Scrutinizing “As Told By Vaginas:” The Pervasive Disinclusion of Trans and Gender-queer Individuals in Feminist Performace

“Why Connecticut College Will No Longer Perform The Vagina Monologues” is one of the most widely read articles online that was published in this newspaper. The article columned by Alia Roth ‘14 pointed out the less savory monologues in the show; the “coochie snorcher” monologue that basically glorified sexual misconduct with a minor; the “Woman Who Loved To Make Vaginas Happy” which includes representations of black, Jewish and bisexual women moaning in a  stereotypically racist and homophobic manner.

The one trans monologue, in which a woman’s boyfriend is beaten to death, is the only optional monologue in the show.

Gender dis-inclusivity was also a reason that Connecticut College chose to let go of The Vagina Monologues. The move to venture into self written monologues by college-aged women that are relatable, creative and not constrictive is bold and declarative and makes me immensely happy for this college.

I still have a problem with the name.

The show is about bringing together a community of women. Many women on this campus proudly declare that the show changed their lives, especially if they performed it in their first year. It is not so much about content as it is about togetherness.

Still, when I sat down with Bettina Weiss ‘15, one of this year’s producers, she opined “We (the show) need content that represents the cast of the show.” The content is important, then, even if it takes a backseat to the experience of doing the show itself. My question is this: why then use the word vagina to centralize the framework of the show around a biologically female organ? What about those who are not born female? What about those who come into themselves as women? What about genderqueer and agender individuals?

If you happened to stop by at the National Coming Out Day booth in Cro on Wednesday, you would have seen the abundance of identities people associate with and the numerous people on this college who identify on a spectrum of gender instead of a binary man/woman definition. Even if we were to maintain that the show was about women (a premise I’m completely OK with, given the fact that we often decentralize woman based issues to structures of power, i.e, men, to give them more credibility), it assumes a narrow definition of what womanhood is.

Professor Ariella Rotramel, while refraining from commenting on the show itself, had this to say: “In this case, it seems that the usage of “vagina” may serve to essentialize women’s experiences through one (assumed) part of their bodies. While “vagina” may simply be a starting point that is not intended to be essentialist or indeed a referent to The Vagina Monologues former presence on campus for participants in this event, it would be interesting to know if other frameworks were considered as a basis for this woman-focused project.”

When I talked to Weiss, she said that “vagina” was still a taboo word and that she wanted the women who performed in the monologue to retain ownership over it. But the phrasing of the title As Told By Vaginas is so incredibly essentialist. Think about it – as told by vaginas. Not as told by women, but vaginas. Basically equating women to a biological organ they may or may not have been born with, or may or may not consider a huge part of their identity. It’s similar to the kind of exclusivity perpetuated by second wave feminism.

Weiss also talked about how the word vagina is not the central focus, but a starting point. Any experience with a vagina counts, so FTM or MTF trans individuals are included in the show because they have had to encounter the vagina, if in thought only.

But what about trans individuals who proclaim a gender identity regardless of what biological organs they possess? Being trans does not always mean wanting to have the body of the opposite sex; it is mostly connected to one’s identity and self perception as an individual. What about genderqueer individuals, who proclaim aspects of different genders at different times? What about individuals who don’t give a shit what organ they have, as long as they’re able to express whatever identity they feel comfortable expressing?

These are all loaded questions that must lead to more discussions before the show begins. Weiss again explained that the title is flexible and we haven’t even seen the show yet, which seems an exceedingly fair point.

She also said, “First year of the transition, I really wanted people to identify what they’d experienced before and feel that they space they had before wasn’t taken.” This is also a completely fair point.

But it does not, however, consider the incoming class, trans or genderqueer individuals in that class and how they may be put out by the name. It also does not consider people who might not read in-depth into the name because the context has not been distributed to us; we don’t know Weiss’s reasons for changing the name, they haven’t been told us. What other conclusions can we draw other than the ones that focus on the name, then?

Most of all, though, I wish we’d gone a tiny bit further. The decision to discontinue The Vagina Monologueswas so revolutionary, I wish we’d done justice to it instead of copping out. I wish we’d dismantled the structures we’d set out to dismantle, I wish we didn’t stick to a cisgendered narrative, a binary definition of sex. I wish we’d gone farther; the inclusion of individual voices is important and representative of our community. We need to stretch that representation wider, include more. I wish we’d actually changed, instead of proclaiming change and only making a half-hearted effort. •