Queerly situated? Exploring negotiations of trans queer subjectivities at work and within community spaces in the UK

While traditional perspectives on transgender from some strands of feminism and within medical/psychoanalytical discourse have argued that transgender people conform to and reproduce gender stereotypes, queer theory has celebrated transgender as a site that highlights the social and cultural construction of ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ and, moreover, as a symbol of transgressive gender possibility. Both of these readings ignore the complexities of lived trans experiences and identifications. By evaluating a queer reading of trans through recent empirical research into transgender identities, I suggest that while trans identifications certainly queer binary models of ‘sex’ and ‘gender’, such transgressions are materially, culturally, socially and spatially contingent. The article draws on empirical research to explore the ways in which access to queer subjectivities is constrained by, and negotiated alongside, the locales of the workplace and community spaces.