One Person’s He Is Another Person’s She: The Mind, The Body, and The “TruthÀ of Gender

Narratives about the killings of people seen as gender deviant present a unique opportunity to investigate the discursive production of gender. In this paper, I examine the production of gender within mass media descriptions of these murders. I find that, when faced with moments of gender trouble, the media (re)produce an idea of a “trueÀ gender, and that the criteria for determine a person’s “trueÀ gender have changed over time. In the 1990’s, the media (re)produced a gender system with two categories-men and women-and determined membership in those categories based on the shape of people’s genitals. But in the early 2000s, the criteria changed from solely focused on bodies to one determined by a combination of bodies and identity. Moreover, the number of gender categories expanded from two to three: men, women, and transgender. I focus on the media’s construction of gender to highlight change in the meaning of “genderÀ and describe the texture of gender as it is produced for general public consumption. In the conclusion, I speculate about the causes of this change in the texture of gender, pointing to influence from activist groups.

Publisher: Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, TBA, New York, New York City, Aug 11, 2007
Year of Publication: 2007