“Wie vrouw wil zijn, moet pijn lijden” Een onderzoek naar de categorisering en zelfdefiniëring van transgenders in Nederland.

Abstract

This bachelor thesis researches the way Dutch transgenders and crossdressers construct their identity and the influence extern categorisation, stereotypes and the way transgenders define themselves have on this process. My findings point to a gender hegemony in which people who do not fit the role of either a biological male or female are abnormalized to confirm the longstanding gender boundaries which people in our western civilization have infringed upon one another. To abnormalize the group of transgenders – mostly by categorizing them as perverts - is to place them on the outside of our society, which prevents them from intruding the ethics and conventions that have been established throughout the previous centuries.