When Program is the Enemy of Function… Gender-Nonconforming Experiences of Architectural Space

Abstract

What is our expectation of architecture when our cities, buildings - their programs, connections and interfaces - reinforce essentialist and cisnormative notions of gender? For some, that is not an architecture of safety, nor of belonging or identity; rather of hostility, othering and privilege. Relationships between form, space, program and function have unique political and spatial meanings for gender nonconforming people. When program is the enemy of function, one adapts as they disconnect to seek belonging, safety and find identity. What can be learnt about architectural emotion, space and practice through the lens of trans and gender diverse experiences?

Keywords:

• queer architecture
• biopolitics
• transgender
• non-binary
• gender nonconforming
• cisnormativity
• safer space
• risk space
• othering

Notes

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2 Josh Taylor, “Homophobic Groups Have Lost on Gay Marriage, but Trans Rights Still Under Threat,” Crikey, May 17, 2016, https://www.crikey.com.au/2016/05/17/gay-rights-opponents-turn-on-transgender-people/ (accessed July 28, 2017).

3 Derek Opperman, “Risk Spaces: Octo Octa in Conversation with Terre Thaemlitz,” Electronic Beats, March 22, 2017, https://www.electronicbeats.net/octo-octa-terre-thaemlitz-conversation/ (accessed July 28, 2017).

4 Brian A. Rood, Sari L. Reisner, Francisco I. Surface, Jae A. Puckett, Meredith R. Maroney, and David W. Pantalone, “Expecting Rejection: Understanding the Minority Stress Experiences of Transgender and Gender-Nonconforming Individuals,” Transgender Health 1, no. 1 (August 2016): 151–64. https://doi.org/10.1089/trgh.2016.0012.

5 Dean Spade, Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics and the Limits of Law (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2015). 42.

6 Julia Serano, Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive (Berkeley, CA: Seal, 2013), 35.

7 Fanny Söderbäck, “Liminal Spaces: Notes from The Daughter of A Salonnière” (paper presented at Styles: 13th International AHRA Conference “Architecture & Feminisms – Ecologies, Economies & Technologies,” Stockholm, Sweden, November 18, 2016).

8 Kate Bornstein, My New Gender Workbook: A Step-by-Step Guide to Achieving World Peace through Gender Anarchy and Sex Positivity (New York: Routledge, 2013), 7.

9 Sara Mills, Gender and Colonial Space (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005), https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt155jdx5.

10 Jasbir K. Puar, Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times (Durham, NC: Duke University Press 2007), 252.

11 “Q&A: Germaine Greer Revives an Old Controversy about What Constitutes a Real Woman,” ABC News Online, April 12, 2016, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-11/q&a-germaine-greer-weighs-in-sexuality-transgender/7318024 (accessed July 28, 2017).

12 Serano, Excluded, 35.

13 Rebecca Reilly-Cooper, “Gender is Not a Spectrum” (London: Aeon Media Group, June 2016), https://aeon.co/essays/the-idea-that-gender-is-a-spectrum-is-a-new-gender-prison (accessed July 28, 2017).

14 “A Map of Gender-Diverse Cultures,” Independent Lens, Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), August 11, 2015, https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/content/two-spirits_map-html/ (accessed July 28, 2017).

15 B. Binaohan, Decolonizing Trans/Gender 101 (Toronto: Biyuti, 2014), 79.

16 Serano, Excluded, 35.

17 Carimah Townes, “Trans Women of Color are Missing from the Conversation about Transphobia,” Think Progress, March 6, 2017, https://thinkprogress.org/trans-women-of-color-are-grieving-and-ignored-6b5b518dcfa (accessed July 28, 2017).

18 Opperman, “Risk Spaces.”

19 Aérea Negrot, “Right Body, Wrong Time” (Bpitch Control, 2011).