(Un)safe spaces, affective labour and perceived health among people with trans experiences living in Sweden

Abstract

Lack of safe space has been connected to ill health among people with trans experiences. This study analyses trans people's experiences of being in public, semi-public and community spaces using the analytical concept of safety/unsafety in relation to perceived health. The analytic framework draws on the concepts of cisgenderism, orientation, lines and comfort. The material analysed consisted of 18 individual interviews with people with trans experiences, which were analysed using constructivist thematic analysis. The analysis resulted in the identification of three themes: straightening devices creating limited living space, orienting oneself in (cis)gendered spaces and creating safer (?) community spaces for healing. Experiences of unsafety ranged from incidents and fear of different kinds of violence in public and semi-public spaces to the lack of a transpolitically informed agenda in, for example, feminist spaces. Safer spaces helped participants to feel a sense of belonging, to share their experiences and to heal. Experiences of unsafety and discomfort are important as they will help us to understand the health situations of people with trans experiences. It is important to facilitate the creation of safer spaces to improve the health of members of this group.

Travestis e Transexuais na Reportagem Especial do Fantástico: as Unidades Prisionais Masculinas não são o “Show da Vida”

“…Assim como no Brasil, a discriminação organizacional contra travestis e trans foi identificada em várias partes do mundo, como no Canadá (Waite, 2020), na Colômbia (Posso & La Furcia, 2016), na Espanha (Devís-Devís et al, 2017), nos Estados Unidos (Dispenza, Watson, Chung, & Brack, 2012;Lombardi, Wilchins, Esq, & Malouf, 2001), na Guatemala (Miller et al, 2019), na Itália (Botti & D'Ippoliti, 2017), no Reino Unido (Beauregard, Arevshatian, Booth, & Whittle, 2016), na Suíça (Linander, Goicolea, Alm, Hammarström, & Harryson, 2019), para citar alguns países.…”

‘The patriarchy can’t dance with us’

“…Identity-bases separatism has also been criticised based on universalism (Fox & Ore 2010). For example, women's separatism might reproduce ideas about a universal female experience of oppression that may exclude both trans women and non-binary people (Koyama 2006, Linander et al 2019 as well as silencing how the female experience is also characterised by other power relations, such as racism and heteronormativity.…”

Men Have Gender and Women Are People: A Structural Approach to Gender and Violence

“…Such violence generates a “climate of fear” among other individuals (Ellis et al, 2016). Fear of violence may inhibit individuals’ sense of safety in certain public and private spaces and constrain their choices (Linander et al, 2019).…”