Gender identity as perceived gender is essential to the understanding of transgenderism that currently prevails in the Euro-American world. This is based on a genuinely sexological narrative, according to which gender transitions occur because some people's own experiences do not match their somatic gender—or the gender that has been assigned to them based on their physical appearance. This incongruity gives rise to the desire to transition to living in the appropriate gender.
This narrative is also frequently used in social science research, together with a reference to the prefix trans (beyond) as opposed to cis (this side), whereby cis persons are understood as those who identify with the gender assigned to them based on their body. However, given the widely accepted insight in gender studies that gender and bodies are also socially and discursively constructed, such a recourse to the relationship between an individual's identity and body seems to be based on many assumptions.
This workshop focuses on the prerequisites and consequences of different understandings of trans in social science research. The aim is to explore how research on trans can go beyond individualized mismatch or (non-)identification with an assigned gender. Starting from the sexological history of gender congruence/incongruence, we will work out in plenary and group work how trans/non-trans is usually distinguished and what understanding of identity and gender underlies such a distinction. We will then discuss which ideas about transgenderism and trans people are produced and perpetuated in and through social science research. Based on the texts and input from the workshop leaders, we will conclude by exploring possible alternative understandings and their significance for specific research projects.
The workshop will be held in German.
The literature to be prepared will be sent after registration:
- Tara Gonsalves; Gender Identity, the Sexed Body, and the Medical Making of Transgender. Gender & Society 2020; 34 (6): 1005–1033. doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243220965913
- Eric Llaveria Caselles; Contours of a Historical Materialist Theory of Transsexuality: Claiming a Hopeful Origin Story as a Personal and Political Necessity. TSQ 1 May 2024; 11 (2): 239–265. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/23289252-11215483
Louka Maju Goetzke is a member of staff in the potential area “Transition und Transgression: fluide Genderbewegungen” at the University of Koblenz. Their teaching and research focuses on the intersection of sociological theory, feminist science studies, and trans, crip, and mad studies, with a particular interest in concepts of materiality and time, as well as human and subject boundaries.