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Transgender Identities: Towards a Social Analysis of Gender Diversity
In recent years transgender has emerged as a subject of increasing social and cultural interest. This volume offers vivid accounts of the diversity of living transgender in today's world. The first section, "Emerging Identities," maps the ways in which social, cultural, legal and medical developments shape new identities on both an individual and collective level. Rather than simply reflecting social change, these shifts work to actively construct contemporary identities. The second section, "Trans Governance," examines how law and social policy have responded to contemporary gender shifts. The third section, "Transforming Identity," explores gender and sexual identity practices within cultural and subcultural spaces. The final section, "Transforming Theory?", offers a theoretical reflection on the increasing visibility of trans people in today’s society and traces the challenges and the contributions transgender theory has brought to gender theory, queer theory and sociological approaches to identity and citizenship. Featuring contributions from throughout the world, this volume represents the cutting-edge scholarship in transgender studies and will be of interest to scholars and students interested in gender, sexuality, and sociology.
313 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 17, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 21, 2020
This book uses a sociological approach to exploring transgenderism. This is used in the widest sense of the term. This is all individuals who do not fall into the traditional and standard binary gender roles. Most if not all of the contributors to this book take a post-structuralist approach (which is basically a version of post-modernism). This approach presents gender and all social roles as constructed, therefore these can be seen to be deconstructed. Deconstructionism can be radical as in Jacques Derrida’s use, or more modest as to change the way language is used; to use it in a different way than it has been used. This is basically the theoretical underpinning used here. But it is used only in part. They all perform some kind of research, whether case studies or statistical analysis of survey data. This is to show how gender works on the ground so to speak.
The book is a collection of academic articles. It is divided into four parts. Following an introduction by one of the editors, the first part treats the emergence of differing non-binary genders. This is followed by articles focusing on the sociology of transgender identities. Then part three focus living a transgender lifestyle. Finally, part four focuses on theory.
Here some of the comments I had as I was reading the book. Numbers in brackets [] are page numbers from the Kindle edition.
[6] Some radical feminist conclude: "Trans women, therefore, could not be feminists and had no place in the 'women's' movement." Maybe a little strong, but transwomen have their own fish to fry. They (we) have additional and different concerns that any feminist woman (radical or not) does not have automatically, although they could contribute.
[106] "The first aim of this chapter is to refrain from falling into the trap of reducing authenticity to essentialism, which rests on a biological notion of a core 'sex' being the natural basis for 'gender.'"This misconstrues an evolutionary biology viewpoint, where there is no essentialism to any species, which includes sex and gender. There maybe clusters of traits that fit a statistical norm, but there are always individuals that do not fit the statistical norm.
[171] ". . . gender is exposed as a performance and debunked as an 'illusion that we are products of some natural process'." What are we not natural? As a transgender woman I am as natural as any other person in the world. We are all the outcome of natural processes. Social phenomena are just as natural as any physical ones.
[210] Using Freudian analysis the author states "heterosexual identities remain unremarkable, escaping critical scrutiny. " You don't need Freud to understand this. Even more so in using Foucault's challenges to it, as he is even more unknown than Freud to most of society. Why use unproven analysis to drive home a plain as the nose on your face historical context and just looking at modern society.
[212] "The gendered idea of biological sex produces the binary notion of 'opposite sexes' that maintain the workings of the heterosexual matrix." Sex is now a genetic concept, but traditionally sex was determined at birth and still is for the most part by external genitalia. Some genitalia has been confused enough to make it a doctor's decision. But now, we recognize intersex individuals, so these are now based on genitalia a scientific challenge to the binariness of sex. Even genetically, there are individuals who are not either "XX" or "XY." So again no unproven sociological analysis is needed.
[212] "totalizing symbolic'" A what? Made up gobbledygook.
[213] Once again the author uses unnecessary postmodern claptrap to state an obvious conclusion based on the facts: "Heterosexuality is not simply a form of sexual expression or practice; it is institutionalized through the law and the state and is embedded in social interaction and practice."
[213] "There is no name for an intimate caring social unit that does not rely on a normative understanding of family as something which comprises of one father and one mother." Does there need to be one. Wouldn't that just end up reifyng what ever name is chosen. Why not incorporate non-hetero into the meaning of family.
[215] "The category of transgender is expanding to include a wide variety of behavior that can be grouped together, in the process, it undermines the established notion of fixed and binary gender categories." (my italics) But, I might want to be fixed, lol
[219] "Butler . . . reminds us of how dependent our existence is on a language that people never made, but which leads to decisions being made about people's life." Who made it? It had to have been made by human beings at some point in time. I am sympathetic to what is being said here however weird it is said. Most of us were not involved in making the heteronormative dialogue that is the standard way our western society talks about sex and gender. This at times can be harmful when the dialogue is used to deny medical care to transgender persons among other things.
[239] I can understand the need to created a narrative for inclusion purposes, but the chapter left me wondering how leading were the questions of this author in her study.
[259] "'. . . science manufactured views of a world compartmentalized into either/or categories." This is an incorrect view of science. There are many things in science that don't utilized the either/or structure. Statistics is used which follow a bell curve. Take height - when does one cross thresholds of small/tall. And it is so for many subjects. Quantum physics can lead one to a three or more valued logic. In evolution there is no moment where a species is born, only a certain line of inheritance.
[267] ". . . Foucault argued." He did or just pronounce something is so like a lot of postmodernists?
[272] I don't understand the need for postmodern theories to make sociology beneficial. The author also presented no statistical analysis, which would not inform much due to a sample size of 4. One can see how gender expression is for the most part a social construction and use this to enhance the status of transgender and non-binary persons.
As you might note I am not a fan of the postmodernist school of thought, which is actually many schools. See my last comment: this could mutatis mutandis be made against many studies presented in the book. Having said this it shows I wide range of how gender can be done and weakly argues how restrictive heteronormative dialogue can be, binding and removing anything but the male/female dichotomy. I did enjoy the book for the most part as there was actually vary little actual postmodernist clap-trap, but it saturated some of the studies presented in the various chapters as background. Nonetheless I found the book to be interesting, and interesting enough to give it 4 stars.
I could recommend this book to anyone looking to broaden their transgender horizons. Being familiar with academic studies should be useful.
The book is a collection of academic articles. It is divided into four parts. Following an introduction by one of the editors, the first part treats the emergence of differing non-binary genders. This is followed by articles focusing on the sociology of transgender identities. Then part three focus living a transgender lifestyle. Finally, part four focuses on theory.
Here some of the comments I had as I was reading the book. Numbers in brackets [] are page numbers from the Kindle edition.
[6] Some radical feminist conclude: "Trans women, therefore, could not be feminists and had no place in the 'women's' movement." Maybe a little strong, but transwomen have their own fish to fry. They (we) have additional and different concerns that any feminist woman (radical or not) does not have automatically, although they could contribute.
[106] "The first aim of this chapter is to refrain from falling into the trap of reducing authenticity to essentialism, which rests on a biological notion of a core 'sex' being the natural basis for 'gender.'"This misconstrues an evolutionary biology viewpoint, where there is no essentialism to any species, which includes sex and gender. There maybe clusters of traits that fit a statistical norm, but there are always individuals that do not fit the statistical norm.
[171] ". . . gender is exposed as a performance and debunked as an 'illusion that we are products of some natural process'." What are we not natural? As a transgender woman I am as natural as any other person in the world. We are all the outcome of natural processes. Social phenomena are just as natural as any physical ones.
[210] Using Freudian analysis the author states "heterosexual identities remain unremarkable, escaping critical scrutiny. " You don't need Freud to understand this. Even more so in using Foucault's challenges to it, as he is even more unknown than Freud to most of society. Why use unproven analysis to drive home a plain as the nose on your face historical context and just looking at modern society.
[212] "The gendered idea of biological sex produces the binary notion of 'opposite sexes' that maintain the workings of the heterosexual matrix." Sex is now a genetic concept, but traditionally sex was determined at birth and still is for the most part by external genitalia. Some genitalia has been confused enough to make it a doctor's decision. But now, we recognize intersex individuals, so these are now based on genitalia a scientific challenge to the binariness of sex. Even genetically, there are individuals who are not either "XX" or "XY." So again no unproven sociological analysis is needed.
[212] "totalizing symbolic'" A what? Made up gobbledygook.
[213] Once again the author uses unnecessary postmodern claptrap to state an obvious conclusion based on the facts: "Heterosexuality is not simply a form of sexual expression or practice; it is institutionalized through the law and the state and is embedded in social interaction and practice."
[213] "There is no name for an intimate caring social unit that does not rely on a normative understanding of family as something which comprises of one father and one mother." Does there need to be one. Wouldn't that just end up reifyng what ever name is chosen. Why not incorporate non-hetero into the meaning of family.
[215] "The category of transgender is expanding to include a wide variety of behavior that can be grouped together, in the process, it undermines the established notion of fixed and binary gender categories." (my italics) But, I might want to be fixed, lol
[219] "Butler . . . reminds us of how dependent our existence is on a language that people never made, but which leads to decisions being made about people's life." Who made it? It had to have been made by human beings at some point in time. I am sympathetic to what is being said here however weird it is said. Most of us were not involved in making the heteronormative dialogue that is the standard way our western society talks about sex and gender. This at times can be harmful when the dialogue is used to deny medical care to transgender persons among other things.
[239] I can understand the need to created a narrative for inclusion purposes, but the chapter left me wondering how leading were the questions of this author in her study.
[259] "'. . . science manufactured views of a world compartmentalized into either/or categories." This is an incorrect view of science. There are many things in science that don't utilized the either/or structure. Statistics is used which follow a bell curve. Take height - when does one cross thresholds of small/tall. And it is so for many subjects. Quantum physics can lead one to a three or more valued logic. In evolution there is no moment where a species is born, only a certain line of inheritance.
[267] ". . . Foucault argued." He did or just pronounce something is so like a lot of postmodernists?
[272] I don't understand the need for postmodern theories to make sociology beneficial. The author also presented no statistical analysis, which would not inform much due to a sample size of 4. One can see how gender expression is for the most part a social construction and use this to enhance the status of transgender and non-binary persons.
As you might note I am not a fan of the postmodernist school of thought, which is actually many schools. See my last comment: this could mutatis mutandis be made against many studies presented in the book. Having said this it shows I wide range of how gender can be done and weakly argues how restrictive heteronormative dialogue can be, binding and removing anything but the male/female dichotomy. I did enjoy the book for the most part as there was actually vary little actual postmodernist clap-trap, but it saturated some of the studies presented in the various chapters as background. Nonetheless I found the book to be interesting, and interesting enough to give it 4 stars.
I could recommend this book to anyone looking to broaden their transgender horizons. Being familiar with academic studies should be useful.
February 16, 2023
It presents basic information
I liked the personal stories because the language was amusing. The theoretical part was almost satisfactory but it lacked stronger conclusions and deeper look into the political influences of the issue.
The medical research was nonexistent and there were no graphs/charts.
I liked the personal stories because the language was amusing. The theoretical part was almost satisfactory but it lacked stronger conclusions and deeper look into the political influences of the issue.
The medical research was nonexistent and there were no graphs/charts.
April 13, 2011
I think we got some really amazing contributions for this book and am very proud of it.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews