from "Trans Liberation and Feminism: Self-Determination, Healthcare and Revolutionary Struggle" by Michelle Esther O'Brien

Here's part of an essay by Michelle Esther O'Brien, a transsexual genderqueer activist from NYC whose website deadletters is a treasure trove of analysis and reflection on the vibrant milieu of gender politics today. Some readers may find Michelle's stuff a bit academic, but I'm way impressed by the depth the breadth of content available on the site.

Accompanying this history of trans liberation and feminism, Michelle's site features an analysis of conflicts between transsexual and genderqueer politics, a reflection on kink and radical politics, and an essay about Robocop! Yowza!

Both transsexual and genderqueer are identities that have taken shape within particular historical moments to give voice to people’s experience of their own gender identities and bodies. Amidst our society of deep, pervasive hatred of gender variant identities, and bodies, both genderqueers and transsexuals have struggled to define ourselves as somehow legitimate. As identities and ways of thinking about gender, genderqueer and transsexual identities have too often come to be defined in opposition to each other.

Genderqueer as an identity has been linked with a particular political critique of binary gender systems. Genderqueer people often understand ourselves as somehow not entirely fitting within gender binaries. Perhaps neither male nor female, or both male and female, or flexibly playing between them, genderqueer identification is often somehow in opposition to specific, concrete, stable single-gender identities. This has become linked to a politicized critique of the system of binary, dualistic gender identities. Many genderqueer activists and theorists, such as the commentary of Rikki Anne Wilchins in the recent book entitled Genderqueer, or passages in the writing of Kate Bornstein, have attacked other transsexuals as conforming and reproducing this oppressive system of gender dualism. Genderqueers, some argue, are a radical vanguard challenging the most basic oppressive systems of gender. Transsexuals, meanwhile, are dismissed as politically reactionary among some genderqueers.

Some transsexuals have launched their own attacks of genderqueer identity. Dismissing genderqueers as shallow opportunists, uncommitted, confused people appropriating transsexual identity, genderqueers are charged as not being authentic. Genderqueers, some anti-genderqueer transsexuals have argued, are a privileged collection of people superficially fooling around with issues, words and identities with deep, live-threatening and liberating implications for transsexuals.

These nasty bitter disputes resemble similar battles within feminist politics. Tensions between some androgynous feminists and butch or femme people, or tensions between transphobic feminists and trans women, share a similar dynamic of people ranking, comparing and evaluating identities based on political models.

Trans Liberation and Feminism