It is no new phenomenon to see an interaction between gender and sexuality studies, especially so from a feminist perspective. Notably, the (often-cited) French feminist Monique Wittig claimed in the late 70s that lesbians, in their rupture of heteronormativity — an aspect of patriarchy — are not women.
The logic is simple: Patriarchy, as the social producer of gender, determines the two genders to be accepted by society and determines them as opposites, explicitly connected through what we have come to identify as heterosexuality. In other words, the genders of man and woman are defined by their relation to one another. Having been assigned ‘woman’ at birth and refusing the establishment of this connection, lesbians break from the definition imposed by patriarchy, being hurled outside of the man-woman binary and, consequently, are re-socialized as non-women.
Though this may at first seem to be an odd reading to some, especially today, if we analyze the history of the lesbian movement we quickly find proof of its applicability. Lesbians have historically been attacked even from within feminist movements, being kicked out of and barred from “exclusively female” spaces and silenced as “perverts” or even “predators” when fighting for their rights. To this day it’s common to see retaliations against those who don’t perform a traditional form of femininity, which, undoubtedly, includes lesbians – a phenomenon that has been recently exacerbated by anti-trans panic. Of course, lesbian gender expression is very diverse and includes expressions that might be read as normative. However, even these “straight-passing” lesbians may often find themselves alienated from womanhood precisely for their lack of attraction to men.
How, then, does the rhetorical dichotomy of cis and trans fit into this framework? If lesbians are not women, are they automatically trans? Let’s put a pin on these questions for a bit.
Post-birth gender assignment — socialization in practice
Some time ago, I came across an interesting essay by Sophia Burns who, like myself, is both trans and lesbian. In “Assigned Faggot”, Burns describes her experience growing up in a conservative region of the United States and how the production of gender in society, in practice, worked differently than what is traditionally theorized.
In essence, Burns comments that, in practice, there are other genders that are produced by patriarchy (itself always aligned with capitalism) in order to make sense of those who escape the man-woman binary. As the title suggests, Sophia argues that, throughout her youth, her counter-patriarchal behavior had her expelled from the gender ‘man’, to which she was assigned at birth, and hurled her into a new gender, ‘faggot’.
We might consider this process to be analogous to the one those who are assigned ‘woman’ at birth and are eventually categorized as lesbians (or, perhaps more accurately, ‘dykes’) go through. We may also realize, then, that ‘faggot’ and ‘dyke’ are assigned genders (by which we mean, imposed independently of one’s volition) and, therefore, just as ‘man’ and ‘woman’, are capable of being broken.
What is “Cis” and “Trans”? Part 1
Patriarchy, like all hierarchies in current Western and westernized society, is created by and for a dominant class, that of cis, heterosexual (white) men. The cis/trans rhetorical dichotomy was thought of in order to better explain and discuss one axis of gender stratification produced by patriarchy.
Among the articles and essays, scientific or not, that I have read that care to define the terms ‘cis’ and ‘trans’, many have used a similar definition to that given by Jaqueline Gomes de Jesus her guide of concepts and terminology for Gender Identity, from 2012: (translation mine)
We call ‘cisgender’, or ‘cis’, those who identify with the gender that was attributed to them at birth. […] We consider those who are not-cis, those who do not identify with the gender that was assigned to them, ‘transgender’, or ‘trans’.
We encounter a problem, however, when we attempt to consolidate this definition with that of lesbians under a Wittigian view. If we’ve determined that lesbians do not identify as (or, more precisely, are not identified as) the gender they were assigned at birth (woman), they evidently are not cis. However, if we consider that ‘lesbian’ is itself an assigned gender, as we infer from Burns’ essay, they are equally evidently not trans.
Gomes de Jesus avoids this dilemma in her guide by defining “sexual orientation” in the following manner:
Sexual-affectionate attraction towards someone. Internal experience related to sexuality. Different from the personal sense of belonging to a gender.
If we take the position of Wittig and Burns, however, we must be critical of this definition. We cannot simply separate “sexual orientation” from gender because “sexual orientation” is (as defined by patriarchy) a part of gender.
What’s going on here?
We have arrived at an epistemological issue — that is, pertinent to the limits of how we discuss this issue. Our comprehension of gender, sexuality, and their hierarchies is formed by the very terms we use. These terms are themselves grounded in a history of pathologization of certain human behaviors and the normalization of others.
In practice, when using terms such as “homosexual”, we are not discussing “human sexuality”, but rather the interhuman relations produced by the arbitrary categorizations of patriarchy. In other words, sexuality is also a social construct. This is not to say that a woman interested in a man can be categorized as ‘homosexual’, going against the current definition of “homosexuality”, but rather that the very categorizations “woman” and “man” are not natural and, therefore, do not naturally affect human sexuality.
In fact, we know implicitly that the terms we use are not etymologically factual. When I call myself a lesbian (commonly understood as ‘homosexual woman’), no one in good faith would understand me to be affirming to be attracted to all women. Additionally, the terms “lesbians” and “homosexual” originally included those who we now call “bisexual” or “pansexual”, showing the volatile nature of our comprehension.
It is important, however, to recognize that the terms vindicated by LGBTI+ movements worldwide are, more than a factual characterization of the “natural world”, political terms, that unite individuals under a common flag to fight for the legal and social recognition and protection of their rights as humans.
For example, once we recognize that there are not only two genders, all people would therefore have “non-binary gender identities”, for the binary does not exist. However, the group that we call and that rallies under the ‘Non-Binary’ flag is specifically a group that does not place itself into the boxes that are pushed by patriarchal powers as the only ones in existence, ‘man’ and ‘woman’, the ‘binary’. For this reason, even if the terms are confusing or even nonsensical at an etymological level, we cannot simply discard them if they still serve a political purpose.
Where did Cisness come from?
With the realization that lesbians, faggots, and trans people are all in some way alienated from the patriarchal binary, the raison d'être of a unified LGBT movement becomes crystal clear. What then, has led to the supposed contradiction of gender vs sexuality that is often pointed out as an indelible internal conflict of the movement?
When we look at the history of gay liberation we see that it starts out with a categorical lack of distinction between the different kinds of alienation we now appoint as constituents of the movement, with gay itself being considered an umbrella term because of this. LGBT and Sex Work activist Amara Moira has noted that in a late-30s São Paulo Police case study of “homosexuals (passive pederasts)” it is not particularly hard to notice, in spite of the study lumping everyone together, there are clear indications that a number of those profiled were travestis.
In “A Short History of Transmisogyny”, Jules Gill-Peterson discusses the historical mitosis of the gay liberation movement in the post-stonewall years. Peterson points out the prevalence of transmisogyny within the scene from its early years, culminating in the expulsion of transvestites that would be the genesis of the modern trans movement in the 1970s. To explain the logic behind this movement, Gill-Peterson claims that “[the] gay and lesbian movement reasoned that if they sold out the queens, they might be welcomed into a sanitized, middle-class version of citizenship from which they used to be excluded.” That is, the gay and lesbian movement learned that, in distancing themselves from what would become transness, and aligning themselves to the patriarchal binary, they could create a platform upon which they might be recognized as legitimate men and women. This platform is what we know today as cisness.
What is “Cis” and “Trans”? Part 2
Slightly modifying the definition proposed by Gomes de Jesus, I believe that we can find a way to maintain the purpose and political utility of these terms:
We call cisgender (or “cis”, for short), that person who politically identifies with a gender to which they were assigned.
We call transgender (or “trans”, for short), that person who politically identifies with a gender that was denied as possible to them.
With these revised definitions we can tackle the questions that were set aside earlier. Lesbian non-womanhood, as a phenomenon, as well as the gender faggot, are still potentially cis. Understanding this allows us to recognize and discuss material differences between cis and trans experiences of alienation from the binary.
In spite of my critique of cisness as the platform created through the scapegoating of transness within the LGBT community, I believe cis itself is still a neutral category for the most part, only denoting a potential for binary alignment. After all, a cis lesbian, being someone who “politically identifies as a woman or lesbian” may merely be a feminist, a position I unequivocally support.
The rhetorical purpose of cis as a category is to point out the potential of social gain through the scapegoating of transness itself. This category is useful for intercommunal and intersectional discussions among LGBT or feminist issues, while the cis+heterosexual combo of binary becomes far more insightful for general macrosocial commentary. Thus, a synthesis between Wittigian gender and the cis/trans dichotomy is possible and mutually beneficial.
Where do we go from here? On gender abolition
I believe there is much value in the discussion around lesbian non-womanhood, with the due diligence to avoid unwarranted universalizations. In fact, the idea that lesbians are not women has molded my own comprehension far longer than my own conscious exposure to the concept.
Ultimately, the separation of gender and sexuality is a question of rhetorical framework, which brings advantages and disadvantages. It is comprehensible that, for the sake of brevity and contextual relevance, some may use Gomes de Jesus’ definitions of cis and trans, with disregard for the interconnections sexual orientations may cause.
To define lesbian and other ‘sexual orientations’ as genders permits us, in my point of view, to better discuss gender abolition. This is because the framework lays bare the social construction of these gendered experiences and, thus, their vulnerability to deconstruction.
If we take gender abolition as a serious political goal, and I believe we should, it is necessary to recognize and take into account at all times the implications of this abolition in order to avoid a re-construction of its hierarchy through other excuses – such as those proposed by self-declared radical feminists, who reconstruct gender through a misconception of “biological sex”. With the orientation-as-gender framework, we can easily discuss the ramifications by explicitly bringing to the discussion the artificiality of orientation itself.
Bianca Olivia da Rocha is a Brazilian transfeminist. You can find her writing (in Portuguese) on Medium.
Very interesting read, thanks for turning jumbled thoughts and yearnings that have lived in my head into a cohesive and concise piece!!