Are You A Monster?

[LeaP]

I don't quite know what to make of this article (see link below). I get the lesbian politics that are referenced, and it's an interesting read in its own right for that, but it's more the comments about self-image and ongoing rage that interests (or concerns) me. It seems contrary to much I usually read. Is this an accurate description of post-transition life at any level? I first read the article nearly a year ago, found it disturbing, and have returned to it several times. Recent posts with members invoking concepts like feeling as though they are a freak of nature have me raising the topic here. I share those feelings more often than I would care to admit.

The title is "My Words to Victor Frankenstein Above the Village of Chamounix: Performing Transgender Rage" by Susan Stryker. The link is:

http://www.annelawrence.com/mywords.html

Lea

**********

Excerpt from the end of the article follows. Do read the entire article, if interested and you have the time.

"To encounter the transsexual body, to apprehend a transgendered consciousness articulating itself, is to risk a revelation of the constructedness of the natural order. Confronting the implications of this constructedness can summon up all the violation, loss, and separation inflicted by the gendering process that sustains the illusion of naturalness. My transsexual body literalizes this abstract violence. As the bearers of this disquieting news, we transsexuals often suffer for the pain of others, but we do not willingly abide the rage of others directed against us. And we do have something else to say, if you will but listen to the monsters: the possibility of meaningful agency and action exists, even within fields of domination that bring about the universal cultural rape of all flesh. Be forewarned, however, that taking up this task will remake you in the process.

By speaking as a monster in my personal voice, by using the dark, watery images of Romanticism and lapsing occasionally into its brooding cadences and grandiose postures, I employ the same literary techniques Mary Shelley used to elicit sympathy for her scientist's creation. Like that creature, I assert my worth as a monster in spite of the conditions my monstrosity requires me to face, and redefine a life worth living. I have asked the Miltonic questions Shelley poses in the epigraph of her novel: "Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay to mould me man? Did I solicit thee from darkness to promote me?" With one voice, her monster and I answer "no" without debasing ourselves, for we have done the hard work of constituting ourselves on our own terms, against the natural order. Though we forego the privilege of naturalness, we are not deterred, for we ally ourselves instead with the chaos and blackness from which Nature itself spills forth.

If this is your path, as it is mine, let me offer whatever solace you may find in this monstrous benediction: May you discover the enlivening power of darkness within yourself. May it nourish your rage. May your rage inform your actions, and your actions transform you as you struggle to transform your world. "

[Persephone]

I'm sorry, Lea, but even with an earned doctorate in education and psychology her article is beyond my interest level.

I will agree that she has a right to exist and to express herself, but left to form my own opinion after reading a bit of it (more than just the concluding paragraphs) I would characterize it as mental diarrhea and would suggest that she take something (mental Imodium of some sort), lie down, and try to get some rest.

You may very well be younger, brighter, and better educated and may find something of value in her screed, but I find myself too busy enjoying life to go searching for any potential worthwhile nuggets that might be found in her mental excrement.

Hugs,
Persephone.

[LeaP]

I'm sorry, Lea, but even with an earned doctorate in education and psychology her article is beyond my interest level.

I will agree that she has a right to exist and to express herself, but left to form my own opinion after reading a bit of it (more than just the concluding paragraphs) I would characterize it as mental diarrhea and would suggest that she take something (mental Imodium of some sort), lie down, and try to get some rest.

You may very well be younger, brighter, and better educated and may find something of value in her screed, but I find myself too busy enjoying life to go searching for any potential worthwhile nuggets that might be found in her mental excrement.

Hugs,
Persephone.

I have no idea if I'm younger, brighter, or better-educated. I loved your reaction, though! LOL

Lea

[Kaz]

Hi Lea,

Sounds like someone trying to reconcile things and put them into a universal context... there are lots of connects to consider... the Frankenstein connect is a feeling that I have become God and created a monster... I guess that is enough to get the feel of the post...

The rest is straight forward from then on in. I hope you aren't inwardly digesting this stuff... We aren't creating monsters... we are trying to release our spirits... this is very different.

[LeaP]

Hi Lea,

Sounds like someone trying to reconcile things and put them into a universal context... there are lots of connects to consider... the Frankenstein connect is a feeling that I have become God and created a monster... I guess that is enough to get the feel of the post...

The rest is straight forward from then on in. I hope you aren't inwardly digesting this stuff... We aren't creating monsters... we are trying to release our spirits... this is very different.

No, I'm not. I found the article arty, dark, and political. One can enjoy that when well-written (sorry Persephone!). What brings me back to the article, and what I find disturbing, per the OP, is the depiction of ongoing (i.e., post-transition) feelings of unnaturalness and rage, both of which I feel now. Never mind the author's embrace of it. Does it continue? I.e., is there no relief?

Lea

[ReneeT]

OMG - my head is swimming after reading (most) of that. I'm with Persephone on this one- pass the psycho-Lomotil to Ms. Stryker. I have wonder how well she is wired together Aside from her gender issues

[Kaitlyn Michele]

I do not feel any unnaturalness. Idont feel any rage. Transition got the job done. I found the piece to be a bunch of over processed baloney.

[KellyJameson]

Here is a story and every word is true.

It was an evening in December. A rerun of Seinfeld danced across the screen, ignored by the father as he sat up in bed reading "End of History". His two month old daughter slept peacefully in her crib at the foot of the bed.

He had always wanted this moment but had waited patiently for the planets to align to insure his childs life would not have the violence his childhood had.

He recalls the moment when the mother in the bathroom looked at the test strip she had just urinated on to check if she was pregnant. She stated in a flat voice it is pink, he experiences a moments elation and than the mother lets out a scream that makes his blood run cold. He knows in is innermost reaches that this unborn child is in danger but does not understand why.

As he listens to his daughter breathing the mother walks into the bedroom as if she is walking on air, her face shines with contentment and the father relaxes for finally maybe the hell of the last twelve months is coming to a close. Months of accusations of infidelities when there were none and every other possible cruelty that can be done with words known to man.

She walks over to the crib and picks up the sleeping baby that gives out a little cry for having her sleep disturbed.

Time stops for the father as he hears a scream of anger and fear gush forth from the mother as her face contorts into a mask of hate and anguish. A face bright red with veins pulsing, the muscles of the neck standout in stark relief.

The fathers mind is in shock, he does not understand. Everything is moving in slow motion as he watches the mother raise the child over her head with every intention of throwing the child against the wall or down onto the hardwood floor.

He is to far away to stop the act but moves to sit up in bed from the instinct to save his daughter. The mother senses the movement and remembers she is not alone, there will be a witness to the murder she is about to commit. Still screaming she lowers the child while holding the child out away from her body as if the child is on fire.

She turns away from the father who is the witness but continues her rotation bringing her back to facing the bed and father dropping the baby who falls the three feet from the mothers hands onto the mattress. The distance great enough for the baby to bounce back up off the bed.

The mother still screaming runs from the room as the father tries to console the crying terrirfied baby.

Shortly after the mother begins her campaign of destroying the fathers reputation from fear that he would seek custody of the child, a preemptive strike by insinuating he is a pedophile

The father ends up with stress induced heart palpitations wondering everyday if his child would be alive when he came home but knew instinctively the mother would kill both the child and herself if he went to the authorities, he stayed quiet.

The truth showed it's ugly face one year later when the mother thinking she was dying on the way to the hospital demanded the father give his child to her best friend because she did not believe the father would tell the child how much the mother had loved her, in an instant he understood he was in the presence of evil. Evil is a sickness of the heart and it is contagious being handed off from one person to another.

The child is now nine years old without a father and on psychiatric medications to control her extreme anxiety.

Someday she in a rage will repeat the behavior done to her and than she will also become a monster with no hope of than escaping the sickness placed in her heart by the corruption of her mothers immorality that was probably placed there by her mother.

Soul Murder: Child Abuse and Deprivation By LEONARD SHENGOLD

The dramatic term soul murder probably was coined in the nineteenth century; it was used by the great Scandinavian playwrights Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg. Ibsen defines it as the destruction of the love of life in another human being.

http://www.psychohistory.com/ Most of the worlds problems come from what parents do to children, using them to fulfill immoral needs and than placing rage into their hearts and much of what humanity artistically creates is the subconscious expression of how they were violated as children.

[Starling]

Well, I only skimmed the article, so I probably missed the fine points. She is using her anger (rage) at being characterized by militant lesbians as a mutilated male pervert to take ownership of the name "monster," as other despised groups have made the epithets used against them into badges of honor. Right?

I don't know how well her particular response would serve the average TS person, given the need to work and make a living, but it certainly makes her feel righteous.

I do find the anti-transsexual vitriol she quoted quite alarming, and it gives me a bit of trepidation about using the ladies' room at the GLBT Clinic. I will say, however, that I have close lesbian friends. I do wish everyone would stop with the ideologically-based bias against actual information.

I dunno. Whaddya gonna do, stop being trans?

:) Lallie

[Hope]

Everyone's lived experience is different.

This article however reeks of academic masterbation... which is perhaps the author's experience... but don't take it as yours, or your presumed fate. YES, there are girls who regret transition. They are a statistically small number, but they DO exist. Are you going to be among their number? Only you can know.

Finally - avoid the womanist blogs. They are never trans friendly. They are written by femmephobic cis women with a bone to pick and a political ideology to defend - an ideology that our very existence blows out of the water - so naturally they do their best to minimize, ignore, and ostracize us. Seriously, cis people who insist that they are experts on trans lives should not only not be headed - but actively avoided.

[Kelsy]

Logical ends takes this line of thinking to a point where any surgically or medically altered person is a freak! It seems Ms Stryker may be concerned about losing her privileged place in the cis gendered world. She seems threatened and gains some kind of personal power by deriding others. I used to read things like this and it really serves no purpose except to raise my blood pressure. How can she know what my experience is like? Best I can say is that someday she will learn to love and accept other people. She's the monster!

[Inna]

Brilliant, true, poetic yet bluntly real........pain!

Transgender or not, most deny something in them selves, most suppress self for a piece of candy, place at dinner table, job, a hug.........

Once self truth is evident and guts of denial ripped open, pain spews out wrapping its guilty arms around us yet again, it wants back in, the only defense, is to embrace it, make it our friend and not the enemy, but now no longer blind to the truth, now with eyes wide open staring straight into our pain and understanding for the first time.

Hence I suppose "I once was blind, but now I can see"

[Aprilrain]

To answer your title question: No I am not a monster, I was well on my way to becoming one though!
The article is a monument to mental masterbation. I haven't see that many $2 words in one place since the dictionary!

[Stephenie S]

I have no rage. Only deep abounding joy.

S

[Foxglove]

Hi, Lea! Thanks for posting this. This helped me understand something. I don't where this is coming from, nor why this article inspired this realization in me, but I'm past the point where I try to explain myself any more.

For most of my life, I tried to repress my TG nature. "Don't wanna think about that, don't wanna go down that road, ignore it, maybe it'll go away, etc., etc." Now, far too many years after I should have confronted the issue, I find it relatively easy to face. I think it's because I'm so odd, so out of the ordinary in so many other ways, that being TG is just one more oddity in me. And maybe not even the biggest one. I've gotten used to being odd. Maybe I just needed to get used to it. It took me a long time--but once I could accept that basic fact, then the little details were easier to accept.

I tend to go along with the others. I don't much like this woman--or at least the feelings she's expressing. She's making too much of herself. "What an outrage! Look at the way the world has screwed me over!" Well, yes--but we're hardly the only ones. And I'm not sure what sort of promises were ever made to us anyway. For me, where I am here and now, my reaction to my TGism is to say, "Well, one more thing to deal with. What really am I going to do with this?" I badly need to figure some things out, but shaking my fist at God isn't going to help matters. In the grand scheme of things, I don't amount to much. Why make a clash of Titans out of it?

Something else this article reminded me of: speaking of monsters, I once saw a (color) photo of a baby who'd been born with the most unbelievably awful birth defect I've ever seen. I don't know the name of the condition, and I don't want to know. It was something simply so awful that you would never imagine that such a thing could happen. It appears that the standard medical response to such a birth is to do nothing. Don't care for the baby in any way. Just let it die, which it will do in two or three days. It's beyond hope, beyond repair. It's something sad beyond words. I think this woman is trying to put herself on that level. And she's very wrong. I think she needs to stop looking at herself and turn her eyes to the world at large. Introspection can get to the point where it ceases to be beneficial.

Best wishes, Annabelle

[Empress Lainie]

She is one of the triad of "professionals" that are secretly anti-trans, even though she had srs, and apparently regrets it. I personally think is a psycopath.

[Jorja]

Are you a monster? No, I am not a fictional creature that is somewhat hideous and I do not produce fear or physical harm by either my appearance or my actions. I do not scare little children and they do not lock up the women and children when I walk down the street. The men do not hunt me at night with torches, pitchforks, guns or knives. I have lived with and among humans for over thirty years and have not eaten one of them…. yet. However, I do admit to being a cookie monster. No, cookie is safe when I am on the prowl!:)

This article is nothing more than psychobabble.

[Pink Person]

Stryker identifies this work as a text of a performance art piece at an academic conference that had rage as a topic of discussion. I think it's okay to grant her some leave to express herself freely in this context.

I also think that Stryker's struggle to embrace the queerness of her gender status while not conceding that it is unnatural is more honest and brave than the scurrying for cover under false cisgender identities that many transgender people seem to prefer.

There's no doubt that many members of the cisgender majority think that transgender people are monsters. Some transgender people are also fond of describing other transgender people (never themselves, of course) as freaks and monsters. If being demonized as a transgender freak who is less naturally human than anyone else doesn't put some rage into you then you aren't feeling the right emotions.

The Frankenstein monster's rage became destructive. Stryker is urging transgender people to embrace their transgender status and be constructive about confronting the social abuses and dehumanization that are inflicted on us. She thinks we can transform ourselves and the world when we do.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

Stryker identifies this work as a text of a performance art piece at an academic conference that had rage as a topic of discussion. I think it's okay to grant her some leave to express herself freely in this context.

I also think that Stryker's struggle to embrace the queerness of her gender status while not conceding that it is unnatural is more honest and brave than the scurrying for cover under false cisgender identities that many transgender people seem to prefer.

There's no doubt that many members of the cisgender majority think that transgender people are monsters. Some transgender people are also fond of describing other transgender people (never themselves, of course) as freaks and monsters. If being demonized as a transgender freak who is less naturally human than anyone else doesn't put some rage into you then you aren't feeling the right emotions.

The Frankenstein monster's rage became destructive. Stryker is urging transgender people to embrace their transgender status and be constructive about confronting the social abuses and dehumanization that are inflicted on us. She thinks we can transform ourselves and the world when we do.

I wish you had written the piece.. what you said is empowering and sensible..

what the artist said was pretentious, confusing and totally uninteresting as art, psychology or politics.

[Hope]

I wish you had written the piece.. what you said is empowering and sensible..

what the artist said was pretentious, confusing and totally uninteresting as art, psychology or politics.

Yeah... I can totally agree with that.