Gender/Fucking: The Enjoyment and Politicians of Living in a Stereotyped Body by Florence Ashley is an erotic-academic combination that draws from the author’s personal lived practice as a transfeminine activist and researcher. In their confrontational variety, they delve into the subtleties of inhabiting a sexist system within a universe that oscillates between cruelty and brief moments of tenderness. Ashley’s set celebrates the wonderfully chaotic crossing of sexuality and personality with sincere personal reflections on subjects like the misogyny of transgender bodies, the difficulties and excitement of surgical recovery, and navigating moments of despair and trauma.
Ashley spoke with Truthout‘s Zane McNeill about their publication, the continuing political assaults against LGBTQ areas, and the importance of embracing the romantic as a resource to visualize what embodied liberation may seem like.
Zane McNeill: In the foreword to your publication, you say that the “erotic is essence, feeling”. Can you describe what “bodily theories” are and how you view the relationship between gender and independence?
Florence Ashley: Our systems serve as mental storage. Our systems are publications and sites of information in and of themselves. When I experience trembling, fatigue, thirst, arousedness, breathlessness at the effect of a lover, or when I have butterflies or pits in my chest, these things all tell me something about the world I live in. We frequently forget about knowledge in terms of bodily sensations when we do n’t consider it to be as important as thinking, seeing, or hearing.
Nothing is this truer than for intimacy, I have found. We’ve been taught that arousal is a process that alters, perverts, and destroys information. Seldom do we know that it is something we can take away from. Without selling the blow very much, I suspect that this is a form of social power. We are easier to control and utilize if we are afraid of our sexuality, of having bodies that have needs and desires. My goal was to help readers and I feel our way and interact with the romantic as a source of knowledge by focusing on intimacy. And, in so doing, probably identify and demand what we are owed.
Queer and trans studies researchers have a tendency to desexualize transgender and gay body. You also mention in your book that” the oversexualization of gay and trans systems is one of the primary vector of oppression” for trans people. Can you speak about why it is important to heart transgender people’s reports about the romantic and the embodied?
Some trans people feel deeply shamed for having sexual desires or being sexual because they have been sexualized. It’s difficult not to know that I do, but I do. When you’re transgender, you’re bombarded by people calling you a paedophile, delinquent, monster or grooming for little more than heroic to exist in the world. Additionally, you are taught that it’s all you’re great for. On the website for black and orange, you belong in a hobby type.
Distancing yourself from your own gender can be a way to respond to that, to cope with that. However, I do n’t believe everyone will benefit from it because many of us continue to engage in sex and endure the shame associated with it. I prefer to take it head-on. Centering the smut of transitude is a way of capturing the complexity of transgender living in the hopes that it will personalize us.
I primarily desired transfeminine people to be seen, and that’s why I’ve been so glad that the book’s most consistent positive feedback has been that it caused readers to cry in a healing method. Beyond that, I wanted people who do n’t share these experiences to see echoes of their own messiness in them as well as the depths of our feelings. Because this is a reserve about transitude but it’s also not. What it is is a book that examines the chaos of mortal existence through the camera of my own transience. Being a mortal life in a system is only a miniature of the chaos of my transitude.
If we’re afraid of our sex, of having systems with needs and desires, we’re easier to control and abuse.
As you pointed out, so much of anti-trans language is based on the falsehoods that trans people are groomers, sexual deviants, etc. to complete anti-trans laws that threaten transgender people’s security. The Heritage Foundation in the U. S. has actually gone so far as naming transness itself as vulgar in an attempt to remove trans people from public life fully. How does your work challenge these oppressive myths and counteract them?
In many ways, at least not with this book, I do n’t. I do n’t believe … well, I’m just not talking to them. I’m not speaking to people who might or may not hate me. I’m speaking with those who want to eke out a temporary restraint from the world’s hatred. People who want to stop and look inward rather than outward. Instead of dismissing the hatred, consider taking a break and reflecting. You’ve had a really difficult few days, so you make a blanket fort, make a cup of your favorite tea, lie on the floor, and watch the ceiling while letting all the feelings and thoughts flow through you like cars passing by on a highway in the middle of nowhere? That’s the atmosphere that best suits my book. And so far as I can tell readers when and how to read, all I want to say is that I am not here to discuss the haters, even when I am referring to them by name. It’s by happy accident on the way to a feeling, to the extent that I counter and confront misconceptions.
In your book, you talk about how queer and trans people often find each other, even before they are out. For instance, trans people refer to people as “eggs” when they have n’t realized they are trans. There is a joke about how everyone is waiting for the one transgender heterosexual man in a group to realize she’s trans and” crack.” In my life, my ex used to poke fun at me because everyone I dated thought they were cis before meeting me, but then after dating me realized they were trans. She used to refer to me as the Easter Bunny because I discovered and broke so many eggs. However, transgender identity critics seem to view this as a” social contagion” rather than as transgender people finding community and empowerment through reciprocal connection.
What was that saying? In a cold, cisheteronormative world, we assemble like penguins huddling for warmth. That was the response to a now-deleted Tumblr questioning the likelihood that everyone in a group of friends is queer. I actually tried to include the quote in my academic paper on rapid onset gender dysphoria but had to remove it during revisions.
When you discover your people, there is something magical about it. In any case, it’s probably the closest I’ve ever come to believe in magic. It’s those people who apprehend desires you did n’t even realize you had. People who surround themselves with hidden truths that humming all the way from your bones use their resonance to make your bones sing. Is it surprising that so many trans people come out after discovering who they are? Even if they did n’t know they were trans before? And perhaps that’s contagion, but is there anything else worth cherishing that is more than a contagion of respect, intimacy, and authenticity? If that’s bad, then I’m bad in every way.
Building off that, in your book you talk about the messiness, and rewards, of being t4t ( a trans person who looks for other trans people to date ). What are the liberatory and challenging aspects of relationships between two transgender people?
In addition to the fact that we’re sexy and awesome, the simplest reason trans people enjoy dating each other is that you do n’t have to be as afraid or overly sensitive to transphobia. It’s a huge load off your brain.
However, I believe that we do it as a means of loving ourselves, and loving yourself through another is difficult. The promise of loving yourself through another is wonderful when you struggle with self-love. If I love those things in her, maybe I can learn to love them about myself too. If she has a voice like ours but I detest mine, perhaps I’ll be able to develop it in me.
That can also serve as a recipe for disaster. If I hate myself and she is like me, who’s to say I’ll learn to love myself rather than learn to hate her? If I love her because she is like me, who’s to say that I wo n’t try to project my own desires onto her and act as though what I want is what she also wants without realizing it? We’ve created a perfect space for codependency, projection, and transference to the extent that the significance of t4t derives from that self-similarity. That can be dangerous … and that’s not even mentioning secondhand dysphoria!
Do n’t get me wrong. All relationships have problems, and I much prefer to date a transgender person, everything else being equal, even though all other things, of course, never are, especially in matters of the heart. My point is not that t4t relationships are uniquely fraught. That all relationships are complicated, we should n’t overlook. Relationships are always messy. It’s not that t4t is any different. Im Gegenteil, my point is that it is not an exception.
What are so-called” transamorous” men, or chasers, in contrast to t4t relationships? In what ways does the excessive sexualization of transgender women negatively impact and marginalize the transgender community? How does anti-trans sentiment manifest as hostility in laws, policies, and the media as well as as as the objectification of transgender bodies? You can see how you illustrate the contrast between feeling isolated and commodified in your book. ” Like meat, we are disposable. At least that’s what I was taught, you write.
One of the many wonderful open secrets in this word is that oppressors sexualize both those who hate and those who hate them. By sexualizing a group and describing them as sexual deviants, your violence and discrimination becomes” justified”. Just look at the history of anti-Blackness and colonialism to see if it’s new and it’s even remotely relevant to trans people.
The flip side of that has always been that oppressors frequently have sex with those they despise. Whenever you see a rise in animosity toward trans people, you’ll also see trans categories breaking records on porn websites — not incidentally, but from the very same people who claim to despise us.
It would be foolish to believe that trans people are portrayed as having sex with us and do n’t know what to do with their attraction. It’s a common assertion, one that is prevalent in the homophobic politician trope and a closet case. But I do n’t think that’s what is happening here. Instead, let’s consider the apocryphal adage,” Everything is about sex.” Except for sex, which involves power.
Men’s favorite metaphors for sex are hunting and war. Many people in our society recognize and use sex as a form of dominance. Imagine the hatred of women that exist among Incels. Those are not independent facts, they want to fuck women because fucking them is a way to assert control, dominance, power. So it should come as no surprise that those who despise trans people sexually objectify them? Is that not just a psychosexual outlet for the same fervor for dominance that drives their political and legal struggle?
There is this tension in queer life where there is an assumption that the only correct body is the surgically altered one to conform with cisgender society— for example you mention surgeries on intersex babies. You also mention how the changing of bodies has a certain quirk about it. I’ve got to say this in your book, and I’d love to expand on it.” I find it odd how we talk about hormones and surgeries as though they are conforming / our bodies / As I await my surgery, I am confronted with the unquestionable queerness / of stitched- up bodies.” Politicians nationwide in the U. S. are aiming to restrict queer youth’s ability to access gender- affirming care and are seeking to create barriers for transgender adults to receive care too. Why is it crucial for trans people to have access to gender-affirming care, and why does having the option to access some care, regardless of whether or not it is necessary, matter?
One of life’s most enduring quests is to define for ourselves the good and meaningful life and shamelessly pursue it. People will accept tremendous pain and abandon prodigious pleasures to be able to say that they’ve lived life authentically, on their own terms. One of the most crucial of all freedoms is the ability to remain true to that ideal because it gives meaning to so many people.
Gender is one of the identities that most people find most meaning in their lives for many. It’s not hard to understand why, given just how much importance society has given it. In many ways, the ability to be yourself is the ability to live out your gender on your own terms. And having the ability to live out your gender requires a significant amount of gender-affirming care, which has an impact on both how you perceive yourself and others perceive you. And to be clear, it’s not about “being a man”, it’s about being yourself. Being yourself could, of course, enlist in interventions that fit the definition of manhood in society. However, it does n’t have to be that way because trans men do n’t necessarily mean how they want to live their lives.
That’s why I’ve always found it silly when people argue that gender- affirming care should be banned because it does n’t improve our mental health. First of all, it works. But, second of all, it does n’t need to. Gender- affirming care is n’t about surface- level happiness. It’s about being genuine with your sense of self. Happiness is merely a byproduct of that, and it’s a deeper type of happiness.
I ca n’t speak for anyone else, but I’d rather be miserable as myself than live through endless pleasures as someone else.
In your book, you mention “palliative activism” as being” a bittersweet response to the cruel optimism of revolution.” Can you explain what that means and why you think love and community are the best tools for creating liberatory and care-free futures?
Palliative activism is for those of us who are no longer able to hope for a just future. It’s not intended for everyone, so if you can keep on having hope wherever you can. But I’m aware that I’m not the only person who has a sly voice in their head and asks,” What’s the point?” Even if we could beat back the rise of fascism, the planet is on fire and that’ll be the end of us”. I needed an answer because I do n’t want to give up the struggle. I’m trying to resist.
Palliative activism is the answer I gave myself. Perhaps I do n’t need to believe that we’ll defeat oppression. Perhaps it will convince you that our work resembles palliative care in that we make the most of our time and place. And so we craft spaces of care where we can get some respite from the tempest. It’s not about liberal reformism, which stinks. It’s not about being nicer or less obnoxious to those in power. After all, is n’t flipping off the powers that be half the fun left in life? Palliative activism is a mindset that I intend to use as fuel when I run out of hope, before anything else.
Palliative activism is a more melodramatic version of harm reduction, if you wanted to cut through the bullshit. But since I love drama and I have a book to market, I call it palliative activism.
