Transcendent by Nghiem

Thank you to Professor Honma for pushing me to struggle with the foundational theory & knowledge that has informed the creation of this zine & how I approach all of my work in general. Thank you to all of the amazing qtpoc who shared their stories in this zine and who have supported my journey of life-long learning. May we always bring nuance and care to our communities and the work that we create. December 2019

TRA NSC TABLE OF CONTENTS

CONTACT: Nghiem Nguyen

HEARTNGHIEM@GMAIL.COM

ABOUT THE CREATOR Who am I and why am I creating this zine?

ON LIVED EXPERIENCES

CONVERSATION WITH J It's easy to get stuck in "performing"

NOAH On transitioning as a constant process

PAIN AS AUTHENTICITY? Reflections on Nurul Ilmi Idrus and Takeo David Hymans, “Balancing Benefits and Harm: Chemical Use and Body Transformation among Indonesia’s Transgender Waria”

THOUGHTS I don't feel stuck in my body. I feel stuck in society's perceptions and expectations of my body.

CRITERIA Definition of gender dysphoria according to the DSM-V

DR. MAKOKIS A Cree doctor's caring approach for transgender patients

PATHOLOGICAL CONSTRUCTIONS Reflections on “Mutilating Gender” by Dean Spade

UNFIXED Non-human embodiment

TRANSMOGRIFICATION Reflections on Nikki Sullivan, “Transmogrification: (Un)Becoming Other(s)” (2006)

JING JING Thoughts on biomedicalization of trans identity

CLOSING NOTE Thank you note to the reader

About Me!

My name is Nghiem Nguyen. I'm currently a senior at Pomona College Biology major and Asian American studies minor. I identify as Vietnamese-American, queer, nonbinary, ace, polyam, Buddhist, first-gen low-income college student, Capricorn, etc. The list goes on. Something that I've had a lot of time to think about deeply is the social and historical construction of identities and bodies and how these two phenomenona are so intimately linked - specifically for queer and trans bodies of color. My current career aspiration is to be a plastic surgeon who specializes in gender-affirmation surgeries. As someone who identifies as queer and nonbinary, I want to make a positive impact on the LGBTQ+ community and be the most compassionate and socially aware doctor I can be. I firmly believe that there needs to be more queer and trans doctors who allow their relevant wisdom and life experiences to inform their practice. 1

Despite what Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve learned about the medical-industrial complex, I have hope that we can still move toward greater liberatory healthcare with the right people in positions of leadership within politics and medicine. I am trying to learn as much as I can about transgender experiences, which requires constant questioning of the impacts of my work. I believe that gender-affirmation surgeries can help save lives by ameliorating gender dysphoria in countless individuals. However, I also want to remain critical of how gender is constructed in Western society and the nuanced implications behind gender-affirmation surgeries within this context. Thus, I want to create a zine that will attempt to critically analyze the role of gender-affirmation surgeries and the medicalization of transgender identity. One of the overarching curiosities throughout this zine will be: How would gender dysphoria manifest, if at all, in a world in which the gender binary no longer exists and there are zero social pressures to present your gender in a certain way? In this ideal world, would there be any need for hormones and surgeries? I am specifically interested in the ways that gender-affirmation surgeries reinforce Western colonialist notions of the gender binary.

Key questions that I wish to explore include: 1. In what ways are gender-affirming surgeries read as “cosmetic” versus “medically necessary” - and what types of discourse must individuals participate in in order to advocate for themselves and validate their experiences? 2. Who gets to decide what is “medically necessary” and how is this even defined? 3. How can the medical community help advocate and support transgender individuals in their access to gender-affirming care, without essentializing or “standardizing/flattening” the transgender experience? (For example, oftentimes, nonbinary individuals have to lie and conform to stereotypical gender roles in order to “prove” that their gender dysphoria is real and have access to gender-affirming treatment.) 4. How does discourse surrounding binary transgender individuals replicate and institutionalize harmful stereotypes and dominant oppressive ideologies concerning gender? 5. How does the dominant Western narrative around transgender identities erase or co-opt nonbinary and indigenous experiences?

Finally, I want to acknowledge my own limited positionality in the creation of this zine. My positionality is limited by the fact that I am a participant in settler colonialism and I do not identify as indigenous. Meanwhile, I attempt to question how current understandings and practices surrounding transgender identities can be informed by indigenous understandings of gender. Thus, I want to make it clear that the lens and frameworks from which I approach this project can never be truly free of Western colonialist influence. Additionally, I represent only one single perspective and experience of transness. In no ways is this zine meant to invalidate other people's experiences with their body, dysphoria, or trans identity. The goal of this project is to provide an explorative learning opportunity for both me and the reader, as opposed to a claim of expertise. 3

On Lived Experiences "... stories are not separate from theory; they make up theory and are, therefore, real and legitimate sources of data/knowledge and ways of being." - Toward a tribal critical race theory in education (Brayboy, 2005)

A CONVERSATION I HAD WITH SOMEONE WHO IS TAKING TESTOSTERONE

WHAT IS HEALTHY MASCULINITY?

PEOPLE ASK ME "SO WHEN WILL YOU BE DONE WITH ALL OF THIS?" ... THAT'S NOT HOW IT WORKS

ON TRANSITIONING AS A CONSTANT PROCESS

NOAH @quinoahpowersalad MY FIRST POOL/BATH EXPERIENCE SINCE SURGERY

A lot of cis people may look at me and think because I'm on hormones and have gotten top surgery that I must be pretty much "complete", that my battle with dysphoria is over. This is true to an extent. I'm so much happier with my body and I feel it aligns with my gender identity. I am "done" with the medical side of things. BUT I now have a new set of challenges to face. Now I have two giant scars that essentially label me as transgender. If I want to be shirtless in places like the pool, beach, changeroom, then I've gotta gain a new kind of confidence. There's no hiding my trans identity in these situations. So going to the spa I was a bit nervous about social acceptance, especially because my scars are still fresh. They're bright red and my nipples are a mix of different colours because pigmentation hasn't fully returned yet. But I knew my friends had my back so it wasn't as hard as it could've been. I was also nervous about how to act in the men's changeroom. But I quickly realized you just tunnel vision into doing your own thing and nobody really talks to each other lol.

ON TRANSITIONING AS A CONSTANT PROCESS

NOAH @quinoahpowersalad WHEN I PUT MYSELF IN SITUATIONS WHERE MY TRANSNESS IS REALLY VISIBLE, IT OFTEN FEELS LIKE A GAMBLE BETWEEN SOCIAL ACCEPTANCE AND SOCIAL EXCLUSION.

It blows my mind to think about the trans dudes who go fully nude in shared showers with cis men. I don't have the courage to do that just yet (the spa's showers had curtains) but maybe in the future. I did get a couple stares from people in the pool but it surprisingly didn't bother me. Overall it was an awesome experience and I'm really looking forward to spending more time in the water.

Everybody's got struggles. Everybody's got a story. Problems in life are inevitable; I'll always have them. But the coolest thing about this past year since starting my transition is seeing my problems move further and further away from being trans related. My dysphoria no longer feels crippling. My mental health is more stable and goes through an average person's high and lows. The problems that root my transness are no longer at the center of my life. Instead of going through my day putting energy into battling dysphoria, I work towards my other goals in life that were previously put on hold. For example, I can focus 100% on my school application while sitting in a cafe instead of being distracted by the tightness of the binder around my chest, the thoughts of "is my shirt see-through?", and the back pain associated with intentional poor posture to hide my breasts. I will always be grateful for my life changing surgery and for being able to take testosterone.

PAIN AS AUTHENTICITY? REFLECTIONS HYMANS, USE

AND

NURUL

“BALANCING BODY

ILMI

IDRUS

BENEFITS

AND

TRANSFORMATION

TRANSGENDER

AND

AMONG

WARIA”

TAKEO

HARM:

DAVID

CHEMICAL

INDONESIA’S

(2014)

In my Asian American Studies Class, Body Art in the Diaspora, we did a reading on Indonesia's waria community. As a group, warias are diverse, encompassing what we in America might call cross-dressers, transgender MTF, drag queens, and effeminate gay men. What unites them is an irrepressible feminine spirit. Throughout the reading and during our class discussions, several themes came up. The first: pain as a form of legitimacy/authenticity. Two quotes stuck out to us: “Pain is thus evidence of transformation.” “Waria who are growing breasts [via hormones] enjoy greater respect and legitimacy; the padded bra remains the object of jokes and derision.” How does this conceptualization and valorization of pain within the transgender community play into a larger narrative of "deservingness"? How does this replicate the harmful body policing that falls into the interests of the nation state? Several of my classmates mentioned that this mindset aligns well with the capitalist society that we currently live under, in which personal suffering and sacrifice are required in order to truly "work hard" toward success. We see the same stakes at play in America with those seeking genderaffirming practices. There's this push toward "realness" and "authenticity". A pressure to choose to "pass".

This binary approach to gender utilizes the tools of cosmetics and medicine in order to fold our community into hegemonic ideologies (i.e. the gender binary). It offers relief, access, and privilege to individuals who can afford to "pass" or who choose to live according to the binary. However, it does not attempt to intervene or disrupt the dominant ideologies which force society as a whole to participate in what is basically a large-scale gender performance. How do these factors impact self-perception and societal perception of efficacy and authenticity? What are the socioeconomic/ gendered/ racial undertones of these perceptions? (For example, who can afford to purchase products/procedures to alter one's body? How are white bodies privileged as a beauty standard within the trans community?) Can we disrupt the drive toward an "end goal" within a bodily project? What happens to those who can't afford to "pass"? Or don't want to? Here are a few more questions planted by my professor (we have a tendency to ask more questions than find answers): How can we theorize the idea of "failed" transformation in a more liberatory manner? In a world that serves only to privilege the binary, there is a dichotomy between success and failure. Success leads to social and economic capital, the privilege of belonging in community, political recognition, etc. FailureÂ leads to social stigma and premature death.Â CanÂ we problematize the dichotomy of natural versus unnatural? How can we embrace the unnatural? If we do, what does this do to pre-existing social categories? By no means am I looking down on those who seek gender-affirming medical treatment. I do, however, want to complicate our understanding - to what extent are these goals actual inherent desires to alter one's body and to what extent is it simply reactionary to society's demands? Is true autonomy ever possible? What are the stakes when we participate in the normalization of pain as a ticket to individualistic freedom and recognition?

My body has sea salt caramel skin, uneven almond eyes, roseÂ petal breasts, a wind chime voice, taffy shoulders, toothpick limbs, and a curvy spine. My voice is soft no matter what - even when I am angry and yelling, I still sound gentle. I love my body. I don't want to change it.

I see my body as a temple, a vessel for me to physically inhabit this world and feel sensations. It has certain parts that allow me to feel pleasure and pain. I can change how I wish to adorn my body with clothing, jewelry, makeup, and hairstyle with each new day. My body is a canvas,a constantly evolving sculpture. I get to be my own living masterpiece.

I don't feel stuck in my body. I feel stuck in society's perceptions and expectations of my body.

When I admire a beautiful flower, I don't analyze its stamens and ovules in order to diagnose it or to assign it to a category. I don't think that the shape of its petals indicate that it belongs in this other garden, or that it should go pollinate this other flower nearby. I simply admire the miracle of its existence, its beauty, its colors, how it smells, the way that it sways back and forth in the wind, opens up toward the sun and reflects light on its admirer.

For humans, we are so obsessed with analyzing and categorizing each other. My body is instantly labeled at birth, at work, in school, in public and private spaces. My breasts are viewed as sexy, provocative, nsfw. They're associated with womanhood, motherhood, the expectation to one day reproduce and start a family. They don't belong to me anymore. They belong to the cisheteronormative male gaze. I don't feel stuck in my body. I feel stuck in society's perceptions and expectations of my body. I understand how this feeling of constant gendered surveillance would manifest into a deep discomfort and may cause someone to want top surgery in order to escape this predatory and suffocating gaze. 13

The same goes for basically any bodily entity that is unnecessarily gendered. Long hair//short hair Smooth skin// hairy legs Makeup// bare face Soft voice// deep voice Long nails// short nails Vagina// penis Ovaries// testes Short// tall Light// dark Pretty// handsome Fragile// strong I don't feel stuck in my body. I feel stuck in society's perceptions and expectations of my body.

I don't think that the solution is for me to change myself into a stereotypical male or androgynous appearance in order to resolve these issues that I struggle with. My discontent does not inherently stem from the way my body looks. It stems from my deep discontent with how society perceives it.

I don't feel stuck in my body. I feel stuck in society's perceptions and expectations of my body. 14

The other day I was wearing a giant raincoat, a beanie, khakis, and black boots. Guests who approached me did not use any gendered honorifics or pronouns. They even used "they" to refer to me. This was really exciting to me. It felt like I didn't have to try. Like I could just exist as me. But as soon as I started speaking and they heard my voice, they instantly switched to "she". It felt like that moment when you are taking a really nice hot shower and suddenly the water heater stops functioning and you are shocked because you almost forgot what cold felt like. Maybe this is gender dysphoria. Maybe it's not.

I don't feel stuck in my body. I feel stuck in society's perceptions and expectations of my body.

Would it really help if I started taking testosterone or did vocal training to deepen my voice? Or forced myself to wear baggy clothes all the time? Or always hunched my shoulders forward? Or never wore makeup again?

I would simply fall into another category or some limbo space-time until someone finds some clue that they can latch onto. 15

I don't feel stuck in my body. I feel stuck in society's perceptions and expectations of my body.

Whatever I'm feeling doesn't have any medical solution available. Me going through the struggle of altering my body in order to "escape" this feeling doesn't fix what's happening around me.

What if we lived in a world where people are flowers? Where we are allowed to simply exist and create beauty and life however we wish? We would still have different needs and conditions in which each one of us thrives, and that's accepted without question. Some flowers are luscious and round. Some are small and grow close to the ground. Some flowers have thorns. Some flowers produce a lot of pollen. Some don't have any petals at all. How would we co-exist in this world?

A forest may still bloom without a gardener.

American Psychiatric Association, DSM-V

DR. MAKOKIS A CREE DOCTOR'S CARING APPROACH FOR TRANSGENDER PATIENTS

SOURCES: HTTPS://WWW.YOUTUBE.COM/WATCH?V=-NOLLS6VW7S HTTPS://NEWSINTERACTIVES.CBC.CA/LONGFORM/ACREE-DOCTORS-CARING-APPROACH-FOR-TRANSGENDERPATIENTS How can the medical community help advocate and support transgender individuals in their access to gender-affirming care, without essentializing or “standardizing/flattening” the transgender experience?

Dr. James Makokis is a Saddle Lake Cree Nation doctor. As an indigenous two-spirit person, Dr. Makokis is particularly noted for treating transgender people from the Cree communities and around the world, with many patients traveling extremely long distances to see him. "Two-spirit is a contemporary English term to reflect gender diversity that indigenous nations have always had... As indigenous people, we've always had gender diversity and sexual diversity in our Nations before colonization existed on Turtle Island. With the imposition of colonization, Christianity, residential schools, the Sixties Scoop, a lot of those teachings of gender diversity have been [historically and systematically erased]." Over the past three years, Dr. Makokis has crafted a unique approach to transgender care by bringing together Indigenous and Western teachings. "There's less of a need to advocate on your own behalf," said Knibb-Lamouche, about the familyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s choice to seek Makokis's help. "He knows all the pitfalls of being a young person in an Indigenous community in Canada as a 'non-normal,'" he said.

"I think it's important to understand, in the health field, that there was an indigenous health system here prior to 'contact'. And so when we talk about indigenous medicines and indigenous ceremonies, those form the foundations of our health system. So the original medicines to this continent, on Turtle Island, are indigenous medicines. They're not 'alternative medicines'. And so when we frame things from that perspective, then Western medicine is actually alternative medicine. And for health practitionersÂ in the health system to know that, is important."

Dr. Makokis's story offers an example of a current thriving practice and a very possible future in which indigenous understandings of gender diversity and healthcare in general are not only incorporated into the practice of medicine but actually serve as a valuable wealth of knowledge and a framework to begin deconstructing current dominant Western ideologies. This requires dedication to recentering indigenous communities, experiences, and teachings (in addition to actual material changes, such as a return of land and resources). In Dr. Makokis's case, his personal identity and lived experience as an indigenous two-spirit person are an asset to his approach to medicine and healing. With that said, I wanted to bring into conversation some words from Richard M. Juang's “Transgendering the Politics of Recognition” (2013). Juang notes that one of the key strategies in legitimation in transgender politics is a representation of cultures in which apparently “third sexes or genders” have a positive role and of cultures with different taxonomies for embodiment and sexual life more generally. Those who are doing so are often seeking world-views in which gender relations are not organized around patriarchy and domesticity, and sexuality is not defined in terms of mutually exclusive heterosexual and homosexual identities. In my case, I am looking for positive examples in which doctors can support individuals who are seeking gender-affirming care while also embracing the fact that gender does not have to be experienced in a binary fashion (which has roots in colonialism). This sort of medical practice not only accepts gender diversity, but actually centers the cultures, experiences, and needs of current indigenous communities. Being able to have this shift does not detract from doctors' practice of medicine but actually adds value to their interactions within community. "For trans persons, knowledge of other cultural systems lends credence to the idea that transphobia and rigid gender roles are neither a permanent nor an organic feature of societies, and offers the possibility that there might well be a future in which transgender persons possess cultural and social legitimacy despite or even because of their identity." (Juang, 716)

"What is risked in using other cultures as a means to our own political ends, is an erosion of ethical consciousness in which we come to regard both â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;transâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; and non-trans persons as mere instruments in struggles that they have had little voice in shaping and whose fruits they are unlikely to share... On the other hand, placed in a broader cultural and historical context, the depiction of a different sex and gender system can also be used to demonstrate that the binary and heterocentric understanding of 'normal' sex and gender identity in the United States is not a fact of nature, but the product of a specific historical legacy, one that is reinforced not by the force of nature, but the relations of privilege and exclusion.â&#x20AC;? (717) I want to end this section by noting that indigenous understandings and practices offer us a lot to learn, re-learn, and unlearn. On one hand, we have to take caution so as not to render these communities or their teachings as static. There is a lot of important advocacy work being done by indigenous scholars and community members today. On the other hand, it is important to recognize that nonbinary understandings of gender and sexuality are not a new phenomenon -- and having the privilege of learning about these identities does not mean that you can simply claim them as your own (i.e. two-spirit identity should not be simply subsumed into Western understandings of LGBTQ+ identities). With that being said, you do not have to be indigenous in order to care about indigenous communities or recognize that practices which preserve and uphold the gender binary inherently reinforce Western colonialist ideologies that are harmful to all individuals. All in all, keeping in mind that indigenous cultures have historically embraced nonbinary gender identities, I question to what extent do contemporary medical procedures offer us relief from gender dysphoria and to what extent does the medicalization of gender still function as a marker of bodies as deviant, ill, pathologized, othered... and thus subject them to additional pressures to conform?

Reflections on “Mutilating Gender” by Dean Spade Published in The Transgender Studies Reader (2006)

“The reification of the violence of compulsory gender norm adherence, and the submission of trans bodies to a norm-producing medical discipline, is too high a price for a small hope of conditional tolerance.” (Spade, 329) 22

“When did you first know you were different?” the counselor at the L.A. Free Clinic asked. “Well,” I said, “I knew I was poor and on welfare, and that was different from lots of kids at school, and I had a single mom, which was really uncommon there, and we weren’t Christian, which is terribly noticeable in the South. Then later I knew I was a foster child, and in high school, I knew I was a feminist and that caused me all kinds of trouble, so I guess I always knew I was different.” His facial expression tells me this isn’t what he wanted to hear, but why should I engage this idea that my gender performance has been my most important difference in my life? It hasn’t, and I can’t separate it from the class, race, and parentage variables through which it was mediated. Does this mean I’m not real enough for surgery? I’ve worked hard to not engage the gay childhood narrative—I never talk about tomboyish behavior as an antecedent to my lesbian identity, I don’t tell stories about cross-dressing or crushes on girls, and I intentionally fuck with the assumption of it by telling people how I used to be straight and have sex with boys like any sweet trashy rural girl and some of it was fun. I see these narratives as strategic, and I’ve always rejected the strategy that adopts some theory of innate sexuality and forecloses the possibility that anyone, gender-troubled childhood or not, could transgress sexual and gender norms at any time. I don’t want to participate in an idea that only some people have to engage a struggle of learning gender norms in childhood either. So now, faced with these questions, how do I decide whether to look back on my life through the tranny childhood lens, tell the stories about being a boy for Halloween, not playing with dolls? What is the cost of participation in this selective recitation? What is the cost of not participating?” (Spade, 319)

In their work Mutilating Gender, legal activist and theorist Dean Spade uses Foucault's theory of productive power along with recounts of their own personal experiences to examine the relationship between gender normativity and the pathological construction of trans identity by medical institutions.

Spade's strategic use of personal experience (along with scholarly theory) in recounting an unsuccessful year-long search for basic low-cost respectful counseling services in LA in order to get top surgery serves as a legitimate source of knowledge. His anecdotes indicate a larger historical and systematic problem with the production of the "transsexual" in medical practice. Not only do Spade's stories help to ground their arguments and elucidate the very real personal stakes of navigating medical instutions as a gender variant person, but they also position "trans people as self-critical, feminist, intellectual subjects of knowledge rather than simply case studies" in order to disrupt traditional framing of trans experience as innately victimized. Spade's central argument is that transsexualism is simultaneously socially constructed and maintained by medical practice. He is concerned with the domination of professional authority in legitimacy politics and the extent to which many forms of deviance become biomedicalized as a form of "illness". Basically, a trans person is not "truly" trans under the nation state (which colludes with medical & psychiatric institutions) unless validated by a strict cisheteronormative set of criteria. This requires that "transsexualism" is indicated by something "wrong" with how someone grew up. This childhood/life experience must be validated by professional authorities before achieving access to the tools that one needs to affirm their gender. Foucault's theory of "productive power" informs Spade's critical analysis of the regulatory effects of medical diagnosis and treatment. "[Productive] power does not just say "no" and enslave free subjects, but rather produces knowledge, categories, and identities that manage and regulate behavior." (318) Spade summarizes, "The creation of 'norms' and 'standards' causes the subject of discipline to internalize certain behaviors... standards of proper conduct create a mode of regulation characterised by interventions designed to correct deviations and to secure compliance and conformity â&#x20AC;Ś It is through the repetition of normative requirements that the 'normal' is constructed â&#x20AC;Ś and secured through surveillance" (318)

Foucault's theory of disciplinary, productive power isÂ applicable to categories of illness that serve, through diagnosis and treatment, to regulate gender expression.

The purpose of this critical analysis (of the institutionalization of gender normativity through medical authority) seeks not to reject or condemn the use of these procedures, nor to embrace the normalizing regulations of the diagnostic and treatment processes. Rather, the fundamental problem lies in "how the medical regime permits only the production of gender-normative altered bodies, and seeks to screen out alterations that are resistant to dichotomized, naturalized views of gender... Thus, the problem with the invention of medical transsexualism is theÂ limitsÂ that it places on body alteration, not its participation in the performance of body alteration." (319) Containing and binding the necessity of long-term gender distress within "transsexualism" functions to naturalize "healthy" dichotomized, birthassigned gender performance. In this process, trans becomes equated with sick, not healthy, not normal, something assigned wrong biologically or during one's lifetime, whereas not trans is equated with healthy and normal. The function of gender affirmation surgeries is thus solely to re-align ill individuals into binary and naturalized categories - correcting their bodies "back to normal". This process "individualizes, privatizes and depoliticizes the meaning of these transgressions... it is 'in the minds of the ill' that gender problems exist, not in the construction of what is 'healthy'." ... It's important to note that this narrative of gendered normativity assigned to bodies implicates everyone, not just trans folks (e.g. normal girls look and act like this, normal boys look and act like this is violent and restrictive for all bodies).

Unfixed Unfixed

In Vietnamese, "nĆ°áť&#x203A;c" means water, or land, or country - a sense of both belonging and migrancy Water contains, expands, breathes, nurtures, embodies Sometimes I imagine myself as a lotus Grounded yet not, swaying, free to float Fluid in a water that holds but does not restrain Sometimes I imagine myself as static Making noise, demanding to be noticed, yet inseparable from background I wonder if I am more like oil slick Immiscible with my surroundings, an accident barely noticed, a translucent iridescence, a beautiful hazard 26

Screenshots of twitter replies on a thread critiquing transmedicalism's adherence to a system where a medical professional gets final say over one's trans identity with permission from twitter user Megan Talbot, lecturer in law and criminology at Aberystwyth University

tell my story tell my story tell my story tell my story tell my story tell my story tell my story tell my story

tell my stor tell my story tell my stor tell my story tell my stor tell my story tell my stor tell my story tell my stor tell my story tell my stor tell my story tell my stor tell my story tell my stor tell my story 28

Based on Nikki Sullivan, “Transmogrification: (Un)Becoming Other(s)” (2006), published in The Transgender Studies Reader (2013)

TRANS MOGRI FICATI ON defined: a strange or grotesque transformation characterized by distortion, exaggeration, and “unnatural combinations.”

MEDICALLY NECESSARY VS. COSMETIC SURGERY? Nikki Sullivan, a critical theorist of body modification practices, examines similarities and differences between trans surgeries and other forms of bodily modifications such as piercing, branding, tattooing, cosmetic surgery, etc.

Sullivan articulates an analytics of "transmogrification". Rather than seeing transmogrification as a negative process that produces disavowed monstrous "others", she sees it as the expression of a fundamental human condition - we all negotiate the boundary between self and other. We perpetually transform ourselves in relation to an Other. What are the stakes and implications if we compare trans surgeries to other cosmetic surgeries? Jack Halberstam, author of Female Masculinity (1998), In a Queer Time and Place (2005), and Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender, and the End of Normal (2012),Â argues that instead of considering sex reassignment procedures as the surgical answer to a gender dysphoria problem that needs to be resolved, what if we consider them as a cosmetic surgery? "Maybe we would take the stigma away. Maybe we wouldn't see it as the complete, pathological rearrangement of identity... Maybe we'd begin to see it as a way of organizing your body to suit your image of yourself. And then we wouldn't have this whole therapeutic intervention, where people are saying, 'Why do you want to become a man? What's wrong with you?' You could say, 'Because I prefer the way a penis looks on my body to the way a vagina looks on my body.'" (553) Nikki Sullivan suggests that this association of transgender practices and procedures with other forms of body modifications might enable a move away from essentializing and/or pathologizing theories of trans embodiment and the social and political implications of such. Is this conceptual shift possible on a societal level? The first thought that jumps to my mind is - well that's ridiculous - of course it's not the same experience as someone simply getting a cosmetic surgery for aesthetic reasons. Transgender people have radically different experiences... Trans people suffer from gender dysphoria. That's why these surgeries are medically necessary!

MEDICALLY NECESSARY VS. COSMETIC SURGERY? But what happens when we define the trans experience entirely in terms of suffering - how does this (re)inscribe the trans body as that of an inherent victim whose suffering can be eliminated through surgical intervention? Of course, it must vary on a case-by-case basis. Some people experience intense gender dysphoria that inhibits them from living a normal life. Doesn't this constitute medical necessity? But still, how can we complicate our understanding of how suffering in a white supremacist cisheteronormative society can/should be relieved by the medical-industrial complex? In the case of South Korean women who undergo cosmetic surgeries (i.e. rhinoplasty, eyelid surgery, etc.) in order to sell their labor power within a patriarchal economy that demands that women look a certain way in order to achieve the "best" most professional jobs, would these procedures be arguable as a medical necessity? (Good for Her documentary, Elizabeth Lee, 2004) To push these questions even further, what sorts of implications exist within the context of race/skin color? One could argue that having brown and black skin causes undue suffering within a white supremacist society. Would skin bleaching constitute a medical necessity in order to individually relieve the consequences of systematic racism? Who even gets to decide what is medically necessary? Do we give this power to institutions of medicine? To policy makers? To community members? What are the limitations and advantages of doing so? What is the function of an established set of criteria to determine eligibility for surgery? What "symptoms" must be present? How many? For how long? What kind of checkboxes must we still tick off in order to access care? There's a tendency to set up a dichotomy between "good" and "bad" forms of embodiment. Nikki Sullivan argues that perhaps a different approach, which would evade the entire question of "medical necessity" in the first place, is if we somehow managed to arrive at the acceptance of monstrosity- if we rejected the need for "normal" in its entirety. In this re-imagined world where the unnatural is embraced, we would no longer need to participate in a discourse which forces us to pathologize our bodies/lived experiences. We would no longer need to ask the medical professional to "fix" us, because there is nothing wrong with us in the first place.Â

MEDICALLY NECESSARY VS. COSMETIC SURGERY? What would this world look like? Perhaps the concept of gender dysphoria would not exist because it is no longer seen as a pathological "condition" that exists outside the realms of gender normativity. Perhaps it still does exist, but to a lesser extent, or it's called something else - a name not tied to a medical condition. Perhaps in this world, it is accepted for individuals to alter their bodies however they see fit. What if there were community guidebooks and how-tos for safely administering hormones? What if there were widely shared public resources which discuss the benefits and side effects of surgery? What if medical doctors were there not to diagnose a condition, or to act as gatekeepers to gender-affirming care, but solely as a source of support and education? Perhaps in this world, individuals do not feel the need to alter their bodies because there is no longer any standard of "normal" - of "man", "woman", "androgynous", etc. - to strive for. Perhaps in this world, a child who is born with a penis is not instantly labeled as "boy". When they grow up wishing to wear pink dresses, it is simply because pink is their favorite color and they like how flowy it is when they spin around. This child may wish to have long hair. This doesn't mark them effeminate or trans. Throughout this child's life, all of their bodily choices are celebrated and affirmed. Maybe as an adult, they wish to have a penectomy. They would have the freedom to discuss this desire with caring and accepting community members who have felt the same way. They would go to their doctor's office to learn about the procedure. The doctor explains the process to them without requiring any physical or mental diagnosis. The only examination needed is what's standard for all major surgical procedures.

What are the necessary steps in order to achieve this world?

NOTES FROM A CASUAL CONVERSATION WITH

JING JING

Nghiem: I'm glad you took the time to read the zine! Jing jing: I did read it. It was so good! Very relatable. It’s so nice to see people who are also trans and doing stuff like this, especially as a zine as a way to distribute knowledge. The pain as legitimacy thing really struck a chord with me. And also the complicated way that colonialism and Westernization is involved in all of this. Also, the almost poem piece about how it’s not like you feel trapped in your body, you feel trapped in society’s views of your body. I really resonated with it, because for me, I do not have much physical dysphoria, which I know is not always the case with trans people. Most people that I know do have physical dysphoria, and they deal with it in whatever ways they can. And they medically transition or not. That’s not something that I’m going for. And it’s like, yeah, sometimes it might be nice to have a flat chest like a cis guy. But do I really want that? Or is it just society telling me I want that? Do I give into that? Is it a statement to stay like this? Is it a statement to change? Why do I even have to worry about this? This is so dumb, it’s just my body. It’s very frustrating. Also being queer, it’s the complicated issue of do I want to be them or do I want to be with them? Nghiem: Yeah, it’s hard because I feel like every decision that you make, even though ideally, it’s like “Oh this is my individualistic expression-” Jing jing: Existing is politicized.

Jing jing Nghiem: Yeah! Every single thing that you do and how you present yourself has social and political implications. Jing jing: Yeah, as soon as you’re not that “standard" "neutral” individual in society, everything you do is political. And it’s really exhausting, especially when you’re aware of it, you know? But also, I feel like it’s a powerful situation to be in as well, because you wield so much power and strength in existing and doing what’s good for you. But also, it’s exhausting. I haven't really experienced a ton of physical dysphoria and when I do, it's complicated. It’s mostly been social dysphoria, but even then, not as much as some other people. It's not a significant impact on my mental health the same way some other trans people have it. And I feel really lucky for that, but also it builds and it is very annoying. So there's that question of legitimacy. I feel like I'm an outlier in some ways because for me, being trans is almost very much an intellectual thing. Like when I was learning about all of these queer identities, I sat there and I was like, my big question that gave me headaches and I had super duper long conversations with close people "what is gender, if it's not biological because trans people exist and it's not gender roles because those are stupid and built by society and also vary by culture then what is gender?" And it just like kept going over and over and over in my brain for over a year or something. And I would legit get headaches because we talked for so long about it and it didn't make any sense until I was just like, screw it, I'm not doing gender anymore. And that was like how I decided and that's just what I've stuck with. But the social dysphoria is there. I do also really like the conversation around gender dysphoria versus gender euphoria cause gender euphoria is definitely something that I feel, even if I will never be “passing” as a non-binary individual. Because I'm gender queer, nobody's ever gonna look at me and get my gender “right”. You know what I mean? But sometimes they'll at least get that I am not cis or they'll think that I'm a boy. And being assigned female at birth, that does give me some sense of gender euphoria. I really want the conversation around what makes somebody trans to be less centered on the pain. And the rigid connection between transness and suffering just serves to reinforce the medicalization and pathologization of transgender identity, which is so harmful in so many ways because it gives power to the medical industry to police our bodies and our mental health and everything else that goes with it. Nghiem: And it assigns cis bodies as the default, the “end goal”, right? Jing jing: Which is not true. It's not what everybody wants. And for people who do want it, why do they want it? Like you talk about in the zine, it's so complicated because so much of it is reinforced by societal expectations and what you're told is "correct" or "professional", you know what I mean? And it's like if you don't do this, you're in physical danger. If you don't do this, it's harder to get a job. If you don't do this, people will not treat you the way that you truly are inside or whatever. You know what I mean? So like how much of it is an individual choice? And how much of it is forced by necessity, but also that’s valid if you do participate. You know? And sometimes people don't recognize that both of those are true at the same time. Nghiem: Hm. Yeah, yeah. Another reading that I was doing on the medicalization of trans identity and all these strict guidelines... like “you must have these symptoms for this long” and then like in order to get access to these treatments, then you have to compromise. And so there's this reading I did about Northeast Asia (Stephanie Hsu, 2013) and basically in order to be validated as trans and get that legal recognition and get the surgeries that you want you basically have to go through surgical removal of your reproductive organs. Jing Jing: *screams* Ah!

Jing jing Nghiem: Mhm. So it's like the exchange of kinship and gestational rights, reproductive rights. For your legal recognition of transness. You have to “completely” transition. Otherwise you're not trans. Jing Jing: Right, and there are places where you can't change your gender marker on any kind of legal documents unless you've gone through gender affirming surgery. Nghiem: Exactly. Yeah. So it’s like how does that play into neoliberalist goals of the nation state by "turning trans bodies into citizen bodies" ? Jing jing: But then it's also really interesting because what's the alternative without taking the whole system down? Like there are places where you can do the X on the gender marker, but that, you know, automatically outs you and it's going to get you treated different and patted down at the airport and all this stupid stuff. You know what I mean? And what kind of language are we still supposed to use? Because all of our science is still based around this Western idea of two sexes. And how do you have those conversations and still get the proper medical treatment while not being mistreated when it comes to gender identity? How are you supposed to function inside of all of these awful limiting constructs without breaking the whole thing? And still being recognized and seen and understood. You can't, you can't. No, I don't think you can. I think you have to break the whole thing for it to work. Jing jing: Even when you do try to work within the system and comply with the biomedicalization of trans identity and say these lies, especially if you're a non-binary individual using this very binary narrative... It's frustrating because you have to deal with that own internal struggle of like, I need what I need for my own health and my own safety and what makes me happy as well. Most people just focus on the suffering because it's like, that's what's urgent, you know? But then you feel like some kind of traitor in some way because you have to reaffirm all of these really nasty gendered associations. And these painted narratives that have been given to us that are not being challenged by the media, that are just being perpetuated in society that then do still harm all of us. Nghiem: How would you envision the perfect world? Jing jing: So big. I've had this conversation with cis people where they will debate me. And I'm like, let's focus on right now. And the very immediate urgent, life-threatening struggles that transgender people face, you know, but also leave the imagining of the future primarily to us. You know, because we're the ones who definitely do have a more nuanced understanding of it than you do. We’ve been through those weird in-between spaces and can see the faults in the system and live the faults in the system. You know what I mean? But also for some people, they're just like, who cares about imagining the future? We just need it to not be like this now. And I don't agree with that either because I feel like you have to be fighting for something and again, that balance between suffering and hope and joy, I believe you have to have that as well. Otherwise, everything is pain and it's awful and people can't live like that, you know? So you do have to imagine it in some way. It's just so hard.

Jing jing Jing jing: No idea how to achieve this world. Like there's what we can do now - talking about this kind of theory, distributing this kind of knowledge, prompting these kinds of conversations. But then beyond that is so beyond me at this point. And you have to understand stuff about literally everything in order to re-conceptualize that because it would affect literally everything. You know what I mean? Like you might be like, okay, what's the future of gender? But it's so wrapped up in heterosexism and patriarchy and capitalism and colonialism that we would have to dismantle everything and that's so much and I don't understand enough about politics or economics or all that to be able to come up with a solution. So then you require these kinds of collaborative community work, you know, where you have people who specialize in different areas and conversations happening, communicating. And even then you might not have an answer, but at least it's better than just living the way we are now. You know? Nghiem: Yeah. Something that I've been struggling to...kind of position myself in is… there's the mindset of "we need to dismantle everything. I'm refuse to participate in these systems", but how is that even achievable? Or the model of "I'm going to dismantle the system from within." And so you force yourself to participate in this system that is oppressing you in order to survive and fix it. Is that also possible? Jing jing: Yeah. So it's this whole idea of top down versus bottom up activism that I'm really interested in because I don't think that you can do either/or, you know what I mean? I think you need to be doing both at the same time while also prioritizing, as a community collective, the bottom up point of view. Cause we are still people that need to survive and our lives should be relatively healthy hopefully. But yeah, I feel like we need to do both the “within” the system and the breaking the system work, while prioritizing the breaking the system work. Nghiem: Yeah. Like it can't just all be theory and it can’t all be resistance, resistance, resistance. Jing jing: You have to make immediate tangible change in some of this as well. Yeah. Nghiem: Yeah. There's a need to embrace uncertainty in order to move forward and get anything done. Otherwise you're just stuck.

Closing Note Dear reader, Thank you for taking the time to read and reflect with me. The creation of this zine turned out to be a lot more exciting and non-linear than I anticipated. A project that was originally intended to only be 10 pages turned into 30+ pages. The more I learned, the more I wanted to share, and the more I realized I know very little. Throughout the creation of this zine (and the super dense theory that I forced myself to read alongside with it), I felt that it became harder and harder to find a satisfying stopping point. There is no neat way to wrap up this zine. All of these incredible stories, ideas, and theories by super rad community members made me realize how unimaginably complicated gender and identity are. And how messed up it is that our bodies are so intensely surveilled and governed in a white supremacist, cisheteronormative, colonialist, capitalist society. I'm not sure to what extent I was actually able to answer any of the questions I intended to ask. But I think I'm okay with that. Maybe the point is to be constantly questioning instead of settling into a feeling of knowing anything for sure. I think I was mostly hoping to explore greater nuance and complexity to the conceptualization of trans identity/bodies. Anyways, if you are inclined to do so, feel free to share this zine with anyone whom you think would enjoy/benefit from reading this. Stay rad. -Nghiem

WORKS CITED American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM-5®). American Psychiatric Pub, 2013. Boudjikanian, Raffy. A Two-Spirit Doctor Takes on Transgender Health. 23 Dec. 2018, https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longform/acree-doctors-caring-approach-fortransgender-patients. Brayboy, Bryan McKinley Jones. "Toward a tribal critical race theory in education." The Urban Review 37.5 (2005): 425-446. Hsu, Stephanie. "‘Transsexual Empire,’Trans Postcoloniality: The Biomedicalization of the Trans Body and the Cultural Politics of Trans Kinship in Northeast Asia and Asian America." Life (Un) Ltd: Feminism, Bioscience, Race,” special issue, Scholar and Feminist Online 11 (2013). Idrus, Nurul Ilmi, and Takeo David Hymans. "Balancing benefits and harm: Chemical use and bodily transformation among Indonesia's transgender waria." International Journal of Drug Policy 25.4 (2014): 789-797. Juang, Richard. "Transgendering the politics of recognition." The transgender studies reader. Routledge, 2013. 722-736. Patricia Makokis & Dr. James Makokis || Beyond the Social || Speakers Bureau of Canada. YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noLls6vW7s. Accessed 4 Dec. 2019. Spade, Dean. "Mutilating gender." The transgender studies reader. Routledge, 2013. 331-348. Sullivan, Nikki. "Transmogrification:(Un) becoming other (s)." The transgender studies reader. Routledge, 2013. 568-580.

a forest may still bloom without a gardener