Star gazing: Transing gender communication |
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| Authors: | Benny LeMaster |
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| Institution: | 1. The Hugh Downs School of Human Communication, Arizona State University, Tempe, USAbennylemaster@mac.com |
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| Abstract: | ABSTRACTThis activity implores students and pedagogues to engage intrapersonal gender subjectivity through the analytic practice of transing gender communication. Specifically, Yep, Russo, and Allen (Pushing boundaries: Toward the development of a model for transing communication in (inter)cultural contexts. In L. G. Spencer & J. C. Capuzza (Eds.), Transgender communication studies: Histories, trends, and trajectories. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2015, pp. 69–89) suggest gender is best understood as: (1) intersectional, (2) a performative and administrative accomplishment, (3) multiple, and (4) self-determined. Students are asked to analyze their gender sense of self through each of the pillars in a hands-on creative activity. The end result is a means of narrating one’s own gender in relational tension with other gender subjectivities.Courses: Interpersonal Communication, Intercultural Communication, Gender and Communication, Performance StudiesObjectives: Designed to accompany a sustained conversation on questions of gender and communication, this unit- or semester-long activity imparts a critical approach to gender understanding through one’s own subjective gender experience by engaging the analytic work of “transing” (Stryker, Currah, & Moore, Introduction: Trans-, trans, or transgender? WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly, 2008;36(3–4):13). Further, the activity equips students with a working understanding of trans-affirming discourse including the critical capacity to de-center normative gender through lived experience. Finally, students are provided a space in which to explore and voice, through creative means, their own gender “galaxy” (Yep, Russo, & Allen, Pushing boundaries: Toward the development of a model for transing communication in (inter)cultural contexts. In L. G. Spencer & J. C. Capuzza (Eds.), Transgender communication studies: Histories, trends, and trajectories. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2015, p. 70). |
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