On the Limits of “Trans Enough”: Authenticating Trans Identity Narratives

Abstract

Existing (binary) understandings of gender affirm some types of gendered accounts as “authentic,” while others are discredited or obscured. As a consequence, many transgender people express anxiety about whether their experience of gender can be distilled into a narrative that is intelligible to others and appears consistent over time. In this article, I assess the identity narratives produced by two cohorts of trans respondents—binary-identified respondents, and non-binary respondents—as a means of understanding the narrative strategies that respondents employ to establish themselves as “authentically” trans. To affirm themselves as trans, I find that non-binary participants tended to elide or to minimize potential inconsistencies in their stories, producing narratives that reflect dominant cultural accounts of trans experience—accounts that center an early-childhood affiliation with the “opposite” sex, endorsing and affirming binary gender distinctions. In turn, binary-identified participants often produced accounts that complicated or questioned these tropes. While non-binary individuals have been hailed as the primary arbiters of gender’s undoing, the social and institutional constraints that inform how we account for gender—which shape both our production of those accounts and others’ interpretations of them—suggest that binary-identified respondents may be better positioned to work towards this “undoing” than their non-binary counterparts.

Transgender experiences and transphobia in higher education

“…Many nonbinary and genderqueer individuals do not fit the prevailing “born in the wrong body” model of trans‐ness, causing nonbinary students to feel “misunderstood by faculty, staff, and peers” (Goldberg, , p.21). In order to “claim public identities,” Garrison () argues that nonbinary people must present themselves as closely to the more dominant “wrong body narrative” as possible, even when “these accounts fail to capture the nuance of their experience” (p. 615). To be “taken seriously” as a binary or nonbinary trans person, people often feel pressured to present themselves in a particular way, and to especially avoid clothing associated with their assigned gender (Goldberg & Kuvalanka, ).…”

Foreclosing Fluidity at the Intersection of Gender and Sexual Normativities

“…Respondents were well versed in such attempts to foreclose fluidity. A genderqueer, queer respondent wrote, “Cisgender people's assumptions cause disruptions in my life on a daily basis.” A nonbinary queer respondent said, “Cis people are constantly asking permission to disrespect me.” Like Garrison's () participants, these respondents reveal an awareness that fluidity is unexpected and unwelcome among cisgender people. In fact, as shuster (2017) notes in their work on cisgender‐transgender interactions, many noncisgender people feel the need to avoid cisgender others.…”

“…As Abelson (2016) notes, it could also be because "sameness" to societal norms is often an important strategy for transgender people navigating much of social life in the United States at present (see also . In any case, our data suggest this is either an emerging issue yet to reach the potency of other normativities, or-as it was in the 1990s (Stryker 2008) and in BLGQ 4 communities past and present (Warner 1999)-a contested division future study may find to vary within and between populations (see also Garrison 2018).…”

“…A nonbinary queer respondent said, "Cis people are constantly asking permission to disrespect me." Like Garrison's (2018) participants, these respondents reveal an awareness that fluidity is unexpected and unwelcome among cisgender people. In fact, as shuster (2017) notes in their work on cisgender-transgender interactions, many noncisgender people feel the need to avoid cisgender others.…”

“…In such cases, our respondents note behavior patterns that have been termed transnormative in studies focused on, for example, interactions within and between transgender communities (shuster 2017), interactions in public as openly transgender people (Garrison 2018), interactions transgender people have in order to navigate medical structures (Johnson 2019), and connections between transgender manhood and masculine norms (Abelson 2016). However, each of these examples of transnormativity also reveals how such patterns foreclose the possibility of fluidity.…”