Life as a Queer Trans Man: Identity Management in a Non-Trans World

Abstract

Queer transgender men - those who were assigned female at birth, but identify and live as men — can face challenges when attempting to operate as gay men in gay male communities. For instance, past literature has indicated that queer trans men sometimes suffer rejection from potential gay male partners due to the non-traditional composition of their bodies. While sociological research on male-to-female transgender women abounds, there is significantly less scholarship on female-to-male transsexuals (FTMs) and, more specifically, on queer FTMs. This study adds to the current literature on queer transgender men by examining the ways in which they engage in identity work. Drawing primarily on the symbolic interactionist theory of Erving Goffman, this qualitative project looks at the ways in which FTMs manage their identities as queer men when faced with disruptions to those identities. After coding the data of fifteen in-person interviews, I found that participants managed their identities by controlling their presentations, challenging traditional notions of gender and sexuality, using carefully constructed assertions of identity and belonging, refraining their bodies, and paying close attention to the social circles in which they move as well as how they interact with men once inside those circles.