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From “Telling Transgender Stories” to “Transgender People Telling Stories”: Transgender Literature and the Lambda Literary Awards, 1997-2017

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FROM “TELLING TRANSGENDER STORIES” TO “TRANSGENDER PEOPLE TELLING STORIES”: TRANSGENDER LITERATURE AND THE LAMBDA LITERARY AWARDS, 1997-2017 A Dissertation Submitted to the Temple University Graduate Board In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY by Andrew J. Young May 2018 Examining Committee Members: Dr. Dustin Kidd, Advisory Chair, Sociology Dr. Judith A. Levine, Sociology Dr. Tom Waidzunas, Sociology Dr. Heath Fogg Davis, External Member, Political Science © Copyright 2018 by Andrew J. Yo u n g All Rights Res erved ii ABSTRACT Transgender lives and identities have gained considerable popular notoriety in the past decades. As part of this wider visibility, dominant narratives regarding the “transgender experience” have surfaced in both the community itself and the wider public. Perhaps the most prominent of these narratives define transgender people as those living in the “wrong body” for their true gender identity. While a popular and powerful story, the wrong body narrative has been criticized as limited, not representing the experience of all transgender people, and valorized as the only legitimate identifier of transgender status. The dominance of this narrative has been challenged through the proliferation of alternate narratives of transgender identity, largely through transgender people telling their own stories, which has the potential to complicate and expand the social understanding of what it means to be transgender for both trans- and cisgender communities. I focus on transgender literature as a point of entrance into the changing narratives of transgender identity and experience. This work addresses two main questions: What are the stories being told by trans lit? and What are the stories being told about trans literature? What follows is a series of separate, yet linked chapters exploring the contours of transgender literature, largely through the context of the Lambda Literary Awards over the past twenty years. Chapter 2 explores the changing definitions of transgender literature in popular discourse over the last two decades. Drawing on a data set of 51 articles, interviews, book reviews, and blog posts published from 1997-2017, I present a framework for defining and categorizing transgender literature. This framework lays out the different possibilities of what transgender literature might be using the three variables iii of content, authorship, audience, as well as the likelihood of each iteration being included in the definition of transgender literature as understood in the popular conversation. My findings in this chapter suggest a changing definition of transgender literature from “telling transgender/transition stories” to a focus on “transgender people telling stories.” Chapter 3 moves from conversations defining trans literature to an exploration of how texts within transgender literature have changed over time. Using the finalist and winners in the Lambda Literary Award transgender categories, I constructed a sample of transgender literature covering the past two decades, from 1997-2016. Using digital textual analysis methods, I identify various “demographic” trends in transgender literature since 1997, which mirror the trend identified in chapter 3, a shift from “telling transgender stories” focused largely on identity and transition processes to “transgender people telling stories” which rely much less on transition and identity as central themes. Chapter 4 attempts to contextualize these shifts identified in chapters 2 and 3 by situating trans literature in a broader socio-historical context. I frame transgender literature as an intellectual movement situated in an intellectual opportunity structure that includes the publishing industry, LGBT social activism and organizations, and the Lambda Literary Awards themselves. Lambda Literary functions here as a primary gatekeeper for understanding transgender literature in a broader intellectual community around LGBT cultural production, which transitions us to thinking more critically about the Lambda Literary Awards in chapter 5. Chapter 5 introduces us more fully to the Lambda Literary Awards, the largest LGBT book awards in North America, and positions them as a claim for LGBT cultural citizenship in the United States. Using archival documents from the Lambda Literary iv Foundation, as well as published statements and articles about the Lambda Literary Awards, I explore three conflicts and controversies within the LGBT community through the localized claims for cultural citizenship made on the Lammys. Finally, I provide a brief conclusion, which recaps the main findings of each chapter, sketches my tentative hopes for the future of transgender literature, and outlines my recommendations for future research in this area. v For Han, my first and best editor, who is so glad it is finally finished. And for myself, who is also so glad it’s finally done. “Everybody is so terribly sensitive about the things they know best.” -The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS After almost seven years in a PhD program, it is tempting to have an acknowledgements section nearly as long as the dissertation itself; there are certainly enough deserving of thanks to fill many, many pages. First and foremost, thanks go to my faculty mentors who have guided me on this journey. Of particular note are Dustin Kidd, Judith Levine, and Tom Waidzunas, who are not only my committee members, but have also spent the most time and energy on me over the years. Judith, especially, has become a friend and confidant as near to a mother as I have on the East Coast. Kim Goyette has also been a great source of support and advice. All of my gratitude and thanks to Dustin, Judith, and Tom, as well as Heath Fogg Davis for serving as my dissertation committee. Farhang Erfani, you continue to guide my work and life despite too few meetings over the past years. Thanks are also due to my graduate student colleagues and co-travellers who have shared both triumphs and setbacks, teaching and writing suggestions, and general companionship. I would be entirely remiss if I did not thank my Manatee, Colin Hammar, by name. Dustin did not know what magic he was creating when he put us together six years ago, but I hope he continues to be both pleased and slightly frightened. I would also like to thank many staff members at Temple, who often became good friends along the way. This list includes Pam Smallwood in the Sociology Department, Nu’Rodney Prad in IDEAL, and Kevin Williams in UHRL. This dissertation never would have happened (and I certainly wouldn’t have survived the process in such good condition) without the Temple University Writing Center, in particular the embodiments vii of safe space who are Lorraine Savage and Leslie Allison. Dr. Michelle Ramirez and Dr. Jessica Sauter at USciences also deserve my thanks and gratitude for their support. Support from the Department of Sociology, Peter Logan and Temple University’s Digital Scholarship Center, the Center for the Humanities at Temple, and the Digital Humanities Summer Insitute (DHSI) at the University of Victoria made it possible to conduct much of my research, including a week at the ONE Archives in Los Angeles, a day at the American Writers and Writing Programs Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, two weeks at DHSI in beautiful Victoria, British Columbia, and the ability to purchase copies of all the texts in my sample. There is no way I could have done this without their backing. I’d like to thank my family for all their support as I pursued degree upon degree in the liberal arts with minimal questioning about what I was going to do with my life. And for being willing to listen as I explained what I was working on and to celebrate (and actually read) when articles got published. I hate to break it to you all, but I’m still not sure what I’m doing with all these degrees. Thank you, also, to my non-graduate student friends, for being so supportive of this ridiculous thing called a dissertation for so many years, and keeping me grounded in the real world, if only vicariously through you. And of course, to Han. For once in my life, I have no words (don’t worry, it won’t last). There is no measure to how much your love, support, and editorial skills have meant to me these past six years. You have been with me for almost all of this crazy ride. You have seen the good, the bad, and the less-than-cute, and yet you stuck around (and even agreed to marry me, you wacko). This dissertation is as much your accomplishment as it is mine. It, and I, would be much diminished without you. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... iii DEDICATION ................................................................................................................... vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................................ vii LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................... xiii LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................... xiv CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION .........................................................................................................1 Research Questions ..................................................................................................4 Scholarly Significance
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