Content warnings: transphobia, fatphobia, medicalisation, discussion of genitals and genital surgeries, some language referring to transgender people which some
may consider outdated (transexual/transsexual), but the author believes is worth preserving for clarity.
An Excerpt: read more in CAMP or on our website
By Amelia Bright
Biometric technologies and measurement standards have long been deployed as empirical tools in the medical (re)production of sex and gender norms.
These standards are built on cisheteropatriarchal templates of “normal” bodies, casting diverse bodies as “anomalies”. The framing of diverse bodies as “anomalous” in biometric technologies signals a medicolegal project of casting diverse bodies as deviant. The diverse body is both a dangerous threat which must be excluded from society and an error in need of “fixing”—to be reassimilated to cisheteropatriarchal norms.
The body mass index (BMI) is a salient example of biometric measurement standards enacting sex and gender norms. There is a similar struggle in having a trans body and having a fat body, which is compounded for those with fat trans bodies. Fatness and gender insubordination are both considered moral failings to be corrected by medicine. Wray and Deery (2008) argue that one of the oppressive effects of the medicalisation of fatness is the denial of the patient’s bodily autonomy, especially for women. “Any preferences expressed by the woman regarding her body and health appear to be ignored, whereas those of the ‘expert’ male doctor and husband are commended and legitimised… Individuals who dispute the right of medical science to dictate their lives and pass judgement risk being labelled as unworthy of health care” (232-236). Many fat women have experiences of having their health concerns dismissed by doctors on account of being fat—the supposed solution to everything is to lose more weight. What goes unsaid is, “if you are fat, you have failed at being female, and your failure to meet sexist norms disqualifies you from medical care”.
This is also reflected in trans people’s experiences with measurements such as the BMI. The BMI is gendered—men and women are expected to fall within different numerical ranges. It is not uncommon for trans people to be denied access to gender affirming surgeries on account of having the wrong BMI. “BMI’s built-in assumptions and demands for gender-conformity consequently wound trans bodies, ensuring that only those who are the most cisnormative, white, and middle-class will flourish” (Quinan and Hunt 2022: 222).
By denying potentially life-saving medical care to people with bodies that do not conform to cisheteropatriarchal norms, the medical use of biometric measurement standards enforces, enacts and (re)produces sexed bodies and gendered subjectivities.
References
Quinan, C. L, and Mina Hunt. 2022. ‘Biometric Bordering and Automatic Gender Recognition: Challenging Binary Gender Norms in Everyday Biometric Technologies’. Communication, Culture and Critique 15: 211–26.
Wray, Sharon, and Ruth Deery. 2008. ‘The Medicalization of Body Size and Women’s Healthcare’. Health Care for Women International 29: 227–43.