Star gazing: Transing gender communication

ABSTRACT

This activity implores students and pedagogues to engage intrapersonal gender subjectivity through the analytic practice of transing gender communication. Specifically, Yep, Russo, and Allen (Pushing boundaries: Toward the development of a model for transing communication in (inter)cultural contexts. In L. G. Spencer & J. C. Capuzza (Eds.), Transgender communication studies: Histories, trends, and trajectories. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2015, pp. 69–89) suggest gender is best understood as: (1) intersectional, (2) a performative and administrative accomplishment, (3) multiple, and (4) self-determined. Students are asked to analyze their gender sense of self through each of the pillars in a hands-on creative activity. The end result is a means of narrating one’s own gender in relational tension with other gender subjectivities.

Courses: Interpersonal Communication, Intercultural Communication, Gender and Communication, Performance Studies

Objectives: Designed to accompany a sustained conversation on questions of gender and communication, this unit- or semester-long activity imparts a critical approach to gender understanding through one’s own subjective gender experience by engaging the analytic work of “transing” (Stryker, Currah, & Moore, Introduction: Trans-, trans, or transgender? WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly, 2008;36(3–4):13). Further, the activity equips students with a working understanding of trans-affirming discourse including the critical capacity to de-center normative gender through lived experience. Finally, students are provided a space in which to explore and voice, through creative means, their own gender “galaxy” (Yep, Russo, & Allen, Pushing boundaries: Toward the development of a model for transing communication in (inter)cultural contexts. In L. G. Spencer & J. C. Capuzza (Eds.), Transgender communication studies: Histories, trends, and trajectories. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2015, p. 70).

Notes

1. Transgender refers to any person whose gender identity does not “align” with their sex assigned at birth. “Align” in this context is defined by normative sex/gender designating criteria in which male/man/masculine “align” just as female/woman/feminine “align” (see Johnson, 2013). Thus, any enactment that evades these “alignments” could ostensibly be understood as “transgender.” Transsexual refers to folks who seek to alter corporeality—chemically and/or surgically (Namaste, 2000; Serano, 2009)—and/or through “psychic dimensions of passing” (Snorton, 2009, p. 87). For Snorton, “passing is not simply the essence of transsexualism; it is the way we make identity” (p. 87). The distinction matters (see Prosser, 1998).

2. “Cisgender” refers to persons whose gender identity “aligns” with their sex assigned at birth. “Align” in this context is defined by normative sex/gender designating criteria in which male/man/masculine “align” just as female/woman/feminine “align” (see Johnson, 2013). At the same time, Sennett (2017), who critiques “cisgender” for its academic elitism, informs my use of “nontrans.” He writes in a blog entry, “Cis generates misunderstanding. It doesn’t lend itself to intuitive understanding. But when someone uses another term like nontrans, as I did, watch out for the virtue police.” Informed by Sennett’s critique, I include “nontrans” alongside “cisgender” to denote a variety of embodiments and experiences that “align” based on normative sex and gender criteria. To be certain, nontrans marks a discursive use that emerged prior to the institutionalization of trans studies. Cisgender has emerged as an institutional term of preference.

3. Bornstein (2013) and Enke (2016) theorize non-binary pedagogies. Their respective approaches can help imagine gender in non-binary terms. Spade (2011) offers tips for trans-affirming pedagogy.