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`I am the Prince of Pain, for I am a Princess in the Brain': Liminal Transgender Identities, Narratives and the Elimination of Ambiguities

University of Western Australia mwilson{at}cyllene.uwa.edu.au

This article explores the formation and construction of transgendered identities, `the various ontological and public narratives in which actors plot or find themselves' (Somers and Gibson, 1994: 67). Research I have conducted in Perth, Western Australia, shows that while a multiplicity of gendered identities circulate in various spaces and places, there is also a pressing need for many transgendered persons to ultimately define themselves within existing and recognizable `normal' gender boundaries: instead of marking difference, many seem to eliminate it. Often identity goes from being `liminal' and multiple where males can be females, females can be males, and public gender categories are temporarily and spatially suspended, to being ultimately singular, recognizable and stable (as demanded by wider medical, sociocultural and public understandings of gender). Here, I investigate what Victor Turner (expanding on the work of Arnold Van Gennep, 1960) has called the `The Liminal Period' (1967). Following and building on the arguments initially proposed by Anne Bolin who focused on transsexual rites of transition in the USA (1988), I look at the theory of liminality in relation to transgendered rites de passage in Perth. While recognizing the large body of work from queer studies,¹ which turns its gaze toward social practices that organize a society and sexualize the `bodies, desires, acts, identities, social relations, knowledges, culture and social institutions' (Seidman, 1996: 13), I choose instead to draw on and apply particular concepts proposed by anthropologist, Mary Douglas (1966, 1970). Employing her notions of purity and danger to relevant questions in this article, I explore how cultures understand, interpret and deal with variance and anomaly.

Key Words: ambiguity • liminality • `normalcy' • transgender • transsexual

Sexualities, Vol. 5, No. 4, 425-448 (2002)
DOI: 10.1177/1363460702005004003


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