The Discursive Construction of Sex
The Discursive Construction of Sex
Remaking and Reclaiming the Gendered Body in Talk about Genitals among Trans Men
The division between biological sex and social gender is critical in much of feminist theory as well as in discourses about gender that circulate in transgender communities. This chapter investigates the role of body part terminology in the discursive construction of biological sex through a lexical analysis of interaction in an online community for transgender men. Members of the community under study in this chapter tease apart conventional definitions of genital terminology that collapse the body parts themselves from the gender categories with which they are associated in ways that allow them to use both canonically female and canonically male terminology (e.g., vagina and cock) in reference to the same individual. Ultimately, these discourses challenge the naturalization of sex. They instead suggest support for the poststructuralist notion that the gendered meanings attached to the body are themselves contingent on discourse.
Keywords: sex, gender, embodiment, transgender, body part terminology, discourse, poststructuralist
Oxford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .
