Decomposing the Dead Girl: Replacing the Language of Death in Gender Transition

Abstract

My research aims to provide an ecological understanding of gender transition, one that is not rooted in death or binarity as commonly seen in terms like “deadnaming”. Using various ecological theories I will upset the stable notion of cultural binaries that often create death-based understandings of transition. I supplement these theories with my own experiences as a transman and the work of poet Oliver Baez Bendorf. I aim to explore the embodied and ecological experiences of transness to create an understanding of it that is aligned with trans vitality. I argue that death narratives are created through an articulation of the trans experience that adheres to binarity, and that by embracing the porosity of the trans body, the language of death can be replaced with that of fluidity.