Intersectional identities and conceptions of the self: The experience of transgender people

Abstract

Transgender people in the United States change genders in relation to androcentric, heterocentric, and middle-class whitenormative cultural narratives. Drawing on ethnographic data primarily with transgender people of color, I analyze the ways in which gender, race, social class, and sexuality all combine to create specific background identities-intersected identity frames-which others attribute in interaction. We can better understand these intersected identity frames through the experiences of transgender people, who actively engage in identity management. The meanings others attach to specific combinations are foregrounded in the context of transitioning; some audiences employ dominant, white cultural narratives, while others draw upon ethnic cultural narratives. In all cases, transitioning throws the multi-dimensionality of intersected identity frames into sharp relief against the background of intersecting social and cultural structural arrangements. © 2012 Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction. All rights reserved.