Book Review

Reviewed by Beatrice Faust

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Crossing is particularly shrewd ... and offers a sound critique on how society uses psychiatric judgement to mask normative prejudices

Crossing: A Memoir

by Deidre McClosky
University of Chicago Press, November 1999
No I.S.B.N.

Women are not allowed to act in traditional theatre: instead, male actors called "Ona Gata" specialise in feminine roles. These men hold what seems to westerners the ultimate sexist belief, it takes a man to be a woman. This makes sense if we accept that femininity is not essentially biological but is culturally defined. A woman speaks so and walks thus; she wears these clothes in this way with hair and make-up as fashion prescribes and, above all, she does not do what men do. In real life, the messiness of female biology gets in the way of feminine grace because women menstruate, have babies, cook meals and clean floors. Only the ona gata has the time, the professional concentration, the intelligence and sensitivity to perfect the feminine role.

Deidre McCloskey's memoir, Crossing, illustrates just how much of that role is socially prescribed in western cultures and can be learned by a male determined to make the crossing from man to woman. Formerly known to economists as Donald McCloskey, she is the author of numerous studies on nineteenth century economic history and critiques arguing that since economics doesn't meet the criteria of science it should be treated as humanist rhetoric, a way of presenting an argument. She began cross-dressing in private as an 11 year old, continuing intermittently during her 20 year marriage and gradually crystallising the wish for a complete role and body change.

Crossing is an intensely personal and somewhat uncritical book. McCloskey does not apply her academic skills to the issue of sex-change. Indeed, she quotes almost no research on transsexuals, neglecting currently important questions. "Sex" is a biological category, a given for the overwhelming majority of people. "Gender" is a social category, varying from culture to culture, between socio-economic groups and changing with time. After half a century of economic pressure on married women to enter the paid workforce and thirty five years of feminist response to this pressure, very little of the traditional feminine role is intact in first world economies. Why did Donald McCloskey feel that he had to have his brow ridges ground down, his lips plumped, extensive electrolysis on facial and bodily hair, breasts implanted, his skin refined by hormones and his urinary-genital tract reconstructed in order to learn how to be a woman? The implication is that gender is not just socially constructed but is firmly based on biology. Some conduct is easier to learn if the body is congruent with it and primed by hormones to learn that particular lesson.

McCloskey's professional sense of humour adds a beguiling dimension to her personal drama. In defiance of economic theory, medical fees remain high despite an alleged surplus of doctors. Crossing is particularly shrewd on the way the medical cartel imposes artificial hurdle requirements on sex-change and offers a sound critique on how society uses psychiatric judgement to mask normative prejudices. The author constantly slips into the vocabulary and thought processes of economics so her story of crossing from man to woman is more detailed as to costs and benefits than similar autobiographies by writers, doctors and models. Crossing would be a very helpful book for anyone contemplating sex-change because it does not minimise the costs.

Donald's children and former wife rejected Deidre, as did some friends. Her sister had her committed for psychiatric observation and continued to influence her various doctors, adding additional travel and legal costs to the already substantial medical bills that were not covered by health insurance. Repeated surgery failed to raise the pitch of her voice and she had urinary tract complications from the pelvic reconstruction. Deidre's benefits are cumulative: the slow achievement of becoming the gender she believed she should be, the many small triumphs as she learned the parts of her new role and eventually the realisation that she could pass as a woman without sacrificing friendship or professional success. She discovered that women's friendship is deeper, warmer, more intimate and more sustaining than the impersonal and often rivalrous bonding that occurs between men.

I accept that McCloskey chose to write in the third person about "Donald" and "Deidre", "he" and "she", because this gives a more vivid sense of the ambiguity of the conflict and its solution. Regrettably, this means that the story loses the honesty of the real person's voice saying, "I felt ...", "I did it because I ...". I found the she/he switches precious while McCloskey's breathless running are more the style of Edna Everage than of a dignified lady professor. The story is fascinating, informative and entertaining, as far as it goes, but it does not convincingly explain why Donald decided to become Deidre.

Many male children suffer a sense of unfitness from infancy, a sense that they are girls in the wrong body. For them, sex-change is simply correcting nature's mistake. Some cross-dressing male prostitutes who service a heterosexual clientele choose hormones and surgery because they believe it will be easier to fool their clients. Perhaps as many as half the male candidates for sex-change, including Deidre McCloskey - come to the idea of surgical intervention after years of cross-dressing. Why do men who have had years of pleasure from dressing as women choose to undertake expensive, risky and more or less irrevocable medical sex-change? Perhaps the fact that the terminology is there creates it's own market.

Crossing repeatedly asserts that transsexuals are normal, that crossing from one sex to another hurts no one and that the proper attitude for society to take is laissez faire. Yet the crosser does not exist in a social vacuum. Families and colleagues have to adapt their relationships to fit the crosser's new role. Some cope, some like McCloskey's wife and children do not. Although the author is keenly aware that people with good incomes have richer life choices and get a superior deal from doctors and lawyers, than those who do not, she does not apply a class analysis to the phenomenon. Admitting that many crossers are assaulted and that this seems to have something to do with their capacity to pass as members of their chosen sex, she fails to ask why this may be so. She includes a list of misunderstandings and truths about crossing that fudges the distinction between some transsexuals and all.

Post-operative follow up reveals that unskilled workers and men in traditionally male jobs, builders' labourers, truck drivers and timber workers, are likely to have trouble finding work as women and experience great difficulty learning the acquired part of femininity. They are disproportionately liable to become substance abusers. People with portable skills such as computer programming, medicine, and economics have less trouble adjusting in their new role. Even so, they are not always happy in the long term. In March 1999, Tennis magazine published an interview with Rene Richards, an ophthalmologist and outstanding amateur tennis player who sought unsuccessfully to compete in women's tennis after she crossed. It reported that Dr. Richards declined to be used as an example to follow, said that she knew she was a second class woman and regretted that she had not had the option of medication for her fetish instead of surgery.

Crossing is a rewarding book but it should not be taken as the last word on crossing.

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