Journal Club: An Investigation into Trans Joy
A 2022 paper digs into the inherent joy that comes with being transgender.
by Veronica Esposito
Reading social science research isn’t an especially exuberant experience, particularly when that research covers marginalized groups like trans people. The focus tends to be on negative indicators like suicidality, self-harm, anxiety, and depression—or, as researchers Stef Shuster and Laurel Westbrook put it, “most sociologists are killjoys.”
In their paper “Reducing the Joy Deficit in Sociology: A Study of Transgender Joy,” Shuster and Westbrook look to put a little more joy in the world, by researching not the pains and struggles that come with being trans but the reasons to celebrate who we are. This is much bigger than just trying to put a few glimmers in the way of an oppressed group. As they explain, the “joy deficit” “is particularly troubling, as joy is vital to human well-being. . . . As such, joy is sociologically relevant to fully understanding people’s lived experience.”
Shuster and Westbrook argue that because of this joy deficit, the narrative of the “transgender person in misery” has become unfairly centered as the “normal” narrative of trans existence. According to them, it’s become the dominant way that cisgender people view us, and also the dominant way that we see ourselves. Shuster and Westbrook argue that it’s not only unhelpful, but also just plain false, to paint trans people as fundamentally miserable beings. In order to balance the scales and offer a fuller, more complex and accurate view of the community, they conducted in-depth interviews with 40 trans people of all sorts, asking what they found joyful about being trans.
As Shuster and Westbrook made their investigation into trans joy, they discovered that simply asking about joy was a significant intervention. This simple question opened up a small but crucial space for trans people to see themselves in a new light: “asking about joy created new opportunities to hear about how, . . . as Austin, a 23-year-old white trans man, put it, ‘I love the fact that I’m trans.’ Indeed, about half of the interviewees explicitly stated that there is intense joy in being members of a marginalized group.”
Aaron, a 53-year-old trans man, struck a frequent note when he offered that he prefers being trans in spite of all the challenges it has brought him, because it has offered him unparalleled experiences that cisgender people can never have:
I mean, I think overall my trans experience has been joyful. I wouldn’t trade coming out or coming to terms with gender stuff. I’ve never really thought about like, “Oh, life would be so much easier if I was cis.” Because I think about all the stuff I would miss, all the questions and opportunities and people and experiences it opens up for me. So, while it’s been hard and we could focus on the negative things like the discrimination, the fucked-up situations, all that stuff, there is so much good that comes out of being more actualized around yourself.
All in all, approximately 50% of respondents stated that “there is intense joy in being members of a marginalized group.” For 30-year-old Felix, experiences of marginalization has offered them a life-changing opportunity to develop a deep knowledge of themselves and of the world:
I feel like it has caused me to learn more about myself and the world around me because I’m constantly coming up with answers that have more questions. So, I’m constantly asking more of myself and more of the world; how to understand and how to be in it and how to know myself more. That, to me, is really great. I feel really lucky in that aspect because I don’t feel like as many people are pushed to know themselves.
Shuster and Westbrook pointed out that acquiring a trans identity—that is, having your “egg crack”—leads to acquiring a marginalized identity, and this is widely presumed to be a bad thing. But, in fact, 50% of respondents “explicitly expressed the opposite—that life was better now than it had been before they identified as transgender, even though they now held a more marginalized identity. Notably, none of the respondents said that having their egg crack made their life worse.
For many, coming to a trans identity boosted their self-confidence, in spite of experiencing greater marginalization. For instance, Laura, a trans woman, shared that she now felt more capable of taking care of herself, despite the inherent safety risks for trans women that she had to live with, and that made her much happier
You know, my friend always teased me because I have this glare that I give to everyone. But that’s the thing. I don’t have to glare at people anymore because I don’t feel threatened anymore.
Shuster and Westbrook also found that this increased self-confidence translated into increased success with romantic partnerships. Contrary to the prevalent belief that transitioning makes a trans body undesirable, they found precisely the opposite—that respondents found themselves becoming more desirable after developing their trans identity. Megan, a 32-year-old trans woman, told Shuster and Westbrook that
A joy in my life is being a trans person and finding love and all that stuff. It sounds so cheesy. But I really thought that being a trans woman would mean never having a partner. And certainly not one as hot and thoughtful as mine.
The authors also noted that, contrary to the prevalent idea of the trans body as “monstrous,” many of the trans people they surveyed found that they found more pleasure in their body once they had adopted a trans identity—this held true regardless of whether they sought medical transition. Respondents also challenged popular narratives of the trans experience as moving from a diseased body to a healthy one. Alex, a 23-year-old genderqueer person believed that coming to a trans identity made them more accepting of bodies of all sorts:
I’ve been moving into a space where, yeah, bodies do crazy things and bodies are all kinds of weird ways, and they like have all these fluids that come out in different ways, and like it’s great and it’s really reaching a point where I sincerely feel and believe that on a level that’s never been true before, and just being like super body positive and able to embrace other people and really other people’s bodies, and I don’t know, all the imperfect and weird and gross things that they encompass
Lastly, Shuster and Westbrook found that there was a strong community aspect to trans joy, with many respondents stating that becoming a member of the trans community was itself a transformative and happy experience. This also extended to relationships beyond the community, as many stated that coming to terms with a trans identity deepened their empathy and desire to understand the experiences of others. In the words of Oliver, a 34-year-old trans person, he was “finally having some sense of peace and feeling grounded in a way that I could actually be open to other people and establishing deep connections with people that I don’t know otherwise.”
At a time of profound threats to the trans community, it is crucial to speak open and frankly about the malevolent impacts of state-sanctioned violence against trans people. But this does not mean that we cannot also speak out about the joy in being trans. In fact, one possible conclusion to draw from reading Shuster and Westbrook is that times of great peril to the community are the exact moments when trans joy must be loudly declared—as they state, “crafting pity narratives perpetuates stigma and disempowers people.” They conclude their paper by asking, “What if part of the solution to social problems is also to tell narratives about joy?”
Veronica Esposito (she/her) is a writer and therapist based in the Bay Area. She writes regularly for The Guardian, Xtra Magazine, and KQED, the NPR member station for Northern California, on the arts, mental health, and LGBTQ+ issues.