The Transsexual Empire

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The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male
Janice Raymond - The Transsexual Empire.jpg
Cover of the first edition
Author Janice Raymond
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Subjects Gender dysphoria, Trans people, radical feminism
Publisher Beacon Press
Publication date
1979
Media typePrint (hardcover and paperback)
Pages220
ISBN 0-807-02164-4
OCLC 4529467
301.415
LC Class RC560.C4

The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male is a 1979 book critical of transsexualism by American radical feminist author and activist Janice Raymond. The book is derived from Raymond's dissertation, which was produced under the supervision of the feminist theologian Mary Daly. [1]

Contents

Summary

Raymond investigates the role of transgender people in society—particularly psychological and surgical approaches to treatment of transgender people—and argues that transgender identity reifies traditional gender stereotypes. Raymond also writes about the ways in which the medical-psychiatric complex medicalizes gender identity and about the social and political context that has helped spawn gender-affirming treatment and surgery as normal and therapeutic medicine. [2] [3] [4] [5]

Raymond maintains that the notion of transgender identity is based on the "patriarchal myths" of "male mothering" and "making of woman according to man's image". She claims this is done in order "to colonize feminist identification, culture, politics and sexuality", adding, "All transsexuals rape women's bodies by reducing the real female form to an artifact, appropriating this body for themselves ... Transsexuals merely cut off the most obvious means of invading women, so that they seem non-invasive." [6] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Publication history

In 1979, the first edition of The Transsexual Empire was published by Beacon Press, a nonprofit publisher in Boston run by the Unitarian Universalist Association. In 1980, the book was published in the United Kingdom by The Women's Press. [7] In 1994, a second edition was published by Teachers College Press. [8]

Reception

The Transsexual Empire was well-received in mainstream media upon its publication[ citation needed ], with psychiatrist Thomas Szasz commenting that "[the book] has rightly seized on transsexualism as an emblem of modern society's unremitting—though increasingly concealed—antifeminism." [9] In a 1980 review, the philosopher Sarah Hoagland called it a "fecund discussion of patriarchal deception". [10]

Raymond's views on transgender people have been criticized by LGBT and feminist writers as transphobic, and constituting hate speech against transgender people. [11] [12] [13] [14]

In 1980, lesbian trans feminist Carol Riddell wrote the first feminist critique of the book, a pamphlet titled Divided Sisterhood: A Critical Review of Janice Raymond’s The Transsexual Empire, which became heavily cited in trans studies. [15] [16] In it, Riddell builds on the earlier work of trans feminists and argues the book ran counter to the emphasis placed upon subjectivity in feminist consciousness-raising, criticized its portrayal of gender identity clinics as an empire rather than institutions marginalized by the medical patriarchy which force transsexuals to conform to gender roles and suffer, and stated the book is "dangerous to transsexuals because it does not treat us as human beings at all, merely as the tools of a theory." [15] Riddell argued in 1996 that The Transsexual Empire "did not invent anti-transsexual prejudice, but it did more to justify and perpetuate it than perhaps any other book ever written." [17]

The Transsexual Empire included sections on Sandy Stone, a trans woman who had worked as a sound engineer for Olivia Records, and Christy Barsky, accusing both of creating divisiveness in women's spaces. [18] These writings have been criticized as personal attacks on these individuals. [19] In 1987, Stone wrote "The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto", a foundational text of transgender studies, in response to The Transsexual Empire. [20] [21]

Natalie Washington called The Transsexual Empire a "book [...] so influential on modern anti-trans movements, in which [Raymond] suggests 'the problem of transsexualism would best be served by morally mandating it out of existence'" [22]

See also

Related Research Articles

The word cisgender describes a person whose gender identity corresponds to their sex assigned at birth, i.e., someone who is not transgender. The prefix cis- is Latin and means on this side of. The term cisgender was coined in 1994 as an antonym to transgender, and entered into dictionaries starting in 2015 as a result of changes in social discourse about gender. The term has been and continues to be controversial and subject to critique.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Transphobia</span> Anti-transgender prejudice

Transphobia consists of negative attitudes, feelings, or actions towards transgender people or transness in general. Transphobia can include fear, aversion, hatred, violence or anger towards people who do not conform to social gender roles. Transphobia is a type of prejudice and discrimination, similar to racism, sexism, or ableism, and it is closely associated with homophobia. Transgender people of color can experience many different forms of discrimination simultaneously.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Transfeminism</span> Branch of feminism

Transfeminism, or trans feminism, is a branch of feminism focused on transgender women and informed by transgender studies. Transfeminism focuses on the effects of transmisogyny and patriarchy on trans women. It is related to the broader field of queer theory. The term was popularized by Emi Koyama in The Transfeminist Manifesto.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Attraction to transgender people</span> Romantic or sexual attraction to transgender people

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Janice G. Raymond is an American lesbian radical feminist and professor emerita of women's studies and medical ethics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is known for her work against violence, sexual exploitation, and medical abuse of women, and for her controversial work denouncing transsexuality.

The American-Canadian sexologist Ray Blanchard proposed a psychological typology of gender dysphoria, transsexualism, and fetishistic transvestism in a series of academic papers through the 1980s and 1990s. Building on the work of earlier researchers, including his colleague Kurt Freund, Blanchard categorized trans women into two groups: homosexual transsexuals who are attracted exclusively to men and are feminine in both behavior and appearance; and autogynephilic transsexuals who experience sexual arousal at the idea of having a female body. Blanchard and his supporters argue that the typology explains differences between the two groups in childhood gender nonconformity, sexual orientation, history of sexual fetishism, and age of transition.

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Allucquére Rosanne "Sandy" Stone is an American academic theorist, media theorist, author, and performance artist. She is an Associate Professor Emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin where she was the Founding Director of the Advanced Communication Technologies Laboratory (ACTLab) and the New Media Initiative in the department of Radio-TV-Film. Stone has worked in and written about film, music, experimental neurology, writing, engineering, and computer programming. Stone is transgender and is considered a founder of the academic discipline of transgender studies.

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Feminist views on transgender topics vary widely.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">TERF (acronym)</span> Acronym for trans-exclusionary radical feminist

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References

  1. ↑ Highleyman, Liz (January 7, 2010). "Feminist theologian Mary Daly dies". The Bay Area Reporter. Retrieved September 27, 2015.
  2. 1 2 Roth, Nancy L. (1997). "The Transsexual Empire". Women and Language. 20 (2). Urbana, WI: Organization for the Study of Communication Language and Gender: 66–67. ISSN   8755-4550. ProQuest   198810578.
  3. 1 2 Culter, Connie (July 12, 1980). "The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male". Gay Community News . 7 (50). Boston: The Bromfield Street Educational Foundation: 11. ProQuest   199398282.
  4. 1 2 Coston, B. Ethan (May 2023). "Looking Back: Intimate Partner Violence in Transgender Populations". American Journal of Public Health . 113 (5). Washington, DC: American Public Health Association: 474–476. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2023.307262. ISSN   1541-0048. OCLC   01642844. PMC  10088961. PMID   36926968. ProQuest   2802096630.
  5. 1 2 Partridge, Cameron (2018). ""Scotch-Taped Together": Anti-"Androgyny" Rhetoric, Transmisogyny, and the Transing of Religious Studies". Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion. 34 (1). Indiana University Press: 68–75. doi:10.2979/jfemistudreli.34.1.09. ISSN   8755-4178. JSTOR   10.2979/jfemistudreli.34.1.09. S2CID   150084493. ProQuest   2048052511.
  6. ↑ Raymond, Janice. (1994). The Transsexual Empire, p. 104
  7. ↑ Raymond, Janice G. (1980). The Transsexual Empire. London: Women's Press. p.  iv. ISBN   978-0-7043-3857-9.
  8. ↑ Raymond, Janice G. (1994). The Transsexual Empire: The Making Of The She-Male. New York: Teachers College Press. p.  iv. ISBN   978-0-8077-6272-1.
  9. ↑ Thomas Szasz (June 10, 1979). "Male and Female Created He Them". The New York Times. p. 3. Retrieved June 21, 2018.
  10. ↑ Sarah Lucia Hoagland (1980). "The Transsexual Empire: The Making of a She-Male. Janice G. Raymond". Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. 5 (3): 537–538. doi:10.1086/493740.
  11. ↑ Rose, Katrina C. (January 1, 2004). "The Man Who Would Be Janice Raymond". Transgender Tapestry (104): 56–57. ISSN   1083-0006. Moreover, it is not hyperbole to say that Empire has been responsible for the deaths of untold numbers of transsexuals. If the anti-equality forces of the 198O's which picked up her transphobia...
  12. ↑ Serano, Julia (March 8, 2016). Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity . Seal Press. p. 234. ISBN   978-1-58005-154-5. [...]Janice Raymond (who, in addition to writing the anti-trans screed The Transexual Empire, tried to convince the National Center for Health Care Technology to deny transsexuals the right to hormones and surgery)[...]
  13. ↑ Namaste, Viviane (December 15, 2000). Invisible Lives: The Erasure of Transsexual and Transgendered People. University of Chicago Press. pp. 33–35. ISBN   978-0-226-56810-2.
  14. ↑ Heyes, Cressida J. (June 2003). "Feminist Solidarity after Queer Theory: The Case of Transgender". Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society . 28 (4): 1093–1120. doi:10.1086/343132. S2CID   144107471. The Transsexual Empire has become the archetypal articulation of radical feminist hostility to transsexuality and has had a persistent influence on feminist perceptions of transgender.
  15. 1 2 Caslin, Sam (January 15, 2024). "Trans feminism and the women's liberation movement in Britain, c . 1970–1980". Gender & History. doi: 10.1111/1468-0424.12767 . ISSN   0953-5233.
  16. ↑ Stryker, Susan; Bettcher, Talia M. (May 1, 2016). "Introduction". TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly. 3 (1–2): 5–14. doi:10.1215/23289252-3334127. ISSN   2328-9252.
  17. ↑ Hines, Sally (February 17, 2019). "The feminist frontier: on trans and feminism". Journal of Gender Studies. 28 (2): 145–157. doi:10.1080/09589236.2017.1411791. ISSN   0958-9236.
  18. ↑ Raymond, Janice. (1994). The Transsexual Empire, pp. 101–102.
  19. ↑ Hubbard, Ruth (1996). "Gender and Genitals: Constructs of Sex and Gender". Social Text (46/47). Duke University Press: 157–165. doi:10.2307/466851. ISSN   0164-2472. JSTOR   466851.
  20. ↑ Carlos, Matthew Steven (2005). "Stone Publishes a "Posttranssexual Manifesto."". LGBT History, 1988-1992. Great Neck Publishing. pp. 78–81. ISBN   9781429800037.
  21. ↑ Stryker, Susan; Bettcher, Talia M. (May 1, 2016). "Introduction: Trans/Feminisms". TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly. 3 (1–2): 5–14. doi: 10.1215/23289252-3334127 . ISSN   2328-9252.
  22. ↑ Washington, Natalie (October 5, 2021). "Who's included? Views of the report on transgender participation in sport". The Guardian. UK. Retrieved May 23, 2022.

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