Self-misgendering among multilingual transgender speakers

Simpson, L. and Dewaele, Jean-Marc (2019) Self-misgendering among multilingual transgender speakers. International Journal of the Sociology of Language (256), pp. 103-128. ISSN 0165-2516.

Abstract

“Misgendering” is a term used broadly to mean referring to someone using the wrong gender. In the transgender context, it usually refers to cases where a transgender person is referred to using the gender assigned at birth, rather than according to gender presentation. Misgendering is sometimes a form of anti-trans aggression, but can also be accidental or otherwise unintended. “Self-misgendering”, where transgender speakers unintentionally misgender themselves, is apparently previously unstudied, seems mainly to occur in a foreign-language context, and may bear some similarity to language-interference effects observed in the study of multilinguals, a “first-gender effect” analogous to first-language effects. One may also hypothesize social gender bias, variable gender-identity, or similar factors. This paper quantitatively surveys self-reported self-misgendering among multilingual transgender speakers to identify factors of correlation or causation. Using data and respondents’ comments from an online survey, it shows strong correlation between self-misgendering by full-time transgender speakers and (lack of) fluency in the language spoken, with no significant correlation to other linguistic or social gender-related factors.  This suggests the self-misgendering phenomenon is primarily a fluency effect, independent of social or identity factors such as attitude to gender in language, attitude to being misgendered, or “default” masculine gender.

Metadata

Statistics

DownloadsShow export options

Export as XMLJSONCSV

Activity Overview

6 month trend

0Downloads

6 month trend

0Hits

Additional statistics are available via IRStats2.

Archive Staff Only (login required)

Edit/View Item