The world’s first
You’ve seen the first ever trans doll, no doubt – it’s been in the news for awhile. The BBC has an explainer.
A new toy billed as the world’s “first transgender doll” has created a buzz on social media.
Thousands of tweets about the product unveiled by the Tonner Doll Company have been posted since it was announced that the doll would make its first appearance at this week’s New York Toy Fair.
The doll is modelled on a teenage activist who was born a boy, but lives as a female. Jazz Jennings shot to fame when she was interviewed about her gender dysphoria by US TV presenter Barbara Walters.
Awesome, right?
Only…what’s trans about her?
The company explained that.
The question on many people’s lips on social media was: what exactly makes a doll transgender? In one post, the doll’s makers explained how the doll is a likeness of Jennings, but doesn’t have genitalia.
Apparently “specific parts” is Doll Company for “genitalia.” No genitalia. Just that smooth plastic curve we all remember.
But so then what makes it trans? It’s a stereotypical girly-girl doll, in the style of the Barbie doll. So what makes it anything other than a stereotypical girly-girl doll, in the style of the Barbie doll?
Um, that it’s modeled after an actual person, who is trans?
Well plus there’s this BBC article right here, saying it’s a trans doll. What more do I want!
But see that’s not really the point, is it. The fact that it’s modeled on an actual person who is trans makes no difference to the doll itself. It’s like saying it’s a Catholic doll, or a socialist doll, or a doll who works for Goldman Sachs. It’s just words. The words don’t change the doll. They wouldn’t change the doll even if you named a specific Catholic or socialist or employee of Goldman Sachs.
So yes, I get that it’s a trans doll according to the company. But I’m asking what about it makes it – detectably – actually a trans doll.
(If it’s a talking doll and it says it’s trans, that answers the question. But I gather it’s not a talking doll.)
Yes, if gender is conferred / constituted by a subjective internal state, dolls can’t be transgendered, or gendered at all.
Just like dolls can’t be in pain.
On reflection then: the doll is transgendered in terms of how we imagine it, just as a doll marketed as a “happy” or “smart” can be imagined to possess those qualities. And given dolls are meant for that kind of imaginary play, then I guess it makes a bit more sense. We can understand the transgendered doll as a prop for the imagination.
Barbie MD may come with a white coat and stethoscope to superficially resemble a doctor (like this doll intentionally superficially resembles a particular, real person who is trans), but she can’t diagnose my rash or write me a prescription, why do they call that a doctor doll!
God knows there’s a strain of trans activism in favor today that’s illiberal and misogynistic, but really, we can’t let them have a goddamn doll? Essentially an action figure of a real person in their community? That’s the thing to parse to the nth degree?
Maybe if the doll were anatomically correct it could conceivably be called a trans doll, but as it is it’s just a Jazz Jennings character doll.
Further to Ophelia’s question of what makes it detectably a trans doll, one of my first thoughts on the doll was that if there was no context to the doll, that is if it were given to someone who had no idea who J. Jennings was, what would tell that doll apart from any other?
I’m not knocking the doll itself; virtually every celebrity and ‘celebrity’ has a character doll among their merchandising (very few of which I would think were anatomically correct ((the dolls, not the celeb’s))). What I’m knocking is the wording of ‘first-ever trans doll’ rather than ‘first-ever character doll of a trans person’.
A freind’s kid had a doll of the baby sort which was marketed as female doll. She decided to call it John Waller (he was a family friend and she presumably liked him and/or the name so that’s what she went with). She referred to the doll as “he” while dressing it in the ‘female’ clothes that came with it.
Perhaps John Waller was a trans doll, who knows?
It’s also the only doll I’ve known who has a proper surname.
Side note: whenever we get something that requires a name, I now try to call it John Waller, but it always gets vetoed by other family members. I don’t know why I put up with these people.
What makes a trans doll any different than the Barbie? The lack of that desperately happy happy grin on her face.
Tonner, btw, doesn’t make dolls for children; they target collectors (though I assume children can and do play with them.
If it gets to be a trans doll from context and labelling – and really, when it’s going to be anatomically incorrect, silent, etc., what else is going to do that? – then the very declaration of it as such, prior to anyone else doing so, does it.
It’s a peculiar sort of fact, certainly, but it’s not politically loaded. Maybe latsot’s John Waller was the first particular trans doll token; this one just gets to be the first trans doll type.
Except companies do that (the bolded portion) all the time. Barbie has more careers than most people can name. American Girl dolls all have extensive backstories. Etc, etc. This doll’s backstory as a trans girl is just as fictional as Barbie’s career as a doctor. My question would be, ‘Why is that a problem?’. I mean, unless you’re just anti-doll-backstory as a general rule, why does this particular backstory grate so much?
Got to admit I don’t have an issue with this. While I have biological and scientific disagreements with the vocabulary and some of the theories behind the existence of trans as a concept, I don’t see any reason for them not to be represented with this kind of thing. Trans folk undeniably exist so why not create a doll contextualised as a trans doll?
Most dolls don’t have genitalia – so the only way we have of gendering them at all is by context. (A few baby dolls have teeny weeny representations of genitalia, or did at one point). So if the doll has no genitals we usually just accept the context provided by the packaging – though, of course, any child is at liberty to consider his/her doll as whatever gender he/she wishes.
When my children were small I made sure to buy them dolls of several different skin tones. It was a way of having their playthings represent their world as it really was (we live in a very mixed ethnic area). I thought representation was important. That’s a relatively common thing for parents who care about diversity to do. While I do have some issues with labelling kids who are gender non-conforming (as I was) as being “trans” at a young age, there remain a small number who are genuinely, painfully dysphoric and having a doll that is contextualised as being “like them” seems a compassionate thing.
Isn’t ‘dysphoria’ a Haram word?
Isn’t anyone who uses it guilty of mass-murder and genocide?
What’s grating about this is the only way to make it work is to buy into the whole Gender Is An Identity confusion. (Fun corollary: it’s all in your head if you think the Identity Formerly Known As Women gets abused. In these advanced days they don’t say, “your pretty little head.”)
That’s what makes it different from a Barbie doctor doll or any old girl doll with no genitalia.
(In the spirit of full disclosure:
I’m all for trans people having the same rights as anyone else. The reason I sound angry (you noticed that?) is that it seems to invariably be the female half of the equation which is to make room. Mtf trans can join women’s groups who welcome them. But somehow no women ever anywhere are to exclude them. No women ever anywhere are to be allowed to define themselves how they see fit. And that’s taking rights *away* from women, the right to assembly specifically. I’d be a lot more willing to believe the whole insistence on trans acceptance was really about trans people if it stressed the need for men to be equally accepting.)
Ok, I should have been clearer – I agree that this isn’t a big issue, or really an issue at all. Mostly I just find it funny. It does sort of demonstrate how metaphysical the whole idea is, but no, I’m not protesting it or anything. Or if I am it’s more in the category of protesting advertising and marketing bullshit, which has been an interest of mine for far longer than the metaphysics of transgender has.
StlSin @ 6 –
But a white coat and stethoscope signal “doctor” (however superficially and easy to fake-ly). Nothing about the doll signals “trans.” That was my point. I just find it kind of funny that they claim it’s a trans doll but can’t provide any actual semiotic indication that it is a trans doll.
In fact, that’s probably why there are no lesbian or gay dolls, isn’t it – because there are no visible markers that wouldn’t infuriate everyone in sight. Or maybe I’m wrong? Are there such dolls?
Are there Jewish dolls?
There are dolls that come with hijabs…
From the 70s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_Bob
Also a number of Google hits for Billy doll & others in that vein. Plus dolls modeled after real, gay men.
For some reason “gay doll” immediately turned up a lot of relevant links, whereas “Lesbian doll” turned up page after page of pornography. How totally unexpected.
There are Jewish dolls, including from a major seller in the “dolls with elaborate backstories” genre:
http://www.americangirl.com/shop/dolls/rebecca
@Ophelia #15
No argument about that – completely agree about the idiocy of this kind of marketing (and the whole metaphysical concept of what, absent diagnosable dysphoria, actually constitutes trans).
Again, this isn’t a trans doll, and I doubt we’ll see a genuinely trans doll until artificial intelligence is at a stage where a doll fitted with an AI computer can make its own mind up on its gender. No, what we have here is a character doll of a transgender girl.
Hmm, my youngest sister hand a hand me down transgendered doll. It began as an inanimate sexless lump (my older sister didn’t like dolls and kicked it under a bed where it lay unnoticed for 5 years), then a baby girl named Jennifer (my younger sister loved dolls), and then a boy named Mathew (don’t know why my youngest sister liked the name Mathew).
As logically and amusing as this post is, its logic can be extended to marketing dolls as girls which we’ve been doing unquestioning for centuries. What makes this doll female?
What makes this doll female: see above, the discussion of white coats and stethoscopes. Doll makers provide clues, semiotic signals.
And then, baby dolls can be neither male nor female. I had a family heirloom doll as a kid that was completely generic – a porcelain head on a cloth body and it was just Baby.
And it’s not true that we’ve been doing any of this “unquestioning” until now. I keep saying this – feminism has been questioning it for decades. Lots of decades.
I think this is a legitimate concern. And further, how do we know GI Joe was ever actually a G.I.?? Huh? Have we seen his induction records? Is there any footage of him actually participating in the war?
And Iron Man? How do we know Tony Stark is inside the Iron Man doll? The armour doesn’t come off! It could be anyone in there.
Barbie — how do we know she’s cisgender? I mean seriously? Has anyone got a Barbie with a working vagina? How do we know she’s not trans, eh?
As much as I appreciate Ophelia’s reporting on various pressing social issues, it’s still good to know she keeps us informed on serious issues of doll authenticity (in, of course, a completely unprejudiced fashion).
@Silentbob
Sarcasm in threads tends to work best when you’ve read the posts. That way you don’t come across as deliberately missing the point. It doesn’t seem as though you’ve read the posts.
In this case, the point is that a doll can have the appearance of a doctor or Iron Man. We know they’re supposed to resemble those things because of cues the manufacturers provide such as repulsor rays and stethoscopes. People who aren’t Iron Man don’t usually go around with repulsor rays. Marketers put those things in the box so that parents will buy more than one doll for their kids. But kids can decide that their dolls are doctors even if they don’t have the official costume. The only doll I had was an Action Man (British equivalent of GI Joe). My Action Man wasn’t a soldier, he was a Frog Man, I decided, despite my never having the offical Frog Man outfit. Also, his hands had been chewed by a previous owner such that they resembled flippers, which was a bonus in his line of work, now that I come to think of it.
But how can a doll resemble a trans person? What cues could a manufacturer provide to suggest that a doll is trans? Only by telling us that the doll is trans; there’s no uniform or equipment, let alone powered armor (I’ll stop talking about Iron Man now. Probably.) And why would we go around telling everyone that someone is or isn’t trans? Isn’t the whole point that nobody should care?
So while the existence of this doll probably isn’t important in the general scheme of things, it’s interesting because it’s a glance into how things are marketed and perhaps into how we can do better at marketing in the future. Would trans dolls be sold in the pink or the blue aisle of toy shops? Both? It’s a comment on marketing rather than ethics, I think. Because as we know, marketing is all about the lack of ethics. Perhaps Ophelia mentioned this doll because the subject is interesting, rather than serious or important.
A doll can be a doctor even if it doesn’t have a stethoscope or a white coat or – in the case of Middlesbrough doctors – powered armor. A doll can be trans in the same sense regardless of any accoutrements or a marketer telling you so. A doll can be anything you want, which is pretty much the point of dolls, I reckon.
Are you fucking kidding me? What’s the “semiotic signaling”? “How can a doll resemble a trans person”? Disingenuous willful ignorance. It’s a model of a real person, and that person is trans. That’s the fucking semiotic signaling. Ignoring that sure lends credence to accusations of “trans erasure” here.
Thank you, latsot. All that exactly!
StlSin, take a breath. Your rage is excessive. latsot is correct that I mentioned this doll because the subject is interesting, rather than serious or important. It’s interesting and a bit funny.
And no, it’s not disingenuous willful ignorance. The article said the doll is “billed as the world’s “first transgender doll”” – so I’m not confused (much less lying) in asking what’s transgender about it. Yes I know it’s a model of a real person, and that person is trans – but it’s a doll. Dolls are for children, and how many children are going to know all about Jazz Jennings? I mean you don’t see Virginia Woolf dolls, Frances Perkins dolls, Janet Reno dolls – you don’t see dolls that require knowledge to make sense of. Toy makers don’t put out an Angela Merkel doll and then market it as a German doll. How would anyone know it was a German doll? You would say “It’s a model of a real person, and that person is German” – but that’s just not a sensible answer about a doll.
@latsot
I think the trans doll goes in the pink section, since she is clearly supposed to be a dress-up/fashion doll, which makes her “for girls”. The signalling is not done with respect to the gender of the doll, but with respect to the way the doll is to be played with. (It’s my understanding that a boy wanting to play with fashion dolls is often considered an indicator that they might be trans.) Though there are male fashion dolls, there are not very many female action dolls. (I had a “Tutti” doll, who was supposed to be Barbie’s little sister. I did not have a Barbie, which was fine with me, since I was utterly uninterested in the fashion aspect. But Tutti had bendable arms and legs, which made her perfect to hang out with my younger brother’s Major Matt Mason so they could have adventures together on the moonbase. – the best approximation to a female action figure available to me in the 1960s.)
@StlSin
I don’t think anyone is disagreeing that having the doll as a representation of a trans person is one attribute that “makes” the doll trans. And that’s the end of the story if the doll is used for display. But if the doll is used for play by children, “What makes her trans?” is a fair question. If the doll is being a doctor or dancer or carpenter or butcher or baker or candlestick maker how is being trans even relevant?
https://www.amazon.com/Virginia-Woolf-Plush-Doll-Philosophers
Dud link.
http://www.philosophersguild.com/Virginia-Woolf-Little-Thinker.html
[…] I’m wrong – I said in a comment “you don’t see Virginia Woolf dolls, Frances Perkins dolls, Janet Reno dolls” and […]
Meanwhile…Silentbob @ 23 –
You know what? Fuck you. I write about what interests me. I always have. I make zero claim to be always serious or always talking about serious subjects. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to read it.
Now you’ve put the cat among the pigeons, Ophelia. I can just see a bunch of your detractors sitting around trying desperately to make an easily pronounceable acronym out of ‘trans doll exclusive radical feminist’. :-)
” (It’s my understanding that a boy wanting to play with fashion dolls is often considered an indicator that they might be trans.)”
Whoa! No! No! No! No! A boy playing with a fashion doll means a boy likes to play with fashion dolls.
“And then, baby dolls can be neither male nor female.”
Of, course they *can* be. They can be whatever the child playing with them wants to be.
“But how can a doll resemble a trans person? What cues could a manufacturer provide to suggest that a doll is trans? ”
I just don’t understand why that would be an issue. It is logistically impossible to provide any cues. But why does one have to? It’d be logistically impossible to provide cues that a doll is left-handed. Although it’d be logistically funny to imagine anyone marketing a left-handed doll, I wouldn’t find the attempt to be note-worthy or flawed. Silly, perhaps, but utterly reasonable.
@woozy – I personally strongly disagree with the idea that playing with fashion dolls is a signal that a boy is trans, but it is often cited. My (now adult) son enjoyed playing with Barbies. Neither his father nor I had any problem with that, nor did we consider it a signifier of his gender or sexuality.
woozy –
Theo Bromine said “(It’s my understanding that a boy wanting to play with fashion dolls is often considered an indicator that they might be trans.)” Emphasis added. Theo Bromine is not expressing that belief but saying that others have it.
Your last point – I don’t think I said it’s an issue. I think it’s fatuous rather than an issue. I sometimes talk about things I consider (note: that I consider; see above) fatuous. I don’t entirely agree with you that a thing can be both silly and utterly reasonable. Utterly reasonable kind of rules out silly.
And yeah, it would be silly to market a doll as left-handed. It would look like (and perhaps be) a joke or a parody.
Whoops, Theo Bromine commented while I was typing.
@Theo, 8:
I hope it’s clear that my question was rhetorical. The pink and blue sections are a related but different source of my abundant rage.
Someone should make a t-shirt for trans and not-trans dolls alike reading “this is what a trans doll looks like”.
I find it deeply telling that you choose to write about a trans doll rather then Trump’s order to rescind protections for trans students.
It shows your priorites pretty fucking clearly
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/02/22/politics/doj-withdraws-federal-protections-on-transgender-bathrooms-in-schools/index.html
Here’s what’s happening while you laugh at a trans doll.
@latsot:
It was clear (to me anyway) that your question was meant to be rhetorical. But then I thought to myself, “what if I answered the rhetorical question?”
(And yes, the ever-increasing gender segregation of children’s toys (and clothing) is an increasing source of rage to me as well.)
II can hardly wait for the almost inevitable Otherkin doll.
“Yes, it looks like a regular doll, but this doll is really a dragon. What’s that? How can you tell it’s a dragon? It says so right there on the box. Sorry, no, no wings or fire-breathing. It’s a real Otherkin, and Otherkin show no external – indeed no physical differences to any other person.”.
@LamontCranston #40
1. Not all of us are lauging at the doll. In fact there’s been a pretty broad exchange of differing views. Some of us don’t agree with Ophelia on this issue – but the fact remains that it’s an interesting intersection of marketing and gender.
2. The issue of trans people and bathroom usage has been discussed at length on this blog. Some commentators approve of trans people using bathrooms associated with their gender identification, some don’t and some of us see it as a clash between the rights of “cis” women and girls and trans women.
3. So… given we’re not policy makers, and this is a private blog, reflecting the interests and thoughts of Ophelia Benson, exactly what is the point you’re trying to make?
The point is that this blog does a good job of cataloging the other atrocities of the Trump administration, but rather then write about Trump’s attack on trans rights, we have an article mocking a trans doll.
You’re claim that no-one is mocking the doll is belied by the pist directly above your’s.
Apologies, I misread the first point.
LamontCranston @ 40:
Oh, the audacity of a writer not focusing exclusively on what you demand, amirite? It’s almost like there are multiple topics of interest in the world and that not every single blog post has to be changing the world.
A blog that discusses Donald Trump and gender issues ignoring his removal of protections for trans students strikes me peculiar.
Obviously, I can’t psychically control what is written here. Ophelia Benson writes what she wants to. But I find the silence on this disturbing.
@LamontCranston:
Ooh, is this an example of that virtue signaling I’m so often accused of?
Ah, forget it, I’m probably being unfair and I’m definitely having a joke at your expense but seriously? I mean, fucking seriously?
Do you think people here aren’t aware of the difficulties trans – and other marginalised people – face? We are, I think, as a rule. I don’t think we want anyone to be marginalised and though I can only speak for myself I don’t know of a regular commenter here who appears to think otherwise.
But I do know commenting people here who have senses of humour and can enjoy abstract ironies while at the same time hating some of the implications of horrible ways of thinking.
We can joke about the idea of a trans doll because the idea is absurd. Not because being trans is absurd but because the impulse that leads societies to label people as trans is just about the ultimate flag for the absurd among us to capture.
The comments here about the trans doll reflect that absurdity. We know that trans people are often treated unfairly and I don’t know of anyone who writes or comments here regularly who doesn’t want to fix that.
But holy fuck if we can’t use the idea of the trans doll to try to understand and/or explain why the dialog on this issue is sometimes flawed then we aren’t being skeptics and we aren’t being, you know, people.
Many people here don’t believe that the Obama Administration guidance on Title IX was either legally acceptable or sensible. We worry about how it takes away long-established protections for girls and women. That doesn’t mean we hate trans people, or that we approve of the disgusting Donald Trump.
If this were Facebook (shudder) I’d “like” your comment, latsot.
“Barbie — how do we know she’s cisgender? I mean seriously? Has anyone got a Barbie with a working vagina? How do we know she’s not trans, eh?”
It’s amazing, SilentBob, how you SPEAK THE POINT without recognizing it.
Dolls do not have a sex. Except for ones for an entirely different market.
@ Josh Spokes # 49.
Exactly. The rights of trans and “cis” people are not always totally mutually compatible. To nail my colours to the mast, after long thought I don’t support trans women using the same bathrooms as “cis” women and girls. My solution is that we should make all bathrooms unisex (unigender?) single cubicles. Mirror, handbasin, sanitary disposal bin in each one. Preserves the safety of “cis” women, does not force trans people to use an inappropriate facility. Changing rooms… they’re harder.
However that does not mean I hate trans people as a whole, want them to die/not exist/have no rights. I believe in finding a way whereby we protect and ensure the rights of all people. Trans people should be able to be granted their right to a safe existence without taking away from the rights of “cis” women and girls.
Well LamontCranston’s rebukes are very sensible, because after all I’m not a human with a finite amount of time to do things, I’m a bot that can generate as many posts on as many subjects as it wants to, so if I don’t comment on Particular Thing X, THAT MUST MEAN SOMETHING.
Ophelia @ 53:
WHERE THERE’S SMOKE THERE’S FIRE, RIGHT?!
Hah!
Ophelia @ 53, not at all, although of course the prolific nature of your blogging makes being a bot seem believable.
That’ll be my pist (!) then. Well, way to miss the point.
I was referring to the absurdity of calling the doll transgender, which suggests that this inanimate lump of plastic is imbued with the same psychological and physiological qualities as Jazz herself. Yes, the doll is modelled on a transgendered child but the doll itself is not itself transgendered.
Would you consider a Stephen Fry doll to be homosexual and bi-polar? An Einstein doll to be a genius? Would a Ttrump doll have same attributes as the real thing?
The acid test is, if you were shown a Jazz (or Fry, etc) doll and weren’t aware of the person it was based on, what would tell you that it was trans, bi-polar etc?
Dolls, as I have believed since I was a tiny person much more interested in playing with vehicles, are nasty plastic corpses.
They have no human attributes whatsoever. No hopes, no aspirations, no ability to love or feel pain, no sex, no thoughts, no ‘gender’.
Everything attributed to them is entirely in the mind and imagination of the person playing with them.
Who thinks that it is a good idea to plant the notion of sexuality into the mind of a baby?