Trans-masculinities, embodiments and the materiality of gender: bridging the gap

ABSTRACT

Transsexual and transgender men have had less visibility than other forms of gender variance, thus occupying a relatively narrow space in gender, masculinity or even trans-scholarship. They are neither particularly relevant subjects of masculinity studies nor particularly visible in Trans Studies. Furthermore, the theoretical and political struggles that separate theorization about butch female masculinities and the FtM transitions have contributed to an even higher invisibility of trans-men and a misconceptualization of their potential as emancipatory subjects in the field of gender as doers of masculinities. Drawing on fieldwork with trans-men in Portugal and the United Kingdom, two lines of argument will be developed. Firstly, from a theoretical standpoint, the importance of building bridges between different areas of critical gender studies, namely Critical Studies on Men and Masculinities and Trans Studies is advocated. Secondly, with the aim of contributing to a fruitful dialogue between two key areas of critical gender studies, trans-masculinities are discussed as practice, place and effect. Following Connell’s proposal, it is suggested that redressing the conceptual premises of masculinity is a fundamental step so as to understand the plurality of trans embodiments, bodily materiality and the possibilities of doing masculinity without men.

KEYWORDS:

• Masculinity
• Trans Studies
• trans-men
• body
• materiality
• gender order

Acknowledgments

The reflection developed drew on data collected in the frame of the European Research Council funded project TRANSRIGHTS: Gender citizenship and sexual rights in Europe: Transgender lives in transnational perspective (transrightseurope.wordpress.com/). The project reflects only the views of the author, and the European Union cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Sofia Aboim, Ph.D. (ISCTE-IUL 2004), is a permanent research fellow at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon. Her research interests include gender and sexuality, feminisms, masculinities studies and trans-scholarship as well as critical theory and post-marxism, modernity and post-colonialism. She has published several articles in Portuguese and international journals as well as a number of books, including Plural masculinities. The remaking of the self in private life (Ashgate, 2010). She is working on other book projects on masculinities as well as gender and modernities while developing research projects on the same topics. Currently, she coordinates the project TRANSRIGHTS (Consolidator Grant) financed by the European Research Council (ERC).

Notes

1. The terms cisgender and cissexual are used to refer to individuals who identify as the sex/gender they were assigned at birth. Cisgender replaced the nowadays pejorative notion of ‘gender normals’, commonly used in the social sciences since Garfinkel (1967).

2. Trans-people or, in the case, trans-men, is a provisional umbrella term to name those who in a variety of ways challenge the naturalness of gender as emanating from the sexed codification of bodies, whether they are transsexuals (both male to female, and female to male), transgenders, transvestites, ‘travestis’, cross-dressers or other forms of gender variance, such as genderqueer, non-binary, gender fluid, androgynous, among other designations. For an overview, see Stryker (2008).

3. More information available at: www.ranker.com/list/list-of-famous-transgender-people/famous-gay-and-lesbian

4. In-depth interviews and ethnographic fieldwork were carried out with a variety of trans-men, some of them self-defined as transsexual or FtM trans. Some have also explicitly defined themselves as transgender or trans. Others have expressed themselves through terms such as non-binary, genderqueer, bi-gender and so forth. A clear-cut divide emerged between those keener on resorting to medicalized categories and those defining their identities in ways that directly targeted the binary gender system. However, in both the countries, only rarely was a single definition enough to account for gender identity across the life courses of participants. For instance, categories such as cross-dresser, drag-king or lesbian were often associated with former life stages. The current reflection, though not empirically oriented, was triggered by the grounded research work carried out in 2015 and 2016.

Additional information

Funding

The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013)/ERC grant agreement no. 615594.