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Imagining Transgender: An Ethnography of a Category
Imagining Transgender is an ethnography of the emergence and institutionalization of transgender as a category of collective identity and political activism. Embraced by activists in the early 1990s to advocate for gender-variant people, the category quickly gained momentum in public health, social service, scholarly, and legislative contexts. Working as a safer-sex activist in Manhattan during the late 1990s, David Valentine conducted ethnographic research among mostly male-to-female transgender-identified people at drag balls, support groups, cross-dresser organizations, clinics, bars, and clubs. However, he found that many of those labeled “transgender” by activists did not know the term or resisted its use. Instead, they self-identified as “gay,” a category of sexual rather than gendered identity and one rejected in turn by the activists who claimed these subjects as transgender. Valentine analyzes the reasons for and potential consequences of this difference, and how social theory is implicated in it.Valentine argues that “transgender” has been adopted so rapidly in the contemporary United States because it clarifies a model of gender and sexuality that has been gaining traction within feminism, psychiatry, and mainstream gay and lesbian politics since the 1970s: a paradigm in which gender and sexuality are distinct arenas of human experience. This distinction and the identity categories based on it erase the experiences of some gender-variant people—particularly poor persons of color—who conceive of gender and sexuality in other terms. While recognizing the important advances transgender has facilitated, Valentine argues that a broad vision of social justice must include, simultaneously, an attentiveness to the politics of language and a recognition of how social theoretical models and broader political economies are embedded in the day-to-day politics of identity.
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
April 11, 2008
ok i haven't even finished this book. so i'm leaving that as an out just in case it goes to hell in the next 100 pages. but i'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this is one of the first books in trans studies that is written in the "Third World Feminist" style that is actually accessible. by that i mean that it's one of the first books i've read about trans/gender-variant folks that can be read by non-theory people that asks the question "What would transgender look like if non-middle class folks of color were in the center instead of the margins?"
i was talking with Jana yesterday about the role of identity politics in Trans theory/studies and how it's complicated but throwing it out the window is very much throwing out the baby with the bath water. when i used to go around to university campuses and did talks about building trans inclusion within traditional women's studies instead of gender studies, i talked a lot about this. that the risk of treating race/class in the same was as treating queerness (aka queer as an umbrella term for anything anti-normative - where queers with non-queer-passing-privilege can speak for non-privileged queers and say "we're all queers") was dangerous and could very easily serve to 'whiten' women's/gender studies after women and queers of color had fought really hard for inclusion into the centers of the disciplines.
so back to the book. valentine is a white guy, as far as i know. he's an anthropologist and an ethnographer, which is already shady territory. but i think he does this extremely feminist/critical race thing where he not only locates himself as a white gay academic, but also implicates himself in the research. he is not afraid to show where he has done bad research, where he has fallen into the same traps he is trying to expose.
(he also does a pretty great job talking about the construction of the word/notion "transgender" and exposes the white homonormative roots of that construction)
i think this book is marvelous. i was daydreaming teaching community college (which i hope to be doing by the end of next year!!) and really imagining using this book to teach folks who potentially don't have knowledge of trans issues or theories. and how it could be potentially revolutionary/liberating to place these folks (gender-variant trans folks that participate in drag balls and/or do sex work and/or work in/receive social services around HIV prevention) in the center of the understanding of "trans" instead of the margins.
i can't wait for more books to come out like this, especially written by folks who live in the margins of what it now means to be understood as trans in the U.S.
i was talking with Jana yesterday about the role of identity politics in Trans theory/studies and how it's complicated but throwing it out the window is very much throwing out the baby with the bath water. when i used to go around to university campuses and did talks about building trans inclusion within traditional women's studies instead of gender studies, i talked a lot about this. that the risk of treating race/class in the same was as treating queerness (aka queer as an umbrella term for anything anti-normative - where queers with non-queer-passing-privilege can speak for non-privileged queers and say "we're all queers") was dangerous and could very easily serve to 'whiten' women's/gender studies after women and queers of color had fought really hard for inclusion into the centers of the disciplines.
so back to the book. valentine is a white guy, as far as i know. he's an anthropologist and an ethnographer, which is already shady territory. but i think he does this extremely feminist/critical race thing where he not only locates himself as a white gay academic, but also implicates himself in the research. he is not afraid to show where he has done bad research, where he has fallen into the same traps he is trying to expose.
(he also does a pretty great job talking about the construction of the word/notion "transgender" and exposes the white homonormative roots of that construction)
i think this book is marvelous. i was daydreaming teaching community college (which i hope to be doing by the end of next year!!) and really imagining using this book to teach folks who potentially don't have knowledge of trans issues or theories. and how it could be potentially revolutionary/liberating to place these folks (gender-variant trans folks that participate in drag balls and/or do sex work and/or work in/receive social services around HIV prevention) in the center of the understanding of "trans" instead of the margins.
i can't wait for more books to come out like this, especially written by folks who live in the margins of what it now means to be understood as trans in the U.S.
Read
July 6, 2008Yeah! A book about trans stuff that's not super contentious and which I don't hate! Everybody's all skeptical about non-trans people writing about trans stuff, but I'm halfway through and it's actually refreshing to have an anthropologist come in and be all "here are the problems with anthropology, as we know, so I'm going to use its methods as a tool to interrogate the circumstances by which the word 'transgender' caught on like GODDAM WILDFIRE in the last fifteen years with ocial service providers, and what it means that lots of non-white, non-middle-class, non-activist types don't really buy into it."
Turns out that the circumstances are pretty fascinating, play into, like, why the ol' HRC is so eager to fuck over trans people (there's a long history of rich straight-acting gays not wanting to be involved with people who read as queer, which I guess I sorta knew, but it's nice to have that historical precedent laid out like that).
Also, he talks a lot about identities from the past which can be read as trans today, why gay historians claim them not as gay but as trans, and that sort of thing- which is why I got so excited about Chauncey's Gay New York. Which he uses as a source.
I dunno, jeez, leave me along! I just haven't read anything dense in a while.
Anyway, Simon's
http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/83...
review of it was what made me interested, so hooray for that. K.
Turns out that the circumstances are pretty fascinating, play into, like, why the ol' HRC is so eager to fuck over trans people (there's a long history of rich straight-acting gays not wanting to be involved with people who read as queer, which I guess I sorta knew, but it's nice to have that historical precedent laid out like that).
Also, he talks a lot about identities from the past which can be read as trans today, why gay historians claim them not as gay but as trans, and that sort of thing- which is why I got so excited about Chauncey's Gay New York. Which he uses as a source.
I dunno, jeez, leave me along! I just haven't read anything dense in a while.
Anyway, Simon's
http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/83...
review of it was what made me interested, so hooray for that. K.
May 11, 2023
real and correct use of a variety neopronouns and neutral pronoun in academic text is so fucking awesome
Read
September 20, 2024فقط بخش هایی از کتاب رو خوندم. هنوز ایده های ترنسجدر برام واضح و مشخص نیست پس نمی تونم امتیاز بدم ولی متن منسجم و خوبی داره و استدلال های خوبی هم برای اهمیت بررسی ترنسجدر و ترسنسکژوال عنوان می کنه
December 25, 2010
I gave this book 2 stars partly because of the over self-reflexive style of the author and partly because it lacked an accessible style that is paramount for anthropology to bridge the gap between the academy and the general public.
There are some interesting points that the author both intentionally and unintentionally raises. He addresses the issues of advocacy organizations, especially as they focus on their policy needs, which might contradict with their founding mythos or greater goods. [I agree with the author, though he doesn't come out as nasty as I might wish, re: HRC.] He makes me wonder if the need to write about "something" due to needs of academy, journalism, activism considerations) effectively changes shades of gray into black & white choices.
I loved his Judith Butler paraphrase that 'it is precisely because identities are produced through discourse that discourse has the power to harm.'
There are some interesting points that the author both intentionally and unintentionally raises. He addresses the issues of advocacy organizations, especially as they focus on their policy needs, which might contradict with their founding mythos or greater goods. [I agree with the author, though he doesn't come out as nasty as I might wish, re: HRC.] He makes me wonder if the need to write about "something" due to needs of academy, journalism, activism considerations) effectively changes shades of gray into black & white choices.
I loved his Judith Butler paraphrase that 'it is precisely because identities are produced through discourse that discourse has the power to harm.'
Want to read
October 2, 2007who wants to get and read this with me?
October 13, 2023
This book is definitely not what I’d consider a “fun read,” though I personally was reading it for fun. It is more like a textbook or a psychology study (I mean it is kind of a lengthened psychology study, though it is an ethnography and says so in the name so it is not surprising that it reads like one). However, I do think that this book has so many topics that are incredibly beneficial in understanding “genderqueer,” “transgender,” and “transvestite” (mainly the second two) and how the words relate to people and how people relate (or don’t) to the words. In an earlier review I said that I don’t think this is a must read, but honestly I think it just might be. The understanding that it provides is immense, especially for people who have little to no understanding of the words or the people who identify with the words. As a trans person myself (agender), I still had a lot to learn and glean from this book. I think it would have helped me so much as a kid to have had a parent or adult in my life that knew this information and had a conversation with me about it.
December 31, 2021
Transition and how bumpy it goes has a lot riding on one's economic resources and level of privilege in other areas. As you may guess it is a lot harder on racial minorities and people with a low SES. It sucks being a targetted minority it sucks worse if you are poor or part of another targetted minority as well. Being transgender in racist neoliberal America sucks but it is worse for some than others.
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April 9, 2022It started well enough but became starkly jargony after the introduction rendering it practically unreadable for those not severely academic. Wouldn’t recommend whatsoever unless that’s your pace, but I don’t see myself returning to this anytime soon because of how miserably difficult it is written. I can’t rate it because of that- my first and hopefully last for a long time “Did Not Finish”.
November 12, 2017
Beautifully written book on the contested language within transgender embodiment.
May 27, 2019
Most digestible queer theory I've ever read
February 6, 2021
Can’t believe this was published in 2007, though this speaks to my own naïveté. Amazing and dense yet readable book. Biking bits were great.
Read
August 5, 2021for school
February 16, 2012
David Valentine’s book, Imagining Transgender, was written for an academic audience. However, the way he intertwines, history, theory, and experiences is easily understood by a more diverse audience. I think he maps out his idea of the Transgender community in a way that an audience beyond academia could read and digest the information he gives. He is able to pull from a wide range of contexts including, history of visibility and intersectionality of gender, theorists, academics who also wrote about the subject, his own experiences, observations, interviews, and more.
Transgender as a category’s ability to incorporate all gender variances and how the word can be used as a powerful tool for activism and forming personal identities is prominent. Throughout the book Valentine reiterates the idea that personal identification is a spectrum. Although some people may categorize a certain person as transgender that person might see themselves differently. Valentine makes a strong argument by describing transgender as a broad term. He says it is misunderstood and many individuals who may fit under the category don’t have access to the vocabulary. He also acknowledges the limits of the term and how class and race may affect someone’s ability to fit themselves into the term transgender. He outlines how there are titles like “Butch Queen,” “Fem Queens,” “Drag Queen,” “Cross-dresser,” even the known definition of homonormative gay men, but the perception of one’s self and those around them are what form those categories. He explains how there are many outliers to the language we use today and how groups of people, such as female to male transsexuals, are not considered in the category.
Valentine provides person accounts of individuals who don’t quite fit into any category or shift back and forth between labels, and whose genders are truly fluid. This evokes strong humanistic attachment to the characters, which enables the readers to think of the informants in the book as real people and not just subjects of a dissertation. Although, he does show their confusion at times, he also shows the reader that his informants kept using the phrase, “I know what I am.” This is is compelling because he shows that the socially vulnerable gender variant people he writes about may not know where in an institutionalized context they fit in, but they do know who they are.
To reinforce claims he makes Valentine gives the reader observations from his late night bike tours of NYC’s Meet Market and known transgender clubs. This is very strong writing because the reader is able to absorb the theory and history Valentine is explaining because he breaks it up with real life voices. While interviewing his informants it becomes clear to the reader that the majority of them struggle with giving clear cut answers to where they fit into American society’s strict gender and sexuality categories. Many were not educated on certain definitions and the ones who were, seemed to not think they feel under them. Valentine’s ethnographic approach and expression of his fieldwork worked very well.
He is also able to give himself constructive criticism at times, which builds his credibility with the reader. For instance, Valentine gives an alternative phrase, “transgender identified,” which he says might leave more room for a more complex web of identifying one’s self versus being identified by social powers. I like the way valentine tells the reader about the activist and social service component of his work. Although they are, including him, trying to understand and help the “community,” there is not a concrete community to help because of the ambiguity of the culture. Instead of giving strict definitions of who he believes fits into what categories, Valentine is able to reinforce the idea, that it is about each person’s individual desires, identification, and practices and not about generalizing.
Transgender as a category’s ability to incorporate all gender variances and how the word can be used as a powerful tool for activism and forming personal identities is prominent. Throughout the book Valentine reiterates the idea that personal identification is a spectrum. Although some people may categorize a certain person as transgender that person might see themselves differently. Valentine makes a strong argument by describing transgender as a broad term. He says it is misunderstood and many individuals who may fit under the category don’t have access to the vocabulary. He also acknowledges the limits of the term and how class and race may affect someone’s ability to fit themselves into the term transgender. He outlines how there are titles like “Butch Queen,” “Fem Queens,” “Drag Queen,” “Cross-dresser,” even the known definition of homonormative gay men, but the perception of one’s self and those around them are what form those categories. He explains how there are many outliers to the language we use today and how groups of people, such as female to male transsexuals, are not considered in the category.
Valentine provides person accounts of individuals who don’t quite fit into any category or shift back and forth between labels, and whose genders are truly fluid. This evokes strong humanistic attachment to the characters, which enables the readers to think of the informants in the book as real people and not just subjects of a dissertation. Although, he does show their confusion at times, he also shows the reader that his informants kept using the phrase, “I know what I am.” This is is compelling because he shows that the socially vulnerable gender variant people he writes about may not know where in an institutionalized context they fit in, but they do know who they are.
To reinforce claims he makes Valentine gives the reader observations from his late night bike tours of NYC’s Meet Market and known transgender clubs. This is very strong writing because the reader is able to absorb the theory and history Valentine is explaining because he breaks it up with real life voices. While interviewing his informants it becomes clear to the reader that the majority of them struggle with giving clear cut answers to where they fit into American society’s strict gender and sexuality categories. Many were not educated on certain definitions and the ones who were, seemed to not think they feel under them. Valentine’s ethnographic approach and expression of his fieldwork worked very well.
He is also able to give himself constructive criticism at times, which builds his credibility with the reader. For instance, Valentine gives an alternative phrase, “transgender identified,” which he says might leave more room for a more complex web of identifying one’s self versus being identified by social powers. I like the way valentine tells the reader about the activist and social service component of his work. Although they are, including him, trying to understand and help the “community,” there is not a concrete community to help because of the ambiguity of the culture. Instead of giving strict definitions of who he believes fits into what categories, Valentine is able to reinforce the idea, that it is about each person’s individual desires, identification, and practices and not about generalizing.
April 2, 2012
Imagining Transgender by Valentine, was a challenging read for me because I’m afraid I fall into using the term transgender as a category for gender variance, and while I recognize and know it is much more than that, in analytical work it becomes easy to just attribute all others to one category.
However, what struck me the most of this was the discussions of inclusion and exclusion based on how one identifies and the importance placed on identifying the “appropriate” way for the company you keep from activists to street sex workers. There are obvious benefits to being included, such as access to services and support and institutionalization of one’s demands to the state (Valentine’s perceived benefit) as a group. These benefits are not enough to encourage everyone to fall in line so to speak. Some people resist the label transgender and instead articulate their identity as “I know what I am.”
The final concept raised by this book, I would like to touch on is Valentine’s interaction with Jillian and the discussions of violence. I think this an important concept because while Valentine did have permission from the group’s organizers, Jillian still felt violated by his presence and note taking during a confidential meeting. I believe this to be worth mentioning regardless of field or interest area of study.
However, what struck me the most of this was the discussions of inclusion and exclusion based on how one identifies and the importance placed on identifying the “appropriate” way for the company you keep from activists to street sex workers. There are obvious benefits to being included, such as access to services and support and institutionalization of one’s demands to the state (Valentine’s perceived benefit) as a group. These benefits are not enough to encourage everyone to fall in line so to speak. Some people resist the label transgender and instead articulate their identity as “I know what I am.”
The final concept raised by this book, I would like to touch on is Valentine’s interaction with Jillian and the discussions of violence. I think this an important concept because while Valentine did have permission from the group’s organizers, Jillian still felt violated by his presence and note taking during a confidential meeting. I believe this to be worth mentioning regardless of field or interest area of study.
July 24, 2012
A really wonderful ethnography of what "transgender" means. Valentine discovered that many of the people he met while doing research in 1990s NYC did not identify as "transgendered" but as gay, fem queen, butch lesbian and so on. Rather than assume these people just didn't understand, he took them at their word and set out to explore how race, class, gender, sexuality, politics and day to day experience influence and are influenced by the term transgender. He investigated the ways in which an umbrella term is useful and even necessary (in politics, fundraising, sometimes scholarship) and yet how trying to fit everyone into a single definition can be limited, erasing, even violent to those whose lives are being shaped to fit a public narrative. Really a fabulous work, both scholarly and well written.
lost-to-the-library
March 29, 2016The one that got me into this mess. Fascinating sociology (even if I still don't get the exact differences between a butch queen up in drags and... all the other ones), and some other interesting ideas. Not remotely a primer (oops).
Falls prey to a very typical problem with trans sociology: there's way more focus on (approximately) 'transfeminine' than (approximately) 'transmasculine' people. To his credit, Valentine talks to about two who could be classified as the latter. You have to wonder why the disparity in numbers happens, though.
I honestly haven't read this in a while so I'm not remembering much and perhaps not doing it justice here.
Falls prey to a very typical problem with trans sociology: there's way more focus on (approximately) 'transfeminine' than (approximately) 'transmasculine' people. To his credit, Valentine talks to about two who could be classified as the latter. You have to wonder why the disparity in numbers happens, though.
I honestly haven't read this in a while so I'm not remembering much and perhaps not doing it justice here.
April 12, 2023
The care and vulnerability with which Valentine treats his interactions as a white cis gay man with his subjects—predominantly people of color—helps to reconcile the power differential he's participating in, and in that sense, provides an instructive example for both academic research and public advocacy across difference. The book is obviously dated, and there are moments when this comes through in the language he uses, but again, the care he takes to leave room for language to stretch and bend with the category he's interrogating helps. Definitely a useful and interesting read for anyone interested in the interstices of gender, sexuality, activism, and academia.
May 30, 2008
Fantastic, fascinating storytelling disguised as anthropological discourse and vice versa. Dr. Valentine presents challenging arguements about how gender identity is perceived and addressed outside the Trans community and within it, based on honing categories such as race and class. A great way to shatter the concepts of gender identity dysphoria as a single umbrella concept. The book was also nominated for the 2008 Lambda Literary Awards, and is completely deserving of the honor.
October 11, 2015
Balanced between theory and ethnography gathered in 1990s New York City, Valentine interrogates the category of transgender, revealing that its use may in fact disadvantage many of low low-income people of color that it attempts to give voice to.
April 19, 2016
I felt like he used an intersectional analysis approach well to allow bring out why some groups of people preferred or disliked the term transgender. I really liked all the bike bits as he biked around the city :)
June 22, 2017
Utterly amazing contribution to queer/transgender studies. Highly recommended to Foucauldians, fans of Kulick and Cameron, as well as those interested in ontology. I have read this book twice and the second time it was even better!
November 14, 2011
good stories but seemed a bit too short and i think he should write more up as a retrospective
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October 30, 2015306.768 V157 2007
July 14, 2011
Only read a couple of chapters for a course, but it gave me a lot to think about.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews