Piercing Gender

the full text of the article can be found here: http://www.bmezine.com/news/pubring/20070804.html

I’m a lover of just about any media artifact, which complicates gender in an interesting way. I’m always particularly interested in the ways in which gender nonconforming lives and bodies are presented in mediated contexts, as so rarely are transgender and genderqueer people provided with media outlets in order to tell the true stories of their lives. Rather all too frequently lives, which transgress gender norms, are scripted into narrow definitions of what it means to be a trans person. It is also interesting to note that in most mainstream media artifacts which depict transgender experience directors fail to cast transgender people into those roles (a great example of this is last years film Trans America). This is without a doubt one of the most interesting articles I have read in quite some time. Published online by BME Zine it is an interview titled “Ashley Crawford: Post-Gender. ” I am extremely appreciative of the complicated views of gender that I presents, and the ways in which Ash a tattoo artist and piercer from England creates powerful correlations between body modification such ass piercing and tattooing and the sorts of body modification often explored by members of the transgender community.

The article explores Ash’s commitment to living their life in a “post-gender” fashion in which they have chosen to make use of hormones and top surgery to modify their body in a similar way as they have used tattooing and scarification to modify their physical appearance. The article also focuses greatly on the ways in which various forms of body modification are used in the claiming of ones physical body, including incredible accounts of Ash’s experience with piercing their own cervix!

In the article Ash is quoted as saying: “Post-gender is absolutely not a transitional point between genders. That phrase implies that there are two proper genders to travel between and post-gender is somewhere you stop off on the way. The gas station of genders, if you will.” Rather they are arguing (as do many gender theorists, activists, and radicals of all sorts) that gender is highly complex and much more complicated than the “male” and “female” binary which is so frequently propagated by the larger culture, as well as mainstream media outlets. It is also important to note that within the interview Ash was skilled at making the distinction that not all transgender people have similar views about gender, and many are actually quite connected to binary views on the subject and that validating those believes is just as important as validating the opinions of those whom view gender in a more complicated way.
The main focus of the article is on body modifications, there is a distinct focus on the ways in which modifying ones body can relate to understanding and conceptualizing oneself in terms of gender and sexuality.

Constructing trans issues as a choice akin to other forms of body modification is exciting and radical territory to be heading into. For many within the community there is so much fear about putting out the idea that some members of the community view their altered bodies as choices, and an extensive body modification process. There is a great deal of fear that these views will be turned and used against the community, resulting in trans people being denied access to hormones, surgery, as well as political implications in terms of hate crimes legislation etc. Many also feel as though this sort of radical view of gender undermines their experience, on this issue Ash said ““There are a lot of transsexual people who only believe in two genders, and that they got the wrong sort of body to go with their inner gender. It’s threatening to hear someone say that inner gender doesn’t exist — it probably feels like I am undermining the importance of their transition. I’m not trying to do that. I respect their reality, even though it’s not mine.” Additionally, it was refreshing to see someone countering the pervasive tranny mythology that hormones in some way change who someone is more than other forms of body modification do.

My one concern with the article is the ways in which Ash seemed to be alluring to the idea that the ways in which altering their body was synonymous with intersexuality, repeatedly referring to things as “intersex.” It was unclear from the context of the article weather or not they have an intersex identity or past (although that did not appear to be the case.) My concern in this area thus lies in the fact that intersexuality is a very specific lived experience which is not automatically the same as transness (although many intersex people also identify as transgendered).

That said I feel as though this article does a spectacular job of exploring the complexities of gender and the ways in which one person in particular interfaces with gender outside of the binary. I was particularly appreciative of the focus on body modification as a way to perform a specific gender, or an attempt at no gender at all.