The Bechdel Test, and Why It's Tainted

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A long time ago, in an age far, far away … Ten years ago, to be exact. And, keeping within the theme of traveling back in time to the world of Tumblr fandoms and Gamergate, it’s time we switched gears to the once growing “trans exclusionary radical feminist” movement, and the spectrum of hate and transphobia that came with it. Today, we’re talking about a book that was published in 2014, called Adam.

<img src=”/img/posts/bechdel/adam.webp” alt=”Book cover of “Adam” by unknown author”>

The synopsis is as follows:

When Adam Freedman — a skinny, awkward, inexperienced teenager from Piedmont, California — goes to stay with his older sister Casey in New York City, he is hopeful that his life is about to change. And it sure does.

It is the summer of 2006. Gay marriage and transgender rights are in the air, and Casey has thrust herself into a wild lesbian subculture. Soon Adam is tagging along to underground clubs, where there are hot older women everywhere he turns. It takes some time for him to realize that many in this new crowd assume he is trans—a boy who was born a girl. Why else would this baby-faced guy always be around?

Then Adam meets Gillian, the girl of his dreams — but she couldn’t possibly be interested in him. Unless passing as a trans guy might actually work in his favor . . .

Ariel Schrag’s scathingly funny and poignant debut novel puts a fresh spin on questions of love, attraction, self-definition, and what it takes to be at home in your own skin.

This had a movie accompanying it that released in 2019, wherein the extremely flawed premise of a guy pretending to be trans in order to sleep with a lesbian caught fire like a volcano on Twitter (and you may also note, the premise describes Adam as a teenager).

And then it was summarily forgotten in about a week.

These themes and premises also align with things TERFs believe, or talk about. But, it’s been so long since these types have really seen the light of day, at least, in the way they did back in 2014 across the earlier versions of the sites we’re all stuck on (well, maybe not stuck). You can read more about who they are and what they believe, here.

And, maybe this book isn’t exclusively anything to do with trans exclusionary radfems, but it’s definitely in the spaces of something that sits in the same arena as, “men wearing dresses pretending to be women entering spaces where they don’t belong,” except, in this instance, the role is reversed. The role is reversed, and it places transgender men in a light wherein they have something in common with lesbians, therein aligning them as women who look and act like men.

Obviously, this isn’t good, or excusable, to write a story where something like this is painted as fun, uplifting, and “liberating.” Transphobia is literally the gasoline that’s fueling the modern fascist movement. And pretending that trans men are just women, whom’st lesbians can be interested in, romantically and sexually involved with, is both transphobic and homophobic. At least … if you actually align yourself with transgender people, in that they are who they say they are.

Now, stay with me here, what’s that quote at the top of the book’s cover read? Did you see that?

"The sexual revolution is finally over, and Ariel Schrag has won." - Alison Bechdel

Who’s Alison Bechdel, though?

During the emergence of Gamergate, there was also a lot of talk about representation in gaming and other media, specifically about how women are represented and written. In that, they’re usually written badly, and usually to the benefit of a male character, for the male reader’s personal sexual “gaze” or enjoyment.

If you’re an older netizen like myself, you may remember Anita Sarkeesian and the extreme amount of vitriol she faced whenever she talked about these things, usually, specifically, in relation to gaming. You may also remember Zoe Quinn, whom is thought to be where, why, and how Gamergate “started,” i.e., in backlash against her. You can read much more about all of that here.

But then, there also emerged a guideline of sorts that served and still serves as a litmus test for gauging old, new, and upcoming media for their literacy in representing women.

This test is known as The Bechdel Test.

The Bechdel test (/ˈbɛkdəl/ BEK-dəl),[1] also known as the Bechdel-Wallace test, is a measure of the representation of women in film and other fiction. The test asks whether a work features at least two female characters who have a conversation about something other than a man. Some versions of the test also require that those two female characters have names.

Now, I’m not saying this “test” of sorts doesn’t have any merit. There is a lot of merit in gauging these things, and determining if media is actually good, especially in this day and age, where Bad Things are getting more bad. But, I can’t quite put my finger on why someone who gave such an endorsement, to such a terrible piece of media, that absolutely betrays her own test, women, and the entire trans community, and was so proud of it, that it was featured on the front of the book … is still being celebrated.

And I wanted to finally bring a more permanent light to this, because I’ve been talking about it for a decade, to an internet that forgets everything it thinks it cares about faster than the speed of light, and I’ve been doing that on social media websites like, Twitter, Bluesky, Tumblr, all this time. And, whether you think I belong to any community or not doesn’t matter. It matters that critical thinking doesn’t die, and it matters more that we consider those we’re promoting and uplifting.

Alison Bechdel isn’t special. She’s just as flawed as any of us, and maybe she’s not Cathy Brennan, but maybe we can think of a new name for litmus testing media for actual interesting female characters, that doesn’t involve the name of someone who endorsed media where a man pretends to be transgender in order to sleep with a lesbian.