ABSTRACT
Body capital or embodied capital refers to the ways in which the body can be used as a resource for power. This chapter discusses two different forms of embodied capital that are particularly important in examining and comparing the experiences of trans* people. It also discusses the power associated with these versions of embodied capital. Each and every one of us is at all times performing gender. Some people perform it 'appropriately' according to the conventional rules of their society, meaning males performing the current conceptualization of masculinity and females performing femininity. Two issues arise when talking about sex category embodied capital—age and, for transsexual people, the sex category one is moving to. The power of embodied capital was visible across a variety of life domains, including areas of challenges such as family, work, and health care as discussed in the chapters to come.
