“I got confused when they said ‘you’re a girl’”: trans men’s life histories and the regulation of gender

Zottola, Angela, Jones, Lucy, Mullany, Louise and Pilnick, Alison ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0987-8760 (2023) “I got confused when they said ‘you’re a girl’”: trans men’s life histories and the regulation of gender. In: Masculinities and Discourses of Men's Health. Palgrave Studies in Language, Gender and Sexuality . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, pp. 249-271. ISBN 9783031384066 (hardcover); 9783031384073 (ebook)

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Abstract

In this chapter, we analyse autobiographical narratives written by young transgender men who were patients at a British gender identity clinic. The narratives were part of a clinical diagnostic process in which participants were asked by clinicians to record their experience with their gender identity thus far. We argue that they provide evidence of the regulatory power of everyday social interactions in reinforcing narrow conceptualisations of gender. We explore the linguistic means by which the authors of these narratives position their identities from childhood onwards, revealing the prevalence of strategies which allow them to actively resist traditionally feminine symbols and the categorisation of themselves as feminine. Despite this, however, we also demonstrate the considerable constraints upon these young men, as they are actively rejected, marginalised, and punished for behaviour which falls outside of gendered expectations. We close by arguing that these narratives provide important insight into the regulation of gender as it may be experienced by trans youth, and the role of clinical contexts in potentially reinforcing this.