So the last time we looked, we were talking about some of the important works.
So we have the transsexual phenomenon in 66, remember that, we were talking about the
Trump and Pappas area ride as well. We looked at your meetings last time. And the transsexual
fire, by Janis Raymond, 1979 I guess, which are both two important background pieces in
the founding text that we looked at last time, the Empire Plays Back, right? We have this
the first articulation of a two piece of trans studies positioning itself in resistance
to medicalization of transsexuality and the vilification of transsexuality found in
Janis Raymond was in his separatist analysis. Okay. This is absolutely great. All right.
Some other work that kind of fits weirdly with this story. The first is the Harold Gartenko
right? It is a chapter in his book Studies in Ethomethrology. It's not too long after
the release of transsexual phenomenon but what Benjamin is doing is very different
from the rest of the book. And then in 78, we have gender.
This is 1978. So it's just before Raymond's transsexual number comes up. And this is
drawing on some of the ideas developed in the barricade call. This is one of the earliest
feminist analysis of transsexuality but it's a larger focus on gender. And it's really
interesting in that it is not overtly hostile in the way in which we see with the Raymond
piece. It's still got problems with it and folks in trans studies have subsequently criticized
it for various different reasons. But there's a lot of really interesting stuff going on
both in the Garfinkel and in the Kallster and McKenna that are going to be cited later
on in trans studies. So some of these ideas are going to crop up in the work of Kate
Bornstein and her work Gender Outlaw. This is a popular book. I think we talked about
it in the first day of class. It helped us share in the transgender movement and the
popular idea in North America and in the 90s. And also in the work of Jacob Hale, the
philosopher who takes seriously some of the ideas discussed earlier, talking about that.
Also in the, I'm incurring more that you looked at today. So this stuff crops up in
trans studies. It's also interesting because a lot of times when people are looking at these
issues in gender, Judith Butler is frequently cited. And it's hard to do a thing like that
without talking about her. She obviously mentioned that. But I wanted to do something that kind
of like didn't centralize her because a lot of the work that actually gets done by Garfinkel
and the question we came out earlier in the work of Butler is in some ways, importantly,
similar to her to kind of what she anticipates and brings it out in a different way. So that's
just to map things out and sort of talk to you about how everything he did on Agnes was
false and got from Agnes was false, except her interaction with him in the room where
she is, you know, getting upset when she, 120% of the women, tries to totally disassociate
herself with anything, maleness or queer or anything other than woman. Right? I missed
the point of how her line came on everything else, supporting the stories.
Okay. Because I thought the main point was that she was an actual physical specimen that
was fully developed female that was male genitalia that occurred naturally. I thought that was
a big one. Okay. This is a very good question. Do other people worry about this? Worry about
it and found it? So we have the story of Agnes, right? She goes to UCLA, right, and tells
the story, right, about this feminization at adolescence and the claim that she's basically
intersex. So she possesses male genitalia, but she naturally and spontaneously starts to develop
female secondary sex characteristics at adolescence. We'll find out later is that this is because
she was taking exogenous hormones. Okay. So just to sort of put labels to it, it looks
like at first this was written about an intersex person. I'm familiar with what I mean by the
term intersex. It occurs in the title of the piece, right? Because it's a fancier, more
appropriate way of talking about hermaphroditic individuals with atypical conditions with
regard to sex. So the idea was that originally Agnes was taken as an intersex person, represented
herself as one, and the thought was that while she had some male characteristics, she also
had some female characteristics, she herself claimed to be an actual woman. It turns out
after the fact that in fact she was not an intersex, but she was taking exogenous hormones,
so she was transsexual. So she had been pulling one over from the folks at UCLA, including
Sölder and Garthin, although it's actually interesting, some suspicions actually arise
in the original piece if you read it from the inside. I can't fool by it, but somebody
is actually speculating something that's going on. So now the whole thing just seems to be
a terrible lie because it turns out that she was transsexual. If it's an interesting question,
then this is a question that Richard posed. How much of a difference does it make that
it turns out that she's transsexual rather than intersex? To Garthin's analysis, to Garthin's
analysis overall. And that's something that we do want to think about. I think what we're
going to need to do is to determine what Garthin's analysis actually is first to see whether or
not this is going to matter. I will put one point out there. On the assumption that Ivorynich
is an intersex, according to the story that we get, there's still a whole lot of deception
that she needs to engage in. So at first, her boyfriend doesn't know that she has male
genitalia. This is something that has to be revealed. She has to learn to tell a very
big story about her past in order to manage some of this stuff. So it's not as if it's
all clear and pure in the intersex case and then tainted in the case of transsexuality.
Are you with me on this? There seems to be what Garthin calls passing going on out of
the way. So let's come back to this point. I think that the point is an important one.
We'll want to keep this in the back of our mind because it is an interesting flip. You
read through the whole piece and then it's like what? Nice shock. Okay, Jessica.
I have a little bit of a worry about it just because it seems like an educator was always
taking other things into account. What you were saying is that she ended up having to
be deceptive by nature and when she was going to pass to her boyfriend or to anyone else
that may criticize her or something like that, maybe she had to be sort of a means of survival.
She would have to be a bit deceptive and standoffish and she would just assume that other women
would be polite and modest rather than just standoffish and cold. So I can see why you
would have to be as a mode of survival to be deceptive and not get hurt or possibly cold
especially at that period of time. There's a couple of different questions I think that
are coming in and we'll want to separate them. So Richard's question I think is this.
And I'm just going to put it in the way that I think that Richard might want to express
that this is a bit, you know, given that it was all a lie, given that there was so much deception involved.
This is a question about Garfinkel and Garfinkel's work and what we're to say about this article
might of the switcheroo at the end. I'm surprised it's ending.
And Jessica's question is, what should we say about Agnes with regard to, you know,
their immoral conduct in terms of assessments of that?
It's awkward to think that, you know, what else is she not being, you know, forthcoming
and what else is she being deceptive about, you know, maybe a bunch of it is just a bunch of yes, you know.
And I think that you're also bringing out, you know, well maybe there's like reasons for
this needed to be the case, right? You know, it wasn't as if they were just going to, you know,
maybe welcome her if they, you know, thought that she was transsexual.
I mean, this is in the 50s, so this is prior to Benjamin's transsexual phenomenon.
After Christine Jorgensen, but still, you know, we're in a period in which transsexuality being instituted
in the U.S., for example, is kind of unstable.
I have a little kind of timeline question.
I don't remember when FEMA birth control was legalized in the States and was this before
she would have access to hormones that easily, like taking her mother's birth control pills?
I mean, I don't remember when they were legalized and we could use them.
What about, do you know when? Well, I don't remember.
Yes, I can remember, actually. It was in the 60s.
I was going to say, wasn't it after this? Well, she'll, I mean, that's what you mean, right?
Yeah, the filth.
Yeah.
When it didn't have to have been kind of a big deal for her to be trying to, if she was 19 at the time,
and if she was 12 when she started to do breast, that's the early 50s, mid-50s,
and when did it been like a big, a big difficult thing for her to go get hormones?
Right.
So, I mean, that creates a whole other realm of disability with that kind of thing.
It's really interesting.
She's a very ingenious tool here.
No, no, no.
I'm told that.
Yeah.
It's just a really good question.
Any other initial worries?
I have a question, but like she said, in the story, doesn't she, she stole her mother's
instrument pills and after that, she went to the pharmacy and got them herself.
Yeah.
Oh, so it may have been hormone replacement.
Yeah.
Instead of using it as elective birth control.
Yeah.
I don't think so.
I don't think they did this, but maybe they did.
Was it from a sound to sound?
Didn't read it carefully?
And is it the same form on third and fourth, just right?
Okay.
Okay.
So, it wasn't birth control pills?
No.
Okay.
Other worries?
Okay.
So, there's worries.
We have a couple of things going on.
We have this interesting case of agnus, and then we have what garfincle is trying to use
agnus to do.
And one of the things that I want you to keep in mind as we start talking about what garfincle
is up to is this question about stories.
You know, we talked about this a couple of weeks ago.
Who is this for?
What is it being used for?
Who's writing it and why, to what end?
Garfincle is advancing a particular kind of theory, and he's using this case to try to
motivate that.
You know, it's clear, for example, that it may be interesting from the point of view of
understanding gender better.
But, for example, he's not articulating, you know, a theory of trans liberation.
And that's an interesting fact to note.
So, this is a question of political news and this is a story.
Thank you.
