Tag Archives: trans

Barbie Review: This Barbie is Trans

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Note: The below review contains spoilers for the Barbie (2023) film! If you’d like a discussion that is spoiler-free (recorded before the film screened), check out my chat about bimbos and Barbies on NPR’s It’s Been a Minute with Brittany Luse.

I went and saw Barbie on opening night, and walked right back in and saw it again the next day. The hype around the film has been so immense that I felt like I was holding my breath with excitement and expectation for the whole first screening. Because Barbie is essentially two movies in one mashed together (Barbie and Ken’s stories), as well as kind-of but not-quite being a musical, and definitely a technicolour spectacle, the net result of my first viewing was overwhelm. When I saw it the next day everything made more sense, I knew what to expect. It was much more enjoyable and I highly recommend seeing it twice (or more…I’ll definitely go back).

There’s also an interesting point being made here about Barbies as judgemental mean girls

Despite the long lead up to the film’s release, and literally months of speculating about its content, I found Barbie to be so unexpected, joyously unique. I guess even with all my queer hopes I still thought that the film would be more like a traditional blockbuster, with a romantic narrative, or some easy arc to follow. What it actually feels like is an indie director being given the keys (and money) to make an expansively imaginative film, which is exactly what it is! However in being bold it was also sometimes messy, mostly because it was two distinct stories running in parallel: 1) A comedy drama about Stereotypical Barbie becoming human (an inversion of the typical moral panic around Barbie that human girls will try and become like her); AND 2) A musical about Beach Ken grappling with male entitlement and an inferiority complex. Quite different stories in both message, arc, and tone. When Ken walks off in the real world (to stumble across patriarchy), the film splits into two.

Feel the Kenergy

Ironically, comically, I hadn’t thought about Ken, or what his storyline might have to say about gender AT ALL in the lead up. What Gerwig gives us is a very funny meditation on contemporary white masculinity and patriarchy. Honestly Ken’s line that he wasn’t that interested in patriarchy when he realised it wasn’t about horses was so funny, I’ll be laughing about this for the rest of my life. I’ve been listening to “I’m Just Ken” on repeat. Will I buy some “I am Kenough” merch? Uh, yes. Gosling’s Ken, and the whole storyline almost steals the show from under Barbie’s flat feet, but Margot Robbie is so incredibly earnest in her performance that it’s really just a two-pronged circus the whole way through. I do wish Barbie got an equally big musical number to balance it out a bit though.

What is so wonderful about all of the scenes with the Barbies and Kens is how playful they are – as in, literally so silly that it reminds me of playing with toys as a child. The whole Ken fight scene is ridiculous but I can also completely imagine setting that up as a kid, having a war of Kens, on a beach, that turns into a Grease-like dance off where the Kens also kiss. 100% accurate.

If you need a toilet break, this is the scene to do it

The bits that truly sucked in the film were everything with the humans. The parts with the Gloria/Sascha mother/daughter storyline were so two-dimensional, mere props to further the Barbie storyline. Terrible lines. The most asinine feminist speech you can imagine. Inexplicable reactions (like when Sascha first meets Barbie). And the Ruth Handler saccharine ghost stuff? Just the worst. The Mattel humans were less boring, but really because they were more like the toys of the film, silly and hammed up, part of the melodrama, rather than boring interruptions.

I’ve also seen some critiques of the film along the lines of: this Barbie is capitalist. Gerwig tries to double-play the issue of Barbie as a consumer product, with the film nodding and winking to itself the whole way through. This is such a cheap (pun) shot at the film, because what else was Gerwig supposed to do? There is no way to make this film without that critique being levelled. I do think that this hyper-concern over consumption is reserved especially for things associated with femininity though. When the Lego film came out everyone just marvelled at its unexpected communist undertones, and then went and played with Lego. They didn’t bemoan the Lego industrial complex.

Would play with the convertible

Perhaps most importantly (given my projections) the real question is: how queer and feminist is the Barbie film? Well, in terms of its internally stated feminism: lacklustre. We see some lowest common denominator feminism in the dialogue, and interestingly though patriarchy is referred to throughout, the f word is rarely mentioned as an explicit antidote. If I was writing the script, I would have had Gloria the human give the Barbies some 1970s feminist books and start consciousness-raising groups to get them out of their brainwashing, but perhaps this is just my very specific taste as someone who lectures on gender (edit: as a friend pointed out, they kind of try to do this but for a general audience — but what I’m trying to say is it’s consciousness-raising lite!). In spite of this, my hope that this film could – ought to – usher in some feminist media analysis that takes femininity seriously rather than dismissing the text as postfeminist still stands. I would also like to see Ken’s arc analysed here using critical femininity studies, not simply deferring to masculinity studies as the place to explain what is represented (perhaps another post, for another time…).

Barbie has to want to know the truth: that she’s gay

The queerness of the film is stitched into its very fabric, and not just because loads of the cast are LGBTQ+. Though Stereotypical Barbie doesn’t get to make out with any other Barbies (I would have appreciated at least ONE scissoring joke) the implication is certainly that she is queer, because she is queer-coded. From Birkenstocks, to listening to Indigo Girls, to not being interested in Ken, to identifying with “Weird” Barbie, and the Barbie cinema playing Wizard of Oz (all Barbies are “friends of Dorothy”?), the strong hint is that Barbie is not straight. “Weird” Barbie is clearly a euphemism for Queer Barbie, not least because she is played by the famously gay Kate McKinnon, and the rag-tag team she assembles in her house when patriarchy takes over Barbie land also indicates that they are a queer bunch. From Allan (Ken’s “friend”) to Magic Earring Ken and Video (aka Cyborg) Barbie, these are the queer crew, discontinued by Mattel. By the end of the film, after their power-to-patriarchy-and-back-again journey the vibe seems to be that all of the Barbies are “weird”.

You’re telling me this is a group of straight Barbies? Ah, no.

Yet it is also the transness of Barbie that comes to the fore at the very end when she realises her humanness, rather than (as Ruth tells her) having to “want” or “ask” for it. I read this as a trans allegory, where Barbie’s true self is not something she “identifies” as, but something she affirms: she just is. That the last scene involves her visiting a gynaecologist furthers this reading. We don’t know how or when Barbie got a vagina, but she’s so pleased to have one. This doesn’t seem to be a regressive suggestion, that all women ought to have certain biology – and the fact that we learn Ruth had a double mastectomy seems relevant here – but that Barbie realised she was a woman, and wanted certain genitals, which she got. I truly hope this sends the trans-exclusionary activists out there into a tailspin.

Five stars, plenty of notes, but a film I will absolutely cherish forever.

Trans legitimacy, existence and resistance in academia – a small selection of peer-reviewed scholarship in trans studies

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The confected “debate” about the legitimacy of trans lives does not seem to be going away, and indeed is becoming a key feature of the culture wars in Australia and abroad. In recent years a small group of activists have rebranded themselves “Gender Critical (GC) Feminists” (distancing themselves from the term “Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist (TERF)”, which they claim is a slur). Despite being marginal in their views around trans rights, GC activists continue to receive a huge amount of media attention and platforming, often in the conservative press (but sometimes also, sadly, in outlets such as The Guardian and The Conversation). Many GC activists also continue to hold senior positions in the academy, which adds legitimacy to their public commentary, despite the fact that very few of them have any expertise in gender studies and many have no peer reviewed publications on trans issues.

When we delve into the arguments of GC activists many outright deny the legitimate existence of trans people altogether, claiming, for example, that “our problem is with male people claiming to be women, regardless of how they present”. GC activists then must be understood not simply as “trans-exclusionary”, but as trans deniers.

It is absolutely crucial that media outlets and universities begin to recognise that like climate denial, trans denial is based on unscientific views that are wildly out of step with peer-reviewed scholarship. When GC activists suggest that trans rights ought to be “debated” on the basis of “free speech”, they set the terms of a highly uneven debate between their ideological perspectives vs. actual scholarship. If we focus on the actual scholarship, we see that there are many debates to be had in trans studies around identity, embodiment, race, decolonisation, the relation to non-binary identity, research methods, and more, but those discussions are completely annihilated by GC feminists suggesting that the debate should be about the very legitimacy of trans people in the first place.

In response to this outrageous and fabricated debate, I present (below) a very short introductory list of peer-reviewed scholarship in the field of trans studies that might be used to rebut the entirely unsupported claims of GC feminists, to illuminate the vast depths of the field of trans studies, and to illustrate to the media and universities alike that the “debates” are to be found elsewhere from where GC feminists claim. This is by no means an exhaustive list – there are literally thousands of articles on trans studies, and more are published each day. (There is, of course, much amazing writing published by trans people outside of the academy, my point here though being that trans studies is a huge field of academic scholarship, a point mostly overlooked in public “debates”).

If you would like to view/download a copy of this list please click here. If you think something should be added to this short list of peer-reviewed scholarship (or removed) please contact me.

Journals/special issues and key texts/readers (rebuttal to claims of “trans orthodoxy” – trans studies is not mere political polemics, it is an established and legitimate field of study)

TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly https://read.dukeupress.edu/tsq

International Journal of Transgender Health https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/wijt21/current

Women’s Studies Quarterly (2008) 36(3/4) Special Issue on ‘Trans-’ edited by P. Currah, L. J. Moore & S. Stryker https://www.jstor.org/stable/i27649777

GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies (1998) 4(2) Special Issue on ‘The Transgender Issue’ edited by S. Stryker https://read.dukeupress.edu/glq/issue/4/2

Hypatia (2009) 24(3) Special Issue on ‘Transgender Studies and Feminism: Theory, Politics, and Gendered Realities’ edited by T.M. Bettcher & A. Garry https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/15272001/2009/24/3

Gender, Place & Culture (2010) 17(5) Special theme on ‘Trans Geographies’ edited by K. Browne, C. J. Nash & S. Hines https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2010.503104  

TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly (2014) 1(3) Special Issue on ‘Decolonizing the Transgender Imaginary’ edited by A. Aizura, M. Ochoa, S. Vidal-Ortiz, T. Cotton, C. Balzer/C. LaGata https://www.dukeupress.edu/decolonizing-the-transgender-imaginary-1

S. Stryker & S. Whittle (eds) (2006) The Transgender Studies Reader. London: Routledge https://www.routledge.com/The-Transgender-Studies-Reader/Stryker-Whittle/p/book/9780415947091

S. Stryker & A.Z. Aizura (2013) The Transgender Studies Reader 2. New York: Routledge https://www.routledge.com/The-Transgender-Studies-Reader-2/Stryker-Aizura/p/book/9780415517737

A. Haefele-Thomas (2019) Introduction to Transgender Studies. Columbia University Press http://cup.columbia.edu/book/introduction-to-transgender-studies/9781939594273

S. Hines & T. Sanger (eds) (2010) Transgender identities: Towards a social analysis of gender diversity. New York: Routledge https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/37306

D. Spade (2015) Normal life: Administrative violence, critical trans politics, & the limits of law. Durham, NC: Duke University Press http://www.deanspade.net/books/normal-life/

G. Salamon (2010) Assuming a Body: Transgender and Rhetorics of Materiality. Columbia University Press http://cup.columbia.edu/book/assuming-a-body/9780231149587

J. Halberstam (2018) Trans: A Quick and Quirky Account of Gender Variability. University of California Press https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520292697/trans

J. Serano (2007) Whipping Girl: Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity. Emeryville, CA: Seal Press https://www.sealpress.com/titles/julia-serano/whipping-girl/9781580056229/

K. Bornstein and S. Bear Bergman (eds) (2010) Gender outlaws: the next generation. Berkeley: Seal Press https://www.sealpress.com/titles/kate-bornstein/gender-outlaws/9781580053778/

C. Richards, W.P. Bouman & M-J. Barker (eds) (2017) Genderqueer and Non-Binary Genders. London: Palgrave Macmillan https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781137510525

Trans theory and history (rebuttal to the claim that trans is an entirely ‘new’ concept – while some terms have changed over time, trans theory continues to grow and change)

S. Stryker (2017). Transgender History, Second Edition: The Roots of Today’s Revolution. Berkeley: Seal Press https://www.sealpress.com/titles/susan-stryker/transgender-history-second-edition/9781580056908/

S. Stone ([1987] 2006) ‘The empire strikes back: A posttranssexual manifesto’. In The transgender studies reader, Susan Stryker & Stephen Whittle (eds). New York: Routledge https://uberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/trans-manifesto.pdf

J. Prosser (1998) Second Skins: The Body Narratives of Transsexuality. New York: Columbia University Press http://cup.columbia.edu/book/second-skins/9780231109345

T. Ellison, K. M. Green, M. Richardson, C. Riley Snorton (2017) ‘We Got Issues: Toward a Black Trans*/Studies’, TSQ, 4(2): 162–169 https://doi.org/10.1215/23289252-3814949

S. Stryker (2004) ‘Transgender Studies: Queer Theory’s Evil Twin’, GLQ, 10(2): 212–215 https://doi.org/10.1215/10642684-10-2-212

J. Halberstam (2005) In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives. New York: New York University Press https://nyupress.org/9780814735855/in-a-queer-time-and-place/

L. Feinberg (1998) Trans liberation: beyond pink or blue. Boston: Beacon Press https://www.worldcat.org/title/trans-liberation-beyond-pink-or-blue/oclc/607065169

S. Stryker (2008) ‘Transgender History, Homonormativity, and Disciplinarity’, Radical History Review, (100): 145–157 https://doi.org/10.1215/01636545-2007-026

P. Califia (1997) Sex changes: the politics of transgenderism. San Francisco: Cleis Press https://www.worldcat.org/title/sex-changes-the-politics-of-transgenderism/oclc/36824894

V. K. Namaste (2000) Invisible lives: The erasures of transsexual and transgendered people. Chicago: University of Chicago Press https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/I/bo3683192

C. M. Keegan (2020) ‘Getting Disciplined: What’s Trans* About Queer Studies Now?’, Journal of Homosexuality, 67(3): 384-397 https://doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2018.1530885

C. Adair, C. Awkward-Rich & A. Marvin (2020) ‘Before Trans Studies’, TSQ, 7(3): 306-320 https://doi.org/10.1215/23289252-8552922

M. Day (2020) ‘Indigenist Origins: Institutionalizing Indigenous Queer and Trans Studies in Australia’, TSQ, 7(3): 367–373 https://doi.org/10.1215/23289252-8553006

Transfeminist approaches (rebuttal to the claim that feminism and trans studies are incompatible – these texts look at the tensions between feminist and trans studies from transfeminist perspectives)

A. F. Enke (Ed.) (2012) Transfeminist perspectives: In and beyond transgender and gender studies, Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt14bt8sf

E. Koyama ([2000] 2020) ‘Whose feminism is it anyway? The unspoken racism of the trans inclusion debate’, The Sociological Review, 68(4): 735-744, https://doi.org/10.1177/0038026120934685

V. Varun Chaudhry (2020) ‘On Trans Dissemblance: Or, Why Trans Studies Needs Black Feminism’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 45(3): 529-535 https://doi.org/10.1086/706466

M. Nanney & D.L. Brunsma (2017) ‘Moving Beyond Cis-terhood: Determining Gender through Transgender Admittance Policies at U.S. Women’s Colleges’, Gender & Society, 31(2): 145-170 https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243217690100

S. Stryker (2007) ‘Transgender Feminism’. In S. Gillis, G. Howie & R. Munford (eds) Third Wave Feminism. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230593664_5

V. Namaste (2009) ‘Undoing theory: The “transgender question” and the epistemic violence of Anglo-American feminist theory’, Hypatia, 24(3): 11–32 https://www.jstor.org/stable/20618162

C. Heyes (2003) ‘Feminist solidarity after queer theory: The case of transgender’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 28 (4): 1093–120 https://doi.org/10.1086/343132

C. Awkward-Rich (2017) ‘Trans, Feminism: Or, Reading like a Depressed Transsexual’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 42(4): 819-841 https://doi.org/10.1086/690914

A. Tudor (2019) ‘Im/possibilities of refusing and choosing gender’, Feminist Theory, 20(4): 361-380 https://doi.org/10.1177/1464700119870640

S. Hines (2019) ‘The feminist frontier: on trans and feminism’, Journal of Gender Studies, 28(2): 145-157 https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2017.1411791

Trans harassment, discrimination, erasure, surveillance (rebuttal to the claim that trans people are villains/perpetrators rather than a highly surveilled and persecuted minority – these texts provide empirical evidence and analysis of the issues faced by trans people and communities)

T. Beauchamp (2019) Going Stealth: Transgender Politics and U.S. Surveillance Practices. Durham: Duke University Press https://www.dukeupress.edu/going-stealth

B. Colliver & A. Coyle (2020) ‘“Risk of sexual violence against women and girls” in the construction of “gender-neutral toilets”: a discourse analysis of comments on YouTube videos’, Journal of Gender-Based Violence, 4(3): 359-376(18), https://doi.org/10.1332/239868020X15894511554617

K. Bender-Baird (2016) ‘Peeing under surveillance: bathrooms, gender policing, and hate violence’, Gender, Place & Culture, 23(7): 983-988 https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2015.1073699

J. James (2021) ‘Refusing abjection: transphobia and trans youth survivance’, Feminist Theory, 22(1): 109-128 https://doi.org/10.1177/1464700120974896

C.L. Quinan (2017) ‘Gender (In)Securities: Surveillance and Transgender Bodies in a Post-9/11 Era of Neoliberalism’. In M. Leese & S. Wittendorp (eds), Security/Mobility Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 153-169 https://www.manchesteropenhive.com/view/9781526108364/9781526108364.xml

A. Lubitow, JD. Carathers, M. Kelly & M. Abelson (2017) ‘Transmobilities: mobility, harassment, and violence experienced by transgender and gender nonconforming public transit riders in Portland, Oregon’, Gender, Place & Culture, 24(10): 1398-1418, https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2017.1382451

K. Kraschel (2012) ‘Trans-cending space in women’s only spaces: Title IX cannot be the basis for exclusion’, Harvard Journal of Law and Gender, 35: 463-85 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2138896

T. Spence‐Mitchell (2021) ‘Restroom restrictions: How race and sexuality have affected bathroom legislation’, Gender Work Organisation https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12545

M. A. Case (2019) ‘Trans Formations in the Vatican’s War on “Gender Ideology”’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 44:3, 639-664 https://doi.org/10.1086/701498

R. Rosenberg & N. Oswin (2015) ‘Trans embodiment in carceral space: hypermasculinity and the US prison industrial complex’, Gender, Place & Culture, 22(9): 1269-1286 https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2014.969685

P. L. Doan (2010) ‘The tyranny of gendered spaces – reflections from beyond the gender dichotomy’, Gender, Place & Culture, 17(5): 635-654 https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2010.503121

C.L. Quinan, D. Cooper, V. Molitor, A. Kondakov, A. van der Vleuten & T. Zimenkova (2020) ‘“State Regimes of Gender: Legal Aspects of Gender Identity Registration, Trans-Relevant Policies and Quality of LGBTIQ Lives”: A Roundtable Discussion’, International Journal of Gender, Sexuality and Law, 1 (1): 377-402 https://doi.org/10.19164/ijgsl.v1i1.985

D. Irving (2015) ‘Performance Anxieties: Trans Women’s Un(der)-employment Experiences in Post-Fordist Society’, Australian Feminist Studies, 30(83): 50-64 https://doi.org/10.1080/08164649.2014.99845

Negotiating trans identity/lived experience (rebuttal to the claim that trans identity is not legitimate – despite attempts at erasure, trans people continue to exist and resist)

A. Rooke (2010) T’rans youth, science and art: creating (trans) gendered space’, Gender, Place & Culture, 17(5): 655-672 https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2010.503124

T.J. Jourian, S.L. Simmons, K.C. Devaney (2015) ‘“We Are Not Expected”: Trans* Educators (Re)Claiming Space and Voice in Higher Education and Student Affairs’, TSQ, 2(3): 431–446 https://doi.org/10.1215/23289252-2926410 

S. Hines (2010) ‘Queerly situated? Exploring negotiations of trans queer subjectivities at work and within community spaces in the UK’, Gender, Place & Culture, 17(5): 597-613 https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2010.503116

I. Linander, I. Goicolea, E. Alm, A. Hammarström & L. Harryson (2019) ‘(Un)safe spaces, affective labour and perceived health among people with trans experiences living in Sweden’, Culture, Health & Sexuality, 21(8): 914-928, https://doi.org/10.1080/13691058.2018.1527038

A. Gorman-Murray, S. McKinnon, D. Dominey-Howes, C. J. Nash & R.Bolton (2018) ‘Listening and learning: giving voice to trans experiences of disasters’, Gender, Place & Culture, 25(2): 166-187 https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2017.1334632

S. Hines (2007) ‘(Trans)Forming Gender: Social Change and Transgender Citizenship’, Sociological Research Online, 12(1):181-194 https://doi.org/10.5153/sro.1469

C. T. Sullivan (2018) ‘Majesty in the city: experiences of an Aboriginal transgender sex worker in Sydney, Australia’, Gender, Place & Culture, 25(12): 1681-1702 https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2018.1553853

M. J. Andrucki & D. J. Kaplan (2018) ‘Trans objects: materializing queer time in US transmasculine homes’, Gender, Place & Culture, 25(6): 781-798 https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2018.1457014

O. Jenzen (2017) ‘Trans youth and social media: moving between counterpublics and the wider web’, Gender, Place & Culture, 24(11): 1626-1641 https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2017.1396204

O. L. Haimson, A. Dame-Griff, E. Capello & Z. Richter (2019) ‘Tumblr was a trans technology: the meaning, importance, history, and future of trans technologies’, Feminist Media Studies, https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2019.1678505

T. Raun (2016) Out Online: Trans Self-Representation and Community Building on YouTube. London: Routledge https://www.routledge.com/Out-Online-Trans-Self-Representation-and-Community-Building-on-YouTube/Raun/p/book/9780367596620

Son Vivienne (2017) ‘“I Will Not Hate Myself because You Cannot Accept Me”: Problematizing Empowerment and Gender-Diverse Selfies’, Popular Communication, 15(2): 126–140 https://doi.org/10.1080/15405702.2016.1269906

M.Y. Chen (2010) ‘Everywhere Archives: Transgendering, Trans Asians, and the Internet’, Australian Feminist Studies, 25(64): 199-208 https://doi.org/10.1080/08164641003762503

J.N. Chen (2019) Trans Exploits: Trans of Color Cultures and Technologies in Movement. Durham: Duke University Press https://read.dukeupress.edu/books/book/2636/Trans-ExploitsTrans-of-Color-Cultures-and

R. A. Pearce (2020) ‘A Methodology for the Marginalised: Surviving Oppression and Traumatic Fieldwork in the Neoliberal Academy’, Sociology, 54(4): 806-824 https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038520904918

Engagement with the “wrong body” model/trans medicalisation (rebuttal to the claim that trans theory necessarily reinforces a strict or medical model of gender)

T. M. Bettcher (2014) ‘Trapped in the wrong theory: Rethinking trans oppression and resistance’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 39(2): 383–406 https://doi.org/10.1086/673088

N. Sullivan (2008) ‘The Role of Medicine in the (Trans)Formation of “Wrong” Bodies’, Body & Society, 14(1): 105-116 https://doi.org/10.1177/1357034X07087533

J.R. Latham (2019) ‘Axiomatic: Constituting “transsexuality” and trans sexualities in medicine’, Sexualities, 22 (1-2), 13-30 https://doi.org/10.1177/1363460717740258

J.R. Latham (2017) ‘Making and Treating Trans Problems: The Ontological Politics of Clinical Practices’, Studies in Gender and Sexuality, 18(1): 40-6 https://doi.org/10.1080/15240657.2016.1238682

S. Vogler (2019) ‘Determining Transgender: Adjudicating Gender Identity in U.S. Asylum Law’, Gender & Society, 33(3): 439-462 https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243219834043  

A.P. Hilário (2020) ‘Rethinking trans identities within the medical and psychological community: a path towards the depathologization and self-definition of gender identification in Portugal?’, Journal of Gender Studies, 29(3): 245-256, https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2018.1544066

Non-binary and genderqueer subjectivities specifically (rebuttal to the erasure of non-binary identities – there is a growing field of empirical and theoretical work that looks at the complexities of non-binary and genderqueer identities and experiences)

H. Darwin (2020) ‘Challenging the Cisgender/Transgender Binary: Nonbinary People and the Transgender Label’, Gender & Society, 34(3):357-380. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243220912256

H. Barbee & D. Schrock (2019) ‘Un/gendering Social Selves: How Nonbinary People Navigate and Experience a Binarily Gendered World’, Sociological Forum, 34(3): 572-593 https://doi.org/10.1111/socf.12517

S. Monro (2019) ‘Non-binary and genderqueer: An overview of the field’, International Journal of Transgenderism, 20(2-3): 126-131 https://doi.org/10.1080/15532739.2018.1538841

C. Richards, W. P. Bouman, L. Seal, M-J. Barker, T.O. Nieder, G. T’Sjoen (2016) ‘Non-binary or genderqueer genders’, International Review of Psychology, 28(1): 95-102 https://doi.org/10.3109/09540261.2015.1106446

S.Bower-Brown, S. Zadeh & V.Jadva (2021) ‘Binary-trans, non-binary and gender-questioning adolescents’ experiences in UK schools’, Journal of LGBT Youth, 1-19 https://doi.org/10.1080/19361653.2021.1873215

D. Cosgrove (2021) ‘“I am allowed to be myself”: A photovoice exploration of non-binary identity development and meaning-making’, Journal of Gay & Lesbian Social Services, 33(1): 78-102 https://doi.org/10.1080/10538720.2020.1850385

A. Vijlbrief, S. Saharso & H. Ghorashi (2020) ‘Transcending the gender binary: Gender non-binary young adults in Amsterdam’, Journal of LGBT Youth, 17(1): 89-106 https://doi.org/10.1080/19361653.2019.1660295

L. Nicholas (2019) ‘Queer ethics and fostering positive mindsets toward non-binary gender, genderqueer, and gender ambiguity’, International Journal of Transgenderism, 20(2-3): 169-180 https://doi.org/10.1080/15532739.2018.1505576