Abstract
Building on research that points out the specific forms of marginalization that transgender and nonreligious people face in contemporary U.S. society, this exploratory analysis focuses on the experiences of transgender nonreligious people who were raised in religious households. Utilizing interviews with eleven formerly religious, now nonreligious, transgender people I draw out some of the future pathways scholars of nonreligion should take to better account for the lives of transgender nonreligious people in scholarship on nonreligion. Specifically, scholars of nonreligion should begin analyzing transgender nonreligious people’s experiences in religious settings, with family, and with organizations and networks outside of religion. I conclude by discussing the ways this study can shed light on the broader processes by which inequality is reproduced and make suggestions for nonreligious leaders to make room for and listen to transgender people in nonreligious spaces.
Highlights
Building on research that points out the specific forms of marginalization that transgender and nonreligious people face in contemporary U.S society, this exploratory analysis focuses on the experiences of transgender nonreligious people who were raised in religious households
Far scholarship on transgender individuals has primarily focused on the experiences of transgender people in the workplace (Connell 2010; Schilt 2010), family (Pfeffer 2010), public space (Doan 2007), health (Miller and Grollman 2015), and, very recently, religion (Sumerau and Cragun 2015)
The invisibility of transgender people within the social sciences to date is beginning to shift into recognition of the importance of this population for understanding any facet of contemporary society (Jauk 2013; Sumerau et al 2016)
Summary
Expanding on the Experiences of Transgender Nonreligious People: An Exploratory Analysis. Since religious institutions (Stack 2015; Sumerau et al 2016) – and religious (Urquhart 2015) and nonreligious leaders (Walker 2015) – have started to reproduce cissexism in their discussions of transgender people, it may be time for scholars of nonreligion to pay close attention to the ways that transgender existence intersects with nonreligious identity This is especially the case since both groups are gaining more visibility (Cragun et al 2013; Sumerau et al 2016) and are still marginalized by religious. Was baptized Catholic and was expected to go for holidays
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