Transphobia Since the 1970s
Janice Raymond’s ‘The Transsexual Empire’
In 1972, Janice Raymond delivered a paper at the New England Regional Academy of Religion Meeting, and in 1977, she finished her doctoral dissertation on a similar topic. In 1979, Beacon Press published it as The Transsexual Empire.
It’s a transphobia classic. The book itself doesn’t give much background on how Raymond became interested in or gained expertise on the topic. It’s poorly structured, simply repeating the same idea as an article of faith: A sexist society promotes gender stereotypes, some people can’t fit into the box they’re given, and the pursuit of another gender’s stereotype is, at its apex, the pursuit of hormones and surgery. Trans people are living caricatures by the definition she sets out.
Because it has been so influential, and because it dates to 1979, we can look at its irrationality and spot its repetition in today’s transphobia. Today’s transphobia isn’t new. They are the same ideas that have been recycling for decades.
Raymond uses the words “transsexual” and “transsexualism.” I use them when I quote her because I think it’s important to show how she uses these words transphobically—it’s essential to her book, and seeing it in turn helps explain why most trans people don’t like these words anymore. But sometimes I just refer…
