Trans*versing the DMZ: a non-binary autoethnographic exploration of gender and masculinity

Abstract

Using an abductive, critical-poststructuralist autoethnographic approach, I consider the ways in which masculine of centre, non-binary/genderqueer trans* identities transverse the poles of socializing binary gender systems, structures, and norms which inform higher education. In this paper, I assert that non-binary genderqueer identities are products of a particular sense-ing about gender that is reproduced and enforced in US higher education. Non-binary genderqueer identities defiantly take up space within a demilitarized zone that vacates the continuum of gender and instantiates binary genders. In particular, this autoethnography employs promiscuous and high-density theoretical analysis to determine the possibilities of resolving the breakdown presented by non-binary/genderqueer masculinities through a transmasculine critical epistemology.

Keywords:

• Autoethnography
• transgender
• masculinity
• higher education
• critical poststructuralism

Notes

1. The term masculine of centre was coined by B. Cole in 2008 as discussed in Cole’s essay (2016) as a ‘more encompassing and less racially and class-specific [term] than butch’ (pp. 98–99) perceived to be ‘white and older’ (p. 98). Cole (2016) further explains,

MoC also speaks to the cultural nuances of female masculinity, while still recognizing our commonalities – independent of who we partner with. The inclusion of the language ‘of centre’ sees beyond the traditional binary of male and female to female masculinity as a continuum. ‘Of centre’ is a way of acknowledging that the balance each of us determines around our own masculinity and femininity in the discovery of our gendered selves is never truly fixed. Masculine of centre recognizes the cultural breadth and depth of identity for lesbian/queer womyn who tilt toward the masculine side of the gender scale, and the term includes a wide range of identities such as butch, stud, aggressive/AG, tom, macha, boi, dom, etc. (p. 99).

Individuals assigned female at birth (AFAB) identifying as MoC may use any pronouns, including both binary and non-binary options.

2. I am greatly indebted to Thompson (2003) and her illustration of providing such direct and intentional signposting for readers.

3. The abductive approach is discussed further in the section ‘Autoethnography as an abductive method.’

4. As such, this is not knowledge for knowledge’s sake. I have heard such projects as this derisively called ‘me-search’ that is nothing more than navel-gazing, unfit to be called rigorous research and devoid of applicability in educational policy and practice. Such views fail to recognize the very real material effects of systematic oppression in educational and other cultural institutions. Considering means and strategies of becoming ‘possibility models,’ as Laverne Cox named (Bell, 2013), in such spaces is about enabling the life chances of ourselves as minoritized peoples in education. What such self-reflective research (e.g. autoethnography, scholarly personal narrative, and autobiography) offers are opportunities to realize ‘trickle up educational practices’ (Nicolazzo, 2016) that expand educational and life chances for those who are most marginalized in educational institutions. Moreover, it takes seriously the task of using research as a written craft of memory-ing minoritized peoples as a counternarrative to the deficit perspectives of minoritized peoples with which higher education is overrun (Stewart, 2016).

5. The phrase ‘put a pin in that’ (also ‘put a pin in it’) has been traced to World War II and refers to putting a pin back in a grenade to ‘save’ it for later; as an idiom it suggests a way to defer discussion of a point until later (tubalcain, 2009).

6. As Thompson (2003) explained, defensive citation works to prove that the author has done zir homework and is familiar with the existing literature of zir topic while archival citation seeks to provide intellectual resources for others who may want to take up study in the same area.

7. Although CRT has evolved to include intersectionality as one of its central tenets (Delgado & Stefancic, 2012), intersectionality first emerged through the work of Black feminist scholars in critical legal studies such as Crenshaw (1991). It has since expanded into CRT, as well as feminist scholarship (Collins, 1998; McCall, 2005). I, therefore, acknowledge intersectionality as a distinct, but related, theoretical perspective from CRT.

8. This is adapted from TwoTrees (1993) idea of a ‘kaleidoscope.’

9. The popularity of such ‘border tourism’ was apparent through a two-minute Google search.

10. This discussion adapts Tuck and Yang’s (2012) citation of Wolfe’s (2007) discussion of the effects of settler colonialism.

11. I must acknowledge the ways that vacant colonialism is yet incommensurate (Tuck & Yang, 2012) with decolonization as a liberatory, political framework. My visit to the DMZ on the Korean Peninsula (as a US citizen while Korean nationals have been disoccupied from that terrain) was complicit with the state violence of the vacant colonialism the US has practiced there for 64 years as of this manuscript’s publication. My own colonized gender identity does not make me innocent of my own colonial complicity.

12. Lucinda Foote applied to Yale in 1783 and was found to be fully qualified excepting only for her gender (Thelin, 2011).

13. WPATH is the World Professional Association for Transgender Health; they publish standards of care for transgender individuals ‘based on the best available science and expert professional consensus’ (World Professional Association for Transgender Health [WPATH], 2016).

14. In 2004, Arlene Istar Lev proposed a four-part model of gender portrayed as comprised of birth sex, gender identity, gender-role expression, and sexuality, each along a continuum (Jourian, 2015).

15. An ‘oreo’ is a colloquial reference to a Black person who appears to be Black on the outside but has assimilated so much into White culture, that they are White on the ‘inside.’

16. Coined by Bernice Sandler, ‘chilly climate’ is a reference to the ways in which men’s paternalistic behavior creates a cold, hostile environment for women in the academy. Sandler has a website disseminating her research on the topic available at http://www.bernicesandler.com/id4.htm.