Abstract

GOMEZ-SEJNAUI, Valentina. Representations of gender, feminities and masculinities in trans people. La ventana [online]. 2023, vol.7, n.58, pp.286-317.  Epub Aug 28, 2023. ISSN 1405-9436.  https://doi.org/10.32870/lv.v7i58.7700.

Since we are born, we are assigned a sex-gender identity under a social framework that presents us as “natural” certain types of genital organs linked to certain types of social roles: male-masculine and female-feminine framed in a binary and dichotomous model. However, trans people are recognized for breaking the continuity between the socially assigned sex and the gender, a model that governs our society. The aim of this article is to describe gender, femininity and masculinity representations in trans people of different cultural contexts. To achieve it, a qualitative methodology was used following a design consisting of life stories, where seven trans people were interviewed, four from Colombia and three from Spain. Evidence shows that their transitioning processes are crossed by each person’s conception of gender, femininity and masculinity. Additionally, although trans life experiences destabilize the binary system, they do not completely transgress it considering that the categories of “woman” and “man” continue to be a frame of reference to develop intelligible identities.

Keywords : gender; gender identity; trans life experiences; transgender; non binary.