Abigail Austen

If you could look at my hit counter, you would see that one of the most popular blog posts I ever wrote was the one concerning Jan Hamilton, the elite British soldier who underwent transition and was firmly in the public eye a few years ago. The documentary Sex Change Soldier, followed her journey through transition, and every time it airs somewhere around the world, I get a bump in the hit counter as people get online to try to find out the latest. But there hasn't been any for years.

You can also see (from the comments under that post) that lots of people are interested in making contact with Jan, and I even went so far as to contact the producers of the documentary to ask if they could put me in touch. Nothing.

Abigail Austen

Then, out of the blue last week I got an email from Jan herself-- except she isn't Jan, she is Abigail Austen ("Abi"). I knew that already, of course, but I hadn't published that info on my blog because I believed that Austen was trying to move on with her life and try to find some anonymity.

But since she got in touch, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to interview her, and she agreed. It turns out there is a lot to tell. As always, I was a bit nervous about what questions to ask: I have never before interviewed someone who has been thoroughly trained to resist the most probing of interrogations! Here is how we got on:

It's been 8 years since the documentary about your transition. Can you tell us briefly what's been happening in your life since then?

I decided to quietly get my life into order, away from what had become a very intrusive press. It got so bad, I had to move out of my home for a bit. Journalists were hiding out in my garden!

The Scottish Police were looking for people, so I joined there for a few years. I enjoyed being a cop, but my profile made it difficult to avoid a fight. I was causing more aggravated assaults by myself than the rest of my division put together, merely for being me.

After three years, I was offered a job with NATO in Afghanistan. I went to Kandahar with the US Army, right into the heartland of the Taliban. I stayed on combat operations continuously for three years, coming home late 2014. After that, I took some much-needed time off and wrote a book about it all, called Lord Roberts’ Valet. Then, I took off for the Ukraine, where I work in security operations.

Can you tell us why you changed your name to Abi Austen? Was that an attempt to become anonymous again after the negative publicity associated with the name Jan Hamilton?

No, it was because my family rejected me. I didn’t want that name anymore. My grandmother was an Austin, and I loved her very much, so I went with that, and added a little Jane Austen twist to the spelling.

You briefly pursued a career as a police officer. How did that pan out?

Mentioned a bit about that above. The senior management were supportive of me, but it was a hard gig with some of my fellow officers. I had a publicised spat with them over the pension fund when they insisted in enrolling me as a man, which I am patently not. By the end, it was all becoming waaay too stressful… So I swapped it out for going back to war!

After how badly the military treated you, it must have been very difficult to return to a career in the armed forces, however tangential. What made you decide to return?

I have always found military service enjoyable, rewarding and exciting. So it actually wasn’t that hard. I love Afghanistan. I’ve travelled there for over twenty years. The offer from NATO was a real opportunity to put my life into order, and it all came good. It’s all in the book. My move back to Afghanistan was as much because I wanted to go back there (I do love the place) as any desire to work with the military. I am not some sort of military nut. Far from it. In fact, the book is quite scathing about military culture

What sort of reaction did you have from your colleagues when you returned to the military? Were they accepting? Or is there still an undercurrent of transphobia?

Back to the action: Austen

Well, I didn’t arrive with a rep where the Americans were concerned. They just saw me as another chick: and I had skills they wanted. So the Yanks were just great. I really owe the United States. They are a country of second chances, and they really helped me change my life about. Kandahar turned into one of the great adventures of my life and I will always admire and respect America for the sacrifice they make for all our freedoms.

You worked for the US military, not the British. Is this because they were more accepting of you, or because you didn't want to work for the Brits, or some other reason?

There were some Brit special forces in Kandahar. Reaction was mixed, which reflects society. I don’t really stand out in any way, I’m just a chick, but some of them obviously knew who I am from all the media stuff in the UK. For people under 30, nobody really cared. In fact, many of the young ones wanted their picture taken with me. Over 30, and it was more mixed. The army is a big ball of testosterone and men somehow feel threatened by people like me. I don’t know why, but it can be difficult sometimes.

Do you think attitudes to transgender people in the military are changing? In what way?

The military are a reflection of the society they represent. However, it is also a conservative organisation, so attitudes lag. The military is beginning to understand that gender dysphoria is a medical, not a psycho-sexual issue, so they are beginning to discuss it in adult terms. However, I think it will be a generation before gender is openly discussed in wider society, and the military will always be behind that curve of popular opinion because of its own internal culture.

Do you think the changes have something to do with you personally?

In my own small way, I think I have helped change attitudes. However, there are others out there who have fought the good fight. I’m about to take part in an exhibition here in the UK, on transgendered service personnel, called Dry Your Eyes, Princess, which will tour Liverpool, Belfast and Manchester. I did a three-hour taped interview for that exhibition which covers many of the details of my life.

I do know that the US is currently lifting their own ban, and my example in serving in Kandahar helped alter concerns on operational robustness. I met several very senior officers and politicians on that very subject. But I’d also say, I regard that part of my life as something from the past. These days, I am just a chick.

Now you have a book out. Can you tell us a bit about it?

Got it covered: the book

Lord Roberts’ Valet is the story of my 1,000 days in Kandahar, at the eye of the storm. It’s the inside track on how the war was fought and all the mess-ups we made over there. I experienced everything from the frontline, to the politics of the White House: and it’s all there in the book. The historic context, the story of the war, the sacrifice, the tears, the laughter and the madness. I genuinely don’t think there’s been a book quite like this before on Afghanistan and I’m quite proud of it. There’s a fair amount on the web now on it. Check out the website here:  http://www.lordrobertsvalet.com

Did Kristin Beck's book Warrior Princess have anything to do with your decision to write it?

Kristin Beck? Nope, good luck to her, but this is a different story.

How did you choose the title?

Lord Roberts’ Valet is about my war and the war the West fought. The story behind the title is in the book, so I won’t spoil it. I have a follow-up coming out later this year called Sugar and Spice, which will chronicle my own journey to where I am now.

What are your next plans? More armed conflict? Or have you something else in mind?

I’d like to think I have one more mission in me. My time in Kandahar proved to me that my skills are just as sharp as ever, no matter what physical form I live in. I also know that being me has made me a much happier and better person to be around. I have never regretted a single day of my life as Abi. I have a few irons in the fire right now, but I’ll hang onto those dreams for now...

You've been "stealth" for years; what made you decide to re-emerge?

I don’t like that term. I just call this living life. I’m proud of all that I am and all I have achieved. I’ve never hidden away at all. Right now, I have a book (and soon two) that I think worthy of a read and I’m just doing what any author would do: telling folks about what’s on offer. I’ve never hidden away. If anybody wanted to speak to me, I’ve been there; and, over the years, I have talked to and helped many people on their own particular journeys. That part of life will always be with me, but I regard the ‘trans’ part as ‘transformation’ and ‘transitory’. It’s history, nothing more. I am a female, and a very happy one too. There comes a point where you don’t need to fight anymore, and I am at that point.

Can you tell us a little about your personal life these days? A relationship?

Yep, very happily in love. My partner and I have a lovely life and we intend getting married quite soon. It’s all good….

What interests or hobbies do you have?

Love Zumba, I actually have an instructor’s certificate in it. And I still go running, but I’m not really made for sprinting these days.

What famous person would you most like to meet and why?


Not all fighting: Afghanistan

To be honest, I’ve met an awful lot of famous people already. Some I’ve liked, some I have wondered what all the fuss was about. I don’t judge people on their fame. I just like genuine people for themselves. So; happy to meet anybody, they don’t have to be famous, just real people.

Do you have a message for people out there who have been thinking about you?

I’d like to say ‘thank-you’ to everybody who has written to me and sent good wishes through the years. My documentary is still in rotation around the world and I get notes from the most unlikely places. I think that there are a lot more folks affected by this issue than have ever been able to express their true selves. I wish everybody true happiness and love. I’ve been on my own particular road. If my own experience is any use, I know it can have a very happy ending.

I will be on Lorraine Kelly’s ITV show on 05 November, here in the UK. Could you also mention that I have a Facebook page and a YouTube video will be up this week. All folks have to do is Google "Lord Roberts’ Valet".

===

As with all my interviews, a little discussion and analysis now follows.

First, I admit I was concerned about Austen. Having heard nothing about her life, I naturally assumed that she had fallen into obscurity and perhaps misery. And let's face it, the documentary doesn't exactly end on a high note. So I was delighted to hear that she is not only doing OK, she is actually doing brilliantly. My first emailed question to her was: I just want to know you are OK.

Second, I was intrigued to find that she had gone back to working with the military. On the one hand, this must have been a tough decision. The military treated her extremely badly at the time of transition, and it must have been very painful to consider returning. And yet, by her own admission, she loves what she does. She is extremely highly trained, and has a lot of valuable experience to draw upon. And, from the excerpt from the book (available on the website) it's clear she has lost none of that traditional coolness under pressure.

As I have mentioned elsewhere on this blog, I view the military with very mixed feelings. On the one hand, I admire the job they do. On the other, I find most military types to be intimidating, and I find their rigidity and inflexibility of thought to be stifling at times. But I can imagine that, if the military is your thing, you might find nothing in civilian life quite hits the spot. And the opportunity to do that thing, the thing you are trained for and love most of all, while being accepted as your true self, must be a very powerful experience. The press-release for the book contains this quote from an unnamed senior US general:

I don’t care if you are a man, woman, Martian or dachshund. My only question is whether you can do the job required or not. Welcome to the team.

Third, I'm a little surprised at one particular word which Austen uses more than once: chick. It doesn't quite fit for someone who is so trained and so capable, to refer to herself as "just a chick". It's not a word that I personally would feel comfortable applying to any woman, whether I myself was presenting as a woman or a man. Likewise, if someone applied it to Vivienne, it would make me bristle slightly because of its connotations of sexism. So why does Austen use it in reference to herself?

Fourth, I came away from this interview feeling that, while Austen has told us a lot about her career, she has told us surprisingly little about herself. This tone also comes across in our email exchange. My questions were intended for the reader to get a sense of Abi the woman, Abi the person, and yet she gives us little to go on: very brief details about her grandmother, her partner, Zumba, and some hints of "irons in the fire". That makes it very hard to get any sense of Austen's real personality. I guess she might say: read the book!

I can understand why Austen may feel a little bit reluctant to let too much slip. I suppose it would be easy for some tabloid journalist, hungry for a story, to take some little detail out of context, and blow it up into an article to fill up some column inches. So I am not blaming her for her reticence, just a little disappointed. I suppose I had hoped that we (she and I) might click a little over some common ground. That may yet happen.

Meanwhile, I await the Sugar and Spice memoir with some anticipation, and I will be sure to let you know if I hear of anything.

===

My thanks to Abi for taking time to answer my questions and send me her photos. The website again is here. The contents of this post are copyright © Vivienne Marcus and Abigail Austen 2015. No reproduction of any part of the text is permitted, altered or unaltered, in printed or electronic form, without permission. All photographs are copyright © Abigail Austen and used by kind permission.

Galileo's Middle Finger - Part Two

This is the second of my articles discussing the book Galileo's Middle Finger, by Alice Dreger. If you haven't already, it makes sense to start reading at Part One, which discusses intersex individuals.

Dreger: When people ask me how transgender is different from intersex, I usually start by saying that that intersex and transgender people have historically suffered from the opposite problems for the same reason. Whereas intersex people have historically been subjected to sex "normalizing" hormones and surgeries they have not wanted, transgender people have had a hard time getting the sex-change hormones and surgeries they have wanted. Both problems arise from a single cause: a heterosexist medical establishment determined to retain control over who gets to be what sex.

Manly: legs

Here she is, shortly into chapter 2, Rabbit Holes, and characteristically getting right down to the nub of the issue. (For my own, similar take on intersex vs transgender, I refer you to this post, though you might need to scroll down a bit).

Dreger: In the great majority of cases, medical scans won't detect any intersex feature in a transgendered person's body. Nevertheless, many people believe that transgender must be a special form of intersex involving the brain.

This fits with my comment that some transgender individuals look to the existence of intersex individuals to provide justification for their behaviour.

Dreger: Although there is very little science to support it, this has become the most popular explanation of transgender, probably in part because it is the easiest one for uptight heterosexuals to accept. (...) In practice, this story of transgender can function as a kind of get-out-of-male free card for men who seek to become women anatomically. When that card is played, the comforting narrative of "true selves" is preserved.

And there are scientific papers (such as this one) which seek to demonstrate anatomical differences in the brains of trans people. Though mostly their brains are very similar, some studies purport to demonstrate subtle differences in tiny regions of the brain (for example, some regions in MtF transsexuals are less like men and more like women). Most of these studies have small numbers of non-randomised participants, and even if these findings are robust (and I am nowhere near convinced that they are), correlation is not causation.

Science may indeed unlock some of these puzzles in time, but the only thing I am convinced of is that the science is pretty unconvincing so far.

Controversial: Bailey

It's at this point in the narrative that Dreger introduces Professor J. Michael Bailey, the author of the controversial work The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism, published in 2003. Bailey drew on the work of Ray Blanchard, and is therefore supportive of the autogynephilia model, to which I subscribe, as you probably already know. See here for a fuller discussion of this model. In that link, I also discuss how the autogynephilia model makes me feel uncomfortable about myself, because it insists the root of my crossdressing is in sexual desire.

Dreger points out that the French translation of autogynephilia is amour de soi en femme (love of oneself as a woman) which is a much nicer expression.

But where I feel uncomfortable about the autogynephilia model, a lot of people felt a lot worse.

Dreger: Before Bailey, many trans advocates had spent a long time working to desexualize and depathologize their public representations in an effort to reduce stigma, improve access to care, and establish basic human rights for trans people. (...) This is similar to how gay rights advocates have desexualized homosexuality in the quest for marriage rights, portraying themselves in living rooms and kitchens instead of bedrooms, in order to calm fearful heterosexuals.

Indeed, a few retrograde clinicians, like Paul McHugh, a psychiatrist at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, still actively use the idea that male-to-female transgender is really about perverted sexuality and mental illness to argue against access to sex-transitional hormones and surgeries.

For Bailey or anyone else to call someone with amour de soi en femme an autogynephile or even a transgender woman-- rather than simply a woman-- is at some level to interfere with her core sexual desire. Such naming also risks questioning her core self-identity in a way that calling the average gay man homosexual simply can't. One really must understand this if one is going to understand why some trans women came after Bailey so hard for naming and describing autogynephilia. When they felt that Bailey was fundamentally threatening their selves and their social identities as women-- well, it's because he was. That's what talking openly about autogynephilia necessarily does.

Lynn Conway by Charles Rogers

It's worth digressing here to make a couple of remarks. Just because a scientific theory makes you uncomfortable, doesn't make it wrong. And just because you insist upon something, doesn't make it right. If you want to convince me, you need to do a lot better than insist. I respond to evidence, not vehemence. This has occasionally caused me to get into uncomfortable debates with other trans people when I dare to question them about their views and beliefs. Sometimes, when they are unable to explain themselves, they resort to some variant of: "Of course, you couldn't possibly understand. You're only a crossdresser, where I am a woman".

But back to the book. Dreger goes on to describe how a prominent transwoman called Lynn Conway, at the University of Michigan, started "what became a war" against Bailey, assisted by Andrea James and Deirdre McLoskey. Together they began to systematically ruin Bailey's reputation. They campaigned to have the book removed from consideration for the 2004 Lambda Literary Award. They cooked up stories about him practising psychology without a licence, doing research without appropriate ethical oversight, and even having sex with one of his research subjects. And Dreger digs deeply and thoroughly into all of this, interviewing as many of the original people involved as possible.

Dreger: As a result of all this, Bailey came across pretty clearly as an abuser, a trans-basher, and a sexual pervert.

After nearly a year of research, I could come to only one conclusion: the whole thing was a sham. Bailey's sworn enemies had used every clever trick in the book-- juxtaposing events in misleading ways, ignoring contrary evidence, working the rhetoric, and using anonymity whenever convenient, to make it look as though virtually every trans woman represented in Bailey's book had felt abused by him and had filed a charge.

But why did Conway, James and McLoskey feel they had to do all those things?

Dreger: "Narcissistic injury," the physician-researcher Anne Lawrence said to me, by way of explanation. "Followed by narcissistic rage." That, she told me, was the only real way to explain what happened to Bailey. The whole thing had been an attempt to kill the messenger bringing a message that Lawrence guessed wounded the accusers' sense of self.

Captivating: the book

By this point, we are barely a third of the way through the book. Several things stand out. First, the book is extremely readable, and the narrative is told in a personal, conversational style. Second, Dreger's scholarship is impeccable: many hundreds of hours of interviews and research have gone into this book (you should see the references), and Dreger seems uncompromising in her search for the truth. Third, it's clear that a great deal of her personal energy has been invested, not just in writing the book, but in sympathising with the people in it, befriending them and becoming part of their lives. Fourth, writing this book has taken considerable courage, and Dreger has herself come under fire, risking her own career and reputation (drawing parallels with Galileo, of course).

Overall, the book is a phenomenal read; gripping as a thriller, scholarly, yet incredibly human. There are so many points in the book where I thought: I can't believe I am actually reading this! I can't recommend it highly enough.

We part company with the book at this point, partly because this blog post is already way too long, and partly because the book leaves the subjects of gender and sex as Dreger finds other (compelling) subjects to sink her hungry scholastic teeth into.

I think the world of gender is changing more rapidly than it ever has before. The emergence of transgender celebrities like Laverne Cox and Caitlyn Jenner has caused mainstream society to become much more aware (and thankfully, accepting) of trans people and trans issues. Nonetheless, I am very uncomfortable about what happened to Bailey: vilified for his views, not because they were wrong, but because they made people uncomfortable. Dreger points out (and I don't know why I didn't think of this before) that as a result of Conway's attack on Bailey, "no one in sex research will touch male-to-female transsexualism with a ten foot pole any more. Which must have been just what Conway meant to do". That explains why there isn't good science: because scientists fear personal retribution if they publish results which are unpopular.

The way to enlightenment is not to silence people, even the ones who disagree with us, but to engage in open, civil, respectful debate; to seek out the best evidence, and incorporate it into the picture, recognising that the picture isn't complete and may yet change as new discoveries come to light.

Dreger's book has inspired me to be a little more upright, a little more outspoken in defence of the truth, a little more questioning of the "facts", than I was previously. And perhaps, therefore, a little more willing to extend my middle finger, just like Galileo.

Androgyny

You free your mind in your androgyny. -Garbage, Androgyny.

Androgyny seems to be everywhere these days. My hairdresser was talking about it only the other day. Admittedly, it's not new (look at David Bowie in the 1970's), but it seems to be becoming commoner and more popular.

Wikipedia says androgyny refers to the combination of masculine and feminine characteristics. Well, I think that's technically true, although perhaps the current interpretation of it is someplace in between male and female. One could technically approach androgyny from the male side (by making oneself more feminine) or the female side (by making oneself more masculine).

Andrej Pejic, Covergirl

Nowhere is the current trend of androgyny more apparent than in the fashion world. BBC journalist Maya Sayer has been surveying the Spring 2014 collections of the fashion world and writes: Last week, as the Spring ’14 menswear shows kicked off in London, one trend sounded with all the subtlety of an air horn: androgyny is the new black.

She points out that several fashion houses are putting men wearing skirts, lace, halter tops, and other feminine clothing on their catwalks, "testing the boundaries" between men's and women's clothing.

I know that fashionistas have been talking about men wearing skirts as normal attire for decades, but it hasn't happened yet. I know that some cultures have skirt-like garments which men wear on a daily basis, but you and I know that isn't the same thing. I know there are some men in our culture who wear skirts regardless-- and good luck to them.

How can we mention the fashion world without discussing Andrej Pejic? As I have mentioned before, Pejic, a naturalised Australian citizen of Bosnian descent, is a man who is so beautiful that he is in demand to model both male and female clothing lines. He was voted the 98th Sexiest Woman in the World by FHM magazine in 2011, and was featured as a covergirl on Elle magazine. Wikipedia claims Elle is the world's best-selling fashion magazine.

Lucia Ianelli

Sayer continues: Confidence. If there’s one thing these new androgynous looks demand of men, it’s that. Which raises the question: have the über-masculine looks dominating menswear up to now been signalling a crisis of male confidence?

I agree that for a man to wear a skirt in public (or another seemingly feminine garment) requires an extra helping of self-confidence. Even someone with the credentials of David Beckham, adored for his masculinity by millions of women (and gay men) worldwide, came in for some flak when he wore a sarong. As I have mentioned elsewhere, we are not at all comfortable when our football heroes show any cracks whatever in their masculinity.

Sayer continues: But I’m willing to bet that, given some time, the public will come around to some version of this new unisex aesthetic.

Well, they might be helped by video games, as well as fashion. One of my longstanding favourite video game franchises is the Tekken series, which I have been playing since you could measure the size of the pixels with a ruler. Tekken and its sequels are beat-'em-up games, in which players control highly skilled martial artists and cause them to kick the stuffing out of one another. With each successive sequel, the characters have become more detailed.

Leo from Tekken 6

Tekken games are basically like comics. They are marketed at adolescent boys (of all ages) and therefore contain what that demographic wants to look at: big, muscly men, and beautiful, scantily-clad women in revealing costumes (OK, so there are a few animals, robots, and demons in there too). From its first outing, Tekken featured characters like Nina, who fights wearing ridiculously impractical, skimpy outfits, stockings, and combat stilettos.

Enter the character Leo, introduced in Tekken 6. At first glance, with the jeans, the boots, the gloves and the stance (and the name!), we kind of assume that Leo is a boy, albeit a somewhat slight one. In the game, Leo is given no gender-specific pronouns, and none of the costumes reveal any part of Leo's body, so no clues there. We can't tell from Leo's fighting style; one of the aspects of Tekken is that diminutive teenage girls (such as Xiaoyu) can defeat hulking, Terminator-like robots (such as Jack), using only kung-fu. Yeah, good luck with that.

In fact, Leo is a girl, whose real name is Eleonore, though this fact only became official when her creator, Katushiro Harada, announced it publicly. Until then, fans of the game around the world were tossing coins to decide her official gender.

Most of the female characters in Tekken are exaggeratedly feminine; not just in their costumes, but in the little intro and outro animations played for each character. They wiggle their hips, shake their boobies, beckon in a sexual manner, or (in the case of the younger characters) adopt Lolita-like, little-girl mannerisms. Actually it's quite refreshing to find a female character who can wear something more practical to fight in than a bikini, and who doesn't flaunt their booty in front of the player.


Androgyne celebrity B. Scott

Tekken is of course Japanese, and I suspect that many of the teenage girl characters are there to pay fan-service to the Japanese fondness for schoolgirls and Lolitas; nothing to do with setting positive role models for women, or even giving female players something to empathise with. I wonder whether Leo is there, not to transcend gender stereotypes, but to pander to some Japanese attraction to androgyny.

And what is it with our current fascination with androgyny? You can even find instructions on how to achieve it. Why do we (as a society) find androgyny so attractive? (And why do we find crossdressing so disturbing?). Just type the word into Google (or Google images) and be drenched in pictures of people blending the gender categories (with greater or lesser degrees of success).

In My Husband Betty, Helen Boyd writes (p.186) of how she and husband Betty attended a Hallowe'en party, with Betty dressed as Desire, an androgyne character from Neil Gaiman's Sandman: My husband is beautiful as a man or a woman, but unbelievably beautiful when he's something in-between.

So there is definitely something in it, something intangible. I must say, when I look at the pictures of female bodybuilders, although some of them look really quite masculine, as well as feminine, I don't find it attractive at all. On the other hand, when I look at pictures such as that of Lucia Ianelli, above, I think: wow! How can I explain that? Is it because the bodybuilders look like lots of masculine plus lots of feminine, and the androgynes look like not much masculine plus not much feminine?

As for myself, is androgyny something I aim for? Not in the least. When I am male, I want to be completely male. When I am trying to be female, I want completely female. Somewhere in between doesn't really do it for me. But for those who can carry it off, I wish them nothing but the best.

What about the mainstream? Are men really going to go into stores and buy skirts?

Charlie Casely-Hayford (clothes designer): We want to challenge our customer, but we don’t want to freak him out. So every season, I’m asking myself – can we do a skirt? Will he understand? We’re almost there... But, you know, not quite yet.

Transgender superheroes

If you haven't read the original novel Watchmen, which planet have you been living on? It's one of the finest pieces of fiction I've ever read. But don't take my word for it: it made it to Time magazine's 100 greatest novels list. Not graphic novels. Novels.

Did the costumes make it good?

There is a powerful scene where Laurie Juspeczyk and Dan Dreiberg (both costumed heroes) attempt to make love in Dan's apartment, but Dan is unable to perform. They go down to the basement, where they don their costumes and take Dan's "owlship" out for a flight. As it happens, they end up rescuing some people from a building on fire. Afterwards, with the owlship hovering over the city, they make love again in the owlship, with the illustrated result. That's supposed to be a flamethrower, by the way.

A presumably somewhat breathless Laurie remarks: "Did the costumes make it good? Dan...?"

Wow! Where to begin with this? Watchmen has been described as the moment comics came of age, and this is the sort of thing which reminds people of that. The main plot involves a villain, and a group of costumed heroes in pursuit. But that's where the novel departs from the cliches. It tackles head-on the ideas we have all had about costumed crimefighters: doesn't it make you feel silly? What happens when you get old? What happens if the public turns against you? What makes someone want to put on a costume and fight bad guys? This scene is one which hints at the notion that it's sometimes about the costume, though there are other parts of the book which give different interpretations.

Princess Koriand'r

The subtlety and sophistication of the story is just dazzling. Among many brilliant aspects of it is the utter abandonment of moral certainty. In the old days, the good guys were good, and the bad guys were bad. End of. Why were the bad guys bad? Who cares? They were just there to give the good guys something to do. Watchmen shows us good guys which are not quite as good as we might wish; and bad guys... well, you'll just have to read it. Incidentally, the film is also excellent, being as it is basically a love-letter to the book (though the dialogue in the owlship scene is different).

As someone who is very interested in the power of costumes (and was really into comics for a while there), I can't help drawing a parallel between costumed heroes and crossdressing. Crossdressing makes me feel different on a fundamental level. It allows me access to a range of emotional expression which is usually denied me. I have discussed elsewhere that perhaps costume, the temporary assumption of some other identity, is powerfully alluring all of its own, even aside from crossdressing.

Superheroes (at least as they are drawn in comics) are inherently profoundly sexist. Comics basically exist to provide eye candy for nerdy geeks (like me). Comics can illustrate anything; special effects are no object. There is a tendency to depict both male and female heroes as athletes at the pinnacle of human achievement (for the purposes of this discussion, let's stick to human beings!). Nonetheless, where male heroes tend to wear whole-body costumes (think of Batman, Spiderman, Superman), female heroes tend to wear next to nothing, and be displayed in alluring poses. One of my favourites (though there is no shortage of other examples) was for a while Princess Koriand'r, shown here. Maybe it was the green eyes.

So the women are all drawn, more or less, the same: beautiful, incredibly buxom and curvaceous, with long flowing hair (impractical though this may be when fighting crime), and with some sort of revealing, bikini-like costume (where do you keep your gadgets? Your keys?), and in poses which accentuate the inherent sexuality of their costumes.

Batgirl, issue 19.

Male heroes, on the other hand, are ridiculously well-muscled. Square of jaw, steely of gaze, tousled of hair. There isn't a hint, from any of them, that they are anything less than uber-masculine. The occasional slim wiry one may be allowed, rather than the brute. For an amusing take on the sexism inherent in comic illustration, I refer you to The Hawkeye Initiative, where artists, some professional, and some amateur, redraw published comic illustrations of female heroes with a male figure, Hawkeye, in the same pose. There's even a dude out there taking photos of himself, with the same intent.

So where are the transgender superheroes? The answer is: it's pretty hard to find any. Quite understandably, they don't really belong, in a universe of such powerful male or female archetypes. And in addition, open depictions of homosexuality, bisexuality and transgenderism were overtly banned in the USA (which means the world, in comic book terms), until 1989. And yet, among comic-reading audiences, there is a powerful mix of people of all stripes, and since 1989 there has been a bit of catching up to do for comic book writers, incorporating LGBT characters into their storylines. Some well-known characters have been updated to incorporate same-sex relationships; for example, Batwoman is now depicted as a lesbian.

But don't get mixed up between Batwoman and Batgirl. Batgirl, whose mild-mannered alter-ego is Barbara Gordon, daughter of Commissioner James Gordon. It's here we find the first mainstream transgender comic character, Batgirl's flatmate, Alysia Yeoh. What's the background to Alysia? No idea. From the little I have read, she seems to be a full-time male-to-female character, but beyond that, there seems to be nothing solid. She seems also to have no super powers, but of course, they are only a zap with some novel kind of radiation away. The character has only existed for a few months, and it remains to be seen how she will develop. Will she end up looking like Princess Koriand'r? Or perhaps like The Thing? It's impossible to tell.

Maidman

Let me say now that I welcome this development. It's an acknowledgement that trans people exist, even in the uber-sexist world of comics. For them to be accepted openly (as Batgirl does), is a powerful statement of welcome. Alysia weeps at Batgirl's immediate acceptance of her.

But how about transgender superheroes? The character of Maidman can be found in the pages of Empowered, a comic-book series which has been going since 2007, authored by Adam Warren. Part of the theme of Empowered is to deconstruct comic book stereotypes in a humorous manner, so Maidman, a costumed hero whose superpowered costume is a French Maid outfit, is deliberately poking in the eye of the traditional costumed hero:

Maidman: I'd be far more embarrassed to dress up like, say, an animal. Now that would be silly. Face it. The hundreds of would-be badass capes who practice species crossdressing as various theoretically intimidating animals? That's one step removed from being a furry. Talk about embarrassing.

Maidman is depicted as clearly a man (including his blue chin and muscly physique) but wearing a ridiculous frilly maid outfit, and carrying a feather duster and broom (which are of course supergadgets in their own right). Check out those shaved legs and combat stilettoes. Does Maidman count as a transgender superhero? I don't think so. Although in the Empowered universe, Maidman is depicted as a powerful hero, whom the bad guys clearly fear, it is clear in the real universe that Maidman is a caricature, designed to look ridiculous as a means of poking fun at costumed superheroes in general. The pink speech bubbles which he has, suggest that he affects a sexy feminine voice too. Does he poke fun at crossdressers? I personally don't find it in the least offensive, although perhaps you have different views. For me, the point (as expressed eloquently by Maidman himself) is that it's no more weird for a man to dress as a maid to fight crime than it is for him to dress as a bat, or a spider, or any one of a hundred other odd themes.

SheZow!

No, for a real transgender superhero, we need to turn to the world of children's entertainment. I am indebted to Ralph for drawing my attention to this character, the superhero SheZow!

SheZow is a Canadian-Australian co-production, a series of (so far) 26 short cartoon episodes aimed at kids between the ages of 6 and 11. The basic premise of the story is that Guy(!) Hamdon, a typical 12-year old boy, finds a magic ring which turns him into the superhero SheZow. In the universe, the character is well-known, admired and popular. Guy is initially reluctant, but after discovering the supercool car (the "She-hicle"), and the hi-tech underground batcave, with its supercomputer, "Sheila", he comes to embrace the role. Nobody knows his secret identity except his sister and best (male) friend.

SheZow has the hair, the eyeshadow, the costume (thankfully non-revealing, but nonetheless pink and sparkly) and the heels. She also has super-strength, and a light-sabre-like weapon, laser lipstick. She is resolutely pink, girly and uber-feminine. This, I suppose, is one of the essential points of the show: making SheZow as feminine as possible to highlight Guy's discomfort at assuming the role. The show is essentially light-hearted and comic in tone. To drive up the femininity, the dialogue is full of excruciating puns, such as "she-vitalised", "she-riffic", "she-S-P" (SheZow's "spider sense"), and even "she you later!". Guy can assume the identity of SheZow by reciting the magic phrase "You go girl!".

SheZow seems naturally invulnerable. Her kryptonite is her hair: for her hair to become disarrayed leads to loss of her super powers, though they can be restored by the use of "she-lac" hair spray from her utility belt.

SheZow, mighty SheZow!

My two youngest kids are between 6 and 11, and so I sat them down to watch it with me. We watched for over an hour, which was about half a dozen episodes. As a fairly conservative parent myself (believe it or not!), there was nothing in it to trouble me. There is nothing overtly sexual or suggestive. Beyond the basic premise, there is nothing untoward: the good guys are resolutely good, the villains resolutely dastardly, the predicaments humorous, and the outcomes predictably favourable. I enjoyed it very much. A special mention to the actress who voices the computer Sheila, in a very sexy, British accent. Hell-low!

I think from the point of view of a child, it’s no more bizarre than any other superhero cartoon. In many ways, it echoes other fiction I have come across. The novel Boy2Girl, by Terence Blacker, and the comic strip Cuckoo in the Nest (from an obsolete girls’ comic) both explore the situation of a boy, reluctantly compelled by circumstance to adopt the role of a girl, who is initially unwilling but ultimately finds unexpected advantages or insights in doing so. Both of those are aimed at children (and are explored more here on my blog). SheZow is very faithful to that trope.

So then, is it good? Does it do our sons good to consider aspects of femininity to be positive? I suppose so, although I don’t really think it does any better than She-Ra (or my personal favourites, Jana of the Jungle, and Cheetara). Girls can be superheroes too, but I’ve known this since childhood anyway. Does it give confidence or esteem to girls? I don’t really think so. Does it make children more trans-friendly? I guess so, though one cartoon will not be enough to overcome their own upbringing, whether hostile or accepting.

Does it do harm? I can’t honestly see how. If it’s OK for kids to watch Batman punch the villain’s lights out, then it surely should be OK to watch a boy putting on a magic ring and becoming a girl. Is it going to make our sons grow up gay, or camp, or effeminate? Gracious me, no!

What did my kids think of it? My youngest son watched it with interest, although he hasn't been bothered about it since. My youngest daughter enjoyed it more, and has since spoken about it, and asked to see more of it. I asked her: How do you like the show? "It's cool". Is it OK for girls to be superheroes? "Yes." Is it OK for a boy to be a girl superhero? She paused: "I don't know". I get the impression that, from her point of view, SheZow is just a cool girl. The fact that SheZow is a boy seems to be incidental.

However, almost inevitably, the show has attracted criticism from the usual suspects, people who are convinced this show will institute moral collapse on a national, perhaps global, scale. I suspect (as is usual in these sorts of instances), just about everyone who protests hasn't even sat down and watched the show.

So, for a fairly thorough trawl through the potential places to find transgender superheroes, we come up pretty short. SheZow gets the prize: cool, powerful, and unavoidably transgendered. But surely we can do better? Surely trans people can be powerful and cool too?

Addendum: 18th October 2013

I came across this article from journalist Kasey Edwards, discussing SheZow. The article is interesting and provocative, written as it is by a woman, and a mother. Overall, Edwards seems to basically agree with my angle.

My thanks also to Grok, for drawing my attention to Captain Cross-Dresser, an amusing (and sadly one-off) animated short. I wasn't able to follow Grok's link, but I was able to find the whole ten minutes on YouTube, split up into three parts. It has some very clever and amusing points to make, although (unlike SheZow) I wouldn't try showing it to young kids. I quote:

This is just what our city needs: a superhero for the 21st century!

 Addendum: 2nd October 2015

I came across this excellent article by Cindi May in Scientific American. Entitled The Problem With Female Superheroes, it points out that female superheroes have gone "from helpless damsel to powerful heroine, but [are] still hypersexualised". Well worth a read.

Subfuscation!

Another bit of media excitement about transgenderism this week. I first saw this reported on the BBC. It seems that Oxford University, that ancient and noble bastion of academic brilliance, has finally allowed transgendered students to wear clothing of the opposite sex while sitting their examinations. That means that male students can now sit their exams wearing a skirt if they want to!

Britain's Daily Mail newspaper ran the headline: Men can wear skirts at Oxford University as academic dress code is changed to 'meet needs of cross-dressing students'

While The Telegraph's headline read: Men can wear skirts to Oxford University exams

Even the normally quite balanced BBC got quite breathless about it: It will mean men can attend formal occasions in skirts and stockings and women in suits and bow ties. Oooo, those meddlesome trannies again, eh? Phew! I think I need to go and lie down.

So what's all the fuss actually about? To find out, we need to go to Simone Webb, Oxford student, self-styled "queer feminist", and president of the Oxford University LGBTQ society. Understandably, Simone is a bit miffed that the media has taken this angle.



Traditional: Oxford students

It turns out that Oxford is fantastically conservative in its student dress code. For formal occasions, such as matriculation (enrolment), students are required to wear a particular manner of clothing, known as subfusc (I learned a new word). Just to clear this up, over their subfusc, students must also wear an academic gown (which are unisex). The small minority of transgendered students who wanted to wear subfusc of the opposite sex had to gain special dispensation for this from the University officials, or face sanctions.

Webb: A brief outline of what subfusc actually is may be helpful at this point. It is formal academic dress worn by Oxford students to exams and certain other occasions – matriculation, for instance. It consisted, before these changes, of a white shirt or blouse with a black skirt or trousers, with a black ribbon round the neck for women, and a white shirt with black trousers and a white bow-tie for men.

She goes on:

The changes mean that everyone has to wear a white shirt or blouse with black trousers or a black skirt, and can choose between a ribbon or a bow-tie. That is it. That is literally what has changed. It is a small thing, which will make life a little bit easier for trans students, who will no longer have the extra worry at exam times of gaining dispensation to wear their gender’s subfusc. Of course, cisgender students (students who are not trans) can also wear different subfusc, if they feel happier with it. Women will be able to wear bow-ties, if they prefer to.

As an extraordinary slap in the face, The Telegraph quoted Webb, then used a male pronoun ("he said"), the clear implication being that Webb must be a male crossdresser adopting a female persona. Ouch!

Confident: Webb

In her blog post, Webb goes on to express regret that the media have gone for the male crossdressing angle. (I learned another new word: cissexist.) Webb also expresses disappointment that the media reporting of this story is full of inaccuracies:

The Mail’s article, indeed, becomes astoundingly transphobic and cissexist as it continues. For instance: “transgender students, including transvestite or ‘gender confused’ men and women” is a bizarre segment, implying as it does that all transvestites are transgender. This is nonsense. Presumably by “gender confused” it refers to genderqueer and other gender variant students. Being genderqueer, agendered, bigendered, etc, is not confusion. It is a non binary gender.

I must say, it sounds pretty confused to me! I struggle with those who have to invent more and more neologisms to divide gender into finer and finer categories. But, as I have said before, I am a lumper, not a splitter, in regard to gender behaviour.

In the second half of her blog post, Webb addresses critics who have objected to this change on grounds of tradition, or for other reasons. I think it says a lot about Oxford that people are protesting against changing the rules for no other reason than that the rules should not be changed.

So what do I think about all this?

First, before all this, I had never heard of subfusc. I had no idea that Oxford University clung to such sartorial traditions. It recalls the mediaeval sumptuary laws which existed in Europe to make sure people dressed appropriately to their status in society. Partly I quite like that some British institutions still have rules of this type; partly I think that it makes them seem antiquated and out of date. Partly I feel a tinge of envy that I didn't study in an environment of that kind; partly I feel a tinge of relief that I didn't study in an environment of that kind!

Secondly, this is completely a non-story! I understand that to meddle with tradition might cause the pillars of Oxford to come crashing down, but only in the imaginations of the University elite ("If you ask me, it's all been downhill since we started letting women in at all"). Outside the University, this story is of precisely no consequence whatever! Whose idea was it that this was news? Whose idea was it to put out a press release?

Thirdly, whenever some minor issue of gender is raised, people's hackles seem to be raised about it to a degree greatly out of proportion to its impact, with accusations of phobia and discrimination being hurled back and forth. See this other blog post for another example.

Fourthly, I am not surprised that the media went with the male crossdressing angle. The media are interested in selling papers and attracting viewers. To do this, they need to spin the story a little, to heighten its impact. That means to go for the angle which is most titillating, and most arresting. The headline Oxford University slightly relaxes clothing regulations for a small minority of students will be of interest to nobody. The journalists who got this press release had a dozen similar stories to write. No time to check facts. No time to talk to anyone. Just rewrite the press release into an article, and move on to the next one. That's just the way the media work; it isn't cause for high blood pressure.

Finally, I welcome these changes. I think it's great that Oxford students can now wear clothing of either gender, particularly in a traditional, conservative establishment like this. Aside from the media reporting, the spirit of this change is that any student can wear the subfusc of their choice, for any reason, and without sacrificing the formality and tradition of the practice; and surely that's a good thing. I personally find it affirming that a handful of transgendered academics-to-be are having a slightly easier time at University.

I leave you with Simone Webb's closing remarks:

And, you know….a few Oxford students can’t do much to change the world. No one can. Means are limited. But Jess and other dedicated students have worked hard and changed something, something tangible, which will make trans* people’s lives a little better. How many of us can say that?