Pleasure and Efficacy

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A leading trans scholar and activist explores cultural representations of gender transition in the modern period. Grace Lavery investigates how gender transition has been experienced and depicted, examining works from George Eliot to Sigmund Freud and marriage manuals by Marie Stopes. She highlights the skepticism in these texts regarding the possibility of changing one’s sex, arguing that this ambivalence has fueled both anti-trans oppression and the civil rights movements of trans individuals. Lavery introduces the concept of “trans pragmatism,” emphasizing how trans people resist medicalization and pathologization to seek pleasure and freedom. This perspective affirms the efficacy and reality of transition. With Eliot and Freud as central figures, Lavery traverses a wide array of modern culture, including poetry, prose, philosophy, and pop music. She suggests that transition not only shifts individuals between genres but also offers a cultural history of genre transition itself. By examining techniques associated with feminine craftiness versus masculine freedom, Lavery posits that the ability to give and receive pleasure is crucial for trans feminist thriving, despite suppression by patriarchal and anti-trans feminist ideologies. She challenges the notion of transition's impossibility, presenting a counterhistory of knowledge shared among women, often overlooked in mainstream narratives.