Body as Capital: Communicative Practices to Construct the Meaning of Transgender Bodies in the Field of Transgender Female-to-Male Surgery

Abstract

        This research studies public and private medical institution communication practices used to structure corporeal perceptions and transgender sexuality for transmen. It also examines how transmen create and communicate meaning of their bodies, reflecting negotiations with institutionalized perceptions of body and sexuality. Data is gathered and analyzed from public and private hospital media, including transgender surgery advertisements and information posted online on social media, as well as books and medical handbooks. Field data is also analyzed from informal interview with trans male community members, participant and non-participant observation during community activities, and in-depth interviews with five transman informants.

        Results are that power-laden practices of public and private medical institutions use tactics legitimizing trans male corporeal meaning construction. Language practices exert influence in diverse traditional and new institutional media. The discourse surrounding gender affirmation through medical processes has led to widespread community acceptance (valorization) of medically transitioned trans male bodies and a profoundly integrated unconscious truth. Therefore, medical institution authority over trans male bodies is legitimized. Private and public hospitals compete for cultural capital, comprised by ideological frameworks on the body and sexuality.

        Although docile bodies are managed, controlled, and manipulated by medical power (a form of biopower) the latter cannot always dominate transmen. The body becomes a battleground where modern medical knowledge clashes with individual agency negotiating with diverse tactics to legitimize the deconstruction/reconstruction of new corporeal meaning by communicating on new and traditional media public spaces. Consciousness in body construction and social conditions are vital prerequisites to create and communicate the meaning of trans male bodies.