Cisnormative Gaze and Trans Visibility

Cisnormative Gaze

applies preconceived notions of what defines a male or a female to transgender bodies, often crossing the private boundaries of an individual as it poses questions around trans bodies, eg. post/pre op, has the person used hormones, surgery, etc.

Transgender/Intersex

Unfortunate Facts about the Transgender Community

Rejecting the cisgender gaze

transgender model Carmen Carrera and transgender actress

Laverne Cox on the show program Katie

• Transgender: " An umbrella term that describes people whose gender identity or gender expression differs from expectations associated with the sex assigned to them at birth." (Marla Berg-Weger 2016)
• Intersex: those w/ sexual or reproductive anatomy outside the definitions of male or female for a variety of conditions

• seen as "other"deviant from the gender binary
• "understanding" one's gender or sexuality through cisnormative and heterosexual standards
• -Focus on genitalia/physical transition → objectifies/dehumanizes trans people, leads to discrimination and violence

Monstrous Bodies

• affected by hate violence.
• 55% of all reported LGBT homicide victims were transgender women, and 50% were transgender women of color.
• 78% transgender/gender non-conforming students in grades K-12 experienced harassment, while 35% experienced physical assault and 12% experienced sexual violence.
• unemployment at double the rate of the general population
• 26% lost a job due to being transgender.
• housing discrimination, with 20% of respondents reporting that they were evicted or denied housing simply for being transgender

• cultural anxieties
• media treatment is informal
• seen as deviant
• physical transition-dehumanizing

• " a pregnant man"
• “Some see him as a freak of nature… Someone to be found in a carnival.”
• “You ’ re not even a man. You ’ re an it!”
• cultural anxieties
• medical discrimination

More statistics:

• 19% of respondents said that someone denied them medical services because of their gender identity.
• problems with finding someone who understands transgender health issues.
• 19% of respondents said they had suffered domestic abuse because of their gender non-conformity.
• 41% of transgender participants (2,644 out of 6,450) had attempted, at some point, to take their own lives.

Do you agree?

THE MEDICAL GAZE:

- the real man vs. the real women

- what are the characteristics of each?

- we are taught to believe that men and women need to act a certain way

- we are taught that if a man acts as a woman and vice versa that it is weird

- people often make fun of the LGBTQ community for being different when they are human just like the rest of us

- a transgender individual expresses themselves and has feelings just like everyone else

Being Transgender

- discrimination

- are considered "abnormal"

- cultural anxieties

Discussion Questions:

• medical gaze: to denote the dehumanizing medical separation of the patient's body from the patient's person (identity)
• objectifying and dehumanizing

• How do you feel Transgenders are represented in the media? (Fairly? Accurately?)
• What are some changes that need to be made/you can make at home/work/school environments to be more gender inclusive?
• Do you think transgender people are accepted in today's society? Do they feel accepted and safe?
• What does the word gender mean to you? Is there a correct number of genders?

Medical discourses and its role in legitimizing transgender bodies

Sex Change Hospital

-Draws attention on trans struggles but objectifies trans bodies through the medical gaze

-Focuses on the physical changes to legitimize a transgender individual

-Shares stories and shows transgender struggles and realities

-Dehumanizes by turning these bodies into specimens

-Trans/Intersex medical investigation reveals framework of

i)biological sex

ii)social gender roles, and

iii) psychological gender

-Medicalization of transgender identity necessary for three aspects mentioned above to be re-aligned

Cisnormative Gaze and Trans Visibility

by Angela Marion, Patrick Lombardi, and Hanna Choi