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1. The Caribbean Trans Continuum and Backhanded Re/Presentation
- University Press of Florida
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20 1 The Caribbean Trans Continuum and Backhanded Re/Presentation Those who inhabit unconventional genders—whether deliberately or unconsciously and whether through behavior, dress, speech, or some combination of these—are often considered ineligible to be full, legitimate members of Caribbean societies. As in the global North, their sexuality is automatically suspect, and since they are far from ideal citizens, too often the state sees no need to treat them as full citizens or to protect them from others’ mistreatment. This chapter argues that there is a continuum of gender -variant experience—trans experience—in the Caribbean, the range of whichincludespeoplewholiveasagenderotherthanthatassignedtothem at birth and those who perform transvestite carnival characters. Analyzing literature—ShaniMootoo’s Cereus Blooms at Night,MichelleCliff’s No Telephone to Heaven, and Mayra Santos-Febres’ Sirena Selena vestida de pena— as well as traditional characters from popular festivals in the Dominican Republic, Trinidad, and Barbados, and legal cases in Cuba, Trinidad, and Guyana, I further argue that in the Caribglobal imagination the portrayal of trans people is a backhanded one that acknowledges their existence while refusing them the possibility of full lives or citizenship. It is important to begin by addressing the terminology that will be used throughout this chapter and by explaining why I have made particular choices. I remain both ambivalent and conflicted about the use of the term transgender in Caribbean contexts because it originated in and seems to remain most relevant to North American and European contexts. The term transgender is typically attributed to Californian Virginia Prince, who coined it in the 1970s as a distinct alternative to both transvestite and transsexual . I have chosen not to use the term transsexual because it is still largely The Caribbean Trans Continuum and Backhanded Re/Presentation · 21 understoodinrelationshiptosurgicalmanipulationofthebody.Transgender, on the other hand, is currently used in the United States as both an umbrella term for any number of transgressive gender practices and as a term which refers specifically to those who claim or exhibit unconventional gender but who are neither transvestites nor transsexuals. Increasingly, individuals in the United States who self-identify as transgender are utilizing surgery and hormones to alter their biology, so it is a somewhat slippery term. But in the Caribbean such procedures are sometimes more difficult to obtain. A major exception is Cuba, where in 2007 the state agreed to cover such surgeries.1 Applying the term transgender to the Caribbean is also problematic because North Americans and Europeans have historically defined and continue to define Caribbeanness, and especially Caribbean genders and sexualities , in derogatory ways. Such definitions have named Caribbean women as masculine, vulgar, and uncouth and Caribbean men variously as hypermasculine or undermasculine (depending on their race) and as unintelligent . Furthermore, since most of the dominant world powers are located in North America and Europe, their descriptions and definitions of Caribbean sexuality are more prevalent globally than those coming from within the Caribbean region. Therefore, to use terms from these places, terms that Caribbean people have neither created nor always identified with, without paying attention to their etymologies and relationship to power seems to commit a further epistemic violence. Finally, using North American or European terms that do not resonate within the region could be seen as supporting the common Caribbean belief that unconventional genders and nonheteronormative sexualities are foreign menaces that amount to “postcolonial imperialism,” as Suzanne LaFont notes in “Very Straight Sex: The Development of Sexual Morés in Jamaica.”2 There are some indigenous terms that specifically describe unconventional genders, including travesti, mati men, macha, manroyal, cambiada, et cetera. Other terms such as masisi, loca, and battyman are variously used to refer to people exhibiting unconventional genders, engaging in nonheterosexual sexualities, or both. Throughout this chapter I will use the term trans as an umbrella term for unconventional genders, regardless of whether the individuals in question have pursued hormonal or surgical body modification . This abbreviation is appropriate because these five letters are the common prefix for various words referring to those who exhibit transgressive gendersinEnglish,Spanish(forexample, transsexual),French(forexample, [3.133.154.106] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 22:48 GMT) 22 · I s l a n d B o d i e s transsexuel(le)s and transgenres), and Dutch (for example, transgender and transseksueel), the primary languages, with their creoles, of the Caribbean. Trans refers to a range of identities and the varieties of strategies people use to choose, inhabit, or express a gender other than that which society assigns to their...