"Through portrayals of the transgender body, this paper examines the way that the lived experiences of transgender people have been affected by Government Legislation."
Introduction
Evidence shows that by two years of age, when a child is surrounded and influenced by gender stereotypical behaviour and physical appearances not only do children associate this as stereotypical behaviour, they see this as ‘normal’ and if a person doesn’t conform to one of the child’s formed stereotypes, the child rejects that person (Cvencek et al., 2011-2013, Greenwald et al., 2002, Dunham et al., 2007, p.123).
Once these stereotypes are embedded into a child’s brain, they only continue to grow, which is what commonly leads to prejudiced behaviour throughout life. Hopper (2016) said that there are two types of prejudice attitudes: explicit attitudes – the attitudes we verbalize and implicit attitudes – the ones we may not be aware of. Through making these prejudiced and non-prejudiced stereotypes of people, we learn who we should be looking to for our behaviour models, who to imitate and who not, it is what shapes our behaviour throughout our lives.
But what if they were not raised in an environment where they could definitively label behaviours as male and female, because male and female were not seen as so categorically different?
Throughout the world there is a history of genders beyond that of ‘male’ and ‘female’. Native Americans coined the term “Two-spirit” (cite) to describe those that felt their gender existed beyond these binaries. These people carried out tasks and occupations within their culture and tribe that did not conform to that of the gender roles associated the sex which they were assigned at birth.
One example of this is the moolelo of Kapaemahu (The legend of Kapaemahu) (cite)’ a story of four mahu healers that travelled to Hawaii hundreds of years ago that bridges the gap between history and legend, passed down through the generations of the people of Waikiki. The term “mahu”, means in the middle: people that are both male and female in mind, heart and spirit. Brought to life by filmmakers Dean Hamer and Joe Wilson, the animation is narrated by Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu, someone who identifies as mahu and who they have worked with before creating a documentary discussing what it’s like to be mahu in the 21st century (cite).
Alignment
The word 'transgender' is an umbrella term that encompasses an extensive range of self-identifications beyond the binary of male and female, including but not limited to: non-binary, agender, genderqueer, genderfluid, bigender, multigender, as well as trans men and trans women. It is not only about transitioning physically or medically between genders but is representative of an assertiveness about being who you are, making transgender lived experiences both complex and multifaceted. Personal narratives extend beyond society’s concept of journeys of self-affirmation, where the term transgender is not limited to the states of pre-operative, post-operative, or in-transition. There are many people who cannot afford or do not desire medical intervention, and no amount of hormones or surgery would align their body to their gender identity.
An artist who explores the extremities people will go to in order to align their inner notion of ‘self’ with their physical body is Marc Quinn, provoking implicit and explicit prejudices with Thomas Beatie (cite). From a distance, this marble sculpture could easily be interpreted as the Virgin Mary – the choice of pure white materials, the elegance and grace in their stance, the tenderness with which they hold their stomach, the last of which baring a stark resemblance to the way Michelangelo sculpted Mary holding Jesus in the Pietà (cite) (cite). Upon closer inspection, it starts to bare a resemblance to Michelangelo’s David (cite) – “innocent” and “pure”, yet dominant in stature – “the scale puts us in a child-adult relationship to it” (cite).
Standing in front of the sculpture, the stark comparison is that of the Sleeping Hermaphroditus (Unknown, 2nd century), from one angle a sensual depiction of femininity and the other “a surprise” as Quinn put it, “there’s nothing new in the world about humanity, is there? We just re-make it” (cite) It’s true, there is nothing new, yet somehow it still flaws us, causes us to short-circuit and flares up these implicit and explicit biases ingrained in our subconsciousness – this person is not fitting into a stereotype, and we don’t know how to react. How could this be representational of a woman, when the figure has a beard? Yet, how could this be a man when they are pregnant? The sculpture provokes unconscious gender associations and stereotypes that are not necessary for the person portrayed.
Beatie underwent surgery to match his internal sense of ‘self’ with his external, for him this meant having chest reconstruction surgery and HRT (hormone replacement therapy).
More on Thomas Beatie himself and The Pregnant Man documentary
When discussing the sculpture and the journey that’s depicted, Quinn tells Pissaro “I believe it’s about being something beyond categorisation. And I think that’s what a lot of these people would say. Although it might seem like they’re trying to be men or women, in fact they’re not: they’re just trying to be what they are, which is something in-between two worlds.” (cite).
Documentation
Freddy McConnell and birth certificate debate
Hawaii has always been ahead of the rest of the United States of America for LGBTQ+ rights, being the first state to consider legalising same-sex marriage in 1993 (cite) and is noted for it’s LGBTQ+ friendliness. With a vote passing at 24-1, the Hawaii State Legislature passed a bill to add “X” as a gender marker option on both birth certificates and drivers’ licenses as of May 2019 – this can be changed by request with no medical documentation required (cite). Not the first place to do so, the ‘X’ gender marker was introduced in Australia in 2011, with New Zealand following suit. Lose the next bit? Other countries to introduce a third gender marker include: Argentina, Bangladesh, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, Germany, Iceland, India, Malta, Mexico, Nepal, Pakistan, the United States and the Netherlands (cite) – which plans to make all national identity cards “gender free” by 2025 (cite).
The United Kingdom, despite appearing as forward-thinking regarding gender non-conforming people with the Gender Recognition Act 2004, NHS Gender Identity Clinics and a recently out Tory MP Jamie Wallis (cite), does not plan on adding ‘X’ as a gender marker in passports. Determining that the number of people that would benefit from this significant obstacle for the LGBTQ+ community was very small, the cost of this change was deemed too great argued Sir James Eadie QC (cite). Brought to the attention of the court by Christie Elan-Cane, a non-gendered person, having already tried asking for such a passport in 1995, the plea for the door to legal recognition for non-binary people to be opened was firmly slammed shut as “once you open the door to some part of it, through royal prerogative, we know what will come. It’s necessary to think through the ramifications.” (cite).
UK Schools brought in relationships and sex education September 2023 curriculum change to PSHE, schools were free to choose whether they taught beyond male and female, where many schools (through consultation with staff) chose to opt in and teach upper key stage 2 explicitly about gender non-conforming identities/concepts/ideas, this was then going to go parliament to reject it when Sunak was in and pus hit all back. Research showing most people are aware of being gender non-conforming by age 8 - reference this as a norm that can exist, not feelings only they have as they are being taught about it in the classroom, sense of not being alone
In 2022 Stonewall, Britain’s leading LGBTQI+ campaign group, published a document titled The Truth About Trans in which they estimated that “around 1 percent of the population might identify as trans, including people who identify as non-binary. That would mean about 600,000 trans and non-binary people in Britain, out of a population of over 60 million” (cite)). Based on today’s population, 1% would now bring that figure closer to 700,000 people. This is a significant amount of people that could be facing extensive wait times for medical intervention through the NHS, and could benefit from having an ‘X’ gender marker in their passport – if not for the fact that the original estimate of trans and non-binary people was hugely miscalculated. The Stonewall article has since been removed and any mention of these figures deleted from the campaign group’s social medias.
However, the figure is quoted in an article published by The Spectator, where the author questions if Stonewall are going to address their estimates that exaggerate the numbers of the transgender community by 100% (cite), or continue to gloss over their mistake? The Spectator article appears to contain the only digital reference of Stonewall’s overestimates, and searching for ‘Stonewall The Truth About Trans’ now leads you to a Q&A page on their website to “help build understanding around trans people and the issues they face”. (cite)
The website now only has two published articles regarding the census. The first by Chief Executive Nancy Kelley, released prior to the census happening, stating that the 2021 Census will be a “historic moment for LGBT+ communities” because of the new voluntary questions that will be included regarding gender identity and sexual orientation, that for the first time we will have an accurate understanding of the size of the LGBTQI+ population in Britain, providing they feel comfortable enough to answer (cite). The second was after the fact, with the data results. The published figures of the 2021 census in the UK show that 0.5% of the population aged 16 years and over identify with a gender different to that which they were assigned at birth. Out of the 262,000 people (0.5%) that responded to the question “Is the gender you identify with the same as your sex registered at birth?” with “No”: 118,000 (0.24%) did not provide a write-in response as to how they identified, 48,000 (0.1%) identified as a trans man, the same amount (0.1%) identified as a trans woman, 30,000 (0.06%) identified as non-binary and 18,000 (0.04%) wrote in a different gender identity to those above. Interestingly, Stonewall wrote that the 0.5% figure is “in line with what we expected to see the trans and non-binary population in England and Wales”, despite their aforementioned blunder. (cite)
Mistakes like Stonewall’s only affirm the arguments of Sir James Eadie QC, that the transgender community is a small minority group, smaller than leading LGBTQI+ organisations will lead you to believe; so why make substantial, costly changes such as adding ‘X’ to passports or changing ‘Mother’ and ’Father’ on birth certificates to ‘Parent’, when that will only be of benefit to them?
Cassils – come up with sub-title
In the United States, ex-president and president-elect Donald Trump sought to undo the work of the ‘Obama-era’: revoking the right for transgender students to use the bathroom/changing room of the gender they identify with in schools, threatening to cut funding to schools who allow transgender girls to compete in sports, revising Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to clarify that it does not prohibit discrimination in the work place on the basis of gender identity and banning transgender people from the US military.
An artist who has particularly focused on the Trump-legislation and the setbacks that have come with it for the LGBTQ+ community is Cassils, a trans-masculine artist from Canada. In artistic protest to the Trump administration changes, Cassils collected all the liquid he excreted for the 200 days following the retraction and stored it in medical bottles. This was then transported to be displayed in a 200-gallon glass cube as a 4,800-hour performance piece entitled Pissed. Fountain, the accompanying performance, marks the final two hours of collecting the liquid, and was accompanied by an audio track featuring the arguments from the case of Gavin Grimm a female-to-male transgender teenager, in the Supreme Court in his fight for the right to use the boys’ bathroom at school, which he lost (cite).
Ebenezer Galluzo – As I Am series
New Section or link with talking about trans youth?
On one side of the argument, you have Transgender Trend, an organisation established in 2015 that calls for “evidence-based healthcare” and “factual, science-based teaching in schools”, founded by concerned parents who believe “no child is born in the wrong body” and that we have “failed this generation of kids” (cite).
The other, young people who are living in a day and age where you can access resources through the internet that twenty years ago you could not without revealing to your local librarian what you were researching. Today’s youth have a platform to research and affirm their thoughts and feelings in private as well as seek support anonymously. Speaking up for the rights and freedoms, of the community that they have found a sense of belonging with, only when they feel ready and able to.
Conclusions
The Biden legislation showed promise in creating that safe platform and undoing the views Trump promoted to the public with his attempts to define ‘transgender’ out of existence. In Biden’s first days of presidency, the White House released a new contact form allowing users to choose their pronouns and included gender-neutral prefix Mx (cite). Additionally, he overturned Trump’s transgender military ban and appointed Rachel Levine in his administration as “the first openly transgender federal official by Senate”, assistant secretary of health (cite). Followed by the first ever openly LGBTQI+ Cabinet member (cite), many Trump-era proposals and legislations be withdrawn or overturned and replaced with ones that better protected and aided transgender individuals (cite), ‘X’ was added as a gender marker option by self-declaration on passports (cite) and in April 2024, the proposal to strengthen the Affordable Care Act protections based on gender identity as well as incorporate ones based on sexual orientation was finalised, closing the health care gap for queer people ahead of a foreboding presidential election.
However, despite the phenomenal efforts made to both undo, and better, the narrow-minded America that Trump perpetuated, a second term will likely see a devastating revoke of the voice Biden gave the LGBTQI+ community, and thus the artists that advocate for their rights.
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In the year ending March 2014, there were 555 reported transgender hate crimes, which was a 54% increase from 2012/13 (cite). Fast-forward ten years to 2023/24 and there were 4,780 reported transgender hate crimes (cite), an increase of 861%. The pivotal year being 2021/22 when reported crimes jumped from 2,799 to 4,355, at a time when the subject of transgender rights was brought into the limelight.
This 56% annual increase was the largest on record since the documentation began in 2011/12 after the Equality Act 2010 came into force (cite), having not seen such a drastic increase since 2013/14 when it had increased by 54%.
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