Truth with a capital T

An apparent societal obsession with determining the “Truth” with a capital T – the type of universal fact that supposedly clears up complications, can be adhered to by all, and through logic soothes our aversion to the unknown – surrounds the way we talk about and treat bodies. Things either are or they aren’t. They’re male or they’re not male. They’re feminine or they’re not. It makes things easy, right? Right???

The absurdity of attempting to pigeonhole the beautifully complex human body into molds of normalcy emerges when we combine concepts of individual Truth with what limited knowledge we have about how our bodies work.  

In GenderQueer, Riki Wilchins argues for an individual truth that cannot be easily explained or categorized, noting “for nowhere are we more ourselves than in those small, private moments when we transcend the common reality, when we experience ourselves in ways that cannot be said or understood or repeated. It is to those moments that we are called, and it is to those moments that we must listen” (46). Wilchins makes the case for every individual to be their own authority in determining their Truth. Does this then challenge the importance (and even existence) of a larger Truth that can be applied to all?

It also begs the question though, of where we search for answers and why we seek to gain knowledge from particular sources. When it comes to bodies (especially sexual bodies), authorities have historically ranged from the church, medical professionals, and the law. In short, institutions. Institutions with social and cultural influence, either with agendas of their own, or under the influence or pressure of various other institutions or established belief systems.

Truth is understood as a prerequisite for reality, and thus legitimacy. In the case of the human body, reality and legitimacy and reality are closely associated with personhood, and with personhood, agency and rights. 

Institutions however, do not always acknowledge an individual’s very personal and very legitimate truth if it challenges dominant discourse and power structures, as illustrated through Caster Semenya’s treatment by international athletic governing bodies and the media.  Caster Semenya’s Truth is being a woman and being an internationally dominant athlete. Yet the aforementioned institutions don’t take her as the authority of her truth, because it does not fit their ideas of truth. They question how someone with high testosterone levels can identify and compete as a woman, because that person’s Truth regarding womanhood and athleticism does not match their Truth.

Jere Longman’s New York Times article describes the flip-flopping of medical communities and sports authorities and the unfair situations they have put Semenya and other athletes in. Longman brings up several important points, including the seemingly random ways certain athletes’ gender comes under scrutiny based on performance. As if women reaching a certain level violates a great Truth of sports; doing something women should not be able to do. Yet there’s more at play here, Longman notes, than Semenya’s gender, when he compares her feats with those of the English (and white) Paula Radcliffe, the world-record holder in the women’s marathon. Longman notes how Paula’s gender never came under fire, nor was she accused of doping despite how by the numbers, her time in her event is arguably more shocking than Semenya’s bests in the 800 meters. Longman’s article is valuable in that it does not treat Caster Semenya as a freak of nature who is hurting the sport and must be “figured out,” instead, situating her in the larger context of gender and race politics, while crediting her accomplishments on the track.

The Truth had always been that men had greater athletic ability than women, due much in part to testosterone. The Truth claimed some physical features and activities masculine, some feminine. The ruling that kept women with high testosterone from competing was made under this assumption, yet Truth has a way of evolving to put in nicely, or perhaps more accurately disintegrating when asked the right questions; at any rate, said ban was listed when the medical community (an authority) realized they didn’t know much about the subject. How, then, do such groups keep their position as guardians of Truth? Maintaining authority and legitimacy seems tough when there is constant shifting, backtracking, and misinterpretation involved.

Wilchins makes a good point about Truth of identity and the complications that occur when we are not the sole authority of our individual Truth, using the phrase “we learn to recognize and see ourselves in the mirrors of others’ eyes” (47). We’ve reached a point too, highlighted by Semenya’s situation, that others expect us to fit the ideas they’ve constructed for us based on their perceptions, creating confusion and unfairness for everyone. It doesn’t seem right that a legitimately universal Truth would squash someone’s voice, somehow saying that they’re experiences are not real, and even more damaging, not human.

A focus on big, societal, cultural, institutional Truths, seems like a forced (and perhaps it is pushed upon us by those in power to maintain particular ideologies..) and not nearly complex enough way of understanding human life, especially in relation to our bodies. Perhaps we should focus on the small truths (with a lowercase T, to emphasize it’s ability to change and inability to strictly govern) of our individual lives, and learn to live with a little uncertainty.