Transgender Narratives Research Articles

Challenges and paradoxes in mental health care for transgender people in Brazil: a review of historical contexts and narratives

Individualized interviews with transgender people reveal diverse experiences, offering unique data for mental health care providers. These narratives challenge psychopathological categories and highlight the need for deeper investigation. The study aims to address these experiences comprehensively, understand the importance of each transgender narrative, and counteract biased approaches. Understanding the historical context of transgender assistance in Brazil is crucial. This context reveals a paradox: the need for individualized listening versus the standardization of transgender individuals under "conditions related to sexual health" in ICD-11. Brazil leads in transgender murders. Violence against this population stems from prejudices, ignorance, and pathologization, as historical evidence shows. We consider it essential to investigate these causes further and contribute by listening to this population, revealing the diversity in their experiences. A literature review of articles from 2011 to 2021 in Brazil identified 29 publications on transgender issues and psychology. This qualitative research used refined scales to address diverse transgender experiences, reducing result generalization. The historicization of the problems faced by transgender people in Brazil and the verification of the particularities revealed in the narrative of each participant are necessary counterpoints to the segregation and critical situation of this population in the country. By synthesizing individualized narratives, historical context, and literature, this study contributes to improving mental health care and social support for transgender individuals, emphasizing the importance of individualized listening and culturally sensitive approaches to reduce stigmatization and promote depathologization.

Gendered Psyche: A Psychoanalytical Reading of Jacob Tobia’s Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story

This literary research paper employs psychoanalytic literary theory to delve into the complex interplay between identity formation and transgender experiences in Jacob Tobia’s memoir titled Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story. Through the lens of psychoanalysis, the study aims to unravel the intricate layers of self-discovery, acceptance, and resistance present in the text. By closely examining the text, the paper explores how psychoanalytic concepts like the unconscious, symbolism, and repression contribute to an enriched understanding of transgender characters' psychological landscapes.The analysis focuses on the representation of transgender characters in literature, examining how their narratives echo and diverge from psychoanalytic frameworks such as those proposed by Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan. The paper argues that psychoanalytic approaches can shed light on the internal conflicts and external societal pressures that shape transgender identities within the literary realm. Through carefully examining character motivations, symbolism, and narrative structures, the study elucidates how these works engage with psychoanalytic concepts to offer nuanced and empathetic portrayals of transgender experiences.Furthermore, this research explores the broader implications of employing psychoanalytic perspectives in the analysis of transgender literature, contending that such an approach can deepen our understanding of the complex and often subconscious dynamics at play in the construction of gender identity. Drawing connections between psychoanalytic theory and literary representation, this paper contributes to ongoing discussions surrounding the psychological dimensions of transgender experiences in literature, offering insights into the intricate relationship between identity formation and psychoanalytic frameworks within transgender narratives.

Exploring The Transgender Individual's Experience With Healthcare Interactions: A Phenomenological Study.

The purpose of the study was to provide a transgender narrative on healthcare interactions to increase visibility and awareness of transgender-identified issues in accessing care. This study aimed to: (a) examine how transgender individuals perceive and experience interactions with trained healthcare professionals, such as nurses, physicians, and mental health professionals, (b) identify common issues related to transgender individuals' barriers to care, and (c) identify how these barriers affect a transgender individual's ability to access health care. A phenomenological approach was used. The nine transgender-identified participants received a demographic questionnaire followed by a virtual semi-structured interview. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the interview data. The themes that emerged from the data were (a) challenges with accessing health care, (b) inconsistent healthcare information, and (c) disenfranchised versus empowered experiences. The results of this study not only provided an opportunity for the transgender participants to share their experiences, but also provides educational information for healthcare providers to improve their future interactions with transgender patients. Identifying the transgender patient with the correct name and pronoun, providing a welcoming and open healthcare environment, and knowing where to locate transgender health resources will improve the transgender patient's healthcare experience.

Memory, Materiality and Ecologies of Remembering in Transgender Narratives

Memory, Materiality and Ecologies of Remembering in Transgender Narratives

"edmund is trans he told me himself": Recognition in transgender Shakespeare fan fiction

Recent years have seen a rise in transgender fiction—especially transgender fan fiction. In the latter practice, we find characters reimagined as transgender subjects with their unique circumstances remolded or recontextualized to make sense as a trans* narrative. This is a look at the process of recognition taking place in the creation of these works of fan fiction—both in the way of recognizing a character's suitability to carry transgender meaning and in how recognition plays a part in the transgender narrative presented.

Understanding Construction of Technologies of (Trans)gender in India Shaped By Mechanisms of Security, Surveillance and Welfare

Through this paper, I aim to understand how the notion of surveillance as it functions in state welfare contributes to the construction of transgender identity. By looking critically at welfare mechanisms not only as failures in proper implementation but also as inscribing technologies of security on bodies through surveillance techniques, I try to question the value of state legibility by focusing largely on its relation to the security apparatus. This security apparatus does not simply function through the law but through a host of institutions, particularly psychology and medicine, which allow the state to regulate and employ dominant understandings of gender and transgender selves in the governing processes. In doing so, I rely on transgender narratives of engagement with these fields. I reflect on how the state has dealt with the question of transgender persons more recently through an analysis of the third gender category in NALSA v Union of India, and its transposition to Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019.

Medieval and Trans Ways of Being

Medieval and Trans Ways of Being

Celebrating Diversity: How Punk-identified Characters Challenge Gender Normativity in Literature

ABSTRACT The field of lesbian literature has acquired legitimacy in the last decades and has contributed to shape the manifold sides of the contemporary lesbian subject. However, narratives produced from sexual and gender non-conforming experiences have remained outside of the marketable scope and, therefore, less accessible to the general readership. These alternative works include lesbian and queer narratives produced within feminist movements, greatly influenced by musical punk bands from the Do It Yourself scene. Moreover, they show different forms of writing and experiencing self-identified queerness as resistance to the gay and lesbian mainstream culture by depicting lesbian realities intersecting with different axes of oppression, such as gender, class, ethnicity, or race, among others. This research will examine Lynn Breedlove’s novel Godspeed, published in 2003, and Imogen Binnie’s Nevada, published ten years later, in 2013 as examples of literary works that do not reflect universal, binary, and easily consumable lesbian models, but they re-appropriate the counter-cultural context to shape alternative queer and transgender narratives.

“A Soul in Physical Stress”: Transgender Epistemologies in Nightwood

The present article questions the common label assigned to Nightwood’s character Dr. Matthew O’Connor, widely analysed as a homosexual transvestite in spite of the various narrative implications that would reconfigure the ambiguities inherent to their gender identity. As a character in a novel considered to be as discriminatory as it is emancipatory, O’Connor is a main character treated as secondary and punished for their exclusion from standards of normativity. I employ the arguments brought forth by Magnus Hirschfeld in 1910 in order to consolidate the understanding of O’Connor as a transgender woman, as well as the views of Esther Newton on drag and camp discourses, in order to retrace the reasons for O’Connor’s critical interpretation as a mere male cross-dresser, a theatrical vision whose femaleness is assigned a performative rather than an identitarian value. Apart from the importance of demarcating transvestism from transsexuality, O’Connor’s wretched treatment and the impossibility of their transitioning is equally relevant. Their transition is envisioned as a matter of embodiment, and their expressed wishes of patriarchal female ideals point to an essentialist transgender narrative that consolidates matters of ‘passing’ that follow mimetic gender ideologies. The path to recognition requires the displacement of hegemonic standards of normativity, in favour of the recreation of the masculine/feminine dichotomy and the fragmentation of expectations for a sexed transitioned product. O’Connor’s pessimistic narrative arc could be seen within the context of an indirect and subverted call for political change coming from the author, whereby transphobia is both reinforced and negotiated.

Preface: Understanding Women’s Lives and Trauma Through Narrative Research and Analysis

Preface: Understanding Women’s Lives and Trauma Through Narrative Research and Analysis

“What if I’m not trans enough? What if I’m not man enough?”: Transgender young adults’ experiences of gender-affirming healthcare readiness assessments in Aotearoa New Zealand

Background A growing body of transgender health research reports that transgender people often feel pressure to conform to a dominant narrative during gender-affirming readiness assessments. In New Zealand, however, no study to date has specifically examined transgender people’s experiences of readiness assessments for gender-affirming healthcare. Aims This study aimed to explore the experiences of transgender young adults (aged 16-30) during gender-affirming readiness assessments in New Zealand. We also sought participants’ views on improving transgender healthcare provision. Methods Thirteen transgender young adults took part in individual interviews or focus groups. Participants were asked to describe how they felt about the questions asked during readiness assessments and how the readiness assessment process could be improved. We used thematic analysis to identify patterns of meaning across the dataset. Results We identified two themes. Firstly, proving gender explores participants’ views of readiness assessments as designed to establish whether they were “trans enough” or “truly” transgender, and why readiness assessments are conducted in this manner. Secondly, the trans narrative describes the pressure participants felt to adhere to a dominant transgender narrative in order to gain access to the healthcare they needed. Discussion Our findings call attention to the importance of a trans-affirmative approach and the need to clarify the purpose of gender-affirming healthcare readiness assessments in New Zealand.

“It Wasn’t for the Sake of Me and My Mental Health”: Transgender People’s Perspective on the Role of Mental Health Providers in Initiating Gender-Affirming Hormones - a Qualitative Study

Introduction: Hormone therapy can be an essential part of medical transition for some transgender people. Despite ongoing debate on the role of mental health providers in the initiation of gender-affirming hormones, little evidence exists to guide the discussion. We seek to elucidate the patient perspective on the feasibility, utility, risks, and benefits of mandatory mental health evaluation (MHE) prior to hormone initiation. Methods: We conducted semi-structured interviews with individuals who have initiated gender-affirming hormone therapy (n=21). We purposively sampled respondents to include those who indicated that they were required to have mental health evaluation prior to hormone initiation, and those who did not. A transgender advisory board helped develop the semi-structured interview guide. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and coded using emergent and a priori codes. Results: The majority of respondents saw the requirement for MHE prior to hormone initiation as distinct from, and often discordant with, their mental health care. We identified the following roles of mental health care as seen by patients: 1) General psychosocial support; 2) Identity formation: therapy as a safe space to explore gender and self; and 3) Logistics: assistance navigating the healthcare system. Themes that emerged regarding the MHE requirement included 1) Access: for some, the MHE requirement delayed access to gender-affirming care; 2) “pathologizing my existence”: the effects of having one’s identity result in a diagnosis of mental disorder; and 3) “auditioning” for care: fear of being denied care if one does not present with a stereotypical transgender narrative. Many participants drew direct connections between the MHE requirement and negative effects on their mental health and the patient/provider relationship, while concurrently identifying mental health care as essential for wellbeing. Conclusion: While mental health care is appreciated, many transgender people see the universal MHE requirements as having significant negative implications on access, safety, and on even on their mental health. Guidelines should explicitly account for and mitigate the structural barriers preventing transgender individuals from accessing medical and mental health care.

Liberation Nation? Queer Refugees, Homonationalism and the Canadian Necropolitical State

Abstract This paper presents an overview of the Canadian state’s refugee determination processes for persons lodging asylum claims in Canada on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity expression (SOGIE). Canada has an international reputation for being a welcoming nation to SOGIE (as well as other categories of) refugees, a reputation that is much promoted by the Canadian government and mainstream media. However, in my ethnographic research with SOGIE refugee claimants navigating the Canadian refugee determination process, I reveal that claimants must quickly learn how to construct an ‘authentically’ gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender narrative that meets refugee adjudicators’ standards of credibility, or risk being identified as a ‘fake’ refugee, and thus face incarceration and/or deportation. I argue that sexuality now forms a crucial component of the nation-state’s gate-keeping apparatus, with uneven effects for queer migrants.

Lost in Transition? Digital trans activism on Youtube

ABSTRACT This article intends to contribute to a novel research area - the construction of critical transgender narratives on Youtube – examining how some Spanish trans youtubers shift the focus from the ‘fleshy metamorphosis’ [Barnett, J. T. (2015). Fleshy metamorphosis: Temporal pedagogies of transsexual counterpublics. In L. G. Spencer & J. C. Capuzza (Eds.), Transgender communication studies: Histories, trends, and trajectories (pp. 155–172). Lexington], to becoming trans ‘media-bodies’ [Raun,T. (2010). Screen-births: Exploring the transformative potential intrans video blogs on YouTube. Graduate Journal of Social Science, 7(2), 113–130]. We examine the channel Lost in Transition, by Spanish transgender advocate Elsa Ruiz Cómica. In contrast to other trans youtubers, who focus mostly on ‘passing’ as the ultimate trans achievement, Elsa creates alternative narratives. We will argue that her practices emerge as a new political subject, disobedient to the legal and biomedical framing of transgenderism as a disorder. Our main conclusion is that Youtube is a site of ‘digital trans activism’ [Raun, T. (2016). Out online. Trans self-representation and community building on YouTube. Routledge.], where non-binary youtubers can perform the nonconforming subaltern body [Platero, R. L., & Rosón, M. (2019). ‘Neithermale or female; just Falete’: Resistance and queerness on Spanish TV screens. Catalan Journal of Communication & Cultural Studies, 11(1), 135–143. doi:10.1386/cjcs.11.1.135_1] that would otherwise be invisible. This has implications for the public debate on transrights, as it lifts the issue of transition out of the medical sphere and puts it at the center of abroader cultural debate on gender identity.

Transgender Narrative in Public Service Announcement

After changing its city branding several times, Semarang now has a new city branding, namely "Semarang Variety of Culture." However, the city branding reaped contra from academics and cultural figures because Semarang was considered not sufficient yet in terms of representing its cultural diversity. Responding to this, the Semarang City Government and the Semarang City Public Works Department created a public service advertisement on CCTV socialization for flood control in the city of Semarang with a transgender figure as the ad star. This research was qualitative research designed with Seymour Chatman's Narrative Analysis. The research found a commodification and objectification of transgender people who imitated the feminine style of women in the advertisement. In other words, the public service announcement of Semarang CCTV socialization lowered the femininity, which is synonymous with women.The public service advertisement also violated the moral codes adopted by the majority of the Indonesian people.

'Fizera-se Mulher': Cassandra Rios, Visionária Maldita

In this essay, it will be discussed the pioneer use of transgender narratives by two works of the polemic writ-er Cassandra Rios, the Bildungsroman Georgette (1956) and the crime novel, Uma mulher diferente (1965). One of the central aspects of our analysis is the way the narrator deals with the gender of their transgender characters, as well as the crossings between gender identity and sexual orientation during the narrative.

Healthcare Experiences Among Young Adults Who Identify as Genderqueer or Nonbinary.

Research on healthcare among gender-diverse populations has largely focused on people who describe their gender in binary terms, either as trans men or trans women. This qualitative study examined the healthcare experiences of young adults who identify as genderqueer or nonbinary (GQ/NB). Participants (N = 10) were interviewed about experiences seeking and accessing healthcare. All were young adults (ages 23-33) in the San Francisco Bay area who had accessed healthcare at least once in the prior 6 months. A semistructured interview guide elicited conversations about gender identity and experiences of healthcare. Interview transcripts were analyzed using emergent coding analysis to identify themes. Participants faced unique challenges even at clinics specializing in gender-affirming healthcare. They felt misunderstood by providers who approached them from a binary transgender perspective and consequently often did not receive care sensitive to nonbinary identities. In response to this perceived bias, participants sometimes "borrowed" a binary transgender label to receive care, modified the healthcare they were prescribed, or went without healthcare. The GQ/NB young adults in our study regularly felt disrespected and frustrated as they sought and accessed healthcare. Participants felt that the binary transgender narrative pressured them to conform to binary medical narratives throughout healthcare interactions. GQ/NB young adults have unique healthcare needs but often do not feel understood by their providers. There is a need for existing healthcare systems to serve GQ/NB young adults more effectively.

“I Don’t Really Know What a Fair Portrayal Is and What a Stereotype Is”: Pluralizing Transgender Narratives with Young Adult Literature

The authors identify the necessity of focusing on and pluralizing understandings of transgender youth. They describe a series of classroom activities conducted to engage preservice English teachers.

“O My Hero! O My Comrade in Arms! O My Fiancée!”: Gender Crossing and Republican Values in Jane Dieulafoy's Fictions

The famed French explorer and writer Jane Dieulafoy became a celebrity in the late nineteenth century for the discoveries that she and her husband, Marcel, made on their excursions in Persia. Dieulafoy wore pants during this time and upon resettling in Paris acquired a permit from the Parisian police to wear men's clothing, even as she was embraced by the socially conservative literary and political elite. Recognizing Dieulafoy through the modern notion of transgender allows us to make sense of that seeming contradiction. Two of her long-overlooked novels,Volontaire(1892) andFrère Pélage(1894), can be read as early transgender narratives. Through their gender-crossing protagonists, these texts provide an intellectual framework for understanding how Dieulafoy reconciled her gender expression with the religious and social structures that she held dear.

A Trans Tipping Point

A Trans Tipping Point Evelyn Deshane (bio) In what follows, I want to consider gender transitions and cultural transitions, how these interlock, and how they also seem to defeat one another. As an English literature PhD candidate examining transgender storytelling, I spend a lot of time examining transgender representation in film, television, novels, and news media. Most of my work right now focuses on certain tropes we use to express transgender identity—think of those metaphors and analogies like being born in the wrong body or going on a gender journey. A major tendency recently is that more people, both inside and outside of the trans community, are using the language of gender transition more than gender transformation. Let me explain further. The 1950s was when North America really became aware of transgender identity, mostly through a figure like Christine Jorgensen suddenly appearing on the front of a newspaper after a trip overseas to have her final surgery. Trans identity in this context was a sudden and overwhelming change; it was, to use an actual quotation from a medical document from this time period, to "go abroad […] and come back a broad" (Benjamin 43). The distance between the points of man and woman, woman and man, was sudden, stark, and noticeable. This sudden overnight change was then replicated in media that covered the [End Page 117] story. Think of the before/after photograph so common in trans storytelling, even nowadays. The distance between the before and after photo is small, but it represents an overwhelming change. Similarly, think of the analogies often used to represent transgender people: the cocoon and blooming butterfly, the phoenix being reborn from the ashes. All sudden, all stark, all overwhelming. And mostly fictional. The space between the before and after photograph is supposed to stand in for surgery; it's supposed to be the magical transformation which suddenly changes a man into a woman. But changing genders is something that happens over years, sometimes decades, by sheer necessity. Hormones take a long time to manifest secondary sex characteristics and must be closely monitored. Even surgery, which can seem like a quick overnight change, actually happens over weeks and sometimes even years—especially if financial saving, recovery time, and the multiple surgeries some people choose to have are taken into consideration. Nothing here is a sudden transformation. Transgender narratives are often presented as a one-way trip; a teleological progress narrative constructed around certain steps and with a designated closure. It's pristine, it's perfect—and it's a myth. Most transgender people, if they experience gender as binary, don't see it as a sudden move from one to the next but as a gradual transition. For many others, gender is nonlinear. It can't happen teleologically because they must go backward and forward; they may stop transition halfway through and resume it later. Even their own memories, which now present a fragmented life full of so many different selves, are split and ruptured. The split self is what doctors try to solve when they perform surgery; it's the trauma that therapists and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual label "gender dysphoria." But the more time I spend in transgender communities, the more I realize that the split self isn't something to fix. It is oftentimes the goal of transition itself. Gender transformation, like that of Jorgensen, is all but forgotten; it's the gradual transition which can be a-linear and non-teleological which often presents a better option. The split self doesn't provide trauma but is an inspiration to keep moving and keep figuring something out. By denying an ultimate ending to the gender narrative—surgery—transition as a methodology but also an ideology and narratology stays around, and so do the experiences that go along with it. Transition, rather than transformation, seems to be the key to understanding transgender identity. But then someone uses a metaphor of transformation on the news or in a recently released film like The Danish Girl, and I realize that we're [End Page 118] still thinking in older terms. In 2014, Time Magazine said there was a "transgender tipping point," meaning that...