A struggle for definition: online narratives of Italian trans women

ABSTRACT

In recent years, literature in the field of trans studies suggested that there has been a widespread trend in academic debates about gender transitivity to produce monolithic conceptualizations of transness unable to account for the different gender experiences of trans individuals. This paper aims to provide a further contribution to debates in this area through an empirical investigation of trans narratives of identity and embodiment. Drawing on queer and transfeminist scholarship which framed social media as offering trans people a site for the re-negotiation of the meanings attached to gender transitivity, we conducted an abductive thematic qualitative analysis of 37 blog posts written by 10 Italian trans women concerning their experience of transness. Our findings suggest that in these posts, the bloggers realized a complex bricolage of scientific language, autobiographical storytelling and political statements which produced distinct narratives of gender transitivity. In particular, these accounts of transness diverge across different trajectories related to the negotiation of the medical discourse of gender diversity, to the articulation of the body as a site of empowerment and to how the bloggers defined which experiences of gender diversity should be included in the trans umbrella.

KEYWORDS:

• Trans women
• gender transivity
• trans narratives
• weblogs
• abductive qualitative thematic analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Structural factors (i.e. income and geographical location) are, however, still a reason for inequalities in the access to Internet (Mossberger, Tolbert, & Stansbury, 2003).

2. As the research concerned the Italian context, the original search keywords were written in Italian, which are as follows: ‘MtF blog’, ‘Transgender blog’, ‘Donna trans blog’, ‘Donna transgender blog’, ‘Donna transsessuale blog’ and ‘T girl blog’.

3. This is the literal translation of an idiomatic expression which have the meaning of ‘being totally out of place’.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

David Primo

David Primo is a PhD candidate in Social Sciences at the Università degli Studi di Padova (Italy). His research topics are Critical Studies on Men & Masculinities, Queer & Transgender theoretical perspectives and the epistemology of theories in subjectivation.

Adriano Zamperini

Adriano Zamperini is an associate professor of Psychology at the Università degli Studi di Padova (Italy). His research focuses on gender studies, ostracism and social exclusion, and the psychology of violence.

Ines Testoni

Ines Testoni is an associate professor of Psychology at the Università degli Studi di Padova (Italy). Her research focuses on gender studies, dehumanization in healthcare services, the role of spirituality in psychosocial health and thanatology.