By Jack Halberstam
Every few weeks, I get an email from a colleague, a friend or a student asking me what pronoun I prefer. I mostly go by “Jack” nowadays, although people who have known me for a really long time and some family members still call me Judith. Then there are a few people, my sister included, who call me “Jude.” I have debated switching out Jack for Jude to try to compress the name ambiguity into a more clear opposition between Judith and Jude. But then again–and contrary to my personality or my politics–when it comes to names and pronouns, I am a bit of a free floater. This goes against my instincts and my general demeanor – I don’t hang in the middle ground on much, not politically, not socially, not in terms of culture, queer issues, feminism or masculinity. I am a person of strong opinions so why, oh why, do I insist on being loosey goosey about pronouns?
Well, a few reasons: first, I have not transitioned in any formal sense and there certainly many differences between my gender and those of transgender men on hormones. Second, the back and forth between he and she sort of captures the form that my gender takes nowadays. Not that I am often an unambiguous “she” but nor am I often an unambiguous he. Third, I think my floating gender pronouns capture well the refusal to resolve my gender ambiguity that has become a kind of identity for me.
I watch friends, one after the other, transition, mostly from butch to TG male and I wonder whether I am just sitting on a fence and not wanting to jump. But actually, as a real medi-phobe, I don’t see taking hormones, even in small doses as right for me for any extended amount of time. Top surgery? Well, yes please, but then again, would this make it even harder for me to use the women’s locker room when I swim or work out (and I do one or the other almost every day so that would really be something to think about). So, while I could “transition” and still live in the ever-evolving, improvised territory of transgenderism…well, I prefer not to.
Yes, like Bartleby, that wonderful and doleful example of a refusenik who declined to explain his refusal to work, to comply, to communicate even, I prefer not to transition. I prefer not to clarify what must categorically remain murky. I prefer not to help people out in their gender quandaries and yet, I appreciate you asking.
I still use women’s restrooms and I avoid any and all contact on going in or coming out. If someone looks frightened when they see me, I say “excuse me” and allow my “fluty” voice to gender me. If someone looks angry, I turn away but mostly I just ignore what is going on around me in the restroom and do what I am there to do.
I wish more people would behave like my partner’s son (he’s 9 years old) and simply ask, politely and without judgement, what pronoun anyone prefers – he rarely presumes and often asks. I also wish more people would adapt to a pronoun system based on gender and not on sex, based on comfort rather than biology, based on the presumption that there are many gendered bodies in the world and “male” and “female” does not even begin the hard work of classifying them.
So, if you are wondering about my pronoun use and would like it resolved once and for all, I cannot help you there. But if, like the UK in the 1980’s, you are ready to give up on the “imperial” systems of measurements in favor of new metrics, then consider my gender improvised at best, uncertain and mispronounced more often than not, irresolvable and ever shifting.
And ps: grouping me with someone else who seems to have a female embodiment and then calling us LADIES, is never, ever ok!
Interesting post. I have a transgendered cousin who prefers “he.” He goes by the name Shawn, which is the name his parents gave him at birth. I wonder what role names that are more gender-neutral have in this conversation?
I have to say that I sometimes mess up and say “she,” then trip and say, “oh, I’m sorry, he.” Those trips and slips are interesting. Maybe the point is that gender and sex are complicated, that complication is woven into our language, and people mess up sometimes. It’s ok to admit that anxiety exists w/ these things, and ok to admit that gender essentialism can pop up at any point – even when people are good intentioned.
there is always s/HE or S/he for those floating above, within, and between. Or make up a new gender pronoun one word that captures the paragraph of gender description. Knowing what you are NOT helps you find what your ARE or Becoming. Sean S
Thanks for the entry. I also decided not to transition for lots of reasons: the valorization of all things male, the medical aspect, which made me queasy, the way people began to treat me with more respect when I announced my plan to transition, the way women began to treat me, the loss of a lesbian identity, whatever that means. The whole thing got to be too much, too serious, too fixed. I began to re-read a lot of radical feminist writing from the 70’s.
I wrote a collection of essays about starting and then stopping the process, called Walking the Plank. I’m very glad I didn’t transition, although my partner and many friends have done so very happily. I think, for me, it was almost harder not to transition. I remain defiantly myself; quite possibly the most “authentic” identity I can muster. I have no desire to claim male any more. In fact, I’d like to eradicate most of what attaches to it. I also lost my desire to distance myself from other women. “She” suits me just fine; “Lady” still sends me raging.
There is so much misogyny that I can’t isolate any of the elements of male or female. It way too overdetermined, so I am abandoning the project in favor of choosing female and embodying it my way.
I really appreciated this post and there is a lot here I can relate to more in desire than in reality. Which brings me to my point, I think will all conversations of radical identities I regularly detect the assumption of a post class world. For example, in my work I could never launch such a public conversation, it would be social suicide, not to mention make my ability to advance near impossible. This discussion is so far from so many people’s reality it is almost elitist, but that being said I am not trying to shut it down or play in to horrid identity politics. I guess I would like to open up a dialogue about radical genders and the everyday, the compromises of work and play.
I support your ambiguity.
Isn’t it ironic that “ambiguity/fluidity” is actually the *product* of a gender-binary system and does not exist as ontoloigcally prior to the binary? Without taking into consideration how ambiguity/fluidity is produced, it’s sort of a contradiction to insinuate that trans = static whereas gender ambiguous/indeterminate = fluid.
There’s a bigger picture here that’s missing – that is *all* the ways that those supposedly static trans bodies resist gender normativity every day. We can’t so easily walk away from own own difficult embodiments (or “turn away”) without the possibility of great harm done to our beings. I’d never argue with anyone’s choice to live as gender non-conforming and visibly so. It’s just that there’s an undertone here that suggests it’s so much easier – and more static – to be identified as transgender or using a singular pronoun. There are many ways to refuse gender normativity; not medically transitioning is only one of those ways. Implicit here is the opposite of a hierarchy of realiness: privileging destabilized/fluid gender presentation really gets us no farther when there are so many ways to resist complusory gender norms whether we refuse medical intervention or not.
I sort of think arguments about “fluid” gender presentation without a lived politics don’t get us very far. It’s *how* we live, not just how we look, that matters. Seems to me if we live in resistance to gender it does not matter whether we live our politics through a “fluid” body or a seemingly stable body. Athough the latter’s a specious cliam since most trans* bodies–even medicalized ones–are not entirely unreadable, stable and invulnerable. Fact is, most of us don’t seamlessly “pass” no matter how hard some folks might try.
There are a lot of assumptions here about judgements I am supposedly making about people who transition. I am not exactly arguing for fluidity or ambiguity so much as indeterminacy and irresolvability and even illegibility. I don’t classify trans people as “gender normative” in this short piece nor am I implying that my illegible gender is transgressive compared to someone else’s more readable gender status. I also do not understand at all what it would mean to think about “how we live” separate from “how we look.” What is living in “resistance to gender” furthermore?
This post “on pronouns” is just one statement about pronouns, gender confusion (in the best sense) and the unresolved ambiguities that define most forms of embodiment. It is not meant to stand in opposition to your choices and your sense of self, body or gender.
It’s interesting the one post you decide to respond to is the only one not simply agreeing with you Jack. Chill. My comments were/are part of a larger conversation – being held here and elsewhere – these issues are nothing new.
You asked (of me?) some questions, so here are some clarifiications:
“How we live” is perhaps not separate from “how we look.” I simply think even those of us who appear gender congruent (?), “readable” instead of “illegible,” can live in “resistance to gender.” We do this, like you, not just in terms of how we appear as gender non-conforming, but also in terms of our actions, politics, modes of being-in-the-world, ethics, etc. Resistance means to consciously oppose *normative* gender imperatives. This can be likened to white people who are anti-racist. White people are impicated in structures of racism by virtue of the benefits we/they receive, yet white people can still resist racism/racist social structures even as we embody a privileged relationship to the norm. My original comment was made (obliquely) in relation to what someone else said in response to your post – it was not directed at you.
Fair enough that you’re not “implying that (your) more illegilble gender is transgressive compared to someone else’s more readable gender status.” However, if you said this to me–someone who has medically transitioned as a trans guy, who is normatively “male” appearing, then I’d tell you that my gender is no more “readable” than yours. I may have gained some modicum of increased comfort in my body–and as a white, trans guy I have certainly gained some relative privilege (as long as nobody knows I’m trans), however, my legibility vis-a-vis normative gender categories is no more accurate now than it was as a trans-masculine butch. Probably even less so.
My main concern was not simply what you wrote, Jack. It’s how people are going to (and are) interpreting what you wrote.
I do think what you wrote runs dangerously close to implying–not overtly–that those of us who transition and/or identify with one pronoun/gender are more static and less fluid than people like you. You made the comparison by bringing other bodies into your analysis; it’s not something I’m reading into what you wrote. My take is that we are all trading one formation of illegibility for another(s). What I’m trying to say that this whole “legible” vs “illegible”– readability–issue is another false binary. It’s really not all that politically useful.
I have no personal argument with you. What concernes me is the lack of nuance in your claims; your claims are set against (i.e., reference) other genders and bodies that are different than yours. That’s what leads people like me to want to respond about our own “illegibility.” It’s also what leads others to potentially mis-read, and mis-use, what you wrote.
Anyway, good job generating dialogue. I generally don’t participate in these discussions, so there must have been something–other than a friend drawing my attention to your blog–that prompted my reponse. I certainly hope that genuine dialogue across our (apparent) differences is welcome.
Nice post Jack. I like you have lived in my gender ambiguity for 44 years and have no desire to be anything other than who I am. This is MY natural born experience of the world and of the people in it and how we interact. Our responses to one another is all an experiential lesson – one that ultimately teaches me that there is more to human experience than outward physical form. If its hard then I grow all the more strength from over coming the tests. If others feel uncomfortable or unsure of how to interact with me then that’s a challenge only they can overcome – it is not up to me to change my appearance and preferences to comfort them. When each one of us wakes up to the fact that our enculturation is largely responsible for all our narrow and fearful beliefs we will all be free to live our lives as pure authentic individuals. May that day be close!
Wow…what an empowered voice!
Well said! And thank you. For saying it. I talk about this all of the time and the curious look I get on people’s faces means, not just that they are thinking about it, and may be uncomfortable, but that they are also trying to understand.
Thanks for writing this: a lot of it applies to me too.
Thank you for writing this: it articulates a lot of what I try to say about myself.
I hear ya and your gender pronoun stuff. I do prefer he to she. Always have. Like you, a little kid I played Speedball (lead up game to Soccer) and have jocked it up ever since and called a boy or asked; are you a boy or a girl my younger life. I am taken for a guy in my adult life=I pass. I have not and will never have surgery or transition to a male body. I have been a jock all my life and love my body flying through the air, earlier sinking under the leg layup shots. I have never embraced or identified with anything feminine or female my entire life, albeit I do not run from my own vulnerabilities and sensitivities seen as feminine traits contrary to my own views of this. Like you, my love, lust and relationships were with straight women. I love that dance. And, these were the best relationships in my life. Get this – the one or two times I became involved with lesbians my masculinity was a real problem for them. Wrong dance! I use the term Transmasculinity to define myself and others like me. In my recently published novel I write of growing up Transmasucline in early America – yeah, I go back that far–still in this century though. :-/ Please have a look at my online book website; wwwamaverickbooks.info. It’s a story that includes your style today and my own and very similar too in the early growing and developmental years. My best to your partner and family. Thanks for all you are doing for our worldly family!
Hey Jack,
thank you, my assistant pointed this Blog out me saying this is almost exactly what I say –
And I have been writing it in my head for some time.
And I find it so interesting that in our queer communities folks still often do not like the fluidity – it is expected from outside but its always a shock to me from inside.
I thought my photo based work 2004 GenderStupid http://sdholman.com/galleries/gender-stupid/
might amuse you.
cheers and thanks again for all the work you do
SD Holman
aka Shaira…
I call Sid my Safety name
This is absolutely great! Thank you very much! I thought I’d be the only one with this problem/situation. Thanks a lot for providing a solution.
Hi Jack.
I was wondering whether you had considered using, should you wish to ever use pronouns at all, gender neutral ones such as they/them/theirs, or even zie/zir/zem, xe/xir/xem etc. These neutral pronouns encapsulate the ambiguity of self for many people.
Of course, if you are happier with no pronouns being used, with your name being used instead, or with a combination of he and she being used, then that’s also all good and wonderful.
Pronouns should indeed be used for gender and comfort rather than attached nonsensically to one’s sex.
Regards,
A queer theory student.
Jack, thank you for this post. Could you point me towards people who have described or theorized or thought about non-binary gender identity that comes in all forms and bodies? I feel like your post hints at that, but what would it mean for an AFAB femme to be trans non-binary (basically, not “look” trans at all, hence feel pressured to present more masculine just to stop the assumptions), because that’s who I am right now and in search of narratives to help me make sense of me. Thank you.