Transnormativity: A New Concept and Its Validation through Documentary Film About Transgender Men

Abstract

While prior research has called attention to how medically based, normative understandings of sex and gender place undue restrictions on transgender people's autonomy, there has yet to be an attempt to consolidate this research into a recognizable concept that is situated within existing theoretical frameworks. This article uses documentary films focused on transgender men as an empirical example to develop the concept of transnormativity. Transnormativity describes the specific framework to which transgender people's presentations and experiences of gender are held accountable. Drawing on research specific to transgender community groups, medicalization, and legal transition, I argue that transnormativity structures transgender experience, identification, and narratives into a hierarchy of legitimacy that is dependent upon medical standards. This ideology, as I show via a content analysis of documentary films, circulates in media depictions of transgender people in ways that eclipse alternative explanations of gender non-conformity. While medical transition is a central component of many transgender people's gender trajectory, I argue in this article that the privileging of the medical model over others creates a marginalizing effect for gender-non-conforming people who cannot or do not wish to medically transition.

“We're the Normal Ones Here”: Community Involvement, Peer Support, and Transgender Mental Health

“…On top of their management of an already marginalized identity, trans people felt they had to present a specific version of transness—what Johnson () calls Transnormativity—to get what they needed to proceed with their transition.…”

Transgender experiences and transphobia in higher education

“…For example, the primary model for understanding trans‐ness in the United States asserts that transgender people were “born in the wrong body” and transition to the “opposite” gender (Bettcher, ; Serano, ). While this does not describe all people's experiences, and not everyone aims to pass as cisgender, the belief that they should or do feel this way constitutes an ideology that Johnson () calls transnormativity. Individual trans people, gatekeeping institutions, and social discourses all promote and enforce transnormative expectations (Johnson, ).…”

“…While this does not describe all people's experiences, and not everyone aims to pass as cisgender, the belief that they should or do feel this way constitutes an ideology that Johnson () calls transnormativity. Individual trans people, gatekeeping institutions, and social discourses all promote and enforce transnormative expectations (Johnson, ). But while transnormativity is only one of many gender ideologies used to police trans people's gender identities and expression (shuster, ), it plays a particularly salient role in the process of gatekeeping around the trans community.…”

Rejecting, reframing, and reintroducing: trans people's strategic engagement with the medicalisation of gender dysphoria

“…Many scholars have shown that the medical model restricts trans people in legal, social and medical settings while simultaneously providing avenues to gender-affirming care (Burke 2011, Butler 2006, Koenig 2011, Meadow 2010, Romeo 2004, Spade 2003. The double-edged effects of trans diagnosis arise most noticeably in the form of gatekeeping, or the use of the medical model and associated diagnostic standards as a normative accountability structure (Johnson 2015(Johnson , 2016) that empowers trans people who fit its criteria and constrains those who do not. Specifically, scholars have documented the ways that the medical model operates as a kind of litmus test for determining who may access (i) gender affirming medical care (Drescher et al 2012, Spade 2003, (ii) social support and/or validation from both transgender and cisgender (i.e.…”