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The New Woman: Literary Modernism, Queer Theory, and the Trans Feminine Allegory (Volume 27)
The New Woman: Literary Modernism, Queer Theory, and the Trans Feminine Allegory traces the use of the trans feminine as an allegorical figure, from the practice's origins in nineteenth-century sexology through writings in the fields of psychoanalysis, Modernist fiction, and contemporary Queer Theory.
The book is the first to identify the process by which medical sources simplified the diversity of trans feminine experience into a single diagnostic narrative. It then demonstrates that this medical figure became an archetype for the "sexual anarchy" of the Modernist period in works by Aldous Huxley, James Joyce, Djuna Barnes, T. S. Eliot, and Jean Genet.
Thus illuminating the trans feminine's Modernist provenance, the book examines foundational works of Queer Theory that resuscitated the trans feminine allegory at the end of the twentieth century. Insightful and seminal, The New Woman debunks the pervasive reflex beginning in the 1990s to connect trans experience to a late twentieth-century collapse of sexual differences by revealing the Modernist roots of that very formulation.
The book is the first to identify the process by which medical sources simplified the diversity of trans feminine experience into a single diagnostic narrative. It then demonstrates that this medical figure became an archetype for the "sexual anarchy" of the Modernist period in works by Aldous Huxley, James Joyce, Djuna Barnes, T. S. Eliot, and Jean Genet.
Thus illuminating the trans feminine's Modernist provenance, the book examines foundational works of Queer Theory that resuscitated the trans feminine allegory at the end of the twentieth century. Insightful and seminal, The New Woman debunks the pervasive reflex beginning in the 1990s to connect trans experience to a late twentieth-century collapse of sexual differences by revealing the Modernist roots of that very formulation.
368 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 2017
11 people are currently reading
766 people want to read
About the author
Emma Heaney
3 books7 followersEmma Heaney is an assistant professor of English at William Paterson University
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 13, 2021
In 1918 Jennie June published Autobiography of an Androgyne. Jennie identified as a “fairie,” an “androgyne” and an “invert” all words used to describe gender non-conforming people before the word “transgender.” They advocated for understanding and acceptance of “fairies” and use the term “girl-boy” to describe their community who had been “told they were men but knew themselves to be – and recognized each other as – women” (4). Dr. Heaney reminds us that in working-class areas of cities like London, New York, and Paris in the 19th century “mollies” and “fairies” were socially understood as women” (7). These communities lived “without the necessity of medical diagnosis or official authentication” (27). Why have we forgotten this vibrant history of transfeminine people? This is a story of transmisogyny.
In the 19th century there was a recognition that “all bodies [could be] penetrated and [were] thus vulnerable to social feminization” (6). One’s “sex” was associated with their presumed “recessive” position in the sex act. This was evident with the passing of the Contagious Diseases Act of 1864, which police used to conduct vaginal and/or anal examination on any women who was accused of prostitution – including mollies and fairies (164). There was an understanding that there was “no single definition of femininity or masculinity,” rather there were “particular iterations of ‘men’ and ‘women’ that varied according to class and ethnic groups” (30). Working-class transfeminine people were seen as another variation of womanhood, not a violation of it.
It was only in the early 20th century that “sex became cis” meaning (14) solely defined by genitalia for everyone. During this time we began to see the medicalization of trans femininity by Western eugenics / sexology which “required trans women to regard their bodies and sex as misaligned” (7). While there were certainly some trans women who were interested in medical transition, this model ignored those who were not. It dismissed the realities of the many working-class girl-boys, fairies, and androgynes who already lived as women and insisted that “trans women regard their womanhood as only an aspiration” (7). These communities were ridiculed as delusional and inadequate, in need of medical intervention in order to be “fixed.”
By the mid 20th century transfeminine people were reduced to a character foil that upwardly mobile “modern” society began to distinguish itself from. Effeminacy became seen as marker of degeneracy, “a disavowed anachronistic aberration” associated with non-Western “uncivilized” cultures (247). In 1896 Karl Maria Kertbeny coined the term “homosexual” to “differentiate masculine men who desire men from trans feminine inverts.” In the 1910s and 1920s, men began to use the term “queer” specifically to “distinguish themselves from the fairies who were primarily defined by female gender presentation” (105). In their pursuit of respectability, these middle-class queers “blamed anti-gay hostility on the failures of fairies to abide by straight middle-class conventions of decorum in their dress and style” (105).
Early queer and women’s rights activists scapegoated “effeminate” transfeminine people, instead of targeting the real culprit: patriarchal gender norms. Transfemininity became the “most visible violation” of the modern gender code, a ridiculous and uncouth vestige of the uncivilized (14). By the 1920s, “the trans feminine icon Quentin Crisp could report that all men “searched themselves for vestiges of effeminacy as they searched themselves for lice” (21). Feminist “new women” argued that sex work and gender deviant queerness was “impediments” to freedom (247), and that the only pathway to women’s liberation was to be found in heterosexuality and so-called “rational” masculinity” (247). By the mid 20th century, visibly gender non-conforming trans feminine people were made into a “figure for the disavowed feminine qualities that were inassimilable with the liberation for gay men or cis women” (49).
Unfortunately the scapegoating of gender non-conforming people continues today. Transmisogyny is not the exception, it is the norm. Effeminacy / femininity / gender non-conformity are not the problem. Sexism is. People should not have to “tone it down” in order to be accepted.
In the 19th century there was a recognition that “all bodies [could be] penetrated and [were] thus vulnerable to social feminization” (6). One’s “sex” was associated with their presumed “recessive” position in the sex act. This was evident with the passing of the Contagious Diseases Act of 1864, which police used to conduct vaginal and/or anal examination on any women who was accused of prostitution – including mollies and fairies (164). There was an understanding that there was “no single definition of femininity or masculinity,” rather there were “particular iterations of ‘men’ and ‘women’ that varied according to class and ethnic groups” (30). Working-class transfeminine people were seen as another variation of womanhood, not a violation of it.
It was only in the early 20th century that “sex became cis” meaning (14) solely defined by genitalia for everyone. During this time we began to see the medicalization of trans femininity by Western eugenics / sexology which “required trans women to regard their bodies and sex as misaligned” (7). While there were certainly some trans women who were interested in medical transition, this model ignored those who were not. It dismissed the realities of the many working-class girl-boys, fairies, and androgynes who already lived as women and insisted that “trans women regard their womanhood as only an aspiration” (7). These communities were ridiculed as delusional and inadequate, in need of medical intervention in order to be “fixed.”
By the mid 20th century transfeminine people were reduced to a character foil that upwardly mobile “modern” society began to distinguish itself from. Effeminacy became seen as marker of degeneracy, “a disavowed anachronistic aberration” associated with non-Western “uncivilized” cultures (247). In 1896 Karl Maria Kertbeny coined the term “homosexual” to “differentiate masculine men who desire men from trans feminine inverts.” In the 1910s and 1920s, men began to use the term “queer” specifically to “distinguish themselves from the fairies who were primarily defined by female gender presentation” (105). In their pursuit of respectability, these middle-class queers “blamed anti-gay hostility on the failures of fairies to abide by straight middle-class conventions of decorum in their dress and style” (105).
Early queer and women’s rights activists scapegoated “effeminate” transfeminine people, instead of targeting the real culprit: patriarchal gender norms. Transfemininity became the “most visible violation” of the modern gender code, a ridiculous and uncouth vestige of the uncivilized (14). By the 1920s, “the trans feminine icon Quentin Crisp could report that all men “searched themselves for vestiges of effeminacy as they searched themselves for lice” (21). Feminist “new women” argued that sex work and gender deviant queerness was “impediments” to freedom (247), and that the only pathway to women’s liberation was to be found in heterosexuality and so-called “rational” masculinity” (247). By the mid 20th century, visibly gender non-conforming trans feminine people were made into a “figure for the disavowed feminine qualities that were inassimilable with the liberation for gay men or cis women” (49).
Unfortunately the scapegoating of gender non-conforming people continues today. Transmisogyny is not the exception, it is the norm. Effeminacy / femininity / gender non-conformity are not the problem. Sexism is. People should not have to “tone it down” in order to be accepted.
March 17, 2018
A good, though sometimes challenging read. I learned things of interest. See my forthcoming review in Signs for more.
April 10, 2021
Intellectually, this is a very exciting book, and what Heaney sets out to do in documenting the portrayal of trans women as pure metaphor, rather than, y'know, people, is both urgent and quite impressive. Prose-wise, though, this shows every sign of having been a PhD thesis to begin with, which I believe it was, and is therefore occasionally overwritten, repetitive, or a bit of a slog. I'm also not totally sure that the final chapter on Materialist Trans Feminism manages to do quite what it sets out to: it seems a little heavy on summarising others' work, and a little light on new insight, to work as a conclusion in its own right. With that said, there's plenty of use elsewhere in the book to me and I'll definitely be thinking more about it going forwards.
August 27, 2024
Heaney's book is gorgeously researched and so important for defining what trans materialism could be. I cannot recommend it enough.
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December 4, 2017809.933 H4349 2017
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews