Contemporary Religion and the Cisgendering of Reality

Abstract

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.

Bathrooms, Boundaries, and Emotional Burdens: Cisgendering Interactions Through the Interpretation of Transgender Experience

“…As scholars have recently pointed out (Schilt ), the foundations of West and Zimmerman's () argument, using the now‐infamous patient Agnes as a case study to demonstrate how gender is “done,” relies on a biological essentialist, cisnormative foundation. Through their work, Garfinkel and colleagues cisgendered reality and cisgendered interactions in the ways they interacted with Agnes (Schilt ; Sumerau, Cragun, and Mathers ). While such a foundation does not invalidate the importance of “doing gender” (West and Zimmerman ), it does leave much room to expand our examinations of the systems of power that inform how gender is accomplished and by what standards people determine certain genders to be “real.” Cisgendering interactions, as a “sensitizing concept” (Blumer ) used in combination with analyses of “cisgendering reality” (Sumerau, Cragun, and Mathers ), may aid researchers seeking to integrate transgender experience and existence into ongoing analyses of the interactional construction of gender.…”

“…Cissexism, or “the idea that trans people are inferior to and less authentic than cisgender (non‐trans) people,” (Nordmarken :130; see also Serano ) informs the ways many cisgender people understand gender, and serves as an axis for (re)producing interactional and institutional forms of inequality (Spade ). As scholars have noted, cissexist notions of gender support institutional logics that “cisgender reality” (Sumerau, Cragun, and Mathers ), or define cisgender people as the only legitimate gendered beings in existence. Consequently, transgender people are defined as deviant, impossible, and unworthy of respect from others.…”

“…In both cases, the answers respondents provided were contingent upon whether they interpreted Lisa as a man or as a woman. The actions respondents proposed reinforced binary and biological understandings of (cis)gender “authenticity.” They demonstrated that in the face of this interaction, they were not only doing gender (West and Zimmerman ), but also cisgendering reality (Sumerau, Cragun, and Mathers ) by predicating their responses on establishing a clear binary understanding of who Lisa “really” was before deciding how they might respond.…”

Straight Gods, White Devils: Exploring Paths to Non-Religion in the Lives of Black LGBTQ People

“…My analysis also calls for a more detailed consideration of transgender identities, in order to figure out how gendervariant and non-binary people create non-religious selves. That would build our broader understanding of how people with such identities interact with religion, a subject that is currently under-studied (Rodriguez and Follins 2012, Sumerau, Cragun and Mathers 2015. Another way that non-religious paths for black LGBTQ people vary from typical narratives is in terms of age.…”

“…By looking at experiences of black genderqueer and non-binary people in addition to cisgender people, I also deepen the analysis of race, gender, sexuality and religion and push back on the cisgendering of reality (Sumerau, Cragun and Mathers 2015).…”