Overcoming Ungrievability: Transgender Expectations for Identity after Death

Abstract

Butler (Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. London, UK: Versa; 2004) observed cultural shifts immediately after 9/11 and suggested that, with regard to grievable and ungrievable lives, societal power structures “produce and maintain certain exclusionary conceptions of who is normatively human” (p. xiv–xv). The current study brings new understanding to the concept of grievability by exploring the symbolically violent de‐transitioning of trans people after their deaths. The aim of this exploratory study was to examine the thoughts and attitudes of older trans people (40 y. o. plus) with regard to the phenomenon of nonconsensual de‐transitioning after death and the expectations they have regarding the expression of their own identity after death. The wishes of the participants were grouped into four outcome categories: hoping to be memorialized only as their lived identity (25%); only as their identity‐assigned‐at‐birth (6%); as both identities combined (44%); and those who claimed that they did not care how their identity was memorialized (25%). Our findings serve to emphasize the importance of open and honest end‐of‐life communication as well as to underscore the diverse nature of the transgender population and the complexity of the transgender identity.

End-of-Life Care for Transgender Older Adults

“…Illustrated by remarks from think tank participants, the precarity of day-to-day living, including financial and housing insecurities and transphobic violence, often precludes EOL planning for transgender people ( Pang et al, 2019 ). Yet think tank participants requested to “have people who are part of this meeting to share information with [them] about planning for end of life.” Indeed, advance care planning (ACP) is an important need in the transgender community, especially for preservation of gender identity at EOL and in the post mortem period ( Henry et al, 2020 ; Whitestone et al, 2020 ). Responding to the desire of think tank participants to engage in EOL planning and to make it available to their communities would help to address this gap.…”

Transgender and Nonbinary Deaths Investigated by the State Medical Examiner in the Portland, Oregon, Metro Area and Their Concordance With Vital Records, 2011-2021

“…The low agreement between these 2 systems is concerning. In the rare instance where a person's gender identity is collected by the ME, it is essentially not represented on the final death record, essentially nonconsensually detransitioning the individual in death and contributing to the erasure of the transgender population in public health mortality surveillance 23…”

“…In the rare instance where a person's gender identity is collected by the ME, it is essentially not represented on the final death record, essentially nonconsensually detransitioning the individual in death and contributing to the erasure of the transgender population in public health mortality surveillance. 23 This analysis has a few limitations that should be noted. Oregon is a mostly centralized state ME's system and these finding may not apply to other jurisdictions that have coroner's offices, decentralized ME's offices, or any combination thereof.…”

“…However, the next of kin may not be aware of or disagree with the decedent's preferred gender or sex. This phenomenon can lead to what has been termed nonconsensual de-transitioning—a type of gender bias after death 23…”

Queering the French Académie

“…Linguistic self-determination is not a magical solution to transphobia and the many types of discrimination experienced by the trans and non-binary communities in education, employment, health, housing, identification documents or public accommodations, among others (for an in-depth analysis of the many layers of discriminations experienced by trans individuals, see Grant et al 2011). Many in the most conservative regions of the USA and the English-speaking Global North still do not accept these naming and identification practices as legitimate (see, for instance, the non-consensual de-transitioning of trans people in obituaries and other memorialization processes as described by Whitestone et al 2020 or the constant misgendering of murdered trans and non-binary individuals in news reports). It has nonetheless led to the implementation of many new policies such as the ability to choose names and pronouns on the rosters of many universities across the U.S. and the legal recognition of the non-binary gender marker 'X' on driver's licenses by 19 states and the District of Columbia (as of January 2021).…”