On Transgression and Transgressive Identity

Trinity has written an interesting post about transgression over on Let Them Eat Pro-Sm Feminist Safe Spaces. The resultant comment thread has some real gems in it.

As I've been thinking and writing on the concept of transgressive identity as of late, I added my own small contribution that I wanted to copy across to here for organizational sake.


Habu said...

From a somewhat different angle, I've been thinking about and beginning to write about transgressive identity. Those of us who for one reason or another clearly live on what many would feel is "that side of the line."

It has to do with the difference between (to create but one of many examples) those for whom "kink" is something they do only in the bedroom and only on Thursday nights, and those who live as Leathermen or Leatherwomyn.

There are those who live day to day on the socially reinforced side of the line, yet "transgress," making short duration traverses across into what many would deem "dangerous territory."

Then there are others who live over the line. We live in a state of "transgression" not out of some sense of it being "hip" or "rebellious," but as simply our day to day reality.

For some (particularly around aspects of gender presentation) it's not a matter of "choosing" to live across the line, (as attempting to put a Stone Butch in a dress often has the effect of only making their Stone Butch-ness all the more obvious.)

For others it is a conscious decision, yes, they COULD pass, but instead they remain true to themselves.

I think a lot of how bystanders tend to understand the term "trangression" or "trangressive" has to do with their preconceived notions of transgression as a mark of immaturity, or as a hit and run form of cultural rebellion.

Whereas for those of us who live on this side of the line, it's anything BUT a skittish little dance across the line for titillation purposes, it's simply our real day to day lives.

What remains by and large invisible to those same bystanders is the amount of shit those who transgress as a matter of breathing often endure, and the often random nature of the violence many trangressively identified individuals endure.

To take a real world example, getting beaten leaving a Pride march, simply for the fact of being identified as a member of class Queer. The nuances and details of the individual being beaten are subsumed to the fact that he or she has been identified as a member of a "trangressive" class of people.

There are those who cringe at being labeled "deviant," but for those of us who live over here, it's actually a fairly useful piece of terminology, as yes, our lives do deviate in many meaningful ways from the lives of those living on the other side of that line.

We also recognize that those of us over here are not a majority. To transgress or deviate means we have taken a different path from most (what many incorrectly term "the norm.")

There is no need for shame in being transgressive, or behaving trangressively. For many in Leather historically speaking, it's been a point of pride.

There are reasons Leather history is littered with names such as the Outcasts, the Renegades, the Rebels... .

Likewise there's a reason we focus on Leather Families, "Chosen Families," Backpatch Clubs, and Tribes. These "other side of the line" social structures have been and are important survival mechanisms for not only finding one's new place on this side of the line, but sometimes as a means of dealing with the rejection of biological family or previous friends.

Transgressive identities, living daily in realms of Gender, Queerness, or Leather, (to name but a few such possibilities) far from being explorations or hot brief duration excursions, are often marked by tending to have a certain maturity and sense of having come home to oneself.

It's somewhat of a different way of looking at transgression, but I think very central to much of what is happening to Leatherculture right now. There are those of us who understand that being Leather means living on this side of the line, and there are others for whom they still fully identify as members of the majority side of the line with this one "small" area of personal exception, their forays into kink.

29 April 2009 12:24