Methodologically innovative in its use of mixed-media diary research, this timely book offers a focused sociological study of non-binary people’s identities and experiences in the UK.
From negotiating a sense of legitimacy when ‘not feeling trans enough’ to how identities can shift over time, it reveals important nuances of diverse gender identities while offering crucial insights into trans-related healthcare inequalities.
The findings of this ground-breaking research mark an important contribution to the wider fields of gender studies, LGBTQ scholarship and medical policy.
101 4 Non-binary times, non-binary places: communities and their intersections While community spaces can be seen to constrain queer subjectivities, then, queer identifications are also negotiated, vocalised and performed within community politics and locales. (Hines, 2010: 608) Introduction Time vitally intersects with non-binary identity negotiation across different forms of social interaction. Time spent introspecting can change self-conceptualisation, and time spent interacting with others can endear, or alienate. How an individual reacts to
, we might say, to become fully aware of what we know, and act consistently on that knowledge. 2 This entails, most obviously, that we stop reproducing the effects of the binary view; that teachers, for example, stop providing students with a simplistic binary vision, which students later have to learn to nuance as best they can. But to say that we must learn to stop reproducing the binary view is a merely negative characterization. It is clearly not enough to say what we must not do. So Part II will sketch out elements of a non-binary analysis, a policy
19 1 Reviewing non-binary: where have we come from? Medical practitioners and institutions have the social power to determine what is considered sick or healthy, normal or pathological, sane or insane – and thus, often, to transform potentially neutral forms of human difference into unjust and oppressive social hierarchies. (Stryker, 2008a: 36) Introduction This chapter situates non-binary gender identities within existing research. I have already addressed the point that non-binary genders can be differentially conceptualised as distinct from, cutting
some contemporary approaches have depicted intersex embodiment as synonymous with non-binary identity, historical institutional approaches viewed intersex embodiment as a childhood place-holder for the two-sex model. This often facilitated a more enlightened (although not unproblematic) approach to intersex embodiment than seen in modern discourse with themes of flexibility, deferability and, to some degree, individual lived experience and autonomy appearing within and informing legal frameworks. The chapter then juxtaposes this to some present-day understandings
legal change, the exclusive focus on narratives of violence and victimisation hampers the recognition of empowering models that also define the experience of LGBTQI people. This skewed sociocultural representation that places weight on violence and exclusion is a powerful example that silences the agency and capacities that can be found, for instance, in the trans and non-binary population ( Stryker and Whittle, 2006 ; Richards et al, 2017 ). This article seeks to partially address this deficit by placing the role of trans and non-binary persons at the centre as
169 6 A strong motivation to tick the boxes: non-binary perceptions and experiences of gender identity clinics ‘I did once express how I was feeling confused about my gender … and they promptly withdrew my diagnosis,’ ‘any sign of ambivalence is used as an excuse to delay your transition,’ ‘the fact that I confidently voiced uncertainty about my gender with the doctor meant that he didn’t take my trans-ness seriously.’ This particular issue was even more acute for those who did not define unequivocally as male or female. (Ellis et al., 2015: 12
73 3 ‘Not trans enough’: the relationship between non-binary gender identities, uncertainty and legitimacy Using queerness itself as a category of analysis seems to invite a new round of debate devoted to who is ‘really queer’. A voice that originated from one set of margins begins to create its own marginalized voices. These twin problems of identities – boundaries and hierarchies – emerge whenever we try to base politics on identity. (Wilchins, 2002: 29) Introduction Among non-binary people, there is a vast heterogeneity of experiences and self
133 5 Views of the clinic: non-binary perceptions and experiences of general healthcare services Those who identify ‘beside’ the gender binary will still be situated within it by others whose worldviews are bounded by the discourse of binary gender, such that it is impossible to escape this discursive framework altogether. (Sanger, 2008: 50) Introduction This and the following chapter will focus on non-binary perceptions of healthcare in the UK. In this chapter, I address primary care services for the most part (with some mention of secondary care
Over the last three decades Serbia has been characterised by profound and occasionally violent social change. 1 In such a politically dynamic milieu little attention has been paid to trans issues and there are for the time being no systematic studies exploring the entanglements between transgender and gender non-binary (TGNB) persons, trans activism, and mental health. Our chapter starts filling this lacuna by combining both quantitative and qualitative data and offering an account of mental health-related challenges faced by trans people. After three
