Discourses of transnormativity in vloggers’ identity construction
-
Lucy Jones
Abstract
This article investigates the construction of two transgender vlogger personas, providing insight into the prevalence of normative discourses which may be drawn on when constructing transgender identities. Many transgender people around the world rely on the internet as a source of information and guidance, with online video diaries (“vlogs”), in which young people record and chart their experiences of transition, playing a particularly important role. In this article, discourse from two popular transgender vloggers is critically analysed. It is found that the vloggers index identities which are broadly in line with what Lal Zimman terms the archetypal “true transsexual”, an ideological model of what it means to be “authentically” transgender. This corresponds with heteronormative, essentialist expectations of binary gender. The vloggers are shown to authenticate their own experiences by stating what is “typical” and positioning themselves as “experts”. Ultimately, it is argued that the version of transgender identity and experience that they put forward reproduces prevalent discourses of normative gender and sexuality.
Appendix: Transcription conventions
The method of transcription used here is adapted from Jefferson (2004).
- -
self- interruption or false start
- (.)
pause of less than 1 second
- (2)
timed pause
- .
end of intonation unit; falling intonation
- ?
end of intonation unit; rising intonation
- <italics>
transcriber comment
- :
lengthening of sound
- {@word@}
laughing quality
- underline
emphatic stress or increased amplitude
References
Anderson, Benedict. 1983. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso Books.Search in Google Scholar
Baker, Paul. 2014. Using corpora to analyze gender. London: Bloomsbury.Search in Google Scholar
Borba, Rodrigo & Ana Cristina Ostermann. 2007. Do bodies matter? Travestis’ embodiment of (trans)gender identity through the manipulation of the Brazilian Portuguese grammatical gender System. Gender and Language 1(1). 131–147.10.1558/genl.2007.1.1.131Search in Google Scholar
Bucholtz, Mary & Kira Hall. 2005. Identity and interaction: A sociocultural linguistic approach. Discourse Studies 7(4–5). 585–614.10.1177/1461445605054407Search in Google Scholar
Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. London: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar
Dame, Avery. 2013. “I’m your Hero? Like me?” The role of ‘expert’ in the trans male vlog. Journal of Language and Sexuality 2(1). 40–69.10.1075/jls.2.1.02damSearch in Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope & Sally McConnell-Ginet. 2003. Language and gender. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511791147Search in Google Scholar
Edelman, Elijah A. 2009. The power of stealth: (In)visible sites of female-to-male transsexual resistance. In Ellen Lewin & William Leap (eds.), Out in public: Reinventing lesbian/gay anthropology in a globalizing world, 164–179. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.10.1002/9781444310689.ch9Search in Google Scholar
Fairclough, Norman. 1989. Language and power. New York: Longman.Search in Google Scholar
Grossman, Arnold H & Anthony R. D’Augelli. 2006. Transgender youth: Invisible and vulnerable. Journal of Homosexuality 51(1). 111–128.10.1300/J082v51n01_06Search in Google Scholar
Hall, Kira. 1997. “Go suck your husband’s sugarcane!” Hijras and the use of sexual insult. In Anna Livia & Kira Hall (eds.), Queerly phrased: Language, gender, and sexuality, 430–460. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Hall, Kira & Veronica O’Donovan. 1996. Shifting gender positions among hindi-speaking hijras. In Victoria Bergvall, Janet Bing & Alice Freed (eds.), Rethinking language and gender research: Theory and practice, 228–266. London: Longman.Search in Google Scholar
Holman, Catherine W & Joshua M. Goldberg. 2006. Ethical, legal, and psychosocial issues in care of transgender adolescents. International Journal of Transgenderism 9(3–4). 95–110.10.1300/J485v09n03_05Search in Google Scholar
Holmes, Janet. 1995. Women, men and politeness. London: Longman.Search in Google Scholar
Horak, Laura. 2014. Trans on YouTube: Intimacy, visibility, temporality. Transgender Studies Quarterly 1(4). 572–585.10.1215/23289252-2815255Search in Google Scholar
Jefferson, Gail. 2004. Glossary of transcript symbols with an introduction. In Gene H. Lerner (ed.), Conversation analysis: Studies from the first generation, 13–31. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.10.1075/pbns.125.02jefSearch in Google Scholar
Jones, Lucy. 2012. Dyke/girl: Language and identities in a lesbian group. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.10.1057/9781137271341Search in Google Scholar
Jørgensen, Marianne & Louise J. Phillips. 2002. Discourse analysis as theory and method. London: Sage.10.4135/9781849208871Search in Google Scholar
Kulick, Don. 1996. Causing a commotion: Scandal as resistance among Brazilian travesti prostitutes. Anthropology Today 12(6). 3–7.10.2307/2783401Search in Google Scholar
Morrish, Elizabeth & Helen Sauntson. 2007. New perspectives on language and sexual identity. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.10.1057/9780230599406Search in Google Scholar
Motschenbacher, Heiko & Martin Stegu. 2013. Introduction: Queer linguistic approaches to discourse. Discourse and Society 24(5). 519–535.10.1177/0957926513486069Search in Google Scholar
Ochs, Eleanor. 1992. Indexing gender. In Alessandro Duranti & Charles Goodwin (eds.), Rethinking context: Language as an interactive phenomenon, 335–358. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Prosser, Jay. 1998. Second skins: The body narratives of transsexuality. Columbia: Columbia University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Raun, Tobias. 2015. Video blogging as a vehicle of transformation: Exploring the intersection between trans identity and information technology. International Journal of Cultural Studies 18(3). 365–378.10.1177/1367877913513696Search in Google Scholar
Rotman, Dana & Jennifer Preece. 2010. The “WeTube” in YouTube: Creating an online community through video sharing. International Journal of Web Based Communities 6(3). 317–333.10.1504/IJWBC.2010.033755Search in Google Scholar
Silverstein, Michael. 2003. Indexical order and the dialectics of sociolinguistic life. Language and Communication 23(3–4). 193–229.10.1016/S0271-5309(03)00013-2Search in Google Scholar
Valentine, David. 2007. Imagining transgender: An ethnography of a category. Durham: Duke University Press.10.1515/9780822390213Search in Google Scholar
YouTube. 2015. Statistics. https://www.youtube.com/yt/press/en-GB/statistics.html (accessed 26 August 2015).Search in Google Scholar
Zimman, Lal. 2009. ‘The Other Kind of Coming Out’: Transgender people and the coming out narrative genre. Gender and Language 3(1). 53–80.10.1558/genl.v3i1.53Search in Google Scholar
Zimman, Lal. 2012. Voices in transition: Testosterone, transmasculinity, and the gendered voice among female-to-male transgender people. Boulder, CO: University of Colorado at Boulder PhD Dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
Zimman, Lal. 2014. The discursive construction of sex: Remaking and reclaiming the gendered body in talk about genitals among trans men. In Lal Zimman, Jenny L. Davis & Joshua Raclaw (eds.), Queer excursions: Rethinking binaries in language, gender, and sexuality, 13–34. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199937295.003.0002Search in Google Scholar
© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Foreword
- Editors’ preface
- The interactional making of a “true transsexual”: Language and (dis)identification in trans-specific healthcare
- The linguistic expression of gender identity: Albania’s “sworn virgins”
- Discourses of transnormativity in vloggers’ identity construction
- Self-misgendering among multilingual transgender speakers
- “I am I”: Self-constructed transgender identities in internet-mediated forum communication
- Trans self-identification and the language of neoliberal selfhood: Agency, power, and the limits of monologic discourse
- Book Review
- Transgender voices
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Foreword
- Editors’ preface
- The interactional making of a “true transsexual”: Language and (dis)identification in trans-specific healthcare
- The linguistic expression of gender identity: Albania’s “sworn virgins”
- Discourses of transnormativity in vloggers’ identity construction
- Self-misgendering among multilingual transgender speakers
- “I am I”: Self-constructed transgender identities in internet-mediated forum communication
- Trans self-identification and the language of neoliberal selfhood: Agency, power, and the limits of monologic discourse
- Book Review
- Transgender voices
