Integration and meaning of new gender categories for American LGBTQ+ people

There has been a recent multiplication of gender categories, especially under the trans umbrella. This paper explores those multiple categories and their meanings. After proposing a typology of the new words, it analyses the extent to which they are actually used by some LGBTQ+ people since those terms were coined within and are associated with part of this broad and imagined community. It will show and explain why even though they were familiar with the vocabulary, LGBTQ+ people surveyed were reluctant to self-identify to the new gender categories. Finally, drawing from in-depth interviews of American trans people, it will examine the meaning of those new words for trans people and more broadly how trans people live and perceive their own identities. Following American sociologist Roger Brubaker, I will show that there is a gap between the mainstream narrative on trans identities and how trans people actually perceive their own. Indeed, the main narrative is that trans people migrate from one gender to the other while some people interviewed or surveyed made the choice to remain firmly in-between genders or would prefer being beyond gender categories

Mainstream · Narrative · Qualitative research · Typology · Feminist Epistemology and Gender Studies · LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy · Social Power and Status Dynamics