Cited by 890Gender and Feminist StudiesGothic Literature and Media AnalysisLiterary Theory and Cultural Hermeneutics

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 16 of the 20 references it cites were found in a registry or an index; none of the 11 sources its claims cite is checked for support yet.

My Words to Victor Frankenstein Above the Village of Chamounix: Performing Transgender Rage

Open access
Stryker, Susan·1994·GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies

Abstract

I am not the * rst to link Frankenstein’s monster and the transsexual body. Mary Daly makes the connection explicit by discussing transsexuality in “Boundary Violation and the Frankenstein Phenomenon,” in which she characterizes transsexuals as the agents of a “necrophilic invasion” of female space (69-72). Janice Raymond, who acknowledges Daly as a formative in= uence, is less direct when she says that “the problem of transsexuality would best be served by morally mandating it out of existence,” but in this statement she nevertheless echoes Victor Frankenstein’s feelings toward the monster: “Begone, vile insect, or rather, stay, that I may trample you to dust. You reproach me with your creation” (Raymond 178; Shelley 95). It is a commonplace of literary criticism to note that Frankenstein’s monster is his own dark, romantic double, the alien Other he constructs and upon which he projects all he cannot accept in himself; indeed, Frankenstein calls the monster “my own vampire, my own spirit set loose from the grave” (Shelley 74). Might I suggest that Daly, Raymond and others of their ilk similarly construct the transsexual as their own particular golem? (1)' e attribution of monstrosity remains a palpable characteristic of most lesbian and gay representations of transsexuality, displaying in unnerving detail the anxious, fearful underside of the current cultural fascination with transgenderism. (2) Because transsexuality more than any other transgender practice or identity represents the prospect of destabilizing the foundational presupposition of * xed genders upon which a politics of personal identity depends, people who have invested their aspirations for social justice in identitarian movements say things about us out of sheer panic that, if said of other minorities, would see print only in the most hate-riddled, white supremacist, Christian fascist rags. To quote extensively from one letter to the editor of a popular San Francisco gay/lesbian periodical:Referring by name to one particular person, self-identi* ed as a transsexual lesbian, whom she had heard speak in a public forum at the San Francisco Women’s Building, the letter-writer went on to say:When such beings as these tell me I war with nature, I * nd no more reason to mourn my opposition to them-or to the order they claim to represent-than Frankenstein’s monster felt in its enmity to the human race. I do not fall from the grace of their company-I roar gleefully away from it like a Harley-straddling, dildo-packing leatherdyke from hell.

Overview

AI snapshot

Written from the paper’s full text.

TL;DR

Susan Stryker’s performative essay reads Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein monster alongside transsexual experience to reclaim monstrosity and articulate “transgender rage” as a transformative political and subjective force. It critiques medicalized sex reassignment and lesbian-feminist transphobia while insisting that transsexual embodiment can be a viable site of subjectivity.

Key findings

Stryker argues that words like “creature,” “monster,” and “unnatural” should be reclaimed by transgendered people, as embracing them can dispel their power to harm. She defines “transgender rage” as a queer fury produced when subjects must take up practices that precipitate exclusion from a naturalized order, and argues this rage can enable disidentification and new gendered subject positions. The essay links transsexual experience to Shelley’s monster: both are made beings who exceed their makers’ purposes and face exclusion, and Stryker cites the 1993 suicide of Filisa Vistima, a 22-year-old pre-operative transsexual woman from Seattle, as a consequence of stigmatization and exclusion by Seattle’s queer community. It also critiques medical and scientific sex-reassignment techniques as aligned with a conservative attempt to stabilize gendered identity, while maintaining that medically constructed transsexual bodies can still be viable sites of subjectivity.

Methods

The work is a textual adaptation of a performance piece originally presented at “Rage Across the Disciplines,” an arts, humanities, and social sciences conference held June 10–12, 1993, at California State University, San Marcos. It combines personal narrative, journal entries, literary analysis of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and queer/feminist theory—including references to Judith Butler and Peter Brooks—to perform rather than merely describe a queer gender. There is no formal data collection or systematic empirical analysis; the essay proceeds through performance script, autobiographical reflection, and theoretical argument.

Limitations

Stated: Stryker calls her approach an “idiosyncratic application” of gender performativity and notes that “Other true stories of those events could undoubtedly be told.” Evident: the essay is a single-author performative and theoretical piece, not an empirical study, so it relies on personal experience and literary interpretation rather than a systematic sample or generalizable findings.

Model-written summary. Check it against the paper before relying on it.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1215/10642684-1-3-237

Cites

16 of 16 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Nothing to recompute.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

56 Own interpretation · 14 No basis given · 8 Sources not found · 1 Not checked yet

Show all 1 claims

  • It may state two separate claims as one. 12
  • Probably not a substantial claim. 77
  • The quote only partly states this claim. 1
78 of 78
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Transgender rage can be harnessed and mobilized into effective political actions.

    “A good deal of the discussion at our planning meetings concerned how to harness the intense emotions emanating from transsexual experience-especially rage-and mobilize them into effective political actions.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Language cannot represent the transgendered subject's movement over time between stably gendered positions in a linguistic structure.

    “the inability of language to represent the transgendered subject's movement over time between stably gendered positions in a linguistic structure”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The scientific discourse that produced sex reassignment techniques is inseparable from the pursuit of immortality through the perfection of the body, the fantasy of total mastery through the transcendence of an absolute limit, and the hubristic desire to create life itself.

    “The scientific discourse that produced sex reassignment techniques is inseparable from the pursuit of immortality through the perfection of the body, the fantasy o f total mastery through the transcendence of an atisolute limit, and the hiil)ristic desire to create life itself.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The genealogy of sex reassignment techniques emerges from a metaphysical quest older than modern science.

    “Its genealogy emerges from a metaphysical quest older than modern science”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The cultural politics of sex reassignment techniques are aligned with a conservative attempt to stabilize gendered identity in service of the naturalized heterosexual order.

    “its cultural politics are aligned with a cltvy~ly coriservative attempt to stabilize gendered identity in service of the t i a t LI r a I i zed he t e r osex 11 a I or d e r .”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Medical techniques for sex reassignment are capable of crafting bodies that satisfy the visual and morphological criteria that generate naturalness as their effect.

    “Though medical techniques for sex reassignment are capahle of crafting tlodies that satisfy the visual and morphological criteria that generate naturalness as their effect”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Heroic doctors still endeavor to triumph over nature.

    “Heroic doctors still endeavor to triumph over nature.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Medicine defines transgender identity as an emotional disorder.

    “I live daily with the consequences of medicine's definition of my identity as a n emotional disorder.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    There is a naturalized order of existence that seeks to maintain itself as the only possible basis for being a subject.

    “a naturalized order of existence that seeks to maintain itself as the only possible basis for being a subject.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Language and materiality have an unstable but indissoluble relationship.

    “the unstable but indissoluble relationshp between language and materiality”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The subject's boundaries are constructed by its own founding and require constant policing to maintain the fictions of inside and outside.

    “the subject must constantly police the boundary constructed by its own founding in order to maintain the fictions of "inside" and "outside"”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    A gendering violence is the founding condition of human subjectivity.

    “A gendering violence is the founding condition of human subjectivity”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Having a gender is the tribal tattoo that makes one's personhood cognizable.

    “having a gender is the tribal tattoo that makes one's personhood cognizable”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Phallogocentric language, not its particular speaker, is the scalpel that defines our flesh.

    “Phallogocentric language, not its particular speaker, is the scalpel that defines our flesh.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Birth rituals work to prepare the self for a profound opening, an opening as psychic as it is corporeal.

    “Birth rituals work to prepare the self for a profound opening, an opening as psychic as it is corporeal.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The gendering process sustains the illusion of naturalness.

    “the gendering process that sustains the illusion of naturalness”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The current cultural fascination with transgenderism has an anxious, fearful underside.

    “the anxious, fearful underside of the current cultural fascination with transgenderism”
17 of 17

Citations

Cites

Show all 20 references

Research works printed but not linked: 3

  1. Bloom, Harold. “Afterword.” Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus. New York: Signet/NAL, 1965. 212-23. Orig. pub. “Frankenstein, or The New Prometheus.” Partisan Review 32 (1965): 611-18.
  2. Rubin, Gayle. “The Traffic in Women: Notes on the ‘Political Economy’ of Sex.” Toward an Anthropology of Women. Ed. Reiter, Rayna R.. New York: Monthly Review P, 1975. 157-210.
  3. Stoller, Robert. Sex and Gender. Vol. 1. New York: Science House, 1968. The Transsexual Experiment. Vol. 2 of Sex and Gender. London: Hogarth, 1975.

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Metadata

Authors
Stryker, S.
Corresponding author
Stryker, Susan
Venue
GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies
Published
1994
Volume
1
Issue
3
Pages
237-254
ISSN
  • 1064-2684 (ISSN-L)
  • 1527-9375
OpenAlex
W2173017428
Cited by
890
References
20
Citations by year
2026: 48 · 2025: 118 · 2024: 91 · 2023: 73 · 2022: 66 · 2021: 72 · 2020: 60 · 2019: 37 · 2018: 60 · 2017: 40 · 2016: 21 · 2015: 14 · 2014: 33 · 2013: 17 · 2012: 19
FWCI
1.96
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
GLQ A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender and Feminist Studies
  • Social Sciences › Cultural Studies › Gothic Literature and Media Analysis
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Literature and Literary Theory › Literary Theory and Cultural Hermeneutics
Keywords
Frankenstein's monster, transsexualism, monstrosity, gender identity, Mary Daly, Victor Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, Golem, othering

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