Liminal Trans* Embodiment
Carlson and Sweet (2020) reflect on whether gender identity is a matter of "being", "doing", or both, and a related question within this is what it may mean to have a trans body. Based on my own experience as a trans man, I understand it as a body that carries transition, history, reconnection, and gender dysphoria which, in my case, has over time also developed into an experience that includes gender euphoria. So, although I have had a complicated relationship with my body, I have ultimately arrived at a renewed sense of connection with it. I have chosen not to undergo lower surgery, but for me my body is not defined by lack or incompleteness, nor is it moving toward a cis ideal. That my body cannot be reduced to normative relationships between anatomy, gender and identity is part of what I understand as a trans body.
Variations in gender identity may be expressed through medical changes, social presentation, symbolic or ritualized practice, but also through how the body is understood, inhabited, and given meaning. In my experience, "doing" initially made "being" possible, but later also reshaped how the body itself is understood. At the beginning of my transition, "doing" primarily had to do with medical, surgical and social transition, through testosterone and mastectomy. Nowadays, "doing" has more to do with how I think about my body. Because I do not wish to undergo further surgeries, this involves redefining what has traditionally been coded as āfemaleā body parts so that they may be understood, for me, as āmaleā body parts, without changing them physically. In this way, the body can become a place where trans identity may be lived, felt, or take form.
I have also reflected on how some of the body parts and bodily functions I have are culturally often tied to ideas of femininity, for example in female-dominated spiritual circles, and how my own experience has led me to question whether these meanings are self-evident. For example, I, too, as a man, may engage in menstrual cycle rituals without menstruation therefore being defined as female.
These conclusions have emerged through my lived experience of transition, a changed relationship to my body, and through reflection on how cultural and spiritual meanings surrounding gender are formed and can be renegotiated. This is why this understanding of the trans body makes the most sense to me and my practice.
Sources
Carlson, D.L. and Sweet, J.D. (2020) āThe Promise of the Trans* Body: Twisted Liminalities of Gender in Transparentā, Qualitative Inquiry, 26(8ā9), pp. 1071ā1078. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800419881662.