On the Limits of “Trans Enough”: Authenticating Trans Identity Narratives

Abstract

Existing (binary) understandings of gender affirm some types of gendered accounts as “authentic,” while others are discredited or obscured. As a consequence, many transgender people express anxiety about whether their experience of gender can be distilled into a narrative that is intelligible to others and appears consistent over time. In this article, I assess the identity narratives produced by two cohorts of trans respondents—binary-identified respondents, and non-binary respondents—as a means of understanding the narrative strategies that respondents employ to establish themselves as “authentically” trans. To affirm themselves as trans, I find that non-binary participants tended to elide or to minimize potential inconsistencies in their stories, producing narratives that reflect dominant cultural accounts of trans experience—accounts that center an early-childhood affiliation with the “opposite” sex, endorsing and affirming binary gender distinctions. In turn, binary-identified participants often produced accounts that complicated or questioned these tropes. While non-binary individuals have been hailed as the primary arbiters of gender’s undoing, the social and institutional constraints that inform how we account for gender—which shape both our production of those accounts and others’ interpretations of them—suggest that binary-identified respondents may be better positioned to work towards this “undoing” than their non-binary counterparts.

Keywords

trans non-binary narrative identity formation accountability gender

In 2014, TIME magazine released a feature article headlined “The Transgender Tipping Point” (Steinmetz 2014). Within, Laverne Cox, an out trans woman and the cover model profiled in the piece, argued that increasing public awareness of what it means to be transgender has made it easier than ever before for gender-nonconforming Americans to claim a trans identity label. “We are in a place now where more and more trans people want to come forward and say ‘This is who I am,’” Cox tells Time. “More of us are living [and] pursuing our dreams visibly.”

Cox is right—trans identities are becoming more visible. Moreover, the question of what it means to be visibly transgender is changing in kind. Over the past several decades, transgender has emerged as a politically and interpersonally salient category of identity, distinct from, though dependent upon, existing cultural categories used to organize gender. Some trans individuals have embraced gender fluidity as an idealized personal and political ethos (Davis 2008), rejecting binary identity categories and framing “queer” identity play as transgressive and transformative. However, as some scholars have suggested (Namaste 2010), this emphasis on the transformative possibilities of gender identity play has overshadowed the regulatory threat imposed by those same categories: namely, the fact that gender attribution continues to play a fundamental role in attaining cultural intelligibility. When others are unable to determine our gender, we cannot be “recognized” by them: in essence, we lose our personhood.

To date, gender scholars have largely failed to examine how trans and gender-variant individuals reconcile these competing tensions: how they balance their efforts to destabilize gender categories against social imperatives that demand consistency and cohesion in gender performance. Those advocating for narrative inconsistency find themselves in a tenuous position, recognizing that they need some measure of narrative consistency to convey their identities to others and have them taken seriously. As a consequence, while some are quick to praise the disruption of binary gender categories, their accounts often suggest a greater attachment to those categories than this disparagement might otherwise predict (Davis 2008; Namaste 2010). Understanding that inconsistent stories of self-discovery are likely to draw criticism, many go to great lengths to fortify their identity claims, conducting exhaustive searches for proof of their gender variance. Those who believe that they are most likely to be misrecognized by others—in this case, non-binary individuals—are among the most motivated to develop accounts that mirror the dominant narrative of trans experience. Yet, the same evidence that might be presented to affirm one’s trans identity—for example, evidence of gender-atypical behaviors or preferences in childhood—serves the dual purpose of reaffirming one’s identity as masculine or feminine, even when respondents might wish to problematize this distinction. Thus, and somewhat ironically, those persons with the greatest investment in subverting or upending the gender order are perhaps most likely to produce experiential accounts that reaffirm it. In turn, those who have conclusively “proven” their trans status (e.g., by accessing medical transition) gain a degree of freedom to push back on these stereotypes, less concerned about invalidation by others.

This work interrogates these challenges in context by examining how trans-identified respondents approach the process of composing (and revising) accounts of their gender experience. I show how the threat of identity challenge influences the construction of these accounts, encouraging respondents with “messy” stories to balance efforts to center fluidity against the need to maintain social intelligibility. I find that in order to claim public identities as trans, non-binary respondents are often motivated to present accounts that closely reflect prevailing understandings of trans experience (e.g., the “born in the wrong body” narrative), even when these accounts fail to capture the nuance of their experiences. In turn, those who have already had their identities validated by others are more likely to present ambiguous accounts that center fluidity. The strategies that respondents leverage in composing their stories shape the possibility of longer-term change to the gender order. While non-binary individuals have been centered as the arbiters of gender’s undoing, the social and institutional constraints that shape gender accountability make it socially risky for many non-binary people to center gender deconstruction in their own identity narratives. This suggests that binary-identified respondents may be more strategically positioned to work towards this undoing than their non-binary counterparts.

Understanding Gender Accountability

Gender as an Interactional Accomplishment

As West and Zimmerman (1987) have argued, the constellation of behaviors and characteristics that make up gender are not intrinsic to the body. Instead, gender is a negotiated social achievement, which we constantly (if not necessarily consciously) work to defend. As we engage with others, attempts are made to determine our gender, interpreted through the deployment of signifiers coded as masculine or feminine—a process known as “gender attribution” (Kessler and McKenna 1978). In turn, we reciprocate this process, attributing gender to others by determining the category to which they appear to belong. We make determinations about gender by imputing sex category: as we observe others’ secondary sex characteristics, we pass them through a mental filter that allows us to interpret some signifiers as male (e.g., facial hair) and others as female (e.g., the presence of breasts). Curiously, in addition to helping us to see differences between the sexes, this cognitive filter also encourages us to minimize or overlook traits that the sexes may hold in common (e.g., the presence of body hair): an effect that serves to exaggerate the magnitude of these visible sex and gender differences (Friedman 2014).

The “doing gender” framework presents gender as an attribute that can never be truly achieved, but only re-asserted as we move into new encounters. As a consequence, some have suggested that this framework advances new possibilities for understanding how the gendered order might be effectively subverted or transformed. For example, Deutsch (2007) argued that the greatest singular contribution of the “doing gender” approach to sociology has been its affirmation that if gender can be “done,” it can also be “undone”: the gendered hierarchies that undergird our social institutions can be dismantled, and the interactions that shape and support those hierarchies can be re-directed.

As gender-variant people cannot anticipate how they will be “read” by others, many engage with gender deliberately and self-consciously, tailoring their presentation in ways that will enable them to be seen as they desire. As Kessler and McKenna (2000; see also 1978) elaborate in their germinal work on the social construction of gender, “Transsexuals [sic] take their own gender for granted, but they cannot assume that others will . . . [they] must manage themselves as male or female.” It is this self-conscious apprehension of gender performance that has made the study of trans-identified people so fruitful for gender scholars. Some have contended that trans individuals may be uniquely positioned to work towards the undoing of gender, as their presence throws the taken-for-granted congruence between presumed sex category and gender expression into question. For example, in her study of workplace transition experiences, Connell (2010) argued that because trans people complicate the question of what it means to “do gender,” they undermine the social significance of the gender binary simply by asserting their own existence. In a similar vein, Darwin (2017) has argued that because non-binary expressions of gender resist stable definitions, the potential for these identities to aid in transforming the gendered order may be immense—assuming, of course, that these challenges to the system are recognized and affirmed by others.

Yet, often, that same need for recognition thwarts the radical potential of these interventions. Empirical studies leveraging the “doing gender” framework have largely emphasized the foreclosure of change, asking how the gender order has remained so persistent over time. Part of this persistence stems from gender’s ubiquity—the pervasiveness with which it infiltrates our interactions, anchoring the institutions on which we depend (Ridgeway 2011; Ridgeway and Correll 2004). Another insidious dimension emerges from our need to remain accountable to gender—to present a gendered self that others can recognize. When we engage others, we enter into a shared understanding of the situation at hand, and we are expected to act in accordance with that understanding (Goffman 1959). Just as we can’t escape the need to take a “line” in our interactions with others—for even if we reject the interaction, others will respond to that refusal and use it to establish a sense of what’s happening—it is impossible for us to opt out of gender performance. Even if we explicitly attempt to present ourselves as ambiguous, others may thwart us, assigning us automatically to whatever category seems “closest.” In attempting to present ourselves as androgynous, we may indeed lead others to question our gender; however, lacking a set of signifiers to connote identities that are explicitly “in-between,” the question drawn is less often “Is that a non-binary person?” than “Is that a boy or a girl?” This isn’t to suggest that individuals have no agency to innovate in their performances of gender—they certainly do—but, for these performances to impact lived reality, others must also be able to recognize them.

Accountability and Identity Formation

Finding that we are unable to classify someone’s gender can be destabilizing, creating uncertainty about how to move the interaction forward. We have a responsibility as social actors to put on a performance that is intelligible to others (Butler 1990). At the same time, we also are accountable to ourselves to produce an “authentic” performance. Accountability operates not only through a logic of other-enforcement, wherein actors police one another’s gender performance and sanction those who fail to perform as prescribed, but also through a logic of self-enforcement, wherein actors monitor their own behavior in anticipation of others’ reactions (shuster 2017). Sociologist stef shuster, for example, has found that when some trans and gender-nonconforming individuals anticipate being misgendered or misrecognized by others, they will intentionally silence themselves as a method of self-protection or minimize their own reactions in an effort to help others “save face” (2017). Ambiguity motivates all actors to seek to restore order, even when this order means eliding nuance or compromising personal comfort.

These self-enforcement practices also have implications for emotional well-being. When we are unable to “do” gender in ways that others can recognize, others may challenge our performances. As a consequence, we may come to question our own authenticity and wonder whether we really are the people we’ve understood ourselves to be. As we construct continuous and socially credible accounts of our identities, this sense of continuity reinforces our confidence that these expressions are emblematic of our “true” self (Ezzy 1998; Linde 1993). These perceptions of personal authenticity have a host of beneficial impacts. For example, in times of personal transformation, being able to generate an internally consistent account of self can help respondents feel that they have “made sense” of their experiences, leading to greater perceptions of agency and self-efficacy (Hammack 2008). Feelings of authenticity also yield positive mental health impacts, including lower rates of depression and anxiety (Schrock, Holden, and Reid 2004) and higher self-esteem (Mason-Schrock 2006). Conversely, doubting one’s own authenticity can have negative consequences for social status, self-confidence, and trust in one’s relationships with others.

On Being “Trans Enough”

While consistency of presentation is critical to establishing any social identity, it represents a central source of anxiety for those who are transgender. Claiming a new public gender identity involves active negotiation, seeking validation from others to affirm that one’s identity is authentic and “real.” To maintain their accountability to gender, trans people must present a story of selfhood that not only claims affiliation with their preferred gender category, but also dis-claims affiliation with the sex category assigned to them at birth. Identity formation processes “link” individuals into place within cultural scripts (Loseke 2007), affording them social intelligibility. If respondents present an account that seems inconsistent, they face misrecognition at best, and stigmatization, exclusion, or violence at worst.

In addition to being accountable to others in interaction, trans people are accountable to the institutions that shape their lives. The medical and legal establishments play profound roles in directing the access that trans individuals have to social recognition, as well as to the access they have to legal and medical procedures (e.g., hormone replacement therapy [HRT]; legal name changes) meant to affirm their status as their identified gender (see Schilt and Westbrook 2014). One point of great concern for individuals seeking access to medical transition, regardless of gender identity, is the fact that an individual cannot simply claim to have been “born in the wrong body” and demand that others recognize them as such: “in order to become transsexual [sic], an individual must first be clinically authorized to be transsexual” (Yeadon-Lee 2009). This means that in most states, to access hormone therapy and other medical interventions, trans-identified individuals must first secure a letter of confirmation from a qualified psychologist or physician diagnosing them with gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria is typically diagnosed through a series of life-history interviews, wherein the patient recounts their childhood experience of gender and explains how physical transition will benefit them. Thus, for persons seeking medical transition, narrative consistency becomes a paramount concern: these respondents face significant pressure to ensure that their stories meet the provider’s expectations, as stories judged as unconvincing often yield denial of care.

For those who claim identities somewhere in the “messy middle”—identities that fall in between existing cultural categories, or that blur the boundaries between them—presenting identity narratives that appear consistent is uniquely challenging. Bisexual people, for instance, another group positioned in this “messy middle,” are often rendered invisible in their interactions with others, as casual observers may presume them to be heterosexual, gay, or lesbian (Diamond 2008). While the acknowledgement of an essential homosexuality paved the way for the social recognition of non-heterosexuals, this acknowledgement left bisexuals with no foundation upon which to construct an independent sexual identity. As Rust (1992) asserted in her study of lesbian and bisexual identity formation, “[To] establish a legitimate [bisexual] identity . . . must involve a redefinition of bisexuality as a holistic experience, rather than a hybrid homosexual-heterosexual experience—a redefinition that would destroy the dichotomous conception of sexuality” (383). The resistance of other actors to these efforts—in this case, lesbian women—may undermine efforts to affirm bisexuality as a free-standing category of identity.

Non-binary individuals face a similar problematic: as increasing social recognition of binary transgender identities has transformed our understanding of the gender system, affirming that gender identity need not correlate directly with biological sex, these shifts have rendered fundamentally invisible those who fall outside of the binary (shuster 2017). While we have developed stable sets of cultural signifiers that can be used to “flag” binary gender identities, non-binary gender identities—by definition—trouble these distinctions. Non-binary people may find their identities elided in interactions with others, who may categorize them on sight as men or women. In an important extension of Connell’s (2010) work, Pfeffer (2014) terms this process “misrecognition”—the mis-apprehension, deliberate or unintentional, of a person’s identity by others. Pfeffer observes that, rather than serving as an effect of the binary gender system, misrecognition in fact gives form to the gender binary, helping to perpetuate and diffuse it. To maintain an affiliation or secure some social gain, there are moments where individuals may intentionally attempt to orchestrate their own misrecognition (Pfeffer 2014). At other times, people may be inadvertently misrecognized, finding that their identities are literally “unthinkable” to others.

As I have described, this effort to claim visibility is as important for shaping self-understanding as it is for shaping social interaction. We often assume that if our own experience differs from that of our peers, it must by extension be less legitimate. Again, these concerns are heightened among those who identify as non-binary (Darwin 2017), as the available cultural narratives claiming to account for trans experience—for example, the monolithic perception that trans individuals were “born in the wrong body” (Fink and Miller 2014), or the perception that all transgender individuals desire medical intervention (Yeadon-Lee 2009)—may not effectively account for their own experiences. Many express insecurities about whether their identity claims are being perceived as authentic—whether they are “trans enough” to justify claiming a transgender identity label.

While we might expect these worries to be attenuated within the context of queer- or trans-affirming spaces, this isn’t always the case. In fact, with their focus on individualistic self-definition and the deconstruction of identity categories, some queer spaces inadvertently reproduce the same inter-community dynamics that perpetuate queer marginalization, a process that Jason Orne has termed queernormativity (2017). According to Orne, emphasizing the fluidity or deconstruction of identity refocuses participants’ attention on the rhetorical, ensuring that those who frequent these spaces remain attuned to the language they are using to describe others and to whether it is sufficiently inclusive. Rather than remediating the inequality present in these spaces, Orne argued that this tension places community members “in the line of fire,” forever on guard against the possibility of having their access to the space questioned or undermined. Within queernormative systems, participants are so preoccupied with ensuring that they are “queer enough” to merit access that they re-instantiate the same social hierarchies that serve to marginalize queer people outside of these spaces. As others have noted, a similar process—what Austin Johnson (2017) terms “transnormativity”—helps regulate gender expression and performance within trans communities. As Johnson explains, “In addition to accountability to hegemonic standards of sex category and gender, trans people are also held accountable to transnormative standards that are specific to trans people as a group . . . an ideology that structures trans identification, experience, and narratives into a realness or trans enough hierarchy that is heavily reliant on accountability to a medically-based, heteronormative model” (emphasis in original; 467-8).

In this work, I ask how trans people engage with these expectations: how they do the work of preparing and presenting narratives that can be assessed as “trans enough.” I find that non-binary and binary-identified participants responded to this pressure in different ways: the strategies favored by non-binary respondents (especially those who had not accessed medical transition) tended to minimize fluidity, while binary-identified respondents were more willing to acknowledge the ways in which their own stories diverged from dominant representations. As I demonstrate below, these strategic variations shape personal understandings of self and identity, but they also help to direct longer-term social and cultural change.

Methods

This research draws upon seventeen in-depth interviews conducted with trans-identified volunteers (see Table I). Respondents ranged in age from 19 to 38, with a mean age of 25. Six interviewees identified themselves as male; five identified as female. Of the remaining six respondents, two identified as gender-fluid and four as genderqueer.

Table 1:

Respondent Overview and Demographic Characteristics

Name	Age	Gender Identity	Pronouns	Attractionality	Race	Educational Attainment	Occupation	Location
Gina	25	Female	She/her	Lesbian	White	Some college	Chef	Austin, TX
Ariel	23	Female	She/her	Heterosexual	White	Some college	Call center employee	Parkton, NC
Rebecca	25	Female	She/her	Questioning	White	BA	Computer programmer	Ann Arbor, MI
Lily	28	Female	She/her	Lesbian	White	MSW	Social worker	Oneonta, ME
Chloe	20	Female	She/her	Heteroflexible	Multiracial	In college	Student	Palo Alto, CA
Walt	27	Male	He/him	Heterosexual	White	BA	Acupuncturist	Cleveland, OH
Jason	31	Male	He/him	Bisexual	Latinx	MA	Software developer	Portland, OR
Tony	26	Male	He/him	Queer	Multiracial	BA	Nonprofit assistant	San Francisco, CA
Ben	19	Male	He/him	Pansexual	White	In college	Visual artist	Louisville, KY
Connor	24	Male	He/him	Queer	White	Some college	Auto mechanic	Seattle, WA
Hayden	21	Male	He/him	Pansexual	Multiracial	In college	Retail sales associate	Atlanta, GA
Robin	22	Genderfluid	She/her	Pansexual	White	In college	Student	Chicago, IL
Emerson	20	Genderqueer	They/them	Queer	White	Some college	None	Ann Arbor, MI
Marilyn	26	Genderfluid	She/her	Gay	White	BA	Police officer	Las Cruces, NM
Casey	22	Genderqueer	They/them	Queer	Native American	In college	Student	Glendale, AZ
Jem	38	Genderqueer	He/him	Queer	White	PhD	Molecular geneticist	San Francisco, CA
Sam	29	Genderqueer	He/him	Queer	Middle Eastern	MA	Student affairs	Chicago, IL

Most respondents (82%) were recruited through gender- or transition-focused online message boards and social networking sites. It should be noted, however, that individuals who spend significant amounts of time socializing online may differ demographically from those who primarily socialize within off-line contexts (Murthy 2008). Some populations (e.g., respondents in rural areas, or respondents who are economically insecure) may be less likely to have consistent access to the Internet, while others (e.g., older respondents) may be less likely to utilize the Internet as a means of connecting with other trans-identified people. In an effort to broaden the scope, respondents also were invited to participate via recruitment flyers distributed to a collection of 156 LGBTQ-focused community organizations, including local and regional community centers and community events (such as Pride festivals).

Respondents were sampled from across the country. While not all of the participants held college degrees, all had some college experience; five were current undergraduate students, four held bachelor’s degrees, and four held advanced degrees. They came from similarly diverse backgrounds and walks of life: occupationally, the sample included a chef, a police cadet, a molecular geneticist, an acupuncturist, and a call-center employee. All participants identified as transgender, had disclosed their trans identity to at least one other individual at the time of the interview, and reported taking at least one step to bring their physical or social presentation into closer alignment with their perceived gender identity. (For some respondents, this meant HRT or surgery; for others, it meant adopting a new name or pronouns, or altering their style of dress.) Interviews were conducted remotely using the browser-based videoconferencing program Blue Jeans. In the event that respondents could not guarantee a consistent Internet connection, a telephone interview was substituted.

Interviews made use of a semistructured template loosely organized around the Life Story Interview guide produced by the Foley Center (McAdams 2008). All interviews began with an open-format exposition of the respondent’s “life story”—their lifetime experience of gender, with reflections on their coming-out and transition experiences (if any). Respondents then were prompted to reflect more specifically upon their experiences of self-actualization, their efforts to adapt to new roles and norms following social transition, and their decision to undertake particular interventions (such as HRT).

All interviews were transcribed and coded using the QDA software program NViVo 10. Coding proceeded in two rounds: an open, inductive round, where all transcripts were coded broadly to identify core themes, and a focused round, where each transcript was re-read and coded for content specific to these emergent themes. Focused coding centered around four key issues: narrative revisionism (moments where respondents reinterpreted their gender experience narratives), narrative inconsistency (points where respondents acknowledged internal contradictions), identity challenges (moments where respondents felt that their identity was rejected or misinterpreted by others), and strategies of resolution (the techniques that respondents employed to refute identity challenges, explicit or perceived).

Tracing the Dominant Discourse

To determine whether their own narratives were questionable, respondents first had to cultivate a sense of which gender narratives were culturally legitimate. Each participant described their perceptions of the “dominant narrative” of trans identity, explaining how and whether their own experiences aligned with these representations.

The most frequently cited element of this discourse was the belief that gender-variant behavior makes itself obvious in early childhood, and that those who are “truly” trans are unable to conceal or deny this variance. As Chloe,¹ a 20-year-old trans woman, described, “The dominant narrative is, like, from the first thing you could say, you told your mom, ‘Oh, Mom, I’m the opposite gender.’” Rooted in essentialist interpretations of gender as innate or inborn, this narrative suggests that trans children are born with the understanding that their sex category and gender identity are out of alignment, and that most give voice to this disconnect within their first few years of life. For those who come to identify as trans later in life, this apparent “delay” in self-recognition can cast a shadow of doubt: the older respondents were when they first came to identify themselves as trans, the more they seemed to fear that they would be challenged or regarded as illegitimate by others. As 24-year-old trans woman Rebecca stated, “You hear all the time about people who knew when they were three or four—I didn’t know until I was 12 or 13, which gave me a lot of doubts to overcome.”

Others referenced tropes asserting that the typical trans-identified person feels “trapped” in the wrong body. Like the insistence on childhood awareness described above, these tropes draw upon binary conceptions of gender, re-establishing trans individuals as either men or women. Connor, a 24-year-old trans man, explained, “When people talk about trans people, [they] usually see it as, like, being a woman trapped in a man’s body, or a man trapped in a woman’s body.” The desire to bring one’s body “into alignment” with one’s identified gender is essential to legitimating trans identity. By asserting their identities as men or women (and transforming their physical presentations to better reflect these identities), binary-identified trans people make it possible for others to “determine” their gender as men or women, reabsorbing them back into the binary gender system (Schilt and Westbrook 2014). Rahilly (2014) and Meadow (2011) find similar patterns in the accounts of parents raising gender-variant children, observing that parents sometimes leverage essentialist narratives (e.g., the “born this way” trope) as a means of affirming their children’s gender expression. These narratives afford some flexibility around gender expression, and even make space for transition, but they also reify trans status as an innate biological reality. Instead of “undoing” gender, those who assert identities as trans men or women “redo” gender, retrenching the existing system even as the system adjusts to accommodate them.

Respondents argued that some conflate the process of coming out as transgender with the process of initiating medical transition, implying that those with no interest in medical transition are less “serious” about their identities than those who seek treatment. For example, Casey, a 19-year-old who identifies as genderqueer, stated, “I feel like that dominant narrative is that you have to medically get on hormones or blockers, get surgery. . . . [That’s] the central story of what makes someone trans, and you’re not as legitimate if you don’t do those.”

Finally, others suggested that experiences of struggle and unhappiness are also critical to establishing authenticity as a trans person. Drawing upon perceptions of trans identity as a form of mental illness, this trope emphasizes that trans identities are less legitimate if the experience of gender dysphoria does not significantly impair one’s daily functioning. For example, Robin, a 20-year-old gender-fluid person, wrestled with the question of whether her own dysphoria was significant enough to merit coming out:

It took me a while to be comfortable saying it. Like, you know, I haven’t had this huge giant struggle with gender my whole life . . . I haven’t struggled the same amount, so, you know, I shouldn’t complain.

These components—pervasive bodily discomfort, the ability to trace gender-variance throughout the life course, interpretations of trans identity as inborn or lifelong, and an awareness that one has had to struggle for recognition as their authentic gender—were reported by respondents across all categories as key elements of the discourse surrounding transgender identity in the United States. The absence of any one of these elements from their own stories seemed to promote self-doubt in respondents, stimulating awareness of their own identities as potentially invalid.

“Am I Trans Enough?”

Both groups of respondents indicated concern that because of their atypical life-history and transition narratives, they may not be entitled to claim the label “trans.” They worried that while they had experienced gender dysphoria (and, in many cases, were confident about their desire to transition), they might not be “trans enough” to justify adopting this label publicly. These anxieties were heightened, however, among those who identified as non-binary. As Casey noted,

I did have to deal [with] feeling like I wasn’t trans enough . . . trans people in general already feel like they have to prove themselves, [that] they’re “man enough” or “woman enough” to be trans. . . . So that’s even worse for non-binary people, who don’t necessarily act “manly” or “girly.”

Feelings of inadequacy can also stem from a desire not to appropriate the terminology or the experiences of a cultural group unfairly. As Robin remarked:

I guess I worry if I’m really trans enough, you know? . . . What right do I have to complain? I just don’t like being super girly, and sometimes, you know, I like to strap my boobs down and pretend I’m a guy. That’s not the same.

Robin explicitly and repeatedly equated trans identity with struggle, hardship, and tribulation. She suspects her claim to transness is inadequate, wondering whether she has suffered enough to “earn” it. It is possible that this insecurity stems from a fear that claiming a trans identity label may weaken the identity claims of other trans-identified people; it may also arise from a fear that claiming the label publicly will invite further challenges to legitimacy, which she may feel unprepared to defend against.²

Finally, some respondents voiced their concern about a phenomenon they referred to as “trans-trending”—the belief that some young people may claim trans identities as a means of appearing “trendy” or unconventional.² The rising prominence of trans-identified individuals in contemporary media and the ongoing proliferation of gender identity categories (see Fink and Miller 2014) have led some to worry that others will interpret their claim to a trans identity as a plea for attention. As 24-year-old trans man Hayden explained:

My mom has said that she can’t believe all these trans individuals popping up in the media today, and that she thinks that it’s a passing trend . . . when she was younger, [nobody] talked about it, nobody heard about it. And so I think that this society kind of thinks it’s a trend.

As an effect of these anxieties, many respondents feel a pressure to marshal “evidence” from their pasts that will demonstrate how their own narratives parallel the dominant narrative. For most respondents, this process involved isolating memories of gender discomfort from childhood and then deploying these memories as “proof” of an early gender-variant identification. Interview narratives indicate that binary-identified and non-binary respondents approached this project in different (and consequential) ways.

Binary-Identified Respondents

Nearly all of the binary-identified respondents indicated that they had re-examined their childhoods in the aftermath of coming out, wondering whether their childhood experiences affirmed their present-day identities. As previously discussed, medical and legal gatekeepers retain the potential to discredit narratives that do not establish an adequate link between childhood dysphoria and present-day trans identification (Yeadon-Lee 2009; Meyerowitz 2004), and respondents seeking transition face an especially high-stakes pressure to ensure that their narratives are convincing. As Gina, a 25-year-old trans woman, stated:

Ominously, there have never been any indications whatsoever [that I was a woman]. Lots of people say that they are . . . surprised—that there was never anything really feminine about me. . . . So I constantly try and self-validate, to dispel my doubts, reaching back [to] grab anything that I can as evidence.

The validating evidence provided by respondents encompassed “diagnostic indicators” from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)—a classification from the American Psychiatric Association—such as childhood cross-dressing and feelings of “gender apathy” (i.e., a generalized disinterest in gender expectations). Respondents cited preferences for toys (e.g., cars and action figures for those assigned female at birth, dolls and dress-up clothes for those assigned as male), particular hairstyles or clothing choices, and social pursuits stereotypically associated with the “opposite” sex. These interests were described by respondents as early warning signs of gender variance, regardless of whether others had identified them as such at the time. For example, as Ariel, a 28-year-old trans woman, explained:

I had a lot of the warning signs that everyone always talks about . . . my parents thought I was gay from a young age. I liked to play with dolls . . . I would say my favorite color was purple, or that I loved pink, and everyone’s like, “That’s a girl color!”

Connor recalled similarly gender-stereotyped memories from his youth:

I took a lot of pride in being a tomboy, and, like, in hating girl things, and hating makeup, all that stuff when I was a kid. . . . Like, I hated shaving my legs, and I hated when I had to wear a sports bra . . . I hated wearing dresses. So turning out to be a guy wasn’t really a surprise.

Most respondents were able to present several examples of gender-variant behavior from their childhoods, and they seemed eager to explain how this behavior validated their current identities as men or women. Interestingly, however, some—perhaps as an effect of being discredited previously by therapists, parents, and other community members—evaluated these behaviors with skepticism, even in cases where highlighting them would provide personal validation. Even Ariel, who had no trouble spooling off a litany of “signs” affirming her childhood gender variance, was quick to note, “But . . . I mean, it’s a hindsight thing . . . It’s easy to look at stuff and try to be like, ‘Oh, yeah, that totally validates everything I’m going through now!’” Several other respondents expressed similar sentiments. Gina, quoted earlier, explained at a later point in her interview that her efforts to “self-validate” were often unsuccessful, given a persistent fear that she might misrepresent her experiences. “I try and describe, like, the desire for long hair . . . but I never really thought of it that way, as a gender thing,” she explained. “It was just something that I wanted. There are [pictures] of me playing with dolls as a child. I try and write that into an example, but maybe there was just a doll lying around. I don’t know.”

For some respondents, this skepticism seemed to play a verifying role of its own. Challenging one’s own narrative served as a means of testing one’s identification, putting it under the same fire that a therapist or other doubting party might in an effort to discredit it. Being explicit about one’s own experiences, even when they failed to align with prevailing cultural accounts, actually worked to bolster some respondents’ faith in the truth of their own narratives. Jason, a 31-year-old trans man, explained how a refusal to revise his story gave him a greater sense of confidence:

I try not to be revisionist. You know, certainly, “I should have been a guy” was a thought that I had [in childhood] . . . [but] packing³ at a young age, or this desire to somehow assert [that] my physique was really more male . . . nowadays, [I] cluster those experiences together . . . [but] those things were all very isolated from one another at the time. It’s important to me to remember my own process.

For some, like Jason, questioning or testing one’s own narrative can actually serve as a source of greater conviction. However, as I argue, for many—particularly those in the sample who identified as non-binary—these questions stimulate more angst than affirmation.

Non-binary Respondents

In many cases, the evidence provided to account for the childhood experiences of non-binary respondents was exactly the same as that provided by their binary-identified counterparts. In fact, non-binary respondents—particularly those with little interest in physical transition—seemed to rely the most heavily on stereotyped, binarized representations of gender in describing their identity development. In this sample, non-binary respondents were more likely than binary-identified respondents to leverage gender-stereotyped tropes in their identity narratives, some of which were so patently congruent with stereotype as to seem almost scripted. Consider, for example, the two excerpts below from interviews with gender-fluid respondents, each in response to the injunction, “Tell me a little bit more about yourself.” Marilyn, age 26, said:

I was always a tomboy. When I was little, I used to ask my mom to cut my hair, because even then, I knew that was what I wanted. I hated dresses. You know . . . things like going to McDonalds and being just devastated that they gave me, like, the Barbie toy instead of the Hot Wheels toy. I didn’t understand why they didn’t just see that I wanted a Hot Wheels.

Robin shared a similar memory:

I remember as a little kid, you know, like, begging for action figures, or Hot Wheels at McDonalds, whatever, and getting Barbies and, you know, girl toys. It made me really frustrated and sad . . . I refused to wear dresses or skirts or anything outside of church. I got my hair cut short as a kid, and I started wearing, you know, boys’ clothes.

The two selections are almost identical. While a series of shared experiences may seem to indicate little, statements where the language is replicated nearly word-for-word evidence institutionalized tropes: the elements of the dominant narrative that listeners are most likely to recognize. It seems odd to encounter this overreliance on gendered stereotypes among participants that explicitly devalue and oppose such stereotypes. Yet, these gender-specific tropes and descriptors are the only signifiers accessible to respondents who seek to establish themselves as transgender. To document that they are not cisgender, non-binary respondents must demonstrate that they displayed gender-incongruent behavior as children, and the only intelligible means of demonstrating this is to document their interest in cross-gender pursuits and behaviors while growing up. Instead of seeking to prove themselves as men or women, non-binary respondents may seek to establish themselves as trans. Yet the ongoing cultural conflation of trans identity with opposite-sex identification creates an interactional slippage that renders the two endeavors functionally one and the same.

For example, where binary-identified respondents tended to express reservations or skepticism about the significance of their uncovered “proof,” often claiming that it took them a period of time to sort out the implications of their gender-atypical behavior as children and to recognize it as a hallmark of their trans identity, non-binary respondents were far more likely to assert that they had “always known” their gender status (as well as less likely to admit to having questioned their identities as trans). Marilyn recalled:

[Mom] says I came home from school one day . . . and I told her that the girls wouldn’t play with me because I was a boy, but that the boys wouldn’t play with me because I was a girl. And she asked me, you know, where did that leave me? And I told her, at, like, five years old, “I’m on the line.” I have always, always been this way.

Thirty-eight-year-old Jem, who identifies as genderqueer, made a similar comment, explaining:

Growing up, I always had identified as—as male, I guess. . . . One of the earliest memories I have is a very specific memory from the age of 5, [a] memory of trying to be a boy. . . . I was always very different.

This observation carries implications for understanding how non-binary individuals might drive longer-term change to the gender order. Regardless of respondents’ personal feelings about the gender binary or their intentions to challenge it, if the accounts produced by non-binary individuals do more to reify this binary than the accounts of trans individuals who identify as men or women, this suggests that non-binary identity narratives may be less effective in promoting institutional change than the boundary-troubling accounts produced by those whose genders are more readily recognizable. Those who identify within the binary—whether cis or trans—can experiment with gender presentation or subvert gendered stereotypes without undermining their own visibility in the process.

It is also important to consider the role of physical transition as a potential mediator of these effects. Most binary-identified respondents (10 out of 11) were participating in this interview post-transition; they had already taken permanent steps to bring their bodies into closer alignment with their identities. Hormones and surgery have the effect of reconnecting gender to the body, investing respondents with physical “proof” of their gender identities. Often, transitioning bodies are perceived as “serious” and “real” in ways that queer, nontransitioning bodies are not—they affirm fixity rather than fluidity, demonstrating an irrevocable commitment to moving through the world as a gender different from the category to which one was assigned at birth (Stone 2013). This sense of validation, once bestowed, can help some to feel more comfortable pushing expressive boundaries than they felt prior to their transition. Indeed, genderqueer respondent Jem reported that while he had previously embraced a public identity as male, his transition process and experiences on hormones had authenticated his status as a man to a point where he felt at ease experimenting with a more fluid presentation of self:

I always say, [you] know, I’m “FTM,” but I’m female-to-ME. Initially, I went in being all female-to-male, and the whole thing about two genders and I have to choose one, and that’s sort of how my story starts . . . although I would ideally like to be somewhere in that middle space, at that point, I just needed [to] make myself more comfortable in my own body, so I started taking hormones. . . . And [now], I’ve sort of come full circle, just being who I am, rather than trying to be somebody that I’m not.

Jem expressed feeling more fluid in his identity and presentation now than he did prior to his transition. However, he was only able to access that fluidity in the wake of the legitimizing effects of hormone therapy. By demonstrating that the person taking hormones has successfully bypassed medical and psychiatric gatekeeping measures, securing access to hormone therapy is one of the only conventionally accessible means of “proving” that one is “really” transgender. Respondents often reflected upon the legitimacy that their decision to pursue hormone therapy conferred, explaining that those who do not do so are likely to have their identities (or their commitment to those identities) questioned. As Hayden explained:

When I first came out as trans, I was worried that since I just called myself trans, people wouldn’t . . . take me seriously. And I know that a few individuals, before hormones or surgery or anything, [feel] like they’re not trans enough . . . but [that worry] quickly passed [for me] when I knew that there was more in the future for me, like hormones.

In acknowledging that his worry dissipated once he realized that there was “more in the future for [him],” Hayden attests to the legitimizing effects of HRT and other medical interventions. Those who start hormone therapy have visible evidence that they are not “faking”: they have committed, taking action to change their presentation in ways that can’t be easily undone, and they have managed to persuade the relevant authorities that their experience of gender is credible. Once “earned” through these institutional processes, one’s authenticity cannot be so easily challenged—even if one’s presentation of self changes anew post-transition. Those who seek access to medical transition are aware of these potential privileges. At the same time, those who don’t seek to transition are often aware that they may be “burning a bridge” to social legitimacy—an awareness that can spike anxiety about authenticity, belonging, and whether one’s own presentation of self is “enough” to be taken seriously.

Conclusion

In an age that dares to proclaim “the end of gender” (Serano 2014), many trans-identified individuals are eager to advance the claim that gender is no longer meaningful, or that gender need not play a role in organizing their social lives. While some of the respondents profiled here were similarly critical of gender, saying things like “I’m just gonna do me” (Connor) or “I don’t think gender really means anything” (Robin), the efforts made to account for gender in these interviews underscores a different perspective: one where the privileging of some narratives over others constitutes a foundation for the reproduction of recognizable and internally consistent gendered selves.

For trans individuals to be recognized as their expressed gender, they must justify their perception of themselves as gender-incongruent. In making decisions about which pieces of “evidence” to present, trans people—of all genders—help to construct the social frameworks that others use to make sense of trans lives. In relying on narrative tropes that reaffirm binary gender distinctions, trans people may make themselves visible as trans, but they offer their tacit endorsement of the binary system in the process. Their efforts have striking implications for the political project of “undoing” gender, suggesting that the very rhetorical maneuvers that render non-binary individuals intelligible as trans individuals reaffirm binary gender distinctions rather than destabilizing them.

While both groups of narratives leveraged gendered stereotypes, non-binary respondents deployed these elements differently, relying more heavily than the trans men and women interviewed on binary rhetoric and strict gender category distinctions. That these narratives don’t dismantle gender is not a failure of the actors’ efforts, but a failure of the existing cultural and institutional infrastructure to support those efforts and render them socially intelligible. Trapped between two conflicting desires—the desire to resist classification as male or female, and the desire to claim identification as trans—non-binary people find themselves walking a treacherous tightrope, with invisibility on one side and unintelligibility on the other. In contrast, those who claim identities aligned with the existing system have the freedom to present more complicated, boundary-challenging accounts of their experience, although they may claim less personal investment in doing so.

My purpose in developing this argument is not to suggest that the accounts produced by non-binary individuals are insufficient to enact change, or that those with more fluid presentations should be keener to assert them. Instead, I suggest that the work of undoing gender should not fall to those with the largest interactional burden to bear. As Connell (2010) has rightly noted, trans individuals are uniquely positioned to help us make sense of how we might “undo” gender, and we would do well as gender scholars to center trans perspectives in our own work, especially where these perspectives may previously have been obscured or overlooked (Vidal-Ortiz 2009). However, it is not trans people alone—and certainly not non-binary individuals in particular—that retain the capacity to disrupt gender. By centering non-binary individuals as the core arbiters of gender’s deconstruction, we allocate this labor to precisely those respondents with the most abject social barriers to overcome. While binary-identified trans people may be constrained in their ability to “undo” masculinity and femininity, they can—and must—use the privilege offered by their perceived authenticity to work toward undoing the archetypal accounts of trans experience outlined above. Moreover, if we aspire to “undo” gender, we should start by turning our attention to cisgender people, asking them to take up the task of undoing gender in their own day-to-day lives. Just as the active engagement of whites will be necessary to end racism and the participation of the wealthy requisite to ending class conflict, long-term change to the gender order cannot and will not take shape without the sustained, intentional investment of the actors that have the most to lose.

Footnotes

Author’s note:

Thanks and gratitude are due to Jamie Budnick, Elizabeth Armstrong, Renee Anspach, Sarah Fenstermaker, Karin Martin, Donileen Loseke, J. Lotus Seeley, Andrea Barbarin, Jeff Swindle, Simeon Newman, Kelly Russell, Sarah Seelye, Janette Norrington, and the members of the University of Michigan Gender and Sexuality Workshop for their generous advice and feedback on previous iterations of this paper. I am also grateful for the patience and assistance of Jo Reger, Amy Stone, and my anonymous reviewers at Gender & Society, whose thoughtful comments have improved the paper tremendously. Most importantly, I am grateful to my respondents for their honesty and insight. The author was supported during data collection by a graduate research fellowship from the National Science Foundation (award #2012143905).

1.

All names have been changed to protect the privacy of the participants.

2.

“Trans-trending” is a neologism coined in 2011 by the gender-critical lesbian blogger “Dirt” to describe the adoption of trans identities among AFAB teens who had previously identified as lesbian. Dirt’s blog posts a weekly list spotlighting the YouTube profiles of users suspected of claiming trans identity to earn attention from others online. Although Dirt’s blog bills itself as “the only blog documenting the Trans Trending of female/lesbian transition for over 8 years” (Dirt 2018), the phrase “trans-trending” spread quickly online, both among trans-exclusive radical feminists claiming to have observed similar patterns and among trans-identified users hoping to refute the label (or, in some cases, to claim the label ironically). In 2016, the Icahn School of Medicine announced its intention to begin recruitment for the first study of “rapid-onset gender dysphoria in the context of increasing social media use”—a study that the gender-critical blog 4thWaveNow has affirmed as “the first [study] to systematically examine the phenomenon of ‘trans trending’ amongst neonates and teens” ().

3.

“Packing” is a term used by some masculine-presenting individuals to describe placing an item inside one’s underwear to simulate the presence of a penis. Earlier in his interview, Jason explained that he had “packed” as a young child by placing a rolled-up sock inside his briefs.

Spencer Garrison is a doctoral candidate in sociology and LGBTQ studies at the University of Michigan–Ann Arbor. His research asks how those who are in the process of exploring new gender or sexual identity labels work—or, sometimes, deliberately don’t work—to reconcile their self-presentation across different domains of social life. Learn more at .

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