Sissies and Tomboys: Gender Nonconformity and Homosexual Childhood.

Sissies and Tomboys: Gender Nonconformity and Homosexual Childhood, By Matthew Rottnek (Ed.). New York: New York University Press, 1999, 308 pages. Cloth, $55.00; Paper, $18.95.

The sexual revolution, which began in the 1960s with the rise of the counterculture and, later, combined with the second wave of feminism, brought a surge of so-called sexual liberation to mainstream North America accompanied by a particular mode of gender-bending. In the interests of mental health and equal opportunity, women were permitted to behave a little bit like men, while men were encouraged to behave a little bit like women. This was called androgyny, which referred to a combination of gender-typical and gender-atypical characteristics within individuals. However, while androgyny seemed to herald a new way of thinking about gender and of being gendered, in fact the discourse reified the same old concept of gender as consisting of masculinity on the one hand and femininity on the other. Like salad dressing that seems homogeneous when it is shaken and put on the table, androgyny was ultimately shown to consist of two distinct entities that separated upon close examination, like oil and vinegar.

In the past decade, however, a new discourse has arisen through which theorists have attempted to find truly different ways of thinking about gender. This discourse has, in part, been the result of the emerging transgender movement over the past decade--a movement which in many way parallels the gay liberation movement which began in the late 1960s. The transgender movement questions the very foundation of how we talk about and conceptualize gender. In fact, the new discourse puts into question whether gender, as we think we know it, really exists as anything more than a figment of social construction.

Sissies & Tomboys exemplifies this new genre of dialogue about gender. Although the title and the introduction suggest that this collection of essays focuses on gender-atypical childhoods among gay and lesbian people, in fact it is a wide-ranging examination of gender-atypicality in the context of clinically defined Gender Identity Disorder (GID) on the one hand and a social constructionist perspective on the other. The recurring theme is the absurdity of pathologizing gender-atypicality rather than viewing it as an expression of diversity. As one of the contributors puts it, "Psychologists have a way of looking at variation and calling it illness" (p. 118).

The first section, entitled "Gender Identity Disorder (GID) and the Normal" is a critical analysis of the GID diagnosis. The first essay is an information sheet written by Shannon Minter. It is distributed by the National Center for Lesbian Rights and was designed to provide an overview of the diagnosis and treatment of GID in children. A large part of this essay consists of block quotations taken from published research reports authored by many of the prominent clinicians in the area of childhood gender identity disorder. As is often the case when quotes are used out of context and juxtaposed, the experts are, purposely or not, portrayed as foolish, rigid homophobes, especially since equal weight is given to quotations from both relatively current works and works that are up to 25 years old. Minter contends that "If GID in children was not strongly associated with homosexuality in adulthood, it is unlikely that [cross-gendered behaviors in children] would have been designated psychiatric disorders or become the focus of an entire clinical field devoted to ...`correcting' cross-gender behaviors ..." (p. 27), and that current clinical approaches to GID in children do more harm than good. The essay concludes with the call for clinicians to cease trying to make gender-variant children conform to "standard boy and girl behavior" and instead help these children develop the resiliency to deal with stigma and isolation. By resorting to polemics, Minter has set up a straw person to knock down rather than presenting a compelling critical analysis of the issues. In short, this essay is not an auspicious beginning to what turns out to be an otherwise thought-provoking collection.

The second essay, by Richard Pleak, revisits similar themes, although in the end, Pleak does acknowledge that parents who seek treatment for their gender-atypical children are more concerned with their children being free from harassment rather than the possibility of a homosexual outcome. Again, Pleak sometimes neglects to distinguish between old work and current opinion, leaving the reader to wonder what is current, accepted treatment in the area of childhood GID and to wonder why recognized experts in the area seem to be so behind-the-times in their thinking about gender roles. The strength of this piece is the author's appeal for working with the parents of gender-dysphoric children in clarifying goals, in educating them, and in supporting the parents in their love and concern for their child.

The crux of the book begins with Anne Fausto-Sterling's consideration of whether gender is essential, followed by Naomi Scheman's comparison of transsexuals and secular Jews. The reader is forewarned by the quotation, attributed to Jenny Holzer, at the beginning of Scheman's essay, "Confusing yourself is a way to stay honest" (p. 58). The discussion was, indeed, delightfully confusing in the way that contemplating infinity or other imponderables tends to make the head spin. In a captivating style, both scholarly and conversational, Scheman explores gender as identity, membership, descriptor, and label. By comparing the transgender phenomenon to conversion to Judaism (at once a race, an ethnicity, and a religion) she brings to the fore the critical difficulties in current ways of thinking about gender-atypical behavior. When gentiles convert to Judaism on religious grounds (that is, on the basis of their beliefs), they paradoxically become part of a group with an ethnic identity (based on history and genealogy, neither of which the convert shares)--a group which includes secular Jews, who retain the ethnic identity in the absence of religious belief. Compare that scenario to a biological male, for example, who identifies as a female and converts (to continue the analogy) to female by adopting the female role. Can this individual ever really claim a female identity, and, if so, how female does he have to be in order to be a she?

Just as converts of any sort must embody the quintessence of their adopted identity (lest anyone should think that their conversion is not genuine), so too, it seems, are transsexuals required to be the epitome of their adopted gender, thereby remaining trapped by the polarized definitions of what it means to be male and female, masculine and feminine. They cannot exert the latitude (such as it is) that is accorded biological men and women of picking and choosing among a range of behaviors, lest they fall short of being a real man or woman. What are the minimum and necessary conditions which must be met in order to qualify as a bona fide man or woman, and who defines them? How does one understand the unique blending of male and female that characterize us all in terms of a dichotomous system of thinking? How does anyone, and especially transgender people, render intelligible their experience of gender? These are the dizzying question that Scheman ultimately poses.

The second section, titled "Theorizing Gender NonConformity," consists of four essays in which the authors muse upon the origins of effeminate boyhoods of homosexual men, and the meaning of being a tomboy. As a whole, these essays highlight the way in which gender-atypicality has been overlooked in most writing other than clinical accounts, as an experience or as a theoretical issue. The tomboy experience has particularly been ignored, no doubt because the fact that so many heterosexual women were tomboys in their childhood poses myriad theoretical issues. These writings as a whole suffer from an overly-psychoanalytic perspective, when more parsimonious theories would suffice. At the same time they challenge us to consider how childhood gender nonconformity could unfold if it were viewed as nonproblematic, even normal.

The final section, "Sissies and Tomboys Speak," is a collection of seven essays in which the authors recount their gender-atypical childhood and early adulthood. In many ways this is the most compelling part of the book. In contrast to the sometimes meandering musings that characterize the preceding essays, these narratives clearly fulfil their purpose. They offer a vision of young people who (admittedly in retrospect) seemed to know who they were and what they wanted, but were constantly foiled by the gendered expectations of their family and peers. The authors share their pain and frustration without the poorme tenor which can often characterize such essays. In coming to terms with their own gender-atypicality these authors offer a pathway for making gender in all its variations intelligible.

This collection is a provocative examination of the way that academics and clinicians think and write about gender; however, it has some weaknesses. Deconstructing gender is a necessarily political activity, but that does not excuse a periodic lack of attention to detail. Many of the contributors, particularly those who review the research and commentary on gender and GID, take an ahistorical approach, giving equal credence to all cited material regardless of how long ago it was published. One of the most glaring examples of this is Judith Halberstam's discussion of the concept of psychological androgyny. Although she does note that Sandra Bem, who developed the concept, later became disenchanted with it, Halberstam implies that it is a concept which presently has currency in the psychological literature. In fact, interest in androgyny as it was originally conceptualized by Bem fizzled out some years ago precisely because it proved to be problematic on a number of fronts. These faults, combined with a sometimes ad hominem approach to critiques of the status quo, tend to undermine the overall value of the critical analysis which is offered in the collection as a whole.

This book is testimony to the futility of trying to feminize the tomboys or "butch up" the sissies, and the risk of undermining a child's self-esteem when it is attempted. Yet, I cannot escape the concern that the gender revolution is being fought on the backs of children. While it behooves clinicians to reevaluate currently accepted approaches to gender-atypical behavior in children, at the same time gender revolutionaries need to recognize that until there is a massive metamorphosis in society's gender role expectations, even the most resilient gender-atypical child is going to suffer from stigma and harassment. To abandon the current practice of trying, with sensitivity, to modify a child's cross-gender behavior in favor of providing nothing more than "resilience" (itself a very slippery concept) can only be described as reckless.

Sissies and Tomboys is a political book, in the sense that it deals with underlying questions of who gets to define "normal," who gets to label others, who is placed on the margins, and what happens to them when they are there. These are important issues that those who are interested in gender and especially those who are working in a gender-related area must consider. This is a highly readable book which tackles these issues in an interesting way.

Margaret Schneider, Ph.D., Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto, 252 Bloor St. W., Toronto ON Canada M4B 1J6; e-mail: [e-mail].