Book review: Trans: Transgender life stories from South Africa

Trans: transgender life stories from South Africa, edited by Ruth Morgan, Charl
Marais, and Joy R. Wellbeloved, Auckland Park, South Africa, Jacana Media, 2009, 220
pp., US$ 23.00 (paperback), ISBN 978-1-920196-22-6
‘If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it’ proclaimed
author Zora Neale Hurston, writing during the US civil rights movement. Silence and pain
are certainly central to the lives of many trans people. The term ‘trans’, also the book title,
can be read as being inclusive of different ‘types’ of trans-identified people. The idea of
transsexualism/transgenderism alone has long been unmentionable in most contexts owing
to longstanding stigma and prejudice. More recently there has been more discussion of the
topic in popular public fora, notably on talk shows, but increased public attention has not
necessarily been positive or helpful. Indeed, misinformation, sensationalism and prejudice
abound, often compounding misunderstanding and discrimination (Whittle, Turner, and
Al-Alami 2007). More often than not, definitions and explanations are foisted upon trans
people.
Trans gives voice to the personal stories of trans people, thereby humanising the issue
and offering an opportunity for self-definition to those who have been long silent and
silenced. This is especially valuable considering the pejorative ways that trans people have
been (mis)represented. This landmark text (within South Africa and abroad) is a product
of an extensive oral history project undertaken by two South African organisations,
Gender Dynamix and Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action. It comprises 26 personal
narratives of transition collected over two years, as well as photographs of each narrator to
accompany their story, a glossary, archival material, body maps and interesting discussion
material.
The narrators’ voices sometimes converge with one another, producing a recognisable
narrative form. This could be considered as a canonical transition narrative that most often
begins with gender non-conformity in childhood and then proceeds through the following
key events: realisation of difference, a belief that a spontaneous bodily change will occur
and dismay when it does not, distress induced by puberty, and a turning point with regard
to whether/how to transition. Notably, as gatekeepers for those who wish to transition, the
medical establishment and psy-profession are central to most accounts. Though there may
be commonalities, there is often great diversity too. The stories reveal that the process
of sense-making and identity negotiation is highly personal and idiosyncratic. Their
experiences are mediated by history, race, social class and loved ones’ responses. Some
stories are more or less neatly resolved at their end, while others point to the ongoing
process of transitioning. My sense was that this experience of perpetual incompleteness
amplifies the experience of all people as we continually renegotiate our identities and
perform acceptable selves.
From a scholarly perspective, this collection concretely demonstrates the impossibility
of existing as a social agent outside of the terms of gender. ‘Gender is a performance with
clearly punitive consequences’ (Butler 1999, 420) and the disciplinary consequences
of gender non-conformity reverberate throughout these stories, ranging from familial
Culture, Health & Sexuality
rejection to unlawful detention and violence. Most disturbing in this regard are the stories
of African nationals who have sought sanctuary from the entrenched and systematic
persecution in South Africa. It is clear from these stories that it is our enactment of gender
that counts, and that this enactment occurs under duress (Butler 1999). For instance, the
narrators recount how as children they were (forcibly) discouraged from engaging in the
‘wrong’ games or dress, particularly after puberty. They also relate decisions around
whether to ‘go stealth’ (6) and ‘pass’ (263) (as a female or male) or to disclose the facts of
their gender reassignment.
These accounts drive home the notion that gender is not the result of choice, since we
are compelled to recite the norm in order to maintain our viability as social subjects. Our
choice, then, is not whether to repeat gender norms, but how to go about doing so. Gender
performances are therefore equivalent to a cultural survival strategy within compulsory
hetero-patriarchal systems (Butler 1999). This cannot be clearer than in the strategic
gender enactments that the narrators recount as they describe their navigation of the
interstitial space in which they find themselves. For them as trans people the process of
‘doing gender’ appears to be beset with ambivalence. They vacillate between decisions of
whether to disclose to others or not. Importantly, they get stuck between positioning
themselves as both/and in relation to gender (e.g., Petra describes herself as an ‘in-between
person’ [75]) and the either/or positions allowed by our binary categories of female/male.
This is related to repeated, wavering claims that can be summed up as: ‘I am (not) my
body!’ For the most part, the body is central to the narrators’ claims about gender and,
thus, largely based on a biological foundation hence the desire to alter their bodies in
order to comply with the law of two sexes. Nevertheless, there are times when this position
is refuted and a more free-floating idea of gender is evoked as narrators make claims such
as ‘It’s not a penis that makes a man’ (87).
Reading as a feminist scholar, I found this text thought-provoking and oftentimes
challenging. It raised a number of important questions about gendered identity and
sexualities. I too found myself caught in a quandary. On one hand, I acknowledge the
difficulty, perhaps impossibility even, of occupying a subjectivity that does not fit neatly
into preordained dual gender categories, as discussed above. Having experienced the pain
of gender non-conformity myself, I also understand that this is not merely a theoretical
exercise. On the other hand, I was uneasy about the propensity of the narrators to cling to
biological foundations, claiming to be a ‘real’ woman/man after undergoing gender
reassignment. To my mind this reinforces the ‘law of two sexes’, the very system that
allows for the oppression those who do not conform be they trans or not.
While the notion of being ‘an in-between person’ may theoretically offer the radical
potential to resist or challenge binary understandings of gender, in ‘real life’ the
female/male division remains extraordinarily persistent and durable. Exceedingly dualist
gender ontologies habitually prevail in ordinary life, within the worldviews of gender nonconformists
and generally. Gender scholars who may accept that a binary distinction is
problematic theoretically also tend to fall back on it in various everyday life practices.
Consequently, the current two-sex system appears to be inexorable. All modern expressions
of sexual and gender identity lesbianism, homosexuality and heterosexuality depend on
it for their expression (Hird 2000). If anything, this book attests to that. However, if it can
provoke thought on the topic and allow for the discussion of issues of gender and
sexualities, then it is indeed useful. Trans will be of interest to gender scholars and those
working in the area of sexualities. Though the general reader will certainly be introduced to
a new vocabulary, the book is highly accessible. It will also undoubtedly be a valuable
source of information and reassurance to trans people and their loved ones. It certainly is
worthwhile and interesting reading material that will hopefully generate more discussion,
including commentary from African scholars.

Publisher: Rhodes University
Year of Publication: 2012