‘Entre el alivio y el palo’
a Spanish trans man’s narrative of transitioning in middle age
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.34608Keywords:
Spanish, female-to-male transgender, intersectionality, gender/sexuality, ageAbstract
This paper draws on a series of life story interviews with Lukas, a middle-aged Spanish trans man who was previously ascribed the identity of butch lesbian. Specifically it draws on four interviews which date from the months following Lukas's initial self-identification as trans in late 2015. The interviews capture a transitory moment in his gender transitioning. The paper addresses the intersectionalityof gender and sexuality and focuses mainly on the way in which Lukas's claiming of his trans man identity simultaneously articulates with his repudiation of his former lesbian identity. In these interviews Lukas presents himself as caught between what he describes as 'el alivio' ('the relief') of initial self-recognition, and 'el palo' ('the hassle') of deciding what do next. The hassle arises from the fact that he has what he describes as 'una vida hecha ya' (literally 'a life already made' for himself), and because many of the choices before him have financial and professional implications. Most significantly however, the hassle is also shown to be inextricably bound up with the 'neglected intersectionality' of age.
References
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Rahman, M. (2010) Queer as intersectionality: theorizing gay Muslim identities. Sociology 44(5): 944–61. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038510375733
Ricoeur, P. (1984) Time and Narrative. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Rubin, H. (2003) Self-Made Men: Identity and Embodiment among Transsexual Men. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press.
Stryker, S. (2006) (De)subjugated knowledges: an introduction to transgender studies. In S. Stryker and S. Whittle (eds) The Transgender Studies Reader 1–17. New York: Routledge.
Thompson, J. (1991) Editor’s introduction. In P. Bourdieu Language and Symbolic Power 1–31. Cambridge: Polity Press.
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Zimman, L. (2009) The other kind of coming out’: transgender people and the coming out narrative genre. Gender and Language 3(1): 53–80. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.v3i1.53
Zimman, L. (2012) Voices in transition: testosterone, transmasculinity, and the gendered voice among female-to-male transgender people. PhD thesis, University of Colorado, Denver, CO.
Zimman, L. (2017) Gender as stylistic bricolage: transmasculine voices and the relationship between fundamental frequency and /s/. Language in Society 46(3): 339–70. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404517000070
Baynham, M. and De Fina, A. (eds) (2005) Dislocations/Relocations: Narratives of Displacement. Manchester: St Jerome Publishing.
Bernardi, S. (dir.) (2011) Romeos. Distributed by Peccadillo Pictures (peccapics.com).
Bilge, S. (2013) Intersectionality undone: saving intersectionality from feminist intersectionality studies. Du Bois Review 10(2): 405–24. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X13000283
Block, D. and Corona, V. (2016) Intersectionality in language and identity research. In S. Preece (ed.) The Routledge Handbook of Language and Identity 507–22. London: Routledge.
Borba, R. and Ostermann, A. C. (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): 131–47. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.2007.1.1.131
Bourdieu, P. (1991) Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Collins, P. H. and Bilge, S. (2016) Intersectionality. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Combahee River Collective. (1977) The Combahee River Collective statement. Retrieved on 25 June 2018 from http://circuitous.org/scraps/combahee.html.
Cromwell, J. (1999) Transmen and FTMs: Identities, Bodies, Genders and Sexualities. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
Derrida, J. (1977) Limited Inc. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
Detloff, M. (2006) Gender please, without the gender police. Journal of Lesbian Studies 10(1–2): 87–105. https://doi.org/10.1300/J155v10n01_05
Diamond, L. M. and Butterworth, M. (2008) Questioning gender and sexual identity: dynamic links over time. Sex Roles 59: 365–76. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-008-9425-3
Douglass, F. (1992) Self-made men. In J. Blassinghame and J. McKivigan (eds) The Frederick Douglass Papers 545–75. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Edelman, E. and Zimman, L. (2014) Boycunts and bonus holes: trans men’s bodies, neoliberalism, and the sexual productivity of genitals. Journal of Homosexuality 61: 673–90. https://doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2014.870438
Fraser, N. (2017) The end of progressive neoliberalism. Dissent (2 January). Retrieved on 4 September 2017 from www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/progressive-neoliberalism-reactionary-populism-nancy-fraser.
Georgakopoulou, A. (2007) Small Stories, Interaction and Identities. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/sin.8
Giddens, A. (1991) Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Halberstam, J. (2013) Transgender butch: butch/FTM border wars and the masculine continuum. In D. E. Hall and A. Jagose with A. Bebell and S. Potter (eds) The Routledge Queer Studies Reader 464–87. Abingdon: Routledge.
Hale, J. (2009) Suggested rules for non-transsexuals writing about transsexuals, transsexuality, transsexualism, or trans ____. Retrieved on 4 September 2017 from http://sandystone.com/hale.rules.html.
Hall, K. and O’Donovan, V. (1996) Shifting gender positions among Hindi-speaking hijras. In V. Bergvall, J. Bing and A. Freed (eds) Rethinking Language and Gender Research: Theory and Practice 228–66. London: Longman.
Hall, S. (1996) Introduction: who needs ‘identity’? In S. Hall and P. du Gay (eds) Questions of Cultural Identity 1–17. London: Sage.
Haraway, D. (1991) Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. London: Free Association Books.
Hazenberg, E. (2016) Walking the straight and narrow: linguistic choice and gendered presentation. Gender and Language 10(2): 270–94. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.v10i2.19812
Hearn, J. (2011) Neglected intersectionalities in studying men: age/ing, virtuality, transnationality. In H. Lutz, M. T. Herrera Vivar and L. Supik (eds) Framing Intersectionality: Debates on a Multi-faceted Concept in Gender Studies 89–104. Farnham: Ashgate.
Kulick, D. (1997) The Gender of Brazilian Transgendered Prostitutes. American Anthropologist 99(3): 574–85. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1997.99.3.574
Kulick, D. (1998) Travesti: Sex, Gender, and Culture among Brazilian Transgengered Prostitutes. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226461014.001.0001
Kulick, D. (1999) Transgender and Language: a review of the literature and suggestions for the future. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 5(4): 605–22. https://doi.org/10.1215/10642684-5-4-605
Linde, C. (1993) Life Stories: The Creation of Coherence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
McAdams, D. P. and McLean, K. C. (2013) Narrative identity. Current Directions in Psychological Science 22(3): 233–8. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721413475622
Mohamed, K. and Shefer, T. (2015) Gendering disability and disabling gender: critical reflections on intersections of gender and disability. Agenda 29(2): 2–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/10130950.2015.1055878
Morris, J. (1974) Conundrum. London: Faber & Faber.
Obedin-Maliver, J. and Makadon, H. J. (2016) Transgender men and pregnancy. Obstetric Medicine 9(1): 4–8. https://doi.org/10.1177/1753495X15612658
Polkinghorne, D. E. (1991) Narrative and self-concept. Journal of Narrative and Life History 1(2–3): 135–53. https://doi.org/10.1075/jnlh.1.2-3.04nar
Rahman, M. (2010) Queer as intersectionality: theorizing gay Muslim identities. Sociology 44(5): 944–61. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038510375733
Ricoeur, P. (1984) Time and Narrative. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Rubin, H. (2003) Self-Made Men: Identity and Embodiment among Transsexual Men. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press.
Stryker, S. (2006) (De)subjugated knowledges: an introduction to transgender studies. In S. Stryker and S. Whittle (eds) The Transgender Studies Reader 1–17. New York: Routledge.
Thompson, J. (1991) Editor’s introduction. In P. Bourdieu Language and Symbolic Power 1–31. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Yep, G. (2016) Toward thick(er) intersectionalities: theorizing, researching, and activating the complexities of communication and identities. In K. Sorrells and S. Sekimoto (eds) Globalizing Intercultural Communication 85–94. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Zimman, L. (2009) The other kind of coming out’: transgender people and the coming out narrative genre. Gender and Language 3(1): 53–80. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.v3i1.53
Zimman, L. (2012) Voices in transition: testosterone, transmasculinity, and the gendered voice among female-to-male transgender people. PhD thesis, University of Colorado, Denver, CO.
Zimman, L. (2017) Gender as stylistic bricolage: transmasculine voices and the relationship between fundamental frequency and /s/. Language in Society 46(3): 339–70. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404517000070
Published
2018-12-05
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Gray, J. (2018). ‘Entre el alivio y el palo’: a Spanish trans man’s narrative of transitioning in middle age. Gender and Language, 12(4), 437-458. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.34608
