ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we examine research on transsexuals from a dramaturgical perspective in order to show the continued usefulness of dramaturgy for making sense of gendered social lives. To this end, we organize our discussion around bodily, emotional, and discursive strategies of “identity work” (Snow and Anderson 1987) that transsexuals often engage in to signify to themselves and others the types of gendered beings they believe themselves to be. Further, we examine the ways that social conditions, such as the setting or the audience, affect transsexuals’ accomplishment of gendered identity work. Rather than simply cataloguing previous research, it is thus our intention to use the case of transsexuals to elaborate strategies all social beings may engage in to present gendered selves. In so doing, we aim to reveal some of the implications that analyses of gendered self-presentations may have for dramaturgical and transsexual scholars alike.
