In the process of creating The Alley Cast, our team has learned a lot and sometimes recognized mistakes we made earlier in the process. This post from Isabel Steven is intended to be a companion piece and commentary on episode three of The Alley Cast, "The Public Universal Friend in Philadelphia."
History is never static, and the process of learning and changing how I understand and write about the past is one that will never be complete. Since the release of "The Public Universal Friend in Philadelphia," I have continued to read, think, and most importantly, talk with others. In particular, I had the good fortune to have a friend and colleague reach out to me in order share their thoughts and critiques of the episode, providing their expertise as a sensitivity reader to explain where I got things wrong, where I could improve, and where I could have been more intentional with you, the audience. My colleague has elected to remain anonymous, but I wish to thank them profusely for providing their expertise, educating me, and reminding me that my work as a historian can always be improved.
The episode, of course, has already been released, but I wish to provide a synopsis of the critiques my colleague provided and an annotated version of the transcript with specific notes that can stand as a record for where this episode could have been improved, and perhaps provide greater clarity on some of the issues historians working on trans history face. None of these notes are intended to be excuses for mistakes I made, but rather to show greater insight into my process of research and writing and ways I should have written the script and would have if I could.
The Cold Open: Describing the Public Universal Friend and the Friend's Disciples
In one of the first sentences of the episode, I describe a group of men and women walking down a street in Philadelphia, before mentioning the Friend. Although I had intended to mark the Friend as distinct from the group of men and women, my colleague pointed out that it is not clear how the Friend did or did not fit into this group with regard to gender. Someone could read this as the PUF being either a man or a woman, and as we learn, the Friend was neither. This moment should have been a moment to clearly construct some of the gender norms of the 18th century so that an audience, particularly one with no background in this subject matter, could understand that the Friend was overtly transgressing those norms.
"Born Jemima Wilkinson": Addressing Problems with the "Born a Woman" Narrative
Early in the episode, I describe the illness that prompted the transformation of the Public Universal Friend. I describe the Friend by their deadname, Jemima Wilkinson, and that the Friend was born a woman. Rather than merely describing this aspect of the story, I should have taken the time to deliberately discuss the use of the "born a woman" phrase from both a historical perspective and a contemporary one. When researching trans historical figures and writing about them pre-transition, certain difficulties arise. First, much of the historical record misgenders or deadnames these figures. The Public Universal Friend is no different. Contemporaries, historians and archivists have all used the Friend's deadname to refer to the Friend. Research, then, must take into account using this name in order to find source material. Another difficulty arises in how to describe this period of pre-transition for the PUF. The writing we have from the Friend is predominantly from post-transformation, and so while we can and should use the Friend's own words to describe and understand the Friend's gender, it also means we do not have writing from before the Friend became the Public Universal Friend. The truth is, we do not know how the Person experienced their gender or felt about their identity before this transformation.
The second component of this issue is a contemporary one. Whatever difficulties there are in writing about trans history, to use a phrase like "born a woman" in a historical context has harmful connotations because of the harmful impact it has on trans people today. Using such a phrase or one similar (i.e. biologically/genetically female [or male]) is one that grossly simplifies a much more complicated experience for transgender people. It is also commonly used to invalidate a transgender person's identity, and to center someone's identity around a gender that they are not. It can also imply that biological sex is a more valid way to categorize someone, when in fact, biological sex is not The appropriate phrase to use, if indeed it is necessary at all, is to say assigned female at birth in order to recognize that someone else made a decision on what gender that person is.
How I wrote about the Public Universal Friend pre-transition and how I tried to mark the significance of The Friend's transformation was not perfect. I should have been clearer about both the challenges of the historical record, the inadequacies of language to describe historical experiences of transness, and acknowledged how the narrative phrase "born a woman" is harmful toward transgender people.
Using the name "Jemima Wilkinson"
As I touched on in the previous point, the use of the Public Universal Friend's deadname presents challenges and requires care when using it. In the case of using the Friend's deadname, we do have the Friend's own writing and the Friend's disciples', which both reject that name. Such directives should provide historians with a clear model for how to discuss the Friend and which name to use and which to not. The two cases I use the Friend's deadname are first, when discussing the Friend's transformation, and second, within direct quotations. I mention in the introduction of the episode where I use the name, but I should have been more intentional in my explanation as to why, and in acknowledging the harm that deadnaming does to transgender individuals.
The first instance I use the Friend's deadname is within the context of the Friend before and during the transformation. In order to understand the significance of the transformation, some explanation and knowledge of who the person was is required. However, the amount of times I used the Friend's deadname could have been minimized, and in some cases I should have used alternative methods to describe the transformation into the Public Universal Friend.
The second instance I used the Friend's deadname is within direct quotations. The use of primary source material when it contains offensive or outdated language is a challenging one, and I am certainly not the only one to face it. The main consideration in this case (and many others I would hazard) is whether or not using a direct quotation with such language is actually necessary or useful for telling the story. In the annotated transcript, I highlight the two instances that the Friend's deadname is used within direct quotations. The first example is one that I realize is not actually that helpful in conveying new information and could easily have been partially cut to avoid using the Friend's deadname. The second instance is one that my colleague and I discussed, and which they believed to be an example of a quotation with a deadname effectively conveys information; in this case, how the Friend and the Friend's disciples responded to people's use of the Friend's deadname. For more specific and in-depth explanations of these two instances, please see the commentary I provided on the transcript linked above.
An Apology
The final aspect of this issue that I should have done a better job on was being clear that when people talk about the Public Universal Friend that we should be using that name and not the Friend's deadname, and that gendered pronouns (he/him, she/her) should not be used. It may be difficult to find the right language to discuss trans history, but that should never be an excuse not to. To anyone who listened to this episode and was hurt by my use of the "born a woman" narrative and the use of the Friend's deadname, I apologize. I should have been more diligent in considering how such language would affect listeners and the harmful connotations and impact that hearing such language would have. I hope that this blogpost and the annotated transcript can go some way toward making amends for any hurt caused.