Abstract
In order to understand contemporary masculinities in the United States, scholars may turn to examples of men in popular culture, ranging from professional athletes and actors to politicians and famous personalities. But what does it mean to be a man—a regular, everyday man—in the United States today? In fact, this is the opening question posed to the readers of Miriam J. Abelson’s book, in which the author analyzes data from in-depth qualitative interviews of 66 men from various locations across the United States who self-identified as trans; that is, they had either already transitioned and were living socially as men, or they were in the process of transition. Grounding Abelson’s epistemology in her own interest in masculinity as a self-identified masculine woman herself, Abelson’s original contribution bridges men and masculinities studies with the newer field of transgender studies. By situating the lives of trans men as the focus of study, Abelson adds a crucial perspective to men and masculinities studies while also rejecting other dominant discourses surrounding trans men that problematically situate their experiences from a medicalized or sociology of deviance perspective.
By centering the experiences of transgender men living in the US South, West, and Midwest and across urban, suburban, and rural places, Abelson skillfully demonstrates the actual ways in which transgender men navigate, negotiate, and shift practices of masculinity based on situational expectations in their daily interactions. While this research does indeed contribute to transgender studies, Abelson asserts that the primary contribution is to the field of critical masculinities studies. Abelson questions where hybrid masculinities are emerging and how space interact with practices of everyday masculinity.
What stands out in the introduction is her critique of previous gender scholars and theorists: While trans people have served as central figures in the development of both gender formation theories and queer theory, they have often been rendered invisible in discussions of lesbian, gay, or queer-focused analyses. Thus, a strength of Abelson’s contribution is through recognition of her own positionality as a researcher and the ways in which scholarship by and for trans individuals should work in concert with trans people, rather than focusing on them as the objects of research. Furthermore, Abelson presents numerous examples of trans men’s voices throughout all of the chapters that situates their varied experiences within the center of her analyses.
In chapter one, Abelson outlines ideals of contemporary masculinity along a continuum in which hypermasculinity is juxtaposed with femininity at either end. Trans men in Abelson’s sample sought out the normative, relational model of “Goldilocks masculinity,” or appearing neither too masculine nor too feminine. As explained, the emergence of Goldilocks masculinity is the result of minor changes to contemporary masculinities but systems of inequality based on gender, race, class, and sexuality are still maintained.
Chapter two situates the question of “who, exactly, is a man?” at its center of analysis. Trans men’s accounts of daily interactions demonstrates the ways in which one is not born a man, but rather repeatedly (re) learns the gendered, racialized, and class-based social expectations of the situations they encounter. Abelson recounts and analyzes trans men’s experiences and interactions with emotion and affect in chapter three and concludes that situationally appropriate emotion is a central feature of achievement of Goldilocks masculinity.
The following two chapters use the framework of the relationship between violence and fear as it is mitigated by geographic space and place. In chapter four, Abelson notes that the fear of violence maintains existing social inequalities by encouraging conforming behavior, and these fears are based on racialized, sexist, sexualized, and classist controlling images. In chapter five, Abelson analyzes the ways in which two salient institutional spaces, public bathrooms and medical contexts, uphold and maintain structures of social dominance because such spaces are structured specifically around the rigid maintenance of norms surrounding gender, sexuality, race, class, and sexuality. Abelson concludes her analysis with a call to understand the ways in which space and place shape everyday interactions and how these practices maintain social inequality.
The bar is set very high by Abelson herself at the beginning of her book. After reading through the introduction, I was unsure if the evidence would be able to support the claims that were so deftly laid out through her interweaving of various sociological and interdisciplinary scholars. However, I was not at all disappointed. In short, this is exactly the book I wanted to read in order to gain new insight into the ways in which trans men’s voices could (and should) be centered in a critical masculinities framework, and it is suitable for upper-level undergraduates, graduate students, academics, and practitioners. Men in Place has earned its spot among the most essential current readings that will continue to inspire and influence the future of the field for decades.