Feminists have often used the experience of transgender individuals in their theory – to prove a point, to explore an issue, or even to point out an interesting case, a fascinating specimen of humanity. This essay will attempt to do the opposite – not to use trans people as an accessory to theory, but to show how their experiences are relevant to already-existing feminist concepts and critiques. This essay will demonstrate that trans women have a place in feminist discourse, focusing on feminist theory surrounding the body – particularly the “ideal” female body and the medicalization of identity.

The construction of society’s “ideal woman” has long been problematized by feminist thought, which points out how this concept is used to marginalize women with nonstandard or “non-ideal” bodies. Nancy Mairs writes:

I’ve spent most of my life (together with probably at least 95 percent of the female population of the United States) suffering from the shame of falling short of an unattainable standard. The ideal woman of my generation [had] blond hair pulled up into a bouncing ponytail. Wide blue eyes, a turned-up nose with maybe a scattering of golden freckles across it, a small mouth with full lips over straight white teeth. Her breasts were large but well harnessed high on her chest; her tiny waist flared to hips just large enough to give the crinolines of her circle skirt a starting push… (Mairs, 87)

Why not add, to this list of traits that our society requires of the ideal woman, two X chromosomes, a vagina, breasts, ovaries, a high voice? Trans women are marginalized for their lack of idealized feminine traits as are disabled women, women of color, older women, fat women, and others whose bodies are not accepted by society. Mairs writes that, as a wheelchair user, she is “not, by their standards, quite a person anymore,” (Mairs, 89). This dehumanization is something that trans women face every day, when they are regarded as freaks or as fascinating case studies rather than simply as women, as people. Many feminist writers have expressed their frustration at the fact that in our society, privileged groups are the arbiters of womanhood and personhood. A key tenet of feminism is that this should not be so. It should not be left to men to decide what a woman is – but neither should it be left to cisgender people. Refusal to accept trans women as women (or for that matter, insistence on regarding trans men as women) is just another iteration of society’s policing of women’s bodies.

The exclusion of trans women from womanhood is part of a cultural view that feminism has long opposed: that biology is destiny, that an individual’s personality and societal role are defined by hir genetic characteristics. A woman must possess two X chromosomes, and these chromosomes must dictate and limit every facet of her life. These arguments are inseparable, and both of them externalize control of women’s identity. Susan Bordo writes that the medical model of an identity or condition “requires the exorcising of all pre-modern notions that the body might obey a spiritual, emotional, or associational rather than a purely mechanical logic,” (Bordo, 66). This concept – that the body’s meaning is static, unchangeable, already written – is at work in the argument that biology is destiny.

The medical model is another topic that often comes up in feminist discourse surrounding the body. Many feminists have written about medical models of disability or eating disorders. They have discussed  the way that medical models can pathologize women and subject them to a doctor-knows-best mentality even when it comes to their own bodies and experiences. Susan Bordo writes: “Since the seventeenth century, science has ‘owned’ the study of the body and its disorders. This proprietorship requires that the body’s meanings be utterly transparent and accessible to the qualified specialist (aided by the appropriate methodology and technology) and utterly opaque to the patient herself,” (Bordo, 66). This is absolutely the case in the treatment of gender-variant individuals. In order to be “officially” transgender or gender-nonconforming, an individual must be diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder, sometimes by doctors with only the narrowest idea of what makes a “true” transsexual. The simple requirement that Gender Identity Disorder be diagnosed prioritizes the doctor’s interpretation of the patient’s body over the patient’s, and assumes that the meaning of the patient’s experiences is “utterly opaque to the patient herself.” It also makes (often cisgender) medical professionals the guardians of transgender identity, conferring upon them the power to weed out “true” transsexuals from “false” ones. Doctors can then dole out or withhold hormone treatments and Sexual Reassignment Surgery accordingly (Spade).

The importance of diagnosis is common to any medical model. Unlike social models, medical models curtail discussion of the cultural or political aspects of an identity or condition. The medical model of neurodiversity, for example, has separate diagnoses, treatments, and expectations of  “low-functioning autistics,” “high-functioning autistics,” and “Aspergers’ sufferers.” These distinctions keep neurotypicals in control of the discourse surrounding neurodiversity. A common catch-22 used to dismiss the concerns of autistic self-advocates is to invalidate their perspectives because they must not be “real autistics” – “real autistics” cannot speak for themselves. The medicalization of eating disorders has a similar consequence: Susan Bordo writes about medical professionals’ attempts “to distinguish between anorexia and ‘anorexic-like behavior,’ ‘true anorectics’ and ‘me, too, anorectics,’ ‘bulimic thinking’ and normal female ‘weight-preoccupation,’” (Bordo, 65). Bordo argues that these imposed distinctions are often used to prevent discussion of the cultural causes of eating disorders, and to justify our culture’s “female ‘weight-preoccupation’” by distinguishing it from disordered behavior.

The medical model of transgender and transsexualism functions in a similar way. Doctors often use blatant gender stereotypes as diagnostic tools. Dean Spade’s essay “Mutilating Gender” deals largely with his frustration with this aspect of the medical sector. Spade seeks both to have a mastectomy and to retain his own gender identity, which is more fluid and ambiguous than doctors consider proper for a transsexual man. “In order to obtain the medical intervention I am seeking,” Spade writes, “I need to prove my membership in the category ‘transsexual’ – prove that I have GID – to the proper authorities. Unfortunately, stating my true objectives is not convincing them,” (Spade, 326). Trans women are subjected to the same stereotyping and gender policing when they seek diagnosis and treatment. Spade notes that one doctor “diagnosed male-to-female transsexuals by bullying them: ‘The ‘girls’ cry, the gays get aggressive,’” (Spade, 326). These requirements – that trans people have binary gender identities, that trans women not be aggressive – are only a few on a long list of “diagnostic criteria” that trans people often encounter. Some treatment programs have considered that to be transsexual, an individual must be heterosexual as well – transitioning will then “save” these patients from perceived homosexuality. The diagnostic criteria for Gender Identity Disorder in children rely only on gender stereotypes and conventional ideas of gender-appropriate behavior (Spade, 320).

These diagnostic requirements spring from medical professionals’ determination to “create” only the most gender-appropriate men and women. Just as the medical model of disability limits our understanding of variation in the human mind, and the medical model of eating disorders curtails discussion of the cultural anxieties surrounding weight, the medical model of transgender reinforces gender stereotypes that harm us all. In feminist discussions of the way that medical models pathologize and restrict women, the experience of transgender women should not be ignored.

Why is it important to  include trans women in feminist discourse? Because they are already there. Trans women are oppressed by the same societal forces and attitudes which oppress all women – the construction of the ideal woman, the medicalization of identity, workplace sexism and employment discrimination, victim-blaming in cases of rape, assault, and murder. This oppression is aggravated by the fact that trans women belong to another marginalized group, as is the case for women of color, disabled women, working-class women, et cetera. According to bell hooks, feminism is a movement to end sexist oppression – not just the sexist oppression of white women, or of rich women, or of cisgender women, but sexist oppression in all its forms. Until cisgender feminists include trans women in their discussions and critiques, they will not be advocating feminism – they will simply be advocating for themselves.

Works Cited

Bordo, Susan. “Whose Body is This?” Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1995. 45-69.

Mairs, Nancy. Carnal Acts. Boston: Beacon Press, 1996.

Spade, Dean. “Mutilating Gender.” The Transgender Studies Reader. Florence, Kentucky: Routledge, 2006.

Wilchins, Riki Anne. Read My Lips: Sexual Subversion and the End of Gender. Ann Arbor: Firebrand Books, 1997.