Inflexible Bodies: Metadata for Transgender Identities

Abstract

[T]he power relations that characterize any historically embedded society are never as transparently clear as names we give to them imply.- Gordon, 1997, p. 3While librarians are strongly encouraged to offer materials from a variety of identity perspectives (J. Taylor) to make library collections more welcoming to transgender people, same level of attention is not always applied to terminology used to describe transgender- related topics, and even trans- people themselves. Is it possible for librarians to use controlled vocabulary to accurately describe people's lives? What pieces of identity are leftbehind? In traditional library cataloging models, hierarchical taxonomic and classification structures are used to describe pieces of information. These schemas are lacking in any sort of mechanism to acknowledge people's sometimes amorphous and often fluid identities. This paper will specifically address Library of Congress-based cataloging practices, including classification, and their role in enforcing normative boundaries for sexualities and gender. Through use of inaccurate language in Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) and problematic classification schemes, catalogers often unwittingly contribute to creation of library environments that are passively hostile to transgender users.The idea that Library of Congress subject headings do a poor job of codifying reality is not new. Sanford Berman first addressed this issue in late 1960s. He wrote, in Prejudices and Antipathies:[...] LC list can only satisfy parochial, jingoistic Europeans and North Americans, white- hued, at least nominally Christian (and preferably Protestant) in faith, comfortably situated in middle- and higher- income brackets, largely domiciled in suburbia, fundamentally loyal to Established Order, and heavily imbued with transcendent, incomparable glory of Western civilization (3).He is far from alone in this sentiment; in their 2001 analysis, Hope Olson and Rose Schegl found 68 works discussing negative bias in LCSH. Many of these works were critical of way Library of Congress (LC) provides access to materials about women, African studies, people with disabilities, and LGBT people (Olson and Schegl 61). This paper focuses on latter.Queers or Sexual Minorities?It is simultaneously essential and impossible to extricate transgender identities from lesbian, gay, and bisexual identities; queer- identified transgender people certainly exist, though LGBTQ advocacy work has not always been inclusive of both sexual and gender diversity. As mainstream and groups in 1950s and 1960s began presenting as normally as possible in order to gain widespread acceptance, transgender identities were often considered deviant and misaligned with groups' goals (Stryker 151). In other decades, such as 1970s and 1990s, transgender and activists often aligned in hopes of creating imagined political alliance of all possible forms of gender antinormativity (146). Echoes of these tactics are still very common in different types of LGBTQ rhetoric, and controlled library vocabulary is definitely not immune.For purposes of this work, queer is defined as a politicized identity centered on same- sex orientation. The word queer has complicated meanings. In early twentieth century, it was an internal term used by people within community, only becoming an insult in 1950s (Shneer and Aviv). In late 1980s and early 1990s, queer regained popularity, representing resistance to assimilative lesbian and gay language (Warner xxi). Currently, it still retains some of those radical connotations, threatening the ground on which and politics has been built, taking apart ideas of a 'sexual minority' and a 'gay community,' indeed of 'gay' and 'lesbian' and even 'man' and 'woman.' (Gamson 249). Queer identities do not have an explicit place in LCSH. …