“Neither of the Boxes”: How Non-Binary Gender Identities Challenge the Gender Structure

• In Event: 4249 - Contested Political Identities and Trans Experiences

Abstract

This analysis explores the potential challenges to the gender structure stemming from the identities and experiences of people with non-binary gender identities, that is, people who do not identify as exclusively men or exclusively women. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 36 people with non-binary gender identities, we present findings that first focus on non-binary gender identities at the individual level (exploring non-binary gender identities and expression, non-binary people’s use of the terms masculinities and femininities); we then turn to the interactional level (examining interactions that hold participants accountable to normative gender expectations and also interactions that are affirming of non-binary identities and allow for possibilities of redoing gender); finally, we address non-binary gender identities at the institutional level (focusing on how shifts in the workplace and legal recognition of non-binary identities represent movement towards undoing gender). We argue that non-binary people can redo gender at the interactional level and undo gender at the institutional level. However, these challenges to the gender structure are limited when non-binary people are held accountable to normative binary performances of gender.

Authors

• Maura Kelly, Portland State University

• Erin Patricia Savoia