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The Development of Transgender Studies in Sociology
Abstract
The field of transgender studies has grown exponentially in sociology over the last decade. In this review, we track the development of this field through a critical overview of the sociological scholarship from the last 50 years. We identify two major paradigms that have characterized this research: A focus on gender deviance (1960s-1990s) and a focus on gender difference (1990s-present). We then examine three major areas of study that represent the current state of the field: Research that explores the diversity of transgender people's identities and social locations, research that examines transgender people's experiences within institutional and organizational contexts, and research that presents quantitative approaches to transgender people's identities and experiences. We conclude with an agenda for future areas of inquiry.
... There are many cultural and social implications for one's gender identity since it determines many aspects of one's existence and identity in day-to-day life. Literature on gender has traversed from the critique of binary understanding and hetero-normativity paradigm to a growing corpus of research on gender identities that makes transgender/ cisgender issues complex involving concepts such as gender fluidity, queerness, gender ambiguity and non-binary gender categories (Schilt and Lagos 2017). Sociological scholarship in this area received attention with many considering Harold Garfinkel's case study of Agnes to be the first sociological examination of a person going through a transition (Connell 2009 in Schilt and Lagos 2017). ...
... Literature on gender has traversed from the critique of binary understanding and hetero-normativity paradigm to a growing corpus of research on gender identities that makes transgender/ cisgender issues complex involving concepts such as gender fluidity, queerness, gender ambiguity and non-binary gender categories (Schilt and Lagos 2017). Sociological scholarship in this area received attention with many considering Harold Garfinkel's case study of Agnes to be the first sociological examination of a person going through a transition (Connell 2009 in Schilt and Lagos 2017). Schilt and Lagos in their analysis of the history of transgender studies in sociology distinguish between two main paradigms that have shaped sociological writing about transgender people: an emphasis on gender deviance and a focus on gender difference. ...
... Explaining the formation of "the transsexual" as a medical diagnostic and a collective group identity was the main focus of the gender deviance paradigm, which peaked in the 1970s and continued to be dominant until the 1990s (ibid p. 426). However, the term "transsexual" is outdated, having originated in early sexology literature to differentiate between cross-dressing and full-time transgender identity (Meyerowitz 2002 in Schilt and Lagos 2017). People whose gender identity does not necessarily match the sex category they were assigned at birth are referred to as transgender (Serano 2013 in Schilt and Lagos 2017). ...
The psychological challenges associated with gender identity in developing countries like India are only recently receiving research attention. The study aimed to understand self-esteem, perceived social support, and depression among trans men in India. A comparative analysis was also undertaken between those who have and have not undergone sex reassignment surgery. The sample comprised 30 trans men, out of which 15 had undergone sex reassignment surgery and 15 had not. The Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale, and Beck’s Depression Inventory-II were used. Perceived social support from family and friends was found to be a significant predictor of self-esteem. Support from all three sources—family, friends, and significant others significantly predicted depression among the total sample. Trans men who had undergone sex reassignment surgery, reported higher self-esteem and lower depression levels, as compared to those who were yet to undergo surgery. The findings highlighted the contribution of social support in fostering the mental health of trans men. The consequent psychological benefits of surgery were also demonstrated. The study has implications for planning and designing mental health interventions for this community.
... My conceptualization of gender status is more similar to what Ashley (2021) calls "gender modality;" however, I use the term "status" because I am analytically interested in the "comparative social ranking" (Ridgeway 2019:1) between cisness and non-cisness. "Gender status" is also a nod to multidisciplinary works that increasingly use the term "transgender status" in discussing the life chances and social experiences of non-cis people (Bowers and Whitley 2020;Carpenter et al. 2020;Doan 2016;Embser-Herbert 2020;Schilt and Lagos 2017). ...
... A cis/trans binary is problematic in that it does not encapsulate the full range of gendered experiences (Schilt and Lagos 2017). For instance, some nonbinary people identify as trans and some do not, and multiple gender scholars note that the so-called "trans umbrella" is inappropriate for the ever-expansive assemblage of non-cis identities (Darwin 2020;Garrison 2018). ...
Gender has been of explicit analytical interest in sociology for decades. Despite its centrality to the field, “gender” eludes conceptual specificity in significant ways, such as lacking distinction between gender category (identification as a man, woman, nonbinary, etc.) and gender status (the state of being cisgender or not). I contend that the cisgender status is a rich site of interpersonal and institutional power that has been understudied. This work forwards the concepts of gender category and status as analytical tools to help explore key elements of gender interaction and structure, such as cisness. I argue cisness must be teased out via the express distinction between gender category and status, and I provide empirical evidence from 75 interviews with various gendered actors (i.e., cisgender men, cisgender women, transgender men, transgender women, nonbinary individuals) to demonstrate the applied purchase of my findings.
... Un secondo contributo rilevante è legato alla nascita e allo sviluppo dei transgender studies a partire dagli anni Novanta del secolo scorso (Stryker 2006;Vidal-Ortiz 2008;Kunzel 2014;Schilt and Lagos 2017). Si tratta di un campo di studi interdisciplinare, all'interno del quale lo sguardo delle scienze sociali si lega a un approccio post-moderno che problematizza la fissità e l'oggettivazione delle categorie identitarie (Stryker 2004;Hines 2006). ...
... Il costrutto di transnormatività (Johnson 2016) -come quello di cisnormativity (Schilt and Lagos 2017) -serve a tenere analiticamente assieme le diverse modalità con cui il binarismo di genere si impone come norma. Tale binarismo condiziona infatti gli schemi di auto-comprensione e di intelligibilità dei soggetti (Stryker and Aizura 2013), le strategie di passing desiderate ma allo stesso tempo subite (Namaste 1996), i criteri di accesso agli interventi di riattribuzione del sesso e gli esiti da questi prodotti (Spade 2006). ...
Che peso hanno discriminazioni e violenza nella vita delle persone che sfidano la norma dell’eterosessualità e del binarismo di genere? E quali sono le modalità per prevenirle e contrastarle? In Italia sono poche e discontinue le ricerche che hanno provato a rispondere a queste domande. La conoscenza prodotta si deve in gran parte agli studi promossi e condotti dalle associazioni lgbtqi+. Gli istituti di ricerca nazionali, invece, si sono occupati del tema solo in anni recenti. Il volume si inserisce in questo processo di lenta istituzionalizzazione degli studi su discriminazione e violenza determinate dall’orientamento sessuale e dall’identità di genere. Lo fa presentando i risultati di una ricerca qualiquantitativa di durata biennale condotta in collaborazione con la Regione Emilia-Romagna e con il coinvolgimento delle associazioni del territorio. La ricerca si colloca in un periodo contraddistinto da complesse trasformazioni culturali e politiche, riferibili anche all’emergere di modelli di autoidentificazione più fluidi e meno rigidamente vincolati al binarismo. Questi mutamenti producono sfide inedite rispetto ai modi in cui si indagano e si interpretano vecchie e nuove discriminazioni e forme di violenza. I risultati – discussi tenendo conto dei diversi dibattiti scientifici in materia – mostrano l’ampia diffusione delle forme di discriminazione più ordinarie e l’impatto non marginale delle aggressioni fisiche e sessuali. Ma fanno vedere anche la presenza di importanti risorse culturali per riconoscere, nominare e far fronte alla vittimizzazione. Oltre che favorire le possibilità di risposta individuali, queste risorse si traducono in servizi e reti di servizi che contribuiscono – non senza conflitti – a estendere i confini della cittadinanza.
... More specifically, we build on the literature on managing Martinez et al., 2017;Schilt & Lagos, 2017). ...
... Although this study sheds light on the intersection of gender identity and ethnicity, other aspects of one's identity such as age, class and sexual orientation are likely to intersect with one's gender identity (Muhr et al., 2016). We need more qualitative research that investigates the experiences of transgender individuals that belong to multiple disadvantaged social groups simultaneously (Schilt & Lagos, 2017). ...
This study draws on four longitudinal case studies of transgender individuals with an ethnic minority background that undergo a gender transition while being in employment in the Netherlands. Four individuals were each interviewed four times over a period of 2 years. They were asked to make sense of their experience using a narrative approach. Using an intersectional lens, the findings reveal that non‐White transgender individuals experience intersectional invisibility and intersectional hypervisibility in a dynamic and ongoing way, which influences their experiences and concurrently fosters and hinders their gender expression as they go through a gender transition while being in employment. More specifically, we build on the literature on managing (in)visibility by showing how transgender individuals with an ethnic minority background manage their (in)visibility in a dynamic and sometimes strategic way in which they reflect on the perceived consequences of their (in)visibility and then adjust their gender expression and/or strategy to elicit more positive outcomes for themselves. Practical and theoretical implications as well as suggestions to enhance our understanding of this understudied population at work and create a more inclusive work environment are presented.
... While the political and public arguments about transgender rights and equality has intensified, the transgender studies have expanded quickly in three areas in the United States: identity and social locations, institutional frameworks, and quantitative research to transgender identities and lives [4]. To begin, some academics apply the intersectional lens to transgender studies, demonstrating how social location and identification characteristics like class, race, and sexual identity, influence transgender people's relationships and experiences. ...
... Which indicates an inclination to the experiences of transgender people? Moreover, little social science research has been done about the experiences of elderly transgender people, and There is much of opportunity for debate about transgender and gender nonconforming people's lives, including insights into occupation, race, and education [4]. ...
With transgender gaining more visibility among the public, transgender students still experience stigmatization on campus. Based on this, the paper explores policy initiatives taken to promote greater trans-inclusive climates to remove stigma and policy limitations in schools in California. Firstly, transgender stigma is presented in three fields related to discourse, identity, and value. Employing policy analysis based on one case, which is a multidisciplinary research method that seeks to generate, assess, and disseminate policy-relevant knowledge. This paper also reviews the current policies of transgender protection in California, further examining the effects of the transgender-inclusive policies in one specific area and the limitations. Finally, this paper ends with some recommendations for what kind of revision or reform is anticipated to remove transgender stigmatization. This research not only stimulates further discussion of the transgender youth which is a relatively hidden group but also serves as the source in favor of changing policy to improve access to high-quality care and the advancement of the rights of transgender individuals.
... As suggested in the previous section, there is a long tradition of Symbolic Interactionist research concerning BTLG populations (see, e.g., Gagnon & Simon, 1973;Garfinkel, 1967;Goffman, 1963;Scott & Lyman, 1968). Although problematic in many ways (see, e.g., Schilt & Lagos, 2017;Schrock et al., 2014;, classic Interactionism often utilized the prejudice and discrimination faced by BTLG populations as deviant or exceptional cases for demonstrating the (1) social construction of (cisgender heterosexual) norms and beliefs throughout society, and (2) the conceptualization of Interactionist approaches to identity (Mason-Schrock, 1996), narrative (Plummer, 1994), inter-group (Sandstrom, 1990), ideological (Gagné & Tewksbury, 1998), and other systems of meaning, interpretation, and reflection (see also Sumerau, 2020Goffman, 1977West & Zimmerman, 1987). In so doing, such work paved the way for the expansion of BTLG sociological studies in the past couple decades. ...
... When Plummer (2010) calls for analyses of the sexual complexity of society or Schrock and associates (2014) argue that Symbolic Interactionist approaches are especially important for understanding sexual inequalities in society, one pathway for accomplishing these endeavors may involve mobilizing Interactionist toolkits to ascertain the interpersonal negotiations, conflicts, and other meaningmaking that occurs within and between various portions of the broader BTLG population (see also Schrock et al., 2004). Likewise, when Interactionists seek to understand how social norms shift and remain stable over time in relation to political and other cultural transformations (see Dunn & Creek, 2015), continuity and change within and between BTLG populations may provide a case for theorizing broader sex, gender, and sexual politics (see also Schilt & Lagos, 2017). As such, the examination of intergroup politics among BTLG populations may dramatically extend Interactionistand broader sociologicalunderstandings of gender and sexuality in society. ...
Within and beyond Symbolic Interactionism, sociological studies of bisexual, transgender, lesbian, and gay (BTLG) populations have expanded dramatically in the past two decades. Although such studies have invigorated our understanding of many aspects of BTLG life and experience, they have thus far left BTLG Pride relatively unexplored. How do BTLG populations experience Pride, and what insights might such efforts have for sociologically understanding such populations and events? We examine these questions through an interview study of bi+ people (i.e., sexually fluid people who identify as bisexual, pansexual, or otherwise outside of gay/straight binaries; Eisner, 2013). Specifically, we analyze how bi+ people negotiate both (1) experiencing Pride as “outsiders within” the broader BTLG population (Collins, 1986), and (2) framing who Pride is for and what it means in practice. In so doing, we demonstrate how Interactionist analyses of certain groups’ meaning making around and experiences of Pride can expand existing sociologies of BTLG populations, bisexual experience, and Pride.
... In our contemporary Western context, these youth and emerging adults have, until recently, been more likely to remain silent and conform to their assigned sex/gender category (Travers, 2018). Increases in youth and emerging adults with gender diverse, including nonbinary, identities, do not necessarily indicate that more individuals are experiencing internal conflict with their assigned binary sex/gender categories; rather, available options for gender identity categories continue to emerge across time and cultural contexts to more accurately reflect internal experiences of gender (Meadow, 2018;Schilt & Lagos, 2017). Future work should examine how internal processes interact with external factors-including social scripts and external social structures-to shape gender identification. ...
This study contributes to research exploring social factors shaping gender identification. Informed by structural symbolic interactionism, social identity theory, and Levitt’s psychosocial theory of gender, we explore how a key aspect of external social structure—adolescent family socioeconomic status—is associated with gender identification in emerging adulthood. We examine whether correlates of family socioeconomic status, including adolescent family and educational experiences and friend and high school characteristics, are associated with a cisgender, binary transgender, nonbinary, or gender unsure identification. Using data from High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09), we find a positive association between adolescent family socioeconomic status and a nonbinary gender identification. Analyses indicate that educational and family experiences account for the largest percentage of the association between adolescent family socioeconomic status and nonbinary gender identification, potentially representing higher SES youths’ heightened access to middle- and upper-class cultural schemas and resources.
... Yet while prevailing cultural narratives still pose men and women as distinct gender groups, individuals can and do define themselves in ways that do not always neatly adhere to such categorical distinctions. Indeed, many individuals, such as those who identify as gender fluid or transgender, reject the gender binary and/or related assumptions that biological sex and gender are synonymous [15]. The recognition that individuals' lived experiences of gender identity are highly complex and multi-dimensional has informed considerable social psychological research. ...
Women remain under-represented in many STEM occupations, including in the high-status and lucrative field of engineering. This study focuses on women who have chosen to enter this men-dominated field, to consider whether and how feelings of gender typicality predict their attachment to the field. Specifically, utilizing a U.S. sample of approximately 800 women college engineers from diverse racial/ethnic backgrounds, we build on emerging research on gender typicality to distinguish perceptions of feminine typicality as well as masculine typicality. Subsequently, we consider whether these perceptions have implications for their attachment to engineering, including their engineering identity as well as their certainty of staying in the field. Importantly, in doing so, we consider potential racial/ethnic variations in these relationships.
... The sociological problematization of transsexuality emerges as a response to the biomedical problematization and seeks to displace the centrality of pathologization by addressing the lived realities of trans people. This approach can be found in the work of sociologically oriented "trans studies" (Namaste 2000: 46-51;Schilt and Lagos 2017) or in surveys undertaken by trans organizations (Berkins and Fernandez 2005;James et al. 2016). The wider context of this problematization is a trans activist movement that emerged following the rise of civil rights and liberation movements in the second half of the twentieth century. ...
This article proposes to engage with the etiological question haunting the transsexual subject as a sociogenic project of identifying and analyzing relevant problematizations of transsexuality. The article elaborates on the social contexts of the biomedical, sociological, and genealogical problematizations of transsexuality, critically assessing their onto-epistemic stances and political fields. Building on the limitations of these three problematizations, the article projects a fourth problematization drawing from Marxist-feminist approaches. To this end, it engages critically with four different conceptualizations of transsexuality in current trans Marxist debates and establishes the conditions for a distinct historical materialist problematization. Finally, the article puts forward a definition of transsexuality as a technology of containment of the possibility of gender mobility and ambiguity within the Western biopolitical generative dispositive in its functional relation to the capitalist mode of production. The containment works through the displacement of a structural conflict of social reproduction specific to the Western modern/colonial gender order to the interiority of the trans subject, ultimately foreclosing the possibility of the democratization of relations of procreation. Gender intransigence is proposed as an epistemic and political category for historical materialist problematization of transsexuality which can provide an alternative to the hegemonic framework of gender identity.
... Mario I. Suárez https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6008-1664 Notes 1. Drawing from recent theoretical and methodological advances in sociology (Lombardi, 2018;Schilt & Lagos, 2017), we use the term trans to refer to individuals whose gender identity does not correspond to the sex category assigned at birth, and we use the term nonbinary to refer to individuals who identify outside of binary gender identities (Hegarty et al., 2018). Extant research often conflates the two categories (Davidson, 2007), but nonbinary individuals vary in their identification with a trans identity (Darwin, 2017), and our analysis reflects this variance. ...
Workplace discrimination against trans and nonbinary workers is pervasive and contributes to high rates of unemployment, underemployment, and economic precarity. Scholars have begun to identify the ways cisnormativity is embedded in workplace organizations in ways that contribute to hostile work environments for trans and nonbinary workers. However, relatively little research has explored the strategies trans and nonbinary workers use to navigate such environments. The current study contributes to this growing field by exploring the predictors of worker agency among trans and nonbinary workers. Drawing on data from the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey, this study analyzes the role of social status, including race, gender, and social class, and institutional protections, including union membership and antidiscrimination policies, in shaping trans and nonbinary workers’ responses to discrimination. Our findings suggest that lower status workers are more likely than higher status workers to rely on self-protective measures that pose risks to their health and well-being, while comprehensive antidiscrimination policies enhance the ability of all workers to pursue redressive action. We consider the implications of our findings for workplace policy and practice.
... Based on this study's findings, we propose the need to leverage policies, organizational practices, and interpersonal reform strategies together to do more than protect trans PK-12 school workers from harm and create a workplace environment where students and school workers alike can flourish. This paper contributes to a growing body of literature in education and related fields that extends trans studies scholarship to consider, and ultimately improve, the material conditions affecting trans people's lives (Billard et al., 2021(Billard et al., , 2022Johnson, 2022;Mangin et al., 2022;Schilt & Lagos, 2017). ...
Since 2017, hostile anti-LGBTQ+ educational bills rapidly expanded. Using traditional and critical policy analysis across three Midwestern states, we examine (1) whether state and local policymakers ( n = 60) adopted trans-inclusive protections aligned with the 2017 federal Whitaker ruling, (2) the spread and scope of state and local educational policies concerning LGBTQ+ people, and (3) relationships between LGBTQ and critical race theory (CRT) curricular bills. We find policy erasure in states without pre- Whitaker gender-inclusive nondiscrimination laws and expanded efforts to ban LGBTQ+ students from educational opportunities, spaces, and curriculum. LGBTQ+ and CRT curricular bans overlapped. We discuss the implications of policymakers leaning into exclusion over gender reforms.
... 8 Sociologists have shown that there are many reasons for this, most of which stem from systems of oppression and the stigma of being trans rather than a quality of being trans. 9 Poorer mental health and well-being is a quality of social construction and being in a stigmatized minority group. 10 With an estimated 1.4 million adults who identify as transgender in the United States, 11 we are just beginning to scratch the surface regarding trans well-being. ...
Purpose: Transgender and nonbinary individuals often have limited educational and economic resources, lack social capital such as family and community support, and face discrimination. These factors are likely to have negative consequences for subjective well-being of transgender individuals. Yet, there is limited research using a national sample and comparing trans women, trans men, and nonbinary individuals. This study examined the impact of social support, social belonging, transgender connectedness, and discrimination on trans and nonbinary individuals' life satisfaction and negative affect. Methods: We used data from TransPop 2016-2018, the first survey conducted on a national probability sample of the transgender population in the United States. We focused on measures of life satisfaction and negative affect and their predictors, including social belonging, transgender connectedness, and everyday discrimination. Results: We found that trans men, trans women, and nonbinary individuals had lower life satisfaction and higher negative affect than cisgender heterosexual individuals. Social belonging had a positive effect on trans men and trans women's life satisfaction, whereas it had a negative effect on trans men and nonbinary individuals' negative emotion. While family support had a positive effect on trans men's life satisfaction, social support had mixed effects on nonbinary individuals' life satisfaction and negative affect. Finally, everyday discrimination had a negative influence on life satisfaction although there was variation by gender identity and dependent measure. Conclusion: Different factors predicted life satisfaction and negative affect of trans men, trans women, and nonbinary people. Thus, a one-size-fits-all model of trans and nonbinary subjective well-being does not work.
... Given the tendency for people to assign characteristics to gods based on their values and the salience of gender for transgender and nonbinary individuals (Schilt and Lagos, 2017), it seems likely that individuals outside the gender binary may extend their values and beliefs regarding gender to include the way they conceptualize their god(s). This would extend religious embodiment (Talvacchia et al., 2014) and religious and spiritual integration with gender to the level of creating a new sacred canopy that supports both gender identity and religious worldviews (Berger, 1990). ...
A growing body of research has begun to explore the religious and spiritual lives of transgender and nonbinary individuals. Missing from prior sociological research on this topic is how individuals outside the gender binary conceptualize the gender of god(s) and their own genders in the afterlife. Using data from a targeted survey of members of transgender listservs and online activist groups, this study explores two specific religious/spiritual beliefs of transgender and nonbinary individuals in comparison to cisgender individuals: (1) their conception of God’s/gods’ gender(s) and (2) their conception of their own gender in the afterlife. Many trans and nonbinary participants report both their future gender and the gender of any god(s) in which they believe as nonbinary, but not exclusively.
... The consolidated presence of barriers to health care for transgender people is clear proof of the necessity to talk about specific social determinants of health (SDHs) for these people [61]. While in the past, gender inequality was referred to as SDHs of cisgender women, recently, gender SDHs have been applied to the identity and health of transgender people [62,63]. ...
Transgender people have garnered attention in recent years. They have different health problems; the fact, however, that they belong to a minority means that this is characterized by complex mechanisms of stigmatization. This paper aims to analyze the current literature on the barriers to health services encountered by transgender people. This scoping review is based on the following research questions: (1) What are the main barriers to health care encountered by transgender people? (2) Is it possible to organize these barriers according to a macro-, meso-and microanalysis approach? (3) What are the main characteristics of the barriers to health care encountered by transgender people? (4) Are there significant relations between the different types of barriers? The review was undertaken following the PRISMA extension for scoping reviews. In total, 32 studies were included from which three types of barriers with different subcategories were identified: health system barriers, social barriers, and individual barriers. In conclusion, due to the complexity of gender issues and barriers to health care, a multidisciplinary approach is necessary. In this regard, some integrated strategies to reduce barriers to health care for transgender people are proposed.
... The term "gender diverse" includes "people who identify as agender (having no gender), as bigender (both a woman and a man) or as non-binary (neither woman nor man)" (Gavriel Ansara, 2013, p. 1). The term "transgender", commonly shortened to "trans", is a collective term used to describe individuals whose gender identity and expression is at variance with the biological sex they were assigned at birth (Levitt & Ippolito, 2014;Schilt & Lagos, 2017). The term "trans'" means "across from", with "trans women" referring to individuals who were assigned male at birth, but now identify as feminine, taking up a range of gender identity descriptors that may include woman, feminine, fa'afafine, Sexual violence is everywhere. ...
... As far as the methodological approaches used are concerned, the fact that with the 8 original articles, there is a parity between qualitative (Pinto, Melendez and Anya, 2008;Perez-Brumer et al.,2017;Hwahnga et al., 2021;Li, Fabbre and Gaveras, 2022); and quantitative (Hamann and Sherblom, 2014;Erosheva, Emlet, and Fredriksen-Goldsen., 2015;Tan et al. 2021;Zarwell et al. 2021) approaches, is a significant step forward compared to what was the trend until some time ago (Schilt and Lagos, 2017) because before 2010, there were no quantitative data on TGD people, because all questionnaires used up to then only provided a binary view in the choice of gender (male and female) (Westbrook & Saperstein 2015). ...
This article aims to analyze the current literature on the social capital of transgender and gender diverse(TGD) people, given their fragility in social and health terms. The paper followed the guidelines developed by Tricco, Langlois, and Straus. The results of this paper reveal significant gaps in the literature relating to the social capital of TGD people and highlight how the various types of shared capital are for sexual health to be considered in future research on transgender health. This is the first article that analyzes in detail the relationship between social capital and TGD individuals. To date, there is no other scientific evidence in the literature in this regard. The paucity of scholarly evidence available for paper limits our ability to make conclusive statements about social capital of TGD people. Small sample sizes in the included studies warrant caution when deriving generalized conclusions about social capital.
... It is apparent that the documentary emphasises and upholds a rigid ideological reasoning that assumes cisnormativity; an assumption and expectation that all people are and should be, by default, cisgender (Sumerau et al., 2016), which obviously privileges cisgender individuals' experiences while disadvantaging others whose gender identity does not fit the binary. Instead of shedding light on the media's symbolic annihilation of the trans community (Abdellatif et al., 2021), the silencing, discrimination, harassment and violence that transgender and gender nonconforming people experience (see Schilt and Lagos, 2017), or offering a safe inclusionary space for the trans community for their stories to be told, voices to heard and included, the documentary explicitly states that transgender and gender nonconforming individuals should be denied access to existence, let alone defining their own reality or choosing their own pronouns. Such flawed ideological assumptions and toxic logic that seeks to devalue 'othered' bodies' experiences and erase trans and nonconforming people's basic human right to live is harmful to the experiences of sexual and gender minorities within organisations and have implications on organisational equity, diversity and inclusion policies. ...
An artifact review of 'What is a Woman?' documentary.
... Research explicitly concerned with gender and sexual minorities has been and remains marginal in criminology and the social sciences (Dwyer, Ball and Crofts 2016;Schilt, Meadow and Compton 2018). This is especially true for research concerned with TGD people and the issues that affect them (Namaste 2000;Schilt and Lagos 2017). Worse still, criminology has played and continues to play a role in strengthening and legitimising institutions and practices that harm TGD people (Valcore et al. 2021). ...
Trans and gender diverse (TGD) people are disproportionately criminalised and face unique vulnerabilities when interacting with the criminal legal system. However, very little is known about TGD people’s experiences of criminalisation in Australia or the strategies TGD people and their advocates use to navigate the criminal legal system. Based on survey responses from TGD people with lived experience of criminalisation and lawyers with experience representing TGD clients, this article identifies several critical issues with the criminal legal system’s treatment of TGD people and outlines the strategies TGD people and their representatives suggest to address these issues. On this basis, we argue that criminologists and criminal legal practitioners urgently need to interrogate and work towards ameliorating the criminal legal system’s treatment of gender diversity. These insights will be crucial in informing future advocacy efforts and reform agendas, given that knowledge in this area is severely lacking.
... For example, the extent to which someone is deemed prototypical of their gender is influenced by race(Wong & McCullough, 2021). Thus, a ripe area for future research might include how transition experiences in the workplace may vary depending on the combination of multiple identities(Schilt & Lagos, 2017).Third, our findings show the importance of how gender expressions and reactions of others evolve over time. This temporal element could be explored further in future research. ...
... Our well-being anal y sis is one of the first to har ness Gallup's unpar al leled SGM sam ple. We include sex ual minor i ties who iden tify as queer, same-gen der lov ing, or more than one sexual iden tity, in addi tion to gay, les bian, and bisex ual; we also include trans gen der men, trans gen der women, and gen der non bi nary/genderqueer indi vid u als (Schilt and Lagos 2017). Our study improves on past work that relied on lim ited sex ual identity categories (e.g., les bian, gay), inferred sex ual iden tity from part ner ship sta tus, or used binary mea sures of sex and gen der, which con flate sex and gen der and pre clude iden ti fi ca tion of trans gen der and other gen der minor ity pop u la tions (Westbrook et al. forth com ing;Westbrook and Saperstein 2015). ...
Sexual and gender minority (SGM) populations experience disadvantages in physical health, mental health, and socioeconomic status relative to cisgender heterosexual populations. However, extant population research has tended to use objective measures and ignore subjective measures, examined well-being outcomes in isolation, and lacked information on less well studied but possibly more disadvantaged SGM subgroups. In this study, we use Gallup's National Health and Well-Being Index, which permits identification of gay/lesbian, bisexual, queer, same-gender-loving, those who identify as more than one sexual identity, transgender men, transgender women, and nonbinary/genderqueer populations. We estimate bivariate associations and ordinary least-squares regression models to examine differences along five dimensions of well-being: life purpose, residential community belonging, physical and mental health, financial well-being, and social connectedness. The results reveal that most SGM groups experience stark disadvantages relative to heterosexuals and cisgender men, which are most pronounced among bisexual, queer, and nonbinary/genderqueer populations. Intergroup and intragroup variations illuminate even greater disparities in well-being than prior research has uncovered, bringing us closer to a holistic profile of SGM well-being at the population level.
Trans scholarship and trans perspectives have historically been marginalised from mainstream academia. There is value in ongoing theoretical exchange between sociology and the evolving post-discipline of applied trans studies. This article introduces three prominent theories within applied trans studies, namely cisnormativity, pathologisation and gender minority stress, considering the strengths and limitations of these theories. The author then highlights the need for a greater theoretical focus on cis power, drawing from scholarship on white supremacy to articulate and introduce a theory of cis-supremacy. Within the UK cis-supremacy manifests in experiences of control and coercion; problematisation; toleration of trans harm; and cis institutional dominance. A theory of cis-supremacy calls attention to the forces and systems that actively oppress trans people, perpetuating systemic and sustained injustices. Recognition of cis-supremacy is important for understanding intersectional inequality, and a vital component of any movement for trans liberation.
Background/Context
While trans adults in the U.S. and Canada report higher levels of discrimination and harassment than cisgender adults, but the existing literature lacks comprehensive descriptions of trans school workers’ believes about what would improve working conditions, satisfaction, and safety.
Purpose
We interrogate systemic forces shaping PK-12 trans educators’ workplace experiences through two research questions: (1) What educational reforms did trans PK–12 workers believe would improve working conditions? (2) Did greater policy, organizational, and leadership support contribute to improved job satisfaction and safety?
Research Design
The critical quantitative study employed cross-sectional, online survey data from 341 trans school workers in Canada and the United States. We used frequencies to descripe respondents’ rankings of reforms and logistic regression analysis to examine whether respondents’ reports of greater policy protections, organizational supports, and affirming leadership constributed to greater workplace safety and satisfaction.
Conclusions/Recommendations
Trans workers reporting safer, more satisfactory school workplaces also indicate their workplaces have multiple tools across socio-ecological systems to disrupt cisnormativity. Policy protections topped workers’ rankings of beneficial reforms, but logistic regression analysis revealed policies mitigated only the most egregious physical safety concerns. Greater organizational supports and affirming leaders consistently contribute to satisfaction and safety. Policies, organizational practices, and leadership approaches working in tandem contribute to safe, satisfying workplaces for PK-12 trans school employees.
This study explores the experiences and identities of nonbinary autistic people, an under-researched population. While past studies have posited a co-occurrence of autism and transgender identity, little research focuses specifically on nonbinary autistic adults. This community-based study draws on interview data from 44 nonbinary participants. Participants expressed nuanced and informed understandings of their gender identities, highlighting fluidity and a rejection traditional binary gender roles. Participants discussed the connection of their autistic and nonbinary identities and how their identity is shaped by external forces such as politics, community, and interpersonal relationships. Findings highlight the need for the inclusion of nonbinary autistic people in autism research and for autism services and programming to be affirming of various gender identities.
Lay abstract
This study explores the experiences and identities of nonbinary autistic people. The relationship between autistic and nonbinary identities has not been researched in detail. Few studies focus specifically on nonbinary autistic adults. We interviewed 44 nonbinary individuals for this study. Participants had thought-out opinions on gender identity and emphasized identifying with fluidity rather than traditional gender roles. Participants discussed the connection of their autistic and nonbinary identities and how it affected how people saw them and how they saw themselves. We have recommendations for programming, policy, and research from these findings.
The growing visibility of transgender and nonbinary people raises important sociological questions about how the structure of sex and gender is shifting and underscores necessary changes to research practice. We review what is known about emerging gender identities and their implications for sociological understandings of the relationship between sex and gender and the maintenance of the sex/gender system of inequality. Transgender and nonbinary identities are increasingly common among younger cohorts and improved survey measurements of sex and gender are expanding information about these changes. In the United States, an additional gender category seems to be solidifying in public usage even as the higher status of masculinity over femininity persists. The continuing power of the normative binary contributes to both violent backlash and characteristic patterns of discrimination against gender diverse people; yet, underlying support for nondiscrimination in the workplace is stronger than commonly recognized. New, more consistent efforts to account for gender diversity in social science research are needed to fully understand these changes.
Workplace discrimination contributes to economic precarity for trans individuals, and some evidence suggests that barriers to formal employment may contribute to engagement in sex work. This study examines whether particular types of workplace discrimination-including blocked access to jobs and termination due to trans status-represent a pathway into sex work for trans and nonbinary workers conditional upon social status, gender, and race. Our analysis relies on the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey (USTS), where we stratify multiple logistic regression models for trans men, trans women, and nonbinary individuals and introduce an interaction term between workplace discrimination and race. We exploit two time horizons in the data for a lifetime analysis and a past-year analysis. We find strong support that trans women and nonbinary individuals are more likely to engage in sex work when they have experienced workplace discrimination compared to trans men. Predicted probabilities show that workplace discrimination amplifies the likelihood of sex work for most trans workers of color compared to those who are white. By contributing to the literature on "bad jobs" and anti-trans workplace bias from an intersectional approach, this study informs debates on anti-discrimination policies and practices that facilitate economic security for trans workers.
Transgender people face multiple challenges to securing and maintaining parenting rights, yet most studies on trans parenthood focus exclusively on trans masculine people’s experiences and feature majority white samples. To address gendered and racialized gaps in knowledge, I conducted 54 semi-structured interviews with trans women in the United States, who parent or wish to parent, across race and class backgrounds. Using the intersectional frameworks of racialized transmisogyny and reproductive governance, I examine the barriers to parenting rights that trans women encounter in adoption and custody disputes. I find that judges and case workers use racist and anti-trans stereotypes when evaluating “parental fitness,” which (1) institutionalizes racialized transmisogyny in the law, (2) increases the regulatory power of legal institutions, and (3) reinforces dominant mothering ideologies. I also discuss how everyday people (i.e., partners and family members) co-construct the legal and symbolic meaning of motherhood, illustrating the centrality of trans reproduction to the policing of trans and other minoritized communities.
Media coverage about transgender and gender nonconforming people both maintains and influences normative ideas about sex, gender, and sexuality. However, how state propaganda apparatus reifies these ideas through media and contributes to gender regulations remains underexplored, especially for state-dominated media systems. To bridge this gap, this article examines the media framing of gender nonconformity in China through a content analysis of 154 state-run newspaper articles from 1980 to 2021. Our analysis reveals that state newspapers introduce gender nonconformity into the purview of governance through two processes: 1) By pushing medicalized and socialization explanations for gender nonconformity, state newspapers consolidated two categories of gender nonconformity—intersex/transgender people and gender nonconforming youth. 2) State newspapers have developed two “gender crisis” frames that positioned the management of gender nonconformity at the heart of state governance and national development. Through this, gender nonconformity becomes legible for state institutions in criminal justice, medicine, marriage, education, and media. The findings contribute to the literature on media maintenance of the sex/gender/sexuality system by demonstrating the productive power of state-run media in shaping knowledge, discourse, and the regulation of gender nonconformity.
Gender self-determination is a concept that allows transgender individuals to determine their own gender identity without any third-party approval. Up to date, for gender identity to be recognised, most EU Member States impose medical, surgical or psychological requirements. The present work reviews the social and legal development of gender self-determination. Then, it analyses how it is established within the European Union, studying the legal acts that implement it and the actions that have taken place by the Union institutions. Finally, the work explores further the case of Spain, delving both into the national legislation and the autonomous one.
This study explores how khwajasiras, a community of gender-variant persons in Pakistan, engage in relational work to gain recognition in a heteronormative world. We highlight how these workers negotiate the meanings of their intimate relationships with different forms, frequencies, amounts, and payment media of financial exchanges. We have identified four such relations i.e. romantic relations, spousal relations, taboo relations, and professional relations. Our analysis shows how these relations and associated financial exchanges allow khwajasiras to navigate gender norms and negotiate recognition by alternatively and creatively playing the role of the khwajasira lover, the khwajasira wife, the khwajasira survival prostitute, and the khwajasira professional sex worker. In enacting these roles, they simultaneously reaffirm, redefine, and challenge dominant gender norms while resisting stable and fixed definitions of transgender sex work(ers). These findings unpack the contingent and situated relationship between gender, sexuality, and sex work and the critical role of financial exchange(s) therein.
Emily Martin’s landmark article— “The Egg and the Sperm” —demonstrated that cultural beliefs about masculinity and femininity led scientists to construct a “fairy tale” romance between active sperm and passive eggs, a biological metaphor that influenced the process of research in scientific labs and descriptions of fertilization in textbooks. In the decades since, there have been significant shifts in cultural beliefs about sex, gender, and sexuality, including challenges to the conceptualization of sex as a binary category, growing social acceptance of a wide variety of gender identities and sexualities, and an increasing proportion of people who subscribe to gender-egalitarian views. While Martin’s focus was on the scientists producing knowledge, here I pivot to individuals recruited from the general public in a northeastern American city, using a sociology of culture approach to ask whether shifting beliefs about gender and sexuality are associated with different biological metaphors about fertilization. Through qualitative interviews (N = 47), I find that the traditional metaphor of active sperm penetrating passive egg is still commonly used, but that another metaphor is also circulating, one that positions gametes as more similar than different, as two halves of a whole. I conclude by discussing the implications for debates about the relationship between biological stories and social beliefs.
A growing body of research reveals that transgender people are disproportionately in contact with the criminal legal system, wherein they experience considerable discrimination, violence, and other harms. To better understand transgender people's involvement in this system, this article synthesizes research from criminology, transgender studies, and related fields as well as empirical findings produced outside of academe, to conceptualize a “transgender criminal legal system nexus.” This article examines historical and contemporary criminalization of transgender people; differential system contact and attendant experiences associated with police contact, judicial decision-making, and incarceration; and pathways to system involvement for transgender people. The analytic focus is on cultural logics related to institutionalized conceptualizations of gender, discriminatory people-processing in various domains of the criminal legal system, and institutionally produced disparities for transgender people involved in the criminal legal system, especially transgender women of color. The article concludes with a discussion of directions for future research, including a focus on administrative violence, organizational sorting, intersectionality, and measurement challenges.
Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Criminology, Volume 7 is January 2024. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
This article examined the work experiences of transgender and gender-diverse (TGD) individuals concerning the organisational environment and managerial influence on their workplace inclusion. The qualitative multi-method study design included semi-structured online interviews with TGD workers ( n = 22); followed by an open-ended, photo-elicit questionnaire with organisational leaders and management personnel, including human resource management and career development practitioners ( n = 42), to evaluate their awareness and approach regarding the inclusion of TGD individuals. A critical grounded theory approach was applied to identify numerous enablers and barriers for TGD employees. Further analysis identified three impact areas of managers: building an inclusive organisational infrastructure, fostering a safe psychological environment and supporting diverse impression-fit management. The three managerial areas provide practical recommendations concerning language use, leadership style, work practices and arrangements that should be considered for increasing TGD workplace inclusion.
JEL Classification
M12, M14
Zusammenfassung
Ich schlage vor, „Race“ als analytische Kategorie zu verwerfen, nicht aber als empirische Bezeichnung, die sich auf die Art und Weise bezieht, in der Akteure und Institutionen Menschen kategorisieren und Positionen auf der Grundlage einer naturalisierten Hierarchie stratifizieren. Rasse ist sowohl historisch als auch logisch eine Unterform von Ethnizität, die von gewöhnlich (Aura) bis rassifiziert (Stigma) reicht. Ich schätze den Beitrag postkolonialer Denker zur Erforschung rassischer Herrschaft, wende mich aber gegen erkenntnistheoretischen Populismus: Die Werkzeuge der Sozialwissenschaft aufzugeben, um das Wissen der Subalternen zu feiern, käme einer einseitigen analytischen Abrüstung gleich.
This article considers the large range of empirical research that has emerged under the broad aegis of ethnomethodology, in the period between the publication of Studies in Ethnomethodology (1967) to the present day. Starting with a brief overview of Garfinkel's intellectual career, we discuss the relation of ethnomethodology to Schütz's phenomenology, Parsons's systems theory, and Weber's concern with meaning construction. A central concern was with the problem of contextuality, which Garfinkel initially addressed by drawing on, while fashioning in his own way, Mannheim's concern with the documentary method of interpretation. Ethnomethodologically-related studies have proliferated in a variety of domains, including conversation analysis, membership categorization analysis, and (related to Garfinkel's own early work) empirical initiatives in the study of everyday life involving racial, gender and other minoritized groups. Further ethnomethodological studies emerged from legal environments, from social problems and deviance, and in relation to ability differences. Still other investigations concerned instructed action and its ramifications for the sciences, technology and organizations, including the workplace. A longstanding concern for ethnomethodology has been with the conduct of social sciences—how coding is done, how surveys are conducted, and how standardization is achieved. Many of these areas have given rise to thriving subfields, have dedicated journals, and resulted in applications. Few initiatives in sociological theory have resulted in a wider range of innovative research than Garfinkel's and successor studies showing, explicating, and demonstrating the organization of details in social life and their consequences for social order.
Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Sociology, Volume 49 is July 2023. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
Focusing on trans and gender-diverse people in five European countries (Portugal, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Sweden), the Transrights research addressed one of the most challenging transformations of the institutional order of gender that thus far still reproduces the normative opposition between male and female. Rather than proposing a descriptive monograph, our angle of analysis emphasized the workings of gender through the ‘voices’ of trans people (within and beyond Europe) and their complex forms of self-identification vis-à-vis the institutional apparatus (whether legal, medical, political or even social-scientific). Drawing on an extensive empirical research that combined document analysis of legal and medical developments, multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviews, we investigated the doings of gender and gender politics. Three major findings are highlighted and summarized through a comparative strategy: trans/gender identifications, creative agency and embodiments; institutional and legal recognition vis-à-vis the medical apparatus and the “marketization” of trans-related healthcare; and discrimination, oppression and violence.
Harold Garfinkel's Studies in Ethnomethodology (1967) was published a little more than 50 years ago. Since then, there has been a substantial—although often subterranean—growth in ethnomethodological work and influence. Studies in and appreciation of ethnomethodological work continue to grow, but the breadth and penetration of his insights and inspiration for ongoing research have yet to secure their full measure of recognition. The origins of Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology include both the theorizing of Parsonian sociology and the phenomenology of Alfred Schütz, whose analysis of the trust conditions making for a stable society informed Garfinkel’s analysis of the “taken-for-granted” aspects of the ordinary social world. Further theoretical contributions include the development of analyses related to the “documentary method of interpretation,” highly innovative analyses of rules and rule usage, and a radical treatment of such phenomena as language use and accountability. Separate chapters highlight contributions to such areas or subdisciplines as conversation analysis, ethnomethodology’s distinctive forms of ethnographic inquiry, and its influences on a host of substantive domains, including legal environments, science and technology, workplace and organizational inquiries, survey research, social problems and deviance, disability and atypical interaction, and others. Ethnomethodology especially helped to set the agenda for gender studies, while also developing insights for inquiries into racial and ethnic features of everyday life and experience. Still, there is much of what Garfinkel called “unfinished business,” which means that ethnomethodological inquiries are continuing to intensify and develop.
Little sociological research has examined how cis people might be accepting or not of trans people on an intimate level. To begin to fill this gap, the author analyzes over 200 online discussion board posts and threads on Reddit by cis heterosexual men who discuss their romantic and sexual desires for trans women. The author coins the concept of transamorous misogyny to capture the paradoxical process of how cis heterosexual men’s desires for trans women is in and through their contempt of all women. Specifically, the author shows how the cis heterosexual men expand ideas of sexual identity as attraction toward gender expression. However, the men expand the definition of heterosexuality in ways that construct trans women as hyper-feminine, hyper-submissive, and as not real women. The men also discursively work to reassert their cis heterosexual masculinity through discussing how trans women are better than cis women. Ultimately, transamorous misogyny works to devalue all women and allows cis heterosexual men to desire trans women in ways that help the men invest in their own cis heterosexual masculinity.
Academic research hinges on the role of epistemic peers in order to evaluate newly presented claims and evidence. As social work research is often focused on social problems and systems of oppressions, scholars from the margins most impacted are even better poised to conduct and evaluate said research. Throughout the past few decades, social work scholars have adjusted the ways we teach about and conduct research in order to be increasingly critical of the status quo and more culturally attuned. However, many of the adjustments that are recommended (e.g., community advisory boards) assume that the researcher is an outsider to the community being researched. Trans-focused research is an area where this impact is especially glaring, as an influx of out-trans researchers are able to join the field. This article provides an overview of the concepts of epistemic peers and standpoint theory before describing community-engaged research processes in order to illuminate how these practices (re)produce harm and/or are built on assumptions that the researchers themselves are not trans/nonbinary. In order for trans scholarship to continue to grow and produce the most culturally attuned results, social work academia must foster and prioritize trans epistemic peerhood.
Introduction:
Calls for improved measures of gender identity to understand the experience of transgender individuals have grown rapidly in the past 5 years. The need for methodological innovation in this topic area has particular importance for the autistic population since a higher co-occurrence of transgender identities among autistic people has been documented but is not well understood. We use a survey with questions that reflect standards in 2018 to demonstrate how binary conceptualizations of gender did not adequately capture gender identities of transgender autistic individuals.
Methods:
Using descriptive statistics from a statewide survey of 1527 autistic adults (mean age 27.5 years), this study compared self-reported survey responses to close-ended standard questions at the time about gender identity to understand shortcomings in capturing this population authentically.
Results:
We found a mismatch between respondents answering that they were transgender, the sex assigned at birth, and gender identity on separate questions. We postulate that transgender men and women were likely selecting binary responses when asked about gender identity. Furthermore, we found that many qualitative responses reported in the self-selected "other" category reflected nonbinary identities and utilized specific terminology that revealed nuance in how they understood gender identities.
Conclusions:
We urge researchers to provide multiple flexible options when measuring gender identity in autistic populations as they are likely to encompass many identities. We endorse best practices for measuring gender identity for autistic research.
Este texto é uma tradução do trabalho de conclusão de curso de Lori Puopolo. (PUOPOLO, 2018) Em seu estudo, e autore se baseia em pesquisas que analisam como profissionais da medicina e da saúde mental utilizam a visão transmedicalista para limitar o acesso de pessoas trans a tratamentos de afirmação de gênero, com a finalidade de compreender como os discursos propagados por eles afetam, especificamente, o acesso de pessoas não binárias ao processo transexualizador. Desse modo, Puopolo observa que enquanto esses especialistas usam um discurso dominante sobre indivíduos transvestigeneres para regular os corpos de sujeitos não binários, esses sujeitos internalizam essas mesmas falas e, por isso, também atrasam seus próprios tratamentos. Puopolo descobre que a internet é o meio de comunicação usado por essas pessoas não binárias para discutir e se informar sobre as possibilidades da transição, notando que à medida que elas têm acesso a mais explicações, elas se tornam mais dispostas a procurar pelos tratamentos desejados.
Research on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movements has accelerated in recent years. We take stock of this literature with a focus on the United States. Our review adopts a historical approach, surveying findings on three protest cycles: gay liberation and lesbian feminism, queer activism, and marriage equality. Existing scholarship focuses primarily on oscillations of the movement's collective identity between emphasizing similarities to the heterosexual mainstream and celebrating differences. We contrast earlier movement cycles mobilized around difference with efforts to legalize same-sex marriage. Our review highlights the turning points that led to shifts in protest cycles, and we trace the consequences for movement outcomes. Scholarship will advance if researchers recognize the path-dependent nature of social movements and that sameness and difference are not oppositional, static, or discrete choices. We conclude by recommending directions for future research.
It has been acknowledged that more research into the health and well-being of trans people is needed in order to identify important health issues. While recent studies have suggested using a two-question gender status measure to assess assigned sex at birth and gender identity, it is not well understood how participants understand and subsequently answer the questions. The study recruited a convenience sample of 50 people (25 trans and 25 cis) from the general population of Cleveland and Akron, OH. The study used cognitive interviewing methods with scripted, semi-structured and spontaneous probes when appropriate. Participants were asked to read questions out-loud, answer the questions, and explain why they answered the way they did. Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed prior to analysis. The gender status questions were found to be easy to use and understood by both trans and cis participants. The two-question gender status measure was able to encompass a diversity of identities within a trans sample and be consistently answered by the study’s cis participants. The measures were able to differentiate between trans and cis groups. The two-step gender measure can be a useful tool in examining gender diversity within general population studies.
This article outlines a generic process in the reproduction of inequality we name cisgendering reality. Based on 114 responses from transgender Mormons and systematic reviews of religious, transgender, and inequalities scholarship, we demonstrate how contemporary American religions cisgender reality by (1) erasing, (2) marking, and (3) punishing transgender experience in ways that reproduce conceptions of reality predicated on cisnormativity. In conclusion, we argue that examining processes of cisgendering reality may provide insight into (1) transgender religious experience, (2) transgender secular experience, and (3) cisnormativity embedded within many contemporary religions.
Recently, scholars and activists have turned their attention toward improving the measurement of sex and gender in survey research. The focus of this effort has been on including answer options beyond “male” and “female” to questions about the respondent’s gender. This is an important step toward both reflecting the diversity of gendered lives and better aligning survey measurement practice with contemporary gender theory. However, our systematic examination of questionnaires, manuals, and other technical materials from four of the largest and longest-running surveys in the United States indicates that there are a number of other issues with how gender is conceptualized and measured in social surveys that also deserve attention, including essentialist practices that treat sex and gender as synonymous, easily determined by others, obvious, and unchanging over the life course. We find that these understandings extend well beyond direct questions about the respondent’s gender, permeating the surveys. A hyper-gendered world of “males” and “females,” “brothers” and “sisters,” and “husbands” and “wives” shapes what we can see in survey data. If not altered, surveys will continue to reproduce statistical representations that erase important dimensions of variation and likely limit understanding of the processes that perpetuate social inequality.
Counting and understanding lesbian and gay families have gained attention over the last decade in popular culture, policy, and academic research. Contentious debates on family values and same‐sex marriage, increasing rates of social tolerance for homosexuality, and a greater general academic attention on issues of sexual orientation have partially spurred this attention in demographic analysis of lesbian and gay families. It is becoming increasingly clear that sexual orientation and gender identity have an effect on demographic processes and life outcomes. Although not perfect, practically speaking, drawing on nationally representative survey data has allowed us to illuminate the presence of same‐sex families and their children. These findings have an iterative relationship with social change, public policy, and increasing tolerance for diversity. This article reviews the recent demographic contributions related to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) families. Due to research concentrations, the content of this article not only mostly addresses what is known about gay and lesbian families but also offers future directions to fill research voids including a call for greater attention to and visibility for families with bisexual and transgender members.
This article explores "determining gender," the umbrella term for social practices of placing others in gender categories. We draw on three case studies showcasing moments of conflict over who counts as a man and who counts as a woman: public debates over the expansion of transgender employment rights, policies determining eligibility of transgender people for competitive sports, and proposals to remove the genital surgery requirement for a change of sex marker on birth certificates. We show that criteria for determining gender differ across social spaces. Gender-integrated spaces are more likely to use identity-based criteria, while gender-segregated spaces, like the sexual spaces we have previously examined (Schilt and Westbrook 2009), are more likely to use biology-based criteria. In addition, because of beliefs that women are inherently vulnerable and men are dangerous, "men's" and "women's" spaces are not policed equally-making access to women's spaces central to debates over transgender rights.
This article examines new patterns of workplace inequality that emerge as transgender people are incorporated into the global labor market. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 41 transgender call center employees in the Philippines, I develop the concept “purple-collar labor” to describe how transgender workers—specifically trans women—are clustered, dispersed, and segregated in the workplace and how their patterned locations in social organizational structures serve a particular value-producing function. These patterned inclusions, I argue, come with explicit and implicit interactional expectations about how “trans” should be put to work in the expansion and accumulation of global capital. In this way, the study examines the production and extraction of queer value and the folding of trans women’s gendered performances into commercial exchange. Data show how the affective labor of transgender employees is used to help foster productivity, ease workplace tensions, and boost employee morale. This study of transgender employment experiences opens new lines of inquiry for understanding gender inequalities at work, and it builds on scholarship that combines political economy approaches with transgender studies.
Social recognition and affirmation of gay and lesbian identities and rights have increased alongside claims advancing the biological etiology of sexual orientation. Despite broader social acknowledgment of gender and sexual diversity, transgender individuals and their significant others remain relatively unrecognized in both mainstream and academic discourse and are often subsumed under the limited theoretical frame of social “passing” when they do appear. Building a sociological critique against overly-simplified biological frameworks for understanding complex gender and sexual identities, the author analyzes in-depth interviews with non-transgender women partners of transgender men. The personal identifications and experiences of this group of “queer” social actors are proposed as socio-politically distinguishable from those of other more commonly-recognized sexual minority groups. Data reveal the interactive social processes that often determine “rightful” social inclusion and exclusion across gender and sexual identity categories as well as their capacities to generate and limit possibilities for social movements and political solidarity.
A United States sample of 166 transgender adults including 50 male-to-females (MTFs), 52 female-to-males (FTMs), and 64 genderqueers (neither completely female nor completely male), were surveyed about identity development, levels of disclosure of transgender status, and relationship to community. There was no difference among transgender groups in age of first experiencing oneself differently from assigned birth sex. MTFs first identified as other than their assigned sex earlier than FTMs. However, they did not present themselves to others in a gender-congruent way until much later than FTMs. MTFs were less likely to disclose their gender identity to their parents than were FTMs. Disclosure of assigned birth sex was more common among younger participants. There was no difference in the extent to which individuals felt connected to the transgender community. Genderqueers felt more connected to the lesbian, gay, and bisexual community than did MTFs or FTMs. Implications for health care professionals and transgender communities are discussed.
Historically developed along gender lines and arguably the most sex segregated of institutions, U.S. prisons are organized around the assumption of a gender binary. In this context, the existence and increasing visibility of transgender prisoners raise questions about how gender is accomplished by transgender prisoners in prisons for men. This analysis draws on official data and original interview data from 315 transgender inmates in 27 California prisons for men to focus analytic attention on the pursuit of "the real deal"-a concept we develop to reference a dynamic related to how gender is accomplished by transgender inmates. Specifically, among transgender inmates in prisons for men, there is competition for the attention and affection of "real men" in prisons: the demonstrable and well-articulated desire to secure standing as "the best girl" in sex segregated institutional environments. Our empirical examination sheds light on the gender order that underpins prison life, the lived experience of gender and sexuality for transgender inmates in prisons for men, and how that experience reveals new aspects of the workings of gender accountability.
Religion may enhance successful aging by reducing stress, improving well-being, and augmenting social engagement. However, there is a paucity of research specific to religious affiliation in the elusive transgender-identified population. This exploratory study describes the demographic profile and religious affiliation of 289 transgender adults age 51 and older. Results indicate that the majority of transgender older adults (73.4%) are aging successfully, even though many are disabled or chronically ill. Transgender older adults affiliate with a wide range of religious and spiritual practices with a greater participation in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender-affirming religions than the normative sex and gender population.
Prior research has reported that many Americans hold prejudicial attitudes toward sexual and gender minorities. Most of this research analyzed attitudes toward target categories in isolation and not in relation to attitudes toward heterosexuals. In addition, most previous research has not examined attitudes of members of sexual and gender minority categories toward other categories. While some research has examined the influence of religiosity on attitudes toward sexual and gender minorities, none of these studies has examined religiosity while also examining the influence of spirituality. In this article we drew on insights from queer theory to examine attitudes toward heterosexual, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals, as well as individuals who practice polygamy, among college students. Three samples gathered over a four-year period (2009, 2011, 2013) at a private, nonsectarian, midsized urban university in the Southeastern United States were used. We found that heterosexuals had the most positive rating, followed in order of rating by gay/lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals, and then those who practice polygamy. Regression analyses revealed gender and race were significant predictors of attitudes toward various sexual and gender categories. Holding a literalistic view of the Bible and self-identifying as more religious were related to more negative views toward sexual minorities, while self-identifying as more spiritual was related to more positive views.
Queer spaces are significant for understanding transgender inclusion as "queer spaces were places where individuals were expected to be attentive to or aware of alternative possibilities for being, including non-normative formulations of bodies, genders, desires and practices" ( Nash, 2011 , p. 203). Indeed, in this interview study of members of a queer leather group called the Club, members described a flexible "sexual landscape" that easily includes transgender members. However, these same queer spaces have been criticized for the way they regulate queer bodies and organize queer subjectivities. In this study, queer members of the Club also contrasted playful queer flexibility with serious transgender bodies. This article argues that, although there is a reiterative relation between transgender inclusion and queer spaces, the idealization of flexibility within queer spaces can also serve to marginalize and regulate transgender bodies.
Emerging research suggests that existing culture, including religious culture, serves to constrain and enable the rhetoric and claims of social actors in situations of conflict and change. Given that religious institutions continue to have significant authority in framing moral debates in the United States, we hypothesize that groups connected to each other through a religious tradition will share similar orientations towards the moral order, shaping the kinds of rhetoric they use and the kinds of claims they can make. To test this, we compare the official rhetoric of the 25 largest religious denominations on gay and lesbian issues, as well as their orientation towards the moral order more broadly, with the rhetoric of each denomination’s respective movement for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender inclusion, affirmation, or rights. We use Kniss’ heuristic map of the moral order to analyze and theorize about the patterns that emerge from these comparisons. Ultimately, we find that the existing rhetoric of the parent denomination on gay and lesbian issues, along with the broader moral stances they take, do appear to shape the rhetoric and ideologies of associated pro-LGBT organizations. This provides support for the notion that existing culture, belief, and rhetoric shape the trajectories of conflict and change.
The aim of this article is to explore the development of theories on trans- sexualism with a view to advancing a typology of theories of transsexualism.This typology exposes a general shift from concerns with 'authenticity' (the transsexual as a 'real' woman or man) to issues of 'performativity' (the transsexual as hyper- bolic enactment of gender). I will argue it is through a displacement of psychology with sociology as the major lens through which transsexualism is theorized that such a shift from authenticity to performativity is effected.The final typology con- siders the notion of transgression (rendering the modern two-gender system obsolete). The article argues that whilst transgression may be possible, it is not guaranteed by all forms of transsexualism.
There are an increasing number of university students who express a fluid gender embodiment and identity, resisting binary gender categories as well as binary transgender categories. The use of gender-neutral, as well as third-person plural pronouns, disrupts linguistic gender hegemony and creates particular gendered meanings. With the increasing number of trans* people who queer the gender binary, how does language affirm or deny their personhood? This research note uses data from an online survey (N = 557) to examine teachers' recognition of trans* individuals' pronouns. Results demonstrate that trans* students who identify as genderqueer tend to use gender-neutral and third-person pronouns. However, educators are less affirming when it comes to gender-neutral pronoun recognition. Educators must resist taken-for-granted gender attribution processes and explicitly ask all students to state their pronouns. Accurate pronoun recognition supports trans* students' identity development and honors their personhood.
To alleviate uncertainty in the specialized field of transgender medicine, mental and physical healthcare providers have introduced the rhetoric of evidence-based medicine (EBM) in clinical guidelines to help inform medical decision making. However there are no diagnostic tests to assess the effectiveness of transgender medical interventions and no scientific evidence to support the guidelines. Using in-depth interviews with a purposive sample of 23 healthcare providers, I found that providers invoked two strategies for negotiating the guidelines. Some used the rhetoric of EBM and closely followed clinical guidelines to contain uncertainty. Others flexibly interpreted the guidelines to embrace uncertainty. These findings raise questions about the effectiveness of EBM and guidelines in medical decision making. While trans medicine involves an identity and not a biomedical illness, providers use the same strategies to respond to uncertainty as they may in other medical arenas.
Both scholarly and everyday understandings of transgender people tend to assume that they can only live well in urban places, yet there is little research on the transgender people actually living in rural communities. This article uses an intersectional analysis of 45 interviews conducted between 2010 and 2013 with transgender men living in the Southeast and Midwest United States to understand how some rural transgender people may not necessarily and automatically fare worse than those in cities. Indeed, these data demonstrate that a more productive question might be, which transgender people integrate into rural communities? The reported experiences of trans men suggest that the claims to sameness that are crucial to inclusion in rural communities are articulated centrally through whiteness and enacting appropriate rural working-class heterosexual masculinities. The claim to sameness allows for a measure of acceptance in rural communities under economic and demographic strain in the twenty-first century.
In this article, I revisit Harold Garfinkel's classic ethnomethodological account of Agnes, a transgender woman he met in the 1950s. I situate this case in its larger historical context, within the arc of a contemporary transgender studies, and incorporate recent material from bio-neuro-cultural studies of gender and sexuality. Within this framework I ask: what can ethnomethodology learn from transgender studies and what can it contribute.
Not just turnout, but turnaround matters
In the last several U.S. presidential elections, the campaign mantra has focused on making sure that voters already aligned with one's candidate do get out to vote. There is a long history of unsuccessful efforts to change people's attitudes. Nevertheless, Broockman and Kalla conducted a field experiment showing that Miami voters shifted their attitudes toward transgender individuals and maintained those changed positions for 3 months (see the Perspective by Paluck).
Science , this issue p. 220 ; see also p. 147
It is only recently that transgenderism has been accepted as a disorder for which treatment is available. In the 1990s, a political movement of transgender activism coalesced to campaign for transgender rights. Considerable social, political and legal changes are occurring in response and there is increasing acceptance by governments and many other organisations and actors of the legitimacy of these rights. This provocative and controversial book explores the consequences of these changes and offers a feminist perspective on the ideology and practice of transgenderism, which the author sees as harmful. It explores the effects of transgenderism on the lesbian and gay community, the partners of people who transgender, children who are identified as transgender and the people who transgender themselves, and argues that these are negative. In doing so the book contends that the phenomenon is based upon sex stereotyping, referred to as 'gender'-a conservative ideology that forms the foundation for women's subordination. Gender Hurts argues for the abolition of ‘gender’, which would remove the rationale for transgenderism. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of political science, feminism and feminist theory and gender studies.
This conversation explores emerging debates concerning teaching to and about marginalized populations often left out of “representative” data sets. Based on our experiences studying, teaching, and belonging to some of these unrepresented populations, we outline some strategies sociologists may use to transform the limitations of data sets traditionally labeled as representative into tools for delivering core sociological concepts. In so doing, we argue that sociologists may respond to increasing critiques of “representative” data by using these critiques to facilitate critical thinking skills and methodological awareness among students. In closing, we encourage sociologists to consider the challenges and opportunities presented by increasing awareness of unrepresented populations within our classrooms and the broader social world.
Feminists have made important contributions to sociology, but we have yet to transform the basic conceptual frameworks of the field. A comparison of sociology with anthropology, history, and literature–disciplines which have been more deeply transformed–suggests factors that may facilitate or inhibit feminist paradigm shifts. The traditional subject matter of sociology fell into a co-optable middle ground, neither as thoroughly male centered as in history or literature, nor as deeply gendered as in anthropology. In addition, feminist perspectives have been contained in sociology by functionalist conceptualizations of gender, by the inclusion of gender as a variable rather than as a theoretical category, and by being ghettoized, especially in Marxist sociology. Feminist rethinking is also affected by underlying epistemologies (proceeding more rapidly in fields based on interpretive rather than positivist understanding), and by the status and nature of theory within a discipline.
Although medical providers rely on similar tools to “treat” intersex and trans individuals, their enactment of medicalization practices varies. To deconstruct these complexities, we employ a comparative analysis of providers who specialize in intersex and trans medicine. While both sets of providers tend to hold essentialist ideologies about sex, gender, and sexuality, we argue they medicalize intersex and trans embodiments in different ways. Providers for intersex people are inclined to approach intersex as an emergency that necessitates medical attention, whereas providers for trans people attempt to slow down their patients’ urgent requests for transitioning services. Building on conceptualizations of “giving gender,” we contend both sets of providers “give gender” by “giving sex.” In both cases too, providers shift their own responsibility for their medicalization practices onto others: parents in the case of intersex, or adult recipients of care in the case of trans. According to the accounts of most providers, successful medical interventions are achieved when a person adheres to heteronormative gender practices.
Research suggests that transgender people face high levels of discrimination in society, which may contribute to their disproportionate risk for poor health. However, little is known about whether gender nonconformity, as a visible marker of one's stigmatized status as a transgender individual, heightens trans people's experiences with discrimination and, in turn, their health. Using data from the largest survey of transgender adults in the United States, the National Transgender Discrimination Survey (N = 4,115), we examine the associations among gender nonconformity, transphobic discrimination , and health-harming behaviors (i.e., attempted suicide, drug/alcohol abuse, and smoking). The results suggest that gender nonconforming trans people face more discrimination and, in turn, are more likely to engage in health-harming behaviors than trans people who are gender conforming. Our findings highlight the important role of gender nonconformity in the social experiences and well-being of transgender people.
This article draws on the work of Michel Foucault to critique epidemiological methods in general and transgender HIV prevention research in particular. Funding for transgender HIV prevention research and programs is often directly connected to widely accepted, yet often problematic, practices of data collection and analysis. The authors believe that attending to the needs of those who do not conform to a binary gender system requires analyzing the ways in which epidemiology research produces and reifies the gender system itself. In order to understand the relation between a trans “identity” and a trans “population,” the article employs as analytics Foucault's concepts of normalizing power and biopower. It reviews the history and techniques of epidemiology and then briefly the ways in which normalizing power produces specific identity categories such as gender and gender identity as inherent to an individual, followed by an examination of how those socially produced identities operate at the level of population regulation. Finally, it explores some resistant practices that both epidemiologists themselves and the targets of their research might engage in order to at least mitigate some of these difficulties.
This article draws on in-depth interviews with nine white, middle-class, male-to-female transsexuals to examine how they produce and experience bodily transformation. Interviewees’ bodywork entailed retraining, redecorating, and reshaping the physical body, which shaped their feelings, role-taking, and self-monitoring. These analyses make three contributions: They offer support for a perspective that embodies gender, further transsexual scholarship, and contribute to feminist debate over the sex/gender distinction. The authors conclude by exploring how viewing gender as embodied could influence medical discourse on transsexualism and have personal and political consequences for transsexuals.
In 2000, the US Census Bureau acknowledged multiracial Americans on the decennial
census in an attempt to better capture racial heterogeneity and to more closely align what is publicly
collected on forms with people’s personal understandings of their racial identity. In this article, we
start a discussion of how the census—a major source of political identity recognition and legitimation—
could be more inclusive of gender variance. We ask: (1) Is there support for a transgender
category on the US census? (2) Who might select a transgender option if it were provided? To answer
these questions, we conducted questionnaire research at three transgender and genderqueer conferences
and found strong support for the inclusion of a transgender category. Conversely, we found
that many people did not currently check “transgender” on forms when given the opportunity. As we
show, the decision to check “transgender” varies by what we term gender identity validation. In other
words, people who identified as male or female and who felt others viewed them as unequivocally
male or female, respectively, were less likely to check “transgender” than people who identified as
transgender or who experienced a discrepancy between their self-perceived and other–perceived
gender identity. These differences suggest that—similar to the push for adding a multiracial category
to the census—the expansion of sex/gender categories is most likely to come from individuals
who experience themselves as constrained by the existing possibilities and/or who are stigmatized by
others’ conceptions of the appropriate alignment of bodies and genders.
In this introduction to the special issue of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly on the theme
“making transgender count,” the authors delineate the senses in which trans people can count. On
one hand, one makes trans count (in the sense of having its importance recognized) by counting it
(making it visible through quantification). On the other hand, one makes (i.e., compels) trans count
by forcing atypical configurations of identity into categories into which they do not quite fit—the
proverbial square peg in a round hole. In this way, the imperative to be counted becomes another kind
of normativizing violence that trans subjects can encounter and hence another problematic to be
critically interrogated by the field of transgender studies. The tensions among what to count, whom
to count, how to count, why to count, or whether to count or be counted at all are explored in this
issue’s articles. What makes the notion of trans* such a fecund point of departure for work in
transgender studies is that the definitional lines of the concept are moving targets. That very
instability frustrates the project of fixing embodied identities in time and space—a requisite
operation for the potentially life-enhancing project of counting trans populations and better
addressing their needs as well as for the necropolitical project of selecting certain members of the
population for categorical exclusion as dysgenic. The essays in this issue do not resolve the tension
between efforts to refine techniques of governmental reason and strategies of resistance, between
attempts to sedentarize trans identities and movements that refuse such settling, or between
universalizing imperatives to classify and local demands to reject incorporation into a global
schematics of gender difference organized by male/female, man/woman, cis-/trans-, trans-/homo-,
or white/color dichotomies. Some attempt to do both, while all ultimately fall on one side or the
other of various problematics. Our goal in curating this issue has been less to gather a collection of
articles that definitively settle these vexed questions than to stage a conversation in which the
stakes of the game are made visible.
In this autoethnography, I elaborate an analysis of interpersonal aspects of transgender life by narrating my everyday interactions living in a gender-ambiguous body as I begin a sexed transition from female to more masculine. I analyze my affective experiences in moments when I am in geographic and gendered transit, encountering social rejection, and connection. Analyzing my fundamentally relational transgender journey in light of the monster’s life in Shelley’s Frankenstein, I show how indignities I encounter in everyday life feel and how my transgender positionalities are complex. Following Susan Stryker, I proclaim “monstrosity” a tool of resistance and reconnection that can help us build connections across difference—that people of all genders might see ourselves in each other, and that, together, we might work against gender injustice and social distance, and toward a deeper kind of intimacy and freedom for us all.
The term intersectionality references the critical insight that race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, nation, ability, and age operate not as unitary, mutually exclusive entities, but rather as reciprocally constructing phenomena. Despite this general consensus, definitions ofwhat counts as intersectionality are far from clear. In this article, I analyze intersectionality as a knowledge project whose raison d'etre lies in its attentiveness to power relations and social inequalities. I examine three interdependent sets of concerns: (a) intersectionality as a field of study that is situated within the power relations that it studies; (b) intersectionality as an analytical strategy that provides new angles of vision on social phenomena; and (c) intersectionality as critical praxis that informs social justice projects.
Until recently, raising a young child as transgender was culturally unintelligible. Most scholarship on transgender identity refers to adults’ experiences and perspectives. Now, the increasing visibility of gender-variant children, as they are identified by the parents who raise them, presents new opportunities to examine how individuals confront the gender binary and imagine more gender-inclusive possibilities. Drawing on Foucault’s notion of “truth regime” to conceptualize the regulatory forces of the gender binary in everyday life, this work examines the strategies of 24 such parents, who represent 16 cases of childhood gender variance. Specifically, I analyze three practices—“gender hedging,” “gender literacy,” and “playing along”—through which these parents develop a critical consciousness about gender binary ideology and work to accommodate their children’s nonconformity in diverse discursive interactions. Taken together, their newfound strategies and perspectives subvert traditional conceptions of “gender-neutral” or “feminist” parenting, and reveal new modes of resistance to the normative transmission and regulation of gender practices.
Sexuality research has a long history of controversy in the USA. This article examines sexuality research as a form of dirty work, an occupation that is simultaneously socially necessary and stigmatized. Using survey data of contemporary sociologists engaged in sexuality research, historical data on 20th century sexologists, and content analysis of top-tier sociology journals, I focus on the university system and its related functions of publishing, funding, and ethical review boards. I argue that sexuality research is constructed as dirty work by systematic practices of the university system, and further suggest that these practices impose stigma effects that are not simply individual but represent persistent patterns of institutional inequality. Further, I show how these institutional practices are shaped by cultural schemas regarding sexuality, enacted through cognitive and affective bias of institutional actors. The construction of sexuality research as dirty work affects not only researchers themselves but shapes the broad production of sexual knowledge.
This paper outlines the main tenets of poststructuralism and considers how they are applied by practitioners of queer theory. Drawing on both Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida, queer theory explores the ways in which homosexual subjectivity is at once produced and excluded within culture, both inside and outside its borders. This approach is contrasted with more sociological studies of sexuality (labeling theory, social constructionism). Whereas queer theory investigates the relations between heterosexuality and homosexuality, sociologists tend to examine homosexual identities and communities, paradoxically ignoring the social construction of heterosexuality. Poststructuralism can inform a sociological approach to sexuality by emphasizing the generative character of all sexual identities. A sociological study of sexuality which is informed by poststructuralism would examine the exclusions implicit in a heterosexual/homosexual opposition. In this process, bisexual and transgender identities can become viable cultural possibilities, and a broad-based political coalition established. Whereas mainstream sociology focuses on the ways in which homosexuals are outside social norms, and whereas queer theory exploits the ways in which this outside is already inside, this perspective suggests that a critical sexual politics seeks to move beyond an inside/outside model.
The purpose of this article is to advance a new understanding of gender as a routine accomplishment embedded in everyday interaction. To do so entails a critical assessment of existing perspectives on sex and gender and the introduction of important distinctions among sex, sex category, and gender. We argue that recognition of the analytical independence of these concepts is essential for understanding the interactional work involved in being a gendered person in society. The thrust of our remarks is toward theoretical reconceptualization, but we consider fruitful directions for empirical research that are indicated by our formulation.
This article examines the construction of masculinities in social interaction through in-depth interviews with trans men living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Interviewees’ concerns for safety, particularly the threat of violence from other men, shaped their masculine practices, which led some men to practice defensive masculinities and, for others, constrained their ability to practice transformative masculinities. Respondents’ concerns for safety, and their masculine practices, changed according to variation in transition, physical location, audience, and their physical stature. These findings have implications for the relationship between men's fear of violent victimization and accountability to situated gender expectations in interaction and the persistence of gender inequality. Theoretically, this article engages a complex understanding of accountability and multiple masculinities to argue that the perceived threat of violence shapes men's practices in interaction. The fear of violence encourages conformity and inhibits men's transformative practices.
Concepts of time are ubiquitous in studies of aging. This article integrates an existential perspective on time with a notion of queer time based on the experiences of older transgender persons who contemplate or pursue a gender transition in later life. Interviews were conducted with male-to-female identified persons aged 50 years or older (N = 22), along with participant observation at three national transgender conferences (N = 170 hr). Interpretive analyses suggest that an awareness of "time left to live" and a feeling of "time served" play a significant role in later life development and help expand gerontological perspectives on time and queer aging.
The experiences of transgender persons have gained increased attention in academic discourse; however, few studies address how significant others, family members, friends, and allies (SOFFAs) process the transition of a loved one. This study seeks to fill this gap with research based on 133 observational hours and fifty interviews. Focusing on three relational identity themes—sexual orientation, social role, and religious identity—the findings suggest that SOFFAs use various intentional and unintentional strategies to negotiate relational identities. Furthermore, reflected appraisals and social stigma mediate the ability of SOFFAS to “undo” and “redo” gender when negotiating their relational identities.
Transsexual women provide rich data for feminist theory but have had a conflict-ridden relationship with feminism since the 1970s. Deconstructionist theory and transgender politics mean greater acceptance but have not escaped the problem of identity. Feminist social science offers vital resources for understanding transition as a gender project, starting with contradictory embodiment. The intransigence, not the fluidity, of gender is central. Transsexual women’s lives unfold through gendered structures of family, economy, and state, in which new embodied relationships must be built in an ontoformative process. Social realities of poverty, vulnerability, and gender violence point to a politics of social justice as the basis for a new relationship between transsexual women and feminism, both within the metropole and internationally.
Abstract In this article, Schilt & Windsor consider how trans men's decisions about physical body modifications impact their sense of themselves as gendered and sexual actors. Based on interviews with 74 trans men, the authors explore how their embodiment, gender identity, erotic ideation, lifetime of sexual practices and domain of potential partners-what the authors term "sexual habitus"-can be affirmed, transformed, or challenged as their embodiment changes. These changes underscore the dynamic relationship between gender and sexuality, and illustrate how bodies matter in sexual trajectories across the life course.
This article examines the experiences of 25 persons who were assigned female status at birth but do not wish to live as women and take on a masculine or queer gender identity. We employ the concept of “gendered embodiment” and introduce the concept of “sexualized embodiment” to highlight what is involved in this process. We ask how experiencing a masculine gender identity is reflexively tied to a trans man's sexuality and the ways in which these two embodiments are tightly, moderately, or loosely coupled. For example, a tight coupling appeared when trans men began to use testosterone and obtained surgery such as breast removal; a moderate coupling was found where gender validation was sought from a sexual partner (with this being related to sexual preference identities as well as the interpretation of vaginal penetration); the loosest coupling of the gender-sexuality embodiments was linked to the liberality of the locale and whether “queer” identities could be easily adopted. In sum, our research demonstrates the link between gender and sexuality as a result of the body work trans men do and the historical and geographical situations in which they find themselves.
Parents of gender variant children routinely negotiate their child's gender with social institutions, from schools to churches to neighborhood associations. These interactions require that parent develop narratives about why their particular child violates gender norms. In this paper, I argue that over the last century, there has been a proliferation within biomedicine, psychiatry and popular culture of the ways in which we can “know” gender; and as a result, ever more emotional work is required to account for the “self” that inhabits the gendered body. This analysis of the work parents of gender variant children do to explain their children to others demonstrates that these identities require a distinctly modern form of accounting. With that call to articulate the self comes an attendant proliferation of the ways in which gender can be regulated; yet, despite much sociological evidence that medicine, psychology and spirituality are often mechanisms for social control, they also provide ready tools for exploring, facilitating and embracing the multiplicity and plasticity of contemporary gender identities.
This article is an exploration of American lesbian and gay activists' attitudes towards transgender inclusion in the LGBT movement. Lesbian and gay activists articulated different attitudes towards transgender inclusion that were inflected by their different subcultural histories and ability to make connections personally with transgender issues. Through an analysis of 32 semi-structured interviews with Midwestern lesbian and gay activists, this article examines the process by which lesbian and gay activists become transgender allies through making parallels to their own oppression or visible transgender discrimination. This research contributes to the existing literature on both collective identities and ally identities by contextualizing the formation of ally identities within the history of the LGBT movement.