Revisiting "The Posttranssexual Manifesto"

03/31/25

I'm revisiting an old paper I wrote an essay about in high school: The Posttranssexual Manifesto by Sandy Stone, first published in 1987.

I plan on studying it again in full and drafting up a proper rebuttal, but until then I wanted to provide a brief overview of my thoughts.

It's high off Butler's stuff and like, a weird foresight into modern trans discourse. I was obsessed with it as a teenager and plumbed its thesis statements trying to extract a good analysis but I really had no fucking clue what I was reading about. I'd been radicalized by Feinberg's Transgender Warriors at the time, for context, and had generated most of my political consciousness through osmosis from Tumblr fringe groups, so the actual contents of the essay's arguments escaped me. In hindsight, I can see now that the use of the term "transsexual" etc obfuscated what is now a clear precursor to the modern interpretation of trans experience.

Here is a pertinent quote:

To foreground the practices of inscription and reading which are part of this deliberate invocation of dissonance, I suggest constituting transsexuals not as a class or problematic "third gender", but rather as a genre--a set of embodied texts whose potential for productive disruption of structured sexualities and spectra of desire has yet to be explored. In order to effect this, the genre of visible transsexuals must grow by recruiting members from the class of invisible ones, from those who have disappeared into their "plausible histories". The most critical thing a transsexual can do, the thing that constitutes success, is to "pass."

Passing means to live successfully in the gender of choice, to be accepted as a "natural" member of that gender. Passing means the denial of mixture. One and the same with passing is effacement of the prior gender role, or the construction of a plausible history. Considering that most transsexuals choose reassignment in their third or fourth decade, this means erasing a considerable portion of their personal experience. It is my contention that this process, in which both the transsexual and the medicolegal/psychological establishment are complicit, forecloses the possibility of a life grounded in the intertextual possibilities of the transsexual body. To negotiate the troubling and productive multiple permeabilities of boundary and subject position that intertextuality implies, we must begin to rearticulate the foundational language by which both sexuality and transsexuality are described. For example, neither the investigators nor the transsexuals have taken the step of problematizing "wrong body" as an adequate descriptive category. In fact "wrong body" has come, virtually by default, to define the syndrome.

This is literally the fucking same "discourse/identity politics > needs/wants/goals of the individual trans person" people pull today. I need to start looking for moderate trans thinkers/essayists otherwise I'm going to become the Joker.

Treating human beings as vehicles for pet political theories/discourse is so goddamn annoying. You can't refrain from categorizing trans people as a mysterious "third gender" then turn around and argue that they should instead become something even more radical, weaponizing their daily lives, bodies, and transitions to champion the abolition and dismantlement of the gender binary, which constitutes the very foundation of human sexuality and gender presentation.

"The intertextual possibilities of the transsexual body"???? Get a grip! I don't owe jack shit to anybody, least of all some nebulous philosophy that spits in the face of my own identity and transition by positing that medical interventions meant to alleviate my dysphoria is somehow a detriment to the greater transgender cause. Language like this is insufferably pedantic, and so fucking removed from tangible reality, holy shit! I'm not going to Walmart and displaying the intertextual possibilities of my gender, I'm buying fucking groceries.

Some-fucking-how, the right and left have horseshoed around to thinking that trans people are all secret political operatives. There will quite literally never be a day when the rest of humanity looks at us trannies and thinks: you know what, let's just buck the very paradigm which defines how we navigate society! We are never going to enter a post-gender, post-sex world, because there is no secret de-gendered, default state for humanity. It's all cunt, cocks, and variations thereof, with a gradient of man/woman and male/female superimposed on top!

The dissonance between sex and gender, the superimposition of the transsexual experience on top of the male/female, man/woman dichotomies, is in itself the radical "manifesto" people are looking for. The fact that we exist and pursue transitioning is all the fucking "intertextual possibility" you need—and quite frankly, it's all anybody fucking deserves from us.

This paper is now over 30 years old, but if you switch around the lexicon it reads just like a modern trans essay, and I've only highlighted a small passage. I'd suggest giving it a read if you're curious about the ideologies which inform modern trans discourse.

Additional notes

1. It's really indicative of how people view gender, men, masculinity, etc today in that the most I see people still vouch for historical paradigms of transsexuality and gender assimilation is within binary trans male spaces, because we are othered within the larger trans community whose modern tenants are broadly incompatible with unapologetically male/masculine/transsexual FTMs

2. The whole idea that "the wrong body" motif is problematic when it serves to describe the literal physical/mental agony trans people suffer every single day is just wild aghghhhh you can't fucking discourse and theory me out of my lived experience!!!! fuck off!!

3. I wanna bring transsexual and transsexuality back into vogue with my own writing. I hate just saying "trans" or "trans experience" etc etc lol, it's so vague and non-specific. "Transsexuality" as a subject of discussion and philosophy just works so much better and carries all the context and reference it needs within itself

4. I feel that I should clarify that my conception of the transsexual "answer" to the gender binary is not a dualistic absolute, i.e. you are "all in" or "all out" when it comes to hormonal/surgical interventions, but rather that there is a minimum participation in transitioning, and personal choices and goals exist on a granularity, hence my usage of the term "gradient" when I refer to this stuff

5. On that note, I will also add that I perceive non-binary identities to be within the schema of gender presentation, existing independently of the transsexual question; i.e., someone may be non-binary and trans, or non-binary and cis

6. I think if I ever get rich enough to afford to go back to school for a degree I actually want and not just for a career, I will major in philosophy or sociology or something and minor in queer studies, I feel like I could literally write a book about trans stuff, I just need the formal education to get me there

7. Amidst typing all of this up, I belatedly remember that it's Transgender Day of Visibility, haha.

I'm always down to talk with new people about this stuff, so feel free to reach out either through my guestbook or e-mail.

Addendum

Yeah I appreciate this measured appraisal of the essay and I understand where you're coming from. There are certainly parts of it that have merit and I'll need to re-study the text in full to develop a holistic response. I remember a lot of Stone's buildup was quite sound and I appreciated the rhetorical process she implemented, but the conclusion she drew from it is something I no longer agree with, though, as you've said, I am probably coming at it from too radical/absolute of a perspective.

Certainly back in her time there was a lot more nuance to this discussion, and the modern context I'm projecting onto it does a disservice both to Stone's work and the historical context it was written in. I was just having a Moment TM earlier and took it out on...this niche essay lol.

It was probably more of an issue in the 1980s, but I can definitely see how needing to pass a set medical criteria in order to get the aid you want would lead to people conforming to that medical criteria, even if it's an exaggeration or half-truth.

Yes, this was certainly a problem back then. One of my favorite trans figures, particularly trans male figures, is Lou Sullivan. He was a gay FTM trans man who championed being openly gay while transitioning, which was taboo for quite some time. He was basically forced to pretend to be straight when he first sought hormones etc. I was obsessed with him as a teenager and eventually want to dive into a more scholarly exploration of his biography and work. For Christmas one year I asked that my mom buy me a copy of his booklet of advice, Information for the Female to Male Cross Dresser and Transsexual, which I still have in my possession. He also co-founded the FTM International group (it used to have a website, which is sadly now defunct).

I know trans people "content" with their at-birth genitals, but if that tick box was what stood between them and hormones it's obvious how they'd answer.

I am of this same sub-population of trans people, given the added modifications of hormones and, one day hopefully, a "moderate" version of bottom surgery ("simple" metoidioplasty as opposed to full-on phalloplasty). I think that the sort of "posttranssexual" state Stone discusses is something similar to how I view my dysphoria, body, etc, in that it is categorically defined by my transsexuality, and to remove that aspect of my physical self is to just deny the entire existence of my gender and sex as it has developed throughout my transition. I feel as if I've been so heavy handed in my thought process that I've neglected to reiterate the fact that my own personal experience is not strictly aligned with the optimal or "clinical" transsexual diagnostic criteria.

This idea permeates through society in more subtle ways as well. Just as an example, I think in many ways there is more pressure on transwomen today to shave their arms and legs than on cis women, because they need to "prove" their femininity by cleansing their "wrong" body and conforming to a socio/medical "right" body.

I suppose that my idea of this sort of thing is colored by my being a trans man, I have a lot of feelings on this but I'm not in the space to start unpacking all of it at the moment. This has given me a lot to think about however.

So insofar the essay is critiquing a supposed need to "obliterate" your past self and be wholly "reborn" in a medically-socially approved way (presumably worse in the 1980s) I think there's value in it.

The call to action at the end of the essay explicitly doesn't go as far as calling for trans people to not pass, but it does urge them to not live in silence. I find this interesting because that's effectively what you have decided to do, right?

I think that the manner in which authenticity is measured, at least for trans men, has troubling metrics. There's so much crap surrounding the masculinity of trans men and whether or not it is validated. For example, there's a lot of rhetoric surrounding trans male people who call themselves boys/guys/dudes/etc but decline from calling themselves "men." A lot of it is just misandry and identity politics etc etc.

I guess my response to all of this is predicated upon the notion that this "optimal transsexual experience" I'm being called to denounce—i.e., assimilating into manhood, passing as cis, going stealth, etc—is simultaneously my only option if I want to have my masculinity, maleness, and manhood validated above all else—i.e., authenticity re: being transsexual, becoming a source of trans visibility, etc, both of which have informed my decision to slowly come out again.

Being openly trans again means that I am aligning myself with a socio-cultural label that, due to modern identity/purity politics, inherently invalidates my own masculinity. I've spoken about this phenomena before and don't have the energy to repeat all of it again here, but I can point you to some blog links if you want. So much of being a "trans man" feels like I'm trans first and a man second, or a lesser version of a man, or my masculinity is diluted to something palpable, etc—and I'm supposed to be happy about that instead of like, offended and upset.

I guess it's just the fact that "posttranssexual" in today's world means something entirely different than when Stone wrote this essay. I'll be honest, reading your response and working through my reply to it has made me a bit emotional. There's a reason I was so obsessed with this text as a kid—the experience Stone is advocating for is certainly admirable and made in good faith—but I guess I'm just more jaded and beaten down now that I'm older. I do think that I want to regain some sort of identity and self-concept that Stone describes, it just feels impossible with everything I've been through since I first read this essay, years before I transitioned and experienced what being a trans man really entails.

I read [mutual friend's] comment¹ I assume you're referring to, and it deadass made me cry lol. I would have responded the same way. I've given a lot of thought about whether I'd want to be cis if I could flip a switch, and the answer is no, for the same reasons they listed. If I could magically wake up with a penis? Sure, of course. But that doesn't necessitate me being cis.

I don't hate being trans. I guess I just feel like my concept of what it means to be trans feels isolating. Idk. I probably shouldn't be doing all of this thinking in public like this haha.

Would you mind if I copied this comment and added it to my blog post, with the excerpts I pulled from your reply intact? I feel like it's given me a chance to rethink my position and I would like to save it for posterity and authenticity.

✘ Posted on — 03/31/25
✘ Last modified — 4 months, 3 weeks ago
✘ Link — https://blog.xavierhm.com/revisiting-the-posttranssexual-manifesto

Footnotes

#blog #politics #trans