Situating “FLUIDITY”

Abstract

Drawing on Butler's theory of gender performativity, which conceptualizes the discursive production of the gendered subject and the corresponding “constitutive instabilities” of such reiterative practices, I provide an empirical sociological examination of how individuals negotiate potentially unintelligible identities in their daily lives and the extent to which these practices call into question the conceptual dichotomization of stability and fluidity. While transsexed bodies, histories, and identities may “exceed” the limits of intelligibility, trans individuals are engaged in the process of meaning making—creating coherence both for themselves and for others. The present theorizing of (trans)gender identification has not fully explored the interaction among social expectations, individuals' attempts to be credible, and the structural limitations on intelligible gender identifications. In addition, despite theoretical arguments resting on the compulsory, regulatory nature of gender regimes, gender fluidity is often situated as counter to such regulation. By exploring the negotiated identifications of transsexed respondents across different interactional spaces and the structural rules and norms which frame such presentation choices, this article theorizes the contextual regulation of (trans)gender diversity and the corresponding production of situated identification. Further, in examining this negotiation, the concept of fluidity is interrogated in order to complicate the analytic dualism of fluidity/stability and the corresponding dichotomous positioning of transsexed individuals as either blurring or reifying the boundaries of the gender binary.

Queerly situated? Exploring negotiations of trans queer subjectivities at work and within community spaces in the UK

“…Rather, Davis (2009, 99 -100) rightly suggests that 'gender identity is not static, but it is also not unbounded -neither for trans people nor for everyone else'. Recent work on trans identity formations by scholars such as Valentine (2007) and Davis (2009), which is guided by empirical research, also illustrates the importance of developing an intersectional analysis of transgender that keeps a critical eye on how the category of 'transgender' is cut through with variables of 'race', ethnicity, geographical location, sexuality and age -as well as distinct (trans) gendered positionings. 6 Building on intersectional theory developed by black feminist scholars and activists (see hooks 1984), feminist writers have employed the notion of intersectionality to examine the ways in which forms of inequality interrelate (Crenshaw 1989).…”

Situated Transgressiveness: Exploring One Transwoman's Lived Experiences across Three Situated Contexts

“…(Cornell, 2010, p. 32; see also Deutsch, 2007;Risman, 2009) Because of this assumed radical break with heteronormativity, one key argument in the queer literature is that transgender bodiesdespite being a small minorityhold significant transgressive and political potential and therefore can or should be used as a trope in the battle against the marginalization caused by gender binaries (Davis, 2008;Garber, 1992;Whittle, 2000). Theoretically, this disruption opens up an opportunity to undo or redo gender.…”

The Normativity of Recognition: Non-Binary Gender Markers in Australian Law and Policy

“…One sociological study of transgender people, for example, found that 92% of respondents typically presented themselves as a man or as a woman in public and hoped to appear as such, despite the fact that only 67% of respondents identified themselves in binary terms (as either a man, woman, male, or female) (E. C. Davis, 2009). Given the limitations on publicly available gender categories, trans people are engaged in creating coherence for both themselves and others in situations where it may not be possible to convey the complexities of the gendered self or where it may be dangerous to do so (E. C. Davis, 2009). As such, the x marker functions to erase much that is disruptive about gender non-conformity, being its multiplicity and incoherence, by imposing norms of essentialism and stability.…”