Trans Kids

Being Gendered in the Twenty-First Century

Tey Meadow

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780520275034
• eBook ISBN: 9780520964167
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: Social Sciences

Trans Kids is a trenchant ethnographic and interview-based study of the first generation of families affirming and facilitating gender nonconformity in children. Earlier generations of parents sent such children for psychiatric treatment aimed at a cure, but today, many parents agree to call their children new names, allow them to wear whatever clothing they choose, and approach the state to alter the gender designation on their passports and birth certificates.

Drawing from sociology, philosophy, psychology, and sexuality studies, sociologist Tey Meadow depicts the intricate social processes that shape gender acquisition. Where once atypical gender expression was considered a failure of gender, now it is a form of gender. Engaging and rigorously argued, Trans Kids underscores the centrality of ever more particular configurations of gender in both our physical and psychological lives, and the increasing embeddedness of personal identities in social institutions.

Table of contents

• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Tables and Figures
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Studying Each Other
• 2. Gender Troubles
• 3. The Gender Clinic
• 4. Building a Parent Movement
• 5. Anxiety and Gender Regulation
• 6. Telling Gender Stories
• 7. From Failure to Form
• Appendix A: A Note on the Language of Gender
• Appendix B: Methodology
• Appendix C: List of Interviewees
• Notes
• Glossary
• References
• Index