`I am the Prince of Pain, for I am a Princess in the Brain': Liminal Transgender Identities, Narratives and the Elimination of Ambiguities

Abstract

This article explores the formation and construction of transgendered identities, `the various ontological and public narratives in which actors plot or find themselves' (Somers and Gibson, 1994: 67). Research I have conducted in Perth, Western Australia, shows that while a multiplicity of gendered identities circulate in various spaces and places, there is also a pressing need for many transgendered persons to ultimately define themselves within existing and recognizable `normal' gender boundaries: instead of marking difference, many seem to eliminate it. Often identity goes from being `liminal' and multiple where males can be females, females can be males, and public gender categories are temporarily and spatially suspended, to being ultimately singular, recognizable and stable (as demanded by wider medical, sociocultural and public understandings of gender). Here, I investigate what Victor Turner (expanding on the work of Arnold Van Gennep, 1960) has called the `The Liminal Period' (1967). Following and building on the arguments initially proposed by Anne Bolin who focused on transsexual rites of transition in the USA (1988), I look at the theory of liminality in relation to transgendered rites de passage in Perth. While recognizing the large body of work from queer studies,¹ which turns its gaze toward social practices that organize a society and sexualize the `bodies, desires, acts, identities, social relations, knowledges, culture and social institutions' (Seidman, 1996: 13), I choose instead to draw on and apply particular concepts proposed by anthropologist, Mary Douglas (1966, 1970). Employing her notions of purity and danger to relevant questions in this article, I explore how cultures understand, interpret and deal with variance and anomaly.

Dangerous sports and recreational drug‐use: rationalizing and contextualizing risk

“…269-270). Occupation of this transitional time, space and identity is not easily sustained under the kind of circumstances described here by Alison (Wilson, 2003). Thus, various strategies are adopted to overcome reservations, both at initiation, and at maintenance (see later).…”

Cognitive and interpersonal identity processes related to mid-life gender transitioning in transgender women

“…Liminality may also be a useful framework to understand gender transitioning among transgender individuals. Nina's contention that being out of place in society is "such a hard place to be" suggests that she might agree with Wilson's (2002) participants in perceiving liminality as undesirable.…”

“…Nina's description of herself as a third type of person may also be linked to research that has used the theoretical framework of liminality to understand how transgender individuals describe the feeling of living in between, a state of being perceived by this group as both temporary and undesirable (Wilson, 2002). The concept of liminality was originally theorized as the transition "from one sociocultural state and status to another" (Turner, 1977, p. 68).…”

HIV-Negativity in Serodiscordant Relationships: The Absence, Enactment, and Liminality of Serostatus Identity

“…This phenomenon brings to mind Turner's concept of liminality, an in-between, undifferentiated state of ''statuslessness' ' (1977a:97). This concept has been used by researchers to describe an array of experiences and subjects that ''fall in the interstices of social structure'' (Turner 1977a:125) or transgress classificatory boundaries, for example physical disability (Murphy et al 1988), transgender identities (Wilson 2002), refugees (Malkki 1995), and physical ambiguities produced by cancer treatment (Navon and Morag 2004). It is also applicable to the empirical material at hand.…”