Introduction to Transness

August 20, 2013 2:31 PM

A brief overview of the history and significant concepts applicable to the development and understanding of a transcentric approach to the dignity, civil rights, and human rights of trans people: Introduction to Transness (scribd link), by Antonia D'orsay.

Alternative PDF link in this post. Recently completed and released by the author.

posted by ArmyOfKittens (9 comments total)

I'm sure this could contain some very interesting and important information, but it is so badly written that I could only manage a few pages before setting it aside. This reads like a badly-researched term paper.
posted by xingcat at 2:48 PM on August 20, 2013 [1 favorite]

Oh awesome. Thanks for posting this. I read an earlier version when it was going around as a blog post and found it really thought-provoking — though unfortunately, like xingcat, I also had a lot of trouble following the writing in places. It looks like this has been greatly expanded, and I'm looking forward to seeing what she's done with it.
posted by Now there are two. There are two _______. at 2:58 PM on August 20, 2013

Yeah, I suppose maybe it is a work in progress? It does read like a cross between a blog post and a term paper, that may be what I and others am finding so jarring - that sort of stylistic dissonance?

For example, the claim about the Psychopathia Sexualis giving rise to the most offensive LGBT stereotypes is something interesting, I'd love to see (in a scholarly paper) where she got that data, or (in a blogpost) her ideas.

Skimming it seems to let me pick up the ideas without having those two halves talking across each other though. It does seem interesting.
posted by corb at 3:08 PM on August 20, 2013

Fascinating.

Agree, the style is bizarre. Feels more like a transcription of some sort of glorious, impromptu, 12 hour filibuster on transness.
posted by dontjumplarry at 3:16 PM on August 20, 2013 [4 favorites]

I think my favorite part is still the idea that she opens with — that the anti-crossdressing laws passed after the Civil War must have been in response to something, and so we can use them to infer that there were trans people on the frontier at that point even if we don't have direct evidence.

It's not that I find the argument 100% airtight. But it does a fantastic job of making trans erasure vivid. And there's something about the idea that there might have been these people whose only trace in recorded history was a law passed against them — somehow it's even more poignant to me than if they'd left no trace at all.
posted by Now there are two. There are two _______. at 3:44 PM on August 20, 2013 [10 favorites]

This is only 83 pages long. Does anyone know of an extended introduction to transness?
posted by Hatashran at 6:18 PM on August 20, 2013

*aggressively takes the preceding comment seriously*

She's apparently planning a "trans 201" at some point.
posted by ArmyOfKittens at 6:26 PM on August 20, 2013 [4 favorites]

Thank you for the alternate PDF link. Scribd always gives me trouble.
posted by jiawen at 8:42 PM on August 20, 2013 [2 favorites]

that the anti-crossdressing laws passed after the Civil War must have been in response to something

Not necessarily in response to the existence of trans* people as we understand them perhaps, but to the fairly widespread phenomenom of young women running away to the front during the Civil War to become soldiers?
posted by MartinWisse at 12:58 AM on August 21, 2013