This dissertation explores how female-born or female-bodied gender variants perform and represent their masculinities in American performance art and drag king shows. A drag king refers to a woman or female-born person who performs their gender as fluid, usually wearing masculine costumes and make-up. I focus on how race, ethnicity, and class are involved in performing female masculinities on stage, and how the intersections of other social vectors produce myriad differences in terms of stakes, styles, and forms of masculinity. I examine how female-born queer performers foreground the constructed nature of masculinity, and how they redefine established categories of gender and sexuality through performance. I argue that queer performances of female masculinities deconstruct the heteronormative gender binary and embody alternative configurations of sex, gender, class, race, and sexuality. In my first chapter, I address Peggy Shaw's Menopausal Gentleman (1997) and To My Chagrin (2003). I examine how she portrays aging white butch masculinity, sexuality, and emotion, through the reinterpretation of menopause and musings on her own whiteness. My second chapter provides a critical reading of kt shorb's [sic] of chicks, dicks, and chinks (2005) and D'Lo's Ramble-Ations (2006). Investigating the effeminization of Asian masculinity and multicultural racial performativity, I illuminate how Asian-American female masculinities are differently constituted in the interplay between class, ethnicity, diaspora, and cultural identities. In my third chapter, I analyze the 6th (Chicago, 2004) and 8th (Austin, 2006) International Drag King Extravaganza showcase performances. I describe how they reveal the theatrical nature of masculinity, and how they mark race, class, and ethnicity. In addition, I discuss how they valorize gender fluidity and multiplicity, staging queer desire and pleasure. Throughout this dissertation, by offering complex illustrations of masculine genders of the female body or the gender-ambiguous body, I contend that female-born gender variants disrupt the equation of masculinity to maleness through their theatrical performances of masculinities. I conclude that performing female masculinities can foster the critical artfulness of gender by engaging in social criticism of gender, class, race, ethnicity, and sexuality.

This dissertation layers trauma studies theory with feminist theories of performance and autobiography to investigate how women's autobiographically based performances of illness experience disrupt and/or reinforce master discourses of medicine, identity, and knowledge. Feminist theories of performance and autobiography share with trauma studies the distrust of traditional frames and mechanisms of representation, and seek to discover new methods of interpreting experiences that lie "outside the realm" of normative discourse. These theories are further linked by their shared focus on agency and identity construction and an understanding of autobiography that emphasizes the limitations of language and memory which allows for aporia, contradiction, and dissonance, and the belief that testimony functions as a politicized performative of truth. Employing these theoretical perspectives, Carr investigates how these performances witness to radical reconfigurations of identity through the transference of trauma into conveyable life narrative -- even when those narratives falls outside the paradigm of traditional storytelling structures. Carr questions how the structures and content of these performances reveal what traumas are inflicted not only through illness, but also through treatment and care within the western medical model. Throughout the study Carr examines the moments when the cognitive structures of trauma are transmitted into performance through a variety of feminist and avant-garde performance techniques. Carr investigates the work of specific performers and contextualizes the performances within popular culture and medical discourse. Performances analyzed include; Robbie McCauley's Sugar, Susan Miller's My Left Breast, Brandyn Barbara Artis's Sister Girl, and Deb Margolin's bringing the fishermen home and Three Seconds in the Key. Carr questions how the formerly or currently ill female body performing in public disrupts notions of fixed and stable identity while examining the myriad identity constructions embedded within illness narrative. Rather than simplistic triumphant stories of individual cure and recovery, these complex expressions of traumatic experience reveal patterns of cultural oppression that keep the ill female body isolated and silenced. This study attempts to intervene in that silence by foregrounding these politicized performances.

This thesis provides a sociological understanding of how conventional knowledge of sexuality negates the identity formation of black gay men in contemporary South Africa. It investigates the coming out experiences of six black gay men in order to reveal the disjunctures between being black and being gay. The theoretical formation of disjuncture is pursued through examining a number of sociological, historical, psychoanalytical, and feminist approaches to identity, sexuality, and society; featuring specifically the theories of George Herbert Mead, Michel Foucault, and Judith Butler. The chosen research paradigm is symbolic interactionism, postulating both „pragmatist‟ and „empiricist‟ trends that lead to both interactionist and structuralist forms of argumentation. The interactionist approach to sexuality is central to the deconstruction of sexual conventions. It involves conceptualising modern sexuality in the landscapes of African colonial history and the global gay and lesbian movement. The prescribed literature on homosexuality is thus reviewed in conjunction with the South African gay and lesbian struggle, so as to spawn themes and perspectives for conducting life story interviews. The use of the life story interview favours the participants‟ own view of the studied phenomenon, yet aims to depict the structural influence on homosexual identification. Following the qualitative research tradition, the data analysis is based on the interpretation of narratives. It illustrates interpersonal relationships and microscopic experiences that lead to the self-acceptance and self-actualisation of homosexuality. Within these processes, various disjunctures that exist between the cultural sanction of lifestyle and individual choice, between parents and children, between religious belief and personal desires, and between gender identity and sexual orientation are disclosed. The findings are associated with the historical transformation of masculinity in South Africa, sex role performance, and the heterosexualisation of desire. The solution to the proposed research problem is discussed through concepts of socialisation and gender conformity.

O reconhecimento da identidade de gênero e o uso do nome social são algumas das principais pautas do movimento trans e LGBTI e contribuem para a diminuição da opressão e exclusão desse grupo social. Essas demandas foram parcialmente atendidas com a publicação do Decreto Nº 8.727, que dispõe sobre o uso do nome social e o reconhecimento da identidade de gênero de pessoas trans em órgãos públicos federais, suscitando diversas reações-respostas nas diferentes esferas sociais. A presente pesquisa teve como objetivo analisar os discursos sobre a identidade de pessoas trans em textos online, mais precisamente a partir das relações dialógicas entre o Decreto Nº 8.727, de 28 de abril de 2016, e notícias do jornalismo online. Nesta análise, foram considerados dados de pesquisa, além do referido decreto, dez notícias do jornalismo online, publicadas entre abril de 2016 e agosto de 2017, que tematizam questões relativas ao uso do nome social e ao reconhecimento da identidade de gênero, buscando verificar que relações de diálogo se tecem entre os enunciados e o Decreto Nº 8.727. A ancoragem teórico-metodológica da pesquisa teve como embasamento os estudos do Círculo de Bakhtin (BAKHTIN, 2012[1920-1924; 2014[1927]; 2015[1930-1936]; 2014[1934-1935]; 2016[1952-1953]; 2015[1963]; 1987[1965]; 2015[1979]; BAKHTIN/VOLOCHÍNOV, 2014[1929]; VOLOCHÍNOV 2013[1930]; MEDVIEDEV, 2016[1928]), além de estudos acerca da identidade a partir da perspectiva da Linguística Aplicada e seus diálogos interdisciplinares (BHABHA, 2014; MOITA LOPES, 2003; 2006, 2010, 2013a, 2013b; RAJAGOPALAN, 2003) e também sobre as questões da transgeneridade e do gênero social (BUTLER, 2015; BENTO, 2008, JESUS, 2010a; 2010b; 2012a; 2012b; JESUS, ALVES, 2010; LOURO, 2016). Com relação às regularidades discursivas, observouse a reenunciação das teorias de gênero e sexualidade e a tentativa de neutralização por parte do discurso jornalístico, tornando opacas suas valorações. Além disso, tem-se o reenquadramento de discursos acerca da identidade de pessoas trans como estratégia discursiva por parte dos veículos de comunicação, evidenciando posicionamentos axiológicos de naturezas distintas. Nesses discursos, em alguns momentos, o Decreto Nº 8.727 e o uso do nome social eram tratados como ferramentas importantes de cidadania e visibilidade para o movimento trans, instituindo o sujeito trans como um sujeito de direito; em outros, tanto o uso do nome social quanto as vivências de gênero que extrapolam a cisnormatividade eram questionados. / The recognition of gender identity and the use of the social name are some of the main guidelines of the trans and LGBTI movement and contribute to the reduction of the oppression and exclusion of this social group. These demands were partially met with the publication of the decree, which deals with the use of social name and the recognition of the gender identity of trans people in federal public agencies, provoking diverse reactions in the different social spheres. The present work had as main objective to analyze the speeches about the identity of trans people in online texts, more precisely from the conexions between Decree N. 8.727, of April 28, 2016, and news of online journalism. In this analysis, we have selected, in addition to the aforementioned decree, ten news articles on online journalism that discuss issues related to the use of social name and the recognition of gender identity, seeking to verify that dialogue relations are woven between the statements and Decree No. 8.727. To reach our goal, we opted for theoretical-methodological anchoring in Bakhtin Circle studies (BAKHTIN, 2012 [1920-1924, 2014 [1927], 2015 [1930-1936], 2014 [1934-1935], 2016 [1952-1953 (1990), [1929], and also studies of identity from the perspective of the Applied Linguistics, (BHABHA, 2014, MOITA LOPES, 2003, 2010, 2013a, 2013b; RAJAGOPALAN, 2003) and also on issues of transgender and social gender studies (BUTLER, 2015, BENTO, 2008, JESUS , 2010a; 2010b; 2012a; 2012b; JESUS, ALVES, 2010; LOURO, 2016). The data gave rise to some regularities, such as the reenactment of theories of gender and the attempt to neutralize the journalistic discourse, making their valuations opaque. In addition, there is a reframing of discourses about the identity of trans people as a discursive strategy on the part of the communication vehicles, evidencing axiological positions of different natures. In these discourses, we noticed how Decree No. 8,727 and the use of the social name were treated as important tools of citizenship and visibility for the trans movement, instituting the trans subject as a subject of law; at the sime time, both the use of the social name and the experiences of gender that extrapolated the cisnormativity were questioned.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This study is a hermeneutic phenomenology of transgenderism as it is valued and appreciated by adults who self-identify along the transgender spectrum. As a population-at-risk due to a social environment reliant on a dualistic notion of gender, transgender people are of particular concern to social workers, who are charged with identifying and building on client strengths. Yet the preponderance of the academic literature has reinforced a negative, problematic, or even pathological view of transgenderism. The literature also has tended to focus narrowly on transsexualism, leaving a gap in our knowledge of other forms of transgenderism. The present study—grounded primarily in the philosophy and methodology of Heideggerian phenomenology, but also drawing on Gadamerian hermeneutics—sought to understand the lived experience of transgenderism as it is appreciated by a range of transgender adults. A purposive sample of fifteen self-identified transgender adults who reported appreciating being transgender was recruited using snowball sampling across three Midwestern states. Each participated in an individual, open-ended interview designed to tap their lived experience with transgenderism as a valued aspect of life. Transcribed interview data were analyzed using Heideggerian hermeneutic phenomenological processes as suggested by various researchers in nursing, social work, and other disciplines. The results of this study suggest that intimate connections (with one’s self, with others, and with a larger purpose) constitute the essence of the lived experience of appreciating one’s transgenderism. These findings help prepare social workers to recognize the strengths of the transgender population and to engage in culturally competent practice. In addition, this research offers new knowledge for improving social work curricular content on transgenderism and for justifying trans-inclusive social policies. The study also contributes to the overall research literature on transgenderism and qualitative methods.