“None of this ‘trapped-in-a-man’s-body’ bullshit”: Transgender Girls and Wrong-Body Discourse in Young Adult Fiction

Putzi, Jennifer

doi:10.1353/tsw.2017.0029

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…Relatedly, the "born in the wrong body" metaphor may function similarly for those seeking gender-affirming healthcare treatment when the power dynamic between the healthcare provider and person seeking healthcare is biased toward the healthcare provider. This metaphor is the socially dominant metaphor for the transgender experience (Putzi 2017), and one that may need to be employed to achieve credibility in clinical encounters and facilitate gender-affirming medical treatment because of its alignment with the dominant medical discourse (Johnson 2015). When a person is already at a power disadvantage because of their status as patient, using dominant narratives to convey experience may allow for the person to be considered credible (Carel and Kidd 2014).…”

Section: Social Structures and Power Dynamicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…When a person is already at a power disadvantage because of their status as patient, using dominant narratives to convey experience may allow for the person to be considered credible (Carel and Kidd 2014). However, on a structural level, it reinforces the idea that gender is binary (Putzi 2017;Bettcher 2014). Not only may this inaccurately reflect the range of experiences of being transgender (Kobabe 2019), it validates and engrains the hermeneutical resources that underscore gender-oppressive power structures within the dominant discourse.…”

Section: Social Structures and Power Dynamicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Are Metaphors Ethically Bad Epistemic Practice? Epistemic Injustice at the Intersections

Sibbald

2023

Hypatia

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The COVID-19 pandemic brought the debate about the ethics of metaphors to the fore. In this article, I draw on blending theory—a theory of cognition—and theories of epistemic injustice to explore both the epistemic and ethical implications of metaphors. Beginning with a discussion of the conceptual alterations that may result from the use of metaphors, I argue that the effects these alterations have on available hermeneutical resources have the potential to result in a type of hermeneutical injustice distinct from the “lacuna” described by Miranda Fricker (Fricker 2007). Following, I examine how metaphors may therefore be considered “ethically bad epistemic practice,” as described by Rebecca Mason, because of how they may contribute to perpetuating an inequitable epistemic status quo (Mason 2011). Yet these same features may be used to promote epistemic justice in the context of intersectional power relationships. Situating the effects of metaphors within an inequitable yet dynamic epistemic system, I argue that foregrounding intersectional power dynamics enables us to interrogate the ethics of metaphors with consideration of both the epistemic and material consequences that may occur. I conclude by providing guidance for how, given that metaphors do epistemic work, we may use them to do ethical epistemic work.

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Section: Social Structures and Power Dynamicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Social Structures and Power Dynamicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Are Metaphors Ethically Bad Epistemic Practice? Epistemic Injustice at the Intersections

Sibbald

2023

Hypatia

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“…In this case, the desire to achieve a different final gendered body is required to gain social acceptance and medical authorization to transition. These narratives reinforce the model of the ‘wrong body’, focus its discourse on the genitals, and determine that gender disclosure necessarily means a quest for feminizing or masculinizing bodies to the full extent [ 18 ]. As temporality is interwoven in narratives, these changes require direct transformations without ‘looking back’ to reveal the real gender as soon as possible [ 19 ].…”

Section: Narratives Of Gender Transitioning Bodies and Sportmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring Trans People’s Narratives of Transition: Negotiation of Gendered Bodies in Physical Activity and Sport

Pereira-García

Devís‐Devís

López-Cañada

et al. 2021

IJERPH

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This paper explores how trans people who make transitions negotiate their gendered bodies in different moments of this process, and how their narrative storylines are emplotted in physical activity and (non)organized sports (PAS) participation. A qualitative semi-structured interview-based study was developed to analyze the stories of eight trans people (three trans women, two trans men, and three nonbinary persons) who participated in PAS before and during their gender disclosure. A thematic analysis was conducted to identify the patterns in the transition process and the structural analysis of the stories from the interviews. Three transition moments (the closet, opening up, and reassuring) were identified from the thematic analysis. Most participants showed difficulties in achieving their PAS participation during the two earlier moments. The predominance of failure storylines was found particularly in men, while success was more likely to appear in women because their bodies and choices fitted better with their PAS gender ideals. The nonbinary trans persons present alternative storylines in which corporeality has less influence on their PAS experiences. The knowledge provided on the moments and the stories of transition help to explain trans people’s (non)involvement in PAS and to guide policymaking and professional action in PAS fields.

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“…In literature and the media, certain types of trans narrative, namely those which conform to heteronormative ideals or adhere to binary genders rather than non-binary or other genders, are privileged, and many follow a stereotypical formula (Barker-Plummer;Cart and Jenkins 2006;Pini, Keys, and Riggs 2018;Prosser;Putzi). It is not just media coverage and autobiography which are subject to privileging particular narratives, but mainstream fiction as well such as young adult novels (Nash).…”

Section: Trans Narratives and Trans Readingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“I Am Not Returning Home”: A Transgender Reading of Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation

Nash

2021

Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction

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Jeff VanderMeer's novel Annihilation (2014) takes the form of a field journal written by a character known as "the biologist." It follows an expedition of four women into Area X, where monstrous creatures roam and all living things, including the biologist, undergo transitions as their DNA radically changes. This reading of the biologist's journal presents it as not only a transition narrative but as a fictional transgender autobiography, sharing many similarities with the features of trans autobiography identified by Jay Prosser (1998). I argue that the biologist's attempts to assert her identification of a topographical anomaly as the "tower" can be a metaphor for the struggle in trans autobiography for self-identification to be accepted as truth. Contextualizing Annihilation within current discourses in transecology, I make links to the rhetoric of blame on LGBTQIA+ people as the cause of environmental disasters. I conclude with a hopeful reading, which defies this blame, of the biologist's statement that "I am not returning home," as an ending of trans possibility. Trans people must constantly reassert and fight for our existence, so as a trans-identified scholar I hope to highlight transgender readings in unexpected places, showing that our experiences exist across all genres." . . . I have hoped that in reading this account, you might find me a credible, objective witness." (Jeff VanderMeer 2014a, 55) Annihilation(2014a) by Jeff VanderMeer is a weird fiction novel which follows an expedition of four women into Area X, a site quarantined by the agency known as the Southern Reach and investigated for many years due to unusual changes in its ecology. VanderMeer's writing is often seen as a response to climate change and Anthropocene concerns (Bruhn and Hart 1), and is categorized as both weird fiction and ecofiction (Marshall 663 cited in Clapp 2). Weird fiction typically blends sci-fi, fantasy, and horror with aspects of surrealism, magical realism and Lovecraftian influences (Vint 197 cited in Ersoy 252). It has been argued that Lovecraft's The Color Out of Space (1927) could be seen as the precursor to Annihilation (Ersoy 253). As Ann VanderMeer and Jeff VanderMeer (2011) describe in The Weird: A Compendium of Weird and Dark Stories, the weird: " . . . strives for a kind of understanding even when something cannot be understood, and acknowledges that failure as sign and symbol of our limitations" (Location 250). Stories belonging to the genre of weird fiction do not have to concern themselves only with the extra-terrestrial and can just as easily be concerned with life on Earth and contemporary human and ecological issues (Ersoy 253).Annihilation, the first book in the Southern Reach Trilogy, takes the form of a field journal written by a character known as "the biologist." Names are never used on the expedition, and we know the rest of the team only as the psychologist (the expedition leader), the surveyor, the anthropologist, and the (absent) linguist. Within Area X two structures, a topographical anom...

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“None of this ‘trapped-in-a-man’s-body’ bullshit”: Transgender Girls and Wrong-Body Discourse in Young Adult Fiction

Cited by 7 publications

References 5 publications

Are Metaphors Ethically Bad Epistemic Practice? Epistemic Injustice at the Intersections

Are Metaphors Ethically Bad Epistemic Practice? Epistemic Injustice at the Intersections

Exploring Trans People’s Narratives of Transition: Negotiation of Gendered Bodies in Physical Activity and Sport

“I Am Not Returning Home”: A Transgender Reading of Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation

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