DOING, UNDOING, OR REDOING GENDER? Learning from the Workplace Experiences of Transpeople Author(S): CATHERINE CONNELL Source: Gender and Society, Vol
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
DOING, UNDOING, OR REDOING GENDER? Learning from the Workplace Experiences of Transpeople Author(s): CATHERINE CONNELL Source: Gender and Society, Vol. 24, No. 1 (February 2010), pp. 31-55 Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20676845 Accessed: 24-03-2017 14:48 UTC REFERENCES Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20676845?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms Sage Publications, Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Gender and Society This content downloaded from 136.167.3.36 on Fri, 24 Mar 2017 14:48:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms DOING, UNDOING, OR REDOING GENDER? Learning from the Workplace Experiences of Transpeople CATHERINE CONNELL University of Texas at Austin Drawing from the perspectives of transgender individuals, this article offers an empirical investigation of recent critiques of West and Zimmerman's "doing gender" theory. This analysis uses 19 in-depth interviews with transpeople about their negotiation and manage ment of gendered interactions at work to explore how their experiences potentially contrib ute to the doing, undoing, or redoing of gender in the workplace. Ifind that transpeople face unique challenges in making interactional sense of their sex, gender, and sex category and simultaneously engage in doing, undoing, and redoing gender in the process of manag ing these challenges. Consequently, I argue that their interactional gender accomplish ments are not adequately captured under the rubric of "doing gender" and suggest instead that they be understood as "doing transgender." This article outlines the process of and consequences of "doing transgender" and its potential implications for the experience of and transformation of gender inequality at work. Keywords: doing gender; undoing gender; transgender; work W est and to Zimmermanaccount for the reproduction developed of gender throughtheir interaction. theory Two of "doing gender" (1987) decades later, the theory has reached near canonical status in the sociology of gender (Jurik and Siemsen 2009). As doing gender has emerged as the hege monic theoretical framework for understanding gender inequality, feminist scholars have begun to interrogate the theory's ability to account for social change. A central question in the debate is this: is undoing gender possible? On one side of the debate are those who argue that the gender binary can be subverted in interaction (Deutsch 2007; Risman 2009). These scholars criticize the common deployment of doing gender to document the ways GENDER & SOCIETY, vol. 24 No. 1, February 2010 3 1-55 DOI: 10.1177/0891243209356429 ? 2010 Sociologists for Women in Society 31 This content downloaded from 136.167.3.36 on Fri, 24 Mar 2017 14:48:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 32 GENDER & SOCIETY / February 2010 gender oppression is maintained, arguing that it is important also to high light the "undoing" of gender to further the feminist project of disman tling gender inequality (Deutsch 2007). In response, West and Zimmerman (2009) have argued that gender can never be "undone," but might instead be "redone." They argue that the accountability structures that maintain gender may shift to accommodate less oppressive ways of doing gender, but are never entirely eradicated (West and Zimmerman 2009). Thus far, this debate regarding the possibility of undoing gender has remained largely theoretical. This article offers an important contribution to this discussion by empirically investigating the workplace experiences of transgender-identified individuals. Transpeople disrupt the assumption that sex (designation at birth as either "male" or "female"), sex category (social designation as either "male" or "female" in everyday interactions), and gender (management of conduct based on one's assigned sex cate gory) correspond with each other. While cispeople, or nontrans-identified individuals, are assigned a sex at birth, placed in the corresponding sex category, and held accountable to the corresponding gender norms (doing masculinity or doing femininity), the sex category and/or gender of trans people does not match up as seamlessly with their sex. Theoretically, this disruption opens up an opportunity to undo or redo gender. Looking at transpeople's experiences allows us to ask the question: When sex, sex category, and gender do not match up, does this result in an undoing of gender? In other words, do transgender people subvert or undermine the gender binary in their daily interactions (Deutsch 2007; Risman 2009)? Alternatively, do transpeople redo gender by expanding or altering the norms associated with gender (West and Zimmerman 2009)? In this article, I focus specifically on the employment experiences of transpeople. Workplace interactions are important for two main reasons. First, as generations of feminist scholars have argued, the workplace is a crucial site for the reproduction of gender inequality. If, as doing gender theory posits, hegemonic gender norms maintain male dominance, then the workplace is an important place to investigate challenges to normative gender performance. Second, it has only been in recent years that trans gender individuals have been "out" in their workplaces, thanks in large part to the efforts of transgender activists (National Gay and Lesbian Task Force 2007). While federal legislation prohibiting gender identity dis crimination has yet to be passed, gender identity has been included in an increasing number of state and corporate nondiscrimination policies. Cur rently, 13 states prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity, and 35 percent of Fortune 500 companies include gender identity in their This content downloaded from 136.167.3.36 on Fri, 24 Mar 2017 14:48:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Connell / DOING, UNDOING, OR REDOING GENDER? 33 nondiscrimination policies, as compared to only two companies in 2000 (HRC 2009). Granted this context of increased legal protections today, some people are able to openly identify as trans in the workplace, in stark contrast to a generation ago, when virtually all transpeople were forced to be "stealth" (Meyerowitz 2002). Their ability to publicly identify as transgender at work disrupts the social assumption that sex, sex category, and gender correspond to each other, thus raising the possibility that doing gender theory, as it was originally conceived, does not adequately account for their experiences. The primary goal of this article is to contribute to the debates regarding doing gender theory. I interviewed 19 transgender individuals about their negotiation and management of gendered interactions at work, and evalu ated how the experiences they disclosed might contribute to doing, undo ing, or redoing gender. A second goal is to assess the potential contribution of transpeople in the collective contestation of the gender hierarchy (Connell 2009). Historically, feminists have either charged transgender people with perpetuating oppressive understandings of gender (Eichler 1987; Irvine 1990; Raymond 1977, 1979) or seen them as a vanguard in challenging gender hegemony (Bornstein 1995; Butler 1990, 2004; Stone 1993; Stryker 1995). Both sides offer compelling hypotheses, yet neither has paid adequate attention to how transgender people themselves describe their impact in social and institutional contexts. Do they see themselves as doing gender or something else? Furthermore, to what extent are they crit ical of the gender hierarchy, and thus, potential feminist allies? THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS The term "transgender" entered the public discourse in the mid-1980s (Elkins and King 1996). It has generally replaced the earlier term "trans sexual," which is now used to refer specifically to people who have had or desire surgical and medical procedures that will match their sex to their gender. Transgender usually refers to individuals who deliberately reject their original gender assignment. The term may be used regardless of sur gical and medical status. Therefore, the category "transgender" includes transsexual individuals, but also encompasses a wider group than this. Transgender people sometimes label themselves transwomen (or male-to female), transmen (or female-to-male), or genderqueer. Genderqueer gener ally refers to gender identification other than that of "man"~ or "woman." It often involves a politically motivated blending of gendered presentations, This content downloaded from 136.167.3.36 on Fri, 24 Mar 2017 14:48:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 34 GENDER & SOCIETY / February 2010 pronouns, and self-concepts. Transpeople has become the generic cate gory used to describe everyone in these various categories. Beginning with the work of Harold Garfinkel, social scientific accounts of transpeople have been crucial to the development of an interactional theory of gender (Kessler and McKenna