Chapter 1: Introduction
This paper seeks to argue that transfeminist critique provides a useful approach to analysing contemporary fiction that focuses on the lives of transgender women. The novels selected include David Ebershoff’s The Danish Girl (2000), Meredith Russo’s If I Was Your Girl (2016) and Casey Plett’s Little Fish (2018). These texts can be regarded as pioneering works in the nascent genre of trans girl drama, which ‘moves through a world structured by transmisogyny and gender-based violence, bounding trans bodies together with the politics of place’ (Jefferies 2020: 27). The way in which each novel respectively utilises literary and poetic techniques to portray the transfeminine will be explored in relation to Emi Koyama’s (2001) definition of transfeminism, which challenges the institutionalised gender attitudes that limit the individual choices of not only transwomen, but all women, for that matter. While transfeminist thought is also applicable to (trans)men, this paper will focus on the representation of transwomen because they represent ‘the overwhelming majority of murdered trans people’ (McAvan 2011: 24 cites Serano 2007), and literature on transmen is limited in comparison to that on transwomen.
By doing this I hope to not only mediate the gendered attitudes of each text through a transfeminist exegesis, establishing the conventional imagery, symbolism and structure of trans literature, but also to determine the extent to which each novel is transfeminist regarding the gender ontology it endorses. One may assume that all literature centring trans voices is inherently transfeminist; especially given the fact that there is such little representation of transgender individuals in literature to begin with. However, I hope to demonstrate that not all prominent representations of transwomen are transfeminist in their representation of trans identities.
Chapter 2: Reassigning the Theory
Research on the representation of transgender characters in literature is limited, yet it is clear that prevailing discourses on transgenderism have detrimentally influenced the treatment of trans people in the real world. Most notably, Stotzer (2014: 272 cites Human Rights Watch 2012) notes that because society has confined transwomen to sex work, ‘transwomen found in possession of condoms are often arrested for solicitation, no matter what activity they were engaged in.’ This indicates that it is crucial that both previous and current literature discussing transgenderism is evaluated to ensure an accurate understanding of the transfeminine.
Gender transgression in literature can be traced back at least as far as Ovid’s Metamorphoses: Book III (8 CE) in which the Greek prophet Tiresias is transformed into a woman. There is also evidence of gender transgression in Early Modern literature, which Chess (2016: 1) states was primarily explored through male-to-female cross-dressing, with ‘there [being] more than thirty instances of male characters dressing as and passing as female for sustained periods of time.’ Throughout much of this pre-twenty-first century literature, transgender individuals are often categorised as either ‘deceivers’ or ‘pretenders’ (McAvan 2011). As Fiorilli and Baldo (2017) claim, the ‘deceiver’ represents those who ‘pass’ (i.e. individuals who are convincing in their chosen gender portrayal), while the ‘pretender’ represents those whose appearance does not adhere to normative gender expectations. With the exception of Ovid’s depiction of Tiresias, both tropes have been used to reinforce transphobic myths that reduce trans experiences to mere acts of homosexual perversion and sexual deviance (Bettcher 2014; McAvan 2011; Fiorilli and Baldo 2017). More importantly, these tropes have been used in defence of violence against trans individuals in courts of law, with male perpetrators being said to have been tricked into engaging in ‘homosexual’ acts—reducing the perpetrators’ crimes to acts of defence rather than discrimination and malice (Matsuzaka and Koch 2018). This suggests that trans victims deserve to be attacked or murdered because this approach views transwomen as cross-dressing homosexual men rather than heterosexual transwomen. Thus, not only is the trans subject’s gender identity invalidated, but the individual’s sexuality is also invalidated— relegating the trans individual to the shameful category of the morally corrupt ‘Other’.
Trans activists have attempted to correct this manipulative and damaging portrayal of transgenderism through the advocacy of ‘the trapped in the wrong body narrative’ (Heaney 2017). ‘The wrong body narrative’ claims that nature has not aligned the individual’s exterior gender presentation with their inner gender identity. This suggests that the trans individual is merely correcting nature’s mistakes rather than violating the gender binary by pretending to be something (or someone) they are not (Billingham 2010).
While this model has the potential to increase the acceptance of the trans community in Western society, it also risks reproducing gender essentialism. For instance, Putzi (2019) laments that this narrative has unfortunately dominated trans literature and has hindered the trans community by portraying transgender experiences as one-dimensional. Furthermore, Bettcher (2014) argues that while the ‘wrong body’ model does accurately represent how many trans people conceive their gender identity, it is not universal and ignores the complex variations in which transgender lives are lived. Nevertheless, the model has positively influenced the way in which critics approach trans literature, with a focus on liminality providing a useful tool to navigate the individual’s journey across the gender binary (Billingham 2010; Dentice and Dietert 2015; Wilson 2002). Wilson (2002: 432) defines liminality as ‘a space where gender is suspended and remodelling [of the body] occurs.’ Although this approach is useful, it suggests that the only way to truly become one’s chosen gender or, more importantly, to be accepted by society as one’s inner gender is to receive medical treatment. As Billingham (2010) rightly points out, this narrative only protects those who wish to achieve their chosen gender identity through such methods and only those who have access to such options in the first place. This is problematic because by ignoring how intersectionality limits transgender individuals’ access to medical services, this model suggests that there is only one right way to be trans, leaving others vulnerable to discrimination for not being able to (or simply not wanting to) attain this ideal. It is clear that there needs to be a model that represents all transgender people.
The importance of surgery and hormones in the transgender metamorphism largely stems from medical discourses, which May (2002) claims rely on ‘heterobinarism’ (i.e. the reinforcement of patriarchal mandates that favour masculinity and maleness). Medical professionals frequently encourage patients to lie about their gender identity or coerce patients into undergoing surgical intervention (Namaste 1996). For instance, Entwistle (2021: 15 cites Bindel 2007) discusses how ‘Claudia, a young gay man, took legal action after being wrongly prescribed oestrogen following one appointment with psychiatrist Russel Reid in 1985.’ Entwistle claims that Claudia regrets undergoing surgery but feels forced to continue to live as a woman. This case study highlights the grave authority that medical institutions have over trans bodies. Oddly, this influence has been overlooked by feminist critics who have demonised the trans community for reinforcing gender binarism and ultimately derailing the feminist movement through their hyper-feminine presentations of themselves (Bettcher 2014). Billingham (2010) argues that the feminist exclusion of transwomen from the women’s movement based on the fact that transwomen are not born female is contradictory because this undermines feminism’s rejection of biological determinism. While one may argue that biological discourse should therefore be ignored entirely when studying transgender literature in favour of Butler’s (1990) notions of performativity, neither notion appears to encompass the complexities of gender transgression: performativity undermines the transgender argument that one’s mind is gendered and biological determinism challenges the feminist notion that gender is a social construct. This illustrates that even though feminism provides valid criticism of ‘the wrong body narrative’, feminist thought itself does not offer a useful approach to addressing transgender matters. Therefore, both feminist and ‘wrong body’ accounts of trans bodies should be approached with caution when reading transgender fiction.
Though queer theory has been more inclusive of trans issues compared to feminism, queer theory also fails to comprehend transgenderism. Namaste (1996) argues that queer theory is still too concerned with the gender binary and restricts transgenderism (or more specifically cross-dressing) to entertainment for cisgender (i.e. those who identify with the gender they were assigned to at birth) homosexual males. It is clear that like feminism, queer theory dictates who and what the trans subject is by using its own ontology of gender instead of attempting to understand how the trans subject perceives itself. For instance, McHugh (2009: 199 cites Bloodsworth-Lugo 2007), discusses how ‘the murder of a soldier whose lover was a preoperative transsexual woman was articulated in mainstream media by queer communities as being the result of homophobia, which erases the transsexual woman’s identity and labels the soldier as gay instead of as a straight man dating a transsexual woman.’ McHugh claims that queer theory struggles to acknowledge transphobia because this would detract attention from homophobia as the only pre-eminent social problem that needs addressing in society. Hence, queer theory should also be approached with caution when dealing with trans literature.
In order to transform our understanding of transgenderism, one must explore a theory that is uniquely trans in origin. Koyama’s (2001) ‘Transfeminist Manifesto’ appears to provide a more compassionate approach to transgender topics. The manifesto takes into account both the individual’s personal perception of their gender identity, whilst also acknowledging the dominant discourses that influence the individual’s expression of this felt identity. Through attempting to understand each subject as an individual rather than as a trans collective or through a prescribed model, Koyama’s manifesto validates all expressions of (trans)gender identity. Furthermore, this narrative takes into account the duality of transphobia and sexism that embodies the trans experience, which queer theory and feminism cannot understand independently— allowing for a more comprehensive understanding of gender transgression.
In transfeminist critique, there is an overwhelming tendency to analyse postcolonial, posthuman and early modern texts in which transgender characters are not the core focus (Birns 2006; Henningsen 2017; Silva and Ornat 2016). Birns (2006) praises this research for providing a model to explore transfeminism in relation to heteronormative and non-Western cultures or historical contexts. Nevertheless, this focus suggests that transgenderism cannot be understood outside of traditional gender ontologies and does not deserve to be the primary focus of literary criticism. While Stokoe (2019: 142) has recently explored Virginia Woolf’s pioneering novel Orlando: A Biography (1928) through a transfeminist lens— claiming that ‘Orlando unsettles the idea that drag can be defined by a difference in, or an opposition, between the performer’s gender and that of their character’— it is also important to discuss transfeminism in relation to 21st century texts in which transgender identities are the primary (if not the sole) focus of the literature.
Ergo, this dissertation aims to fill the gap in trans literature by exploring the extent to which transfeminism accounts for the complexities of transgender identities and will begin with a transfeminist reading of The Danish Girl.
Chapter 3: The Danish Girl
David Ebershoff’s The Danish Girl (2000) is a fictional biography that explores the life of Lili Elbe who was the first documented recipient of gender reassignment surgery. Elbe struggles to remain loyal to her wife, Greta Wegner, whilst also gratifying her own desires to live as an autonomous woman, liberated from her past life as the male Einar Wegner. Though the novel is set in the 1920s prior to the emergence of transgender studies in the late 1980s and early 1990s (Stryker 2006), it deserves to be explored thorough a transfeminist lens to determine the extent to which Ebershoff relies on modern (trans)gender attitudes to articulate Elbe’s story.
Ebershoff introduces transgenderism through the notion of male-to-female cross-dressing, with Einar being asked by Greta to model in women’s clothing to help her complete a painting: ‘I need a pair of legs to finish the portrait or I’ll never get it done… It’s a good thing you don’t have much hair on your legs.’ (4-7). Einar becomes visibly discontented by this proposal, so Greta reassures him that ‘it means nothing’ (7). Here, Greta has reduced cross-dressing to a performative act, indicating that, like the rest of 1920s society, Greta deems this subversion of the gender binary as acceptable because it serves to contribute to Art. Her immortalisation of Lili through painting confirms Namaste’s (1996: 190 cites Garber 1992) claims that society is only capable of viewing trans people as ‘those figures “we” look at; “they” are not those people with whom “we” speak, and they are certainly not “us”’. This is extremely problematic because this suggests that transgender identities outside of Art are not valid or useful. It is clear that Greta’s initial perception of transgenderism is closer to the gender ontology of queer theory, in which gender transgression is restricted to cross-dressing for performance, rather than that of transfeminism in which gender transgression serves to satisfy the individual alone. Though one may regard this as controversial, Ebershoff is simply representing early 20thcentury understandings of gender transgression, with there being few medical discourses validating transgenderism in circulation at the time (Stryker 2006; Heaney 2017).
This 1920s understanding of gender is quickly renegotiated. Ebershoff transitions Lili from the private interior of the Window House (where she only interacts with Greta) to the public exterior of Rådhusplassen where she meets Henrik, a young Danish man who romantically pursues Lili. It is important to note that Einar refutes any homosexual undertones to justify the courtship between Henrik and Lili:
It was part of the game of Lili, and games counted for nearly nothing. Not even with Henrik’s hand sweating in his palm did Einar feel abnormal. His doctor asked, ‘Do you ever long for another man, perhaps?’ Einar told the doctor that he, too, became disturbed when he saw the men with the quick, frightened eyes loitering near the toilets. Homosexual! How far from the truth! (57)
While this depiction of Lili’s public ventures helps to challenge the claim that transgenderism is an expression of homosexual perversion and decentres transgender practices away from ontologies of either public performance or private shame (Namaste 1996; McAvan 2011; Matsuzaka and Koch 2018)— by metaphorically labelling Lili’s interaction with Henrik as a ‘game’—Einar reduces gender transgression to an act of sadism. This is amplified by the cold and patronising tone of the narrator, which mocks the reader for receiving Einar’s behaviour as anything more than a ‘game’. This construction of Lili/Einar as a callous individual is, perhaps, much more damaging to transwomen than queer theory’s failure to recognise the trans subject as anything more than an entertainer.
However, as Einar becomes more comfortable living as Lili, cross-dressing is no longer presented as a ‘game’. In fact, Lili decides to terminate her relationship with Henrik because she cannot be with someone who ‘[recognises] her as anything less than female’ (280). This imitates what Bettcher (2014: 389) refers to as a ‘wrong body claim to womanhood through the typical assertion “I am really a woman.”’ Nonetheless, the employment of the term ‘female’ instead of ‘woman’ is polarising because this extends the ‘positing of a native gender identity’ (at least of the mind/soul) beyond societal gender categories, further ‘naturalising sexist cultural phenomena’ (Bettcher 2014: 388). Not only is this assertion controversial from a feminist perspective (i.e. it disregards the oppression of women who are born as female), but it can also be criticised from a transfeminist perspective. Lili’s assertion that she is ‘female’ invalidates her own claim to womanhood because she attempts to resist oppression by appropriating clinical language that is inherently ‘trans oppressive’, which Bettcher (2014: 401 cites Prosser 1998) argues against: ‘ironically, the wrong-body model can never free itself from the source of oppression that it has sought to contest through reversal. This has led to rigid clinical criteria instituted to determine who is “a true trans- sexual”. For if a transwoman does nothave the identity she claims to be, the danger is that she will turn out to be a gender deceiver—that is, merely a cross-dresser.’ Lil not only dares to appropriate the social category ‘woman’, but also the more rigid biological category ‘female’. By employing this rather radical ‘wrong body’ account of Elbe’s gender identity, Ebershoff has ultimately strengthened society’s image of the inauthentic transsexual who refuses to accept the body nature has given them.
While one may therefore deduce that The Danish Girl cannot be regarded as transfeminist, such a conclusion overlooks the fact that Ebershoff gradually constructs Einar and Lili as two separate people:
He and Lili shared something: a pair of oyster-blue lung; a chugging heart; their eyes often rimmed pink with fatigue. But in the skull it were almost as if there were two brains, a walnut halved: his and hers. (56)
Both metaphorically and literally, Lili and Einar are two autonomous entities, with the only tangible connection between them being Einar’s body. This indicates that Lili is not wrong in claiming that she is ‘female’ because she is a separate person from Einar: even though Lili may inhabit Einar’s body, Lili herself is, in fact, female. To complete the traditional liminal journey, that is, to become Lili, Einar’s body must ‘move from one side of the gender binary to the other on a permanent basis’ (Wilson 2002: 438). However, Einar’s body is not strictly male because it exhibits a gender duality that encompasses both the feminine and the masculine. This defies the traditional migration of the body that defines trans narratives because Einar ‘s body is already liminal. Arguably, the presence of more than one mind inside a single body has destabilised the conventional liminal journey that involves the sexed body moving into alignment with the gendered mind (Dentice and Dietert 2015; Wilson 2002). Consequently, because Einar’s body must host both Lili’s and Einar’s mind, not only is Einar’s behaviour effeminate (i.e. a condition of the mind), but so is his body:
His chest was as obscene as the breast of a girl a few days into puberty. With his pretty hair and his chin smooth as a teacup, he could be a confusing sight. He was so beautiful that sometimes old women would break the law and offer him tulips picked from a public bed. (29)
Ebershoff’s use of simile and feminine imagery indicates that rather than being situated in the typical liminal position between male and female, Einar is, perhaps, closer to that between girl and woman. This sharply contrasts the masculine position that most transwomen hold prior to their metamorphosis into their female bodies. Furthermore, this gender ambiguity foreshadows the revelation that Einar is, in fact, intersex (i.e. biologically male and female) rather than trans (Nagoshi et al. 2012). This reveals that though Lili’s initial assertion of womanhood is alarming, neither feminism nor transfeminism has recognised how useful the ‘wrong body’ model is regarding the articulation of intersex identities given the fact that intersex individuals have the right to claim both or either gender.
While transfeminism does overlook intersex identities, its admonition against constructing normative narratives still holds merit. Koyama (2001: 3) claims that ‘transfeminism believes in the notion that there are many ways of being a woman as there are women, that we should be free to make our own decisions without guilt.’ This also applies to intersex individuals and others beyond the gender binary, yet Ebershoff insinuates that due to the internalisation of other’s discomfort, intersex people must live as either male or female and not both:
It was May 1929…the sun hidden by clouds. If in exactly one-year Lili and Einar weren’t sorted out, he would come to the park and kill himself. He could no longer bear the chaos in his life. (127-128)
As Billingham (2010: 3) points out, ‘the sun is conventionally linked with masculinity’, illustrating that the covering of the sun foreshadows Einar’s decision to live as his feminine self, i.e. Lili. While this use of pathetic fallacy may appear to be quite bleak, the fact that the sun is merely hidden suggests that Lili’s masculine self, i.e. Einar, will not be entirely eradicated: Einar is now simply buried inside of Lili rather than the other way around and Lili still maintains her liminal, intersex identity despite choosing to live as a woman exteriorly. This indicates that the earlier conclusion that Ebershoff implies that intersex people must choose to be either male or female can be disregarded.
Moreover, one must note that Lili has not entirely moved out of the liminal phase yet given that Lili must undergo one more surgery before her transition into womanhood has culminated:
Professor Bolk wanted to attempt one final metamorphosis… something that would make Lili even more of a woman than she already was. He wanted to try a uterine transplant to make her fruitful. She had to return to prove to the world that indeed she was a woman, and that all her previous life was simply nature’s gravest mishap, corrected once and for all. (280-281)
Once again Ebershoff indisputably adheres to the ‘the wrong body narrative’, framing nature as the ruthless oppressor of the transgender body. However, it is clear that Ebershoff has developed this model, with nature not only preventing Lili from being a woman, but also a mother. Metaphorically, Ebershoff insinuates that without the ability to bear children, Lili’s role as a woman is redundant. From a transfeminist perspective, this is deeply problematic to all women (cisgender and transgender alike) because not only does this idea ignore individual choice (Koyama 2001)— but this notion also reduces womanhood to reproductivity— suggesting that women who are unable to reproduce are ‘less than female’ (280). Yet, it is difficult to conclude that the text completely endorses these traditional sex attitudes, given the fact that Elbe’s fate is left uncertain and the narrator does not comment on whether Lili is therefore male or female now that the surgery has failed. While Koyama does not reprimand individuals for adhering to traditional gender expectations, Ebershoff’s indifference towards Lili’s final gender is noteworthy. Ebershoff acknowledges Lili’s hyper-femininity without suggesting that others must adhere to this model to be accepted as women, echoing the attitudes of transfeminism.
In conclusion, Ebershoff hauntingly captures the inner turmoil of the gender transgressive individual through his use of imagery, metaphor and tone. Most notably, his use of metaphor helps to illuminate the metamorphism of gender transitioning, expanding the liminal journey into one that is conceivable physiologically, mentally and socially. While The Danish Girl appears to offer a rather normative representation of intersex and transgender life, the text makes a final effort to destabilise Elbe from heteronormative ontologies of gender, ultimately leaving her position on the gender binary as indisputably liminal rather than exclusively male or female. Therefore, the text can be regarded as transfeminist.
Chapter 4: If I Was Your Girl
Despite being the new girl in Lambertville, If I Was Your Girl’s (2016) Amanda Hardy is living the American high school fantasy. Her attractiveness causes her to quickly gain popularity with both the boys and the girls at her new school, but she is hiding a secret: Amanda is transgender and has moved to Lambertville to escape her past and to rekindle her relationship with her conservative father. Amanda simply wants to be normal and to achieve this, she must keep her trans identity hidden. The themes of truth, nature and time lend themselves well to transfeminist critique. Ergo, the way in which Russo depicts the intimate and casual experiences of trans life will be explored from a transfeminist perspective in this chapter.
Though the narrative begins with Amanda having fully transitioned into a girl, Russo frequently shifts the novel, through analepsis, to pivotal moments in Amanda’s childhood to convey her traumatic journey into womanhood. Most notably, Amanda reflects on a meeting she had with a councillor to determine what was wrong with her:
‘My birth certificate says I’m a boy.’ My chest felt tight. The room, despite its high ceilings, felt suddenly cramped. ‘I have a… I have boy parts. I have boy chromosomes. God doesn’t make mistakes. So I’m a boy. Scientifically, logically, spiritually, I’m a boy.’ (36)
The overpoweringly clinical language parallels ‘the wrong body narrative’s’ positioning of nature as the oppressor of the trans body, with Russo rationalising Amanda’s gender identity to the reader by appropriating concepts popularised by medical discourses (Bettcher 2014). This ‘act of resistance that appeals to gender realness’ mirrors The Danish Girl’s firm claim to womanhood. Bettcher (2014: 398-399) rejects such appeals to womanhood, claiming that this is ‘a fraudulent social construction that is particularly concerning in light of reality enforcement (i.e. the social and moral consequences of being exposed as a man pretending to be a woman).’ Nonetheless, despite such approaches being problematic, Drabinski (2014: 310) points out that authors are forced to rely on ‘normative narratives of gender through which the trans subject must pass in order for trans narratives to be intelligible at all’. Moreover, though Putzi (2019) has criticised the ‘wrong body’ model for limiting young adult trans fiction, it would be unconvincing for a young character who has only recently transitioned to confront their gender identity using such developed transfeminist vocabulary. This indicates that rather than endorsing the ‘wrong body’ model, as initially suggested, Russo is simply providing a realistic portrayal of early transgender life.
In addition to this, it is evident that by analysing this account through transfeminist critique, the underlying religious imagery that informs Amanda’s portrayal is consequently overlooked. For instance, the declaration that ‘god doesn’t make mistakes’ elevates Amanda’s dilemma to one of faith and not merely biology, with God being held accountable for facilitating nature’s role in the construction of Amanda’s body. One can argue that, though transfeminism is valid in its criticism of ‘the wrong body narrative’s’ reliance on medical understandings of gender, transfeminism itself has disregarded its own preoccupation with biological explanations and has not considered how religion also influences the way in which trans identities are constructed in literature.
Although Amanda later claims that she does not believe that God will judge her for being trans, it is evident that the judgement of others has restrained her relationship with God: ‘I felt a stab of guilt remembering how long it had been seen I entered a church, though I hoped God would understand why’ (30). Moving to Lambertville provides Amanda with the opportunity to resurrect her faith but, despite convincingly passing as a girl, Amanda becomes concerned about how she will be received at a local church: ‘I took a deep breath… feeling a sudden, shaking wave of anxiety’ (91). Russo’s use of metaphor emphasises the detrimental effect that religious prejudice has on trans people— both physically and mentally. In fact, it is quite ironic that unlike The Danish Girl in which nature is situated in opposition to the trans subject, nature in If I Was Your Girl appears to be in harmony with Amanda. This is established through pathetic fallacy, which is used to reflect Amanda’s volatile emotional state: ‘The sky flashed outside and thunder rolled across the sky… grey clouds hurrying past the sun as a shadowy line rushed across the clearing. Storms always followed a heatwave’ (49). While one could argue that the storm symbolises the looming truth that threatens Amanda’s overwhelmingly positive reality (that is symbolised through the heatwave), the fact that Russo makes no significant reference to the weather again challenges the notion that the weather has been used as definitive symbol of the truth. The motif of the truth is, in fact, mediated through religious imagery and allusions that situate Amanda in opposition to God rather than nature:
‘Radical honesty means you keep no secrets, damn the consequences. Radical faith means you trust that the Lord visited these weaknesses and sorrows on you as part of His plan, and that as you walk with the Lord and speak honestly and demonstrate redemption of Him others will see this, and you’ll find your life enriched. A dishonest life is a life half-lived, and it’s a life with one foot already in the Pit.’ (98)
The pastor’s sermon does not explicitly condemn transgenderism, as a matter of fact, he implies that being transgender is a part of the Lord’s plan for Amanda. This notion appears to undermine the wrongness and unnaturalness that has historically defined the trans subject (Heaney 2017). Nonetheless, the fact that concealing one’s trans identity is deemed an abomination challenges this notion of acceptance and ignores the social realities that prevent many transwomen from being honest about their gender identity in the first place (Matsuzaka and Koch 2018). Consequently, the ‘deceiver’ is portrayed as an individual who not only defies the mores of society, but also as an individual who lacks devotion to God. This relegates the trans ‘deceiver’ to an even lower position in the social order than it previously held before (McAvan 2011).
Amanda contests that concealing her identity ‘is the only way [she knows] how to survive’ (99). Yet she later decides to write a letter to her love interest to inform him of the truth about her gender identity, highlighting that she has internalised the pastor’s sermon about honesty. Amanda’s guilt and her awareness of the dangers of living as trans, however, can be traced back to her first counselling session: ‘A grandfather clock echoed persistently outside the door. The counsellor tapped his pen against his notepad maddeningly out of sync with the rhythm of the clock’ (36). The echoing of the grandfather clock symbolises the natural rhythm of time enforced by God, whilst the counsellor’s tapping of the pen signifies mankind’s tampering with God’s natural rhythm. Once Amanda begins to receive medical attention to treat her transgenderism, her life has started again, or at least she must act as though it has to maintain her new reality and evade danger: ‘I thought of going the rest of my life pretending I sprang to life from nothing at sixteen years old, and felt my cheeks flush with shame and anger’ (55). This biblical allusion to God’s creation of Adam satirises the idealistic notion that trans people can articulate their narratives without acknowledging their transition through the liminal phase. This provides further evidence that ‘the wrong body narrative’ offers the only useful approach to tackling the ‘deceiver’ trope that has plagued trans narratives. By selecting this approach, Russo is able to rationalise Amanda’s identity to trans oppressors and provide Amanda’s origin story, in a manner of speaking.
Nonetheless, the importance of the truth is undercut by the harsh realities that come with being honest about one’s transgender identity. Russo continuously exploits the construction of time and shifts the narrative to past moments in which reality is enforced and Amanda’s identity is invalidated. Amanda painfully recalls a moment in which she was attacked for using the wrong public bathroom: ‘a girl from my school, her scream as she recognised me. Her father rushing in, his rough, swift hands on my neck and shoulders. My body hitting the ground’ (7). Unlike The Danish Girl in which Ebershoff separates the past and the present, it is evident that analepsis serves to blur the boundary between Amanda’s past life as a boy and her present life as a girl. This highlights that even though her body has moved through the liminal phase, her mind remains a prisoner of the past, unwilling to accept Amanda’s current reality. This is important because while liminality offers a useful approach to mapping the body’s transition across the gender binary, critics have overlooked the importance that the mind plays in transgender narratives (Bettcher 2014; Billingham 2010; Dentice and Dietert 2015; Wilson 2002). The employment of liminal theory in transgender studies tends to naïvely assume that once the body is no longer liminal, the mind must have also moved out of this liminal state (Dentice and Dietert 2015; Wilson 2002). However, this is not the case in If I Was Your Girl. Russo suggests that to live fully as a girl, Amanda’s mind must also transition through the liminal phase by accepting reality and being truthful about her trans identity. However, Amanda’s failure to do this sooner results in the truth being exposed to her entire school by Parker, a vengeful former love interest, who later attempts to sexually assault Amanda: ‘You don’t get to play hard to get any more… You coulda had this the easy wat, Now, let’s see how close you are to the real thing’ (250). Russo appears to somewhat justify Parker’s male revenge fantasy, suggesting that if Amanda simply told the truth or allowed Parker to pursue her, she would not be in this position. However, the fact that Russo does not allow Parker to culminate his revenge indicates that she merely intends to ridicule the conventional climax of male revenge that characterises trans narratives (Bettcher 2014).
Amanda’s fortunate rescue from Parker offers an unrealistic portrayal of sexual assault and trans experiences at large. This is further emphasised by the novel’s romanticised ending, with Amanda telling Grant, her primary love interest, the truth about herself, starting with her birth name. This contradicts Amanda’s earlier assertion to Bee, the only friend that she confides in, to not ‘ask about [her] genitals. Don’t ask about [her] surgeries. Don’t ask what [her] name used to be’ (186). Both Bee and Grant are portrayed to be more accepting of Amanda’s identity compared to the other characters, yet it is only Grant (other than the reader) that is given the courtesy of hearing Amanda’s full truth. Perhaps, this is because he represents the patriarchy: male; white; heterosexual and— most importantly— cisgender. This reinforces the patriarchal view that trans individuals must be open about their identities with cis people to avoid being viewed as ‘deceivers’. From a transfeminist perspective, this is deeply concerning because this conclusion entirely ignores the harsh realities that many transwomen in the real word face, especially those who do not ‘pass’ as women and may be subjected to violence as a result of this (Koyama 2001). Therefore, unlike The Danish Girl, If I Was Your Girl fails to destabilise the gender binary, providing a transnormative narrative that defines trans life using a narrow criterion that can be exploited to determine who is indeed an authentic transwoman (Drabinski 2014).
Russo’s development of ‘the wrong body narrative’ is commendable. Nevertheless, this effort is undermined by her failure to fully acknowledge how ‘passing’ as an attractive cis woman not only allows Amanda to live such a fruitful life even as a ’deceiver’, but also to be accepted once her identity is eventually exposed. The ultimate reinforcement of feminine essentialism is a clear example of transnormativity and provides a one-dimensional representation of trans life that could be harmful to transwomen in the real world. While it is consequently difficult to conclude that Russo’s If I Was Your Girl is a transfeminist text, one cannot deny that Russo has unequivocally showcased the transition from innocence to experience that is central to young adult fiction (Falconer 2010)—leaving the transfeminine with a sense of hope in what is otherwise a rather pessimistic genre of trans girl drama.
Chapter 5: Little Fish
Casey Plett’s Little Fish (2018) details the unhinged life of Wendy Reimer, a middle-aged transwoman navigating her way through a restless winter in Winnipeg, Canada. Following the revelation that her deceased grandfather may have also been trans, Wendy’s descent into alcoholism, prostitution and suicidal ideation accelerates. These coping mechanisms, though destructive, subdue the turmoil of living as a transwoman in patriarchal society— allowing Wendy to regulate her position on the gender binary whilst also mapping her position on the sexuality spectrum. The magnetic yet repellent relationship constructed between gender and sexuality that underlies the discontentment of transgenderism will be explored throughout this chapter.
Parallel to If I Was Your Girl, Wendy’s transition into her female body has already culminated rather than transpiring as the novel progresses. This is noteworthy because this deviates from the conventional structure of other trans girl dramas, such as Julie Anne Peters’ Luna (2004), in which medical intervention is represented as the true catalyst of the individual’s journey into womanhood. With this in mind, one could easily conclude that because Wendy’s sexed body and gendered mind have already been aligned, she has therefore passed through the liminal phase that has become an interminable limbo for transwomen in trans drama— or at least that’s what a ‘wrong body’ reading of the text would suggest (Wilson 2002). This reading in turn implies that because Wendy is not liminal, the traditional relationship between gender and sexuality is therefore stable, i.e. Wendy is a heterosexual transwoman. However, as the narrative becomes less grounded in the present, it becomes clear that Wendy has not entirely escaped the liminal curse. Like Russo, Plett frequently relies on analepsis to shift the narrative— intertwining Wendy’s past and present self: ‘She was a year on lady pills when she moved in and was passing for cis for the first time’ (100). While ‘passing’ initially allows Wendy to live comfortably as a woman, this leads to unwanted sexual advances from men who become enraged when they realise that Wendy is a man: ‘It’s a maaaaaaan! You think you fuckin’ fooled us?’ (100). Here Plett exploits voice not only for comic effect— undermining the men’s petty attempt to invalidate Wendy’s gender identity— but also to ridicule their attempt to relegate her to the dishonourable role of the ‘deceiver’.
Society’s invalidation of Wendy’s gender identity is unrelenting and continues even in the present: ‘He put his arms around her like an old lover… Then he jumped back like he’d been burned. “Are you a guy!?”’ (61). The tranquil and romantic tone used to depict Wendy’s initial intimacy with the male stranger drastically contrasts the hostile tone conjured by the simile following the ellipsis. This cruel use of juxtaposition signifies the duality of passing and exposure that embodies the trans experience, echoing Bettcher’s (2014: 392) notions of reality enforcement. Plett constructs such harsh contrasts to directly criticise ‘the wrong body narrative’ for naively suggesting that the individual will move out of liminality once they have undergone surgical intervention and will consequently no longer be subjected to gender invalidation.
The constant invalidation of Wendy’s gender causes her to reflect on her fellow trans friends’ sentiments about the position of trans people in society at large:
You can’t play their game. You can never win playing the cis game You can only win so much, but you will never win that. I hate that they make me chose. I hate it like I hate almost nothing else. On this you will never win. (Italics original, 125)
This stream of consciousness reflects Wendy’s growing desire to remain liminal as well as her refusal to continue to be defined by heteronormative attitudes. Plett’s ubiquitous utilisation of simple sentences is notable because they disrupt the lyrical and poetic flow that typically manifests through streams of consciousness. Plett delivers fragmented yet almost identical thoughts that are articulated in new ways and refracted through different voices. This not only helps to create an unsettling soundtrack that beautifully captures Wendy’s inner turmoil, but it also reflects the constant reshaping and metamorphism that defines the trans experience as a whole. The use of close-third person narration is similar to that of both The Danish Girl and If I Was Your Girl, in which narrative voice is used to allow the reader to view Wendy as she perceives herself, without forcing the reader to identify with, or adhere to, Wendy’s experience of her own gender. This reflects the main aim of transfeminism: to produce narratives that convey particular trans voices without invalidating other (trans)gender experiences (Koyama 2001).
One may also argue that the novel’s unrelenting discontentment highlights Plett’s attempts to defy the traditional liminal journey. Plett indicates that Wendy and her friends are unable to achieve stasis because their bodies are constantly evolving— and even if they are not in the process of changing— many of changes that they have made must be maintained by hormones. This signifies that transwomen are always liminal because their bodies are constantly placed in opposition to nature and social mores. According to Bettcher (2014: 392), ‘the wrong body narrative’ resolves this conflict between cis and trans by asserting that ‘that’s really a woman who was born as a man’. Conversely, Plett takes a more transfeminist approach in tackling gender invalidation: ‘What you’re asking is if I’m trans. Just remember that, okay. That’s the word. I’m just trans’ (62). By confidently affirming her ‘trans’ identity (albeit with a somewhat patronising tone), as Koyama (2001: 3) instructs, Wendy ‘asserts that her experiences represent a dynamic interaction between male privilege and the disadvantage of being trans’. This highlights that like Russo, Plett exploits the motif of the past to establish that in order for transwomen to have a prosperous future, they must acknowledge how their pasts have shaped who they have become in the present. Moreover, by affirming Wendy’s identity as ‘trans’ rather than simply stating that Wendy is a woman (which Ebershoff and Russo fail to do), Plett has undermined the notion that transwomen must pass unquestionably as women, mirroring the transfeminist notion that it is acceptable to be perceived as trans (or liminal).
Nevertheless, this acceptance of liminality is challenged by Plett’s foregrounding of Wendy’s femininity. Throughout the novel there is an underlying suggestion that transwomen’s feelings of self-worth are dependent on heterosexual relations. For instance, Wendy is incapable of formulating her own self-image and instead seeks to discover herself through the perspective of a potential partner: ‘She wondered how she looked to him. She thought about her [long] hair bobbing… as she bent over the machine’ (27). This overwhelmingly feminine and sexual imagery reduces Wendy to a hyper-feminine sexual object. Furthermore, the fact that Wendy’s thoughts are mediated through a male perspective reinforces the idea that transwomen are only able to overcome their discomfort with being trans and see themselves as real women by receiving (hetero)sexual validation from men.
Although Wendy is attempting to understand herself through the male gaze, it would be false to conclude that her sense of self is solely dependent on the opinions of men. The narrator highlights that Wendy is able to acknowledge her own attractiveness without negotiating this through heteronormative ontologies of gender: ‘Wendy had a deep, guttural… laugh, it was something she loved about herself’ (28). This demonstrates that while Wendy may seek further validation from men, her entire perception of herself is not dependent on male thought. Nonetheless, the fact that Wendy’s laugh is described as ‘unmistakably feminine’ despite being abrasive is oxymoronic, blurring the rigid binary between masculine and feminine that ‘the wrong body narrative’ reinforces (Bettcher 2014). Plett has not only refused to situate Wendy towards the hyperfeminine end of the gender binary, but she has also refused to place Wendy within the liminal space that transgender characters are often confined to; a void in between masculine and feminine that is incomprehensible, yet unmistakably trans (Dentice and Dietert 2015; Drabinski 2014). In fact, Plett has extended the feminine category to include typically masculine (or trans) traits and is unapologetic in her execution of this, taking on a casual tone that avoids inciting protest and distracts from what she is actually doing, i.e. subverting the gender binary. Even though this extension of feminine characteristics may appear to be transfeminist, one could argue that Plett’s preoccupation with femininity still contradicts the transfeminist departure from feminine essentialism and, in fact, further reinforces the principle that one must be understood in terms of either feminine or masculine categories. With this in mind, despite Plett’s efforts, her compulsive focus on Wendy’s femininity actually casts doubt on Wendy’s external gender presentation. This doubt is then confirmed by the narrator’s claim that ‘[Wendy] disliked her voice— low and unsexily raspy… but she liked her laugh’ (28). It is ironic that these qualities were at first described to be ‘unmistakably feminine’ in relation to Wendy’s laugh, yet are considered to be ‘unsexy’ in relation to her voice. However, it is clear that this irony is intentional and is used to satirise societal gender norms by demonstrating that transwomen cannot be subjected to such norms if these norms are inconsistent both in their application and valuation. Taking this into account, Plett’s compulsive focus on femininity is more transfeminist than initially thought. Through her construction of Wendy, Plett is, in fact, critiquing society’s preoccupation with femininity and the detrimental impact that this has on transwomen’s internal and external perceptions of themselves.
While Wendy appears to be stable within her gender identity— the same cannot be said for her sexual identity—with the conflict between the internal world (i.e. one’s true gender identity) and the external world (i.e. the sexed body and reality) gradually manifesting itself through the distortion of Wendy’s memory. At the beginning of the novel, Wendy appears to be the most content within her female body, which in turn results in a difficulty to recall past events about her life when she was a boy:
Sometimes Wendy tried to remember what she looked for in girls before transition. She could never summon anything clear. She could replay, as if in third-person, those handfuls of penis-in-vagina sex. But never any inner-thoughts or feelings. When she tried to zoom in on the emotions of these moments, they became diffracted, lost, in a way other memories didn’t. (27)
Plett’s ubiquitous use of metaphor constructs memory as a physiological as well as a psychological phenomenon, establishing that physicality is intrinsic to reality, i.e. without the ability to physically touch or see something, it cannot be real. This echoes the transmisogynistic notion that genital verification determines whether someone is really a man or a woman (Bettcher 2014: 399). This is noteworthy because Wendy’s struggle to remember her life as a boy signifies the loss of her male genitalia and its accompanying heterosexuality (i.e. the attraction to women), suggesting that because her sexed body and gendered mind have now completely aligned— she is no longer liminal.
Though Wendy is unable to recall emotions, she can still somewhat recall the experiences she went through. These experiences later manifest into dreams in which Wendy is no longer devoid of emotion and is fully conscious of what is happening:
She had a dick again. She was running through a field with an erection and there was a girl. Wendy took the girl’s head and she fucked her face and then people began to notice and watch. They screamed at Wendy to fuck her even harder and when she did her soft hairless cock felt drugs-electric pleasure (64).
The natural setting sharply contrasts the cold, industrial harshness of Winnipeg, providing a landscape in which Wendy is not only liberated, but also euphoric. Moreover, the violent and aggressive imagery contrasts Wendy’s melancholy and often passive attitude, with the repetition of ‘harderfasterharderfasterharderfaster’ mimicking compulsive, innate behaviour. Wendy’s dreams signify her true sexual desires, highlighting that— like many other transwomen— Wendy has oppressed her attraction to women in order to pass as what both society and ‘the wrong body narrative’ deem to be a legitimate transwoman, i.e. heterosexual (i.e. attracted to men) and subservient women (Billingham 2010; Wilson 2002). This clear contrast between Wendy’s agency in the dream world and reality detangles Wendy from the politics of place that demarcates trans girl drama in a way that Ebershoff and Russo are not able to achieve (Jefferies 2020). Additionally, Wendy later has a sexual relationship with Aileen, a cis lesbian, and describes their relationship as ‘magical’ (180). This contrasts the aggressive imagery employed when describing Wendy’s intimacies with men and not only challenges the trope that transwomen must receive validation from men to be content, but also undermines the essentialist notion that transwomen must be heterosexual in order to be authentically trans (Drabinski 2014). Plett’s subversion of the traditional relationship between sexuality and gender through the motifs of memory and the past is undoubtedly transfeminist.
Little Fish is a text defined by divisions that must become intertwined in order for us to truly comprehend them. The motifs of memory and the past help to illuminate the intersectionality and dualism that encompasses trans experiences, resulting in a narrative that wholeheartedly and beautifully captures the true essence of the trans experience. Hence, Plett’s honest approach in the telling of Wendy’s story, yet refusal to land on a definitive sense of truth (whatever that may be), unmistakably captures Koyama’s (2001: 3-5) belief that we should “foster an environment where women’s individual choices are honoured, while scrutinising and challenging institutions that limit the range of choices available to [women]… in order to dismantle the essentialist assumption of the normativity of the sex/gender congruence.’
Chapter 6: Conclusion
This dissertation has clearly demonstrated that transfeminism provides a useful approach to critiquing texts that centre transgender issues and has proven that not all texts that centre such issues are transfeminist. While all the texts explored rely on ‘the wrong body narrative’ as well as key literary techniques (i.e. pathetic fallacy, imagery, analepsis, metaphor and tone) and themes (i.e. nature, the past and femininity) to depict transgender life, the way in which each writer exploits these techniques and themes differs drastically.
The construction of the past provides a clear indication of each text’s attitude towards trans experiences. Most notably, it is Plett’s irrevocable entangling of the past and the present that allows her to blur the binary between male and female, suggesting that such concerns are trivial. Similarly, Ebershoff’s ambiguous conclusion suggests that there will never be a definitive distinction between transgender and cisgender women. Whereas, Russo’s mediating of the past through the motif of truth reinstates the inferior position of the transfeminine in society, i.e. an individual who must always adhere to the mores of patriarchal society.
Though the application of transfeminist thought in this paper has allowed for a detailed exploration of the duality of sexism and transphobia that demarcates the trans experience from cis women and homosexual men, the intersections of race, class and ableism have not been entirely addressed. Though Koyama (2001) acknowledges her privileging of trans white, middle-class women in her Postscript for Catching A Wave: Reclaiming Feminism for the 21st Century, she does not suggest a clear way in which to approach these intersections whilst also adhering to the mandates set by her original manifesto. This is an issue that future research needs to address, especially given the fact that most of the transwomen effected by transphobic violence are non-white (Namaste 1996). Moreover, it is evident that transfeminist thought should be applied with caution when approaching subjects who are intersex, because transfeminist critique is rooted in trans ontologies of gender that are not always applicable to other gender transgressive individuals. Ergo, future research should further address the extent to which the unique experiences of intersex people can be accounted for both inside and outside of transfeminism. Alyssa Brugman’s Alex as Well (2013) may benefit from such a reading given that it explores the legal challenges of being an intersex child that does not identify with the gender identity their parents chose for them.
The texts that I have selected primarily negotiate transgender issues from an (young) adult perspective, with all of the protagonists being legal adults at the beginning of their respective narratives. Similarly, much of the literature discussed deals with adult transgenderism, which is troubling given that there has been a recent rise in political debates concerning transgenderism and children’s access to gender-affirming healthcare services. ‘The use of puberty‐blocking hormones to arrest pubertal development, thus allowing early adolescents and their families more time to consider the possible outcomes of gender reassignment’ (Rew et al. 2021: 3) has been heavily contested due to ethical concerns over children’s ability to make informed decisions about taking such treatment. Dyer (2020) discusses how The High Court ruled in favour of Kiera Bell who took legal action against Tavistock Gender Identity Development Service after being prescribed puberty blockers and male hormones as a teenager. Bell believes that children under the age of 16 are unable to make informed decisions about undergoing such treatment. Hence, there needs to be a greater focus on child transgenderism due to the great impact that literature may have on the way that child transgenderism is treated in the real world. Lisa Williamson’s The Art of Being Normal (2015), which discusses practical information about puberty blockers, may benefit from a transfeminist reading in the way that has been carried out in this paper.
As we gradually become decentred from heteronormative understandings of gender, concerns over one’s (trans)gender identity and what that identity represents will become unimportant. It is also possible that, like feminism and queer theory, transfeminism may eventually no longer be relevant to discussions of transgenderism, with the trans subject no longer being seen as simply trans but human. Until such time, this paper has indisputably provided a model for future research to build upon when dealing with transgenderism in literary criticism.
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