GenderQueer: Voices From Beyond the Sexual Binary

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GenderQueer: Voices From Beyond the Sexual Binary

by Joan Nestle, Riki Anne Wilchins, Clare Howell

3.98 of 5 stars 3.98 · rating details · 583 ratings · 37 reviews

Perhaps more than any other issue, gender identity has galvanized the queer community in recent years. The questions go beyond the nature of male/female to a yet-to-be-traversed region that lies somewhere between and beyond biologically determined gender. In this groundbreaking anthology, three experts in gender studies and politics navigate around rigid, societally impose...more

Paperback, 297 pages

Published August 1st 2002 by Alyson Books

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Feb 20, 2013 Sam Rosenthal rated it 4 of 5 stars

Readers of my erotic novel RYE ask if there are books I'd recommend: books with similar emotional power. GENDERQUEER, VOICE FROM BEYOND THE SEXUAL BINARY immediately comes to mind. I found this book a couple of years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it, it's a very worthwhile read. Today I picked it off the shelf and brought it with me on the subway, I enjoy the fresh insightful writing. In all, there are 46 short pieces here, most running four to six pages. The variety gives you a brief insight into...more Readers of my erotic novel RYE ask if there are books I'd recommend: books with similar emotional power. GENDERQUEER, VOICE FROM BEYOND THE SEXUAL BINARY immediately comes to mind. I found this book a couple of years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it, it's a very worthwhile read. Today I picked it off the shelf and brought it with me on the subway, I enjoy the fresh insightful writing. In all, there are 46 short pieces here, most running four to six pages. The variety gives you a brief insight into a life you might never have known, a brief moment that reveals and yet - in aggregate - does nothing to definitively define who we are. Sometimes sad, sometimes funny, sometimes angry, this collection has great variety.

In the table of contents, I asterisked two stories, and they're just as wonderful the second time through. Sonya Bolus' "Loving Outside Simples Lines" is lyrical: touching and beautiful. She recounts her mixed emotions concerning her butch lover's top surgery. Blous' writing is like a warm soft breeze, the leaves floating languidly in the air, emotional with poignant urgency. "When I move against you, when I hold you to my breast, when I take you in my mouth, I take in your whole self. You feel my soul and I respond to you, as a femme, as a lesbian, as a transensual woman... as myself." L. Maurer's "Story of a Preadolescent Drag King" is a humorous memory of fifth-grade, when Mrs. Kay tried to grind the tomboy out of the narrator. She goes along with the gender suppression to get a promised shiny boy's 10-speed (her parent's reward for appeasing the teacher). The story is a friendly reminder that many many people do not want us to be who we are; they will work hard to devalue and diffuse our awareness of our gender and self, in order to box us in to meet their expectations. That's a beautiful and powerful message in this book: we are who we are, and as society fights against that reality we go through a lot of pain and self-discovery. And we come out the other side with a better understanding. The reality of who we are.

BEYOND THE SEXUAL BINARY, indeed.

It's a shame this book isn't available for Kindle. It really deserves to be read.(less)

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Sep 25, 2012 Zeo rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: collections, incorporated-into-language, being-the-other, identification-as-a-process, gender, passing, liminality, glbtqetc

Dear Riki Wilchins, I've been crediting the story about Jenell at the end of this quote to Kate Bornstein for years. My poor memory. Oops.

If gender is always a bending of self toward prevailing norms, then gender is always a kind of displacement, from which not even genderqueers are immune.

For instance, Clare Howell recently said to me, "I know I sound like a man." This kind of displacement repositions her voice as coming from somewhere else. This is like the cross-dresser who declares, "I like...more Dear Riki Wilchins, I've been crediting the story about Jenell at the end of this quote to Kate Bornstein for years. My poor memory. Oops.

If gender is always a bending of self toward prevailing norms, then gender is always a kind of displacement, from which not even genderqueers are immune.

For instance, Clare Howell recently said to me, "I know I sound like a man." This kind of displacement repositions her voice as coming from somewhere else. This is like the cross-dresser who declares, "I like wearing women's clothes." It's safe to say that no cross-dresser ever wore "women's clothes." If the bill came to him, they're his clothes, he bought them: They're obviously men's clothes. The displacement in naming them "women's clothes" prevents us from getting outside the terms of the language, from getting to something new that might redefine skirts or dresses or femininity as being about men.

Many cross-dressers would reply that the point of dressing for them is that these are women's clothes. It is the otherness of the clothing, the fact that they are "women's," that is precisely what allows them to feel feminine. But once again, we can't get to someplace new, where femininity might be something about men that is not anchored in Woman (or vice versa)...

I don't mean to fall into the familiar trap of criticizing those who want to eat their cake but not have it. Some genderqueers, including cross-dressers, are not interested in that "something new." They will always enjoy appropriation as appropriation for its own sake. These strategic displacements renounce ownership and participation. They announce that "this part of my gender isn't me, it belongs to someone else, I only appropriate/approximate it." They announce an acceptance of a particular gender's rules of access, who "owns" which words and who is allowed to use them. For instance, it's not possible for Clare to declare, "I sound like other men with breasts" or "I sound like other women trapped in male impersonators' bodies" or "I sound like a Clare," because those are not legitimate categories of description. By definition Clare must sound like something else, because her own body is not among the available choices.

Jenell, one of my favorite cross-dressers, always reminds me that hir enjoyment is transgression itself. If microminiskirts ever became fashionable for men, she'll have to decamp and find something else that is queer. In this sense, we are working somewhat at cross purposes. We both want to end the intolerable discrimination suffered by those who transcend gender stereotypes. But while I want to empty out those margins and bring queerness into the mainstream, she'd rather keep transgression in place, where s/he can enjoy it, but end its stigmatization. In retrospect, I think we both are right.

Riki Wilchins' "A Certain Kind of Freedom: Power and the Truth of Bodies--Four Essays on Gender" opens the book. I disagree with Wilchins's initial "if", insofar as a) if gender is always an action, it is not always a reflexive one (and in fact I would suggest that there is room for comparison of cultures based on proportion of gender acted upon others to gender acted upon selves), and b) to call it a "bending" suggests a willful compliance and self-modification that is not in fact performed by all people who are gendered, by self or others; I think it's more accurate to say gender is a performance of comparison to prevailing norms of sex (because there are many norms out there that intersect with this one but are not identical). However her "then" is, I think, still relevant, and that story about Jenell has made this clusterfuck of priorities stick in my head as necessary to keep in mind regarding trans politics.

Peggy Munson's essay "Liminal" still puts terror in me. While reading it first I was more and more frustrated with it, and then I said "oh" aloud, and then I had to stop and read the same sentence over and over until I couldn't anymore. I won't quote it here; even the typing out feels too personal. I'm keeping that text for me. You have to go read it for yourself.

"Sometimes," the woman speaker said to her rapt audience, "we just have to draw a line between male and female..." I could argue with her on the field of reason, but I didn't.

First of all, I knew her objections weren't stemming from any reasonable space. She was scared, plain and simple. Scared of finding penises in her restroom and testosterone in her girlfriends and probably a whole lot of other things too. No matter what I said, I probably wouldn't change her mind, because I wouldn't be addressing her fears--fears that were, in a sense, reasonable. After all, we are advocating an entire renovation of the gender system. We may disagree on what it should look like, but we're pretty much in favor of bringing on the drills and chisels. We shouldn't pretend otherwise; it insults the intelligence of the frightened masses. Yes, what you fear is true. And you know what? You'll live.

Raven Kaldera in "Do It On the Dotted Line" is spot on. I wish he was as good at listening to trans people as he is at talking to cis people.

My body is not female; it is intersexed. Nonconsensual surgery cannot erase intersexuality and produce whole males and females; it produces emotionally abused and sexually dysfunctional intersexuals. If I label my postsurgical anatomy female, I ascribe to surgeons the power to create a woman by removing body parts. I accede to their agenda of "woman as lack." I collaborate in the prohibition of my intersexual identity.

Cheryl Chase, "Affronting Reason". She's perhaps the best known person in intersex activism and with good reason.

I am not transgressing gender; it is gender that transgresses me. I want my body back.

Stacey Montgomery's "Twenty Passings" made me feel less alone. I read most of this book while working graveyards solo in an empty call center at least half a mile away from any occupied buildings, looking out at a freeway, between the hours of midnight and four thirty AM when there weren't many if any calls. Every day on public transit I was the person operating backward, going home when they were going to work and vice versa. When people were around at work they would start to talk to me about gender, and about mine...and I didn't really see people much outside of work. I finally did get, am getting my body back, sort of. I had to take it kicking and screaming.

There are other essays in this book too, of varying quality. Nestle's essay struck me as chasery and gross, and there were a number of others that seemed, well, super into gender in ways that I just didn't relate to. But jeez, not that this is where it all began, but this came out a month before I came out as trans. Two months later, one of my classmates from elementary school started testosterone, and six months later he was interviewed in People and on Oprah about being a trans man. This is what I'm talking about when I say that I came out at a critical time, and that my experience is so impacted by that - there was a certain critical point of visibility going on, especially for trans men, and genderqueer visibility became so interrelated with that as a visible point in activism, and...it's complicated. This is not a perfect book, and I'd be hard-pressed to call it a good book, and it's certainly not a favorite book, but it's an important book to understanding why the trans and genderqueer and intersex communities look the way they do today, and it's part of my own history, and it's from before Wilchins went off all GenderPAC-happy (there's always more money in protecting the gender rights of rich white cis daughters playing soccer).(less)

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Jul 31, 2012 Shaya rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, glbtqqia, memoir, collections

I really loved reading the wide range of gender experiences and found a lot of them to be very powerful. My favorite moment reading Genderqueer was when I read through a story and stopped trying to figure out what gender the author identified with and what combination of genitals they had and just accepted them as a person.

I was pleased at the quality of writing of almost all of the short stories. I often feel with anthologies that it's obvious that the majority of people writing are not career...more

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Aug 03, 2011 Cory rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: to-re-read, queer-trans, non-fiction, activisty

This book is amazingly affirming and eye-opening. It is a true testament to diversity and all the invisible groups and individuals within the queer community. If you are seeking to understand the transgender, genderqueer, even butch and femme communities, all those gendered (or not) self-expressions which generally go undiscussed, this book will really help. And if you are looking for ideas/support for your own expressions, look no further.

The essays on gender are very insightful and incredibly...more

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Apr 09, 2010 Julie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: essays, f-f, gender, m-m, memoir, nonfiction, transgender

This is a collection of essays/stories by people who don't fit into the neat packages of 'male' and 'female'. A number of them defy any labels, while others identify by their gender or sexual orientation, but aren't quite what you'd expect from that label.

I did find it all interesting, but there was a lot more discussion of sex than I was expecting. It gives the impression that gender is all about (or mostly about) sex. Not a lot of asexual voices in here, for one thing.

It's also a little inacce...more

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Feb 12, 2012 Chris rated it 4 of 5 stars

I thought this book was a pretty good collection of stories from people who challenge not just the idea that a man cannot become a woman or a woman cannot become a man, but the whole entire binary system of thinking about gender. I like to think that I'm an individual, but reading this book reminded me that in many ways I am just a product of my society. Until a friend of mine introduced me to the idea, I'd never considered that gender could be something other than binary. That is, gender can be...more

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Jun 13, 2009 Lobeck rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: anthology, queer, personal-narrative

Holy crap, the intro essays are boring - and not particularly well-written. It's no wonder I never made it through this book the first time I tried. I am unimpressed with the idea that emerges in these essays that genderqueer folks have it harder than transexual folks. I dislike this theme equally in reverse, as it is divisive and pointless and doesn't get the trans community anywhere. We all struggle for different reasons, and I don't find it helpful to fight about who has a harder time.

There a...more

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Mar 15, 2013 Jacob / Julie rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book is a collection of short pieces that actually divide into two books: the majority are short personal essays, while the first sixty pages are intro and theory. Both of these were wonderful and I recommend the whole book, although I can certainly see the two parts being worthwhile to people in different amounts or at different times or coming from different places. I found the theory articles to be eye-opening, as someone who hadn't been exposed to these ideas before (and particularly to...more

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Jan 26, 2008 Tierney rated it 4 of 5 stars

I really loved this book simply because I love reading anything queer, especially so many different experiences. I came away from this book with 2 things that bothered me, but also helped me look into myself and how I am viewed in my community, how femmes are viewed in my community, how the two come together and are viewed, and also what exactly is my community? So here's the first thing that bothered me-

“Genderqueers are people for whom some link in the feeling/expressing/being-perceived fails....more I really loved this book simply because I love reading anything queer, especially so many different experiences. I came away from this book with 2 things that bothered me, but also helped me look into myself and how I am viewed in my community, how femmes are viewed in my community, how the two come together and are viewed, and also what exactly is my community? So here's the first thing that bothered me-

“Genderqueers are people for whom some link in the feeling/expressing/being-perceived fails. For example, a stone butch may feel masculine and embody-in his own mind and behavior-masculinity. Yet because of his sex (the pronoun strains here), she might still be read as womanly, like a girl trying on her boyfriend’s clothes, especially if she is large-breasted and large-hipped.
If genderqueer bodies are those that fail because they don’t follow the rules, the grammar of gender-as-language, then what are the boundaries of such a term and what are its exclusions? Is a lesbian femme harassed for her miniskirt and fuck-me pumps genderqueer? Is a 3-year old who tries on his sister’s dress or a 40-year old who loses a promotion because her boss believes women should be seen but not promoted? What about a football captain who’s humiliated by his coach because he wept after a tough loss?
If genderqueerness is not something we do, but an identity we are, then none of these people would be candidates….”

It's totally possible I'm super sensitive, but to me lumping lesbian femmes in with toddlers who try on dresses, high school football players, and women dealing with misogynistic bosses leaves me feeling like femmes are being looked at as second class citizens in the queer community. I truly understand the gender nuances of these situations, it just reminds me of conversations I've had with people telling me that wearing heels and shaving is giving into the oppression of women and heterosexual male media's version of what a woman should be, without listening to the fact that I fucking love heels, and I'll decide exactly the type of woman I am, not society-straight or queer.

The second thing-
In the essay, Wanting Men, Lionhart writes, “I have always denied the stereotype, but it does seem to be true that the more femme the lesbian, the more likely she’s not a lesbian”
I know, the first amendment.
(less)

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Jan 07, 2011 Becky spain rated it 5 of 5 stars

l loved it. I love reading and learning about people who don't conform to the mainstream culture of what a girl or boy is " supposed" to act like. Labels like straight, gay, bi, femme, all that put a rigid definition in a person's head, but real life is more fluid than that. This book is a collection of many authors who don't restrict themselves to one fixed point on the gender binary. If you like this type of thing, or would like to read an eye opener, check it out.

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Aug 29, 2012 Red rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, anthology, queer

this book changed my life. I don't even remember what was in it, now, just that it blew my brain to bits and laid the groundwork for me to eviscerate my gender, take it all apart and see what I wanted to keep and what I wanted to dump. it made so many things possible for me. parts of it were assigned for a class, and I remember sucking the entire book down, just inhaling it, skiving off other homework because I was so engrossed in this. wish I could find my copy.

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Jun 01, 2011 Mark rated it 3 of 5 stars

It was an amazing compilation of short stories. I was originally attracted to the book because of J.T. Leroy's contribution, but the other stories I became overwhelmed with emotion and an incredible sense of identity.

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May 09, 2010 Helena rated it 4 of 5 stars

I read this for an english comp. paper. A must read. Awesome diversity of authors. Sylvia Rivera makes JT LeRoy look oh so lame. Riki Wilchins steals the show, and makes up for the couple stories that fell flat.

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Sep 04, 2011 Calmen added it

this is an amazing collection of articles from people who transcend the limitations/oppressiveness of the gender binary: 'norms', stereotypes, conditioning, etc. totally recommended.

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Nov 01, 2010 Levi rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, gender

Probably the best gender book I have found. (And I have scoured the HQ sections of multiple academic libraries!) I have to buy this at some point, because I keep finding new ideas in it.

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May 17, 2009 Carlyn rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: queer, philosophyspirituality, non-fiction

Theory intertwined with personal narratives make this book really accessible and educational. Includes a range of voices on the discussion of sexuality, gender, & queer identities.

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Jan 04, 2012 Kate rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: the fringes

Recommended to Kate by: Rd reserves

"The body is a situation."

"Nothing in man--not even his body--is sufficiently stable to serve as the basis for self-recognition, or for understanding other men."

"To be unaware of one's form is to live a death."

Life is a lemming walk.

"The Master's tools will never dismantle the Master's house."

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Jul 20, 2010 Lex rated it 5 of 5 stars

It's a really amazing anthology. There is a lot of variety among each story, but every single one is incredibly interesting. Everyone should read this!

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Jun 12, 2012 Beans rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was a way more satisfying read than Gender Outlaws. A little outdated and definitely aimed at an older audience, but ultimately these stories (and especially the coupling of personal stories with theory which was super awesome) were way closer to what I needed than those in Gender Outlaws, even if there were some that I found myself disagreeing or not identifying with.

Also Riki Wilchins is amazing. The first few chapters of this book are some of the best gender theory I've ever read, and it...more

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Jun 26, 2011 Logan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: queer, anthologies, school

I read this for a class, but ended up reading all of the stories, not just the couple assigned. It was an enjoyable read.

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Jul 11, 2012 Tree Olive rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

I mark 5 stars a lot... books are sweet. This book is actually the most impressive work on breaking apart gender that I have read though...of the nonfiction type..

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May 21, 2009 Alex rated it 5 of 5 stars

FANTASTIC!

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Oct 01, 2007 Jack rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: the gender focused, teachers

Shelves: fortheclassroom

some of these essays are terrific, some not so great. there are a few "intro to gender politics and theory" essays that are perfect for parents and friends who are confused and/or enraged by the idea of a continuum.

the essay called "transie" is good for the classroom because it's an intimate, unsentimental personal essay about self and outside perceptions of transgendered folks - set up as question and answer. the writing is tight and focused.

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Jan 09, 2009 Bridget rated it 5 of 5 stars

If you are interested in any aspect of gender, read this book!

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Jul 09, 2009 Darceylaine rated it 4 of 5 stars

A few essays of solid gender theory followed by many many first person essays by folks all along the gender borders. Some narratives are better than others, but it's great to have so many different voices. It gives a rich picture of the gender frontier.

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Feb 07, 2008 Candice rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: trans-genderqueer, queer-sexuality, essays-short-stories, gender

An excellent collection of stories by gender non-conforming people and their loved ones. Some stories were so close to home for me that they led me to tears. Highly recommended.

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Feb 24, 2008 Harper rated it 3 of 5 stars

I'm still looking for a good book or anthology about non gendered people. This is as good as it's gotten so far. I'm always taking recommendations.

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Jul 07, 2012 Elizabeth marked it as to-read

Shelves: gender, glbt-queer, nonfiction

Note from 2012: Ari says this book is really dated and does not recommend it. (A lot of traditional trans narratives. Also, a lot of butch/femme.)

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Mar 27, 2008 Liz BC rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: transgendered/queer folk

Being a person who lives in the middle of the gender spectrum....this is also one of my favorites. I felt very validated reading this.

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Feb 24, 2008 Tina. rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2008, gender-feminism

This is a great collection, but I'm giving it four stars because some of the essays in it are not as great as the others.

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About Joan Nestle

Joan Nestle writes and edits essays, erotic fiction, poetry, and short stories. She is an activist, and among many actions has co-founded the Lesbian Herstory Archives to preserve records of lesbian lives and communities and currently coordinates the Women in Black protests against Israel's occupation of Palestinian lands.

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Books by Joan Nestle

The Persistent Desire: A Femme-Butch Reader

A Fragile Union: New and Selected Writings

Women on Women: An Anthology of American Lesbian Short Fiction

Sister & Brother: Lesbians & Gay Men Write about Their Lives Together

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