Transsexual identity: A visual narrative study of lives

The clinical literature regarding the treatment of "transsexualism" and "gender dysphoria" has historically been pathologizing. It has primarily focused on assessment for medical interventions such as hormones and sex reassignment surgery and follow-up studies of these procedures. Clinicians encountering this literature may have very little feel for the individual experience of being transsexual or issues in treatment, and likely will not have read literature in other fields or be familiar with contemporary cultural discussions and expressions of gender. This study was conducted to elicit the visual and verbal "gender stories" (their understanding of what it means to identify as transsexual) of a small group of individuals in urban San Francisco. Participants were asked to photograph their gender story, and the resulting visual data were the basis for open-ended interviews, leading to a narrative portrayal of participants' experience of being transsexual. Methods were utilized from the fields of visual ethnography and the clinical use of photography in research, as well as recent narrative research methods which value individual life accounts. The transcripts of interviews were examined for common themes of transsexual experience, and these themes were then compared to and contrasted with clinical and cultural studies literature. Findings revealed the importance of reviewing the individual meanings of transsexual experience, and photographs proved to be a valuable stimulus to the eliciting of participants' gender stories. A narrative approach to the theory of transsexual experience and clinical approaches to treatment was then suggested, in the hopes of providing a helpful frame for understanding and working with transsexual clients in a way that does not needlessly pathologize their experience.