Terre Interviews Terre - Attempting to Answer Common Points of Confusion (excerpt)
Terre interviews Terre - Attempting to Answer Common Points of Confusion (excerpt)
Okay, then let's talk about your body... Have you ever been clinically diagnosed with a form of intersexuality, Gender Identity Disorder (GID), or any other possible medical conditions related to transgenderism?
Terre Thaemlitz :
No. And I am extremely reluctant to subject myself to such diagnoses - particularly in relation to GID, which in most countries is a mandatory stepping-stone when pursuing transformative procedures such as hormone therapy, sexual reassignment surgery (SRS), etc.
I find it incredibly upsetting that the majority of post-op transsexuals I have known considered their diagnosis with GID to be nothing but a bureaucratic formality for insurance coverage and continued access to health care. For example, here in Japan access to transitional procedures means following strict rules that make people wait 8 to 10 years before being eligible for SRS. As you can imagine, many people do not wish to wait that long (especially those who begin transitioning later in life) and end up breaking the rules by independently paying for surgery in Thailand or Singapore. But when they come back to Japan and seek local follow-up care they are penalized for trying jump steps in the Japanese system, sent to the back of the line in terms of priority when making appointments, and treated coldly by physicians. Taking diagnostic rules to their furthest extreme is Iran, where their economy around gender transitioning is surprisingly second only to Thailand. In Iran, SRS is forced upon countless people every year as a "cure" for homosexuality, which is forbidden under their interpretation of Islamic law. The government actually subsidizes these surgeries. Yet even in these cases where SRS is clearly used as a loophole in religious law to help people avoid beatings, imprisonment and/or "justified" murder (often at the hands of one's own family and local community), a diagnosis of GID remains a precondition of these surgeries. It makes absolutely no sense.
While I recognize that there are those who do feel a sincere connection to their diagnoses (particularly in Western nations where these diagnoses first fostered, and are therefore more culturally reconciled with the mindsets of the patients), taking all of these global contexts into consideration I feel it is a mistake to use a history of clinical diagnoses as a means of qualifying a person's degree of "transgendered authenticity" - which is certainly a subtext of asking that question in a public setting. It simply reinforces the all too familiar trans-hierarchy which places transsexuals at the top, fetish cross-dressers at the bottom, and the rest of us as an indecisive, suspicious, untrustworthy lump in the middle.
The fact that the planet's two largest and most advanced industries around medical transitioning exist within the radically homophobic cultures of Thailand and Iran certainly raises flags in my mind. These industries not only define our conditions, but consistently propose "solutions" that just so happen to coincide with dominant gender and sexual mares. They encourage an essentialist faith in the relatinoship between bodies and medicine (which establishes the rules for what constitutes a "healthy body"), all of which cloaks the grim reality that culture after culture finds it easier to physically alter the bodies of a minority than to alter dominant social codings around sexuality, gender and the body. (In the West, people prefer to think of transitioning as a gender issue distinct from sexual orientation, but sexual orientation is absolutely an enormous factor within the evolution of these industries.) In this way I see medicine serving the interests of dominant cultures far more than serving the interests of transgendered people.
The fact that the planet's two largest and most advanced industries around medical transitioning exist within the radically homophobic cultures of Thailand and Iran certainly raises flags in my mind. These industries not only define our conditions, but consistently propose "solutions" that just so happen to coincide with dominant gender and sexual mares. They encourage an essentialist faith in the relatinoship between bodies and medicine (which establishes the rules for what constitutes a "healthy body"), all of which cloaks the grim reality that culture after culture finds it easier to physically alter the bodies of a minority than to alter dominant social codings around sexuality, gender and the body. (In the West, people prefer to think of transitioning as a gender issue distinct from sexual orientation, but sexual orientation is absolutely an enormous factor within the evolution of these industries.) In this way I see medicine serving the interests of dominant cultures far more than serving the interests of transgendered people.
People need medical care. Things like hormonal imbalances are real. But the ideological misdirections around transgendered care confuse the accuracy of diagnoses - even to the point of falsification - and that in turn confuses the direction of future developments in medicine.
Ultimately, most medical transitioning is less about becoming female or male, and more about unbecoming whatever we were (which may not have been "female" or "male" at all), just enough so that we are psychologically able to accept our bodies amidst the misery of life under heterosexist patriarchies. The crossing of gender borders is not unlike a form of migration. In the same way a large part of why I enjoy living in Japan is because of the ways it is not the U.S. (all the while being sure that if I were born in Japan I would be utterly miserable here), so I can see the positive function of medical transitioning as a means of migrating one's body away from the unbearable cultural codings surrounding it. And like the immigrant is ever-aware that they are not indigenous to their new land, so is the transgendered person ever aware that their transition is never complete. It is a thing of perpetual maintenance. It is interactive. It means no longer being able to take for granted all the privileges to which the "native" is generally numb.
Within this circumstance, I consider rampant essentialism among transgendered people - including that fostered by medical industries - as an anesthetic which allows people to remain numb. And that numbness is not politically neutral or devoid of dominations. It is an addictive painkiller prescribed by dominant culture. It helps one cope for a while, but it is not the cure for one's pain. It is an ultimatley harmful distraction. Like religion or 12-step, I can understand how people come to rely upon it - particularly those most vulnerable or on the verge of suicide (and as we know, transitioning is no deterrent for that). But like religion or 12-step, essentialism also requires a "leap of faith" by which one surrenders all control to a supra-social power (be it spiritual or genetic) - which is always a convoluted and misdirected means of seeking personal/social agency in the here-and-now.
- Terre Thaemlitz
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Source : Terre Interviews Terre - Attempting to Answer Common Points of Confusion