Socialization processes in male transsexuality: an ethnographic approach in an associative space

Abstract

This paper is an approach to the processes of socialization/learning within male transsexuality in the context of an association for young male transsexuals. We hereby present some results of an exploratory ethnographic study, establishing as the key axis of our analysis the construction of male transsexual subjectivity within the processes of peer socialization in the sense of “community of practice” (Lave y Wenger, 1991). We start discussing the different forms of socialization focusing first on the importance of the roles of “newcomers” versus veterans within a field that appears on the margins of the production of male transsexual subjectivity, namely the participation in the association. The relationship newcomers/veterans can also be observed within the construction of subjectivity, but is neither unambiguous (it occurs in different ways) nor exclusive (in some cases it is not activated); sometimes the roles and actors may vary. In addition, participation and subjectivity are based on the notion of information as a key category that neutralizes and legitimates the labor of the association. Furthermore, two different forms of transsexual subjectivation processes are headlined, namely the being and the corporealty. These dimensions (and the socialization they include) are considered cultural, nevertheless they are part of the hegemonic (and therefore naturalized) construction of transsexuality. They present themselves as elements of a “subordinated masculinity” (Connel, 1997). Both are remarkably related to a concrete socialization mechanism, namely the problematization of the different situations. The article concludes with some reflections on the socialization of mothers/fathers within the transsexual subjectivity. It concludes with a reflection on the relationship between identity and subjectivity related to learning within a community of practice.