Cisnormative and Transnormative Misgendering

Nordmarken, Sonny

doi:10.4324/9781315613703-9

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…The innate-essence identity model is the basis of the dominant, cisnormative gender frame (Ridgeway 2011) that most social actors employ when “doing” and attributing gender, in social interactions (West and Zimmerman 1987). Assuming that gender is equal to biological sex leads social actors to attend to others’ bodily appearance when determining gender, holding them accountable to gendered expectations and leading to misgendering and other discursive aggressions (Nordmarken 2022; shuster 2017; Westbrook and Schilt 2014). In contrast, gender-minority communities use alternative practices to “do gender” in interaction—verbally communicating gender pronouns and identity labels—mobilizing the expansive gender-identity discourse and honoring self-determined identities (Nordmarken 2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coming Into Identity: How Gender Minorities Experience Identity Formation

Nordmarken

2023

Gender & Society

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Previous studies have found that trans people claim to have consistent gender identities over their lifetimes. As a result, scholars know little about processes through which individuals come to identify differently from their gender assignment. In this article, I analyze how gender minorities in the United States come to identify with new labels, theorizing gender-identity formation as a social process. Despite pressure to present oneself as “trans enough” and despite many individuals’ claims to “always have been” the ways they are, most research participants’ stories illustrate a process of gender-identity change—what I term coming into identity. Coming into identity is the process whereby individuals come to understand themselves in new ways despite living in epistemological systems and constructed realities where such ways of understanding oneself are not widely acknowledged. I find that participants’ coming-into-identity experiences involved self-reflection in relation to (1) exposure to new gender conceptualizations and models, (2) gender experimentation, (3) difficult experiences, and/or (4) conversations with others. This research contributes to our understanding of gender-minority identity formation and the relationships among discourse, narrative, story, social interaction, identity, and agency. I argue that in accounting for coming into their identities, individuals exercise agency, mobilizing and building new narratives and discourses.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coming Into Identity: How Gender Minorities Experience Identity Formation

Nordmarken

2023

Gender & Society

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“…Research emphasizes how relentless this gender accountability is for nonbinary people. Even in transgender spaces, nonbinary people are held accountable to binary gender expectations (Nordmarken 2022).…”

Section: Gender Accountability and The Gender Binarymentioning

confidence: 99%

What Happens when Gender Accountability is Reduced? The Experiences of Nonbinary and Genderfluid People During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Stone,

Gallin-Parisi

2024

Gender & Society

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How does gender accountability vary? We theorize that reduced perceptions by others of one’s gender, or reduced external assessments of gender accountability, create more space for the cultivation of nonbinary subjectivities. We use the shelter-in-place period of the COVID-19 pandemic as a natural experiment during which major social institutions such as work and school changed and thus shifted gender accountability. Through interviews with a racially diverse sample of 22 U.S. adults who came out as nonbinary or genderfluid during this time period, we examine their experiences and understandings of this change in gender accountability. Participants described relief from relentless gender assessments as well as space for self-reflection and gender experimentation. Less stringent external assessments at work and school, especially the reduction of constant in-person evaluations of gender expression, produced new gender subjectivities that resisted binary understandings of gender. This study explores the nuance, variability, and situational character of gender accountability. We argue that in-person full-body gender assessments are a powerful component of gender accountability and that relief from gender accountability at work and school may be particularly liberating.

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Misgendering and the health and wellbeing of nonbinary people in Canada

Jacobsen,

Davis,

Burchell

et al. 2023

International Journal of Transgender Health

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Background: Misgendering–using the wrong name, pronoun, or gendered language to refer to someone–is known to have negative impacts on the mental health and well-being of trans individuals generally. However, little is known about the effects of misgendering on nonbinary people specifically. Aims: As such, our research asked: 1) Among nonbinary people, what factors are associated with frequency of misgendering?; and 2) Do nonbinary people who experience misgendering less often have better health outcomes? Methods and Results: We analyzed data from Trans PULSE Canada, a community-based survey of trans and nonbinary people living in Canada, using a subset ( n = 1091) who identified as nonbinary and completed questions on misgendering. Misgendering was a frequent and distressing experience for nonbinary participants, with 59% misgendered daily, 30% weekly or monthly, and only 11% yearly or less. Most (58%) reported being very or quite upset when misgendered. About one in eight (13%) corrected others most or all of the times they were misgendered. Daily misgendering was more common among nonbinary people who were younger than 25 years old (64%, p < .0001), visibly disabled (74%, p = .003), assigned female at birth (61%, p <.0001) or racialized as a person of color and assigned male at birth (65%, p < .0001) compared with their counterparts. In multivariable regression analyses, less frequent misgendering (weekly/monthly vs. daily) was associated with a lower OASIS anxiety score (β = −0.555, 95% CI = −1.062, −0.048). Discussion: Our research highlights the complexity of outness, passing, concealment, and affirmation for nonbinary people living at the intersections of marginalizations. Future research could build stronger causal analyses of the impacts of misgendering, how nonbinary people cope with misgendering, and policy and interventions to decrease misgendering.

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Cisnormative and Transnormative Misgendering

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

Coming Into Identity: How Gender Minorities Experience Identity Formation

Coming Into Identity: How Gender Minorities Experience Identity Formation

What Happens when Gender Accountability is Reduced? The Experiences of Nonbinary and Genderfluid People During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Misgendering and the health and wellbeing of nonbinary people in Canada

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