Disobedient bodies. Travestism and gender identity.

“Of the men I am the second, from the women I become the first”. As well as this testimony of a transvestite, Josefina Fernandez in her book Disobedient Bodies, which looks to give space to the voices of transvestite and their gender identity. Based on interviews and her investigation process, this book presents trans identity not from a definition previously established, but from the voices themselves. For that reason, the author interviews transvestites regarding family, the body, prostitution and the public domains, such as social-sexual groups that form the Gay, Lesbian, Travesti, Transexual and Bisexual movement.

The book begins with a description of the dissolution of “edictos municipales “ and the approval of the Coexistence Urban Code in Argentina. These policies generated a fervent debate in the media and among the public. This attention lead the author, a member of the feminist movement, to gain interest in the trans movement, and make connection among trans organizations. Transvestism seemed to question the existence of solely two “natural” sexes and the implications of this for gender. This question drove Fernandez’s book: ¿Which are the gender representations of travestism? ¿Are they a reinforcing solely two socially established gender identities, such as feminine and masculine? Is travestism a third gender, or, in contrary, the expression of a paradoxical identity for which the gender category is inefficient? The hypothesis of the author is that travestism challenges the principles of normative classification and the value socially constructed gender identities.

The concept of gender, framed with an understanding of the cultural construction of sexual difference, served as the first weapon against the naturalistic vision of solely two sexs: men and women. Further, this understanding challenged the unquestionable justification that women were destined to the home and procreation while men were destined to solely be the breadwinners. This understanding of gender presents the division of roles not like a natural consequence of biological sex, but instead, as a socially constructed concept based historically, in a specific time and place. Therefore, it is not just a “natural” process but one based on the development of humans, with flexibility for change.

This change of ideas was motivated by feminists, who saw that solely being confined to the home, devoted to marriage and maternity as her only possible future was a limitation, and violation of fundamental rights of autonomy and freedom. Specifically, that order of things and way of understanding gender roles does not benefit women, but instead perpetuates a patriarchal system. A system that also limits men by denying them the freedom of expression of affection and emotions, which is traditionally framed as weakness.

Trans identities challenge the relationship between sex and gender as solely natural, with their emphasis on deconstructing biological sex, before the cultural construction raised within it. “Travestis interpret, model and have experience of her body making an effort to separate the biological order from the culture order” (192). Indeed, the trans identity put into question that men are determined solely by a biological sexual reality. At the same time it also reaffirms that a different meaning of being a man is impossible if it is not already socially established. In that sense, although trans identity criticized the traditional understanding of the relationship between sex and gender, it still affirms the gender construction of man/woman.

Although there is consensus on the fictional character that links gender with sex, there exists different positions with respect to travestism. The author presents three main points of view in relation to travestism. 1) Travestism is like an expression of a third gender, in which anthropology has given accounts of societies in which hybrid identities are accepted into the social weave, demonstrating more than a binary construction of gender 2) Travestism reinforce particular gender identities, emphasizing the symbolic and physical appropriation of feminine characteristics, which makes them excluded from masculine ones. To be a transvestite is something only reserved for men because “the construction of the sexuality does not associate masculine clothes to eroticism. A difference between the construction of manhood, and the construction of womanhood is that the construction of womanhood does not imply a gender so inflexible as to reject the incorporation of traditionally conducts associated with opposed sex, indeed because manhood is defined as superior” (53). 3) Travestism is like the performance of gender, this position has a deconstructive nature, and raises the point that solely understanding one gender versus another is limited. Travestism defies the binary construction of gender and looks to deconstruct the category of gender all together. It further deconstructs naturalistic speech and fixed categories not only of gender but also sex. Teresa de Lauretis explains that the feminine identity is a complex symbolic and material process, that standardizes components of ideas of gender. She proposes the search of forms to destabilize these norms and to restore new ways of understanding identity of the feminine subject. In that same way of thinking, Judith Butler affirms that sex is a cultural product in the same way gender is, and for that reason it is necessary to distinction between the terms.

For Josefina Fernandez the fight of marginalized groups that struggle to exist and be seen in society, including transvestites, requires of analysis of models that does not reduce them to aesthetic categories. One the contrary, Fernandez argues that that their existence should be located both on political and historical horizons. “We need an approach that avoids the temptation of representing trans identity solely as a spectacle” (199). In relation to her initial hypothesis, Fernandez considers that transvestites as a group, are not that different from other groups that also demand their legitimate right to explore and to live freely. The demand of transvestites causes the exploration of a more plural society, and shows that it can be possible to live in harmony with those who defy the binary category of soley sex and gender. However, this demand does not necessarily imply a revolutionary search in identity. As a transvestite said to an anthropologist: in addition I must also be subversive? (200).

Although some years have passed from the publication of this book, the exposition and testimonies continue to be important today, and calls for a new understanding for debate and reflection.