Facing Gender Performativity: How Transgender Performances and Performativity Trouble Facework Research

Abstract

Individuals who identify as transgender or who perform their gender identity in non/anti-normative ways often find themselves in conflictual situations and can be subject to hostility, exclusion, and aggression by others who relate to and are part of the dominant gender culture. Instances of facework that occur in interpersonal interactions lend insights into how gender norms are enforced in particular communication moments. These moments are not seen or heard on a larger rhetorical or societal level, but are necessarily an integral part of gender culture. Such instances of reciprocal facework in moments of cultural and interpersonal conflict are important in better understanding the interpersonal implications of gender policing. In this critical review I look at how queer gender performativity may challenge notions of face and facework and provide possible new directions for further research.

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