"...Only a Crossdresser"
Notes on the More Radical Identity By Riki Anne Wilchins
(Caveats: I speak here only, of course, for myself. Also, I don't
generally find comparisons of the type suggested by my title to be useful,
but I think a little corrective is overdue. Finally, I realize that I
write mainly from the femme perspective: this is not to diss the men, but
to stay closer to personal experience. - Rikster)
I wish I could count the times I've heard the phrase "...only a
crossdresser." And not just from transexuals, but also from
crossdressing-identified people themselves. The reasoning seems to be that
changing your very *body*, making a committment to one sex or another, is
somehow more sincere, more consequential, more (dare I say?) radical,
than... well, just dressing up. I freely admit to subscribing to this
belief myself, for a number of years. Until one morning... I awoke, and
with horror found myself trapped... absolutely trapped, in a bias-cut,
pleated silk, backless Halston evening gown not of my own design...
No, wait a minute. That's not right. Where was I? Oh yeah. I think it's
arguably the case that crossdressing is the more radical identity, although
I ought to state up front that I don't particularly believe in either the
identity of "transexual" or "crossdresser." This is not to say that I
don't acknowledge and defend anyone's right to identify as either, for I
do. But I regard both as political accomplishments, invented to contain
various kinds of disreputable genderqueers and transgressors, rather names
which recognize any naturally-occurring identity.
In short for me, just categories are inevitably not about truth, but about
power: who has it, and who doesn't; who gets to decide what's "normal," and
what's 'perversion;" who's ox gets gored, and who's frock gets stored.
Now it's one thing to change one's body, as I have, to travel from one sex
to another within the socially-anointed binary. But in doing so,
especially with the doctors blessing ("You know, inside, your daughter
Riki is really a woman, Ms. Wilchins"), I fear I struck a Faustian
bargain. I legitimized myself , but I accomplished this feat through an
axial proposition that looks something like this -- "I am really a woman
'inside' / I am willing to change my body to be female / I am willing to
commit my whole life to this / I don't do this because it is erotic but
because it's my identity/ therefore I should be a socially legitimate and
respectable subject."
Unfortunately, in the zero-sum game of gender
politics, this logic succeeds to the degree that it de-legitimizes its
converse: "You are not a woman 'inside' / you are not willing to change your
body, just your clothes / you are not even willing to commit your life to
it / you are aroused by it (you pervert, you!) / you are a social
dipstick." Granted this equation raises me up, but at a price paid by
those who cannot make similar claims. They, of course, go down. And those
are... you guessed it: your friendly, neighborhood crossdressers.
So it seems to me that crossdressing is some kind of ultimate act of gender
politics. It does not have a single thing going for it: not doctors, not
the binary, not a full-time commitment, not even a pledge that they're not
doing it because it turns them on. Because of this,
crossdressing-identified men confront conventional requirements for
heterosexual male masculinity head-on. They stand on its head all that
we're supposed to know about big, hairy guys being... well, guy-like.
This brings on endless trouble with their jobs, wives, children, courts,
military, and so on. Frankly, despite all the times I hear someone say "I
only do this to relax," it never sounded like a very relaxing thing to me
at all. Every one of them puts their life on the line when they walk out
the door, perhaps down the wrong street, past the wrong patrol car, or
into the wrong bar on the wrong night.
I sometimes amuse myself with the differing social legitimization of
transexuality and crossdressing at work when people ask me, "So, when did
you have your surgery?" I respond, "Surgery. Shmurgery. Hey, I just
love wearing lady's clothes." Gawd, you should see their faces fall...
at about 3 feet per second. All that compassionate understanding just
evaporates. Suddenly, instead of visions of "woman trapped in man's
body" (Film at 11!), now they're seeing head shots of "weirdo pervert in
lacy panties with erection" (no film, no eleven, no news a'tall).
Now that I mention it, I remember years ago getting busted by the cops
years ago for using the women's changing room in a clothing store. They
were distinctly unfriendly, looking me up and down like I was something
they'd just discovered after 6 months in the back of the freezer. That is,
until I showed them my doctor's "carry papers," explaining that I was just
a patient with a genuine diagnosis of "gender identity disorder." Then, of
course, they got both amused, condescending, and at least middling
friendly. They let me off with a lot of snickered warnings.
Now granted, I'm trying to focus on the politics of things here, because
you can't focus on what the crossdressing community is actually saying
about itself publicly. Because the unfortunate fact is, most of the
rhetoric coming out the crossdressing community is banal to the point of
tears. It's often along the lines of, "I dress, but my wife won't accept
me," "I dress, and my wife does accept me," "I dress, and I'm okay," "I
dress, does that mean I'm queer", "I dress, that makes my wife a lesbian?"
"I dress, does that make me a lesbian?" and my personal favorite, "I
dress and it gives me an erection but I'm still a regular guy from the
'hood just relaxing here have a Bud 6-pack let's watch the Packers and kick
some butts after the game." I mean, really!
A lot of this is because crossdressing *is* the more socially-despised
identity. And the more despised and oppressed a group, inevitably the more
assimilationist and conservative their rhetoric and politics. For when
groups are radically disempowered, they have no *choice* but to take an
assimilationist, conservative stance.
In other words, the experience of being a crossdresser is still
sufficiently dislocating, both socially and psychologically, that much of
the community is still completely engaged in merely coping, rather than
analyzing, organizing and confronting the systemic oppression which
maintains and even mandates such dislocations.
But as they find their voice, the stridency, the demands, the political
awareness and the organization to contest that oppression will emerge.
It's going to happen, just give it time.
Once crossdressers ever *really* come out, and begin to enunciate the
politics of the direct, head-on challenge their very existence poses to
gender regimes, I think we have a truly revolutionary force on our hands, a
potent force. The only question is, how long will they think of
themselves, and allow so many of us to think of them, as "...only
crossdressers?"
Riki Wilchins
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