The University of Victoria is home to the world’s largest Transgender archives. Its contents include books, audio recordings, court transcripts, and newspaper clippings from 18 different countries. If the boxes were laid out side by side they would run the length of a football field. To call this collection important would be an understatement of significant proportions if for no other reason than because the collection reflects attitudes towards gender non-binary folks stretching back nearly a century.
A newspaper clipping from Britain in 1949 is headlined “Hero in Female Clothes Gaoled.” The article goes on to name and describe two people, one of whom served as a “male nurse” in the Navy, who were arrested for “importuning” (prostitution) while dressed in women’s clothing. The article goes on to cite the two’s addresses and to describe in exact detail what they wore. Another article headlined “Crowd Hostile to Man in Skirts” from a year later does the same, as does yet another article from 1951.
These clippings provide valuable insight as to the way anyone deviating from their assigned gender was regarded at the time. Specifically, these articles show that these individuals were treated as spectacles, or even as jokes in some cases. In the clipping from ’50 a police officer is quoted as saying “he must have done this before, or he would have got mixed up with the corsets and underwear.” Two of the three articles specify that the people in question were “importuning” without providing any evidence beyond what they were wearing to justify it. This suggests that from a legal standpoint at the time there was no way for a man who chose to represent his gender identity in a way that did not match what he was assigned at birth outside of a performer or a prostitute. But that is not all those clippings have to say.
“Somebody else cut those out of the newspaper,” says Aaron Devor, the Research Chair in Transgender Studies at UVic. “They were excited, pleased, happy, to know that there was someone else like them.” Somebody felt that it was important to cut out and save that small article, perhaps because it offered them some small comfort. That doesn’t justify using Trans folks as a punchline. Sophie Labelle articulates in her webcomic Assigned Male that whenever someone laughs at the idea of a man dressed as a woman, a Trans girl becomes more scared to come out. When the media reports on gender issues like that they take that idea and expand it to a macro level. It takes the power of the establishment and uses it to try and repress that idea.
The other effect of that, points out Devor, is that it spreads an idea that people previously would not have considered. “It allows people who thought they were the only one to have an identity and to find other people like them and start resisting the oppression.” When the world’s first transsexual celebrity, Christine Jorgenson, claimed headlines the world over in 1952, a dialogue started. The article featured in New York’s Daily News contained inaccuracies and focused heavily on Jorgenson’s physical transformation into a “blonde beauty,” but this was the beginning of a very slow shift in the way the media talked about gender.
To compare, on October 24th 2016, the CBC reported on a custody dispute in Medicine Hat, Alberta. In it, a child who was assigned male at birth demanded to have female pronouns and to express her gender as a girl. When interviewed, the child’s mother recounted an instance when she asked when her penis would fall off and, when told that it would not, later stated she planned to cut it off. In response the mother began to seek professional help and to research gender dysphoria. She stated that as soon as she promised to validate her child’s identity the outbursts and tantrums were replaced by confidence and happiness. Devor suggests this is a common response in Canadian parents – that while they may start off “pretty ignorant” they will do research to learn more about what their child is experiencing. The idea that parents should protect their children from these dangerous ideas is rapidly changing, says Devor.
Despite this change in the mother, two different judges who presided over the custody dispute, Judge Derek Redman and Judge Fred Fisher, both said the child “would not be permitted to wear clearly female clothes in public” and named the child’s father as primary caregiver. Judge Gordon Krinke later overturned this ruling, which had received widespread criticism for going against Alberta’s Bill of Rights.
What is noteworthy about the article, however, is that when it was initially published the headline read “Court order states 4-year-old boy can’t wear girl clothes in Southeastern Alberta town.” The article also referred to the 4-year-old with he/him pronouns throughout, despite the content of the article explicitly stating that the child does not identify this way. The pushback against this decision (or mistake) was so strong and immediate that within twelve hours of its initial publication online the article was changed. The current headline reads: “Medicine Hat judges ordered 4-year-old not to wear girls’ clothes in public,” and the pronouns were all changed either to feminine or gender neutral.
“I’m happy to hear they corrected themselves,” says Devor. He goes on to say that mass media wants to appeal to the public, that they need to respond to the public. Because the public is becoming more accepting of non-binary genders, the media is beginning to reflect this acceptance. The organizations and documents that lead official opinion, institutions like the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and the International Classification of Diseases are moving in the same direction. “They’re all moving in the direction of accepting gender diversity.” Then, after a moment, “but social change is uneven.” While it is not true in most of the world, here in Canada we are fortunate in that regard. It is more widely accepted here that people do not fit into the gender binary, and that there are ways to speak about gender without reinforcing that binary.
This was made abundantly clear in the recent coverage of the University of Toronto’s Jordan Peterson, who stated that he refuses to use gender-neutral pronouns.
In an interview with CBC radio, Peterson affirmed that he will not use “non-standard elements of the English language” that are “constructs of. . . Ideologically motivated people.” He also claims that there is not enough evidence at this time to say that gender identity and biology are independent constructs. “Transgender people make the same argument,” says Peterson. He goes on to explain he is referring to the expression “a man can be born in a woman’s body.” Devor replies: “I don’t get why that justifies that position.” He notes that grammar is fluid. Not long ago in the history of the English language there was a singular and a plural for the second person, thou and you. If someone today used ‘thou’ in casual conversation “it would not be grammatically incorrect, but it would be archaic.” As a living language, English adapts to suit the needs of the speakers. If new social developments are made then it will adapt to reflect that. “I believe it is already changing,” says Devor.
He does allow that keeping track of pronouns is difficult. “However, everybody has a name.” Devor explains that there are certainly fewer pronouns than there are names. To the degree that people are willing to remember each other’s names it is not more complicated to remember their pronouns. “He’s saying he won’t even try.”
But again, it is the media coverage of Peterson’s controversial position that is worthy of note. The media gave him a lot of airtime, which implicitly validates his beliefs. At the same time they are giving people who oppose Peterson a lot of airtime, such as one of Peterson’s colleagues at the U of T, A. W. Peet, and UBC’s Professor Mary Bryson. It is bringing the concept of non-binary gender identities into the conversations of people who have never heard of it before. “And they are hearing both sides,” says Devor.
It is a far cry from those 1950s newspaper clippings, where transgender voices must be deduced rather than heard. Non-binary identities are still a spectacle to some, but that too is slowly changing. There are still some people out there who are saying we can ‘fix’ gay people, but they are a minority today. When asked on the media’s role in this, Devor’s response was optimistic.
“At this point mass media is helping that.” Then, “if you had asked me that five years ago I would have given a different answer.” As more people express their identity as non-binary, mass media will continue to change to reflect that.