TRANSMASCULINITY AND QUEER THEORY: BODY EXPERIENCE FROM CHILDHOOD TO ADULTHOOD

Abstract

Considering the pathologizing and biologizing discourse that have been incisively fallen on transgender people and bodies, and assuming that gender identity is socially constructed, this study aims to investigate the bodily experience of a trans man (FtM) from childhood to adulthood. Data were collected through individual application of successive semi-structured individual interviews with a transman and his mother. The transcribed material was organized as a case study and analyzed based on queer studies. The results indicate that the body experience is crossed by heteronormative discourse from an early age. The passage through the transsexualizing process gradually allows the transgender man to access the hegemonic and humanizing possibilities of gender constructions, performing the fictitious relationship between sex and gender and moving away from the place of abjection relegated to transsexuality in heteronormative culture.