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male nor female) and persons who don't identify with the particular sexed
bodies (male or female) they were born with. Many of the latter are
transvestites who prefer to wear attire normally associated with the opposite
sex. The second term, which originated in the early 1990s, refers to indi-
viduals who elect not to play one of the two established gender roles and
who don't, accordingly, simply regard themselves as either a 'male' or a
'female' in a subjective sense. Transgendered persons include androgynes,
drag queens, drag kings, butches, lady boys, effeminate men and many
transvestites. They may identify as heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual or
asexual. Unlike many transsexuals, transgendered individuals don't nec-
essarily seek to alter their sexual appearance and functioning physically
(through surgery) or biochemically (through pharmaceuticals). This said, it's
not uncommon to find transsexuals who are also transgender in appearance,
behaviour and self-understanding.
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In a political sense, transsexuals and transgender persons began to find
their voice in California from the late 1980s. They were inspired by the post-
1968 successes of both the feminist and the gay and lesbian movements in
the United States. But some pioneering commentators also defined transsex-
ual and transgender politics in partial
opposition
to both movements, which
they saw as containing exclusionary elements. Leading feminist and 'queer'
thinkers had succeeded in distinguishing between and arguing against the
causal coupling of anatomical sex, sexual preference and gender. They
denaturalised the latter two, with Judith Butler (1993) later arguing that
even anatomical sex could not be understood as a natural substrate upon
which sexual preferences and gender roles and identities were built con-
tingently (see
Box 5.4
). This helped feminists and queer activists to resist
any normative regulation of their constituents' behaviour based on suppos-
edly natural 'imperatives' or on correcting 'deviations' from psychosomatic
norms; however, it also led some among them to take a dim view of 'trans'
people.
BOX 5.4
In
Box 5.3
, 'moral regulation' was the focus. Such regulation can greatly
influence people's sense of self and the actions they undertake publicly
and privately. A powerful example of this relates to 'heteronormativity'.
As noted by Michael Warner (1991) over 20 years ago, it involves a
presumed
causal alignment
of biological sex, sexuality, gender identity
and gender roles. In turn, this alignment is said to be 'normal' and
forms a template for young people as they mature into adults. Indeed,
Butler has talked about
compulsive
heteronormativity to emphasise its
social force. The presumed causal alignment mentioned above can be
