Rethinking gender diversity: Transgender and gender nonconforming people and gender as constellation

Abstract

In this article, we challenge the mainstream view of gender rooted in binary cisnormativity and suggest that the gender frameworks used to inform organizational research and practice are inadequate with respect to the range of transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) identities. We employ Hacking's “dynamic nominalism” to illustrate how evolving classifications of TGNC people operate as a discriminating factor that threatens their lived experiences. As an alternative to the binary cisnormative metaphor of gender as a spectrum, we adopt a more inclusive metaphor of a gender constellation and sketch out its potential conceptualization that promotes multidimensional, non‐hierarchical, and dynamic approaches to gender diversity.

Doing transgender: Gender minorities in the organization

“…As Dray et al (2020) and Moulin de Souza and Parker (2022) argue, the binary construction of gender is limited in its applicability for some gender minority employees, for example, non-binary employees. The work of Suhomlinova et al (2023) in this Special Issue, which challenges established frameworks of gender, can be thought of as contributing toward the decolonization of established gender frameworks (McShane, 2021), moving away from the binary framing used and imposed by European colonizers-and indeed the more recent Western-centric terminology and framing of trans identities-to more varied and multifaceted gender frameworks and/or those that consider intersectional experiences (e.g., Greene & Ervin, 2024;Hennekam & Dumazert, 2023), discussed below. As trans voices gain more prominence within the academy, future work can further challenge popular theories, concepts, and frameworks surrounding gender and transgender identities.…”