Self-misgendering among multilingual transgender speakers
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Lauren Simpson
Abstract
“Misgendering” is a term used broadly to mean referring to someone using the wrong gender. In the transgender context, it usually refers to cases where a transgender person is referred to using the gender assigned at birth, rather than according to gender presentation. Misgendering is sometimes a form of anti-trans aggression, but can also be accidental or otherwise unintended. “Self-misgendering”, where transgender speakers unintentionally misgender themselves, is apparently previously unstudied, seems mainly to occur in a foreign-language context, and may bear some similarity to language-interference effects observed in the study of multilinguals, a “first-gender effect” analogous to first-language effects. One may also hypothesise social gender bias, variable gender-identity, or similar factors. This article quantitatively surveys self-reported self-misgendering among multilingual transgender speakers to identify factors of correlation or causation. Using data and respondents’ comments from an online survey, it shows strong correlation between self-misgendering by full-time transgender speakers and (lack of) fluency in the language spoken, with no significant correlation to other linguistic or social gender-related factors. This suggests the self-misgendering phenomenon is primarily a fluency effect, independent of social or identity factors such as attitude to gender in language, attitude to being misgendered, or “default” masculine gender.
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© 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
