EJ Gonzalez-Polledo - Transitioning

Disruptions is a series that interrogates and analyses disruptions within and across such fields and disciplines as culture and society, media and technology, literature and philosophy, aesthetics and politics.

Series editor:

Paul Bowman, Reader, Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, Cardiff University, UK

Editorial review board

Benjamin Arditi, Professor of Politics, National University of Mexico, Mexico

Rey Chow, Anne Firor Scott Professor of Literature, Duke University, USA

Simon Critchley, Hans Jonas Professor of Philosophy, The New School, New York, USA

Catherine Driscoll, Associate Professor of Gender and Cultural Studies, The University of Sydney, Australia

Ben Highmore, Professor of Cultural Studies, University of Sussex, UK

Richard Stamp, Senior Lecturer of English and Cultural Studies, Bath Spa University, UK

Jeremy Valentine, Reader in Media, Culture and Politics, Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, UK

Bearing Society in Mind: Theories and Politics of the Social Formation, Samuel A. Chambers

Open Education: A Study in Disruption, Pauline van Mourik Broekman, Gary Hall, Ted Byfield, Shaun Hides and Simon Worthington

What Lies Between: Void Aesthetics and Postwar Politics, Matt Tierney

Martial Arts Studies, Paul Bowman

Living Screens: Reading Melodrama in Contemporary Film and Television, Monique Rooney

Word: Beyond Language, Beyond Image, Mariam Motamedi Fraser

Culture and Eurocentrism, Qadri M. Ismail

Against Value in the Arts and Education, edited by Sam Ladkin, Robert McKay and Emile Bojesen

Imprints of Revolution: Visual Representations of Resistance, Guadalupe Garca and Lisa B. Y. Calvente

Disrupting Maize: Food, Biotechnology and Nationalism in Contemporary Mexico, Gabriela Mndez Cota

Transitioning: Matter, Gender, Thought, EJ Gonzalez-Polledo

Italy beyond Gomorrah: Roberto Saviano and Transmedia Disruption, Floriana Bernardi (forthcoming)

EJ Gonzalez-Polledo

London New York

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Copyright 2017 by EJ Gonzalez-Polledo

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: HB 978-1-7834-8844-5

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Is Available

ISBN 978-1-78348-844-5 (cloth : alk. paper)

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.481992.

Printed in the United States of America

Along its journey, this book has contracted multiple unpayable debts. I owe the early shaping of ideas and frames to people and collectives in London and Barcelona. In Barcelona, my gratitude stays with the Grup de Transsexuals Masculins, Guerrilla Travolaka, and Cultura Trans. I acknowledge other collectives in the arena of social justice and sexual politics which have made a difference to the way I have come to think about the issues and arguments I present in the book. These are, among others, TGEU, Corpus Deleicti, Post-Op and O.R.G.I.A. In the UK, I want to thank collectives including FTM London, Trans London, Press for Change and Gendered Intelligence. First and foremost, my gratitude extends to research participants because their generosity has not only made this book possible but has also made my world more liveable. After Transitionings first iteration as a PhD thesis, the stamina to rewrite these arguments all over once more was revived in great measure due to their continued encouragement. I am also deeply grateful to Jason Barker and Evan Ifekoya for generously allowing me to reproduce their artwork.

Versions of chapters of this book were presented at conferences and seminars at Goldsmiths College, University of Sussex, University of Cambridge, University College London, Centre of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona, as well as conferences organised by the American Anthropological Association and the European Association of Social Anthropologists. I acknowledge the support of Fundacion Caixagalicia, for funding my fieldwork, as well as the Department of Anthropology at Goldsmiths College, for supporting my doctoral project financially during the writing stages.

This book has had the good fortune of encountering constant, inspiring interlocutors which substantially contributed to shaping its arguments, although all errors and interpretations remain, of course, my own. Over the years, Mariam Motamedi-Fraser and Simon Cohn were major influences in shaping my doctoral thesis, and I count this as one of this books greatest blessings. I also benefitted enormously from exchanges with Marilyn Strathern, Sarah Franklin, Silvia Posocco, Paul Boyce, Desire Rodrigo, Sophie Day, Catherine Alexander, Victoria Goddard, Frances Pine, Manuel Ramos, Paolo Plotegher, Thomas Hendricks, Marieke van Eijk, Elisabeth Lund Engebretsen, Aude Bicquelet, Jen Tarr, Flora Cornish, Irene Sabate, Chris Wright, Emilia Sanabria and Celia Lury.

My family continue to provide me with renewed reasons to value explanation, and I am deeply grateful for their support. This adventure would never have been possible without SB, whose companionship makes it all worthwhile.

We have entered a new chapter in transitions epistemic history. More people than ever transition. Search gender identity in Tumblr, one of the fastest-growing social networks, and Tumblrs search algorithm will return as related searches transgender, nonbinary, gender expression, genderqueer and genderfluid.

Despite the normalisation of gender idioms and embodiment forms, however, a long road is still ahead in terms of achieving real equality and social justice for gender minorities. As alternatives to pathology frameworks of trans identity are given serious consideration by healthcare practitioners and policymakers, answering long many struggle to gain access to old forms of state-funded healthcare and legal frameworks of gender recognition legislation in the United States, most EU member states and many countries worldwide. A Europe-wide legal survey study conducted by Whittle, Turner, Combs and Rhodes (2008) identified increasing diversity in the number and kind of transitions recorded in the survey. However, access and recognition problems still characterise transitioning in Europe, and many member states do not comply with human rights and anti-discrimination legislation. The majority of survey respondents in Whittle, Turner, Combs and Rhodes study had not obtained state funding for hormonal treatment or surgery, and nearly one third were refused treatment because their healthcare practitioner did not approve of gender-affirming treatments. Yet regardless of institutional refusal, the majority of respondents found ways to front paying for healthcare privately, while often living in lower-income brackets (2008, 11). In Europe, the proliferation of self-reported gender identities has not come with greater equality for gender minorities. A recent survey commissioned by the European Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA 2014) examined perceptions of equal treatment on grounds of gender identity and sexual orientation, and outlined employment status and living conditions as pervasive grounds where trans respondents felt most often discriminated against. Particularly vulnerable groups, such as trans women, young people and people whose work is not remunerated or regularised, continue to be routinely exposed to violence, and regardless of the availability of state frameworks, levels of violence, discrimination and assault are consistently higher for those presenting non-binary (see Balzer and Hutta 2012).