Dressing the transgender body : a study on clothing and cisnormativity in Singapore

This paper explores how transgender people dress themselves and how that is affected by cisnormativity prior to and after commencement of social transition. Concepts of doing gender and passing were applied to the different stages of trans life in order to populate a cultural understanding of the...

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Main Author: Zhu, Laura Yuan
Other Authors: Xiao Hong
Format: Final Year Project
Language:English
Published: 2018
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10356/73727
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
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spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-737272019-12-10T12:17:12Z Dressing the transgender body : a study on clothing and cisnormativity in Singapore Zhu, Laura Yuan Xiao Hong School of Humanities and Social Sciences DRNTU::Social sciences DRNTU::Social sciences::Sociology::Social institutions This paper explores how transgender people dress themselves and how that is affected by cisnormativity prior to and after commencement of social transition. Concepts of doing gender and passing were applied to the different stages of trans life in order to populate a cultural understanding of the everyday practices involved in negotiating cisnormative society. Via in-depth, semi-structured interviews with three male-to-female and three female-to-male transgender individuals, experiences with dressing were sought. Interviews were broken up into pre-transition and post-transition experiences with sub-sections addressing casual wear, formal wear, school uniforms and experiences in shopping for clothes in public spaces. Findings revealed significant differences in experiences of dressing in terms of gender-related distress and satisfaction. Pre-transition was marked by assigned gender clothing which was found to be oppressive through forced performativity leading to identity misclassification. Post-transition was marked by identified gender clothing and the satisfaction of aligning identified gender and outward presentation. However, passing was found to be a double-edged sword in freeing identified gender and restricting the body so as to fit cisnormative notions of acceptable gendered bodies. Passing thus becomes part of the mechanics that perpetuate trans-invisibility in abiding cisnormative conceptions of acceptable maleness and femaleness. Overall, a cisnormative agenda was found in the contradiction between the state’s allowance of transgender people to medically and legally confirm their identified genders and assumptions of cisnormativity in the institutions of education and family. Bachelor of Arts 2018-04-06T00:43:03Z 2018-04-06T00:43:03Z 2018 Final Year Project (FYP) http://hdl.handle.net/10356/73727 en Nanyang Technological University 35 p. application/pdf
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
country Singapore
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic DRNTU::Social sciences
DRNTU::Social sciences::Sociology::Social institutions
spellingShingle DRNTU::Social sciences
DRNTU::Social sciences::Sociology::Social institutions
Zhu, Laura Yuan
Dressing the transgender body : a study on clothing and cisnormativity in Singapore
description This paper explores how transgender people dress themselves and how that is affected by cisnormativity prior to and after commencement of social transition. Concepts of doing gender and passing were applied to the different stages of trans life in order to populate a cultural understanding of the everyday practices involved in negotiating cisnormative society. Via in-depth, semi-structured interviews with three male-to-female and three female-to-male transgender individuals, experiences with dressing were sought. Interviews were broken up into pre-transition and post-transition experiences with sub-sections addressing casual wear, formal wear, school uniforms and experiences in shopping for clothes in public spaces. Findings revealed significant differences in experiences of dressing in terms of gender-related distress and satisfaction. Pre-transition was marked by assigned gender clothing which was found to be oppressive through forced performativity leading to identity misclassification. Post-transition was marked by identified gender clothing and the satisfaction of aligning identified gender and outward presentation. However, passing was found to be a double-edged sword in freeing identified gender and restricting the body so as to fit cisnormative notions of acceptable gendered bodies. Passing thus becomes part of the mechanics that perpetuate trans-invisibility in abiding cisnormative conceptions of acceptable maleness and femaleness. Overall, a cisnormative agenda was found in the contradiction between the state’s allowance of transgender people to medically and legally confirm their identified genders and assumptions of cisnormativity in the institutions of education and family.
author2 Xiao Hong
author_facet Xiao Hong
Zhu, Laura Yuan
format Final Year Project
author Zhu, Laura Yuan
author_sort Zhu, Laura Yuan
title Dressing the transgender body : a study on clothing and cisnormativity in Singapore
title_short Dressing the transgender body : a study on clothing and cisnormativity in Singapore
title_full Dressing the transgender body : a study on clothing and cisnormativity in Singapore
title_fullStr Dressing the transgender body : a study on clothing and cisnormativity in Singapore
title_full_unstemmed Dressing the transgender body : a study on clothing and cisnormativity in Singapore
title_sort dressing the transgender body : a study on clothing and cisnormativity in singapore
publishDate 2018
url http://hdl.handle.net/10356/73727
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