User:OsaRosa/3. Trans Communication Studies Foundations

LGBTQ+ Communication Studies Histories and Foundations
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Transgender Communication Studies Foundations
In Communication Studies research, there is a growing area of the field that focused on Transgender Communication Studies. The word transgender is used as an umbrella term for any expression of gender, identity, or presentation that varies from the cisgender norm (e.g., people who identify with their sex assigned at birth). Research uses the word "trans" for people who do have more of a fluid gender identity, including but not limited to those who cross-dress, those who identify transsexuality, trans, nonbinary or genderqueer, and more. Past Communication Studies journals have historically ignored trans communication even within LGBTQ+ communication and Queer Communication Studies, and in much research where transgender people are mentioned in articles, they are rarely the focus. There is still a need for expansion on Transgender Studies. Despite this, the advocacy for trans people have grown over the years, both in academia and online socially.

Transgender Communication Studies researchers have examined the barriers that transgender people face frequently when seeking competent healthcare and treatment. Transgender people face difficulties finding health care providers who want to provide services or do not degrade the trans patient in communicating with them while providing services, resulting in negative impacts, such as higher rates of depression, suicide, and substance abuse. A study found that one in five transgender and gender non-conforming participants have been denied medical care and roughly half have had to participate in teaching the health care provider about transgender care.

Communication scholars have also investigated the acceptance of transgender people on college campuses. For a lot of transgender college students, fitting in on college campuses either means that their deny their identity or parts of their identity or face harassment and violence from their peers. Rather than experiencing positive periods of development like their cisgender and heterosexual peers, Communication Studies research states that there is an overall lower level of acceptance of LGBTQ+ students on college campuses, resulting in students being more hesitant in exploring and open living with their LGBTQ+ identities, including trans and nonbinary students.

Trans communication and rhetoric scholars also discuss challenges transgender and nonbinary people have with gendered expectations of professional in work settings. Many workplaces have strictly binary gendered "clothing rules" for their workplace, meaning that women are expected to wear "stylish, well-cut, and fitted" clothes, while men most wear suits. Professionals that identify as gender-nonconforming, nonbinary, or trans are often deemed less professional for wearing clothes that they feel comfortable in instead of wearing clothes that fit the social norm.

Heteronormativity and Cisheteronormativity
Heteronormativity describes the belief that heterosexual experiences are the norm, deeming all other types of identities and experiences as deviant or invisible. Cisheteronormativity expands on this term and includes the belief that being cisgender, rather than having a fluid gender identity or being transgender, should be treated as the norm. Research also shows that cisheteronormativity is frequently tied with the perpetuation of whiteness as it prioritizes people that are not only cisgender and heterosexual, but also white and able-bodied.

Heteronormativity is often perpetuated through different types of media, including films and TV shows. For example, studies have shown that even as far as media portraying zombie apocalypse narratives have echoed familiar themes of heteronormativity, such as strong female characters being portrayed as overly feminine despite embodying physical strength in attacks and the prevalence of nuclear family households. Heteronormativity is upheld by these portrayals in media and further perpetuated in society and cultural beliefs as this media is consumed.

According to Communication Studies research, heteronormativity has four different types of harmful impacts on LGBTQ+ people: external, internal, discursive, and institutional. Externalized violence takes form in physical assault most frequently, while internalized violence takes form in self-hatred and self-destructive thoughts resulting in the feeling of not being normal in a heteronormative society. Additionally, discursive violence can include the use of words, gestures, tones, and images to treat and degrade other people's experiences. In correlation with cisheteronormativity, this takes form in microaggressions, reaffirming that LGBTQ+ people are of a lower status in social and sexual hierarchies compared to those who are cisgender and heterosexual. Additionally, another harmful impact of cisheteronormativity is institutional violence, which takes form in the deeply ingrained heteronormative mindsets in social institutions. To heal from cisheteronormativity, research has said that those who experience the ongoing violence can understand, unpack, and demystify its invisible power, rather than coping by repressing the pain.

Transgender Subjectivity and Identities
Subjectivity is a term used to conceptualize how political power impacts the people under a political system, largely surrounding areas such as race, class, disability, gender, and sexuality. Transgender subjectivity is specific to the transgender community and how politics impacts the wellbeing of the community, whether through legislative or other forms of political action, or through everyday interactions with other people within the public sphere.

Commonly discussed issue areas among scholars within the realm of transgender subjectivity are within the legal context, such as the rights for transgender people to adopt children, involvement in sports, and bodily autonomy ranging from surgeries and hormone usage to public restrooms. Debate about the impacts of legislation surrounding these issue areas, and how they impact the transgender community, is also heavily present in academic spaces.

Separately, another aspect of transgender subjectivity is how transgender individuals exist in the world around them and how they are perceived within society. LGBTQ+ rhetoric scholars frequently explore the layers to transgender representation within media and how the community is talked about, such as potential differences in treatment on an individual level.