Third party funded individual grant
Start date : 01.09.2026
End date : 31.08.2029
This anthropological project, “TransClass”, explores how social actors who do not conform to hegemonic gender and sexuality frameworks navigate their non-normative life trajectories. One blind spot in this regard is the mobility of an intersecting gender and class position of trans people, i.e. people who do not identify with their gender assigned at birth. What is of particular interest to this project is the apparently simple question of how local transgender actors conceptualize and live their class trajectories in a context of both turbulence and opportunity. Barcelona, Spain, is globally recognized as a space that embraces transgressive sexualities, providing a rich backdrop against which to explore the intersection of gender and class transitions in the lived experiences of individuals, by bringing to the forefront the voices of those who navigate these dual transitions in their own skin.
The project departs from the idea that a gender transition often implies a class transition that, more often than not, results in an imposed and involuntary decline of social status. Drawing on intersectional and identity politics frameworks, the research examines, through the methodological approach of ethnographic fieldwork, how the experiences of transgender individuals reflect broader systems of social power, oppression, and mobility. The research guiding questions are: (1) What do the concepts and practices of gender, class and transgender mean in the local context, and in which ways do transgender people experience frictions or transformations?; (2) What is considered to be ‘normal’ in terms of gender and class by the social actors and in their family, social, institutional and state environment? (3); How does the intersection of gender and class transitions manifest embedded in a capitalist, binary, and cis-heteronormative system?; and, on a more broader level, (4) How are gender and sexuality challenged in their intersectional interweaving with other categories and practices such as class, but also religion, ethnicity, age and citizenship, against the backdrop of a globally increasingly networked and overlapping world? Looking beyond Spain and Europe, “TransClass” aims to make a novel contribution to the anthropology of gender by analyzing the transformation of intersectional gendered identities through emphasizing the reasonings, imaginations and practices of local trans people in their transitioning of social realms.