Queering the trans: Gender and sexuality binaries in Icelandic trans,queer,and feminist communities

Feminist, queer, and trans issues: interrelations, cooperations, and tensions

The interviews reveal many themes pointing in different directions. One source of friction is the expansion of the institutionalized context of gender equality work, widely endorsed by some but giving rise to skepticism and competition over scarce resources between different movements (Þorvaldsdóttir, 2012). Many municipalities and organizations have already transformed their practical gender equality work to what in the Icelandic context has been called a human rights approach. This new approach formally aims at diversity, and in some cases, intersectionality, although the legal framework has been focused on gender issues, which grants more legal rights to gender than to other inequality grounds (Þorvaldsdóttir, 2012). This development and the recent proposition on the broadened administration of the Center for Gender Equality is taking place against austerity measures and increasing signs of anti-feminism (for feminist responses to anti-feminism see the webmagazine Knúz, www.knuz.is). The expansion of the gender equality work has triggered tension and ambiguities among different activist communities which unravel underlying views on sex, gender, gender order, and ideology, which we address in the following.

Feminist ambiguities on sex and gender

In general those among our informants who have been involved in the feminist community have outwardly a rather inclusive human rights approach, and more or less support queer and trans issues and claims. At the same time our interviews reveal some interesting ambiguities and perplexities over how to understand sex, gender, gender equality, and some public policy positions. The feminist activists stress the importance of taking different diversity markers into account and some explicitly mention how different variables intersect. However, the ambition of many feminist activists to be inclusive may fall short of unarticulated views that can feed into unintentional exclusion if power inequalities are not recognized. Ingrid, who has been involved in the feminist movement for a long time, describes how the newly founded FÍ in the beginning (i.e. in 2003) had the ambition of being responsive and inclusive without really knowing how. She recalls a ‘diversity group’ in FÍ in which lesbians, immigrants, and disabled women were supposed to fight together from their minority position. This turned out to be a simplistic and naïve idea, she admits. FÍ, however, kept its supportive stance towards differences among women and alliances between minority groups. A seminar on diversity in 2007 with the title ‘No Gender, no Color’ (Is. Kynlaus og litblind) with representatives for the queer and trans movement, disabled people, male feminist activists, and the immigrant women’s association was an effort in this direction (Morgunblaðið, 2007). The seminar was the first sign of a dialogue between these movements in Iceland, at a time when there was skepticism among feminists towards the idea of extending the gender equality work to other minority groups. Among those is Linda, a femocrat with a background in the feminist movement. In the interview Linda admits that her views had changed entirely on the issue. She had been against the ‘extension’ of the gender equality concept initially, but now she finds it necessary to include the variety of women and other minority groups, not least because the oppression of one group often is linked to the marginalization of another. To support her argument she referred to the Nordic debate about the interconnectedness between racism, misogyny, and hate speech against feminists. She did not see any cases where, for example, trans issues and gender issues would collide.

But some tensions were just under the surface in the interviews. One conspicuous source of tension revolves around the idea of gender binary and what gender equality actually means for different people. Some of the cis feminists assume that trans identity is dependent upon an essentialist gender binary view of the gender order and gender identity. They may therefore see a conflict between feminist views on the social construction of identity versus what they perceive as an essentialist gender binary view of gender identity held by trans people. Our interviews show, however, that there are a wide range of views regarding the nature of the gender order among cis feminists as well as among people who identify as queer and as trans. We see that cis feminists may be unaware of their own gender binary assumptions; there are in fact somewhat different views of the gender binary among our respondents.

Strains in the relationship between cis feminists and people who identify as trans have been fueled by two incidents in the history of the Icelandic women’s movements. First, during a visit in Iceland in 2006 Germaine Greer expressed derogatory views of transsexual women ² (Vandamál Önnu Kristjánsdóttur, 2010), and in a 2010 visit to Iceland Janice Raymond, invited by the united feminist community, was asked about her transphobic views (Ármannsdóttir, 2010). ³

In the feminist community masculinities and femininities are a frequently discussed subject and the questioning of gender stereotypes and critique of essentialism is one of its most important political issues, some of which reflect an underlying understanding of gender and gender equality. A critical and subversive approach towards gender issues is a red thread in the expressions of the feminists in our study. The question is how deep-rooted this understanding is. Sometimes the subversive view tends only to apply to gender stereotypes.

According to Diane, a young feminist among our participants, beauty pageants are a sensitive issue in the relationship between the feminist and the trans community. The Icelandic feminist movement has a long history of protesting beauty pageants, including a protest by KRFÍ, the Iceland’s National Women’s Rights Association, in 1958 (Erlendsdóttir, 1993: 286–287); the Redstockings movement that crowned a young cow as the winner of a beauty pageant in 1972 (Árnadóttir, 2011; Mánudagsblaðið, 1972; Tíminn, 1972); KF, the women’s political party in Reykjavik, who dressed up as beauty queens at the city council in the 1980s to protest a male chauvinist expression by the mayor in relation to a coronation of Miss Iceland (Dominelli and Jónsdóttir, 1988; Morgunblaðið, 1985; Þjóðviljinn, 1985). The feminist critique of beauty pageants in Iceland is still vigorous (Femínistafélag Íslands, 2003; Gústafsdóttir, 2011; Rögnvaldsdóttir, 2013), the most recent example being from 2013 when hundreds of women signed up for the Miss Iceland beauty pageant in protest, among these an MP (Björnsdóttir, 2013). It is against this background that Diane mentions a transsexual celebrity woman, who presents herself in a very feminine stereotypical way. She intended to participate in a beauty pageant shortly after her GRS during which she was intensively portrayed in the media. Because of their unequal power relations Diane refrained from criticizing someone in a ‘lower’ position than herself, recognizing her relative power as a cis feminist.

Two of our feminist participants, Ingrid and Linda, brought up the issue of public rest rooms as a matter of friction between the trans and queer community and feminists. Linda referred to the exclusion trans people can experience with gendered bathrooms whereas Ingrid contested trans people’s fight for gender neutral bathrooms within public spaces which she sees as a matter of a male free space and safety for women. ‘I just find [women’s only bathrooms] nicer. I find it uncomfortable with gender neutral rest rooms, they are often more shabby, and I feel more relaxed.’ In her justification she brings up historical arguments of women’s struggle for equal access to public space which she is not ready to sacrifice for solidarity with queer and trans people.

The tension is clearly exemplified in the views of Sheila, a leading personality in the women’s movement. Despite the fact that people know the difference between sex and gender and understand social construction, she says, they still use essentialism for their own purposes. Her skepticism got its strongest expression in her philosophical reflections about GRS:

This radical repulsion of one’s body which means that you want to reject it as it is … I don’t think it can be healthy but I would never judge it. I simply think there must be very complicated psychic mechanisms behind such a decision … not be able to live in the body you were assigned.

This statement is quite interesting given its assumption that embodiment is natural and healthy and gendered. As Connell points out, for almost everyone, ‘social embodiment has minor incoherencies’ (Connell, 2012: 867). So Diane implicitly criticized a trans woman’s participation in a beauty pageant as a kind of lack of solidarity with feminist causes, and, perhaps, as a way of reinforcing a gender binary; Sheila and Ingrid, in different ways, express gender/sex essentialist viewpoints that might be seen as reinforcing a binary gender order. These were responses to a question about tensions between the different groups of activism; interestingly, these feminist-identified respondents all critiqued trans movement goals, though Diane also explicitly critiqued feminist movement efforts as well.

Our respondents who identify as queer and as trans each have their own understanding of the gender order and its relationship to their own identity. Bettcher argues that both the ‘trapped in the wrong body’ narrative and the ‘outside the binary’ narrative of trans identity fail to capture her own view of her identity, and in addition conflict with feminist views of socially constructed gender (Bettcher, 2014). Connell also argues that transsexual women’s lives involve multiple valences not captured by most narratives about trans identities. Still, Sheila’s statement seems to reflect these dominant narratives about trans identity, which in turn might lead to misunderstandings between cis and trans identified feminists.

Queering the gender order

Our participants in the queer community are more or less supportive and inclusive towards groups within the LGBTQ umbrella, while at the same time they refer to some ‘other’ gay people’s prejudice. However, they have varied understandings of sex and gender and the gender order. Some of them did not seem to have reflected upon the terms and take the gender binary as a given. Some respondents noted tolerance or support for trans issues for human rights reasons but see the issue of gender identity as partly or entirely distinct from sexuality. Others see gender and sexuality as more fluid and interrelated. Those who identify as bisexual, pansexual or place themselves beyond the hetero-/homosexual dualism in some respect seem to embrace a more gender queer ideology and see gender as a fluid category.

Nora, a young bisexual activist, said she feels a bit landless since she fits into two groups and hence ‘not entirely into none’. She refers to the ‘academic’ ivory tower discourse on gender and trans issues which assume gender as socially constructed or as a performance. At the same time she is aware of trans people’s own experience of gender as a very physical and important reality which for some of them leads to transitions. This is a contradiction that the queer community has to live with, she believes.

Another example is Sarah, who identifies as pansexual but labels herself a lesbian for sake of simplicity. She welcomes ‘queer’ as an umbrella term because of its obvious norm critical connotations and resistance to assimilation. She explicitly opposes the common gay jargon ‘sexuality-is-not-a-choice’: ‘I don’t experience it this way myself. Why can’t this be a choice for some and not for others?’ She goes on to critique the GRS transition for attempts to assimilate trans people into gender stereotypes.

Iris, a young activist who also has been active in the disabled movement, deliberately identifies as queer since lesbianism for her means to please people who need to locate people in a specific identity. She critiques the gender binary and rejects normalization as a way to equal rights. We should get rid of ‘this bullshit, this is a stupid system anyway’, she says.

Katherine is a middle-aged woman who identifies as lesbian and has been active in the Icelandic queer movement. She addresses what she perceives as conservative views in the queer community and prejudice against other groups such as bisexual and trans. She is inclusive, but explicitly skeptical of what she sees as too much emphasis on transsexual medicine and GRS at the cost of a non-gender conforming stance.

Thus, respondents from the queer activist community certainly had a range of views on the gender binary and the gender order. Some were critical of policies and practices that seem to reinforce gender binaries, thus seeming to have a more radical stance on critiquing and queering the gender order. Others such as Sarah and Nora note that there are a range of views in the community on the gender binary and see the contradictions as a part of the diversity of the queer and trans community.

Trans and rejection of transnormativity

The interviews with our trans participants reflect various views on identity, gender, and the gender order. This manifests itself within the trans community in highly different views, ranging from an essentialist gender binary to a more subversive understanding on how they create and manage their own trans or queer subjectivity. The language of identities and the group formations among our respondents are very fluid; language reflects identity as well as an underlying understanding of sex and gender and therefore we explore the issue in the following. We were conscious of the question of whether to categorize respondents’ identities. Valentine’s (2004) critique of ‘the categories themselves’, that is of ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity’, was based on the idea that people of the New York ballroom scene did not use the categories that were imposed on them and had a more complex way of talking about identity.

We found this to be true in how our participants saw identity. Some people choose language consciously for political reasons or they may use terms that reflect implicit ideas. Others have strong feelings and opinions, though their responses to our interview questions were less concise. The way our respondents categorize themselves and make sense of their self-identification gives insight into how they negotiate their, often contradictory, position as a marginalized group. This raises another issue, which is the purpose of defeating categories; is it in order to assimilate to the existing gender order or is it to disrupt altogether the categories of sexuality and gender (Currah, 2006)?

Different participants had different views of the terms trans woman and trans man (Bettcher, 2014). One example of a person who proudly identifies as trans is Donna, a middle-aged trans woman who stresses the commonality of all women and the need for feminism in the trans movement. She sees trans women as still another manifestation of the variety of women in line with black women, lesbian women, disabled women, etc. Andrew is a young trans man in the group of our respondents who represents a common view: ‘I would say that I’m a trans man … I was born with parts of a female body and I had to go through this correction and that makes me a trans man all my life.’ Embodiment is central in Andrew’s self-expression; he noted that he was born with ‘parts of a female body’. While the younger ones among our respondents are very critical of the medical framework of trans issues, this view is very common, reflecting the official and institutionalized understanding in Iceland of trans as GID, gender identity disorder. Although Andrew is comfortable with this categorization, like other respondents he questions the pathologization that comes with it. Betty, a young trans woman, defines herself as a woman but uses ‘trans woman’ strategically and politically when needed, to point out and make visible her trans position, but does not use it personally. ‘Of course I’m transsexual’, she points out, since she went through her transition but it is nothing she is preoccupied with or needs to stress.

This is in clear contrast to others who rejected the term trans altogether. However, people reject the term for different reasons, and refer to and reflect over discourses and meanings attached to the term in the trans community. We are told that some may object to the term trans since it is not Icelandic, reflecting the strong tradition on language preservation, though these views may be more complicated. Others may want to simply identify as a woman or as a man, and do not see ‘trans’ as part of their identity after transition. Still others may rightly fear violence if they live openly as trans. Jenny, a young trans woman is an example of this. Despite having chosen to be very public as a trans person, she is troubled with the term trans. She is bothered by the ‘taboo’ of talking about ‘a sex change’, which she feels is the best way to understand the GRS transition as it indeed points to the biology. She does not identify as trans, nor transsexual or transgender. She identifies as a woman with a transsexual background and feels that she fits best into the group ‘woman’: ‘You know, I just feel that I identify much more with women, and if I feel that if I face any differentiation then it is mostly because I’m barren, you understand.’ Jenny expresses an intricate and contradictory relationship to biology, on the one hand accepting the term ‘sex change’ while at the same time referring to biological capacities (childbearing) that exclude her from the category women.

We found that some of the younger trans participants had a more subversive understanding on their own trans subjectivity. They are more critical towards GRS as well as its underlying ideas and ideology. This is clearly demonstrated in the views towards the trans community and in particular the association Trans Iceland (TÍ). TÍ was founded in 2007 as a social platform and for supportive purposes by a group of trans people, mostly transsexual women. TÍ has always been a small and informal forum focusing on the transition and personal support, while political activism has been in the background. According to our participants people in the lead have often been persons working with their own transition, which is a complex process (Connell, 2012). We found a considerable difference between the views of the trans participants, how they identify themselves and perceive the role of TÍ. The older in the group may be critical towards the medicalization of trans issues but tend to take a pragmatic stance. They tend to identify as trans or transsexual and see the medicalization and pathologization of trans issues as a necessary evil to secure the accessibility of GRS and transsexual medicine. Some of the younger participants are more critical, both of identifying themselves as trans as well as in their views towards the medical framework and the entire transition process. In some respect they seem to take for granted what the older participants had to fight for.

The difference we discerned between the older and the younger participants’ approach towards TÍ reflects different circumstances and lived experience. Teresa, who is a middle-aged woman, identifying as transsexual, is pragmatic and realistic while also sensitive to the generational gap and tensions between different groups. She is critical of TÍ, which she finds too focused on transsexual people, leaving out other groups who often did not feel they were welcome: ‘And then I’m talking about people who we can call transgender, or even transvestite. They don’t feel that they fit in. Or they are simply driven away.’

Teresa was living abroad when she underwent her GRS. Her generation had to deal with the ‘feeling of shame’ connected to transsexual issues and the advice they got from the medical specialists was to keep a low profile and be silent. Today Teresa is drained after longstanding activism and wants life to be more than trans. Her narrative reflects the contradiction of a life-long trans existence that differs from Reshea’s, another middle-aged woman identifying as trans. Reshea feels that ‘solidarity’ characterizes the trans group, which is small and close knit, and even like ‘one family’. There are always some people who choose to leave the group, she says, or stop identifying as trans after transitioning or surgery and just want to fit in. Interestingly, she exclusively focuses on transsexual people.

The voices of the younger generation are in a stark contrast to Reshea’s. While some of them certainly agree on the importance of the social part of TÍ, there are downsides. The good side of the ‘cafe feel’ is that people can come into a safe space to meet and talk, even though they go their own way once they are confident enough. But much more common were views that TÍ was like a ‘sewing group’, which is a recurrent term in addition to expressions such as ‘countless tea parties’ and ‘dramas’.

Two of the younger trans persons, Olivia and Pat, are especially critical of the emphasis on trans identity and the trans community in TÍ. Olivia is in the process of GRS transition and Pat is not aiming for a transition and rejects categorization. Pat refers to her/himself either as he or she, and has both a male and female name. Both talk about TÍ as a ‘sewing group’ mainly fighting for acceptance and assimilation, and for making the system ‘accessible, simple and affordable’ according to Olivia.

The young people’s skepticism got its clearest and most significant manifestation in the term ‘transnormative’, which both Olivia and Pat use to describe TÍ. And Olivia explains the term: ‘The main characteristics of the Icelandic trans movement is normalizing … If you’re MTF, for example, male to female transsexual, then you must be the stereotypical woman, be in a very good condition … hmm … docile and quiet, and just be as feminine as possible. But if you’re an FTM then you should be as masculine as possible, and if you don’t fit into these categories than you are not welcome in the Icelandic trans community.’

They emphasize that those among the younger who are not transsexual, or aiming for transition, feel excluded, as revealed in the following statement by Pat: ‘I know that young people don’t feel they are welcome in Trans Iceland. Not that they think that they are not welcome, they just don’t feel the atmosphere in Trans Iceland meetings as welcoming.’ Pat then goes on to explain how trans men did not find the atmosphere in TÍ inviting; ‘there were, indeed, very transnormative trans women talking about their surgeries and children, extremely normalizing discussion’. Pat says that the excluding atmosphere in TÍ has resulted in subgroup formations. Hence, trans men are sticking together, having their social gatherings ‘drinking beer and playing video games’. Another group formation consists of the younger people – with trans men intersecting with the younger group.

Pat is one who goes the farthest in breaking boundaries in her/his own personal self-identification. It is therefore all the more interesting that Pat who (critically) explains group formations as reinforcing gender binaries at the same time refers to the different atmosphere and activities of the groups on gendered terms, men ‘drinking beer and playing video games’, women drinking coffee, discussing kids and drama.