treat you differently whether they know you are transsexual or not, whether
you’re in the bank or the bedroom, and it’s the rare person who can
know my transsexual status and not respond in a different way to me. To be allowed
to live as female has always been my only goal. We are extraordinary women whose
greatest desire is to be seen as ordinary women. A few years ago I was in Seattle visiting a friend and watching her perform
at a nightclub. Anne Lawrence showed up, too. Anne and I had time to chat between
sets, and I was very glad to have a moment to speak with someone who had such
an important influence in my own transition. I still have a great deal of respect
for Anne, and I cannot tell you how difficult it is to have to call her out
like this in such a public way. It’s a very vexing situation. Let me just lay it on the table. Anne is very poorly socialized. Her interpersonal style is quite challenging in every sense of the word. As an assimilationist, I am always extremely distressed to be around people who are unable to blend in and follow the rules of conventional society and manners. I am painfully attuned to these things and always have been. In fact, I am so aware of these rules that I am able to break them in the most
egregious ways if I’m so inclined. I play by these rules very carefully,
but if the other person is unwilling to play by these rules (like J. Michael
Bailey), I will happily toss politeness aside as well and lay into someone in
a way that will resonate in their minds till the day they die. If they feel
they are not bound to politeness and mutual respect (or “political correctness”
as these dullards prefer to call it), I am quite able to take it down to their
level of human interaction. Perhaps this is why I’m so adept at observations of a certain type. People
like Anne and Bailey usually try to get into positions of authority, where their
inability to be respectfully deferential and politic don’t seem as offensive.
As long as people give Anne the deference that reflects her self-identification
as a “respected authority,” the power dynamic is fine. When someone
possesses something she wishes she had, this dynamic is reversed, and her inability
to socialize becomes painfully apparent. Anne was at times adulatory and at other times bordering on contempt of me
as we spoke. At one point, she said, “I was speaking with a transsexual
woman the other day who had a wonderful voice, dare I say better than yours.”
Anne had already made several similar judgments and pronouncements about me
intermingled with gushing compliments, so I said with just a hint of sarcasm,
“Wow, I didn’t know it was a contest.” She became immediately
aware of her rudeness and started awkwardly backpedaling. I let her off the
hook and got back to pleasantries, but it seemed in some weird way to make her
even more defensive or full of self-loathing or something. At one point after the show I was talking to a couple of guys at the bar, and
I didn’t notice that Anne was sitting alone at a table against the wall.
My friend came over and asked if I’d go talk with Anne because she seemed
really down. I sat down across the table from her as she stared into her lap.
I asked what was wrong, and she reached out her hand and took mine. She looked
at my hand, not into my eyes.
The mild annoyance I had been feeling about her social ineptitude melted away,
and I sincerely tried to reassure her that she should not feel this way. She
did so much to help people, and she was obviously brilliant and hard-working,
and she was doing a lot of good. I would say those exact same things today.
Anne is probably going to think this and other upcoming essays are attacks on
her because of the way she constructs the world, but I am trying to make my
point as gently as possible. In the end, I would side with Anne Lawrence over Tammy and her ilk in most
disagreements on sex and gender. Anne and I are both fighting for transgender
rights, and I believe that my own fight for rights would be a hollow victory
if it didn’t include the most marginalized transgender street prostitute
or most visibly gender variant late transitioner. I may be an assimilationist,
but I know I would not be where I am today if it weren’t for the radical
drag queens at Stonewall, and I will never forget my debt to them or others
who still live in the ghettoes of gender. Many of Anne's fights are mine, although
our philosophies are frequently diametric. However, Anne and I are different, and she knows it. She wants to be lumped
in with me, but I resist this because there is something that makes her different
from transsexual women I know. This is what I feel she refuses to admit, and
this is the source of her intellectual dishonesty. To be honest, I can’t
quite put my finger on it, but it seems tied up in paraphilia and her projection
of her own sexuality on women like me. I would like to read what Anne meant when she said she felt inadequate around
me, because whatever that is will probably give a hint at the distinction in
my definition between Anne Lawrence and a transsexual woman. Commentary by Dana Beyer, M.D.
Personally, I don't believe in any of the constructs which separate mind and
body, nature and nurture, gene and environment, essentialism and constructivism,
or male and female, for that matter. Each of these constructs is a highly complex
whole, with interdependence being as important as the constituent parts. As
an example, the common impression, for instance, is that males have only testosterone
and females only estrogen. Westerners have a very poor understanding of human
sexuality, and that includes out lesbians like Tammy Bruce and physicians like
Anne Lawrence. |
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