The Role of Physicality and Clothing in Nonbinary Memoir
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| Year of publication | 2021 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
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| Description | Drawing on my Master’s thesis on contemporary nonbinary memoir, which I am further developing in my PhD research, the presentation focuses on the role of physicality and clothing in nonbinary memoir, and by employing the feminist and femme theories of life writing examines the prominence of these themes in the genre. Feminist theories of life writing describe the prominence of themes of physicality in the minority life writing compared to the texts presenting white, male, and Western universal autobiographical subjects, and parallel queer and disability life writing for their engagement with bodily vulnerability. The memoirs by nonbinary authors Jacob Tobia, Maia Kobabe, and Akwaeke Emezi, whose cultural identities and their visual representations are not widely known, corroborate this. The authors navigate addressing tensions between one’s body and one’s identity, while not reducing their life stories to stereotypical queer trauma narratives. To reclaim their self-narratives, they include both the moments of body-related trauma, and of contentment and self-confidence. In bodies deemed unattractive by the mainstream culture, this is a radical act. Equally radical is the attention given to clothing. Western patriarchal heteronormative society views the topic as frivolous and superficial. However, its role is different in the lives and life stories of those for whom dressing according to their identity means a subversive and possibly life-endangering act. The presentation examines the contradicting powers of clothing to hide/protect and to express, the symbolism of high heels, the role of drag, and the ties between the relationship to clothing and to one’s identity. Lastly, the gap between the relative safety and acceptability of the AFAB authors wearing masculine clothes, and the harassment and discrimination the AMAB author experiences when dressed in feminine clothes, is addressed. This points to the conceptualization of masculine as neutral and feminine as artificial and distinctive, and the societal transmisogyny and femmephobia. |
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