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On Being Trans: Narrative, Identity, Performance, and Community Chloe Jo Brown Western Kentucky University, [email protected]

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On Being Trans: Narrative, Identity, Performance, and Community Chloe Jo Brown Western Kentucky University, Chloe.Brown257@Gmail.Com Western Kentucky University TopSCHOLAR® Masters Theses & Specialist Projects Graduate School Spring 2018 On Being Trans: Narrative, Identity, Performance, and Community Chloe Jo Brown Western Kentucky University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses Part of the American Studies Commons, Folklore Commons, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Commons, and the Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Brown, Chloe Jo, "On Being Trans: Narrative, Identity, Performance, and Community" (2018). Masters Theses & Specialist Projects. Paper 2303. https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses/2303 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by TopSCHOLAR®. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses & Specialist Projects by an authorized administrator of TopSCHOLAR®. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ON BEING TRANS: NARRATIVE, IDENTITY, PERFORMANCE, AND COMMUNITY A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of the Department of Folk Studies and Anthropology Western Kentucky University Bowling Green, Kentucky In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts By Chloe Jo Brown May 2018 For the WKU Transgender and Non-Binary Student Group, for Layne, and for all my queer siblings. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am greatly indebted to my Thesis Committee: Dr. Ann K. Ferrell, Dr. Tim Evans, and Dr. Kate Parker Horigan. Their support, encouragement, and constructive criticism dramatically improved this project. I am grateful for my brainstorming sessions with Dr. Horigan, who provided brilliant suggestions and advice. I benefited greatly from Dr. Evans’ insight into the vast world of internet and fan culture. I would especially like to thank my thesis advisor, Dr. Ferrell, whose constructive criticism and encouragement pushed me to constantly question my assumptions, think more deeply, and write more carefully; I am a better student (and person) because of you. This project would not have been possible without the cooperation of my consultants. To Sophia, Bennett, Leeran, Levi, Jeremy, Kanyon, Katy, Madi, and the source that wished to remain anonymous: thank you. Thank you for sharing your experiences with me and for graciously welcoming an outsider into your space. I am especially grateful to Jeremy McFarland and Kanyon McKee, who allowed me to interview them multiple times, connected me with other group members, and answered my myriad questions. I am glad to have met all of you. I would like to thank my classmates for providing me with insight, encouragement, community, commiseration, and levity. When I began to doubt the impact of my research, one of you would inevitably remind me that my work was important. I feel so lucky to have spent the past two years with y’all. Special thanks to my best friend, Hannah Scott, who provided support and perspective. Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Layne Cuautle, who helped me in a million ways, from iv proofreading every iteration of this thesis to picking up India Oven takeout. And, most importantly, for being there through the best and worst parts of this process. v CONTENTS Introduction..........................................................................................................................1 Chapter 1: Coming Out as Transgender: Counternarrative and Community Valuation…25 Chapter 2: Trans Re(Presentation)…………………….....................................................62 Chapter 3: The WKU Transgender and Non-Binary Student Group: A Chosen Family……………………………………………………………………….103 Conclusion.......................................................................................................................150 Bibliography....................................................................................................................167 Interviews………...…………………………………………………………………….174 vi ON BEING TRANS: NARRATIVE, IDENTITY, PERFORMANCE, AND COMMUNITY Chloe Brown May 2018 175 Pages Directed by: Ann K. Ferrell, Tim Evans, and Kate Parker Horigan Department of Folk Studies and Anthropology Western Kentucky University This thesis focuses on various topics related to transgender identity and culture. Through a combination of ethnographic and secondary research, I studied transgender coming out narratives, trans media representation, transgender performance and identity, and conceptualizations of group and chosen family in a community of trans students, the WKU Transgender and Non-Binary Student Group. `The three chapters of my thesis address some of the traditional milestones of a trans person’s acculturation: coming out, constructing one’s newly discovered trans identity, and finding community. Chapter 1 explores coming out as transgender, and the way in in which coming out is valued and discussed within trans communities. Chapter 2 discusses transgender representation, and how gender presentation is contested and complicated by transfolk. Chapter 2 also addresses trans media representation, and the way in which transfolk create their own media representation in the absence of adequate and accurate trans representation in popular culture. Chapter 3 provides an in-depth analysis of the WKU Transgender and Non-Binary Student Group, discusses how the group functions as a chosen family, and explores the way in which group membership helps group members mitigate stigma and deal with trauma. vii Introduction Background In some ways, this thesis began on October 11, 2016. It was National Coming Out Day, and I had spent the morning interviewing many young LGBTQIA+ students who were participating in the Queer Student Union’s tabling event. Home Depot had donated a free-standing door and doorframe; the group hung a rainbow flag over the door, and it was forever opening, giving each person the opportunity to “come out of the closet.” The group played catchy pop music and handed out buttons and candy to passersby; they talked, danced, and engaged anxious loiterers in conversation, creating a welcoming space for questions and exploration. I marveled at the confidence and enthusiasm of this young group, comparing their experience with my own. Among the QSU students, coming out was treated as a positive and seemingly minor experience, while in 2009, my freshman year at Western Kentucky University, National Coming Out Day had been a much more ambivalent event. Many of the students I interviewed at the QSU’s 2016 event had had mostly positive coming out experiences, which contrasted greatly with the experiences of myself, friends, and acquaintances in 2009. I found myself wondering, “if coming out is no longer that big of a deal, is this event still necessary?” In the early afternoon, I interviewed Kanyon McKee, and my perspective shifted dramatically. McKee shared their coming out narrative with me, and I realized that, although coming out had perhaps gotten easier for some, it remained dangerous or difficult for others – especially transfolk. When McKee came out to their1 mother as trans, she became emotionally abusive and accused them of being mentally ill. Kanyon’s story was short, painful, and unresolved. As we were walking back to rejoin the group, 1 McKee explained that they were frustrated with National Coming Out Day because it puts undue pressure on transfolk to come out, and that upon coming out, trans people often experience heightened rates of discrimination, familial ostracization, and violence. McKee’s comments demonstrated significant differences between the coming out experience of transgender individuals and lesbian, gay, and bisexual people. I decided that the coming out narratives themselves needed closer attention. Although I was not able to fully address transgender coming out narratives at that time, the encounter sparked an interest that continued to develop over the next year. Eventually, I realized that my many questions would require an extended research project, and this project was born. My thesis will explore various elements of transgender identity and culture. I will discuss the coming out process, issues of media representation and expectations for transgender and non-binary gender presentation, and the ways in which groups of transgender and non-binary individuals form and maintain community. Through fieldwork and secondary research, I hope to contribute to the young, yet rapidly growing field of transgender studies, and to add whatever insights I yield to the study of queer folklore – a subject that is sorely underrepresented in folklore research. Literature Review [Trans]gender Studies An early precursor to transgender studies can be found in Harold Garfinkle’s Studies in Ethnomethodology (1967). Garfinkle presents the case of his patient, Agnes, a transsexual woman who began taking estrogen at a young age in order to maintain feminine characteristics. Although Garfinkle’s language and discussion of gender identity 2 are dated, his discussion of Agnes’ case demonstrates the many complexities of being transgender in a society that has strict gender prescriptions. Garfinkle discusses the stigmatized nature of trans bodies and the personal and societal reasons that a trans person would attempt to pass as cis. Garfinkle states that society only allows individuals to subvert traditional roles in highly ceremonialized occasions, and that, in this manner, “societies exercise close controls over the ways in which the sex composition of their own populations is constituted and changed” (1967:116). In the 1970s, a significant subsection of second
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