Developing an Identity Model for Transgender and Intersex Inclusion in Lesbian Communities

SUMMARY

The article briefly highlights past ideologies of Essential-ism and Constructionist thought, identifying their weaknesses as arguments of exclusion. By combining corporeality and mentality, the article posits an identity model, the spherical characterization model that argues for transgender inclusion in lesbian space by deconstructing the ideology behind identity group construction. Next the article applies the spherical characterization model to the characters in Virginia Woolf's Orlando and Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex to delineate how the model argues for transgender inclusion within lesbian space.

Key Words:

• Identity modeling
• lesbian identity
• lesbian separatism
• intersex
• literary criticism
• gender theory
• sexual variation
• corporeal philosophy
• Virginia Woolf
• Jeffrey Eugenides