Abstract
Social adaptation refers to the assimilation of predominant norms, yet it also entails the integration of authentic individual traits, perceptions, needs, and desires. Conflicting norms and authenticity invoke challenges in social adaptation. Nonetheless, adaptation is necessary to engender social stability and well-being, highlighting its essentiality. Different social groups navigate social adaptation according to their unique life experiences and histories. This expert knowledge facilitates pathways of adaptation, lending to flourishing and well-being in their lifeworlds in conjunction with pre-existing social norms.However, research has yet to explore the mechanisms of transgender and gender-nonconforming (TGNC) individuals’ social adaptation. The term transgender describes individuals whose gender, including their embodying and experiencing of gender, differs from their assigned sex at birth. Gender-nonconforming refers to gender expression not adhering to conventional gender norms. These diverse populations encompass a range of gender identities and expressions, including nonbinary, genderqueer, and others, reflecting the spectrum of gender diversity beyond binary classification.
The present study contributes to the fields of gender and queer studies, sociology, philosophy, and social work. It achieves this by illustrating TGNC individuals’ life histories and processes of overcoming adversity and fostering well-being. Differing from past research, it illuminates practices emanating the sharing of the human experience, uniting social groups, rather than living in resistance, which is an unsustainable and narrow state. This work situates being TGNC from a human, life history perspective rather than a gendered perspective, introducing new frameworks for studying, counseling, and empowering TGNC populations, and addressing broader issues in society, like the need for empathy, mutuality, and care.
TGNC populations face social scrutiny and stigmatization, degrading their authenticity in the social world. Research explicates the deleterious effects of prejudice and discrimination on TGNC populations, yet it is unable to explain how they adapt within challenging and constraining social circumstances. Literature gaps warrant research on TGNC individuals’ holistic social adaptation, cultivation of long-term well-being and social stability, subjective perspectives guiding socialization, and assets, or strengths and resources enabling adaptation and flourishing. The present thesis aims to fill these gaps through narrative inquiry exploring TGNC individuals’ subjective perceptions and their social practices lending to adaptation.
The thesis employed structuration theory to comprehensively observe TGNC individuals’ social adaptation processes and mechanisms. As a theoretical framework, structuration theory has robust explanatory power for articulating socialization and mechanisms facilitating adaptation. The duality of structure emphasizes the enabling and constraining of structures and the employment of agency to reinforce or transform predominant structures. This provides a platform for exploring the formation and transformation of social structures through individual practice. From this perspective, practices facilitating social adaptation not only stimulate individual change but manifest broader structural change. This mechanism accommodates the contradictory nature of normativity and authenticity and illuminates TGNC individuals’ subjectivity and agency guiding social practice.
Methodologically, the study utilized narrative inquiry to delve into participants’ life histories and unique perceptions and experiences facilitating social practice and decision-making. According to Bruner, narratives are a form of knowledge developed through ongoing experiences, forming complex and nuanced social information. Narratives are embedded with rich social knowledge and contexts, reflecting the individual construction of the self over time. The study recruited 30 TGNC participants, ages 19-54, from different global regions to partake in life history narrative interviews. Adopting Polkinghorne’s narrative analysis framework, the data was analyzed through three superordinate stages: narrative emplotment, narrative configuration, and theoretical underpinning. This manifested three narrative findings chapters and additional overarching metanarratives.
The narrative findings revealed social adaptation processes and mechanisms unfolded through modifying internal, subjective structures and predominant social structures. These structures played a crucial role in enhancing or suppressing authenticity. The internalization of normative structures suppressed participants’ intuitive capacity, perpetuating adversity and practices inadvertently reinforcing adverse structures. Continuous reflexive practice elevated participants’ knowledge, engendering the revision of meanings and narratives driving social practice. Participants modified social roles and norms and thwarted social monitoring and objectification, predicating the authenticating of the self. These practices, facilitated by resources, integrated participants’ needs and desires through the leveraging of pre-existing structures. However, it became apparent to participants that authenticity was cultivated through shared values and interconnectedness. Caring practices transcended gender by fostering shared human needs, like care, trust, mutuality, and understanding, engendering social stability and well-being.
The metanarratives derive overarching patterns of adaptation and change. Dialectical authenticating serves as an overarching metanarrative, illustrating how TGNC individuals integrate their authenticity within social structures that are not always welcoming or empathetic. Ongoing reflexivity and openness to knowledge enable continuous adaptation in new social settings and contexts, permitting adaptation and diversity.
Two subordinate metanarratives, the dialectical approach and the queer existentialist perspective, lay the foundations for dialectical authenticating. The dialectical approach demonstrates the synthesizing of predominant norms and TGNC authenticity, culminating in the queer existentialist perspective. This perspective originated from participants’ narratives and illuminates their unique perceptions and experiences shaping their social realities. The queer existentialist perspective foregrounds caring as a shared human need, fostering universal authenticity through the reciprocity of care.
The outcomes of this study have theoretical and practical implications. As an interdisciplinary work, the study contributes to a variety of fields including sociology, gender and sexuality studies, philosophy, and social work. The findings enrich and expand on structuration theory and its implementation as a theoretical framework. They demonstrate how structures based on caring mutually enable agents, questioning the inherency of structural enabling and constraining. They further reveal how reflexive practice cultivates morality when individuals perceive their own and others’ livelihoods as interdependent. The dialectical approach also illustrates how individuals cultivate authenticity through the merging and synthesizing of structures, revealing novel perspectives of adaptation and structuration.
The major findings demonstrate practical ways to enhance social interconnectedness and well-being and the integration of diverse knowledge and experiences within existing social structures. Dialectical authenticating can be implemented in relationships and social settings to overcome conflict by emphasizing mutual goals and eliminating practices that undermine their actualization. This practice centers on self-transcendent values, like respect, understanding, and trust. Similarly, the queer existentialist perspective highlights the significance of reflexivity, openness to learning, and caring practices in elevating well-being. These practices can be used to cultivate self-efficacy and adapt meaning-making schemas promoting new approaches to socializing and bonding.
| Date of Award | 29 Apr 2024 |
|---|---|
| Original language | English |
| Awarding Institution |
|
| Supervisor | Chau Kiu Jacky CHEUNG (Supervisor) |