Kasapoğlu 1

Serkan Kasapoğlu

Analysis of Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” as an Example of Identifying Transsexuality

Through Transcendentalism

Walt Whitman is an American poet born in 1819. “Song of Myself” is a poem by Walt

Whitman which describes his stream of consciousness. While analyzing the poem, I realized

that the poem consists veiled readings on gender non-conformity. There are critics

approaching Whitman’s poetry with the acknowledgement of his homosexual identity;

however, I could not encounter any works considering his self-definitions as trans

identifications. The critics often approach the poem as an attempt to analyze the notions of

life and death as natural and transformative processes. However, my goal in this paper is to

perceive this poem as an attempt to identify one’s gender non-conformity through

transcendentalist ideas. Whitman understands the need for a ‘real’ matching body and mind to

gain a true self-agency and to accomplish this need, he uses transcendentalist ideas to

disregard his mismatching body and perceive himself as a woman. In the light of this

argument, I will explore alternative meanings out of Whitman’s famous sayings such as, “I

contain multitudes”. I will use “he” pronoun while referring to him; however, with the

acknowledgement that he is a gender-nonconforming person. I will use the words “gender

non-conforming” and “trans” interchangeably as those were the times without such

classifications about gender.

Transcendentalism is a philosophical movement primarily concerned with personal

and physical freedom and the importance of individuality. Transcendentalists believe that

people are at their best if they are truly independent from societal dictates and ‘real’ about

their selves. These ideas of transcendentalism have crucial impact on Walt Whitman’s “Song
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of Myself”. Some of the transcendentalist notions recurrent in Whitman’s poem are intuition,

experience, autonomy, isolation, self-reliance, self-actualization, bodily multitudes.

Whitman’s focus on such ideas has rendered his overall discourse about gender identification

and body dysphoria. Prosser argues that “it is possible for a transsexual person to feel a

mismatch between their body and the image they have in their mind of their own body”

(Bettcher 5.3). One’s attempt of questioning and identifying gender may be interrupted by the

possibility of the feeling of mismatch between body and mind. This mismatch may cause the

feeling of body dysphoria. Such examples of mismatches and body dysphoria are seen in

Whitman’s discourse. Throughout the poem, Whitman uses perfume, fragrance or odor as

metaphors to refer to selves. He says, “I breath the fragrance myself and know it and like it /

The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it” (Whitman 2.2-4). Here, he

argues that he could be intoxicated by the “distillation” of multiple fragrances emitting out of

him. He is aware of having multiple selves which have the potential of intoxicating him

unless he prevents it. According to Bettcher, self and its relation to the sexed body and to

gender are “competing conceptions” for the individual (Bettcher 1). Thus, he strives for

preventing these competing conceptions within his consciousness from intoxicating him.

Later on, one might observe that he prevents it by finding relief in nature while saying that he

“will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked” (Whitman 2.6).

Emerson argues that one had only to go out into nature, “in the woods” to return “to reason

and faith” (“Nature”). Transcendentalists feel deeply connected with nature. For them, while

being “in the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows.

Nature says, -- he is my creature, … he shall be glad with me” (“Nature”). Similarly,

Whitman feels disguised and unable to express his real self when he is out of nature. To be

able to strengthen his self-agency, he has the usual transcendentalist habit of returning to

nature.
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Gender is a social construct that varies over time. Gender roles in the 19th century is

defined as “separate spheres” by Kathryn Hughes. Men and women’s roles were sharply

defined. She says, “The ideology of separate spheres rested on a definition of the ‘natural’

characteristic of women and men” (Hughes 2014). With Whitman’s terms, there is always a

procreant urge about sex in the world. He portrays the characteristics of the century in a

similar way by saying, “Out of the dimness opposite equals advance, always substance and

increase, always sex / Always a knit of identity, always distinction” (Whitman 3.3-10). He

uses “opposite equals” for two genders and considers the strictly separate perception towards

gender as “knit” and “distinction” for identities. Transcendentalists believe that society and its

institutions corrupt the identities. Such social dictates about gender has always been a

restrictive factor for Whitman’s struggle for being self-complacent.

Having a trans identity often requires people to be able to affirm their gender identities

through various ways. Judith Butler, in one of her interviews, says, “Nothing is more

important for transgender people than to have their freedom and desire affirmed by the rest of

the world” (“Verso”). Whitman emphasizes this need as, “Every kind for itself and its own,

for me mine male and female / For me those that have been boys and that love women / For

me the man that is proud and feels how it stings to be slighted” (Whitman 7.9-11). He

identifies himself both as male and female. He presents “boys that love women” and “man

that feels how it stings to be slighted” as doing his heart good. In a way, he presents the things

that are important for him to affirm his gender identity. Needing the affirmation of emphatic

heterosexual men rather than homosexual men is often what trans women experience.

Whitman uses various phallic connotations such as gun, hammer, arch, knife or a

sledge. It is clear from several stanzas that he likens sex or any other sexual activities to war-

like scenes. He describes a butcher-boy sharpening “his knife” while describing an erotic

masturbation scene in his dream. One of the most important phallic connotations is made
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through the usage of “arm” to refer to penis. He continues, “The little sheer of their waists

plays even with their massive arms” (Whitman, 12.1-6). What makes us think it as a phallic

connotation rather than its literal meaning is the usage of “waist” together with an identifier of

magnitude “massive”. He describes the imaginary penis of a young blacksmith as “massive”

and he loiters enjoying it. In a former stanza he describes himself as being “both in and out of

the game and watching and wondering at it”. He cannot feel himself in the moment because

he is experiencing a strong body dysphoria at that moment. That game can be a sex scene, a

masturbation scene or a sex-dream; however, in any case, as he says, “Looks down, is erect,

or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest” (Whitman 4.12-14), he means a mismatch of

his body and his mind. He mentions his penis as something that is not belonging to his body.

Bending an arm on something is used for the attempt to change the position of a body part so

that it is no longer straight. He is uncomfortable with that body part existing, being erect or

actively working. At the same time, he is aware of the fact that this impalpable body part is in

a “certain rest” and will be with him until his death. In another part, he defines his genitals as

“athwart my hips” (Whitman 5.7). So, rather than mentioning directly the body parts that he is

uncomfortable with, he defines them as the opposite of something else. All these gender

depressions and body dysphoria are again, faded away with his deep belief in his

transcendentalist ideas. Later on, he continues, “I believe in you my soul, the other I am, must

not abase itself to you” (Whitman 5.1). His other self, woman self, must not belittle in front of

his soul. In Salamon’s account, what is important is not the actual body part itself, but the

mental process of transposition: “The join between desire and the body is the location of

sexuality, and that join may be a penis, or some other phallus, or some other body part, or a

region of the body that is not individuated into a part, or a bodily auxiliary that is not

organically attached to the body” (Bettcher 9). Whitman achieves this mental process of
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transposition through transcendentalist ideas such as idealism, focusing on nature, containing

multitudes, trivializing the material and connecting with all livings.

One of the most intriguing parts of the poem suggests quite similar arguments about

his perception of his gender identity and the transcendentalist methods he consults for his

mental process of transposition. It is one of the parts in which he describes his consciousness

most openly saying, “Twenty-eight years of womanly life and all so lonesome / She owns the

fine house by the rise of the bank” (Whitman 11.3-4). It is important to remember that we

witnessed “bank” before as a place for him to be comfortable to be undisguised. He describes

his women-self splash in the water with the young men, “yet stay stock still” in his room. He

is “dancing and laughing along the beach / The rest did not see her, but she saw them and

loved them” (Whitman 11.9-11). He imagines himself as a woman playing with men in the

water, but he is also aware and sad that in reality, he is still in his room. He sees them and

loves them, but the boys do not see him (or his woman-self) because she is just a dream in

Whitman’s mind. Butler says, “gender proves to be performative— that is, constituting the

identity it is purported to be. In this sense, gender is always a doing, though not a doing by a

subject who might be said to preexist the deed” (Gender Trouble 33). That is to say, gender

should be acknowledged as an identity but only after doing gendered acts. However, many

criticisms are directed towards Butler especially due to not considering the certain regulations

that prevent trans people from performing “gendered acts”. In her discussion of this issue,

Salamon appeals to Butler’s lack of the notion of imaginary which appears to privilege certain

deeds. In Salamon’s account, “what remains to be explained a serious lacuna is the non-sexual

affective investment in the gendered body that presumably must ground the disjunction

between felt sense of gendered body and the visual body in cases of trans bodily dysphoria”

(Salamon 45). She emphasizes the importance of assuming a body for trans people to

overcome the body dysphoria caused by materialistic needs over their bodies. This account
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allows her to show how one’s internal sense of gender” can become capable of being

witnessed by others in the world (Bettcher 9). For rather than talking merely about an internal

feeling, we are talking about ways of being in the world, in interaction with others.

CONCLUSION

One of the main teachings of transcendentalist thinking is “to believe our own thought, to

believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men” (“Self-Reliance”).

This quotation of Emerson sums up all the ideas of this paper. Walt Whitman, considered as a

homosexual man, believed in his private heart that he was a woman inside. Due to the

circumstances of the era and the regulations, he may have never thought about transitioning;

however, he may has never needed. He is one of the prominent figures of transcendentalist

movement. He believed its teachings and lived his life accordingly. His view of the world

contained multitudes which led him connect with the world and experience it with a woman’s

perception. He felt free in the nature, around the “bank by the wood” and felt undisguised. He

was an idealist and materialistic aspect of the world was not vital for him. In his ideal world,

he believed that he has a woman-self. Believing that it is true for him in his private heart made

this true for everyone. and he celebrated himself.

Works Cited
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Bettcher, Talia. “Feminist Perspectives on Trans Issues.” Edited by Edward N. Zalta, Stanford

Encyclopedia of Philosophy Archive, He Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014

Edition), 26 Sept. 2009, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/feminism-trans/.

Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge,

1999.

Butler, Judith. Interview by Cristan Williams. “Judith Butler on gender and the trans experience:

‘One should be free to determine the course of one’s gendered life.’” Verso, The

TransAdvocate, 26 May 2015, https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/2009-judith-butler-on-

gender-and-the-trans-experience-one-should-be-free-to-determine-the-course-of-one-s-

gendered-life. Accessed 27 Dec. 2019.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “Self-Reliance.” American Transcendentalism Web,

https://archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/emerson/essays/selfreliance

.html.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “Nature.” American Transcendentalism Web,

https://archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/emerson/nature.html.

Hughes, Kathryn. “Gender Roles in the 19th Century.” The British Library, The British Library,

15 May 2014, https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/gender-roles-in-the-19th-

century.

Salamon, Gayle. Assuming a Body: Transgender and Rhetorics of Materiality. New York:

Columbia University Press, 2010.