A Plastic Category for Positioning the Self

Focusing on the Narratives of X-jendā

Abstract

This paper focuses on how X-jendā one of the gender identity categories referring to a non-binary gender identity is used for self-positioning, despite its social meaning and definition being plastic and unspecified. Categories that refer to gender minorities have been argued to be components of medical norms and binary gender order in cases such as gender identity disorder, which is a well-known medicalized category in Japan. Recently, studies have focused on the process of abandoning the idea of identifying oneself with a certain category or self-image, that cannot be expressed by any gender identity category. However, there has been insufficient examination of how non-binary gender identity categories are operated for self-positioning by gender nonconformists in Japan.

Therefore, I empirically explored the ways in which X-jendā was used, through semi-structured interviews with ten individuals who identified themselves as Xjendā. As a result, four types of narratives were clarified: reinterpreting experiences, epistemological disconnection with pre-existing categories, tentative sense of belonging, and grounds for political claims. X-jendā is used in an attempt to avoid the negative meanings of preexisting categories and to position the self, living in an unstable manner in a gender binary society, while avoiding the categorical pursuit of the self. These practices are accompanied by those of institutionalizing care for the gender nonconforming self and body under the same category, which leads to conflicts among gender nonconformists. These results contribute to the discussion of gender categorization that has focused on the process of differentiating the self from preexisting gender identity categories in a way that they show the multiple practices that can be worked in both a collaborative and contradictory manner and how their consequences are enabled by the plastic nature of X-jendā.