乐播传媒

Transgender children are often unwaveringly sure about their gender identities. The adults around them rely on such expressed certainty to determine whether these children are 鈥渞eally鈥� trans.

But if a trans kid isn鈥檛 so certain, does that make their identity any less authentic?

A paper examining notions of authenticity in trans children has won its author, a member of the 乐播传媒 politics faculty, an annual award from the American Political Science Association.

A lecturer in politics and a Mellon Diversity and Faculty Renewal Postdoctoral Fellow, Hagel was honored for her article 鈥淎lternative Authenticities: Thinking Transgender Without Essence,鈥� which appeared in the journal Theory & Event in July 2017.

The paper received the APSA鈥檚 Susan Okin鈥揑ris Young Award for Best Paper in Feminist Theory.

As Hagel explains in her article, two things often stand out when trans kids talk about their identities. For one, they frame gender in a very binary way 鈥� female or male. And they express strong certainty about their essential selves: 鈥淚 know I鈥檓 a girl, I鈥檝e always been a girl, and I know this because I like wearing dresses鈥� or 鈥淚 like the color pink.鈥�

They show a force of conviction that the American Psychiatric Association, in its clinical definition of gender dysphoria, famously characterizes as 鈥渃onsistent, persistent, and insistent.鈥� Because these are medically disseminated standards, adults are more likely to accept children鈥檚 gender identities when they seem stable and posed with firm conviction.

鈥淯ncertainty about who one really is may be the most honest feeling one can have about oneself.鈥�

While such acceptance certainly represents progress, it is also, as Hagel suggests, trading one set of constraints for a somewhat looser set, reinforcing a way of thinking based on the sharply binary view of gender and the value of firm convictions that are read as authentic.

鈥淗aving a greater understanding of transgender youth makes their lives much easier,鈥� she says, 鈥渂ut there are unintended consequences and lingering questions that really motivated me to write the article.

鈥淲hile I agree with a lot of the political aims, I wondered whether this discourse might have unanticipated costs 鈥� whether it might regulate not only other transgender kids, but also transgender adults, and even non-transgender adults who assume a slightly different relationship to their gender.鈥�

So a key objective of the article is to propose a broader understanding of authenticity incorporating qualities that might, at first, seem antithetical to it, such as uncertainty, changeability, or plurality. As Hagel writes, 鈥渦ncertainty about who one really is may be the most honest feeling one can have about oneself.鈥�

鈥淚n gender discourse today, our terms are shifting, our understanding of gender is shifting,鈥� she says. If your identity has evolved, 鈥渋t doesn鈥檛 necessarily mean that your prior self was false, or that ideas of truth and falsity have to map onto ideas of certainty or fixity in gender.鈥�

In short, 鈥淚 offer a counter-discourse that gives children the space to explore who they are without having to pin it down really early, but also without having to dismiss those claims as being part of a 鈥榩hase.鈥� But most importantly, I argue for not subjecting children to coerced gender presentations.鈥�

“In our everyday life, and across a wide range of contexts, we make unconscious and automatic judgments about who and what is authentic.”

With degrees from Berkeley and Johns Hopkins, Hagel joined 乐播传媒 in 2016. A whiteboard in her office is covered with chapter descriptions for a book project that will examine how claims to authenticity are used to motivate political projects. An interest central to Hagel鈥檚 research and teaching, this scrutiny of authenticity is rooted in her own story.

鈥淎s someone who is Filipina and multiracial, discourses of authenticity were part of what I grew up with,鈥� she says. 鈥淧eople often wanted to know where I came from, who I really was. I realized that in our everyday life, and across a wide range of contexts, we make unconscious and automatic judgments about who and what is authentic.鈥�

Transgender discourse is a context in which authenticity claims figure heavily. But that discourse significantly 鈥渄eparts from the suspicions toward authenticity that you get in, say, queer discourses or postmodern discourses in the 1980s and 鈥�90s,鈥� she says.

“We oftentimes are talking about different things when we talk about authenticity.”

鈥淕ender here seems much more fixed and stable rather than open to instability and play.鈥�

Meanwhile, in day-to-day conversation, 鈥渁uthenticity has a wide range of meanings,鈥� Hagel says.

鈥淚t鈥檚 one of those densely coded concepts that has tremendous force in politics 鈥� even though we fundamentally disagree on what it is. So my book project started with a realization that we oftentimes are talking about different things when we talk about authenticity.

鈥淚t means original, true to yourself, but also ideas like 鈥榰nique鈥� or 鈥榚xemplary,鈥欌�� she continues. 鈥淎lmost always, when we hear 鈥榓uthentic,鈥� it鈥檚 a positive 鈥� you should be authentic, you should be true to yourself. But what that self is, and what being true to that self means, is really up for grabs.鈥�

It鈥檚 always nice to win an award for your work. But it鈥檚 especially gratifying when the award itself represents someone who inspired that work.

鈥淚鈥檓 thrilled to have won an award named after two of my favorite feminist philosophers,鈥� she says. (The late Susan Moller Okin made a transformative argument for the centrality of gender issues in political philosophy. Iris Marion Young was a political theorist whose wide-ranging contributions touched on structural injustice, the politics of difference, and other concepts.)

鈥淚 teach works by both Okin and Young. They鈥檙e two of the first feminists I encountered in graduate school. Their work has opened so many doors for me 鈥� doors I didn鈥檛 even know were doors.鈥�