Bois and 'Toys': The Stuff of Transmasculine Identity in 2010s Bishkek

• In Event: Remembering Queer Futures: Reflections on Queer-Worldmaking in Russia and Central Asia in the 2000-2020

Abstract

Following Daniel Miller’s theory that identity is produced through material practice rather than merely expressed through it, I examine how transmasculine selves in Bishkek were constituted in the 2010s through interactions with prosthetics, clothing, hormones, and other identity-producing objects. Drawing on fieldwork conducted between 2011-2014, I argue that the shift from the archetypal Soviet experience of material scarcity and limited consumer choice to the consumer abundance of 2010s Bishkek fundamentally reconstituted possibilities for gender-oriented self-knowledge and embodiment.

Author

• Erica Pelta Feldman, U of Michigan