terfs, trans rights, and trying to get published

 

[We sat down with Hailey O’Gorman to discuss their publication, you know the drill, school girl. She materialised from nowhere, and refused to blink for the duration of the interview. This piece was written as an assignment,  but still works as a discussion about their first externally published piece]

Hi. Do you mind telling us about your writing, maybe explain the piece a bit?

Fine. you know the drill, school girl is a prose fiction piece about being a transgender teenager in a time of misrepresention, legislative repression, and trans exclusionary radical feminism.

Could you go into more detail?

Well, you know the drill, school girl outlines the consequences of transphobia toward transgender youth. It is intended to expand current global and literary perceptions of trans youth, while showing the impact of trans exclusionary radical feminism. I want to broaden the ever nebulous ‘trans experience’ in literary fiction. 

Okay, so what happens?

‘School girl’  cycles home from sixth form. Her mother is waiting for her when she gets home. The piece frames itself as the internal dialogue as school girl defends herself from the slurred rhetoric of her exclusionary mother.
    Mother resents her daughter for everything she represents. Mother does not love school girl like a daughter, verbally shouting down at her for any reason, but takes particular issues with school girl’s identity as a trans person. School girl has to keep living with her. She dreams of a far off freedom from Mother. 

For school girl, this conflict between herself and her mother has been perpetual — this is the drill she knows all too well. The drill is unmoving, but destroys everything school girl is. The drill is the order to conform to bioessentialism. The drill is marked in the calendar, showing up when school girl feels most comfortable with herself. She can only internalize, internalize, internalize.
    Something akin to freedom comes when Mother expects school girl to keep the drill going. School girl rejects and takes the opportunity to escape, something she has been waiting for. School girl cycles away, knowing that freedom is out in the world, waiting for her.

Okay, so why do you think this story needs to be told?

Well, as I’ve said, I wanted you know the drill, school girl to widen understanding of trans people in fiction. Transgender teenagers receive exploititive and dehumanising publicity, with little representation or discussion in trans-written literary fiction.

 

    Instead, the genre leans towards explicit adult narratives. In literature specifically about trans youth, inhibitions faced are often obscured or altogether ignored. Plett’s A Safe Girl to Love places childhood as a moment in a larger adult life of living as a trans woman, Peters’ Detransition, Baby disregards childhood further, focusing on neglectful adult relationships, Russo’s If I Was Your Girl focuses on a sixteen year old trans school girl, in a world without restrictions to accessing hormones, education and legal rights.
    All three of the aforementioned books have taken ideological influence on you know the drill, school girl. All the while, I wanted to fill the void around trans youth created by them to reflect the real disregard trans youth face on a systemic and regular basis. In the literary context of these books, there is space for a written awareness of trans youth which I want to fill.
    Like Plett, I wanted to let my reader into the head of a trans protagonist — a raw, ‘messy, ambiguous’ noise who embodies the impact of transphobia. From this, the piece talks in a dialogue of empathy with the reader. More on empathy and character later.

How does transphobia, and to another extent, TERF-ism come into this? How do you define TERF, and how are they relevant?

Transphobia is relevant to this publishing plan in a multitude of ways. TERF is an acronym for trans exclusionary radical feminism. It is a branch of second wave feminist thinking that understands woman as female — a solidified, defined and set idea of womanhood. Those in the mainstream who practise this thinking are often lobbyists against trans rights. JK Rowling infamously recognises herself as a TERF, a trans exclusionary radical feminist.  

 

    Transphobia and trans exclusionary radical feminism coexist and as Bookseller remarks, the ‘publishing industry still has room for transphobia’. Transphobic writers continue to have their transphobic writing published, and publically endorsed by conscious or unconscious feminist audiences. Regardless, the damage to trans people, especially trans youth has been done.
    An example of TERF writing is Kathleen Stock’s Material Girls, which argues that the lives of girls and women ‘have been negatively affected by gender identity-based legal actions’, referring to the now abandoned revisions of the Gender Recognition Act of 2004. Stock’s argument perpetuates TERF thinking nearer to the cultural zeitgeist, bringing the lives of trans youth into unnecessary skepticism. This is the type of literature I aim for you know the drill, school girl to combat, with a basic compassion and understanding shown towards trans characters.

 

School girl is beginning to sound a little allegorical, almost as though the drill and mother represents TERFs and transphobia, with how they constantly put school girl’s existence into question. How does it relate to the domestic setting of the piece?

You ask too much. The domestic setting is a contested place for trans people — this is why school girl feels most safe while she cycles away. Even then, she still has to watch the roads for ‘relatives’.  Home does not equal safety for queer people, with 77% feeling that their ‘sexual/gender identity was a casual factor in rejection from home’.
    When considering the sole impact of domestic transphobia, home represents another trapping. Too, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought attention to LGBT+ activism through social media. As a result, activism has become a homely activity, with a call for solidarity to be shown towards trans, non-binary and gender non-confirming people stuck at home in abusive dynamics and relationships. This homegrown solidarity is at the heart of you know the drill, school girl, arguably reclaiming the home by perceiving it from a new, clarified and compassionate lens.

How will you know the drill, school girl find an audience? 

Through empathy and the second person perspective, I aim to let this piece be introductory to the impact of TERF-think on trans youth on a wide audience. School girl is part autobiographical reflection, part compound fear of TERF rhetoric, part consequences of their actions. By making school girl this vague character, she may become accessible, as the audience may see and learn from her perspective experiences.
    As with coming of age stories, school girl faces the social norms that withhold her. I emulated this to the audience through use of the second person perspective. Being understood in the second person can be a frame for empathy, potentially widening the understanding of the perspective character. 

 

    Machine to be Another took an influential role on you know the drill, school girl’s perspective, explicitly showing and reflecting the damages done by normalized transphobia. In this emulation of empathy, I hope to communicate to a trans and cisgender audience, to build understanding, compassion and solidarity that goes beyond the neoliberal idea of ‘inclusivity and diversity’.

   

What’s the result of this, then?

The piece could be read and engaged with by gender non-confirming, transgender and non-binary, and cisgender audiences. I don’t expect this piece to be the one that makes all the TERF’s change their mind, but I still want it to be accessible.
    Keeping school girl’s gender identity hidden could allows for a cisgender reader to understand school girl as how school girl wants to be seen. This is until identity is made an explicit point of conflict by Mother.
    Trans literature will exist for more than just trans people, while also relatable to an unspoken to audience of trans youth. Online publishing is an accessible and discursive medium that will help reach this audience with a quick turnaround and emotive effectiveness. 

Cool story. Is there anywhere in the world that wants to publish this?

Yes, a lot of places, actually. Literary spaces have always sided with ‘the underrepresented, oppressed and marginalized’. There are a plethora of online magazines and journals who are eager to publish trans fiction, from and for trans, non-binary or gender non-conforming writers and audiences. 

How did you go about submitting it? 

Simultaneously.

And where did you submit it? How did you find the right place?

I made a list of my needs. I wanted a quick turnaround, an online platform with a queer audience, who would accept a 1400 word count.

 

 

    From these requirements, I submitted to Jupiter Review, an anti-fascist literary review that was calling for queer writiers; Stone of Maddness Press, who specialise in publishing trans, non-binary and intersex writers, and were calling for emerging writers; indigo literature journal, who focus in writing directly for LGBT+ youth; QUINCE magazine, who’s theme of ‘Arrivals’ textually fit; and Lanke Review, who were accepting work ‘grown from memory’.

 

   

 

    I submitted the piece to match the specifications of each publisher, whenever I remembered to send the piece.

 

And what happens now? You’ve published your piece, now what?

We wait, and make movements towards change. While TERFs remain vocal, I want my writing to show explicitly the consequences of ‘gender critical’ rhetoric. you know the drill, school girl is intended to be unambiguously protective of trans lives, adopting Koyama’s stance,

No political, medical or religious authority shall violate the integrity of our bodies against our and will not impede our decisions regarding what to do with them.

I believe the piece effectively contextualised TERF rhetoric to a safe extent, and convincingly made clear one singular reality of being a trans youth. It’s important, personally and socially, that we see more writing that speaks against transphobia, and shows the reality of trans youth as they exist today.
    This will come as a new generation of trans writers speak out, and I hope to be a part of that space. It’s an interesting time to be a queer writer, a time where voice and action are needed equally. 

[Following this, Hailey murmured ‘it’s five o’clock somewhere’, before vanishing entirely. She has not been seen since, but her Netflix account is still active]

 

 

Bibliography

Bookseller. 2021. ‘Open Letter says ‘transphobia acceptable in British book industry’’ <https://www.thebookseller.com/news/open-letter-says-transphobia-acceptable-british-book-industry-1257896> [Accessed 15 May 2021].

Bookworm. 2012. ‘Literary Themes Coming of Age’ in Literary Articles <https://literacle.com/literary-themes-coming-of-age/> [Accessed 15 May 2021].

Fairbairn, Catherine. Pyper, Douglas. Gheera, Manjit. 2020. Gender recognition reform: consultation and outcome (London: House of Commons Library).

Garder, Abby. 2021.  ‘A Complete Breakdown of the J.K. Rowling Trangender-Comments Controversy’ in Glamour <https://www.glamour.com/story/a-complete-breakdown-of-the-jk-rowling-transgender-comments-controversy> [Accessed 15 May 2021].

Hines, Sally. 2020. ‘Sex wars and (trans) gender panics: Identity and body politics in contemporary UK feminism’ in The Sociological Review Monograph (London: SAGE Publications).

Hollender, Allison. 2018.  ‘Step Into The Body Of A Transgender Man Using VR’ in VR Scout <https://vrscout.com/news/step-into-body-of-a-trans-man-vr/> [Accessed 15 May 2021].

Koyama, Emi. 2003. ‘The Transfeminist Manifesto’, in Catching a wave: Reclaiming feminism for the 21st century, ed. by Dicker, R., Piepmeier, A. (Boston: Northeastern Press)

Pearce, Ruth. 2020. ‘TERF Wars: An Introduction’ in The Sociological Review Monograph, ed. by Erikainen, Sonja, Vincent, Ben (London: SAGE Publications). 

Peters, Torrey. 2021. Detransition, Baby (New York: One World).

Peto, Heather. 2020. ‘Self-isolation means solidarity is more important than ever on Trans Day of Visibility 2020’ in Labourlist <https://labourlist.org/2020/03/self-isolation-means-solidarity-is-more-important-than-ever-on-trans-day-of-visibility-2020/> [Accessed 15 May 2021].

Plett, Casey. 2014.  a safe girl to love (New York: Topside Press). 

Maurice, Emma Powys. 2021.  ‘Graham Linehan accused of using House of Lords as ‘court of appeal’ to overturn his Twitter ban’, in Yahoo! Finance <https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/graham-linehan-accused-using-house-183055291.html?> [Accessed 15 May 2021].

The Albert Kennedy Trust. 2015. LGBT Youth Homelessness: A UK National Scoping of Cause, Prevalence, Response and Outcome (Manchester: The Proud Trust).

Russo, Meredith. 2016. If I Was Your Girl (New York: Flatiron Books, 2016). 

Stock, Kathleen. 2021.  Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism (London: Fleet).

Swea, Sarah. 2020. ‘Let’s Talk About Bioessentialism and Transphobia’, in Women’s Republic <https://www.womensrepublic.net/lets-talk-about-bioessentialism-and-transphobia/> [Accessed 15 May 2021].

Yang, Emily. 2020. ‘The trans art of Storytelling: Casey Plett’s ‘A Safe Girl To Love’ in The Michigan Daily <https://www.michigandaily.com/books/the-trans-art-of-storytelling-casey-pletts-a-safe-girl-to-love/> [Accessed 15 May 2021].