Authenticity, validation and sexualisation on Grindr: an analysis of trans women’s accounts

ABSTRACT

The socio-historic sexualisation of transgender identities is reported to have disaffirming consequences for the broad trans community, and for trans women in particular. Given trans people’s increasing use of socio-sexual ‘hook-up’ apps, this paper looks at trans women’s talk of self/other identifications in relation to their regular use of Grindr. Eight semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with London-based women who identified as trans* in some way. A Foucauldian-informed discourse analysis highlights intersecting frames of trans authenticity, validation and sexualisation. Within these frames, trans women can be variously positioned in gendered and sexualised ways. Specifically, a discourse of trans authenticity is seen to involve the marking out of an identificatory truth that is situated in culturally acceptable and hence de-sexualised womanhood, while a competing discourse of trans validation involves an ambiguity and eroticism that can serve to reimagine this truth. Trans subjectivities can thus consist of a desire for authentic (gendered and non-sexualised) selfhood, on the one hand, and self-affirming ambiguity and sexualisation on the other. That trans women can construct ambivalent relationships with trans-sexualisation discourse highlights the limitation of anti-sexualisation advocacy and implications for supporting trans sexualities are considered.

KEYWORDS:

• Trans women
• trans sexuality
• sexualisation
• Grindr
• discourse

Acknowledgment

We are grateful to the women who took time to share their experiences. It is our hope that this study has gone some way to representing their voices in a useful way.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. ‘Trans’ is used throughout this paper as an inclusive term that encompasses a wide variety of contemporary non-cisgendered identities (often signified in the literature as trans*). As such, it is the preferred term for many people in transgender and genderqueer communities. Use of the term in this paper should, however, not be taken to mean that a person’s trans status is always or necessarily their predominant identificatory marker (Richards & Barker, 2013). For this reason we frequently parenthesise ‘trans’.

2. Stemming from Black US feminism in the 1980s, the theoretical and methodological perspective of intersectionality began with a focus on gender, race and social class but this quickly expanded to include other social systems such as sexuality, age, body, nationality, ability and religion, for example. Aside from its contribution to Black feminist theory, intersectionality has helped to shed light on the complex social positionings of trans people that can accentuate oppression, while also serving to challenge the essentialisation of trans* in a postmodern subversion of normative gender and sexual categories (de Vries, 2014: Namaste, 2000, 2011; Serano, 2007; Stryker & Whittle, 2006).

3. Since Foucauldian concepts like discourse, positioning and power relations were first deployed by qualitative researchers in psychology from the 1980s to explore the relationship between language, psychological life and subjectivity (e.g. Henriques et al., 1984), the term ‘Foucauldian discourse analysis’ has come to characterise a form of discourse analysis that deploys aspects of Foucauldian post-structuralist theory as analytic constructs. Foucauldian discourse analysis, then, is not a definitive or discreet methodology but rather representative of a particular way of conceptualising knowledge, psychology, subjectivity and the regulative effects of these (Henriques et al., 1984; Parker, 1992; Willig, 2013). In recognising this, and in drawing on selected analytic concepts emanating from Foucauldian discourse theory, we refer to our discourse analysis as Foucauldian-informed.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Christopher E. M. Lloyd

Christopher E. M. Lloyd is currently studying for a Professional Doctorate in Counselling Psychology at London Metropolitan University. He is currently embarking on research to do with trans sex workers.

Mark D. Finn is a senior lecturer in Psychology with current interest in new formations of the private, public and virtual in relation to geolocative socio-sexual media.