“DOING TRANSGENDER”: SEX WORKER TRANS WOMEN’S NAVIGATION OF FEMININITIES AND MASCULINITIES IN RESPONSE TO CIS-GENDER OPPRESSION

Date

2024-2-2

Author

Ördek, Kemal

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This thesis has the purpose of explaining how sex worker trans women in Türkiye accomplish gender in their everyday social interactions as a response to cis-gender oppression. I make use of the “doing gender” and “doing transgender” theories to analyse the patterns of gender accomplishments of sex worker trans women. Benefiting from the feminist standpoint theory, this thesis employs qualitative methods through which in-depth semi-structured interviews with 18 sex worker trans women are carried out, in order to reach out to the “ruled out” meanings of the “furthest subjugated”. It is observed that sex worker trans women have gender normative understandings of genders, perpetuating gender binary. Sex worker trans women in harsher gender orders tend to do appropriate femininities or masculinities either through masking their gender identities or blending in the “opposite sex category”. Sex work plays a critical role in enhancing cis-gender oppression, which results in redoings of gender under distinct gender accountability structures. I call this “doing ‘sex worker’ transgender”, which refers to navigation of both genders simultaneously through doing gender differently and doing tactical masculinities to respond cis-gender oppression in sex work. Sex worker trans women have normative consciousness about their distinct social realities, and “do transgender”. However their potentials for solidarity is limited due to their gender normative consciousness, which is based on gender binary. They reproduce trans/sex worker-phobic stigma and employ distance against their peers. In the end, they access personal empowerment through practical gender interests, rather than collective empowerment for strategic gender insterests.

Subject Keywords

Sex worker trans women, (Re)doing gender, “Doing transgender”, Cis-gender oppression, Gender normativity

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/108263

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis