The Transvengers

Characters travel back in time to challenge sexologists Marie Stopes, Sigmund Freud, Hirschfield and Henry Havelock Ellis and their ideas, many of which continue to shape society’s thinking about sex and gender today.

Words by Young trans* people from Gendered Intelligencewords by Jason Barker 20 November 2014

In pictures

A waiting room, London 2014. Image 1: “Next patient, Miss Green.” Image 2: “Eh? The sign says ‘miss’…” “Is it a boy or a girl?” Image 3: “This is SO embarrassing!” Huh … what’s that?

A health centre, Oxfordshire, 2014. Image 1: The Trans Enough Centre. Uh oh … Image 2: “So … when you imagine yourself in a sexual situation, do you see yourself as the aggressor or the submissive partner?” “You’ve got to be kidding me!!” Image 3: “Oo, what’s this green vapour?”

Trendy fashion store, the near future. Image 1: “You know you can’t buy that, right?” Image 2: “Why not?” “Because it’s for girls … you’re male-chassied.” Image 3: “Why ever should that matter? Oo, green vapour!”

They had all just seen … the paradigm of heteronormativity!!!

Image 1: When we are born, we are assumed to be either male or female. Image 2: We are expected to behave in a feminine way or masculine way accordingly. And do things that other people with the same assigned sex as us do. Image 3: Females must be attracted only to males and males must be attracted only to females.

Meanwhile… Image 1: The penalty for being different can be high. Image 2: “No!! I have to be myself!” Image 3: BOOM!!

The Boardroom, London, April 2014. Image 1: “Wooah!” Image 2: “Hello! Welcome to the Transvengers. We travel through time and space battling the paradigm of heteronormativity!!” Image 3: “We need to find out more about this paradigm. Where did it come from?” “I think it’s been around for a very long time. Maybe we should travel back in time until we find its origin?”

Image 1: “Wait, to a time with no wifi?” “I don’t like the sound of that!” Image 2: “OK, what about we go back in time just for a little while, kidnap some eminent sexologists and ask them about the heteronormative paradigm that’s been giving us so much trouble?” Image 3: “YEAH!!”

Holloway, London, 1921. Image 1: The Mothers’ Clinic. Image 2: “Come with me, Marie Stopes. We need to talk.” Image 3: Brixton, London 1925. “Let’s take a walk, Henry Havelock Ellis … into the future!”

Hampstead, London, 1938. Image 1: Psychotherapy patient: “And then I remember how my mother used to separate the sausages with a large pair of scissors…” Image 2: “Your patient will just think it is a dream. Come on Sigmund Freud, my friends are waiting!” Image 3: A bookshop, Zurich, 1933. “There are some people in the future who’d like a chat with you, Magnus Hirschfeld!” Hirschfeld: “Oo, goody!”

West London, 2014. Image 1: Marie Stopes is under the spotlight… “We were so excited to find a woman sexologist, but then we found out about…” Image 2: “…eugenics!!” “You distributed this cervical cap, didn’t you?” Image 3: Stopes: “I am very concerned with the future of my race. We are in the time of great crisis and have to ensure only the strongest reproduce.”

Image 1: ‘If you are pro-sex but want to limit procreation, I would have thought you’d have approved of gay sex.” Image 2: Stopes: “Urgh! I read Havelock Ellis and have felt dirty ever since! I am only pro heterosexual sex…” Image 3: Stopes: “Wooah!” “Phew, I’m glad she’s gone!”

Image 1: Next up is Havelock Ellis. “Tell us more about your theory of ‘inversion’. For instance, that a lesbian has the soul of a man in the body of a woman.” Image 2: Havelock Ellis. “I just wanted a way to explain homosexuality and trans so that the general public would understand. I said people were ‘born in the wrong body’ but I didn’t really believe that. I think of it like colour blindness. A natural variation in human beings that doesn’t need curing or fixing.” Image 3: “Anyway, I’m glad you brought me to 2014. I’ve been really wanting to see Lady Gaga in concert. Do you know the song ‘Born This Way’? My ideas live on!”

Sigmund Freud is next to face the Transvengers… Image 1: “In a lot of your work, you treat sexuality and gender as if they’re the same thing.” Freud: “As I understand it, a child is born with no sexuality. They learn by identifying with either their mother or their father. You cannot separate gender and sexuality.” Image 2: “What about people with two mums or two dads or raised by a single parent?” Image 3: Freud: “Ah, that is your world. I can only write about what I see. For instance, if a patient says they want to change sex, I would assume they are expressing repressed homosexual desire.”

Image 1: “People still think that about trans people now!” Freud: “People need to get over it and move with the times!” Image 2: Freud slips on banana skin: “Whoopsie!” “I guess that was a Freudian slip!” Image 3: Freud wears a slip: “No, this is a Freudian slip! Ha ha ha…” “WOW!”

And finally, Magnus Hirschfeld. Image 1: Hirschfeld: “Wow! The Transvengers are still going, nearly 100 years on! My friends and I started a chapter in Berlin back in the day.” Image 2: “Right then. We’ll talk later. I’m off to a couple of nightclubs … don’t wait up!”

The next morning … Image 1: Hirschfeld: “Hmm … things haven’t moved as much as I would have expected in 100 years. It seems everyone is still bound up with my old foe, the paradigm of heteronormativity, including some of the LGBT community!” Image 2: ‘We know. There’s lots of work still to be done. Now, we should get you back to your own time…” Image 3: Hirschfeld: “But … my work … I’d come so far … Does something happen?”

The Transvengers watch the Gestapo burn books

Image 1: Meanwhile … Aggressive male: “What are you?” Trans person: “Er … a human being?” Image 2: Aggressive male: “Don’t get smart. Are you a boy or a girl?” Trans person: “No…?” Aggressive male: “Grrrr…” Image 3: Back at Transvenger HQ … “Transvengers! Looks like we’ve got work to do.”

“Join the Transvengers!” The End.

About the authors

Young trans* people from Gendered Intelligence

These young people aged 13–19 from the organisation came together to design and create the characters and the story of Transvengers. *Someone who at least partially disagrees with the gender they were assigned at birth.

Jason Barker

Jason is an illustrator, animator and film maker.