Narrative and

intersex experience:
Folk metadiscourse and social
critique of narrative practices
Brian W. King
IGALA 9 City University of Hong Kong
May 21st, 2016

Metalanguage and
Metapragmatics
Metalanguage explicit talk about
language
Metapragmatics indirect signalling within
the stream of discourse
Doxa dominant ideologies rarely rising to
discursive consciousness
(Coupland & Jaworski, 2004; Woolard
1998)

Analysis
Focuses on the participants
metapragmatic or metadisursive
awareness, and their perceptions of the
social work that narrative practices can do
(cf Brown, 2006)
Awareness of communicative practices
gives insight into how language use
functions as part of the social economy
(Brown, 2006: 598)

Intersex and Language

Research Group
Formed in 2015, six USA based
collaborators
Seven members including myself
Ftf meetings in the USA (ethnographic
obs)
Google Hangouts discussions for the past
six months
Recruitment took about a year

Koomah
Identifies as trans
and intersex,
intersex bodied,
uses all pronouns
46XX/46XY
chimerism &
mosaicsim,
raised as
ungendered, then
female, then
male
Performance artist,
clothing designer,
film maker, sex
worker, and
activist

Participants
Erin
Identifies as intersex,
uses she/her
pronouns

Sabrina

CAIS and testes

removed in
infancy, raised as
female

Identifies as intersex,
uses she/her
pronouns

Full time intersex

activist in USA for
20 years and a
mom

CAIS and testes

removed in
infancy, raised as
female
Full time office
worker who
finished
university a few
years ago

Speaking of stories, that's the topic I want to focus on today

We kind of brushed on the topic in past sessions. But I want to ask you all about the 'narrating' or
'storying' of intersex experience. Mani Mitchell has often spoken to me about how the
storytelling is kind of fluid, depending on the context and purpose. Does that resonate with
anyone? Welcome Sabrina

Sabrina
Yes
Thanks Brian!

Erin
I know that I have several versions; the tearjerker, the elevator speech, the one reserved for those I
shared a shower with in high school.

Versions of intersex experience are told

Sabrina
Great way to put it Erin

Re-contextualizations

Brian King
How are they different Erin
Content I presume, but in other ways too?

Erin
The elevator speech is down and dirty; just the facts. I was
born, XY, testes, ripped out before I was even two, nobody
like me, found my group, happily ever after.

else

Koomah
I've found that because I put myself out there to share my story and as an educator that I end up
sharing the same story so many times that sometimes I just kind of put it on 'autopilot'. the way my
story is presented changes depending on the audience though: serious if it's a group of
professionals, more laid back and humorous for a group of students, etc. A lot of it has to do with
respectability politics.

Erin
Absolutely, Koomah. This is part of my profession, so sometimes it is short and sweet, sometimes it
is drawn out. . . and for high school "chums" I do anything I can to make them uncomfortable.

Brian King
Koomah I'm not sure exactly what you mean by 'respectabilty politics'

Koomah
Expectations of minority or marginalized groups to appear, present and behave in a way that is seen
as respectable and compatible with mainstream instead of challenging the norm.

Brian King
Okay I see.
When narrating experiences for pedagogical purposes, do you feel any compromises are necessary?

**Tellability affected by respectability**

Koomah
In professional and academic settings I focus on
basics of my narrative leaving out some history
related to abuses, immigration, homelessness,
sex work etc. With friends I share some of those
things. When I share my story through
art/performance/film with strangers I have the
freedom to put everything out there.
**Tellability to strangers is most heightened**
Narrative for purpose of art removes barriers
Ideologies about narratives in
academic
and professional settings
revealing

Drawing the box

Brian King
What happened with your boss Sabrina
Sabrina
With him, I tried to keep it sort of vague but I also tried not to spare him of the realities of
what it means that I exist. In the past I've modified my story and not fully disclosed
by omitting the XY and testes part, but I don't really want to do that anymore
I am careful with what I say to doctors
************

Brian King

Lal Zimman, an expert on language and transgender experience, has written about
how 'coming out' stories for transgender people are quite different from 'coming out'
stories of LGB people.

For transgender people, it depends whether it's before or after a transition. The
'moves' change. Any thoughts about intersex coming out stories? Different again
perhaps?
In Sabrinas workplace,

narrative practices have

shifted.
No more editing for
tellability
Insight is that versions of
stories often spare the

Erin
I think it is an apt comparison, but I don't know if it is a fair comparison. Here is the thing, each
time we come out, we have to draw the damn box. There is always the male box, and the
female box and those are understood; and there is even the MTF and FTM box, even if people
are wanting to push them back into the boxes they were born into. . . but we have to draw
our own every time. It's not that it is just different, it's not apples and oranges, it's apples
and firecrackers!

Sabrina
Hahahahahaha that was great Erin

Koomah
There are also different kinds of coming out. Coming out to people who you know already or have
known you a long time, new people, strangers, and disclosing to potential sex partners.
I use disclosure almost exclusively in relation to sexual encounters. I've never really considered
telling people that I'm intersex as 'coming out' or 'disclosure', just telling someone a trait
about myself.
I've had sex partners disclose non-intersex and non-trans things about themselves prior to
an encounter - I think that is probably why I think of my intersex junk as disclosure in relation
Ideologies emerge from attitudes about
to sex.

coming out story genre

Brian King
So you 'disclose' about your body's appearance

Drawing the box intelligibility is hard wo

Koomah
I am curious as to how others feel about terms like coming out/disclosure and in the closet/stealth in
regards to intersex
Yes. Sometimes I use my body as a pickup line. . . but that is probably a whole other conversation! lol
Erin
Unless I am doing so without realizing, I don't think I have ever used those terms. Perhaps
disclose. . . I have said that I am "out" to people, but never that I came out. I have never used the
term in the closet.

Nothing to come out about

Sabrina
I don't think come out fits. Like Koomah said, it's a trait of ourselves. Ideologies
Brian King
Okay Sabrina. it's a term with currency in your circle?
Erin
Definitely i was actually shocked to realize that
I hadn't used any of the terms listed.
Disclose makes the most sense to me.

about subjective
vs social embodiment

Disclosure about intersex body

leads to
enhanced sense-making and
tellability in
social economy
Erin
Maybe I am misreading Zimman's
definition, but it almost seems that the
declaration of trans was real to the
declarer, but could be met with some
skepticism by the hearer. I guess that this
is hard biological data, so nothing needs to
be declared, it just is..

Conclusion
Participants assessments of their varied uses of narrative
practices suggest a negotiation between the situational
tellability of intersex experience and the assertion of
various identities, leading to recontextualizations
Attitudes from their socialization into certain ways of
narrating demonstrate that their folk metadiscourse about
narrative practice is ideological and useful (Cameron, 2004)
drawing the damn box captures how narrative functions
in their social economies

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