Doing self with others : transgender existence and the family in contemporary Taiwan

Abstract

This qualitative study is one of the first to extensively examine the life experiences of transgender individuals and their immediate family members in Taiwan, illuminating how transgressive gender identity is accomplished through and mediated by interpersonal connections. The research is based on data from in-depth interviews with transgender adults (n=27) born in the 1980s or later and parents of transgender adults (n=9) born in the 1950s to 1970s, in addition to 100+ hours of ethnographic participant observation in online and offline Taiwanese trans community spaces between 2020 and 2022.

This thesis utilizes a symbolic interactionist perspective to comprehensively investigate the multifaceted aspects of transgender existence in Taiwan. The study focuses on four distinct themes: 1) the formation of transgender identity, 2) negotiations of transgender identity within social interactions, 3) the disclosure of transgender identity to family, and 4) the experiences of parents with transgender children. Positioned at the intersection of global transgender studies and scholarship centering East Asian lesbian, gay and bisexual populations and their kin, this study addresses how autonomous gender identity formation can coexist with family-oriented philosophies emphasizing relational selfhood. The thesis further assesses the applicability of symbolic interactionism in a Sinophone cultural setting, addressing key criticisms and identifying opportunities for theoretical expansion through a transgender lens.

This thesis highlights how transgender interviewees formed their gender identities through both subjective and social negotiations, and how they conveyed these identities to family through direct and tacit methods of communication. Four key findings and theoretical structures emerge: firstly, the study reveals gender category, access to culturally relevant role models, and proximity to binary gender normativity as significant factors shaping identity formation. Secondly, the introduction of the concept gender zones challenges static notions of gender, portraying it instead as a dynamic collection of diverse social roles shaped in the interaction between the subject and other people. This underscores the nuanced, situation-dependent impression management related to gender in the lives of transgender individuals. Thirdly, regarding identity disclosure to family, the thesis distinguishes between verbal emergence and embodied emergence as distinct approaches. Verbal emergence involves spoken disclosure, while embodied emergence signifies non-verbal expressions of a transgressive gender identity. Finally, parents’ experiences with a transgender child are shown to be primarily influenced by the parents’ own perceptions of gender diversity as stigmatized, and their meaning-making of the child’s gender trajectory.

The central argument of this study concerns the conceptualization of gender identity in the Taiwanese cultural context, positing it as a social artifact arising at the conjunction of the subject’s self-conceptualization and their interaction with their surroundings. Ultimately, the thesis contributes to filling a significant research gap on transgender subjectivity and family communication in contemporary East Asia, serving as a valuable addition to queer Asian gender and sexuality studies while provincializing established Western notions regarding transgender self-realization. Utilizing applicable concepts from symbolic interactionism and exposing the framework’s limitations in explaining Taiwanese gender diversity, this dissertation enables new theoretical insights on gendered selfhood in relation to self and others within and beyond the interactionist framework.