Genderqueer,* Successful, and Over 40: Lessons from Two Academics
by Elroi J. Windsor and Betsy Lucal
We use the term “genderqueer” in the title of this piece because it accurately reflects the identity of one of the authors (the other author is ambivalent about identity terms, as noted herein), but use it interchangeably with “nonbinary” in the essay. As older gender nonconforming folks, this term is more familiar and has a longer history than “nonbinary.” It also feels more empowering to use a term that defines oneself by what one is, rather than by what one is not.
The smiling woman at the unconscious bias workshop walked confidently toward the ambiguously gendered person to ask her preassigned question: “Are you a man or a woman?” Unlike other more invasive incidents, this question was used as an exercise to examine how such inquiries can alienate transgender people. Instead of asking workshop attendees to answer the question, the trainers instructed each pair of coworkers to describe how the question made them feel.
This tiresome question is one that nonbinary folks regularly encounter. In academia, as in many workplaces, people don’t discuss their gender identities, so colleagues might discreetly ask our coworkers because asking us directly is viewed as impolite or potentially offensive. As gender nonconforming academics, in this essay we reflect on how our experiences have played out in the workplace.
The experience of being ambiguously gendered, which Betsy wrote about 20 years ago, ensures that one is always highly attuned to the many ways interactions are organized around a binary understanding of gender. In Elroi’s story above, the question was part of an attempt to create more inclusive and accessible spaces, yet ended up re-inscribing that space as exclusionary. Negative experiences related to gender identity are familiar territory for gender nonconforming and transgender people. Indeed, research finds that trans people routinely cope with barriers in employment.
Yet, our experiences as gender nonconforming academics have not been fraught with problems. We both have enjoyed fairly successful careers that have included tenure and administrative appointments. What are we doing right? Or, more accurately, what structural and interpersonal dynamics are embedded in academia — not to mention society as a whole — that reward our efforts? What can other trans and nonbinary scholars learn from our experiences? Below we discuss our individual experiences, then offer some thoughts on what supported our successes as gender nonconforming academics so that other genderqueer folks can consider what might work for them.
Betsy’s story:
None of the existing identity labels fit me and that’s fine. I’m female-bodied but I long have been mistaken for a boy/man. I’m gender nonconforming; it is not inaccurate to characterize me as gender nonbinary or as genderqueer. Frankly, in my daily life, other people seem to care far more about my gender than I do.
None of the existing identity labels fit me and that’s fine.
I wrote an article about my gender nonconformity at the beginning of my career as a professor and have had the unusual experience of attaining some notoriety as a result. “What It Means to Be Gendered Me” made me “famous” as a sociologist. I was unconventionally gendered before it was news and, by analyzing that using the conceptual tools provided by my discipline, I was able to capitalize on my status. My gender nonconformity and my choice to write about it in an academic context helped make my career, not hurt it.
The other significant factor is my gender presentation, which is most likely to be read as masculine, as are some of my interests. I know more about sports than most women. I don’t know a lot about cars or other machines, but I can carry on a conversation. That is, I am a female-bodied person who is regularly rewarded for my masculine presentation of self. Like the white, tall, “passable” transmen in Kristen Schilt’s research on their workplace experiences, I can easily pass as a man. I achieve social maleness regularly, even though that’s not my goal. Like “Gender-Fluid Geek Girls” in the tech industry, my whiteness, gender fluidity (assigned female at birth but presenting myself in a way that challenges the gender binary) and identification as LGBTQ leads to acceptance and treatment as “one of the guys.”
To the extent that we assume masculine self-presentation to be a sign of maleness, my experiences suggest that femaleness is really only devalued when it’s accompanied by femininity. I have no doubt that one of the reasons — perhaps the main reason — I have not paid a professional penalty for my gender nonconformity is that I am a female-bodied person doing masculinity. Being read as masculine in a male-dominated society has its rewards. I am taken seriously rather than dismissed, listened to rather than ignored, assumed to have ideas worthy of people’s attention. In a world where femaleness and femininity are “dismiss[ed] and deride[d],” I benefit from the patriarchal dividend, the rewards men — and masculinity — receive from living in a male-dominated society.
To the extent that we assume masculine self-presentation to be a sign of maleness, my experiences suggest that femaleness is really only devalued when it’s accompanied by femininity.
But it’s not just that: my status as “one of the girls” is not challenged by women either. Like CT Whitley, I can play both sides, code switching between groups. I can speak in ways that lead both men and women to see me as similar to them; each side seems to view me an insider. I benefit both from masculinity and from some sort of in-between-ness.
Elroi’s story:
I first learned about “gender outlaws” in the 1990s from transgender writers Kate Bornstein, Riki Wilchins, and Leslie Feinberg. But without access to a vibrant trans community where I lived in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, I clung to those possibilities more on an intellectual level than a personal one. By the time Betsy’s article came out in 1999, I had moved to New York City to do radical activism. I started attending meetings with a group of gender misfits at Bluestockings Bookstore and began to embrace the term “genderqueer” to describe myself. It seemed to fit: I didn’t want to be a man, and didn’t feel like a woman. I felt like my gender was something else — something outside of the binary — and had been that way since I was a little tomboy. I was also performing as a drag king. While I loved presenting as a masculine man onstage and during the before-and-after periods surrounding performances, I didn’t want to be read as a man all the time. So, by the time the millennium rolled around, I was comfortable identifying as trans and genderqueer — and have been ever since.
Within a few years, I started graduate school. When I taught my first “Gender and Society” class in 2004, a reader I assigned included Betsy’s essay. As I progressed through my career, I experienced much of what Betsy described in that article. And, similar to Betsy’s story, people seemed way more invested in my gender than I was in explaining it. At one point in my first academic job, I had a humorous conversation with my dean during my annual review. This official meeting was the last annual review before my bid for tenure. It began with her saying, “I’ve heard that you have decided to transition and would now like to be addressed using ‘he’ pronouns. Is that correct?”
I realize that an opener like this might terrify some people. In my experience, students and colleagues alike discussed my gender and pronoun preference at length. For the record, I prefer to avoid pronouns, but realize that can be conversationally awkward. I feel uneasy with all gender pronoun options, and so am fine with whatever, prefer to avoid them in writing, and enjoy masculine pronouns in explicitly queer contexts. When I convey this preference, I take care to assert that most trans people are not this indifferent. As I reiterated my preference to my dean, I felt confident that my professional record was strong enough that my gender would not trouble my evaluation.
I believe this disinterest in policing others’ gender impressions of me inadvertently helped me in my career. And although my gendered embodiment troubled binary gendered spaces, I also embodied the privilege of a palatable white masculinity that administrators likely viewed as non-threatening. For all the reasons Betsy mentioned above, masculinity gets rewarded, as does whiteness under white supremacy. The intersection of whiteness and masculinity carries much power throughout society, and higher education institutions are no different.
What can other genderqueers learn from our experiences?
First, our ability to access the perks of white masculinity may be key to the positive experiences we’ve had. People who aren’t white, who don’t pass easily into social maleness, and/or who are read as feminine but gender nonconforming may well find themselves viewed as outsiders. Because we have benefited from our perceived white masculinity, our experiences do not challenge the hierarchical relationship between maleness and femaleness or between masculinity and femininity. Nor do they challenge any other binaries or systems of white supremacy on their own accord.
Second, both of us have research and teaching interests that are critical of binary gender. We co-authored, with Tre Wentling and Kristen Schilt, the first article about “Teaching Transgender” to be published in Teaching Sociology. Given our professional interests, people may expect us to be gender nonconforming ourselves and therefore be more open to our presentations of self.
Third, our experiences demonstrate that creating inclusive and affirming spaces for nonbinary people comes with opportunities for those with more advantaged gender expressions and configurations of (perceived) identities and challenges for those with more marginalized gender expressions and identity configurations. In some ways, we have been able to succeed not by flying under the radar but by being open about our nonconformity, even making it fodder for sociological analysis. However, the conventions of gender mean that we likely are read as masculine (and therefore men) more often than we are seen as nonbinary or even nonconforming, suggesting that there is still much work to be done to educate people about the limitations of the binary. Indeed, it would be interesting to see a research study on the coworkers of genderqueer and nonbinary people, as much of our reflections on others’ impressions are speculative. For example, to what extent does our whiteness mitigate the effects of our gender deviance? How might the experiences of a gender nonconforming feminine-presenting person of color differ from ours?
Last, there is value in understanding and negotiating the political workings of academia. The institution of higher education is just that — an institution. It comes with a set of rules and expectations. Sure, the system’s foundation is laden with oppressive practices that should be questioned and dismantled in favor of a more inclusive and just organization. And there is no doubt that trans and gender-nonconforming people of color, as well as individuals who are read as feminine, are likely to face more obstacles and challenges than we have. In the meantime, we have been able to get in the door and work from the inside to call people’s assumptions into question and change the old ways of doing things. We will continue to act in solidarity with people entering this institution from the margins, committing to creating spaces that are meaningfully inclusive –beyond what a diversity workshop is able to accomplish.
Elroi J. Windsor is associate professor and chair in the sociology department at the University of West Georgia, and a member of the Diversity Scholars Network at the National Center for Institutional Diversity. Windsor’s teaching and research interests include the body/embodiment, gender, and sexuality. Windsor is co-editor of Sex Matters: The Sexuality and Society Reader (2019, W. W. Norton) and a forthcoming anthology called Male Femininities (NYU Press). Most recently, Windsor researched meaning-making processes of medical professionals who work with nonliving bodies and body parts.
Betsy Lucal is a professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Indiana University South Bend, and a member of the Diversity Scholars Network at the National Center for Institutional Diversity. Lucal is also the Gender & Sexuality Section Editor for Sociology Compass and Director of First Year Experience on her campus.
