Le Grand T
Dear GWS313 Students:
Recently I, along with some associates, was combing the cramped archives of a library in London. By chance I noticed an assortment of worn educational DVDs, to be shown in grade school science classrooms. They were mostly drivel-- of course, so much is!-- but I did find one on the topic of the ideal trans woman that captured my interest and immersed me in the past. In lieu of this Friday's class, please watch the documentary linked below, and come prepared for a discussion on Monday.
Cheers,
Dr. M
Immaculate and poised, dignified and cultured, fundamental and beautiful.
She may look like a magazine cover, but she’s not a model, at least not in the usual sense! No, you’re looking at Le Grand T, a symbol of rationality, stability, and steadfast scientific progress.
This amazing specimen is kept in a pressure-controlled chamber deep underground in Paris, where she spends her days slumbering with rarely a thought on her mind. She is, definitionally, the ideal trans woman. Right now, the only set of eyes on her is the camera we’re looking through. But every few years, a global commission of top scientists is assembled to measure her mass, volume, temperament, gender, and spirituality, and distribute the findings to government facilities all across the world.
It may look cramped under that tiny glass bell jar— indeed, its function is to keep oxygen out. You and I might suffocate under these conditions! But Le Grand T stays strong and stable. In fact, that’s her job. If Mrs. T absorbs any stray molecules of matter or affect, it might alter her weight or her disposition. Then, the next time she is measured, the scientific community might believe that trans womanhood has changed more than it actually has! The beautiful would seem hideous, women would be mistaken as demigirls, and it would be impossible to determine whether a given individual is hurt by transmisogyny!
This collection of devices next to her is here to ensure that never happens. They control atmospheric contamination, barometric black bile, sound, light, monadic gender noumena— name anything, it’s measured and regulated. Food, waste, pain, and love are pumped in and out of her through silicone tubes, to increase stability and minimize the usage of her senses. This machine here with the smoke looks rather daunting, but it has an important task— it spurns the eye of God to counteract the spiritual effects of being underground and thus closer to the core of the earth. Yes, these scientists make quite the hullaballoo over Le Grand T’s environment-- but it’s well worth it.
Le Grand T is the rock upon which our system of measurement is built.
All the other SI units are derived from her specifications. The kilogram is defined as one-sixtieth of Le Grand T’s mass; the meter is the height of approximately naught-point-five-eight trans women. Her sexuality is precisely three Kinseys, and her gender one Blanchard, and if they change, the definitions of Kinsey and Blanchard all over the world change with her. Did you know that today, transmasculinity is defined as the inverse of transfemininity, and not the other way around? We’ve certainly come a long way from the sexist likes of Da Vinci, and his “ideal man”.
The influence of Le Grand T is all around us. Have you ever applied to the National Bureau of Slurs for a permit to say “femboy”? If so, you can thank Le Grand T— the fine folks there compare your trauma to Le Grand T’s, and only those who had it just as bad are permitted to reclaim the appropriate slurs. The police work day and night to catch impostors in the queer community with a variety of tests comparing perpetrators’ gender, sexuality, and suffering to that of Le Grand T. And if you are transmasculine— that is, if your gender is approximately negative one on the Blanchard scale— you should thank Le Grand T, for giving the Blanchard meaning and value in the first place.
Yes, it seems like we trans people owe our entire existence to a trans woman sleeping in Europe, blissfully unaware of the world around her. Male or female, they/she or she/they, we all live on the same planet, and we all measure the world by the same standards. Le Grand T is the anchor that holds down our very understanding of transgender studies.