Julia Serano – Whipping Girl

Julia Serano is a “transsexual woman” who has written three books, and sustains a blog which is separately featured on this site. Of the books I have only read “Whipping Girl” which is the basic “manifesto” of the series. One of the things that distinguishes Julia Serano’s writing about trans is her determination to examine its whole extent from a rigorously personal point of view. This doesn’t mean that there is no research or theory involved – there’s lots of both – but that you always feel “the way I see it” written in the margin. Like many of us she has had to reason her existence and chosen status and shares that reasoning generously and meticulously. This means that “Whipping Girl” contains a number of distinct ideas you may not find in other prominently-published works. For example? A lot of transphobia is actually trans-misogyny A lot of prejudice against trans comes from cissexual privilege The tension between femininity and feminism is damaging Femininity is not entirely constructed Gender expression is artificial and can be done critically Gender is socially exaggerated not socially constructed Everyone has a subconscious sex – it affects life choices and freedoms Our gendered realities are “indisputably holistic”. They have no single basis but are “an amalgamation of our own unique combinations of gender inclinations, social interactions, body feelings and lived experiences.” We may “shatter the gender binary”, but now subversivism uses the slogan to enforce a new subversive/conservative gender binary. Trans is not a unified thing, - there are many trans sub-groupings which deserve their own respect. I don’t know whether Julia Serano would be happy with my summary reduction of some of her main points. If not, my apologies to her, - I urge you to read the book, and make your own selection. Much of what she has to say corresponds to current thinking about gender, but you get a sense of how usefully contentious her writing is. She takes apart or counterbalances a lot of the conventional trans positions which have developed as we have had to defend and assert ourselves over the past few decades. Her position is usefully individual. In 2007 when “Whipping Girl” was published she was still transitioning. What comes across from reading it is a sense that if she is to join the ranks of the “feminine” femininity has to be sufficiently respected and valued to make that a worthwhile commitment. Scapegoating will not be acceptable. Looking back over my notes I see that the book is about the feminine and about free will. When and where we can assert the latter we can claim status for the former. Meanwhile, as Julia Serano puts it, we need to be “an alliance of disparate groups working towards a shared goal (like making the world safer for gender-variant folks)”