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Queering Families: The Postmodern Partnerships of Cisgender Women and Transgender Men
Ozzie and Harriet, move over. A new couple is moving into the neighborhood. In the postmodern era, advances in medical technologies allow some individuals categorized female at birth to live in accordance with their gender identities, as men. While a growing body of literature on transgender men's experiences has come to the forefront, relatively little exists to document the experiences of their partners. In Queering Families: The Postmodern Partnerships of Cisgender Women and Transgender Men, Carla A. Pfeffer brings these experiences to light through interviews with the group most likely to partner and form families with transgender men: non-transgender (cisgender) women.
Drawing upon in-depth interviews with fifty cisgender women partners of transgender men from across the United States and Canada, Pfeffer details the experiences of a community that often seems unremarkable and ordinary on its surface. Cisgender women who partner with transgender men who are socially "read" as male are often (mis)perceived as part of a heterosexual couple or family. Yet not all cisgender women who partner with transgender men are comfortable with this invisible existence and comfortable normativity. Instead, many of the cisgender women Pfeffer interviews hold deeply-valued queer identities that may be erased in their partnerships with transgender men.
Queering Families details the struggles and strengths of these postmodern "Harriets" as they work to build identities, partnerships, families, and communities. Pfeffer's interviewees discuss the implications of visibility and invisibilty in their everyday lives as they face barriers or pathways to legal and social inclusion. They carve out new lexicons for partners' bodies and their own sexualities, transformed through gender-affirming hormones and surgeries. They plan and construct families with and without children, some drawing upon alternative reproductive technologies to bear the biological offspring of their transgender partners.
With remarkable depth and insight, Queering Families explores a shifting social landscape that challenges the very notion of what constitutes a "same-sex" or an "opposite-sex" relationship, marriage, or family.
Drawing upon in-depth interviews with fifty cisgender women partners of transgender men from across the United States and Canada, Pfeffer details the experiences of a community that often seems unremarkable and ordinary on its surface. Cisgender women who partner with transgender men who are socially "read" as male are often (mis)perceived as part of a heterosexual couple or family. Yet not all cisgender women who partner with transgender men are comfortable with this invisible existence and comfortable normativity. Instead, many of the cisgender women Pfeffer interviews hold deeply-valued queer identities that may be erased in their partnerships with transgender men.
Queering Families details the struggles and strengths of these postmodern "Harriets" as they work to build identities, partnerships, families, and communities. Pfeffer's interviewees discuss the implications of visibility and invisibilty in their everyday lives as they face barriers or pathways to legal and social inclusion. They carve out new lexicons for partners' bodies and their own sexualities, transformed through gender-affirming hormones and surgeries. They plan and construct families with and without children, some drawing upon alternative reproductive technologies to bear the biological offspring of their transgender partners.
With remarkable depth and insight, Queering Families explores a shifting social landscape that challenges the very notion of what constitutes a "same-sex" or an "opposite-sex" relationship, marriage, or family.
- GenresQueerLGBTTransgender
288 pages, Paperback
Published December 2, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 6, 2024
5 ⭐️
This should be, and often is, required reading in queer and trans studies courses. Kudos to my favorite, most brilliant professor, Dr. Carla A. Pfeffer. Certainly the most brilliant mind in her field at MI State University and beyond. Thank you for all the hard work and research that you do.
This should be, and often is, required reading in queer and trans studies courses. Kudos to my favorite, most brilliant professor, Dr. Carla A. Pfeffer. Certainly the most brilliant mind in her field at MI State University and beyond. Thank you for all the hard work and research that you do.
December 31, 2020
I enjoyed Queering Families, but my partner loved it - she felt like someone finally saw her. This book is - among other things - an examination of the tension in some cis/trans straight relationships: between the trans partner's gender and acknowledging the cis partner's sexuality. It includes plenty of interesting statistics (in particular with regards gendered division of household labour), but remains very readable: this is not a dry text. It also does a pretty good job of including study participants' own perspectives.
However, 'participants' here means cis women partners of trans men. The narratives of the men themselves are almost absent; their perspectives are simply not given in most cases. That both is and isn't an issue with the book; Pfeffer's acknowledgement of the emotional labour done by cis women in relation to trans partners' transitions, and of the impact of patriarchy on heterosexual relationships that are not cis, is an important perspective. But, I think it's telling that so few of the women interviewed identified as butch or as heterosexual. This is perhaps due to the sampling method, and is not representative!
Overall, Queering Families is an excellent book - in context. It focuses on a particular demographic, taking a particular perspective, and I hope its readers appreciate that.
However, 'participants' here means cis women partners of trans men. The narratives of the men themselves are almost absent; their perspectives are simply not given in most cases. That both is and isn't an issue with the book; Pfeffer's acknowledgement of the emotional labour done by cis women in relation to trans partners' transitions, and of the impact of patriarchy on heterosexual relationships that are not cis, is an important perspective. But, I think it's telling that so few of the women interviewed identified as butch or as heterosexual. This is perhaps due to the sampling method, and is not representative!
Overall, Queering Families is an excellent book - in context. It focuses on a particular demographic, taking a particular perspective, and I hope its readers appreciate that.
March 31, 2018
a must read for Queer studies minded & Trans studies
March 27, 2024
read for class
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February 24, 2017306.87408 P524 2017
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews