Dare to say the “truth” about the own gender (in spite of cis-heteronormativity): technological and normative issues to tell-the-truth-about-yourself of transgender subjects

ABSTRACT

What does it cost to tell the truth? In this article we discuss the process of asserting oneself as a transgender subject considering the technological (medical, writing, communication) and normative possibilities of each historical and cultural period. When considering the telling-the-truth-about-yourself, it is necessary to take into account the ways in which the regime of truth acts on the subjects, sometimes affirming about their subjectivities by endorsed knowledge, sometimes by the ways in which they individually resonate such truths about their life experiences, moving them to invent ways of experiencing it, reaffirming or subverting technologies and discourses. In the first part, we discuss the crossing of technologies in the action of telling the truth about yourself by trans subjects and, in the second part, the influence of gender normativity in truth regimes, arguing favorably to the use of the term “transgender” for focusing on the gendered power relations.

KEYWORDS:
subjectivity; gender; transgenderity; self-writing; digital technologies