Girl in a Kink's shirt: A socio-cultural examination of butch transwomen and the trans community.

Abstract

With the increased visibility of transpeople there is a pressing need to explore the operation and growth of the trans community. From the outside looking in, the trans community appears to be monolithic and homogenous, but it is in fat made up of a diverse collection of ethnicities, religions, social classes, educational backgrounds, and gender performances and identities. Thus this dissertation examines the social environment of butch transwomen, who are frequently viewed with suspicion as they cross the boundaries of both gender and sexuality. heir transition from identifying as straight men to identifying as either lesbians or bisexual women, and their not adhering to traditional notions of femininity, creates a complex social environment. his dissertation explores the social-cultural aspects of the trans community, examining how social inclusion and exclusion operates among transpeople and focusing on the lived experiences of butch transwomen, who embody a wide spectrum of male to female trans identities. his dissertation will argue that non-traditional gender performance of transwomen have been largely ignored by sociologists in favour of focusing on the process of gender transition and interaction with the cisgender world. Such a focus tends to ignore the diverse nature of exiting internal social relations of the trans community. Indeed within the wider social world there is the belief that butch transwomen are an oxymoron, because of the common assumption that by being butch, they fail to adhere to the hegemonic standards of femininity. Yet their gender expression matches the wide variety of cisgender expressions, with butch gender expressions often seen as being both a failure to meet social norms or conscious acts of resistance to hegemonic ideals. he primary goals of this research are: firstly, to understand what it means to be a butch transwomen in the context of the global trans community; secondly, to examine how butch transwomen engage with their community; thirdly, through a critical examination of their gender performances and the terms they use to describe themselves to gain an understanding how butch transwomen interact with the wider social world.