Transgender people experience shifting identities that are often linked to their sense of time, selfhood, and transformation. This article explores how these concepts can be used to better understand the unique experiences of trans individuals and challenges the prevailing paradigms in traditional phenomenology.
Traditional phenomenology assumes that each individual has a stable and consistent perception of themselves and their environment.
For many transgender people, this is not the case. Their identity may change over time, which requires them to reevaluate their relationship to past events, memories, and even their own bodies. This creates a complexity in terms of understanding how they perceive themselves and others.
Trans Identity
A trans man who was assigned female at birth may have experienced his childhood as a girl but later transitioned into a male identity. When looking back on those early years, he may have difficulty reconciling his current identity with his past memories. This can lead to feelings of dissociation and confusion about his own history. Similarly, a trans woman who was assigned male at birth may struggle to integrate her new identity into her life's narrative and feel like she is living out of sequence with herself.
Selfhood
In addition to complicating our conception of personal identity, transgender experiences challenge our understanding of selfhood itself. Traditional phenomenology views the self as an unchanging essence or core that remains constant throughout one's life.
For trans individuals, this idea becomes more difficult to accept as they navigate different identities throughout their lives. They must constantly negotiate between their various selves and determine how they fit together to create a coherent sense of self-narrative.
Personal Transformation
Transgender identity also challenges traditional notions of personal transformation. Phenomenologists tend to view it as a linear process where individuals gradually transform from one state to another.
For many trans people, the journey is anything but linear. Their identities may change rapidly and drastically over time, making it difficult to apply traditional models of transformation.
These complexities in trans experience highlight the limitations of traditional phenomenological accounts of time, selfhood, and transformation. By acknowledging these complications, we can gain a better understanding of the unique experiences of trans individuals and work towards more inclusive and nuanced approaches to understanding human psychology.