Transmasculinities in Nonbinary Autobiographical Writing

Karolína Zlámalová

doi:10.2478/genst-2023-0003

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Transmasculinities in Nonbinary Autobiographical Writing

Gender Studies

Volume 21 (2022): Issue 1 (December 2022)

By: Karolína Zlámalová

Open Access

|Dec 2022

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Abstract

This article discusses the representations and narratives of transmasculinities in selected works by contemporary Anglophone nonbinary writers assigned female at birth. After briefly introducing the primary sources, I explain how this selection of texts allows for an analysis that contributes to widening the conventional conceptualisation of masculinities as related only to biological men and trans men, and I specify the kinds of masculinities discussed in the article. I then concentrate on three prominently featured themes in the analysed narratives: rejection and erasure within the lesbian and feminist communities, confusion caused by the authors’ identities in their everyday lives, and nonbinary parenting-related issues. Exploring how the authors write about these themes illuminates not only how they textually construct their diverse masculinities but also some of the key challenges they navigate: identity unintelligibility, invisibility, and the threat of involuntary complicity in the patriarchal order.

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