Sally Hines

What's the Difference? Bringing Particularity to Queer Studies of Transgender

This article explores the concept of ‘difference’ in relation to studies of transgender. I initially outline the importance of queer and postmodern theory, which have utilised ‘difference’ to incorporate transgender into analyses of sexual and gender diversity. I draw on debates within transgender studies to argue that a lack of emphasis on particularity within poststructuralist and postmodern theory has led to a homogenous theorisation of transgender. I propose that current limitations within queer approaches to transgender can be overcome through a queer sociological framework which grounds gender difference within a social analysis. Drawing on findings from recent empirical research into transgender identities in the UK, the article sketches out a range of distinct subject positions under the umbrella of ‘transgender’. Here I explore the ways in which transgender narratives are formed through divergent gendered experiences and constructed in relation to temporal factors of generation, transitional time span, and medical, social and cultural understandings and practices.

Queerly situated? Exploring negotiations of trans queer subjectivities at work and within community spaces in the UK

While traditional perspectives on transgender from some strands of feminism and within medical/psychoanalytical discourse have argued that transgender people conform to and reproduce gender stereotypes, queer theory has celebrated transgender as a site that highlights the social and cultural construction of ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ and, moreover, as a symbol of transgressive gender possibility. Both of these readings ignore the complexities of lived trans experiences and identifications. By evaluating a queer reading of trans through recent empirical research into transgender identities, I suggest that while trans identifications certainly queer binary models of ‘sex’ and ‘gender’, such transgressions are materially, culturally, socially and spatially contingent. The article draws on empirical research to explore the ways in which access to queer subjectivities is constrained by, and negotiated alongside, the locales of the workplace and community spaces.

Introduction: towards trans geographies

Gender geographies have focused on normatively gendered men and women, neglecting the ways in which gender binaries can be contested and troubled. Trans people question hegemonic conventions that link sexed bodies, gender roles and lives. This collection spans a range of theoretical fields in this context, including trans theories, queer engagement, feminist geographies, gender geographies and sexualities geographies. It offers empirical investigations of trans lives, while addressing the often theoretical use of ‘trans’ to render gender fluid, incoherent and unintelligible. As a whole this themed section questions geographys presumption of man/woman and male/female.

A pathway to diversity?: human rights, citizenship and the politics of transgender

This piece explores human rights and citizenship within the context of transgender in the UK. It examines the problems of advocating and organizing from the concept of ‘human rights’ in relation to transgender, and considers whether a conceptual and political framework of ‘queer politics’ is more fruitful for a discussion of transgender citizenship and rights. Taking the Gender Recognition Act 2004 as a case study, this article explores the ways in which gender is constructed and reconstructed through the notions and the practices of ‘human rights’ and ‘citizenship’.

Is bisexuality invisible? A review of sexualities scholarship 1970–2015

This article provides a review of sexualities scholarship within the social sciences between 1970 and 2015. It takes an innovative approach by focusing on the way in which bisexuality is addressed in this body of literature. The article reveals the marginalisation, under-representation and invisibility of bisexuality within and across the social sciences in relation to both bisexual experience and identity. Reasons for this varied across the different eras, including the heterosexist nature of the literature, the impact of gay and lesbian-focused identity politics, and queer deconstructionism. In addition, patterns of bisexual erasure and invisibility were uneven, with some scholarship taking inclusive approaches or criticising prejudice against bisexuality. The initial findings of the review were enriched by critical commentary from key relevant sociologists and political scientists. The article concludes that future sexualities scholarship could be enhanced by greater consideration of bisexuality.

The feminist frontier: on trans and feminism

Abstract Against a back-drop of ongoing hostility between sections of feminism towards trans communities, and particularly feminist antagonism towards trans women, this paper explores the relationship between feminism and transgender. Through the use of original case study material, gathered by virtual methods, the paper explores events that have occurred since the millennium that are used to highlight particular epistemological and political tensions between feminism and trans. Central themes running through the case studies include the constitution of ‘woman’, the policing of feminist identities and spaces, and questions of bodily autonomy. In conclusion, the paper stresses the importance of rejecting trans-exclusionary feminism and of foregrounding the links between feminism and transgender as a key social justice project of our time.

Introduction to the themed issue: Trans* policy, practice and lived experience within a European context:

This themed issue, ‘Trans* policy, practice and lived experience within a European context’, emerges at a time when global understandings of gender are rapidly changing across social, cultural, political, policy and legal spheres. The understanding of gender as the materialisation of the categories of male or female that are fixed at birth is in flux, and this issue speaks to these shifts at conceptual, procedural and empirical levels.

Trans* policy, politics and research: The UK and Portugal:

This article explores law and social policy regarding trans* activism amongst trans* and non-binary social movements, and academic research addressing trans* in the UK and Portugal. In considering different possibilities for theorising gender diversity, this article positions a politics of difference and embodied citizenship as fruitful for synergising the issues under discussion. The authors consider recent law and policy shifts around gender recognition in each country and examine the gaps and the connections between policy developments, activism and research around trans*. Though each country has divergence in terms of the history of trans* activism and research, the article identifies significant similarities in the claims of activist groups in the UK and Portugal and the issues and questions under consideration in academic research on trans* and non-binary.

Claiming and Contesting Recognition

While Chapter 1 empirically examined the meanings of recognition in considering how the term ‘recognition’ was understood by research participants, this chapter draws on empirical data to explore the significance of the 2004 UK GRA (GRA, 2004) for research participants as it came into law. By drawing on empirical data, the chapter examines the impact of recent policy and law on practices of gendered diversity as they are lived out in the everyday.

Moving for Recognition

This chapter traces post-1960 claims for recognition based on gender, sexuality and, later, transgender in order to examine themes of connection and disconnection across and between different social movements around gender and sexuality as they moved to claim recognition. The chapter examines the recent histories of gendered and sexual social movement organisation, which, since the 1960s, has set out varied, and often disparate, frameworks for gender and sexual recognition. Social movement organisation has been well documented in relation to the contribution of, and the impact upon, the political cultures of women (Mitchell, 1973; Allen, Sanders and Wallis, 1974;Rowbotham, Segal, Wainwright, 1981;Wilson, 1982; Rowbotham, 2001) and sexual minorities (D’Emilio, 1983, 2004; D’Emilio and Freedman, 1988; Weeks, 2000, 2007; Carter, 2004). Yet the role of trans people in the social transformations that have occurred around gender and sexuality over the last five decades has received scant attention.