Beyond either/or: Reading trans* lesbian identities

Abstract

Previous research has explored the affiliation and distancing strategies employed in published memoirs of gender transition. In this article, we are particularly interested in elucidating the ways in which individuals construct identities and characterize their sexualities, and how sociohistorical constraints might influence what is expressed with respect to this in personal narratives of transition. Using the memoirs of Lili Elbe (Hoyer, 1933) and Joy Ladin (2013) as conceptual brackets, this article investigates the complex relationship between the development and articulation of trans* identities and lesbian sexualities within the context of published memoirs of gender transition.

A Man and a Perpetuum Mobile? Assigned Hermaphrodite Andreas Bruce's Memoirs

“…2 Autobiographical writings of people with lived experiences of transgressing sex and gender have been particularly important for trans* and intersex persons. 3 As Namaste puts it: 'Autobiography is the only discourse in which transsexuals are permitted to speak'. 4 From the early twentieth century onwards, several such autobiographies have been published, but this is not the case for periods before the twentieth century.…”